Seven Steps East

by Ben Benson

  Suddenly, late that summer, it was over between us. She had been seeing another boy, Roy Neville, occasionally. He was a guest at the Mount Puritan. I had no claim on her. We were not engaged.

  Neville was a sallow, middle-sized fellow. He had thick black hair and wore glasses. He spoke in a soft, apologetic manner. He was a student at Tufts Medical School and was staying at the Mount Puritan with his parents for a few weeks. They were people from Baltimore. Roy Neville drove a white Austin Healy sports car with red-leather bucket seats. I drove a Ford sedan.

  She told me then she was in love with him. Probably she was. A wise old detective had once told me that the anticipation of riches did affect the glands and chromosomes of the female of the species. Mink coats, diamonds, Cadillac convertibles, nightclubs, tickets to hit musicals; all were aphrodisiacal in effect.

  I stopped seeing her.

  At the end of that summer I was transferred out of D Troop, away from Cape Cod and Sachem. Later I heard that her romance with Roy Neville had broken up. Then my mother told me Iva was dating Rita Chanslor’s son, Kirk. It seemed incongruous to me that a girl who had yearned for so much would want to settle for a lower-middle-class hometown boy she had known since childhood.

  “I heard you’re at the State Police Academy,” she was saying.

  “Only temporarily,” I said, “and mostly as a junior errand boy.”

  “Kirk told me you were one of the instructors and you were teaching judo.”

  “Yes. Judo, disarming and restraining devices. The physical-conditioning exercises. Practice in the search of prisoners. The obstacle-course requirements. The inter-squad athletic requirements. The morning track run before breakfast. And the Farouk detail. All the grind things.”

  “What was the last, Ralph?”

  “The grind things.”

  “No, the Farouk business.”

  “The Farouk detail. If we feel any of the trainees are slightly overweight we give them special attention. We get the weight off them.”

  “A schedule like that should keep you busy every moment. Yet I’ve never seen you looking so bronzed and so radiantly healthy.”

  “Thank you. And I’ve never seen you so beautiful, Iva.”

  “With these crying red eyes?” She smiled wanly. “This isn’t at all like the last time we saw each other.”

  “I guess we were both angry then.” I stood up. “It’s late. I should be going.”

  “Please stay a moment longer,” she said. Her lace handkerchief came out and dabbed at the pert nose. “You’ve probably been wondering why I’ve been going with Kirk.”

  “I have been.”

  “He’s younger than either you or Roy. But I needed somebody who was—how shall I say it—like a comfortable old shoe. Somebody who was near my own age and from the same side of town. I knew Kirk. He knew me. There could be no false pretenses about anything.” She took a deep breath. “But now Kirk is gone. I’m like a bad batter. Three times up and three times down. I’m a jinx, Ralph.”

  “Nuts,” I said. “You’ve had a run of bad luck. Besides, Kirk will show up. He’s a good kid, Iva. You couldn’t do better.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Then her voice became a little wistful. “You and I did have fun together. The sightseeing trips. Me with my big eyes, dreaming and hoping for things I had no right to. It was fun, though. I can remember how we’d go shooting in the woods down near Buford. You with that .22 rifle. Me with that .25 caliber Astra pistol that had belonged to my father.”

  “You were a pretty good shot,” I said.

  “I couldn’t hit the side of a barn and you knew it,” she said. “Still we had a lot of wonderful times together, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “I was very attracted to you physically, too, Ralph. You remember.”

  I felt my face warming. “I do. I’m not likely ever to forget it.” I sat down in the chair again. “How do you like working?”

  “Love it. It’s fascinating. You know how I always felt about resort life.”

  “Why don’t you think of hotel work as a career?”

  “I’ve thought of it lots of times. But I can’t leave my mother.”

  “What’s it like working for Raynham?”

  “Wonderful, Ralph. We in the office hardly ever see him. He’s always with some important person or another.” She looked over at me. “I don’t think you like him.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Why? Have you ever met him?”

