Deadfall (Nameless Detective)

by Bill Pronzini

  I could not have faced any more digging, even if it had been necessary; the stench was sickening enough as it was. Ben Klein on the phone last Friday: We didn’t even get a smell of this guy Martinez. Jesus Christ!

  Shaking a little, I threw the shovel down and pulled the flashlight out of the crack in the boards. The beam slithered sideways, made something gleam in the mound of dirt I’d created—something red and shiny. I leaned over that way, trying not to gag again, and held the light on it up close.

  Part of a fingernail, torn raggedly on one end: a woman’s long fingernail painted a bright crimson.

  I left it where it was; no point in removing incriminating evidence. I had to get out of there. The stench was so bad it made me feel as if I were suffocating. I followed the light across the barn, shut it off when I got outside. Stood in the chill wind with my head back, sucking air until my chest cleared and the nausea was gone. Then I went to the car and got inside and started the engine and sat huddled and shivering, waiting for the heater to fill up the space with warm air. Thinking again. Remembering.

  Elisabeth Summerhayes: I hate women who mark men, the ones with claws like cats. She had been talking about Alicia Purcell. But Mrs. Purcell had short fingernails now, short and painted a bright bloody crimson. Why would a woman who habitually wore her nails long cut them short? A whim, maybe. Or maybe she’d had no other choice; maybe she’d torn one of them off, damaged others, doing manual labor of some kind. Like digging. Like burying the body of a man she’d just murdered.

  You don’t like to think about women having the physical and mental capacity for digging graves, for lugging heavy plywood sheets and two-by-fours to cover one up; you can get so mired in the weak-sex-fair-sex myth that you lose sight of the fact that a woman, given the proper impetus, can pretty much do any job a man can do. Alicia Purcell was wiry, strong. And determined. And as cold-blooded as any black widow spider making dinner out of one of her mates.

  She’d killed and buried Danny Martinez, all right. The broken fingernail in there proved that. She hadn’t had any help with that part of it; the help had come later, in making it look as though Martinez had pulled up stakes and disappeared to parts unknown. She’d needed somebody to pack up all his belongings, load them into Martinez’s pickup, drive the truck away somewhere and get rid of it. That was where Richie Dessault came in.

  It had to be Dessault. From all indications he hadn’t known Martinez personally; so how had he known it was Martinez I was talking about-I hadn’t even known it myself at the time—when I asked Melanie if she knew anyone who spoke with a Latin accent? My visit last Thursday, my investigation, was what had sent him out here the following afternoon. He’d come skulking through the woods because he hadn’t wanted to be seen driving into the farm, hadn’t wanted his car out in plain sight if anybody showed up. His purpose: either to make sure he hadn’t left any traces of himself when he’d done Alicia’s bidding, or to see if he could find out just what had been going on between her and Martinez. She wouldn’t have told him about the murder, the body buried in the barn, any of the rest of it; she was cunning and he wasn’t and she would not have left herself wide open to any more blackmail. No, she’d have made up some plausible-sounding story, something quasi-legitimate at the worst, to explain the need to get rid of Martinez’s belongings and truck. Dessault hadn’t questioned her at that point, if he’d ever questioned her. She’d have had him hooked by then, with sex as the bait. She’d have seduced him just as she had Summerhayes and countless others.

  Just as she had Leonard.

  That was the key to the whole thing, not Danny Martinez. Once you realized that Leonard had to have also been one of her conquests, you understood everything else that had followed. Seduction was not only a weapon with her, not only a means to an end, it was a motivating force in her life. All men were fair game—all men. And homosexuals were right up there at the top of the list because they presented the greatest challenge. She’d tried to seduce Alex Ozimas, hadn’t she? Ozimas: Not that I’m irresistible, of course; it was merely that she considered seducing a man of my tastes a stimulating challenge. Sure. So why not her husband’s brother, too?

