by Ed McBain
“If you can’t see into the car, how you going to read a license plate?” Fielding asked.
“That’s a good question,” Hawes said. He nodded. “Okay, let’s get our light.”
* * *
IT OCCURRED TO HAWES while they were making the call to Griffins that they could use a lot more than a light and a crowbar. And so he ordered skin-diving equipment, complete with face masks and oxygen tanks. The equipment did not arrive until late that afternoon. He and Fielding went down to the lake again, equipped themselves, and went into the water.
Again there was the silence. Again the waters closed around the diving figures, shutting out the sounds of the real world. Hawes held the light, and Fielding held the crowbar. As they dove, Hawes kept thinking, If this is Kettering’s car, if this is Kettering’s car….
And then a new thought came to him.
If this was indeed Kettering’s car, his hunch would have been a solid one. The hunch had been simple. He had assumed that Kettering had been killed up here at Kukabonga, which was why they could find no trace of him in the city. He had never returned from the Adirondacks. He had been killed here by someone, and his body had been disposed of. The second half of the hunch was equally simple. Sy Kramer had witnessed the killing, hence the “I SAW YOU!” note. And the murderer of Phil Kettering was the person who had been paying Kramer exorbitant sums of money to protect himself—and this person had had strong motivation for the second murder, the murder of Kramer himself.
The new thought that came to Hawes was somewhat frightening.
For if Kettering had been killed at Kukabonga, and if his murderer was also the man who’d murdered Kramer, what would stop him from killing a third time?
And had not Jerry Fielding been present at Kukabonga when Phil Kettering was killed? And did not Jerry Fielding now hold a crowbar in his hands, and were both men not diving toward the bottom of a dark lake?
If the car was Phil Kettering’s, if Kettering had been killed, couldn’t Jerry Fielding—as well as any of the other men who’d been present—have killed him?
Was Hawes in the water with a murderer?
The idea chilled him. There was nothing to do but wait. He swam toward the rear end of the car. Fielding swam close behind him, the crowbar in his hands. Hawes flashed the light at the license plate. The number was 39X-1412. He repeated it silently several times, burning it into his memory. Then he motioned for Fielding to come to the door of the car. Fielding swam closer. His face behind the mask looked grotesque, evil. He did not seem to be the mild, gently speaking man Hawes had known on the surface. The crowbar in his hands seemed like a deadly weapon. Hawes flashed the light into the car. He could see nothing. He realized, though, that if Kettering were in the car, his body could be on the floor and not visible from the window. He signaled to Fielding again.
Fielding did not seem to understand. He stood motionless, the crowbar in his hands. Hawes swam around the car, trying each door. They were all locked. Then he came back around and pointed to the door near the driver’s seat.
Fielding understood and nodded. Together, they applied the crowbar into the space where door met frame. Together they tugged. Together, they pried open the door. Hawes went into the automobile. It occurred to him while he was in the car that Fielding need only slam the door shut on him, wedging it into place again. He would die inside the car as soon as his oxygen ran out. Fielding stood just outside the door now, waiting.
Hawes flashed the light over the floor, before the front seat and the back seat. The car was empty. He backed out of it, and signaled Fielding to the trunk.
Together, they attacked the lock with the crowbar, and then forced open the trunk.
The trunk was empty.
Even if this was Kettering’s car, the body of Phil Kettering was not in it.
Together, Hawes and Fielding surfaced.
Hawes wondered if he owed Fielding an apology. He said nothing. Instead, he went back to the house and called the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. They returned his call ten minutes later, telling him that the vehicle bearing the license number 39X-1412 was registered to a man named Philip Kettering who made his residence in Sand’s Spit.
Hawes thanked them and hung up. He was not a man to keep things hidden. He would need Fielding’s further help, and he wanted to know where he stood at once.
“Don’t get sore at me,” he said.
“You think I did it?” Fielding asked.
