I was driving toward South Side High School, I realized, and only a few blocks away now. And then I was in front of it and I swung the Buick in to the curb and cut the engine. I sat there looking at my alma mater, at the big beautiful building set well back from the street. A proud building and a building to be proud of, with a proud straight tower that went three stories higher than the rest of the building. And it would have been from one of those three windows in the middle floor of the tower, five stories above the concrete steps, that the freshman named Wilbur Greenough had fallen–or had been pushed. The year Obie had entered high school.
But did that mean anything? Do two and two make twenty-two?
I suddenly realized that I was parked in plain sight of the windows of the school office and that if Nina should look out she might see and recognize the car and wonder why I was parking there.
I started the engine again and drove away. I headed for the Westphal house. I wanted to think things out and if I parked where I could watch the house again–this time knowing at least that Obie was in town–I’d have plenty of chance to think while I did my watching.
I parked again where I’d parked the first time I’d been there; it was the better of the two places to park by day because my car was under a big oak that shaded it.
A man in work clothes, a handyman or a part-time gardener no doubt, was mowing the lawn behind the white picket fence. He stopped often to take off his hat and wipe sweat off his face and forehead with a big blue bandanna. The whirring of the lawnmower was a familiar, homey sound.
Let’s start, I thought, with Jimmy Chojnacki. Why was I sure that Jimmy’s death hadn’t been an accident?
Lots of little things. Mainly the sound of the ratchet on the first uphill of the roller coaster. It’s a sound that’s too loud to be overlooked and it’s unmistakable for what it is. From the bottom of the hill beyond that first upgrade no one could possibly not hear it and not know that a car was coming. Only someone deliberately trying to commit suicide would choose that time to cross the tracks.
Well, people do commit suicide. Why couldn’t Jimmy have lain down across the tracks and waited for the car to kill him?
Because people don’t commit suicide suddenly and irrelevantly in the middle of another act. I suppose a pickpocket may decide to kill himself, as anyone else might, but it wouldn’t be in the middle of an act of crime, a freshly lifted billfold in his pocket. Even if, after stealing Obie’s wallet, Jimmy had decided to kill himself, automatic reflexes would have seen him complete the act of theft by taking the money out of the wallet and getting rid of the leather. I happened to know a pickpocket once during my days as a police reporter. I’d talked over his profession with him–he was proud of his skill and liked to talk about it–he told me that a pickpocket’s first and obsessive thought, once he’s lifted a wallet, is to get the incriminating evidence of the wallet itself off his person as quickly as possible. And there are plenty of ways of getting rid of one unobserved, even in a crowd; he’d told me some of the most common methods. And if Jimmy had been back there by the roller coaster tracks alone, he could have got rid of it easily. Even if he’d thrown it away without bothering to take the money out of it, he wouldn’t have killed himself with it in his pocket. He’d surely have thought of his mother, if for no other reason, and he couldn’t have known that the police would not tell her that he had died with stolen property in his pocket.
Nor is suicide itself, I believe, ever a sudden and unpremeditated thing. It’s an idea that takes build-up, working up one’s courage to the irrevocable act. And while a man–or an adolescent boy–is building up his courage to match his despair he most certainly would not take time out to pick a pocket on his way to death.
No, suicide was out completely, much, much less likely than accident.
There was even, come to think of it, one way in which it could have been an accident.
Jimmy could have seen Obie drinking his coke at the stand. Possibly Obie had paid for it with a bill out of his wallet and Jimmy had seen the wallet and the pocket into which Obie had returned it. Jimmy could have walked behind Obie, lifted the wallet, headed quickly for the low fence that led back to privacy. Obie could have turned and seen Jimmy walking away rapidly–he’d have been too smart to run–and, remembering why Jimmy had been expelled from school, could have touched his wallet pocket and found the wallet gone. He could have given chase and Jimmy, running for his freedom, might in that case have taken the chance of trying to beat the descending car across the tracks, tripped and fallen. …
That’s a way it could have happened as an accident. But if so, why would Obie have ducked instead of staying and explaining what had happened?
And why had Obie’s father not looked happy to learn that his son was still alive, and why had he offered to pay for the funeral of the boy who’d died in Obie’s stead?
It could be reconstructed another way and those things would be explained.
Obie had turned and had seen Jimmy heading for the fence, but did not, as yet, miss his wallet. He had waved and said “Hi” and Jimmy would, of course, have stopped. Obie, his coke finished, had strolled over and asked Jimmy where he’d been going back there. Jimmy, frightened because he had Obie’s wallet, would have …
I tried to put myself in Jimmy’s place. What would I have said? “Just going to take a look around back there.” And Obie, “What’s back there?”
I’d have figured, if I’d been Jimmy, that the wallet, now that Obie’d seen me, was too hot to keep. But back there I could drop it, money and all, the first chance I had. And when Obie missed it I’d help him hunt for it and find it for him if he didn’t find it himself. The money would still be in it and although Obie might suspect what had really happened there wouldn’t be any proof that it hadn’t simply fallen out of his pocket. He wouldn’t do anything about it.
