The Watcher (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “He sure looks mean,” Darrell said. “I bet he is mean.”

  “And I bet you’re right.” I got out of my car and walked to meet Cassiday. He stood on the dry, dusty shoulder of the road, one work-knobbed hand resting on the butt of his big single-action revolver. As before, Cassiday’s partner stayed behind in the pickup.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked.

  Cassiday took a moment to look me over, head to toe, then back again. As he looked, he settled his boots in the gravel. With his hand still on the scarred walnut gun butt, eyes slitted and mouth tense, he looked like he might challenge me to draw. I felt my lips twitch, suppressing a smile.

  Finally: “Highway Patrol came by about an hour ago,” he allowed. “Man named Hollister. He told me to check in on you. He’s a good man. Good, but a little green. He’s only twenty-six, twenty-seven.”

  Again, my lips twitched. Cassiday, I hoped, would take it as a smile of friendship.

  “What’d he have to say?” I asked.

  “Said he was looking for that white van. The one you talked about, too. He asked me if I saw it.”

  “Did you see it?”

  Cassiday shook his head. “Not since yesterday I didn’t see it. Not since I talked to you.” He frowned at me for a moment, then asked, “What’re they wanted for, anyhow, those four hippies?”

  “They’re wanted for breaking and entering, burglary, assault on a police officer and possession of narcotics.”

  “Huh.” In spite of himself, Cassiday was obviously impressed.

  “The last time I saw them,” I said, “was late Friday night. Very late. Have you seen the van since then?”

  “I checked on the radio,” Cassiday answered. “And someone down the valley, toward town, they thought they saw the van parked. Early, they said. Beside the road. But that’s the last I heard of them.”

  “You’ve got quite a CB network, I gather.”

  “Mister”—he drew a heavy sigh—“what with the goddam hippies, and the goddam hunters, and the goddam tourists hereabouts, we need every man and every radio we can get.”

  “And every gun, too.” I gestured to his revolver.

  “Yeah,” he answered truculently. “Yeah, every gun, too. If I told you the property damage they cause around these parts, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Did you happen to see a car near here between eleven-thirty and twelve last night?” I asked. “It was probably parked either on this road or on the access road that leads to the Haywood driveway.”

  “Not myself, I didn’t.” He took a careful moment to look me over before he decided to say, “I can check around, though, if you want me to.”

  Surprised, I said, “I’d appreciate it. Thanks.”

  Cassiday turned on his heel and returned to his pickup. He went to the passenger’s side and talked with his partner. I saw the second man speak into the CB microphone. Two, three minutes passed. Inside my car, I saw Darrell fidgeting, turned in his seat to face me. I raised my palm to him, for patience. Finally Cassiday returned.

  “There’s a fellow named Rawlings, lives up the valley about eight miles,” Cassiday drawled. “He was coming back from town just about then—just before midnight. And he said he saw a car coming out of that access road. Rawlings thought maybe it was someone shining deer, so he stopped and checked him out. Turned out the fella had a rifle, all right, but he claimed he wasn’t a hunter. And he didn’t have any spotlight or anything, that Rawlings could see. And he wasn’t dressed like a hunter. So Rawlings figured he was just passing through. Maybe visiting you folks, Rawlings figured.”

  Visiting us …

  “Can I talk to Rawlings?” I asked.

  Cassiday hesitated, as if I were a meddlesome civilian making a nuisance request of the authorities. Then reluctantly said, “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt.” He regarded me for a stern moment before he gestured me to follow him to the orange truck.

  Minutes later, I was straining to hear Rawlings as he told what had happened last night. The account was an exact duplicate of Cassiday’s.

  “Can you describe this man?” I said into the microphone. “How old was he, would you say?”

  Static-blurred, Rawlings replied, “Oh, maybe fifty. Kind of a small fella, I’d say. Grey-haired. With a small, pinched-up looking face.”

  “He wasn’t wearing a hat, then.”

  “Right. No hat.”

  “What about the car? Did you get the license number, by any chance?”

  “No. But I know what kind it was. It was about a ’sixty-nine or ’seventy Chevy, I’d say. A white sedan. And it had a bashed-up driver’s door. Real bashed up.”

