Acts of Mercy

by Bill Pronzini

  He said, “About that statement, Nicholas.”

  Augustine sighed. “Yes,” he said, “I’m preparing a statement for the press.”

  “I’d like to read it when you’re finished.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Why not? I think I have a right to be briefed in advance of what you’re going to say.”

  “The statement concerns more than Julius Wexford,” the President said. “In fact, unless he’s found within the next eighteen hours, it will not concern him at all.”

  “What kind of double-talk is that?”

  “It isn’t double-talk, Maxwell.”

  “No? Then please enlighten me.”

  “I told you, I’m preparing a statement for the press. I’m going to deliver it tomorrow morning. I’ve asked Frank Tanaguchi to call a press conference for ten o’clock.”

  Incredulously Harper said, “Press conference?”

  “Yes.”

  “What for, if not about Wexford?”

  “You’ll find out tomorrow.”

  “Good Christ, Nicholas-”

  “I have my reasons for not wanting to talk about it beforehand,” Augustine said, and dug his heels lightly into the bay’s sides. Casey Jones broke into an immediate canter, hooves kicking up small puffs of dust and needles-and in instant consort the gelding surged to match its pace. Harper made a small involuntary cry; panic cut at him again as the muscles rippling along the gelding’s back caused the saddle to roll sharply beneath him. He threw his arms around its neck, clinging desperately, his buttocks jarring with small painful thuds against the hard leather seat.

  Augustine maintained the trot for more than a minute, until the trees thinned and the trail emerged near the rocky shoulder of the gorge. Harper could hear the muted rumble of the river, and in terror imagined the horse stumbling, rearing, flinging him out of the saddle and across the ground and over the edge. But then Augustine reined the bay back to a slow walk, and the gelding immediately responded in kind. Making wheezing, snorting sounds through vented nostrils, it walked up beside Casey Jones again.

  Harper straightened in the saddle, his breath coming rapidly, and caught onto the pommel to steady himself. He saw Augustine looking at him with thin amusement, felt his face flame. He resisted the need to rub at his smarting buttocks and recaptured his dignity by fixing the President with an angry glare.

  “What are you trying to do to me?” he said. “You know I can’t handle a horse when it starts to run.”

  “That was hardly a run, Maxwell,” Augustine said mildly. “Just a brisk uphill trot.”

  “I could have been killed.”

  “Oh, nonsense. Even if you’d fallen off you wouldn’t have hurt anything except your pride.”

  The President urged Casey Jones into a faster walk, giving Harper no opportunity to reply. The gelding lifted its head, still snorting, but this time—to Harper’s relief—it did not follow suit; it lowered its head again, as if to say “The hell with it,” and continued to plod upward. The bay moved out to a four-length lead, climbing to Lookout Point where the two point-riding Secret Service agents waited.

  The high ground there was flat and grassy, backed by a sheer granite wall, bordered on its other sides by forest and the deep river gorge. Across the gorge the wooded slopes fell away steeply to the northeast, so that you could see a series of small grassland hollows and ridges stretching for miles to the base of a broad, almost perpendicular peak. When Augustine reached Lookout Point he dismounted, dropped Casey Jones’s reins, and walked over near the precipice. One of the agents called out to him to be careful. He nodded, waved at the man in a dismissive way; then he stood with his hands clasped at his back, staring out at the distant valleys.

  The gelding struggled up the last few yards to the high ground and stopped without Harper having to draw rein and immediately began to graze. He dismounted with awkward care, aware of the eyes of the agents, and flexed his cramped legs and hips. The air up here was thin; it made him feel vaguely light-headed as he crossed toward Augustine in hesitant strides.

  He stopped five feet short of where the President stood because the jagged walls of the gorge were visible and his perspective of the sheer drop to where the river raged below—more than two hundred feet—made his stomach churn sourly. Looking at the view to the northeast was no better; he focused his attention on Augustine and kept it there.

  The President glanced around at him. “Magnificent sight, isn’t it.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Like one of those rare dreams,” Augustine said, “where everything is beauty and peace.” His eyes were bright, as distant as the valleys. “The Hollows has always seemed that way to me, you know.”

  Harper said, “Nicholas—”

  “When my father was alive, we had two thousand head of cattle out there. Did I ever tell you that, Maxwell? Two thousand head of the finest Herefords and Aberdeen Angus in the world. The Hollows was a working ranch in those days. But it got to be too expensive to maintain the herd, and when we lost a couple hundred head during a disastrous winter I decided to sell it off. It’s odd, but looking out there I can almost see the ghosts of those lost cattle—red-and-white and black ghosts grazing in the valleys.”

  God, Harper thought. He said, “Why did you call a press conference for tomorrow morning?”

  “What?”

  “I said, why did you call a press conference?”

  Augustine released an audible breath. The brightness in his eyes seemed to dull, and he blinked. “And I told you,” he said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m entitled to know.”

  “Are you? I think not.”

