Dead Seed (14 page)

The middle drawer held some dingy, badly washed shorts and two pair of what he probably thought of as dress socks, and one sweat-stained baseball cap.

The bottom drawer was loaded with girlie magazines, old racing forms, and an enormous leather-bound family Bible.

That’s where the wallet was, under the Bible. There had obviously been initials in one corner of it, but they had been scraped away. But the imprint of the impressed initials remained. The initials were SM.

The nausea was higher now. I carefully replaced the wallet under the Bible again, and walked even more carefully and slowly toward the outside air.

The clean dry air helped some. I started walking up the road toward Wendell’s house. Halfway there I got rid of some of the spiked coffee and also bits of the bacon I’d had for breakfast. That helped a little more.

Wendell was out in his corral. He must have known by the way I was walking that I was in trouble. He met me when I turned into his driveway.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you drunk?”

I nodded carefully.

“Go lie down in the shade behind the house,” he said. “I’ll make you come coffee.”

Coffee, that was the trigger word. My stomach reacted once again. The taste of vomit was sour in my mouth, but my mind was clearer. I told him the story of my Chitty visit. I told him about the wallet and the tires and the significance of both.

“I’ll phone the sheriff,” he said. “You go and lie down on that cot back of the house.”

“And tell your sheriff,” I added, “to phone Lieutenant Vogel of the San Valdesto Police Department. Tell him to tell Vogel what I told you. Vogel will fill him in on the rest of it.”

“Right. Go lie down.”

Five minutes later I was dead to the world.

Three hours after that I was back with my friends and almost whole again, though still queasy. Wendell had told them the story of my adventure while I was asleep.

“Jerry’s right,” Lydia said. “You are crazy.”

“Don’t make noises like a wife. You’re not entitled.”

“Thank God for that. Did you drink that whole liter of whiskey?”

“Nope. I had help. Is there any Alka-Seltzer around?”

When she brought it she told me, “A Lieutenant Vogel phoned. He’s going to call again after dinner. Now go out and sit on the deck and relax. Jerry will be home soon.”

Jerry came home about fifteen minutes later. He brought me five vitamin-C tablets and some B2s in one hand and a glass of water in the other. “They are called the insult combination,” he explained. “They are for dummies who insist on insulting their bodies. Take ’em!

I took ’em.

He went into the house for a glass of carrot juice and came back to take the chair next to mine. He said, “Wendell thinks you are quite a guy.”

“I am. So is he. Both of us will dance on your grave.”

He laughed. “Macho, macho, macho, my buddy Brock. Strength is not health, muscles.”

“And hypochondria is not a disease,” I said.

He laughed again. “We’re right back in college, aren’t we? That is where I left my hypochondria, way back there. A doctor ordered me to come here for my asthma. And this time I got a second opinion.”

“I withdraw the charge. And I officially thank you for getting me off nicotine. And I forgive you for marrying my girl. Tomorrow morning, when I’m whole and hearty again, you and I will run a race up to Wendell’s house and back.”

“Are you crazy? That’s twelve miles, half of it uphill. I told you—strength is not health!”

“I know you did. But you just got another second opinion.”

Lydia came out to join us, bringing her martini along. “I suppose,” she said to me, “you won’t be able to stomach much dinner. Should I make you some chicken soup? Or maybe some onion soup?”

“I’ll have whatever you two are having,” I said. “I am almost back to my healthy, muscular norm.”

We were playing gin rummy after dinner, winner stands up, when Vogel phoned.

“Three birds with one stone,” he said cheerfully. “My thanks to all of them.”

“Translate that into English,” I said.

“We have Alvin for the two murders. And you are the man who nailed Kelly for me. And you are Brock the Rock, which is a stone.”

“How clever! Bernie, we have only
suspects.
You must know that. We haven’t anything solid. It’s all circumstantial evidence.”

“Maybe on Alvin, but not on Kelly. I got a statement from Mrs. Lacrosse about the five-thousand-dollar fee to add to the rest that we have.”

“You must have gotten it before Alvin was picked up.”

“I did. But it’s in writing, and she signed it in front of witnesses. Can she deny that she signed it?”

“I guess not. Can you get extradition on Alvin?”

