One Good Deed

by David Baldacci

  Shaw’s eyes lit up. “The secretary, Desiree, could have told her.”

  “Right. She typed up all his letters. She’d sure as hell know what was going on with the man’s business.”

  “You think Jackie promised her some of the loot in return for helping?”

  “Could be. Hey, you think Desiree could’ve shot him?”

  Shaw finished a sandwich, balled up the wax paper, and tossed it into the trash can. “I checked. She had an alibi. But that was a nice piece of deduction on your part, Archer.”

  Archer bit into his sandwich and took a swallow of his drink. “How’d you even come to be in the detective business?”

  “My old man was a beat cop for forty years over in Kansas. I got married there and started a family, then moved out this way, became a patrolman, and later got promoted to detective for the state police. I was doing real well, had a knack for it and all. Then I volunteered for the war and flew planes. After I got out of uniform, I got my old job back.”

  “You obviously like the work. And you’re good at it.”

  “Well, I see the utility in punishing bad folks. It preserves civilization as we know it. And both of us have seen the other side of that equation, when civilization gets shown the door, and the rule of law don’t matter for shit, and the whole damn world gets set on fire. It’s always closer than you think.”

  “So you got a family then? You mentioned a daughter?”

  “Got me three kids. Two boys and a girl. Oldest is my son Johnny, near to grown now. He’s going to join the Army. Serve his country.”

  “I wish him luck and that he gets to serve during peacetime. We don’t need any more wars.”

  “Amen to that, brother.”

  They clinked glasses.

  “I checked on you. You got no family left. Never married.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Never found the right gal?” asked Shaw.

  “I used to think that. No more.”

  “What changed?”

  “Well, since I got here, I think maybe for all the ladies I met along the way, I wasn’t the right man for them.”

  “That’s pretty enlightened of you, Archer. But you must’ve wanted to settle down at some point.”

  “Can’t say yay or nay on that. I grew up in a small slice of a big city and decided to see the country for a bit and then went on to college. Then they bombed Pearl Harbor, and I did my bit and came back. And took up my wandering ways again. Then Carderock Prison became my new home for a while. Hell, I’m not all that shy of thirty and part of me feels like I haven’t started to even live my life yet.”

  “Maybe your day is coming.”

  Archer nodded, but he didn’t really believe this was a viable possibility. He was thinking if he managed to survive Poca City, it would be a miracle.

  Shaw said, “Now, why do you reckon they would go to Marjorie’s house? What would they need from her? And why would she give them anything anyway? Is it just about money? People are that crass, you know. They’ll kill for ten cents if they think it’s worth it to them. And it’s not a damn dime we’re talking about here.”

  “But Jackie thought her father was going to be in town to meet with her. That was the whole point. So how did he end up dead at his place?”

  “Maybe she called him after he recorded what he did on that machine and changed the plan. They could have arranged to meet him out there.” Archer did not seem convinced by this. In fact, he felt even more troubled.

  Shaw unwrapped another sandwich. “Now, you said something woke you the morning you found Pittleman’s body. What was that?”

  Archer thought back. “Loud noise or bang.”

  “Like maybe someone hit your door?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now, if I’m reading this right, whoever killed Pittleman was the one to bang on your door to get you up from your bed. Then they waited to hear you coming down the hall and they opened the door a crack to Number 615, and maybe went and hid in Number 617. You see, the plan was they wanted you to find the body and get your prints on that doorknob.”

  “I guess that could be.” Archer smacked his forehead and pulled the small framed photo out of his pocket. “Hell, I forgot about this. There’s Lucas Tuttle and Malcolm Draper together.”

  Shaw looked stunned. “But he worked for Pittleman, not Tuttle.”

  “Well, Marjorie said that Draper only came to work for them about a year ago.”

  “Hold on, wasn’t that about the time Jackie left home?”

  “Yes, it sure was.”

  Shaw squinted as he thought about this. “And Draper would go out to the slaughterhouse most nights, the clerk said. And then you told me they couldn’t make payroll.”

  “That’s right.”

  Shaw smiled in a self-satisfied way.

  “What?” asked Archer sharply.

  “I know this will sound like a long shot, but I was a pilot and you were infantry, Archer, so all we knew were long shots that paid off every night we went to bed still breathing.” He paused. “What if Draper was a plant of Tuttle’s?”

  “A plant? How so?”

  “Man gets Draper in there to do his bidding and mess up Pittleman’s little empire. Draper might’ve been going out to the slaughterhouse to mess with the books, so to speak. Maybe skimming money off, things like that. And maybe that wasn’t the only business of Pittleman’s he was doing that to.”

  “You think?”

  “Remember the past-due bills I found in the trash can behind the hotel? What if Draper took them from the office and tossed those in there? Thing is, the man was sort of Pittleman’s business manager. He lived at the Derby Hotel. He could have had access to that office anytime he wanted. Hell, maybe Pittleman thinks the man is paying those bills, but instead he’s tossing them. Wouldn’t take long for Pittleman’s businesses to be run into the ground and him not even know it before it was too late. And on top of that Pittleman had his own gambling problem.”

