“You brought it up,” Gilbert snapped. “Linda’s only explaining why Whitehead started drinking. It’s true,” he said to Gustin. “Whitehead was fine up until that point. Wouldn’t touch a drink. But after Linda gave us the board’s decision, he started in. He was drunk from the first glass of wine. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“However he got drunk,” Gustin said, “he got drunk. He’s probably out there now, sleeping it off. I don’t see any cause for alarm unless you think he might be a threat to himself.”
“There’s another possibility,” I said. “If Nast came straight here from the rail yard, he would have arrived about nine o’clock. Whitehead could have blundered into him.”
“Nast?” Gilbert and Drury asked in chorus.
I answered Gilbert. “One of your top employees.”
“I know who he is. How does he figure in any of this?”
“Nast led the Klan raid at Riverbend. The raid was a sham, as I told you in your office this afternoon. And it was thrown together for the reason I gave you then. Your mother didn’t want Carson Drury to get his hands on any Traynor money. The raid didn’t get that job done, but it looks as though Hank Shepard’s murder has.”
Gilbert turned to Gustin. It was almost a family reflex in times of stress. “Did Nast really say that my mother was involved in the cross burning?”
“Mr. Elliott claims that he did. Nast and some of his men jumped him over at the rail yard earlier this evening.”
“If it hadn’t been for Mr. Maguire here and Clark, I’d still be there,” I said. “I’d be the one whose disappearance is no cause for alarm.”
“You think Nast may have come here?” Linda asked, alert now and all business.
“We don’t know where he is,” Gustin said. “He got away from Clark at the rail yard.”
Drury literally pushed himself into the center of the conversation, ramming the gilt coffee table with his chair in the process. “If this Nast killed Hank as a way of ruining me, he could easily try again with John.”
“Wait one damn minute!” Gilbert shouted. “You’re trying to implicate my mother in a murder!”
He and Drury started yelling at each other. The actor’s golden larynx gave him the edge, but I could still make out Gilbert demanding that Drury leave his house. Paddy and Gustin stepped in at that point. The sheriff gently sat Gilbert back down on the sofa, while Paddy wheeled Drury into my neutral corner.
Through all of it, Linda remained in her chair. If her board of directors ever got this worked up, she surely sat it out with the same quiet dignity.
“It’s clear we have to act, Sheriff,” she finally said. “We have to make certain as a first step that John Whitehead is safe.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gustin said.
“Please see about organizing a search. Use any of the Traynor Company resources you need. I’ll arrange for you to interview my mother-in-law tomorrow morning–or tonight, if you insist.”
“But not them,” Gilbert rasped, gesturing at Drury, Paddy, and me. “They leave this house right now.”
“I think that would be best,” Linda said. Looking me in the eye, she added, “It would be the best thing for everyone.”
36
We had a time getting Drury and his chair into Linda’s coupé, but we finally managed it. Drury was squeezed in sideways on the backseat, and his chair propped the trunk lid open. I would as soon have had Drury in the trunk. I wasn’t buying his concern over Whitehead’s safety. Paddy shared my suspicions, but they seemed to improve his opinion of Drury.
When we were on the open road, Paddy said, “All that Sarah Bernhardting around back there was just playing for time, wasn’t it?”
“It started out that way,” Drury said. “Watch the bumps, Scotty, please. I’m halfway through the roof back here already.”
“It was a smooth stall,” Paddy said. “I’ve not worked a better one myself.”
I let the car accelerate another five miles an hour.
“I had to try something,” Drury said. “I had to have time to think. Linda didn’t give me a chance to discuss things with her or even to beg. She’s like another person when it comes to business. ‘You’re through. Sorry. Good-bye.’
“Poor John’s breakdown gave me an out. I didn’t plan that, Scotty, so if you’re trying to break my neck as a punishment for it, you can slow this car down right now. I didn’t even turn a blind eye to John’s drinking. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t.”
“Whose idea was it for him to wander out of there?” I asked.
The question took my mind off my driving. We hit a hole in the road at speed, and Drury grunted.
“It was his idea, damn it. It happened just the way I told Gustin. One minute John was sitting there in a daze. Then he was out of his chair and making for the door. I thought he was going outside to be sick. I’m going to be sick myself if you don’t slow this car down.”
Paddy tapped my arm. “Rein the beast in, Scotty. You’re making the scenery blurry.”
Paddy wasn’t watching any scenery. He’d shifted in his seat so he could watch Drury. “You say your play started as a stall. What changed it?”
“You did, coming in with your story about Scotty being attacked. Unlike the sheriff, I believe what Scotty said about Marvella Traynor’s guiding hand. It confirmed my own assessment of the cross burning.”
“You knew that was all an act?” I asked, slowing the car involuntarily.
“Of course I did. Really, Scotty, you disappoint me. I’m used to people assuming I’m smarter than I am. You seem to think it’s the reverse. Everything about that night said theater. You’ll remember that the so-called Klansmen didn’t even surround the house. They were giving us plenty of running room if we wanted to make a break for it. The last thing they wanted was a real confrontation.
