The wrinkled puss scrunched in thought. “Well, I can’t think of a soul who’d want to do harm to that kind ol’ feller. But on the other hand, that bunch up at the house? Who knows what they might do.”
* * *
We drove up the long, gently winding drive that led to a four-car garage that was of much more recent vintage than the house itself, though fashioned of similar stone. A walk curved around to the front door where we pounded the snow from our shoes on the welcome mat and Pat pressed the doorbell, which set some chimes going.
A wisp-of-a-thing Negro maid in standard black-trimmed white livery greeted us. We were expected—Pat had called ahead. She took our hats and coats and gestured toward the living room that yawned past a ballroom-ceilinged entry area bigger than my apartment, a stairway curving up and out of sight.
The walls in this place were off-white, the woodwork white with a column effect at the doorless doorways. The floor was a burnished parquet, and only the furnishings, rather bland if expensive ’40s contemporary, suggested this near-mansion had been the home of an ex-cop. Everywhere downstairs was high-ceilinged and the living room, where Pat and I entered, had a flower-petal chandelier and a built-in, good-size fireplace, which was licking and snapping.
Near the fire on facing couches a man and a woman lounged on each. One pair were clearly brother and sister, their narrow faces with aquiline nose, big brown eyes, and full sensual mouth mirroring each other. Both were blond, and only their attire and the young woman’s lightly applied make-up and chin-length hair set them apart.
She wore a camel tan sheath dress with a darker leather belt and a jaunty brown beret. He wore an oversize rust-suede sweater with beige woolen arms and turtleneck, and new blue jeans that I doubted would ever look worn.
The two across from them were almost certainly not related, although the male bore some resemblance to the pair seated across from him, his face more oval than narrow and his hair dark. He wore the kind of outfit that can get a guy punched in the mouth—a navy-blue linen blazer with a matching ascot and pink shirt. The female was tall and voluptuous, a pale-blue-eyed redhead in a green mini-dress and darker green nylons—the kind of outfit that can get a girl punched in the mouth… with a guy’s lips.
Nobody seemed to be much in mourning for the late Jamison Elder, despite Willie Walters saying the departed had been “like part of the family.”
The ascot-wearer said, “Captain Chambers—please join us. Sit, sit.”
That seemed a good idea, since neither hosts nor hostesses had stood. A couple of comfortable chairs were awaiting us, facing the fire across a low-slung coffee table, and we took them. They were having drinks—cocktails, wine. Apparently we weren’t.
“Thanks for seeing me,” Pat said. “I know Mr. Elder’s death must be a real blow to you.”
The blond guy in the oversize sweater said to Pat, “Who’s your friend?”
There was something nasty about it.
I said, “Mike Hammer.”
The blonde in the beret sat forward, big brown eyes wide, and said, “You’re the one who found the body.”
What there was of it.
I nodded. “Captain Chambers and I are old friends. I’m just keeping him company.”
Pat said, “Sorry, Mike—I better make the introductions.”
He did. The oversize-sweater guy was Wakefield “Wake” Dunbar, and seated across from him was his brother Dexter “Dex” Dunbar. The beret-wearing beauty was their half-sister Dorena, and the tall curvy redheaded thing in half a skirt was Madeline, Wake’s wife.
Interesting—Wake was sitting with his sister, while Dex was sitting with Wake’s wife. Probably didn’t mean anything, but detectives take in details like that.
Pat said, “Wake, I understand you’re coming into the city to identify the body. I can arrange that with the morgue for you.”
Wake, whose expression was wary, said, “Thank you, Captain Chambers. Tomorrow morning all right? We have lawyers coming this evening.”
“Sure.”
Flickering reflection on his face emphasized his slight sneer. “But you didn’t have to drive almost two hours to tell me that. What’s the purpose of this visit? And I think we all know who Mike Hammer is.”
Pat began to reply, but Dex beat him to it. “Wake, for God’s sake, Captain Chambers is a family friend. He knows how close we all were to Jamison, and he’s here to express his condolences.” Dex turned to Pat. “Isn’t that right, Captain Chambers?”