  Now Archer looked stunned as he recalled something Sid Duckett had told him. “Hold on. When I talked to Sid Duckett about what would happen to Pittleman’s businesses since he was dead, the man said that Lucas Tuttle might buy them up, ’cause he had the money.”

  “But how would Duckett know that Tuttle had the money to do that? Everyone thought he had financial problems, including his own daughter.”

  “He would if Draper told him.”

  Shaw took all this in. “And the night we talked to Duckett at his cottage, and you mentioned payroll not being met at the slaughterhouse?”

  “You think Duckett put two and two together and confronted Draper about what he thought was going on?”

  Shaw nodded. “Maybe even tried to blackmail him over it. He could have threatened to tell the law what was going on unless they paid him off. And then he ends up fed to the hogs for his troubles.”

  “So Lucas Tuttle was getting his revenge on Pittleman.”

  “Come again?” said Shaw.

  “When I met with him, Tuttle told me that Pittleman had this big plan to get Tuttle’s daughter and then all his property. But I’m thinking that it was actually Tuttle who had that plan. To get all that Pittleman had. Like Marjorie told us, the two men were rivals.”

  “And Tuttle would get it on the cheap since Pittleman had all those past-due bills and such.”

  “And Marjorie would probably have to rely on Draper to tell her what a fair price for the business would be, and with the man working for Tuttle we know whatever price he told her was fair surely wouldn’t be. Hey, how is Draper? We could ask him flat out about all of this.”

  Shaw shook his head. “Still not conscious. But when he does wake up, I’ll be right there with all my questions.”

  Archer fell silent and looked out the window.

  “What is it?”

  “We fought a war for this? Conniving folks killing other folks over money?”

  “Wars don’t change how people are, Archer. They just kil
l a bunch ’a folks and when it’s over, people go back to being how they always were. Most good, some not so good.” He yawned and stretched. “Now, I’m all done in. Need some sack time. Been a long damn day.”

  “Okay.”

  Shaw gave Archer a thumbs-up. “We’re going to get to the truth, have no fear. I got me some ideas.”

  After he left, Archer smoked another cigarette while he stared out the window.

  Part of him wished he was back in prison, a thought he never believed he would have. This had all shaken his faith in a lot of things, but mainly in one thing.

  Me.

  During the war, during most of his life, in fact, Aloysius Archer had been able to trust his instincts. Not now.

  A few minutes later he looked down at the framed picture. Pittleman was dead. Tuttle, too. Draper might never wake up and tell them the truth. He picked up the photo and absently tapped the frame against his knee, thinking about a million possibilities.

  With his tapping, the backing fell off the frame and the freed paper fluttered to the floor. He reached down and picked it up. It was a letter. He read it through three times, each time growing more incredulous at what the words said.

  He wanted to go and tell Shaw, but the man was no doubt already asleep. Well, it would keep until morning.

  On impulse, Archer took out his knife and used it to cut the stitching on his hat’s inner lining. He secreted the letter and the photo in there and put his hat on the bureau.

  He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.

  When he woke up early the next morning, his life was about to totally change.

  And not in a good way for him.

  Chapter 46

  ARCHER YAWNED, STRETCHED, and slowly came awake.

  In the distance, he heard a sound that seemed, to his half-asleep state, partly familiar, and unrecognizable. As it grew closer, he sat up, because he now knew what the noise was.

  The low-pitched wail-growl of a siren.

  He lumbered over to the window, his legs stiff and heavy with sleep.

  He lifted the glass, rubbed his eyes clear, and looked out onto a surprisingly cool, overcast day. He watched with interest as a long, white ambulance with red markings on the side raced down the street, its guttural siren shattering the otherwise peaceful commencement of another day in Poca City that at least for variety’s sake did not hold clear skies and sun.

  He was about to turn back when a second sound joined the first, another siren, but different from the ambulance’s babble.

  It was a police car, with the single roof light on and the siren cranked to an ear-numbing pitch—a one-note, one-instrument orchestra performing a banshee of a song with a troubling melody.

  Archer slid out a Lucky Strike from a fresh pack and lit up as he continued to peer out and wonder what all the fuss was about. Ambulances he understood. But that coupled with a police car was disturbing.

  The next moment he crushed the smoke out on the windowsill as both the ambulance and police car pulled up to the front of the Derby. He saw uniformed men leap from the patrol car, and men in white smocks and pants jump out of the ambulance. He slipped on his clothes and shoes, grabbed his jacket, and ran out of the room. He took the stairs two at a time to the lobby. He burst out of the fire door and saw that the lobby was half full of onlookers and a handful of anxious guests, some still in their pajamas.

  He heard the elevator ding and watched the car ascend to and stop at the third floor.

  Archer ran over to the front desk, where there was a different clerk, a young man with narrow shoulders and a pockmarked face.

  “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  The young man was pale and his eyes were large with fear. “They found somebody out in the hallway bleeding like crazy.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. A maid found him.”

  Archer ran back to the stairs and sprinted up to the third-floor landing. He caromed out into the hall and looked in both directions. He saw nothing but heard something. He ran to his left and around the corner, where he stopped abruptly.

