23-The Tenth Life

by Lockridge, Richard

  “Not too badly, Miss Arnold. Want to tell me how it happened?”

  Her wide eyes widened further, and there was a question in them. Heimrich could guess the question: Why was a policeman of inspector rank interested in a minor traffic accident? She did not put the question into words.

  “It’s a little blurry,” she said. “I was slowing for the turn—it’s a very sharp turn, you know—and then —well, the car wouldn’t turn. Not the way it usually does, anyway. It was as if the steering wheel had—got stuck somehow. I don’t know how else to put it. So it just went on, over a sort of bank. In spite of the brake. And—I guess went into something. Was it a tree, Inspector? I told you it was sort of blurry. And then I was in bed, I suppose here, and somebody was shining a light in my eyes.”

  “Yes, it was a tree. You tried to turn into this Linwood Court and the car wouldn’t turn. As if— would you say the steering mechanism had got stuck somehow?”

  “That’s the way it felt. As if—well, as if everything had suddenly got too heavy. I don’t know any other way to put it.”

  “I understand, Miss Arnold. The car has power steering, I suppose?”

  “Of course. Don’t all cars?”

  “All recent ones, anyway. All big ones. Nothing like this had ever happened before? I gather you’ve driven the car frequently?”

  “Since I’ve been there, fairly often. On errands for the doctor. Things like that. A few times to market for Mrs. Barton. She doesn’t drive anymore. Hasn’t for a couple of years, from what Roger tells me. Doesn’t feel up to it, he said.”

  “She’s not well, Miss Arnold?”

  “I guess not, although whatever it is, she doesn’t talk about it. To me, anyway. And she gets around all right. In the house, anyway.”

  “Not in the hospital?”

  “Oh, yes, there too. She makes out the doctor’s bills, things like that. And when the doctor sends me somewhere, she comes down to answer the telephone. She’s not bedridden. It’s just that she doesn’t drive the car. Hasn’t since I’ve been there, anyway.”

  “You drive it,” Heimrich said. “And Dr. Barton drove it, I suppose. Anyone else that you know of?”

  “The boy a few times. Roger, I mean.”

  “I’ve noticed the car stays in the garage. Is the garage locked at night, do you know?”

  “Not even closed, as far as I’ve seen, Inspector. Look, it was just an accident. I braked down to maybe ten miles an hour to make the turn, and it was the way I told you.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said, “apparently just an accident. One of those things that happen. I’ll go—”

  A gentle knocking on the door interrupted him. The same nurse opened the door, as quickly as before. “We have another visitor, dear,” the nurse said. “Aren’t we popular, though?”

  The other visitor was Latham Rorke, M.D. As he came through the door he said “Dar—” but stopped when he saw Heimrich. He changed what had, obviously, started off as “Darling” into an “Oh.”

  “I’m just leaving, Doctor,” Heimrich said. “Just came by to see that Miss Arnold is all right. Seems she is.”

  “Just a bump on the head, Lathe,” Carol Arnold said. “Just a little bump on the head.”

  Heimrich left Room 212. He did not think that his leaving was noticed by either of the two who remained. It hadn’t taken Rorke long to hear about the accident; to drive from White Plains to Cold Harbor. How had he heard? News of minor traffic accidents does not get that promptly on radio reports, even from very local stations. Obviously, Carol had called him up. Confirmation of what was already obvious.

  Trooper Brown was in his car, parked behind Heimrich’s. The ambulance was gone; ambulances do not long stand idle on hot Sunday afternoons. Had Brown found a cat in Miss Arnold’s car when he went to her rescue?

  “A cat, Inspector?”

  A small Siamese cat in a carrying box, probably yammering its—no, her—head off. On the front seat, beside Carol Arnold. Or, of course, on the floor in front of the seat. Or a broken box, with no cat in it.

  “Didn’t see any cat, sir.”

  Cat already delivered, and Carol on her way back? No. She had been turning into Linwood Court, not out of it.

  Had Brown noticed whether the air conditioning was turned on in the Pontiac? Or whether the engine was running? The engine had not been running. Stalled when the car hit the tree, probably. He hadn’t checked on the air conditioning. Yes, as he remembered it, the ignition was on.

  “Thing is, sir, I wanted to get the girl out of there. When I found out she was still alive.”

