“Would you swear that he had your revolver?”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” He rapped the top of the white oak desk with his knuckles. “He took it out of the drawer in this desk. I saw him with my own eyes.”
“So did I. At least I saw a nickel-plated revolver. Maybe it was your revolver and maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was the murder weapon and maybe it wasn’t. It’s interesting that Mildred didn’t see him take it.”
“She did, though. You heard her say so.”
“A few minutes ago, she did. Not this morning. When she came to me this morning, she didn’t even know he had a gun.”
“On the contrary. She knew it very well. She was right here in this room with me. She saw him run out that door with the gun in his hand.” He pointed at the closed white door of the waiting room. “She even pleaded with me not to call the police about it, but naturally I did, as soon as she left.”
“That’s not her story.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Somebody is a liar.”
He took an awkward boxing stance and raised his balled fists. “I’ve taken enough from you. Now you get out of here or I’ll throw you out.”
“I wouldn’t try it, Doctor. You look out of training. Just tell me where she lives, and I’ll go peacefully. I want to check your stories against each other.”
“Do that,” he snapped. “She has an apartment in the Vista Hotel. Number 317. It’s not far—”
“I know where it is, thanks.”
I went out into the quiet residential street and got into my car. A sprinkler on the lawn across the street had caught a rainbow in its net of spray. Above the treetops in the distance, the tower of the city hall stood whitely against the sky, a symbol of law and order and prosperity. I kicked the starter savagely. Behind its peaceful façade, the afternoon was swollen with disaster. Like a monster struggling to be born out of the vast blue belly of the sky.
The Vista Hotel was an old three-story building which stood on a green triangle near the Boulevard. It was swept by waves of sound from the unceasing traffic. An iron fire escape wept long yellow tears down its stucco sides. I drove by slowly, looking for a parking place.
Above the sound of my engine, the remoter roar from the boulevard, something cracked in the air. I stopped my car and looked up at the sky. If it had split like an eggshell, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But the sky was serene enough.
I left the car where it was, in the middle of the street. Before I reached the sidewalk, the cracking noise was repeated. Somebody said, “No,” in a high voice which sounded barely human.
A man appeared on the hotel fire escape, outside a third-floor window. He hung over the railing for a moment, like a seasick passenger on a ship. His short hair shone like wheat stubble in the sun. His mouth was bright with blood.
He started down the fire escape, holding on to the railing, hand-over-hand. Ostervelt came out on the iron platform above him, his forty-five in his fist. He pointed it at Carl Heller’s head and sighted along the barrel.
I shouted at the top of my lungs: “Don’t shoot!”
Ostervelt was as oblivious as a statue. The flash of his gun was pale in the light, but in the open air the crack was louder. It sounded like something breaking, something valuable which could never be replaced.
Carl stood on the iron steps, leaning against the railing, perfectly still, as if he had been transfixed by a terrible insight. Anguish was radiant on his face. Then his head and his knees went loose, and he somersaulted to the second-floor platform. He lay there like a bundle of blue rags.
I climbed up to him. The drag of gravity was powerful on my legs. When I got to him he was dead. There was a hole in the back of his head, another hole in the middle of his back, a third hole in his belly. He was barefooted.
Above me, Ostervelt replaced his gun in its holster with the air of a good workman putting away a tool. He sat down heavily on the iron steps:
“Too bad. I had to do it. He was hiding in the kitchenette in Milly’s apartment. I figure he was waiting until I left, so he could get his crazy hands on her. I heard a noise in there. I pulled my gun and opened the door. He came at me with a knife in his hand.”
“Where’s the knife?”
“He dropped it when I plugged him the first time. Dropped it and made for the window.”
“Did you have to shoot him twice more?”
“Maybe not. I usually finish what I start. He wasn’t much use to himself alive, anyway. You might say that I saved him a lot of grief.”
“I think he had it all,” I said. “All the grief there is.”
“Maybe so. Well, it’s all over now.”
“Not quite.” I looked down at the ruined head.
A prowl car rounded the corner and squealed to a stop behind my double-parked car. Two uniformed cops with outraged faces got out. Ostervelt yelled in a big cracked voice:
“Up here.”
The men in uniform ran across the lawn towards the fire escape. Their feet were silent in the grass.
“You handle them, Sheriff,” I said. “I want to talk to Mildred.”
He rose with a sigh and stood against the wall to let me pass him on the narrow steps. I didn’t want to touch him. But his belly protruded like a medicine ball under his clothes, and I had to.
Mildred’s room was cheaply furnished with a studio bed, a threadbare rug, a couple of chairs, a record-player on a rickety table. The sheriff’s evidence case was on the table beside it. Mildred was hunched over on the edge of the studio bed with her face in her hands. When I stepped over the windowsill, I saw her eyes sparkle between her fingers:
“Is he dead?”
“Ostervelt saw to that.”
“How dreadful.” She dropped her hands. Her face was white and intent. There were no tears on it. She said: “Yet I suppose it had to be. It’s lucky for me that Ostie came up here with me. He might have killed me.”