  “No. But he’s a racketeer.”

  “An ex-racketeer. Don’t you believe people reform?”

  “Sure. But not Raynham.”

  “You sound just like Kirk.”

  “Good.”

  “Have you been brainwashing Kirk at the Academy?”

  “Kirk’s becoming a cop. He’s beginning to learn who are his friends and who are his enemies. Men like Raynham will be his enemies. Which brings us back to the realities. Did Kirk confide in you, Iva?”

  “Yes. I think everything. His plans, his future.”

  “Did you have a fight with him?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No,” she said softly. “We had no fight. Do you think I fight with everybody?”

  “No, I wanted to know if you had a lovers’ spat. It happens often enough. The boy then goes barging out, has a few drinks and drives too fast. Sometimes, in some isolated spot his car goes off the road—” I stopped. “You know what I mean. It happens.”

  “I didn’t even see him this weekend. Kirk and I would never fight. We have an affinity. Neither of us has a father. In fact, our last conversation was very prosaic and down-to-earth. We were talking about Kirk’s graduation from the Academy. In all probability he wouldn’t be assigned to this area. Wherever he went, we would get married, rent a small place and take my mother with us. In the summer when Aunt Beth came I could work. Between us, Kirk and I could save enough in two years to put a down payment on a house and furnish it. All mathematics: probable income, the price of groceries. All very sensible talk and utterly unromantic.” She smiled faintly. “You and I never talked that way, did we? We were always too busy making love.”

  I felt my face flush again. She said quickly, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. But I can’t forget those things so easily.”

  I stood up and walked over to the fireplace. I turned. “Did you know if he had any business with Sal Aguerra?”

  Her lip curled disdainfully. “Hardly.”

  “Do you know anything about a girl named Connie Ossipee?”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “Connie Ossipee.”

  “Constance Ossipee,” she said. “I’ve heard of her. Has she anything to do with Kirk?”

  “Where did you hear of her?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen her name on the payroll of the Mount Puritan.”

  “What does she do?”

  “She’s a waitress. I’ve never met her personally.”

  “What else do you know of her?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know many of the waitresses. Most of the employees live at the dormitory in back of the hotel. I go home nights. What has she to do with Kirk?”

  “Kirk told his mother he had a contact with her.”

  “In what respect?”

  “I don’t know yet. I thought maybe you’d know.”

  “He never said a word to me about it. I can’t believe he’d be interested in another girl.”

  “Not in that respect,” I said. “He did tell his mother he was working on some sort of secret mission.”

  “A what?”

  “An investigation of his own.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m only repeating what Mrs. Chanslor said. I thought you’d confirm it.”

  “Kirk never said a word to me. This wasn’t some kind of undercover work for the State Police?”

  “No. He had no credentials or authority of any kind. Whatever he was doing was on his own.”

  She stared
down at her long polished fingernails. “What does this Connie look like?”

  “I have no idea. When’s the last time you had some sleep, Iva?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been some time.”

  “Go to bed,” I said. I started for the door. She got up from the sofa and came along behind me.

  As I opened the front door, she said, “Ralph?”

  I turned. Her arms came up around my neck and she kissed me full on the mouth.

  “What was that for?” I asked.

  “Don’t misunderstand me,” she said.

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m grateful you’re here. That’s why.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Good night, Iva.”

  I went out of there, limped down the walk and got into my car.

  When I got back to the Middleboro Barracks it was 5:30 A.M. A late patrol was coming in. I went into the dining room for a glass of milk. The two troopers were in there, taking off their white luminous crossbelts and having sandwiches and milk before turning in. I had served with one of them at the Yarmouth substation. We spoke about the town of Sachem and the Mount Puritan Hotel and Kirk Chanslor. Neither of them could give me any more information than I had.

  I went upstairs and got into bed. When I turned off the light it was 6:10 A.M.

