Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 02 - Dead Ringer

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  “He traded dog tags with Leonard Cooper, didn’t he?”

  “That’s just what he did. By the time a medic showed up, he had traded tags and switched all their papers and such around. He’d have switched back if Cooper had lived, but he just barely lived long enough to make it to the hospital. So they shipped the body here, and we buried him in as fancy a ceremony as anybody could have ever hoped for. His grave gets fresh flowers every week.”

  “What about Small Bill?”

  “He was hurt badly enough to get discharged. They sent him back to Tennessee, but he didn’t stay there long. He used his G.I. benefits to go to school up North, and he became an architect, just like he always wanted to.”

  These days I couldn’t imagine abandoning everything like that, but there had been times when it would have been awfully tempting. “Didn’t he ever want to come back?”

  Walters shrugged. “He said not, other than when he heard about our mother. He did regret not having a chance to say goodbye to her, and he wanted to apologize to me, too.”

  “What for?”

  “He said that he had always felt a little guilty for leaving me in the hot seat. With him gone, he figured Daddy would treat me just like he had him, and I’d be stuck with the mill. The only thing was, that’s just what I had always wanted. I was always jealous of Small Bill. With him gone, Daddy finally spent some time with me. Maybe what Small Bill did wasn’t right, but it seemed to work out the best for everybody.”

  “So now that he’s really dead, why don’t you tell your father the truth?”

  Walters looked me right in the eye. “You think that I’m afraid to, don’t you?”

  I had to nod.

  “Well, maybe I am afraid to tell an old man with a bad heart that his oldest son would rather live under another name than to come back to him.”

  I looked down at my feet. “I’m sorry. I’ve got no right to judge you.”

  He nodded. “When I was your age, things seemed a lot simpler to me, too. Right now, I think that the best thing to do is to let Leonard Cooper and Small Bill Walters lie just where they are.”

  “ ‘He that dies, pays all debts,’ ” Richard said softly. “The Tempest, Act III, Scene 2.”

  “What about Michael Cooper?” I asked. “He is your nephew, and by rights, some of the Walters money ought to come to him.”

  “I asked Bill about that when I found out he had a son, and he said that he’d left all the Walters money behind him and that was the way it was going to stay. He said he’d provide for his family without any help from us. I checked into his financial situation as best I could, and he had enough money put away to get the boy through school. I’ll keep an eye on him to make sure he’s got what he needs, and after my father is gone, maybe I’ll go talk to him and see what he thinks.”

  That seemed fair enough to me. Unfortunately, though Walters’s story had been fascinating, I still didn’t know what I wanted to know. “Mr. Walters, do you know why your brother came back to Byerly?”

  He shook his head. “That was the first time since Mother’s funeral. He called me that Friday night and said that he was on his way here, and that he wanted to ask me about something. I couldn’t get away the next day, but I told him that I’d meet him at the mill Sunday evening.”

  “Is that why you put the fear of God into Ralph Stewart? To keep him busy so your brother could sneak in?”

  “Yes,” he admitted, looking a little embarrassed. “I told Small Bill I’d be there when I could, but my wife had plans for me that afternoon.”

  “I’m guessing that he met somebody else while he was waiting for you. Do you have any idea of who it might have been?”

  “If I did, don’t you think I would have told Junior Norton?”

  He was right, of course. “Mr. Walters, I’m afraid I owe you an apology. It sure doesn’t sound like your brother was involved with…. With what I thought he was involved with.”

  He cocked his head. “Just what did you think?”

  “I can’t tell you.” When he looked like he was going to object, I added, “I promised somebody I wouldn’t.”

  Walters smiled a little. “I guess I can understand that.” He pulled himself up a little, and I noticed that when he spoke again, his usual pompous tone was back. “I hope I can rely on your discretion in this matter, too.”

  “I’ll keep it secret if I possibly can,” I said.