“I don’t know. Kettering’s car is at the bottom of the lake, and we can’t find Kettering or his body. My hunch is that it’s buried someplace in those woods, somewhere near where the car entered the lake. My hunch is that somebody at this lodge killed Kettering and was seen by Kramer. Kramer began his extortion and signed his own death warrant. Those are my hunches.”
“And I was here when Kettering got it—if he got it. Right?”
“Right.”
“It’s your job,” Fielding said. “I understand.”
“Okay. Where were you on the morning Kettering went into those woods alone—the morning he allegedly left the lodge?”
“I was here until all the men had had their breakfast,” Fielding answered. “Then I drove into Griffins.”
“What for?”
“Groceries.”
“Will they remember your being there?”
“I was there all morning, stocking up. I’m sure they’ll remember. If they don’t, they can check the carbon of their bill. It’ll tell them what date I made the purchases. I always go into Griffins in the morning. If they’ve got a copy of the bill, they’ll know I was there that morning, all morning. I couldn’t possibly have had the time to kill Kettering, shove his car into the lake and then bury him.”
“Will you make the call?” Hawes asked.
“I’ll dial it. You can talk to the proprietor. His name’s Pete Canby. Just tell him what it’s all about.”
“What date did Kettering leave here?” Hawes asked.
“It was a Wednesday morning,” Fielding said. “Let me check my records.”
When he came back from his office, he said, “September fifth. I’ll call Pete, and you can talk to him.”
Fielding called the grocery store, and Hawes talked to the owner. Canby looked up his bills. Jerry Fielding had indeed been in Griffins all morning on the morning of September fifth. Hawes hung up.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Fielding said. “It’s your job. A man’s got to do his job. Shall we go look for that grave now?”
They looked hard, but they did not find a grave.
Cotton Hawes drove back to the city with another idea, an idea that would almost cost his life.
HIS MURDERER WAS one of three men, that much he knew.
Frank Ruther, Joaquim Miller, or John Murphy.
He did not know which one nor, with Kramer dead and Kettering’s body probably irretrievably buried in the Adirondack wilds, was he likely to find out which one unless he tried a gamble. He was basing his gamble on Lucy Mencken’s reactions to the fake extortionist Torr. Torr had called her with nothing but a threat, and Lucy Mencken had been willing to do business, accepting the lie that someone else had taken over from Kramer.
Hawes hoped the murderer would react in much the same way that Lucy Mencken had reacted. If his gamble worked, he would have his man. If it didn’t, he had lost nothing and he’d find another way to pinpoint him—he hoped. He made several mistakes in reasoning, however, and those mistakes were what almost cost him his life. One of the mistakes was not letting the rest of the squad in on his plan.
He did not get back to the city until four in the morning. He checked in at the Parker Hotel in midtown Isola, using the false name of David Gorman. From the hotel, and using the phone in the hotel room, he sent three identical wires. One wire went to Ruther, one to Miller, and one to Murphy. The wires read:
I KNOW ABOUT KETTERING. AM READY TO TALK BUSINESS. COME TO PARKER HOTEL, ISOLA, ROOM 1612, AT TWELVE NO
ON TODAY. I WILL BE THERE. COME ALONE.
DAVID GORMAN
The wires went out at 4:13 A.M. At 4:30 A.M., in all fairness to Hawes, he did call the squad on the off-chance that Carella might be catching. He was not. Meyer Meyer answered the phone.
“Eighty-seventh Squad,” he said. “Detective Meyer.”
“Meyer, this is Cotton. Steve around?”
“No,” Meyer said. “He’s home. What’s up?”
“Will he be coming in this morning?”
“Eight o’clock, I think. Want me to give him a message?”
“Tell him to call me at the Parker Hotel as soon as he gets in, will you?”
“Sure,” Meyer said. “What’s the broad’s name?”
“I’m in Room 1612,” Hawes said.
“I’ll tell him.”
“Thanks,” Hawes said, and he hung up.
There was nothing to do now but wait.
