The Smart Money

by Lia Matera

  “Captain Loftus,” I presumed. “I called him from Aunt Diana’s.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Gary erupted. “Why’d you do that?”

  “I was planning—before I ran into Hal—to lurk around out here until you got tired of waiting for me, and came looking for me. Then I was going to run back to the car and drive off without you. I didn’t know what you were planning to do to Sandy—I wanted you out of the way for a while.”

  Behind me, my cousin said, “Why’d you call in the marines?”

  “In case anything went wrong. And if it didn’t—well, I thought it would be a nice irony if Gary had to ride home with Loftus.”

  “‘A nice irony?’“ My ex-husband scooted farther away from me on the hard sand. “I’ve got a nice irony for you. Who do you think killed my wife? Who do you think shot your damn detective?”

  I watched the captain’s car veer toward the sand flats. He’d seen the headlights of the Mercedes.

  Gleason looked up at Hal. “I’d get rid of those guns, if I were you.”

  Hal stepped back, out of the pool of light.

  “You’re accusing the captain of murder?” Gary had always hated the police, a condition doubtless aggravated by being a public defender.

  “Kirsten took Bean’s gun out of your desk while you were sleeping. She was going to go look for Bean to give the gun back to him. She was going to get him booted out of town because of it, if she could, and you with him. She called me at the hospital to tell me so. That’s the last time I ever talked to her. The nurses said she called later, but I was sleeping, and they wouldn’t put the call through.”

  “So? From this you deduce that Loftus killed her?”

  “Who else could it have been? Kirsten called me at around three. Bean was killed a short time later. Right about the time Kirsten would have been driving around near the pier looking for him. I think …” Gary’s eyes were fixed on the car moving cautiously across the flats. “I think she must have ended up witnessing Bean’s execution.”

  “Execution,” I repeated. A lot of people would have liked to execute Bean.

  “She wasn’t killed till after seven,” he went on. “If Bean’s killer recognized Kirsten, or followed the Peugeot, it would have happened earlier in the morning.” His tone was cold, but didn’t mask his wrath or his pain.

  If Gary was right, if Bean’s killer hadn’t recognized or followed Kirsten, then all he’d had to go on was the make and model of her car.

  “Who in town owned a Peugeot,” I said. “That’s information you can get from Motor Vehicles.”

  “But not at that hour.” Gleason sounded bitter. “Unless you’re a cop, with access to that computer system.”

  He was right. A police computer could, within hours, supply a list of owners and their addresses. There wouldn’t be more than one green Peugeot in a small town like Hillsdale.

  I thought of the girl at the car rental concession, telling us that an “older guy,” a policeman, had asked who’d rented the black Mustang. I’d assumed it was routine police work to check car rental agencies for the names of visiting strangers.

  Now I wondered if Sandy had also been down by the pier when Wallace Bean was murdered. If his rental car had been spotted there, it explained several things. It explained his reluctance to admit he’d arrived in town a day early. And it explained why he’d jumped out my window to avoid meeting the police.

  “Loftus,” Gary continued, “is enough of a reactionary to think it’s his patriotic right to execute someone like Bean. Ever hear him talk about Vietnam? Hansen and Dhzura were heroes to fascists like him.” My ex-husband’s lips curled disdainfully. “And he’s got no inhibitions about taking the law into his own hands, believe me. I know for a fact he ordered his men to beat the crap out of me when we demonstrated to save the wetlands.”

  The captain pulled up alongside the Mercedes, broadening the band of light on the sand flats. He climbed nimbly out of his black-and-white car and walked up to us. He wore a thick, hooded jacket. His back was to the light. I couldn’t see his face.

  “Miss Di Palma? Got your message.” His voice was pleasant, curious, even slightly bemused. He pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and shined it slowly over the sand, beyond the area illuminated by the car lights. “Didn’t I see someone else out here a minute ago?”

  The jacket and the flashlight. Just like the man who’d shot at me from the corridor of Hal’s house.

  “No,” I said faintly. “It’s just me and Gary.”

