“Yes. By Telboht Brothers, Chicago. I’m on a two-month vacation.”
“The choice is up to you.”
I looked over at Quillan. I looked back at the Chief. I knew they could make a great deal of trouble. I hadn’t handled myself very well. I couldn’t see myself agreeing to leave and trying to sneak back into the village.
I tried to be ingratiating. Maybe that was a mistake too. “All right. I guess I’ve been out of line. You people probably have a legitimate beef. But I was jumped by those three men. I’m not drunk. I did buy the girl a beer. And now I’ll give you something else. I had to rough up a kid. The others call him Smith. I parked and waited where the Garson girl told me to wait. Over on the other side of the square. He came along and snapped a cigarette into my face. I roughed him over and threw him into the bushes. I willingly admit that. And I admit that I’ve been trying to find out more about the murder of Jane Ann Paulson. There are three of us who are convinced he didn’t do it. Victoria Landy, John Tennant and myself. And there are two who are half convinced he didn’t. Nancy Paulson and Ginny Garson. I’ve uncovered something that didn’t come out at the trial. It makes the case against Alister Landy look weaker.”
Quillan gave a heavy snort of laughter. The Chief looked amused. “What is this evidence, Mr. Private Eye, sir?”
“Jane Ann had been getting money from somebody over a long period of time. She spent most of it on expensive clothes. She kept those clothes in her school locker and with Ginny Garson. At the time of her death she had over eight hundred dollars in her possession. It wasn’t found until the trial was on and it wasn’t reported. You could find the stores in Warrentown where she bought the stuff.”
“I think you’re making a mistake, sir. Speaking as man to man, we all know that Jane Ann was a wild kid. The village prefers to forget all that. If someone was giving her money, it has no bearing.”
“Why not?”
“Let me tell him, Chief,” Quillan said. “I had the Landy kid alone. I had him alone for three hours. I didn’t leave a mark on him. Not one mark. And I got a confession. A nice juicy confession with all the details. But they didn’t want to use it. Milligan figured he had enough. He figured the confession would be repudiated, see? And he was afraid Tennant would bring up how I got in a little trouble a couple of times, getting people to talk free like. So we know he confessed and plenty of people in this town know he confessed. So, like the Chief says, you still got your choice. Get the hell out, or get tossed in the can. And nobody is going to give you a hard time about the Smith kid, except maybe his old man.”
“Hardesty Smith, Senior, is president of our bank here,” the Chief said. “He suffered certain minor injuries—his son did—while resisting arrest by Quillan. I managed to save Quillan’s job. We’re still waiting, Mr. MacReedy, sir.”
“I guess you better charge me, then. And get bail set.”
Chief Score looked uncomfortable. “You aren’t being reasonable. We’re fair people here. We expect you to be reasonable. Mr. Quillan, do you think you could persuade Mr. MacReedy to be reasonable?”
Quillan got up. “Come on along, pal. Come with Barney.”
When I tried to hold back, his big hand tightened on my arm. I looked back at the Chief. He looked flushed and pleased. He had a happy look of anticipation.
Quillan took me down a short hallway. “What are you going to do?”
“In here, pal.” He pushed me into a dark room, turned on an overhead light. There was a table, a frayed couch, two sagging chairs, a single window. He spun me around and released me. “The Chief is a nice guy. Everybody likes the Chief. You don’t like him.”
“I don’t like him or dislike him. I just don’t want to be run out—”
He moved without warning, without any preliminary tensing of muscles. He thudded the heel of his hand against my forehead. It dazed me, and my neck creaked as I went back, stumbling against one of the chairs.
“That doesn’t leave a mark,” he said. “We aren’t big time. But we don’t leave marks. We’re just village cops. We’re easy to get along with. We keep a nice clean town here.”
He moved slowly toward me as he spoke and I circled away from him. I wouldn’t have felt safe with an ax in my hands. I wouldn’t have felt safe with anything smaller than a Colt .45.
