Do No Harm

by Max Allan Collins

  “We’re not friends, Gary. But we can do business.”

  “Where in the park?”

  “There’s a picnic table looking over the beach, near the bluff. That’s the nice view I was talking about.”

  A long pause. “Okay. The park. Two twenty-five. Be there!”

  “Or be square,” I said pleasantly.

  I hung up, then got into the sweater and the rest of the newly purchased clothes. I stuffed the plump envelope of hundreds in a deep suede-jacket pocket, the left-hand one. I’d already put the ankle holster on, wearing it when I went out to eat, to get used to it. But only now did I snug the snubnose in its berth. Its brother was duct-taped under that picnic table.

  If it came to that, I would still prefer the nine mil, but all that artillery seemed wise, since I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into.

  I drove directly to Huntington Reservation, as it was officially known, leaving the rental car in the narrow graveled parking lot between the street and the park itself. I sat in the car with the heat on, waiting for the next run by the Bay Village cops. The patrol car glided by at eleven fifteen. Seeing that single car in the parking area didn’t seem to rate a look much less a slowdown and a pass of a flashlight.

  Then I shut off the car and moved to a bench near the street. The night was cold enough that I kept my hands in my pockets—no gloves, because I didn’t want to impede my dexterity. Now and then I smoked a cigarette, having picked up a pack of Chesterfields in the hotel lobby. At a quarter till eleven, the fuzz rolled by again, and neither cop even bothered to look my way. I returned to the car and moved it to a curb in the residential section nearby.

  With the nine millimeter in the deep right pocket of the suede jacket, I prowled the whole park. The leaves were a crunchy carpet under my feet, which was another reason I’d picked a location like this—anyone approaching would likely be heard. I’d thought some necking or copulating couple, maybe with a warm sleeping bag, might turn up; but apparently nobody was that frisky tonight. The night was clear but dark, with only a fingernail clipping of moon. I repeated the circuit and convinced myself that Gary and whoever might be with him were not here. Had not jumped the gun, at least not yet anyway.

  The beach below was not the thin strip of sand behind the Sheppard place—it was a good-sized, real beach, at least for the middle of Cleveland, Ohio. And the skyline view was impressive, its geometry cutting the horizon, its lights glimmering on the lake before the shimmer of the modest moonlight took over.

  I took a position at the picnic table, which in addition to that great view of Lake Erie and the Cleveland skyline had an opposite view, if somewhat limited by interfering trees, of the parking area, if Gary was dumb enough to park there.

  Turned out he was. He pulled in just a little after two, parking his Chevy Corvair, a small car but somewhat sporty, bright blue and new under the streetlights. About right for a drug dealer, which was my guess for Gary’s occupation when he wasn’t selling bloody clothes and secondhand blunt instruments.

  Possibly Weed knew his way around Huntington Park, because he came right toward me, crunching leaves as I expected he would. He was in the same attire as last night, the blue peacoat and captain’s cap, but now he was carrying a beat-up old suitcase, not much bigger than a briefcase.

  He approached, slowing, grinning nervously. “You’re early.”

  “So are you, Gary. The cops just made their circuit.”

  “I saw ’em, from where I was pulled over for while.”

  That was stupid. In this kind of affluent neighborhood, an unknown vehicle—even a late-model one, like the Corvair—might rate a look, and even a glimpse at the long-haired driver could signal a drug deal.

  But the officers on patrol hadn’t even slowed down. Even in a neighborhood where one of the most famous murders in America had happened, the Bay Village boys had become complacent. Human nature.

  I’d been sitting sideways on the picnic table bench. Gary came around, sat across from me, feet under the slatted table, as if ready to dig into some potato salad. I did not assume a similar posture—I stayed turned to one side, the lake and its beach and the bluff, lined with trees and bushes, at my back.

  Gary said, “Let’s see the color of your money.”

  “Let’s see the color of your blood-spattered clothes.”

  He shrugged. “Okay. But put the cash on the table first. I won’t touch it till you say.”

  I nodded. With my left hand got the well-stuffed envelope out, which wasn’t sealed shut, just had its flap tucked in. I set the envelope on the table and opened it enough for the fat wad of money to show.

