Dead Aim (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  In spite of myself, I smiled slightly. “I can prove it, Dan. Take my word for it.”

  “You’re just going along with that other one. Markham. Running the same crappy bluff.” He seemed to find assurance in his own defiance. He rose, staring down at me—again the insolent, overprivileged young rebel. “I’m going to call my father. Where’s my mother, anyhow?”

  “Out.” I got to my feet, facing him squarely.

  His lip curled. “Christ, that’s really something. She’s in with you—going along with you.”

  For a moment I didn’t answer. Then, slowly, I said, “From your tone, you don’t seem to think much of your mother.”

  “Not when she pulls crap like this.”

  I allowed another long moment to pass, looking steadily at him. I realized that I might be about to make my second mistake of the evening.

  “My boy is a little younger than you are,” I said quietly. “He doesn’t live with me. If I see him once a year, I’m lucky. But I’ll tell you something—” I drew a slow breath, moving a half-step toward him. “If my son ever talked about his mother like that—in the same tone you’ve just used—I think I’d probably belt him across the room. Before I thought about it—before I could stop myself. And I’m in the business of not belting people, believe it or not. I’m in the business of always—always—thinking before I put a hand on anyone.”

  His reaction was strangely subdued. We stood very close, subtly, secretly suspended together, staring at each other. His lips parted, uncertainly. He looked as if he was about to say something conciliatory. But then the mouth hardened; his face contracted, again defiant. “I’ve seen the cops,” he muttered. “I’ve seen how long they think about it before they start swinging.”

  “I’m talking about me, Dan. Me, personally. And I’m talking about you. Personally. This is a private conversation. Me and you.”

  His response was a skeptical snort, a shifting of his feet, a restless realignment of his careless slouch.

  “Your mother,” I said, “is just about sick with worry.”

  He started to shrug. Then, eying me warily, he exhaled loudly, again shifting his feet, now thrusting his hands deep in his pockets.

  “Just tell me what you were doing in the Draper garage, Dan. Tell me the truth. That’s all I’m after.”

  “I wasn’t in the goddamn garage. I—Christ—” He tried to edge around me, making for the door. I moved with him.

  “Your fingerprints were over Mrs. Draper’s prints. That’s fact, Dan. You turned that handle after she did. We can produce incontrovertible expert testimony to that effect. And you know it, just as well as I do.”

  “What d’you mean, ‘expert testimony’?”

  “I mean that in court a fingerprint expert would—”

  “In court?”

  Suddenly, behind his eyes, I could see the fear inside him. I paused, silently watching him. Then, pitching my voice to a note of quiet concern, I said, “We’ve got a woman murdered, Dan. We’ve got you at the scene. First we had you across the street—by your own statement, nothing more than a witness, giving us some unsubstantiated information about a black man that no one else saw. Now, though, we get a little surprise: we discover that you were on the Draper premises at the time of the murder. We—”

  “Murder.” His voice was hushed now. “You think I murdered her.”

  I didn’t answer, watching him squirm. Then: “Did Inspector Markham take the clothes you were wearing Sunday night?”

  “Wh—why d’you—”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “The shoes, too?”

  He nodded. Then, attempting a cynical bravado, he said, “He gave me a receipt. D’you want to see it?”

  I shook my head, saying, “If we should find blood on those clothes, Dan, you’ll be in trouble. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “You won’t find any blood.”

  “You can’t wash it away, you know. It’s impossible. And a microscopic spot is all we need to—”

  He lunged for the door. I was behind him before he’d reached the knob. I slammed him flat against the door, splitting the panel with his forehead. With my forearm braced against the back of his neck, I kicked at his legs, then found a hammerlock with my free hand.

  “Go limp.” I jerked at his twisted arm, feeling him rise to his toes in pain. “Go limp, or I’ll handcuff you and call for a squad car. The whole neighborhood’ll see you hauled away.”

  Slowly his muscular young body slackened. Then he fell back against me, panting noisily. I felt his body suddenly convulse, and heard him sob. Cautiously I worked him back toward the bed, then released him. He slumped down on the edge of the bed, head lowered, wiping at his eyes.

