Evil Grows & Other Thrilling Tales (17 page)

Judge Morton adjourned the court.

P
ublic outcry was fierce when June Scott acquired the building from probate, but since an autopsy definitely established natural causes in the old man's death and no criminal acts could be traced directly to Global Enterprises, the law withdrew. June lost no time in deeding the property over to Global Developments.

The day the shop was set to come down, Sharon put through a call from C. Burton Scott. He sounded upset.

"Meet me there, shyster." The receiver clicked in my ear.

The site was right around the corner from my office. I found Scott in hardhat and shiny blue suit standing outside a fence erected to keep out gawkers. His face was taut and pale. He seized my arm and steered me through the gate into the gutted shell of Seth's shop.

The wrecking crew had carted away everything worth salvaging, then gone to work with sledgehammers and crowbars. I was dragged stumbling over bricks and broken mortar, past hardhatted workers standing around idle, to a gaping hole in the south wall. Scott let go of me to snatch a flashlight out of an employee's hand, switched it on. The hard white beam lanced the darkness inside the cavity.

I can't say I was surprised. The trauma in Seth's past, the extensive remodeling, his unwillingness to sell when he knew it would mean the shop's destruction, formed a pattern I worked with often. I hadn't said anything because there was nothing to be gained by doing so. That cost me trouble with the police later.

Dental records confirmed it after two days, but from the start there was no doubt that the broken skeleton lying crumpled in one corner of the ruined wall belonged to Bedelia Borden, Seth's money-mad sister, dead these twenty years.

H
ale thanked me for the glass of water and used it to chase down a yellow pill the size of a cuff link.

"I'm on medication," he told me helpfully. "I will be for the rest of my life, I guess. That's a tough admission to make at my age."

I figured that to be around twenty-five. He was a small, slender specimen with fragile wrists and features, and thick black hair cut short up front and long in the back, the way they're wearing it now. He looked healthy enough. He had the sinews of a runner under his tennis shirt and shorts.

"What've you got?" I refilled my glass from the pitcher of martinis on the wicker table, no pill.

"It has a Latin name I can't pronounce. As I understand it, it's a benign growth on my brain, hanging down like a stalagmite at the base of the occipital lobe. Without the medication, any exertion or great shock can cause it to move and touch my spinal column. I black out. Afterward I can't remember anything from a few minutes before the blackout. I'm told I become abusive, even violent."

"And with the medication?"

"I'm a little better. Do you know where Sharon is, Mr. Gardener?"

I looked past him at the ocean. Nothing new there.

At that hour of the afternoon it was teal-blue, the long swells coming in like wind blowing across satin and creaming on the beach. I'd been living in the little cabana behind me for two years and nothing ever changed, not the ocean or the throbbing blue sky or the growling and honking of Rio beyond the palms on the hill.

"I found her," I said, "I think. I've sent someone to confirm the address. Come back tomorrow morning and I'll have it for you."

He gulped down the rest of his water. "I was told you work alone."

"I farm out some of the grunt work. Don't worry, he doesn't know about Detroit."

"I shouldn't have told you. I still don't know how you got it out of me."

"Relax. There's no extradition between the United States and Brazil. At least half the people I work for are thieves. Most of them are like you, amateurs who embezzled a bundle in one shot and took off with the briefcase for romantic Rio. Amateur thieves fall into patterns. I needed to know she was one before I started looking."

"Sharon isn't a thief," he said. "Not really. I took that money. She didn't even know about it until we were in the air, on our way to a two-week vacation in South America, or so she thought."

"Plenty of women here. Why bring her at all?"

"We were going to be married. We still are, if I can find her and apologize. I–had an episode. In the Rio de Janeiro airport. I woke up in jail. The officers told me I tried to tear the place apart. Sharon was gone. So was the suitcase and six hundred thousand dollars."

"And you want to apologize to her?"

"I must have frightened her. She never saw one of my spells before. I was nervous, forgot to take my medication. That was two weeks ago. She must be terrified, with all that money in a strange country and no way to get back home. She'd be afraid to buy a ticket with stolen bills."

My glass was empty again; evaporation's a problem in Brazil. I filled it again and drank. I felt the familiar gnawing at my ulcer. "Is it her you want, or the money?"

"Both. I love Sharon, but I threw away my career for the money. What good's a career if this tumor turns malignant? If I'm going to die young, I want it to be in a villa overlooking the ocean with the woman I love at my side."

"Romantic. Come back tomorrow morning."

The sun was barely over the sill when someone banged on the cabana door. I stumbled to the window in my shorts and looked out at Hale standing on the little flagged patio where we'd sat the previous afternoon. The pitcher with its puddle of melted ice looked sad.

"Have you got it?" he demanded when I opened the door. Today he had on a Sea Island shirt over white flannels.

