Death Out of Focus

by William Campbell Gault

“Did she threaten you with that?”

  Dotty took a deep breath and looked at Steve anxiously. “She did. She said if it ever came out, it would ruin me. It could send me to prison. She told me that if I interfered with her — her romance she called it — her affair with my husband, she would tell the police I was with Hart Jameson the night he died.”

  Steve stared. “She — threatened you? My God, did she think Harry was going to marry her?”

  Dotty nodded mutely, her eyes beseechingly on Steve. “The silly little tramp thought Harry would divorce me. Steve, I swear to you Hart Jameson’s death was an accident. He was showing off. He was always showing off.”

  Steve looked at the carpeting and up at Dotty. “You haven’t told the whole truth, Dotty. You’ve admitted Pat threatened you. Well, Morton has already told me that you killed her.”

  “You’re a liar,” she said hoarsely. “You’re trying to trick me. I can have you destroyed, too, Steve. I know about you and Pat Cullum. I can ruin your marriage.”

  Steve shook his head. “Why don’t you come with me to the police? Harry must suspect, too. You claimed to be worried about him, but in reality he was worried about you. He knows, doesn’t he?”

  “I don’t have to listen to any more of this,” she whispered. “Get out of my house.”

  “I’m going. I’m sure the police will listen more politely than you did. Good night, Dotty.”

  He was halfway to the door when she whimpered, “Steve, wait — Steve, please …”

  By the time he got back to the davenport, she had passed out. He went to the phone and called Headquarters. He asked for Sergeant Morrow.

  “Sergeant Morrow is busy at the moment, sir. May I be of help?”

  “No,” Steve answered. “This concerns the murder of the Cullum girl, and I will talk only to Sergeant Morrow. Tell him Steven Leander is on the phone.”

  “One moment, sir.”

  It was a little longer than that before Morrow came on. Steve said, “I want you to try something. I want you to pull in Mitchell Morton and tell him Mrs. Bergdahl has confessed to everything. Tell him there’s no point in his sticking to that ridiculous story of his.”

  “We don’t have to pull him in; he’s down here. What kind of a game are you trying to run now, Leander?”

  “Sergeant, have you considered that all those fingers that pointed at Harry Bergdahl were really only pointing at his house? Get Morton alone and tell him what I’ve told you to, and I guarantee you’ll come up with something solid.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Bergdahl now?”

  “Ten feet from me. Dead drunk and fast asleep. As soon as one of your men gets here to her house, I’ll come down. Don’t let Bergdahl know what you’re questioning Morton about.”

  A silence.

  Steve said, “How much help do you need, Sergeant? Haven’t I given you enough even before tonight?”

  “All right. All right!”

  From the direction of the davenport Dotty Bergdahl moaned in her sleep.

  • • •

  The room was as dreary as the little room in the Hollywood station, but this one was bigger. Harry and Steve sat on chairs against the wall. Dave sat behind the desk.

  Detective Sommers came in to tell them, “I guess you can all go home. That Morton is singing like a parakeet.”

  Harry said gruffly, “Who can believe him? You flat-feet ain’t had enough experience with that bastard? That don’t mean my wife had anything to do with Miss Cullum’s death.”

  Sommers looked at him compassionately. “We don’t need Morton for that, Mr. Bergdahl. We had some prints from the girl’s apartment we’ve been trying to match up.” His voice was lower. “Your wife fills the bill.”

  Harry took a deep breath and stared at the floor. Sommers went out.

  Dave said, “We’d better get home, Uncle Harry. It’s late.”

  Harry nodded, still staring at the floor. “The little bitch. The dirty little bitch.”

  Steve came over to put a hand on his shoulder. “You can always get another wife, Harry. We’ve got more important things to worry about. We’ve got a picture to finish.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT says that he has only one major regret in his life, namely, that he wasn’t born rich in California and an early investor in real estate there. Otherwise his first forty years in Milwaukee were pleasant and the last eight in California even more so. After attending the University of Wisconsin, he engaged in various business enterprises and finally moved to California, where he settled in Pacific Palisades not far from a good country club where he could play golf as often as deadlines on his books would allow. He says that he is a bad golfer and a fair Republican, and leads a very quiet life except for those “mild poker games with other gaming citizens” in his neighborhood. He served in the 166th Infantry and spent most of his military career in Hawaii.

