by P. N. Elrod
“You think of everything.”
“Not always,” he muttered, and I knew he was mulling over Banks’s death.
He climbed onto a counter next to the wall and pushed open the window above it. The way was clear and he wriggled through. I wasn’t up to such exertions and did my usual vanishing act, reappearing at his side, but staggering a little. I’d had to fight to come back again, and it was draining. He caught my arm and led me away.
“It’s a bit of a walk,” he said. “They impounded the car as evidence.”
“How far?”
“About a half mile. Can you make it?”
“I’ll have to.” I kept my groans to myself. I hurt, but was recovering incredibly fast. I’d been damned lucky.
We didn’t talk and I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The air was clean and cool, inviting me to indulge in a bout of breathing. It quickly flushed the taste of the mortuary from my lungs.
Escott followed a less direct route to the Glenbriar Inn, taking a back street running parallel to the main road. It was a longer, more discreet walk, but after five minutes, witnesses to his night raid were the least of our worries.
We were about to cross an intersection when I chanced to look up. I yanked Escott back, maybe a little too hard despite my current state. He nearly lost his feet as I dragged him into the thin cover of some trees. He choked off his protest and followed my example of crouching behind the thickest trunks.
“What is it?” he hissed.
I pointed. One block over, waiting for a stoplight to change, was Emily Francher’s white Studebaker. Inside it was Jonathan Barrett, looking impatient. The signal turned green and he plowed ahead in the direction we’d just come from.
Escott had seen the car, but his eyes hadn’t picked up on the occupant. I filled him in.
“He’s headed for the funeral parlor,” he said.
“Probably to finish off what he started last night.”
“I think we’re safe enough for the moment.”
“Yeah, and I’m going to keep it that way. Let’s go back to the inn and get your clothes and my trunk.” I moved, trying to go faster than before.
He caught up easily. “Are you suggesting we do a skip?” The American slang jarred with his accent.
“Just for tonight. You can come back in the morning and square things up then.”
“Would it not be better to simply square things up with Barrett tonight? We do need to talk with him.”
“Like the Titanic talked with the iceberg? No, thanks, I’m not up to it.”
He had more to say, but I didn’t feel like an argument and urged him to hurry. We made the rest of the walk in ten minutes, but it nearly did me in. My headache was almost as bad as before, and I was so dizzy that Escott had to hold me up. It was in vain, though; the Studebaker had returned and growled to a stop on the street in front. Barrett got out and trotted up the steps of the inn. We watched and waited, but he never came out.
“He’ll be up in the room,” I said. “He’ll be there the rest of the night.”
“And you are in no condition to confront him. We can leave the luggage for the time being and shelter elsewhere. I’ve no objections to roughing it for one night.”
“Roughing it?”
He took charge and helped me away to a small park close to the inn. We sank onto a stone bench in a dense group of trees and stared at nothing much for a time. It was too cool for crickets, but other night creatures moved around us; busy with hunting, feeding, and mating—busy with survival.
Escott was thoughtful. “If he asks for me at the front desk and they find I am not in my room . . .”
“You can fix it tomorrow.”
“I wasn’t thinking of the bill. When they open the parlor in the morning and find themselves one short, they’ll come looking for me for an explanation. I was planning on having at least a partial alibi for my evening by spending it in the lobby again. Barrett has effectively prevented that.”
“Then we get you another. Show me one of those watering holes you went to the other day.”
“Are you really up to another walk?”
“It comes in cycles. Just keep it slow and stay out of sight of our window if you can.”
He could. My head was not so dizzy now, but I’d soon want a place to stop and completely rest.
“Hand me that packet of earth,” I said. He retrieved it from the bag and I shoved it inside my shirt and buttoned up again. It may have been a delusion, but I seemed to feel better having it next to my skin. “What’s clinking in there?” I referred to the bag.
“Milk bottles, a large syringe, glass cutter, tubing, gloves—”
“Syringe?”
“For drawing blood. I found it at a local feed store. Some of the farmers do their own veterinary work.”
“I thought you were squeamish.”
“I am, very.”
“So how’d you do that? Draw off the blood, I mean.”
“My actor’s training came in very handy. For an hour I pretended I was a vet and it worked. Be assured that I was quite ill after I’d finished and had the time to think about it.”
Glenbriar was very close to the sound with a neat little bay and a sampling of bars and similar vice shops for weekend sailors. Escott picked a tavern called The Harpoon and led the way inside.
It was half for tourists, half for locals, with fake nets and stuffed fish on the walls, along with some other nautical junk. Escott bought a double something at the bar and carried it to the distant booth I’d picked out.
“Nothing for me?” I joked.
“This is as much as I wish to imbibe tonight,” he stated. “There’s little sense in both of us having a bad head.” He sipped at the stuff—it was probably gin—and made a quick sweep of the other patrons. They looked like regulars, eyeing us once and returning to their own conversations. The bartender leaned on one elbow to listen to a man grouse about his wife.
“Real live joint.”
