One Good Deed

by David Baldacci

  “If that’s what you want. What time do you want him to meet you?”

  “Say around nine o’clock tomorrow night.”

  “Fine. I’ll be right there with you.”

  “No, Archer, I don’t want you there.”

  “But why? Why meet with the man alone?”

  “I won’t have to. Ernestine can come with me.”

  “But she doesn’t know anything about this.”

  “Which is why I think she’s the right person to be there. She won’t have to be with us while we’re meeting, just in the house.”

  Archer thought about Ernestine’s skill with a gun, which might come in handy. But if Tuttle brought his shotgun…

  “Look, if he has his shotgun, you don’t let him in.”

  “He won’t have his shotgun, Archer. Good Lord, he’s my father.”

  Archer studied her for a moment. “Look, you’re not thinking of doing anything to him, are you?”

  She suddenly glared at him. “Why do you ask that?” she snapped.

  “No…no reason.”

  “You do have a reason. What else did he tell you when you were in the car with him?”

  “I already told you.”

  “Not everything.”

  “Jackie, you don’t need to hear this now.”

  “Yes, I do,” she snapped. “I’m tired of you keeping things from me, Archer.”

  “He said that you and your ma were a lot alike. Beautiful, but…”

  “But what?”

  “I guess you two butted heads a lot.”

  “We didn’t see eye to eye on everything. There is nothing wrong with that.”

  “No, sure there’s not.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Look, Jackie, I’m not…”

  “Did he say we were unstable?” She grabbed his jacket. “Did he?”

  He looked at her, searching the woman’s eyes for what was really inside her head right now. What he saw was a person who was starting to unsettle him. “He didn’t use that word. But, like you just said, he told me you were both strong women. And that he was—”

  “He said we were violent, didn’t he? That he was afraid of us?”

  “Look here, Jackie, won’t you tell me how your mother died? Desiree said it was an accident, but she wouldn’t say how.”

  “Did my father talk about it?”

  “Yeah, a little.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That…that maybe it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Tell me exactly what he said. Now!”

  Archer blurted out, “He said something about the truth destroying people and maybe it was better not knowing it, something like that.”

  “And what did you say to that?”

  “I guess I come down on the side of knowing the truth is better than not knowing it.”

  Jackie said nothing for several long moments. She simply stared off.

  “She fell.”

  “Fell? How?”

  “From the barn, the second story where they winch the bales up to the hayloft. She died from the fall.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “I found her,” said Jackie quietly. “I found her body.”

  Archer held her tight. “I’m really sorry, Jackie.”

  She abruptly pushed away from him. “I’ve gotten over it.”

  “I doubt you ever get over something like that.”

  “You’re wrong, because I have. I’m…I’m going to lie down now. I’m tired.” She rose, picked up her purse from the side table, and tossed him a set of keys. “For the Nash. Just leave them in the glove box when you’re done.”

  He caught the keys and looked up at her. “Okay, Jackie.”

  She disappeared into the bedroom.

  Very disturbed by what had just happened, Archer was about to take his leave when the door opened and Ernestine walked in. Her churchgoing clothes were charcoal in color and modest and demure in design. Her hat had a little veil, and her hair was once more done up in a tight bun.

  When she saw him, she looked around. “Where is Jackie?”

  “She just now went to lie down. How was church?”

  “Soothing.” She took her hat off and said, “Would you like some coffee?”

  He eyed the bottle of Rebel Yell.

  She followed his gaze, smiled resignedly, got two glasses and filled them with a finger each, and handed him one. They sat on the couch and sipped their drinks.

  “Is Dickie Dill really dead?”

  “Dead as they come. It was a close thing. Little man almost did me in.”

  He was surprised to see her lips tremble at this. “I’m so very glad that he did not.”

  He flashed her a grin to reverse her anxiety. “Hey, it’s all good.” He glanced in the direction of the bedroom. “Did Jackie talk to you at all?”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. Anything, I guess.”

  “She was very frightened. And she was very grateful for what you and Detective Shaw did.”

  “Nothing about her father, maybe?”

  “No, not about him.”

  “Okay. Uh, anything about me in particular?”

  “Like what?”

  “Just anything.”

  “She likes you. She’s comfortable around you. She thinks you’re a good person.”

  He nodded, feeling ashamed for trying to pry information from the woman.

  “Can I ask you a question, Archer?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you care for Jackie? I mean, do you love her?”

  This was not what he had been expecting.

  “I’m, uh, well, to tell the truth, I’m not sure what love really is, Ernestine. If it’s feeling good with someone, liking how they look, and wanting to be around that person, then yeah.” He paused, glanced down for a moment, and then decided to say it. “But that could apply just as much to how I feel about you.”

  A part of him wanted to keep looking away from her, but a stronger part of Archer compelled him to stare directly at her.

  “I see,” she said, eyeing her lap.

  “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t. And I know that I put you on the spot with my question. But your words were spoken with a great deal of sincerity.”

  “So, how do you feel about me?” he said quietly.

  She glanced up at him, perhaps sensed the urgency, the necessity of having an answer showing clearly in his features.

  “I like being around you too, Archer. Very much. But perhaps not in exactly the same way that you want to be with me.”

