"Yes, sir. Mary Dawes."
I didn't believe it then. I'm not positive I do even now. But after Al left I couldn't get rid of the notion that Mary might still be alive. I was still chewing on it when Doc Dunaway came in. It was early afternoon then and there weren't any other customers. I drew him a pint of lager, his only tipple, and when I set the glass down in front of him, he said, “You've got a funny look, Luke. Something the matter?"
"Well, I don't know,” I said, and I told him what Al had told me.
He drank some of his beer. “It couldn't have been Mary,” he said. “A woman who looks like her, that's all."
"That's what I said. But Al sure sounded convinced. If he's right, then Tully's innocent like he claimed and somebody really did frame him—for a murder that never happened."
"Then how do you explain Mary's sudden disappearance? Where did the blood in her room come from, the blood on her clothes and Tully's knife and in the bed of Tully's pickup?"
"Well, I've been thinking about that. Suppose it was all part of a plan. Suppose whoever wanted to frame Tully paid her to disappear the way she did. Paid her enough so she wouldn't mind having herself cut and spilling some of her blood."
"Sounds pretty far-fetched to me."
"Not if whoever it was hated Tully enough."
"You don't mean J.B?"
"Well, he's the first one I thought of,” I said. “Only J.B. doesn't have much money and it would've taken plenty to convince Mary. And he's not too smart, J.B. isn't. I just can't see him coming up with a plan like that."
"Who else could it be?"
"Somebody with both brains and money. Somebody who was sick and tired of Tully and his bullying and carousing and killing of defenseless animals—"
I stopped. Of a sudden, the back of my scalp started to crawl.
Doc? Doc Dunaway?
No, it couldn't be. But then I thought, yes it could. He was a vet for forty years and he loved animals and he was smart as a whip and he had a nice fat nest egg put away from the sale of his veterinary practice. Old and arthritic, sure, but a man didn't have to be young and hale to steal a knife out of an unlocked truck or help mess up a cabin and sprinkle some blood around or hide a box under a porch or make an anonymous telephone call. And a vet would know exactly how and where to make a surgical cut on a person's body that would bleed a lot without doing any real damage...
Doc sat watching me through his spectacles. His eyes have always been soft and kind of watery; now they seemed to have a hard shine on them, like polished agates.
Pretty soon he said in his quiet way, “Won't do to go around speculating, Luke. That's how ugly rumors get started and folks get hurt."
"Sure,” I said, and my voice sounded funny. “Sure, that's right."
"Chances are it wasn't Mary Al Phillips saw. And even if it was, why, she might not be in the capital for long. Might decide to leave the state entirely this time, move back East somewhere."
"Why would she do that?"
"For the sake of argument, let's say your theory is correct. The person who conceived the plan might have kept in touch with her, mightn't he? Might offer her more money now to move away so far she'll never be seen again by anyone from this county. Then there'd be no proof she's alive. No proof at all."
I didn't say anything. My throat felt dry.
"Know what I'd do if I was you, Luke?"
"...What's that?"
"I wouldn't mention what Al Phillips told you to anybody else. I'd just forget about it. Tully Buford belongs where he's at, behind bars. Ridgedale is better off without him.” Doc finished his beer, laid some money on the bartop, and eased himself off the stool in his slow, arthritic way. Then he said, “Well, Luke? Are you going to take my advice?"
"I don't know yet,” I said.
"Better think on it long and hard before you do anything,” he said, and shuffled out.
Think on it long and hard? I haven't done anything yet. And I still can't make up my mind.
I'm a law-abiding citizen; I always try to do the right thing, always want to see justice done. It's just not right for an innocent man to be sitting in prison for a crime that never happened in the first place—even a man like Tully Buford. My duty is to go to the sheriff and tell him what I suspect.
But what can he do? Nothing, that's what. Not without proof that Mary's alive and Tully was framed, and I don't have a shred to give him. Just a lot of unsubstantiated maybes and what-ifs.