  “Does it have something to do with Israel? With Oberdorfer? With domestic issues? With your campaign?”

  “It has something to do with everything,” Augustine said. There was a sudden sharpness in his voice. “Now that’s all I’m going to say. I’m the President, Maxwell; I’ll thank you to remember that.” And he turned back to the gorge and his view of the valleys and the ghosts of his vanished cattle.

  Harper realized his hands were clenched, flattened them out again. When he pivoted himself he saw the Secret Service bodyguards, all four of them present now, staring over at him and at the President with blank Justice-like faces. He ignored them, walked stiff-backed to where a fallen log formed a bench at the far end of the clearing. He sat on the log and tried not to look at Augustine standing at the rim of the gorge. And kept looking at him in spite of himself.

  Press conference, he thought.

  Secrecy, he thought.

  Christ!

  Seven

  Yes, Elizabeth, what is it?

  You asked me to come by at three o’clock, Mrs. Augustine. Don’t you remember?

  Three o’clock. Yes.

  Is everything all right?

  Why shouldn’t everything be all right?

  Well—you seem preoccupied...

  Do I? It’s because painful decisions have been made in this house today, Elizabeth. Terribly painful decisions.

  What decisions?

  And they should have been made long before this. Now I pray to God it’s not too late.

  I don’t understand—

  You’re not supposed to understand.

  Mrs Augustine...

  No. I’ve said too much already; I’m talking too much. I suppose it’s because you inspire confidence. You always have.

  Are you sure you don’t want to discuss it?

  I can’t discuss it. Don’t press me, Elizabeth. Please.

  All right, Mrs. Augustine.

  You’ll find out soon enough—part of it, anyway. Everyone will find out soon enough.

  Eight

  At dusk Saturday night, after a quiet and somewhat mechanical dinner with Claire, Augustine sat out on one of the iron-filigree patio chairs, worrying the bit of a billiard briar and waiting for Justice.

  When he and Harper and the bodyguards had returned fr
om their ride at four-thirty, Christopher had approached him outside the stable, looking worried, and asked to speak with him. But he himself had been abstracted and weary of Maxwell’s querulous complaints and questions, and he had only wanted to get away quickly to the manor house for a shower and a drink. So he had told Justice he would see him here tonight and then left him there with Maxwell.

  He would keep this meeting as brief as possible, Augustine thought. Because it seemed obvious to him what was on Justice’s mind, and discussing it endlessly served no constructive purpose. He had already concluded what must be done, while sitting in his study this morning and watching the toy train board, and he was not about to invite painful dialogue by confiding what it was to anyone. Not Justice, not Harper, not any of his other aides. Not even Claire (although he knew she intuited exactly what his decision was). They would all find out at the press conference tomorrow.

  Augustine leaned back in the chair and watched a faint breeze ripple the water in the swimming pool. This was the best time of night in the mountains, he thought. Quiet except for the steady fiddling hum of crickets, the air clean and sharp and piney, the sky just turning a glossy purpleblack, the pale face of a full moon hanging above the tops of the trees on the western ridge. But it wasn’t the same as it once was; there was something missing, something lost and irreplaceable. As there was with trains. Trains still ran across the country, you still saw them, you could still ride on them, but the spirit of railroading had been taken away ...

  Justice appeared then, walking rapidly through the garden on the far side of the patio. Augustine watched him come up onto the flagstones and cross past the diving board. There was the same nervous anxiety in his face and in his manner that Augustine had noticed peripherally at the stable earlier.

  “Good evening, Mr. President,” he said.

  “Christopher. Sit down if you like.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Justice took another patio chair to Augustine’s left and placed his hands on his knees.

  Augustine said, “Am I correct in assuming you want to talk about Briggs and the attorney general?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Well, before you ask, there has been no word as yet on either of them. I don’t understand why Briggs, at least, hasn’t been found by now—unless he had made prior arrangements to take yesterday off and to go away for the weekend. That would explain it. In any case, taking everything into account, the fact that he has not been found is best for all concerned.”

  Justice nodded.

  “Did Mr. Harper tell you I’ve called a press conference for tomorrow morning?”

  “No sir. Press conference?”

  “Yes. And please don’t ask me why or what statement I intend to make.”

  “Just as you say, Mr. President.” With reluctance.

  Augustine softened his voice. “I dislike being brusque with you, Christopher. I don’t have to tell you that I appreciate all you’ve done for me, and your concern, and your support; I think you know how grateful I am. It’s just that this is a very difficult time and I don’t feel in the least comradely.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Good. Now then—do you have anything specific to discuss? If not, I—”

  “There is something specific, yes sir.”

  “What is it?”

  Justice moved uneasily in his chair; night shadows gave his face a brooding cast. “I don’t know how to say it, sir. It’s ... well, it’s incredible.”

  “Incredible?”