  “Are you sure of that description?”

  “Yessir, I’m sure.”

  “Thanks, Rawlings. Thanks very much. Over and out.” I handed the microphone to Cassiday. Silently cursing, I stood beside the truck, staring at nothing.

  Charles Keller. Somehow, he’d followed me. Me, and Darrell.

  “You know that fella?” Cassiday asked.

  “I know him.” I considered a moment, then said: “He’s a convicted felon,” I lied. “He’s apparently traced me from San Francisco, and I have reason to suspect that he might try to”—I paused—“to harm me,” I finished quietly. “So if you see him, I’d appreciate it if you’d come by the Haywood place and tell me. Put him under surveillance, if you can. Don’t try to apprehend him, though. Just observe him, and report to me. Clear?”

  In spite of himself, listening to my clipped orders, Cassiday’s eyes gleamed. He nodded so sharply that it altered the carefully adjusted angle of his broad-brimmed hat.

  “Yessir,” he said, gripping his gun butt hard. “Yessir, that’s clear. That’s a big, clear ten-four.”

  Seventeen

  I PULLED INTO A parking place in the Safeway lot, and reached in my pocket for a dollar bill.

  “Get a pound of salt and a box of tacks,” I said. “And if you want to, get yourself a Coke or something.” I pointed to a nearby Texaco station. “I’m going to go over there and make a phone call.”

  “Who’re you going to call?” Darrell asked.

  Until I’d satisfied myself that Keller was actually in the area, I’d decided against telling Darrell what I’d learned from Rawlings. For Darrell and me—for our relationship—the Billy Marsh incident had been a net gain. A Keller incident could be a loss.

  “I’m going to call Lieutenant Friedman again,” I said. “I want to find out whether the highway patrol has picked up those four.”

  Darrell nodded, and opened his door. “You want a Coke, too?”

  “No, thanks.”

  I walked to the gas station and phoned Friedman at home, collect.

  “This,” he said, “is going to cost you. One, two lunches, at least.”

  “Listen,” I said, “do you happen to know whether Charles Keller is under surveillance?”

  “No,” Friedman answered. “Why?”

  As concisely as I could, I told him what had happened last night, and what I suspected. “It all fits,” I finished. “The description, the limp, the car—everything.”

  “How could he have followed you? Weren’t you looking in the mirror, for God’s sake?”

  “Of course I was. But he’s an electronics engineer. He could’ve bugged my car. If he went to the trouble of entering my apartment building to set me up, bugging my car would’ve been nothing. And he could’ve known that Darrell and I were going away. That’s what’s worrying me—Darrell.”

  Typically, Friedman offered a dry quip: “You’re having an action-packed vacation.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “I don’t like the sound of this, Frank.” Friedman said, serious now. “It could be coincidence. It probably is coincidence. Usually that’s the way these things come down. But why take a chance? If I were you, I’d come back to the city. It sounds like you’d be safer.”

  “I can’t go back,” I answered. “I might go to another spot—a motel, maybe,
in the area. But I can’t go back to San Francisco.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Darrell’s having a good time. We’re having a good time. Together.”

  “Then go to a motel.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “What’d you want me to do?”

  “It’s Sunday, I realize, and I hate to ask you. But would you mind checking Keller out? If I know that he’s in San Francisco, I’ll feel a lot better.”

  “No problem. Where can I call you?”

  “You can’t. But I’ll call you.”

  “Better give me a few hours. Several hours, in fact. He might not be at home, but he might still be in the city. We don’t want to go off half-cocked.”

  “I might not call you until tomorrow, at Headquarters. I promised Darrell I’d rent some horses. It’d be a fifty-mile round trip, to the nearest pay phone.”

  “How about a neighbor?”

  Grimacing, I thought of Virgil Cassiday. “I’ll see. But don’t worry if I don’t call you until tomorrow.”

  “Roger. Remember now—take care of yourself. You’re a city boy alone in the wilds. It sounds like you could be getting into a rough game, up there.”

  “So far, I’m a winner. By the way, did the Highway Patrol find that van?”

