The Expendable Man

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  “He gave you my name?”

  “Naw, but we didn’t have no trouble getting that at the desk here.” The implication was in his titter.

  Hugh permitted Venner his moment of triumph. Then he spoke, with precision. “It seems to me that this informant is the one you should be looking for. The name Bonnie Lee Crumb was known to him. I never heard it until you mentioned it tonight. The girl to whom I gave a ride was Iris Croom.”

  “How old was she?” Ringle snapped.

  “I don’t know. Young. In her teens, I’d say.”

  “You better come down and have a look at this girl we found.” He lumbered to his feet.

  Hugh didn’t move. “Why?”

  Venner took an avid step forward. “You’re refusing?”

  Hugh said, “If she is Bonnie Lee Crumb, I can’t identify her. I have never known anyone of that name.”

  “Maybe she ain’t Bonnie Lee Crumb. Maybe she’s Iris Croom. You gonna come or not?”

  Ringle stopped his partner’s advance. He blinked at Hugh. “You don’t have to come. We don’t force you. We do everything legal.” He turned his scowl on Venner. “You remember the marshal says everything legal.”

  “I haven’t forgot it yet,” Venner sneered.

  He hadn’t forgotten because this was Hugh Densmore and not some poor shabby guy they’d picked off the street or out of a shack.

  “I’ll come with you,” Hugh decided, “if you think it will be of any help.” He didn’t want to; he didn’t trust either of them. No matter what some marshal had said. But he didn’t know the legalities, whether he could rightly refuse. Nor did he know if his outright refusal might bring ethical forgetfulness. “Will you wait until I get a warmer coat?” He didn’t delay for an answer. He went into the dressing room, turning on the light as he moved. Ringle came casually over to the entrance, where he could watch the change.

  Hugh took off his dinner jacket and hung it in the wardrobe. He put on his gabardine topcoat. He looked like a musician at the end of a party, the soft dress shirt and black tie, the tuxedo trousers. It was past one o’clock; he was too tired to go anywhere. He wondered how long it would be before he was permitted to return. If he would be permitted to return.

  He switched off the light and returned to the big room. Ringle stepped aside. Hugh remembered, “I don’t have a car.”

  “You can ride with us,” Venner said.

  He didn’t want to ask, “And you’ll bring me back here?”

  “Sure, we’ll bring you back.” His mouth was a sneer. “Everything legal.”

  Hugh continued to be apprehensive but it was too late to change his mind. Ringle was holding open the door. If everything was legal, they’d have to charge him to hold him. And what could they charge him with? Not murder. Not without some evidence.

  This wasn’t the Deep South. It was Arizona.

  3

  THEY WALKED THROUGH the icy night to where they’d left the car—not a painted police car, a plain dark sedan. They put Hugh in the back seat. Ringle tuned in the police cycle while Venner drove. The radio wasn’t like Los Angeles, with never-ending codes coming over. There seemed to be but one item at this hour, a highway accident.

  Venner took westbound Washington across town. There were few other cars abroad. Even when they reached the downtown section. When they passed the courthouse without reducing speed, Hugh knew fear. He spoke up. “Where are we going?”

  Venner snickered over his shoulder, “To see your girl friend. You didn’t think we were keeping her in the office, did you?” After a moment he bared his small teeth. “The icebox isn’t big enough.” He was the only one who laughed.

  They had reached the dead-end circle of the state capitol, and he swerved to the left. Hugh’s fear was growing. They were cutting a south-and-west course through a shabby neighborhood he’d never seen before. He’d read of tactics such as this, where a man could be held incommunicado for days.

  There were no passing cars to call out to. You couldn’t call for help from a police car, anyway; he didn’t think you could. When Venner turned down a dark and narrow country lane, panic came up into Hugh’s throat. Only his pride kept him from crying out, demanding to know where they were taking him. Pride and the fear. He’d never known fear before, he’d only thought that he had. There were no handles on the rear doors.

  Not more than a half mile down the lane, Venner turned a sharp left into an area of low-lying buildings. There was a small sign: COUNTY HOSPITAL. It did nothing to allay the fear.

