Anatomy of a Murder

by Robert Traver

  As Maida and Parnell and I drove along the lake shore, all of us squeezed in the front seat of my coupe, I saw that I had forgotten how beautiful the drive to Thunder Bay was; the towering sighing groves of fragrant Norway pines, the broad expanses of clean white sand, the sea gulls, always the endlessly wheeling sea gulls; an occasional bald eagle seeming bent on soaring straight up to Heaven; tne intermittent craggy and pine-clad granite or sandstone hills, sometimes rising gauntly to the dignity of small mountains, then again sudden stretches of sand or more maiestic Norway pines—and always, of course, the vast glittering heaving lake, the world’s largest inland sea, as treacherous and deceitful as a spurned woman, either caressing or raging at the shore, more often turbulent than not, but today on its best company manners, presenting the falsely placid aspect of a mill pond.

  “I’ve been thinkin’,” Parnell McCarthy began.

  “Please, Parn,” I begged. “Please, not about the damned case, not now.” I gestured toward the lake. “All this incredible beauty. Sometimes I think I fish too much.”

  “I’ve been thinkin’,” Parnell solemnly went on, “that it’s been well over a quarter-century since I’ve troubled to come along this way. That last time my Nora and I were in a buckboard drawn by a team of bay mares … . I’ve been thinking of what fools indeed we mortals be, letting all this beauty languish unseen while we, like suicidal lemmings, hurry on our way to our obscure graves, chasing dollars, chasing women, chasing trout, chasing the dubious pleasures of the bottle.” He sighed and took a deep breath. “The waste, the hideous waste of living—it’s enough to make one weep. Boy, I must indeed mend me ways.”

  “Stop, Parn, stop,” Maida said, giggling like a schoolgirl. “You sound more and more like Cyrano. If you keep on like this I swear I’ll fall in love.”

  I glanced at Maida. “When did you exchange Spillane for Rostand?” I inquired silkily. “If I may say so, I think we’d better flee this lovely lake shore before all of us start cracking up.”

  The car toiled up a steep granite bluff, the roadway hacked out between towering walls of solid rock, and then began the long descent. There, spread out before us, was the village of Thunder Bay, as neat and ordered as though viewed from an airplane, clustered tightly among the tall pines along the edge of the glittering and now peaceful bay that had given the town its name.

  “And now to the wars,” I said, clamping a fresh cigar in my teeth and stepping on the gas.

  I speculated a little on what it was that drew the tourists to this remote place. It lacked the reek of ancient lore possessed by St. Ignace, with its great new bridge and “authentic” Indian chieftains in full regalia solemnly selling the lamblike tourists equally authentic hundred-year-old tomahawks made the winter before in Gaylord; it did not have the endlessly photogenic locks of Sault Ste. Marie, which could boast, and endlessly did, that its locks annually handled more tonnage than any in the world; its shoreline was not adomed with the tinted and dramatic Pictured Rocks of Munising; it lacked Marquette’s imposing iron ore loading docks, each dwarfing in height and length even the Queen Mary.

  No, the town did not possess any of these alluring tourist properties; it had no golf courses or crumbling fortresses; it had no tall roaring waterfalls from the top of which a monotonous procession of legendary Indian maidens had leapt for love and love alone; it lacked any medicinal springs to throw orange peels and coke bottles into or any copper or iron mines or towering ski jumps or Indian burial mounds or places to dig for agates or ancient arrowheads; nor had it any displays of two-headed calves or trained bears or wolves or even any mangy coyotes. Nor, final ignominy, had any of its hamburger stands or lunch counters, so far as I knew, been blessed by Duncan Hines. Perhaps, I reflected, perhaps it possessed the simple but incomparable attributes of rural quiet, fresh sea-washed air which blew the mosquitoes away—and great natural beauty, a beauty as yet unmarred by man. And, as I presently saw, it certainly had the tourists; the place was teeming with them; and I slowed down abruptly to avoid collecting a representative specimen on my fender, a prospective trophy more revolting for me to contemplate than the head of a bull moose.

  “Look where you’re driving, Mac!” my near specimen shouted.