  “Yes, Trooper,” Heimrich said. “That came first, of course. Let’s go look at where it happened. I’ll follow you.”

  It was only about twenty minutes, driving at lawful speed and stopping for red lights, to the intersection of NY 11F and Linwood Court. A hundred yards or so before they reached it, there was a sign: HIDDEN DRIVEWAY. The Court merited the demotion. It was identified only by a sign that was largely hidden by a lilac bush.

  The court, or driveway, went off at right angles to 11F. It had been gravel-surfaced, but most of the gravel was gone. Brown slowed and Heimrich slowed behind him. Brown pulled the police car onto the shoulder of 11F. Heimrich pulled the Buick up behind.

  There were no marks of suddenly skidding tires on the highway. Those began on the narrow graveled road. They continued into a ditch.

  “There’s the tree she hit,” Brown said, and pointed. The tree was a big maple, and it had a gash in its bark. The near side of the ditch was scarred where something had been dragged up over it—a Pontiac with crumpled fenders at the end of a cable, being wound out of its predicament by a tow truck. So.

  “Mrs. Cummins’s place is about a quarter mile up the road,” Brown said. “Doesn’t make it easy to get to, does she? Want to go up and see her place, Inspector?”

  “Not right now,” Heimrich said. “We’ll go have a look at the car. Dr. Barton’s car.”

  It was another fifteen minutes to the Purvis Garage, in the middle of Van Brunt, if Van Brunt can be said to have a middle. The garage was somnolent. Several cars baked in the sun in front of the garage. One of them was a Pontiac sedan. Its left front fender was bashed in against the left front tire. Brown and Heimrich parked their cars, making sure that channels to the gas pumps were left open. Not that Purvis relied much on the sale of gas these days. A big new Exxon station across the street enticed most motorists. It was on the former site of the firehouse which had burned down years ago, on the night Merton Heimrich had first met Susan Faye—and thought her not very pretty and noticeably harrassed.

  A tall man in his late twenties came out of the garage. (Or was it early thirties?) Abraham Purvis. (Or was it Obadiah?)

  Whichever it was said, “Afternoon, M. L. Hot enough for you? There she is. Body job. Woman driver from what I hear. That girl works for the vet, way I get it.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Miss Carol Arnold. Just the fender banged up? Radiator O.K.? Engine all right?”

  The radiator seemed to be all right. The wheels probably would need alignment. They hadn’t tried the engine. “Just towed her over, Inspector. Fender’s jammed up against the wheel. Pull it out tomorrow, maybe. Could be we can iron it out, but it may cost Dr. Barton a new fender, from the looks of it.”

  Which Adrian Barton wouldn’t be paying for. The country grapevine hadn’t functioned with its usual speed, apparently. Heimrich saw no need to hurry it.

  “Let’s turn the motor over,” Heimrich said. “Just to see. Ignition key in it?”

  The key was not. It was in the office. “Just to be on the safe side, case I have to go out on a job.” He went in and got the Pontiac’s ignition key. He said, “Want I should try her?” Heimrich did.

  The starter growled. Then the engine caught.

  With the pressure of Purvis’s foot on the gas pedal, the engine roared. “Sounds O.K.,” Purvis said, and moved to get out of the car. And the motor died. He started it again,
and it roared again. He let it run for several seconds this time and then eased the pressure on the gas pedal. And the engine stalled. He tried it twice more, and twice more the motor roared and then stalled.

  “Won’t idle,” he said, and got out of the car. “Could be the carburetor got banged out of kilter. Want I should have a look?”

  Heimrich did, and Purvis raised the hood and leaned in toward the engine.

  “Looks all right,” he said. “Could be it got banged out of adjustment, I suppose. I can check it out, if you want.”

  Heimrich did want. Purvis went into the garage and came out with a screwdriver. He leaned again toward the Pontiac’s engine and thrust the screwdriver in at something. Heimrich couldn’t see what, but assumed the carburetor. Purvis said, “Uh-huh!” and, “Want to try her now, Inspector?”

  Heimrich got into the Pontiac and turned the ignition switch. The engine was by now resigned. It started at once, loudly, as Heimrich pressed down on the gas pedal. He relaxed the pedal. The engine kept on running, but with lesser sound. Still fast and noisy for idling speed.