  “Negative. I called them an hour ago to check.”

  “All right. I’d better hang up. This is costing money.”

  “It’s costing a lunch.”

  “Okay. A lunch. Thanks, Pete. Thanks a lot.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Drinking a Dr. Pepper from the can, Darrell was waiting for me in the car. I slid in behind the steering wheel and sat silently for a moment, staring straight ahead.

  Was it coincidence, as Friedman had suggested?

  If I hadn’t been expecting trouble, I’d never have discovered the figure with the gun. Unobserved, he would have skirted the cabin, continued to his car and gone on his way—just as he’d done. No action of mine had changed his plans. He hadn’t seen me. Of that, I was certain.

  The most obvious explanation was that the man was a hunter, illegally shining deer. I hadn’t seen a flashlight. Neither had Rawlings. But the man could have carried one concealed in his pocket. If he was shining deer, he was committing a crime. He wouldn’t admit it to Rawlings.

  It was the dented white Chevrolet that made the difference. Rawlings’ vague description of the man fitted Keller—but could have fitted thousands of other men, too. It was the car—and the slight limp—that tilted the odds against me.

  Yet the figure had done nothing terribly suspicious. He’d just skirted the cabin and disappeared down the driveway. A thousand innocent explanations could account for his actions. Ann’s property wasn’t entirely fenced. Therefore, the stranger might not have even realized he was trespassing. As for the limp, it had been so slight that at first I hadn’t been aware of it.

  “What’d Lieutenant Friedman say?” Darrell was asking. “Did the State Police find the van?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm.” He drank from the Dr. Pepper can while I tried to sort out the puzzle. I was thinking that, after all, the worst Keller had done was try to frame me for taking a bribe. He had no history of violence. He was eccentric. He could be half-crazed. But Keller was a talker. And the talkers, I’d discovered, weren’t as dangerous as the silent ones—the brooders. Keller still hoped to see me indicted for bribery. Why should he consider violence? So far, the game was going his way.

  “Are we going to see the guy with the horses?” Darrell asked. “Are we going to do that first, or stretch the snakeskin first?”

  I reached for the ignition key. “Let’s see about the horses. The snakeskin can keep for another few hours.”

  “What’s the man’s name? The farmer with the horses?”

  “Falvey,” I answered. “But don’t call him a farmer. Out here, a farmer is a rancher. Even if he’s a farmer.”

  We followed Falvey into a large, decrepit barn. Walking ahead through dried manure, he stopped before a big box stall. The boards of the stall had been patched and re-patched—and still showed gaps. The top board was gnawed and splintered to half its original size.

  “This here’s Apache,” Falvey said. “She’d be good for the boy. She’s gentle, and she don’t spook.” Falvey turned to stare appraisingly at us, looking from one to the other. He was a short, truculent man with a barrel chest, thick arms and stubby legs. His bull neck was ridged with muscle, like a Prussian general’s. Sparse iron-grey hair circled his bald head. He wore a stained T-shirt with HERE COMES TROUBLE printed across the chest—a birthday present, he’d explained.

  “Neither one’ve you have done any riding,” Falvey said. “That right?”

  “We’ve ridden a few times,” I said. “But we’re not very good.”

  “Well, I’ll take you out once, so’s the horses can get used to you. But I can’t do it after that. And I can’t be responsible if anything happens. You understand that.” Now his stare was accusing—plainly contemptuous. It was obvious that Falvey shared Cassiday’s opinion of city folk.

  “And also,” he continued, “you can’t ride today.”

  “How come?” Darrell blurted.

  “Because,” Falvey said curtly, “it’s Sunday. And those goddam deer hunters, they’ll shoot at anything that moves—especially anything on four legs. Tomorrow, we can go out. Not today.”

  “Does that apply to next weekend?” I asked.

  Falvey rubbed a stubbled chin, considering. Finally he shrugged. “We’ll have to see. This is the second week of deer season. Usually the third weekend isn’t so bad. We’ll just have to see.”

  “It would make a difference in the price.”

