“I’ll leave it to you to tidy up,” Heimrich told Charles Forniss.
Forniss said, “Sure, M. L.”
“Because, between us, I want to get the hell out of here,” Heimrich said. “Call me at home after the doctor’s seen her.”
“Sure, M. L.”
There was chill dampness in the air Merton Heimrich stepped out into. The wind had died down and shifted. It blew flutters of fog from the hill top. It will rain tomorrow, Heimrich thought. This high up it may even start as snow. He got into the Buick and drove down the steep, winding drive. He drove south on NY 11F, his headlights gnawing holes in the darkness. When he was halfway home, rain showed up in the light beam and he set the wipers swishing.
Light streamed from the windows of the long, low house which once had been a barn. When the Buick was in the garage and he walked back to the door, the door was open. Susan stood in the doorway, with Colonel on one side and Mite on the other. They all looked up at him. Behind them flames leaped in the fireplace. The room was bright with light. Susan said, “Hi,” and the word was bright. But then, looking up into his face, she said, “Are you all right, dear?”
“Now,” Merton Heimrich said, and went into the bright room. He crossed to the fireplace and stood looking down at the fire. He turned and looked at Susan.
“His sister killed him,” Heimrich said. “And I feel as if I’ve been beating an old woman—a sick old woman. And I need—”
“Of course you do,” Susan said and moved closer and took one of his hands in both of hers. She pressed his hand with hers and released it. She said, “I’ll get them. Sit by the fire and I’ll get them. You look so tired, darling.”
“Not—” Heimrich said, but did not finish, because Susan had gone out of the room. He heard ice clattering in the mixer. She’s stirring faster than usual, Merton Heimrich thought, and sat in one of the deep chairs in front of the fire. I’ve no real reason to feel tired.
Susan brought the shaker and glasses with frost on the bowls on a tray and put it down on the table between the two deep chairs in front of the fire. Susan sat in the chair on the other side of the small, round table. She poured from the shaker into the two chilled glasses. They clicked glasses and sipped from them.
“Better now?” Susan said, after they had sat for a moment looking first at each other and then at their fire.
“Much better now,” Merton said. “Sometimes I almost—”
The jangle of the telephone interrupted him.
”I’ll—” Susan Heimrich said, but Merton was already across the room. He said, “Yes, Charlie,” into the phone and listened. He said, “I suppose it’s the best thing. See you in the morning.”
He went back to his chair and drank from his glass.
“Sometimes you almost what, dear?” Susan said.
“Hate my job,” Heimrich said.
“Not really,” Susan told him. “Not ever, really.”
“No,” Heimrich said. “Not really. Her doctor’s sent Ursula Jameson out of her house. To the hospital. There’ll be a trooper in the corridor outside her door. When she wakes up she won’t be in her house. She’ll be in a strange place. She killed for the house, Susan. Killed twice and tried to kill again.”
He sipped from his glass. Susan waited. Merton told her about Ursula Jameson.
“Because he was always taking her house away from her,” Susan said. “Giving it to other women. And, of course, because she’s very ugly. Has had to live all her life with ugliness. That would be hard on any woman, dear.”
“Yes,” Heimrich said, and looked across the table at his wife. She gets better-looking all the time, Merton Heimrich thought. How does she know what it would be like to be ugly?
“But not,” Susan said, “hard to the point of killing about it. However long you’ve brooded. What will happen to her, Merton?”
“If I were her lawyer,” Merton Heimrich said, “I’d try not guilty by reason of insanity. Since I’m not, I’ll make us drinks.”
He took the tray and mixer and empty glasses into the kitchen. There would be fresh glasses chilling in the freezer.
I don’t hate my job, Merton Heimrich thought as he measured gin and vermouth onto ice. There are draining moments in any job, I suppose.
It’s bright here and Susan’s here. I’m not tired any more. I’m not in shadows any more.
