by M. K. Wren
“Cam? ” Conan reviewed the list of possibilities garnered from The History of Taft County. “Camden Yates? He was the lawyer? ”
“Yes. The four of us, Tom, me, Cam Yates, and Ox Wherry, used to meet Saturday nights for poker at this cabin Cam owned north of town. I didn ’t go every Saturday. Couldn ’t afford it, really, and like I said, I was the only doctor in town. So they ’d have other guys in sometimes, but the four of us, we were the regulars. ”
“Did Beth know about your nights out with the boys? ”
“Yes. She said I deserved a night out now and then. But she didn ’t know —not to begin with —what went on at that cabin sometimes. Damn it, I was a young man, and it didn ’t seem…wrong. Not in those days. There was always a lot of liquor, and the stakes were always high. Higher than I should ’ve been playing for. And sometimes…well, Cam had plenty of money. Been a county commissioner besides his law practice. Sometimes he ’d bring…girls to the poker parties. ” He paused, finally shrugged. “What the hell, they were whores. ”
“But on the Saturday in question, there were no girls present? ”
“No. Just Cam and Ox and me. And Tom Gould. Good ol ’ Tom, the war hero. He liked people to think he ’d been a hero. I got to where I never believed a word he said. But you know…” Doc shook his head, frowning. “When he and Loretta first came to Holliday Beach, Tom seemed like such a fine young man. But he was laid up for six months with a broken leg, and him with a wife and two kids to support. Then he lost one of the kids. Marilyn. I don ’t really know what happened to Tom, but he just gradually went bad. The drinking was the worst of it, and he had a hell of a temper. And the gambling. He was good at cards. As it turned out, he was good at cheating, too. Cam Yates had his suspicions early on, but the rest of us didn ’t believe him. Not till that Saturday night. As for Cam, gambling was…well, you could call it an addiction. He lost a lot of money to Tom. In Reno, too, I guess. Cam had money, but at the rate he was losing it, he was courting bankruptcy. ”
“And that was Yates ’s motive? ” Conan asked. “That Tom was cheating him into financial disaster? ”
“Motive? ” Doc sipped at his whiskey and seemed to consider the word as he did the earthy taste of the Scotch. “Yes, I guess you could say that. Not just the money, but the cheating. That rankled with Cam. ”
“And Ox Wherry ’s motive? ”
“Well, I didn ’t find out about that till…afterward. Ox was a big man with a short fuse. One night he arrested a guy at the Lo-Tide Tavern and took him out to his patrol car. Tom was at the Lo-Tide that night. Followed them outside, but Ox didn ’t see him. The guy gave Ox some trouble, and Ox got mad. Hit him one time too many. Killed him. ”
“And Tom used that to blackmail Ox? ”
“I guess so. ”
Conan leaned forward. “What was your motive? ”
“If you read Jimmy Gould ’s story, you know, ” Doc said bitterly. “Except it wasn ’t like he told it. Damn it, Beth never —” He stopped to get himself under control, then, “Tom wrote Beth a letter, but he didn ’t sign his name, the bastard. A friend, that ’s how he signed it. He told her if she knew what went on at those Saturday night poker games, she ’d never want to see me again. Liquor, high-stakes games. Girls. He really laid it on about the girls. She didn ’t show me the letter till a week later. Said I had to know. I had to understand, or we ’d never be able to forgive each other. And she told me…well, the day that letter arrived, Tom came to see her in the afternoon while I was gone. Smooth as silk, she said, so gentle and kind. And she was so hurt about what she ’d read in that letter, she…” Doc couldn ’t seem to finish that.
Conan didn ’t ask him to. Ravin Gould had spelled it out in Odyssey. “Didn ’t mean a damn thing to Tom, except he knew what it ’d do to me. He liked to watch people squirm. That bastard hurt Beth so bad, she never got over it, and all so he could watch me squirm. ”
“Yet you still played cards with him? ”
“Only once. I don ’t know why I went to the cabin that Saturday night. Maybe I thought I had the guts….” He shook his head and went on: “None of us knew Jimmy Gould was watching us. He said in his book it wasn ’t the first night he followed Tom to the cabin and watched through the window. Well, it seemed like things went wrong from the first that night. We were all drinking too much, especially Cam Yates. If anybody started it, Cam did. He caught Tom cheating, caught him red-handed. And Tom just laughed at him. Laughed at all of us, said we were a bunch of stupid suckers. Cam roared up out of his chair and threw a right hook across the table. I remember…” Doc stopped, eyes focused inward.