  “I don’t know why I did it,” he said indistinctly. “I don’t know why the hell I did it. Such a—a goddamn silly thing. And now I—you—” He began to shake his head, hopelessly.

  Thinking of Ann Haywood, I felt a cold, empty sense of regret as I sat on the bed beside him, far enough away to give myself room if he came for me.

  “You were teed off at Cindy Wallace,” I said softly. “That’s how it started, didn’t it? She put you off—gave you a hard time.”

  He nodded, still wiping at his eyes.

  “You sat in your car after Cindy went inside.”

  Again he nodded. He was no longer sobbing, but simply sat staring down at the floor, his limp hands hanging down between his thighs. “It was so—so goddamn stupid. I—I—” He began again to shake his head. “So stupid.”

  “Tell me about it, Dan. If I can help you, I will.”

  “There—there isn’t anything to tell. Not—not really. I was just sitting there, smoking a cigarette. Steaming, really steaming. And I saw this—” He gulped. But now he’d started, and I knew he’d keep on with it. “I saw this broad drive up. Mrs. Draper. I’d seen her once or twice; I knew who she was. So I—I watched her stop in front of the garage, with the headlights on, while she opened the door. It—it didn’t take her very long. But it was long enough for me to see that goddamn—” He broke off, shaking his head; then, doggedly: “That goddamn leopard head, on the wall of the garage. So then she drove inside and closed the door behind her. And I—I sat there, feeling like I was going to—to pop, or something, the way you do sometimes. I guess if someone my age had come along, I’d’ve picked a fight with him. I’ve done that. Plenty of times. But Sunday, there was just this—this goddamn leopard head. And pretty soon all I could think about was getting it—getting inside that garage and taking the head and splitting. Just”—he shrugged—“just for the hell of it.” Again he shrugged, vaguely shaking his head. His eyes were empty.

  “What happened next?” I asked quietly.

  “So then, the next thing I knew, the door was opening again. She was coming back out on the street, and closing the door behind her, and walking around to the front door. And—” He sighed.

  “And you got out of the car,” I prompted him.

  “What?” He was frowning, puzzled.

  “You got out of the car.”

  “No. Not then.”

  “All right,” I said, unwilling to break into his mood. “Go ahead. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, she just—just turned into the tunnel entrance, and disappeared behind all those plants. I waited a couple of minutes, to be sure she was inside. Five minutes, maybe. I finished my cigarette, I remember. And then I—”

  “Did you actually see her enter the front door—unlock it?”

  He shook his head. “The angle was wrong. I just saw her for a second, once she left the sidewalk. Like I say, the plants hid her.”

  “All right. What happened then?”

  “Well, then, I—” He sighed raggedly. “Then I got out of my car, and walked across the street and tried the garage door. It—it was locked. I jiggled it a couple of times, and gave it a good pull. But when it didn’t give, I got back in the car. I was just about to drive away, when I saw the goddamn
garage door open. So I—”

  “You saw it open from the inside. Is that it?”

  He nodded. “It kind of went up by itself. I thought maybe they had an opener. I figured that they’d heard me. So I just—just took off.”

  “No one came out.”

  “No. Like I say, I thought it was run by an opener. Then I realized that someone might be inside, looking for me. So I split. Drove off.”

  His face was slack; his mouth was twitching, distorted by misery and uncertainty. His eyes were wide, vulnerable.

  Was he acting?

  I allowed the silence to continue. Finally, when he began to shift uneasily, I said, “This leopard head. What were you going to do with it?”

  He moved his shoulders listlessly. “Bring it home.” He waved his hand around the room. Following the gesture, I saw a random collection of contraband: street signs, hub caps, posters, even concrete garden statuary. “I don’t know why,” he was saying, “but it seemed like, then, I just—just had to have that leopard head.”

  I sat silently for another half-minute. Then I said, “If what you’re saying is true, I wish you’d kindly explain why the hell you didn’t tell me this yesterday.”

  “I—I don’t know. It just seemed like, you being a cop, I—”

  I watched my fist flexing, resting on my knee. “That’s beautiful,” I said finally. “Because I’m a cop, you do your best to screw up a homicide investigation. What about the black man? Was he part of your little romp?”