He carried tray and a mixer and chilled glasses back to the brightness of the fire and the brightness which was around his wife.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Captain Heimrich Mysteries
Chapter 1
Inspector M. L. Heimrich, Bureau of Criminal Investigation, New York State Police, walked out of the barracks of Troop K in Washington Hollow to its parking lot. It was raining, more resolutely than the United States Weather Service had expected. The weather service had contemplated partial cloudiness, with a chance of showers, and continued mild temperatures, turning colder late in the day. The pressure systems had not, apparently, been listening, at least not intently. Well, not much can be expected of the weather on the twenty-third of December.
It was not only wet as Heimrich walked across the lot to his car. It was also cold. He had checked the temperature before he left the office. Thirty-five it had been then. At a little after noon it had been thirty-eight and partly cloudy. Still, it could have been worse. At the latitude of Washington Hollow, it usually was at this time of year. Often, in late December, snow lay heavy in mid-New York state.
As he got into the Buick with its excessively long radio antenna, Heimrich looked up at a nearby tree. The light from the overhead floods reached it. The bare twigs glistened wet in the light. Water dripped from them, which was consoling. Of course, the temperature usually dropped after sundown. But the weather service had predicted an overnight low in the upper thirties. (It had also, of course, forecast a chance of “showers.” Rain had started falling around three in the afternoon and continued to fall. Weather Service could call that a shower if it wanted to.)
The engine caught at the first try. Heimrich turned the heater up and cold air blew from the vents. He should, of course, have worn a heavier coat. Put not your trust in meteorologists. But the car would warm up when the engine did. And at home Susan would have the fire going. Perhaps Michael and his friend had already got to Van Brunt. Quite a drive down from Hanover, New Hampshire, but not too long a trip the way kids drove. And, while the snow was a couple of feet deep in Hanover, the roads were clear. Michael had assured his mother of that when he called the night before.
His call had been a pleasant surprise for Susan. Michael had not expected to make it home for this Christmas. The junk heap would never make it, he had written them a week earlier. He might try to make it to Boston. He might just stay in Hanover and try to do something about his skiing, which remained lousy. “But you both have a fine Christmas.”
But then, last night, he had called. A friend of his, whose car was not a heap of junk, was going to New York for the holidays and had offered to drop him off at Van Brunt. Heimrich had answered the telephone and had been greeted as “Dad.” The days were long gone when he had been “sir” to young Michael Faye, who had been so grave and formal a child when Heimrich first met him and, a little later, became his stepfather.
Heimrich braked carefully at the stop sign before turning south on U.S. 9. The car felt as if it had thought of skidding but had changed its mind. Under the headlights the road looked merely wet. But under headlights a wet road and an icy road look much the same—too much the same. If it really iced, the traffic patrol cruisers would be having a rough time of it. And so would ambulance drivers. People didn’t bother much with chains anymore. They relied on snow tires, which do not repay trust, even when they have metal studs set in them.
Heimrich drove slowly. He turned on the radio to the police channel. He cut in on a cruiser talking to traffic headquarters at Troop K. “People sliding all over the goddamn roads,” the trooper was reporting. The dispatch
er said, “Yeah, there’s a ‘hazardous driving conditions’ warning out.”
“You’d think the damn fools would have sense enough to stay home,” the cruiser responded.
Heimrich braked a little, carefully. The car did not skid. Ice heavier farther north, apparently. And he was going south. Sometimes a few miles make a lot of difference. Probably changed to snow by now at Washington Hollow, only a few miles behind him. As if answering his thought, a few flakes melted on the windshield. Better than freezing rain—at any rate for people who yearned for a white Christmas. That was not among Merton Heimrich’s yearnings.
But there were no more snowflakes on the windshield and none swirled in the headlight beams. Instead, rain beat on the glass and on the Buick’s roof. Getting warmer? Anyway, the car was. There wasn’t much traffic. It seemed the trooper’s damn fools were having sense enough to stay home. Slowly, the car continued south on U.S. 9, which is wide but no longer has three lanes, as it once had, with the disasters to be expected. A middle lane to use as a passing lane—for drivers going either way.
