The Drowning Pool

by Jacqueline Seewald

  The warehouse was not near any houses. It was off the main road and isolated from the town as if anything smacking of commercialism should be hidden since it was a source of shame. As they drove near, Bert noticed large trucks in the process of being loaded. They parked their car and quickly found the manager’s office.

  “I’ve already been questioned about the robbery,” the irritated manager told them after the introductions were completed.

  “We’re aware of that, but we were hoping there was some information you could give us that the North Ridge Police don’t already know.”

  “Like what?” The manager was wiry, but with a whining quality to his voice that Bert found annoying.

  “How is it that the thieves managed to come and go when no one was around?”

  “Luck, I guess. Our security man had just stepped out for a sandwich. By the time he came back, they’d disappeared. Needless to say, our man brings all his food with him nowadays. Another slip and he’s out on his ass.”

  “Mighty slick trick, getting in and out before he got back.”

  “Kind of like magic,” Bert agreed.

  The manager narrowed his eyes.

  “Is your security guard around?”

  “Not until later.”

  “Then I’d like his home address,” Gardner said.

  The manager went over to a large file cabinet. “You ought to know he’s been questioned already, just like I was.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Gardner waited as the manager wrote out the information for him. “One last thing, do you happen to know Martin Walling?”

  “District sales? Sure, he’s here now and then to check on shipping orders, see how things are going.”

  “Has he been here since the robbery?”

  The manager chewed thoughtfully on the tip of his pen. “Guess not. Don’t remember him coming lately.”

  “When was the last time he was here?”

  “How should I know?”

  “It’s important,” Gardner persisted. “A month before the robbery? A week? Maybe you could check your records or something.”

  Gardner wasn’t willing to let go. His tone was smooth and courteous, but he was like a pit bull clamping his jaw down on prey. You really couldn’t judge by appearance, Bert supposed. Gardner was outwardly laid back, easy-going, but caught up in a case, he was focused and intense.

  “Okay, maybe it was two weeks, maybe even three,” the manager finally allowed.

  “Maybe right before the robbery?”

  “It could have been a week,” the manager conceded.

  Gardner politely thanked him and they left. Locating the security guard’s place turned out to be difficult since he lived in an old bungalow, little more than a shack off a bumpy road no wider than a driveway. It was also a good half-hour farther south.

  Roy Gunther was a hermit. He lived alone under primitive conditions. Bert heard dogs growling inside as she knocked at the door. When it was opened, an old man came out, followed by three mongrels. She judged Gunther to be close to seventy. His grizzled white hair and bent posture made him look even older. Gunther scowled at them as Gardner made introductions. The old guy looked ready to growl just like his dogs.

  “Well, what do you want with me?” The voice was gruff as she’d expected.

  “We understand you were on duty the night the Marcom warehouse was robbed.”

  “What if I was?”

  She sensed fear in the man. She could smell it. What was he scared of?

  “Do you go out to eat at the same time every night?”

  “I used to.”

  The sharp, bared teeth of the dogs were in contrast to Gunther’s gummy mouth. She didn’t much like the man or his animals, all of whom seemed decrepit and degenerate; funny how dogs just naturally took on the qualities of their owners.

  “Did you eat at the same place every night?”

  “What’s it to you?” The wrinkles on the old man’s face were like a mosaic pattern.

  “This is important, understand?” Bert gave him a menacing look and noted with some small satisfaction that the old man seemed to wise up.

  “I always go to the same place to eat.”

  “Were other people aware of it?”

  “No one ever said I couldn’t go out for a little while, not until after that robbery.”

  “But technically, you’re not supposed to leave the premises,” Gardner supplied.

  “There’s a clock at both ends of the warehouse. Each hour, I’m supposed to make my rounds and punch in my card at the opposite end. Dinnertime, I’d walk out to the diner just after punching in at one side. Diner’s open all night. I never got much anyway, just a bowl of soup and maybe some crackers. Can’t eat much ’cause of my bad choppers. When I got back, I’d punch in at the other end. Nobody ever knew the difference—until that night. Then I caught it good from the boss. Nearly got canned.”

  “Who knew your schedule?”

  “Nobody. I never shoot off my mouth. Hardly talk to people.”

  “Except maybe Martin Walling?”

  “Never heard of him.” Gunther stared at them blankly.

  “Wasn’t he around to check on things? A short, heavy man, small bald spot on top of his head, sporting a mustache. He’s the district rep for sales.”

  “Rosy and round-faced like an apple?”

  Bert decided Walling had more of a porcine puss; in fact, if an apple were stuffed in his mouth, he would have been ready for a spit.

  “I guess I seen him around a few times,” Gunther conceded.

  “What exactly did he ask you?”

  “Nothing much. We just talked a little. But he give me ten bucks, I sure remember that.”

  “What was it for?”

  “Eating money. Says to me I do a real fine job and he appreciated it. Heck of a nice fella. Real friendly. Looked like the kind who knew how to enjoy a good meal himself. Except for his sweaty hands, he was fine.”

  “Did he happen to discuss your habit of going out to the diner for supper?”

  “I don’t tell people.”

  “But you told Walling because he gave you the money.”

