Death Claims (15 page)

"Three," Dave said. "That adds up to a half-hour." 

"It seemed longer," Ingalls said. "It was cold." 

A built-in table between built-in benches under another window was spread with student papers, pens, pencils, open books. A red-striped cigarette pack lay there. Ingalls picked it up. He used another of the wooden matches to light a cigarette. Through the smoke he said, "When his body was found, was there five hundred dollars in his pockets?" 

"He was wearing swimming trunks," Dave said. "The bathrobe he always wore down to the beach was on the sand. Soaked through, of course. There was nothing in the pockets." 

"And did the police find five hundred dollars when they searched the house?" 

"They didn't search the house," Dave said. "They didn't think it was murder. They don't think so now. Murder's inconvenient. It makes a lot of work. People do drown. They prefer to settle for that. That he was murdered was my idea. Should they search the house?" 

Ingalls shook his head. "There'd be no point. I didn't leave the money. There was no one to leave it with. I still have it. If you'd like me to show you—" 

"You'd still have it if you killed him," Dave said. "I wouldn't take a man's life for five hundred dollars. Or five thousand. Or five hundred thousand." 

"But you might to save your career," Dave said. "And I think you did. This morning in the college library I checked the reviews of your book. Most of them were excellent. But there was one in a Seattle paper that said Wolfe's journal was complete the way it was published originally in 1951. The reviewer had been a crony of the newspaperman who went with Wolfe on that trip. He'd never heard of the events described in your book. He doesn't think they happened. It was the only demurrer in that file, but it was there. Then I checked out Wolfe's letters. It's true he told people he had thirty to fifty thousand words in his notebooks on that trip. But the editor of the letters says he always overestimated. Is she right? Is the man in Seattle right?" 

Ingalls looked at the window again. But the butterflies were gone. He shut his eyes and nodded. "Yes." His voice sounded hollow. "The notebooks were a forgery. John knew it. There was very little he didn't know about any contemporary American writer. It seems they were found in the effects of a man who died in Spokane. He'd been an admirer of Wolfe. He'd told his family Wolfe had given them to him after a typist had transcribed them. But in the package were three crumpled pages of what looked like a letter begun by Wolfe and thrown away. The handwriting on those was genuine. That in the notebooks was faked by someone else. 

"A dealer up there had come into possession of them and shown them to John. The dealer didn't know they were forgeries any more than the family did. John told him, but said he thought he could sell them. I was the first prospect he tried. But I'd examined hundreds of Wolfe manuscripts. At Harvard. At Chapel Hill. I knew immediately he hadn't written those notebooks. Just the same, it was a heaven-sent chance." 

Dave frowned. "For professional advancement?" 

"No. I was secure here. I had no desire to leave Los Collados. On the contrary. But there was Julia. That was the beginning of her illness. She needed specialists. It was terribly expensive. I'd already mortgaged the house, borrowed from relatives. Neither of us has rich relatives. So"—he drew a long, grim breath and let it out with a sag of his shoulders—"I authenticated the journals and advised the College to buy them. John set a very steep price, but I assured the department they were worth it. They spent an entire year's funds." 

"And Oats kicked back to you?" 

Ingalls nodded. "Fifty percent." The smell of coffee had grown strong. He turned to the pot. It bubbled. He lifted it. The black stuff came out into the cups sizzling. "On the phone that first time —January third?—he didn't bring the matter up. But the last time he said he'd written out the details of the transaction, was prepared to have them notarized and sent by registered mail to the Chancellor. Or I could bring him money. I told him to do his damnedest and hung up. But in the end I lost my nerve. I drew the money and went." Ingalls smiled faintly as he handed Dave a cup. "It wasn't the best day of my life. But I didn't turn it into the worst, Mr. Brandstetter. I didn't kill anybody." 

Dave set the cup down. "Telephone?" he said. 

It was in a dim hall of bedroom doors. The room Dave could see into while he dialed was empty. Even the pictures were down. Darker squares on faded little-girl wallpaper showed where they'd hung. Ingalls's face, standing there watching him, had the same forsaken look. When Campos was on the line, Dave said: 

"John Oats was blackmailing ex-customers to support his habit. Two of them were in Arena Blanca the night he died. One didn't have much left to lose. But if Oats had exposed the other it would have destroyed him. I'm with him now. In Los Collados. I don't know how you want to handle it. But I'll stay with him till you come or send somebody." 

