The Expendable Man

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  She rose from the chair. “We’d better go.”

  “Not you.” His refusal was explosive.

  She smiled as if at a child. “I didn’t mean I was going to hold your hand at the interview. I mean I’ll drive to Scottsdale with you and wait for you.”

  “No.”

  “I want to,” she said flatly.

  He shook his head and walked back to the dressing room. He didn’t care how casually they dressed in Arizona, he needed all possible security. Such a small thing as the campus dress uniform of a white shirt and narrow dark tie was a part of it. He called out to Ellen, hoping she would be more amenable by now, “There’d be nothing for you to do while you waited.”

  “I’ll find something. Or just stay in the car.”

  “No!” Again he was explosive. He strode back to the room, tying his necktie as he tried to explain. “They know the car. It’s part of their—dossier, should I say? You can’t stay in it, alone, at night, a girl—”

  “So I won’t stay in it,” she said gravely, and continued, “I’m going with you, Hugh. And I’ll find a place to wait, a safe place, where I’ll cause you neither worry nor embarrassment.”

  They were standing too close together, their eyes meeting, measuring their separate thoughts. He was the one who turned away. “All right. I should say thank you. I do need support—I expect you know that from the way I’ve been behaving.”

  Her smile was small but reassuring. “I’m not thinking of myself as a pillar. It’s just—I couldn’t stand the waiting anywhere else.”

  He understood and he appreciated but he didn’t tell her so. Because he couldn’t accept the intimacy which was rising between them. He couldn’t endure the knowing it must lead to nothing, no more than the finality of a good-bye, it’s been fun knowing you.

  “I guess I’m as ready as I’m going to be,” he said.

  They left the room; he checked the door to be sure it was fast. Not that it made any difference. Locked doors didn’t thwart the police. But at least he wouldn’t be surprised by anyone else.

  He couldn’t make conversation on the drive to Scottsdale. He was afraid, he admitted to himself that he was afraid, while insisting there was no reason to be. If this were an arrest, the marshal wouldn’t invite Hugh to come out for an interview, would he? He’d send the detectives with a warrant. This meeting would be less dangerous than the ordeal with Ringle and Venner last night. Yet Hugh’s hands were icy and his heart leaden.

  He turned off Scottsdale Road on East Main Street and found a parking place in front of the darkened windows of an Indian arts shop. He did not want to park by the police station; he didn’t want Ellen to be seen there. Although this was one of the principal streets, Scottsdale was a village, and by night it was shadowed and quiet. It would have been safe enough for Ellen to remain in the car if it had not been this particular car.

  He said again, “I don’t know what you’re going to do.”

  “Don’t worry about me, please. We’ll meet here when you’re through. I’ll check regularly.”

  “And if I don’t come back?” He had to say it.

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  Before he could get out to open the door, she was out of the car. She walked away without turning her head for good-bye. If she hadn’t been Ellen Hamilton, she might have been heading for the luxury restaurant near the corner. But she wouldn’t try that, not alone, at night; not with him in trouble. She was doubtless going to Luke’s, the large lighted drugstore across Scottsdale Road. There’d be no lifted eyebrows much less outright rejection there, no better place at this hour to while away the time.

  He removed the keys from the ignition, pushed them in his pocket. As he left the car, the swinging doors of the restaurant emitted a mottled blonde and her beefy tourist cowboy. She shrilled drunkenly into the quiet night. Hugh moved off in the opposite direction.

  The pavement ended with this block of specialized shopping area. Beyond was a dusty country lane where the Town Hall, housing the police department, stood. He’d seen it many times, the small brick building which might once have been the village schoolhouse. Steps led up to its porch and it seemed there was always an Indian woman sitting there, a child’s head pushing against her long draggled skirt. The reservation lay not far beyond the town. The woman was here even at this hour of night, a toddler asleep in her arms, another child, scarcely older, sleeping against her knee. Waiting for her man who had been invited in for a little talk? No, it wouldn’t be that. She’d go home if her man was in jail. The porch was no more than a place where she could wait undisturbed and in safety until her husband finished work or pleasure somewhere in town. It was better to wait for a ride than to trudge the miles with the tired children. She paid no attention to Hugh, she might not have seen him.

