The Running Man

by Ben Benson

  A black sedan stopped for him. The Goodcliffes. He got into the back seat. After they drove through the town of Easterville, he pulled out a revolver and told the Goodcliffes it was a stick-up and to stop the car. He then took the keys and threw them into the woods so the Goodcliffes could not pursue him when he left. From Mr. Goodcliffe he got eighty-seven dollars. He asked Mrs. Goodcliffe to get out of the car and go with him. His purpose, he said, was to use her as a hostage for a short time. Mr. Goodcliffe misunderstood, got excited and jumped for him. He shot Goodcliffe to protect himself. That got Mrs. Goodcliffe excited and she attacked him and he had to strike her with the revolver barrel. At no time (this he said emphatically) did he try to attack her. He then walked away and hitched a ride into Lowell. From Lowell he took a bus to Chelmsford. From Chelmsford he hitchhiked to Sudbury where he threw the revolver into the Sudbury River. Then he hitchhiked back to Ashendon, arriving home about 1:00 p.m. He stayed around Ashendon until he was picked up.

  Newpole listened with his face immobile. The pipe had gone out between his teeth. When Congdon finished, Newpole shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can t buy all you just gave me. It’s only partly true.”

  “That’s my statement,” Congdon said. “It’s the truth, and the only thing I’ll sign.”

  “Let it go for the minute,” Newpole said. “There are a few other things. We have to go back to the scene and have the point-out. Also where you threw away the gun.”

  “I’m hungry,” Congdon said. “You feed me first.”

  “We’ll feed you,” Newpole said. “Where did you get the revolver?”

  “I broke into a gas station last March in Billerica. I found it in a box under the counter.”

  “What gas station?”

  “Gilhooley Brothers, I think, on Route 3A.”

  “Where have you been keeping the gun?”

  “Under my mattress at home.”

  “There’s one more thing and we’ll have some food,” Newpole said. “The Somers case in Baycroft. We might as well clean that up, too, Ernie.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Congdon said. “I’m not taking the fall for that one. Or for any other old case you want to wipe off your books.”

  “I’m not throwing any old chestnuts at you,” Newpole said. “Just the one that fits you. The Somers case. Ernie, that one was a two-man job. I think it fits you and your seventeen-year-old brother like a glove.”

  “You crazy? My kid brother is clean.”

  “Does he smoke?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “What brand?”

  “Any kind he can get his hands on. He’s no connoisseur.”

  “What do you smoke?”

  “Anything.”

  “In other words, you and he could be smoking Luckies or Chesterfields.”

  “Or cornsilk or stinkweed. Anything,” Congdon said furiously. “You leave my kid brother out of this, you hear? I’m taking the rap for the Goodcliffes. How greedy can a cop get?”

  “All right, son,” Newpole said amiably. “You say you threw the gun into the Sudbury River. What kind of gun was it?”

  “I don’t know. A Colt .38, I think. You’ll be lucky to find it. It’s a muddy river.”

  “If it’s there we’ll find it,” Newpole said.

  They fed Congdon in the dining room. A technical-sergeant photographer came down from GHQ. He, Sergeant Boudreau, Newpole and Congdon left for Easterville, where Congdon would point out the scene of the crime. From there they would go to Sudbury where Congdon would show where he had thrown away the revolver. I stayed at the barracks and began on the paper work.

  There were continual interruptions. A report from the files showed that the revolver stolen from Gilhooley’s gas station in Billerica was not a .38 Colt but a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson, K-32 Masterpiece model. An envelope came from the ballistics laboratory at GHQ addressed to Lieutenant Newpole, and a trooper brought in a verbal report from the Volkswagen garage in Billerica. Lieutenant Sam Gahagan and Corporal Mike Gillis came in from the Easterville Hospital, tired and grimy, and had coffee in the dining room.

  I was writing at the guardroom table when Gahagan came in holding his coffee cup. He said to me, “Lieutenant Newpole wants you to go out to Ashendon and check the kid brother, Johnny Congdon. Find out where he was yesterday.”

  I gathered my papers and stood up. “Okay, Lieutenant.”

