The McBain Brief (21 page)

I pulled the .45 out of my shirt.

The gun was very heavy and very hot. My hand slipped on the walnut grip, and I shifted hands and wiped the sweat off on the back of my dungarees. I took a firmer grip on the gun, with the sweat running down my face and over my neck and trickling down my back, sticky and warm. I thumbed off the safety, and the Old Man passed the radar shack and didn't even look in, and I sucked in a deep breath and waited.

And then he was starting up the ladder, and I thought,
Now, you louse, now!
and I sighted the gun at the back of his neck.

I squeezed the trigger.

There was a dull click and nothing else, and I was shocked for a second, but I squeezed off again, and there was another dull click, and the Old Man was already halfway up the steps, and he still hadn't turned. I squeezed the trigger twice more, but I got empty clicks both times, and then the Old Man was out of sight, heading toward his cabin.

I looked down at the gun in my hand, realizing it was empty, realizing there was no clip in it. I remembered the captain's orders about no magazines allowed in sidearms or pieces, and I remem
bered that Ferguson had gone to the gun locker to get a clip for his own empty .45.

I was still sweating, and the hand holding the gun was trembling now, as if I was just realizing what I'd almost done, just realizing that I'd almost killed a man.

I felt kind of foolish. Maybe an empty gun makes you feel that way. Or maybe the anger had burned itself out when I'd heard those stupid empty clicks. Maybe that, and maybe I was a little glad the gun had been empty, because chewing out a man is one thing, but killing a man is another. He chewed everybody out, when you got down to it, and nobody had gunned him down yet. Just me, who would have already committed murder if it hadn't been for an order the captain had issued a long time ago. Me, from Red Bank, New Jersey—a murderer.

I dumped the gun over the side, and I heard the small splash when it hit the water, and then I heard the speaker in the radar shack calling, “Cavalcade, Cavalcade . . .”

I ran in and began copying down the weather forecast for Guantanamo Bay, and the weather forecast said there would be rain tonight, and all at once I felt a lot cooler.

I
t was just a routine call. I remember I was sitting around with Ed, talking about a movie we'd both seen, when Marelli walked in, a sheet of paper in his hand.

“You want to take this, Art?”

I looked up, pulled a face, and said, “Who stabbed who now?”

“This is an easy one,” Marelli said, smiling. He smoothed his mustache in an unconscious gesture and added, “Accidental shooting.”

“Then why bother Homicide?”

“Accidental shooting resulting in death,” Marelli said.

I got up, hitched up my trousers, and sighed. “They always pick the coldest goddamn days of the year to play with war souvenirs.” I looked at the frost edging the windows and then turned back to Marelli. “It
was
a war sourvenir, wasn't it?”

“A Luger,” Marelli said. “9mm with a 3⅝ inch barrel. The man on the beat checked it.”

“Was it registered?”

“You tell me.”

“Stupid characters,” I said. “You'd think the law wasn't for
their own protection.” I sighed again and looked over to where Ed was trying to make himself small. “Come on, Ed, time to work.”

Ed shuffled to his feet. He was a big man with bright red hair, and a nose broken by an escaped con back in '45. It happened that the con was a little runt, about five feet high in his Adler elevators, and Ed had taken a lot of ribbing about that broken nose—even though we all knew the con had used a lead pipe.

“Trouble with you, Marelli,” he said in his deep voice, “you take your job too seriously.”

Marelli looked shocked. “Is it my fault some kid accidentally plugs his brother?”

“What?” I asked. I had taken my overcoat from the peg and was shrugging into it now. “What was that, Marelli?”

“It was a kid,” Marelli said. “Ten years old. He was showing his younger brother the Luger when it went off. Hell, you know these things.”

I pulled my muffler tight around my neck and then buttoned my coat. “This is just a waste of time,” I said. “Why do the police always have to horn in on personal tragedies?”

Marelli paused near the table, dropping the paper with the information on it. “Every killing is a personal tragedy for someone,” he said. I stared at him as he walked to the door, waved, and went out.

“Pearls from a flatfoot,” Ed said. “Come on, let's get this over with.”

It was bitterly
cold, the kind of cold that attacks your ears and your hands, and makes you want to huddle around a potbelly stove. Ed pulled the Mercury up behind the white-topped squad car, and we climbed out, losing the warmth of the car heater. The
beat man was standing near the white picket fence that ran around the small house. His uniform collar was pulled high onto the back of his neck, and his eyes and nose were running. He looked as cold as I felt.

Ed and I walked over to him, and he saluted, then began slapping his gloved hands together.

“I been waitin' for you, sir,” he said. “My name's Connerly. I put in the call.”

“Detective Willis,” I said. “This is my partner, Ed Daley.”

“Hiya,” Ed said.

