Do No Harm

by Max Allan Collins

  She was getting a little surly. Maybe it was my questions, or maybe she’d just run out of pie.

  No reason not to get into the nasty stuff, then. I told her about what Jane Carter had said about Marilyn and her ex-husband, and what the Spang Bakery delivery guy, Draper, had reported. She dismissed Jane Carter as “a dippy little nut,” and Draper as a delusional fool.

  “Marsh had his problems,” she said, her expression severe now, even for her, “and I trust he still does—but he never slept with that Marilyn Sheppard. That young woman was closer in age to our son than to Marsh!”

  “Surely you had to have no reason to divorce him.”

  Her chin came up again. “I had several. He’d started drinking, heavily, and his mental state was a mess—he threatened suicide, had a second nervous breakdown. He was making a hobby out of feeling sorry for himself. I’m a strong woman, Mr. Heller, but there are some things even a strong woman cannot abide. If you think it was easy for me, you are wrong—I had been with Marsh since high school.”

  Like Sam and Marilyn.

  “I probably still love him,” she said offhandedly. “But enough is enough.”

  “Just a few more questions, Mrs. Dodge.”

  “Very few.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “My break will be over in five minutes.”

  “Why did you ask the Carter girl to keep an eye on the Sheppards for you?”

  Her frown removed whatever suggestion of prettiness there’d been. “She said that? She is a kook, that one. A first-class kook!”

  “Well, you did keep tabs on the investigation, didn’t you? Leading up to Sam’s arrest?”

  She reared back. “What are you talking about?”

  “You turned your living room over to Coroner Gerber as his command center, for what? Two weeks? Even served him his meals. You couldn’t have missed much.”

  She stiffened. “Marsh was the mayor. He was the safety director. That was proper! He was just behaving responsibly.”

  As opposed to drinking to excess and threatening suicide.

  I asked, “To what do you attribute your husband’s nervous breakdowns?”

  Her upper lip curled into a thin sneer. “That was the fault of those Sheppards—when Sam, his longtime friend, accused him of killing Marilyn, it crushed Marsh. And how hypocritical was that? Sam Sheppard killed his wife, nobody else.”

  She stood, but she didn’t go, not yet.

  I said, “Some think you and your husband are good suspects in this tragedy. That Marsh was having an affair with Marilyn, and you caught them in the act—you’re left-handed, right? And the beating Marilyn took was not what a young, athletic man like Sam would deliver, but more suited to the relative weakness of a woman. How do you respond to that?”

  I had gone all the way with that one. I might get a glass of water thrown in my face. I might have been slapped. She could have sworn at me at the top of her lungs until the Silver Grille’s rafters rang.

  But all she did was smile faintly.

  “Mr. Heller,” she said, “I wouldn’t swat a fly.”

  She touched a cloth napkin to her lips and strode out, head held high. Me, I sat there wondering if she had seen Psycho, too.

  Or if maybe I’d just had tea with one.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Beyond the city limits of suburban Westlake, twelve miles west of downtown Cleveland, Bradley Road took me through a beautiful wooded area, mid-morning sun dappling leaves that shimmered in a balmy breeze. I stopped my rental Ford at a green cast-iron, antique-looking mailbox at the mouth of a long, gently sloping macadam drive. EBERLING & OBIE, the mailbox said. To the left was a wooded area of oak, maple and elm, to the right a bizarre assemblage of red and black pines and other, unidentifiable trees.

  Pulling over, I could see what had to be my host waving as he neared the bottom of the drive.

  As I got out of the car, he called out in an easy baritone, “Mr. Heller! Richard Eberling. Come let me give you the tour!”

  Six-one, lanky but with a large oblong head more suitable for a heavier man, he was not quite handsome, his dark eyes small under heavy black eyebrows, his nose long and indifferently formed, his mouth a small rosebud. He wore a pink-red-and-white pullover shirt with red scarf around his throat, white cotton duck trousers and red leather loafers with no socks. His dark hair sported a Beatles cut, circa their Ed Sullivan debut, and his tan said he spent time outdoors.