“That is right,” Pat said. “But I thought, since Mr. Hammer here discovered Mr. Elder’s remains—and being as I was called to the scene—that you might have some questions.”
Dorena said, “Did he suffer? Please tell me he didn’t suffer.” Her eyes were wet. She meant it.
Wake said, with the smirk getting nastier, “Somebody cut him in half, sis. That has to smart.”
“Damnit, Wake,” Dex began. “There’s no call—”
I interrupted, “Nobody cut anybody in half. Elder suffered a blow to the head, wound up on an ice floe, and expired due to exposure and loss of blood. That’s straight from the Medical Examiner. Another ice floe caused the damage to the body.”
Wake grunted something like a laugh and said, “You mean half of him is still out there somewhere, don’t you?”
“The rest of him will turn up,” I said cheerfully. “When the bloat kicks in.”
A gentle hand came to Dorena’s horrified open mouth. Her pink nail polish matched her lipstick, I noted.
Pat gave me a sideways look, then said to the little group, “I just wanted you people to know that if you have any questions or concerns—either individually or as a group—you can come to me. As I think you know, I thought the world of your late father.”
The stunning redhead wore a faint look of amusement. Her lashes were long, her eyeshadow white. “Elder was just a hired hand, Mr., uh, Chambers is it? We don’t need any grief counseling. But thanks.”
Dex frowned at her, but her husband was smiling over at her. They both thought this was funny somehow. Even if they didn’t sit together.
Dorena said, “We just thought… when you called and wanted to come up and see us… that you might be acting in your… official capacity.”
“Yes,” Wake said, still with a hint of sneer. “You are a captain of Homicide, aren’t you? We were told this was an accidental death, and now you come around with the redoubtable Michael Hammer at your side. Did somebody get murdered?”
With a sigh, Dex sat forward, hands clasped between his open knees, and said, “Captain Chambers, I hope you’ll forgive my brother for his flippant attitude. But he’s right that we all viewed your request to come and see us as a kind of… red flag. Could Jamison’s death have been a homicide?”
“It hasn’t been ruled out,” Pat admitted, “but it may be. There’ll be an inquest—”
“Christ,” Wake interrupted, “will one of us have to attend that, as well? Isn’t it enough of an inconvenience that this body identification has been deemed necessary?”
Pat, staying remarkably cool, said, “None of you will be required to attend the inquest. When it’s scheduled, I’ll let you know… but attending would be entirely voluntary.”
Dex said, “Thank you, Captain. But you haven’t answered my question—in your expert opinion, could this have been a homicide?”
Pat glanced at me and I shrugged.
Then he said, “Jamison suffered a blow on the head that might have been from a blunt instrument. But it also just as easily could have been the result of a minor automobile accident.”
Dorena, sitting forward, said, “We were told they found his car stuck in a snowbank.”
Wake said to her, “Not his car, our car.” Then to Pat, he clarified, “One of ours. Jamison had use of it, and we allowed him to take it on this trip home to see his sick sister. Is she coming to pick up her brother, by the way? If so, maybe she could identify the body.”
This guy was a real win
ner.
Pat said, “We haven’t got a hold of her yet. But as Mr. Hammer said, Jamison Elder died of exposure and loss of blood.”
“But,” Dorena said, “if somebody hit him with a… a pipe or something, and it led to his death… that would be murder… wouldn’t it?”
Dumb question, but she was upset.
Pat nodded, then added, “But my guess is, it’ll be ruled accidental.”
“Your guess,” Wake said, unimpressed.
“Educated guess. If there’s any change of status… if the coroner’s inquest does not declare this death accidental… I’ll let you know immediately.”
Wake asked, “How badly damaged was the car?”
Pat shrugged. “Not very, if at all. It just got stuck in the snow.”
“How do we go about getting it back?”
What a guy.
Dex said, “For Christ’s sake, Wake! Have a little common decency.”
Wake smirked at his brother.
Pat said, patiently, “I’ll look into that and let you know.”
