Dead Run

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  “Yes?”

  “Shell get a new lawyer. If she can find somebody damn fool enough to take her case on. And he’ll move for a postponement and the judge—Peabody it’ll be—will have to grant it, under the circumstances. And that will louse up our operations. It’s a damn nuisance, Heimrich.”

  Merton Heimrich could see it might be. Due process of law now and then disconcerts some district attorneys who want to get on with their job, which, to many, is to put people in prison and thus to please voters. Peters was that kind of district attorney.

  “It’s not as if she’s got a prayer,” Peters said. “Hell, man, I saw it happen. Saw her shoot old Burton. Swear myself in and testify to that. Can’t see why a man like Jackson would take her on. Except he didn’t know much about criminal practice, I understand. Maybe they were sleeping together. That might explain it. Wouldn’t put it past her, would you?”

  “I only met her yesterday, Mr. Peters. She didn’t impress me as a woman who sleeps around. But I could be wrong, of course. I did know Sam Jackson. I doubt if he did much sleeping around. He was—well, a bit old for it.”

  “You never can tell, Heimrich. You ought to know that. Anyway, she was sleeping with Lord. And he breaks it off. Just like that. So, she killed him while he was making a speech at this picnic. I was there and saw her do it, I keep telling you that.”

  “I know you do, Mr. Peters. I don’t question it. County case, after all. She was a hundred yards or so away, as I get it. But it was a bright, hot afternoon, I understand.”

  “And I’ve got twenty-twenty vision, Heimrich.”

  Heimlich was sure he had. “And probably,” he said, “there were other people who saw her too. Pretty open about it, she was, apparently. In full sight of maybe seventy-five, a hundred, people.”

  “Mostly, people were looking at Burton. Or at each other. But sure, I’ve got other witnesses who saw her with the rifle. And she admits it was her rifle. Damn good piece, the rifle is. And she was good with it. Belonged to this rifle team at the country club, and they all say she was tops. Funny thing for a woman to take up, wouldn’t you say? Unless she was getting in practice in case Lord walked out on her. See what I mean?”

  Heimrich agreed it was an interesting theory. If not, he thought, a very plausible one. He didn’t suppose Peters did either. But you could never be entirely sure about the Honorable Jonathan Peters, District Attorney, Putnam County, New York Peters had once got an armed robbery case, which Heimrich had prepared, thrown out of court by asking questions a second-year law student should have known would lead to a mistrial.

  “What I called you about,” Peters said, “I don’t want you boys messing around with the Lord case. You understand that, Inspector?”

  “Perfectly,” Heimrich said. “No reason we should, Mr. Peters. Unless there’s a tie-in with something else we’re working on. Like the murder of Mr. Jackson.”

  “What you say was a murder, Inspector. What probably was an ordinary hit-and-run. Anyway, what would be the tie-in? So Jackson was the Kemper woman’s lawyer. So what?”

  “I don’t know what, Mr. Peters. Could be you’re right. If you are, we’ll lay off.”

  “See that you do,” Peters said, and hung up.

  He’s not an easy man to get along with, Heimrich thought. Could be, I suppose, I’m not either. I wonder if he has got twentytwenty vision. I wonder if last Fourth of July was a bright, clear day. A hot one, from what people say. Sometimes there’s a heat haze on hot summer afternoons. I’ll have to ask Charlie about that when he gets in, which ought to be any time now, even if he did work until near midnight.

  Heimrich ignored the considerable amount of material in his In basket. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and thought about a Pontiac station wagon. Late on the evening of one day it had been backed into a man and killed him. The next morning, around eight thirty, it looked like, it had forced a red Volkswagen off the road, turning the Volks partway over and endangering the Volks occupant. Where had the station wagon spent the night?

  In the stub road off Jackson’s driveway? If Friday had driven it, that was a possibility. But why would he have used the wagon for either of the purposes it had been used for? Killed Jackson for fifty thousand dollars? Possibly, of course. Tried to kill Joan Collins because of what she might have seen from her second-floor window at the inn? Again, possibly. And walked or jogged along a path, facing a brutal wind and carrying his employer’s rifle, to have another try at murder? Oh, just conceivably.