  Confirmed homosexuals couldn’t be seduced by a woman, of course. But Leonard hadn’t been quite as gay as everyone, including poor Tom Washburn, believed him to be. He had not only been married once, he’d been sleeping with his ex-wife now and then during the year prior to Kenneth’s death. Claudia Mitchell on the phone last Saturday, talking about her sister: If I told her once after the divorce I told her a hundred times—good riddance. I warned her. Once bitten, twice shy, but she never listens to me. Ruth Mitchell had confirmed it when I’d contacted her earlier this afternoon. She had gone to his office one day to ask his advice on a legal matter, there had still been a spark of attraction between them, one thing led to another—mostly, I gathered, at her instigation. The right (or wrong) woman could still get Leonard into bed, if she knew how to play her cards right. And Alicia Purcell was a grand master when it came to playing cards of that sort.

  So Leonard, good old secretive, duplicitous Leonard, had been screwing Alicia too, right under his brother’s nose, right under Washburn’s. And they had succeeded in keeping their affair secret until the night of the party last May. That night, not much past nine-thirty, they had been alone in the library; Mrs. Purcell had admitted as much. They must also have been indiscreet in some way—discussed the affair, maybe even engaged in a little stand-up passion play; she was the type who’d find that kind of dangerous activity exciting. And they’d got caught: Kenneth had overheard them or walked in on them. There hadn’t been any big scene at that point, even though Kenneth was drunk; he knew what kind of woman his wife was, they’d had an open marriage, so it wasn’t likely he’d have assumed the role of the outraged husband. He had probably been more stunned than anything else. At any rate he’d stalked out of the house, passing Lina in the kitchen, and gone straight to the cliffs to be alone, to come to terms with what he’d just found out.

  Pure speculation on the rest of it: Leonard had followed belatedly, using another exit from the house or going through the kitchen himself while Lina was out distributing canapes to the guests—his intention being to talk to Kenneth, apologize, beg forgiveness … something like that. Alicia either went with him or had followed soon afterward. There had been a confrontation out there in the darkness high above the sea, and it had turned violent. Kenneth was drunk and he’d had time to nurture his anger; maybe he’d attacked Leonard, maybe they’d struggled, maybe Leonard had given him a shove and over he’d gone.

  I was sure of this much: Leonard was either directly responsible for his brother’s death, or had blamed himself for causing it.

  Guilt and remorse and grief might have cracked him up then and there if it hadn’t been for Alicia. She’d calmed him down, convinced him to cover up their part in Kenneth’s death and to keep their affair a secret. Not because she cared about Leonard; she was looking out for herself. She didn’t want to be implicated in her husband’s death, not in any way. An unquestioned fatal accident guaranteed her inheritance, insured a hassle-free future —or so she must have thought at the time. She’d coached Leonard in what to do and what to say to the party guests, to the authorities when they came; and because he was weak, and riddled with guilt, he had gone along with her. He’d played his part well enough; even his tears when the body was discovered had been genuine. But he’d been crying as much for himself, I thought, as for his dead brother.

  Before they returned to the house, Alicia had done one other thing: she’d picked up the Hainelin snuff box, which must have fallen to the ground when Kenneth’s coat pocket was torn during the struggle. That was the real reason she’d kept it hidden from the police, and later sold it to Summerhayes on the QT: she hadn’t wanted anybody asking how it had come into her possession that night.

  The two of them alibiing each other had fooled everybody into believing she was in the clear—me included. No on
e suspected Leonard, the devoted brother, of having had anything to do with Kenneth’s death; if he said he was with Alicia, then that cleared her, too. Nobody had seen either of them leave the house or return to it, so there was nobody to dispute her word or his. Nobody, that is, except Danny Martinez.

  Martinez had just finished making his delivery when Kenneth was killed. Either he’d been drawn out to the cliffs for some reason and had seen it happen, or more likely, he’d been near the house when Alicia and Leonard came back and had overheard an exchange of dialogue that told him what had happened. But they hadn’t seen or heard him. And for his own reasons he hadn’t come forward to tell what he knew. Alicia, at least, must have felt that she and Leonard had got away clean.

