Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 (12 page)

 
          
When
he got off at the bus depot in Denver that afternoon it was as if he had not
been in the city for years. The brief visit of the night before seemed like a
journey taken in a dream. Reaching the hotel where he had originally arranged
to stay, planning the trip a long time ago in Washington, he was startled to
find the reservation waiting for him, and to realize that this was the day he
had expected to arrive in Denver. It did not seem possible that everything that
had happened had taken no more time than he would normally have spent driving
here.

 
          
He
had dinner at the hotel, rolled into bed while there was yet daylight at the
windows, and slept until nine the following morning. The solid hours of rest
seemed to draw a curtain over the events of the past days; shaving, he found
that he could hardly recall Ann Nicholson’s face. He could bring back the
things she had said and done, and the clothes she had worn, but whenever he
tried for the face it was the face of a stranger staring at him with dull
nonrecognition. He shivered a little and tried to wipe it out of his mind.
Going out for breakfast, the hotel dining room having closed by the time he got
down, he stopped at the desk for mail. There was a card from his parents hoping
he was having a nice time.

 
          
“Oh,
and there was a call for you last night, sir,” the clerk said. “We didn’t put
it through since you’d specially asked not to be disturbed. A lady—”

 
          
Emmett
felt his whole body waiting for the name, tense with the sudden crazy
expectation of finding that the girl of whom he had been thinking had tried to
call him. What would I say to her? he asked himself. What did you say to a girl
you had rather liked, who had turned out to be a little cracked?

 
          
“Here
you are, sir,” the clerk said, finding the slip of paper on which the message
had been recorded.

 
          
Emmett
took it and glanced at it warily. He read:
Mr.
J. E. Emmett call Mrs. Amos Pruitt, Hogback Lake Lodge, Summit, Colo., confirm
cabin reservations 8th to 11th. Tel: Summit 721, ring 4.
He did not know
whether it was relief or disappointment that made him laugh so abruptly that
the clerk looked at him a little strangely. He thanked the man, tucked the note
into his wallet, and walked out into the sunshine, rereading his parents’ card.
It was rather startling to be again reminded that he was supposed to be in the
middle of a carefully planned month’s vacation. He tried in vain to find in
himself any eagerness for the fishing at Hogback Lake. He found himself
wishing, instead, that it were the end of the month, so that he could be
getting to work at his new job in California.

 
          
The
air-conditioning met him coldly as he turned into the first restaurant along
the street. The place had chromium plated steel furniture upholstered in two
tones of green leather; the tables were a polished black composition resembling
obsidian. He selected a small table by a pillar, and a rather pretty girl in a
green uniform, with a green bow in her hair, took his order with an
impersonality that matched the shining lifelessness of the restaurant; but he
had the impression that she thought he was giving himself airs, to take a table
by himself, when he could have perched on one of the round upholstered stools
by the counter and made life easy for her. The place was almost empty since it
was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch.

 
          
Emmett
filled his pipe slowly, watching a large man who had come in behind him pause
at the cash register for a pack of cigarettes; he was still studying the man
idly when the man turned away and looked over the deserted restaurant, as if
for a desirable place to sit. Emmett was not quite aware of the exact moment he
knew the man was coming over to him. He felt himself put the pipe into his
mouth and light it, a part of his mind vaguely hoping that the gesture looked
natural and unconcerned, while he watched the stranger approach. He saw a big
man with the look of a college athlete—sunburned, with cropped dark hair and
the type of regular, handsome, rather heavy features that, during the fall,
could be seen bursting out of the rotogravure sections of papers all over the
country, framed by a football helmet and occasionally adorned by a nose-guard.
The man was wearing dark slacks and a light sports jacket that emphasized the
width of his shoulders; his head was bare. He stopped at the table.

 
          
“Mr.
Emmett?”

 
          
Emmett
nodded. The big man without asking leave pulled out a chair and sat down facing
him. After a pause, he took a leather folder from his pocket and slid it across
the table.

 
          
Emmett
opened it slowly and looked at the credentials inside, which certified the
bearer, Edward Manning Kirkpatrick, to be an authorized agent of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, of the United States Department of Justice. Emmett
returned the folder gingerly. He leaned back to let the waitress put his
breakfast in front of him.

 
          
“Coffee
here, please,” the big man said. “Black.”

 
          
They
sat in silence waiting for the girl to return. Outside the street was bright
with sunlight, and people walked past the plate-glass window in a steady
procession. Not until the waitress had put a cup down in front of him and
retreated to the chromium-finished counter, did Kirkpatrick again look at
Emmett directly.

 
          
Then
he said, “We had a visitor this morning, Mr. Emmett. A detective lieutenant
from the homicide bureau of the Chicago police, named Polachek. He was down
here about the murder of a man named Stevens.” The big man took from his pocket
a small notebook with a spiral wire binding. “You’re acquainted with Miss Ann
Nicholson, aren’t you, Mr. Emmett?” he said.

 
          
Emmett
nodded. He had a feeling of being hypnotized; he was aware, presently, that he
had begun to eat, but he could not seem to taste the food.