  “Excuse me,” I apologized contritely, “I should have taken the sidewalk.”

  We drove slowly up the main street of the town, past the tourist park on our right, nestled in among a tall grove of pines on the lake shore, past the usual cluster of gas stations, a grocery store, the post office, then two churches and, as though to achieve proportion and balance, an abrupt rash of neon-lit taverns, the inevitable souvenir shop, a beauty parlor, and all the rest. Near the end of the long street, on our right and overlooking the lake, stood a large white and attractive three-story frame structure. A screened-in veranda ran along the entire front and half the side nearest the lake. This was the Thunder Bay Inn, in the barroom of which the proprietor Barney Quill had met his death such a short time before. The last time I had seen the Inn it had been boarded up and now, freshly painted, it was a mecca for school marms and summer tourists. A short distance past the Inn I stopped the car and turned off the key.

  “Well, Parn,” I said, “what’s the strategy?”

  “Polly,” Parnell said, “I suggest you drop me off at one of the smaller taverns—no fear, I’m not going to drink—and then drop Maida at the beauty shop for a manicure or something. Both strike me as being likely spots to begin our search. Then you hie yourself directly to the Inn. The word will fan out soon enough that you’re in town and they’ll be expecting you. So you might as well go there first and be done with it. Then I suggest we all meet back at the hotel around noon and have lunch and possibly compare notes. What do you think?”

  I nodded. “Sounds fine to me, Parn.”

  “But I don’t need a manicure,” Maida pouted. “Anyway, I do my own nails.”

  Parnell bowed gallantly. “I will grant that any attention from these sordid entrepreneurs of beauty to your comely person, dear lady, would be carrying coals to Newcastle,” he said, “but I’m equally sure that your great wit, matched only by your ravishing beauty, will suggest to you a plausible reason for visiting their malodorous precincts.”

  “I’ve warned you, Parnell,” Maida laughed. “If you keep running on this way you’re going to have an infatuated female on your hands.”

  “Ah, my dear, I shall impatiently await and welcome that eventuality,” Parnell replied, again gravely bowing with his air of impishness and antique courtliness. He held up a pudgy hand, his gray eyes .dancing. “But please, Madam, please, I beg of you—do not ever suggest matrimony,” he continued gravely. “Men have contrived fewer devices more deadly to romance than marriage itself.” He fluttered his fingers lightly through the air. “Gay wings,” he murmured, blowing Maida a kiss. “Ah lass, let us stoutly resolve ever to remain gay and unfettered.”

  “Ah, Parnell, Parnell … .” Maida murmured, wistfully shaking her head.

  “Ah, Cyrano, Cyrano,” I muttered, stirring restlessly. Parnell must have been quite a boy in his day, I reflected, quite a boy … . “Rubbish!” I said petulantly, wheeling the car around in an abrupt U-turn. Enough of this romantic buffoonery.

  chapter 19

  With some trepidation I deposited Parnell at the first tavern we came to and then Maida at the beauty parlor, wishing them good luck. Then I drove back to the hotel, parked my car near the street entrance to the taproom—the same door Lieutenant Manion had come and left by when he had shot Barney—and lit up a cigar, took a deep breath, and pushed against the door.

  It did not yield. I rattled and wrenched at the knob; the door was locked. A small typewritten sign on the glass informed me that the place would not be open for business until noon. I peered through the window; the place was dim and there was no sign of activity. I shrugged and walked around front to the main entrance of the hotel; perhaps I could at least get a peek at the bar. Since the hotel stood on a steep sandy hill, the fr
ont accordingly rose considerably higher above the street level than in the rear, where the building in fact ran a few feet into the hill. I mounted the steps to the screened-in porch.

  I had been wrong; Mr. Duncan Hines had been there before me, as his discreetly beckoning little tin sign now reassured me. Thunder Bay had at last made the grade; one could now dine in the certified knowledge that Duncan approved. I could visualize this ubiquitous little man—his bib full of gravy stains, his pockets full of pills, his soul full of hope—gnawing his way across a continent, leaving diplomas of approval in his wake like a sort of gastronomic Kilroy. I sighed and moved into the hotel. “Peptic ulcers can now be gaily faced,” I thought. “Duncan has et here.”

