The Drowner

by John D. MacDonald

  “But it doesn’t have to mean that …”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “Maybe she just hid it better than you thought, Sam.”

  “It’s gone.”

  “I … I just don’t know what to say. It … it’s a lot of money to lose like that.”

  “That isn’t what I lost.”

  “I don’t see why the two things have to be related, necessarily.”

  “You had to let somebody know how cute you were.”

  “Sam, I swear to God I didn’t tell anybody. Maybe … maybe she told somebody. Maybe she got upset and wanted advice from somebody.”

  “Because you upset her.”

  “Sam, I was only trying to do my best for you in the only way I know how.”

  Kimber studied him and nodded and spoke as though to himself. “You plain wouldn’t have the guts to go after it or hire somebody to go after it. But you went behind my back and tricked my woman and upset her.”

  “Sam, I was only …”

  “You helped me enough, Gussy. I want every last piece of paper that’s got anything to do with me or anything I’m connected with pulled out of your files and turned over to Angie by the close of business tomorrow.”

  “Now wait a minute!”

  “Your lease ends the end of this year, but you’d be better off in your mind if you get yourself out of my building soon as you can find a place to move to.”

  “Sam, you’re not thinking clearly.”

  “Any time you see me coming down the sidewalk toward you, you cross the street, hear?”

  “Listen to me!”

  “What have you got to say?”

  “You need me, Sam. I can do more for you in a tax way than anybody you could get. I know all the problems first hand. I got a perfect way figured to get you out of the pocket you’re in right now. In all honesty, Sam, let me advise you that you shouldn’t let emotions get the upper hand. Think this over for a few days. What did I do that was so wrong?”

  “Let me walk you out, Gussy.”

  “You’ll think about it?”

  “I’m thinking about it right now.”

  “You don’t want to do anything hasty. I mean … I could tell the tax people maybe I left something out of the balance sheet. An oversight.”

  “I’m learning more about you every passing minute, Gussy.”

  Gus Gable walked toward the door and tensed as Sam put a casual arm across his shoulders. They went into the ante-office. Angie was typing. A man in a pale suit was waiting. Gus started to turn but was held motionless as a big hand clasped the nape of his neck. He caught a glimpse of Angie’s startled face before Sam turned him toward the door. “Hold that door open for me, Angie honey,” Sam said.

  “Don’t do anything you’ll regret!” Gus said in a thin uncertain voice.

  “Or you’ll sue,” Sam said mildly.

  Angie held the door open. Gus knew this could not be happening. It would turn out to be a joke. It couldn’t happen, because it would spoil the big deal. Charlie Diller had it all set up.

  And suddenly he was being rushed toward the open door. At the last moment something grasped the seat of his pants, yanked his legs back, and he heard a grunt of effort. Then he was sliding along the smooth tile on his belly, past the public elevator, scrabbling at the floor with his bare hands. He piled into the far wall, cracking the top of his head painfully. The door behind him hissed shut. He got up uncertainly. He touched the top of his head and looked at the blood on his fingertips. Suddenly he saw the shape of all his days, saw all of the merciless future. He leaned against the wall, his forehead against the textured paneling, and with no attempt to stifle his sobs, he began to cry.

  Sam noticed that when Angie went back to her desk she made a rather wide circle around him, and he felt a distant amusement. “Need us some new tax people, I guess,” he said. “Gussy will be sending all the files up tomorrow.”

  “Yes sir, Mister Sam.”

  “What’s the name of those folks in Orlando? Brewer something?”

  “Bruner and McCabe, Mister Sam.”

  “You get them on over here tomorrow afternoon. They’ll come a-running.”

  “Okay, Mister Sam.”

  He was suddenly aware of the expressionless composure of the young man in the pale suit. “Now just who the hell is this, Miss Angie?”

  “Why this here is that insurance man, name of Mr. Paul Stanial,” she said.

  “Tell him to come on in,” Sam said, and went into his office.