“Better than the one you just left,” he pointed out. “Would you care to tell me what occurred to you last night?”
I told him about the wrong road, the heavy rain, and how I found the cab. Shutting my eyes, I put myself there again and tried to repeat all of Banks’s last words. “That’s when I was hit. I must have gotten there right after it happened. Barrett saw my showing up as a piece of luck for him and he used it.”
“Why are you so certain it was Barrett?”
“He knew to use wood, it had to be him. He also knew you were nosing around town and maybe found out that we’d questioned Banks. . . .” I read his face. “All right, why are you certain he’s clear?”
“I’ll grant that he is the likely suspect and he is tall—Banks would see him as tall at any rate—but the forensic evidence would indicate otherwise.”
“Indicate what?”
“You and Banks had your skulls cracked by several heavy blows; I saw both of you today while the doctor was having his first close look. I don’t believe Barrett did it because the blows were not heavy enough.”
“They did the job.”
“On Banks, yes, but not on you.”
“I’m different from Banks.”
“Exactly, and Barrett of all people is aware of that difference and would have allowed for it. Had he actually been wielding the murder weapon, he would have completely pulped your head to make absolutely certain you’d never get up again.”
“I damn near didn’t, anyway. If they’d done an autopsy . . . he might have been counting on them to finish the job.” My shoulders bunched up and my stomach felt like caving in again. “Besides, he might have held himself back to keep it from looking too brutal.”
“A single murder in this quiet pocket of the world is considered quite brutal enough, let alone a double one. In for a penny, in for a pound, you know.”
“What’s your point, Charles?”
“My point is that whoever tried to kill you was unaware of your s
pecial condition.”
That hauled me up short. “Come again?”
He blinked. “I’d forgotten, you don’t know the official theory on this.”
“What’s the official theory?”
“That Banks picked up a fare who made him stop, bashed in his head, then robbed him. You arrived on the scene while the killer was still there and were attacked in turn.”
“A good Samaritan who got walloped himself?”
“Something like that. I believe the killer heard you speaking to Banks, or trying to, feared you’d get a clue to their identity, and decided to do for you as well.”
“And they didn’t know what I am?”
“Apparently.”
“Which means it could have been a real robbery.”
“I consider that to be a very small possibility, and so would the police if they had all the facts of our own investigation. We know Banks drove a woman from the Francher estate to Port Jefferson. Within twenty-four hours of giving us this information he is murdered. I believe the woman wanted him silenced, sought him out, and killed him.”
I felt very tired. “Which means Emily Francher—”
“Or Laura.”
“But Laura was only fourteen or fifteen back then.”
“Yes, with some growing to do,” he said meaningfully, only I wasn’t up to catching on to it. “Banks said change and tall. If you speculate a bit on filling in the blanks, he might have been trying to say, ‘She’s changed, gotten or grown tall. She lied.’ ”
I shook my head, not the smartest thing to do. “What’s her motive?”
“As far as Banks is concerned, she killed him to shut him up. She didn’t want him to identify the person he took to Port Jefferson.”
“Barrett could have hypnotized either woman into killing for him.”
“That’s a possibility. Our lack of data is most frustrating. If you’ve no wish to confront Barrett, then we must use this time to speak with the two women to find out what happened five years ago.”
“I’ll tell you what happened: Maureen got in that cab, went to Port Jefferson, and then to parts unknown. We show up way too late, ask some questions, and then some creep just happens to kill Banks and nearly gets me. We’re trying to make this thing more complicated than it really is.”
He drank his drink, listening until I’d run down and was out of nonsense. “Do you wish to drop this and go home?”
“I don’t know . . . yes. I think so.”
He pushed the glass aside, got out his pipe, and spent some time lighting it. He puffed and played with the match stubs with an absent finger. “I see.”
But he didn’t, and I started up another protest, which he cut off with a raised hand.
“I see that you’re tired, upset, and frightened.”
I glared at him.
“You’ve had too much coming at you in too short a time. Just because your physical nature has drastically altered is no reason to think your emotional nature shares the same advantages.”
Advantages. Is that how he saw it? Confined to the night, avoiding mirrors, always having to plan out the next feeding, worrying that someone might get too curious about the big trunk in the corner . . . The whole business stunk and I was stuck with it, maybe forever.
“I’m just letting you know that I’m aware of how it must be for you right now. I’m also letting you know that if you do decide to go home, I won’t be coming along just yet.”
“And try to take on Barrett yourself? Maybe get killed? Is this some kind of blackmail to keep me here?”
“Not at all. What you decide for yourself is all right with me, and no hard feelings. My own decision is to stay. I can’t leave anyway at this point. It might be open to misinterpretation by the police.”
A smile tugged at my mouth. “Like charging you with body snatching?”
“I certainly hope not, but it is a possibility. They’ll have no real evidence against me, of course, but I’ll have to remain until they say otherwise. They could make a lot of trouble for me, and I’ve no desire to lose my license.”
