Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe 44

by Death of a Dude

  “Right. You saw Harvey yesterday?”

  She nodded. “For half an hour. That’s all Morley Haight would allow. I’ve known that man—Someone ought to pin his ears back. Maybe me.”

  “I’ll help. Anything from Harvey?”

  “No. Nothing but more of the same.”

  I shook my head. “I want to ask you something. I told Lily today that she might ask Dawson if there’s a good private detective in Helena. Product of Montana. People might tell him things they won’t tell me. What do you think?”

  “That’s funny,” she said.

  “Funny how?”

  “Two people have had the same idea. Flora and a friend of mine you don’t know. I asked Harvey yesterday what he thought, and he said no. He said there wouldn’t be any detective in Helena half as good as you, and anyway Dawson thinks he shot that man, and so would anybody he got. Everyone around here does, you know that.”

  “Not everyone. Not the man that shot him. Okay, skip it for now. You said you want to talk.”

  She looked at her daughter. “You’re not my little heifer now, you’ve dropped a calf. I can’t shoo you out.” She stood up and said to me, “If you will please, we’ll go outdoors.”

  Alma rose, thought she was going to say something but decided not to, headed for the door, and was gone. When she was out Carol went and shut the door, came back and sat at the end of the couch, closer to me, and said, “You could be right about her, but maybe not. She ought to know her father, but maybe she doesn’t because he is her father. I can remember, I thought I knew mine when I was nineteen, but I didn’t. I didn’t find out until—To hell with it, that trail’s grown over. What I wanted to tell you, I had an idea, but I’m not saying it’s any good.”

  “Even a bad idea would be welcome.”

  “It’s that couple at Bill Farnham’s. Not the pair from Denver, that doctor and his wife from Seattle. Didn’t I hear you say he’s a doctor?”

  I nodded. “Robert C. Amory, M.D., and his wife Beatrice.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Oh, around forty.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “Five feet six, hundred and twenty pounds. Fairly lookable. Hair dyed red, and I doubt if she brought a supply along. Tries to pretend she likes it here, but she came only because he needed to get away from the grind and he loves to ride and fish.”

  “What’s he like? If that Brodell laid her and he found out, what would he do?”

  “Brodell would have had to move fast. He had only been here three days.”

  “We’ve got a bull that doesn’t even need one day.”

  “Yeah, I’ve met that bull, as you know. Brodell wasn’t that type, but I admit it’s possible. I also admit that I had that idea Tuesday, four days ago, and I asked some questions that Bill Farnham resented. I got a couple of facts that didn’t hurt, but they didn’t prove anything. One, Dr. Amory has no alibi for that Thursday afternoon because he was upriver alone, and two, he can’t shoot worth a damn. I was hoping for a fact with juice in it, for instance that he had taken a gun along that day in case he met a bear, but Farnham said no.”

  “Of course he said no. He wouldn’t want one of his dudes corralled for murder.”

  “Sure. I’m just telling you what he said. As for believing him, I believe damn little of what a lot of people have told me the last six days. Even you. You told me day before yesterday that you never saw Philip Brodell. Do I have to believe that?”

  “It’s true.”

  “He was here six weeks last summer. Just four miles from this spot.”

  “It might have been four hundred miles. I wish it was. Bill Farnham has a dude ranch and this is a working ranch, and Harvey and Bill have had some words, you know that. You were here the time a few cattle found a bad spot in the fence and made it to the woods and one of his dudes shot a steer. We don’t visit. The only way I know Alma met that Brodell at a dance at the hall, that’s what she told me. She never mentioned him once last year, but if you don’t want to believe I never saw him it’s your rope. Are you quitting on that doctor?”

  “I’m not quitting on anybody. The only reason you’re not on the list is that it wouldn’t help any to tie it on you. Trading you for Harvey would be no improvement, even if you would shoot a man in the back.”

  “If I did I wouldn’t hit him in the shoulder.”

  “Unless you wanted to.” Our eyes were meeting. “I don’t think I’ve asked you, have I?”

  “Asked me what?”

  “If you shot him.”