  “Fifty hundreds, Gary. Now the grip.”

  He plopped the grip onto the table. The thing had dirt on it and it was an old brown thing, scarred and faded. It was like we were sitting down and about to share the worst picnic ever.

  The snaps were on his side. He clicked the thing open and swung it around, his face hovering above the lid, his dilated and bloodshot eyes peering over at me. Right on top was a piece of iron pipe as he’d described it over almost a decade ago in that sheriff’s office—a length of pipe maybe a foot long, curved at the top. It had dark crusty red on it, and rested on some half-wadded, half-folded old clothes, a plaid shirt, some worn denims, and they too were spattered with red.

  Too red.

  And the smell that wafted up was sweet, not coppery. Sugar, not blood. Ketchup, not gore.

  Gary or somebody had liberally doused the clothing with ketchup, like they were fucking french fries, and then left them out somewhere to get appropriately dried and crusty.

  So it was just a scam.

  And I didn’t like the way that lid partially blocked my view of Gary—he could be behind there with a gun. I was reaching toward the lid to slam it down when someone coughed.

  Only it wasn’t a cough: it was the sound of a silenced gunshot and above and between Gary’s eyes a third eye appeared, but there was nothing spiritual about it, just a black hole with some modest spatter making a psychedelic design of it.

  My hand, already reaching toward the grip, went to the iron pipe, thinking that cough had been right behind me, almost over my shoulder.

  And I was right—a figure in a dark shirt and dark trousers with a lot of hair, Afro-style, was just a few feet away and in its left hand was a .22 automatic with a homemade silencer, giving it a long silver snout.

  He had apparently stepped out from behind the nearest tree and now the limited moonlight caught him. The Afro was blond and his face was contorted with rage and fear. With a gun deep in my jacket pocket, and one on my ankle, and yet another duct-taped beneath the table, I already had my hand filled with the blunt instrument, and I lunged and swung it and caught him on the forearm on the gun-hand side, the clumsy .22 pitching somewhere. He howled and backed up and that was when I recognized him.

  He was older, almost ten years, and I had a hunch a lot of drugs and maybe booze had turned him old before his time, but I still recognized the kid with the close-set eyes—the friend of Larry Dodge who had helped find the green cloth bag of evidence.

  And in a fraction of a second, much less time than it takes to tell it, Denny Lord’s presence told me a story—a story of hormone-happy teenage boys who got drunk in the predawn morning hours of the Fourth of the July, kids who had hung out at the Sheppards, played ball with Sam, who flirted with and lusted for the cute young wife in the short white pants and halter tops, and who, drunk and horny, had wound up in Marilyn’s bedroom, only to be rebuffed, and impulsively use a heavy flashlight or maybe the missing table lamp to batter that prick tease and really teach her a lesson. Maybe just Denny, maybe one of the other dozen boys, too. But somehow, in that slice of a second, I knew Denny was the one, the one who had lost his temper, the one who heard Lee Bailey talk about me being on the trail of the real killer, a real killer who somehow had gotten in league with the late Gary Weed, sprawled on the grass with his feet up on the picnic bench and his three
eyes staring up through the skeletal trees at the barely existent moon.

  Screaming, Lord threw himself at me and that hunk of iron flew from my hand, too, and then we were wrestling and punching and rolling around on top of each other like humping teenagers. Finally I shoved him off of me and I was on one knee, clawing at my pant leg to get at the ankle weapon, but he got to his feet, all the way up, and kicked me with the flat of a sneakered foot, shoving me more than hurting me. He had spotted where the pipe went, and it was at the edge of the bluff. He was scrambling for it when I swung my right fist up and caught him on the side of the jaw. He went backward, and then realized where he was, with his back to that drop-off, and his arms did the windmilling thing, but it did him no good when I shoved him.

  He went tumbling down the rocky slope, the equivalent of thirty-six steps all the way to the beach, where he ended up on his back, limbs spread like a starfish.