  I approached and we shook hands, his grip firm but brief. His smile was bigger than his mouth indicated it could be, and his expression was too happy.

  “Very honored to have you stop by, Mr. Heller.”

  We’d spoken only briefly on the phone, as I indicated I was kind of an advance man for F. Lee Bailey on the upcoming Sheppard retrial.

  “You’re gracious to accommodate me,” I said. “But I’m not sure it’s much of an honor.”

  The smile turned a little sideways; his chin jutted. “Well, I’ve read about you in the magazines. The big ones, like Life and Look, but also the true detective variety. I’m kind of a buff in that department. You ought to write a book!”

  “One of these days, maybe. You really can’t see the house from here, can you?”

  His smile became more of a grin. “That’s just one of the things Obie and I like about it. Obie’s my business partner. You’ll meet him later. This way?”

  I followed him on foot up the macadam drive, then he looked back and gave me a little-kid smile—he was all smiles, this one—and waved for me to follow him.

  “Come on! You’ve got to see this.”

  I trailed him on a stone path through what seemed like a bunch of overgrown weeds.

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” he asked, as we pushed through the jungle. “I have a master Japanese gardener who tends this for me, meigakure-style.”

  “Does that mean it comes with bamboo shoots?”

  He glanced back again and chuckled. “No, that means the really interesting parts are hidden away from prying eyes. This is a garden that keeps its secrets. There’s a whole acre of it!”

  The twisting path he led me down gave up a number of its secrets, always coming into view suddenly, at first concealed from view—a boulder here, a tall delicate plant there, a mini-waterfall suddenly before us, then finally a reflecting pool. It was all magical, and a tad creepy. The winding path emptied us to the edge of where the macadam widened into a skirt in the midst of a well-tended front yard with traditional shrubbery. A two-story house that probably dated to the previous century wore gray aluminum siding. To the right a double garage had been added.

  I followed him up four stone steps to a porch with an overhang under which an array of potted plants thrived, with wrought-iron benches at left and right.

  He beamed. Something about his face made it little boy and old man at the same time. “Ready for part two?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Of the tour! Come on in.”

  Said the spider to the fly.

  Like the hidden garden, the old (if newly sided) farmhouse had lots of secrets on display. By the front door was a stained-glass sign that said “The Hermitage,” the door itself a dark walnut with black nickel handle and black nickel door trellis on glass. Inside, he took me upstairs and then down, gesturing to a crystal chandelier, various antiques (“Reproductions,” he clarified), framed landscape oils (“Those are antique,” he insisted), and glassed-in cabinets displaying fine china and crystal. The four bedrooms were upstairs, the master decorated with framed Japanese prints and taken up mostly by a big double bed with a black spread. None of the rooms was terribly large, but there were a lot of them. The place was brimming with lush drapery, parquet floors, Oriental carpets, and walls papered in various shades and patterns of charcoal and/or red.

  The effect was a fancy brothel where they didn’t need to mug you, because they were already getting enough of your cash.

  “Why reproductions of antique furniture?” I asked. “Obviously you can affor
d anything you want.”

  His serious expression was intended to convey wisdom. “I consider a new reproduction a better investment than a genuine antique. I prefer the look of the old, but the smell of the new.”

  I had no idea what to say to that. On the other hand, the place did smell pretty good—sort of lavender.

  We were seated in the living room in a pair of red-and-black brocade chairs, angled toward each other, separated by a French Louis XIV walnut table with a tropical-birds-shade Tiffany lamp on it. The latter was the only light on, though sun filtered in past heavy drapes through filmy inner curtains. In terms of size, the living room was modest, probably about what space there’d been back in farmhouse days. Yet somehow they’d squeezed in a fireplace with a framed mirror over it, making the room seem bigger, and four red-upholstered sofas, each with a slumbering schnauzer curled up against a pillow like a fuzzy kielbasa ring.