And I could be mistaken about Doc Dunaway. I don't think I am, not after the conversation we had, but I could be. There wouldn't be any justice in smearing his good name without evidence, would there? I sure wouldn't want that on my conscience. Besides I've always liked Doc; he minds his own business, never bothers anybody, just wants to be left alone to live out the rest of his days in peace.
And there's no denying he was right about Tully. Tully might not be guilty of murder, but he's guilty of plenty of other crimes and he belongs in prison. You wouldn't get an argument about that from anybody in Ridgedale.
I don't know. I just don't know.
What would you do?
(c)2008 by Bill Pronzini
[Back to Table of Contents]
Fiction: PROOF OF LOVE by Mick Herron
In a starred review of the Herron novel Why We Die, PW said, “Smart, dogged and never down for the count, Zoe [Boehm] is a fine addition to the ranks of female PIs.” Indeed she is, and she's here this month in a case involving her P.I. husband Joe Silvermann. Mr. Herron's latest stand-alone thriller, Reconstruction (Soho 2008), also drew rave reviews from PW and the New York Times.
Some while ago—a few years before he died—Joe Silvermann chose a slow midweek morning to do some heavy shifting round the office; clear away the bits of orange peel and chewed pencil ends from under the filing cabinet. So he was wearing jeans and a Sticky Fingers T-shirt, and had built up a sweat, and hadn't shaved—was everything, in fact, that the well-dressed private detective shouldn't be when four million pounds came calling.
Or forty million, you wanted to get technical. If last year's Rich List could be trusted.
"Is this a bad time?"
Joe looked down at his grimy clothing. “I've been undercover. But I'm free right now."
He showed Russell Candy into the inner sanctum, which was more of a mess than when he'd started. Zoe was out. Joe had given up asking. When she was here, she was brain-deep in the computer, and when she wasn't she was somewhere else.
"I should have made an appointment."
"That's all right, Mr. Candy. For you, I have time."
Candy didn't look surprised that Joe knew who he was—Oxford didn't have so many residents with (British pounds)40 million-plus that the local paper ignored—and even less so that Joe had time for him. It would be an attitude he was used to. He was fifty or thereabouts, not much older than Joe, and his face was deeply lined, as if each million had scored its passage there. Anyone else, or anyone else with his money, might have done something about his hair, too, which had a gone-tomorrow look, and was flecked with what was probably dandruff, though Joe wasn't a hair expert. His suit looked expensive, or at least fresh on, and his shoes were buffed to reflective glory.
Joe plucked a jar of instant from the shelf in the corner and waggled it invitingly. “I'm out of the real stuff,” he apologised, and then added, “Coffee,” in case Russell Candy thought he meant heroin. “Take a seat? How can I help?"
Candy took the visitor's chair. “No coffee for me, thanks."
'Tea? Water?"
"Nothing. Thank you."
So Joe decided he didn't want coffee either, and sat behind his desk instead.
"But you need a detective,” he said.
"Oxford Investigations,” Candy said. “You're in the book."
"We have a growing reputation."
"And you're handy. I live just up the road."
Joe nodded, as if that had been part of his plan. “I've been here awhile. How can I help you,
Mr. Candy? You have a problem?"
"It's not a problem as such. More like an errand."
"An errand."
"A delivery. A collection and a delivery."
"Like a courier service."
"Pretty much. But I'll pay your usual rates, don't worry about that."
Joe said, “Oh, I'm not worried, Mr. Candy. I'm sure you can afford my rates."
"Good."
"I'm just wondering why, if you need a courier service, you hire a private detective."
"Well,” said Candy. “There's the thing."
* * * *
Last time Joe had seen Russell Candy's picture in the paper he was getting married, though without the caption you'd have thought he'd been giving his daughter away. There were eight years between Joe himself and Zoe, or six once you'd rounded her up and rounded him down. You could adjust for decades in Candy's case, there'd still be a twenty-year gap. It was to do with money, of course, unless it was to do with whatever quality had allowed Candy to earn the money in the first place. But in the long run, it was to do with money. Joe wondered what it would be like, being Russell-Candy rich. So rich you not only didn't have to worry about your future, but could afford to stop regretting your past.
