by John Lutz
Nudger moved toward the door.
"After I told you that," Delores said in an injured tone, "you're not still leaving, are you?"
Nudger got out of there. The tropical Florida sun seemed cool.
Vero Beach was a resort town on the Atlantic coast, a few hours' drive from Orlando. Nudger gassed up the Beetle and drove there.
Shady Retreat was south of the town, one of several buildings erected on relatively undeveloped beachfront property secluded from the highway by thick brush and palm trees. It was a converted large beach house, behind a mobile home office that rested with an air of permanence on a stone foundation that hid any sign of wheels or axles. The sunlight glinted brightly off the mobile home's white aluminum siding, causing Nudger's eyes to ache as he approached along a brick walkway flanked by azaleas. The sea slapped at the beach beyond the cast concrete structure behind the mobile home. Nudger pressed a button beside the glass storm door and heard a faint buzzing that reminded him of a fly trapped in a jar.
A dark-eyed man with black hair and wire-rimmed glasses opened the door. He was wearing a neat blue business suit with a maroon tie. He introduced himself as Dr. Mortimer and invited Nudger inside.
Nudger stepped into the coolness of the sparsely furnished office and handed Dr. Mortimer his card. The doctor glanced at it and slipped it into his pocket, then sat behind a tan metal desk, and in the manner of doctors asked Nudger how he could help him.
"Do you have a patient here named Harmon Medlark?" Nudger asked.
The doctor's face didn't change expression. "We don't ordinarily give out information on our patients."
"How many patients do you have at one time?" Nudger asked.
"Sometimes ten, at maximum. Right now we have five."
"And Harmon Medlark is one of them?"
The doctor seemed to struggle with his sense of ethics. "The information is very important to a lot of people, Doctor," Nudger said.
Doctor Mortimer nodded and finally said, "Yes, Mr. Medlark is here."
"For treatment of chronic alcoholism?"
Dr. Mortimer nodded. "As are all our patients."
Nudger's stomach was kicking up violently.
"Could you describe Harmon Medlark?"
"Average height, middle-aged, a rather handsome man." The doctor reached into a desk drawer and handed Nudger a slip of yellow paper. "Here's his admission form, filled out and signed by Medlark himself. His description and vital statistics are on it."
Nudger read: "Mr. Harmon Medlark/age 46/hgt. 5' 10"/wgt. 160/hair: gray/eyes: blue/occupation: real estate." He handed Doctor Mortimer the photograph. "Is this Medlark?" he asked.
Dr. Mortimer nodded.
"Would you mind doing me a favor, Doctor?" Nudger asked. "Just jot down Medlark's description on the back of the photo. It's kind of fuzzy and the color of hair and eyes and complexion couldn't be right. Here, just copy off this if you want." Nudger laid the yellow admission form on the desk before the doctor.
"Certainly," Dr. Mortimer agreed with a smile, withdrew a gold pen from his pocket and took a few minutes to comply with Nudger's request.
Nudger took the photograph the doctor handed back and read: Mr. Harmon Medlark/age 46/hgt. 5' 10"/wgt. 160/hair: grey/eyes: blue/occupation: real estate.
"Now, do you mind if I see Mr. Medlark?" Nudger said.
"How important is it, Mr. Nudger?"
"Very. And if I don't see him now, someone with authority certainly will later."
Dr. Mortimer sighed and laced his manicured fingers together tightly. "All right, if it's necessary, though I don't like the patient disturbed during withdrawal. Mr. Medlark is in Unit C."
Nudger thanked the doctor and left the office. He walked back along an extension of the brick path to the main building. A white-uniformed attendant seated in a webbed chair near the front door smiled and nodded to him. Nudger returned the smile but said nothing as he walked past and inside.
Unit C was one of the four ground floor units. Nudger knocked on the door, heard a muffled voice invite him to enter, and went in.
Before him in a white wicker tucking chair, reading a Time magazine sat his quarry.
"Harmon Medlark?" Nudger asked.
The handsome gray-haired man nodded. "I am. Are you Doctor Mortimer's assistant?"