In his mind, Hawes stacked up the attributes of the three suspects. None was an expert shot, but you didn’t have to be an expert shot to hit a man at eight feet with a hunting rifle. Murphy was possibly the least likely suspect for a man with a deadly aim—but Murphy was an excellent driver, and the man who’d shot Kramer had been driving a car. Each of the suspects could possibly have paid Kramer the huge sum of money he’d received before his death. Ruther had inherited money, which he said he’d piddled away. He could just as easily have paid it to Kramer. Miller was a land speculator who said he’d made a thirty-thousand-dollar profit. He could easily have made more. Murphy was a retired broker with a fine home and money to throw away on every club in sight, not to mention the upkeep of a Porsche kept in racing condition. He, too, could afford to pay Kramer.
They all looked fairly good.
They all had been in the woods on the morning Kettering allegedly left Kukabonga Lodge.
Any one of the three could have killed Kettering and Kramer.
There was nothing to do but wait. Eventually a knock would sound on the door, and Hawes would open it on the murderer. It was only a matter of time. He had set twelve noon as the appointed hour. He looked at his watch now. It was 5:27 A.M. There was lots of time. He took his gun out of his shoulder rig and put it on the table alongside an easy chair. Then he curled up in the chair and fell asleep.
The knock came sooner than he expected.
He came up out of sleep, rubbed his fists into his eyes, and then looked at his watch. It was 9:00 A.M. The room was flooded with sunlight. There were still three hours to go.
“Who is it,” he asked.
“Bellhop,” the voice answered.
He went to the door and opened it, leaving his gun on the table.
The door opened on his murderer.
All three of them.
18.
EACH OF THE THREE MEN was holding a gun.
“Inside,” Ruther said.
“Quick!” Murphy said.
“Don’t make a sound,” Miller warned.
The expression on Hawes’s face was one of complete shock. The men moved into the room swiftly and soundlessly. Miller locked the door. Murphy went to the window and pulled down the shade. Ruther’s eyes flicked to Hawes’s empty shoulder holster.
“Where’s your gun?” he asked.
Hawes gestured to the table with his head.
“Get it, John,” Miller said to Murphy. The old man walked to the table and picked up the gun. He tucked it into his waistband.
“We didn’t expect you, Mr. Hawes,” Ruther said. “We thought there really was a man named David Gorman. Does anyone know—?”
The telephone rang. Hawes hesitated.
“Answer it,” Ruther said.
“What shall I say?”
“Does anyone know you’re here?” Miller asked.
“No,” Hawes lied.
“Then it’s probably the desk. Just speak normally. Answer whatever they ask. No nonsense.”
Hawes lifted the receiver. “Hello?” he said.
“Cotton? This is Steve,” Carella said.
“Yes, this is Room 1612,” Hawes answered.
“What?”
“This is Mr. Hawes speaking,” he said.
Carella paused for a moment. Hawes could almost feel a mental shrug on the line. Then Carella said, “Okay, this is Room 1612, and this Mr. Hawes speaking. Now, what’s the gag?”
“Yes, I did order breakfast,” Hawes said. “Not ten minutes ago.”
“What?” Carella asked. “Listen, Cotton—”
“I’ll repeat the order if you like,” Hawes said, “but I don’t see why…All right, all right. I ordered juice, coffee, and toast. Yes, that was all.”
“Is this Cotton Hawes?” Carella asked, completely bewildered.
“Yes.”
“Well, what—?”
Hawes covered the mouthpiece. “They want to send up the breakfast I ordered,” he said. “Is it all right?”
“No,” Ruther said.
“Let them,” Murphy suggested. “We don’t want them to think anything strange is going on up here.”
“He’s right, Frank,” Miller said.
“All right, tell them to send it up. No tricks.”
Hawes uncovered the mouthpiece. “Hello?” he said.
“Cotton,” Carella said patiently, “I just got in to the office. I had a stop to make first, so I just got in. Meyer left a message on my desk. He said to call you at the Parker Hotel and—”
“Come right up,” Hawes said.
