Dead Run

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  The taproom was bright and there was a Christmas tree at one end of the bar. There were only two people in the barroom, and they were Mr. and Mrs. Clement Barkston. They looked as if they had had a good night. Elaine Barkston seemed particularly abloom. Probably she always did.

  They had a table near the fire. As Heimrich and Forniss went into the room, both lifted their glasses in salute. Forniss went on to the bar; Heimrich stopped to say good morning to Barkston and his once-famous, still-beautiful wife. He said it and started on.

  “Have you found out who killed the poor man, Inspector?” Elaine Barkston asked, in her soft but carrying voice.

  “Not yet,” Heimrich told her. “Just asking around, so far. You two making out all right?” Which was something, if not much, to say. “After missing Mrs. Lord’s party. Another couple couldn’t get there either. Reduced the dinner party to eight.”

  “Dear Amelia,” Mrs. Barkston said. “Any dinner party under twenty isn’t worth giving. And the poor dear’s first party for months. You’ve been to see her, Inspector? How is dear Amelia? Such an awful thing.”

  “Murder is always an awful thing, Mrs. Barkston,” Heimrich said.

  “Most foul,” she said. “As in the best it is.”

  The wording sounded familiar. After a second, Merton placed it. Irrelevant, of course. But what was relevant? He said, “I gather you’ve played Shakespeare, Mrs. Barkston?”

  “When I was just a tot. A couple of centuries ago, actually. Juliet. When I was very young. And very briefly. Amelia did Lady Macbeth, once. Ten years or so ago. The only time dear Burton tried the classics. I didn’t see it, but they say she was good—quite good, anyway. It didn’t run long, though. Could Amelia help you any?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid. A little background. I gather you two weren’t at the picnic?”

  “The famous picnic,” Clement Barkston said. “No. We were in London then.”

  “At the embassy Fourth of July do,” his wife said. “And a stuffy party it was. All gummed up with touring congressmen and people like that. Shouldn’t we be thinking about getting along, Clem, dear? See if they’ll give us lunch and be on our way home?”

  Clement Barkston looked at his watch and nodded his head and said, “Maybe we’d better.” He stood and held his hand down to his wife. She took the offered hand and stood. She had not used the hand for support, Heimrich thought. She had not needed to.

  Heimrich joined Forniss at the bar. Forniss raised inquiring eyebrows.

  “Only that Mrs. Lord used to be on the stage,” Heimrich said, and reached for the martini Joe Shepley had ready for him.

  They carried their drinks to a table near the fire. The inn prefers to serve lunch only in the dining room, but exceptions can be made. Joe Shepley started to come around the bar to them, but stopped and waited. Susan and Joan Collins and Michael came into the room, in that order. Susan said, “Did Asa Purvis get hold of you, Merton? He was trying to. But something seems to have happened to his radio, he says.” Heimrich and Forniss stood up, and started to move toward a larger table.

  “We’ve had lunch, Dad,” Michael said. “Sort of a breakfast—lunch. We were just finishing when we saw you come in. We were about to go back to the house. The power’s on again, Mrs. Cushing says.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said, “they’ve been quick, for once. Did Asa leave a message, Susan?”

  “Reluctantly,” Susan told him. “The boy likes to go through channels, and apparently I’m not a channel. Finally, about this station wagon.”

  “He’s found it?”

  “Well, not exactly. He’s lost another. That is, Father Armstrong has.”

  Francis Armstrong, Doctor of Divinity and rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, prefers to be called Father. He is also careful to put “Roman,” before “Catholic” when speaking of another persuasion.

  “That’s a help,” Heimrich said. “Why don’t we all sit down?”

  They moved to a table where five could sit down. Forniss and Heimrich took their drinks with them.

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “Another station wagon on the loose. Tell me, dear.”

  “You know this candlelight service they have at St. Mary’s,” Susan said. “At midnight on Christmas Eve. Winding down the hill in procession, everybody carrying candles. Father Armstrong was worried about the wind. And then all back to the church for holy communion.”

  Heimrich knew about St. Mary’s traditional service. Had never attended it. “So?”