Conan had to ask. “What, Doc? What do you remember? ”
“The way Tom looked just before Cam ’s fist hit his face. For the first time as long as I ’d known Tom, he was afraid. I think right then he knew what was coming, knew he was about to die. Then Ox and I both waded in with both fists and whatever came to hand, and everything just seemed to explode. It ’s a wonder we didn ’t all end up burned to death, because the only light we had was a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling, but somehow nobody knocked it down. Well, I suppose the whole thing was over in a minute or so. Tom was lying on the floor in his own blood with his skull caved in and his face so beat up, you couldn ’t tell who he was. And all I could think of was, Tom Gould wasn ’t ever going to hurt anybody again. ”
Conan took a deep breath, finding it necessary to clear his throat before asking: “What did you do with the body? ”
“We took it in Ox ’s pickup east into the hills. Plenty of places up there to bury a body, and they don ’t last long in this climate. Then we all went home. Beth wondered why my clothes and hands were so torn and bloody, and I told her I fell into a ditch when I went out to answer the call of nature. Don ’t know if she believed me. Things were never really right between us after that. And two years later, she was dead. ”
Conan felt the despair in the long sigh that echoed in this anonymous room where Doc Spenser seemed only a transient visitor.
At length, Doc took a swallow of Scotch. “A week after Tom died —after we killed him —Cam saw to it that his cabin burned to the ground. Everybody figured it was a vagrant holing up in the cabin started the fire. As for Tom, everybody figured he ’d deserted his wife and boy. I didn ’t see much of Cam or Ox after that. ”
“What happened to them? Are they still alive? ”
Doc finished his whiskey, put the glass down carefully. “I’m the only survivor. Cam did all right for a while. A few years afterward, he ran for district judge and won the seat. Then about 1965, he had a bad stroke. Totally paralyzed, couldn ’t even talk. He spent five years in a nursing home dying. Ox didn ’t last as long as Cam, but it was faster for him. He was elected sheriff, but a few months after he was sworn in, somebody got the drop on him with a shotgun. Blew the top of his head off. Maybe you ’d call that poetic justice for both of them. I figure it ’s just the luck of the draw. It doesn ’t matter how hard you try or how smart you are, it ’s the cards you draw that count. ”
Conan might agree with that philosophy to a point, except for the negligence in it. But he wasn ’t here to argue philosophy. “Doc, was Ravin Gould ’s arrival in Holliday Beach just another card dealt to you? ”
Doc grimaced. “That bastard was no better ’n his father. I saw that at the bookshop. Doctor, lawyer, po-lice chief. And that talk about his autobiographical novel. Yes, he recognized me, and he was watching me squirm. I was this town ’s first doctor. That meant something. And Beth…nobody knew about Tom and Beth, but I figured if he knew about the murder, he knew about that, too. I couldn ’t let him drag her name through his kind of filth. I read one of his books once. Filth! And he was going to tell the world about me, about my Beth. I couldn ’t let him do that! ”
“So, to preserve your reputation and your wife ’s, you were willing not only to kill Gould, but to see Cady convicted of murder. ”
“Cady could ’ve killed him. He
damn well wanted to. You saw that. ”
For a moment, that incredible rationalization left Conan speechless. Finally he said, “You talked to Marian Rosenthal Saturday afternoon. Was that to satisfy yourself that no one had read Gould ’s manuscript? ”
“That woman at the Surf House? Yes. She told me Gould never let anybody read his manuscripts till he was finished with them. ”
“What happened Saturday night, Doc? ”
