Too Many Crooks (20 page)

His gun was centered on my head, but even before I fired that fourth shot, Carver's finger was too weak to pull the trigger. There was a red stain against his chest and his hand was relaxing around the gun butt. Then my fourth shot hit him right at the hairline and he fell backward, slumped on the floorboards in front, jackknifed between the seat and the dashboard.

The chief's head was jerked around toward me, one hand just coming up from his hip, where he carried his gun, and the sedan was slowed almost to a stop, brakes squealing.

I stuck my revolver alongside the chief's nose and said, "Lift that heater and I'll lift your skull off."

He made a squeaking noise in his throat, brought his hand up empty.

"Grab the wheel," I said, "and watch the road. Park this crate."

I just got the last word out when there was another enormous crashing sound and the sedan jumped forward five feet. I flew backward and wound up on the seat again. But I still held the gun in both hands, my right index finger curled around the trigger.

Thurmond managed to get the car parked at the side of the road before we got clobbered by the Ford again, and I leaned forward, poked him alongside his ear with the gun, and said, "Look straight ahead and shove up the rearview mirror."

He did. I grabbed the gun in both hands. I wanted the mirror up so he wouldn't see me when I swatted him in the middle of the skull. He didn't. Chief Thurmond slumped over on Carver. I got out of the car and looked behind it. Nothing. Then I saw the Ford a block away, turned half around in the street. Betty had as much cold nerve as a regiment of marines, but she wasn't completely out of her mind. She was ready to light out for the wilderness. I waved both arms over my head and yelled and yelled and not a sound came out. I was all right, I was dandy. Finally, I swallowed and gulped some air and yelled and managed to make a little noise. The Ford swung around and came up alongside me and Betty looked out the window at me with a white face.

She said shakily, "Is . . . is . . . are you—"

"It's all right," I said. She got out of the car as I said, "What on earth made you think of that? Where did you come from? How did you know—"

She stopped me. "Oh, your poor face! Are you all right?"

"Yeah, just banged up a little. I'm not shot. But if it hadn't been for you, I'd be leaking from many holes. Just scared, I guess." Reaction was setting in now; my hands were shaking like leaves.

I said, "How come you were outside the jail?"

She spoke in a rush. "I was outside the longest time, just waiting. I knew you must be in there, but I didn't even know if you were alive—and I couldn't go in and
ask
them. When you all came out, I put the camera case outside the window hoping you'd see it and know I was there. I followed you, even though I didn't know what I was going to do. On the way out of town I decided if they stopped to . . . do anything to you, I'd honk and yell so they'd know there was a witness and would maybe be afraid to go ahead. I was so scared I wasn't sure of anything. Then right at the end I decided to hit the car. I thought maybe you could do something."

"Wait a minute. You've lost me. You forget I was in the clink all day." I stopped. She was still as white as a sheet. I said, "Are you OK, honey?" and she nodded, said, "Yes, I'm—" and fainted.

I didn't do a very good job of catching her, but I at least managed to ease her to the pavement. I left her there while I walked around to the other side of the police car, opened the door, and dug through pockets till I found the key to my handcuffs. In another minute, I had them off and had manacled Chief Thurmond to Mac. Then I picked Betty up and put her inside the Ford.

Her eyes fluttered and, for a moment, her face was frightened, then she sighed and threw her arms around my neck. She pulled me close and, for a minute or two, we had a most enjoyable time of it. During that period I told her she'd kept me from being a dead man, and she could have my left arm if she wanted it—in fact, all my arms and legs and anything else she cared for—and she said, "Kiss me," and I kissed her, and she said, "Your mustache tickles," and I tickled her some more.

Finally I disengaged myself and said, "Honey, there's still some unfinished business. First, though, how did you find the camera? How come you even knew where I was?"

