by Farris, John
A frightened face appeared at one of the back windows and Practice shouted, “Lights! Turn on the garden lights!”
He was halfway to the arbor when Trudy suddenly yelped and whimpered. The man rose up against the sky, careened, plowed through several bushes, and mounted the wall in a bound. He was tall, Practice saw, but he saw nothing else. There was no moon. The man disappeared over the edge of the bluff, and Practice could hear the clatter of dislodged stones as he made his way down the steep facing.
The lights in the garden flashed on, right in Practice’s eyes, and he was momentarily blinded. He cursed and made his way to the wall, peering over it. He could still hear the man’s progress, but there was nothing to see but the blue-white image of floodlights dancing in his eyes.
He turned back. Luke had come out of the kitchen in his nightshirt with a shotgun in his hands.
Practice waved him away. “Call the patrol,” he said. But he knew it was unlikely that a search would turn up the man. Once he reached the railroad tracks below he’d get away.
Something on top of the wall caught Practice’s eye, and he took out his handkerchief. It came away bloody from the stones, quite a bit of blood.
Apparently Trudy had nicked a vein in the man’s arm or hand. He looked for Trudy and saw her lying motionless in the arbor. Not far away Josh lay. Practice knelt and turned the big yellow shepherd over. Josh was dead; his throat had been hacked. He went to Trudy. There was a long cut across the bridge of her nose and a stab wound in her chest was welling blood, but she was conscious. He changed his mind about the blood on the stones; it could easily have been Trudy’s.
Practice looked up again to see Lucy approaching in pajamas, slippers, and a robe.
“Oh, no,” she said, horrified. “Oh, Trudy.”
The dog had been a particular favorite of Lucy’s. She dropped to her knees, then looked up at Practice, her face colorless.
“What ...”
“Somebody was hanging around out here, looking for a way into the mansion. Or maybe he’d been in and was on his way out. Josh apparently surprised him the first time, but Josh always was too softhearted for his own good. Not Trudy. I think she may have gotten her teeth into him.”
“Did you see the man?”
“Just barely. He was tall and thin. Fast on his feet.” Lucy put her hands under Trudy.
“Help me, Jim.”
They moved the dog into the garage and Practice had Luke call for a vet. In the excitement he had forgotten about Chris, and now he looked in the car. Chris was curled up asleep on the front seat.
“I’d better get him to bed,” Lucy said, staring at Chris as if she were in shock.
“Are you okay, Lucy?”
“I think I am. Would you carry him for me?”
She followed, as Practice took Chris up to bed. The boy sat up and complained sleepily as Lucy took off his shoes and clothing, then went right back to sleep.
Elizabeth, Luke’s wife, looked in at the door, her hands fluttering with excitement.
“Police here.”
“I’ll stay and keep an eye on Chris,” Lucy said.
“No, I think you’d better come.”
She stared at Practice, troubled, then looked away.
“All right, but I have to change first.”
“Lucy, where were you tonight? When Chris ran off?” She was very pale, but her eyes met his, somewhat defiantly.
“I went out. For about an hour.”
“To meet someone?”
She gathered the robe more tightly about her throat with one hand.
“Yes, to meet someone,” she said evenly. “I suppose I shouldn’t have”—she glanced down at the sleeping Chris—“but I didn’t know he ...”
“Forget it,” Practice said wearily. “It’s none of my business.” He turned away from her abruptly and went downstairs to talk to the officers.
—
Highway patrol and city police had arrived almost simultaneously. Practice glanced at his watch; not quite ten minutes had gone by since he had seen the intruder vault over the wall. The grounds were now being painstakingly searched.
Practice gave a brief account of the incident and Captain Mike Liles of the highway patrol issued orders over a telephone. A tight net would be drawn around a ten-square-block area, south from the river. But a thorough shakedown of the railroad yards would take time, and if the man hadn’t been too badly hurt, he could have traveled a mile or more along the tracks within five minutes.