Arms folded, I said, “Where’s the other brother? Charles? Chickie?”
Wake rolled his eyes in a who-gives-a-damn fashion.
Dorena said, “Chickie’s in his room. Out in the carriage house.”
I said, “Shouldn’t somebody be looking after him?”
Her chin came up a little. “He’s not helpless, Mr. Hammer. But he’s very upset… shattered, really… about Jamison’s passing.” She looked at Pat. “Captain Chambers, perhaps you could say a word to him. I know, back when Father was alive and you would visit, you and Chickie got along famously.”
“I’d like to say hello to the boy, yes,” Pat said.
I was looking forward to that myself. Their outcast brother had been described as an idiot. But plenty of those were walking the streets. And at least one was sitting on a sofa nearby.
Dorena stood and so did Pat and I. We nodded farewells to the rest of this lovely group and followed the shapely little blonde—and she was little, maybe five-foot-four—through a book-lined library to French doors onto the outside.
She turned to us with a smile. It was a nice smile. For this family, it was a great one.
“I don’t think you’ll need your coats,” she said. “It’s not much of a walk.”
“It’s warming up, anyway,” I said.
We followed her in crisp afternoon air over a fieldstone path back to a two-story gray-stone carriage house that at one time had been converted to a two-car garage, then converted again to living quarters. Beyond the carriage house and hugging its back wall was Chickie’s garden that Walters had mentioned, largely snow-covered right now.
As we went inside, she said, “The downstairs was mostly Jamison’s—his bedroom’s in back.”
We were in a kind of recreation room with comfy chairs, a braid rug, and a good-size TV; a gas fireplace was in a corner, and a kitchenette area off to one side. Some built-in bookcases ran to popular paperbacks—Forever Amber, The Carpetbaggers, Lolita, plus a good stack of Playboys. For an old bachelor, Jamison had pretty racy taste. Maybe at his age that was the only way to get his jollies.
She led us up a circular wrought-iron staircase to a little landing off of which were two doors; the view of her nice bottom working like pistons under the snug sheath dress wasn’t bad at all.
As she knocked on the door directly at the top, she nodded toward the other one. “That’s where the caretaker sleeps. Walters.” She knocked again, harder. “…Chickie! Chickie, it’s your big sister. Open up. There are some friends here to see you.”
Finally the door opened and a boy about the same size as the girl stood there expressionlessly. Not a boy at all, really, as the blue shadow of a morning shave said he was well into puberty. That jarred with what he wore—pajamas whose white knit top bore a red-and-black ski-sweater pattern, the red bottoms tapered above blue-and-red slippers with another winter design.
“Can we come in, honey?” she asked.
He nodded. His face vaguely recalled his sister’s, his eyes big and blank and bloodshot, his hair a dark fringe. He turned his back to us and disappeared into the room.
His quarters must have taken up two-thirds of the space of the second floor. The ceiling had a slant, reflecting the roof, and from it hung various model airplanes at rakish angles. In one corner was a tee-pee; on a white built-in counter sat a globe and a scattering of comic books—Batman, Spiderman, Hulk—near bookends gripping two feet of Hardy Boys novels under a shelf that held footballs and a baseball glove with ball. A shelf above that displayed more model airplanes and a collapsible telescope, a regular Long John Silver spy glass.
The overall trappings were western—a wooden bed with wagon wheels and a Lone Ranger bed spread, a nightstand with a rearing horse lamp. But the plane motif was providing competition with the Wild West, framed pictures of vintage aircraft staggered over the headboard.
I looked around and the boy was gone.
No—he was in the tee-pee, appropriately enough sitting Indian-style.
Dorena walked over and we followed. Bending down, hands on her knees, she said, “Chickie, honey, sweetie—you remember Captain Chambers, don’t you?”
She gestured to Pat ringmaster fashion and he stepped forward.
The boy scrambled out of the tee-pee and hugged Pat. Hard.
“Whoa, there, cowboy,” Pat said. Chickie did not release his grip. Pat tousled the boy’s hair. “You’ve had a pretty bad shock, haven’t you, kiddo?”