  I wasn’t going down that bluff on foot, no way. So I walked over to the wide cement stairs with their metal railing, which came in handy for a guy pushing sixty who was very out of breath and mildly beat up. I didn’t have to walk over very far—the nine mil in hand now, just in case—to where he lay. His head was at a funny angle. Or anyway his neck was. He’d broken it on the way down and now he was looking up with eyes as empty as Gary Weed’s.

  I knew how he’d been able to sneak up without the leaves alerting me—he’d walked down the beach, from his parents’ place, and likely scaled the bluff much more slowly and carefully than he’d just come down. Or maybe he’d even taken the stairs I had. Anyway, he’d slipped behind that tree and waited.

  Now he was dead on the beach, the struggle with the murdered woman’s husband on the Erie shore finally over, the lake not so angry tonight, just a lulling, lapping thing that on this bigger width of beach didn’t come near him. Still, though the water appeared gentle, I knew it was cold, and unforgiving.

  Back up in the park, I searched Gary Weed in case he had something on him, a scrap of notepaper maybe, that might connect me to him. I wiped the iron pipe clean, then pressed it into Gary’s limp hand. I took the dummied-up suitcase with the Heinz ketchup gore, which I would dump somewhere out of the neighborhood. And of course I collected my .38 from under the table and the five thousand dollars in fifties on top of it.

  The dead were on their own.

  Then I went to the rental car and drove out of the park, positioned as it was between Eliot’s house and Dr. Sam’s, each with their own ghosts.

  CHAPTER

  20

  I had checked out, but remained in Cleveland, with an early evening flight out to Chicago. I felt it only right to make a stop on my way out of the city, and I pulled up to the townhouse in Rocky River and left the car at the curb.

  My second knock was answered by a worked-up Sam Sheppard. He was in a T-shirt, boxer shorts and bare feet; he needed a shave and what little hair he had was askew. His eyes were wild, and you didn’t have to be a doctor to know he was high on something.

  Standing there looking like a baby with five o’clock shadow, not worried about who saw him in his underwear, he said, “Thank God! I tried your hotel and they said you’d checked out. And Bailey’s in the air on his way back to Boston. Jesus, am I glad to see you.”

  He had a newspaper in his right hand, like a newsboy about to shout, “Extra! Read all about it!”

  I guided him back inside. Then he moved through the royal purple living room and into the kitchen, where on the counter was a bottle of Scotch, a glass, and a cluster of pill vials. Nothing seemed to have changed, other than his .38 revolver’s absence.

  “Where’s Ariane, Sam?”

  “She’s, uh … taking a break. The reporters were camped out outside last night and she freaked out. She’s in a motel room. But she’s coming back. She is coming back.”

  “Good,” I said, and sat at the table.

  He was on his feet, pacing, animated, pausing at the refrigerator. The newspaper in his left hand was rolled up now, like there was a bug to swat or maybe a disobedient child who needed spanking; his arms were heavy with the musculature earned by prison cell push-ups. “You want a beer or anything? Damn, but I’m glad to see you, Nate. I’ve been going off my nut!”

  “Why is that, Sam? No beer, thanks.”

  He flung the paper on the table between us. With two hands he spread it out for me to see the front page of the Press. It wasn’t the headline, but below the fold was:

  DRUG DEALERS DEAD

  IN HUNTINGTON PARK

  “You’ve seen this, right?” he asked, grinning, eyes glittering.

  “I have.”

  He leaned over the table, thumped the newspaper with a forefinger. “Let me tell you something you don’t know. One of the dopers who died is the Lord kid—he was tight with Jerry Dodge, Marsh and Mildred’s boy? Those two kids were the ones who found the green bag of stolen things from my house!”

  I gestured to the paper. “I read it. It says Lord had a record of selling illegal narcotics on the Case Western campus, dating back to when he went there and ever since he dropped out. That he still hung around the campus and college hangouts, as kind of a permanent unenrolled student who peddled pot and probably harder stuff. Got busted more than once.”

  He slammed his fist on the story. “That’s right! He was a rotten kid. Always was a rotten little shoplifting kid.”

  “The other dead dope dealer was known as the Weed Man. That’s all anybody knew him by, at least that’s come to light so far.” Gary Weed had not been identified. I doubted he ever would.

  “Don’t you get it, Heller! Don’t you get it?”