He grinned at me and said, “Now you’re supposed to tell me what a big shot you are, and all about how I’m going to be in all kinds of trouble. Come on. Tell me.” He blocked my way, moving me back toward a corner. I sensed what he wanted. He wanted me to fight back. I did a difficult thing. I stood absolutely still, my arms at my sides, and let him come up to me.
He moved slightly to the side and said, “Here’s another one.” He swung and hit me across the diaphragm with the flat of his hand. It was like being slapped with a plank. I doubled over slightly and he moved in front of me and snapped the cheek bruise with a heavy finger. “You had that one when you came in,” he said. He then banged the heel of his hand against my forehead. I hit the wall, bounced off, fell to both knees. I stayed there. He put a big foot against my chest and shoved. I hit the wall again.
I knew then that it wasn’t going to do any good. Passive acceptance didn’t slow him down. It made it easier for him. I got up very slowly and as he approached I started to turn away from him, and then turned back, letting the anger flare up, using the quickness and the violence that only anger can give. I hooked him in the stomach with a left as hard as I could. It was like hitting a padded tree. I crossed the right to his jaw. He went back two heavy steps. I repeated the combination and his knees sagged. When I swung for his face the third time, he pulled back away from the blow and hit me, one thunderous right hand under the heart that swept me off my feet. I came up as quickly as I could, my whole left side knotted with pain. As I tried to lead he caught my arm, pulled me half by him, and chopped down on my left kidney with the edge of his thick hand. I think I screamed. I twisted loose. I knew I could not lift my left arm. Pain kept it doubled against me. Everything in the room seemed to have misted out except his face. There was no expression there except a workmanlike concentration. I knew I had to hit him once more with my right hand, that I had to put everything into it and make the blow clean and certain. I swung and missed and he pushed me back as if I were a child.
“Wait a minute!” he said. His head was tilted. He was listening. He expected me to stop as though this were a kind of game we were playing. As I gathered myself to try again, he turned and opened the door and left the room. I staggered through the doorway, sick and dizzy. He walked to the entrance, massive against the light, seeming to fill the hall from side to side. I leaned against the wall, a great cramp in my left side, sucking air through clenched teeth. My vision was clearing slowly.
I saw him open the door, look down, lean over, pick someone up. The Chief came to the door of his office. I heard his shocked gasp. The two men went into his office. I saw one arm dangling, swinging loosely. The door was straight ahead. I shuffled toward it. I stopped when I came to the open office door I would have to pass, gathering my strength to move quickly.
I heard the Chief say, “I think it’s the Garson girl. Good God!”
And instead of trying to make my run for it, I walked woodenly into the Chiefs office. They had put her on a leather couch against the side wall. Quillan had lifted the phone. The Chief was bending over the couch. I moved close to him and looked down at her. Hard fists could have done that to her face. Hard fists or stones. One eye was swollen completely shut, the other nearly so. The tilted nose had been smashed utterly flat. The lips looked as though someone had gone over them with a wood rasp. One cheek was sickeningly indented where the cheek bone had given way. Her jaw sagged open at an unreal angle, and a sliver of bloody bone protruded through the flesh. Front teeth were broken off short. Her face and throat and clothing were torn and bloody. One heavy young breast was entirely exposed. Hands and knees were grimy. She had crawled a lone way.
“Who
did it?” the Chief was demanding insistently. “Who did this to you?”
She was breathing deeply, her breath wet and ragged in her throat. One hand stirred, and my stomach turned over as I saw a broken finger bent back at an impossible angle. The Chief must have realized as I did that she could not possibly speak. Her hand lifted. He scurried to the desk, came back with pad and pencil. He held it where she could see it, and he supported her hand.
She scrawled the name. “Smith.”
Quillan came over. “The doc is on the way. She’s hospital. He’ll take her into Warrentown.”
The Chief showed him the note. “Go get that kid.”
“No kid, Chief. He hasn’t been a kid for a long time.”
“I don’t care what the hell he is. Bring him in here. Maybe he’s running. Give the license and the car description to the state boys.”
