Death Claims (19 page)

Hackett rose, all six feet seven of him. "I got to go. Get supper. Get a bath." A lower button of his starchy uniform shirt was open. It showed a parenthesis of white cotton-knit undershirt stretched taut over a massive beer belly. L'Wreck-O-Rama out at the fair grounds tonight. Drivers going to smash up a quartermillion dollars' worth of
De
-troit's finest. Slam 'em together, roll 'em over, bust 'em into flames." He lifted a jacket off the back of the swivel chair and hunched into it, a short jacket that might have fitted him once but was tight under the arms now and lacked the yardage to let him fasten it and zip it up. A six-pointed silver star was pinned to the breast pocket. He chuckled, pleased. "Wall-to-wall mayhem. I'm going to be master of ceremonies." 

Dave stood. "Where's the County Attorney's office?" 

"Up the hall." Hackett grunted, bending for a brown Stetson on a yellow chair stacked with dusty manila folders that leaked papers. "But he won't be there. It's past five." He settled the hat on his narrow skull, tugged the brim, pulled open a door that had his name on its frosted-glass panel. "Don't nobody but prisoners and guards hang around here after five. Would you?" He wrinkled a red-veined nose. "You like the smell of this place?" 

"Now that you mention it," Dave said, "no." 

In the center of the night courtyard, light came up watery out of the dripping fountain. It made tremulous green ghosts of the cement Saint Francis and his doves. Around him the windows of the closed shops glowed mildly through the olive trees. Dave crossed the red tile pavement to Oats and Norwood, thumbed the brass door latch, pushed inside, where the big globe of the world hadn't turned. Lamplight glanced off it dully, as if from a dying sun. And he saw the marks of his own fingers in the dust. 

But there were customers tonight. College youngsters. A boy and girl together, he in Levi's, she in floor-length paisley. A lone boy in what looked like an old theatre doorman's coat, scarlet, with gold epaulets and frogs, much too big for him. His hair was very long and he kept pushing it away from his face while he read. Charles Norwood, in his jacket with the leather patch elbows, stood by him, frowning as if trying to remember something. Eve Oats climbed down a set of movable steps with three titles for the boy and girl. When she turned from them and saw Dave, her practiced smile went away. She came to him. 

"Surely you've closed this case to your satisfaction?" Her tone was arctic. 

"Wrong," he said. "Peter didn't kill his father. He's covering up for the man who did." 

Norwood turned sharply. "What's that?" 

"Please, Charles." She said it without looking at him and without inflection. She eyed Dave thoughtfully. "You're an extraordinary man. What are you talking about. Have you proof?" 

"Proof is a simple word for what I've got," Dave told her. "I'd like the name of that lawyer you hired. He can make use of it. I phoned Captain Campos for the information, but he's not in. Neither is the District Attorney. I tried phoning you, but the line's been busy." 

"I'm sorry. I keep thinking of things to tell the lawyer. God knows, Peter's not telling him anything." 

"What's his name?" Dave said. 

She shook her head. "I'm paying him. I want to hear it first. I need to hear it."' Emotion shook her voice. She didn't like that. She switched to sarcasm. "It may be difficult for you to understand, but I'm just a shade concerned." The young couple went to the wrapping counter and laid down their books by the old pierced-iron cash register. She flicked them a smile. She said to Dave, "You can be comfortable in the back room. I'll try not to keep you waiting." 

The room was dark. He bent and pulled the switch chain on the Tiffany lamp. It threw a shattered harlequin circle on the high ceiling, but left the corners dark. On the low, round table the light glinted off martini glasses where melt from ice cubes was drowning the olives. The books and papers hadn't been disturbed since last time. He dropped into one of the red leather chairs, lit a cigarette, then noticed the letter that had bothered him before. He reached out and picked it up. 

Still baffled, he frowned through the reading glasses at the fancy London letterhead.
Gaylord and Steen
. He ran his eye down the typing. A list of Sinclair Lewis first editions, signed, in mint condition with dust wrappers. From
Our Mr. Wrenn
to
World So Wide
. The senders were sure Mr. Oats would be interested in this superb collection of the work of a foremost twentieth- century American novelist and Nobel Prize winner. They were giving Oats and Norwood first crack at it. The books would be held for them thirty days. The price was steep. 

