The Complete Bragg Thriller Box Set

by Jack Lynch

  Reitlin looked at me sharply. “Why?”

  “Earlier today I talked to Duffy Anderson, the boy Red was seen with earlier that evening.”

  The coroner’s men were beginning to gingerly unwrap the plastic around the head. Reitlin took my elbow and moved us away from the others.

  “Where did you see Anderson?”

  “At a ranch just outside of Cloverdale. He says he had some information for Dustin, and was down here that night to give it to him. Said the man was dead when he got to his boat. He panicked and took off. It fits with what I’ve seen of the boy. And this place he ran off to isn’t apt to be where Dustin’s killer would run to. Red’s sister lives there. Duffy used to be married to her. I suggested he come on back home and clear up things with you people. With luck, he’ll be back today.”

  “That would be nice,” said Reitlin.

  “You never said how the investigation was going.”

  “It’s not, for all intents and purposes. And other people in the department are showing a curious lack of interest in it.”

  “You mean the sheriff himself?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, you didn’t. Well, interest is apt to start building up pretty soon. I saw Red’s father yesterday up in Oregon. He’s coming back today. He struck me as being a rather forceful man.”

  We went back over to where they were lifting the last layer of plastic. When the unveiling was complete, the photographer went to work again.

  “I know him,” I told Reitlin, after a glance at the very dead face. “His name is Jerome Poole. He called himself Cookie. He’s a small-time hustler around Marin City. He lived over in Homestead Valley, where the body of a man named Kempe was found the other day.”

  Reitlin gave me a funny look.

  “I’ve been doing some work down here recently. I ran across some of these people in the course of it. Cookie had been doing some recent chores for the people putting up the Shores project. He was a token personage to the youths in Marin City. The promoter, Paul Anderson—who’s Duffy’s father, by the way—or a black attorney living in Sausalito named Arthur Moss could tell you more about it.”

  Reitlin studied me with a sour expression. “Are you sure of all this?”

  “Every bit of it.”

  He looked off across the water. He didn’t seem too happy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This is going to get sweaty.”

  “How so?”

  “Anything to do with the Shores project is very sensitive with the sheriff. Don’t pass that around.”

  He went over to the body. There was a small revolver in Cookie’s waistband. One of the coroner’s men lifted it out with a pencil through the trigger guard and held it up to Reitlin. The detective took it and looked over.

  “Twenty-two?” I asked.

  Reitlin nodded.

  “Both the man found at his place over in Homestead Valley and Red Dustin could have been shot with a twenty-two, I understand.”

  “That’s right,” said Reitlin. He dropped the weapon into a plastic bag that one of his aides held open.

  It appeared that Cookie himself had been shot once through the chest. From the position of the wound, it looked as if the bullet could have passed through his heart.

  I told Reitlin I’d be around, and went back down the pier. I went out the one next to it, to where Herman Beamer and his daughter Mae Jean lived. It took a little pounding to raise anybody at the Beamer houseboat. Mae Jean finally came to the door wearing the same old pair of jeans and baggy sweater that she’d had on the other day. She told me her father had gone into town to do some business at the bank.

  “Do you happen to know where Soldier Smith is?”

  She looked at me a moment. “Yes, he’s out back.” She turned and started through the boat. I closed the door behind me and followed her. Nobody had tidied up since the last time I’d been there.

  Soldier was standing over by the rail, twisting his cap in his hands and mumbling to himself. Mae Jean sat down in the chair Beamer had occupied the last time I’d been there. She took a pull from an open bottle of beer on the makeshift stand beside the chair. She looked like a parody of her father.

  “How long has he been here?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “Hour, maybe. Do you know what they’re doing over on the pier next door?”

  “They pulled a body out of the water. A black man named Cookie Poole. Did you know him?”

  “Sure. He was that smart-alecky one. Tried to do things to me once.”

  “What sort of things?”

  She shrugged. “You know. Things.”

  “Does Soldier spend much time out here?”

