Miller felt for the gun in his pocket. The state troopers began firing back. Miller took his hand from his gun, he didn’t understand shooting. The troopers were men of violence. He didn’t quite understand them. They were professionals at violence, how was he in this? He really didn’t want to get Albert’s murderer, so a person could be hanged or electrocuted. What was his motive? There was a strange desire on his part to act with the fear that the other people would suffer on account of the murderer being at large.
Rodgers and younger were outnumbered. Miller found himself with the impulsive thought that he hoped they got away. The limping man cried out, as if he’d been hit. Younger stumbled then as a shot struck him and almost went down. Miller had to fight against pity for him and horror at what was happening. Younger and Rodgers they were murderers and yet. Younger staggered on towards the station platform. The limping man was shooting now. But gunfire cut at him from two directions. He cast a quick glance at younger ahead of him. If Younger made it to the overpass bridge and the south bound side, he might conceivably get away on the New York train that was now whistling for the station.
But lead struck the limping man and he went down. Bullets thrust him along like a sweeping broom. Younger looked back and saw his partner down. He gave one last glance at the overpass bridge and then clearly decided he had a better chance for escape in the dark shrubbery of the suburban homes than on the incoming train.
But Miller knew Younger must not escape, all his instincts, his habits, his prejudices told him that a murder must be caught, Albert’s murder. He went after Younger. The erstwhile doctor’s bulk loomed up suddenly, he was going to shoot.
No, Miller lurched to avoid Younger’s hurled weapon. Then his tackle brought the doctor down, he thrilled to the excitement the sheer physical impact.
Chapter Nineteen
Younger kicked free, but Miller was on him again, feeling the inexplicable fury of a dog rushing into fight another dog. He’d felt the same inhuman core when Younger had attacked him earlier that evening. Miller saw trooper John was on the scene now, his gun point blank for a shot at younger’s shaggy head. Younger had his face to the ground, his breath gagging in his throat from the violence and excitement. Miller clutched a hold of one of younger’s heavy arms and had managed to twist it up behind him.
“Don’t shoot him!” He grasped fearfully, if John shot it would be cold blooded execution. He saw then that John wasn’t going to shoot and he eased his hold on younger enough for the man to get up, covered by the trooper’s gun. Younger’s left pants leg was wet with bold.
“All right! Come on!” Said trooper John.
He forced Younger back toward the station. Younger walked without apparent pain and limp indicating his wound was in the fleshy part of his thigh. They came back to where the thin crimped man had fallen.
Sammy grunted seeing Younger a prisoner. “He’s not young and he sure looks just like Alvin Rodgers pictures and his leg was broken, he’s wearing some kind of metal brace.”
“But his leg wasn’t broken by any automobile accident like he told you.” Miller bent over the fallen man. “A bullet broke it, a bullet fired by Paul Allen in Allen’s study. That it was a bullet break and not just an ordinary fracture, showed in the x-ray that was taken.”
Miller was searching for a pulse. He’d searched for Albert’s pulse this way. Men shot other men down, riddled their bodies with bullets and then tried to save them dying convicts were saved for later, official execution.
“What are you?” Asked Godley, “a doctor?” But his tone meant, you’re not a doctor, so quit acting like one. “Look at his white hair, his bald head.”
“Are you fooled by bleached hair?” The man’s wrist was limp. Miller’s fingers were on the radial bone and rotated inward. “I was fooled by his being bald too,” Miller admitted. “I came in the other day while Younger was shaving this fellow’s head and I didn’t even realize what Younger was up to. I saw the shaving stuff around and younger said I was just shaving him.”
I looked and saw the beard stubble on the fellow’s face and still I didn’t catch on.”
“You mean it was the old fellow’s head and not his beard that younger was shaving.” Miller put the fallen man’s arm down and stood up tiredly. “He’s not old; he was only twenty-one or two. Look at his hands, are they the hands of an old man? I saw them too, and looked at them without catching on that he was young. He’s dead now, oh yes there were other things he had to say. He could be Alvin Rodgers, but he’s not there’s a reason the resemblance fooled us.” Miller said.