Anyway, a good slab of Candy's wealth sat on Joe's desk now, in a padded envelope. Which made Joe a lot richer than an hour ago, even if the money wasn't his.
Odd thing, he thought, digging scissors from a drawer. If Joe had been, whatever, a geography teacher or something, it wasn't likely a passing millionaire would have trusted him with—he sliced the envelope, spilling cash onto the desk—what looked like many thousands of pounds. But being a private detective put him in a world where such things happened. To be sure, Candy had told him not to open the envelope—it wasn't like he was pretending it didn't have money in it, but that had definitely been the instruction—only how Joe worked, he had a mantra: What would Marlowe do? Would Philip Marlowe have opened the envelope? Hell, yes. So that's what Joe had done, and here it all was: bundled twenties and bundled fifties; all in used notes, obviously. Nobody wanted clean money these days. It took him half an hour to count, and the number he came up with—or at least, the number more or less halfway between the different totals he reached—was (British pounds)100,000. More than he'd ever seen in one place.
Joe sticky-taped the envelope together, put it in a carrier bag, and went home to get changed.
* * * *
"You give him the envelope, he gives you a package. You bring the package to me.” This is what Candy had said after giving Joe the envelope.
"All this seems straightforward."
"Good."
Candy had paused, and his hand went fishing in his jacket pocket, but came out empty. It found his other hand, and they settled for a nap in his lap. Ex-smoker, Joe guessed. Dipping for his cigarettes out of habit, then remembering he didn't carry them anymore.
Joe said, “But there is a problem."
"Really?"
"You'll know that blackmailers rarely take just one bite."
"I never said—"
"Mr. Candy, please. I give him an envelope, he gives me a package? It's a blackmail scenario. I'm not being censorious. I'm just wondering, why bring a third party into it? You're not able to do this exchange yourself?"
Rather pleased with himself, he leaned back in his chair and waited.
"I want to know who he is,” Candy said.
"I see,” said Joe, who thought he probably did.
"You're a detective, you should be able to ... tail him. Find out where he lives, who he is."
"I can do that. But other things—say, threats—I don't do,” Joe told him. It came out like an apology. Much of what Joe said did, which was a good reason for not doing threats. “Violence either,” he added, perhaps unnecessarily.
"You won't need to. Once I know who's behind this, I can make sure it doesn't happen again. But there'll be no violence, Mr. Silvermann. I'm a businessman, not a gangster."
"This is good to know,” Joe said.
* * * *
When he wasn't undercover, or shifting furniture, Joe dressed conservatively: shirt and tie, usually; fawn chinos; a tweedy-type jacket he'd long been trying to upgrade from without success. A few years ago, when he and Zoe were still holidaying together, he'd snagged a bargain at an Italian street market: a leather jacket black and shiny as night, with a strap around the collar that buckled separately. Zoe had paid eleven times as much for something similar in a high-end shop. His had fallen apart the following spring, and she was still wearing hers. But despite all that, Joe had liked Italy, once he'd worked out that zebra crossings were designated accident spots, not safe places to cross.
So he was wearing shirt and tie, fawn chinos, and tweedy jacket when he got back to the office and found Zoe in residence: bent over a monitor, as usual. The information superhighway—wasn't that what people were saying? Joe had no complaints about the new technology, but was well aware of his own place in it: by the side of the road, his thumb in the air.
"Hey, Zoe,” he said to his—technically—wife.
"I'm busy, Joe."
"With credit checks,” he said helpfully.
"And reference checks."
"And reference checks."
"Which pay the bills."
"You don't get bored? Staring at the screen all day, not to mention what it's doing to your eyes?"
She didn't reply.
"Because it's not a secret, you can damage your health sitting at the computer all day long. Your posture suffers."
