Watching him eat and drink, I recalled my long association with him. As a high-schooler I had hung around his office and later, mostly during college vacations, had served as his deputy, always as it happened in cases of murder.
At last he got around to the subject. “You’ve heard of the murder, I suppose?”
“Here and there.”
“It’s a difficult case, Jase, and, as usual, I’m shorthanded.”
“I figured on loafing for a while, then go to Portland to work.”
“Good job?”
“With the police department. I won’t be pounding the pavement.”
Mother, who had been fluttering around while watching us, said to him, “He needs a rest.”
Her concern always made me a little obstinate.
“I see.” Charleston smiled at her. “A little more field work might add to his credentials.”
“He’s had plenty of that,” she answered.
“Quiet, Mother, please,” I said and put out a hand to touch her.
“It was a chance.” Charleston rose. “Thanks for the coffee and cookies, Mrs. Beard.”
He was making for the door when I told him, “I don’t like to turn you down.”
“It’s all right, Jase.”
“Any leads in the case?”
“Not a one. Not a blessed one.”
“I might look over what you have.”
I was hooked. You might even say I was conned.
So here I was lolling in bed when I’d better roll out of it.
I was still in good time. I did my chores in the bathroom, ate breakfast while Mother fussed over me, and went to the office. Ike Doolittle perched near the switchboard close to the radio transmitter. Sheriff Charleston had taken to calling the person on the board the watch commander, a phrase he had probably picked up from a book.
Ike said, “Morning, Jase. No business here. Not a towel wet.”
It was a temptation to think of him as elfin, yet I knew better. Once, in my defense, he had subdued a man much bigger than he was.
I answered, “Good.”
I went to the inner office and sat down at the typewriter. There was plenty to report. While I was typing Charleston came in. Somehow he always managed to look as if he had just been outfitted for his role. Polished boots, creased pants, short jacket and sand-colored hat without a stain. He said, “Bright and early must mean you found something?”
“Something.”
“Give me the gist of it.”
So I turned from the machine and sat at the office side of his desk. I told him about the fracas at Madame Simone’s and the missing sapphire.
He tapped on his desk with the end of a pencil. “That’s something all right. Halvor missed both leads.” His face bore the traces of a frown.
I said, “Halvor’s all right.”
“Yep, in his place. That’s why I keep him on.” Charleston put down the pencil and rested his hands on the desk. “There was nothing else to do, Jase. I had to be in court. Doolittle was investigating some cattle thefts over east. You remember Monk Fitzroy?”
“Used to be stationed at Petroleum.”
“Yes. Petroleum folded, you know. Everybody moved to Overthrust. Some buildings relocated, too. So I brought Monk in, and then he up and died. The last man I hired I had to fire. Halvor was all I had for the murder case.” He pointed at me. “I’m damn glad to have you, boy.”
“Thanks. There’s a long way to go yet.”
“I know. That’s the gist, huh? Nothing else?”
“Not of real importance. It’s beside the point, but what gets me is that the Smitsons knew the girl was whoring and almost seemed to approve. Of course she supported them.”
“Didn’t forget her ma and pa.”
“No. They depended on her. Her father’s a cripple. Even so, they seemed as much upset about the end of the handouts as about her death.”
Charleston sighed. “I suppose it figures. Poverty’s a stinking thing. It mixes up values. It doesn’t team up with purity. What’s a little whoring, what’s death, when the belly’s empty. I think Laura Jane was quite a girl.”
“She must have been quite a dish, too. A fight over her and a sapphire for her. You know any Fords in the county?”
“Ford?” He shook his head. “Must be new.”
“I’ll find out. That’s next. And I want to locate the man who gave her the sapphire.”
“Doubtful suspect, isn’t he?”
“Who knows?”
“It’s your case, Jase.”
I went back to the typewriter. When I was done, I laid my report on his desk and left the office. I scanned the list of registered electors. No Ford. I studied the assessment sheets. I went to the treasurer’s office and asked about automobile licenses. Ford was just a name for machines.
It was past noon when I finished, and I went to the Commercial Cafe for a sandwich. No fried hamburger, thanks. Just a bacon, lettuce and tomato.
In front of the bank Mike Day, the head man, stopped me and shook hands. He was one of the few acquaintances I hadn’t seen since my return. “How are you, Jason boy? In the pink, I see. Back bloodhounding, so the little bird says.”
“Can’t pick up a scent.”
“Come inside. I want you to meet my nephew, Roland Day. Just out of college. Knows bookkeeping, accounting, banking practices, and all that. He’ll take a load off of me.”
So far as I knew the only load Mike Day ever carried was his own weight.
The man behind the railing was as young or younger than I. He was a well set-up young fellow with a good carriage, broad shoulders and very light hair parted at the side. He was as pale as the paper on his desk. He wore tinted glasses, and behind them I caught the glimmer of very light blue eyes. An albino, I thought, or close to it. His shake was firm, and his smile good.
I welcomed him and wished him the best of luck and at the door turned back and asked if they had a Ford among their depositors. “Wished I did,” Mike Day said. “Like a Ford name of Henry.” I waved away their curiosity.