  Seven

  “Set,” Sam Kimber said to Stanial. He went to a small executive refrigerator set into the paneled wall. “Join me in a beer, Mister Stanial? One time when I was I guess about twenty-three, I optioned me a real nice piece of grove. Snuck in ahead of some Tampa money only because I’d hunted some with the old boy owning it and he had to sell out and move to a high dry place for a lung trouble. Had to scratch so deep for the option money, I damn near had to get out of the habit of eating. The Tampa boys knew I didn’t have a prayer of coming up with the closing money. We did some dickering, and it was dragging on, and I wanted to scare them some. These wall boxes for offices had just come out then. So with maybe eleven dollars in the whole world, I wired that Abercrombie and Fitch to rush one of these boxes to each of them, just a little token of nice treatment. Shook them up good. Man can make a gesture like that maybe has good backing. They made a nervous phone call, and I said I was leaving for California the next day. If it was a dollar around the world, I couldn’t got out of sight. So they bought it off me at my price in a big hurry.”

  He levered the cans open, handed one across to Stanial, sat behind his desk and said, “I don’t usually terminate business relationships the way you just seen, Mister Stanial. Now what you got on your mind?”

  Paul Stanial went through his insurance routine, the presentation of credentials. Throughout it Kimber watched him idly, and under the sallow brows the eyes were as unemphatic as two bits of watery glass in a taxidermy shop.

  “Want to rule out suicide, you say.”

  “Or establish it, Mr. Kimber.”

  “Interesting. Now why would you be coming to me?”

  “It seems to be common knowledge you were a close friend of the deceased.”

  “And a thing like you’re trying to prove or disprove, you got a natural right to go around asking a lot of real personal questions, I guess.”

  “Part of the job, Mr. Kimber.”

  “You good at your job, Mister Stanial?”

  “I seem to keep the company satisfied.”

  “You let me have the policy number, on account of I want to phone up the home office of that North Atlantic Mutual and tell them just how nice and dignified and all you’re doing this here unpleasant job.”

  “I would certainly appreciate that, Mr. Kimber.”

  “By God, there wasn’t one little change in your eyes then. There’s one thing I like, it’s a man can handle his job. And I don’t know as I’d get too much enjoyment out of you in a poker session, Mister Stanial.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve lost me, sir.”

  “You know, you could damn near sell me on this thing. It’s just that I happen to know Lucille didn’t have any such policy.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, come off it, for crissake! I went over every part of her private financial affairs, Stanial. No two people ever had less secrets. Want me to tell you about her insurance? She had a little two thousand dollar policy she was trying to hang onto with Connecticut General, a straight life policy, and the premium loans had used up about all the little bit of equity she had in it. Her mother is the beneficiary. I tried to talk her into letting me pay it back up to the point where she’d be even with the board, but she wouldn’t let me. There was damn little she’d let me do for her.”

  Stanial waited a long silent moment, then took his legitimate identification card out of his wallet and handed it to Kimber. Kimber examined it and slid
it back to him. “Who’s paying the freight, Mister Stanial?”

  “The sister.”

  “Why?”

  “She thinks Lucille was murdered.”

  “What gives her that idea?”

  Again Stanial hesitated, then opened his brief case and located the photocopy of the significant paragraph of the letter from Lucille to Barbara. Kimber took so long over it, Stanial could not tell how many times he was reading it. Then Kimber finished his beer, wrapped his big right hand around the can and crumpled it as though it were made of foil. He dropped the wadded can in the waste basket beside the desk.

  “I am the one she calls A,” Kimber said. “And B is the one you seen sliding out on his belly. B is the one tricked her. It would be right nice to know who C is. B tricked her maybe three weeks ago. She should have told me.”

  “Do you think she was killed, Mr. Kimber?”

  “Do you?”

  “I stopped playing my games. You want to stop playing yours?”

