A Blind Goddess bbwwim-8

by James R Benn

  “Not another fight, Tree.”

  “Hell no, Billy. Charlie is okay. He didn’t want to fight, he’s just not smart enough to stand up for himself. If he’d wanted to, he coulda laid me out any time he wanted.”

  “You didn’t mention that before,” I said.

  “Man’s got his pride. Hey Charlie, how you feeling?”

  “Okay, Sergeant. Captain,” Charlie said, giving a decent salute.

  “Hey, it’s just Billy and Tree, Charlie, long as there’s no other officers around. We’re looking for Angus Crowley. You see him around?”

  “Yeah, Billy. I saw him this morning. He rode down the road on his bicycle.”

  “We didn’t see him coming in,” Tree said.

  “No, that road,” Charlie said, pointing to the track. “The one that goes to the church. Why do you guys want Crowley?”

  “Damn! How long ago?” I asked.

  “An hour, tops.”

  “Was he carrying a shotgun?”

  “Not that I saw. He was wearing a raincoat. Doesn’t look like rain, now that I think about it.” Charlie glanced up at the clear skies, and even he understood.

  “Charlie, we need your help,” I said. “Get to a telephone and call the police station in Hungerford. Tell Inspector Payne that Crowley is on his way, and he’s armed. We’re headed back. We’ll be there with Constable Cook and the others in ten minutes. Can you do that?”

  “Sure. If Sergeant Evans lets me use the telephone.”

  “Tell him Crowley has been cheating the army, and that I said I’d share the credit for catching him with Sobel.”

  “He’ll love that, Billy,” Charlie said, and went off at a run as Tree gunned the jeep, fishtailing in the gravel drive and sending a squad of men flying as we sped away from the base.

  I had a bad feeling as we barreled down the road. Crowley had been waiting all this time, and he’d probably heard about Payne and his broken leg, and also assumed Kaz and I would be gone now that the Neville case was wrapped up. No armed soldiers, just a few unarmed English coppers between him and the revenge he sought.

  CHAPTER THIRTY — SEVEN

  The police car was stuck at the intersection of a sheep crossing and a convoy of army trucks. It was a confusion of khaki green and dirty white wool, and Tree barged through it, horn blaring, as I stood up, grasping the windscreen, waving my arms wildly. Constable Gilbert got the message and backed up, did a hard turn, and followed us into town. Short of the canal we pulled over and I filled in Kaz and the constables as quickly as I could.

  “Charlie is trying to get word through to Payne,” I said. “But Crowley could already be there.”

  “Perhaps not,” Cook said. “Why would he have waited this long? He could have taken a potshot at either of us anytime.”

  “Because Kaz and I have been on the scene. Two armed men are quite a deterrent. He probably thinks we’re gone now that the Neville killing is wrapped up.”

  “Yes,” Cook said, “that may be. We should split up and cover both entrances. When we get close, Gilbert will go into Doctor Brisbane’s office and telephone the inspector from there. The baron and I will go around back, and you take the main door.”

  “Be careful,” I said, looking at Kaz. He already had his Webley out and spun the chamber, checking his load. He shrugged at my warning. Careful wasn’t how Kaz operated.

  We drove on, parking away from the station. I watched Gilbert go into Doc Brisbane’s, but I didn’t want to wait on word from him. Kaz waved as he and Cook scurried around the rear of the station house.

  “Let’s just take it at a stroll,” I said to Tree. “When I go in, you stay outside in case Crowley comes along, okay?” I scanned the street for our quarry, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight. There were plenty of bicycles outside of shops, but it was impossible to know if one was his.

  “I don’t think so, Billy,” Tree said. “Nice try, but I’m going in with you. Behind you, yeah, but with you.”

  “It’s not your fight,” I said.

  “Seems like I heard that one before, when I told you the same thing back in Boston. Didn’t stop you then, won’t stop me now.”

  “Okay. Follow my lead,” I said, glad to have the extra firepower.

  “Sure thing. I’ll follow from right behind you. Solid guy like you ought to stop bird shot no problem.”