  But then, after nearly six months, Martinez’s life had come apart and he’d decided to use his knowledge for financial gain. He’d called Leonard, only to mistakenly talk to Washburn instead. Martinez, as quoted by Washburn: Your brother didn’t fall off the cliff that night, Mr. Purcell. He was pushed. And I know who pushed him. Washburn thought Martinez was trying to sell Leonard the name of his brother’s killer, and so had I; but that hadn’t been it at all. The purpose of Martinez’s call had been blackmail, not extortion. And when he finally had reached Leonard with his demands, Leonard had paid off to the tune of two thousand dollars. That had apparently not been enough for Martinez; he’d made the fatal mistake of trying the same blackmail scam on Alicia. And she’d paid him off with death.

  Thursday night, two weeks ago. Not more than a couple of days after she had killed and buried Martinez. Leonard must have talked to her about the blackmail business; he was scared, he was still guilt-ridden, maybe he’d even threatened to make a clean breast of everything to the police. She couldn’t have that, not after the drastic steps she’d already taken to protect herself. She arranged to see Leonard at his house, alone, while Washburn was out for the evening. With the intention of murdering Leonard, too, to keep him quiet? Possibly; she’d gone in the back way and she’d brought a gun with her—the same gun she’d used on Martinez, probably. Still, you’d think a woman as shrewd as she was would have picked a safer, more isolated place to commit premeditated homicide. It could be she’d brought the gun as a precaution or a threat or a last resort; it could be they’d had words, and she let slip what she’d done to Martinez, and Leonard threatened again to go to the police. In any case she shot him.

  Leonard, dying: Deadfall … so sorry … fall, how could you … Only that wasn’t quite right. He’d been delirious, mumbling, blood in his throat obscuring the words, and I had misheard one of them. He hadn’t said fall, how could you. He’d said Al, how could you.

  Al. Love, Al. Love, Alicia.

  Ray Dunston, quoting the Bible far more aptly than he’d ever know: Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his neighbor’s wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.

  Another week had passed, and Tom Washburn had brought me into it. I’d asked Mrs. Purcell some probing questions, so probing that she had lied about having tried to seduce Ozimas because she was afraid I might connect her sexually to Leonard. And then I’d found out from Lina about Danny Martinez. Either Alicia had asked the housekeeper what she’d said to me, or Lina had volunteered the information; whichever it was, she learned that I was on to Martinez. To find out just how much I knew or had guessed, she’d tried to use her favorite weapon—seduction—on me too. Then, later, I’d discovered that the Hainelin box had been in her possession and that she’d sold it to Summerhayes, and had confronted her with the knowledge on Sunday afternoon. I was definitely getting too close for comfort. Sex wasn’t going to work on me, so she’d used Dessault again (he might even have been with her when I called; she could easily be the reason for his two-day absence from Mission Creek)—this time to arrange a beating to force me off the case.

  Love, Al.

  That was the bulk of it. Some of the smaller pieces were still missing, others figured to be somewhat different than I had postulated them, but I was sure all the essentials were right. The full story would have to come from her. Not that the details were vital. Even if she didn’t confess, even if she tried to bluff it through, there should be enough hard evidence to convict her. The fingernail in the barn, for one thing. Dessault, for another; he was the type to sell out his own mother if he thought it would save his ass. She might still have the gun, too. In the end there’d be enough.

  It was warm in the car now, too warm: I was sweating again. I turned the heat down halfway. Outside, dusk was settling. It was already dark among the trees; their shadows, and those thrown by the barn and the house, crept out toward me across the yard. Time to go, I thought, and I put the car in gear and swung it into a U-turn that made the weak right side tremble. Time to get the rest of it done.

  Time to face the black widow in her nest.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Night had fallen when I turned off South Lake Street, onto the private drive that led up to the Purcell home. The road surface wasn’t as bad here as on the one coming into the Martinez farm, but the car’s front end was substantially looser now; I thought it might go at any time. I drove up the hillside at a crawl.