  “Nope. Twice. You haven’t asked me and I didn’t shoot him. You must be awful hard up for a meld.”

  “Certainly I am. You know I am. But I’m not just talking to hear myself. Let’s see if we agree on a couple of points—three points. First, you’re not Harvey, you’re you, and you’re a woman, and you might shoot a man in the back. Second, you’re a good shot, and the bullet would go within half an inch of where you wanted it.”

  “Not half an inch. It would go where I wanted it.”

  “Okay. Now the third point. A lot of people, probably including Haight and Jessup, are saying that Harvey got him in the shoulder to turn him around, and then in the neck because everyone knows he can shoot and he wanted it to look as if the man who did it couldn’t shoot. The trouble with that is that Harvey simply hasn’t got that kind of a dodge in him. Granting that he would shoot him in the back at all, which I don’t, it would never enter his mind to kink it like that. But your mind is different. It would enter your mind. Do you agree on the three points?”

  A corner of her mouth was twisted up. “Lily,” she said.

  “What about Lily?”

  “She thinks I shot him, huh?”

  “If she does she hasn’t said so. This is just you and me. Even if Lily thinks that and has told me so, I do my own thinking. Do we agree on the three points?”

  The corner of her mouth stayed up. “Suppose I say yes, then what? You said yourself that trading me for Harvey would be no improvement. Maybe you didn’t mean it?”

  “Certainly I meant it. It’s obvious. But I asked Alma to do some supposing, and now I ask you to do some. Suppose you shot him, but I go on as if you didn’t. In that case, where am I? I can’t dig up evidence that would pin it on somebody else, because there isn’t any. I’m hog-tied, and anything and everything I do will be crap. But if I knew you shot him maybe I could do something that wouldn’t be crap. I’ve had some experience helping with tough problems, and I have been known to come up with an idea now and then. Strictly between you and me, let’s talk turkey.”

  Her look was a squint, the squint that had made the wrinkles. She said, just stating a fact, “So you do think I shot him.”

  “I do not. I only realize it’s possible. Alma’s saying you were both here all afternoon that day doesn’t prove anything, because of course she would say that. I admit you would be a damn fool to tell me you shot him if there was the slightest chance that I would pass it on, and I guess you don’t know me well enough to be dead sure of me. There are a few people in New York who do, nobody here does except maybe Harvey. As you know, I can’t get to him. If you tell him that I’ll give you my word that I’ll pass it on to no one, not even Lily, no matter what happens, I think he would tell you to open up.”

  “So you’re sure I shot him.”

  “Damn it, I am not! But I’m hobbled and I’ve got to know. Don’t you see the fix I’m in?”

  “Yeah. I see. Well …” She looked around. “We haven’t got a Bible.” She got up and sent her eyes around again, and crossed to a corner where a saddle, not much used, hung on a wooden peg. “You know about this saddle,” she said.

  I nodded. “A hand-made Quantrell, with silver stirrups and rivets and studs, and you won it at Pen-dleton in nineteen forty-seven.”

  “I sure did. My biggest day, that was.” She cupped her palm over the horn and aimed her eyes at me. “If I shot that Brodell toad may this saddle mold up and rot and
stink and get maggots, so help me God.” She turned to pat the cantle and back to me. “Is that good enough?”

  “I wouldn’t ask for any better.” I was on my feet. “All right, you’re out, we cross you off, and it’s a job. Tell Harvey I hope I’m as good as he thinks I am. I’ll need to be.” I pointed. “The tobacco is for Mel and the fly swatters are for Pete. I won’t wait until they come in because I want to take a look at something. You heard what I said to Alma?”

  “Most of it.”

  “She was here with you that afternoon? All of it?”

  “I’ve told you, yes.”

  “And Gil Haight wasn’t here?”

  “I’ve told you, no.”

  I started out, turned, and said, “Still on the saddle.”

  “It’s still yes and no,” she said.

  Chapter 3

  If the way I spent the next three hours seems not very brilliant, I haven’t made it clear enough how tough the situation was. I went to have a look at the scene of the crime.