  The previous afternoon, sometime around three, Armstrong thought, he had gone from the rectory to the church. There were “things to be seen to” in connection with the candle ceremony. He was not sure about the time, but it was still light when he had driven over. He had driven because of the rain. Usually he walked the few hundred yards along Van Brunt Avenue. Or rode his bicycle. He had driven in his—actually the parish’s—station wagon. He had parked it in front of the church—an old white building which once had housed a Lutheran congregation. He had gone into the church to see to the things. He could not be sure how long he had remained inside. But when he came out again it was almost dark. So, sometime after five on that short day.

  When he came out, there was no station wagon. And he was sure he had driven over.

  “Father Armstrong’s sort of an absentminded old guy,” Asa had told Susan Heimrich. “But I guess he did drive over. Anyway, the wagon’s not in the parsonage garage, where it’s supposed to be.”

  “He’s a dear old man,” Susan said. “But he is absentminded.”

  The Heimrichs are not communicants of St. Mary’s, but Heimrich knew Father Armstrong’s reputation for absentmindedness. So did most of Van Brunt. He was also widely considered a nice old man, if needlessly high church. “All that folderol,” one man had said to Heimrich once. Of course, the man who had said it had been a Baptist.

  “If he parked in front of the church,” Heimrich said, “the car would have been in plain sight from the street.”

  “He supposed it was,” Susan said.

  “Did he happen to remember whether he took the ignition key into the church?”

  Asa had asked him that. Father Armstrong supposed he had. He always did. No, he couldn’t lay hands on it in the church. But it had to be there somewhere. After all, the car belonged to the parish.

  “Did he happen to remember anything about this parish station wagon? Its make? The year?”

  He hadn’t, offhand. But he had, after some research, found the registration certificate. The missing car was a 1971 Pontiac wagon. The license number and the motor number were on the certificate. Asa Purvis had telephoned both to the barracks. Presumably, the numbers had been added to the APB.

  “Color of the wagon?” Heimrich asked Susan. “Does the old boy happen to remember?”

  The reverend old boy had told young Purvis the car was a dark color. Originally, probably, a dark blue. Probably, yes, there were a few scratches on the finish. “Sometimes I do scrape into things, I’m afraid.” It was still a good, serviceable car. “Faithiful.” Had it been wearing chains when the clergyman had left it in front of the church?

  “Asa asked him about that,” Susan said. “Asa’s a good trooper, Merton. And he says Armstrong told him of course it had. He said he had them put on after Thanksgiving every year, and left them on until April. Because one can never tell.”

  “And an ounce of prevention,” Heimrich said. “I hope Purvis told them to add, ‘probably has worn down chains on rear tires’ to the description.”

  Susan did not know.

  Anybody driving along Van Brunt Avenue—or walking along it in spite of the driving rain—could have seen a 1971 Pontiac wagon standing in front of the church; if a local, could have recognized it; quite possibly could have guessed Father Armstrong had left the ignition key in it, whatever Father Armstrong supposed. And, of course, gone up to see. Somebody who had need of a big station wagon. Or, seeing one available, had conjured up the need.

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nbsp; “Michael thinks it would be nice if we had a tree,” Susan said.

  “We thought we might pick one up on the way home. And get the house warmed up. And turn off that damn oil stove. Now that the electricity is hack on.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “And hoping it stays on.”

  Sometimes in bad weather—in very blowy weather—restored power is prone to relapse. Rural electricity is fidgety.

  Susan and Michael and Michael’s girl stood up.

  “You’ll be home for dinner?” Susan asked her husband. “After all, it is Christmas Eve.”

  “I’ll try to be,” Heimrich told her. “I’ll try damn hard to be. The ornaments are in the attic, I think.”

  The Christmas tree ornaments were on the top shelf of the closet in Michael’s room. Susan didn’t bother to point this out. She said, “Yes, dear.”

  “We may need new lights,” Heimrich said.

  Susan knew they would need new lights. The old lights had given out, rather abruptly, two years ago, which was the last time they had had a tree, because it was the last time Michael had been home for the holidays. Susan said, “Yes, dear,” and stood up.

