Death Claims: A Dave Bran[d]stetter Mystery

by Joseph Hansen

  Out in the shop the cash register jingled and clunked. Voices crossed each other with thanks and good-nights. Footsteps scuffled. The door opened and closed. Norwood's ladylike baritone said something about being sorry. The door opened and closed again. And this time Dave heard the snap of a spring lock. He glanced at his watch. Not seven yet and the lettering on the shop door said it was open till nine. He laid the booklist down, folded away his horn rims, and both of them came in.

  Eve picked up the glasses and handed them to Norwood, who took them to the shadowy desk and rattled bottles there. She sat on the edge of the chair opposite Dave and held tight to the arms. She held tight to her voice too. "Now, what's this about Peter"—his wording escaped her—"sacrificing himself for someone? Who? Why? Why in the world? Oh, I don't mean it's not like him. He'd have done it for his father. But their love—"

  "You told me," Dave said. "Now let me tell you." He was tired of going over it. But he went over it. He didn't skip details. Some of them made her flinch. When Norwood set a new martini in front of her she grabbed for it. The glass was stocky and tough. It needed to be. She clutched it so hard her knuckles showed white. She was white around the mouth. Dave told her about the phone call and came to the end.

  "It's a nice place, five miles back through the mountains off the coast road. Just north of Las Cruces. A little valley all to itself. His car was in the yard. No mistaking that car. A Lotus. Bright yellow." Norwood got up and moved into the dark. Dave said, "It gets washed, but only by hand and not under the fenders." A desk drawer opened and shut with a loose rattle. "I checked under the fenders. Caked with white sand." Norwood walked out into the shop. Dave said, "That car was in Arena Blanca the night John Oats was drowned.'' The shop door opened and closed. "A rainy night. The only rainy night we've had. And Wade Cochran is a big man and a strong swimmer." In the alley under the window a car door slammed, an engine thrashed into life. Dave stubbed out his cigarette, stood. "Now—how do I reach that lawyer?"

  He was a soft, silver-haired man of seventy in an expensive shantung suit and a hand-stitched Irish linen shirt with a roll collar and deep cuffs linked by silver gavels. The carefully tended hands that came out of the cuffs were folded in front of him on the long tan steel table in the tan-walled interrogation room of the El Molino Police Department. Beside the hands a soft black hat and light black topcoat lay over a black cowhide attache case. The man's name was Irving Blau. His voice rustled like dry leaves.

  "You weren't there?"

  Peter Oats said, "No. He's got nothing to do with this. Yes, he came to Lorenzaccio. Yes, we went to dinner. Yes, we went to that motel." The brown eyes pleaded. "To talk. Only to talk. He's making a picture. It's kind of a secret project. Not like what he usually does. Not a Western. Religious. About the life of Saint Paul. He thought I could do the part. But that's nothing personal. That's business. He's got nothing to do with this."

  "This is your father's writing, isn't it?" Dave pushed the yellow card across the table. "Why did he write your name down with Wade Cochran's phone number?"

  "Because—because—I thought I was going there. I mean, Wade, Mr. Cochran, talked about having me up there. But he changed his plans. I never went."

  "Where did you go?" Blau asked. "That can't be an important secret now, can it?"

  "I don't want to get anyone in trouble."

  "You've already done that," Dave said.

  "I don't want to talk about it. Only just leave Wade alone. Leave him alone. He didn't do anything. I did it." The boy's fists clenched on his knees. "How many times do I have to tell you? I did it. Leave him out of it."

  "He took a call from your father when your father was desperate for money to buy illegal morphine. He left the ranch right after that call. The sand under the fenders proves he drove to Arena Blanca. He'd only have done that if your father was able to threaten him with something. I've already said what I think that something was. A charge of homosexuality wouldn't harm a lot of actors. Not these days. But it would sure as hell harm Wade Cochran—to understate the case."

  "You've got a rotten mind!" the boy shouted.

  The door opened. Johnson, the bulky young officer with the close crew cut, looked in, scowling, "Everything all right in here?"

  "Excuse us," Blau said.

  Johnson glared at the boy. "Keep it down, Oats." He pulled his head out and shut the door again.