  Then, no connection at all with the planned murder of Burton Lord, semiretired theatrical producer. Which would leave Peters right. No reason apparent why Friday should have killed Lord; a possible reason why Loren Kemper might have. Woman scorned, woman rejected, woman enraged to the point of murder. A motive that appealed to Jonathan Peters, and might to a jury. Why doesn’t it appeal to me? Merton Heimrich wondered. It’s the sort of thing that does happen. But, to the young, the violent young, frantic with hurt pride; convulsively in love. Doubt merely because Loren Kemper doesn’t seem the type? Come off it, Heimrich. Murderers do not come by type. Neither do lovers.

  Get back to the station wagon. Parked overnight in a place convenient for Bertram Friday? Concealed, but not effectively concealed. Having been forced that far up the stub road, it could have been jammed farther, into the open field Sam Jackson had once used as a parking lot for guests. Concealed, or meant to be found? In an out-of-the-way place, certainly, for anyone except Friday. Rammed in among the bushes by somebody who then walked away? Toward home, or toward a preparked car?

  Speculation, in the absence of facts, doesn’t often get a cop anywhere. Oh, Sherlock Holmes. But Holmes wasn’t a cop, and facts didn’t always bother him much. He had believed, or asked readers to believe, that a snake could climb up, shinny up, a loosely dangling rope.

  “Morning, Charlie.” Heimrich had opened his eyes at the sound of his office door opening.

  Lieutenant Charles Forniss didn’t look like a man who had been up working most of the night.

  He said, “Morning, M. L. I checked the airport. No soap.”

  “Newark?”

  “Westchester County, M. L. Only way he could have done it. No record of a charter flight from Westchester to Newark. No Pontiac station wagon parked at Westchester. Oh, I checked Newark, too. No plane out of there would have got him to Seattle at the time he showed up there. Kennedy, maybe. Newark to Kennedy by the chopper. Just possible, maybe. Got Sergeant Lacey checking. But I doubt it like hell.”

  “So do I,” Heimrich said. “I’m afraid young Jackson was a continent away. You went over to Lord’s place the day he was killed, interrupted while making his Fourth of July picnic speech. What kind of day was it, Charlie? Hot, I understand?”

  “Hot as hell. Upper nineties, at a guess.”

  “Clear, sunny day?”

  “Clear, all right. But sort of hazy, way I remember it. Way it gets in the afternoon sometimes in summer.”

  “Suppose,” Heimrich said, “we go look at some movies, Charlie.”

  Chapter 13

  It was a very small movie theater they went to—an office blacked out for the occasion. The state police do not spend much time looking at home movies. They do not often have the time to waste, as he and Forniss were wasting theirs now, Heimrich thought. He said, “Roll it, Spender,” to the trooper who had already threaded Sam Jackson’s film into a projector. Spender was one of the police photographers.

  A picture came up on the small screen. It was in black and white—well, in dark gray and lighter gray. It was a head-on view of a raccoon, eating from a bird feeder. The raccoon was very brisk about it. He picked morsels of food from the feeder with small quick hands. Now and then he paused and looked at the camera. He had an alert small face.

  “Cute little bastards,” Forniss said.

  The raccoon peered into the feeder and then used one small hand to make sure. Then he backed down the tree and went off along the ground, the camera
following him. Seen from the rear, the raccoon was no longer cute. His rear end didn’t match his front end. His rear was heavy and he waddled as he walked. Going away, he was heavy and slow.

  “Robs too many bird feeders,” Forniss commented. “Or turns over too many garbage cans.”

  The retreating coon vanished. For a moment, the screen merely flickered. Then it produced a woodchuck, sitting on his haunches, small forepaws dangling. He looked expectant, like a hopeful beggar. His appearance was brief. He was followed by a squirrel, rather blurred and apparently in flight.

  “Looks as if he got a red,” Forniss said. “From the size of it Pretty blurry, though.”

  “Too fast for the camera,” Spender said. “Also out of focus. Pretty hipped on animals, whoever took this was. Naturalist or something?”

  Nobody answered him because pictures flickered on the screen again. This time the animals were human. There were two men, both in shorts and sports shirts and two women, one in shorts and the other in slacks. All four were drinking.