"I am not. My name is Nudger. I'm a private detective hired by the so-called owners of Sun Joy Vacation Limited."
The wicker rocker stopped its gentle movement. "I know nothing about such a development."
"Who said it was a development? I might have been talking about a travel club."
"I'm not a travel agent, Mr. Nudger, I'm in real estate."
"Delores Bookbinder told me where to find you," Nudger said.
For an instant surprise showed in the blue eyes that surveyed Nudger. "Never heard of her. She sounds like a librarian."
"How about Eddie Regal?"
"I knew an Eddie Rogers once. Sold billiard accessories."
"Not the same fella, Herman."
"It's Harmon." The chair resumed its gentle back-andforth motion. Its occupant ignored Nudger and crackingly turned a page of Time.
Nudger stood listening to the creak of the wicker runners for a while, then turned and left the room. He asked the attendant if it was okay to use the telephone he'd noticed on the way in. The attendant said sure.
After using the phone, Nudger returned to the office in the white aluminum trailer. Dr. Mortimer was still at his desk, ostensibly studying an open file. He smiled at Nudger.
"Did you see Mr. Medlark?" he asked.
"I'm impressed," Nudger told him.
"We try to keep our facilities modern and—"
"I mean I'm impressed by the way I was led by the nose," Nudger said. "From Lani Katlo to Eddie Regal to Delores Bookbinder to here. Of course, I wouldn't have come here at all if Delores had been able to entice and derail me with her own special diversion. And then there was the deliberate absence of periods in Medlark's note to 'Mrs. Cupcake'—Delores no doubt—and signed 'Mr. Moneybags,' and the same absence of a period in the admission form you showed me. And let's not forget the fuzzy photograph."
"This is somewhat confusing," Dr. Mortimer said, raising an eyebrow at Nudger.
"It's simple once you have the key," Nudger said. "A network was set up in case anyone came looking for Medlark. That network guided me to Delores, where I would have wound up anyway in time, and if Delores couldn't deal with me she was to send me here and phone to warn you I was on my way. I was supposed to collar the wrong man then, and give the right man plenty of time to make other hideaway arrangements."
"Wrong man?" Dr. Mortimer asked.
"That isn't Harmon Medlark in Unit C," Nudger said. "That's someone hired to play a role as long as possible for the police while the heat is off the real Medlark. You're Harmon Medlark, behind that dyed hair and dark contact lenses. And that sound you hear is the law from Vero Beach turning into your driveway."
Dr. Mortimer seemed to absorb a powerful kick in the solar plexus. He slumped back in his chair, and his head lolled forward over his maroon tie that suddenly resembled a long tongue.
"It was a good idea, attempting to deflect rather than simply stonewall an investigator," Nudger said. "It might have worked. It was the note that put me onto you."
"The note?" Medlark-Mortimer croaked.
Nudger nodded. "The British spelling of gray, with an 'e,' was in the note to Mrs. Cupcake. The form filled out by the man in Unit C contained 'gray' with an 'a,' the common American spelling. But your description jotted on the back of the photograph contains 'grey' with an 'e,' like on the Medlark note. That was a genuine unconscious similarity you hadn't intended."
Car doors slammed outside.
"But it was our introduction that really tipped me," Nudger said.
Medlark glared at him from behind the desk, counting his remaining seconds of freedom. "I don't understand."
"You're the only one I gave a business card to
who didn't comment on the misspelling of detective. You were expecting me today, Mr. Medlark, and knew who and what I was, so you barely glanced at my card."
The police were pounding on the door.
"I'll let them in," Nudger said.
Harmon Medlark was studying the card Nudger had handed him earlier. "Defective," he muttered. "That isn't true at all."
Where Is Harry Beal?
"Mr. Nudger?" she said.
I said yes.
"It ain't every private detective that has a leaky trailer for an office." She closed her umbrella and stepped into my twelve-by-forty home and office.
"I like it," I told her. "I'm into moss and mushrooms." She was a weary-looking blonde, about forty, with brown eyes, a squarish homely face, and a nice shape except for thick ankles. "I want to hire you to find Harry Beal," she said.
"Who is he?"
"My friend. More than a friend—my lover for the past year."