“I doubt that, Mrs. Heller.”
“He killed the others,” she said. “It would have been my turn next. You should have seen him when he came lunging out with that knife in his hand.”
A long knife gleamed on the worn rug outside the open door to the kitchenette. I picked it up and tested its edge with my thumb. It was a wavy-edged bread-knife, very sharp. A few small bread crumbs clung to its shining surface.
“I wish I had been here,” I said. “I’d have taken the knife away from him. Your husband would still be alive.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. He was terribly strong—”
“Not as strong as you, Mrs. Heller. He was like a child in your hands. So was I for a while.”
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t answer her. I turned on my heel and went into the kitchenette. It was a tiny cubicle containing an apartment stove and refrigerator, a sink and a small cupboard. A loaf of bread and an open jar of peanut butter stood on the masonite workboard beside the sink. A slice of bread, half-severed, hung on one end of the loaf. A pot of coffee was steaming on the stove.
On a towel rack above the stove, a pair of gray cotton socks were hanging limply. I took them down and stretched them out in my hands. They were clean and very large, about size twelve—a pair of men’s work socks which someone had washed and hung up to dry. They were nearly dry.
Mildred appeared in the doorway. Her blue eyes were inky, almost black in her white face:
“What are you doing in here? You’ve got no right to interfere with my things.”
I held up the gray socks. “Are these your things? They’re pretty big for you.”
“What are they? How did they get here?”
“They’re your husband’s socks. He wore them here. Apparently he took them off and washed them and hung them up to dry. He must have done that quite some time ago, because they’re just about dry. Feel them.”
She backed away, her arms stiff at her sides.
“He must have been here in your apa
rtment for quite a long time,” I said. “In fact, I’ll give you odds that Carl was here all day.”
“But that’s impossible. He was at the ranch. There was the gun.”
“Yes, there was the gun. But there was no evidence that he carried it there or used it on his brother.”
“I saw him there.” Her face was grim and haggard, as if a generation of years had fallen on her in the past five minutes. “I went out in the greenhouse to see if Jerry was all right. Carl was with him. I actually saw him shoot Jerry.”
“Where were you?”
“In the passageway between the house and the greenhouse.”
“That much I believe.”
“It’s true. It’s all true.”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“I hated to. After all I am his wife.”
“His widow,” I said. “His merry little widow. You didn’t tell us because it didn’t happen. You went out in the greenhouse, no doubt, but Jerry was alone. And you were carrying the revolver yourself.”
“I couldn’t have,” she said. “You know I couldn’t have. Carl had the revolver. I saw him take it from Dr. Grantland’s desk.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that this morning?”
“Didn’t I? It must have slipped my mind. Anyway, he had it. He showed it to you in your office this morning. You told me that yourself.”
“I know I did. Is that when you got your big idea?”
“What big idea? I don’t understand.”
“The big idea of shooting Jerry and using Carl’s escape for a coverup. The same way you used him to cover you when you strangled his father.”
Her breath was quick, and loud in the hidden passages of her head. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t know for certain, until now.”
“You tricked me.” She spat the words.
“That’s fair enough. You conned me nicely in my office this morning. When I told you Carl was carrying a gun, you put on a very good act. Surprised alarm. It took me in completely. The gun was in your bag at that very moment. I suppose you met him coming out of my office, and talked him into giving you the gun. Talked him into coming here to your apartment and lying low. He was the sucker of the century, but I was a close second. I even gave you transportation to the scene of the crime. And you went through the same routine that worked five years ago, and almost worked again.”
Her mouth twisted in a ghastly mimicry of a coaxing smile. “You wouldn’t tell anybody on me, would you? You don’t know what I’ve been through, how awful it was to marry a man and have him turn out crazy. And then we had to go and live with his family. You don’t know how I suffered from that family. I thought if the old man died, we’d be able to get some money and break free. How was I to know they’d lock Carl up for it? Or that Jerry would cut me off the way he did?”
“Is that why you killed Jerry?”
“He deserved it. Besides, I was afraid they’d open the case again when Carl escaped.”
“Did Carl deserve what you did to him?”
“I didn’t do it,” she said. “It was Sheriff Ostervelt.”
“You set him up for Ostervelt. You knew he was here. You knew that Ostervelt was trigger-happy, and stuck on you besides. You brought him up here and sat and let it happen.”
“Carl was no great loss to anybody. None of them was.”
“They were human beings,” I said. “Somebody has to pay for them.”
Her face brightened. “I’ll pay. I don’t have a great deal, but Carl had several insurance policies. I’ll go halves with you. Nobody has to know all this. Do they?”
“You’ve got me wrong. Money won’t pay for lives.”
“Listen to me,” she said rapidly. “Twenty thousand dollars, that’s what I’ll give you. It’s more than half of the insurance money that’s coming to me.”
“You’ve got more than that coming to you, Mrs. Heller. A private room made of concrete, without any windows.”
She took in my meaning slowly. It hit her like a delayed-action bullet, disorganizing her face. She turned and ran across the living room. When I came out of the kitchenette, she had the black case open, the revolver in her hand like a silver forefinger pointed at my heart. It gleamed in the long shadow that fell across the room from the single window.