  “Sometimes, when Daddy’s not here. He’s company, you know. We talk about this and that.” She took another pull of the beer.

  “What have you been talking about today?”

  “Nothing much. I think all the men on the pier next door bother him.”

  “I’d like to ask him a couple of questions.”

  The girl shrugged again. “Soldier? You hear that? This gentleman wants to ask you something.”

  Soldier glanced over his shoulder, still mumbling to himself; then he recognized me and turned.

  “We met the other day,” I reminded him. “When the dogs came running down the pier.”

  “Oh yessir, yessir, we did, sir. Thank you sir, you were a help then. Them bustard dogs on the pier. No business on the piers, those dogs. No sir.”

  “I’m curious about something, Soldier. Somebody saw you on the night of the big fire. What were you doing during the big fire?”

  He grunted and pushed something imaginary away with his hand. His eyes were on the deck at his feet. He was shaking his head. “No sir, huh-uh. No sir.”

  “He doesn’t want to answer,” Mae Jean said. “What’s wrong, Soldier honey? You can tell us.”

  He gave the woman a bashful grin, but continued to shake his head and mumble nonsense.

  “Somebody said you had a gun that night, Soldier. A rifle or a shotgun, they said. And I heard somebody fire a shotgun that night myself. Fired it twice, I believe. Was that you?”

  His muttering increased in pitch and speed. He turned away and stared over the rail again.

  “You’re upsetting him,” the woman told me, getting out of her chair. “Did somebody really see him?”

  “Yes, and I really heard the gunshots.”

  “Let me try,” she told me. “He has to be settled down some before he makes sense.” She crossed to the older man at the rail and put her arms around him, making little cooing noises.

  “Don’t get all bothered now, Soldier man. You come on over here and let me pet you.”

  Soldier let her lead him back over by the chair. She sat down and he dropped to his knees beside her, as if he’d been there before and liked it. She comforted him and tugged his head over to her chest. He rested it there like an infant, and gradually the look of panic went out of his face.

  “Soldier, you were going to tell us about the other night.” She was stroking his back. “Come on, honey. It’s all right. Nobody will hurt you.”

  I squatted down beside him. “Did you shoot the shotgun, Soldier?”

  He took a deep breath and his head bobbed in the affirmative. “It was for the black bird, yes sir, yes sir. Was going to croak him, you see, because he hurt me.”

  “It was a black man who hurt you?”

  “Yes sir, the black bird. I warned him when he hurt me. ‘Can’t do that to the Soldier,’ I told him. Warned him off the docks, I did. Yes sir. Told him never to come back. I’ve had my way with men in days gone by, let me tell you. Can’t do that to the Soldier, no sir, no sir.”

  He wagged his head from side to side, never lifting it from the girl’s bosom. She continued to stroke him gently.

  “Did you see him again that night, Soldier? The night of the big fire?”

  “Yes sir. He was back on the docks, him and another. I told him
not to come back. I warned him plenty. You can’t hurt the Soldier like that, I told him.”

  “He was with another man that night?”

  “Yes sir. The black bird and another. So I went for the shotgun, yes sir. I’d given him fair warning, that time before. When he hurt me.”

  “Was the other man with him a black man also?”

  “Huh? Oh, no sir. Just the one black bird. And another. A white feller like us. A thin man all in dark, he was. But a white feller. He wasn’t there later.”

  “What did you do after you got your shotgun?”

  “Went after the black bird, I did. Yes sir. But the other feller was gone by then.”

  “And you found the black man, did you?”

  “Yes sir, yes sir, but I was too late. Too late for the black bird, served him right. Oh God! In China things was different. Oh God…”

  I got to my feet. Something had upset him again. His eyes had grown wide, and he stared past me unseeing. Mae Jean lowered her head to his and cooed softly to him. She hugged his head to her a moment, then looked over at me with a weary smile. I smiled back, and nodded encouragement. I had a feeling they’d spent a fair amount of time comforting each other.

