Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) (13 page)

"Is there some difficulty about your company paying off on the policy?"

"Have you spoken to Mrs. Gillette since her husband died?" Digger asked.

"Not directly. I saw her at the funeral, of course, and offered to help her in any way I could. She didn’t ask for anything, so I haven’t talked to her. Why is that pertinent?"

"Because Mrs. Gillette refuses to take our million dollars. She insists that Gillette died of a heart attack, not in an accident."

"But it was an accident," Belton said. "Surely she must—"

"Do you know the lady?" Digger interrupted.

"Yes."

"Then you know there is nothing ‘surely’ about anything that touches her."

"I suppose you’re right, Mr. Burroughs. It’s too bad, though, isn’t it? I asked the police to be very thorough. Vern’s death
was
an accident. That lady is due one million dollars."

"You know that and my company knows that," Digger said.

"And do you know that?" Digger thought that Belton was sharp. He had caught the slight omission in Digger’s voice.

"I did when I arrived here," Digger said. "Now I’m not so sure."

"Why is that, Mr. Burroughs?"

"Some things just don’t add up to an accident, Mr. Belton."

"What do they add up to?"

"I don’t know yet," Digger said.

"Give me an example of what doesn’t add up," Belton said.

"Why did you have a big policy on Gillette’s life? You don’t have one for your other executives."

"You probably have found out by now that I thought Vern would eventually take over the company. When I hired him, I was the last of the Beltons and, as you can guess, my health is none too good. I negotiated the insurance with him as a fringe benefit. He wanted to be sure that his wife and daughter would be cared for if anything should happen to him."

"And something did happen to him," Digger said. "At the time of his death, was that still your plan? To have him succeed you as president?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Because I had heard that somehow your relationship with Gillette had cooled off after he came here."

Belton hesitated. "All right. It was Mrs. Gillette, Louise. My wife, Amanda, doesn’t like her. Right from the start, she didn’t like her. Mrs. Gillette is, well, a strange person. The child, Ardath, is a delight, but Louise…well, you’ve met her. I guess I don’t have to tell you."

"
Whoooo, whooo
," Digger said, imitating a locomotive.

"Exactly. She is strange and Amanda didn’t like her strangeness."

"So what did that have to do with Gillette?" Digger asked.

"It was difficult to be social friends with them because of Louise and my wife. So I sort of stopped inviting the Gillettes over. Probably I shouldn’t have done that, Mr. Burroughs, but I love my wife very much. Anyway, I kept very close to Vern around here. He was in my office much of the time."

"Were there any other women in Gillette’s life?" Digger asked.

He could see Belton bristle. "No. And I think I would have known."

"Why would you have known?" Digger asked. "People cheat all the time."

"This is a small town," Belton said. "People talk."

"Yes, they do," Digger agreed amiably. "Why did you sic the cops on me?"

"That was a misunderstanding."

"That misunderstanding nearly got me shot. I’d like to know what caused that misunderstanding," Digger said.

"I had heard you were around town."

"From whom?"

"That isn’t important," Belton said.

"It is to me," Digger said. "I want to know who to cross off the guest list for my next fox hunt."

"I heard it from more than one person," Belton said. "You don’t exactly come quietly in the night."

Digger thought that meant Ben Spears and somebody else. Probably Cody Lord. Or Dr. Leonardo. Somebody who told somebody, who told somebody else.

"Let it pass," Digger said. "Why the cops?"

"I thought you might try to harass me and my family."

"I’m sure it’s the first thing on the mind of every insurance investigator who comes to town," Digger said.

"You have to understand, Mr. Burroughs. I am a very wealthy man. My wife and I are new parents. She worries, perhaps inordinately, that someone will try to kidnap our baby."

Digger nodded.

"So I asked the police to keep an eye on you and not let you annoy my family. That deputy, what is his name?"

"Hog," Digger said.

"Harker. Yes, he stopped you near my house. He shouldn’t have done that."

"Why did you want to meet with me today?" Digger said.

"To apologize and explain my actions. To ask you how long you are going to be in Belton."