 
          
The
big man searched for a page in the notebook and found it. “As a matter of fact,”
he said, “you met her, presumably for the first time, in a garage in Jepson,
Illinois, last Saturday evening.” He was no longer asking questions. His voice
went on confidently, paraphrasing the contents of the little book. “You struck
up a friendship with Miss Nicholson and, your own car having broken down,
persuaded her to give you a lift west. Around midnight Saturday, Miss Nicholson’s
doctor and nurse, who had been following their patient to keep an eye on her,
explained to you certain medical facts about her, and asked you to help her to
Denver. You agreed. Sunday morning, the fifth, you helped Miss Nicholson escape
from a Nebraska sheriff who was about to detain her for questioning in
connection with the Stevens killing. Sunday afternoon you registered with Miss
Nicholson as man and wife at the Boyne Hotel, about sixty miles east of here.
You left her that evening, but returned in the middle of the night in time to
save her from the consequences of an overdose of sedative, presumably
self-administered.” The federal man looked up. “Have I got all that straight?”

 
          
Emmett
nodded stiffly. “That’s pretty close. Did the detective…?”

 
          
“Yes,”
Kirkpatrick said. “Lieutenant Polachek seems to have put in some pretty thorough
work in two days. He seemed like a good man.” The big man tasted his coffee
and, finding it rather hot, put the cup down quickly. “However, when he got out
here, he found himself blocked from further progress, Mr. Emmett. It appears
that Miss Nicholson has been taken to a place called Young’s Valley Ranch, a
sanatorium, or if you prefer, asylum, back in the mountains. At this place they
told Polachek politely to go roll his hoop. Miss Nicholson was quite ‘ill’ and
an interview was out of the question. Polachek tried to get some cooperation
from the local officials, since he was a thousand miles, more or less, outside
his own jurisdiction, but somebody, presumably the girl’s father, brought
enough pressure to bear to stop that. Polachek then got a little mad and
brought us what he’d managed to pick up, frankly hoping we’d be able to blast
something loose for him somewhere. We found his information interesting enough
that we persuaded him to take the ten o’clock plane east and leave this end of
the investigation to us.”

 
          
It
reminded Emmett of where he was, to hear Chicago called the East, and it made
him feel a little like Rip Van Winkle to learn how much had been going on while
he slept. He licked his lips.

 
          
“Then…
he had enough evidence to arrest her?”

 
          
Kirkpatrick
glanced up. “He thought so. I understand Mr. Nicholson used some influence when
his daughter first disappeared to have the alarm sent out for her canceled, but
there has never, Polachek seemed to think, been any real doubt—”

 
          
“The
nurse,” Emmett said. “I thought the nurse gave her an alibi.”

 
          
“Lieutenant
Polachek has evidence that Miss Bethke, the nurse, did not leave the cocktail
party until at least ten minutes after Miss Nicholson’s car had driven away,
which makes it kind of unlikely that she was following her patient as closely
as she claimed.”

 
          
“She
was following her when I saw them.”

 
          
“Yes,
about an hour after leaving the party Miss Nicholson tried to cash a check for
a thousand dollars at a large Evanston department store where she was known.
The store called her father, who stalled long enough for the doctor and nurse
to pick up the trail, as close as Polachek has it figured. Then he told them to
pay up.” Kirkpatrick smiled. “Incidentally, Mr. Emmett, the girl’s behavior led
the department store manager to think she was either drunk or under the
influence of shock; he says she could hardly talk coherently.”

 
          
Emmett
said sarcastically, “I suppose there was blood on her clothes, too. It’s a
wonder he didn’t call the police.”

 
          
Kirkpatrick
said smoothly, “It’s interesting that you should bring up that point, Mr.
Emmett. Polachek wondered about that; he was rather intrigued by the fact that
the minute her father caught up to her, in Boyne, he sent her suit out to be
cleaned. As a matter of fact, he paid the man ten dollars to rush the job.”

 
          
Emmett
said, “There wasn’t any blood on her when I met her.”

 
          
“Were
you looking for blood, Mr. Emmett? Or for places where blood had been washed
away, that might still be detected by a laboratory? How do you explain her
father’s—?”

 
          
Emmett
said, “My God, she hadn’t had that ice-cream suit of hers off for twenty-four
hours; she’d slept in it and it was getting to look pretty sad. He wanted to
get her out of the hotel without attracting any more attention than he had to.
Naturally he wouldn’t want her walking through the lobby looking like a tramp…
And maybe I wasn’t looking for bloodstains when I met her, Mr. Kirkpatrick,” he
said a little angrily, “but she was pretty enough that I gave her a good once-over,
and if she’d been scrubbing spots off that suit, I’ll eat it.”

 
          
Kirkpatrick
smiled. “Yes. Of course, you’d be considered a prejudiced witness, wouldn’t
you? You’ve been taking quite an interest in Miss Nicholson.”

 
          
Emmett
said hotly, “Don’t look at me like that. It’s nothing to me if she’s a female
Bluebeard, except that she seemed like kind of a nice kid. But I’ll be damned
if I’m going to see anybody hanged because the manager of a department store
said she looked like she’d just been murdering somebody.”

 
          
The
big man laughed, and looked down to consult his notebook, then looked up again.

 
          
“And
how do you dispose of her motive, Mr. Emmett?” he asked quietly.

 
          
Emmett
glanced at him, frowning. Then the damning story the girl herself had told him
came back to him. “Oh, you know about that, too?”

 
          
“Yes.
We know why Stevens came to see her. We have the testimony of Stevens’ wife
that he felt rather bitterly about Miss Nicholson’s immunity—she’s been
considered rather a heroine, hasn’t she?—and was intending to confront her with
his information and then take it to the newspapers. It’s rather suggestive, isn’t
it? that he should be murdered before he could carry out the second half of his
program. And that shortly thereafter she should turn up, obviously on the verge
of hysterics, to cash a large check, and then should flee blindly across the
country without even stopping for a change of clothes. Considering her medical
history—”