He knew I wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t even mad about it, at least not that it showed. This guy was a pro, which I liked, but I would stay nice and alert as long as I was on the Condon Hale grounds.
“Impressive,” the old man said, his smile like a fold in parchment. “Reeves isn’t easily handled. He was in the Rangers, you know.”
I had no chair to sit on now. So I just loomed over him. “And I killed enough Japs to stack up to your chimney, and can we stop playing goddamn games, Mr. Hale?” I put the .45 back in the shoulder sling. “Nobody’s threatening you. Nobody’s accusing you of anything. But I came into the picture late. I even missed the cartoon. So fill me in.”
He looked toward the sea. A gull dive-bombed, after a fish.
“I allowed you to come today, Mr. Hammer, because I wanted you to know where I stand.”
“You don’t stand at all. You’re in a fucking wheelchair. And if you think I wouldn’t roll you into that surf and dump you, you haven’t been paying attention.”
The bright eyes in the sunken holes turned slowly to me, a ship changing course. “You must understand one thing, Mr. Hammer, and understand it completely. I have no desire to help the Dunbar family. My family, my children, are all grown and on their own, and productive, responsible members of society. These Dunbar brats are the kind of sad, selfish lot that Chester Dunbar so richly deserved. And now you are working for them.”
So that was the roadblock.
“My client,” I said, “is the NYPD Homicide man I mentioned earlier. Chester Dunbar was his first precinct captain. Dunbar may have been a thieving rat by the time you knew him, but back in those days, he was just a cop. Apparently a damn good one. Would you begrudge my cop friend from trying to see if his old captain was murdered?”
He was looking at the ocean again. The gun-metal gray waves were getting a little angry, the lap of the tide edging up the beach.
“I would imagine,” the old man said, “that you know I am… or at least was… an inventor myself. I have several major patents, going back well before the war.”
I nodded.
“After the war, I came up with a cardiac pulse-rate monitor, which alerts its wearer of an irregular heartbeat by using an electric-powered magnet. I began to explore related possibilities.”
“Was Chester Dunbar part of that?”
“Not initially. But he’d had some success with a radar device that he essentially gave to the government for the duration. Post-war, he was starting to earn royalties, but he was all too eager to go into partnership with me, and the financial backing that represented.”
The lap-lap-lap of the ocean was providing a hypnotic soundtrack beneath the old man’s droning, oddly distant words.
He went on: “We were working together on a prototype for a heart rhythm recording device. Things were going well. Suddenly Chester quit, claiming there were demands on his time due to the radar device, which was really starting to earn significant dollars. But I later learned that, while working in my lab, Chester was readjusting my prototype when a familiar rhythm resounded: the human heart’s two-pulse beat. He knew at once what that meant. And from this accident came the pacemaker, which he patented himself.”
“And he didn’t cut you in?”
“No. He denied the work he’d done in my lab, on my dime, had anything to do with his discovery. What he did do was hire away my longtime ‘loyal’ chauffeur, Jamison Elder, who was a witness to the circumstances of the discovery. He paid Elder handsomely, I understand. And while I won a limited share of the profits—in a protracted, expensive court battle—the lion’s share, and the credit, went to Dunbar, in part because of Elder’s testimony.”
“Getting back to murder motives,” I said, “you have two—greed and revenge.”
His smile was thin and rumpled but wide. “You look at a man content, Mr. Hammer. Content in knowing that the bastards who stole from him are dead and gone. That they may have died under mysterious, possibly violent circumstances, just adds to my satisfaction.” The sunken eyes swung sharply toward me. “But I had nothing to do with it. Either death! You’ve heard of karma?”
“I’ve heard of kismet.”
“Both apply. Now, if you’d like to make your way to your vehicle—without going through the house and perhaps having another, possibly less successful encounter with Reeves—you might cut around between the main building and the guesthouse to get to the drive. Unless you have further questions, Mr. Hammer?”
I didn’t.