"I don’t know yet."

"You were going to tell me why you thought Vern’s death might not be accidental," Belton said.

"It’s just an instinct I have in these things," Digger said.

"Your instinct’s wrong here," Belton said. "Vern’s death was an accident. Heart attack! He was in perfect health. Absolutely perfect."

"Those aren’t the only two alternatives," Digger said.

"Oh? What others are there?"

"Suicide," Digger said mildly. "Murder."

Belton looked disgusted and shook his head. Digger half-expected it to fall off.

"That’s ridiculous," Belton said. "It was an accident, pure and simple."

"I’ll leave when I’m sure of that," Digger said.

"Accident. Accidents can happen to anyone," Belton said. He looked sharply at Digger as if to make sure that the insurance man had understood him.

"You said you had a new son," Digger said. "Then who are the sons in Lucius Belton and Sons?"

"That Lucius Belton was my father. There were four of us sons. I’m the last alive. I was the last Belton until my son, Lucius the third, was born."

"Well, congratulations on your fatherhood," Digger said as he rose from his chair.

"Thank you," Belton said. He rose too. "I wish you could resolve this matter quickly without causing too much disruption."

"I’d like to. I’d like to put it all behind me too," Digger said.

"You’ll be staying then," Belton said.

"Until I’m done."

"Well, who knows?" Belton said with a lipless attempt at a smile. "You might be done sooner than you think."

Chapter Twelve

Digger felt chilled coming out of the Belton plant, so he stopped two blocks away for coffee. The diner was empty and the waitress was homely, so Digger bought a newspaper at the cash register so he could make believe he was reading it and not have to talk to her.

He idly turned the pages of the
Belton Bulletin
while he sipped his coffee, but his mind wasn’t on the newspaper. He had realized that he was annoying Lucius Belton, but the annoyance seemed now to have grown into a dangerous anger. Why was Belton so upset because Digger was looking into Gillette’s death?

And wasn’t Lucius Belton something to see? If his name had been Lucifer instead of Lucius, it might have been more apt. The face of a death mask; the body of a dried-out seed pod; the voice a cackle that seemed to come from the dark corners of a darker soul. And he had fathered a child?

Which brought up Mrs. Belton. Someone had told him she was young and that immediately put him on edge. He didn’t believe in June-December romances. Scratch a young wife and an old, really old, husband and what you generally found was not love that defied the odds, but monetary arrangements based equally upon female avarice and male stupidity. He put the matter out of his head and concentrated on the
Belton Bulletin
, which he quickly decided was no better and no worse than any other paper he read.

Digger had once been a regular reader of the newspapers, refusing to start a day without the
New York Times
lying on the table, in gray splendor, next to his coffee. But as he got older, he began to understand that newspapers never threw out their old stories; they just reran them later on with different names filling in the blanks.

"Left-wing rebels struck today at a government army installation outside the capital city of (fill in one)."

"The nation’s economic indicators moved (up) (down) slightly last month. The announcement from Washington touched off a wave of (buying) (selling) on the New York Stock Exchange."

How had he ever been able to read a newspaper anyway? All that time wasted reading about the world could have been spent changing the world. He saw the waitress hovering over him, ready to snatch his cup as soon as he released it from his fingers.

"Did you know that people who read newspapers never amount to anything?" he told her.

She sneered. "I didn’t know it until I saw you reading," she said.

"Very good," he said admiringly. "That’s just one class of people who don’t count. People who smoke pipes don’t amount to anything either."

"My son smokes a pipe."

"Sure he does. And people’s names that begin with
P-F
. I never met anybody whose name began with
P-F
who was good for anything. That’s because whenever you talk to a person like that, you never listen to him. You’re only wondering about how he pronounces his name. Imagine his name is P-F-oopler. Do you call him Mr. Poopler or Mr. Foopler? They don’t even know, so how are you supposed to know? The saddest ones of all are the ones who try to pronounce both the
P
and the
F
. They sort of say Puh-foopler. Everybody knows that’s ridiculous. How can your name be Puh-foopler?"