  “Get what?”

  He was waving a hand. His eyes were dilated, like Gary Weed’s. “Those kids,” he said, his voice high, whiny, “those teenagers that hung around my place! That were always drooling over Marilyn! This little Lord S.O.B. is a suspect!”

  “A suspect of what?”

  “Goddamnit, Heller! Of killing Marilyn. And so is the Dodge kid. There were two of them that night! One battered Marilyn, the other hit me from behind.”

  “Why the Dodge kid?”

  “They were friends, those two! Lord and Dodge. Like I said—they found that bag of things stolen from my house! Could have been a plant! Once I talk to Lee, this whole thing is going to bust wide open.”

  “No it isn’t.”

  His mouth dropped open, his jaw slack. “What? Why?”

  “Over a dozen boys used to hang out at your place, back when Uncle Miltie and Howdy Doody were still a big deal. And I don’t know how many girls. Lord happened to be a kid who got into pot and other shit—not exactly a rare breed these days. Far as I know, none of those other twelve or so kids have killed anybody lately.”

  “If it was the Dodge kid—”

  “If the Dodge kid was there on the murder night, maybe on a very ill-advised holiday toot, he’d have been a sort of … guilty bystander. He’d be the one who hit you, just because he had to. ’Cause things had got out of hand. The other one, say the Lord kid, would’ve done the killing and later played tag with you on the beach.”

  He held up his palms in momentary surrender. “Okay. That makes sense. We’ll tell Lee. Or the cops! I can call Fred Drenkhan, he’s chief of the Bay Village police now—he’s a pal.”

  I laughed. “Oh, yeah. He was a real pal of yours.”

  Sam leaned forward again, his head moving side to side. “Think about it, Nate! The Dodge kid being involved explains so much! It makes his parents’ behavior finally make sense—suppose their boy came home and confessed to them! Before I ever called! They’d have done everything, anything to cover it up! Think about them inviting Gerber in, to use their living room as his headquarters! Man, it’s all making sense!”

  I kept my voice soft, and calm. “Let me tell you about the Dodge kid, who I only met once, but who I don’t make as a suspect. But for the sake of argument, let’s say he was pulled along on a stupid stunt by a buddy who got out of cont
rol. You know who Jerry Dodge is today? A doctor. An osteopath, like a certain neighbor he really admired. You know where he is now? Vietnam. A medic, a captain. There’s no reason to think you’re right about him, but, Sam—if you are? He’s turned out pretty good. He’s redeemed himself. And I doubt somebody with the kind of character it takes to become a doctor would be part of something like this in the first place. But that didn’t stop some people from saying a doctor named Sheppard killed his wife. You really want to put some honest young doctor through that kind of mill?”

  He looked like he might cry. “Goddamn, Heller! Why don’t you see this as the break it is?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe I was there last night.”

  He reared back, that endless forehead frowned. “Wh-what?”

  “Maybe,” I said, “I went to the park with a wad of cold cash to buy some evidence from the Weed Man … only this grown-up kid called Lord jumped from behind a tree with a gun. Maybe he shot the Weed Man in the head, to have all the dough to himself, and then maybe he and I struggled. Like you and the bushy-haired man, Sam.”

  His eyes seemed to be trying to eject themselves from his face. “What are you saying?”

  Another shrug. “I’m not saying anything except ‘maybe.’ Maybe I killed Lord in the struggle. Knocked him over the bluff and he tumbled down that rocky slope and broke his damn neck. Then maybe I cleaned up the scene because just maybe it would have been very bad for a respectable private investigator to get involved in something like that. Particularly since it would reflect on the controversial lawyer who hired him, and would look even worse for their client, who just got found not guilty of a murder charge.”

  Rage and frustration fought for his expression. “Are you screwing with me, Heller?”

  “No. I’m being straight with you. You go to Lee with this, I deny it. You go to the cops, I deny it. Nothing there links me to it. Suppose that wild story I just told you is true—you of all people think I want to explain myself to the Ohio authorities? Do you want an investigator working for you and your lawyer to admit to killing a suspect in the case? The night your verdict came in? That could come back on you in a very nasty way.”