  The lobby was deserted except for a knot of numbed and somnambulistic-looking tourists gathered about a flaming large stone fireplace. It was only 72 degrees outside … . I glanced quickly around and found a sign on a door saying “Cocktail Lounge.” I tried the door and found it unlocked and went quickly down the stairs. “Biegler,” I thought, “your career as a detective has officially begun.”

  The stale beery morning smell of an unaired barroom smote my nostrils. I paused at the bottom to become accustomed to the dim light. I seemed to be alone. The room was large and filled with tables and stacked chairs except for a small roped-off dance space in the center. I spotted Laura Manion’s pinball machine in the corner, to my left, standing between an upright piano and a garishly colored jukebox. Adjoining this and nearer me were the wash rooms. I advanced slowly into the room. To my right about thirty feet from the street door I had just tried to enter, was the bar itself. I gave a start. Standing motionless behind the bar, holding a towel and glass in his hands and intently regarding me, was a small dark man, a wiry, foxy-looking little man in a white apron.

  “Hello,” I said, advancing. “I’m Paul Biegler from Chippewa, Lieutenant Manion’s lawyer.”

  “Yes, I know,” he replied, averting his eyes, busily polishing his glass. “What can I do for you, Mr. Biegler? I’m Paquette the bartender.”

  “Well,” I said, smiling, “after you’ve served me a bottle of pop—your choice—you might tell me if you were present during the shooting.”

  The soft drink and a glass were placed before me with deft dispatch; the money rung up; and then he was back polishing another glass. “I was present,” he said evenly. “Just like it said in the newspapers.”

  “Maybe we could talk a little about what happened,” I said.

  “Maybe,” he said, inspecting his glass in the light. “And then again, maybe we could not.”

  This sort of sparring could go on for days, I saw, an enterprise for which I lacked both the time and taste; I preferred seeing my little foxes in the woods. I swiftly decided to level with my cozy friend. Either he would talk or he wouldn’t; the sooner I found it out the better. Even his failure to talk might prove something or other.

  “Look, Mr. Paquette,” I said, “whether you choose to clam up or talk is a matter of considerable indifference to me. I’ll have my crack at you in court—where you’ll bloody well have to talk and plenty. But maybe all of us would save a lot of time and turmoil if you’d help me to find out what I came here to find out and which I promise you I will find out.”

  The polishing had stopped. “Like what?” he said.

  I shrugged. “Oh, for a starter, like where Barney and Manny—I mean Lieutenant Manion—were standing when the shots were fired.”

  “I didn’t see any shots fired.”

  This had not been clear from the newspaper reports. “Where were you?” I said.

  “I was standing out on the floor talking with some customers at a table. We’d had an unusually busy night and Mr. Quill had re lieved me so that I could have a rest. He was always thoughtful that way. The crowd was thinning out.”

  “The ever-thoughtful Mister Quill,” I thought, and then a little bell tinkled in my mind. The tired bartender had said he was standing out on the floor. Here was a poor fatigued bartender, who had been relieved by his thoughtful boss so that he could rest, standing out on the floor talking to his customers. I went baying along the scent. “Who were these customers?” I asked casually.

  “Fellow called Pedersen and his wife and a friend from Iron Bay. They’d been out for a drive.”

  I made a mental note to remember the name. “Where was the Pedersen table located?” I went on.

  “Out on the floor.”

  “Naturally,” I said. “But where on the floor? Over by the pinball machine? The stairs? The piano?” I paused, pointing, suddenly sure it was by none of these. “Or was their table over by the outside door there?”

  “Yes,” he murmured.

  Anyone standing by the window near the door, I guessed, could have commanded an unobstructed view of any patron approaching the door from the outside. Even a patron, say, like Lieutenant Manion. But better I lay off that now, I decided; no use clamming up this sly character at the outset. Well, maybe I should explore it just a bit, to worry him, to let him guess a little what I really suspected.