  “Maybe. Can’t remember.” Gunther rubbed the gray stubble on his face in a nervous manner. “Am I gonna be in trouble all over again? I can’t afford to lose my job. After the robbery, the boss started talking about how a younger man might be better for security. It ain’t easy for a man my age to find work.” Gunther looked at them pathetically.

  “We don’t want to get you fired. We’re not pushing the robbery investigation any further than knowing how it fits in with a homicide.”

  The old man showed his relief by exhaling noisily.

  “Did you ever meet a man named Richard Bradshaw?”

  “Can’t say as the name is familiar.”

  “Another salesman. Tall, good-looking, well-dressed. He may have asked you a few questions about Walling, the way we’ve been doing.”

  The dogs panted, moving toward Gardner and Bert, their sharp teeth and lapping, pink tongues fully exposed. The dogs made her nervous, but much to her relief, the old man restrained them.

  “Yeah, there was a fella like that. Said he was from the main office and out to check things over. He asked about Mr. Walling some, but that wasn’t all he talked about.”

  “Did he happen to ask if Walling had discussed your schedule?”

  “Maybe. I’m getting old. I don’t always remember so good. You sure I won’t get in any trouble over this?”

  “You’re a witness; that’s all.”

  They left the old man and his mean-looking mutts standing outside the tumbledown bungalow. She did the driving on the way back, taking the road faster than Gardner had coming.

  “I believe we can connect Walling to the other two robberies as well,” Gardner said.

  “You think Bradshaw confronted Walling with his suspicions and was murdered for his trouble?”

  “A real possibility. I don’t think Wallin
g is very eager to end up in prison, do you? There’s no doubt that Bradshaw discovered the truth; he was many things, but obviously not stupid.”

  “Funny, Walling was the only one who had anything good to say about Bradshaw. Could be Bradshaw wasn’t planning to rat on him—or maybe he never did get to confront Walling.” She was trying hard to ferret out fact from supposition.

  “Or that was just a smokescreen meant to throw us off. If we thought Walling liked Bradshaw, then we were less likely to investigate him. Don’t forget, Marcom brought Bradshaw here to find out what was going wrong with the east coast operation of the company. He wasn’t just another salesman.”

  “I still think Walling’s attitude toward Bradshaw was genuine,” she said.

  “Maybe, but never trust appearances. I remember my great aunt Mindy, who enjoyed going to funerals. I don’t think the old gal owned a dress that wasn’t black. She generally cried louder than any member of the bereaved family, even if she hardly knew the deceased. You’d swear it was she who sustained the greatest loss.”

  “Okay, I get the message. Where to next?”

  “Let’s have a change of pace and visit a good-looking lady,” Gardner said with a smile.

  But it wasn’t Gardner who ended up at the front door of April Nevins’ apartment. Gardner was stopped by the cop on surveillance duty. Impatient to get the interview over with, Bert offered to talk to the woman herself. Gardner agreed. At least he was beginning to trust her.

  April Nevins answered the door to her apartment after Bert rang the bell three times. She was wearing a black silk kimono with a red Chinese dragon on the back and nothing else.

  “You again.” She did not bother to conceal her agitation. “If you’re here because of Sonny, I don’t have anything more to say.” She preceded Bert into the living room. As before, the bed was unmade. She noticed Bert looking at it. “I just woke up. Want some coffee? It’s fresh. I made a whole pot. It’s good and strong.”

  Bert agreed to the coffee and looked for someplace to sit down. Glancing around the apartment, she found that it was just as chaotic as before. Clothes, shoes, old newspapers and glossy magazines were scattered around. There was dust on the furniture and dirty dishes piled up in the kitchen sink. The place reeked of cigarette smoke. She wondered in disgust how anyone could live that way and had an overwhelming urge to open the windows wide.

  April Nevins handed her a white ceramic mug of black coffee, then began sipping some of the brew from a matching cup.

  “I need this to wake up. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”

  “Guilty conscience?”

  April put down her coffee cup, folded her hands across her full breasts and threw Bert an annoyed look but took her time responding. “What do you want with me now?”

  “You know that Sonny disappeared?”

  “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “Didn’t he arrange to see you on Saturday?”

  April turned her handbag upside down, letting the contents drop randomly. Scooping up a pack of cigarettes, she started looking around the apartment for matches. “I wasn’t home.”

  “Where were you?”

  April’s hands were none too steady. “Say, do you have a lighter or matches on you? I seem to be out of them.”

  When Bert responded negatively, April resumed her hunt, much to Bert’s irritation.

  “Let’s get on with it,” Bert said.

  “After I have my first cigarette, I’ll be ready.”

  “You don’t need those coffin nails.”

  Apparently, April wasn’t listening because she’d located a lighter under a magazine and was pulling a cigarette from the pack. What happened next, Bert really didn’t intend to happen. Since she’d lost Alva, she found her temper much shorter than it should be, and this woman in particular provoked her. Bert put the coffee cup down, found herself grabbing April’s hand, seizing the pack, and crushing it.

  April’s eyes opened wide and her face turned red as a blood sun. “You rotten bitch! That was mine, my last pack. You had no right.” She started crying in frustration.