"My name is McBride."

"A nice name for a nice lady," Digger said. "If your name were Puh-foopler, you would be on welfare somewhere."

"Welfare? Let me tell you that—"

"Shhhh. Can’t you see I’m reading?" Digger said.

There was a small news item in the paper.

MRS. LUCIUS BELTON

TO DEDICATE GALLERY

Mrs. Lucius Belton will officiate at 2:00 P.M. today at the opening of the new Belton Gallery in the town’s art museum, located on the remodeled second floor of the town library.

All of Belton’s art lovers are invited to attend the ceremony.

Digger glanced at his watch. It was 1:45 P.M.

"Say, where’s the town library?" he asked.

"Six blocks down, turn right, four blocks more on the left," the waitress said. She pointed off in a direction.

"Thank you," Digger said. He paid her for the coffee and paper and left a dollar tip, which earned him a glacial smile that indicated she was more thrilled by his departure than by his dollar.

The newspaper had invited all Belton’s art lovers to attend the ceremonies, and perhaps all of them had shown up.

Nine.

Plus Digger.

There was one fussy man who looked to Digger like a librarian and eight women, all middle-aged. Three of them looked like employees called out, as at a political rally, to swell the crowd.

They milled around in a central upstairs hallway. At the end of the hallway were a pair of closed double doors, with a pink ribbon strung across them. Apparently, Mrs. Belton was late.

Digger perched on a windowsill near a tall metal ashtray and smoked while he looked out into the street.

Yes, he decided, Lucius Belton was probably hooked by his young wife, but maybe he retained some sense of sanity. If his wife had been able to lead him around by the nose, old man Belton would have made sure the library was packed for the art gallery opening. Marching bands, lines stretching around the corner, people sleeping in front at night to be sure to get an early place in line. In Belton, PA, old Lucius could have done those things if he wanted, Digger knew. But he hadn’t. Just a twerpy librarian and eight ladies.

Digger was stubbing out his cigarette when an enormous black limousine turned the corner and rolled up toward the front of the library. It was a black customized Mercedes Benz. Digger had seen one once before on display in a national automobile show. The vehicle was armored and bulletproof. All the electrical and hydraulic systems were dual, so that if gunfire knocked one out, the other would still work. The radiator was hidden behind steel plates and the fuel tank could withstand direct firearm hits. The car had a built-in fire extinguisher system. Digger remembered hearing the pretty model who was decorating the display say that it was designed to withstand a "NATO Level Five assault," which meant from firearms using armor-piercing ammunition. After the demonstration, Digger had gone up to tell the model that he wanted to buy two of them.

"Two?" she had said.

"Yes. But first, what kind of mileage does it get?"

"Mileage?"

"Yes. How many miles per gallon?"

She looked at a fact sheet in her hand. "Seven," she said.

"Too bad," Digger said. "Cancel the sale. My moped gets a hundred and sixty to the gallon."

"Do you mind if I ask you something?" the model had said.

"Go ahead."

"Are you crazy?"

"Only about you," Digger had said, and invited her to dinner. He still remembered the evening fondly.

The big Mercedes pulled up in front of the library and a uniformed chauffeur hopped out of the driver’s seat and ran to the back to open a door. Lucius Belton had said that his wife was afraid of kidnappers; seeing the car now made Digger believe it.

His first view of Amanda Belton was of a long tanned leg stretching out from the back door of the car. It was quite a leg, followed by quite a woman. Amanda was a wondrously slim ash-blonde with a model’s face. She wore a pale-tan silk suit, and the afternoon sun hit her hand at just the correct angles to flash diamond sparkles toward Digger. She smoothed her skirt over her hips, said a few words to her driver and walked briskly toward the front door of the library.

Digger guessed her age at thirty-couple, but the thought of her with the withered, devilish wraith that was Belton made her seem even younger. He walked over to join the other nine persons who were clustered around the door to the art room. On the wall, Digger noticed a small plaque that read: "The Belton Gallery, Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Lucius Belton. Paintings on loan from The Belton Collection."