Assignment Unicorn (15 page)

The local police chief, who came into his office belching
his breakfast of sausage and grits, considered Durell with small inimical eyes
and tossed Durell’s ID papers back across the desk to him.

“Another one of them
muckedymucks
,”
he grunted.

“Just following things up, Chief,” Durell said.

“Can’t help you. Everything’s said and done.”

“Just go over it again for me.”

“What’s to go over? Mr. Strawbridge shot himself. Shoved his
twenty-gauge into his mouth and toed the trigger. Got both barrels. Blew his
head off. Tough.”

“Hell, yes. Fingerprints and all. Clothing. No question
about identity. Question is why. Never could figure such cases out.
Motive, I mean. Rich, good government job, everything a man could want. You
know why such men do it?”

“Maybe because they haven’t anything else to go for.”

“Yeah.” The police chief belched again. “Maybe.

Why are you tellers so interested?”

“Well, he worked for the government, as you said.”

“Seems like everybody works for the government around here.
I’m the only one payin’ honest taxes.”

“When did he do it? When was Strawbridge found?”

“It’s all in the reports here.” The chief shoved a manila
folder containing glossy photographs and typed forms across the desk. “Guess
you’ve seen copies of that, right?”

“Is Mrs. Strawbridge at home now?” Durell asked.

“Why?”

“I want to talk to her.”

“Mighty fine lady. She’s been talked to enough.”

“One more time,” Durell said.

“Not until noon. She ain’t due back from the District until
noon. I already checked.”

“I’d like to borrow one of your cells,” Durell decided.

“What in hell for?”

“I want to sleep in it.”

The chief shrugged. “Fine by me. Help yourself. We got
five of ‘
em
, all empty. Take your choice.”

According to the report in the folder, Joshua Strawbridge
had indeed shoved his fine English 20-gauge between his teeth and blown
his head off, spattering brains and part of his skull against the wall behind
him. It had happened the night before, in the bathhouse-
gameroom
,
a separate structure on the other side of the Olympic-size pool from the main
house. Oddly, no one had heard the blast. It was James’s night off—Durell
leafed through the folder and saw that James had an airtight alibi—and Mrs. Laura
MacLeod Strawbridge regularly took two, perhaps three,
Seconals
for sleeping, so she had slept right through it all.

There was no suicide note.

Strawbridge had apparently gone for a midnight swim in the
heated pool, had a few drinks of sour-mash bourbon, the analysis said, nothing
foreign in the liquor, and then gone to the bathhouse, hit a few balls
aimlessly on the billiard table, and gone to the big shower stall after picking
up his shotgun, and blown himself out of everything.

It looked final. It was complete. Strawbridge indeed might
have arranged the raids in Palingpon and Rome and elsewhere. And used the loot
in an effort to conceal his peculations. Strawbridge had been the only
reasonable suspect for the leak that informed the unicorns of when and where
funds were being transferred. So it was only robbery and murder, not a scheme
to undermine national intelligence operations. So it was a dead end. All tied
up.

But Durell did not buy the package.

Laura MacLeod Strawbridge was medium. Everything about her
was average: her height, features, brown hair, figure. Grooming and
exercise made her look chic, but she was plain. She was tired and still shocked
and had enough strength to be patient.

“What more can you want to know about Joshua, MI. Durell?”

“At the moment, I’m more interested in Alexander MacLeod,
Mrs. Strawbridge.”

“My brother? Why?”

“Will he be coming over for the funeral?”

“How did you know he’s out of the country?”

Durell said, “Scotland, isn’t it?”

She waved a vague hand. “Somewhere.”

“Have you notified him about your husband’s death?”

“No. We have not been in touch. I wouldn’t know where to
contact him.”

“But he lived here for a time, didn’t he?”

“Oh, yes.” Vague brown eyes drifted, swooped up and down.
“Would you like to stay for lunch, Mr. Durell?

“Thank you, I’ve eaten. Did he do any work for your
husband?”

“Who?”

“Alex MacLeod, your brother.”

“Oh, no. He had his own research. It absorbed him completely.”

“Biochemistry?”

“Something. He was brilliant. He stayed with us over a year.
He set up laboratory facilities over there.” She waved loosely toward the
sunlit pool.

“In the
gameroom
?”

“It was a laboratory then, for Alex. It’s all been done
over, you see.”