I glanced at the window. Ostervelt was there, his elbow propped on the sill. His forty-five roared and spat. Mildred took three steps backwards and slammed against the wall like a body dropped from a height. The blood gushed from her breast. She tried to hold it in with her fists. She said, “Ostie?” in a tone of girlish surprise. Then the rising blood gagged her.
She covered her mouth politely with her hand, and fell down dead. Ostervelt clambered awkwardly through the window. His face was solemn. His eyes were little and hard and dry.
“You didn’t have to kill her, Sheriff. You could have shot the revolver out of her hand.”
“I know I could.”
“I thought you were fond of the girl.”
“I was. I heard what you said about the gas chamber. I also heard what she said. It was cleaner this way.” He was thoughtful for a minute, listening to the clatter of footsteps on the fire escape. “Anyway, she shouldn’t have let me shoot Carl. I don’t like that. It wasn’t fair to him or to me. It wasn’t fair to the law.” He looked down at the heavy gun. “What did the crazy fella think he was doing, coming out like that with the knife in his hand?”
“He was cutting bread,” I said. “He was going to make himself a peanut butter sandwich.”
Ostervelt sighed deeply. Policemen started to come into the room.
MIDNIGHT BLUE
It had rained in the canyon during the night. The world had the colored freshness of a butterfly just emerged from the chrysalis stage and trembling in the sun. Actual butterflies danced in flight across free spaces of air or played a game of tag without any rules among the tree branches. At this height there were giant pines among the eucalyptus trees.
I parked my car where I usually parked it, in the shadow of the stone building just inside the gates of the old estate. Just inside the posts, that is—the gates had long since fallen from their rusted hinges. The owner of the country house had died in Europe, and the place had stood empty since the war. It was one reason I came here on the occasional Sunday when I wanted to get away from the Hollywood rat race. Nobody lived within two miles.
Until now, anyway. The window of the gatehouse overlooking the drive had been broken the last time that I’d noticed it. Now it was patched up with a piece of cardboard. Through a hole punched in the middle of the cardboard, bright emptiness watched me—human eye’s bright emptiness.
“Hello,” I said.
A grudging voice answered: “Hello.”
The gatehouse door creaked open, and a white-haired man came out. A smile sat strangely on his ravaged face. He walked mechanically, shuffling in the leaves, as if his body was not at home in the world. He wore faded denims through which his clumsy muscles bulged like animals in a sack. His feet were bare.
I saw when he came up to me that he was a huge old man, a head taller than I was and a foot wider. His smile was not a greeting or any kind of a smile that I could respond to. It was the stretched, blind grimace of a man who lived in a world of his own, a world that didn’t include me.
“Get out of here. I don’t want trouble. I don’t want nobody messing around.”
“No trouble,” I said. “I came up to do a little target shooting. I probably have as much right here as you have.”
His eyes widened. They were as blue and empty as holes in his head through which I could see the sky.
“Nobody has the rights here that I have. I lifted up mine eyes unto the hills and the voice spoke and I found sanctuary. Nobody’s going to force me out of my sanctuary.”
I could feel the short hairs bristling on the back of my neck. Though my instincts didn’t say so, he was probably a harmless nut. I tried to keep my instincts
out of my voice.
“I won’t bother you. You don’t bother me. That should be fair enough.”
“You bother me just being here. I can’t stand people. I can’t stand cars. And this is twice in two days you come up harrying me and harassing me.”
“I haven’t been here for a month.”
“You’re an Ananias liar.” His voice whined like a rising wind. He clenched his knobbed fists and shuddered on the verge of violence.
“Calm down, old man,” I said. “There’s room in the world for both of us.”
He looked around at the high green world as if my words had snapped him out of a dream.
“You’re right,” he said in a different voice. “I have been blessed, and I must remember to be joyful. Joyful. Creation belongs to all of us poor creatures.” His smiling teeth were as long and yellow as an old horse’s. His roving glance fell on my car. “And it wasn’t you who come up here last night. It was a different automobile. I remember.”
He turned away, muttering something about washing his socks, and dragged his horny feet back into the gatehouse. I got my targets, pistol, and ammunition out of the trunk, and locked the car up tight. The old man watched me through his peephole, but he didn’t come out again.
Below the road, in the wild canyon, there was an open meadow backed by a sheer bank which was topped by the crumbling wall of the estate. It was my shooting gallery. I slid down the wet grass of the bank and tacked a target to an oak tree, using the butt of my heavy-framed twenty-two as a hammer.
While I was loading it, something caught my eye—something that glinted red, like a ruby among the leaves. I stooped to pick it up and found that it was attached. It was a red-enameled fingernail at the tip of a white hand. The hand was cold and stiff.
I let out a sound that must have been loud in the stillness. A jaybird erupted from a manzanita, sailed up to a high limb of the oak, and yelled down curses at me. A dozen chickadees flew out of the oak and settled in another at the far end of the meadow.
The Archer Files Page 39