"You have a problem with my posture, Joe?"
"I'm only saying."
"You think I slouch? I don't stand straight enough?"
"You stand fine, Zoe. You always have. I'm just worried you don't get enough fresh air."
"So now I'm pale and wasted, right? You don't like my pasty complexion?"
"Can I get you a cup of coffee, Zoe?"
"We're out of coffee."
"I think there's some instant."
"What do you want, Joe? I'm busy."
"We've got a job."
"'We'?''
"A piece of proper detective work."
He was looking over her shoulder as he said this—at the screen on which it was so easy to go back and delete what had just been keyed—and thought: Push straight on, or beat a retreat? Push straight on.
Zoe said, “Prop—"
But Joe was way ahead of her: “Not proper, no, stupid word. ‘Traditional’ is what I meant to say. Yes, traditional. You know, out on the mean streets, dealing with actual flesh and blood and real live criminals. The kind of thing we always wanted to do, remember?"
"I remember the kind of thing you always wanted to do, Joe. Trouble is, it had nothing in common with real life.” She pushed her chair from the desk, and Joe had to step aside smartish not to be run over. She looked up at him. “If you want this to be a success, you could do a little less wittering about mean streets, and a lot more studying what I do. Before you wind up on the wrong end of a credit check yourself."
"Blackmail,” he said.
"It's not blackmail, it's common sense."
"No, blackmail. That's the job."
"Doing it or stopping it?"
Joe had to think about that. “Well, paying it, technically. Then making sure it doesn't happen again."
She pursed her lips.
"It'll be a lot more fun than credit checks,” he unwisely added.
"Which provide eighty percent of our income."
"Yes, but—"
"And of which I do one hundred percent."
"It's not a competition, Zoe."
"If it was, I'd win."
She pushed herself back to her keyboard and began stabbing it viciously; possibly randomly. The screen underwent various transformations. It was like looking through fifteen windows at once.
Joe waited until the clock in the monitor's corner clicked onto the next minute, then said, “Zoe? I can't do it by myself."
He liked to think of this as his trump card.
Her fingers had stopped rattling, and she was using the mouse instead: clicking here, clicking there. But Joe was pretty sure she was slowing down. It was just a matter of time.
The clock in the corner turned over.
Zoe said, “I bloody hope he's paying well."
* * * *
It was dark in South Parks. A lot of private detectives were former policemen, or had wanted to be policemen but had failed to make the grade, but Joe wasn't among them: Being a policeman would have meant working nights, and Joe didn't do so well in the dark. Which was one of the reasons he'd told Zoe he couldn't manage this on his own; another being, he wasn't sure he could manage this on his own. Tailing someone—an entry-level P.I. skill, if the books could be believed—was a lot harder than it looked. You couldn't count on the bad guy being unobservant. On the other hand, if you could, a lot of novels would be short stories.
He was hunkered down on a bench: that was the word. The jacket had given way to an overcoat, and Joe had his arms wrapped round him; less as a shield from the cold than to keep Candy's padded envelope secure—it was too big to fit his pocket. “Too much money to fit my pockets.” It sounded like the opposite to a blues song. The bench was at the top of the long slope running down to St. Clement's, and there were trees behind him, and a brick toilet off to his left, and further in that direction the gate that was locked by now, so anyone turning up to collect the envelope would have to scramble over the railings, unless he was already hiding among the trees. Joe had considered doing that himself—the railings were high, and looked apt to cause horrible injury—but in the end was less worried about impaling himself than being found lurking by one of the groundsmen. “I'm a private detective,” he'd have had to explain. “I'm a sex pervert,” they'd have interpreted. From the bench, looking down towards the city, the streets were a blur of traffic and misty movement. A dog barked, too far off to be a worry.
"I meet him on the bench at midnight. I give him the envelope. He gives me the package."
This was what he'd said to Russell Candy.
"And then you find out where he goes. His car registration. An address. Something to know him by."
EQMM, September-October 2008 Page 16