Heimrich pulled to the right and set his direction light blinking. He eased onto NY 11F and crept toward Cold Harbor. The shopping center just north of the village was busy; cars, confident of a right of way they did not have, pulled out of it. Heimrich pleaded no contest. One of the cars pulling out skidded as it turned, but came out of it and went on briskly. Of course, cars can skid on merely wet pavements, particularly on blacktops, which 11F was. Making sure nobody was tailgating, Heimrich braked gently. The car swerved just perceptibly. Then the studs dug in. Yes, ice building now. He hoped Michael’s friend knew how to drive on icy roads. Probably he did. Natives of Hanover, New Hampshire, or students at Dartmouth there either learned or quit driving. Michael would be graduated in the spring. Would he really, then, try his hand at being a tennis pro as, last summer, he had speculated that he might? Of course, playing in the number-one spot for Dartmouth, he had just beaten the number one of another Ivy League college in straight sets, the last at love. That might have given him ideas.
But, on another day of last summer, Michael had talked of law school and been thoughtful about Columbia. Maybe he could work his way through, or partly through. Maybe as a tennis instructor. Michael had no illusions about the income of policemen, even those with rank. Nor about the profits from susan faye, fabrics, on Van Brunt Avenue. Five miles or so on, NY 11F would, on passing “VAN BRUNT CITY LIMITS,” become “VAN BRUNT AVENUE” and hold that tide for a little over three miles. Only, of course, Van Brunt wasn’t a city. It was not even a village. It was merely a gathering, in the town of Cold Harbor.
Heimrich passed VAN BRUNT CITY LIMITS, 35 MPH, and so entered Van Brunt. He was doing thirty. There was no doubt about the ice now. But the metal studs were doing their job. They had a heavier one coming, of course. Even on dry pavement, High Road presents some problems—twists and climbs its way into them.
Heimrich signaled for a right turn, although there were no following lights in the mirrors, and began to climb the narrow, twisting road toward the long, low house which had been a barn before it was the residence of Mrs. Michael Faye, née Upton, who had “married beneath her.” In the old days, long before Heimrich had come to live in Van Brunt, or had even heard of it, almost everybody in Van Brunt had been “beneath” the Uptons. Oh, except the Jacksons and a few others, most notably, of course, the Van Brunts themselves.
The car skidded slightly on a steep curve. Heimrich recalled his mind from wandering and confined it to the task at hand, which was to get to the fire at home and to his wife, who probably had married beneath her for a second time. Uptons do not, habitually, marry policemen any more than they marry men with Irish names who come from the Flats.
The car skidded on another, even steeper, curve. Heimrich coaxed it back. The steel studs bit again. He ground up on High Road. He turned between two boulders into the driveway, which was even steeper than the road but had a gravel surface, which—so far, at any rate—gave better traction. Tomorrow, if this kept on, probably would be another story.
As he climbed the drive, the floodlight over the garage went on. Susan had been listening. She always listened. And the light had gone on, which was consoling. Heimrich drove into the garage, keeping well to the right. There would be room for Michael’s friend’s car, if it was a Volks. If it turned out to be a Cadillac, it would have to wait outside. Heimrich’s Buick just grazed the wheelbarrow, which also lived in the garage.
When he came out into the breezeway between house and garage, the rain beat on him. The cement under his feet was glazed over. Cautiously, but still slithering a little, he reached for the wood stacked against the garage wall. It would be frozen together. It was frozen together. He should have put the tarp over it. He wrenched four logs loose and Susan opened the door for him. It was warming to have her so anticipate. Merton Heimrich could do with warming.
He carried the logs through the kitchen and piled them on the hearth. Flames were leaping in the fireplace. He had known they would be. He said “Hi” to Susan, who was wearing a red pantsuit, and she said, “Hi, darling.” He started to reach toward her and remembered his wet raincoat and shed it. Then he reached for her. Eight years—a little more than eight years—they had been together. The years had not diminished the comfort, or the delight, they felt in each other’s arms.