  I was dreaming I was in a sailboat and the boom kept swinging around and hitting me on the shoulder. I couldn’t move because one of the lines was caught around my knee. I awakened and opened one eye. Someone was shaking me. The light was on in the room and the glare made me wince. I got up on my elbows and opened the other eye, too. Standing over me was the night duty sergeant, Hyber.

  “Get up, Lindsey,” he said.

  I sat up in the bed, trying to shake the sleep from my eyes, automatically unbuttoning my pajama top. I had been in bed less than an hour.

  “Yes, sir,” I said mechanically. I struggled to stand up. My knee was puffed and stiffened. “What’s up, Sergeant?”

  “Troopers from D2 have found Kirk Chanslor’s car out in the woods.”

  D2 was the Yarmouth Barracks. I shook my head. The fuzz was gone. “What about Chanslor?”

  “No, he wasn’t in it. The car was empty.”

  Chapter 7

  The young morning sun was shining over the tops of the tall pines in back of the parking area as I drove away from the Middleboro Barracks. I sped quickly down Route 28, crossed the canal bridge and turned off onto Route 146. It was a narrow, two-lane, blacktop secondary road which led north of Sachem to the small town of Buford.

  The car had been driven off Route 146 into the underbrush. It had been driven in so hard that the front of the chassis was hung up on a tree stump about twenty feet back of the road.

  The two troopers who had discovered the tire tracks were standing at the edge of the road, talking to the town constable of Buford and waving by an occasional car or farm truck.

  I spoke to them briefly. Then I went into the woods where the car was. Standing near it was the regional State Police detective, Lieutenant Sam Gahagan. I knew him well. We had worked together on cases before. He was a gray, grizzly-haired man, hard-set and of deliberate movements. He grunted something, lifted one eyelid and said, “I heard you were around. Made a good pinch last night.”

  “Hello, Lieutenant,” I said. “It was really Andy Reardon’s work. I helped.” I wanted a cigarette but I held off. Usually nobody smoked at the scene of a crime or accident until the area had been cleared of all evidence.

  “What are you doing away from the Academy?” he asked.

  I told him. When I finished, he grunted and said, “Still there’s no evidence of any crime committed.”

  “No, sir. But we’re anxious to find out about him. He was one of our top students.”

  “That’s the only reason I’m here so early in the morning. Because the boy came from the Academy.” He reached down and pulled up a long stalk of grass. He chewed on it. “But all we have is his car and nothing else.”

  I looked at the green-and-black Ford hardtop. It did not seem to have sustained any damage. A technical sergeant from D Troop was bent down examining the front of it. A police car came down the road and stopped. It was Chief Andy Reardon. I went over and we spoke a few moments. He was carrying some old clothes of Chanslor’s with him.

  Reardon left me and went up to speak with Gahagan. I walked back to the road. A State Police cruiser drove up with a closed dog trailer attached to the back. It stopped. A trooper stepped out. His name was Abruzzi and he was from the Rehoboth Barracks. He opened the back door of the trailer, brought out a bloodhound and put him into the harness. The bloodhound’s name was Lieutenant Bunny. He was a big brown dog with a mournful, wrinkled face. He was six years old and he weighed a hundred and four pounds.

  We moved out of the way. Reardon gave Chanslor’s clothing to Trooper Abruzzi. Abruzzi put the clothing on the ground. The dog strained at the harness, sniffing the clothing, then moving away with his nose very close to the ground. We watched him. He circled rapidly, strained, then circled again. He moved aimlessly from one direction to another. Finally Abruzzi shook his head. The dog could not pick up a scent.

  By ten A.M. the Ford had been towed away to be impounded in the secured-evidence room at the Middleboro Barracks. More troopers arrived and made a search of the woods in the immediate area. Gahagan now sat inside his car, smoking a cigarette and making notes in his book. Then he motioned me over.