Back by the tracks, the wallet still in Jimmy’s pocket. Burning him, but he’d have to wait for a moment when Obie was walking ahead before he would dare take it out and drop it.
The clicking of the ratchet. The roller coaster car coming up the hill. Neither of them would have to explain to the other what that sound was. Obie saying “Let’s stand here and watch it come down past us.” Side by side, possibly three feet back from the tracks. The car coming over the top of the hill–empty, no witnesses. Obie taking a quick look back to be sure nobody happens to be standing on the midway, looking back toward them, in the one small area that afforded a view back over the fence. Nobody. They are completely unobserved. His hand going up behind Jimmy Chojnacki’s back and, just as the car roars toward the bottom of the hill …
Then, quickly, over the outer fence only a few yards beyond the tracks. Out of sight he could have been, almost before the crash had quit echoing. Thinking, once he was clear, that there was nothing at all to connect him with Jimmy Chojnacki–until, later, he discovered that his wallet was gone and maybe guessed what had happened to it. But having to go back anyway to inquire at the Lost and Found Department. Learning that the wallet had caused an erroneous preliminary identification, that his parents were coming back.
And did Obie know that his father would guess the truth?
A car drove past mine and swung in to the curb in front of the Westphal house, brakes squealing with the suddenness of the stop. Well, technically it was a car. It had four wheels and a body. But there weren’t any fenders over the wheels and there wasn’t a top over the body, not even a folded-back one. There was a moth-eaten wolf’s head where the radiator cap should have been and there was lettering on the side of the body; it had gone past too fast for me to read and the angle was wrong now, but the cigar-store proprietor had already told me what the lettering was.
There were seven in it now, all of high school age, four boys and three girls. The boy who’d carried the clarinet case was behind the wheel, and a girl and Obie in the front seat with him; the other four, t
wo and two, were in the back seat. Obie got out, waved and said something I couldn’t hear, and went through the gate and up to the house. He was still carrying his suitcase so apparently they’d been riding around–and getting recruits–since I’d seen three of them at the station. The jalopy started off so fast that I think the back wheels spun before they gripped the pavement.
I remembered that detectives in stories always carefully time the observed movements of a suspect, so I looked at my watch. It was twenty-seven minutes after four o’clock, if that matters.
I could hear the slam of the screen door as he went inside.
I went back to my thinking. I’d thought of the four fatal accidents at South Side High within three years the moment I’d begun to suspect that there was something not kosher about Jimmy Chojnacki’s death. Maybe just the fact that both Jimmy and Obie had gone to South Side made me think of them. I had to admit that they didn’t look very conclusive now. One of them was definitely eliminated; he could hardly have killed the girl who’d drowned in the girls’ swimming class. And the drowning of the teacher seemed pretty unlikely. It didn’t fit the pattern of the others. But there was one thing I wanted to know: Had Obie been a member of the Drama Club? Was he one of the group Miss Bonner had let out of the building after the meeting that night, so he could have known she was going to be there alone that night? If he had been, then I still couldn’t rule out Constance Bonner as at least a possibility. I’d have to remember, next time I was with Nina, to lead the conversation around to Obie so I could ask whether she happened to know if he belonged to the Drama Club. No, I couldn’t ask it just that way; I’d have to ask if she knew what school activities if any Obie went in for besides athletics. That would be a natural enough question.
Or where could I look at a last year’s Year Book of the high school? It would have a group photograph of the Drama Club and I could see whether Obie was on it.
A few minutes before five o’clock Mr. Westphal came home in the Chrysler. Again he put it away in the garage.
At six o’clock it occurred to me that since Obie was still home he was obviously going to stay there at least through dinner, even if he was going out somewhere in the evening. And that now would be a good time for me to dash away for something to eat and I’d have time to get back before he left if he was going to leave. I drove to a restaurant and had a quick meal. I got back not much after six-thirty, and felt pretty sure he’d hardly have left sooner than that. He hadn’t; he obligingly proved it at seven o’clock by coming out on the porch for a few minutes, apparently for a little fresh air. He didn’t glance toward my car; it was getting fairly dark by then, though, and I doubt if he could have seen that anyone was sitting in the car even if he had looked. I was sure it was Obie and not his father only because he strolled to the end of the porch and back and I saw him briefly silhouetted twice against a lighted window.
After he went back in I began to feel that I was wasting my time. He probably wouldn’t go anywhere, his first night back home after his trip to Springfield. And if he did and I followed him, he’d probably go only to a movie or a friend’s house.
Well, what did I expect him to do? Go hunting?
5
At nine o’clock he went hunting.
He came out and stood on the porch a minute. I thought maybe it was for another breath of fresh air and I was going to call it a night if he went back in.