"How do you mean he's lost?"
"The police found his coat, shoes, and tie on the Jefferson Bridge last week."
"He sounds lost in the worst way," I said, motioning for the woman to sit down on the undersized sofa. "You haven't told me your name."
"Helen Farrow. I'm a cocktail waitress at the Blue Bull on Seventh Avenue."
I poured myself another cup of morning coffee, offering a cup to Helen Farrow, who refused. "So you've gone to the police?"
"They think Harry committed suicide."
"Why don't you think that?"
"The evening of his death, the police received a call from a public phone booth near the bridge. It was Harry, saying someone had threatened to kill him and was following him. When a patrol car got to the booth there was no one around, but they found Harry's clothes on the bridge."
"If someone murdered him, it isn't likely they'd remove his coat, shoes, and tie. Is that what leads the police to believe it was suicide?"
"That's what they say."
But I knew that what had led to the easy conclusion of suicide was an undermanned and overworked police force. Lieutenant Catlin had told me about the department's troubles often enough.
"Have you got a photograph of Beal?"
She shook her head no.
"If it was murder, Beal's as dead as if it was suicide," I told her. "Either way, if a body hasn't washed up, the river's still got him—or maybe the ocean. People have jumped from that bridge and never been found."
"I don't think it was murder or suicide," she said stubbornly. "Neither one makes sense. I've drawn out all my savings. I want you to try to find Harry—alive."
"That sounds impossible."
"I know. But I'm paying your price and then some." A light came into her tired eyes that suggested a flinty toughness, an unexpected fineness of character to complement her desperation. She was one of those people who refuse to acknowledge hopelessness until they absolutely have to. "Harry was sort of my last chance, Mr. Nudger. And you're my last chance to find him."
I sighed, slid open a shallow desk drawer, and got out one of my contracts for Helen Farrow to sign, reflecting that it was this type of case that invariably brought me pain and eventually would kill me. Still, I would take it. "Don't be optimistic," I told her.
But she was. I could tell. What's the matter with people?
Lieutenant Charles Catlin looked up from behind the desk in his sparse, efficient office at police headquarters. The office was the standard pale green that needed a fresh coat of paint, and the drone of a dispatcher directing squad cars drifted in from a speaker in the booking area. From a portrait on the wall behind the desk, the commissioner seemed to be looking with stern disapproval over Catlin's shoulder.
"Hello, Nudger," Catlin said indifferently. He is a hulking man whose primal features belie a keen mind. "What brings you to this den of anti-crime."
"I'm on a job."
"The Yellow Pages strike again."
I sat down in the uncomfortable wooden chair alongside Catlin's desk. "Harry Beal," I said.
He nodded. "I talked to the girl he left behind him. She refuses to believe."
"She needs reassurance," I told him, "one way or the other. Fill me in on the case."
I knew Catlin would honor my request. We trade favors like Monopoly money. We both know neither of us is going to get rich in the real world.
Catlin repeated, in essence, Helen Farrow's short, sad account of the night of Beal's disappearance.
"So why a finding of suicide?" I asked.
"Because there's more evidence suggesting suicide than there's evidence suggesting murder or accidental death—this year's budget being what it is."
"What about Beal himself?"
"Forty-eight years old, Caucasian, worked as an office-equipment salesman, no living relatives."
"Did his clothes tell you anything?"
"Check with Denning in the lab if you want. I'm busy with important things." He made a slight waving motion with the back of his hand and began filling out a form on his desk. Charm wasn't his strong suit.
I left and took the elevator down to the lab.
Denning recognized me and nodded a friendly hello. We discussed our mutual revulsion for Catlin, then I asked Denning to tell me whatever he could about Harry Beal.
"He wore a size ten shoe, a 44-regular coat, and favored loud neckties."
He led me to where Beal's effects were stored, sliding open a metal file drawer long enough to contain a body.
The shoes were black wingtips, the suit coat was a medium-priced material and blue, the tie, a violent red, yellow, and gray. The soles of the shoes were about half worn, and there had been nothing in the suit coat pockets.
"Anything off the record?" I asked.
