“He used to bring his wife, but he hasn’t done that in a while.” Decker said, “Drunk or sober, why didn’t he smell the gasoline and do something about it? That’s what I’m wondering.”
“Me too,” I said. “What about the explosion? Does that sort of thing happen often?”
“It happens, but not usually with houseboats like the Kokanee.” He paused speculatively. “Still, she shouldn’t have made a boom like that. Shouldn’t have burned that hot, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“That was a hell of a big boom,” he said. “There shouldn’t have been enough gasoline or other flammables on board to blow with that much force. Or to make her burn as hot and fast as she did.”
“I see.”
“O’Daniel could have stored up flammables for some reason of his own,” Decker said. “People aren’t very bright sometimes. But it’s not likely.”
We looked at each other. I said, “Suppose it was no accident. Can you fit the facts into an explanation?”
“Sure, if it was suicide. But that’s a hell of a way to knock yourself off. And why would he want to take you with him?”
“No reason I can think of,” I said. “How about if it also wasn’t suicide? How about if it was murder?”
He spread his hands. “I can add up part of it that way, not all of it. Maybe I’m just slow, but I don’t see how it could be murder.”
“I must be slow too,” I said. “Neither do I.”
Two cars full of county sheriff’s deputies, and a fat and dour plainclothes investigator named Telford, showed up before long. So did the doctor Decker had called. Telford asked me questions while the doctor examined me and the deputies prowled around outside. Rehashing my account of things didn’t open up any new insights; nor did anything come out of the deputies’ questioning of the other Mountain Harbor renters. Nobody had seen or heard anything suspicious prior to the explosion, and nobody had any other information that might explain what had happened.
The doctor confirmed Decker’s and my opinion that my burns were superficial, and decided that the pinkish stuff Mrs. Decker had spread on me was all the medication I required. Telford decided my soggy identification was genuine, and that I had no apparent sinister motives, and could be released on my own recognizance. Come in to his office in Redding tomorrow and make a formal statement, he said. Good-bye, he said.
There wasn’t any reason for me to hang around there any longer; they weren’t going to get what was left of Frank O’Daniel out of the Kokanee for a while yet, maybe not until morning, and even if they did I had no desire to watch them do it. I borrowed an old pair of pants and a shirt from Decker, thanked him and his wife, bundled up my own stuff, and got out of there.
When I came into Kerry’s and my room at the Sportsman’s Rest it was after ten o’clock. She was lying on the bed reading a mystery novel by somebody named Muller. She took one look at me, made startled noises, threw the book aside, bounced off the bed, and said, “For God’s sake, what happened to you?” in a half-concerned, half-frightened voice-a reaction that made me feel loved again.
I told her what had happened to me. She didn’t like it; she never likes it when I have a brush with violence-not that I’m keen on it myself. But she settled down after a time and put her arms around me, and that was good in more ways than one because it meant she was over her pique and we were going to get on again. For a while, anyway.
I got a couple of minutes of cuddling. Then she let go of me and gave me a critical look, and a small smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Well,” she said, “at least one good thing came out of tonight.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Go look in the mirror.”
I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My face was mottled, still lobster-red in patches across both cheeks, greasy with Mrs. Decker’s pink gunk. And my upper lip was more or less naked.
“You see?” Kerry said from the doorway. “The explosion did what I’ve been yearning to do for weeks. It singed that stupid mustache right off.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Frank O‘Daniel was the person who’d died in the explosion, all right; I got the word on that Sunday morning, when I went to the sheriffs office in Redding to keep my promise to Telford. O’Daniel had been the only casualty. They’d found his charred remains in the Kokanee’s cockpit-and his blown-off arm floating around among the debris in the take-and they had identified him through his dental charts. An autopsy had been performed, but nothing had come of that-no indications of foul play.
“I don’t see how the coroner can stand his job,” Telford said. He shook his head, leaned back in his desk chair, and belched dyspeptically. “Must have been like trying to autopsy a piece of overcooked steak.”