  I nodded toward them. “What does it take to wake them? A rampaging cat?”

  His laugh was short and caught in his throat. “Oh, don’t mind the girls. They’re Obie’s little darlings. But I swear, someone could pull a van up and empty this place, and as long as the intruders left those sofas alone, those little bitches would sleep right through.”

  He had already provided himself and his guest—me—with a glass of iced tea wearing a slice of lemon. It was, surprisingly, sweetened, Southern-style. The last I looked, this was Ohio.

  He’d noticed my reaction and said, “Not a fan of sweet tea? Took me a while, too. But that’s always what’s in the pitcher in the fridge. Obie made it. He’s from West Virginia and there’s nothing to be done about it.”

  Whether he was talking about his business partner’s place of birth or the sweetened tea, I wasn’t sure. And didn’t ask.

  I did ask, “What’s the story on this place? If you don’t mind sharing it.”

  “Not at all!” He folded his hands in his lap and leaned back. “I was an orphan, you know.”

  “I didn’t,” I admitted. I felt like I’d asked someone where they were from and they replied by starting with the log cabin where they were born.

  “Oh yes,” he said, with an offhanded wave. “You know, it’s truly unfair to bring a little bastard into the world. Richard was saddled with such terrible options! And yet, and yet—he came out a winner every time.”

  I almost asked him who “Richard” was, then remembered he was Richard.

  He gazed at the unlit fireplace and his tone grew wistful. “Richard never knew who his father was. Rumor has it Frank Story himself fathered the child!”

  “Story, who was chief of police?”

  “Yes. Well known in the community. He was a crony of Eliot Ness, they say.”

  “Is that right.”

  His eyes lifted as he got back to his story. Not Frank Story, just his story. “Richard was a foster child sent out five times before the age of seven. When they were displeased with him, one set of foster parents would stick Richard in the dark basement and tie him up with rope. He suffered seizures as a child, fits … and also as an adult, but less frequently. Richard attributes the malady to being raped at age seven by another of his foster fathers.”

  It was like saying “How are you?” to somebody, who then shows you the X-rays.

  “Then,” he continued, “Richard was sent to an orphanage, and let me tell you, Nate … Nathan?”

  “Either’s fine. I’m guessing you prefer Richard?”

  “Yes. Nothing wrong with Dick, but Richard sounds more … sophisticated, don’t you think?”

  “Sure.”

  “Next came the orphanage … and Nate, let me tell you in no uncertain terms—an orphanage is the equivalent of a prison! It really is. No movies, no games, no outings, just rules, rules, rules. Like prison, all you think about, hour after hour, is getting out. Then one day Richard did get out. A couple named the Eberlings took him on as a foster child.”

  “You weren’t adopted?”

  “No. There were three children, grown and gone, and two other foster boys already on hand. George, the father, worked those two like slaves. And I worked hard, too, don’t think I didn’t … but Christine, the mother, wouldn’t let George crack the whip with me.”

  He was in the first person now, I noted.

  “To me, Christine was like a real mother. I was her sweet little Dickie bird. The other boys had to work that farm—sixty acres of fruit and vegetables and dairy cows. But I had a touch with the housework and she loved that. I had a few goats I tended, and two little gardens near the house. Christine gave me special privileges. Sometimes I got an extra piece of pie or cake for dessert. And I had my own personal subscription to Better Homes and Gardens. She could be affectionate, too, hugging and kissing. I was her ‘baby’!”

  “Loved you like a mother, sounds like.”

  He frowned. “Wasn’t all good. Richard didn’t like the way Christine wouldn’t let him play with other children. If a boy or girl from school rode over on a bike, she would send Richard inside and shoo them away. She wouldn’t let him play sports, afraid he might get hurt. She filled him with false hope about being a doctor someday, though Richard was only an average student, because he had the gumption to stand up to the teachers. It was like she owned Richard. Like he was a possession.”

