1981 - Hand Me a Fig Leaf

by James Hadley Chase

  She leaned forward, her pretty face now flushed by the gin. "I want you to. I miss him."

  "From what I've been told he went off six years ago. That's a long time for a pretty girl like you to remember a kid and still miss him."

  "He was special. He wasn't like the other slobs here. He had brains: I'm willing to bet he's now a big success somewhere, making lots of money. She sighed. "I dream he'll come back and take me away from this god-awful dump." She stared at the empty glass, her face downcast.

  "Did he ever talk about leaving?"

  She shook her head.

  "He never talked about himself. He never talked about his grandpa."

  "What did he talk about then?"

  Her eyes shifted.

  "Well, you know. We were kids. Sometimes he'd talk about love or how tough the world is for kids. I could listen to him for hours." She looked furtively at the refrigerator. "I guess I'll freshen this." She waved her glass.

  "Let it rest, Peggy. Gin isn't good for nice little girls: not too much of it."

  She made a face at me.

  "What makes you think I'm nice?" She got up and poured another slug of gin into her glass. "No one else does in this god-awful dump."

  "Why not?"

  She was now more than high. She sneered.

  "They'll tell you. The only decent kid ever in this gossip-ridden shit-hole was Johnny."

  "Did you and Johnny have a thing together?"

  "Why don't you say it? I wanted to but Johnny said real love wasn't like that, and that came when marriage came." She tossed off her drink, staggered a little, let the glass slip out of her hand to drop on the carpet, then, looking wildly at me, she said, a sob in her voice, "That's why I want him found! I want him to come back here and marry me! Find him! Hear me!" and, turning, she lurched out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

  By the time I had washed and unpacked, it was time for lunch and I was hungry. I went down to the restaurant. There were around a dozen couples, mostly men, already eating. Everyone looked at me as I came in: some of them gave me a smile, others just nodded. I was sure everyone in the big airy room knew I was an operator working for a detective agency and my job was to find old Fred Jackson's grandson. I sat at a table away from the windows.

  A smiling old coloured waiter came over and suggested the special.

  "It's one of the cook's best, Mr. Wallace, sir," he said. "Pot roast."

  I said that was fine with me and he shuffled away. Conscious of eyes still staring at me, I concentrated on my folded hands on the table. I supposed, sooner or later, I would cease to be a novelty, but this scrutiny, as if they expected me to draw a gun or produce a rabbit or something, bored me.

  I became aware of a tall, sad-faced man standing over me.

  "I'm Bob Wyatt, Mr. Wallace. My little girl tells me you will be staying with us. It's a great pleasure."

  As I shook hands, I looked at his thin white face and dial eyes. He would be around fifty and life hadn't been kind to him.

  "If there's anything special you want, just tell Peggy," he said, forcing a ghost of a smile. "Have a nice lunch," and he wandered away.

  The pot roast was excellent. I took my time over it, then, a little after 14.00, I walked out into the lobby, not before the remaining diners left in the restaurant had nodded and grinned at me and I had nodded and grinned back.

  Peggy was propping herself up at the reception desk. She gave me a bright smile, but I didn't stop. I went into the humid heat and walked across the street to the sheriff s office. I was pretty sure that Sheriff Mason would be imbibing his medicine and with luck Bill Anderson would be on his own.

  I found him with his feet on his desk, picking his teeth with a match-end. When he saw me, he whipped his feet off the desk and jumped up.

  "Hi, Mr. Wallace. Glad to see you."

  "Call me Dirk," I said, shaking his hand. "Could be you and me will be working together soon," and I told him what the colonel had said.

  He looked like a man given a million dollars.

  "Why, that's great! Thanks, Dirk. That's truly great!"

  "The sheriff not around?" I said, sitting down.

  "Not for another three hours."

  "Tell me, Bill, what's happening to old Jackson's cabin?"

  "Nothing. It's for the birds. Maybe someone will want to buy his land, but that's for his grandson to decide. I guess he must be old Fred's only heir."

  "And no one knows where he is?"

  He nodded.

  "That's the situation. Dr. Steed says he'll put an ad in the local paper, announcing Fred's death." He shrugged. "I don't know if that'll do any good, but Dr. Steed says we have to go through the motions."