  “All right, I’m sorry. I’ll buy you another pack to replace that one. But you’re only killing yourself with that garbage. Christ sake, girl, you smell like a human ashtray.”

  “Why should you care about me? What’s the difference to you if I do smoke myself to death?”

  “It’s personal,” Bert said, trying to look away from her.

  “Tell me and you can forget about buying me that pack.”

  Bert let out a deep sigh. “My mother died of emphysema. She had a heavy habit and smoked herself into an early grave. I promised on her deathbed that I’d never smoke again, and I hate it when I see other people puffing their brains out. I especially hate to see what it does to their families.”

  “I don’t have any family, and I need caffeine and nicotine to get me going each day. I’ve got a lousy job and a lousy life. It helps get me through. You understand?”

  “There are other ways to pull yourself together.”

  “Like what?” Her eyes flashed an angry challenge.

  “I’m not the best one to tell you. I haven’t done so great with my life either.”

  “You couldn’t be as messed up as me.” April Nevins started crying again, her hair falling forward over her eyes. Bert held her, patting April’s back as if she were a child that needed comforting. Finally, April pulled back, rubbing the tears from her face.

  “Are you married?” she asked.

  The question surprised Bert. “No, why?”

  “I just wondered.”

  “Most men find me intimidating because of my size—which is just as well.”

  “You’re not bad looking. If you dressed better and wore make-up, you could have guys.”

  “Don’t want them. Don’t need them. Don’t trust them. That’s enough about me. As for you, Ms. Nevins, it’s time you got your act together. Don’t be so needy.”

  “Easy for you to say. I’m not independent like you. I need a man in my life. I’m afraid.”

  “We’re all afraid, but we women need to know how to rely on ourselves first and foremost.”

  Bert heard someone clear his throat and turned to see Gardner standing in the doorway. She could tell he’d overheard some of the conversation, likely he disapproved of the personal turn it had taken.

  “Has Miss Nevins told you where she was on Saturday?” Gardner asked.

  “Not yet.”

  April hugged the silk kimono against her body. “After that little incident on Friday night, I was pretty upset. I didn’t want to hang around here. I was afraid Sonny might come around later. One of the other waitresses invited me to stay over at her place when I told her about my problem during our break. So I slept over there. I didn’t come back to the apartment at all. Lisa and me spent the entire day together and then went to work that evening.”

  “And your friend Lisa will confirm this if we ask her?”

  April ran her hand through her tawny mane of hair. “Why do I need an alibi?”

  Gardner side-stepped the question and posed one of his own. “Did Sonny phone or contact you at any time since you saw him at the lounge?”

  “No, I haven’t heard from him at all.”

  “Don’t you find that a little odd?”

  “Why should I? Considering the fight we had?” She was defensively belligerent again and looked with longing at the crushed pack of cigarettes.

  Bert found herself wishing Gardner would ease up on the woman.

  “I never quite understood what the argument was about, Miss Nevins. Maybe you can explain it to Detective St. Croix and me.”

  “How would I know what was going through Sonny’s screwed-up little brain?” Her voice approached shrillness.

  “But he did make some accusations. What were they?” Gardner wasn’t going to let up on her.

  “He told you, didn’t he? You don’t have to play games with me. I know what he sai
d. But I didn’t kill Rick. I don’t care what Sonny said. It’s not true.” She turned to Bert, her eyes pleading for support and understanding.

  Bert didn’t say a word, but it wasn’t easy.

  “The question is, what reason did Sonny have for thinking that way?” Gardner kept his tone cool, but there was fear in April Nevins’ eyes.

  “He claimed that he left something here and I took it. He said I hid it somewhere. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”

  “He wanted to search your apartment Friday evening, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, but I had to go to work and I didn’t want him hanging around when I wasn’t here. Honestly, nothing he said made any sense to me. I never took anything that belonged to him. Why would I? What did he ever have that was worth anything, other than his hot bod? Sure, sometimes he left stuff here, but never for long. Anyway, I didn’t know he was going to get drunk and make a scene where I work. I think he’d had a few before he even came here. Jerk. He didn’t even know how to hold his liquor.” She shivered.

  “Did he give you any idea at all about what he thought was missing?”

  She went to the kitchenette, poured herself a fresh cup of coffee and then began sipping it. “He was too excited to make any sense.”

  “Miss Nevins, is your apartment usually like this?”

  Her face colored. “Messy, you mean? I guess so. I’m kind of disorganized. My sister says I’m a hopeless slob. You disapprove, don’t you? So did that snobby bitch.”

  “Who would that be?” Gardner asked.

  “Oh, Cheryl McNeill. She stopped by for a few minutes once and made some nasty comments about how I keep the place. That’s one reason I referred to her as Rick’s live-in maid.”

  “When did Ms. McNeill call on you?”

  April moved around the room restlessly. “It was the day after the scene at the pool.”

  “Why did she come?”

  “She came to find out if Rick really had broken off with me.”

  “Why come to you?”

  Her full lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Because Rick was a liar and she knew it. I felt sorry for her. She wasn’t so bad. I told her that he dropped me, even though it was the other way around.”