“Alex was a bit strange about it, wasn’t he?”

“Strange?”

“Involved in his work, and all.”

“He was a good brother to me. He made a lot of money on his
pharmaceutical patents. He was very generous to me—to Joshua and me. That’s how
we bought the place in the Virgin Islands. And the yacht. Josh loved sailing.”

Durell said, “Off the record, Mrs. Strawbridge, and on a
personal note—did your brother collect coins?”

“Coins? Oh, yes.”

“He was a collector, was he not?”

“Oh, yes.”

“He took the collection with him?”

“Yes, he did.”

“But he hasn’t been in touch with you? I mean, for you to
write to him?"

“I thought you wanted to talk about my poor husband, Mr.
Durell. Are you a numismatist, too?”

“In a most modest way.”

“I wish I could help you, but . . . ” She made an indecisive
move to rise. Durell got to his feet. “I really can’t. I feel ill, just now.
It’s been a strain. Everything has come down on my poor head. I don’t
understand it. I feel betrayed, and that makes me feel as if I am being unkind
to his memory, you see.”

A vague flutter of hands. No gesture was extensive, no
expression dramatic. Medium. She was like a bowl of gelatin that quaked
aimlessly at every touch.

He asked, “Did your brother ever correspond with or purchase
coins from a man named Sanderson, P.I. Sanderson, perhaps of London?”

An inexpert smile. “Philip. Oh, yes. A lot of
correspondence, as I remember.”

“Would you have any of those letters left?”

A stiffening. “I fail to see what connection—I am afraid I
really do not understand the true purpose of your visit here, Mr. Durell, at a
time like this.”

“I’ve been rude and thoughtless,” Durell said quickly.
“Forgive me. I’ll go now.”

She walked with him to the door, taking steps that were
neither too long nor too short. She shook hands with him. “Alex packed up all
his correspondence and lab papers and took them with him when he went to
London, Mr. Durell. Alex was a very neat, very tidy man. I miss him very much.”

She shook hands again. A pin was loose in her brown hair.
Her eyes saw nothing of the beauty of the autumn day. No one accompanied him to
the circular drive of crushed oyster shells. His car had collected some of the heat
of the day’s sun. He drove quietly through the tall impressive gates and turned
north toward the Potomac bridges, the Beltway, and the Memorial Parkway.

Within two minutes, he turned off abruptly, went slowly
through the village, stopped in a drugstore, drove a little farther, and
entered a cafe for a glass of draft beer, lingering for ten minutes. In the
Chevrolet again, he went back to the main highway. By then he knew that the
black Buick Riviera was following him.

He eased the S&W .38 in his belt and drove on.

30

FIVE MINUTES later he spotted a wayside picnic area and
pulled in, slid out quickly, walked to the restroom building, and stood in the
shadow of the brown-leafed oaks that edged a wood. The Riviera turned in
smoothly after him. The Buick had tinted reflective glass on the sides
and back window. Through the windshield he saw the driver, a youngish black
man, in a sedate charcoal-gray suit, white shirt, black necktie. There was a
man in the back seat. Durell stepped from the shadows with his gun dangling
from his fingers as the man in the back got out.

It was John Meecham.

“Sam. Relax.”

Durell raised the gun and pointed it at Meecham’s stomach.
He didn’t move from the shadows beside the lavatories. Two cars went by on the
road, not slowing. A truck came from the other direction. It went by. Meecham’s
wide mouth stretched in a froglike grin. His bulging eyes, however, betrayed a
beginning anger.

“Put that thing down, Cajun.”

“Are you armed?” Durell asked.

“What is it, don’t you trust me?”

”No.”

“You don’t think Strawbridge’s suicide settles the whole
thing?”

“No. Tell your man to get out of the car, too. Hands showing.
No funny business.”

“Very well.” Meecham called to his chauffeur and the young
black got out of the car carefully. Durell gestured with his gun toward the
toilets. The building was built of concrete blocks. “In there, son. Stay out of
the way.”

“Robert is okay,” Meecham said. “You are overreacting, Sam.”

“It’s safer this way. Go on, Robert.”