  The place could have been a reclaimed army barracks. The night lights showed faded green brick with darker green trim. There was no sign of life. There was no sound but of insects in the surrounding fields and a sudden scrap of song from a meadow lark awakened by the car’s lights.

  The car crawled past the buildings, following the driveway to the far rear. It stopped in front of a small blunt building whose night light revealed the legend: COUNTY MORTUARY. Hugh took a breath. Everything legal.

  Venner cut the engine. He got out and opened the door for Hugh while Ringle was extracting his bulk from the front seat. “All out for the morgue,” Venner chirruped. “Only we don’t call it the morgue, the coroner don’t like that name. The ‘County Mortuary,’ ” he mimicked.

  Hugh walked with the detectives across the recessed outer entrance to the back door. The knob turned under Ringle’s heavy paw.

  The attendant on duty was an old man. “You again?” he complained. He pushed up arthritically from his office chair. His voice scratched, “You want to see that same girl?”

  “Yeah,” Ringle said. “Anybody identify her yet?”

  “Nary a soul come around. She must of been a floater.”

  Venner wheezed, “That’s what she was all right, a floater!” Again no one else laughed.

  The old man shuffled forward ahead of them and opened the door of the storage room. Venner stopped laughing and began to shiver. Hugh was glad he’d thought of the topcoat. The detectives wouldn’t get a chance to say that the suspect quaked when he saw the body.

  The old man didn’t fumble, he knew the slot where she was put away. He rolled out the drawer, folded back the covering. They hadn’t done an autopsy yet. That was Hugh’s first thought, and with it came a spasm of relief. Surely they wouldn’t make an arrest until they knew what caused her death.

  He looked the body over carefully, Ringle and Venner and the attendant watching him as if they believed the old fables about Negroes and graveyards. They weren’t bright or they’d know that to become a doctor one must study both the quick and the dead.

  The girl was Iris—or Bonnie Lee—as he had been sure it would be. No two girls matched the description the police had issued. She hadn’t been in the water long enough to be distorted.

  Because of his medical familiarity with morgue procedure, Hugh was without emotion. His tension had dissipated in the routine of examination. He looked over at Ringle. “Yes, this is the girl who called herself Iris Croom.”

  The attendant began covering her again, as he might a sleeping child. Venner left the room rapidly, shaking from the cold. Probably chronic malaria. Hugh followed him, Ringle at his heels. In the office outside, Hugh lighted a cigarette. He had to know if they were calling it murder.

  “What was the cause of death?” He doubted that it would enter their heads that as a doctor he knew the autopsy had been delayed. Down the corridor, the metal door banged and the shuffle of the returning attendant could be heard.

  Ringle said, “We won’t know that until the autopsy.”

  “It hasn’t been done?”

  “The M.E. is out of town. Making a speech at the University of Chicago,” Ringle said with a blustering pride. Hugh suddenly recalled the national reputation of the Phoenix medical examiner. With a man of his distinction, there’d be no juggling of facts to fit a possible suspect. “He’ll be back Monday.”

  A delay in performing an autopsy wasn’t unusual. This one was for Hugh an answered
prayer. They wouldn’t know until Monday what had killed Iris or if she had killed herself. By then Clytie’s wedding would be over. He asked matter-of-factly, “Would you mind taking me back to The Palms now. I’m pretty tired.”

  Ringle’s eyes rested coldly on his face. Hugh met them, unmoved. It was Ringle who shifted. “Will you sign a statement identifying her?”

  Hugh gave it consideration. It wouldn’t seem to incriminate him further. “I’ll sign a statement identifying her as Iris Croom. I didn’t know her by any other name.”

  Venner didn’t cover a yawn. “Maybe she was carrying some other kid’s school card.”

  Ringle was preparing a report, leaning on the old man’s desk.

  Hugh said, “If she was Bonnie Lee Crumb, that man who called you is the one to identify her.”

  “We told you we don’t know who he is.” Nor did Ringle care. “He hung up when the sarge tried to get his name.” He thrust the paper at Hugh. “Sign this.”