He was staring at the ocean, its surface as gray as his, gulls cawing, waves rolling, when I headed around the house. Why mess with a commando if you don’t have to?
* * *
She was crowding fifty and a pleasant-looking woman made haggard by the situation. Her blue-and-brown plaid cotton dress was simple but crisp and fairly new. Her short, permed hair was dishwater blonde and her face had angles and pockmarked cheeks, but the eyes were big and dark blue and lovely. She was in a chair next to the desk in Captain Pat Chambers’ modest office, facing me where I sat in the visitor’s chair. My hat was on Pat’s desk and I was sitting forward.
The introductions had already been made—this was Mrs. Lucille Carter of Middletown, Delaware, a fifth-grade school teacher who had taken a day off without pay to come to New York City and identify her brother’s grisly remains.
She had already accomplished that unpleasant task, but Pat had asked her to meet with me before heading back home.
Mrs. Carter was shaking her head. “Mr. Hammer, I have no idea why my brother told various people that I was ill, and that he needed to rush home to my side. I wasn’t at all sick, and even if I had been, frankly, my brother and I were not terribly close.”
“Were you estranged?” I asked.
“Oh, heavens no. He was just much older than I, and we only saw each other at Christmas and other family get-togethers. I have another brother and two sisters, and Jamie was the oldest.”
Pat had heard all of this already, but he was paying rapt attention anyway. His tie was loose and he was in his shirtsleeves. It was sixty degrees in the city. Odd to think the discovery of that ice floe and its half a passenger had only been a few days before.
I asked, “What can you tell us about your brother? What sort of man was he?”
She shrugged. “Quiet. Quite intelligent. I always thought that working as a domestic, however well he was paid, was beneath his abilities. I know he and Mr. Dunbar were very tight, almost best friends, or as much so as a servant can be with a master.”
That was a kind of quaint way to put it, but I knew what she meant.
“Mrs. Carter,” I said, “what did your brother have to say about working at the Dunbar place?”
She opened a hand. “He claimed to enjoy it. To find it rewarding. But to me his life was wasted there. He spent so much of his time at that place, and never really had the kind of, well, rich, rewarding social life a person needs.”
“You mean, he never married?”
“Well… that’s part of it. He went out with a few women over the years, and once or twice it seemed serious. But he was so blessedly devoted to the Dunbars, particularly that boy, that he was never able to make the leap.”
“That boy—Chickie?”
“That’s right. Charles.” She shook her head. “There’s something wrong with that boy, and there’s something very wrong, even… despicable… about the father never getting his son help. Judging by what Jamie said, I would think the child is autistic. But apparently no doctors… or at least very few… have ever examined him.”
Pat, eyes narrowed, said, “That does seem odd. Did your brother ever speak to that?”
“Only in a dismissive way. He seemed convinced that he was doing everything for that boy that could be done.”
“That boy,” I said, “is twenty now.”
“In literal years, perhaps. Developmentally, more like ten.” She paused. “That’s wrong of me to say. I never met the boy, the young man… e
verything I got was secondhand, from Jamie. And Jamie was very concerned, very protective of him. He home-schooled Charles, you know.”
I nodded. “When did you last have contact with your brother?”
“Oh, I guess… the Christmas before last. Not even a phone call from him to me, or me to him, since. Not a letter from either of us. Isn’t that awful? Isn’t that terrible?”
She began to cry, quietly, her head bowed a little. Pat had placed a box of tissues near her and she reached for one. We waited.
“Such… such a waste of a promising life,” she said. “Jamie was the smartest of us all—valedictorian of his class. But the family couldn’t afford college, and somehow he wound up with that terrible inventor out on Long Island.”
“Condon Hale,” I said. “I interviewed him this morning.”
She made a face. “That creature accused Jamie of theft, and later, perjury. There was a big, embarrassing court case, you see. That’s what created the bond between him and Chester Dunbar, I believe—they had both been attacked by the same scurrilous individual.”