  We were in front of the station. Curtains were drawn across the window, which could mean Payne was taking a nap, or Crowley was setting a trap, waiting for Cook to return alone. At the door, I laid my hand on the knob. It was cold. I looked across the street, hoping to see Gilbert emerge from Brisbane’s with a look of relief on his face. Nothing.

  I drew my.38 Police Special. Tree had his.45 automatic ready and I turned the knob, keeping one hand on it and the other pointing my revolver straight ahead. Cook’s office was on the right, his door about ten feet down the hallway the led to the cells, a squad room and the rear entrance. Cook’s door was open halfway, but I couldn’t see inside. I moved forward, shuffling my feet to keep the sound down.

  The telephone rang. No one picked up. After five rings, it stopped. I edged closer to the door.

  “Crowley? Are you here?” I asked.

  “Come in, one and all,” came the answer. I turned to Tree and motioned him to stay where he was. I sidestepped across the open door, glancing inside as I moved. It was Crowley, seated at Cook’s desk, his shotgun pointed in the direction of the chair where we’d left Inspector Payne, just out of sight.

  “I’m unhurt, Boyle,” Payne said. “Mr. Crowley is waiting for Constable Cook to arrive.”

  “That I am. Come in, Captain Boyle. I’ve got nothing against you.”

  “Cook’s not coming,” I said. “He left for Newbury this morning. Police business.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. That nice American fellow who called said you’d be here soon with the good constable. Nice try, though. Now come in, come in. I’ve got a nice collection of shells with me, but none has your name on it.” Crowley smiled as if inviting us to a party. For him, it probably was.

  “Inspector, are you sure you’re all right?” I asked.

  “As of this moment, yes. Probably best for you to stay where you are, though.”

  “Crowley,” I said. “There’s still time to step back from all this. Why don’t you put the shotgun down and we’ll talk it over?”

  “Step back?” Crowley’s voice rose. “No one stepped back when my father was put in this very jail! No one said, let the poor fellow go, he’s suffered enough. No one said, step back, it was only three moth-eaten shirts!”

  “Okay, I understand,” I said, trying to calm the situation down. “I’m going to come in, okay?”

  “Not with that pistol, you aren’t.” Crowley’s voice was calmer now, more of a low growl.

  “Fine, fine,” I said, setting it down on the floor with a clatter before putting it back in the shoulder holster. I hoped Crowley wouldn’t notice the bulge, and hadn’t noticed Tree behind me. I pointed to myself and then mimicked a left-hand turn, so Tree would know where I’d be in the room. “Coming in.”

  I stepped into the room, and felt a cold rush of sweat down the small of my back as my heart pounded against my chest. Staring down the black holes of a double-barreled shotgun has a way of focusing your attention, once you overcome the terror of it. I held my hands out at my sides.

  “I’m sorry about everything that happened to your family,” I said. “My father was in the war too. It took a toll on them all.”

  “All my dad wanted to do was work out under the sky, earn his wages and come home to us,” Crowley said. “But that bastard Brackmann cheated him, and the law drove him crazy. How’s that for a heavy toll, Captain?” His face twisted in a grimace of resentment, a generation’s worth of hatred.

  “But why take revenge on these two men? Why not leave things be, go back to taking care of the horses? It’s not too late. I’m sure the inspector understands how upset you are.” I did
n’t think Crowley would buy it, but I wanted to get him talking, keep him distracted, long enough for Tree or Kaz to make a move, if they had one.

  “Don’t pretend you haven’t figured out what happened to Tom Eastman,” Crowley said. “It was the next best thing to killing that bastard Samuel. To lay his son’s body on his grave. To ruin their family as mine was ruined. That was me who killed him, damn you! You can’t take that away from me, especially not by pinning it on that darkie.”

  “Did Brackmann really hang himself, or was that you as well?” I asked. I glanced at Payne, and saw his hands grip the arms of the chair. The cast on his leg left him nearly immobile in that position, but he was ready to launch himself as best he could.

  “Of course that was my doing,” Crowley said. “He had no idea who I was. I came by asking for work, and he told me to bugger off. I took a tosh to his head and dragged him to the barn. I only regret he didn’t know he was being strangled. Father would have liked him to know, I’m sure.”