  He moved to the steps on the right. They led down to the basement door with its sign designating this as the quarters of the Scottsdale police. The light over the door was a white glare. He had to will his feet to descend. If he could have run away, he would have. Facing the essential operation, the patient couldn’t run. No matter his fright, he must submit, holding his tenuous courage to wavering hope.

  Without further thought, Hugh walked inside. He was in a low-ceilinged basement room. It was not a dank, gloomy dungeon. It was somehow bright and informal, it didn’t have the look or smell of a police station. A young officer whose uniform was little different from that of a Scottsdale businessman—tan frontier pants, matching shirt, and black string tie—was in a railed-off sector at the left attending the stuttering police radio. A similar officer was at the water cooler. Beyond a casual glance, neither paid any attention to Hugh. They knew who he was; they must have known. He stood waiting, wishing he knew the protocol. Whether to speak or be spoken to.

  Across the room was an open door leading to a private office. The entrance to it was blocked by a large desk of some light wood, the top cluttered with papers and office equipment like any businessman’s desk. A third officer materialized in the doorway behind the desk.

  “You Hugh Densmore?” he called out, not unfriendly. He was dressed like the others but his belt had handsome silver mountings, Indian silver work.

  “Yes,” Hugh said.

  “Come on in.”

  He waited for Hugh to cross the room, edge past the desk, and follow into the inner office. Here there was another desk, more cluttered, and a couple of plain chairs which might have been borrowed from a school storehouse. There were two small windows, basement type, high on the far wall. The station was air-conditioned, as was every building in the Phoenix area, but it evidently didn’t filter through to this smaller office. A revolving electric fan hummed on a shelf above the desk. The papers on the desk were weighted with desert rocks, a cigarette lighter, a pipe, and like makeshifts.

  “I’m Marshal Hackaberry,” the officer said. He might have been thirty years or fifty; he had the deceptive weathered face of Western outdoor men. His eyes were horizon-blue, his hair sandy. There was an Arizona twang in his voice. He wore low-heeled cowboy boots with his uniform, the embossed leather worn to a fine finish. He went around behind the littered desk and lowered himself into the revolving chair. He gestured to Hugh. “Sit down.”

  Hugh took the chair by the desk. All at once he was somehow at ease. He knew why, but only someone who knew the other side of the coin would understand. Hackaberry had looked at Hugh, spoken to him, as to any man he might summon to his office.

  “You know why I wanted to see you.” It wasn’t exactly a question.

  “I think so,” Hugh replied. “I think it’s about the girl who was found in the canal.”

  Hackaberry nodded briefly. He lifted a thin sheaf of papers from beneath a piece of volcanic rock. “You identified the body.”

  “I identified Iris Croom.”

  His eyes shot up to Hugh’s face as if expecting to find defiance there. There was none to find. Hugh had merely stated the fact. The marshal looked down again at the papers
, tapping them with his forefinger. “I have here the reports of Ringle and Venner.” He pushed back in his chair for comfort, and continued, “This is Scottsdale’s case. At least for now it is. The girl was found over our line. Do you know anything about the way we work, Mr. Densmore—Doctor?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “We’re a marshal’s department. Not county, although I’m also a county deputy as are most of my men. Two hats. If it turns out she was killed in the county, not Scottsdale, I’ll still be in charge. If, however, the death occurred in Phoenix, the case will go to them.”

  The marshal had to wait for the autopsy before he could speak more plainly. But this was plain enough to Hugh. If aborticide had been committed in the neighborhood of the motel, the case belonged to Phoenix. If the murder was done by the canal where she’d been found, to Scottsdale. Hugh started to take his cigarettes from his pocket but thought better of it. The need to smoke might give an impression of nervousness.