Quillan made another phone call and left. I heard his tires shriek and spin as he swung out. The Chief fussed over the girl. She lay slack, breathing and bleeding. I moved over and sat down cautiously. The sharpness of the pain was leaving, settling into a thick ache.
The doctor arrived. He was ridiculously young. The heavy, ragged artillery mustache did not serve its purpose. It made him look like a high school boy on Halloween. He gave me an absent nod and went directly to the girl, gently moving the Chief aside. From what I could see of his examination, he was quick and deft. He mopped up the blood, took a hypo from his bag, filled it, injected her in the upper arm. Her breathing changed quickly, becoming slower, deeper, more regular.
“I’ll have to take her into Warrentown. She’ll need X rays. I can’t tell how badly she’s hurt. There may be a skull fracture. Who is she and who did it?”
“Virginia Garson. Young Hardesty Smith did it.”
He fingered her lips and said, “Can’t use clamps here.” He threaded a curved needle and began to sew her lips. “I’d say he knocked her down and then kicked her in the face repeatedly. Who brought her here?”
“She crawled, Don. Quillan heard her scratching on the door. He’s got ears like a rabbit.”
He nodded. He took gauze and bound up the sagging lower jaw. He examined her hand, fingering it lightly, and said, “Some small bones broken here. We’ll save this for X ray.” He turned toward me. “Please get the stretcher out of the back of my wagon.”
I went out. It was a new station wagon with the seats folded down and a cot installed. I opened the tail gate and took out the rolled-up stretcher and took it in.
“Put it on the floor and we’ll lift her down.”
I unrolled the canvas stretcher on the floor beside the couch. Her face looked like nothing human. It was sexless, ageless, speaking only of violence. As the doctor reached for her shoulders she took a deeper breath and let it out slowly, shudderingly. He took her wrist quickly, fingers on her pulse. He dived for his bag, snapped it open, took out a hypodermic. She breathed that way again. For long desperate seconds she did not breathe at all. He injected her directly over the heart. There was one last thready, sighing wheeze and then silence. He worked over her for perhaps ten minutes while we stood and watched him. Then he straightened up slowly, took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.
“You’ll want an autopsy,” he said.
“What did she—die of?” Chief Score asked.
The young doctor shrugged. “Shock. Brain damage.”
Chief Score sat down. “This is a terrible thing,” he said. “These kids. I can’t understand them.”
The young doctor’s voice was soft. “I’ve sewed up some ugly knife wounds. One kid got stabbed right in the corridor in the high school. They roar through the town without mufflers. I’ve tried to put them back together after the automobiles have ripped them apart. Teen-age girls expect me to be able to tell them where they can get a cut-rate abortion. They drink hard and they beat up strangers just for the kicks. People are getting tired of it, Chief. People are doing a lot of talking about it. The town is beginning to think you spend too much time shaking hands, and playing poker with Sheriff Turnbull. The parents can’t control these kids. You could put the lid on. But it’s too much trouble. You might make enemies, and then you couldn’t deliver the vote for Turnbull. I think you and Quillan are a sorry excuse for a village police force, Chief.”
“You have no call to talk to me like that, Don.”
“The Landy case and now this. You’re in trouble, Chief.”
“Am I supposed to lock up every kid in town?”
The doctor stared at him. “No comment, Chief. Suppose you call the girl’s folks. That’ll give you something to do. I’ll get hold of Hillman and have him send somebody for the body. Hooker can come over from Warrentown and do the autopsy over there.”
He picked up his bag and left and we were alone with the body. The Chief picked up the pad and looked at it. He looked at me. “You were here. You heard me ask her. You saw her write it.”
“I’ll co-operate with you.”
“You can go. Don’t leave town.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“Just go. Don’t keep talking. Go.”
I went out into the night. I was stiff and sore. I walked slowly back to the Inn. I felt that I was, in a sense, to blame. I had humiliated Smith. And, in memory, I heard her raw young voice, heavy with scorn, Okay, little bunny rabbit. You can come out now. It’s safe.
So he had come out and kicked her to death.