  “This was all for your father, wasn’t it?” I said, trying to sound sympathetic.

  “Of course,” Crowley said, his face softening a touch. “Who wouldn’t step into his father’s shoes? It was what he wanted, what he taught me to do.”

  “I know,” I said. “We saw the letters. That was a heavy burden to lay on you.”

  “Go to hell,” Crowley said. “You didn’t know my father.”

  “I’m pretty sure your father would think you pathetic,” I said, deciding that the sympathetic approach wasn’t getting us anywhere. “He was a veteran, a hero. And what did you amount to? A criminal and a killer. They’ll probably send you to Broadmoor too, if they don’t hang you.” I was working on provoking him, to get him out of that chair and pointing the shotgun someplace other than Payne’s chest.

  “Stop it! You said you were sorry about my father!” Rage flitted across his face, and then his lips quivered as if he were holding in a torrent of tears.

  “I’m sorry he has you for a son, Angus. You didn’t even take his name, for God’s sake.”

  That struck a chord. “My name is Angus Wycks!” He stood and shouted again, “Angus Wycks!” He held the shotgun in both hands, waving it wildly between Payne and me, his eyes crazed with pain and memory.

  “Now!” I yelled, and dove for the floor, reaching for my pistol.

  The door from the squad room crashed open, and Kaz burst in, his Webley searching for a target, finding Crowley and shooting, just as Tree stood in the doorway and fired his.45. The room was filled with sharp thunder, muzzles’ flashes, and the hot-metal smell of gunfire. I fumbled for my revolver, rising up on one knee as a final blast rocked the room, the twin booms of both barrels going off as Crowley fell against the wall, his dead hand gripping the shotgun.

  “Jesus,” Tree said, although it sounded like he was very far away. My ears were ringing, and the room was hazy with smoke. Payne got to his feet, then fell back into his chair. His shoulder was bloody where he’d caught some of the bird shot. Between him and Tree there was a hole in the wall where the shot had hit.

  “Jesus,” Tree said again, and as I focused on him, I saw he’d caught some as well; his right sleeve was ripped and smoky where the bird shot had hit. Blood dripped down his arm.

  “Sit down,” I said, taking him by his good arm and leaning him against the desk, away from the sight of Crowley’s corpse. “Everyone else okay?” I knew I was yelling, but I wanted to hear myself.

  “Everyone but Mr. Crowley,” Kaz said, holstering his Webley.

  “Mr. Wycks,” Tree said. “We ought to at least call him that.”

  “It will be on his tombstone,” Kaz said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY — EIGHT

  Four days, two bandages, three depositions, one pauper’s funeral, one near knockdown fistfight with the original CID investigating agent, and a visit to Sophia at the Avington School for Girls later, Tree and I were in a jeep heading west to the US Army military prison at Shepton Mallet. We had a thermos of coffee, signed release papers for Private Abraham Smith, a full set of clothes from his footlocker, and sore arms from our respective wounds. I drove.

  “I still feel like I got bird shot in my arm,” Tree said, rubbing his biceps.

  “There were four little pieces of shot in there,” I said. “Doc got them out with tweezers.”

  “What did he call that room we were in?” Tree asked.

  “His surgery.”

  “Well, there you go. I had surgery. You had a little scratch on your arm. You want some more coffee?”

  “Sure, if you can manage it.” Tree poured, wincing and groaning as he did. We laughed. I sipped the hot java, one hand draped over the steering wheel, the sun behind us and a clear road ahead. I was having fun. The last few days, as we put together the pieces of the case against Angus Crowley, Tree and I had managed to set aside the anger that had been between us the past few years, and get back to the boyhood camaraderie that had bound us together back in Boston. Tree had medical leave for a week, and I’d gotten permission from Colonel Harding to see the Angry Smith case to its conclusion.