"Apologize to the man," Campos said. "Peter Oats walked in here yesterday afternoon around two. I tried to let you know, but you're never in your office, you're never home." 

"Let me know what? What did he say?'' 

"He said he killed his father."

C
AMPOS LEANED DELICATE
elbows on a white formica shelf and spoke through an opening in a tall glass partition to a teenage Mexican girl in a white orlon mini-uniform and kepi. She was backgrounded by stainless-steel kitchen equipment and bright plastic signs.
BURRITOS. CHILI DOGS. TAMALES. COKE. SPRITE. ORANGE.
Campos pushed bills through the opening in the glass. The girl slid a paper plate at him. She made change and rattled it into his hand. He pocketed it, turned and started for one of the outdoor tables where long-haired high-school kids and brown-uniformed motorcycle patrolmen already sat eating. He saw Dave and stopped. His skin was a dull clay color. There were dark circles under his eyes. The eyes didn't look friendly. 

"I'm pissed off at you," he said. "The kid's mother told me you'd been looking for him. It was him you thought did it all the time. To catch the insurance money before his old man could take his name off the policy and write the Stannard girl in. That's a police matter, Brandstetter. You should have told me." 

"A suspicion isn't evidence," Dave said. 

"I could have helped you look for him." 

"Could you have found him?" 

"I've got a lot of men trained for the job." 

"Right. I apologize. Where was he?" 

"He don't say. What difference does it make? He killed his old man for the insurance. That's all that means anything now." 

Balancing food and drink, customers pushed past from the service windows. "You'd better get a table," Dave said. "I'll order and be right with you." 

From the line he joined he could see Campos working fast with his little colored plastic knife, fork, spoon. His plate was nearly empty by the time Dave got to the window. So with his tacos and Spanish rice he took two Styrofoam cups of coffee. A black officer in a brown crash helmet had a booted foot up on the bench at Campos's left and leaned over him, telling him something funny. At his right a girl with long curtains of pale hair and pink granny glasses read a paperback book. Dave sat across from him, noon sun in his eyes. The patrolman laughed, slapped Campos's fragile shoulder, went away. 

Campos lifted the coffee cup. "
Gracias
. " 

Dave nodded, chewed, swallowed. "What did he want the money for? Just to keep it in the family?" 

Campos shrugged. "He's at the DA's this morning. Maybe he'll tell him. He gave me twenty-five words or less." He blew at the coffee. "His father said he was signing the insurance over to the Stannard girl. The kid knocked him out, put his swim trunks on him, the robe, carried him down the stairs and out to the point, swam towing him out beyond the rocks, let him go." 

"Neat," Dave said. "Can I talk to him?" 

Campos worried his coffee. "It's not in the rulebooks. But"—he shrugged—"you clued us to clean up a mess at that hospital. The taxpayers owe you a favor. Of course, his lawyer might feel different." 

"Court-appointed?" 

"No." Campos dug a little clear plastic cylinder from a pocket. He thumbed off its cap, shook a green pill into his hand, popped it into his mouth, washed it down with coffee. "I don't know how they did police work before they invented these. Chemical replacement for sleep." He put the pillbox away. His laugh was brief and bleak. "My wife wonders when they're going to do the same for sex." His cigarettes came in a gold hardpack. He shook the box and held it out to Dave. "No, his mother got him a lawyer. Who else?" 

"They weren't close." Dave took a cigarette. "I'd have said she didn't give a damn what happened to him." Campos clanked open a Zippo. The flame was transparent in the sun. Dave touched the cigarette to it. The taste was dark and rich. He read the box. "New brand?" 

"You make them yourself," Campos said. "Machine costs a buck. Papers, filters, tobacco, another buck. My oldest kid started it and I smoked one and liked it." 

"Making them must take time. Have you got time?" 

Campos shook his head. "He makes them for me. I pay him forty cents a pack. That's a hundred-percent profit. He isn't doing anything, just laying around. He's too smart to be a cop, too dumb to be anything else." He wiped his mustache with a wadded paper napkin stained chili-color. He stood, stepping over the bench, made a fold of his paper plate with napkin, utensils, crushed coffee cup inside. Then he quit moving and stared past Dave. 