“He’s Alvin Rodger’s son!” Godley exclaimed.
“What?” Sammy said.
Miller said to Younger, “all right your friend is dead. Do you want to tell us what it’s all about?”
He faced Younger; they were all watching the shaggy haired, hulking ex-doctor. Closer now, a train whistle sounded, shrill imperious.
Sergeant Sammy jostled Younger, “come on, talk, talk or,”
“Let him talk later if he wants it like that, “ Miller objected, “We don’t have to know now, it’s pretty clear anyway. Old Rodgers had a son by a woman who tricked him into marrying her, Rodgers ran off to South America to forget the whole affair; his future as a minister was ruined. The son apparently took after the mother.”
“His mother was a bitch,” Younger said quietly. “A run-of-the-mill, two-bit bitch. I thought Alvin Rodgers was clever. He’d been a con man, and when he got caught, instead of prison he’d fooled them into sending him to Allendale for a while. I let him con me into this. Now I wonder if he really didn’t belong in Allendale.”
“Allendale is a sort of an asylum,” Miller explained.
“Younger was a doctor there.” Younger had served a prison term afterwards, Rodgers had told him. Rodgers had done a nice piece of acting in the role as his own father. He’d told Miller those things as his father might have told him.”
“Allen must have confided in old Alvin Rodgers about the will,” Miller went on, “”The old fellow had Allen’s confidence and young Joseph must have found out about the will. Maybe his father had died, and Joseph knew the only way he could inherit was by posing as the old man.”
Miller looked down at the dead man; here was the wreckage of an unwholesome scheme, a paranoiac dream, luxuriant rococo in its imagery.
The details weren’t important, but they wanted details. “It must have been something like this. After young Joseph Rodgers heard about Allen’s money, he came here with Younger to shake Allen down. There was an argument, Joseph killed Allen, but not before Allen had broken Joseph’s leg with a bullet. Joseph and Younger arranged Allen’s death then to look like suicide, and Joseph planned the masquerade as his father. He had Doctor Smith fix up the leg that meant he had to kill Smith or be exposed by him.”
“He let himself in for a mess then,” Godley said.
“He must have soon found out he couldn’t fool the people who knew Alvin Rodgers. It becomes clear now, that’s why he killed Mendez and Captain Daniels they’d have known he wasn’t the old man, why the dirty-“
Younger must have helped Joseph, Miller knew the two of them had had to stall delay while they either killed or scared the heirs off. That was why Younger had probably loosed the bats that night, perhaps even planted the two bats in Angelia parker’s room.
“But one thing, I know must have bothered Younger and Rodgers,” Miller said.
“Allen’s death being announced as due to natural causes;” these were cold facts divorced from personalities. It was like a war game, in which soldiers were movable bits of cardboard. “Joseph must have suspected a trick, perhaps that the bullets in Allen’s body might in some way be traced to him. He had Younger take Allen’s body from its vault and hide it. When he heard the hiding place of the body had been discovered, he thought the game was up and he had better get out.”
“He heard?” Godley asked. “How could he have heard? We only just now heard that ourselves.�
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The powerful headlamp of the New York bound train appeared up the track. The earth became a vibrating drum head. Younger said, “You’re crazy, Miller you’ll never make it stick I’ve got a few things to say about you too.”
“I’ll answer your question, Godley even Younger and Joseph Rodgers were tipped off. They were being kept informed of everything going on in Allen’s house by their partner in killing who lived there.”
A cry up the street from the station interrupted anything further Miller wanted to say. Running in wild flight toward the station was a woman. The station lights illuminated her sagging white over painted face.
“Miss Parker,” Attorney Godley blurted. “What is she doing here?”
Hardly ten yards behind Angelia Parker ran Sally Daniels. The older woman saw the crowd of men, the troopers on the platform grouped about the body. She looked behind at Sally, then off to where the New York train was rushing up with hissing speed.