  I shifted in the chair, which was at least as comfortable as a cement block. “Your full name, I understand, is Richard George Eberling. So they must eventually have decided to adopt you.…”

  He shook his head; with that Beatle mop, it was like that baby-faced bass player going for a high note. “No, I was a foster child, beloved though I was to Christine. Out of respect to her, and to honor my foster father, I changed my name legally in high school—my original name was hard to pronounce, and I’d already begun my window-washing business.”

  “Then you didn’t inherit the farm?”

  He shook his head again. “No, I bought it parcel by parcel from Christine, after George’s passing. When he died, I breathed a sigh of relief. He was good to me, but very strict. He had a sudden attack of cerebral apoplexy. Rumors of poisoning were bandied about by jealous relatives—well, that was just something Richard had to put up with.”

  Third person again.

  “Why were they jealous, Richard?”

  “Just a sad fact of human nature. You see, my late foster father made Christine executor of his estate. The biological spawn would get everything only after she died. But until her death, she could sell off parcels to raise cash to live on. And she only did business with me, bless her heart. Pretty soon, I owned everything. She passed, and then Obie joined me here and we turned this old haunted house into a real showplace.”

  One of the schnauzers was snoring.

  I asked, “And you were able to buy the entire spread, a parcel at a time? Strictly from a part-time window-washing business?”

  “That’s right. And after high school graduation, I wasn’t part time for long. Always had one or two boys with me. Had Bay Village all sewed up, homes up and down Lake Road. At my peak, I had as many as two hundred accounts and never less than one hundred—mostly homes, but also a gutters and siding company … they did this house … a metal fabricating firm, a kitchen cookware distributor, and three church parish houses.”

  “You were doing very well.”

  “Oh, yes. Richard’s secret was a solution of water and hard brown vinegar—not ammonia—with a dollop of Blue Sheen carpet cleaner.”

  But Richard had another secret.

  “Not to be rude,” I said, “didn’t you have another business on the side? An offshoot of the window-cleaning service?”

  His smile pretended to be embarrassed. “I suppose we have to get into that.”

  “We do. If Mr. Bailey calls you as a witness, that will likely come out … not by him, but by the prosecution, trying to impeach you.”

  “Nathan, you must keep in mind that Richard was very young, really a remarkable success story for a high school boy, an o
rphan! And temptation abounded. It took years for anyone to realize that Richard was helping himself now and again to jewels and rings and money and things. These people were well-off. And they left their doors unlocked, so who was to say Richard was the culprit?”

  “But you were the culprit. And you are Richard.”

  His smile was a shameless thing. “You called it a ‘business,’ but it was more … a hobby, or maybe an obsession. I was like a stamp collector or somebody who pins butterflies in a book. I just had hot fingers, that’s all. Started in lifting small items from clients. When the police came out here, they took two truckloads away! It wasn’t like I was fencing the items, though they accused me of that. The only thing I kept was money. So in that sense, it was a business, sure.”

  “This was mostly jewelry?”

  “Other things, too. I have an eye for finer objects—bowls, pitchers, really nice wristwatches, sterling silver—not a whole set, just a spoon here and a fork there—and Royal Doulton figurines, Steuben glass. Little things, easily concealed, hardly missed. I always had my pail of wash water I could drop things in, and just take with me out the door. I did remove diamonds and other jewels from unworthy settings, which I discarded. After a client got suspicious, an uncle of mine who was a policeman came around, and Christine—she was alive then—just screamed at him for his suspicions. But then he got a search warrant, so what can you do?”

  “I’m sorry to make you go over something so painful,” I said, working hard to keep the sarcasm out, because he was really enjoying himself, essentially bragging. “But I guess you know why, in court, on the stand, things could get sticky.”

  He nodded. “Is it warm in here?”

  “Not bad.” The place was air-conditioned, but it was a little warm, the day heating up out there. One of the schnauzers had rolled onto its back. As he’d said, a girl.

  “I’m just talking too much,” Eberling said, with mock embarrassment, “and getting worked up into a lather.” He put his hand on top of his head. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” I said, not knowing what the hell he meant.