by Eric
We all stood around looking at the house. Every window in it was lit.
"He doesn't look like he's hiding," I said.
"He could be ready to make a stand," Janosky said. I cleared my throat because I didn't want to bust out laughing and strolled over to the kitchen door. I didn't even bother knocking, I just walked in.
There was a big pot of coffee simmering on a new electric range. The swinging door to the parlor was open and I could hear music coming from inside. I walked in with the others right behind me.
The first person I saw was Millie from the Donut Shop, all dressed up like she was going somewhere, face painted and hair freshly done. She was sitting in a club chair with her ankles crossed and a drink in her hand, trying to look nonchalant, though the little smile on her lips trembled a little.
Freeman had changed into a suit, shirt, and tie. He'd combed his hair. The smell of Vitalis was sharp. He was grinning like a cat.
"Put your hands flat and empty on the table," Janosky said.
Freeman did as he was told and said, "Who's your friend, Barry?"
"You really stepped into it up to the neck this time, Howard."
"What're you talking about? It's about time for you to break out the citations and the medals."
A car pulled up outside.
The other carload of FBI hadn't gotten lost after all I thought.
Freeman moved one finger. "There's this," he said, pointing to a small card, "and then there's this," pointing to the nickel.
I went over, picked up the card and read it. "Prentiss, Martin and Davis."
"Metallurgists," Karen said.
The front door opened.
Trask looked at Karen sharply and said, "I thought you caught the Chicago train."
"Oh, no, I thought I'd come along and see the rest of the excitement."
"This is Karen Olliphant," I said.
"Newspaper?" Trask asked.
"Television," Karen said. "We'd be into it sooner or later."
Trask was about to say something more when Dixie Hanniford came into the living room from the hallway. She wasn't dressed in her rough clothes but in a nightdress and dressing gown. Nothing flannel, only silk and satin with a stylish trench-coat thrown over her shoulders. She was even wearing feathered mules.
"What the devil's going on here? You all right, Howard?"
Janosky reared back and said, "I'm going to order all unauthorized persons to—"
"Oh, can it, will you Janosky?" I said. "This movie's just about over. All the actors are here now and I want to get to the end of it."
Freeman looked at me.
"Freeman got wind that this foreign agent, Bela Mazurky or Benjamin May, had stolen information out of the factory of a firm, located between Akron and McCook, that formulates new alloys," I said.
"For the government," Freeman said.
"He decided he'd put the chicken away from the fox right out from under the nose of the wolves—"
Freeman grinned at Trask and Janosky.
"—so he hired a couple of gypsy pickpockets to pull a switch and get him Mazurky's briefcase on the train."
What I was going to say next wasn't true and I knew it.
"He discovered that the information he'd paid to have stolen wasn't in the briefcase. He went through the train and found Mazurky and the gypsy girl, Cara, in the deadhead. They were—"
"No!" Freeman yelled. There wasn't the trace of a grin or a smile on his face. "I never went looking for anybody. I wasn't even on the train. I was right here in Akron down by the station. When it was late by an hour, I went on back home."
"You didn't struggle with the two of them? They didn't fall out the door under the wheels? You didn't pull the emergency right there and jump off the train?"
"If I'd done anything like that, how the hell would I manage to get back to Akron in time to come down to look over the bodies?"
"Well, you weren't back in Akron when the dispatcher called and talked to Millie, were you?"
"I was at the station."
"When did you realize Mazurky might've been carrying the goods in some other form?"
"I knew that metallurgists cast sample slugs. I figured one of them could be mixed up in the change in Mazurky's pocket. I never figured somebody at the laboratory would cast the slug to look like a nickel."
"What were the marks on the nickel?" George said
"Test impacts. Different marks for different times in the process of casting, stamping, and annealing."
"So if you didn't pull the emergency, who did?" George asked.
"The person who killed Mazurky and the gypsy girl," I said. "The person who murdered Annie McMonigle."
They all looked at me.
I was looking at Dixie Hanniford.
THIRTY-THREE
For a minute there, with just about everybody staring at me wide-eyed and open mouthed, I started hoping for a hole in the floor to open up and swallow me. What I had to go on was so small, an intuition would've looked like a certainty beside it. I thought I had the ends figured out, but I surely couldn't lay down chapter and verse about the means.
"For God's sake, Jake," Trask said. "There's the guilty man sitting right there with his finger on the reason why he did what he did."
"His finger's on the evidence," I said, "but what he did wasn't killing."
Dixie started laughing and set herself down in an easy chair, head thrown back as though trying to get a clearer view of this madman who was posing as a railroad detective.
"What Freeman did was a lot of romantic foolishness," I went on. "He was kicked out of the agency because he went off half-cocked, a case of too much misdirected enthusiasm. It figures he'd do something harebrained trying to redeem himself."
"Hey," Freeman said in protest, but that was all he said. He wasn't so foolish as to interrupt the man who was trying to save his bacon.
I looked at Millie. "Or maybe he just wanted to show off a little for Millie after they got to be good friends."
"He didn't have to impress me by doing anything special," Millie said in a small voice.
"So Freeman was down around the depot, keeping out of sight, waiting for the train to pull in so he could retrieve the briefcase his hired thieves had stolen, when the dispatcher called looking for the coroner. Millie was in his house. I'd guess she often stopped by in the morning to spend an hour with Freeman before she had to go and start opening up the Donut Shop. She told the dispatcher the first thing that came into her head. The business about the cow."
Dixie stole a look at her hands, to see, I suppose, if she had herself under control. Her nails were manicured and enameled. She caught me looking and folded her hands in her lap.
