Dead Low Tide (9 page)

“Maybe he wanted to use two hands to steady the thing,” I said.

“Your pointy head is showing again. John could have steadied a railway gun with one of those hands of his.”

“Maybe he wasn’t healthy.”

“He certainly wasn’t puny.”

“A bad heart doesn’t show. Cancer doesn’t show at first.”

“Oh, come off it, Andy. Face the facts of life.” He looked at his watch again, drained his Coke, and got up hastily. “Got to run check the teletypes, kids. Thanks for the Coke.” Six feet from the booth he turned, and said, “You might catch the program today, children. I’m going to give the good Chief a hotfoot.”

“See what I mean?” Christy said softly, after he was far enough away.

“But everything fits the—the other!” I said.

“Does it? Does it now? Think back, Andy. Think hard. Maybe he
knew
somebody was going to try to kill him, and he was afraid they’d make it. Wouldn’t that fit just as good as the sickness theory? I mean, the way Mary Eleanor said he was acting at home. And trying to make provisions for the future, and all?”

“Hold it a minute. Look. You got to know something about John Long. Not too long ago a guy sitting in a truck gave John some lip. John reached in through the window and grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him out through the cab window and heaved him up on top of his own load of gravel. If he thought somebody was going to kill him, he’d go find the guy and beat hell out of him.”

“What if he didn’t know who it was? What if there were—oh, unsuccessful attempts?”

“Would he go wandering around alone at dawn, then?”

“If he thought he could grab the person trying to do it. But the other person was quicker.”

“And the other person picked out my place to come to and steal the weapon?”

She looked at me with an intentness I had never seen on her face before. “Yes, Andy.
If
that person were very, very clever. If it is accepted as suicide, they are all right. If it is accepted as murder, then who can be made to fit? Andy, I went fishing with you this morning—if that isn’t enough—I spent the night with you.”

She was being my girl. My eyes felt funny. “Look, I—”

“Andy, you’re too trusting. Please.”

“They’ll take you for a ride in the paper.”

“I’ve been for a ride in the paper. And it almost could have been true, you know. It almost was true—last night.”

“Look, you’re making me nervous. You’re scaring me.”

“I think you’d better be scared.”

“Will that be a healthy condition?”

“The best. Then you won’t be silly. I’ve got to get back so Wilburt can put me back up on that ladder.”

“Catch Jack’s program.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

I went back to the office and fiddled around there for ten minutes, then went out and turned on the car radio. His program was sponsored by Gulf Savings. I hunched in the seat and rattled my fingernails on the horn ring and wondered what he was going to use as a hotfoot.

JACK COVERED INTERNATIONAL
and national news first, and then I could hear his voice change as he got to the local news. You could almost hear him smack his chops.

“John Long, prominent building contractor of this city, was discovered by workmen this morning, dead on his development on Horseshoe Key which is called Key Estates. He had been shot through the throat with a barbed harpoon propelled by an underwater fishing device activated by heavy rubber bands. Chief Wargler investigated in person, and came to the
immediate
decision that it was suicide, because the dead man’s shoe and sock had been removed from his right foot.

“We have made it our practice to report the news. Today we plan to editorialize a little. We want to ask Chief Robert Wargler certain questions. The deceased could have pressed the trigger mechanism with his finger—why was the shoe
and sock removed? Could it have been to mislead you into thinking it was suicide, Chief Wargler? Why is no attempt being made to trace the sales of such devices in this area, to determine if the deceased owned one? Why did a man with a drawerful of guns select such an unusual device? Why was there no suicide note? Why was the sock right side out? Wouldn’t a man intent on suicide rip off his sock in a hurry and leave it wrong side out? Why was the victim’s car left so far from the scene of death? Could he have been meeting someone? Could he have been merely inspecting his property? Chief Wargler, could this not only have been murder, but also rather clumsy murder? Why, if your supposition is correct, did the deceased sit on the ground, when it would have been handier for him to sit on the lumber pile nearby? These are the questions to be answered, Chief Wargler.”