  Gahagan took a swig of coffee. “The brothers aren’t too far apart in age, and there’s a family resemblance. We want to make sure Mrs. Goodcliffe identified the right brother. If the boys were together that morning, Ernie might be covering up for the kid. Check it out.”

  Chapter 19

  I left the barracks, took a black cruiser and drove out to Ashendon. It was late, almost 10:30 P.M.

  The square was empty. The town hall was dark. The drugstore was dark, too, with only a small night light inside over the cash register.

  I drove down the hill, crossed over the railroad tracks and turned the corner on Travis Road. There was a knot of boys lounging on the front stairs of the Congdon house.

  I pulled up and turned off the ignition. There were six of them, all wearing skintight, faded bluejeans and sport shirts, all with long sideburns, all with poor postures and all seemingly cast from the same mold. I saw Johnny Congdon in the middle of them. He whispered in a low, muted voice. They turned around, looked at me and grew silent and motionless. I came up and said, “Johnny, I’d like to talk to you alone.” The boys looked at me without expression. Nobody moved. Then Johnny Congdon said to me, “Sure.”

  The others sensed it as a dismissal. They got up, shuffled off, melting into the darkness. I watched them go. Sullen, idle, listless kids, not knowing what to do with themselves, each needing a haircut and a good scrubbing. I wondered what kind of supervision their parents gave them.

  I sat down on the stairs. “Where’s your mother, Johnny?” I asked.

  “Inside,” he said, in the same muted voice. “Crying.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment. Taking out my pack of cigarettes, I offered him one. He stared at it unseeingly. I said, “Ernie’s made a confession.”

  “Yeah,” he said. It was a complete metamorphosis. The fight and belligerency was entirely out of him. He seemed to be in a state of trance. It could have been the disillusionment that the invincible brother had confessed and was in jail.

  I said, “Johnny, where were you yesterday morning?”

  He flicked his head in the direction where the boys had disappeared. “With the gang. We went out to the lake for a swim.”

  “What time?”

  “About half-past nine in the morning.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Almost all day. Until four, I guess.”

  “I want the names and addresses of the kids who were with you.”

  He gave them to me. I wrote them down in my notebook. I said, “Who else can tell me you were out there?”

  He sat there and stared at his shoes. Then he said, “Al Parker, the lifeguard down at the public beach. We were hanging around the tower most of the time because the chicks are there. I bummed twenty cents from Al for a hot dog. You ask Al.”

  “Okay,” I said, putting the notebook away.

  “You think I was with Ernie yesterday?”

  “Got any ideas on it?”

  He shook his head and stared down at his shoes again. “If there was somebody with him, it wasn’t me.” There was a sudden flash of turbulence in him. He stood up. “You think Ernie palled around with me?” he shouted. “He never did. Not on dates, nothing.” He subsided suddenly. His voice quieted. “Ernie never had nothing to do with me.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” he said.

  I stood up.

  “What’s going to happen to Ernie?” he asked.

  “I guess you know.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  I went back to the car, drove away
and left him there.

  I headed out to West Elm Street and saw the lights were on in the Nesbit house. As I turned into the driveway, I saw the Volkswagen was parked in front of the portico.

  I got out of the cruiser, went up to the door and pressed the bell. The chimes rang inside. After a few moments the door swung open. Mrs. Fleming blinked out at me in surprise. Then she shuffled aside. “Mr. Lindsey, please come in, sir. I’ll tell Billy you’re here.”

  “I wasn’t sure he’d be home,” I said.

  “Oh, he’s home, sir. He’s in the library.”

  She went off noiselessly on the thick carpeting. A minute later Billy Nesbit came toward me.

  “Well, hello,” he said. “As you can see, we called off the date—the girls and I. Without you, it was no party, Ralph.”

  “Sounds like a quiet night,” I said. I noticed that he seemed nervous. His clothes were rumpled and his face looked haggard and drawn.

  He smiled wanly and said, “Yes, I was reading in the library. Books are becoming a great solace and comfort to me. I’m beginning to find I can lose myself in them like in a deep, dark pool.”

  “What are you trying to escape from, Billy?”

  “Nothing. I’m reading for knowledge.”

