One Good Deed

by David Baldacci

“These questions are standard procedure, Archer. Didn’t they ask you such when they arrested you before?”

  “That wasn’t for killing anybody.”

  “But still.”

  Archer leaned against the wall. “We spent some time together. I fell asleep. When I woke up, she was gone.”

  “This time together. Would that be with clothes on or off?”

  Archer’s features darkened, even as his anxiety rose. “Why’s that matter?”

  “I can’t see how you would think it doesn’t matter, son.”

  “I don’t know if I want to answer any more of your questions.”

  “You don’t have a choice, Archer. The law is the law.”

  “Yeah, folks keep telling me that. Okay, we were in bed together. Then she left.”

  “So, you slept with the dead man’s mistress on the night Hank Pittleman was murdered right down the hall from your room?”

  “She’s not his mistress.”

  “Really, what is she then?”

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “Oh, I will, Archer. Rest assured.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No, it’s not, son. So, after you left Mr. Pittleman in his room, you never went back there?”

  Archer pushed off the wall and gathered his wits. This fellow Shaw was poking him like a stick to a hornet’s nest. Only thing was, he was hitting all the bad spots, for Archer.

  “Had no reason to.”

  “So that’s a no, is it?”

  “That’s a no,” Archer lied.

  “Understand you were in the Army.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I don’t need to tell you that and I’m not. You know your way around a gun and a knife then?”

  “Look, I didn’t have nothing—”

  “Were you in the military, Archer?” interrupted Shaw.

  “Were you?”

  “Okay, I’ll play your game just this one time. I was a pilot in the Army Air Forces. Ninety-three bombing sorties over Europe, then I took my wings to the Pacific and dropped a shitload of TNT on the Japs. Loved every minute of it and was scared to death every minute of it.”

  Archer judged him in a new, more respectful light. “That’s impressive. Lot more complicated flying a plane than firing a rifle.”

  “I think every man who put on the uniform was impressive. You?”

  “Thirty-Fourth Infantry Division. Mostly in Italy, but we did work our way to Germany eventually. Though we fought more Germans in Italy than we did I-talians.”

  “Then I think you maybe had it harder than me. That was some damn tough going, I heard. Lot of those GIs never came home from that campaign.”

  “Sure seemed tough going to me at the time. I liked my foxhole as much as the next man. Only we never got to spend much time there. And the Germans had damn good aim when it came to shelling us when we were hunkered in the dirt.”

  “You get shot up?”

  “We all got shot up. You done with me now?”

  Shaw put away his notebook and pencil and gave him a bemused look. “You know your way around a gun and a knife, and you were sleeping with the dead man’s whatever on the night that he died. And by your own admission you were drinking. And all night you were maybe fifty feet from where he was killed. And you have no alibi for the time he probably died.” He paused. “So not only am I not done with you, Archer, I’m just starting.” He closed the door to 615 and made a show of locking it.

  That was the first time Archer noted the white dust coating the doorknob.

  Shaw tipped his hat at Archer and added, “Do not try to leave Poca City, Mr. Archer. That would not be smart. It would make me very unhappy. And you even unhappier than me.”

  He walked off leaving Archer feeling like he’d just been rolled over twice by a Panzer. He bent down and looked at the doorknob and the white dust coating it. He reached out to touch it but thought better of that notion and retreated down the hall.

  Archer went back to his room, picked up the flask, and drained the contents. He wiped his mouth dry, went over to the one window, and looked out at Poca City. He watched as Shaw walked out of the hotel and then stopped. The blood slowly drained from Archer’s face as he saw the man Shaw was talking to. It was the front desk clerk Archer had queried about seeing Jackie. The man was gesticulating in the direction of the hotel, while Shaw pulled out his pencil and notebook and wrote it all down. Archer thought he could see the lawman’s triumphant look from up here.

  Archer sat down on the bed and started to think things through.

  None of this was looking particularly good for him. The money in his pocket, the residue from Pittleman’s advance, the papers he’d taken from the dead man, all felt like lumps of white-hot coal melting him away from the inside. He knew Shaw was probably going to see Jackie next, and what would she tell him?

  You didn’t kill the man, Archer.

  Yet he hadn’t committed the crime he’d been sent to Carderock for, and that hadn’t stopped them, had it?

  And from what Shaw had said, the motive would be clear.

  I slept with Pittleman’s mistress.

  I’d been drinking.

  I knew how to slit someone’s throat.

  But Pittleman had hired him for a job. Now he had no job, like Jackie had told the deputies. That would cut against any reason he would have to murder Pittleman. But would it be enough? Clearly not if Detective Shaw were the sole arbiter of his guilt or innocence.

  He lay back on the bed and wondered if Poca City would be the last stop of his short-lived life.

  Chapter 17

  LATER, ARCHER HEADED OUT. As he passed by the front desk, he looked at the clerk there who had been talking to Shaw outside.

  “How you doing, brother?” said Archer.

  “Better ’n you, by a long shot, mister.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Archer, marching over to him. “Give me the straight dope, pal.”

  The smaller man drew back, fear riding in his eyes and the shakes of his limbs.