  First he read it with care. The name of Bonnie Lee wasn’t on it. There was a space where Hugh printed the name—Iris Croom. He signed his name where indicated and returned the form.

  No one moved to leave. It would be a mistake to be insistent; they could keep him here all night asking questions if they so wanted. They could make it appear voluntary. Instead of saying anything more, he started moving toward the door. He counted on Venner as before, Venner who looked pinched with weariness. He had it figured right. Venner moved. “Come on, Ringle.”

  Ringle finished studying the form. He told the old man, “Thanks, Pop. You can go back to sleep now. We won’t be bothering you again tonight.” Catching up with Venner, he said, “Don’t be in such a sweat.”

  As previously, they put Hugh in the rear of the car. He watched the dark streets out the window as they returned to town. There was no deviation; Venner retraced the route. They passed the courthouse without pause and wheeled over to Van Buren. Ringle said then, “You aren’t planning to leave town?”

  “Not until Monday. I’m due at the hospital Tuesday.”

  “Hospital?”

  “I’m interning at the UCLA Medical Center.”

  “You ain’t a real doc?” Somehow this was agreeable news to him.

  Hugh explained, “I have my degree but I haven’t completed my internship. I was given leave to attend the wedding.”

  Ringle warned, “You better not plan on going back Monday.”

  “Why not?”

  “Might be we’d want to talk to you again. After the autopsy.”

  Ringle knew, or his suspicions were the same as Hugh’s. Only as to her murderer did they differ. Hugh said, “I’ll check with you before I leave.”

  They delivered him to his door, Venner releasing him from the car.

  Hugh said, “Thank you” and “Good night.”

  Venner didn’t bother to respond; Ringle made some sound. They had driven away before Hugh had his key in the lock. He went inside, hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign outside on the knob, locked and bolted the door. He’d forgotten about lights and heat when he went out with them; both were still on. The room was too hot but his reaction had set in. Like Venner, Hugh was shaking as if chilled to his bone marrow.

  It was far too late to call Ellen, it was almost three-thirty in the morning. A call might disturb the entire household, this he couldn’t risk. What was more deterring was the fact that the story was too involved to give over the telephone. He didn’t have the strength now to go into it. A realization came suddenly: it might not be safe to talk over this phone. He didn’t know how far or how deep the detectives’ suspicions extended. They could have a monitor on the switchboard.

  Hugh undressed. He couldn’t solve his problems tonight. Perhaps in the morning he could figure out what he should do.

  When he woke, it was not completely but in a blur. He wondered if he’d missed the bells, wondered at the lazy euphoria which seemed to engulf him. And then he came sharply awake and remembered he wasn’t at the Med Center, he was in a Phoenix motel. This was the day of the wedding. And this was the day after the night of nightmare. The girl he’d known as Iris Croom was dead, irrevocably dead, and he was involved.

  Innocently involved? No, he couldn’t call it innocent. Rather, it was mindless. It was neither; it was a paper chain of circumstance, cut from sympathy and too much imagination. Imagination, yes—why else should he have thought that unless he picked up the girl she would be in danger? Another car would have come along, a family car for which she had said she was waiting, or even another man, a white man. Most travelers, like most men, were intrinsically decent. The end result for Iris would have been the same, cruelly the same. But he needn’t have been involved. He was the wrong man to have played Samaritan, and he’d known it, known it there on the road and in every irreversible moment since.

  The room was airless. He came out of bed and turned the conditioning to high. He parted the curtains and quickly closed them again, against the searing brightness of the sun. Only then did he look at his watch. He was dismayed at the lateness of the morning. He’d intended to go with the family to Sunday morning services at his grandfather’s old church. He wasn’t much on churchgoing these days, but when he weekended at home he always accompanied his mother to services on Sunday mornings. It pleased her. Would the eventual headlines read: MINISTER’S GRANDSON ACCUSED OF MURDER?