I gave him the address. "It belongs to a cabana like this one. It's a twenty-minute drive down the coast. Want me to go with you?"

"No, thanks." He handed me an envelope full of cash. He watched me count it. "Are you all right, Gardener? You look like hell."

"Damn ulcers kept me up all night."

"You ought to give up drinking."

"What else is there to do down here?"

He thanked me for my good work and left. The wheels of his rented Jeep spun and spat sand.

I gave him five minutes, then dressed and went after him in my Mexican Oldsmobile.

The cabana was about the same size as mine, but nicer, with a red Spanish tile roof and recent white paint on the stucco. There was a little flower garden in front, professionally tended. Nice view of the ocean out back. Apparently Sharon didn't mind spending stolen money on overhead as much as she did using it to buy a ticket home; but that had been Hale's assessment, and he was no judge of character. His Jeep was parked in front.

The front door stood wide open. Inside, the place looked like hurricane footage: furniture dumped over, cushions slashed and bleeding white cotton batting, holes kicked in the plaster. Hale was sitting on the floor in the middle of it all, next to the woman's body. She had on a halter top, shorts, and sandals. She had been a pretty blonde before someone had caved in her face with something hard and heavy.

He looked up at me. I could see his skull through his pale skin. "Did I–? Did I–?"

"Black out? I guess so." I leaned down, felt the woman's throat, and wiped my hand on my pants. "She's dead, okay. You want to tell me anything?"

"I don't remember. I don't–I wouldn't hurt Sharon."

I said nothing. He saw where I was looking and glanced down at the object in his hand. It was a stone carving of one of the Inca gods like you find in the better Souvenir shops, plastered with blood. He dropped it as if it had suddenly sprung to life.

"That'd do it," I said, nodding. "You'd better get up. We'll figure out something to tell the cops. They're down on
nortéamericanos
here, importing their troubles to peaceful Brazil." I held out my hand.

He stared at it for a moment, as a dog will. Then he grasped it. He was almost upright when I stuck the little Czech automatic into his belly and pulled the trigger three times.

The cabana had no telephone, so I walked down the beach and gave a dollar to one of the boys who sell maps to Pizarro's sunken gold to fetch an officer. Then I went back inside to wait.

I hadn't counted on the shock of his finding Sharon's battered body triggering one of Hale's blackouts, but it didn't matter. Even if he never remembered being innocent of her murder, he wouldn't forget the money. I'd spent most of the night looking for it after I'd killed her, and had only just gotten back to my cabana with it and undressed for bed when he banged on the door. It was a good set-up, considering how little time I'd had to rig it after I found out about Hale's condition. The medical examiners in Rio de Janeiro are among the best in the world; once a thorough autopsy brought his tumor to light, I'd have no trouble convincing the authorities I'd shot him in self-defense when he attacked me after bludgeoning the girl to death in one of his blind rages.

By the time they found out about the six hundred thousand, I'd be out of this country, with its unchanging sky and monotonous surf and too many thieves.

Stories with an * previously appeared in Mystery Scene Press AUTHOR'S CHOICE #8
PEOPLE WHO KILL by Loren D. Estleman. Copyright © 1993 by Pulphouse Publishing, Inc.

Introduction copyright © 1993 / 2012 by Loren D. Estleman.

"Evil Grows" copyright
©2001 by Mysterious Press, first appeared in
Flesh & Blood
edited by Max Allan Collins & Jeff Gelb.
 
Reprinted by permission of the author.

"Flash," Copyright 2001 New Millennium Press, First appeared in
Murder on the Ropes.
 
Reprinted by permission of the author.

"How's My Driving," Copyright 2008 Dell Magazines, a Division of Crosstown Publications.
 
First appeared in
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
, January / February 2008.

*"The Pioneer Strain" copyright © 1977 by Davis Publications, Inc..
First appeared in A1fredHitchcockc Mystery Magazine.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

*"The Used" copyright © 1982 by Davis Publications, Inc.. First
appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

*"The Tree on Execution Hill" copyright © 1977 by Davis Publications,
Inc.
. First appeared
in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

*"Lock, Stock, and Casket" copyright © 1982 by Loren D. Estleman. First appeared in
Pulpsmith.
Reprinted by permission of the author. "

*Bad Blood" copyright © 1986 by Davis Publications, Inc.. First ap
peared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

*"State of Grace" copyright © 1988 by Loren D. Estleman. First appeared in AN EYE FOR JUSTICE. Reprinted by permission of the author.

*"Diminished Capacity" copyright © 1982 by Davis Publications, Inc..
First appeared in AlfredHitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

*"Cabana" copyright © 1990 by Loren D. Estleman. First appeared in
The Armchair Detective.
Reprinted by permission of the author.