  “The autopsy may give us a lead. But maybe it won’t. We may have to do some intensive investigation before we find out. Right now I’m bossman. That doesn’t mean Phoenix isn’t co-operating with me. We’re a small department. When I took over the job a few years ago we had exactly three men on the force. We have fourteen now, but the way the town’s growing, that’s not enough for plain routine work. When we get a big one like this, we ask Phoenix to help us out. They’ve got the men and the labs and all the equipment. I’m telling you this so you won’t get any ideas you’re getting the treatment from both sides. Ringle and Venner are Phoenix Homicide but their chief has assigned them to me for this case. They’re working for me.”

  “I understand,” Hugh said.

  “And another thing.” He worried the papers, not looking at Hugh. “I don’t want you getting any ideas that you’re going to get a bad beef because you’re a—because you’re not a white man.” He jutted his chin and met Hugh’s eyes full with his own. His were like blue flint. “This isn’t going to be any race affair. Get that straight. We’re after a killer and we’re going to get him. And when we get him, we’re not going to have things messed up for us by a lot of bleeding hearts or snotty sociologists or NAACP legal eagles. I don’t care what color you are, if you killed that girl you’ll pay for it. If you didn’t, I don’t want you.”

  “I didn’t,” Hugh said flatly. Again he reached for cigarettes.

  This time Marshal Hackaberry noted the move. “Go on, smoke if you like,” he said. He himself fished one from a crumpled pack. “Now we understand each other, we can commence. I’ve got the reports but I want to hear this story myself. Personally. How you picked up this girl in Blythe and brought her into Phoenix.”

  Hugh took a deep pull at his cigarette. He had given Ringle and Venner no details last night. By now the border inspectors had probably communicated with Phoenix. But it was not this that caused Hugh to make his decision that he would tell the whole story to Hackaberry; it was something in the man himself. He could be wrong. Perhaps the marshal wasn’t a straight shooter; it might be an act, so well practiced that it fit him like his old boots. Nevertheless it couldn’t be wrong to tell the truth, the whole truth. Right or wrong, the decision was Hugh’s. Only by the truth could his innocence be proved. Lies, evasions, suppression could only indicate a measure of guilt. And he was innocent. This was his shield, this his protection.

  Hugh put ashes neatly in the glass tray at the side of the desk. “I’d like to start at the beginning,” he said.

  “That’s the place to start.” The marshal settled himself more comfortably. He must have been attuned to extraneous sound in the outer office, for he added at once, “Hold on a minute.” He was around the desk and over to the doorway, calling out, “Those detectives here yet?” He leaned through the aperture. “Ringle! Venner! Come in here. Better bring another chair, we’re short.”

  Hugh stiffened at the names. It had been too much to hope that he could talk alone to the marshal. Hackaberry had made it clear that the two were his men, their job to find the killer of Iris. They were not here by coincidence; he had sent for them. He must have known there was much more to learn from Hugh than what was in the report. And all the good-fellowship explanatory material was only to pass the time until their arrival?

  Ringle came first, grunting what might have been a recognition of Hugh, and lowered his bulk onto the straight chair on the other side of the desk. Venner followed, carrying the extra chair. He placed it in the vicinity of Ringle’s, sat down, and jockeyed its placement until he could tilt back against the partition separating this room from the main office. He acknowledged Hugh’s presence by drawing back his lips in what might have been a sardonic smile.

  Hackaberry was still in the doorway, talking to one of his deputies outside. His words did not carry. Hugh stubbed out his cigarette in the ash tray. He’d like another, but even if the detectives had sworn affidavits that Hugh chain-smoked on his breaks to make up for long work hours without tobacco, they would believe only that he smoked now because of anxiety. As if he could read Hugh’s mind, Venner lit a fresh one from his own stub and sighed a deep satisfaction.

  The marshal turned into the room again. “Where is your car, Mr.—Dr. Densmore?”

  They’d checked. They knew it wasn’t out front.

  He said, “I parked in the next block. By that Indian shop.”

  “You wouldn’t mind if my men go over it while we’re talking? It’ll save time for you and for us too.”

  He did mind. Ellen might have gone back to it in spite of his warning. Or she might look for it before the police had time to replace it. Ellen could cope, that had been made clear to him long before now. And a police request was only the initial polite form of a demand. He knew his hesitancy, although fleeting, had given the wrong impression. He could not help how they misconstrued, he would not mention Ellen. He drew his keys from his pocket and carried them over to the marshal. “She rode to Phoenix with me. You know you’ll find her fingerprints all over the car.”