He brooded for a moment, then with a shrug began, “After I talked to that woman, I started making my plans. I called on Mrs. Carmody, and yes, I told her a friend was giving me a birthday party, so could I borrow her car. And I did drive down Dunlin Beach Road around nine-thirty. Just scouting the place. Then I drove back to Holliday Beach and parked up a side street near the bookshop and waited till midnight. I used Mrs. Carmody ’s tire iron to break into the shop to get the chain saw, then I drove back to Dunlin Beach. Didn ’t see a car at the house, and I was glad about that. Guess I hadn ’t figured out what I ’d do about Jimmy ’s wife. Had a ski mask to cover my face, but thank the Lord, she was gone. You know, it was just like everything ’d been laid out far me. The front door was even unlocked. ” Doc ’s mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. “And Jimmy Gould —he was passed out on the couch. Didn ’t hear me come in, didn ’t even wake up when I got that damned saw started. Had a little trouble with it. ” He held up his bandaged thumb. “And with all that racket, Jimmy just lay there, too drunk to hear. He looked so much like his father. Chip off the old block, even if Tom was such a bastard to him. That ’s what I ’ll never understand, ’specially after what I read in those manuscripts. Tom beat his wife and beat his boy, yet his boy grew up to be just like him. Just as mean. ”
Doc seemed ready to lapse into another dark silence, and Conan had to prompt him. “So you cut his throat with the chain saw. ”
“Yes. “ His breath caught, his bony hands closed into fists. “Oh, damn, I guess I never thought about what that saw would do. Didn ’t matter. It was fast. ”
“And when it was done? ”
“I went to the room where he worked. Found those boxes with his manuscripts. Hell, he ’d written enough for four or five books. And the notebooks, the ones he ’d marked Odyssey. Took ’em all out to the car. ”
“Along with a couple of fifths of Bruichladdich? ”
“Well, didn ’t seem like I should let ’em go to waste. ” Doc tried a laugh, but it degenerated into a sound closer to a sob. “It was…terrible, what I had to do. But I had to do it, and I did it. And I had the same feeling looking down at him with his throat gaping open that I did when I looked down at Tom Gould lying in his own blood on the floor of that cabin. I thought, he ’s not ever going to hurt anybody again. ”
“Then you came home and burned all the manuscripts, all the notes, and thought the door Ravin Gould had opened was safely locked. ”
Doc stared at the wood stove. “You were right. It took a long time. ”
“Yes, I was right. ” Conan pulled in a deep breath; he felt suddenly claustrophobic in this room. “Doc, how much Scotch had you put down before you cut Gould ’s throat? I assume you had a few drinks at the Surf House in the afternoon. Then you came home to work out your so-called plan, and that probably required a few more drinks. Then you waited in Mrs. Carmody ’s car until midnight before you broke into the shop. You had company, didn ’t you, in the shape of a fifth of Monarch? ”
“I don ’t see how that ’s any of your business. ”
Conan laughed bitterly. “I’m trying to understand how anyone could undertake a murder with such incredible ineptitude. ”
“Maybe I was just lucky. The cards fell right. Maybe that ’s the way they were meant to fall. ”
Conan rose, went to the telephone on the stand by the door. “Don ’t invest this act of arrogant stupidity with divine purpose. That ’s more than I can take. ” He started dialing, while Doc stared at him numbly.
Earl Kleber answered after only two rings, and Conan said, “Earl, meet me at the police station as soon as you can get there. You ’d better roust Giff out, too. ”
“What ’ve you got, Conan? ”
“The man who cut Ravin Gould ’s throat. ”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. ”
When Conan hung up, he looked at Doc, and the old man pulled himself to his feet and surveyed the room. Finally he picked up the photograph of his wife, removed it from its frame, and slipped it into his breast pocket. “I’m ready. ”
Chapter 24
It was nearly midnight by the time Doc Spenser had recapitulated his story for Earl Kleber and Giff Wills. The tape recorder hummed on Kleber ’s desk, and the old man was pale, forehead shining with sweat. The chief had offered to call another doctor, but Doc refused. He also refused Kleber ’s offer to call a lawyer before he answered any questions. It didn ’t matter, he said. Nothing he did now mattered.