“We already have. The sheriff thanked me for getting Alvin out of the county and told me to try for the rest of the Chittys.”

“But pinning Morgenstern on Alvin? Are you dreaming? Because he has a wallet with initials that match Morgenstern’s? He could have found it. And can we find anyone who can prove that it’s Morgenstern’s wallet?”

“All right, all right! You’ve got a point. It needs more work. But now at least we know where to look, don’t we? And Kelly is in the bag. That’s something, isn’t it?”

I had been enough of a killjoy. “That’s something,” I agreed. “Hang in there, buddy. I’ll see you soon.”

It was something—and possibly all we had. The weapon, which was the means, could not be tied to anyone. Alvin had his alibi for the opportunity, the fuss at the gate. And the motive was still unsolved.

Maybe, now that we had dug this far, the lovers would reveal the motive? That was a long-shot hope with those two. I couldn’t believe any prosecutor would take what we had into court.

“You look gloomy,” Lydia said, when I came back to the game. “Bad news from San Valdesto?”

“Not according to my friend. He thinks it’s our day of triumph.”

“And you don’t?”

I shook my head. “We haven’t any clear motive. It’s not only the who and the what. We have to know the why of it. I want to know why!”

She tapped her forehead. “‘I want to know why.’ That was the title of a short story, right? Whose?”

“Sherwood Anderson’s,” I told her. “That is one I don’t have to look up.”

H
OT DAYS, COLD NIGHTS
, and too much quiet; this must be the wrong time of the year to visit Prescott. Sleep was late in coming, and when it came I dreamed of a horde of Chittys chasing me through a long, narrow, dead-end canyon.

I had told the Hollands that I would be leaving for home in the morning. If Carl’s father was still alive in Phoenix, I would stop over there before going home.

I asked Jerry at breakfast if he knew the name of the rest home.

He shook his head. “But Wendell probably has it.”

I phoned him after breakfast. “He’s still alive,” he told me. “At least he was when I visited him last week. His mind is sound enough, but he has been getting weaker ever since his wife died.” He gave me the name of the place and the address.

I thanked him, and said, “You’re the man who phoned the sheriff. I hope the Chittys don’t take out their revenge on you.”

“They won’t,” he said, “unless they have a death wish. Good hunting, Brock.”

“Thank you again. Thank you for everything. If you ever come to California, be sure to look us up.”

“Not me. That place is
all
Chittys.”

Horses for courses. Even Philadelphia has its loyalists.

The Hollands took me to the airport and promised to come and visit us this summer. They had promised us that last summer.

Up, up, and away, defying the fundamental law of gravity. Daniel Bernoulli, I had read somewhere, had discovered his famous principle by watching the water in a stream as it flowed around a rock, and observing the vacuum it created on one side of the rock.

This was not water we were traveling through; this was thin desert air. Daniel, I would bet, had never been in Arizona.

The flight was serene, the landing bumpy but not scary. I took a taxi to the address Wendell had given me.

It was lunchtime at the rest home. The elder Carl Lacrosse, the lady at the desk in the lobby told me, was eating in his room. It was room 116.

He was sitting in a wheelchair when I came in through the open doorway. He was thin and bald. He had snow-white eyebrows over his sunken brown eyes, and a thin hooked nose. He looked up as I entered.

“Mr. Callahan?”

I nodded.

“Wendell phoned me that you were coming. Take a look out this window.”

I went over to look at nothing but sand and rock.

“Name it,” he said.

“Bleaksville?” I guessed.

“No, no! The picture—what picture does it remind you of? Edward Hopper is the artist.”

“My wife has mentioned his name,” I said, “but I don’t know his work.”

“Western Motel
is the picture. I
never
should have left Prescott. You came here to ask about Syd? Sit down, Mr. Callahan.”

I sat on a straight-backed chair near him.

“I know your town,” he told me “It’s a beautiful town. I worked on a couple of pictures there when I was with Gramercy Studios. They were real dogs. Let’s see—there was one called—oh, damn my memory! Wait, I got it. It was called
Showdown at Tryden.”

As soon as the words came out, a guarded look came over his face. That had been a slip.

“I think I remember it,” I said. “Didn’t Fortney Grange star in it?”