"Freeman wasn't even on the train, but Dixie Hanniford was," I went on. "She was on the train because she wanted what Bela Mazurky had even more than Freeman wanted it. Mazurky was working for the same crowd she was working for. They had suspicions that he was doing a little business on the side."
"With me," Freeman said. "Nothing important at first. It only cost me nickels and dimes."
"Which would be a good investment when Mazurky finally offered him something big enough to get Freeman back in the bureau's good graces."
"I didn't have the money for anything important."
"When that time came, he'd already decided he'd steal it. All this time, Dixie was bird-dogging Mazurky and saw Freeman make contact. She figured Freeman for the key. When he made his move, she knew Mazurky'd be making his move. She came to live in Akron so she could watch Freeman better and easier."
Dixie coughed as though she had some congestion, putting her hand up to her mouth to show how delicate and feminine she was.
"I can't give you every dip and two-step, but I can describe the dance," I said. "I figure Mazurky caught wise that somebody'd pulled the switch on him on the train and figured out it had to be the young couple who'd jostled him. He went looking for Cara, who'd decided to play it safe and finish the journey in the deadhead.
I don't know if Dixie knew what he was looking for—I doubt it—but she followed him into that empty car ready for a confrontation. Mazurky was in the middle of forcing a confession out of the gypsy girl. Dixie joined the struggle."
She laughed then. It sounded like the yip of a small dog. She tossed her head around as though she having difficulty controlling her mirth.
"The size of the man," she said.
"A man with emphysema who had to struggle for breath after the slightest exertion. The fight didn't last long. Mazurky and the girl were both shoved out the door."
"Are you saying the deaths of Mazurky and the girl were accidental?" George said.
"No. Cara's death wasn't planned. She just happened to be there when Mazurky was scheduled to get his. Dixie Hanniford—or whoever she turns out to be—was on that train to kill him. She had a vehicle waiting for her over the gully and ridge on the fire road. She pushed Mazurky and the girl off the train. Then she pulled the emergency and got off herself. One side door being left open by accident I could accept, but both of them being left that way was more than I could swallow."
Dixie stood up. I couldn't help noticing what a fine figure of a woman she was as she arranged the coat on her shoulders and held the wide lapels closed across her breasts with her red-tipped fingers. "I came over to see if I could help a neighbor who might've been in some distress," she said. "I can see he's in no danger. I enjoyed the entertainment. Now I'm going home."
"I don't think so," Janosky said.
"I haven't heard anything substantial, have you?" She said. "Bedtime stories. All I've heard have been complicated bedtime stories."
"Taking a shot at me was no bedtime story," I said. "Killing Annie McMonigle was no bedtime story."
"Now, just why would I have done anything like that?"
"It was you I interrupted in the sheriff's office going through the property envelopes. You knew what you were looking for but you didn't know the plugged nickel wasn't in with the change but in my pocket. You took a shot at me and got the devil out of there. But Annie, who curled up in the back doorway of the sheriff's office sometimes, saw you."
"Or saw Howard looking for the same thing." she said.
"Freeman is the coroner. Annie wouldn't think it very strange to see Freeman in the sheriff's office. He was a county official. She'd have no reason to think he was doing anything illegal. But she knew that you'd have no right nosing around there in the dead of night. She came to ask you what it'd be worth to you for her to mind her own business. You showed her how much it was worth."
Dixie huffed and started for the door, but Trask stepped in front of her. She turned around to face me again.
I took the scrap of fingernail from my pocket. "This was caught in one of Annie's sweaters."
"One of her nails," Dixie said.
"Now whatever would make you say a thing like that, Dixie? Poor Annie's got polish on her poor old broken nails, all right. It's the same color as the polish you've got on yours. You put it on her after you throttled her because you noticed one of your own nails had been broken off in the struggle and you didn't know but what somebody'd find it and wonder where it came from. If you take a look, Trask, I think you'll find that one of Dixie's perfect fingernails is one of those artificial ones they make out of plastic."
Trask took one of her hands. Dixie didn't pull away. She just looked at me and called me something in a foreign tongue. I knew it was no compliment.
THIRTY-FOUR
The next day maybe fifty people from the town gathered to see Annie McMonigle to her rest.
Howard Freeman and Millie were there. They'd have to work out with Calvin what would have to be done now that their affection for one another was public knowledge instead of common gossip.
Dan Crack stood beside the grave with watery eyes, staring down at the plain pine box as though counting his own days.
Maggie Wister stood beside me, composed and silent.
George was there with Bess.
She'd washed Annie's face over at the undertaker's parlor and let the undertaker do the rest. She'd put a quarter-ounce gold eagle in Annie's hand. When George'd asked her where it'd come from, she told him Annie had given it to her for just that purpose.
The minister of the Unitarian church said a prayer. Maggie said her own in sign.
When it came time for the toast by name, according to the custom of the gypsies, we all looked at one another, wondering how to handle it.
Bess stepped forward and said, "Godspeed. May the long road be short. Godspeed, Esmeralda Estremadura."
After the graveside service, those who wanted to went over to the McGilvrays' for something to eat.
That evening I stayed with Maggie Wister.
But I was gone by ten o'clock so I could catch the 10:56 back home to Omaha.
Robert Campbell enjoyed a long career as a writer of novels, screenplays, and television plays. His screenplay for The Man of a Thousand Faces was nominated for an Academy Award, and his novel The Junkyard Dog won an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award. Mr. Campbell lived in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
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