She hesitated for one moment, as if debating if she could ever make it safely across the overpass bridge to the south bound platform. Then she headed out onto the tracks apparently hoping to make the platform by that quick route.
“That old bag can’t get across!” Sammy yelled, “There’s a fence there.” But she was running up the track bed cutting diagonally across the rails. Beyond the limit of the station there was no fence. Sergeant Sammy swore as he ran toward her. Miller ran too. He heard Edwards and Godley shouting. The train was slashing in with blunt, impersonal force, its headlamp partitioning the dark.
Angelia Parker crossed the second of the tracks with its red and green lights and made for the third. She was beyond the fence and the yard limit sign. Miller saw Sally start out onto the tracks. He hardly stopped as he gathered her back with a wide sweep of his arm. A charged rail was in front of him, then and he leaped over it.
He saw the woman stumble, the ribbon gleam of rails, coarse cinders under foot. Angelia Parker pitched forward; her arms went out wide as though to grasp the air and catch herself, but she fell across the track head, a cracking flash sprang up near one outstretched hand. Then broke like a spent photo bulb, it cracked again and went dead.
Miller and Edwards made it to the woman’s side just as the engine slid with heavy grating efficiency into the station. Miller knew a twinge of envy for the train. It was there huge, metallic, insensate. It did not know of the tragedy.
Angelia Parker’s body was motionless.
“Don’t touch her!” Edwards shouted, “She’s on a hot rail.”
But Miller saw that the hand that had touched the charged rail was free of it now, it must have only brushed it, yet it was scorched almost crisped. Electricity amoral, a white hand and it blackened it with fire, once it had been a child’s hand.
He pulled her body back, clear of the rail. He let it rest momentarily on the track bed. He was apprehensive about picking her up, but he could not give her shock treatment here. He lifted her, his arms under her, and started back across the tracks toward the north bound platform and the station.
He put her down on a patch of November grass near the station. He loosened her coat; her limp body was like a withered dried up pod. She could not have weighed more than a hundred pounds.
Sally Daniels, Godley and Sammy were behind him.
“She’s breathing.” Miller said.
“Her arm,” Sally Daniels sobbed.
The prostrate woman’s eyes opened, her rouged mouth tugged into a faint smile.
“I’m dying, I know I’m dying.” Her mild eyes scanned the faces above her, “let me explain, I tried to warn Joseph Rodgers and Thomas Younger. Younger put the bats in my room, but he knew I was on his side after I killed Mendez. Younger said he and Rodgers would help me, Mendez, he was the jungle guide. Stabbing him with that old hat pin was too good for him. Mendez, Daniels they led my dear Samuel on, they killed him. I told Daniels that when I shot him.
Her breath stopped, her eyes fell shut. The same thought was plainly in everyone that she was dead, but the thought lacked impact after the surprise of her confession.
Then her eyes opened again, the same faint smile as if apologizing that she’d had to rest, wait for strength. “I would have got Paul Davis, too.” It was almost a boast. “But I had to be careful; I knew this John Miller person was suspicious, he knew I’d been up to something the night of the bats, and that I’d been away from my room. I told Younger that Miller must suspect I was working with them, who else was there left to suspect? I want to, I wanted to make them all pay for Samuel.”
Her voice grew incoherent, nearly inaudible.
“Samuel would be living today but for them, yes I wanted to escape now, but it really doesn’t matter, I can die. I won’t be afraid; I want to be with Jack.” Her head dropped sideways; there was no longer life to hold it up. The brightly rouged cheeks were intense, ghastly now, against her pallor.
Sergeant Sammy grunted, “who in hell is Jack?” The grunt the word hell, both was sacrilege. Miller thought Sammy; men like Sammy are a different human species.