  “Obviously, if letting it out is necessary for finding my brother’s killer, I will understand. If that does happen, however, please let me know first so I can be the one to tell my father. I wouldn’t want him to hear it from the newspaper.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Now, is there anything else you need from me?”

  I wanted to ask if he knew anything about what had happened between Aunt Daphine and Uncle John Ward before he left, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it without compromising Aunt Daphine’s secret. So I shook my head.

  “Then I guess I better be getting back home before my wife decides I’ve gone and done something I shouldn’t have.” He looked at the nosegay he was still holding. “Maybe I’ll take her these flowers. I don’t suppose that Joleen wants them.”

  I must have looked disapproving because he added, “Remember what I said about life not being so simple at my age, Laurie Anne.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked at me and shook his head a few times. “Now I know how you managed to find out who it was that killed your grandfather. If there is anything I can do to help you find out about my brother, you just call me.”

  “Yes sir, I will.”

  He had his hand on the doorknob when Richard said, “Actually, Mr. Walters, there is something you can do. Did you get many letters from your brother when he was in Vietnam?”

  “A few.”

  “Do you still have them?”

  “Of course.”

  “Could Laura and I borrow them?”

  Burt looked curious, but said, “I don’t see why not. You’re staying with Maggie Burnette, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll have someone bring them over there in the morning. Will that be all right?”

  “That will be fine,” I said. “We’ll get them back to you right away.”

  This time he did leave.

  “Why do we want to see those letters?” I asked Richard.

  He shrugged. “Nothing definite, just another straw to grasp at. We’ve heard so much about Small Bill that I’d like to hear what he had to say for himself.”

  I looked at him curiously. “You like him, don’t you? Small Bill, I mean.”

  “I guess I do. He’s a romantic figure, don’t you think? Leaving all he knew to try to create a life of his own, never looking back.”

  “I guess,” I said. “I just keep thinking of the folks who mourned for him. Like his parents. Wouldn’t it have been better if he had confronted his father? Maybe he’d have helped him, and if not, the worst thing Big Bill could have done would have been to kick him out. Which Small Bill did for himself.”

  “But where’s the poetry in that?” Richard objected. “What kind of play would it have been if Hamlet had just confronted his uncle, or if Juliet had told her father she was already married, or if Cordelia had told Lear what wretches her sisters were? That would have taken all the fun out of it.”

  “I seem to recall that Hamlet, Juliet, and Cordelia all ended up dead. Tragedies are fine in the theater, but they aren’t much fun in real life.”

  “Maybe not,” Richard said, “but I still think I would have liked the younger Bill Walters.”

  “Me, too,” I admitted. I was starting to want to solve his murder, not just for Aunt Daphine’s sake, but for Small Bill’s as well. I peered out the hotel window. Burt was long gone. “We can leave now.”

  Richard patted the bed. “You know,” he said with a grin, “we’ve paid for this room for all night.”

  “We’ve got a perfectly nice
room waiting for us at Aunt Maggie’s.”

  “No offense to your aunt, but I find her presence a little inhibiting.”

  “Well …” I was tempted.

  “We don’t have to stay all night, just long enough to get our money’s worth.”

  He reached for me, and I let myself be convinced. Like he said, we had already paid for the room, and it would have been a shame to let it go to waste.

  Chapter 32

  We made it back to Aunt Maggie’s by around nine, and went to bed a few hours later. Or rather, back to bed.

  Burt Walters kept his promise promptly the next morning. Ralph Stewart drove over with the packet of letters before Richard and I finished breakfast, making it easy for us to plan the first part of the day.

  There were about a dozen letters, neatly stacked in chronological order. There were a couple from boot camp and one that described Small Bill’s and Uncle John Ward’s short stay in Tokyo, but it was the fourth that really caught my interest. It described how my uncle died.

