Detour to Death (14 page)

Trace was painting a picture again, and without live models it was vague and shadowy. Danny tried to see it, but it didn’t come clear. There was something else he had to remember about Steve Malone before the picture moved to Junction City.

Nobody else had trouble seeing the picture, particularly Alexander Laurent. “The only weakness in your theory, Mr. Cooper,” he remarked, “is that we find ourselves with approximately nine hundred and ninety-seven possible murderers.”

“Francy didn’t have that many friends,” Tracy objected.

“I wasn’t confining the count to friends. For every admirer we must multiply by two—the jealous wife, the troubled fiancée; or possibly by three—the eternal triangle. Oh, you’ve given us a splendid motive for the old doctor’s murder, and a fine reason for the sudden demise of Mr. Malone; but aren’t we in need of a motive for Miss Allen’s death? Assuming, of course, that she actually was murdered.”

“I gave you a motive!”

“A motive,” Laurent repeated, “but only one of many possibilities. Now what would you say to the motive of a young man whose life had been shattered by a lie?”

“That wasn’t Francy’s fault!” Trace cried.

“Wasn’t it? Why don’t you ask Doctor Glenn about that? Isn’t it true, doctor, that Miss Allen came first to you and only went to Red Rock when you refused the services she sought? And isn’t it also true that you went straightway to Doctor Gaynor and reported that she had named Trace Cooper as the father of her unborn child?”

“Francy wouldn’t have said that!”

Laurent shook his head sadly. “Mr. Cooper,” he scolded, “I’m disappointed in you. When are you going to stop creating people in your own image and likeness? Because you thought of Miss Allen as a sisterly charge, does it necessarily follow that she thought of you as a big brother?” Laurent’s eyes sought Arthur in that ring of faces, Arthur whose dark countenance never gave away secrets. But there was a glint of recognition when their eyes met, and Laurent smiled. “There’s more than one way to remove a rival from the field,” he murmured. “But then, I never attempt to explain the things women do: why Mrs. Keep doesn’t sleep well, for instance, or why Mrs. Wade evidences such delight in murder. Insofar as possible, I try to avoid conjecture and adhere strictly to the facts.”

Laurent made a little tent of his long fingers and contemplated the structure thoughtfully.

“The facts,” he added, “are rather discouraging. Any of us, any of us in this very room, could have murdered both Miss Allen and the doctor. We could have acted from motives unknown, from circumstances beyond our control. The thing to remember is that the first two deaths were by means of the handiest instrument possible, as if unpremeditated, whereas Mr. Malone was very neatly dispatched with a bullet in the forehead. This not only bears out Mr. Cooper’s theory that Malone was a marked man, but it gives us our first positive link to the murderer— Who has the gun that killed Steve Malone?”

Everyone looked at the weapon in Virgil’s hand, even Danny. A gun in the hand was worth a dozen theories in the bush.

“It couldn’t have been that gun,” Trace insisted. “That gun wasn’t fired.”

Virgil checked the chamber. “It’s been fired,” he said.

“By Douglas in the cabin. It wasn’t fired last night in that hotel room.”

It took all of thirty seconds for Virgil to realize what Trace had said; Danny caught on in half the time. “Who told you Malone was shot in a hotel room?” the sheriff demanded, and then it had to come out. It had to all come out where it hurt the most. Danny followed Trace’s reluctant rehearsal of their strange meeting at Malone’s deathbed with a sinking heart. Once Virgil had him fixed in that murder room nothing was going to get him out of this mess. He could see it written all over Virgil’s face even before his outburst.

“Damn you, Trace, I’ll have you in court for this and I don’t care if the county is named after your grandad!” Virgil swore. “I warned you not to push me too far! Facts, the man says, facts!”

Alexander Laurent held no glory for Virgil. He was just a stranger with fancy clothes, fancy manners, and too many words. Now he could add a few of Virgil’s to his collection.

“I’ve got a lump on my head, that’s a fact! I’ve got a wrecked car that’s been found in the bottom of a dry river just off the old road to Junction City, and I’ve got a report that Malone was shot with a forty-five. This is no water pistol that I’m holding. If that’s not facts enough, I’ll give you another one. I’ve got Danny Ross locked in a cell, and he’s going to stay there until a court of law sets him free! Now clear out of here, all of you! This is no town hall!”

A less-talented man would have had to practice a long time for such a demonstration of wrath. Walter scurried for the door like a schoolboy at the closing bell, and Jim didn’t seem to need a second invitation. But Trace resisted.