  We’d gone to London with depositions from the Berkshire Constabulary detailing what we’d discovered about Crowley, and what witnesses had heard him confess to. The Criminal Investigations Division didn’t like hearing it, and we’d been kicked upstairs to a captain who took offense at Tree’s race, my Boston accent, and the very idea of letting Smith go free. The argument became heated, and our meeting ended with Tree pulling me out the office, one hand still clinging to the guy’s lapel. We found a lawyer from the Judge Advocate General’s office who wasn’t a complete idiot, and he pushed the release through. Tree sent a letter to the prison, letting Angry know we’d be there soon. We had no idea if it got to him, but we had orders to spring him and a letter from General Eisenhower himself in case we needed an ace in the hole.

  “Do you think Angry will really settle here after the war?” I asked Tree as we hummed along the roadway.

  “He’s serious all right,” Tree said. “I think he would even if Rosemary weren’t in the picture. He doesn’t want to go back to the way he was treated in the States.”

  “Was it that bad for him?” Tree had had his share of hard times because of his skin color, but I didn’t have the sense he was ready to call it quits on his country.

  “I’ll tell you a story, then you decide,” Tree said. “We were doing field exercises outside of Fort Polk-that’s in Louisiana. The company exec sent Angry and a corporal into town with a requisition for supplies. They take the jeep into this little cracker town, and Angry goes into the general store while Corporal Jefferson waits outside in the jeep. Before he knows it, there’s a crowd of whites around the jeep. Angry starts to go outside, but the storekeeper warns him off and tells him to keep quiet if he values his life. The white boys start beating up on Jefferson, and before long they’re dragging him behind the jeep, up and down the street, until he’s dead.”

  “What did Angry do?”

  “Went out the back door, ran ten miles back to our bivouac. Reported to our commanding officer, who went into town to retrieve the jeep.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all, Billy. The army let one of their own be murdered in broad daylight, and didn’t lift a finger. They were afraid white folk across the South would turn against the army if they weren’t allowed to murder a Negro soldier now and then. All Angry wants to do is get in combat and prove himself, then be left alone to build a life. Too many people back home don’t want either thing to happen. So England looks pretty damn good.”

  “Can’t say I blame him,” I managed. Some days I was real clear about why we were fighting this war. Some days I wondered why we weren’t fighting other wars. We drove in silence for a while.

  “Turn here,” Tree said, consulting the map on his lap. We soon came to a sign for the US Military Prison Shepton Mallet. The prison was in the center of town, surrounded by a high grey stone wall. We turned down Goal
Street, and I recalled Kaz telling me this place had been a prison since the 1600s. The town had grown up with it, streets and lanes curving around the massive walls like a stream flowing against a rock outcropping. We found the entrance, showed our papers, and were directed to the administrative section. We parked, got out of the jeep, and stared at the gate closing behind us.

  It was a sea of stone and barbed wire. The same monotonous grey both underfoot and rising up in every direction. There were interior fences separating the buildings and sentries in the towers that dotted the walls.

  “I hope it’s as easy getting out as it was getting in,” Tree said. He hefted the bag with Angry’s Class A uniform, forgetting to complain about his arm. A serious prison drives all trivial thoughts from a man’s mind.

  They knew we were coming. We presented the papers authorizing the release of Private Abraham Smith, and waited as the warden reviewed them. Ink flowed, rubber stamps were pounded on paper, and soon we were led into the prison proper by a stern-faced MP sergeant. He didn’t make small talk.

  “What’s that?” I asked as we entered a large courtyard. Attached to one of the walls was a two-story brick structure, about as narrow as a row house. Its reddish hue and bright newness were at odds with the weathered grey stone of the prison.

  “Execution house,” he said. “That’s where the hangings are done. The old gallows was falling apart, so we built that to replace it.” We didn’t talk much after that. I wondered what it was like spending the war guarding your own men and overseeing executions. Most in here probably deserved it, but it would be a helluva thing to explain to your kids when they asked, “What did you do in the war, Daddy?”

  The courtyard was empty. From above, faces looked out of barred windows, watching our progress. There were no shouts or insults, no taunts of the guard, Tree, or me. That meant they ran a tight ship here. Respect, fear, or some combination of the two created an eerie silence as our boots echoed on the grey stone beneath our feet.