  Dear Burt,

  I hope all is well in Byerly, but I’m not feeling too good myself. I guess you will have heard about John Ward Marston by the time you receive this letter. I was with him when he died, and little brother, I hope you never have to watch a friend die like that.

  I don’t know what the Army has told his parents and Daphine Burnette, but it wasn’t an easy death for him. A shell fragment hit him in the stomach when we were pinned down by the Viet Cong, and the medics couldn’t get to us. I stayed right there with him, but there wasn’t anything I could do but to give him some water and keep telling him that he was going to be all right. But John Ward knew all along that he wasn’t going to make it.

  I don’t know if it will make his folks feel any better, but his last thoughts were about them. Well, about them and Daphine Burnette, but I’m sure they’d understand that. John Ward gave me something he bought for Daphine in Tokyo, and made me promise to make sure it got to her, and I held the paper for him to write her a final letter, too. We can’t trust the mail from here, and sometimes bodies get robbed before they get sent back, so I’ll be bringing it home for John Ward. It’s the least I can do for the best friend I ever had.

  Having John Ward die like that doesn’t seem right, somehow. It’s made me think a lot about where I’m going and what I want out of life. Knowing that you could die all of a sudden makes you sit up and take notice.

  Burt, I don’t know if I ever told you how much you mean to me. You’ve been a good brother. I know it’s been hard not to hold it against me when Daddy talks about me the way he does, and I want you to know I appreciate it. I love you, little brother.

  I guess that’s all I wanted to say. You be sure and hug Mama for me, and tell the Marstons and Daphine Burnette what I said.

  Your brother,

  Bill

  I carefully folded the letter, and put it back into the envelope. “Nothing there,” I said, embarrassed when my voice came out funny. I was on the verge of crying for an uncle I never even knew and for a man I had only seen after he was dead.

  Richard handed me his handkerchief, and I wiped my eyes.

  “There was one thing,” Richard said. “That’s the second mention we’ve found of a gift Uncle John Ward was sending to Aunt Daphine, and Bill mentioned a letter, too. What ever happened to them?”

  “I guess Small Bill put them with all of his other effects, the stuff that came back with Leonard Cooper.”

  “But surely the Walters would have passed them on to Aunt Daphine.”

  I shrugged. “Like the letter said, Cooper’s body was probably robbed before it got back to the States.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “It’s just hard for me to imagine that Small Bill would have left anything like that on Cooper’s body.”

  “What do you think happened to it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I just think that if a buddy’s last act was to give me something to bring home to his girlfriend, I’d have made sure it got to her no matter what. ‘The tongues of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony.’ King Richard II, Act II, Scene 1.”

  “Of course, Small Bill was willing to abandon his family and his friends to start a new life. Would a souvenir from Japan have been that important to him?”

  “Maybe not. We could ask Small Bill’s son if there was anything among his father’s effects that could have been Uncle John Ward’s present.”

  I looked at him for a minute, and then leaned over to give him a quick smooch. “You’re a hopeless romantic, my love. You just want Aunt Daphine to get her present.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “I guess you’re right. But I think I’ll call Michael Cooper and check with him anyway.”

  Richard caught Michael in his dorm room, but he didn’t know anything about a souvenir from Japan. “I guess it’s lost forever,” Richard said in resignation. “Let’s tackle the rest of the letters.”

  We did, but didn’t find anything important in them. We learned that the real Leonard Cooper had been a pretty nice guy, and knowing what we did, we could trace Small Bill’s growing reluctance to come back to Byerly, but that was about it. Finally we gave up and packed them up so we could return them to Burt Walters.

  “So what do we do now?” Richard asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said gloomily. “I’m stuck.”

  “Do you want me to get you your computer?”

  “It wouldn’t help. Garbage in, garbage out.”

  “Cut that out!” Richard said sharply. “We’ve found out a lot.”

  “Like what? That somebody is blackmailing Aunt Daphine? We found that out ages ago. We still don’t know who, and we don’t know how whoever it is found out.”