He looked away. “I—forget. My memory—”

“Isn’t Tryden your son’s middle name?”

He nodded, his eyes blank. “You know—I’d almost forgotten that?” He took a deep breath. “Is there anything new on—on what happened to Syd?”

“Nothing solid enough to take into court. The police officer I am working with thinks he can make a case on Alvin Chitty.”

“Alvin? What in the world was he doing in San Valdesto?”

“He was there with your daughter-in-law and your grandson. Your grandson has joined a cult up there.”

“Joel? He joined a cult? Not Joel!”

“I think he joined only to get away from his mother.”

He nodded. “That makes more sense. If your officer friend is looking for a suspect, steer him onto her. She tried to kill Carl one night when he was asleep. That was when he left her.”

“Kill—?”

“Kill,”
he repeated. “With an axe. Thank God her aim was bad. Her first swing splintered the headboard and Carl woke up.”

Some of yesterday’s nausea returned to my stomach.

“They’re a violent tribe, those Chittys,” he said. “I tried to talk Carl out of marrying that woman, but he was always willfull.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

He shook his head. “He was here three weeks ago, but I don’t believe even he knows where he’s going next.” He yawned. “It’s time for my nap, Mr. Callahan. I hope I’ve been helpful.”

He had been more helpful than he knew. I thanked him for his courtesy and went out with my picture almost complete.

Showdown at Tryden
; that had been his first slip. And after he had shown surprise that Alvin should be in San Valdesto, he had shown no surprise and asked no questions about why his grandson and daughter-in-law were there. Why not? Because he had guessed?

I took a cab back to the airport and was on a flight to Los Angeles half an hour later. The image of Grandpa Lacrosse stayed with me. He had come from the fragrant air of the ponderosa pines to the urine-and-disinfectant-tainted air of the rest home.

He was every bit as talented as the more famous Carl, Coldwell had told me. The health of his wife and the penury of his times had altered his career and killed his dream. Young Carl had grown up in a different time with different mores. No sense of responsibility to a wife or a child would keep him from his dream.

With a jury of twelve Solomons we might now have a case. But Solomon had died nine hundred years before Christ. Knowing is not enough; courts demand proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Humpty-Dumpty flight to San Valdesto, I was told at Los Angeles X, would take off in three hours. I could drive home in less time than that. I rented a car at the airport.

I left the smog behind at Ventura and took a deep breath of fresh air from the sea. What, I wondered, had my police partner from the tribe of Solomon learned while I was gone?

It was six o’clock when I got home. Jan kissed me and asked if I was hungry.

“No. I had a couple of cheeseburgers at Stoney’s on the way up here. What’s new?”

“Bernie phoned this afternoon. He wants you to phone him back.”

I phoned him at home, and he told me what was new before I had a chance to ask. “Gus is missing,” he said.

“Gus Ketchum? You mean he left town?”

“Who knows? He left town or he’s hiding or—”

“Or he’s dead?”

“Who knows,” he said again. “And that accountant he steered me to is suddenly getting forgetful. Damn it!”

Kelly had escaped the noose once again. “Calm down, buddy,” I said. “Back to the treadmill.”

“What in hell does that mean?”

“Back to the questions and answers, back to the plodding around, back to the hunt.”

“What are you, a goddamned poet?”

“More or less. Cool it! I’ll see you in the morning.”

A man and a boy were dead, another man was missing (or dead) because Fortney Grange had come to town. My cinema hero had been badly miscast.

“Some cocoa?” Jan asked.

“A good idea. With some rum in it.”

“Okay, boozer. I’ll have the same.”

Day in and day out Bernie went through the tedium and the frustration that I chose at my leisure. Day in and day out he looked at pimps and rapists and child molesters and con men and murderers.

And the law demanded that he stay objective, calm, and judicial through it all. Solomon should have had Bernie’s job; he might have lasted a week.

I was not bound by the law to stay objective, calm, and judicial. I could follow the Lillian Hellman dictum—
when you lose your sense of outrage you are dead.

The hum of the big diesel trucks from the distant freeway, the mournful night hoot of a freight train, the barking of a neighbor’s dog; I was home again and slept a dreamless sleep.