  “Soldier honey, the night of the fire? What did you do after you got the shotgun? When you found the black man. Did you shoot him?”

  His head jerked up and he looked at her. “Oh no, not me. Too late I was for the black bird. He was dead by then.”

  A look of relief crossed the girl’s face, and she kissed his forehead. He lowered his head again.

  “So you found the black man dead, and the man who’d been with him was gone, is that right, Soldier?”

  He looked across at me and bobbed his head. “Yes sir.”

  “But you fired the shotgun, didn’t you?”

  “Yes sir. Shot the gun, shot the gun. Standing over the black bird I fired away. Banged the air I did. He was gone, and good riddance to boot. Bang-bang! The black bird’s dead!” He chuckled quietly to himself.

  “What did you do next, Soldier?”

  “I wrapped him well and dumped him in the drink, I did. Yes sir. A neat package. With a concrete pillow I give him to rest on in the water. Neatness. Neatness.”

  “But why did you do that?” I persisted.

  “ ’Cause it was the plan. Ever since he hurt me, the black bird. I thought it all out. If back to the docks he comes, I get the shotgun. Bang-bang! Then wrap him up, load him down, and over the side into the drink. Thought it all out, I did, after the black bird hurt me. Can’t do that to the Soldier, I told him.”

  “So you had planned to shoot him and then put his body into the water?”

  “Yes sir, if he ever come back to the docks. I give him fair warning about that. But someone got to him first, they did. A hole in his heart it was. Blood like it had come out of a well. Yes sir.”

  “So when you found him already dead, you just went ahead and did the rest of it. Wrapped him up and threw him off the dock?”

  “Yes sir. Had it all planned, I did. Everything ready in the wheelbarrow. The wrap and the rock. Presents waiting for the black bird.”

  “Did you see the other man again, the one who’d come onto the docks with him that night?”

  “No sir, no sir. Just the black bird. Went and got the gun, I did. Bang-bang!”

  I left the two of them huddled together that way. I went back and told Reitlin the story Soldier had given me, and tried to warn him about the poor fellow’s head.

  “You’d better go talk to him while he’s with the woman. She can help calm him and get him to make sense. If you get him off by himself, or try taking him somewhere else to question him, he’ll just babble.”

  He thanked me morosely.

  I told him to have a nice day, and headed back to the pier hub, and then went out Six Pier to Shirley’s houseboat.

  TWENTY-ONE

  When I got to the houseboat, I rapped on the door and called Shirley’s name. When I rapped, the door gave way slightly. It wasn’t latched.

  I stepped inside and felt a chill in the bottom of my stomach. Everything was torn apart and turned topsy-turvy. The refrigerator was humming angrily. Its door stood wide open. Food and leftover containers had been stripped from it and tossed onto the floor. So had all of the dishes from the cupboard. Everything was broken. The little dining table, with one of its legs broken, had been smashed into the picture tube of her television set. Somebody had ripped open the cushions and scattered the stuffing around.

  I was about two seconds taking all that in before I went over to the bed. That’s where I found Shirley, or a woman I assumed was Shirley. I thought I recognized the jeans and torn blouse she had on, and where it wasn’t welted, the texture and color of her skin was about right. I knelt beside her and felt her pulse. At least she still had one. I couldn’t recognize her face. Both eyes had been hit so many times they were swollen shut. A broken tooth with some blood on it lay on the mattress beside her head. And then I realized what was wrong with her head. Somebody had done a crude job of cutting off her mane of chestnut hair to within two to three inches of her skull.

  She was lying oddly, as if trying to reach a fetal position. I started to roll her, but quit immediately. One of her arms had been broken. I unbuttoned her blouse and winced. Her stomach was a field of purple and black, like her face. I had never seen anybody beaten that badly. Not ever.

  It took a while to find the telephone. It had been stuffed inside one of the gutted cushions. A loud whine came from the receiver. I hung up and carried it over under the window, where I found her phone book.