  Mr. Gault has a nine-year-old daughter who is studying the cello and a nineteen-year-old son who is on a four-year General Motors Scholarship at Holy Cross. Recently the family moved to Santa Barbara. He adds that his wife does all the cooking but “helps him with the dishes almost every evening.”

  This is his tenth book, including the Brock (the Rock) Callahan series. His later stories, all placed in the Los Angeles area, shed some new rays of light on the folkways of that region.

  If you liked Death Out of Focus check out:

  Day of the Ram

  one

  THE MAN next to me said, “They should have old Waterbuckets out there. The Bears never gave him any trouble.”

  “The Bears give everybody trouble,” I said.

  “Not Waterbuckets. Not even the Dutchman.” The man shook his head. “This bum Quirk, where’d they pick him up?”

  I didn’t answer. Who wants to argue with a Ram fan? From the other side of me, Jan said, “It’s only an exhibition game. Who cares about exhibition games? Wait’ll the season starts.”

  She’s an expert too, now. Last year she didn’t know a football from a golf ball, but if there’s anything you want to know about the Rams, just ask her. She’s got the answers.

  In case you don’t know about the Rams, Waterbuckets means Bob Waterfield, long since retired, and the Dutchman is Norm Van Brocklin, only recently retired. Great quarterbacks, both of them. And the T-formation without a great quarterback is like a car without a motor; it may look beautiful, but it simply won’t go.

  We were sitting in the Coliseum, Jan and I, on a sun-filled September day, watching the Rams play the Bears. It was the middle of the third quarter and the Rams had just called for a time out, and well they might. For the Bears were leading 24 to 7, and they had a first down on the Ram nineteen-yard line.

  And though the Rams had lost four straight exhibition games, fifty-three thousand people sat in the Coliseum with us, throwing insults at Chicago’s big, bad Bears. How many came because they loved the Rams and how many because they hated the Bears there is no way of knowing. Hatred of the Bears is just a hungover habit from the forties; they’re as clean as any team in the League, today. And cleaner than some I could name, but won’t.

  Time was in again, and the Bears’ great fullback, Dane, was coming around this end on a naked reverse. But Les Richter hadn’t been fooled. They met on the line of scrimmage and a man from Glendale later claimed the impact had cracked a mirror over his mantel. It might have just been a gag, of course.

  In any event, Dane went down and the ball went scooting and Robustelli dove and it was Rams’ ball, first and ten on their own nineteen.

  The man next to me let out a yip and Jan was screaming, “Go, go, go—” but Dane was still on the ground, absolutely motionless.

  A respectful silence; nobody hates the Bears that much. Then Dane moved a leg as the trainer came out, and Dane stirred as the trainer bent over him. And a few seconds after that he was on his feet and being helped off the field, and the stands cheered him lustily. It’s not any one Bear who is hated, you see,
it’s those damned Bears.

  And the man referred to as “that bum Quirk” was trotting out with the Ram offensive platoon.

  And on the first play from his own nineteen, that bum Quirk went back to fling one, fading almost to the goal line. If you follow college ball, you’ll probably wince at that. But this isn’t college ball. This game is played by experts who like the game.

  Quirk faded and Boyd streaked. When he was three steps beyond the safety man, Boyd turned and there was the ball, big as a balloon. And nobody in America is going to catch Boyd from behind.

  And Jan was screaming and pounding my shoulder and I turned to the man next to me and said with quiet dignity, “That bum Quirk looked pretty goddamned good on that one, didn’t he?”

  “Eaaaa,” the man said. “It was Boyd, all Boyd. You got to follow the Rams to understand about that. You follow the Rams?”

  I am a modest man. I merely smiled. But Jan is handy in a spot like that. Jan said coolly, “You are talking to Brock, the Rock, Callahan, mister.”