Nice analogy, I thought. But I said, “Yeah, I guess. Have you notified Mrs. O’Daniel yet?”
“I just got back from talking to her a few minutes ago.”
“How did she take it?”
He grimaced. “The way they usually take it. Cried some and carried on.”
“Like he was the love of her life, huh? Like she can’t bear the thought of going on without him?”
“More or less.” Now he was frowning. “What’re you getting at?”
“It wasn’t that way between them,” I said, and I told him the things I’d found out about Helen O’Daniel and the other things I suspected-an affair with Munroe Randall, perhaps another one with Paul Robideaux.
Telford gave that some thought. Then he belched again, said ruefully, “My wife made a Spanish omelette with hot sauce for breakfast,” unwrapped a Rolaids tablet, chewed and swallowed it, and said, “You don’t think what happened at Mountain Harbor was an accident?”
“Let’s just say I’m suspicious. How does it look to you?”
“Suspicious,” he said, “but not enough to get me excited about it-yet. No evidence so far that says it was anything but an accident. Or how it could’ve been anything but an accident.”
“But you’re still working on it?”
“Oh, we’re real tenacious types up here in the sticks,” he said mildly. “We’re not too smart, but once we get our teeth into something we just don’t like to let go.”
“I’m like that too,” I said without missing a beat. “It’s a good way for a detective to be.”
That was the right thing to say, for a change; maybe this was going to be a better day than the last one-as long as I paid more attention to what came out of my fat mouth. Telford made a sound that was half grunt and half belch and said, “Yeah, it is. Well, I’ve been in touch with Hank Betters, over at the police department. He thinks two business partners dying in odd accidents within a week of each other is suspicious, same as you and I do. But there’s also no evidence of foul play in the Munroe Randall case; you know that. Until some evidence turns up, on one case or the other- if it does-there’s no use in any of us getting excited. You agree?”
“I agree. But I’d like to keep poking around on my own, if you don’t mind.”
“Why should I mind? You’ve got a good rep-I checked you out last night-and there’s no reason you shouldn’t keep on working.”
“Thanks.”
“For what? I’m always grateful for a little help from a big-city investigator.”
“Put the needle away, okay? I don’t think you’re a hick.”
He grinned a little and ate another antacid tablet. “Suppose both Randall and O‘Daniel were murdered,” he said. “Who do you figure for it? O’Daniel’s wife?”
“Well, she might be mixed up in it. She’s got plenty of motive.”
“So does the surviving partner.”
“Treacle’s also the most obvious suspect. He’d have to be pretty stupid.”
“Maybe he is,” Telford said. “All murderers are stupid, especially the ones that try to be clever.”
“You talk to him yet?”
“On the phone. He’s on his way down.”
“H
ow did he take the news?”
“Seemed pretty shaken up. We’ll see when he gets here. Who else has motive, far as you know?”
“The artist, Robideaux, for one.”
“ If he was involved with Mrs. O’Daniel.”
“Even if he wasn’t,” I said.
“You mean the hassle between Northern Development and the people in Musket Creek? Yeah, that’s another angle.”
“The best one of all, maybe.”
I got out the threatening letter Frank O‘Daniel had received. It had been in my wallet and had suffered some water damage last night, but it was still intact and the printing on it was still legible. I passed it over to Telford, explaining what it was and where I’d got it. I also apologized for not having remembered it last night-not that the oversight mattered much. None of us had known for sure then that O’Daniel was the victim.
He said after he’d scrutinized it, “If this is the McCoy, you could be right about Musket Creek being the best angle. The only thing is…” He tapped the letter with his fingernail. “Did Randall receive anything like this before he died?”
“Not that anybody claims to know about.”
“Any other kind of threat?”
“Apparently not.”