“Hell of a thing, ain't it, sir?”

“Sounds routine to me,” Ed put in. “Kid showing off his big brother's trophy, bang! His little brother is dead. Happens every damned day of the week.”

“Sure, sir, but I mean . . .”

“Family inside?” I asked.

“Just the mother, sir. That's what makes it more of a tragedy, you see.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“Well, sir, she's a widow. Three sons. The oldest was killed in the war. He's the one sent the Luger home. Now this. Well, sir, you know what I mean.”

“Sure,” I said. “Let's get inside.”

Connerly led us to the front door, and rapped on it with a gloved hand. Ed stole a glance at me, and I knew he didn't relish this particular picnic any more than I did.

The door opened quickly, and a small woman with dark brown eyes opened the door. She might have been pretty once, but that was a long time ago, and all the beauty had fled from her, leaving her tired and defeated.

“Mrs. Owens, this is Detective Willis and his partner,” Connerly said.

Mrs. Owens nodded faintly.

“May we come in, ma'am?” I asked.

She seemed to remember her manners all at once. “Yes, please do.” Her voice was stronger than her body looked, and I wondered if she were really as old as she seemed. A widow, one son killed in the war. Death can sometimes do that to a person. Leave them more withered than the corpse.

“We're sorry to bother you, ma'am,” I said, feeling foolish as hell, the way I always did in a situation like this. “The law requires us to make a routine check, however, and . . .”

“That's quite all right, Mr. Willis.” She moved quickly to the couch and straightened the doilies. “Sit down, won't you?”

“Thank you, ma'am.” I sat down with Ed on my right. Connerly stood near the radiator, his hands behind his back.

Ed took out his pad, and cleared his throat. I took that as my cue and said, “Can you tell us exactly what happened, ma'am?”

“Well, I . . . I don't really know, exactly. You see, I was in the kitchen baking. This is Wednesday, and I usually bake on Wednesdays. The boys . . .” She hesitated and bit her lip. “The boys like pie, and I try to bake one at least once a week.”

“Yes, ma'm.”

“I . . . I was putting the pie into the oven when I heard this . . . this noise from the attic. I knew the boys were up there playing so I didn't think anything of it.”

“What are the boys' names, ma'm?”

“Jeffrey. He's my oldest. And . . . and . . .”

“Yes, ma'm?”

“Ronald.”

“Was Ronald the boy who was shot, ma'm?”

She didn't answer. She simply nodded her head. I got up because I was embarrassed as hell, and I began walking around the room. On top of the upright piano, four photos in silver frames beamed up at me. One was of an older man, obviously the dead Mr. Owens. A second was of a young man in an Army uniform, with infantry rifles crossed on his lapel. The other two were of the younger boys.

Mrs. Owens blew her nose in a small handkerchief and looked up.

“Which one is Jeffrey?” I asked.

“The . . . the blond boy.”

I looked at the photo. He seemed like a nice kid, with a pleasant smile, and his mother's dark eyes. “Is he in the house?”

“Yes. He's upstairs in his room.”

“I'd like to talk to him, ma'm.”

“All right.”

“If you don't mind, I'd like to see the attic first.”

She seemed about to refuse, and then she nodded, “Certainly.”

“You needn't come up, Mrs. Owens,” Ed said. “The patrolman can show us the way.”

“Thank you,” she said.

We followed Connerly up the steps, and he whispered, “See what I mean? Jesus, this is a rotten business.”

“Well, what are you gonna do?” Ed philosophized.

The attic had been fixed as a playroom, with plasterboard walls and ceiling. An electric train layout covered one half of the room. In the other half, covered with a sheet, lay young Ronald Owens, I walked over and lifted the sheet, looking down at the boy. He resembled the older Jeffrey a great deal, except that his hair was brown. He had the same dark eyes, though, staring up at me now,
sightless. There was a neat hole between his eyes, and his face was an ugly mixture of blood and powder burns. I put the sheet back.

“Where's the gun?” I asked Connerly.

“Right here, sir.”

He fished into his pocket and produced the Luger wrapped carefully in his handkerchief. I opened the handkerchief and stared at the German gun.

“Did you break it open, Connerly?”

“Why, no, sir. A patrolman isn't allowed to . . .”

“Can it,” I said. “If you broke it open, you'll save me the trouble.”

Connerly looked abashed. “Yes, sir, I did.”

“Any shells in it?”

“No, sir.”

“Not even in the firing chamber?”

“No, sir.”

“One bullet, then. That's strange.”

“What's so strange about it?” Ed wanted to know.

“A Luger's magazine fed, that's all,” I said. “Eight slugs in a clip. Strange to find only one.” I shrugged, handing the pistol back to Connerly. “Let's see what else is around here.”