  “Don’t mean nothing,” said the man. “Just leave me be.”

  “Take it easy. I mean you no harm.”

  “Says you,” he replied darkly. “Tell that to poor Mr. Pittleman,” he added.

  Archer wheeled around and walked outside. He took three long breaths, something he had done in the Army before every significant military engagement he and his fellow soldiers had been called up to do. He hadn’t been a superstitious person before he’d gone in the Army, but he’d damn well become one while in uniform.

  Three long breaths and I came home alive.

  His spirits suddenly sagged.

  For prison and now this?

  He had some decisions to make. There was one area of possibility. With Pittleman dead, Jackie might, despite her words, see the benefit of reconciling with her father. But would Marjorie take Tuttle to court to get the money repaid? If so, Archer wouldn’t be getting a dime from that. But maybe Marjorie didn’t know, or wouldn’t care, about the forty dollars her husband had advanced to him. Yet Shaw could use that as a motive for Archer to have killed Pittleman if he found out about it.

  Caught between a rock and a hard place, Archer, so what are you going to do?

  He hoofed it to 27 Eldorado Street and knocked on the door. When no one appeared, he tried the door. It was unlocked. He walked in, calling out Jackie’s name as he went. He found the woman lying in bed with not a shred of clothing on. She had a glass of something held to her lips.

  “You just looking or buying?” she said, taking a swallow of whatever was in the glass.

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “I’m hurting, Archer, more than I thought I would be. Come over here and do something about my melancholia.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “If I have to tell you, what good are you?”

  He crossed the floor, stripped down in record time, and lay alongside her.

  “That’s b
etter,” she said, giving him a kiss.

  “I feel funny doing this now.”

  “Because of Hank? It’s because of Hank that I want to do it. Otherwise, I’d just be crying.”

  “I thought you didn’t love him?”

  “I didn’t. But I can still be sad. I’m no angel, Archer. I’m also thinking that my means of livelihood is about to come to an end. So let me enjoy the moment, damn you.”

  She gripped a part of him so hard he gasped, then she kissed him roughly and they went from there.

  Later, when they were done, she lay her head on Archer’s arm and stroked his flat, rigid stomach.

  “You have any family, Archer, any brothers and sisters?”

  “No. Just me.”

  “You said you never hit a woman, Archer, like Hank did me?”

  “I told you that because it’s the truth.”

  “Oh come on, never? Don’t lie to me.”

  “Like I told you, I never even thought about doing it.”

  “Why? Because you never had sisters?”

  “I’d like to think it’s because I see the unfairness of a guy hitting a gal.”

  “How about your parents? They alive?”

  He shook his head and stroked her hair. “They died while I was overseas. Never got a chance to say good-bye, or even see ’em buried.”

  She rested her chin on his chest and stared at him. “Why not?”

  “Couldn’t get any leave to go home. My division was in hard fighting with the Germans. The battle for Bologna was, well, it was tough. Good thing the war ended a couple weeks after that because we were beat up bad. So even if I could’ve gotten leave, there was no way for me to get out. Not that I’d have wanted to.”

  “Why wouldn’t you have wanted to?”

  “My parents were dead, Jackie. Nothing was bringing them back. But the Thirty-Fourth needed every soldier it could muster. If we all started taking leave, a lot more men would have died who didn’t need to.”

  “That was very heroic of you.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Heroes are special people who do things they’re not expected to do. I was just a grunt doing my job like millions of other grunts. Only I got to come home for no good reason other than I was lucky enough not to die.”

  “Still, that must have been awful, not even seeing them buried.”

  “It happened to lots of boys during the war. Why should I be any different?”

  “That’s extraordinarily magnanimous of you.”

  “Those are big college words for such a little thing.”

  “I’m an only child, too. I don’t have anyone, either.”

  “Well, you have your father, like it or not.”

  Her fingers stopped stroking his belly for a moment before resuming.

  “You sure know how to press my buttons, Archer,” she said. “And not in a good way.”

  There were a few moments of silence until Archer said, “Hey, did that detective fellow Shaw come and see you too?”

  She sat up and looked down at him, covering her nakedness with the sheet.

  “Yes. I didn’t like him. He asked a lot of questions.”

  “What did you tell him?” he asked.

  “Well, what did you tell him?”

  “The truth. Mostly.”

  “I told him the whole truth. Nothing for it.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He asked where we met, and I told him.”

  “At the bar?”

  “Well, that’s the truth, Archer.”

  Well, there goes my parole. My butt’s heading back to Carderock regardless.

  “And what did he say?”

  “Nothing, but he wrote it all down.”

  “I’m sure he did. He’s a man who likes his pencil and paper. What else?”

  “That Hank had hired you to collect a debt from my father. But he already knew that.”

  “What else?”

  “That you had to carry Hank to his room and then we went back to your place for a nightcap.”

  “Did you tell him what else we did?”

  “Not in so many words. Did you tell him we slept together?”

  “What else was I supposed to say?”

  “A gentleman would not have betrayed a lady’s secret. I do have a reputation to preserve, Archer.”

  “Is that right? Well, he called you Hank Pittleman’s mistress.”

