Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense (40 page)

“I just played dumb, which ain't too hard for me. ‘I don't know what you mean,' I says.

“‘We got no time for this,' Rol Junior says. ‘He'll tell us when I show him what his guts look like,' and he pulled an eight-inch blade. Man, that thing flicked open in his hands like magic.”

“What happened?”

“He wasn't no soldier,” Paulie shrugged, “he was just a guy with a knife. My head doesn't work so good since the grenade got me and Billy, but I can still understand a guy with a knife. He came straight at me, which was a big mistake. I snatched his knife wrist and spun him around into a choke hold, keeping him between me and his old man. Mr. Costa pulled this ugly little automatic, and he was circling around trying to get a shot when the girl screamed and he looked away. That was an even bigger mistake.” He took a long pull from his beer.

“Where are they now, Paulie?” I asked quietly. “Are they in the car?”

“The car? Nah. I figured that monument stone of Charlie's was too big for one guy anyway, but it's just about right for three, and it says ‘Costa' on it, right?”

“And the girl, Paulie? What about the girl?”

“She's still staying at Mrs. Stansfield's. I went over there later to talk to her, but she was pretty weak and couldn't say much. I'll bet she's glad to be out of that box, though.”

“I imagine she is,” I said, releasing a long, ragged breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. “Paulie, we're going to have to tell Ira about this, you know.”

“I wanted to in the first place, but Hec said I'd get in trouble. I think he just didn't want anybody snooping around here. One good thing at least, Mrs. Stansfield seems to like me a little better now. Maybe she was only grouchy before because she was lonely.”

“Maybe so,” I said, frowning. Something he'd said was gnawing at the back of my memory. “Paulie, didn't you tell me Mrs. Stansfield's house was west of the cemetery?”

He nodded. I stared across the fields of golden corn that ran unbroken to the pine-covered hills on the horizon. The setting sun was hanging above them like a single fiery eye. “Paulie, there is no house west of the cemetery.”

“Sure there is,” he said, with a trace of irritation. “That stone one, over by the fence. Mrs. Stansfield's been there even longer than the major, since 1852, I think, or maybe '51. I'm not very good at numbers anymore.”

“W
HAT DO YOU
think will happen to him?” I asked.

“You tell me,” LeClair said, slumping back in the seat of my rental sedan. He looked utterly exhausted, but his eyes were bright, almost feverish. He was watching the men in the rear of the jeep ahead of us as we followed the small convoy back to Algoma in the gathering dusk. Paulie was talking animatedly with a couple of Guardsmen, their smiles occasionally visible in the flickering headlights.

“Can you see Paulie on the stand at the coroner's inquest?” he said softly. “They'll tear him apart. He'll go to Ypsilanti for a three-month psycho evaluation, then back to the vet's facility if he's lucky, and maybe prison if he's not.”

“That's probably how it'll go down,” I conceded. “He killed two people, and at least contributed to the death of a third.”

“Actually, I don't know whether he did or not,” LeClair said thoughtfully. “I only know what you told me. I'm just a smalltown sheriff, and the Costas and Stansfields are rich, influential folks. I might be very reluctant to order an exhumation on the word of some poor, brain-damaged vet.”

I glanced over at him. “You can't be serious.”

“I don't know,” he said. “I'll give it to you straight. I don't give a damn about what happened to the Costas, I'm just sorry it happened here. I feel bad about the girl, but she should have been choosier about her playmates, and there's no helping her now. That only leaves Paulie. He's already been ground up in the machinery once, and I really hate to see him fed back into the hopper again.”

“Three people are dead.”

“You're wrong, sport, a lot more people are dead than that. They got their tails shot off while Roland Costa's son was using his draft exemption to learn the family rackets, and Paulie Croft was getting his head rearranged so he could be a grave digger instead of a trucker like his old man. So I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Garcia. Nothing. Nada. I'm dumping it on you. You decide who owes who what, and then let me know. Okay?”

“That's not fair,” I said flatly.

“No kidding?” he said, stifling a yawn, “Well, we don't have to be fair. We're the law. And don't worry about Hec. I can handle him.”

“You've got to be hallucinating from lack of sleep,” I snapped, “or maybe all this fresh air's affected your mind. You could never get away with anything like that.”

“You're probably right,” he admitted, “but at least I'm covered if we get caught. I'll just scuff my toe in the dirt and say I was taken in by a smooth-talking slicker from the big city. I don't know what your excuse could be, but that's your problem.”

The faint sound of laughter from the jeep ahead drifted past us on the wind, and I could see the streetlights of the village glowing in the distance. Both of them. “I don't know, either,” I said slowly, “but maybe I won't need one. I mean, what could possibly happen to anybody in a hick town like this?”

Scrolling the column
he had just written, Conner critically scanned the sentences as they appeared on his CRT screen, a touch of apprehension tightening his stomach.

Something was missing. Even though the words had been strung together smoothly and professionally, whatever magic he'd had was gone, like the faded skills of an athlete. But a mind doesn't weary and slow with age the way muscle does. The ability was still there. He simply had forgotten how to tap it.

He reached for the phone automatically when it rang, his eyes still on the screen.

The voice was thin and gravelly with age.

“Do I have the pleasure of speaking to Whit Conner?”

“You do,” said Conner, “but terming it a pleasure may be premature.”