I nodded. “How bad was the blood between Hale and your brother, and your brother’s employer?”
Another shrug. “It all quieted down after Hale got his settlement.”
But the old man had still seemed plenty bitter today, despite the passage of years.
She leaned forward and her eyes met mine and held them. “Mr. Hammer, Captain Chambers has explained to me that you believe my brother may have been murdered. And also that the State Police aren’t pursuing Jamie’s death as such.”
“You’re right in both cases.”
I told her, and Pat, about visiting the site of the supposed accident, and shared my own theory about what may have happened there.
“But Jamie had no enemies,” she said, her expression bewildered.
I smiled just a little. “Meaning no disrespect, Mrs. Carter, you said yourself that you and your brother weren’t close. There may have been many things going on in his life that you weren’t aware of.”
Her mouth tightened and then edged open as she somewhat defensively said, “I knew my brother. I knew his character. What kind of man he was.”
“I’m sure you did,” I said. “But let’s get back to Jamie borrowing a car and telling everyone at the Dunbar estate that he was rushing home to be at the side of your sick bed.”
The defensiveness dropped away. She frowned more in confusion than anything else, and said, “That’s what mystifies me so. I have no explanation for that.”
“Well, obviously it indicates he was hiding something from the Dunbars.”
“I don’t know much about them,” she admitted. “From what little I heard of them from Jamie, he thought highly of the daughter… what is her name?”
“Dorena.”
She nodded. “He thought highly of Dorena, and just sort of… put up with those two brothers. They’re stepchildren, I understand. He got along well with that caretaker, Walters, who he said was a real help with young Charles.”
Pat turned to me. “Anything else, Mike?”
I shook my head, then smiled at Jamison Elder’s sister. “Thank you, Mrs. Carter, for taking time to talk to me.”
Her smile was as warm as it was sad. “No, Mr. Hammer—thank you. Captain Chambers has explained that he has no jurisdiction in Jamie’s death, and that the State Police appear to have written it off as accidental. Knowing that an experienced investigator like yourself is looking into things is most reassuring.”
“Glad to do it.”
“In fact, I wonder if I might help support your efforts.” She got in her purse and fished out her checkbook. “Perhaps you could take me on as a client.”
One thing I didn’t need in this case was another client.
“No,” I said, smiling, holding up two palms in “stop” fashion. “You’re very kind, Mrs. Carter, but that end of things is covered.”
“You… you found my brother, didn’t you?”
I nodded, thinking, What was left of him.
“What was left of him,” she said, and shivered. She shook her head and said, “Seeing him there on that slab… just the upper part of him… it was so horrific. So terrible.”
I’d seen him on a slab, too.
She was saying, “Right there in the morgue, I told him something I never had before, I’m ashamed to say.”
Pat asked, “What’s that, Mrs. Carter?”
“That I loved him.”
She used one last tissue, then forced a smile, got to her feet.
“Well,” she said, “I have a train to catch. Back to Middletown to see what’s left of my classroom after the little darlings no doubt subjected my substitute to a day of merry hell.”
I was on my feet. Pat too. We both shook hands with her and thanked her again, then she slipped out. I sat back down and so did Pat.
“Not a lot of help,” he said.
“Some.”
“Such as what?”
“Her brother’s devotion to Chester Dunbar and Chickie means something. I’m not sure exactly what yet, but it does. The man’s whole life was at that Dunbar mansion, and yet the night he died he was fleeing there, under false circumstances.”
Pat frowned in thought. “Are you maybe reading too much in?”
“You tell me, Pat. My guess is that one of the siblings is trying to weed out the competition for when Chet Dunbar’s money starts getting split up between them.”
“You have any evidence of that, Mike?”