  I stood up, extending my hand to help Gary.

  But Captain Loftus moved between us, grasping Gary’s arm. He pulled him to his feet—pulled too hard so that Gary staggered forward, tripping over the captain’s foot. He fell heavily, the captain’s boot catching him in the ribs. Loftus apologized amiably, but I knew it had not been accidental.

  Jesus, I’d cried in the captain’s arms when Sandy was shot. I remembered the warm cologney smell of his shirt, the reassurance of his direct and—I’d thought—kindly manner.

  But the hooded jacket, the flashlight, the gratuitous kick in the ribs … I remembered Sandy saying that cops carry thirty-eights; he and Kirsten had both been shot with a thirty-eight.

  The wind screamed through the rocks, drowning out the shakiness of my voice. “Gary and I were worried about my cousin, Captain.” Gary staggered to his feet, backing away from me and Loftus. “There’s no sign of Hal at the house where he’s been camping. We wondered if he might have drowned or something.”

  “No way to find out tonight, I’m afraid, Miss Di Palma. We could have a look at the rocks, I suppose.” He motioned for us to follow him, but instead of walking out toward the rocks, he walked back to his car.

  He opened the passenger door and stood there, a dark shape behind the headlights, waiting for us to get in. Gary hugged his ribs, backing cautiously away.

  I assumed Loftus meant to drive closer to the jetty.

  Whatever he meant to do, I didn’t want him to guess anything had changed since I’d phoned him. I got into the car.

  The captain drove slowly past Gary without glancing at him. He drove to the very edge of the sand flats, where the tall, sawtooth rocks extended out to the sea. He turned on his high beams.

  I thought I saw a shadow at the fringes of the captain’s lights. My cousin, moving out of their arc.

  “Out there,” I pointed to a shining triangle of rock up ahead. “Was that someone?”

  The high beams lit a surreal landscape of bright wet surfaces and black shadows, of drifting mist and sheets of spindrift blown off high waves.

  Captain Loftus opened his car door and stood, one foot outside the car, his hand still on the steering wheel, looking out over the jagged stones. And I looked out the passenger window, sure now that I could see movement, that I’d spotted Hal.

  I had the impression he was hurling something.

  I heard the captain shout, “Who’s there?” as something clattered on the rocks.

  The captain pulled a gun out of his holster, hesitated for an instant, then began picking his way over the slick, sharp-edged jetty, using one hand to support himself. In the other he held the gun, held it straight up, ready to aim and fire.

  When Loftus was a few hundred feet out on the rocks, Hal appeared at the passenger door. He flung it open, reached in and cut the lights.

  “Get out! Run!”

  “But he’ll know—”

  “Why’s he got his gun out? He already knows.” Hal yanked my arm, catching me when I pitched forward onto the sand. “Don’t argue. Run!”

  I ran. Ran across the sand flats beside Hal, ran as fast as I could toward the Mercedes.

  We were about halfway there when the sports car backed up, turned around and, kicking up a swirl of wet sand, roared toward the main road.

  Gary Gleason had stolen my car. For a moment
I stood there watching, wishing I’d killed the bastard while I had the chance. And I knew it was my own goddam fault he’d stranded us there. I’d accused him of Lennart’s murder, making it clear I knew all the details. I’d left him little incentive to want me alive.

  Hal grabbed my hand. “The houses. Come on!”

  Again I ran, watching my beautiful car disappear onto the distant highway. I’d get Gleason, goddam it … if Loftus didn’t get me first.

  My car raced out of sight, the only landmark in the darkness. We ran and seemed to go nowhere, to be running in a void. I glanced back toward the jetty, my throat aching from gasping damp air. The lights of the police car were sweeping across the sand in a wide circle.

  Seconds later, my expensive—and inadequate—shoes hit the concrete of an abandoned street. I could make out the silhouette of sand-wracked houses.

  And the police car began rocketing across the flats toward us.

  39

  “Just like Vietnam,” Hal observed.

  We were in an upstairs bedroom of what had been one of the pricier houses in the development. Hal peered between the boards of a window facing the sand flats. I stood at another window, watching for movement on the black street.