“Huh?”
“Bring it right up. The room is 1612.”
“Cotton, have you—?”
“I’ll be waiting,” Hawes said, and he hung up.
“What did he say?” Ruther asked.
“He said they’d send it right up.”
“How soon?”
Quickly Hawes calculated how long it would take a car with its siren blasting to get to the hotel from the squad. “No more than fifteen minutes,” he said, and then immediately wished he had made it a half hour. Suppose Carella had not understood him?
“I only expected one of you,” Hawes said. He had quickly reasoned that he was safe until after the alleged bellhop arrived with his alleged breakfast. But if the bellhop did not arrive, how long would these men wait? The thing to do was to keep them talking. When a man is talking, he is not conscious of the time.
“We should have figured that,” Ruther said. “The ‘come alone’ in your wires was very puzzling. If you knew about Kettering, you should have known there were three of us. Why, then, the ‘come alone’ line? We assumed you meant the three of us alone, no cops. We assumed wrong, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” Hawes said.
“Do you know about Kettering?”
“I know his car is at the bottom of the lake at Kukabonga, and I figure he’s buried in the woods someplace. What else is there to know?”
“There’s a lot more to know,” Miller said.
“Why’d you kill him?” Hawes asked.
“It was an—” Miller started, and Ruther turned to him sharply.
“Shut up, Joaquim!” he warned.
“What difference does it make?” Miller asked. “Are you forgetting why we came here?”
“He’s right, Frank,” Murphy said. “What difference does it make?” The old man looked ludicrous with one gun in his hand and another tucked into his waistband. He looked somewhat like the senile marshal of a cleaned-out once-tough Western town.
“Why’d you kill Kettering?” Hawes repeated.
Miller looked to Ruther for permission. Ruther nodded.
“It was an accident,” Miller said. “He was shot accidentally.”
“Who shot him?”
“We don’t know,” Miller said. “The three of us were hunting together. We spotted what we thought was a fox, and we all fired simultaneously. The fox turned out to be Kettering. We heard him scream. He was dead when we got to him. We didn’t know whose bullet had hit him.”
“It wasn’t min
e,” Murphy said flatly.
“You don’t know that, John,” Ruther said.
“I do know it. I was shooting a .300 Savage, and you were both using twenty-twos. If my shot had hit him, it would have torn a—”
“You don’t know, John,” Ruther repeated.
“I do know, damnit. Kettering was killed by one of those twenty-twos.”
“Why didn’t you say so at the time?”
“I couldn’t think straight. You know that. None of us could.”
“What happened?” Hawes asked.
“We were in the middle of the woods with a dead man,” Miller said. His upper lip was beaded with perspiration now. Caught in the grip of total recall, his words came haltingly, with difficulty. “The woods were still; there wasn’t a sound. We were hardly breathing. Do you remember, Frank? Do you remember how quiet the woods went after Kettering’s scream?”
“Yes,” Ruther said. “Yes.”
“We stood around the body, the three of us, in those silent woods.”
And all at once, Hawes was there with them, standing over a man one of them had shot, standing over a dead man, with the woods gone suddenly still, as still as the man at their feet. And he realized, too, that the men were back there in the Adirondacks, playing out a scene they had lived, playing it with fresh emotion, as if it were happening to them for the first time.
“We didn’t know what to do,” Miller said.
“I wanted to report it to the authorities,” Murphy said.
“But how could we do that?” Ruther asked. “He was dead! Goddamnit, you knew he was dead.”
“But it was an accident.”
“What difference does that make? How many men get hanged because of accidents?”
“We should have reported it.”
“We couldn’t!” Miller said. “Suppose they didn’t believe us? Suppose they thought we shot him purposely?”
“They’d have believed us.”
“And even if they did,” Ruther said, “what would a scandal have done to my business?”
“And my job,” Miller said.
“Our pictures would have been in every tabloid. And there’d always be the doubt, and the knowledge that one of us had killed a man. How could we have lived with that?”