Bob Studebaker chewed on a toothpick at the Bar Star Saloon. He had two customers. No one there knew a man by the name of Ford. “What’s the idea?” Studebaker asked. “He in trouble?”
“How can he be? He doesn’t exist.”
On a far-out hunch I went to see Miss Phoebe Akers. For years she had been selling low-priced ornaments like pins and bracelets and earrings and a few good jewels in her office in the Jackson Hotel. For good reason she was known as a talker.
“Good afternoon, Miss Akers,” I said.
“Goodness me, if it isn’t Jason Beard! A sight for sore eyes.”
We chatted or, rather, she talked, and then I said, “How you fixed for sapphires?”
“Why, Jason, you got a girl!”
“I’m old enough.”
“And good-looking enough. Sure, I have sapphires, genuine Yogos.” She produced a tray. “Take a peek.”
I did so and said, “I wanted a big one.”
“You’re sure enough in love. I don’t sell many large stones. On account of the price, you know.”
“Yes.”
“Two, three weeks ago, I had a wonderful one. I thought I’d never sell it. Then a man came along, a stranger, and bought it right off the bat. No bargaining. No questions. Paid cash.”
“Was his name Ford?”
“Ford? No. I don’t know any Fords. Let me think. Oh, yes.” She ran a finger down a ledger. “Here we are. Gerald Fenner. That’s all he told me, just his name. Since then, inquiring around, you know, but really not being nosy, I found he’s a big-time lawyer, staying at Overthrust for a few months. I suppose he’s working on deeds or transfers or leases or something. Those oil companies and their lawyers, my! But you wanted a sapphire, and here I am jabbering away.”
“Not at all,” I answered. “Nice to talk to you. Keep in touch just in case.”
It was only a little after midafternoon, early enough for a trip to Overthr
ust and an interview. I debated going. Things, one thing at least, had come along too easily, and easy answers weren’t to be trusted. A long shot could come home first and then be disqualified.
I walked back to the courthouse and took an official car. In forty minutes I was at Overthrust again. A gas-station pumper said sure, he knew Mr. Fenner. Had an office in the new brick building yonder.
He wasn’t on the first floor. It was occupied by the offices of the Overthrust Oil Company. A man there said he could be found upstairs, first door to the right. I climbed the stairs and arrived at the door. It was unmarked. Inside, a wispy girl with glasses and the look of male neglect asked me my business.
“I’ll tell Mr. Fenner that,” I said. “My name is Jason Beard.”
“You don’t have an appointment?”
“Sorry. Just say I’m investigating a jewel theft.”
“A jewel theft! What in the world?”
“I’m a deputy sheriff.”
She breathed out a deep breath. Under it she might have been saying, “Of all the crazy things!”
She went into the inner office, came right back and told me, “He’ll see you.”
The office was deep-carpeted in rust. Some nice prints hung on the wall. Mr. Fenner rose from behind a mahogany desk and said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Beard.” I took him to be in his fifties. He wore a gray three-piece suit and a blue tie. He stood erect, his head up, his face unrevealing but not unfriendly. He had dignity about him and something of the air of the aristocrat. Not that I really knew any aristocrats.
“Please have a chair,” he said, seating himself. “Now what’s all this about a jewel theft? It can hardly concern me.”
“Only incidentally if at all.”
“Proceed.”
“The stone in question is a big sapphire.”
“And there’s some doubt about ownership—about provenance?”
“No, sir. Nothing like that.”
“What then? Tell me.”
“Mr. Fenner,” I said, “I don’t know that you fit into the case at all. I’m working blind. I would ask your pardon except that you may be able to help me. I hope you will.”
“That talk behind you, let’s get down to cases?”
“As you know, a young girl was killed on the edge of town a few days ago, raped and strangled. It was her custom to wear a big sapphire in a setting of gold.”
He sat still, unmoving, without a flicker of face or tremor of hands. I thought of rigidity. “What about it?”
“It’s missing.”
“Hardly my concern, Mr. Beard.”
“In a way it may be. I think you gave the pin to the little prostitute.”
“I hate that word,” he said, flinging out an arm as if to thrust it away.
I waited. He arose slowly and took a step or two, his hands clasped behind him. His head, once so upright, was bent. He said, not turning to me, “I don’t see—”
“It may be none of my business,” I said for him, “but I intend to find out.”
He went, stooping, back to his chair. “Some things are private. Some things are confidential.”
“I keep them that way unless they come into a case.”
“And discussing them casts false lights. It makes them small. Makes them ugly. It distorts truth.”
“Yes, sir.”
He sat down, and his hands came out in slow explanation. “Mr. Beard, I’m a married man, but only in a sense. My wife is a sick woman, long since past any interest in men, including me except that she depends on me and rightly so. I support her. See that she gets the best of attention. But, Mr. Beard, I’m a man. As such I know the needs of the spirit and the hungers of the flesh.”
That was a fancy way of putting it, but he meant every word.
Again I waited.
“It came about that I met Laura Jane. It doesn’t matter how. She was a splendid girl. I gave her the pin.”
“It was quite a gift.”
“She was quite a girl.”
“No quarrels?”