  “How come, Mr. Paquette?” I continued easily. “How come you didn’t sit down when you chatted with the Pedersens? Aren’t there usually four chairs at a table?”

  He shot me a quick look, but he answered readily enough. “They had a package on the other chair,” he said. From the quick little gleam of triumph in his eyes I guessed he was telling the truth. But his triumph was short-lived; I could not let him off the hook so easily.

  “Couldn’t this poor tired bartender have sat and held their package in his lap? Don’t tell me it was an anvil. Or couldn’t he have drawn up another chair?” I held up a warning hand. “Now don’t tell me there weren’t any spare chairs—the crowd was thinning out, remember?”

  This time I had really tagged him. He scowled and compressed his lips and glanced apprehensively in the direction of the stairway.

  “Or perhaps,” I went on, “you’re like the postman who climbs mountains on his vacation—you simply love to stand on your own two feet.”

  Like most people, Mr. Paquette could stand almost anything but ridicule. “What you driving at?” he demanded angrily. “Sitting or standing—what goddam difference does it make?”

  “Little Standing Bull,” I thought. But I wasn’t ready to spell out my thoughts, at least not quite yet, and anyway I was sure now that he knew that I knew. Perhaps it would give him a little more respect for the truth.

  “Don’t race your motor,” I said. “In any case Barney Quill was alone behind the bar when Lieutenant Manion came in?”

  “I’ve already told you he was.”

  “Sitting or standing?”

  “Standing. He always stood when he was at the bar.”

  I pondered my next question. “How long had he been relieving you, standing there alone behind the bar?”

  “Oh, for upwards of an hour I’d say.”

  Little Standing Bull had kept the weary vigil by the door for nearly a whole hour! “And when had he relieved you?”

  “Around midnight, I should say.”

  “And what time was the shooting?”

  “At twelve forty-six exactly.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “At the first shot I wheeled around and looked at the clock.”

  Had he been surprised, I wondered, to see the wrong man down? The clock was on the wall behind the bar. “Then you must have seen some of the other shots fired, didn’t you, Mr. Paquette?”

  He lit a cigarette and I thought his hand trembled ever so little. “I saw Lieutenant Manion standing up on the bar rail, leaning over and pointing at something down behind the bar.”

  I had long ago learned that this nice air of meticulous fairness in a witness was often a sure sign that he was hostile or lying. “Come now, that something was of course Barney Quill, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, yes. It turned out to be.”

  “And where at the bar was the Lieutenant standing?”

 
He pointed. “Near the middle, there, right between those two service rails. It was the only place open; the bar itself was crowded, all with men. Barney had just bought another round of drinks. He was generous that way. The Lieutenant turned and left almost as soon as I’d turned around. I ran out the door after him—the door you just tried to enter.”

  “Oh, so you saw me out there. What happened then?”

  “When I got outside he wheeled around and faced me and said: ‘Do you want some, too, Buster?’”

  I winced over that one, but continued bravely.

  “What did you do?”

  “I said, ‘No, sir’ and hurried back inside.”

  This was even worse for our side than the newspaper had reported it; this grim fighting talk from my Lieutenant was more than a little inconsistent with our proposed picture of a man whose wits had departed him from shock and excessive grief. But the show must go on … . “And Buster isn’t your name, of course?” I went on.

  “No, Alphonse is my first name. People generally call me Al or Phonse.”

  Yes, people continue to be as original as all hell, I thought. “Was Barney still alive?”

  “No; he’d apparently died instantly. Five out of the six shots got to him. The man didn’t have a chance.”

  “You mean a chance to fire a shot himself?”

  Quickly: “I mean a chance to live.”

  “To your knowledge did either man speak?”

  “I personally heard nothing but later I heard that Barney had said ‘Good evening, Lieutenant.’”

  “What about Manion—had anyone heard him speak?”

  “No. Apparently he did not utter a word although several persons later claimed they had spoken to him, including one of our waitresses.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Fern Rundquist.”

  This was fairly good news; see, my poor addled client couldn’t see or hear anything. The defense was up, down, then in a neutral corner … . “Did you go look at Barney?” I said.