“Then how come O‘Daniel got one? Assuming both men were murdered, why put O’Daniel on his guard with a note? Why not just blow him up?”
“You said it yourself: murderers are stupid.”
“Mm.”
“Could be, too, that the note was sent by somebody else in Musket Creek-a crank thing. Both Treacle and O‘Daniel told me they were harassed a while back by hang-up telephone calls. This fits the same pattern. There doesn’t have to be a connection between the letter and O’Daniel’s death.”
Telford ruminated in silence.
“Another thing,” I said. “The note didn’t put O’Daniel on his guard. He shrugged it off as crank stuff.”
“He did, huh?”
“He also shrugged off something else,” I said, and I told him about Jack Coleclaw’s attack on O’Daniel at the Northern offices and how I’d managed to break it up.
“I think I’d better have a talk with Coleclaw,” Telford said. “As soon as I get done with Treacle.”
“I think I’ll see what I can find out about Mrs. O’Daniel and Paul Robideaux. Unless you have any objections…”
“Be my guest. Just be sure to let me know if you find out anything.”
“First thing.” I got on my feet.
Telford said, “Those burns hurting you much?”
“Some. Why?”
“The way you move. Your face looks raw too.”
“It doesn’t feel as bad as it looks,” I said. But I was aware of the dull ache again, now that he’d called my attention to it.
“If I were you,” he said, “I’d wear a hat outdoors. And stay out of direct sunlight.”
I took my old shapeless fisherman’s hat out of my back pocket and showed it to him. “I already thought of that.”
“Smart guy,” he said, but there was no irony in his voice. He was eating another Rolaids and grimacing when I walked out of his office.
I went across the outer lobby, past a morose-looking guy who was explaining to a deputy that he hadn’t been poaching, the damned doe had been shot by somebody else and had staggered over to where he was camped and what the hell was he going to do, let all that good meat just lie there and rot? It was an interesting story but the deputy wasn’t buying it; I wouldn’t have bought it either, in his place.
Heat slapped at me when I stepped outside, making my face and hands burn dully. I put the hat on so that it drooped down over the upper half of my face. There wasn’t much direct sunlight to worry about; you couldn’t see the sun at all at the moment. Clouds had begun piling up sometime during the night and there were thunderheads obscuring Mt. Shasta to the east. Storm building. Which was fine by me; maybe it would cool things off.
I started down the front steps. A big, paunchy man was coming along the walk from the parking area; he stopped when he saw me and stood there. I recognized him at just about the same time.
Jack Coleclaw.
He waited, stolidly, for me to get to where he was. Then he said, “You’re the fellow in O’Daniel’s office the other night.”
“The one who broke up the trouble-that’s right.”
“Insurance detective,” he said, as if the words were a pair of obscenities.
I just looked at him. He seemed nervous, ill-at-ease. And worried. It was hot, but it wasn’t hot enough to make a man sweat the way he was sweating.
“I never meant to hurt him, mister,” he said. “I just… I lost my head for a minute, that’s all. I wouldn’t of choked the life out of him, even if you hadn’t come in. I’m not a killer.”
“Tell that to Jim Telford, Mr. Coleclaw.”
“Who?”
“Sheriff’s investigator in charge of the O‘Daniel case. You’ve heard what happened to Frank O’Daniel, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, I heard,” Coleclaw said. “On the radio in my truck a little while ago. That’s why I’m here-I figured they’d want to talk to me, even if it was an accident.”
“Was it?” I said.
He wiped sweat off his face with one of his big paws. “You trying to say it wasn’t?”
“No. I’m saying it might not have been.”
“What, then? Somebody blew that boat up some way?”
“That’s a possibility.”
“Well, what does this Telford think?”
“Ask him yourself; he’ll tell you.”
“No, listen, I’m asking you. He don’t think I had anything to do with it, does he?”
“Did you, Mr. Coleclaw?”
“No! Christ, no. I wasn’t anywhere near Shasta Lake last night. I was home and I can prove it. My kid was there with me.”