  “Who shot you, Hal?”

  The wind rattled one of the few remaining panes of glass. Somewhere close, mice scratched at the baseboard.

  Finally he said, “There was this girl, Phuyen. The army, in its usual stupid fashion, decided her village was ‘inconvenient’ because it forced our jeeps to take a short detour through jungle. So they rounded up the Vietnamese and herded them off to this wretched little encampment. Then they went out with tanks to flatten the hootches. But someone kept taking potshots at the soldiers.”

  “This girl?”

  “Well, see,” his voice dropped in pitch, “she didn’t get rounded up like everyone else. I was going to marry Phuyen. She’d been staying with me. My C.O. was pretty lax about stuff like that. He got the bright idea that I should take her out there with me, to help me find the sniper.”

  “Did she get shot too, Hal?”

  He was silent. I stared into darkness, barely able to make out the houses across the street.

  “We were alone together in one of the hootches, the one that belonged to her family. It looked like the sniper had been hiding there, one of her little brothers, probably. Phuyen got this look on her face, I’ll never forget it. Like I was part of something disgusting. Like she’d do anything to protect her brothers from me. She grabbed my gun and shot me in the head with it.”

  It was a few moments before I had the nerve to inquire, “What happened to her?”

  “Summary execution. After being raped a few times. They shot her brothers, too—even the seven-year-old.”

  I supposed my Aunt Diana had learned the story when the army notified her of Hal’s injury. Apparently she’d made a choice. If she mentioned the wound to anyone—even her husband—everyone in town would soon know about it. And everyone would want to know how it had happened. She could lie about it, but Hal … He seemed to delight in thwarting her: leaving his sweet-sixteen present neglected in the driveway; refusing to go by Henry, Junior; turning down Princeton to enroll in junior college like a mill worker’s son. No, Hal would tell people the truth: that he’d been intimate with a yellow-skinned girl (they’d whisper that he’d consorted with the enemy); that he’d allowed the tart—one of them—to steal an army weapon; and, most shamefully of all, that he’d been shot with his own gun. On the other hand, Hal was maddeningly taciturn. If my aunt said nothing about the injury, Hal would probably not mention it, either. Better to wait and see. If her son was not noticeably disabled, no one would have to know.

  “He’s coming.” Hal’s breathing was loud and quick. “He’s coming into the house. Squat down behind the dresser. And don’t move. Everything creaks in these places.”

  I squatted, hearing the crackle of breaking spider webs, skeins of them. I tried to keep still. My hands trembled. I buried them in my pockets. Took shallow breaths. He was coming.

  Emmanuel Loftus. (Allow the jury ten seconds to look at his handsome, wise, kindly face.) Lost a beloved son in the war. Lived with that loss day in and day out for fourteen years … as perhaps some of you have done. Believed with painful, passionate intensity that the war could have been won—that his son and thousands of other sons, your sons, could have been spared. Not by cowardly retreat. That’s not what we are about, as a nation. But by victory.

  Emmanuel Loftus was not the only American who believed in victory. Two men in particular embodied the spirit, the patriotism, the idealism that might have won a war, might have freed a people. Might have kept alive an American dream. I refer of course to Senator Harley Hansen and Senator Garth Dzhura. (Ten seconds.) As you are probably aware, a man called Wallace Bean set out one day to destroy not just these two duly-elected representatives, but to destroy the very America they symbolized. The America that loves freedom enough to sacrifice—to fight, really fight—for it.

  Emmanuel Loftus was a good father. A patriot. An officer of justice. And as a father, as a patriot, as an officer of justice, it offended him, it insulted him, it sickened him, that a man could murder an American ideal (five second pause), and be free to walk the streets a scant year later. It offended him and insulted him and sickened him that a man could widow two women and orphan seven children—with impunity!—because he watched too much television!

  “Hal,” I whispered, “do you believe in poetic justice?”

  “I don’t believe in any kind of justice.”

  I heard a thump downstairs.