  Kimber swiveled his chair around so far Stanial could see just the back of his neck and left side of his face. “Somehow,” Kimber said, “I don’t want to say it right out. Even having it in my mind makes me feel as if I’d been gutted. And it gives me a wild feeling back in my head, like if it busted out I’d do terrible things without even knowing I was doing them. When I had my hand on Gus Gable’s neck, with Angie going toward the door, I was thinking how easy it would be to turn him the other way and run him right on out that big window over by Mrs. Nimmits’ desk, and hear him give one squeak as he dropped into the parking lot. The minute I heard Lu was dead, something died inside me, Mister Stanial. And I just don’t give a damn what I do. And that’s a dangerous way for a man to be.”

  “I don’t know whether she was killed or not because I don’t know what was at stake, Mr. Kimber. I can guess a few things. That position of trust. She was keeping something for you, I guess, because I know you went to her apartment to get it after she died. I don’t know what it was, or whether it was still there. You told Mrs. Carey you got what you were after. But I think somebody got there ahead of you.”

  Kimber whirled the chair back. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Whoever took her key. Apparently it was on her key ring with the car keys and two other door keys. And unless somebody took it after it got to Walmo’s office, it was taken there at the lake. I know you’re in tax difficulties. Walmo seems to think you were after some confidential accounts she was keeping for you.”

  “Just this minute he stopped having any future in this county.”

  “He knows who hired me and why. He said he’d stake his life you didn’t kill her or have her killed. He believes it was an accidental drowning. But he has to cover himself. Suppose I did come up with some other answer. Then he’d have to explain to the state’s attorney why he withheld significant information. Because you’re an old friend? His best bet was to level with me.”

  “Harv just ain’t that shrewd, Stanial. He figures I’m down, and down for keeps, so if he stomps me a little, it doesn’t matter. You know, maybe he’s right.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If this here turns into an official murder case, it’s going to come out what I left with her. And then maybe I am whipped for good.”

  “What was it?”

  “Talking to you like this is part of that not giving a damn any more, I guess. Gus Gable can do me harm, and probably will. What the hell is one more. It was money, boy. Undeclared and unaccounted-for money that just didn’t happen to get into the audit they made on me. In a little blue zipper flight bag, packed in solid. One hundred and six thousand dollars cash money.”

  “Why with her?”

  “Why not with her? No matter where I had to run to, I would have sent for her. So it was easier she should bring it, if worse came to worse. Funny thing. By today I would have took it back, on account of the pressure being off. She never did know what it was, Stanial. It was the only time I ever lied to her. And it could have been that lie killed her. I don’t know how, but I have that feeling. If I told her what it was she would have thought less of me, and I wanted her to think I was the best man walking. Maybe she wouldn’t have held it for me. I don’t know. She had strong ideas on the way folks should act. Now I guess I can say it out loud. I think somebody killed Lucille.”

  “So do I. I think they held onto that key until that night. Mrs. Carey watches a late movie on television every night. The entrance to the apartment is in the back.”

  “Now hold off there a minute, Stanial. Why would they wait until night? How would they know I didn’t have a key to that place, and wouldn’t go get it the minute I heard she was dead. I didn’t get there until the next day, but how would they be able to count on that?”

  “Murderers aren’t necessarily logical, Mr. Kimber.”

  “We better be Paul and Sam, because as of right now we’re working the same side of the street. That is, if you’re easy in your mind it wasn’t me did it or had it done. You could be thinking that way. You could be thinking I get too relaxed with her and tell her too much about some ways I’ve made money and she gets so upset about it she says she’s going to turn me in, and I can’t find any other way to stop her.”

  “I thought of that.”

  “You’d be damn useless in your work if’n you didn’t. Or she was through with me, and I couldn’t stand the thought of her going back to that Hanson. And I did get the money back and have it hid. And I had a key all along, but figured it would look better going through Harv Walmo to get it. What you think about that, Paul?”

  Stanial opened his notebook, found the right page. “You went to Lakeland that day, Sam. You had an appointment at ten o’clock with a man named Richter and a realtor named Lowe. You examined some property and you had lunch with them, and left the restaurant at two o’clock. It’s a fifty minute drive back from there. At about three o’clock, as you were getting out of your car, a man named Charles Best came up to you and told you Lucille had drowned in Flamingo Lake.” Stanial closed the notebook. “Hired it done? You’d never give anybody that much leverage to use against you.”