  He shaped up brusquely. That kind of thinking was pure neuroticism. There was no reason to believe that he would become further involved in this death. He had never known Bonnie Lee Crumb. There was someone in Phoenix who had, someone who’d made an anonymous phone call. The police would be searching for him, not harassing an innocent bystander. Yet he was unreasonably relieved that the detectives hadn’t returned this morning, that his sleep hadn’t been disturbed by a telephone call from headquarters.

  Why should they come back to him? He had told them the truth last night, if not all of the truth. For all of his rationalization, he decided he should get out of here and quickly. Before they did return. Before there were reporters and news photographers hammering at the door. It occurred to him to wonder how it was that there were no newsmen last night at the mortuary. The police must be keeping this case well under cover. He didn’t know if that was in his favor or not.

  They had not put out a teletype with his name last night or as yet this morning. If they had, his sleep wouldn’t have been undisturbed. It couldn’t be that they would care about protecting Hugh’s professional reputation. More likely it was because of the ramifications of the girl’s double identity. They could be waiting to move until they made positive identification of Iris as Bonnie Lee Crumb.

  He showered and dressed with his mind turning the maybe and if and perhaps and possible until he forced it to quiescence. If he were to emerge from this grim geste unharmed, he must walk through it the same man who walked into it. He, Dr. Hugh Densmore, product of his heredity and environment, sufficiently intelligent and well adjusted to his mind and body and color and ambition.

  The services would be over, the family should be back at the grandparents’, enjoying one of Gram’s pioneer meals. He couldn’t eat but he’d have a cup of coffee with them. This time he put on his sun glasses before parting the curtains. He slid open the lanai doors. It was another beautiful day, another hot day. There was no policeman on guard outside, no stranger at all. Far across the lawn by the pool, the sunbathers and the swimmers were again gala. He left the doors ajar, with the screen hooked; he liked fresh air with his air conditioning.

  As he turned back to the room, he remembered his promise to call Ellen. His hand reached across the desk, then drew away. He wouldn’t call her from this phone. He left the apartment, stepping out into the high blaze of noon heat. He’d forgotten he was without a car, he’d have to walk it. He didn’t mind the walk, in a way he welcomed it. It would clear his head in a way that driving a car could not. There was no one on guard at this outside door, either.

  He cut a rapid cross
town path toward Jefferson Street. Walking in one hundred-degree heat had little resemblance to walking on a Westwood campus. But he didn’t diminish his pace even though he knew it to be compulsive. There was need to put as much distance as possible, and as quickly as possible, between himself and the motel. He wouldn’t be hidden with the family. He had mentioned Dr. Edward last night. If Ringle and Venner didn’t know, they could easily find out where to look for Hugh. His grandfather was as well known as the doctor.

  Again the sick feeling overwhelmed him. Surely the police wouldn’t interrupt the wedding. But having met Ringle and Venner, he knew that it would make no difference to them. They’d come for Hugh whenever they wanted him. It might even give them a twisted satisfaction to slur their black shadows over the shining white of the bridal ceremony.

  When he reached his grandparents’ house, he took the porch steps by twos as if Ringle’s hand were outstretched to clamp his shoulder. He plunged into the living-room coolness. The voices led him to the dining room. They were at the table, not at one of his grandmother’s Sunday chicken dinners, not on the wedding day. But the breakfast they were finishing was equally substantial. None of the young people was present, nor were the out-of-town guests. Only his father and mother and his grandparents.

  His mother looked up, appalled. “You didn’t walk over here, Hugh! Why didn’t you call me?”

  They hadn’t heard of any trouble. They wouldn’t be as normal if they had. He poured himself a glass of water and drank it slowly before answering the concerted hubbub.

  “I’m a tenderfoot. Why didn’t somebody remind me it would be a hundred and ten in the shade?” His voice sounded normal. He hoped his demeanor didn’t belie it. He must remember to be supranormal all this day, not let an inflection or a glance betray the inner nerves.

  “Have you had your lunch yet?” It was his grandmother, starting to rise.

  Hugh put his hands on her shoulders. “I haven’t had my breakfast yet. Don’t move. There’s enough here for all the starving Chinese.” He sat down beside her.