“What about those bloodstains in the cabin?” he demanded. “Aren’t you going to do anything about them?”

Virgil’s smile was as warm as a spinster’s kiss. “Sure I am,” he responded. “Just bring them in and I’ll get out my magnifying glass and chemistry set. Bring along those inkstains, too, and that statement Francy is supposed to have written that tells us the name of her murderer. I’m surprised that a couple of smart men like you and Mr. Laurent haven’t come up with that long ago. All you need is a sample of Francy’s handwriting and a piece of paper!”

Virgil didn’t intend his words to be inspiring; they weren’t meant to be anything but the walking papers for two annoying visitors. But in the little digestive silence that followed Danny sucked in his breath audibly. A piece of paper! No other choice of words could have had such an effect. It was like a lever thrown or a button pressed, and the picture Trace’s theory had begun to form came clear at last. A piece of paper!

But now everybody was leaving, and Danny couldn’t have that. “Wait a minute!” he yelled. “Wait! I’ve got something to say!”

D
ANNY HARDLY RECOGNIZED
the sound of his own voice. It was strangely authoritative—as if he really knew what he was going to say—and the response was a complete halt to that exodus toward the door. Now the anxious eyes were his to ponder.

“Well,” Virgil growled, “what is it? What’s on your mind?”

“Maybe he wants to confess,” Jim said.

Danny looked at both men, each in turn. Jim really wasn’t so tall after all, it was the hat that made him look that way; and Virgil’s eyes were almost level with Danny’s own. The discovery seemed significant at the time, but that wasn’t what he’d called them back to discuss.

“There was a piece of paper,” he said. “Doctor Gaynor had it in his wallet—a long folded sheet like a letter without an envelope.”

Virgil looked troubled. “Did you see the wallet?” he snapped.

“Sure I saw it. We all saw it—Mr. Rice, Walter Wade, that big mouthed wife of his—”

“Big mouthed! I like that!” Viola shrieked.

“I guess you do, else you’d shut up,” Danny said. “But it seems that people who hear so much should see a little, too. How come nobody but me remembers that paper? It was in plain sight when it fell out of the old man’s wallet while he was putting away that two hundred.”

“When it fell out—” Laurent repeated. “Did the doctor retrieve it?”

“Malone did. I reached for it, but Malone was too quick for me. He looked kind of disappointed that it wasn’t money.”

“But he did return it to the doctor?”

“Sure he did. Like I said, it wasn’t money.”

Laurent could ask the questions, but Danny was watching Virgil. Virgil was the man with the key to the cell, and he wasn’t going to buy this story either unless somebody started remembering along with Danny. It was Walter who obliged.

“Seems to me I recollect that paper,” he mused. “Of course, there’s no telling what was on it.”

“Or where it went to,” Viola added quickly.

“It went into the wallet,” Danny said, “and the wallet went into the old man’s coat pocket. Everybody could see that, too.”

Everybody could see a lot of things now. They could see the excitement on Danny’s face (all that color wasn’t sunburn), and they could see the way he gripped the bars of the cell door until his knuckles turned white. The picture of that afternoon at Mountain View was complete now: every shape, every shadow, every movement. Even the acts he hadn’t witnessed were beginning to take form like mountains poking through the raveled scarf of morning fog. The paper went into the wallet, the wallet went into the coat pocket, and the coat pocket was hung on the spotlight of an old sedan that needed a little attention under the hood.

For two days Danny had thought of a little man in a raincoat as being a murderer, so that finding him dead was like losing contact with reality and being plunged into headlong flight. But now he could see what none of the others had yet realized: that a man like Steve Malone would reach for money if the reach wasn’t too far, but he’d never kill for it or take dangerous risks. A pickpocket doesn’t make a souvenir of the evidence of his theft, and what Francy Allen’s murderer was looking for wouldn’t have interested Malone any more than that wallet once the cash was removed.

“What is it, son? What have you remembered?”

Laurent’s voice was coaxing Danny back to the present. What had he remembered? Nothing really. Some things didn’t have to be remembered, only recognized. Maybe the reason it was so easy to know what Steve Malone would have done was because Danny Ross might have done the same thing a few days ago. He could even recognize that now and recall his own feelings at the sight of all that money in the old doctor’s hands.

“You better prompt him again,” Jim muttered. “The kid doesn’t seem to remember his lines.”

Despite Jim’s sarcasm, everybody was waiting for Danny’s next words. He could read the anxiety in their eyes, and it flashed like a danger signal through his brain. What was it Laurent had said? “Any one of us in this very room could have murdered—” Any one. Any one of them could have gone searching for Steve Malone, because any one of them could have known Danny wasn’t lying about the wallet. And now they were all waiting for him to tell them where it could be found!