  The road from Lame Horse to the turnoffs to the Bar JR Ranch and Lily’s cabin doesn’t stop there. It keeps going for three more miles and stops for good at the Fishtail River, and there, on the right, is Bill Farnham’s dude ranch. It’s small compared with some, and deluxe compared with almost any—not counting Lily’s cabin. Farnham’s limit is six dudes at a time, and a few days before Brodell was killed a guy from Spokane had broken an arm and gone home, so now there were only four—Dr. and Mrs. Amory and the pair from Denver. There was no Mrs. Farnham, and for help there was a female cook, a girl who did the house chores, and two wranglers named Bert Magee and Sam Peacock. There were no dude cabins and only one building of any size, a combo of log and frame with ells in the middle and at the ends, taking about half an acre. The barn and corrals were away from the river, beyond a stand of jack pine.

  When I stopped the car between a couple of big firs and got out there was no one in sight, and around at the river side of the house, where there were chairs and tables on a carpet of needles, still no one; but when I crossed to the screen door and sang out, “Anybody home?” a voice told me to come in and I entered. The room was about half the size of the big room in Lily’s cabin, and on a rug in the middle of it a woman with red hair was stretched out on her back with her head propped on a stack of cushions. As I approached she tossed a magazine aside, said, “I recognized your voice,” and patted her mouth for a yawn.

  I stopped a polite four paces short and said I hoped I hadn’t disturbed a nap. She said no, she did her sleeping at night, and added, “Don’t mind it, please, I’m too lazy to pull down my skirt. I hate pants.” She patted a yawn. “If you didn’t come to see me you’re out of luck. They all left at dawn to ford the river and ride up the mountain to try to see some elk, and there’s no telling when they’ll get back. Are you still—uh, well—trying to get your friend out of jail?”

  “Just for something to do. Shall I pull the skirt down?”

  “Don’t bother. If you came to see me I can’t imagine what for, but here I am.”

  I smiled down at her to show I appreciated the chitchat. “Actually, Mrs. Amory, I didn’t come to see anyone. I only wanted to tell Bill that I’m leaving the car here to go for a look at Blue Grouse Ridge. If he comes before I do, tell him, will you?”

  “Of course, but he won’t.” She brushed a strand of the red hair back from her temple. “That’s where it happened, isn’t it?”

  I said yes and turned to go, but turned back to her voice. “I guess you know I’m the only one here that’s rooting for you. They all think he—I forget his name—”

  “Greve. Harvey Greve.”

  She nodded. “They all think he did it. I know an intelligent man when I see one, and I think you’re one, and I bet you know what you’re doing. Good luck.”

  I thanked her and went.

  I knew Blue Grouse Ridge because it was the best place around for huckleberries, and Lily and I had been there often—sometimes for berries and sometimes for young blue grouse which, about ten weeks old and grubbed almost exclusively on berries, were as good eating as anything Fritz had ever served. Of course it was against the law to take them, so of course we didn’t overdo it. We had gone to the ridge, for berries, not blue grouse, just two days before Brodell was killed, with Diana Kadany and Wade Worthy.

  I could have got there cross-country from the Bar JR or the cabin, but it was twice as far and rough going part of the way. From Farnham’s it was only a mile or so with no hard climbing. Beyond the barn and corrals there was a close stand of firs on a down slope with no windfalls, and thick soft duff underfoot, then a rocky stretch I had to zigzag through, and then a big field of bear grass up the slope of the ridge. The bear grass, dry and tough in August, slowed me down, trying to tangle my legs. When I was through it, fifty yards or so short of the crest, I turned left and went parallel with the ridge, looking for signs—trampling of feet or brush cleared, anything. I am no mountain tracker, but certainly there would be something that would show even a dude where enough men had come to pack out a two-legged carcass. But the first sign that placed it for me was one that could have been anywhere on earth, as good on Herald Square as on Blue Grouse Ridge—blood. There was a blotch of it, or what had been left of it by the tongue of some animal, on the surface of a boulder, and a narrow ribbon of it down the boulder to the lower edge. At the upper edge of the boulder there was a big clump of berry bushes, so he had been standing there picking berries when the bullet came from behind.

