One Good Deed

by David Baldacci

  Archer said, “He told me he’d had six straight years of drought and he was hurting.”

  “I know that to be true,” added Jackie.

  Shaw looked at Jackie. “So you didn’t know anything about that?”

  “No, as I said, my father and I were estranged. I heard rumors around town that some oil companies were poking over his land.” She glared at Archer again. “And Archer here apparently thought I’m so shallow that dangling money in front of me would make me go running right back to my daddy.”

  “Now look, Jackie—” Archer began.

  She turned to Shaw. “Where is his body?”

  “At the mortuary.”

  “You’re sure it’s him?”

  “No question about it.”

  “I would like to see my father’s body today, if that’s permissible.” She glanced at Archer. “Estranged or not, he’s still my father.”

  “I can come get you around noon if that’s all right,” said Shaw.

  “That’s fine.”

  “And I’d like you to go out to your father’s house with me at some point.”

  “All right, but I don’t think I can manage that today.” She wiped her eyes once more.

  “I’m really sorry, Jackie,” Archer said.

  “My father and I were never really close. But he was the only family I had left. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She rose and went into her bedroom and shut the door.

  Out on the street, Archer found himself taking three deep breaths.

  He glanced at Shaw, who was watching him closely.

  “Well?” asked Archer.

  “I don’t know, Archer, I really don’t. Either you’re the dumbest man I ever met, or the unluckiest. Or the smartest. Jury’s still out on that.”

  “Right now, I’ll take the unluckiest. And a close second would be the dumbest.”

  “I met a lot of infantry who were lucky. Lucky a bullet or a mortar round or bayonet missed its mark.”

  “I had my share of those. Why I’m still here, I suppose.”

  “You think you used up all your luck in the war, then?”

  “Might be starting to look that way.”

  Shaw put on his hat. “Maybe more than starting.”

  “Hey, Shaw, didn’t you see all that stuff in the safe when you were out there last night?”

  “No. I saw the safe, of course, and I tried to open it to check.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “A dead man and a safe, Archer? Don’t take a genius to think there might have been a robbery. Matter of fact, the thing was locked, and I had no way to open it. Hopefully, Miss Tuttle will be able to open it when we go out there. If not, I can get into it another way.”

  The men started walking back to the Derby.

  “Give it to me straight, Mr. Shaw. You think I killed the man?”

  “No, I don’t, Archer. That’s as straight as I can give it.”

  “But I made money off him. And truth is, I met men in prison killed for less than what I got.”

  “You’re building quite a good case against yourself. Congratulations.”

  “I’m not saying anything you’re not already thinking, am I?”

  “Now you’re showing your smart side, as opposed to your unlucky and dumb side.”

  Archer gave him an odd look. “So, you’re not jailing me then?”

  “We both fought a war, Archer. But I don’t necessarily feel like I owe you anything on that score, because most of us fought. As for your guilt or innocence? Well, you look at the big things—motive, opportunity—yeah, you’re a suspect. But when I look at the little things, it don’t add up to you being involved in the man’s death. I been doing this long enough to see the difference.” He paused. “But the thing is, Archer, I got people to report to. And sometimes they’re not nearly so smart as me. So you ain’t out of the woods yet, no matter what I think. Now I got some things to take care of.” He tipped his hat. “See you around.”

  Shaw disappeared down the street, while Archer trudged on with all his troubling thoughts. He felt his confident gait fade to nearly a prison shuffle.

  Chapter 39

  ARCHER HAD SOME BREAKFAST, and then later he had his lunch, neither of which he really remembered eating. After that he went back to the Derby and sat on his bed trying to make sense out of all that had happened. Tuttle had never made the meeting with his daughter because he’d been murdered. Jackie had known nothing of the wealth in the safe until Archer had told her. Shaw didn’t believe he was guilty, but others in the law might overrule him. So maybe he had to get himself out of this predicament.

  Yet when Archer looked at the problem every which way, not a single answer or viable path of investigation reasonably presented itself. And he wasn’t a shamus, anyway. Though Shaw had taught him a few things and said that Archer had good instincts, what did he really know about detecting? He found himself staring out the window of his hotel room for hours on end, his mind a muddle.

  He checked his watch and wondered how Jackie had reacted to seeing her father’s body at the mortuary. Jackie might have broken down and cried, despite being estranged from her father.

  As day grew into night, he finally decided to act. And that act would take the form of his going back to where all this had started. So at nine o’clock sharp, his legs took him in the direction of the Cat’s Meow. It was hopping at this hour, but he was able to wedge in at the bar.

  The same string bean bartender came over to him. “What’s your poison, son?”

  “Rebel Yell. Straight up.” Archer stacked three fingers one on top of the other this time.

  The old man grinned. “I remember you now. You was talking to Mr. Pittleman.” He shivered. “Damn shame what happened to him.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Archer.

  The man poured out the Rebel and slid it across to Archer, who slipped him a buck and told him to keep the change.

  “Right kind of you.”

  “That night I was in here, you see anything funny?” asked Archer.

  “Funny how?”

  “Just funny.”