Chapter Seven
It was midnight on Monday when I got back to the Inn for the second time. Charlie heard me come in and he came out to the front hallway in his shirt sleeves, inventory record in his hand, eyes wide with surprise.
“What are you doing loose?”
“Did you get hold of Tennant?”
“He said he’d be over in the morning.”
“I better call him back.”
“You move fragile-like, my friend.”
“I had a little chat with Quillan.”
“The decent people in this town would like to see him tossed out of here. Him and Perry Score. They run it like a little kingdom. When Score makes a mistake, he has the county backing him up. The county is in Sheriff Turnbull’s pocket, and Turnbull is a white-haired boy to the big shots up at the capital. That Quillan is a sadistic son of a bitch.”
“He showed me how he could do it without leaving a mark.”
“We closed early downstairs. No business. But I can get to a bottle.”
“That would help. You get it while I get hold of John Tennant. Then I’ve got a nice juicy story to tell you, Charlie.”
Tennant didn’t sound too annoyed to be disturbed again. I told him the additional facts I had learned from the Garson girl, and told him her guesses about Jane Ann’s source of income. I told him about the shopping, and he said he would put an investigator on it in Warrentown. Then I told him of the death of the Garson girl, and of my part in it, and how it had saved me from a beating and gotten me released. He was shocked at the story, and said he knew Hardesty Smith, Senior, casually, and had the impression it was a good family. He said he would use the breathing space to send an investigator over to look into the Garson trouble, and it would not be difficult to prevent there being any formal complaint. And then he said something that turned my backbone to ice. He said, “Thinking it over, Hugh, it’s damn fortunate the girl was able to implicate Smith. You might have had a very rough time.”
I went into the lounge. Charlie was there with a bottle, glasses and ice. I made my drink. I told him what I had learned about Jane Ann Paulson, how I had learned it. I told him about the fight at the Garson place, about finding Ginny, about what she had told me. I told him about the scrap with Smith, how my little seance with Quillan had been interrupted, how the girl had scribbled the name and died there in Score’s office.
“This is going to knock this town on its ear, Hugh,” he said. “The Smiths are prominent. Hardesty is a good man. He just couldn’t handle the kid. That kid is no good.”
&n
bsp; “I thought he came from nothing. I thought he was all punk.”
“You can’t tell, these days. This is a terrible thing.”
“But it gives me a breathing space. Score will need my evidence. He won’t be riding me. All of a sudden I’m not as important on this other deal. In a way it’s a break, but I’d just as soon not have had it this way. Not at her expense.”
The drinks began to ease the aches and the tensions.
“What next?” Charlie asked.
“I’ll go along with Ginny’s guess. Jane Ann was blackmailing somebody. He is a man of a certain position in the community. Probably a wife and kids. At least a wife. He got out of line with her. She had some sort of proof. I would think she would have kept it with the money, if it was some sort of letter, but evidently she didn’t. So I have to look for a man who hasn’t been doing as well financially as he should have been doing. I don’t think Jane Ann would have been stupid enough to be too greedy, but I’ll bet she made the bite hurt. He had to be somebody she could contact easily and without anybody getting suspicious. He didn’t mail the money to her. She had to make her demands known to him.”
“And you think this man killed her?”
“I don’t know. I have to find out. And it’s the only lead. Now I’m too tired to think, and I’m half drunk. Can you think of a man who would match that description?”
“I’ll think about it. I’ll make a list. How about one of her teachers?”
“Could be. Could very well be. She could snatch his job right out from under him. Or it could be one of the professors up on the hill. She was headed up there the night she was killed, wasn’t she? To see some girl friend?”
“That’s right. Ann Sibley. Daughter of Dr. Wayne Sibley.”
“Did she see that girl often?”
“I’ve got that impression.”
I yawned and stretched until my shoulders creaked. I went woodenly up to bed. I tried to stay awake to think things through, but sleep came like a deep blue comber, the kind you can ride. Ginny’s battered face floated through my dreams. In one dream it was Vicky who died there on the couch, before scribbling my name on the pad Score held for her. That one woke me up, sweaty and shaking.
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