  The man stared at her and then at me. And then he said, “By God, you are. What are you doing up here? The way the Rams need guards, what are you doing up here?”

  “Enjoying the game,” I said. “My playing days are behind me.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I remember. You’re a cop or something now, right?” You helped nail those two hot-rod hoodlums, right?”

  “Right as rain,” I agreed, and handed him my card. “Any time you need discreet investigation at moderate rates, I hope you’ll remember me.”

  He shook his head and smiled. “The Rock? Who’ll ever forget the Rock?”

  I tried not to look smug and Jan chuckled. Les Richter kicked the point-try and the score was 24 to 14, favor of the Bears.

  And there were still six minutes to go in the third quarter. I played against the Packers in Milwaukee one Sunday afternoon, when they had us 28 to 6 with twelve minutes to go. And then old Waterbuckets came in and tossed us to a 30 to 28 victory in those twelve minutes. I remember how those fans in Milwaukee sat in the stadium long after we were in the dressing room, refusing to believe what they had just seen.

  And this sunny day, Quirk made like Waterfield. He came into his own that afternoon. At the end of the third quarter it was 24 to 21; Deacon Dan Towler had gone fifty yards to pay dirt on a fullback swingout.

  And you could almost feel it way up there in the stands; Quirk had taken command. This was his ball game and it would go the way he willed it.

  On the sidelines, the Bears’ immortal George Halas sensed it, too, I’ll bet. He was screaming at the officials and scowling at his boys, putting on a Halas side show that beats anything I’ve ever seen at a college game between the halves.

  Quirk went back and the pass patterns unfolded and the Rams could do nothing wrong that last quarter. And watching them, the new ones, the young ones, the eager ones, I saw some ghosts among them, ghosts who were probably now sitting in the stands, getting fat.

  I saw Crazylegs and the Tanker and Long Tom Fears. I saw Waterfield and Mr. Outside and Night Train. We’d had a team, and this was going to be another one, with Quirk finally finding himself.

  The man next to me said, “Okay, I’ve been wrong before. That Quirk’s going to be one of the great ones, isn’t he?”

  “You can make book on it,” I said.

  There may have been exhibitions to match Quirk’s that afternoon, but I’ve never seen any. The Rams didn’t punt once after that third quarter touchdown pass of his. Every time they were on the offensive, they moved the ball. In the last twenty-two minutes of the game, Quirk tried twenty-three passes. And completed twenty-one.

  Even Halas subsided, standing quietly on the sidelines, knowing he was watching history being made. A quiet Halas; that, too, was history.

  And then, on the last play of the game, as Quirk went back to throw another one, just for kicks, from his own eighteen, an enraged Bear line broke through the cup.

  He’ll get his lumps now, I thought. He’ll get a present to take back to the locker room.

  I was wrong. Quirk ran laterally, faking two tacklers right out of their socks. And then he cut sharply upfield.

  And ran, untouched, eighty-two yards to the score.

  And Les Richter kicked the point that made it 56 and that was the final, 56 to 24, Rams on top.

  The screams had died, and in the great silence, as we all sat there still lost in the magic of it, Jan said, “The day of the Ram.”

  The man next to me frowned. “What’s with her?”

  “You’ve got me, mister,” I answered. “She’s kind of erudite.”

  “I was thinking of Quirk,” Jan said. “His day, wasn’t it? He’ll never have a better one.”

  “That figures,” my neighbor said. “You must have followed these Rams a long time, eh, lady?”

  “For weeks,” I said, and stood up. “God help the Forty-niners, huh?”

  “God help ‘em,” my neighbor said solemnly. “This is our year.”

  Fifty-three thousand people filing out of the Coliseum, and it’s usually noisy with chatter after a game. But today there was an unusual silence. It seemed to be an awed crowd.

  And an anticipatory one; the Rams had been weak only at quarterback, but that’s your team in the T. And now they had another great one, and God help the Forty-niners. And also the Packers and the Lions and the Colts and any Eastern Division teams who had been unfortunate enough to schedule them this year.