“I've been reading your columns for years. I like the way you think.”

“Very nice of you to call and tell me,” said Conner cautiously. Compliments were always welcome, so long as they weren't stretched out or a prelude to a request for money.

“My name is Hapford. I'd like to discuss something with you. A mystery that occurred many years ago.”

Conner suppressed a groan. He didn't need this now.

“Mr. Hapford, as a reader of my column, you know I write about what I see before me today. The puzzles and bittersweet memories of yesterday I leave to others.”

“Indulge me for a moment, Mr. Conner. I have always understood that every writer injects something of himself into his work, and if you read enough of it, you can form a conclusion as to his character. If the theory is wrong, I have misinterpreted yours and I am wasting time when I have none to waste. However, if it is even partially correct, you will be at 610 Baysmore Road this afternoon at two. Good day, Mr. Conner. It has been nice talking to you.”

The phone went dead.

Conner leaned back. He often thought many of the strange calls and letters were inspired by the photo at the head of his column as much as by what he wrote. The camera had turned his rather ordinary face with a slightly too-big nose into one so thin and bony it was almost fierce, the eyes glowing and holding a challenge.

The owner of that elderly voice hadn't been lying about reading him for years. Anyone who had would know damned well he'd never resist an invitation like that, even if he suspected it was from an irate reader who wanted nothing more than to break his fingers. Almost every column spawned a few of those.

He flipped through the street directory on his desk. Baysmore Road was well out in the affluent suburbs. A pleasant ride, and the way he'd been writing lately, a few broken fingers might be considered a blessing by some of the paper's subscribers. Not to mention Grainger. The editor had been looking at him out of the corner of his eye lately.

B
AYSMORE
R
OAD
had been there a great deal longer than many of the small scale palaces along it that could only be glimpsed through the trees. The people who had built these homes originally couldn't have been concerned about the size of the monthly mortgage payments, because they probably owned the banks.

Six ten had a pair of stone columns flanking the driveway entrance, the number and the name “Hapford” showing through the patina of the bronze plaque on one.

Conner turned in and followed winding macadam he thought would never end, a black strip that didn't carry enough traffic to discourage weeds from sprouting through the cracks and edged by an untended forest laced with underbrush and fallen trees.

The driveway climbed. And climbed. And after a sharp turn burst forth onto a carefully trimmed lawn surrounding a peaked and turreted mass of brownstone and brick.

He stepped from the car and looked up. Queen Victoria would have felt right at home. He'd always admired the style, and this was one of the finest he'd ever seen, a little weathered now and showing its age, but still saying exactly what the man who had built it wanted said—he had taste and money.

Weeds might grow in the driveway, but the sweeping lawn and blossoming flower beds were well tended, as though it were a private enclave deliberately hidden.

A waist-high stone wall flanked the driveway, broken by a tier of flagstone steps that led to a wide terrace of grass, another tier of steps beyond it leading up to a columned and arched portico framing double doors of oak.

Conner started climbing. It would take one helluva throw by the paperboy to reach that portico.

Fronted by a bed of flowers, another wall at the rear of the grass terrace sheltered a kneeling man working at the soil with a trowel.

“Afternoon,” said Conner when the man looked up. “Are you responsible for all of this?” He waved at the lawn and the flowers.

The man unfolded a gaunt frame until he was upright, boot-camp-short gray hair emphasizing prominent ears. “I am.”

“Very beautiful,” said Conner. “Would you be Mr. Hapford?”

The man grinned. “You'll find Mr. Hapford inside, but it's always nice to be mistaken for a wealthy man. I'm Ross, the gardener. Are you interested in gardening?”

“Lord no. I wouldn't know a peony from a weed, but I know beauty and tender loving care by someone who knows his business.”

Ross placed the backs of his hands on his hips and looked out over the grounds.

Conner hadn't realized how high the driveway had taken him. The house was on top of the highest hill in the vicinity, and he could see for miles over the tops of the trees. Below them, the tended lawn and strategically placed flower beds were confined to a short radius from the house; the balance of the hill was turned over to nature to do with as she pleased. Conner wondered if Hapford was running out of money.

Ross sighed. “You should have seen it when I was a boy. We had ten gardeners then. It was like this to the bottom. I'm alone now and I can only do so much, and J. A. wants it that way. He says to take care of only what he can see and let the rest go, and his eyes get a little worse each year. Which isn't too bad, I suppose, since I'm losing a little range myself.”

Conner smiled. “Mr. Ross, when you get down to four roses before the front door, I'm sure they'll be the finest four roses in the county.”

Ross grinned and lifted a hand. “I'll drink to that. And listen, when you go inside, don't let Madame Defarge scare you.”

Conner chuckled. The trip was worth it already. He'd found a great gardener with a sense of humor who read Dickens.

A
N INTRICATE,
flowery, etched border in the glass left enough clear to see the large, white-uniformed woman approach out of the shadows inside.

The aged voice on the phone evidently required the services of a nurse. This one was heavy-set, broad-beamed, and middle-aged; the type no one argues with, especially the patient.

“Mr. Hapford is expecting me,” said Conner.

She peered over a pair of half spectacles. “You're that writer?”

The tone said she was no fan of his, but then she might have greeted Shakespeare the same way. Some people regard a writer as only a step or two above a used car salesman or a politician.