  She and the “kids”—who weren’t really, of course—went from taproom to lobby. They came back almost immediately, and Michael was carrying Joan Collins’s suitcases. Which meant that they had checked out of the inn. Which meant, presumably, that Joan was Agoing to stay, at least over Christmas, with the Heimrichs. Which meant that somebody, probably Michael, was going to have to sleep on the living-room sofa. Or maybe not.

  Susan waved as the three of them went out of the taproom to the parking lot and the car. Merton Heimrich blew her a kiss, as he often did when they parted. And, as always, the gesture embarrassed him a little. Hippopotamuses do not throw kisses.

  Joe came over and they ordered. Forniss ordered beer with his food. Heimrich thought of milk. He also thought of hippopotamuses and ordered coffee. One thought leads to another. This did not, however, appear to hold true in relation to the problem of who had killed Samuel Jackson, Attorney and Counselor-at-Law.

  They finished their cocktails while they waited for Forniss’s hamburger and Heimrich’s omelet. (Heimrich, with visions of a large mammal lingering in his mind, had toyed with the thoughts of a fruit salad. He had not toyed long.)

  “There’s always the matter of money,” Forniss said. It often enters in, M. L. Do we know how Jackson was fixed?”

  They didn’t, Heimrich realized. He had known Sam Jackson for a good many years, but never to the extent of knowing how Jackson was “fixed.” Pretty well, he had assumed. Old families of the Hudson Valley usually were. (Susan’s family was, a little unfortunately, an exception.) Jackson had, apparently, lived as he liked, which implied money. He had practiced law as he liked. Why, then, had he chosen to defend an apparently hopeless case?

  “And,” Forniss said, applying catsup to his hamburger, “who gets it? Always a point, isn’t it?”

  Heimrich said “Mmm” and put a fork in his omelet. It was rather overdone. He said, “We’ll have to try and find out, Charlie. Bother Miss Arnold again after lunch. If she happens still to be at the office. Most people knock off early on Christmas Eve.”

  “Particularly if the boss is dead,” Forniss said, and attacked his sandwich.

  Alice Arnold was still at her desk in the outer office of Samuel Jackson, Attorney and Counselor-at-Law, when they got to it. This time they walked up to The Corners and crossed with the light. Traffic was heavy on the avenue. People doing last-minute shopping for Christmas presents, Heimrich assumed. Or for Christmas turkeys. Or just fleeing the city for the holidays.

  Alice Arnold did not say, “You two again,” except by the expression on her face. She said, “Good afternoon. You’ve thought of something else you want to ask me?” She had, Heimrich thought, been crying again.

  The telephone on her desk rang and she answered it. She said, “Mr. Jackson’s office, may I help you?” And then listened. She said, “We all are, Mr. Preston. It’s an awful thing. Yes, it is hard to believe. I really don’t know. Somebody’ll be in touch with you.” She hung up. “All morning,” she said. “Calling to say how awful it is. Miss Gee about that will of hers. Clients and just—just people. I suppose there’s nobody else they know to call.”

  “One of the things we wanted to ask you about,” Heimrich said, “whom to notify—that sort of thing. Next of kin. We thought you might be able to help us.”

  She shook her head.

  “His wife died some years ago,” she said. “Perhaps there are in-laws. He never mentioned them to me. But why would he?”

  Heimrich knew that Sam Jackson’s wife had died some years ago. Ten or eleven years ago, he thought, and that Sam had not remarried. He knew that the Jacksons had had one son, and that the son had died in his teens. When you live in a community like Van Brunt, you get to know odds and ends about other people who live there.

  “I think he had a nephew,” Miss Arnold said. “A brother’s son. James, I think his name is. Lives out West somewhere. James Jackson. Perhaps there will be more about him in the files. Mr. Jackson’s personal files, that is. Only they’re locked, I’m afraid.”

  “And you haven’t a key to them, Miss Arnold?”

  “Of course not. They’re his private files. Why would I have, Inspector?”