  Purvis said “Yup” and used the screwdriver again. The engine sound diminished to a contented hum. Purvis pulled down the hood.

  “Just out of adjustment,” he said. “Set so it wouldn’t idle. Have to race it or it’d stall. O.K. now.”

  Heimrich let the motor run. The fan of the air conditioning unit hummed. Air—still warm air—came out of the two vents in the dash. The air conditioning was on; it had been on when the heavy car crashed into the maple tree. Unless, of course, Purvis had turned it on.

  Purvis had not. “Told you I didn’t run the motor,” he said. “Didn’t even get into her until just now.”

  An air-conditioning unit is a drag on a car’s engine. If the idling rate is set very low, the added drag can stall an engine.

  Heimrich cut the motor and got out of the car. He said, “This model has power steering, hasn’t it?” and decided not to take a chance on young Purvis’s name. Obadiah probably, but not certainly. Nobody likes to be called out of his name.

  “Sure,” Purvis said. “What doesn’t nowadays?”

  Heimrich was remembering from years back an experience of his own—an experience in a then new Buick. The engine had stalled as he had taken his foot off the gas pedal and moved it to the brake as he was turning into a filling station. And suddenly, disconcertingly, the previously responsive car had turned into a sluggish monster and the steering wheel into a thing to be struggled with. When an engine dies, so does power steering.

  He might as well make sure.

  “If Miss Arnold took her foot off the gas and put it on the brake,” he said to Purvis, “to make this sharp turn, the motor would have stalled, you think? As it did for us?”

  “Damn near sure to, the way it was set. With the AC on, about a hundred percent sure.”

  “And the power steering would go off?”

  “Sure. She’d all at once feel like a truck, M. L. You could still steer, of course. But it would fight you. And be one hell of a surprise. You figure—?”

  “Miss Arnold isn’t a particularly big young woman,” Heimrich said. “And, as you say, the sudden failure of the power steering would come as a hell of a surprise. To anyone, of course.”

  Purvis said, “Yeah,” with a note of puzzled acceptance in his voice. “You think—?”

  “Anyone with access to the car could put the carburetor out of adjustment?”

  “Sure. Anybody with a screwdriver who knew what a carburetor looks like and where to find it.”

  “But the engine would start? And keep on running until you eased up on the gas? The way it did with you?”

  “As long as you gave it enough gas. Enough to get the car moving. Yeah.”

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “I’d like you to remember what we found out about the doctor’s car, Obadiah. O.K.? And you too, Trooper.”

  Purvis said, “Sure, M. L. Only Obadiah’s one of my brothers. My name’s Silas. Sort of a hick name, I guess. But you know Dad, Inspector.”

  Heimrich said, “Sorry, Silas.”

  Trooper Brown said, “Sir.”

  Trooper Brown could go back on patrol. Mrs. Barton would let the garage know what to do about the car.

  “Mrs. Barton?”

  It wasn’t a secret. “Dr. Barton is dead,” Heimrich said. “He died very suddenly.”

  Purvis said, “Jeez,” and there was something like awe in his voice.

  Heimrich got into his Buick. He sat in it thinking. Two efforts to kill Adrian Barton, DVM? One by tampering with a car of which he was the most frequent driver, on the chance that a fatal accident would result? Rather an outside chance; entirely an outside chance, as it had turned out. Then another, and successful, try with a surer method? Possibly. At the moment, almost anything was possible. Carol Arnold drove the car, and anybody might have known that. Certainly Louise Barton would have known it. And, although she no longer drove, if it was true she no longer drove, she had driven, might know about idling speeds and power steering. And she could get around. Get from house to animal hospital. So, obviously, to the garage which adjoined the house—a garage seldom closed up, never locked up.

  Who profits? The old question. And profits how? By elimination of an unfaithful husband? Or a suspected mistress of that husband? Or, conceivably, both.

  Heimrich turned the switch which brought the Buick to life. Anybody might have had access to the Pontiac in its garage. Anybody who knew his way around the Barton enclave. Dr. Latham Rorke was one who did.

  There are several kinds of profit. Monetary profit is the simplest and the most obvious. Did Dr. Barton leave a considerable estate and, if so, to whom? To his widow, presumably. By law, a major portion at the least. No way of finding out about that late on a Sunday afternoon.