  He nodded slowly. “Well, a man can’t ask for a straighter answer than that.”

  They fell silent for a few moments. Then Archer said, “Jackie wants to meet with her father at her house, tomorrow night. And she wants you to be there with her. I’m sure she’ll talk to you about it, but I wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  “What will they be talking about?”

  “Lots of things. Some I know, some I don’t have a clue about. But are you okay with that?”

  “I am. If that’s what she wants.”

  He finished his drink, rose, and fingered his hat, looking nervous.

  “Is there something else?” she asked quietly, peering up at him.

  “My old man, rest his soul, was a good father. He, uh, he stood up for me a lot when I was a kid. I grew into my height and all later on. So some of the bigger kids would rough me up and such. But my dad was always there.” Archer held up a fist. “He taught me how to fight proper and all.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Sometimes my father would go too far, though. He beat up a couple older kids that had knocked me around. Police got called out on him. He almost went to jail, but in the end didn’t. It was bad all around for everybody, and back then I got mad at my old man for doing it. But the thing I came to understand is that he did what he did because he loved me. It really was th
at simple.”

  Perhaps involuntarily, Ernestine glanced in the direction of her bedroom and where the scrapbook lay before her large and now sad eyes came to rest on him once more.

  “Do you understand what I mean?” Archer said, his look unsure and anxious.

  “I think I understand exactly what you mean, Archer,” she replied.

  She looked at him with an expression that Archer couldn’t entirely fathom. It was sort of caught between hope and heartbreak, he supposed.

  “Ernestine, you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Archer, thank you. I hope everything works out for you.”

  “Yeah, me too. Well, good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” she said with something akin to finality, at least in his eyes.

  Troubled by this odd impression, he left.

  Chapter 35

  THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, Archer ventured down to the Rexall drugstore, with the big orange-and-blue sign. Sitting at the counter he smoked a pair of Luckys while he devoured his bologna-and-cheese sandwich with a pickle, and drank down a lukewarm bottle of Coca-Cola. He bought some aspirin from the blue-smocked druggist standing behind the counter and downed a couple pills with the remnants of his soda pop. He idly watched a young, slender woman in geranium red coveralls loading Life and Look magazines into a wire rack next to a shelf of toiletries.

  Finished with his meal, Archer ducked into the phone booth adjacent to the lunch counter, looked up the number in a phone book dangling from a chain, then dropped in a nickel and made the necessary call because he didn’t want to surprise a man who answered his door with a shotgun. As he fingered the rotary dial and listened to the familiar clicks and whirls as it spun, he thought about what to say. He decided to make it short and sweet. When the call was answered, it wasn’t Tuttle, it was his secretary, Desiree. The conversation went far more pleasantly than if Tuttle had been on the line.

  Later, under a vast, blue sky, Archer pushed the Nash fast as he roared down the road leading to Lucas Tuttle’s. The big, bulky car handled well and had plenty of power, like Shaw’s Buick. Before taking the wheel of the Buick, Archer hadn’t driven a car in years. For obvious reasons, the prison folks had not deemed it sensible to allow convicts to command heavy pieces of equipment.

  He felt open and free, and part of him contemplated taking this Nash all the way to California, where he had heard the jobs were plentiful, the weather was always warm, and all the women looked like Rita Hayworth. Then the thought of Irving Shaw with his ribbon of mustache and indefatigable thirst for the truth made Archer ashamed he had even thought of making a run for it. Now he wanted to know the truth as much as the lawman did.

  He turned past the leaning mailbox and hurtled down the road, cut to the right, and pulled up in front of the neat house a bit later.

  He climbed out and looked around, thinking it had to have been something pretty bad for Jackie to forgo all this to take up with someone like Hank Pittleman. He didn’t care how much money the man had. He had forsaken his wife and chosen a younger woman because Marjorie had the audacity to grow old. Well, Pittleman had gotten old, too. For Archer, who had never taken the plunge, marriage was for life, right or wrong, good or bad. You just didn’t wake up one day and decide enough was enough because your mate had a few more wrinkles or a few more pounds.

  Maybe that’s why I never got hitched. Maybe I’m afraid I can’t live up to the vows.

  He put on his hat, angled it just so, and headed to the front door.

  Rapping twice, he expected to see the door open and the Remington over-under appear in his field of vision. He braced himself for that in fact, but it wasn’t necessary.

  Desiree Lankford, dressed in a dark gray skirt and a three-button jacket with a pale blouse and sensible pumps, greeted him.

  “Hello, Mr. Archer,” she said. “You’re right on time. This way.”

  She led him down a hall floored in two-by-two-foot terra cotta tile. As he gazed around, he noted once more the old wooden beams running along the ceiling and the walls plastered and thick. The place smelled of wood fires and age.

  “You live here?” asked Archer.

  “No, but I don’t live too far away. I’m heading out now, in fact. I hope your meeting goes all right.”

  Desiree led him to a door and opened it.