  "I want to take a look at the cabin, Bill," I said. "Do you want to come with me?"

  "You expect to find something there?"

  "I don't know until I've looked."

  "You mean right now?"

  "Why not, if you're not busy?"

  He grinned.

  "I sit here day after day without a thing to do. It's driving me nuts. Searle has a crime rate you could put on the head of a pin."

  "So . . . let's go."

  On the drive up to Jackson's cabin, I asked Bill about Peggy Wyatt. I sat by his side in his ancient Chewy, primed to get as much information out of him as he had to give.

  "Peggy? There's a mess." He shook his head. "You know, Dirk, I can't help feeling sorry for her and for her father. He has an incurable cancer and hasn't more than a year to live. If it wasn't for their black staff, the hotel would have folded. Amy, their cook, turns out food that brings in the customers. Bob Wyatt just hangs on. He's never out of pain. Peggy runs the place. I went to school with her. She was a bright kid. When her mother died, she quit school to help her father run the hotel, and from then on she became a wild one."

  "When did her mother die?"

  "Around six years ago. Peggy was sixteen then."

  "That's when Johnny Jackson was supposed to have gone missing."

  He gave me a quick glance.

  "What has he to do with Peggy?"

  "A wild one? Did she get into trouble?"

  "I wouldn't say that. She sure got into trouble with herself. This town never misses a trick. She began screwing around. She has a bad reputation, but Bob Wyatt is popular. Everyone here is sorry for him so they give Peggy a cover-up." Again he glanced at me. "What you call a fig-leaf. But recently, the word is out, she's hitting the bottle."

  "I've heard she and Johnny were close."

  "That's news to me. Johnny wasn't interested in girls. Anyway, Peggy would have been the last girl a guy like Johnny would tie up with. He was a serious kid."

  "You knew him at school?"

  "Oh, sure. I had no time for him. Okay, he was top of the school, but he was a loner." He began to drive up the narrow lane leading to Jackson's cabin. "He was an odd-bod. Some of the boys wanted to rough him up. I remember there was a gang that decided it was time to give him the treatment. I was one &them. We got him in a corner of the playground. The idea was to smear him with paint." He rubbed his chin. "We had this can of paint and a big brush. He stood quietly, facing us. He made no attempt to run away. He just stood there, looking at us." He shrugged. "I don't know, but it suddenly wasn't fun anymore. There was something about him that stopped us dead. We all suddenly lost interest or maybe we felt we were being stupid kids and he was grown-up. I can't explain it. There was this ,ready, unafraid look in his eyes that put him behind a high wall. We made the usual gang noises, then suddenly we all walked away. From then on, we left him alone."

  He swung the car to a standstill outside the cabin.

  "Well, here we are," he said and got out of the car.

  Together, we walked to the front door and pushed it open. The blowflies had left. There was still the smell of decay. The only sound was the distant croaking of frogs.

  "Did you check that old Jackson had a gun licence, Bill?" I asked as I stood looking around.

&
nbsp; "Yup. He had a shotgun licence, but not for the Beretta."

  "Did you check if Dr. Steed had a licence for the Beretta?"

  "Yup. He didn't."

  "Did you check if anyone in Searle owned a Beretta?"

  "Yup. No one in Searle owns or has owned a Beretta."

  I nodded approvingly.

  "You're doing your homework."

  "I want to work for Colonel Parnell."

  "At the rate you are going, that's what you'll do. Now, let's take a good look around."

  We spent the next hour and a half carefully searching the entire cabin. We came up with nothing: no letters, no bills, no photographs. As I looked into the empty drawers of the old bureau, it seemed to me someone had been here before us and had made a clean sweep of everything. I couldn't accept that old Jackson, who had lived here for years, hadn't kept some letter, some papers.

  "Looks like we're too late, Bill," I said.

  "That's what it looks like." He was kneeling by the bed, peering under it. "Something here."

  Together we shoved the bed aside and found a good-sized hole in the floor, half covert d with a wooden lid. I moved aside the lid and stared into the empty hole.