  I did a lot of calling around. I phoned the Sausalito Fire Department first. They run an emergency ambulance service. I told them to bring a trolley out Six Pier, and told them what they’d find when they got there. Then I called Marin General Hospital and told them what would be arriving shortly. I made some other arrangements. I phoned Directory Assistance and got the number of a San Francisco plastic surgeon I’d had dealings with in the past. I told him I wanted him in on the reconstruction of Shirley’s face from the start. When I explained things, he promised me he’d get up to Marin General immediately. It would be a long, slow, painful process, I knew, but if anybody could restore that welted mess into something resembling the fey beauty I knew as Shirley, this man could.

  My next call was to Jimmy Harrington. I’d known him when we both worked at the Chronicle. He was a photographer who’d since then gone into business for himself. I’d been partly responsible for that, after we’d become friends and I’d learned about his background. He started out in Army Intelligence, and from there had drifted around on loan from the army to various government security departments. I’d told Jimmy he was crazy not to take advantage of that kind of background by free-lancing. My advice had proved out. He again did special assignments for the government from time to time, and I knew he also did a lot of work for various police agencies in the area. What other work he did, I didn’t know.

  I laid it out for him. I told him I wanted him full time the rest of the day. I wasn’t sure what all I wanted yet, but I had a couple of ideas. One would involve getting together a team of aides, perhaps.

  When I was through, Jimmy whistled lowly. “She must be quite a woman.”

  “She is, and in a way, I’m responsible.”

  “It’s a, going to cost you, Pete. I mean, even throwing in a little work for old times’ sake…”

  “I don’t need any old times’ sake, Jimmy, I just need the photo work. I want to nail the people who did this, and I need your help to do it.”

  “You got it, pal. But you think the hospital will let me shoot her in the Emergency Room?”

  “I’ve already arranged it.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  My talking on the phone had brought Shirley around to a semblance of consciousness. I heard a little cough, or choke, from her. I also heard the ambulance siren coming down Bridgeway. I opened the door wide so I could hail the atte
ndants, then crossed to the battered girl. I rested one hand very gently on the arm that looked uninjured.

  “Pete?”

  It was more a raw croak than a word. She was struggling to say more, and a couple of tears came out of the purple slits that were her eyes.

  “Relax, kid. Help is on the way.”

  “Oh, Jesus, baby. It hurts so much…”

  “Shhh, save your strength. I just want to know one thing. Did you recognize the people who did this to you?”

  She shook her head just a fraction. “Two men—one held me, the other hit…Never stopped, never stopped…Never stopped.”

  “Shirley, listen. An ambulance crew is on its way. They just pulled into the parking lot. They’re going to take you to Marin General. I have a specialist coming over from the city. I know it’s hard for you to accept any of this right now, but it’s going to be all right. It’ll take time, but you’ve got to believe that. And you’ve got to be tough, kid. Tougher than you’ve ever been before.”

  She sniffed, and gave a brief nod of her head.

  “At the hospital, in the Emergency Room, there will be a man there taking pictures of you. It’ll be all right. He’s working for me. I want the photos for the record. Later today he might be taking some photos of other people. Do you think you could recognize the men who did this?”

  “Yeah.”

  She turned her head aside. I had the ugly feeling that on top of everything else, they’d broken her jaw in one or two places.

  “I’ll know them,” she said, a little stronger. She was starting to sniffle again.

  The ambulance crew paused outside with their gurney. One of them came to the door.

  “In here,” I told them.

  They lifted the gurney into the room. They were young, husky fellows, one blond and fair, the other swarthy, with modishly long hair. They looked around them briefly at the mess with questioning looks, then came over to Shirley. The blond had to look away a moment. The other knelt gravely.

  “What in God’s name happened?”

  “She got worked over. Be very careful. I think one of her arms is broken, and maybe her jaw. She could have some internal injuries, but she hasn’t been coughing up any blood while I’ve been here.”