  I came up to his car and leaned on the open window. He said, “What have we got? Nothing. The keys were in the ignition of the car. The car was driven into the woods so hard that when it hit the tree stump it stalled. There’s no scent of Chanslor. If the boy drove the car in here by himself we ought to have his scent leading away from here.”

  “You mean somebody else drove the car in here,” I said.

  “Could be. Yet there’s no sign of violence around the car. No blood or anything.”

  “What did the tech sergeant find, Lieutenant?”

  “The car was in gear. Somebody got out of the driver’s seat and trampled the underbrush a little. But no footprints or anything.” He took off his hat and rubbed his moist, grizzled head. “We’ll ask around here and find if anyone was seen walking. It’s a lonely spot, though.”

  “Can I help in any way, Lieutenant?”

  “Well, you want to find Chanslor, don’t you? You know what to do. Go ahead and do it.”

  The Mount Puritan Hotel stood six stories tall in its shiny white paint and coral trim. It was an old hotel with cupolas, domes and bay windows. It stood high on a ledge overlooking Buzzards Bay, its whiteness visible for miles around, with its big American flag flapping in the sea breeze. Outside, parallel with the road, was a high, black, iron rail fence. The entrance was guarded with massive iron gates. A concrete driveway went in through the gates, circled completely around the front and back of the hotel like a huge figure eight and came out again.

  Along the first floor of the hotel was the famous white-pillared veranda. It was three hundred feet long. People sat in old-fashioned wooden rockers. Bellmen in black trousers and short red cadet jackets with gilt buttons moved around on their errands.

  In the parking lot, where I surrendered my car to a uniformed attendant, the cars were mostly long, sleek and expensive, with an occasional racy convertible or foreign sports car.

  I came away from the parking area and mounted the wide, rubber-treaded stairs to the veranda. I crossed it and went in onto the thick red carpeting of the lobby.

  The lobby was huge and cool. In the center was suspended the famous ornate crystal chandelier shining with hundreds of tiny lights, the feature of the hotel’s picture postcards. The other light fixtures were of brightly burnished brass. The woods were deep, rich oaks. The sofas and the lounge chairs were in red plush with white antimacassars on the arms. The draperies were in red velvet with enormous gold tassels. The high ceiling was of mosaic, and the majestic, curving staircase was o
f curlicued dark mahogany. In each corner of the lobby was a tinkling fountain of alabaster cupids and cherubs. This, they said, was the way the Mount Puritan had been back in the 1890’s when it had been built with no regard for expense. In the 1930’s it had gone into bankruptcy and had closed down. Before World War II it had reopened but on a limited basis and with curtailed services. When Chester Raynham took it over, he reconstructed and refurnished it, adding to and embellishing its Victorian style. He had also added a long, wide, blue-tiled swimming pool at the back of the hotel. On the beach below the cliffs were the gaily striped cabanas. And across the road the superb Mount Puritan eighteen-hole golf course was now the scene of many a tournament.

  I walked past the big newsstand with its magazines and books and newspapers from many parts of the country and Canada. Expensive cigars were kept in a glass humidor case. Beside it was another case with neatly stacked decks of playing cards, poker chips, bridge score pads, slim gold pencils, ball-point pens, and several sets of intricately carved ivory chessmen. All this was presided over by a prim, businesslike woman with short gray hair and horn-rimmed glasses. She wore a maroon coat with black piping. A small plastic nameplate over her left breast pocket said Miss Cora Simpson.

  At the far end of the lobby was a high, old-fashioned hotel desk encased in scrolled grillwork. Behind the grill stood several room clerks. In front, on the counter, was the word INFORMATION done in black wrought iron.

  I went up and asked for the office. I was told it was the first door on the right.

  I opened the door and went in. I was in a small waiting room with armchairs of golden oak. On the floor was a square, fringed Oriental rug. Beyond the waiting room was the main office, separated by a low wooden railing and a swinging gate. The office girls sat at small oak desks. Above them were the lighting fixtures that were replicas of old gas lamps. They were of curved brass and each carried three small milk-glass globes.