  “That sister is getting service for her money. I could figure on getting rid of whoever I hired to do it, couldn’t I?”

  “In that case you’d have thought of a better place than a lake in broad daylight where people might show up at any moment. The circumstances make it look like an impulse killing, Sam.”

  “But it went off pretty slick. But for that letter to the sister, it would all quiet down.”

  “Impulse killings sometimes work out as well as the planned ones.”

  “How about Hanson?”

  “I have one more person to see to confirm where he was at the time. Did Lucille have a key to your shack?”

  “She had one.”

  “And one to Doctor Nile’s office. But if we assume somebody took the apartment key off the ring, they either had to know what the apartment key looked like or, using a process of elimination, what the other two looked like. They weren’t tagged.”

  There was a knock at the door and Angie Powell opened it. “There anything else for me, Mister Sam?”

  “Lord God, girl, it’s after seven.”

  “The league starts at eight tonight. I got time. You want to sign these so they can go out?” She put a thin stack of letters in front of Sam Kimber.

  Angie stood beside Sam as he scanned them rapidly, scrawled his name. She smiled absently at Stanial. “Here you go,” Sam said. She picked up the letters.

  “I got ahold of Mr. McCabe at his home phone,” she said. “Him and Mr. Bruner junior can be here at three o’clock tomorrow, if it’s okay.”

  “It’ll be all right. You going to miss Gus?”

  She looked troubled. “It’s not for me to say, Mister Sam. I guess it’s whether you will. He did you some good work, it looks like.”

  “But he messed up on one little thing.”

  She glanced uneasily at Stanial. “I
guess when and if you want to tell me, there’ll be a time and place. I just hope he won’t … find any way to mess us up, Mister Sam.”

  “He’ll sure try.”

  “Goodnight, Mister Sam. Goodnight, Mr. Stanial.”

  The monumental girl strode out, silent except for a whisper of fabric, a tick of the door latch, leaving a faint drift of flower perfume in the chilled air.

  After a few moments of silence, Stanial said, “I’ve taken up enough of your time, Sam.”

  “Hold it a minute. That letter she sent her sister. The way it reads to me, the other person that knew about the money, the one she calls C, they had to find out from Gus.”

  “It looks that way. But she could have told somebody else too.”

  “You make out a list of people’d like to do me harm, and you could read yourself to sleep. Then again there would be men who’d see her as tasty, and want to make their try. But she’d battle them. The more you think, the more it widens out, Paul. You think we’ll narrow it down?”

  Stanial nodded. “Tomorrow people will be talking about murder. And somebody will remember something. It didn’t mean anything at the time to them, but they will remember and start wondering, and then tell somebody else. The pressure will build up.”

  “I’m going to put a little more pressure on Gus. Maybe he let somebody in on it without knowing he was doing it Could be I could freshen his memory some.”

  The remnants of the sunset had turned to a dingy saffron, and suddenly it seemed quite dark in the office. A lurid flash of pink lightning was followed immediately by a startling crack and roll of thunder. Kimber stood up and looked out the window, silhouetted, his hands in his hip pockets.

  “Working toward it all day,” he said.

  “Are we going to get it this time?” Stanial asked.

  “Going to be a real old soaker.”

  When the rain became so heavy Stanial could not see to drive, he pulled cautiously off onto the wide soft shoulder and turned the motor off. The rain roared down so heavily onto the car, conversation was impossible. Gusts of wind shook the car. The side vents were the only windows they could leave open. He could see the flashes of lightning but he could not hear the thunder. He thought he heard the girl laugh, a sound of pleasure and excitement. The car windows were opaque with the steam of their exhalations. He lit two cigarettes and handed her one. In the brief illuminations of the lightning he saw her with her back against the passenger door in dark blouse and pale shorts, her young legs curled in the seat. Suddenly the heavy rain turned into a jangling din of hail, and just as suddenly it moved away, leaving them in a relative silence.