  “The back seat?” Venner smirked.

  “She was never in the back seat!” Only Venner had the power to send him into these quick rages. Perhaps that was the runt detective’s function. He controlled the anger before repeating to Hackaberry, “She was never in the back seat. She reached across from the front to get the water jug off the floor. That’s the only contact she had with it.”

  The marshal said, “Let me get this going and you can fill in the whole picture.” His boots clacked as he crossed to the door and the keys jangled a counter rhythm.

  As he disappeared, the eyes of Venner and Ringle, as if they were iron bars, moved to contain Hugh. He couldn’t take it; he looked away, focusing on the blank wall as he returned to his chair.

  Venner said to Ringle conversationally, “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he didn’t wait to get in the back.”

  Ringle’s noncommittal grunt could have been a warning. At least he changed the topic. “Did you see Crumb?”

  “Yeah. I just come from that.”

  “How’s he taking it?”

  “How would you expect him to take a nigger messing with his daughter?”

  Hugh forced his eyes to stay on the wall.

  But Ringle exploded, “You didn’t tell him—”

  Venner was laughing so hard that for a moment he couldn’t reply. Then he cackled, “Naw, I never mentioned black boy here.” Disgustedly he spat. “I told him just what Hackaberry said to tell him—nothing. But when he finds out—” He made an uncouth clicking sound in his throat. “He’s not going to like it.”

  The last words were near-whispered as the marshal burst in, calling over his shoulder, “Don’t interrupt me for anything.” This time he closed the door soundly before returning to his comfortable chair. Briefly he fingered the papers in front of him, anchoring them with a larger-size rock. He took his pipe from another stack, shifting his ash tray to hold it down. He used his elbow on another segment while he removed the tobacco tin from th
em to pack his pipe. There was no sound in the room but the measured drone of the fan and the sibilant riff of the flimsies. In the next room, the spluttering police radio could be heard distinctly.

  Venner watched the checkerboard maneuvers with his customary sardonic smirk. Ringle appeared lost in his own glum thoughts. Hugh also watched, wondering how much of the business was for effect, how much a habit of makeshift convenience.

  Hackaberry puffed the pipe into a waft of smoke and spoke through the stem. “With your permission, Doctor, I think I’ll tape this meeting.” He yanked open a drawer of his desk, indicated the recording machine which was fitted into it. “That way none of us will have to worry about misremembering.”

  Again Hugh had no choice. He inclined his head as permission.

  Hackaberry set the machine into operation. He stated time, place, those present, and continued, “All present understand this is an informal session. Dr. Densmore volunteered to come here to tell us what he knows of Bonnie Lee Crumb, known to him as Iris Croom. Dr. Densmore is not represented by an attorney, nor is he charged with anything. This is clearly understood?”

  There it was, for later introduction in court, if permitted. Ringle growled his response, “Yeah.” You could tell he didn’t believe in informal questioning. Venner slurred, “Oh, sure.” His methods wouldn’t be influenced by legalities, not if he could help it.

  The marshal repeated to Hugh, “You have no objections to taping?” He needed audible response for the record.

  “I have none,” Hugh said. Not that tapes couldn’t be edited.

  “Thank you.” Hackaberry stopped the machine, played back what had just been recorded. He was satisfied. The voices were distinct. “Okay.” He set the machine again. “You can start in, Doctor. Right at the beginning, when she asked you for a ride at the check station.”

  Hugh said, “I’d like to start before that. When I first saw the girl.”

  He had expected, even welcomed, the sensation his words would arouse. In a small way, it would expend some of his hostility to the detectives. But when the response came, the quick ugly anger in Ringle’s face, the pitiless narrowing of Venner’s lips, it would have been frightening had not Marshal Hackaberry been present. Hackaberry took the statement without any noticeable reaction. He puffed his pipe and asked matter-of-factly, “So you had met up with her before?”