“I’ll get them,” Susan said. Heimrich sat in his chair in front of the fire and listened to the rattle of ice from the kitchen. Susan put the mixer on the table and sat beside him. He poured martinis into iced glasses, rubbed twisted lemon peel on the edges of the glasses, tossed the exhausted peels into the fire. They were just lifting their glasses to click them together when there was a splintering crash from somewhere outside. But the lights did not flicker. The glass jumped a little in Susan’s hand. She steadied the hand and they clicked glasses. Then they sipped from the glasses and put them on the table, and Heimrich put his hand over the one of his wife’s which had jumped with the sound of the falling tree. “He’ll be all right,” he told her. “Probably seem like nothing after New Hampshire. Anyway, they’ll have the sand trucks out by now.”
“Of course they’ll be all right,” Susan said. “I’m not worried. Not worried at all.” She smiled at him what he knew to be a lie. And the hand which steadied the cigarette between her lips as he lighted it almost didn’t tremble at all.
“But it’s going to be a bad one, isn’t it?” Susan said. “It’s raining hard, isn’t it? You can hear it on the roof.”
There was no denying they could hear it on the roof. They could also hear it slashing against the windowpanes.
“Raining this hard, it usually warms up,” Heimrich said. “Probably getting the wind shift. Gets around to the southwest and we’ll be—”
Another tree crashed. The sound seemed closer. This time the lights flickered briefly. Then they steadied again.
“It’s this damn waiting,” Susan said. “You know it’s going to happen and then it doesn’t and then you just—go on waiting.”
Mite, a black cat whose size belies his name, jumped to her lap and began to circle, adjusting it to his preference. He settled after only two turns. Susan put a hand on him and he began to purr. She said, “Where’s Colonel, Mite?” A very large Great Dane stood up from behind the log cradle. He stood up slowly, as became his size and advancing years. One tries not to notice that pets lose sprightliness as they age. Heimrich said, “Good evening, Colonel,” and the big dog moved to stretch in front of the fire. He thumped his tail twice on the floor. He was a dog of few words nowadays.
Susan and Merton Heimrich finished their drinks slowly. Between sips, Susan rested her glass on Mite’s back, which happened to be uppermost. Each time she did so, Mite resumed his purr.
Heimrich looked at his watch. It was getting on toward seven. It had taken him almost twice as long as usual to get home from Washington Hollow.
“I’d planned a casserole,” Susan said. “It’ll ta
ke about an hour and then it will start to dry out. And the kids will be starving, of course.”
“Naturally,” Heimrich said and was looked at with a smile. He said, “Sorry, dear.” (When they had first met, “naturally” had amounted to a verbal tic in Heimlich’s speech, even when he spoke of events not at all natural. Susan had winced him out of the habit—well, almost out of it.) He said, “When aren’t they?”
“Never,” Susan said. “And, more to the point, when are they going to get here? And the casserole has to cook, not just warm up. And we both know what’s going to happen, sooner or later.”
They both knew. Heimrich looked at the log cradle; at the slightly steaming logs on the hearth. Better do something now.
“I could make us another round,” Susan said. “You start to mix drinks and people always come. Just when you’re measuring. And you forget whether you’ve already put the vermouth in.”
She stood up, and another tree crashed down somewhere. The somewhere sounded some distance away. Heimrich stood up, too. Maybe the wind has shifted, he thought. Maybe the center has gone north of us to badger Maine or Vermont. Or, of course, New Hampshire. It will badger them with snow. And in the city, perhaps even as far up as Hawthorne Circle, it will be only rain. We’re caught in the middle, as usual.
He went to a window on the east side of the long room. Rain was beating on it, which answered that. It was also beating on the thermometer fixed to the window jamb. It was hard to read the column, with water streaming on it. The water was freezing on it. Thirty. Maybe twenty-nine. Which answered that. The floodlight above the garage was on—was still on. The power lines from the road sagged under the heavy coating of ice. A young pine tree near the drive was leaning down disconsolately, heavy with its burden.
21-Not I, Said the Sparrow Page 20