The driver looked at Meecham for instructions and received a
nod, then went up the three steps into the restroom and closed the door when
Durell ordered him to do so. Meecham sat down at one of the concrete picnic tables.
Durell moved so he could cover the restroom door and the table, too. The wind
blew a scurry of brown oak leaves along the autumn grass. The sun was warm. Two
more cars went by on the road. They were not the same ones that had passed
before.

Meecham’s rich baritone was persuasive. “Look here, Sam. Did
Enoch remove you as investigating officer?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Durell said.

“You have direct orders from General McFee?”

“Yes. Are you closing the books on the unicorn matter?”

“No, I am not. As a matter of fact, I’ve been following up
one of your suggestions. I’ve been to Fort Meade, consulting the NSA computer.
You’re strung out too tight, Sam. Will you listen to me?”

"Why National Security?” Durell asked.

"Just for their files. Checking on the ‘innocent
victims’ of each unicorn attack. Looking for a connection.

You’re the one who suggested it, Cajun.”

"I was just on my way there myself,” Durell said.

I’ll save you time and trouble.” Meecham’s thick brows
scowled. He sat in the sunlight and had to squint
lus
bulging eyes a bit to look up at Durell’s tall figure.

‘There were attacks in Lima, in Abu
Ra’shab
,
in one of the Arab Trucial States, in
Pakuru
. Perhaps
others I couldn‘t find, incidents that looked like local terrorist
affairs. You know about Hugh Donaldson in Palingpon; there was also a Signor
Alberto
Amfalso
on the plane in Rome-—-he had heavy
industrial interests along the Somali Coast in East Africa-—and Deputy Minister
Sulaki Madragaffi in Geneva. There were undoubtedly others that the computer
did not record.”

“And?” Durell asked.

“I looked for a connection, any connection at all, between
these alleged innocent victims.”

“And there is one,” Durell said flatly.

“You know about it?”

“Tell me.”

Meecham took one of his long thin cigars from his breast
pocket and clamped it between his square teeth. He had trouble lighting it in
the wind that blew the fallen leaves around the picnic table.

“Each man, aside from being an ‘innocent victim,’ was
involved in local internal security. Mostly in unstable states. Their records
are clear. A ‘normal’ matter of business, supplying police forces with arms,
training in tactics and weaponry, mob control, riot control, anti-coup methods
that seem necessary in this world of hijacking, assassination and political
violence. Police forces, Sam. Of course, each of the dead men has since been
replaced. I’ve put some people to work tracing down those replacements. We
don’t have anything on them as yet, except that the budgets for these special
forces—some of them supplied from our own funds, such as Hugh Donaldson took
care of in Palingpon—are rather heavier than they should be.”

Durell sat down across from Meecham. He put away his gun. He
said, “Heavy budgets, supplied by us. Replaced officials, filling in
after their superiors were removed. Is that your connection?”

“There is to be an international conference of these people
to discuss security, the maintenance of internal peace and control of
rebellious elements in these unstable nations. The new administrators will be
in attendance.

The thing is called the International Conference of Security
Officials for Police Protection. ICSOPP. Ever hear of it?”

“McFee mentioned it in passing,” Durell said. “I don’t
really know much about it.”

“You won’t. Not in the media anyway. Not much more in the
papers than you could read about the way we train foreign troops here in America—or
used to train them until the media blew the whistle. Since then all word has
been shut down, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“When does this conference come off?”

“In two weeks. On Mattatuck Island,” Meecham said.

Durell’s dark-blue eyes were thoughtful. “That gives us some
time. And will you attend, sir?”

“Yes, I will be there. So will General McFee. And, incidentally,
so will the President, who is curious.”

Durell stood up, aware of Meecham’s froglike face looking at
him. When he heard the sudden rush of feet behind him, it was almost too late.
He half turned, glimpsed Robert, the chauffeur, coming at a dead run with a gun
in his hand. Meecham stood up and said, “Don’t, Robert,” but it came after the
black man had already hit Durell on the back of the head with the barrel of the
gun. Durell went down on one knee, an arm outstretched to break his fall. The
sunlight wavered and darkened. He turned, caught Robert’s ankle, yanked him down.
Robert, sprawled on his back, tried to lash out and kick him in the ribs.
Durell came around and snapped the man’s gun away and smashed an elbow into
Robert’s throat. Robert gagged and choked. Meecham said quietly, “Cajun. Never
mind. It’s an honest error. Robert thinks you lack discipline.”