  Emotional profit, as revenge for infidelity? That happened. Profit from the elimination of a sexual rival? Not unknown. From the elimination of an importunate suitor? Less likely, unless a more desirable one was within reach. And there is the also emotional motive of fear—fear of exposure.

  Heimrich drove home, considering possibilities. Which, with nothing to go on, was an obvious waste of mental energy, since theories must be based on facts—facts which hide themselves in the languor of hot Sunday afternoons.

  It was cool in the house. Colonel sat up and sat tall and, gently, woofed at him. The woof of a neglected dog. Mite, curled near an air-conditioning outlet, uncurled and looked at Heimrich, and looked upside down. Heimrich said “Hi” and got no answer. On the terrace? No. Taking a nap? No. A note under the telephone, which was the accepted place. Finally, yes.

  “At the shop, dear, messing with paints. Home soon. The lab called. Love.”

  It was unsigned. There had been no need to sign it.

  He called susan faye fabrics first. This time he had someone to say “Hi” to. She would be right along. She hadn’t been getting anywhere, anyway. No, he didn’t need to. Barney was picking her up.

  Barney is Van Brunt’s taxicab service.

  Heimrich dialed the police lab. He got Kojian.

  “These bottles you sent up,” Sergeant Kojian said, “and a hell of a lot of them, Inspector. And all what they’re labeled as. Except—”

  The exception was what was wanted; what was expected.

  The vial of insulin which Barton had been using did not contain insulin. It contained about four c.c.’s of d-tubocurarine. Oh, there were traces of insulin, but rather minute traces. Yes, the rubber plug remained in the vial.

  “What somebody did, Inspector,” Kojian said, “was to stick a needle through the plug and draw out the insulin. Squirt it away somewhere, fill the hypodermic with curare and squirt it in the vial. Have to do it a couple, three times, maybe. Way it was done, thousand to one. To give this vet of yours the surprise of his life. Or, you could say, of his death, couldn’t you?”

  No, there had not been curare in any of the other bottles and vials Heimrich had sent alon
g. And the snap-off aluminum caps on the other vials of insulin, Dr. Barton’s reserve supply, were firmly in place. And it was five o’clock, and Kojian was going to shut up shop and go home. No, the lab would not really be shut up. The inspector ought to know it never was. What was shutting up for the night was Sergeant Kojian.

  Five o’clock it was, and almost time for a drink. And, God knew, after time for lunch, although not yet time for dinner. And he hoped Barney would be as reliable as he usually was.

  He dialed the Cold Harbor General Hospital. Dr. James Marvin was not on duty. Neither, from the board, was Dr. Terence Snead. Well, she’d look. Yes, a note to Inspector M. L. Heimrich. “Autopsy complete. Yes, probably. Report in the morning.”

  Barney’s Chevy climbed the steep drive. Heimrich could identify it by its cough, which was chronic. Merton Heimrich went to the door to greet his wife. She had got a dab of paint in her hair. Fortunately, fabric designers do not often use oil paint. Gouache, Susan would have been using in the workroom, which she declined to call studio, of her shop. Gouache is water-soluble. Like, Heimrich gathered, curare.

  It was too early for before-dinner drinks, and it was still too sunny on the terrace. They had their martinis inside, where it was reasonably cool. They had crackers and cheese with the martinis, to make up for Merton Heimrich’s missed lunch. He told Susan about Carol Arnold’s misadventure.

  Susan said, “Mmm.” She said, “She’s not badly hurt? Not, oh, all gashed up? Because she’s such a pretty girl. And that young doctor’s in love with her.”

  Carol was not all gashed up. She was not really gashed up at all. Just a bump on the head. And, yes, Latham Rorke might well be in love with her. Summoned, he had been quick to respond. As quick as his Volks would carry him from White Plains to Cold Harbor.

  Which reminded Merton Heimrich of something; something he should have asked Miss Arnold when he saw her in her hospital room. He finished his drink and went to the telephone.

  Arnold, Carol? One moment, please. Miss Arnold had been discharged from the hospital. Oh, about half an hour ago. Well, the second-floor nurse station might know whether anybody had been with her when she signed out. If Mr.—if Inspector Heimrich would hold on a minute?