  “Naw, not that I can remember.”

  “You knew Hank Pittleman and Jackie Tuttle?”

  “Sure, seen ’em in here many a time. Don’t really know ’em though.” The man grinned, showing multiple gaps in his teeth. “We don’t really run in the same circles of high-falutin’ society.” He cackled at his little joke. “Did you know Mr. Pittleman owned this place?”

  Archer nodded, edged his hat back, lit up a Lucky Strike, and blew smoke sideways out of his mouth. He took a swallow of the Rebel and said, “You know Lucas Tuttle?” Archer wanted to see if word had gotten around about the man’s murder.

  “Know of him. Never seen him in here. Apparently, he’s not much of a drinker like his daughter. But I seen him around town sometimes in that big car ’a his.”

  “Ever seen him with Jackie Tuttle?”

  “Not that I can say, no. Hey, why all the questions, fella?”

  Archer handed him another dollar, which the man gripped and made disappear into his pocket. “I’m just trying to figure stuff out.”

  “You ain’t been in town long, have you?”

  Archer shook his head and continued to smoke down his Lucky Strike. “Want to know the truth? I’m an ex-con in from Carderock. On parole.”

  The man’s features changed.

  “What?” asked Archer, noting this.

  “Now that is funny.”

  “What is?”

  “You being on parole.”

  “Come again?”

  “Made me think of that Ernestine Crabtree gal.”

  “What about her?”

  “She runs the parole office. Why I thought of her just now.”

  “I know she does, friend. She’s my parole officer.”

  “I figured that.”

  “So how do you know about her?”

  “I got buddies who did time and got out not too long ago. They went to her, t
oo.”

  “She’s the only game in town when it comes to parolees, but what’s funny about that?”

  “The night you were in here before?” he began.

  Archer looked at him through his cloud of cigarette smoke. “What about it?”

  “Miss Crabtree was here, too. Sitting right over there.” The man pointed to his left, to a table against the far wall that would not really be in Archer’s sight line at the bar.

  Archer looked that way and then back at the man. “She was? Are you sure? Lot of people in here. And I don’t recall seeing her.”

  “No, I saw her for sure. She comes in pretty regular. Hell, she was here the night before they found poor Mr. Pittleman dead.”

  “That’s right, I saw her go inside that night. Said she was meeting somebody. You know who that was?”

  “Oh yeah, it was her.”

  Archer stood up straight and gaped at the man. “Her? It was a woman? Do you know who it was?”

  “You already said her name. Jackie Tuttle.”

  Archer stood there more stunned than he had ever been in his whole life. Even more than during the darkest days of the war, when it seemed every hour someone he knew and had fought alongside had been shredded by bullets, or else made to vanish from the earth by a well-placed mortar round.

  “Hold on, mister, are you saying she was meeting up with Jackie? But Jackie was here with Pittleman.”

  “Well, yeah. But Mr. Pittleman started drinking with some other folks he knew, and Jackie Tuttle went over and sat with Miss Crabtree.”

  “You sure they know each other?”

  “Oh, yeah, they hung out a lot at the bar. Real good friends. I mean, real good.”

  “And Pittleman didn’t mind?”

  “Sometimes he got a little bent out of shape, but Miss Jackie, she knew how to handle him all right. And it’s not like Miss Jackie was with another man.”

  Archer couldn’t find any words to say.

  “You okay, fella?” The bartender was studying him closely.

  Archer nodded, drank down his remaining two fingers, passed the bartender another buck, and left. His long legs ate up the distance to Ernestine’s house. When he reached it, he didn’t go up to the door, but rather waited across the street and studied the place. He was on a scouting expedition now and intended to do it by the book, as he’d been trained.

  There were no lights on, and he couldn’t hear a sound coming from the place.

  He finally walked over and knocked on the front door but got no response. He used the key the woman had given him to open the door. He went right to her bedroom and looked through her closet. It didn’t take long. It was empty. All her clothes were gone and so was the scrapbook.

  Archer sat on the woman’s bed and, for one of the few times in his life, had no idea what to do.

  Chapter 40

  LATE THE NEXT MORNING, Archer was lying on his bed in his pants and undershirt, gazing at the ceiling and thinking hard about all that was troubling him, when someone knocked on his door. He opened it and found Irving Shaw leaning on the doorjamb and staring back at him.

  “What?” said Archer.

  “Got a problem.”

  “Dammit, Mr. Shaw, every time you come to see me you say something like that.”

  “Don’t blame me. It sure as hell ain’t my fault.”

  He barged past Archer and into the room.

  Archer slowly shut the door and watched as the lawman paced the small footprint of the room.

  “You gonna tell me or do I have to guess?” asked Archer finally.

  “We went out to Lucas Tuttle’s house this morning.”

  “Who did?”

  “Me and Jackie Tuttle.” Shaw sat down in the sole chair. “You been here the whole night?”

  “Yeah. Man at the front desk can tell you that. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Why, what did you find out there?”

  “I’ll tell you what we didn’t find.”

  Archer sat on the edge of the bed. “Okay, shoot.”