“Let me out of here!” Danny cried. “Let me out for an hour and I’ll give you your murderer!”

It was a wild declaration to make, but this was no time for conservatism. “Are you crazy?” Virgil gasped, but Danny had an answer for that. “Not crazy enough to tell everything I know!” he retorted. “I stand here listening to you guys making cracks at each other, and for a while I think the only difference between us is that you’re out and I’m in; but then I get to wondering. Suppose I had killed the old man and somebody else was sitting in this cell in my place, wouldn’t I get curious to see how he was taking it? Wouldn’t I get nervous that maybe he’d wriggle off the hook and maybe I’d get stuck with it after all?”

“The worm is turning,” Laurent observed. “The accused accuses.”

“Why shouldn’t I accuse? Nobody was bashful about pinning this mess on me just because I had a couple of hundred bucks!”

“And plenty of opportunity,” Virgil remarked.

“Sure, plenty of opportunity—just like the Wades and this guy Rice. Just like Mr. Cooper down in Junction City last night.”

“My God,” Trace gasped, “he even suspects me!”

“I suspect everybody!”

“Which is all very well up to a certain point,” Laurent said, “but if you know something that will clear up this case you’ll have to trust somebody. I’m offering my services as your lawyer, Danny.”

“Why?” Danny demanded. “You don’t owe me anything!”

“Every man owes something to every other man.”

“Then go bankrupt! I’m not telling anybody anything, but if the sheriff unlocks this door I’ll get that piece of paper! I’ll get it and every one of you can come along and watch!”

Danny was shouting the last words, as if shouting would give weight to a hopeless argument. Virgil wouldn’t go for it, the crowd outside wouldn’t go for it, but now everything was as clear to Danny as if he’d lifted that wallet himself.

“The hell you will!” Virgil snapped. “If you’ve got anything to say, you can say it to me!”

“I’ve said all I have to say,” Danny retorted.

“Then you can sit in that cell until you rot!”

This time Virgil was all through with argument. There was a door between the office and the cell block, a heavy slab door that slammed shut like an exclamation point after his words. The walls shook a little, and the conversation beyond the door fell away to murmurs. This wasn’t what Danny had counted on. Somebody should have kept the ball rolling. Somebody should have asked a lot of questions about what he’d remembered just so he could get a line on who among that room full of strangers might be trusted; but now all the visitors to the zoo were cut off and his one big chance was gone. Only Ada lingered in the hall, and Ada was less than nobody at all. She was just a pair of worried eyes, and Danny already had a pair of his own.

• • •

“Do you think that was wise?” Laurent asked. “The boy did make a rather interesting proposition.”

Beyond the door the murmurs were words, sharp and heated, and the glare Virgil bestowed upon Laurent would have scared the living daylights out of a lesser man.

“Real interesting,” he agreed, “just like that proposition Trace made yesterday morning.”

“But if the boy really knows something—”

“He can tell it to a judge!” Virgil snapped. “Tomorrow morning I’m taking Danny to Red Rock and turning him over to the district attorney. If you’ve got any squawk you can make it in court. Now how’s about everybody clearing out of here so a man can get his supper?”

The badge on Virgil’s shirt said he was the law, and when the law spoke, something should happen; but nobody was going to leave the office until Laurent left. Laurent was a bigger curiosity than Danny Ross, and it was obvious that the man had something on his mind. He moved toward the door and then turned back with a troubled frown.

“I hope you’re prepared to give the prisoner adequate protection,” he said.

“Don’t you worry about that crowd outside,” Virgil answered. “I can handle crowds.”

“But can you handle assassins? Surely you realize, sheriff, that if Danny Ross really knows where to find that sheet of paper, and if that sheet of paper really does name Miss Allen’s killer, then the boy’s very existence is a deadly danger to someone.”

“That’s a couple of big ‘ifs,’ “ Virgil said.

“Yes, I know. But I’ve known men to be hung on just one small ‘if.’ I should be very careful if I were you.”