"There were a few strands of red hair on the suit coat," Denning said. "Dyed, I think."
"Helen Farrow's hair is dyed blonde."
"Who's Helen Farrow?"
"Beal's girl friend. My client."
"Poor woman." He looked at me with his lab-man's myopic gaze.
I left him without a kind word and drove my battered brown VW Rabbit to Helen Farrow's apartment. On the way I reviewed what I knew about the case, managed to start my nervous stomach churning, and popped an antacid tablet into my mouth. I have the knack but not the nerves for my profession.
Helen Farrow's apartment was in a declining part of town, on the third floor of a drab brick building with a chipped gargoyle on each side of the entrance. The apartment itself was small, cheaply furnished, and almost antiseptically clean and ordered. Helen Farrow was the kind who needed to know where things were and why. She let me in and I told her I'd come from headquarters.
"What did you find out?" she asked me.
"That Beal wore wingtip shoes. It's a start." I sat in a small vinyl chair and watched her pace. She stopped near a window overlooking the street and lighted a cigarette.
"Where did Beal work?" I asked.
"Gavner Enterprises, downtown. The police questioned Mr. Gavner, and I talked to him on the phone. He says Harry seemed depressed before his disappearance."
"I'll talk to Gavner," I told her, "but he'll most likely give me the same answers he gave the police."
She turned and stared at me, inhaling smoke from her cigarette as if it hurt her. I knew she wanted some words of encouragement. My opinion was that at the moment Harry Beal was somewhere underwater, being nibbled by the fishes. But Helen wouldn't have been encouraged to hear that, so I left the apartment without saying anything.
Gavner Enterprises occupied an inconspicuous suite of offices in an inconspicuous building downtown. There was no receptionist in the small, modern outer office, so I followed instructions on a sign telling visitors to press a button and wait.
Soon a voice boomed from the inner office, telling me to enter. I thought it was a bit unbusinesslike but I went in anyway.
The round-shouldered, gray-haired man behind the cluttered desk didn't stand as he acknowledged he was Gerald P. Gavner, but he offe
red his hand. He appeared to be in his early fifties, but there was a keen and vital gleam in his eyes that suggested he might be an aging Romeo who chased the office girls around their desks.
I soon discovered I'd misinterpreted that gleam.
"I didn't approve of Beal living with that woman out of wedlock," Gavner said in a clipped, concise voice. "That might be an old-fashioned point of view, but I think that kind of behavior reflects on the company. Still, the man was my best salesman and I attribute his living with the woman to the depression he seemed to slide into the year before his suicide."
"Depression?"
"Oh, some people probably wouldn't have noticed. But Beal was usually such an enthusiastic person that for him normal behavior constituted depression. The woman probably never saw his real character and didn't realize he was in a depressed state."
"A year is a long time to stay depressed," I said.
"He might have pulled out of it if it hadn't been for the Farnworth murder."
My stomach jumped at the word "murder."
"I don't know the case."
"Farnworth was the man who was tried and acquitted six years ago for the murder of Beal's wife and daughter in Texas. The feeling is that he was actually guilty but that he bought his way out of a conviction. Then, when Farnworth was killed last month, the police naturally suspected Beal. He had an ironclad alibi—wasn't within a thousand miles of the crime—but he was still questioned. Old wounds must have been opened, and I think that's what led him to do what he threatened."
"Beal had threatened suicide?"
"He'd made subtle references to it." Gavner folded his waxy hands, flashing a diamond pinky ring and raised quizzical eyebrows. "Did the police tell you?"
"Our relationship is such that they seldom go into great detail."
I left Gavner and drove back to headquarters, where I was lucky enough to find Catlin still in.
"Tell me about the murder of Beal's wife and daughter," I said.
"It's irrelevant," he answered, "so I don't mind telling you." He leaned back in his squeaky swivel chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "Six years ago a wealthy womanizer named Farnworth was having an affair with Beal's wife. He turned out to be more than a little kinky. He strangled the wife and fourteen-year-old daughter—or at least he was arrested and tried for the murders. Money being all-important in this world, some key witnesses changed their testimony and Farnworth was acquitted."