“And do you really believe I shamed that crowd into skulking away? I have to admit I believed it myself at the moment it happened–I was that drunk on adrenaline. Later, when I’d had time to reflect, I realized that they would have left whether I’d opened my mouth or not. They had to leave for the same reason any actors leave any stage: They’d run out of script.”
“Why didn’t you share some of this with Gustin?” I asked.
Paddy, the worker of angles, told me. “He thought the knowledge gave him an edge in his dealings with the Traynors.”
“I didn’t foresee that things would get out of hand,” Drury said.
“What was your excuse for keeping quiet after the murder?” I asked. “Things were out of hand but good by then.”
“I couldn’t see any connection between Marvella’s desire to keep her son safe from me and Hank’s death. From the start I’ve thought that was a false trail. The two events have to have sprung from two very different minds. The murder was an act of cold brutality, while the cross burning was set up to minimize the chance for violence.”
Because Marvella hated violence, I thought, according to Nast.
“You seemed to see a connection between the cross burning and the murder just now,” Paddy said. “That’s what got us the bum’s rush from Master Gilbert.”
“I’ve never been so thoroughly misunderstood,” Drury said. “Gilbert thought I was implicating his mother in the murder when I’ve felt all along that she couldn’t be involved. My mistake was forgetting that she had to be working through an agent, a henchman. To think of me forgetting that, a man who’s had to work through other people–set designers, lighting technicians, cameramen–all his life. I also forgot the basic truth of working through others: Nothing comes out exactly the way you intend. It’s entirely possible–probable–that she lost control of this Nast, that he took matters into his own hands and the murder was the result.”
It fit with what I knew of Nast and his impatience with Marvella’s tactics. I’d paid dearly for t
hat insight into the situation. Drury, the wheelchair-bound detective, had achieved it without getting his fingernails dirty. It was too late to get back at him for it by driving badly. We were only a block from the hotel.
“Adding Nast to the equation changes everything,” Drury said. “None of us is safe while he’s loose. I insist that you fellows stay in my suite tonight, for your own safety.”
I saw Paddy’s ample chest rise and fall in a silent laugh. “Thanks for thinking of us,” he said.
Drury explained how he and Whitehead had snuck out of the hotel past the reporters, and we reversed the process, wheeling him in through the loading dock and taking him to the second floor on a freight elevator that smelled like last week’s eggs. I took the stairs down to the lobby and then ascended again on Drury’s private elevator to pick up the director and Paddy.
After we’d looked for Nast under every seat cushion and mattress in Drury’s suite, our host relaxed a bit. “You fellows order dinner if the kitchen’s still open, and a bottle of anything you want.”
Paddy checked his waistband for slack. “There’s a thought,” he said. “But I have to see about having my bag sent over first. I left it at the train station.”
I volunteered to go after it. “I have to collect some things from the farm.”
“Not now,” Drury said, losing his composure in a rush. “Not at night, Scotty. I wasn’t kidding when I said it wasn’t safe to be out in this town after dark. Promise me you won’t go near that farm until tomorrow morning.”
“Okay,” I said, “the train station and back.”
Paddy followed me as far as the front door of the suite. “The train station and back,” he repeated. “No side trips to Traynor House.”
“Marvella’s safe from me, for tonight at least,” I said.
“I wasn’t thinking of that worthy,” Paddy said. “I had her daughter-in-law, Linda, in mind.”
“Come again?”
“I saw the way you two were looking at each other. Most especially, I saw the way she was looking at you. You didn’t by any chance forget to tell her that you’re a married man, did you?”
He wasn’t joking, so I didn’t. “No,” I said.
“Good. Then there’s no need to cushion her for the coming blow. It’s coming by train, by the way.”
“What is?”
“Who, you mean. And the answer is Ella. She was packing for her train when I took off with the dawn patrol this morning. She’s tucked in her berth right now, I hope.”
Ella must have been packing when I’d called her that morning. She’d kept quiet about her plans–and about Paddy’s–paying me back for my own silence or just avoiding an argument.
“Are the kids with her?”
“No. They’re staying with Peggy. Ella would have flown out with me, but she wanted to give us a chance to wrap things up.”
“Some chance. How long do we have?”
“Let’s see. We’ve still a tiny bit of Tuesday left. Ella will be in on Thursday’s milk train. Call it a day and change.”
“All the time in the world,” I said.
Paddy gave me a parting pat on the back. “You’ve always done your best work under pressure.”
I was still daydreaming of Ella, tucked away in her berth, as I crossed the hotel lobby. As a result, I didn’t notice Casey Atherley until his stout form was blocking my path. He’d cleaned up nicely, but his right ear was still red and swollen from its contact with my automatic.
“I thought I saw you down here just now,” Atherley said, “but you nipped into that off-limits elevator before I could catch you.”
While he talked, I checked the pocket of my suit jacket where I’d stashed his film when I’d found it in the litter of the farmhouse parlor. Remarkably, given the waltzing I’d done in the rail yard, the film was still there.
“We have to talk,” the photographer said.
“If you’re here to tell me who burned the cross at Riverbend, you’re a little late.”
“Yeah, I heard. I’m selling something else now. Let’s go into the bar.”