“Like I said-tell that to Jim Telford.”
“Okay. But I’m telling you too. I didn’t have anything to do with O’Daniel getting killed and I didn’t have anything to do with Randall getting killed either. I was home with my son that night too. ”
I had nothing to say.
“Nobody in Musket Creek had anything to do with them two dying,” he said. “You understand? Nobody!” He wiped his face again, hunched his shoulders, and stepped around me and went away up the steps.
I watched after him until the building swallowed his bulk, thinking: Funny bird-what yanks his chain for him, anyway? I couldn’t decide whether or not he was dangerous; I couldn’t get much of a handle on him at all. Well, maybe Telford could. Or maybe there just wasn’t much of a handle to get hold of in the first place. I shrugged and swung around and started over toward the parking lot.
And Martin Treacle’s Continental was there, just skidding into one of the diagonal slots nearby. Treacle was behind the wheel, and he had two passengers. One, I saw as they got out, was the secretary, Shirley Irwin. The other, for some reason, was Kerry.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Treacle was in a dither. His face was pale, his hands twitched, his eyes kept doing odd little flicks and rolls, as if he were about to go into some kind of fit, and he had a slight stutter when he spoke. He came charging over to me and said, “Why didn’t you call me last night? For God’s sake, why didn’t you tell- tell me what happened?”
“Take it easy, Mr. Treacle. I didn’t call you because I didn’t want to sound a false alarm; nobody was sure yet it was your partner who died in the explosion.”
“You should have notified me anyway. I had a right-a right to know, didn’t I?”
Kerry and Miss Irwin made us a not very appealing foursome. The secretary didn’t seem cool and efficient this morning; she looked distraught in a contained sort of way. Kerry’s face was almost as pale as Treacle’s, as if she’d had some kind of shock or scare herself.
I said to her, “This is a surprise. What’re you doing here?”
But Treacle didn’t give her a chance to answ
er; he said, still nattering, “We went to your motel after the sheriff-the sheriffs man called. I wanted to talk to you first, before I see him.”
“who?”
“You were there last night, you almost got killed yourself. It wasn’t an accident, was it?”
“That’s what everybody wants to know. The exact cause of the explosion hasn’t been determined yet.”
“But it must have been an accident,” Miss Irwin said. “Fuel leaked into the bilges and some kind of spark set it off-that’s what the radio said. Poor Frank must have forgotten to use the blowers.”
“Maybe.”
“There is some doubt, then?”
“A reasonable amount.”
“Did someone see something, is that it?”
“No. It’s nothing specific.”
Treacle said, “It’s murder, all right. Somebody killed Frank-killed Munroe, too, we were wrong about that. And now I’m-now I’m next in line.”
He’d changed his tune completely. Neither Northern Development nor all that insurance money-at least $200,000 now-appeared to matter much to him anymore; what he was worried about at the moment was his own hide. Or so it seemed. The fear looked genuine enough, but you can’t be sure about things like that. It could all be an act, a smokescreen, designed to divert suspicion from himself.
“They want me dead,” he was saying now, “all those people in Musket Creek. Coleclaw, that son of a bitch, there’s one for sure.” He leaned my way and poked me in the chest with a forefinger. “You were talking to him when we drove in. What were you talking about?”
I resisted an impulse to slap his hand away. Whether he was putting on an act or not, I had finally reached the point where I could dislike him. Actively, if not with any particular malice. I said, “Nothing that concerns you, Mr. Treacle.”
“Why is he here? He didn’t come-come to turn himself in, did he?”
“No. He’s here because of the fight he had with O’Daniel on Friday evening. He knows it makes him look bad-”
“You’re goddamn-damn right it does.”
“But he says he has an alibi for last night. And an alibi for the night of Munroe Randall’s death. If those alibis stand up he’s in the clear.”
Nightshades nd-12 Page 10