Out in the shop the cash register jingled and clunked. Voices crossed each other with thanks and good-nights. Footsteps scuffled. The door opened and closed. Norwood's ladylike baritone said something about being sorry. The door opened and closed again. And this time Dave heard the snap of a spring lock. He glanced at his watch. Not seven yet and the lettering on the shop door said it was open till nine. He laid the booklist down, folded away his horn rims, and both of them came in. 

Eve picked up the glasses and handed them to Norwood, who took them to the shadowy desk and rattled bottles there. She sat on the edge of the chair opposite Dave and held tight to the arms. She held tight to her voice too. "Now, what's this about Peter"—his wording escaped her—"sacrificing himself for someone? Who? Why? Why in the world? Oh, I don't mean it's not like him. He'd have done it for his father. But their love—" 

"You told me," Dave said. "Now let me tell you." He was tired of going over it. But he went over it. He didn't skip details. Some of them made her flinch. When Norwood set a new martini in front of her she grabbed for it. The glass was stocky and tough. It needed to be. She clutched it so hard her knuckles showed white. She was white around the mouth. Dave told her about the phone call and came to the end. 

"It's a nice place, five miles back through the mountains off the coast road. Just north of Las Cruces. A little valley all to itself. His car was in the yard. No mistaking that car. A Lotus. Bright yellow." Norwood got up and moved into the dark. Dave said, "It gets washed, but only by hand and not under the fenders." A desk drawer opened and shut with a loose rattle. "I checked under the fenders. Caked with white sand." Norwood walked out into the shop. Dave said, "That car was in Arena Blanca the night John Oats was drowned.'' The shop door opened and closed. "A rainy night. The only rainy night we've had. And Wade Cochran is a big man and a strong swimmer." In the alley under the window a car door slammed, an engine thrashed into life. Dave stubbed out his cigarette, stood. "Now—how do I reach that lawyer?" 

He was a soft, silver-haired man of seventy in an expensive shantung suit and a hand-stitched Irish linen shirt with a roll collar and deep cuffs linked by silver gavels. The carefully tended hands that came out of the cuffs were folded in front of him on the long tan steel table in the tan-walled interrogation room of the El Molino Police Department. Beside the hands a soft black hat and light black topcoat lay over a black cowhide attache case. The man's name was Irving Blau. His voice rustled like dry leaves. 

"You weren't there?" 

Peter Oats said, "No. He's got nothing to do with this. Yes, he came to
Lorenzaccio
. Yes, we went to dinner. Yes, we went to that motel." The brown eyes pleaded. "To talk. Only to talk. He's making a picture. It's kind of a secret project. Not like what he usually does. Not a Western. Religious. About the life of Saint Paul. He thought I could do the part. But that's nothing personal. That's business. He's got nothing to do with this." 

"This is your father's writing, isn't it?" Dave pushed the yellow card across the table. "Why did he write your name down with Wade Cochran's phone number?" 

"Because—because—I thought I was going there. I mean, Wade, Mr. Cochran, talked about having me up there. But he changed his plans. I never went." 

"Where did you go?" Blau asked. "That can't be an important secret now, can it?" 

"I don't want to get anyone in trouble." 

"You've already done that," Dave said. 

"I don't want to talk about it. Only just leave Wade alone. Leave him alone. He didn't do anything. I did it." The boy's fists clenched on his knees. "How many times do I have to tell you? I did it. Leave him out of it." 

"He took a call from your father when your father was desperate for money to buy illegal morphine. He left the ranch right after that call. The sand under the fenders proves he drove to Arena Blanca. He'd only have done that if your father was able to threaten him with something. I've already said what I think that something was. A charge of homosexuality wouldn't harm a lot of actors. Not these days. But it would sure as hell harm Wade Cochran—to understate the case." 

"You've got a rotten mind!" the boy shouted. 

The door opened. Johnson, the bulky young officer with the close crew cut, looked in, scowling, "Everything all right in here?" 

"Excuse us," Blau said. 

Johnson glared at the boy. "Keep it down, Oats." He pulled his head out and shut the door again. 

Dave said, "Bob Whittington made a pass at you. You turned him down. But for other reasons. Not because you were straight. He asked you and you told him—you weren't straight. I imagine if I asked around among the boys at that theatre I could get confirmation. Couldn't I get confirmation?" 

Peter swung out of the chair and stood with his back to them, hands on the sill of the dark window. "It doesn't mean anything about Wade." 