  “What were you reading, Billy?”

  “Jonathan Swift. Gullivers Travels. Not as a child’s fairy tale, but as a social document. Man’s inhumanity to man. Come along and join me.”

  We went into the library. He pulled out a morocco-leather armchair for me and sat down behind the gigantic desk, leaning forward on his elbows. On the desk pad was an opened, leather-bound book and a half-eaten apple. At a corner of the desk was a silver bowl containing some shiny red apples. He proffered the bowl. I shook my head.

  “Apples,” he said. And I knew, as he spoke, that his mind was elsewhere and he was merely prattling. “The almost perfect food. These are cold storage this time of year. But they’ve been stored well. The Delicious species. Very firm, juicy, good flavor—”

  “I came to see you about Ernie Congdon,” I interrupted. “We have him in custody.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know,” he said, his eyes veiling. “It’s all over town. I also knew that was why you came here. I was exhibiting a false calmness to you, Ralph.”

  “Do you know why Ernie was picked up?”

  “They say it’s that business in Easterville. Is it?”

  “He’s made a confession on it.”

  “I can hardly believe that.” The face was masked now.

  “I just made a simple statement of fact to you, Billy.”

  “I didn’t mean to doubt your word, old man,” he said. “If I’ve offended you, I apologize. I meant that he might have been pressured into it. The old squeeze play, you know.”

  “I was there when he talked,” I said. “No squeeze, nothing.”

  “Oh,” Nesbit said. He picked up the apple, took a bite out of it and chewed thoughtfully. “I’m very sorry about it.”

  “For whom?” I asked. “The Goodcliffes?”

  “I must admit, at the moment, I was feeling sorry for my erstwhile protégé, Ernest Congdon. Because he’s the one who’s going to suffer for it.”

  “There’s something else,” I said. “In his confession, Ernie said he was alone. I don’t believe he was. I think there was somebody close by—waiting in a car.”

  “Why do you believe that?”

  “Habits. Certain patterns people follow. This was yesterday morning, when your car was at the Volkswagen agency.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “No. Lorelei Winchester told me your car was being fixed in Billerica.”

  “Greased and oiled, Ralph. They have the small lift for it.”

  “Yes, we checked it.”

  “Your outfit is thorough, as usual. Why did you check it?”

  “You didn’t pick up the car at the garage, Billy. They described Ernie Congdon as picking up the car. Did he?”

  He paused before answering. “Yes. As a favor to me.”

  “When did Ernie deliver it to you?”

  “About noon. I met him in the square and fed him a sandwich and a milkshake at the drugstore counter. Then I left him. I picked up Karen and we drove out to the country club for the afternoon.”

  “It was ten o’clock in the morning when Ernie called for your car at the garage. He didn’t deliver it to you until two hours later.”

  “He could have gone for a ride, Ralph.”

  “Yes,” I said. “He took a ride to Easterville. He parked your car in the brush and then stood beside the road with a gun hidden in his pocket.”

  “I can’t picture Ernie with a gun. He never had one. I would even swear to that in court.”

  “You’d be wrong,” I said. “Ernie admits to having a revolver. He stole it from a gas station in Billerica a few months ago. It checks out. He claims he dumped it into the Sudbury River. They’re searching for it now.”

  Nesbit shook his head and put aside the half-eaten apple. “There’s a mistake somewhere, of course.”

  “I think so, too,” I said. “I think there was another person with him when he went to Easterville. Maybe it was his kid brother who was waiting outside the Volkswagen agency, out of sight. And maybe it was his kid brother who was sitting in the car while Ernie was tangling with the Goodcliffes.”

  “You overestimate young Johnny Congdon. Very much so. He’s a hysterical kind of kid and Ernie would never let him get involved.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “All right, let’s talk about Ernie. What reason could you give for what he did?”

  Nesbit said carefully, “If he did it.”

  “If he did it, then.”

  “The boy’s personal life. All his years Ernie has been underprivileged. He used to tell me how the kids in school tortured him about the torn castoffs he wore. Charity clothing. He was pushed around, ridiculed, browbeaten, made to feel like dirt. He built up a fierce resentment. He had to strike back. He didn’t care how.”