Liles made a second call, relayed by radio to the troopers assigned to the Governor’s Day Dinner. Four more cars were automatically assigned to the armory, and in another minute additional men would be inside the hall, their eyes on the Governor. The routine was well established.
Liles’s third call was to the patrol laboratory, and a field investigation truck was dispatched. He went off to check on his men, who were going over every window and door of the mansion, looking for signs of possible entry. He came back with the servants in tow just as Lucy joined them. She still looked unpleasantly pale to Practice, but seemed composed and alert.
Luke and his wife had been asleep in their room and hadn’t heard anything until the scream awakened them. The cook, an old black woman named Mary, was hard of hearing and hadn’t known that anything was wrong until a trooper banged on her door.
“Where were you, Lucy?” Liles asked.
“In my room. I wasn’t asleep. I was waiting for Jim to bring Chris home.”
Liles’s eyebrows went up slightly at that, but he didn’t comment.
“Did you hear the scream?”
“Yes. It wasn’t loud, of course. With my door shut I can’t hear much of anything, not even in the next room.” Her eyes flickered to Practice, and she touched the tip of her tongue nervously to her lips.
Liles nodded. “You didn’t hear either of the dogs barking?”
“Trudy doesn’t bark, she growls. Josh barks all night long, at everything. I may have heard Josh, but I didn’t pay attention if I did.”
One of the troopers came into the sitting room.
“We’ve checked the first two floors, Captain. No sign of entry anywhere. About all that’s left is the Governor’s apartment ...”
Lucy stood up so suddenly that the chair she had been sitting in toppled over.
“My Lord,” she said shrilly. “Dore! We forgot all about Dore!”
• 7 •
Practice was out of the sitting room almost before Lucy had finished, with Captain Liles and three troopers in his wake. He reached the third floor and the door of the Governor’s apartment far ahead of the others, and was twisting the knobs ineffectually when they caught up.
“Dore!” he shouted, then turned.
“Should we try to break it down?” one of the patrolmen asked helpfully.
“These doors are solid oak,” Practice said. “Luke?”
“Suh?”
“Bring your spare key.”
Luke went back down the stairs in bowlegged haste, and they milled around tensely until he returned. There was no sound at all from within the apartment.
Practice snatched the keys from Luke’s outstretched hand and tried two of them before finding the right one.
The sitting room was brightly lighted, but empty. Practice threw open the door of Dore’s bedroom and looked inside. The covers had been neatly turned back on the bed and a table lamp was lighted, but there was no sign of Dore.
“What was that?” Liles asked, lifting his head and frowning.
Practice listened and heard the sounds, too, the faint crashing of piano keys.
He ran out of Dore’s bedroom and across to the Governor’s door.
The discordant sounds of the piano were louder. Practice pounded on the door, then looked through the ring of keys again until he found one that would fit the lock. He opened the door slightly and peered in.
“My God!” Liles whispered, and withdrew, his cheeks reddening.
Practice s
hut the door.
“Lucy, get a robe out of Dore’s closet. Mike ...”
“We’ll wait downstairs,” Liles said, and quickly herded his men from the Governor’s apartment.
When Lucy had returned with a robe, Practice opened the door again and they went inside.
Dore Guthrie didn’t look up from the piano at the other end of the bedroom. Her hair was hanging in her eyes and her tongue was clenched between her teeth in concentration as she brought her hands down again and again on the keyboard. She was wearing red silk stockings and a short nightgown and one leg was tucked under her on the piano bench. There was a reek of whiskey in the room despite the air coming in through smashed French doors leading to the balcony.
“Oh, Dore,” Lucy murmured, and Dore looked up slowly, her hands poised over the keyboard.
The room had been smashed to pieces. Drapes were pulled down, covers were torn from the bed, pictures hung in tatters from crooked frames, lamps were overturned, and furniture was slashed so that gobs of upholstering oozed from the wounds. The whiskey odor came from broken bottles beneath the overturned liquor cabinet.