Alexander Laurent had reached the door by this time. He paused, surveyed the little group again, one by one, and went out smiling. It was an exit worthy of a star performer, and when Virgil’s office drained of its unofficial visitors, he was not so alone as he wished to be. The doubt was still there, the nagging doubt so skillfully planted that one tiny word grew to huge dimensions.
I
f. If Danny Ross really did know-Virgil glared at the hall door, and his big hands tightened into fists. There was a way to make a kid like Danny talk—but only if you told him what to say. Truth was like water; it couldn’t be held in a fist, and any chance of winning the kid’s confidence had died the first time his knuckles met Danny’s jaw. Smooth talk, that’s what was needed, smooth talk and fancy words like those of Alexander Laurent; but Virgil’s tongue had no magic, and his mind was as slow and methodical as a steam roller. The old anger rose up inside him like a banked furnace responding to a stoker. For all his strength, for all his pride of office, he wasn’t a remarkable man. He was just a county sheriff, and he’d never be more than a county sheriff. A dumb county sheriff with a millstone of mistakes around his neck.

“Goddamit, don’t just stand around with your fool mouth open!” he roared at the deputy. “Get outside and move that crowd along—and see that Jim Rice gets headed for home. I don’t want any trouble from that hothead tonight.”

Watching an underling scamper to carry out his orders brought Virgil’s ego up a peg, but he was still uneasy. Damn Laurent, anyway! Damn Ada and her nighttime wanderings! Damn that charred cabin in Peace Canyon! He had to do something with his fists, so he brought one down like a sledge hammer on the desk top. The gun Laurent had brought in danced to the accompaniment of the blow, reminding him of a simple truth. One shot had been fired, but the other chambers were filled. With a loaded gun in his hand Virgil felt better. He could even sit down and quietly contemplate the closed door to that cell block. The office afforded a good vantage point to a man on the alert.

“Ada!” he bellowed, and moments later the door pushed open a crack.

“I’ll have my supper in here tonight.”

Ada nodded absently.

“I’ll have my pillow and blanket in here, too. And you keep that back door locked, you hear?”

“As you say, Virgil.”

“And no walking out tonight!”

“No, Virgil, not tonight.”

The door closed again, and she was gone, but Virgil’s anger remained. He could shout at a deputy, he could shout at his wife; but he couldn’t shout down the doubt. He walked over to the window and stared out at a street now emptied of human life. Cooperton was quieting down after a troubled day. The dusk had turned to darkness and the darkness to silence, and the only reminder of the day’s fury was a pair of vehicles nosing the curbing in front of the Pioneer Hotel: a long gray sedan he’d seen at Laurent’s ranch and a dusty red jeep. So they were still at it, those two. They were still cooking up schemes to make a fool of Virgil Keep!

“The way I look at it,” Murph remarked, depositing a couple of beers beside the steaks Trace and Laurent were having in a rear booth of the bar, “nobody’s ever going to know just what happened to Francy. Accident, murder—who can say? Francy sure can’t, and nobody else is going to.”

“The dead have been known to speak,” Laurent murmured.

“Oh, I don’t go for that spirit stuff! You live a while and then you die, that’s it.”

“I don’t think Mr. Laurent was referring to spirits,” Trace said. “You must know more about what goes on after hours than anybody else in town, Murph. Who would you say had the most reason for wanting Francy dead?”

“You mean outside of Trace Cooper?”

“I never wanted her dead.”

“You should have. She played you for a sucker, Trace. She knew you were an easy touch.”

“Never mind that!”

“Okay, okay!” Murph finished his chore and rubbed a restless hand over his bald dome. “I can think of a lot of wives who might have wanted her dead,” he mused, “and I can think of one young lady who isn’t a wife on account of Francy.”

“Do you really believe a woman could have killed Francy?”

Murph shrugged. “Why not? Ain’t you heard of equal rights? Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think, or what you think, or what Mr. Laurent thinks, because nobody’s ever going to know what happened to Francy. Asking questions about that gal could stir up a lot of trouble for a lot of people, and it just ain’t going to be stirred.”

Murph delivered his judgment and sauntered back to the bar with an air of complete confidence. The weight of his words could not be denied. Despite the questionable circumstances of her death, Francy had been shoveled out of sight in an awful hurry—like the carcass of some stray cat that required no inquest and no mourning.

“The voice of the people,” Trace observed. “How do we fight it?”

“With doubts,” Laurent said.

“If you mean that ‘any one of us could have done it’ routine you don’t know this town. That only draws everybody closer together.”

“That’s just the way we want them—close together. So close they’re peering over each other’s shoulders and reading each other’s eyes.” Laurent smiled over the rim of his beer glass. There was a kind of excitement in his eyes, like that of an old soldier returning to the wars. “The bartender’s judgment on Miss Allen’s death might well apply to the doctor’s as well. Carrying the assumption further, we may see the force of public opinion acclaiming Mr. Malone the culprit of the crime as an easy out.”