  I looked at Bill who was staring over my shoulder. "Maybe he kept money here," I said. "Did you check if he had a bank account at Searle?"

  "Yup. He didn't."

  I sat back on my heels.

  "He must have made money and he couldn't have spent much. This hole could have been his bank, and someone found it."

  Bill nodded.

  "Makes sense."

  I shrugged and stood up.

  "We seem to be getting nowhere fast. I was hoping to find some letters or at least a photograph of Mitch and Johnny. Let's take a look at the old coot's clothes."

  I opened the closet. There was only a spare pair of cut-down trousers and a shabby leather jerkin. I tried the pockets, but found nothing but dust.

  "Lived rough, didn't he?" I said as I closed the closet door.

  Bill grunted. He was staring at the opposite wall. The sun had slowly moved around to the back of the cabin and was now lighting the gloomy little room. I followed his gaze and saw the distinct marks of where a picture or a framed photograph had hung. It was only because of the sunlight that we saw it. The mark showed the frame had been around twelve inches long and six inches wide.

  I stared as I thought, then I said, "At a guess, that frame contained Mitch's Medal of Honor. Above the old coot's bed: a place of pride. It's a guess, but I bet I'm right."

  "If some thief came up here between yesterday and this morning," Bill said, "what would he want with a Medal of Honor? It would have Mitch's name on it."

  "Who said some thief? Whoever cleared out the drawers and took that frame was the man who shot Fred Jackson," I said. "No thief would clean out every scrap of paper belonging to Jackson. This was the killer, Bill."

  "Yeah."

  I moved into the steamy sunshine.

  "We'll take a look at the frog-pond."

  We did and found only frogs. They seem to know that Fred Jackson was no more for they were sitting in swarms along the bank. As soon as we appeared they vanished into the muddy, weed-covered water.

  "That's it," I said, lighting a cigarette. "We'll go back." As we walked to the Chewy, I asked, "Will the sheriff worry that you are going around with me, Bill?"

  "I fixed that. I told him it would be a good idea if I kept close to you and reported to him. He liked the idea."

  "Don't over-report, Bill. Give him the idea I'm getting nowhere. I have a hunch that this is a bigger fig-leaf job than I had first thought."

  He looked intrigued.

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Work it out for yourself," I said as I got in the car. "It'll be good training for you." As he started the engine, I asked, "Did you talk to the mailman about Jackson's correspondence?"

  "Not yet. I haven't forgotten, but Josh is difficult to catch. I hope to see him tonight."

  "Do that," I said and sat back while he drove me to Searle.

  Before leaving Anderson outside the sheriff s office, I asked him where Syd Watkins's father lived.

  "Wally Watkins?" He looked surprised. "You want to talk to him?"

  "Where do I find him?"

  "He has a real nice little house just outside Searle," Anderson told me. "It's the third turning on your left off the highway. You can't miss it. There's no other house up there. Wally comes to the Club three or four times a week. He's popular. He and Kitty, his wife, made a real home of the place. It was a terrible thing for Wally when Kitty died."

  "When was that?"

  "A couple of years ago. The town talk is she pined away for her son, but you know how the locals talk. Dr. Steed said it was pneumonia."

  "From what I've heard Syd Watkins was a wild one."

  "He was that, but you know what mothers are. Wally had other ideas about his son. He and Syd didn't get on."

  Before driving to Wally Watkins house, I stopped off at the Morgen & Weatherspoon frog-factory.

  I found Harry Weatherspoon at his desk. He gave me a hard stare as I walked into his office, then he grinned.

  "Ah, Mr. Wallace! The private eye," he said, sitting back. "You sure conned me with that information-for-writers line."

  "Sorry about that, Mr. Weatherspoon," I said, approaching his desk. "From past experience, I've learned some people don't care to talk to private eyes."

  He nodded.

  "No offense taken. I hear you are hoping to find poor old Jackson's grandson."

  "This town certainly has a great grapevine."

  "It sure does. Nothing happens here without the whole town knowing about it within half an hour."

  "I'd like to ask one question, Mr. Weatherspoon."

  "Well, there's no harm in asking. What is it?"