"He thought it meant something," Blau said in his gentle old man's voice. "He didn't go to Arena Blanca and kill a man because it didn't mean anything." 

"You'd told your father you were homosexual," Dave said. "Isn't that right? That was why you parted on bad terms, why he drank that night, why he refused to tell April the reason you'd left." 

"He hated what he called fags," Peter said in a dead voice. "He was always joking about them. Bad jokes. For a long time I didn't know why. Then, when I got older, I saw it was to get at Charles. It always made Charles uncomfortable. I think Charles was in love with my father. Much good it ever did him." 

"Norwood," Dave told Blau. "The partner." 

Peter's voice came bleak off the window glass. "I was slow finding out about myself. It didn't happen till-what?-a year, fourteen months ago. I was trying to work out a way to tell him when he had the accident and everything fell apart for him. I couldn't add that, knowing how he felt about it. But then there was April, somebody who loved him, somebody he could love." 

"Which let you off the hook when Cochran came along and you wanted to go live with him." 

"No!" The boy whirled, bent forward, fingers digging into his thighs, mouth twisting. "No. Wade isn't that way. You've got to believe me. Don't do anything to him. Oh, God, can't you see? If he did go to Arena Blanca, he didn't kill him. I killed him. For just what you said. I went to see him and he told me he was going to change his life insurance." 

Dave shook his head. "The first you heard about that was after I'd been to see Cochran. He gave you the story just the way I'd given it to him." 

''No. I wasn't there." Peter came to the table, leaned on it, leaned at them, veins standing out in his temples, his smooth brown throat. "Please. Promise me you'll leave Wade out of this. Forget him. Please. Why should he be hurt for nothing?" He looked at Dave. "You said it. He could be wrecked, he could lose everything. Why should he? He didn't do anything wrong. He couldn't do anything wrong. You don't know him." 

"You talk like his mother," Dave said. "Peter—he had a very powerful motive. He killed your father. It took him forty-five, fifty minutes to reach Arena Blanca from the ranch. That put him there no earlier than six. It had been dark a half-hour by then. Longer because it was raining. Why he'd do it I don't know, but he had supper with your father. Two men-one highball. He doesn't drink. He keeps a clear head. It was thoughtful of him to pick up your guitar for you while he was there. A true friend." 

"He didn't." Peter's fist came down on the table. "I never—" He bit his lip. 

"Never what?" Blau wondered tenderly. "Never got the guitar? Well"—he pushed back his chair and stood—"it will turn up. Someplace at that ranch. The Sheriffs men will find it." 

"No," the boy begged. "Don't send them there. Don't mess him up. I did it." Tears ran down his face. He stretched out trembling hands. His voice cracked. "Please! I did it." 

"Then you know where the guitar is," Blau said with a quiet smile. "Where is it, Peter?"

 The boy only stared.

H
E SWUNG
off Western onto Yucca. Tree-shadowy. Cars darkly asleep at curbs and in the driveways of old frame houses where the lights were dimmed for television watching. A cat scuttled across the street on white paws and disappeared through a hedge. A lame old woman with a scarf tied over her hair dragged a wooden shopping cart on squeaky wheels along the cracked sidewalk, coming from a nearby all-night market. In the next block a thin man with a jacket hung over his shoulders held a leash while a dachshund sniffed the tarred base of a telephone pole. 

Dave halted for the red tin sign at Harvard and smiled. Not much of a smile, but heartfelt. Home. Blau would handle the rest and handle it right. He could forget it. And sleep. Last night, in that white room at Madge's with the slow surf sighing under the windows, he'd got less sleep than sex. It had been good again, loving and easy, after weeks of not being good. But it had left him tired. Doug was still at Madge's, but she had a houseful of people coming tonight and Dave didn't want to cope. He touched the throttle, pulled the wheel left. He'd phone Doug as soon as he got in the back door. Then he'd hit that doomed bed and— 

He tramped the brake, killed the motor, stared. Up the street, black-and-white cars stood at angles. On their tops, red lights flared, faded, flared. In the bloody pulsing of the lights, dark uniforms moved. Across the street, kids, shirt-sleeved men, women in curlers gaped. Dave woke the engine, jerked the car to a curb where mustard sprouted tall in a vacant lot. He got out of the car while it still rocked. The nearest officer looked about sixteen, very blond. He leaned into a patrol car whose radio droned loud in a flat female voice. He hung a dashboard microphone back on its hook.