  Dave said, "Bob Whittington made a pass at you. You turned him down. But for other reasons. Not because you were straight. He asked you and you told him—you weren't straight. I imagine if I asked around among the boys at that theatre I could get confirmation. Couldn't I get confirmation?"

  Peter swung out of the chair and stood with his back to them, hands on the sill of the dark window. "It doesn't mean anything about Wade."

  "He thought it meant something," Blau said in his gentle old man's voice. "He didn't go to Arena Blanca and kill a man because it didn't mean anything."

  "You'd told your father you were homosexual," Dave said. "Isn't that right? That was why you parted on bad terms, why he drank that night, why he refused to tell April the reason you'd left."

  "He hated what he called fags," Peter said in a dead voice. "He was always joking about them. Bad jokes. For a long time I didn't know why. Then, when I got older, I saw it was to get at Charles. It always made Charles uncomfortable. I think Charles was in love with my father. Much good it ever did him."

  "Norwood," Dave told Blau. "The partner."

  Peter's voice came bleak off the window glass. "I was slow finding out about myself. It didn't happen till-what?-a year, fourteen months ago. I was trying to work out a way to tell him when he had the accident and everything fell apart for him. I couldn't add that, knowing how he felt about it. But then there was April, somebody who loved him, somebody he could love."

  "Which let you off the hook when Cochran came along and you wanted to go live with him."

  "No!" The boy whirled, bent forward, fingers digging into his thighs, mouth twisting. "No. Wade isn't that way. You've got to believe me. Don't do anything to him. Oh, God, can't you see? If he did go to Arena Blanca, he didn't kill him. I killed him. For just what you said. I went to see him and he told me he was going to change his life insurance."

  Dave shook his head. "The first you heard about that was after I'd been to see Cochran. He gave you the story just the way I'd given it to him."

  ''No. I wasn't there." Peter came to the table, leaned on it, leaned at them, veins standing out in his temples, his smooth brown throat. "Please. Promise me you'll leave Wade out of this. Forget him. Please. Why should he be hurt for nothing?" He looked at Dave. "You said it. He could be wrecked, he could lose everything. Why should he? He didn't do anything wrong. He couldn't do anything wrong. You don't know him."

  "You talk like his mother," Dave said. "Peter—he had a very powerful motive. He killed your father. It took him forty-five, fifty minutes to reach Arena Blanca from the ranch. That put him there no earlier than six. It had been dark a half-hour by then. Longer because it was raining. Why he'd do it I don't know, but he had supper with your father. Two men-one highball. He doesn't drink. He keeps a clear head. It was thoughtful of him to pick up your guitar for you while he was there. A true friend."

  "He didn't." Peter's fist came down on the table. "I never—" He bit his lip.

  "Never what?" Blau wondered tenderly. "Never got the guitar? Well"—he pushed back his chair and stood—"it will turn up. Someplace at that ranch. The Sheriffs men will find it."

  "No," the boy begged. "Don't send them there. Don't mess him up. I did it." Tears ran down his face. He stretched out trembling hands. His voice cracked. "Please! I did it."

  "Then you know where the guitar is," Blau said with a quiet smile. "Where is it, Peter?"

  The boy only stared.

  22

  HE SWUNG off Western onto Yucca. Tree-shadowy. Cars darkly asleep at curbs and in the driveways of old frame houses where the lights were dimmed
for television watching. A cat scuttled across the street on white paws and disappeared through a hedge. A lame old woman with a scarf tied over her hair dragged a wooden shopping cart on squeaky wheels along the cracked sidewalk, coming from a nearby all-night market. In the next block a thin man with a jacket hung over his shoulders held a leash while a dachshund sniffed the tarred base of a telephone pole.

  Dave halted for the red tin sign at Harvard and smiled. Not much of a smile, but heartfelt. Home. Blau would handle the rest and handle it right. He could forget it. And sleep. Last night, in that white room at Madge's with the slow surf sighing under the windows, he'd got less sleep than sex. It had been good again, loving and easy, after weeks of not being good. But it had left him tired. Doug was still at Madge's, but she had a houseful of people coming tonight and Dave didn't want to cope. He touched the throttle, pulled the wheel left. He'd phone Doug as soon as he got in the back door. Then he'd hit that doomed bed and—

  He tramped the brake, killed the motor, stared. Up the street, black-and-white cars stood at angles. On their tops, red lights flared, faded, flared. In the bloody pulsing of the lights, dark uniforms moved. Across the street, kids, shirt-sleeved men, women in curlers gaped. Dave woke the engine, jerked the car to a curb where mustard sprouted tall in a vacant lot. He got out of the car while it still rocked. The nearest officer looked about sixteen, very blond. He leaned into a patrol car whose radio droned loud in a flat female voice. He hung a dashboard microphone back on its hook.