  "Old Jackson supplied you with a weekly consignment of frogs. I'd like to know how much you paid him."

  He regarded me, his bright, dark eyes quizzing.

  "Why?"

  "Johnny Jackson must be his heir. The way old Jackson lived, he was spending very little money, so he must have had money stashed away."

  "I suppose so. No harm telling you. Some weeks were fair, some good. Take an average, I paid him around $150 a week."

  "How was this money paid to him?"

  "Always in cash. I would put the money in an envelope and Abe would give it to Jackson and he would give Abe receipt."

  "So he must have been saving at the rate of S too a week?"

  Weatherspoon shrugged.

  "Maybe."

  "And this has been going on for years?"

  "Jackson has been doing business with our firm for some twenty years. I'd say we paid him, taking into account, his best years, some $200 a week."

  "In cash . . . no tax?"

  "Cash, yes. I wouldn't know about tax."

  "So at a very rough guess, he could have saved a hundred thousand dollars?"

  "I wouldn't know. There was his son, Mitch. Maybe, hi gave him money."

  I thought of the hole under Jackson's bed. That must have been where he hoarded his money. Even if my guess was wrong, there could still be a big sum missing.

  "Sad for the old fellow to take his life," Weatherspoon went on, "but he hadn't much to live for. We'll miss him. That is a very fertile farm."

  "Thinking of buying it?" I asked casually.

  He hesitated; giving me his quizzing look.

  "Well, yes, I know of a young active frog-farmer I could rent the farm to if I buy it, but it belongs to the Jackson estate. Until his grandson is found or proved dead, there's nothing can do about it."

  "Nothing?" I looked at him.

  "Well, as soon as I heard old Jackson was dead, I thought of buying the farm. I have my attorney working on it." He met my steady stare with slightly shifty eyes. "I had instructed him to advertise for Johnny Jackson. You could be a help, Mr. Wallace. If you trace Johnny Jackson, I'll ask you to tell him I'd like to t
alk to him. Tell him he'll get reasonable price for the farm."

  "Who's your attorney?"

  "Howard & Benbolt. Mr. Benbolt handles all my business."

  "Would you mind if I talked to 'him?"

  "Why should I? What about?"

  "I'm looking for Johnny. You tell me Benbolt is looking for Johnny. We could save each other's time by not crossing lines."

  "Go ahead. He's in the book."

  "Right. Well, thanks, Mr. Weatherspoon. Let's hope we find the kid," and, shaking hands, I left.

  It took me less than fifteen minutes' driving to reach Wally Watkins's house. Bill Anderson's description was an Understatement. The little bungalow was compact, white-washed with a small garden, an immaculate, tiny lawn and standard roses. The roses were exhibition blooms. There was a short, gravel path to the front door with red tiles as an edging. The little place spoke of care and attention and loving hands.

  Sitting in a rocker under the deep porch was Wally Watkins, smoking a pipe. He was neat in a white suit and a Panama hat.

  He watched me get out of the car. He would be around seventy: lean, with a white beard and sun-tanned. To me, he looked like an old pioneer who had worked hard, suffered a little, but had finally reached his haven.

  I liked him on sight.

  "Mr. Watkins?" I said, pausing before him.

  "No one else, and you'll be Dirk Wallace, an operator working for Parnell's Agency." He thrust out his hand and laughed. "Don't be surprised. News travels fast in this neck of the woods."

  "I've already learned that," I said and shook his hand.

  "Excuse me for not getting up. I have a bad knee. Now, before we talk, go into the house and into the kitchen: first door on your left. In the frig you'll find a bottle of good Scotch and a bottle of charge water. You'll find glasses right by the frig. Will you kindly do this?" He gave me a friendly smile. "While you're about it, take a look around. I'd like you to see how I live. Frankly, Mr. Wallace, I'm proud of the way I'm keeping our home since I lost Kitty."

  So I did exactly that. The little bungalow was perfectly kept as the garden. There was a good-sized living-room and a well equipped kitchen. I guessed from the two doors there were two bedrooms, but I didn't look further. I made the drinks and came out and sat in another rocker by his side.

  "Mr. Watkins, you can be more than proud of your home," I said.