  “Not the way I figure it,” Falvey answered promptly. “I was figuring fifty dollars a week apiece, for five days. That’s ten dollars a day for each horse. And I was figuring fifty dollars in advance. Fifty dollars now, and fifty on Friday. Then maybe, if everything goes all right, and you aren’t saddle-sore and the horses aren’t all run ragged, as sometimes happens, we can talk about the weekend. That’s when we see how many of those goddam hunters show up.”

  I glanced at Darrell—and saw his eyes shining as he stared at Apache. I reached for my wallet.

  “Your play,” I said, discarding an eight of diamonds.

  Darrell was gazing at his snakeskin, mounted on a board and propped against the wall. After we’d returned to the cabin, we’d spent more than an hour driving up and down Long Valley, searching for a board long enough and wide enough to accommodate the skin. Finally, in a field, we’d found a weathered piece of barnwood, perfect for our purpose. We’d taken the board back to the cabin, ready to salt the skin and mount it—only to discover that we didn’t have a hammer. The edge of a tire iron had served, after a fashion. Finally, by dinnertime, the job was finished. Now, with the dishes done, we were playing rummy by the light of two kerosene lamps. “If I had a cowboy hat,” Darrell said, still staring at the snake-skin, “I could make it into a hatband.”

  “Don’t you want to play rummy anymore?”

  “Sure.” He picked up the eight of diamonds, and discarded the deuce of spades.

  “If we go to town tomorrow,” I said, “we should get some glue. We can glue the rattles under the skin.”

  “We’ve got to go ride the horses tomorrow, though.”

  “All right.” I drew a card from the pack.

  “When I get home, I’m going to get my wood-burning set and I’m going to burn in the date yesterday.” Taking a card from the pack, Darrell frowned. “I hope I can find my wood-burning stuff. I think maybe I loaned it to someone. Then I’m going to—”

  On the table beside me, the kerosene lamp exploded. In the same instant, I heard the sharp crack of a rifle. Across the room, a window shattered. Orange flames covered the table.

  “Hey!” Darrell’s voice was a high, surprised squeak, then a scream—“Hey!”

  “Blow out the other
lamp!” I shouted. “Then get on the floor. Stay on the floor.” I sprang for a large rag rug. Grasping it by one corner, I flailed at the fire. The blazing tablecloth exploded as the rug struck it. Burning kerosene flowed under the table, licking at the table legs. Fire was pooling on the floor. Wildly swearing, I grasped a leg and heaved the table across the room.

  “Crawl into the bedroom!” I yelled. “Get the shotgun! Crawl back!” Again and again, I beat at the fire. Bits of burning tablecloth flew around me like swarming insects. I struck at the flaming kerosene on the bare wood floor, running in rivulets toward the walls—toward the window curtains. Through the smoke, I saw Darrell crawling into the hallway. I leaped for the curtains, tore them free, threw them into a far corner. Every moment, I expected another shot—and another, and another. I heard myself screaming obscenities. My throat was raw; my arms ached from swinging the weight of the rug. In the center of the room, the fire blazed too high to reach, but the rivulets surrounding it were burning lower. I attacked the rivulets. Darrell was crawling into the room, dragging the shotgun behind him across the floor. In the orange glow of the fire, his eyes were streaming.

  “Lemme help!” he screamed.

  “Keep down!” I panted. I couldn’t say any more—couldn’t fill my lungs full enough to speak. I was almost finished.

  “I’m going to help you!” He left the shotgun beside the fireplace, leaped to his feet and darted through the door to the hallway. The last of the flaming rivulets were out, but the pool of fire remained in the center of the room, roaring higher than my head. In seconds, the ceiling would catch fire. Dragging the bedroom rug behind him, Darrell was beside me. I could hardly lift my own rug; the strength in my arms was gone. I couldn’t breathe; I could only gasp helplessly. Darrell grasped the bedroom rug, pivoting with arms wide and body straining—like a bullfighter flaring a monstrous cape. He flung the rug full on the flames—and smothered the fire.

  “Put yours on top, too!” he yelled.

  With the last strength in my arms, I did as he said.

  Suddenly the smoke-choked room was dark.

  “Jesus Christ.” I sank to my knees. Head hanging, I struggled for breath.