The bar turned out to be crowded with reporters, so Atherley led me into a little sitting room nearby, the room where hotel guests composed their postcards.
Sitting down felt way too good. “What do you have?”
“Information intended for Sheriff Gustin,” Atherley said, “only the sheriff hasn’t gotten it yet because he’s out beating the bushes for some guy who’s lost. My courthouse contact passed this tidbit on to me. Interested?”
By way of answering him, I produced the film plate and tapped my knee with it. The eyes behind the horn-rims bounced in rhythm.
“The tip was about another of you California guys. Eric Faris was the name. He’s supposed to be staying close to Traynorville on orders from Gustin.”
“I know that part.”
“Well, Faris was picked up tonight by the Indianapolis police at the airport down there. He had a ticket for a westbound flight, but he was drunk, and they wouldn’t let him board. He started a row, and the police hauled him in. He’s in their drunk tank now. Some bright boy made the connection to our murder and called the sheriff for orders. Gustin will probably have Faris shipped back up in the morning. In the meantime, though, an enterprising fellow could have a chat with him.”
“How does this enterprising fellow get in to see him?”
“A pal of mine on the Indianapolis Times is owed a favor by an Indy cop. I’ll set it up for you.”
I handed the film over. “Seems as though you’re paying double for this.”
Atherley didn’t see it that way. “I haven’t forgotten who pulled Gustin off me last night.”
I stopped at the front desk long enough to arrange for Paddy’s bag to be brought over by cab and to write a note to go upstairs with the bag when it arrived.
Then I headed out into the darkness that Carson Drury feared so much.
37
The friend of Casey Atherley’s friend did more than get me in to see Eric Faris. He also made me the gift of a private room for the interview. It was a small, dirty room whose single table had more cigarette burns in its top than I had teeth, but I didn’t complain. I lit a cigarette of my own to kill the smell of urine coming from the room’s dark corners. Then I waited.
Faris was delivered a few minutes later. He came in squinting and shielding his eyes as though the dim overhead light was a Los Alamos sunrise. He was in the no-man’s-land between drunk and hungover, and he wasn’t happy about it. I wasn’t thrilled to be up and around myself, so he got no sympathy from me.
I’d kidded myself the previous day about having traded wardrobes with John Piers Whitehead, but Faris seemed to have genuinely done it. He’d lost his suit jacket. From the slept-in look of the rest of his outfit, I guessed that he’d been using the coat as bedding and left it behind in his cell. His tie was missing, but his collar button was still fastened. He’d undone his cuffs instead, without rolling up his sleeves. That gave them the flowing look of a clergyman’s vestments. This sacramental effect was undercut by the tail of his shirt, by one small corner of the tail that stuck out through the open fly of his trousers.
Of the bright, young eager beaver I’d met in Alora, there wasn’t a trace. I remembered Shepard joking about how unsettled and unsettling life around Drury was. That wasn’t the half of it, I thought, as I watched Faris teaching himself to sit in a chair. Time spent with Drury wasn’t just eventful, it was hazardous.
“They told me my lawyer was in here,” Faris said. “You’re not a lawyer.”
“I’ve been going to school nights. Cigarette?”
Faris declined. “Not good for you,” he said. A man after Ella’s heart.
“Neither is skipping out on a murder investigation.”
“Hanging around was worse,” Faris said. “My nerve
s couldn’t take it.”
“I know. You couldn’t eat, you couldn’t sleep. Did you get permission from Ralph Lockard to skip out?”
“No. I tried to explain it to him. He ordered me to stay put.”
“Explain it to me,” I said. “I want to know why you’re so frightened. You didn’t arrange for the cross burning. We’ve proven that. You have an alibi for the night of the murder. What’s scaring you?”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“Why not? You quit your job when you bought that plane ticket. We’re not on opposing sides anymore. And I may be able to help you tomorrow when you go up against Gustin. I could put in a good word with Linda Traynor.”
“Her,” Faris said and shook his tousled head.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. And that’s all I’m telling you, nothing. We’re not on the same side. There are no sides. It’s every man for himself. You’d sell me out in a minute, just like Lockard.”
“Why did he really send you out here?”
“Guess.”
“Okay. I’ll guess it was to keep an eye on John Piers Whitehead.”
Faris turned in his chair. “Lemme outta here!” he yelled at the door.
“I thought a lot about Whitehead on my drive down here,” I said. “I finally got around to asking myself who financed his trip and bought him the fancy clothes. He didn’t have the price of bacon and eggs when I saw him in Hollywood. It could have been some soft touch from the old days, but Whitehead’s surely run through all of those. I’m guessing it was Lockard.
“I think he sent Whitehead out here to keep Drury off balance–and so there would be a likely suspect on hand when the sabotage started again. Lockard was behind the attempts in Hollywood, wasn’t he?”
“No,” Faris said, “he wasn’t. Lockard thought it was Whitehead. He did some checking around after you came to Alora to accuse us. He wanted to know what was really going on. His Hollywood friends told him about the bad blood between Drury and Whitehead. Lockard sent me to talk to him.”
“Did Whitehead admit setting fire to the studio and tampering with the camera crane?”
Come Back Dead Page 24