  “Mr. President,” Justice said, and stopped, and then blurted, “Mr. President, I think Mr. Briggs and Mr. Wexford may have been murdered.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I think they were deliberately and coldbloodedly killed by someone who wanted us to believe their deaths were accidents, someone with an unstable mind—”

  Astonishment and utter disbelief. Augustine came convulsively to his feet, stood over Justice. “A homicidal maniac? For God’s sake, are you trying to tell me there’s a homicidal maniac among the people on my staff?”

  “That’s what I suspect, sir.”

  “It’s monstrous!”

  Miserably Justice nodded.

  “What proof do you have?”

  “None, sir.”

  “None? You mean you have no evidence at all?”

  “No sir. It’s just a feeling, an intuition—”

  “Christ Almighty, Christopher!”

  “Two men have died in two days, Mr. President,” Justice said, “that’s just too much coincidence; I’ve been a policeman a long time and I’ve learned to trust my Instincts—”

  “Instincts!” The astonishment was gone now; only the unbelief remained. “Do these instincts tell you who it could be?”

  “No sir.”

  “Or why even a lunatic would murder two men?”

  Justice shook his head. “I could be wrong, sir, I know that. But I don’t think I am. And I’m afraid something might happen here at The Hollows, that someone else’s life may be in danger.”

  “Whose life?”

  “I don’t know. But ... it could even be yours, sir.” Augustine stared down at him. He had always considered Justice to be the prototype police officer: cool, disciplined, precise to a fault, incapable of wild or unreasonable speculation. But it seemed the strain of the past few days had affected him much more severely than could have been imagined; had filled him with irrational paranoid fantasies. Two murders made to look like accidents, one of the people Augustine had worked closely with for three and a half years a deranged psychopath—preposterous! A potential third murder, another person’s life in jeopardy, his own life in jeopardy—unthinkable!

  He sat down carefully and said to Justice, “Have you told anyone else about this?”

  “No sir.”

  “I see. Well you’d best not. I’ll handle it.”

  Justice’s eyes were imploring. “You do believe me, don’t you, Mr. President? About the potential danger, I mean.”

  “I believe that you believe.”

  “What should we do?”

  “What do you suggest we do?”

  “Tighten security, first of all. Beyond that ... I’m not sure, sir.”

  “I’ll know,” Augustine said gently. “After I’ve given it some thought I’ll know just what to do.”

  “We don’t have much time, sir. I’m sure of that.”

  Augustine looked away. So am I, Christopher, he thought. We don’t have much time left at all.

  Nine

  The conference room, adjacent to the President’s study in the manor house, was a large, oblong enclosure with a stone fireplace at one end. On Sunday morning a podium was set at the other end, and in place of the broad circular conference table which normally sat in the center of the room were several centered rows of folding chairs for the press. Another row of chairs reserved for the staff was arranged along the west side wall, facing the press rows.

  Justice sat near the far end of the staff row and looked at the thirty or more reporters who crowded the room. Most of them were from the wire services, the television networks, and California’s large daily newspapers; they stood or sat now in small groups, talking among themselves, waiting as Justice was—It was just ten o’clock—for the announcement that the President was ready to begin.

  Their voices were muted and interrogative, creating a low rumble of noise that seemed to reverberate off the redwood walls and the high, beamed ceiling. Justice knew they were asking each other the same questions he had asked himself during the night. Why had the President called this press conference, the first at The Hollows in nearly two years? Was he going to make general statements of no particular news interest, or was he going to drop some sort of bombshell?

  He turned his head, glanced over at the study door; it remained closed. Three seats to his left, Maxwell Harper was also looking at the door, looking at it and rubbing his hands back and forth along his trouser legs. There was an air of nervous expec
tancy about him that Justice had never seen before.

  Justice’s face was damp under the hot room lights; he used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe it dry, to dislodge grains of mucus that clung to his eye corners. Tension and lack of sleep had made him logy. He had spent most of last night patrolling the grounds, maintaining a personal vigil that yielded nothing out of the ordinary—and worrying, worrying, because it had become obvious as time passed and there was no tightening of security that the President had not believed him after all.

  Augustine had only been patronizing him on the patio, not in an unkind way but patronizing him nonetheless, as if he thought Justice were suffering from hallucinations. Justice could understand his skepticism—without substantiating proof he might have been skeptical himself if their roles had been reversed—but the fact remained that nothing was being done. The responsibility for the safety of the President and those close to him still rested solely on his shoulders.

  He had considered going to the First Lady, telling her of his fears as he had told the President. But if she didn’t share those suspicions, if he had misread her motives in calling Director Saunders here to The Hollows, he would only succeed in alarming and even alienating her. Still, he desperately needed an ally, and if there was one person who could persuade the President to take action, it was Mrs. Augustine. Maybe—

  The study door opened in that moment and Frank Tanaguchi stepped through and over to the podium. The babble of voices subsided instantly. “If you’ll all take your places, please,” Tanaguchi said, “the President is about ready to begin.”