  The parking area at the end of the drive was dark: the half-dozen night lanterns atop the garden wall hadn’t been put on. There were three cars sitting there—the dusty BMW I’d seen on my first visit, Richie Dessault’s white Trans-Am, and a sixties-vintage MG roadster that I didn’t recognize. Through the filigreed gate I could see that the garden was also dark but that light showed at the front of the house, made blurry by the mist that swirled in raggedly from the sea.

  I put my car next to the BMW and sat there for a few seconds, listening to a voice inside my head that said, Dessault’s here, that’s all right, but she’s got other company. What’s the sense in bracing her now? What’s the sense in bracing her at all? Let it go, for Christ’s sake. You don’t need any more of this. Then I stopped listening to the voice and got out of the car, into a blustery wind thick with the smells of salt and the offshore kelp beds.

  The gate wasn’t shut all the way, so I didn’t have to bother with the bell or the intercom system. I shouldered through the open half, followed the crushed-shell path between the rows of rosebushes. The light at the front of the house was coming through a window and also through a wedge between the door and the jamb. I stopped, looking at the open door. From inside, distantly, there was the sound of music—something classical, something with a lot of stringed instruments. No other sounds filtered out to where I stood.

  Frowning, I put the tips of my fingers against the door panel and pushed it inward. Went past its far edge by a couple of steps, into the empty front hall. Nobody in the formal living room that opened off of it, nobody on the carpeted staircase to my right or up on the second-floor landing. I thought about calling out, announcing myself, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t do anything except stand still, listening to the music: it was coming from upstairs, over on the south side.

  Something wrong here, I thought.

  Something bad here.

  After a time I crossed to the staircase and climbed it, slowly, reluctantly. A central hallway went both ways upstairs; I turned left, to the south. Four doors gave on it in that direction, two open, two closed. The open ones showed me a bathroom and what looked to be a spare bedroom; I didn’t pause at either one. At the far end, on the right, a strip of light showed under the bottom of the second closed door; the music seemed to be coming from in there. Bedroom? Her bedroom? I kept moving, and I was only a few feet away when the familiar smell registered on my olfactory nerve.

  Cordite. Burnt gunpowder.

  My chest got tight and my head began to ache again. I quit walking and leaned against the wall; the palms of my hands were suddenly as wet as if I’d dunked them in water. No more, I thought, I can’t look at any more death today. But I was not the kind of man who could w
alk away from something like this without knowing. The curse of my existence: the constant, compulsive need to know.

  I tried to take a deep breath, to steady myself; the pain in my side turned it into a shallow grunt. I shoved off the wall, a little rubber-legged now, and went ahead to the door. It was shut all the way. Inside, the classical orchestra was playing something sweet and gentle. Violins. Mood music. Music for lovers.

  I opened the door and went in.

  Bedroom, all right. Death, all right. I felt the impact of it in my stomach, the same sickening pain as when one of the sluggers had kicked me on Sunday night. White room: white walls, white furry carpet, white canopied bed trimmed in white lace. Red room now: red on the sheets, red on the headboard and the canopy and the lace trim, red on the furry carpet. Spent shells on the carpet, too, four of them, ejected from an automatic weapon. Stereo record-changer in one corner playing the violin music. And the acrid smell of cordite strong in here, overpowering the faint musky scent of perfume.

  They were both naked, both spattered with blood—both dead, I thought at first. Dessault was lying half on and half off the bed, head down and arms outflung to the carpet, one bare foot hooked around a canopy post; he had been shot twice, once in the small of the back and once under the right shoulder blade. The two bullets that had entered Alicia Purcell’s body, one in the area of the sternum, the other through the upper curve of her right breast, had driven her back against the headboard. She was leaning sideways against it with her legs spread wide—a position made all the more obscene by the torn flesh and the ribbons of blood.

  Broken glass on the hardwood floor, broken china plates and cups and saucers, blue-and-white patterned stuff with some of the shards speckled with crimson. And Leonard Purcell crawling away, one hand clawing at the wood, the other crooked under him in a vain effort to stem the flow of bright arterial blood Dragging sounds, crunching sounds: trying to crawl away from death.