Doc concluded his story with the hours spent burning Ravin Gould ’s manuscripts page by page. “It was like seeing the past turn to ashes. ”
Conan stood at the window, looking out at the street in the pink glow of a streetlight. The houses beyond the potholed asphalt were dark, their occupants no doubt peacefully asleep. He turned, and Kleber glanced up at him from behind his desk, sighed, and again focused his attention on Doc. The sheriff had throughout the confession slouched in a chair at one end of the desk, eyes locked in a squint, mouth sagging open, which might have been due to weariness or simple dismay. He rose now, frowning. “Doc, what ’d you do with the gun? ”
Doc looked up at Wills blankly. “What gun? ”
Kleber leaned forward. “Doc, you do own a gun, don ’t you? A small twenty-two? ”
“Earl, I never owned a gun in my life. ”
“Damn it, Doc, ” Wills said irritably, “you ’ve already confessed to murdering Gould. You might as well tell us the whole story. ”
“I told you the whole story. That ’s all there is to tell, all there is left.…” And he seemed on the edge of tears. “Damn, I need a drink. ”
“We ’ll make you as comfortable as we can here, ” Kleber assured him, “but that ’s one thing we can ’t supply. ”
Wills eyed Conan. “Did he tell you anything he hasn ’t told us? ”
“Nothing. ”
“You didn ’t ask about the gun? ”
“I thought I should leave that to you. ” Conan smiled fleetingly at Wills ’s raised eyebrow, the annoyance in the set of his jaw.
“Yeah. ” The sheriff turned to Doc. “Will you swear you never owned a gun, that you didn ’t take a gun with you Saturday night when you went to Gould ’s house to kill him? ”
Doc pressed his stiffly curled hands to his eyes. “No! No! I told you, I don ’t own a gun, I don ’t know anything about a gun! ”
Wills shook his head. “Well, Earl, I guess you can book him. ”
“What ’s the charge? ” Kleber asked. “We can forget Tom Gould ’s murder. Witnesses are all dead, crime scene burned to the ground forty years ago, and the body —if anybody knew where to find it —is probably nothing but mulch. We can ’t even prove there was a murder. ”
“But I —I told you, ” Doc insisted. “I confessed. ”
“Doesn ’t mean a thing by itself, ” Kleber said. “People confess to crimes they never committed all the time. So what does that leave, Giff? Mutilation of a corpse? ”
Wills emitted a grunt of disgust, and Doc half rose from his chair, sank back into it. “Mutilation of…What are you saying, Earl? ”
“Doc, if you didn ’t shoot Gould —”
“Shoot him? No, of course I didn ’t shoot him. ”
“But somebody else did. He was dead when you went at him with that chain saw. You murdered a dead man. ”
Doc stared at Kleber, and Conan wondered how much he understood of what the chief had told him. Enough, it seemed. He sat with his bony hands clasped and began weeping in devastating silence. Earl came around the
desk, helped him to his feet. “We ’re going to have to book you. Look, I ’ve got to call Herb. He ’s your lawyer, isn ’t he? ”
“I don ’t want Herb. I don ’t want anybody. Just take me wherever I ’m supposed to go….”
Kleber led him out to the front desk, and within a few minutes another officer appeared and took the old man in hand. Kleber returned to his office, slumped wearily into his chair. “I wonder if Doc ’ll last the night. And I wonder what Culpepper will charge him with. ”
“Besides mutilation of a corpse? ” Conan went to the chair Doc had vacated and lighted a cigarette, feeling the ache of tension in his shoulders as he inhaled.
Wills said, “That ’s a legitimate charge, Flagg. ”
Conan looked at him. “Yes, I know. Sheriff, it seems to me this blows the case against Cady out of the water. ”
Wills scowled, arms folded across his chest. “Maybe. I’ll have to talk to Owen tomorrow. ” And with that he headed for the door, apparently ready to depart without another word nor even a glance at Kleber.
Conan stopped him with: “Have you had any luck tracking down the Laskys? ”
“No! ” And the door slammed behind him, rattling the glass.
Kleber only laughed. “Ol ’ Giff seems a bit put out. ” Then he sobered. “You did one hell of a job, Conan. May take Giff a while to admit it, but the case against Cady MacGill is closed. ”
Conan nodded as he exhaled a veil of smoke. “And we still don ’t know who murdered Ravin Gould. ”
“No, but that ’s not what you hired on for. All I asked was for you to clear Cady. ”
“Yes, well, I have a problem with loose ends. ”
Kleber sighed. “Okay, so who ’s left? The Laskys? ”
“And Marian Rosenthal and Dana Semenov. ” Then he added reluctantly: “And Savanna Barany. ”