  “We didn’t find anything in the man’s safe. I mean, not a damn thing.”

  Archer said nothing. He just gaped at the man like he’d been uttering Chinese.

  “You look surprised.”

  “Well, that’s because I am. There was all kinds of stuff in that safe, I’m telling you. Including gold bars. I never had the pleasure of carrying gold bars, but I imagine they’re pretty damn heavy.”

  “They are.”

  “Well, where the hell did it all get to?”

  “Now, that’s the question.”

  “Did Jackie open the safe for you?”

  Shaw shook his head. “She didn’t have the combination. I had to get a locksmith to come out and do it.”

  “Damn.”

  Shaw looked at him oddly. “You drove Jackie Tuttle’s Nash out there?”

  “I told you that already.”

  “And nobody’s been there since you were up until Bobby Kent found the man’s body.”

  “No, hold on, that’s not right. Whoever killed Tuttle was there after I was. They must have cleared out the safe. You yourself said you couldn’t look in it because it was locked. It might have already been empty when you got there.”

  “But the thing is, you’re the only one who has admitted to being there on the day the man died. And by your admission he opened the safe to get the money to pay you.”

  “Whoa there. I don’t like where this is headed.”

  “That’s not all. I had the Nash searched just now over at the garage on Fulsome.”

  “What for?”

  “For the contents of the missing safe, Archer! What else, son?”

  “Hold on now, are you—”

  “Just hush for a minute.” Shaw fell silent for a moment, gathering his words. “We didn’t find any of the items from the safe in the Nash.”

  “Well, of course you didn’t because—”

  “But we did find traces of them.”

  “What sort of traces?”

  “Imprints of the gold bars on the carpet in the trunk. And a few grains of what turned out to be gold dust.”

  “But I was the only one to drive the Nash out there that day,” Archer replied.

  “That’s true. And I was with Jackie Tuttle much of the day yesterday and I had a matron with her last night before I picked her up and we headed out to her father’s place today.”

  “Hell, Jackie didn’t have anything to do with this, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I agree. Which is why I’m here, son.” Shaw looked sad, painfully so.

  “What are you getting at, Mr. Shaw?”

  “Remember I told you folks not as smart as me in the detecting business might throw a monkey wrench in the works? Well, they have. I got my marching orders from the higher-ups. So, stand up.”

  “What?”

  “Stand up.”

  Archer did so.

  Shaw took out a pair of shiny handcuffs and put them on Archer’s wrists after gently tugging them behind his back.

  “You arresting me?”

  “What was your first clue, son?”

  “Arresting me for what?”

  “That’ll be put into writing down at the police station. You’re gonna get your picture taken, have ink on your fingers, and then I’ll want a statement.”

  “Hell, I’ll give you a statement right here and now. I’m innocent.”

  “I know you are, Archer, but I got no choice. But let me work this, son. I know what I’m doing.”

  He grabbed up Archer’s shirt and jacket and then led the man down the stairs and out the back door.

  “Why not the front?” asked Archer.

  “I’m trying to let you avoid the shame of being arrested. Bad enough for the guilty. Doubly so for the innocent.”

  The ride over to the police station took all of three minutes.

  Archer was fingerprinted and photographed. Then he was allowed to wash his
face and shave, and put on his shirt and jacket. Shaw even managed to find some hot coffee and cold eggs for Archer before he set him down in front of a recording machine in a small room with one table and two opposing chairs.

  Shaw said in a low voice, “Now look, since I have to record this, I got to go by the book. I’m gonna sound like you’re guilty as hell. But you just stick to your guns, okay, son?”

  “Listen, I’m not gonna do anything to get you in trouble, Mr. Shaw. And if this will, I don’t want you to do it.”

  Shaw gave Archer a look that many of his fellow soldiers had right before they went into battle together. It was a cross between a sad smile and a dropped tear.

  “I appreciate that, son, but we’re gonna get through this. Just do what I said.”

  Shaw clicked on the machine, recited the date and time and their names. And then the crimes that Archer had been charged with, including the murder of Lucas Tuttle.

  “Mr. Archer, if you want to tell the truth, now would be a good time to do so.”

  “Everything I know, I’ve already told you.”

  “If you tell us what you did with the stuff in that safe I can put in a good word for you with the court.”

  “Well, since I didn’t take any of it, that’s not really an option for me.”

  “So you deny all involvement in any crime hereabouts?”

  “I lied to you about going into Mr. Pittleman’s room and taking those debt papers. You can charge me with that if you want, and I’ll confess to that. But not to another thing.”

  “You sure?”

  “Hell yes. I’m innocent!”

  Shaw clicked off the recorder. “That was fine, Archer.”

  “I hope so, because it’s all the truth.”

  Shaw lit up a smoke. “Where were you last night?”

  “At the Cat’s Meow and then at Ernestine Crabtree’s house. And then back at the Derby where you found me.”

  Shaw frowned. “At Crabtree’s house, why?

  “I was trying to figure out why she and Jackie lied and said they didn’t know each other when the bartender at the Cat’s Meow told me they were regulars there and knew each other really well.”

  “Come again?”