“Hi,” Dore said, and a shy, sticky, lopsided smile appeared on her face. She seemed about to topple from the piano bench, but put out a hand to steady herself; then she beat her stiff fingers methodically and unmelodically against the keys. “Chopin,” she explained giddily, and reached for a glass on top of the piano. She hit it with the side of her hand and it fell to the rug.
Practice crossed to the balcony doors and went outside to look over the railing. From a nearby oak a man who could jump and who had little to fear might reach the railing and pull himself up. Most of the glass was scattered inside, on the carpet. He shut the remains of the doors and stepped over the dragging draperies.
Lucy was trying to put the robe around Dore’s shoulders as Dore flailed at her.
“You jes let me alone!”
“Dore, don’t be that way.”
“I’m gonna sit right here on his highenmighty panno stool ’til he gets home ’n’ gonna have it out with ’im.”
“Did you do all this, Dore?” Practice said sharply. She looked up at him, then guiltily at the wrecked room. She shook her head, her eyes widening in a protestation of innocence.
“Thass way it was when I came in.”
“Did you see anybody in here, Dore? Anybody at all?” Her eyelids fell and she gave a little shrug and almost collapsed. Lucy held Dore up and helped her put on the robe.
“Iss all over,” Dore sobbed. “All over.” She struggled up suddenly and lurched to the middle of the room, looking around as if she were just becoming aware of the damage.
“Oh, God!” she wailed. “God! Gonna think it was me!” She stumbled again, and Practice put out a hand to hold her. She clutched at the front of his coat, tears running from her eyes. “Gotta help me, Jim. I didn’t do it. Gotta believe me. Only came in five, ten minutes ago.”
“I believe you, Dore. Somebody climbed up to the balcony and smashed his way in. Didn’t you hear anything?”
She shook her head again, several times, her eyes on his face, her legs buckling. Lucy put a hand gently on Dore’s shoulder and Dore turned quickly, her teeth bared. She pointed a shaking finger at Lucy.
“You did it!”
“Dore ...”
“Sure, make me look bad! Bad with Chris, bad with John, bad, bad! Chris doesn’t want me, John—do you come up here an’ get in his bed, Lucy? Is he sleeping with you?” Nothing happened in Lucy’s face except that she turned a little paler. She didn’t take her eyes from Dore’s face, and Dore couldn’t tolerate the condemnation she saw there.
She covered her own face with her hands and sobbed, “Well, who is he sleeping with? It isn’t me!”
“Go to bed, Dore,” Lucy said in a voice like a lash. Obediently, Dore stumbled off, peeking from between her lingers, and Lucy walked stiffly after her.
Practice called downstairs on the intercom, and presently Captain Liles entered the Governor’s room. Practice showed him the balcony doors, and they went out on the balcony with a flashlight. There were traces of mud on the fresh paint of the railing and half a footprint on the floor.
“A size thirteen, maybe fourteen,” Liles muttered, examining the mark. “Let’s say he came in over the wall from the bluff side, ambushed the one dog, climbed the tree, and look a jump for the balcony. He must have arms like a gorilla. Then he popped out the glass, came inside, and—what’s missing? Maybe the wreckage is a cover.”
“The Governor will have to tell you that,” Practice said. “Offhand I’d say he only has about five hundred dollars’ worth of personal jewelry. No papers here that would be valuable to anyone.”
“Well,” the Captain said, “much as I hate to, I’m going to have to interrupt his politickin’ and get him over here.”
“There’s a call for you, Mr. Practice,” one of the troopers said, and Practice went inside. He took the call on the bathroom telephone, where he could shut the door and not be distracted.
“Jim? Bill Dylan. What’s all the excitement up on the hill?”
“Looks like a simple breaking and entering,” Practice said, wondering to himself exactly what it did look like. “Any news for me?”