  “Yes.”

  “He didn’t exist.”

  “No.”

  “Did you tell Inspector Markham any of this when he interrogated you today—anything about Mrs. Draper, or the leopard head, or the fictitious black man?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he—he came on pretty strong. Like you did, right now. He said that, at the least, you guys had me for giving false evidence, or impeding justice, or something, just because you could place me at the scene, and I hadn’t told you I was there. He said I could get five years, or something, just for that—just for lying. Then he started in on the black man. And so I just—” He slowly raised his hands, palms up, then let them fall down between his thighs, hanging loosely.

  I glanced at my watch. She’d been sitting in the Loft for almost an hour. I took him through his story again, cross-questioning him. Exhausted, he was fully cooperative. His story didn’t change. I told him that if his story checked, he had nothing to worry about. Then, after using my radio to call in for a crime lab pickup of the Haywood car, I walked to the Loft. The rain was falling with a steady, monotonous, all-night rhythm.

  16

  I WALKED SLOWLY TOWARD the Loft, shoulders hunched inside my raincoat. At the restaurant, before I met Ann Haywood, I must call the office.

  But what would I say?

  What orders would I give?

  If Dan Haywood’s story was true, Draper should be picked up, taken downtown, interrogated. His premises should be searched, his clothing examined for bloodstains. The house had been under constant surveillance since he’d reported the crime. Therefore, if Draper had killed his wife, then her billfold was probably hidden somewhere in the house, along with the weapon and Draper’s bloodstained clothing.

  If the boy’s story was true.

  The time was almost ten-thirty. Draper and his small daughter could be asleep. Certainly the girl would be asleep. It would be necessary, then, to wake her, get her dressed and take her to the Youth Guidance Center, while her father was being detained for questioning and the house searched. If we arrested Draper on a charge of murder, the girl would remain at the Center until her father was arraigned. Then a judge would dispose of her case, probably sending her to grandparents, pending trial.

  Tomorrow her mother was being buried.

  Tomorrow her father could be under arrest.

  If Dan Haywood’s story was true.

  I turned the last corner; ahead was the Loft. I realized that my steps were lagging. I had a decision to make, orders to issue, acting on Dan’s new information. But I felt a sense of reluctance. It would be easier—safer—to delay the orders until tomorrow, leaving the final decision to Kreiger. He’d once said that a captain’s job was to sit in a warm office, safe from sad, accusing eyes, and make the tough decisions.

  At the Loft’s doorway, sheltered from the rain, I stood perfectly still, thoughtfully looking down at my shoes.

  Mothers and fathers—sons and daughters. The Manleys. The Drapers. From each family, one was dead. In each family, one was suspected.

  It was a grisly, utterly predictable truism of police work that if a man is murdered, you must first question his wife. Then his father. Next his brother and finally his mistress. Most homicide victims, at some time in their lives, had once loved their eventual murderer.

  I stepped inside the Loft’s small lobby and dialed the pay phone, calling the office. Canelli was just going off duty. Markham had checked out without having written a report on his interrogation of Dan Haywood. Assuming he’d finished the interrogation about five P.M., Markham wasn’t at fault. Like the rest of us, he’d been working sixteen hours a day.

  I told Canelli to verify the Draper surveillance, then asked him to meet me at the Draper residence in about an hour. Cheerfully, he agreed. As I hung up, he was beginning a long preamble concerning possible new evidence in the Manley case. I asked him to save it, thanking him for his uncomplaining cooperation.

  Ann Haywood was sitting at the far end of the bar. With her London-style gabardine raincoat, scuffed loafers and a kerchief tied over her blond, bedraggled hair, she seemed especially woebegone, out of place in the casually posh bar.

  She turned quickly as I sat beside her. Wordlessly, she looked at me. In a few sentences I told her that if her son had told me the truth, neither of them had anything to worry about. To her urgent, unspoken question, I answered that yes, I believed Dan had told me the truth—that he was guilty of erratic, antisocial behavior, but nothing more.

  Seeing that her glass was empty, I asked her if she wanted another drink.