  Archer stepped through and she closed the door. He could hear her firm tread heading back down the hall. The room he was now in was large, comfortably furnished, and set up as an office or study of sorts, with shelves full of books and papers, a large weighing scale in one corner, and a map of the area with little pins stuck in it. A credenza stood against one wall with an ice bucket and scoop, and a line of liquor bottles and cut crystal tumblers behind that. Just the sight of it gave Archer a painful thirst.

  Behind the desk was a stone fireplace, built of knobby gray-and-brown rock, that climbed to the arched ceiling. Next to the fireplace was a broad leafy plant on a wooden stand. In another corner was a hunter-green Mosler safe about six feet tall with a silver combination lock and matching spin wheel. Cigar and pipe smoke mingled aromatically in the air Archer was breathing. It actually made him want a Lucky Strike in the worst way.

  On a console set next to the door were two revolvers: a .38 Long Colt double action with a three-and-a-half-inch barrel, and a Smith & Wesson .32 hammerless with a two-inch muzzle. He could see that both the wheel guns were fully loaded.

  And sitting behind a large, paper-littered desk about the size of a dinner table set in front of the tall stone fireplace was Lucas Tuttle. The green eyes in the center of that face swiveled around and took hold of their target. He was holding what looked like a phone receiver in his hand, though it was hooked by a squiggly cord to a funny looking little machine.

  “So you called for a meeting, huh? I wonder why?” said Tuttle, as he reached down, slid his Remington out from the kneehole, and laid it on the desk, the muzzle pointing in Archer’s general direction.

  Archer swept off his hat and came forward. “Told you I’d be working this thing. And like you told Detective Shaw, the matter was in my hands.”

  Tuttle’s eyes indicated a wooden-backed chair with a nail-head upholstered seat on Archer’s side of the desk. Archer took it, making sure he was not directly in front of the Remington’s muzzle, not that it would matter much with the scattergun’s shot field. He crossed his legs and perched his hat on his knee.

  When Archer glanced at the double barrels, he thought he saw a bit of something that was white colored in one of them.

  “Hello, Archer, you all there or are you drunk?”

  He looked up to see Tuttle staring at him.

  “What’s that thing?” asked Archer, indicating what Tuttle was holding.

  “Called a Dictaphone. Records my voice. I can talk into it and then have Desiree type up what I said.” He put the Dictaphone receiver down. “Has that Detective Shaw found out anything about who killed Pittleman?”

  “No, but not for lack of trying. He’s a good man. He’ll get there.”

  Tuttle shook his head, not looking convinced. “I don’t share your confidence. But then I don’t get involved with the police as a matter of course.”

  “Then you’re a smart man, but then again sometimes you can’t get around it.”

  Archer fell silent and looked pointedly at the older man.

  “Well?” said Tuttle. “You called and wanted to see me. I’m a busy man, so let’s have at it, son.”

  “Two men tried to kill Jackie Saturday night.”

  Tuttle half rose from his seat. “What? Is she—?”

  “She’s fine. One was Malcolm Draper, he worked for Hank Pittleman. The other man was an ex-con named Dickie Dill who worked at the slaughterhouse.”

  Tuttle’s eyes narrowed. “Why would somebody working for Pittleman want Jackie dead?”

  “Well, it couldn’t be Hank Pittleman’s doing, since he was already dead.”

  “Wait, are you saying it was Marjorie? I can’t believe
that.”

  “Jackie was seeing her husband.”

  “Everybody knew that, including Marjorie.”

  “But still, it couldn’t sit well with her.”

  “I told you before, I’m sure it did bother her. But Hank controlled the money. Without him she doesn’t get to live in that big house.”

  “Fair point.” Here Archer paused, considering some advice that Shaw had given him about revealing information. A smart detective had to have a good reason to do so.

  “Turns out Pittleman had a cancer in his brain. He was dying and he had a lot of gambling debts. His money was running out.”

  He stopped talking and watched Tuttle carefully for his reaction to this.

  Tuttle sat up and said, “But he was a rich man. The richest man around. So how could that be?”

  “You’re not rich if you spend more than you have. Then you’re just like everybody else.”

  Tuttle leaned back in his chair. “Well, I can’t argue with that logic. What does all that mean with regard to our meeting today?”

  “Pittleman’s dead. Do you take that as your debt to him no longer being valid?”

  Tuttle shook his head. “No, I don’t see it that way at all. Marjorie Pittleman will now become the holder of the debt. And from what you just told me, she can probably use the money.”

  “Did you talk to her about the debt when you were there?”

  Tuttle looked at Archer as though he had a screw loose. “Good Lord, boy. I don’t talk business with a woman. They don’t have the sense for it. Certainly, Marjorie doesn’t. Like I said, I was there to pay my respects, nothing else.”

  “With no Hank Pittleman around, the problem with your daughter goes away, too.”

  Tuttle said eagerly, “You’ve convinced her to come home then?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  Tuttle frowned. “Then what are you doing here except wasting my time, son?”

  Archer gazed at him. “How about if I can get Jackie to meet with you, to talk things out? You make your case to her. If I could make that happen, would it be enough for you to repay the debt and give me my commission?”

  The green eyes blazed with curiosity. “Are you serious about her meeting with me?”

  “First, is that a deal? Will that satisfy you to honor the debt and pay me my fee?”