The boy let loose of him and went quickly to his bed and sat on the edge, facing away from us. He was nodding. Pat sat next to him.
“It’s not easy when you lose somebody,” Pat said. “You really liked Mr. Elder, didn’t you?”
“…Jamie was nice.” The voice was deep. A man’s voice. But the cadence was childish.
“That’s what you called him? Jamie?”
The boy nodded.
“He lived here with you.”
Another nod.
“I guess he was your teacher. And your friend.”
Another.
“Like I said, it’s tough losing somebody.”
“I lost Daddy.”
“I know. He was my good friend. And I hope we’re still friends, Chickie, you and I.”
“Been a long time.”
Pat’s sigh was heavy with regret. “Right. I haven’t been a very good friend, not lately. Maybe I can do better.”
“Move in here, maybe?”
Pat put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “No, I can’t. I have a job in the city.”
The boy’s face swung to Pat. “You’re a policeman!”
“You remembered.”
“Do you have your gun?”
“Not with me.”
“Can I shoot it some time?”
“We’ll see. Let me introduce you to somebody. This is my friend Mike Hammer. He’s a real-life private eye.”
He craned to look at me with childish awe. “Like on TV!”
“Not exactly,” I said, smiling.
“Do you have a gun?”
“Yes, Chickie.”
“Do you have it with you?”
I nodded. “Want to see it?”
He was smiling now, a ten-year-old’s smile in the twenty-year-old face. “I want to hold it!”
I got the .45 out from the shoulder sling. I removed the clip—often I kept one in the chamber, but things had been slow lately, and anyway Velda had been on me about the danger of that practice.
From the other side of the bed, I passed him the weapon. He held it tentatively in a hand that didn’t close around it. Dorena was standing near the foot of the bed, fig-leafed, frowning a little. Big sisters don’t like it when father figures encourage boys to play with guns. Particularly real guns.
“Can I shoot this some time, Mr., uh… what’s your name?”
“Call me Mike.”
“Okay, Mike. Can I shoot it sometime?”
“Maybe. We�
��ll have to ask your sister.”
She was looking at him and slowly shaking her head.
I grinned at him. “You’ll have to work on her. Listen, son—are you all right? Like Captain Chambers says—it’s a hard one, losing a friend like you did.”
“Is Jamie in heaven, Mike?”
“Was he a nice man?”
“Real nice.”
“Then you bet he’s in heaven.”
This time he scrambled across the Lone Ranger and hugged me. Dorena was wiping a tear away. I hugged the big little boy back.
“You send a prayer up,” I said, “for your friend Jamie, okay, son? Tonight?”
He nodded a bunch of times.
As we were on our way out, he took my hand. “Mike, did you ever kill an Indian?”
I chuckled. “No, the Indians are our friends now. Like the Lone Ranger’s pal Tonto. You have a tee-pee, don’t you? So you know that they’re a great and good people.”
But the boy was clearly disappointed.
I said, “I did tangle with a Russian once who looked like an Indian. But I didn’t shoot him.”
I just nailed his hand to a barn floor so a federal friend of mine could have him.
Dorena told Chickie she’d be back in a while to collect him for supper. He gave both Pat and me another hug and scurried back to his tee-pee.
Outside, dusk had fallen, and it was colder.
Dorena said, “Would you and Mr. Hammer like to stay for supper? We have an excellent cook.”
“Very generous of you,” Pat said, “but we have that two-hour drive ahead of us. We’ll catch a bite on the way. Listen, is there any hope for that young man?”
She breathed deep, in and out. “My father always prayed there would be. There are no outward signs of retardation, and medical breakthroughs are happening every day. Jamison home-schooled him right here, and Chickie’s up to a fifth-grade level now.”
I asked, “Who will teach him now?”
“I think possibly I will. Not that I’m qualified, but…”
“But you love him,” I said.
She nodded, swallowed, eyes teary again.
In the car, Pat said, “She’s the best of the bunch, isn’t she?”
“No question. But I think we both know that’s faint praise.”
The Will to Kill Page 3