“Jack was someone she loved,” Sally said. “She screamed that at me when I discovered her using the phone to warn Davis and Younger that you’d found Allen’s body and they’d better get out. I tried to stop her, you said there were troopers around, but they weren’t watching us, they didn’t even see us leave.” Miller nodded, Allen’s La Querencia was a big place, and he was suddenly weary, very weary.
“Someone she loved!” Benny Godley’s mouth twisted. He seemed to be speaking in reminiscence through Angelia was only a few minutes’ dead. “Samuel Livingston was the one who bilked Paul Allen worse than any of the others. I remember Allen telling me about it. He said it was providence that Livingston was killed by a poisoned arrow or no one would have gotten back from South America alive.”
In a series of quick jerks the train started, hits its pace and disappeared into the black toward New York.
Chapter Twenty
John Miller came down from his room at the Millersburg hotel. “Good morning,” said the woman behind the desk, she stood up embarrassedly from a breakfast dish of cold cereal, her hasty movement causing her chins to quiver. She eyed Miller carefully with the analytic, on guard eye of the small town, “did you sleep well?”
“Yes,” Miller said.
“And your friend?”
Miller rubbed his face sleepily, “I guess so, and I guess she slept all right.” He looked out of the large lobby window at the November rain. The scene tied him too yesterday and told him he had not yet awakened from the dream, but it wasn’t a dream.
Sally came down the stairs and stood beside Miller.
“You should have a winter coat,” he said.
“It wasn’t cold when I came up here.”
“There’s a coffee pot just down the street, you mind making a little dash through the rain? Put up your collar.”
He fixed it for her; the fitted black cloth coat hadn’t much of a collar. They hurried through the rain; the diner was warm and cozy. Sally’s eyes searched the menu.
“The griddle cakes here are good,” Miller said.
“That’s what I’m having.”
“I’ll have them too, then and coffee.” As they waited for their order, Miller watching the other customer, “you got to get a little fun out of life, don’t you?” An old man was complaining.
Miller fell silent, the solution of Albert’s murder was finished and he was going back to his old life.
The solution having been arrived at gave him no satisfaction, and there was Sally, Sally with a funeral to arrange. “You’re going back to New York this morning?” He heard her asking.
“I suppose so, what do you plan on doing?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She was evasive.
“Is there anything I can do” Miller looked at her, smiled at his own gloom.
“I was just thinking, wondering why Albert called me here to Millersburg in the first palace. That hadn’t been what he w
as thinking. It was what he was thinking now. It was what he’d thought last night, lying awake. “He said something about catching a big fish.”
“You had a fishing rod when I first saw you.” miller shook his head, “I don’t think Albert called me here to go fishing. He must have seen Younger and perhaps knew what he was up to.” He ran slim fingers through his hair. “But why of all people would Albert pick me out to help him against Younger?”
They finished breakfast, Sally said, “if you’re going, I guess I should say goodbye.” it was a November world, Miller paying the check, piled the coins carefully on the mottled table top. “Oh, I guess I’ll be seeing you again, Sally.” We’ll have to go back to the hotel for our things.”
Thomas Younger locked up with no show of surprise when sergeant Edwards ushered Miller to his cell. “Hello, Younger,” miller said. “I have a question to ask you. Its answer won’t make much difference to you, but it may make a lot to me.” Younger’s eyes continued to stare at the floor.
“What did Albert Smith say to you, Younger when he saw you? What did he say that made you want to kill him, if you didn’t have a reason enough to kill him already?”
Younger did not move on the bunk. But now his heightened pallor showed he was consciously ignoring Miller.
“Answering me shouldn’t make any difference to you, Younger.” For six killings, or ten there was the same punishment. Younger’s body rose as a unit with a sudden sinister rhythm. “What do you mean? What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Allendale,” Miller said quietly. “Three patients who died there in terrible agony all because they received a dose of one medicine instead of another.
“They’re not ever going to convict me of murder!” Younger turned his back, he was guiltily afraid. “I never did anything it was Rodgers that louse! And now he’s out of it and I’m.”
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