  The police and ambulance men were gathered in a small knot around someone lying on the floor. Archer hustled over there to see. One of the officers heard his approach, whirled around, and put up a hand. “Stay back, this is police business!”

  However, he had moved just enough for Archer to see who it was. Irving Shaw was lying there covered in blood.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Get out of here, sir,” said the uniformed officer sternly, his face flushing red and the words catching in his throat. His partner turned, put his hand on the butt of his service revolver, and added, “Now.”

  Archer staggered back to the stairs, stumbled up them, and made it to his room before collapsing on the bed.

  Shaw was wounded, or maybe dead. He had seen blood all over the man’s shirt front. He didn’t know if he’d been shot or stabbed or what, but it had to be one of them. He slowly sat up and covered his face with his hands. He felt sick and dizzy. He imagined he was back in combat and they were being called up to attack yet another enemy position, in an endless stream of them. Men would be praying, puking, writing letters good-bye, making sure their dog tags were on, even finalizing last wills and testaments on preprinted papers the army had conveniently provided, and for which your fellow soldiers were your witnesses and you theirs.

  He got up and stumbled over to the open window, sucking in the fresh air like it was a gaseous version of Rebel Yell. He leaned out the window as more police stormed into the hotel, including pudgy Bart and long-legged Jeb.

  As his thoughts cleared, Archer started to focus on what he needed to do. He and Shaw were supposed to talk this morning about how to get to the truth. Now it would be up to Archer to do so alone. And maybe he had some ideas of his own.

  Archer hustled down the stairs and out the back door of the hotel, avoiding the growing crowd in the front lobby.

  Shaw had left his big Buick parked on a side street. Archer climbed into the driver’s seat, popped open the glove box, and slipped out the keys. He had seen Shaw put them there the night before. He started up the Buick, geared it into reverse, made a U-turn, and drove off in the opposite direction to avoid all the activity at the front of the hotel. He came up on the main street two blocks from the hotel in time to see men carrying out a stretcher with Shaw on it, the sheet up to his neck.

  But not over his face, so he’s not dead, thank God.

  Archer watched this until the rear doors closed on the ambulance. He took a whiff, and the scent of the man, imprinted in every pore of the Buick, came rushing into his lungs. A good man with maybe a bad ending. It could happen to any of us, Archer knew. Against enormous odds, the lawman had survived all those bombing missions fighting for his country only perhaps to come back and die in a two-bit hotel in Poca goddamn City.

  And someone might’ve tried to kill him because he was looking for the truth and trying to clear my name at the same time.

  This thought gave added fire to Archer’s mission, not that he needed it. Avoiding a short drop with a rope around the neck should be incentive enough for any man, he thought.

  He hung a left and drove out of town; his destination was Marjorie Pittleman’s. Jackie and Ernestine had gone there, presumably with the loot from the safe. And he needed to find out why. And that also might provide a clue as to where the women had gone. And, most important, something had occurred to Archer that might lead him to the truth. Ironically, it was due in part to something Shaw had told him: It was a two-way street with the women. He was attractive to them, and they could, in return, bend him to their purposes.

  He made it there in good time, parking the Buick down the road a bit and finishing the journey on foot. It was early enough that he could see no one out and about yet. The gates were chained shut, but he quickly clambered over and dropped to the ground inside.

  From a crouch, he looked right and left, feeling back in his r
ole of an Army scout.

  He was not concerned with the main house but flitted off to the left. He reached into his pocket and felt for it. He had not only taken Shaw’s car; he had also popped open the compartment under the dash and taken the man’s Smith & Wesson .38 Victory piece. Archer was hoping for a triumph of his own right about now. He could sure as hell use it.

  He got the lay of the land while hunkered down and checked his watch. He imagined folks would be up and about soon. This assumption paid off when he saw Manuel come around a corner of an outbuilding with a bucket of something in hand.

  He rose from his hiding position and approached the man, who stopped abruptly when he saw Archer.

  “Hello, Manuel, how’s doing?”

  Manuel looked confused by this greeting.

  “Doing?” He held up the bucket. “I am working.”

  “Got a question. Maid in the house named Amy?”

  “What about her?”

  “How long has she been working here?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m thinking of asking her out. I think she likes me.”

  Manuel smiled. “She is very…friendly.”

  “Yeah, I could see that. So how long?”

  “Not long. Maybe six months.”

  “Any idea where she is now?”

  “At this hour, probably in her room getting ready for work.”

  “Where is that?”

  Manuel eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

  Archer patted his pocket where the gun was. “Got a present I want to give her and then ask her out. Don’t like to let grass grow under my feet. Another fella might cut me out.”

  Manuel smiled again in understanding, nodded, and pointed to his left.

  “The maids live in little cottages behind that barn. Amy’s is the last one.”

  Archer pressed a dollar into the man’s callused hand. “Thanks, friend, you have no idea how much that helps me.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I think I’m going to need it.”

  Archer hustled to the row of little one-room dwellings and reached the last one.

  He knocked on the door and a girlish voice said, “Who is it?”