  “Peters, it could be,” Forniss said. “The one at the end. Could be the fat one in pants is his wife. A picnic, anyway. Let’s hope it’s the right—”

  The camera had panned away from the four. It swept a wide grassy area, with other groups, some with plates, more with lifted glasses, some sitting on the grass, others in director’s chairs and deck chairs. The faces of most of them were a little blurred.

  “Whole damned thing’s out of focus,” Spender said. “Guy must have been an amateur. Maybe just learning.”

  “It’s the right picnic, M. L.,” Forniss said. “There’s Lord himself.”

  The camera had ceased its searching. The picture now was of a somewhat heavy man, in what appeared to be a white tennis shirt and white slacks. He was standing on a low wooden platform and, obviously, he was speaking. Now and then he gestured. Once he appeared to laugh.

  “Finally got something in focus,” Spender said.

  The pictured speaker held both hands out in front of him, in what appeared to be a welcoming gesture. He was smiling. He had thick white hair, smoothly barbered.

  Then he fell forward, off the platform. Almost at once people were running toward him, blocking the fallen man from the camera. The picture lifted above them and focused—almost focused—

  on a low stone wall. It was there only a second. Then it was a picture of a field. It was a blur at first; then it grew in definition. It was a picture of a bending figure, which appeared to be rubbing something on the ground.

  Hair streamed down over the face of the bending person, screening the face from the camera.

  “I’ll be goddamned,” Forniss said. “I’ll be damned to hell.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Picture of a murderer, Charlie. And—”

  He stopped, because the person in the picture had straightened up. It began to run, apparently up a slope. The camera tried to follow it, but it ran out of the camera’s range. Vaguely, beyond the running figure there was a shape, which appeared to be that of a house.

  The picture disappeared from the screen. There was only white light on the screen.

  “All we’ve got,” Spender said. “Film ran out there.”

  “Nothing that helps much, is there?” Forniss said. “Can’t see the face. And a lot of people saw her rub the rifle in the grass to get rid of the prints.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Saw somebody, anyway. Somebody going off up a slope at a dead run. After rubbing something in the grass. Damp grass, probably, if it was a humid day. Hazy day. Peters must have seen more than we did, wouldn’t you say, Charlie? Seen a face, or thought he did. No, I can’t see we’re helped much. But Sam Jackson filed it under ‘E,’ didn’t he? ‘E’ for ‘evidence,’ you think, Charlie? Let’s run the last part again, Spender.”

  Spender ran the picnic scenes again. They didn’t seem much clearer.

  “Could have been foggy, way it looks,” Spender said. “In addition to lack of focus.”

  Heimrich said “Mmm” in an abstracted way and again the film ran out.

  “Once more,” Heimrich said. “And watch the running, Charlie. See if you notice anything about it.”

  Spender ran the picnic scenes again, and the running figure again. And Charlie Forniss said, “Well, I will be damned, M. L. Missed it the first time.”

  “So did I,” Heimrich said. “Just—oh, felt there was something a little off. Women don’t run like men, do they? Particularly looked at from behind. They’re not put together the way we are. Legs attached differently. Something about the pelvis, I suppose.”

  “Yeah,” Forniss said. “We don’t need the room for babies. Longhaired man, it could have been. I still don’t see how he managed it, do you? Have to be in two places at the same time, pretty much. Here and Seattle, unless he had some dodge we haven’t—”

  He stopped, because Heimrich was, slowly, shaking his head.

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I don’t think we have to look as far away as Seattle. Among other things, no hookup I can see. I think we’d better check with the iceman, Charlie. Ice company, I mean.”

  “Ice company?” Forniss said. “Afraid I don’t get it, M. L.”

  Heimrich filled Forniss in so he did get it.

  “Yeah,” Forniss said. “Six months ago, but we can give it a try. Crystal Clear Ice Corporation, I think they call it. Something like that, anyway.”

  Heimrich wouldn’t put it past them.

  “May take a while,” Forniss said. “I’ll get on it.” He went out to get on it.

  Heimrich leaned back in his desk chair and closed his eyes. So that was what Sam Jackson had had; what had made him volunteer to defend Loren Kemper. Something, obviously. But enough? A running figure in a dim photograph. Admissible as evidence? Probably. Exhibit A for the defense. Still, enough? Sam had not been a trial lawyer, but he had been an intelligent man, a shrewd man. He would have wanted more; wanted confirmation for a jury.