“You’re in luck; the prints were on file here. I’ve got a dossier, and I’ll send it over by messenger. The prints belong to Billie Charmian, black, female, age about forty-two. Occupation listed as ‘singer.’ Her last known address was Fort Frontenac.”
“Criminal record?”
“No. Cabaret entertainers are required to be fingerprinted in this state. That’s why she’s on file.”
“Billie Charmian, huh?”
“That’s it. Ever hear of her?”
“No, I haven’t. But Guthrie might know who she is.” He thanked the FBI man and hung up.
Liles’s troopers had taken over the bedroom, and there was nothing more he could do there.
Lucy was coming out of Dore’s bedroom as he left, and she elevated an eyebrow and lifted her hands in a gesture of resignation and amusement. They went downstairs together.
“I’ve got to see about poor Trudy,” she said. “I wonder if the vet has come?”
“Dore calmed down?”
“Yes, she apologized for—for certain things. After that, she was good and sick to her stomach.” Lucy’s lip8 quirked sardonically. Then she became serious. “Jim, who could it have been? Someone with a long-standing grudge? The Governor’s bedroom is a complete wreck.”
He shook his head. “Hard to say, Lucy. Listen, from now on, I want you to keep an even tighter check on Chris. Lock his door after he’s in bed, if you have to.”
She nodded ruefully. “I’ve already started.”
“And have a talk with the principal of his school tomorrow. Make sure that someone has an eye on him every minute he’s there. I know they watch the kids pretty carefully, but ...”
Her eyes flashed with sudden alarm. “Jim? What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. But there’s been a lot of violence around here tonight. Only a dog was killed, so maybe most people won’t find it as shocking as I do. I’m going to be damned sure, though, that nobody gets within a block of this place from now on without an airtight reason.”
John Guthrie came in the front door of the mansion, a mixed coterie of lawmen with him. He shed his coat and dropped it on a convenient chair. He looked as if he had just fought to the limit against a more experienced man, and was Hulking because someone had cheated him out of his victory celebration.
“Jim! What the hell is this? I’ve got troopers coming out my behind.”
“A prowler knifed Josh and Trudy, and broke into your room by way of the balcony. Better have a look.”
Guthrie walked quickly to the steps, then stopped and glanced back at Practice.
“Dore ...?”
“She’s all right. A little frightened, that’s all.”
“Who saw him?”
“I did. Just a glimpse.”
“Liles, your men pick him up yet?”
“No, sir.”
“My God. What did he want?”
Captain Liles was getting red in the face from his trips up and down the stairs.
“Sir, could you check your valuables? We’d like to know what’s missing.”
Guthrie nodded. He went to a high walnut bureau; Practice and a trooper helped him set it upright. A strongbox had fallen from a bottom drawer, but the lock was intact. The Governor recovered his jewelry box from beneath a pile of shirts, and opened it.
“Nothing missing,” he said, looking around again. “I wonder if I have any whiskey left?”
“There’s a bottle in the kitchen.”
Practice and Captain Liles followed him to the kitchen, where he poured a stiff shot of whiskey over ice and sat in the corner on a stool, next to the refrigerator, his tie loosened and his socks falling down around his ankles.
“I wonder if you’ll get him,” he said vaguely.
“We may,” Liles said. “I’ve got twenty men out, and Chief Robards has called in all off-duty detectives. Do you have any ideas, Governor?”
Guthrie shrugged. “Most men have enemies. I have more than my share. It’s human nature to want to do in your enemy, but because we’re civilized, we tell ourselves that it’s not really possible, that violence is an oddity, a freak, rather than a way of life.”
“According to Jim,” Liles said, “the prowler may be hurt. One or both of the dogs got him. I’ve stationed a man at both hospitals. Now I’d like to know if we can let the press have the full story.”
“No,” Guthrie said, scowling.
“It might make the difference between getting this man and not getting him.”
“Sorry, Captain. I don’t want any headlines. Just give out a statement to the effect that there was a prowler; he got away; and there’s no evidence he was inside the mansion at all.”