  We were going down the ramp when Jan said, “He was like a god, like something from another world. He overshadowed this whole damned Coliseum. Where’s he from?”

  “Beverly Hills,” I said. “And Princeton. Rich kid.”

  “Rich? And why should he play professional football, if he’s so rich?”

  I didn’t answer.

  About twenty seconds, and she said, “Golly, that was a dumb question, wasn’t it? After what I saw today. The richest man in the world never had a day like that, did he?”

  I shrugged. “It depends on what you want, I suppose. Tommy Manville has probably had some fine days in his career.”

  “You’re being vulgar again,” she said. Again I said nothing.

  I opened the door of my flivver for her and then went around to climb in behind the wheel. I turned the radio on and sat back. I wasn’t about to buck that traffic for half an hour.

  Jan lighted a cigarette and asked softly, “Do you miss it, Brock?”

  “Mmmmmm—No. No, not really. It’s a rough grind, kid, from Redlands in July to the Pro Bowl game in January. And guards don’t get the—adulation that backs do. No, I don’t miss it.”

  “You’re lying,” she said, “but I suppose it’s only rationalization. You’re over the hump, aren’t you? And that knee—”

  “The knee doesn’t bother me much. How’s business?”

  “In a lull. Don’t change the subject.”

  “I’m over the hump,” I said. “My business is in a lull, too.”

  “No Glenys Christophers have dropped in?”

  That was my first case, and if you want to read about it, the book’s still available. I said, “Nobody has dropped in for two weeks. But the rent’s reasonable, considering the location.”

  “Couldn’t you wrestle or box or something?”

  I turned to stare at her. “I couldn’t box and I wouldn’t wrestle. Why? What’s with you, as the man said?”

  “That man, that god, that Quirk—the way they all screamed his name. After you’ve once known that, how can you desert it?”

  “I never knew it, honey. If I’m real lucky and the man opposite me is temporarily asleep, I might get him out of the way. And in doing that, I might make a little hole. And if the back is fast enough and the secondary is taken care of, he might go through that little hole to six big points. And he will be a hero, but who will think of Brock Callahan, who made the little hole?”

  “That man next to you remembered you. I meet people every d
ay who remember you.”

  “Not every day.”

  “Well, quite often. And you don’t smoke and you drink only beer, mostly. I mean—what are you saving yourself for?”

  I smirked. “I have some insatiable lady friends.”

  Silence, while she glared at me. The radio played “Let Me Go, Lover” and I had a feeling Jan might let one go from left field. She has before.

  I said quietly, “I apologize. But, kid, get off my back.”

  “I apologize, too,” she said. “I’m—still all wound up, I guess. Childish, isn’t it? I see what the sports writers mean now by ‘autumn madness,’ though. It’s a fascinating game, isn’t it? It has grace and courage and quickness and cunning and a hundred minor miracles. It’s …”

  It’s a lot of things she didn’t know about and never would. It’s drill, drill, drill until you want to turn in your suit. And it’s a knee in the groin and the cleated foot in the teeth and vicious sports writers and only average pay, too. It’s a lot of things you don’t see on Sunday afternoons from the stands.

  Traffic was thinning out; I started the motor of the flivver and eased out into the traffic on Vermont. The Sunday drivers were out in full force and the going was slow.

  The radio was giving the score of the Ram-Bear game now. And then the other scores. The Giants had beaten the Eagles. The revitalized Packers were going strong; they’d won their fifth straight exhibition game, walloping the Cardinals 38 to 10. Under Blackburn, the Packers could come back to glory.

  In the old days this had been a three-team league: the Packers, the Bears and the Giants. They won all the titles; there were teams in the league who hadn’t beat the Packers once in twenty years. And then the Lions and the Browns and the Forty-niners and the Rams had come to power and any one game was a toss-up.

  And a quarterback like Johnny Quirk could take the Rams from door-mat status to a title. This would be the year of the Ram.

  “You certainly look smug and happy,” Jan said. “Business in a lull and us in a traffic jam—what makes you so happy?”

  “Johnny Quirk.”