We started rummaging around the attic, not really looking for anything in particular. I think I was just postponing the talk I had to have with the young kid who'd shot his own brother.

“Bunch of books,” Ed said.

“Mmmm?”

“Yeah. Few old newspaper clippings.”

“Here's something,” Connerly cut in.

“What have you got?”

“Looks like a box of clips, sir.”

“Yeah? For the Luger?”

“Looks that way, sir.”

I walked over to where Connerly was standing, and took the box from the shelf. He had carefully refrained from touching it. The box was covered with a fine layer of dust. There were two clips in the open box, and they too were covered with dust. I lifted one of the clips out, running my eyes over the cartridges. Eight. The second clip had only seven cartridges in it.

“Only seven here,” I said.

“Yeah,” Connerly said, nodding. “That's where the bullet came from, all right.”

“Anything else there, Ed?” I turned to where Ed squatted on the floor.

“Just these loose newspaper clippings. Nothing really . . . hey!”

“What've you got?”

“That's strange as hell,” Ed said.

“What? What's so strange?”

He got to his feet and walked over to me, holding a clipping in his big hand. “Take a look at this, Art.”

The clipping was scissored from one of the tabloids. It was simply the story of a boy and a girl who'd been playing in their back yard. Playing with a Colt .45 that was a war souvenir. The .45 had gone off, blowing half the girl's head away. There was a picture of the boy in tears, and a story of the fatal accident.

“Some coincidence, huh, Art?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Some coincidence.”

I put the box of clips back on the shelf. “I think I'd better talk to the kid now,” I said.

We left the attic, and Connerly whispered something about the way fate sometimes works. He called Mrs. Owens, and she came up to lead me to the boy's room on the second floor of the house.

She rapped on the door and softly called, “Jeffrey?”

I could hear sobbing beyond the door, and then a muffled, “Yes?”

“Some gentlemen would like to talk to you,” she said.

The sobbing stopped, and I heard the sound of bare feet padding to the door. The door opened and Jeffrey stood there, drying his face. He was thinner than the photograph had shown him, with bright brown eyes and narrow lips. His hair hung over his forehead in unruly strands, and there were streaks under his eyes and down his cheeks.

“You're policemen, aren't you?” he said.

“Yes, son.”

“We just want to ask a few questions,” Ed said.

“Come in.”

We walked into the room. There were two beds in it, one on either side of the large window. There was one dresser, and I imagined the two boys shared this. Toys were packed neatly in a carton on one side of the room. A high school pennant, and several college pennants decorated the walls, and a model airplane hung from the ceiling.

Mrs. Owens started into the room and Ed said gently, “If we can talk to him alone . . .”

Her hand went to her mouth, and she said, “Oh. Oh, all right.”

Jeffrey walked to his bed and sat on it, one leg tucked under him. He stared out of the window, not looking at us.

“Want to tell us how it happened, son?”

“It was an accident,” he said. “I didn't mean to do it, honest.”

“We know,” Ed said. “We just want to know how it happened.”

“Well, we were upstairs playing with the trains, and then we got sort of tired. We started kidding around, and then I found Perry's . . . that's my older brother, who was killed in the war . . . I found Perry's Luger and we started foolin' around with that.”

“Is that the first time you saw the gun, son?”

“No, no.” He turned to look me full in the face. “Perry sent it home a long time ago. Before he was killed, even. One of his buddies brought it to us.”

“Uh-huh. Go on, son.”

“Well, then we found the bullets in the box. I . . .”

“You didn't know the bullets were there before this?”

“No.” Again, Jeffrey stared at me. “No, we just found them today.”

“Did you know where the gun was?”

“Well . . . yes.”

“You said you found it, though. You didn't mean that, did you, son?”

“Well, I knew it was in the attic someplace because that's where Mom put it. I didn't know just where until I found it today.”

“Oh, I see. Go on, please.” Ed looked at me curiously, and then returned his interest to the boy.

“We found the bullets, and I took one from one of the magazines, just to fool around. I stuck it in the gun and then all at once the gun went off and . . . and . . . Ronnie . . . Ronnie . . .”

The kid turned his face away, then threw himself onto the pillow.

“I didn't mean to do it. Honest, honest. The gun just went off. I didn't know it would go off. It just did. I loved my brother. I didn't want it to happen. I didn't!”

“Sure, son,” I said. I walked to the bed and sat down beside him. “You liked your brother a lot. I know. I have a brother, too.”

Ed gave me another curious look, but I continued to pat the kid's shoulder.

“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “I did like him. I liked Perry, too, and he was killed. And now . . . now this. Now there's just me and Mom.
They're all gone. Dad, and Perry, and . . . and . . . Ronnie. Now we're all alone.” He started bawling again. “It's my fault. If I hadn't wanted to play with that old gun . . .”