His investigator’s license wasn’t the only thing that kept him going, though. He had the same kind of curiosity that often got me into trouble. In the last week, a lot of it had been burned out of me and I was having trouble handling it in another person. Answering questions solved problems for him; for me it only seemed to make new ones. The emotional cost was distressingly high.
“You know if you stay you could get yourself killed. Barrett can do it without even trying.”
He nodded a little, his gray eyes yellow in this light. Of all people, he knew exactly what he was up against, and it still didn’t seem to bother him.
My breath exploded out in a sigh. “All right. I’ll admit I’m scared. I don’t like what we’re doing and what might come out of it, but we both know that only a real bastard would run out now, and I’m no bastard.”
He put down the pipe, maybe a little relieved after all.
“But,” I added, “I’ve finally figured out that you are, when you want to be.” His eyes flicked up in surprise and went totally blank for a long second. I thought my joke had fallen flat until an abrupt bark of laughter burst from him. Heads turned our way from the bar and he stifled it quickly and returned to his pipe.
“So what’s next?” I asked.
“Next I think you should—” He froze again, this time looking past me at the door.
I was careful not to turn around. “What is it?”
With a minimum of movement, he shoved the bag with the bottle, tubing, and other junk across the table into my hands. “They can’t see you yet, so you can safely disappear for a bit. Nemesis is approaching and you might be recognized.”
I managed to vanish a second before someone large stopped at our booth.
“Good evening, officer,” said Escott in an even, untroubled tone.
“Would you come with us?” It wasn’t a question.
“Why? Is there something wrong?”
“Just come along, sir.”
“I would like to know why.”
A silence. The rest of the bar, as far as I could tell from my muffled hearing, was quiet. “We got some questions to ask.”
Escott made a knocking sound as he emptied his pipe. “Can you not ask them here? I don’t understand.”
A second man drifted up next to the first, both looming over Escott. They weren’t taking any chances. “We’ll fill you in at the station. Come on.”
There was some movement and more puzzled protest from Escott. I hoped he wasn’t overplaying his innocent-citizen act as they led him out.
I followed, clinging to one of the cops until we got into their car. He sat in the back with Escott. Eventually he shivered and complained about the cold, so I shifted over to the empty front passenger seat.
Escott made another attempt to get information from them and subsided with obvious disgust. The rest of our short trip was made in silence.
After stopping, I lingered in the car long enough to materialize for a quick look as they marched Escott inside. The station was tiny. The front windows disclosed a one-room office with a desk, phones, and files. Through a wide heavy door in the back wall were the cells. The ones I could see were empty.
We were in Glenbriar’s municipal district. Conveniently across from the jail was the courthouse and next to that an ancient structure claiming to be the city hall. Down at the far end of the street, I abruptly recognized the Glenbriar Funeral Parlor.
All its lights were on, blazing away like New Year’s.
Oops.
8
I quit the car, found a way around to the back of the jail, and slipped inside, too nerved up for the moment to worry about my sore head.
The place was all linoleum and painted metal; nothing to get excited about. The open door at the end of the cells led to the outer office, and I crept up to it with my ears flapping, only nobody was talking. I got in the angle created between the door and the wall
and peered through the crack made by the hinges.
Within the narrow strip, Escott’s profile and part of a uniformed deputy leaning his butt on a big desk were visible. The other man was out of view, but a squeaking chair placed him a few feet in front of Escott. They were all motionless except for breathing, and sometimes one of them turned that automatic body pattern into an expression of impatience by an occasional sigh. They made no offer to get coffee, which I interpreted as a sign of Escott’s ambiguous status with them. A guest gets coffee and a prisoner you talk around like he’s not there; Escott was neither and that put my nerves up even more. I couldn’t tell what Escott was feeling.
A phone rang and the guy at the desk answered. He said, “Yeah,” and hung up. Five long, silent minutes later a car rolled up and another man walked in. the deputies stood up and made room for him.
“Thanks for coming down, Escott,” said the newcomer.
“I had little choice in the matter, Chief Curtis,” was the dry reply. “What is this all about?”
“We want to know what you did with your friend.”
“I don’t understand.”
And it went on like that until the cop got around to revealing the embarrassing fact that my body had taken a powder. Escott hadn’t been kidding on his moral outrage. He was a real treat to watch, but Curtis expected an act and wasn’t buying any of it.
“Put the lid on for a minute, Escott, and just tell us everything you’ve done today since four o’clock.”
Escott choked a little. “You really think I did it?”
“You were the one so dead set against an autopsy.”
One of the deputies snickered at the inadvertent joke.
“Yes, out of respect for his religious beliefs—”
“Which I think is a lot of crap. You know as well as I do we throw that out the window in a homicide case. Don’t you want to find who killed your friend?”
“Of course I do—”
“Then tell us where you stashed the body.”
“I didn’t ‘stash’ it anywhere because I never took it. I’ve done nothing.”
“Then tell us what you have done.”
He gave out with a loose schedule of a walk around the town, dinner at the inn, and another walk ending with a drink at The Harpoon. As stories went it was pretty lousy.