  “Most people take their lumps without doing what Ernie did.”

  “They’re helpless, defeated people, Ralph.”

  “They get back in other ways,” I said. “By lifting themselves up. Not by pulling people down to their own low level.”

  Nesbit didn’t answer that.

  I said, “And how would you explain the attempted sex attack?”

  “The same problem. The haughty, unattainable woman who looks down upon him with aloofness and scorn. He wants to humiliate her, despoil and disgrace her, have her grovel in the dirt beneath him.”

  “Ernie’s told you this?”

  “Oh, no. We never spoke of those things. It’s only my own personal observation—my study of him.”

  I waited for Nesbit to go on. But he was silent and motionless behind the desk. In the shadows he was almost like a statue.

  I said, “Is there anything else, Billy?”

  He reached very deliberately for another apple, rubbing it to a high luster on his sleeve. “Anything else, old chap?”

  “Ernie’s in jail. He’s facing a serious rap. Where do you stand?”

  “Oh, I’m going to help him all I can. I’m going to visit Ernie, of course, and see he gets top legal counsel. I feel it’s my duty to stand by him.”

  I stood up. “Then I guess you’ve dropped the idea of becoming a trooper.”

  “If it means disavowing Ernie Congdon, yes. Regretfully.”

  I moved toward the doorway. “Good night,” I said.

  “Good night, Ralph.”

  I left him then, quickly, going out of the big, somber house to breathe the fragrant June air. I had to think by myself. Alone.

  Chapter 20

  When I awoke in the morning, I looked out the barracks window and saw it was a gray, depressing day with a threat of rain. I shaved, showered, dressed in civilian clothes and came down to the dining room.

  Detective-Lieutenant Edward Newpole was having breakfast
with Lieutenant Sam Gahagan and Sergeant Boudreau. I joined them and ordered breakfast from the white-coated messboy. As I ate, I gave Newpole the report on Johnny Congdon.

  He listened and nodded his head. Then he put down his coffee cup and said to me, “The ballistics report came last night. The same gun that shot Goodcliffe killed Eugene Somers. When you’ve eaten, we’ll get over to the East Cambridge jail and talk to Ernie Congdon.”

  I never did like the odor of jails or prisons. The odor is not as strong as a zoo’s, but it is there, the unmistakable scent of living things that are caged.

  The four of us waited in the big, bare interviewing room, sitting at the oak table without conversation.

  They brought Congdon in. He looked rested and well fed and at peace with the world. He sat down at the table, glanced at the three detectives and then at me. His complacency began to fade. Four of us. A large delegation. He yawned with a shade too much unconcern.

  “What’s on your mind, gents?” he asked.

  Newpole leaned forward, his elbows on the table. He said, “Ernie, it’s that old Somers case again.”

  Congdon’s mouth became petulant, and his air of wellbeing completely dissipated. “I said I’d take the rap on the Goodcliffe case, Lieutenant. You promised not to hang all your old chestnuts on me. So not the Somers case, please.”

  “I guess you’re stuck with that one, too, Ernie,” Newpole said. “Our ballistics report shows both Somers and Goodcliffe were shot by the same gun.”

  “Oh, sure,” Congdon said. “These things turn out very convenient for you.”

  Newpole took the long white envelope from his inside breast pocket and pushed it across the table. “Here’s the report, Ernie. Go ahead, read it.”

  Congdon picked it up, held it for a moment, then began to read it. He read slowly, his lips forming words soundlessly. When he looked up, his voice had a challenge in it. “A lot of double talk here, Lieutenant.”

  Newpole reached out and took the paper back. “Let me read you this part, son. ‘—(a) a lead bullet, weighing 84.5 grains and reported to have been removed from the jaw of George Goodcliffe, marked “G-1” for identification. (2) As a result of a microscopic examination of the projectile, it is my opinion that this bullet (item “a” of this report) was fired from the same .32-caliber revolver as used in the fatal shooting of Eugene L. Somers—Baycroft, Massachusetts on June 7, 1957.” He looked at Congdon and his voice was softly convincing. “Isn’t that clear to you, Ernie?”