  “At least we’ve got a motive,” Richard said helpfully. “Money.”

  “Money may be the motive,” I agreed, “but it seems like there must be more than money involved. So that’s all we’ve got on the blackmail. Then we’ve got Small Bill’s murder. Nothing about who, nothing about why.”

  “Not completely true. The who must have been someone who knew he was really Small Bill. That limits our possibilities.”

  “True.” I thought about it for a moment, but didn’t come to any grand conclusions. “Then Dorinda is murdered. I must admit that I hadn’t given her murder that much thought before, other than how it affects Aunt Daphine.” The idea made me feel a little guilty, but I reminded myself that murder was Junior Norton’s job, not mine. “The who is probably the same as before, but why?”

  “I’ve forgotten. Do we think Dorinda was blackmailing Aunt Daphine?”

  I shook my head. “I guess not. You were right—the only real reason I suspected her was that I didn’t like her.”

  “So why was she killed, if she wasn’t already involved in the blackmail?”

  “Maybe she was knew something about the murder. Bill Walters’s murder, that is. Could she have seen something incriminating?” Then I shook my head in answer to my own question. “That doesn’t make sense. Obviously Bill Walters snuck into the mill and I can accept that the murderer could have, but I can’t picture Dorinda following along behind.”

  “Her daughter was at the mill,” Richard reminded me. “Could Joleen have seen something and told her mother?”

  “I’ve got two objections to that. One, Joleen was with us the whole time and I don’t think she could have seen anything we didn’t. Two, I think that if Joleen had seen something she didn’t tell Junior about, and then told her mother, she’d tell Junior about it now. Joleen wants her mother’s murderer caught.”

  “Still, if Dorinda’s death isn’t because of the blackmail, then it must have something to do with the murder. Right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “So Dorinda found out something other than through Joleen.”

  I considered the notion for a moment. “Remember how I told you about her finding something in the paper and acting funny?”

  “We looked at every page of the paper, and
didn’t see anything.”

  “I know, but then we were looking at it from the blackmail point of view, not the murder. Let’s look at it again.”

  Not surprisingly, the newspaper hadn’t changed. But now the fact that the biggest story was about Leonard Cooper’s murder seemed even more meaningful. Especially the large photo of Cooper.

  I said, “You know, Dorinda hadn’t lived in Byerly very long, so she certainly never knew Small Bill, and may not even have known Big Bill or Burt. If she had seen Small Bill that Saturday or Sunday he was in town, she wouldn’t have connected him to the Walters. Or to the murder, until she saw this picture.”

  “Interesting,” Richard said. “You’re guessing that she did see him.”

  “That’s what I’m guessing.”

  “But she didn’t go to the police.”

  “Nope. Now I’m willing to admit that Dorinda wasn’t Aunt Daphine’s blackmailer.”

  “Big of you,” Richard said dryly.

  I ignored him. “But I think that my view of her character was right on the money. What if she saw Small Bill with someone, and once she realized who it was that she saw, she thought she could blackmail that person.” I looked at Richard. “You don’t think I’m just dumping on Dorinda again, do you?”

  He shook his head. “No, you might have something here. It sounds like our next step is to trace Dorinda’s steps that day.”

  “Right.” I looked at the packet of Small Bill’s letters to Burt. “Why don’t we go over to the mill for the official reason of returning these letters, and for the unofficial reason of talking to Joleen.”

  Chapter 33

  Ralph Stewart was in the guard house when we got there, but I guess he was getting used to Richard and me coming around. He just waved us on through when we told him we wanted to take something to Mr. Walters.

  Joleen wasn’t at her desk when we came in, so we took the elevator on up to Burt Walters’s office. Everybody in Byerly thought that Dorcas Walters had chosen her husband’s secretary for the woman’s complete lack of attraction to men, and the chilly expression with which she favored us when we got off the elevator did nothing to dispel that legend.