  “I—I’d better get back.”

  “A drink might help. Plus, it might be a good idea to give Dan a little time to think things over.”

  “Well—” She hesitated. “If it’s a quick drink.”

  I ordered a bourbon and water for her and a 7-Up for myself, automatically explaining that hard liquor didn’t agree with me, half apologizing. Uncertainly smiling in response, she nervously tucked at her lank hair. Watching her, I was remembering Arthur Haywood’s icy contempt as he instructed her concerning their son.

  Yet once they’d loved each other. They’d joined their bodies, produced children, watched the children grow. Now they hated each other. And the son, Dan, was punishing them by punishing himself.

  As if to mirror my thoughts, she said quietly, “I’ve made a mess of things, with Dan. I—guess it’s pretty obvious.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. From what I saw, your ex-husband deserves at least half the blame. Maybe a lot more.”

  “That’s so easy, though: just blame the other person.”

  “He’s blaming you. In public. I can imagine what he does in private.”

  “Did in private,” she corrected. “We don’t really communicate, I’m afraid. Maybe we never did.” She bit her lip, stared solemnly ahead for a moment, then drank a third of her highball in two long gulps. Placing the glass gravely on the bar, she said, “You’re really very—kind. I want to thank you.”

  “I told you yesterday: I’ve been through it myself. A divorce, I mean.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “Yes. A boy and a girl. Teenagers. They live in Detroit, with their mother.”

  She hesitated. Then she asked, “How is it that you live here? I mean—” She didn’t finish it.

  Avoiding her eyes, I sipped at the 7-Up. Then I said, “I was born here. My mother lives in San Rafael. It seemed the logical plac
e to come.”

  She didn’t reply. I realized that my reluctance to answer her question fully would close the door she’d tentatively opened. So I said, “Until I got married, I spent most of my time playing football and reading my clippings, which were beginning to get older and fewer every year. I met my wife when I was playing for the Detroit Lions. I was twenty-five; she was a little younger. She—” I looked at Ann Haywood, then away, clearing my throat and frowning slightly. “She was a little like you, as a matter of fact. She was blond, and—wonderful-looking. She was also very rich; her father manufactured auto parts. We—” Again I sighed. In spite of myself, I was speaking lower, slower, unable to sustain the impersonal glibness I’d first achieved. “We got married just about the time my so-called career in pro ball was winding up. I’d always intended to go into coaching. I’d assumed that when I’d finished playing, I could get a coaching job, maybe at some small college. And I probably could’ve done it. But instead—” I smiled wryly, lifting my shoulders. “Instead, I married a rich girl. I remember when we were still going together, we’d once joked about reading through the newspapers, looking for his and hers clippings—mine in the sports section, hers in the society section. She used to tease me, saying that her clippings were three times mine. I didn’t realize until later that she’d actually measured them. Carefully.” I took up my glass, draining it abruptly.

  “So you lived in Detroit, you and your wife.”

  “Worse than that. I went to work for her father. I started out as an assistant vice-president.”

  “In charge of what?”

  “Public relations, naturally.”

  She nodded, smiling wearily, finishing her drink. “That’s quite a transition, from public relations to police lieutenant.”

  I began searching my pockets for money. Plainly, she was anxious to return home. And, suddenly, I felt as if I’d been talking too much. “I was in the M.P.s during the war,” I said abruptly. “Luckily, I served with a man named Kreiger, who just happens to be my superior officer now.”

  When she didn’t reply, we sat silently together for a long, reflective moment, each of us looking straight ahead, impersonally. I realized that I wanted to tell her more about the last of my life in Detroit: the terrible sense of futility I’d felt, aimlessly shuffling papers in my newly decorated office, constantly checking the clock, often driving three miles for lunch rather than face the daily ritual of the executive dining room. After a few months on the job, though, the realities of profit and loss caught up with me, and I was given my actual assignment: entertaining important visitors. After business conferences I’d take them to their hotel to pick up their baggage, then to the airport. Always there was time for a drink—at every stop, before every lunch, before and after every dinner. And always there was the necessity to be pleasant, talk football, gracefully pick up the check.