Dave turned. Across the street, lawns, flowerbeds, old eucalyptus trees surrounded the building that housed the El Molino Police Department and city jail. White. Spanish Mission style. Central tower with pigeons. Red tile roofs. Up the wide, shallow front steps, between two beefy blond officers with big brown-handled .45's on their Prime USDA hips, walked a small. dark youth. The handcuffs that held his wrists together behind his back glinted in the sun. 

"That's Oats," Campos said. "And I don't see the lawyer. Looks like now is your chance. If it's all right with the kid." He headed for a glossy white trash receptacle that was topped by a molded plastic hippo's head, mouth open. Dave pawed together the wreckage of his own meal and went after him. 

Campos caught up with the officers and the boy outside a door at the end of a hall. The door was sheathed in steel, studded with bolts, had a little wired-glass window at eye level and a chipped enamel sign that read
FIREARMS FORBIDDEN BEYOND THIS POINT
. One of the officers tapped the window with something small and metallic. The other one took the handcuffs off Peter Oats. The boy's corduroy jacket matched the one April had worn on the cold night beach. Under it was a brown crew-neck pullover. His pants were tucked loosely into short boots. 

When Campos spoke to him he turned and looked at Dave, who had stopped a few yards off. He was handsomer than in the black-and-white eight-by-tens tacked up at the old-mill Stage. Even the transparencies in Whittington's wastebasket missed the dark glow of his coloring. What none of the pictures missed was the gentleness. His look at Dave was the one the ex-carpenter must have given Judas after the kiss. But he nodded to Campos. 

In the room with the blank tan walls where they'd interviewed the hospital orderly, he sat on one of the tan metal chairs, smoked one of Campos's strong cigarettes and watched Dave across the tan metal table. Steadily, gravely, out of brown eyes like a holy child's. The transcript of his confession lay in front of Dave. Typewritten, a carbon, three short, cold paragraphs. Signed in ballpoint by a hand that hadn't shaken. Peter Charles Oats. 

"Charles?" Dave said. 

"For my father's partner—Charles Norwood." 

Dave took a breath. "You realize that under the circumstances my company will withhold payment on your father's policy. To you. But the situation isn't simple. It can get tangled and expensive. We'd like you to sign a waiver." 

"Yes. All right." The boy nodded. 

Campos squinted at Dave. "You mean you don't have to shell out at all?" 

"When the policy was written, Mrs. Oats was the beneficiary. Peter was the contingent beneficiary. That is, if something happened to her, he would have collected. Then John Oats changed the policy, nine or ten months ago in the hospital. He made Peter the beneficiary—alone." 

"So who collects now?" 

"Unless Miss Stannard can prove John Oats meant to make the proposed change in her favor-the next of kin. Eve Oats, I suppose." 

"It doesn't matter," the boy said. 

Dave stared at him. "It mattered that night, mattered enough for you to kill your own father. You don't make sense. You arranged the murder to look like accident. The coroner's jury decided it was. Captain Campos here accepted their verdict. You were in the clear. You could have come back and collected what you killed him to get-twenty thousand dollars. But you didn't come back. And now you sit there and say it doesn't matter." 

"In my place, would it matter to you?" 

Dave shrugged. "You put yourself in that place." 

"You were trying to." The boy leaned across the table for the ashtray in front of Campos—a little round amber glass ashtray. He stubbed out his cigarette in it, but he didn't watch what he was doing. He watched Dave. "My mother told me. You knew I killed him." 

"That's not what kept you away. You never heard of me till yesterday. Or did you? Was someone in touch with you-someone I'd talked to?" 

For two ticks of a watch the brown eyes widened. "No." The headshake was quick. Was it also scared? 

"Where were you? Who were you with?" 

"No one. I wasn't with anyone. I was alone." 

"Just you and your guitar," Dave said. "That was a mistake, taking the guitar. It showed April you'd been there. That night." 

The boy frowned, said, "But I—" and stopped saying it. He looked at Campos. "Can I have another cigarette, please?" Campos gave it to him, lit it for him. "Thank you," he said. 

Dave said, "You had supper with your father. Not much. Provender was in chronic short supply at April's. It was scrambled eggs—right?"