  God, Loftus had no right! No right to spill Bean’s blood or anybody’s else’s.

  And what about Bean? What about me—justifying, apologizing, making excuses for the senators’ murder?

  Cautious footsteps below. I glanced at my cousin. He was a shape within a shadow. It wasn’t fair—Loftus was my penance, not his.

  When the footsteps moved toward the staircase, I disregarded Hal’s warning and tiptoed across the room to where he crouched behind an abandoned desk. I wanted to be near him.

  Almost immediately the door began to open. I could hear the rasp of rusty hinges. Light filtered through dust motes; Loftus’s flashlight was trained on the hallway floor.

  I focused so completely on the light, on the noise Loftus made, that I didn’t hear the sounds outside until the captain grumbled, “Christ A’mighty, what now?” The light went off. He clomped over to the window I had recently used as a lookout post.

  Loftus stood where I’d stood, peering through gaps in the slats.

  I heard wheels bumping over potholes, not directly below, but close by, at the fringes of the abandoned development. Somewhere a door slid open, with a thump that echoed through the empty streets. It was a van: the Oregon news van, I was sure. I’d asked my Uncle Henry to go outside at 11:45 and send that vanful of reporters to the jetty.

  I’d wanted additional insurance, in case my disappearing trick did not work out, in case I wasn’t able to slip away from Gary Gleason. And in case Captain Loftus did not get my message in time.

  I felt a prickle of relief. Perhaps Loftus would leave the house now, would go outside to send the reporters away.

  I could hear him step away from the window, muttering under his breath. Then he stopped. Five feet from where Hal and I huddled behind the desk.

  I wasn’t sure at first that Loftus had seen us. I wasn’t sure until I heard the sound. It was just a quiet click in the dark, but I recognized it. He’d pulled back the hammer of his gun.

  Apparently, Hal heard it, too. He hurled himself against me, knocking me facedown on the rough wood floor. Grit scraped my lips and filled my nostrils. My wrist bent under the shifting weight of our bodies, and I heard myself cry out. I could smell my cousin’s fear. Maybe it was my own.

  I arched my
back and twisted; caught Hal off balance and pushed him off me. Scrambled away on all fours. Loftus would shoot me first. Maybe Hal could get away.

  “They’re reporters,” I panted. “They’re out there because I told Sandy Arkelett we were coming here.” I talked because I’m trained to talk. Couldn’t seem to catch my breath. All I could see of Loftus was a darker shade of black against the boarded-up window. “I got you out here so Sandy could hold a press conference at the hospital.” A midnight press conference? I stifled a surge of panic. “The reporters know you shot Sandy, and they know why. So it’s no use killing us because they won’t believe—”

  “Oh?” The captain’s voice was surprisingly genial. “Two suspects fled when I ordered them to halt. I gave chase, gave warning, then shot. I didn’t know who they were. A great tragedy.”

  Loftus was standing over me now, still just a dark shape. I tried to distinguish his gun, couldn’t remember whether he carried it in his left or right hand. Stared without blinking until spots of light danced in front of my eyes.

  “Gary Gleason will tell them you knew it was me.” I sounded breathless, sounded trapped in a lie. I forced myself to close my eyes. To visualize a jury. I felt my throat relax, my chest expand.

  Loftus was saying, “You were dragged into an empty house by an unknown suspect. He pulled you in front of him when I shot. A great tragedy.” Warmed by his Oklahoma accent, the phrase rang with sincerity. “I shot the suspect afterward, of course.”

  “Your ‘suspect’ is the mayor’s son.” I made myself pause. Four beats: enough time to fear, not enough time to ponder. “Besides, Sandy’s already told the reporters you shot him. They’ll check the bullets against your gun.”

  There was a slight catch in the captain’s breathing. “Your out-of-town newsmen, they’ve all gone home by now.” He seemed to be reassuring himself. “And the locals, they know me. They won’t believe some slick P.I. from the big city. ‘Specially when I arrest him for murdering Kirsten Strindberg.” He added thoughtfully, “Guess I better get myself a new thirty-eight, though.”