  Dave asked him, "What's going on?"

  The boy didn't look at him. He waved a hand. "Stand over there, please." He started to walk off.

  "That's my house," Dave said.

  The boy turned back, frowning. "Let me see your identification." Dave found his wallet, slipped out of its plastic folder his driver's license, handed it to the boy. The boy tipped it to catch the greenish glare from the streetlight at the corner. He read it attentively, handed it back. His look was grim. "Where have you been?"

  "Out of town. Now, will you tell me—"

  One of the cars shifted position and the boy tugged Dave's sleeve to draw him out of the way. Two black officers were in the car. The one at the wheel backed it fast with a ripping sound from the transmission. When it was out of the way Dave saw the yellow Lotus. Parked directly in front of the house. Its curbside door hung open and by it squatted a muscular gray-haired man with a broken nose. He was talking to someone in the car. Dave couldn't see who it was. The headrest on the bucket seat was too high. But he knew the man.

  "Ken Barker," he said. "Is he in charge?"

  "He'll want to talk to you. Lieutenant?"

  Barker squinted into the beating red lights. He stood, spoke again to the one in the car, stepped into the street. "Dave." He shook hands, but he didn't smile. "What did Wade Cochran want with you?"

  "I'd only be guessing. That's his car. Isn't he in it? Ask him."

  "He isn't in it. He's on your doorstep. Dead.''

  Dave felt punched in the stomach. He swung to stare at the house. Headlights glared across the ground cedar, dyeing it too green, lit up the new FOR SALE sign on its iron stem and threw hard against the front door the shadow of a uniformed officer with his head bowed. The thing at his feet wore a fringed buckskin jacket and its face was a wet glister of crimson.

  "Shot three times," Baker said. "The weapon was smallcaliber, but the range was close. Why, Dave?"

  Dave gave him a frail smile. "For our sins, Ken." He looked at the Lotus. "He brought his mother, right?"

  Barker nodded. "But she can't tell us anything. She's blind. Cochran got out of the car. She heard him go up the walk. He's wearing cowboy boots. This is a quiet street. She heard your door buzzer. Then another car pulled up, the door slammed, feet ran up the walk. Cochran said, "No," just once. The gun went off three times. The killer ran back to his car and drove away. The old lady leaned on the horn. Couple neighbors came. They phoned us." Barker checked his watch. "Twenty minutes ago. She could be away from here by now. She won't budge. She wants to talk to you. Said she'd wait all night if necessary."

  She sat stiff-backed, stoic, used to pain, stronger than pain. What ought to have been under her was a buckboard seat. Her raw dignity made the car's padded leather, glittering dials and gauges, sleek curve of windshield look ridiculous. Dave crouched in the ground cedar, touched her, told her who he was.

  She turned. "You got here."

  "Too late," he said. "I'm sorry."

  "Not your fault. He wanted to phone ahead. I said no phoning. We'll go. They listen in on phones all the time these days. We'll talk to him face to face." She lifted her head. "Barker, you still there?"

  "Yes, ma'am." He stood behind Dave.

  "Well, go away. Find my son's killer."

  "Everyone's looking for him," Barker said. "I have to hear what you're going to say."

  "All you have to hear is that killer's name and I don't know it." Her gnarled hand caught Dave's. "You get into this car."

  Dave stood and looked at Barker. A nerve twitched in Barker's face, but he didn't speak. He looked stonily at Dave. His gunmetal eyes said, You'll tell me later. Dave didn't nod. He held Barker's look for a slow count of three. Barker could make whatever he wanted out of that. Dave went around and got behind the wheel of the Lotus. His door fell shut. He reached across and shut her door.

  "This can't be kept quiet," he said. "There'll be newsmen here in five minutes."

  "What I've got to say can be kept quiet," she said.

  "Maybe. I don't need to ask why he came. He came because you made him come. What was he going to tell me?"