  Expert confirmation. Which would have meant?

  Heimrich leaned forward in his chair. He looked up a number in the telephone directory and dialed it.

  Dr. Ernest Chandler was with a patient. He would be told Inspector Heimrich had called and would be asked—

  “This is rather urgent,” Heimrich said. “And it won’t take more than a minute. So, unless he’s operating on somebody—”

  “Doctor seldom does surgery, Inspector. He’s a general practitioner. Patients in need of surgery, he refers to a surgeon like—”

  “I know,” Heimrich said. “Get through to him, will you? Tell him I’ll only need a minute or two. And tell him it’s police business. O.K.?”

  “We-ell, he doesn’t like to be disturbed. You did say Inspector Heimrich?”

  Heimrich had. Well, if he would hold on a minute?

  He held on. Actually, it was more than a minute; it was almost four minutes. Then it was, “Dr. Chandler. Who is this?”

  “Heimrich, Erni.” (Dr. Ernest Chandler does not like his nickname. Merton Heimrich, who does not like any part of his given name, does not, especially, like to be kept waiting four minutes.)

  “The girl’s all right, isn’t she? The one who ran her car off the road? Only minor bruises, far as I could tell. Sometimes they hold back on you.”

  “Miss Collins is all right, Doctor. I wanted to ask you something about Sam Jackson.”

  “Great old guy, Sam was. Damn shame what happened. But he’s dead, M. L. Multiple head injuries. Must have died almost at once. And I’m not the coroner, you know.”

  “Listen a minute, Doctor. I know Sam’s dead. Sometime before he was killed—sometime in the last few weeks, probably—did he come to you and ask you to recommend an orthopedic surgeon? Give him the name of one, that is?”

  “Now how did you come up with that, M. L.?”

  “Guessed, Ernest. Did I guess right?”

  “Matter of fact, you did. He wanted the name of a good bone man, and I gave him one. Got it out of the registry.
Don’t know him myself. Belongs to all the right surgical societies. Dr. Theodore Dent. Graduated Columbia School of Medicine. Interned Johns Hopkins. Qualified as an orthopedist there. Passed his boards in Maryland, I think. Practices in White Plains. Something the matter with your bones, M. L.?”

  “Not that I know of, Ernest. Sorry to have had to bother you.”

  “Come to think of it, you’re about due for a checkup. Liz will make an appointment now for you, if you want.”

  “I’ll call Miss Shepard back about that, Doctor. Dr. Theodore Dent in White Plains. That right?”

  That was right.

  It took longer to get Dr. Dent on the telephone. Dr. Dent was not in his office. He was at the hospital. Dr. Dent was in surgery and could not be disturbed. No, wait a minute. There he was now. “Dr. Dent. Dr. Theodore Dent. A call for you, Doctor.” (This had the hollow clatter of a public address.) “I’ve paged him, Inspector. Here—yes, Doctor. An Inspector Heimrich.”

  The voice on the phone was light and clear. The enunciation was crisp.

  “Dent here. Inspector Heimrich? What do you inspect, Inspector?”

  “Crime, Doctor. State police.”

  “Haven’t committed any lately, Inspector. Just sawed off a man’s leg. Entirely legal. Signed permission from patient. Also, necessary amputation. Bone cancer. Maybe caught it in time. Can hope so, anyway. So?”

  “So,” Heimrich said, “a while back, maybe several weeks back, did a lawyer come to see you? A Samuel Jackson, from Van Brunt? Show you a film and ask you something about it?”

  “Could be. Why don’t you ask him about it, Inspector?”

  “Because he’s dead, Doctor. Probably murdered. Perhaps, indirectly, because of the picture he showed you. A picture of somebody running in a field.”

  “Too bad. Seemed a pleasant sort of man. Yes, he did ask me about the picture. Pretty fuzzy picture. Was the runner male or female?”

  “And?”

  “Male, obviously. Any intern could have told him that. Any layman with the faintest knowledge of anatomy. Put together differently, men and women are. Pelvic difference. Women wobble. Some more than others, of course. Depends on the weight somewhat. But all a little. Even women athletes. Runners. Way they’re made. As somebody said, vive la différence.”