  “I corrected him on that. Not that he cared. Just looked at me funny.”

  “Man’s a bulldog. He’s not going to let this go.”

  “We have nothing to hide, Archer.”

  “You and I know that. But what about him?”

  “I’m sure it will be fine.”

  “What about Marjorie?”

  “What about her?”

  “She may sell out everything.”

  “She may. It’s her right. I told you that.”

  “So you really think she’s going to turn on you then, even after being nice to you today?”

  “We’re not friends, Archer. We needed each other, that’s what I’ve been telling you, only apparently you weren’t listening. With Hank dead, Marjorie Pittleman would love to see me in the street with not a dime to my name. I went over there today trying to buy some time, make her see me in a supportive light.” She sighed heavily. “But Marjorie’s no dummy. With Hank dead my goose is cooked.” She grabbed her pack of cigarettes and lighter off the nightstand and ignited a Chesterfield. Archer declined her offer of one.

  She took a puff, blew smoke sideways from her mouth, and said in a funereal tone, “Well, it was fun while it lasted.” She pulled the sheet tighter around her with her free hand as she smoked her cigarette. “It’s a man’s world, Archer. Your kind has all the money and all the power.”

  “Hold on, now. Don’t lump me in with the likes of Hank Pittleman. My pockets are just about empty, and as for power, that’s a laugh. I’m an ex-con with about as few prospects as a man can have, even after helping to win a big war.”

  She tousled his hair. “Well, I can see your point. But it still makes me so mad. It wasn’t that long ago where we couldn’t even vote. Women have to scrounge around the edges for our share, and let the men think they’re so far above us, we’re just happy to be along for the ride. It won’t always be that way, but it’s the way it is now.”

  “Is that your psychology education talking?”

  “That and my common sense and living in this world.” She snuffed out her smoke in a tall glass of melted ice. “So now I’m up a creek without a paddle or a damn canoe.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “I’m not going back to my father, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” She lit another cigarette. “What about you?”

  “I’m not sure how I collect the debt now and get paid.”

  “Way I see it, you have options. Hank’s dead. My father can pay the money back in good conscience since I’m no longer with Hank. Then you can collect the money Hank promised you from Marjorie. I’ll vouch for the deal that Hank made with you. I was there after all. I think she’ll listen to reason. I mean, five thousand dollars is a lot of money. And if she wants it back, you have to get paid.”

  “I could go out and see your father. You think he knows about what happened?”

  “Of course he does. But I wouldn’t go out there just yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Hank was murdered, Archer. You rushing around trying to cash in on his death will not be missed by Mr. Shaw.”

  Archer looked at her statement from several angles and pronounced her words starkly plausible. “So maybe I should just lie low for a bit. Shaw already thinks I might’ve killed Pittleman.”

  “And you’re sure you didn’t?”

  “You’re thinking I’m a killer and yet you just let me in your bed?”

  “Well, it was as pleasurable for me as it was for you. And you didn’t murder me. So let some time pass and then you can take my car while the Nash is still my car and go see my f
ather.”

  “You okay with me seeing your old man?”

  “So long as I don’t have to go back to the son of a bitch, I’m okay with just about anything, Archer.”

  Chapter 18

  THAT NIGHT ARCHER WAS SITTING ALONE at a table in the Checkered Past restaurant looking over his menu. The place was packed, and he had grabbed the last available table. He glanced up from his menu when she walked in. Ernestine Crabtree had reverted to her office look, meaning an exceedingly modest dress in a drab range of charcoal with a coat sporting big flap pockets that widened her hips. Her hair was once more wound in a fiercely tight bun, the shell specs fronted her face, and she had on not a stitch of powder or lipstick. Her tall heels had shrunk by several inches, and her nylons were thick and scratchy looking. She was holding a wide-brimmed cartwheel hat the color of a robin’s egg, which served to brighten her appearance a bit. Still, Archer had to almost look twice to make sure it was the same woman.

  As there were no empty tables, she looked ready to leave when Archer raised his hand.

  “Miss Crabtree,” he called out.

  The woman glanced sharply in his direction and stiffened when she laid eyes on Archer.

  Her gaze darted to the door, but he moved to checkmate her by crying out, “Got a seat for you right here.” He indicated the empty chair opposite him.

  She vacillated in the doorway of the eatery and, finally, perhaps her hunger taking precedent over her good sense, she strode across the room and sat quickly in the seat he had indicated. She might have thought if she rushed this through, no one would notice that a parole officer was about to eat with a parolee, at least that was Archer’s observation.

  She set her hat down on the table.

  Archer had set his hat on his chairback. He slipped it on, then lifted it off, tipped it in her direction, and returned it to the chairback.

  “Good to see you.”

  “Um, yes.”

  He passed her his menu.

  She avoided looking at him and focused on the choices for dinner.

  “You eat here a lot?” asked Archer. “I mean, I saw you the other time of course.”

  “I eat here sometimes.”

  She seemed to decide on her supper and set the menu down. When it appeared she could no longer avoid setting eyes on him, Crabtree lifted her gaze to his and said, “I heard about Hank Pittleman. They say he was murdered, in his room at the Derby Hotel.”