  “Well,” Heimrich said, “you were his private secretary, Miss Arnold. Confidential secretary. Do you happen to know where he kept the key? None of the keys he had in his pocket looks right. Key to his house, of course. At least we assume so. And to his office here. And his car keys. Nothing that looks like a key to a file cabinet.”

  She looked at Heimrich for more than a minute before she said anything. Then she said, “Well, I don’t think that I—that is, I’m not sure that I—” She stopped with that.

  “Miss Arnold,” Heimrich said. “Lieutenant Forniss and I are the police. We’re investigating Mr. Jackson’s death, because it’s what we call a suspicious death. We’ll take the responsibility. You do know where he kept the key?”

  After a few seconds, she nodded her head. And her eyes filled with tears.

  “It seems wrong,” she said. “Prying into things he wanted to keep private. With him dead and not able to—to keep things private. Do you have to, Inspector?”

  “Yes, I think we have to. The key, Miss Arnold?”

  “On a little hook thing. Inside the top drawer of his desk. I’ll—”

  “We’ll find it, Miss Arnold. You can come along if you like, but you don’t have to. And anything we don’t think is connected in any way with his death—well, we’ll keep it private.”

  “Oh,” she said, “I’ll go with you, Inspector.”

  She led them again along the corridor. It was lighted, now. And the office fire had burned down to a few embers. It wasn’t needed any longer. The big room was warm enough.

  There were four filing cabinets behind the desk. Alice Arnold went behind the desk and opened the top right-hand drawer. She reached into it, without looking into it, and took a key off the little hook thing. She did not offer it to Heimrich. She said, “It’s this one. I’ll open it for you.”

  She turned to one of the file cabinets; the one nearest the desk chair. She did not sit in the chair, although that would have been more convenient. She turned the key in the lock and pulled open the top drawer of the four-drawer cabinet.

  The top drawer held lettered separators. Heimrich pulled down the one lettered “J.” It was only thinly separated from the one marked “K.”

  Samuel Jackson’s birth certificate was in the space. He had been born in the village of Van Brunt, County of Putnam, State of New York, son of Jasper and Mary Jackson, in the year 1901. There was. a marriage certificate. In 1925, Samuel Jackson and Margaret Home had been united in marriage. “Horne” was a familiar name in Van Brunt, but a fading name. There had been Hornes when Merton Heimrich first came to live in Van Brunt. Timothy Home and his younger brother, named�
�? Heimrich did not recall the brother’s name. Both had died, within a year of each other, a few months after Heimrich had gone to live in Susan’s house above the river. The New York Times had carried an obituary article about Timothy Horne. It had not been a long article, as Heimrich vaguely remembered it. He did not remember, even vaguely, what it had told about the life of Timothy Horne.

  The same Horne family? Merton Heimrich could not see that it really mattered.

  There was a letter, rather badly typed on an unheaded sheet of typewriter paper. The typewriter keys had badly needed cleaning. There was no address at the top of the sheet, and no date. It had been written “Thursday.” There was no telling what Thursday. At a guess, from the look of the paper, a fairly recent Thursday. It read:

  Dear Uncle:

  Thank you for your almost generous check. Believe me, I’m sorry to keep bothering you, but there it is, isn’t it? A ne’er-dowell nephew, always in your hair. All right, things aren’t going any better for me. Things stay damn tight out here. The shop pays about half enough to live on. I’m looking for something better, whether you believe it or not. So there we are, aren’t we? Anyway, thanks again.

  Your “devoted” nephew, James Worthington Jackson

  Not a particularly friendly thank-you note. The quotation marks around the word “devoted” constituted a sneer. Heimrich read the letter again, and folded it and put it in his pocket. Alice Arnold raised her eyebrows in disapproval. Heimrich paid no attention, but went on sorting through the “J” section of the file. There was very little else under “J.” He skipped to “W.” And found the will of Samuel Jackson, duly witnessed by two people he had never heard of; executed early in that year. And it was a copy. Original, probably in a safe deposit box in the First National Bank of Van Brunt.

  It took only a minute or so to find a way through the legal verbiage.