  Having seen the blood first, I then saw a lot of other signs which a native would probably have seen first: twigs and branches of bushes, including huckleberries, twisted and broken, rocks that had recently been moved, paintbrush trampled, and so on. Feet and hands had been busy all around, even up above the boulder, and that must have been in a search for the bullets. Having detected that, I turned to face downhill to consider the detail that I was most interested in, cover for the approach. There was nothing much within a hundred feet but berry bushes and boulders, with a scattering of paintbrush and other small stuff, but beyond there was higher growth and trees. It would have been a cinch for even a New York character like me to get within forty yards of the target, let alone a man who knew how to stalk deer and elk. But forty yards is too far to count on a hand gun, so it had been a rifle, and in the middle of a Montana summer nobody goes out with a rifle for anything with four legs, except maybe a coyote, and you don’t climb Blue Grouse Ridge for a coyote.

  I picked a handful of berries and went and sat on a rock. I may as well admit it, I had been ass enough to hope that a look at the scene would give me a notion of some kind that would open a crack. It hadn’t and it wouldn’t. This wasn’t my world, and if in that jumble of outdoor stuff there was some hint of who had sneaked up on Philip Brodell and plugged him, it wasn’t for me. Three hours wasted. When a chipmunk showed and darted into a clump, I picked up a pebble the size of a golf ball, and when he skipped out I threw it at him, and of course missed. And at the cabin some of my best friends were chipmunks. Pleased with nothing whatever, I headed downhill and made it back to Farnham’s and the car without breaking a leg. There was no one around. It was a little after five-thirty when I arrived at the cabin, and supper was at six.

  The rule was to go to supper as you were, but sweat had dried on me, so I went to my room and rinsed off and changed to a PSI shirt and brown woolen slacks. As I was brushing my hair there was a tap on the door of the little hall between Lily’s room and mine and I went and opened it to her. She was still in the same green shirt and slacks, and when she saw I had changed she said, “Company coming?” and I told her where I had been, spotting the bloody boulder for her by saying it was about two hundred yards north of where she had once watched me pick a fool hen off a tree with one hand. Also I told her about my talks with Alma and Carol.

  “I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I’ve bought it. I have filed her. Her hand on a Bible might not have sold me, but her ha
nd on that saddle did.”

  Lily had puckered her lips. She unpuckered them and nodded. “All right, then that’s settled. I wanted to try that saddle on Cat once just to see how it sat, and she wouldn’t let me. You were right. If she had shot him she would have told you. But don’t get the idea that you’re a better judge of women than I am.”

  Not meaning that she had wanted to try the saddle on a bobcat or mountain lion. She had named her pinto mare Cat because of the way she had jumped a ditch the first day she rode her, three years ago.

  We ate breakfast and lunch in the kitchen, on a table by the big window, and sometimes supper too, but usually the place for supper was the screened terrace on the creek side. It was more trouble because Lily brought no one but Mimi from New York and wouldn’t have local help, and the table-waiting was done by us. That evening it was filets mignons, baked potatoes, spinach, and raspberry sherbet, and everything but the potatoes had come from the king-size walk-in deep freeze in the storeroom. The filets mignons had been shipped by express from Chicago, packed in dry ice. You might suppose that with all of the thousands of tons of beef on the hoof just across the creek, Lily’s property, there was a better and cheaper way, but that had been tried and found wanting.

  At table on the terrace Lily always sat facing the creek, which was only a dozen steps from the terrace edge, with Wade Worthy on her left and me on her right and Diana Kadany across from her. As she picked up her knife Diana said, “I had an awful thought today. Utterly awful.”

  Of course that was a cue. It was Wade Worthy who obliged her by taking it. I hadn’t fully decided about Wade. His full-cheeked face, with a broad nose and a square chin, had an assortment of grins, and they were hard to sort out. The friendly grin looked friendly, but with it he might say something sour, and with the grin that looked sarcastic he might say something nice. The one he gave Diana now was neither of those, just polite. With it he said, “You’re not a good judge of your own thoughts, no one is. Tell us and we’ll vote on it.”