The station announcer came on with his commercial and I turned off the set. Jack Ryer was a very persuasive guy. Hearing it over the air somehow made his case sound a lot stronger. It gave me a cool feeling at the nape of my neck. Joy came over to the car and asked if it was all right to leave. I told her to go ahead. I locked up, and drove to the police station. It is a building constructed during the boom of the twenties. It looks like a Moorish house of ill repute. Some dark gluck which once coated the roof has melted and run down the sides of the building. Just as I reached the front steps, Wargler came out with the Cro-Magnon type called George. They both looked as if they had just shut their fingers in a door.

Wargler looked at me, and asked, “Something on your mind, son?”

“I just listened to Jack Ryer.”

It wasn’t the best opening gambit in the world. George looked speculatively at my stomach and seemed inclined to lift his right foot off the steps.

“Durn amateurs monkeying around,” the chief said.

“Well, I heard what he said about checking whether John owned one of those Hawaiian rigs. I don’t know whether he did or not, but the one that he used was mine.”

I stood there trying to look burnished and bright and clean. Two sets of hard little eyes studied me. Wargler took a kitchen match out of his shirt pocket and put it in the corner of his mouth.

“Now what do you know about that! You hear that, George! How’d you find out it was yours, son?”

“I knew it as soon as I saw it. It has scratches on it. I recognized those.”

“Now we didn’t hear you say it was yours.”

“I guess I was in a state of shock,” I said.

“If it’s yours, McClintock, what in the wide world was John Long doing with it? He borrow it or something?”

“Well, you see, mine was stolen last night. At least I think it was stolen last night. I mean, I hadn’t really looked at it for a couple of weeks, I guess. But last night I noticed it was missing.”

“After dark you noticed it was missing?”

“Yes. You see, I kept it hanging on a nail in my garage. So after I took—took a girl home, I came back and looked around to see what was missing.”

“You think she’d stole something?”

“No, dammit, I just—”

“Don’t you cuss me out there, son. You just answer the question I put to you.”

“Look, I came over voluntarily to tell you about this.”

“But it was
after
you heard that son-of-a-bitch on the radio, wasn’t it? We got to keep that in mind, don’t we? And now I’m asking questions. Did you think that girl stole something. And who was she?”

“She’s Christine Hallowell and she works at Wilburt’s, and I don’t think she’d steal anything anytime. I came back with her and I heard my back screen door and I ran through the house and turned the floodlight on in back and I heard somebody running off. That’s why, after I took her home—she lives almost next door—I checked to see if anything was gone. And that thing John used on himself was gone.”

“So, like a good citizen ought to do, you quick phoned up the police and we came out and investigated.”

“You know I didn’t do that.”

“But I don’t know
why
you didn’t. Ought to phone in when you hear a prowler.”

“I haven’t got a phone.”

“You got a car. I know because I can see it right there.”

“It was pretty late and I was tired.”

“How late?”

“Sometime between one-thirty and two. I thought it was some kid. And by that time he was long gone.”

“How did he bust in?”

“Nothing is ever locked out there. Nobody locks anything up. The garage doors were open.”

“Why did you look out there?”

“I told you. To see what he took. I was checking on all my stuff.”

“And you looked to see if that spear thing was took, and it was?”

“It was gone, I told you. But I can’t be sure it was taken last night. It could have been—”

“Getting pretty gad durn upset, aren’t you, son?”

“Chief, I came over because I thought you ought to know about this. And I think that’s doing my duty as a citizen.”

Their eyes were like little stones. I heard a vast belly rumble, but I couldn’t tell whose it was. They were no longer looking as though the end of the world was just over the hill. They looked speculative, and faintly smug.

“But you didn’t say anything this morning out there, McClintock, and now you come running and a-bleating when you hear it come over the radio. Well, we’re going to check on who has those things around here. Isn’t that right, George?”

George nodded solemnly.

Wargler went on, “George, you go pick me up sandwiches. Two liverwurst on rye with lettuce, no mayonnaise, and a chocolate shake. Take time to eat for yourself. But don’t take too long because I’m about to faint of hunger. You come on in, McClintock.”