  "That the boy didn't kill his father." She stared straight ahead at nothing. The red lights winked off the flat black of the glasses. "He was up at the lodge."

  "But Wade wasn't. He went to Arena Blanca."

  "Prepared to pay," she said. "There's stairs. He climbed them. It was cold and raining, but the door was open. He looked inside. The lights was on. Plates on the table, meal just et. Coffee still steaming in the cups. Cigarette smoking in the ashtray. But nobody there. He called out, but nobody come. Well, I trained him better than to go into somebody's place when they're not home. He went down and waited in the car. But not for long. Afraid he'd be seen. He come back to the ranch.

  "And rode up to the lodge. The boy was there, but Wade didn't tell him where he'd been and why. It was like you claimed it was between them. Love, you called it. I can't accept that. Bible doesn't and I can't. Lived my whole life by the Word of God. Raised him by it. He knew better, knew he was in the wrongotherwise he'd have spoke to me about it. But that's not here nor there now.

  "What is, is that this man John Oats says his son told him he was going to live with Wade and why—just like you guessed. Threatened to tell. Unless Wade brought him money. Wade was sure the boy never knew his father was a dope fiend." She gave a little dry laugh that had only despair in it. "Like you said about me. Love don't let you doubt. Believeth all things. First Corinthians, thirteen, seven."

  "I think he was right. The boy didn't know."

  "Mebbe." She clipped the word short. "I can't like him. You can't ask me to like him. My son was all right till he come along. He was fine. Just fine. The whole world thought so." Her voice trembled and went old-woman thin. "And now look what's happened. Look how it's ended."

  "The boy tried to save him," Dave said.

  "Because it was his fault and he knew it. He thought Wade had killed his father. Oh, yes." Her smile was crooked, triumphant. "If it was love, it ended right then and there. The day you first come to the ranch. Wade sized you up. You wouldn't stop till you found that boy. And tracking him, you'd find where they ate, that motel where they lay together in abomination. You didn't say anything about the dope, the blackmail, but you'd find out about them too. And come back."

  "He could have washed under those fenders."

  Curt headshake. "That wouldn't have stopped you. Not once you learned about the phone call from John Oats.
He didn't know where to turn. Every time he'd had trouble in his life before, there'd been his mother to talk to. He couldn't talk to me about this. The boy was all he had. And the boy thought he did it. But"—the twist of her smile was bitter—"he couldn't let Wade take the blame. Not seeing he'd brought the trouble. He'd take the blame. There was no point in living now, anyways."

  "And Wade would have let him," Dave said. "If it hadn't been for you, Wade would have let him go straight to the gas chamber."

  "But the boy was wrong!" Her cry had a crow's harshness. "Wade didn't do it. You know that now. Somebody else did it. The same one that shot Wade."

  "Right." Dave found the door handle, lifted it, pushed the door open. "The same one."

  With a low siren moan, an ambulance edged its way around the cluster of black-and-white cars. It was a tall brown carryall. On its roof a wan orange light revolved under a plastic blister. The machine tilted clumsily into the driveway, followed by an unmarked car with a whip antenna. Men in white jumped down from the ambulance cab and in the headlight beams of the second car opened the rear doors to slide out an aluminum-tubing stretcher and a bulky fold of gray plastic, a sack for the dead. They headed for the front door. From the unmarked car a roundshouldered man with a small black grip trudged after them— Grace of the coroner's office. From the same car two.men followed, trampling the ground cedar, carrying camera, lights and glittering, spidery tripods.

  Dave got out of the Lotus, then turned back, bent, poked his head inside. "You said he was afraid he'd be seen. That night in the rain at Arena Blanca."

  "He wasn't," she said. "He told me he wasn't."

  "He was," Dave said. "Shall I phone Katy for you?"

  She set her jaw. "I'll stay here with my son."

  But she wouldn't. As he straightened, Dave saw a mannish young woman in trim uniform get out of a newly arrived patrol car. She came toward the Lotus with a look of gentle firmness. Dave shut the door and glanced around for Barker. The white flashes of the cameraman's strobes outlined him, near the body, watching the crouched doctor. Dave started toward him, then halted. To hell with him. He didn't have jurisdiction in El Molino. He could wait. Dave made for his car.