But he came on down the steps and out the gate in the white picket fence. He turned west and started walking, not fast, not slow. He passed my car, but on his own side of the street; he didn’t look my way. It was plenty dark by then and he couldn’t possibly have seen that anyone was in the car if he had looked.
I waited until he’d gone almost a block before I got out of the car and started to walk after him. I kept on my side of the street and kept my distance. The streets were almost deserted and I didn’t dare get closer. There were trees and I couldn’t see him often, but I’d get an occasional glimpse.
We weren’t heading toward any bright-light district. We weren’t heading anywhere that I knew of unless it could be the freight yards, the jungles.
When he turned at the next corner I knew that’s where we were going. We were on a street now, after I’d made the turn too, where there weren’t any trees to give me cover, but I took a chance and closed up the distance a little anyway. I was less than half a block behind him when he started across the first tracks.
But it didn’t do any good; I lost him completely the minute he got in among the cars. It’s a fairly big jungle; dozens of tracks wide and almost a mile long. A hundred people could lose themselves in it.
I wandered around for half an hour and then gave up. I didn’t even see any hoboes; there were probably some around but they’d be asleep in empty boxcars by now probably.
I went back the way we’d come and got in my car and sat there. A little after half past ten Obie came walking back. He went inside the house and a couple of minutes later I saw a light go on in an upstairs front room and saw Obie’s silhouette against the shade; he was going to bed.
I drove to the nearest tavern and had myself a drink. While the bartender was pouring me a second one I went to the phone booth at the back. I dialed a number and got an answer.
“This is Sam, Nina. May I come around?”
“Why–I thought you weren’t coming tonight, Sam. I’m in bed.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.”
THURSDAY
1
People should never talk at breakfast. Not about anything serious, anyway. At breakfast one is too sensible, one sees things too clearly on the practical side.
Nina and I got up at the same time and she’d insisted on making breakfast for both of us.
She started it. “Sam, if you don’t mind my asking, what were you doing yesterday evening? I know it’s none of my business but–”
It wasn’t, but I could hardly tell her that. I should have had a lie ready but I didn’t have, and I couldn’t think of one on such short notice.
“Working,” I said.
“But isn’t this your vacation?”
“Sure. This was research for something I’m free-lancing. It wouldn’t interest you.”
“How do you know it wouldn’t? Of course, if you want to be mysterious about it–”
“Nina,” I said, “you’re talking just like a wife.”
I know I couldn’t have found a worse thing to say if I’d worked on it. I looked up at her to see how she’d taken it, and she hadn’t. She was glaring at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it. And I didn’t mean to sound mysterious; I just didn’t want to sound boring. I’m still working on that article about buildings being accident-prone. Yesterday afternoon I spent at police headquarters going through their accident records and statistics. Yesterday evening I spent at the Journal, hunting up things in the morgue.”
“The Journal? Why not your own paper?”
“It’s an afternoon paper. The Journal’s a morning one. There’s a skeleton force on evenings in some departments, at the Herald, but the morgue isn’t open. And I’ve got friends at the Journal who fixed it for me to use their morgue.” I grinned at her. “From what happened afterward, at least you can’t suspect me of spending the evening consorting with another woman.”
It should have made her smile but it didn’t. She said, “It wouldn’t have been any business of mine if you had, Sam. This is just–just an affair between us. I haven’t any claim on you.”
Why must women always bring up things like that? It was perfectly true, of course. Particularly from Nina’s point of view because she hadn’t known there was a possibility of it’s being anything more. I’d told her that Millie was out of town for a week or so, nothing beyond that. I didn’t think it was fair to tell Nina that ther
e was a possibility of Millie and me breaking up our marriage. I hadn’t seduced Nina by holding out a possibility of marrying her. Time enough to tell her about that if and when it happened and if, by then, I was sure I wanted to marry her. I thought I was sure, but–well, there’s a big difference between wanting like hell to sleep with a woman and wanting to marry her.
But how the hell could I answer what she’d just said.
I tried. “Nina, what we’re having is something wonderful. And it’s not just physical; you know that. I don’t know whether there’s love involved–partly because I’m not sure what love is–but there’s at least affection. Affection and enjoyment–isn’t that enough to go on, for a while anyway?”
But this seemed to be her morning for soul-probing. “Sam, do you think I’m a p-pushover? You must think so.”
I could laugh at that. “No man’s ego, darling, will ever let him think a woman is a pushover for other men just because he can have her.”
No, no man’s ego ever lets him think that, but he always wonders a little.
I could see from her face, though, that the answer didn’t completely satisfy her so I did what I should have done several minutes ago. I walked around the breakfast table, put my arms around her, bent down and kissed her. That’s the only answer that makes sense to such questions as she’d been asking. Women always twist the meaning of words but they can’t twist the meaning of a kiss–and they understand it better, anyway.
We finished breakfast in peace.
And I had sense enough to walk to the door with her–again she wanted me to wait a few minutes after she’d left so we wouldn’t be seen leaving together–and put my arms around her and kiss her again.
The Deep End Page 9