“Good Lord, no! She was a good and gentle girl, a tender girl. She had time and concern for me.”
I didn’t say she must have liked what he gave her, too.
He went on, “Until some years have passed, you can’t know what the loving attention of a young girl means to an older man. You can’t know.” His head moved, slow with remembrance. “She cared for me. I am sure she cared for me.” A pause then. “Yes.” The single word dropped toward his desk. “Yes.”
I went out quietly. Aristocrats had a right to privacy, too.
4
It happened in all businesses, professions and public services that I knew anything about—the lulls between storms. The sheriff’s office was having one now; and Charleston, Ike Doolittle and I were loafing in Old Doc Yak’s office, along with Doc himself and Felix Underwood, the town mortician.
It had become something of a habit with a few of Doc’s friends, to drop in his place of an evening if time permitted. One missing member now was Bob Studebaker, who often came in for a quiet drink away from his bar and juke boxes. We had glasses in our hands. A bottle of whiskey and a pitcher of water rested on Doc’s desk.
We were, I supposed, a queer assortment, brought together through years of association and sometimes common interests.
Old Doc Yak properly was Dr. Gaylord Summerville, but Doc Yak was the name of an early-day cartoon character, and he had acquired it. Most people now would have had to think twice to address him correctly. Crusty as a cracker, he was the world’s worst driver and the last doctor to accept death, natural or violent. There was nothing meek about Doc.
As we sat, waiting for drink to promote talk, I thought of the change that was overtaking Felix Underwood. Once rather free and easy except at funerals, he was becoming stuffy, perhaps because of a growing bankroll. I flirted with the idea of the relationship between property and propriety.
I was feeling worthless. All my leads had petered out. I had questioned Madame Simone’s friendly sheriff. No help there. I had talked to his deputies. Sure, there had been a little fracas at Madame’s house, but they had straightened it out and sent the man on his way. Name? No one remembered.
“By my lights she was a good girl,” Charleston was saying. He was never quite easy away from his work though he had no real reason to fret now. Sure, he had put a new man on the board—one Kenneth Cole from Titusville—but he was being coached by Blanche Burton, an old watch-commander hand.
A breeze stirred a curtain in an open window. June in Montana, I thought, a time of bluster and sunshine and long light. Not for an hour would Doc have to switch on a lamp. I smelled the first fragrance of lilacs.
Charleston added after a pause, “She took care of her mother and father.”
“All the same, she was selling it,” Underwood answered Charleston. He had grown a little fleshy, thanks to a good life and dead bodies.
“For Christ’s sake,” Doc Yak replied, “that damns her to you, huh? You and your embalmed moralities.”
He swept out an arm as if asking the office and heaven to bear witness. “Listen to the voice of the righteous, but heed not. All is foolishness.”
Doc had enlarged his quarters by taking out the partition between the waiting room and the bedroom where he used sometimes to put patients. Patients were few these days. Some older ones swore by him and fought shy of the two new doctors. Neither did they like the new hospital. Declining practice pleased Doc. He was trying to retire, though he held on to the job of coroner.
Charleston went on, softly:
“Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!”
“Bridge of Sighs,” Doolittle said. It was a game they played, each trying to stump the other with a literary reference. Doolittle gave a satisfied, small smile. Slumped in a leather chair, he appeared even smaller than he was, but, looking at him, I remembered that a tough customer,
being locked into a cell, had characterized him as hell on wheels.
“I wouldn’t know about that fair business,” Underwood said. “I didn’t get the job. That damn upstart town! Overthrust! They’ll find out same way we found out when we bragged up Midbury as the coal capital of Montana. Shit. Came a soft market for coal and our coal turned out poor, and here we are like always.
“And there’s you, Charleston,” he went on, his indignation spilling over. “Jase, here, would be pitching professional ball if he hadn’t hurt his hand helping you.” He was a baseball nut and couldn’t forget that a bullet had stiffened my pitching hand maybe half a dozen or more years ago.
“What’s that got to do with fair?” Doc asked him. “Me, I examined the body. Even choked she was pretty, or had been.” He shook his head. Age had seamed and contracted his face. It might have been the face of a turtle, except that his head and eyes flicked around like a chipmunk’s. “The choker had big hands, but that doesn’t help you, Jase. Who doesn’t have big hands in this clodhopper country?”
Underwood returned to his standards. “A good-looking girl doesn’t have to whore if she has any sense in her head.” He seconded himself with a drink.
“Felix,” Doc said, “a salute to your vision. And now, brothers and sisters, let us turn the page and sing of the patent-medicine hawkers. There’s whoring of a high order. Thanks to law, they are somewhat restrained these days, but they are the get of wenchers and sluts.”
“Aw, bull, Doc. Where’s the connection between companies and whores?” Felix spoke with good nature. He was a hard man to offend.
“Whores, quacks, same thing,” Doc answered. “No damn field has so many fornicators in it as the health business. Look what the patent-medicine people used to do. Doped their tonics and brews with cocaine or whatever. Once they had their customers hooked, they came along with cures, also doped. Sold their souls for profit. It’s the damn truth. What say, there, Brother Underwood?”
“Whoring is whoring.”
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