Here’s where the ice got very thin. Pat was my client—maybe only a buck’s worth, but my client nonetheless. Then there was Dorena and her stepbrothers who hired me to look into the accidental deaths of Daddy and his butler. Fine so far—Pat’s wishes tallied perfectly with theirs. But the two brothers who each thought somebody was trying to kill them, that got into areas of confidentiality and conflict of interest.
What the hell—I told him. Told him about the broken step and the damaged brake hose that made Wake suspicious of his wife, and told him about the two shots somebody took at Dex, who suspected casino boss Abe Hazard.
“Trouble is,” I said, “Wake has as much reason to want his dearly beloved dead as she does him, so he could be trying to frame her for attempted murder.”
Pat nodded. “And Abe Hazard tells a convincing story of why killing Dex makes no financial sense. But what about that hothead husband of Dex’s latest squeeze—Brenda, was it?”
I smirked and pawed the air. “How could that dope have shot at Dex last week, when he mistook me for him last night? No, something else is going on.”
“What about Condon Hale? Could his old grudge have turned into new murders?”
“Not committed by him. He’s frail and in a wheelchair. But that ex-Ranger chauffeur of his could easily have done his bidding.”
Pat looked glum. “Well, I tried to rattle Jim Sheridan’s cage, but he’s still on the fence. He admits you raise some interesting points, but he’s not going to risk his next promotion by going to the B.C.I. and getting the horse laugh.”
“These damn troopers think crime stops and starts with a speeding ticket.”
He shrugged. “Jim’s all right. You come up with something, he’ll get right on it.” His gray-blue eyes fixed on me. “What say you, Mike? You think you’re getting close?”
“Not sure.” I got up, stretched, yawned, and picked my hat off his desk. “But I’m gonna stay on it. You haven’t got your buck’s worth yet.”
* * *
Velda was on the phone when I came in. I hung up my coat but left my hat on, went over and took the visitor’s chair, rocking back in it as I waited, giving her a cocky look. She was dealing with one of the insurance companies we do regular work for. She was charming as hell with the guy on the other end of the line, but she stuck her tongue out at me.
I grinned and rocked some more.
“What brings you home, my wandering boy?” she asked, after hanging up. She rose and went over to p
ut a folder in a file cabinet.
“You look great,” I said.
And she did. What she could do with a cream-color silk blouse, a short tan skirt and no nylons could curl a censor’s hair.
She came over and sat on the edge of the desk, legs crossed as if to taunt me—strike the “as if.”
“Don’t think compliments are getting you out of the doghouse,” she said.
“What put me in?”
“Two days and not a phone call. You expect me to stave off the clients looking to talk to you? I won’t do, you know. I’m not the famous Mike Hammer.”
“What is it really, kitten?”
She looked down her pretty nose at me. “Pat says you’re staying at the Dunbar place. I’ve seen that Dorena’s picture on the society page. Whose bedroom are you sleeping in?”
“Well, not her gay brother’s. Look, it’s a job. And a favor to Pat, who repays me by as soon as I’m out of the city starting to sow seeds of discontent to try to win you over.”
“What seeds are you sowing?”
“You want to hear what I’ve been up to or not?”
She did. I filled her in. I edited a few things out, like how friendly Dorena had got and that Brenda Something had a way with a sticky kiss. I did mention that Madeline Dunbar was a bit of a wild one.
“How wild?” Eyebrows arched even as the dark eyes narrowed. “Do you speak from personal experience?”
I shrugged. “She got a little frisky.”
Her arms were folded over the impressive shelf of her bosom. “Frisky, huh? I hope you didn’t throw her a bone.”
I put a hand on her knee. She didn’t flick it off, which was a very good sign.
“Listen,” she said. “You’re getting popular. You got another of those cryptic unsigned letters.”
She plucked an envelope, already opened, from a stack on the desk.
I removed the single sheet from within. “Don’t you know it’s a federal crime to open other people’s mail?”
“I thought I’d risk it.” She took back the envelope and waved it. “Monticello postmark again. Same high-quality paper. No return address, of course.”
The Will to Kill Page 11