"Well, when you didn't come back this morning I knew something was wrong. I listened to the radio and heard what had happened. About six-thirty, I left the motel, got my car, and drove to Main Street. All the broadcast had said was that you'd been caught at the Red Cross stand—and you'd told me to meet you there if anything went wrong, that it was our base of operations. I thought maybe you'd been there for a while before they caught you, and I looked all around in case you'd left something there or dropped anything. I looked for the camera, too, but not very hard, because I supposed the police caught you with it. I even looked for blood."

"They missed me."

"I saw the bullet holes. Anyway, then I left and checked by phone with the paper. I talked to Martin, one of the reporters. He told me all he could, more than I'd heard on the radio. I'd already wondered if the police knew you'd broken into the lawyer's office, and if they really had caught you with the Leica. Martin checked for me and found out what personal belongings you'd had on you. There wasn't any camera. I had Martin ask that specifically, and he said the policeman seemed surprised. Well, I knew then that you'd got rid of it. I couldn't know where, but the logical place was the Red Cross stand. I went back and searched all around and in that little back room. Then I noticed the torn place in the cloth around the stand. I crawled through and looked around until I found the Leica."

"Honey," I said dazedly, "how would you like to go into the detective business? We'll call the office Betty and Assistant."

She smiled. "It wasn't much of a deduction, really. But I did get clever after that, I thought. I knew what you wanted the pictures for, so I phoned Martin again, then drove by the
Star
office and tossed the roll of film into his car; it was parked in front. Then I drove to the police station and waited there so I'd know if they took you out—you'd told me that they probably would. Martin took care of everything from then on. I mean, he had the films developed and then took them to a handwriting expert."

I digested that and finally said, "I'll be damned. When can we check with him?"

"I already have. Oh, I wrapped the film cartridge in that postcard from Emmett—the one you showed me last night. I still had it when I left the motel and it had Emmett's real signature, so I had Martin take it along." She frowned. "I talked to Mr. Bridges, the handwriting man, on the phone, and he said he could give me only a tentative answer, but he said it was almost positive that the only forged signature was the one on the postcard."

Chapter Eighteen

For a moment her words stunned me. That really hit me where I lived. I even wondered if Emmett
could
have left his property to Dorothy Craig, if the will was actually on the level and not a fake.

I didn't see how it was possible I could have been wrong. Not when everything that had happened was considered. I said, "Betty, this expert didn't say the card signature was forged, did he? It was just different from that on the will, right?"

"Well, he told me on the phone that it was difficult to be absolutely sure when he was working from photographs, but he had pictures of the will and half a dozen other signed documents. And he had the postcard. All the signatures were the same except the one on the postcard. It was only a little bit different, he said, but obviously a forgery."

"Not quite. Just the opposite. Every signature except the one on Em's card was faked. That's the way it has to be. They planned this deal from way back, and
all
those papers in the safe were faked. Every damned one. If it was ever checked in court, the will signature would agree with Dane's normal signature on his papers. Naturally; they were all forged by the same guy. They drew this one up tight."

And, I was thinking, it was still tight. The fact remained that I'd killed two police officers and swatted the chief himself on the head. True, I'd shot Blake and Carver instants before they would cheerfully and callously have murdered me. But I wondered how I'd convince a jury of that.

Betty said, "What are we going to do, Shell?"

"That's what I was wondering. I guess the only thing left is what we talked about last night. I can try to reach Baron and talk to him. I've got two live cops in the car, but it's still my word against theirs; we need something better. A lot better."

"You'll have to let me help now." She frowned. "Shell, how are you going to reach Baron?"

"He's pretty sure to be in his office. I'll just walk in."

She really frowned at that one. It did sound silly. "There are police all over town," she said. "And they all know what you look like, you know that."

"I do. But the town is swarming with cops, so maybe they won't notice one more. Uh, don't peek."

She sat in the Ford while I walked to the far side of the police car and got busy. When I finished, Carver's body was on the floor in back, and the chief and Mac were on top of him, gagged, handcuffed, and trussed together. Mac wore only his shorts. And I was a cop.

Mac's uniform was too tight, but his gun fitted perfectly against my hip. I adjusted my cap and walked to the Ford.

I said, "How do I look?"