We went to his office. On his desk there were framed photographs of pistol meets and a picture of a defeated-looking woman with two adolescent, equally defeated-looking daughters.

He had me sit down and he puffed around, wheeling a gadget over, plugging in a hand mike. He said, “Now this here is one of our new methods, and by God you do it right, hear. I’ll ask the question and hand it over to you and you give the answer in it and hand it back, and while you’re talking in it, keep this little black thing shoved down with your thumb.”

“O.K.”

He started the visible tape going, and said, into the mike, in an officious voice, “Subject: Interrogation of suspect in Long murder by Chief of Police Robert A. Wargler.”

“Now wait a minute!” I said.

“Shut up,” he said. He stared at the mike. “Oh, hell! That went on the tape. Now I got to erase that.”

“Don’t call me a suspect, damn it!” I said.

“I told you you don’t get no place cussing me, son. And what the hell do I call you?”

“Call me a person who volunteered information.”

“That make you feel any better?”

“A lot better.”

“I’m not saying you’re not going to be a suspect.”

“When I am, I won’t talk without a lawyer. And if you call me a suspect on there, I won’t answer your questions.”

He started over again and got the date and time. “Now, your full name.”

I gave that and my address and my place and date of birth, my present employment. The yellowish tape rolled from one reel onto the other and we handed the mike back and forth solemnly. He got onto the theft, and it was just about the same as it had been out on the steps—only more so. Where had I been with Christy? Did I know her well? How long? George came in about then with the food, so the chief shut off the machine, patted it and ate with dogged concentration. George sat and stared at me. I once had a friend with a well-trained Doberman. He’d lie all evening with his muzzle on his paws and hang that same unwinking stare on me and keep it there, until by the end of the evening I was pretty jumpy.

“Where were you early this morning?” Wargler asked.

“I went fishing.”

“How early?”

“Before five.”

“You didn’t get to bed until after two and you got up before five? That sounds kind of funny to me.”

“I like fishing.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Horseshoe Pass.”

“That’s about two miles from that Key Estates, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Catch anything?”

“Two reds, about five pounds apiece.”

“What’d you get ’em on?”

“A number two Drone, working it slow and deep.”

“You alone out there?”

I thought of the look of worry and fear in Christy’s eyes. I’d made one mistake. A lie was going to be another mistake, I was certain. “Completely alone. In fact, I didn’t see a soul.”

“You didn’t go take a look at Key Estates, did you?”

“No.”

“Didn’t happen to kind of run into John Long?”

“No. I didn’t see anybody.”

He took the mike back and sat with his lips pursed for a time, then pressed the button down, and said, “Conclusion of first interrogation of McClintock.”

“First interrogation?”

“We’ll think of a couple more things to ask, son. This whole thing sounds mighty funny to me. Don’t you think so, George? Son, who do you think took that thing out of your garage?”

“I thought at first it might have been John. Then he ran off
because he decided he didn’t want to talk to me after all. But the more I think about that, the less I like it. I guess what Jack Ryer said started me thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

“It makes more sense, thinking of what kind of man he was, to think that somebody killed him. I guess taking that thing of mine would make it look as if I did it. At least, it would be a sort of red herring.”

“What else you got you want to tell us?”

There were quite a few things in my mind: Mary Eleanor’s request; the new contract; the odd scene between John and Joy; the way John had talked to me out at Key Estates. I had a sudden realization of the way they’d look at me if I tried to tell them that Mary Eleanor had asked me to find out what was wrong with John.

“That’s all. I just thought you ought to know about the rig and that it was stolen from me.”

Wargler stood up. He seemed to be trying to remember something. His face cleared as he remembered his lines. “You stay in town, son, hear?”

“I’m not going any place.”

It was an effort to keep from sidling furtively out the door. Once I got back out to the car I felt better. It would have saved a lot of trouble and a lot of tension if I’d been able to give the same information while I stood beside John Long’s body. But, after a crumby start, I had recouped my losses, and felt better. And it hadn’t been necessary to lie about Christy. I didn’t figure that would have done either of us any good.