"Somehow you still don't look like a policeman. But maybe it will help."

"Sure it will. It's got to. One cop looks pretty much like another. Usually you see the uniform, not the face. I . . . hope."

"I hope so too, Shell. Well, are we ready?"

"Ready enough. Let's go."

Betty left her Ford parked alongside the road and sat in front of the police car with me as I drove back toward town. Our three cops were in back, fairly well covered with my clothes and with seat covers from Betty's Ford. The police radio was turned on, but nothing to worry us was being broadcast. I went over what we were going to pull, and as we hit the outskirts of town, I asked her, "Got it all straight?"

"Of course. Mine's the easy part."

"Baby, it won't be easy. And it's got to work or we're dead. There may be some more on the force like Thurmond and Carver, maybe not. But we don't know for sure. And I imagine Norris and his boys will be looking for you by now. Any of them see you, they won't just tip their hats and stroll by." I'd stuck the extra guns into the glove compartment, and I opened it, took out a police revolver, and put it in her lap. "Might as well hang onto that, honey. And if you have to use it on a man, aim for his head. There's a myth fostered by movies that if you shoot a guy he falls down dead. But it ain't so here in Seacliff."

She tried to smile, but I could tell that she didn't feel up to it. Neither did I. We drove to the parking lot on Pepper and parked at the curb.

I said to Betty, "Just tap on the horn once if anything comes up. Anything at all." She nodded and I squared my shoulders and walked into the parking lot. I remembered the attendant's face from last night; if he remembered me, he was going to be more than mildly puzzled by my uniform. I walked straight up to him and said sharply, "Hey, buddy."

He looked at me, and as far as I could tell, all he saw was a cop. I went right on, "Looking for a black Caddy convertible somebody spotted here."

He broke in, eager to help. "Sure, Officer. Bet I know the one. Only one here. What is it, stolen?"

I gave him a baleful look for his curiosity. "Where is it?"

He trotted away and came back with my keys, handed them to me, and watched while I opened the trunk. When he saw all the junk inside he said, "What's all that?"

I gave him my baleful look again and he subsided while I pawed through the equipment, hunting for what I wanted. I found the two small boxes and pushed some of the other stuff out of the way so I could remove them and the attendant said, "This the car?"

"Yeah. This is it." I stared stonily at him. "Thanks. That's all."

He left, firmly convinced, I'm sure, that I was an honest-to-God cop. I picked up the two boxes, closed the trunk, and walked back to the police car with a spot between my shoulder blades twitching.

In the prowl car again, I drove toward Main, that spot in my back still twitching. On Main we passed another black police radio car going in the opposite direction, but nothing happened. The block between Fourth and Fifth was still blocked off for the Red Cross drive, a crowd of people bunched in front of the stand. I circled the block and came back into Main again at Fifth, swung right, and parked. "You set?" I asked Betty when she got out of the car.

"Ye-es." She was holding one of the small boxes by a strap at its top. I said, "Don't mess with that; just do what I told you. We'll start in at five-fifteen sharp. Don't fool with it at all."

"I'm scared. I don't mean
too
scared. I'll do everything all right. But I'm just . . . scared."

"You can't be any more scared than I am. We'll manage this OK, honey."

"Yes. Of course." She turned and walked back across Fifth.

I started the car and drove two and a half blocks ahead and parked in a red zone right in front of the Diamond Building. Seven floors up, Suite 712, Baron should be in his office. He might even now be looking out his window able to see the police car. It was just after five o'clock and some of the office workers had started pouring out onto the street. Now was as good a time as any, while a lot of people were milling around.

I got out of the car, slammed the door, and, with my mouth as dry as a blotter, walked across the wide sidewalk, straight for the entrance to the Diamond Building.

Office workers brushed against me as I went inside and stopped in front of the elevator. There was a tired feeling in my jaws and I realized I had my teeth clenched hard together. When the elevator stopped and discharged the passengers, the girl looked at me, glanced at the box under my arm, and said in a tired voice, "Going up."