Seven Steps East

by Ben Benson

  “How do you know her mind?” I asked.

  “No, I guess you can’t really read a person’s mind,” he said. “But that’s the way it looked to me. In the end she did all right. She was perfect for Kirk and he was fine for her. I held them no grudge. I don’t care what the lieutenant thinks.”

  “He’s been thinking about other things,” I said.

  “He knows I’ve been booking numbers again,” he said dispassionately.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Who do you think you were kidding, Larry? You were taking out Greta Abend and spending money on her. You’ve been giving money at home. It had to come from somewhere. Maitland wasn’t paying you that much.”

  “I figured it wouldn’t take long for Sal Aguerra to tell you. I kind of knew he would.”

  “I don’t see why you went back. What was the percentage in it?”

  “It was the easiest way I knew of making some extra dough.”

  “Kirk knew,” I said. “Didn’t he?”

  “Yes, somebody told him.”

  “And he came to you. He was going to turn you in. That would give you a pretty good motive. Wouldn’t it, Larry?”

  “No, he wasn’t going to turn me in. When he came to see me Friday night he said he knew I was booking numbers again. It was only small business and he knew it. I told him I’d quit. He believed me. He was more interested in knowing about big gamblers.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That I knew Jed Pontius and Sal Aguerra. They were the only ones. The people who played numbers with me were of no account. They were small stuff.”

  “What did Kirk want?”

  “He was looking for bigger people. People from the hotel. I didn’t know any.”

  “Why did you follow him to the hotel later?”

  “I wasn’t really following him.”

  “Larry, you said you had a date with Greta Abend. You were heading the opposite way when you met Kirk.”

  “All right,” he said. “I got to thinking that maybe Kirk was going to turn me in. So I went after him. I caught him coming out of the entrance of the Mount Puritan. When I talked to him he told me he wasn’t interested in my two-bit operation. And that’s the last I saw of him. That’s the God’s truth.”

  “Don’t swear to me, Larry.”

  “Listen,” he said urgently. “Ask the person who was with him that night. He’ll tell you I left Kirk and went off to Hyannis.”

  “What person?”

  “The one sitting in his car.”

  “Nobody else saw a person in his car that night.”

  “I did. I swear I did. You find him. Maybe he’s the one who killed Kirk.”

  “Him?”

  “Him or her. I don’t know. You’re the cop, I’m not. All I know is I’m in more trouble than I’ve been in all my life.”

  He lapsed into silence then, chain-smoking one cigarette after another until we got to the Barnstable courthouse and Lieutenant Gahagan’s office.

  I left Pierce with a detective-sergeant named Bob Wolk and went in to report to Gahagan. Gahagan came out of his private office and we spoke together for a few minutes. Then I followed him back inside.

  Sitting in the office was Chester Raynham. He looked at me contemptuously. “Like I was saying,” Raynham said, “you guys are going nowhere on this one. You’re getting hysterical.”

  Gahagan slouched down in his chair and pinched his nose. “Tell me more, Chet.”

  “I can smell it around here,” Raynham said. “Defeat. It’s in the air.”

  “You got that from a TV show last night,” Gahagan said. “Any other observations?”

  “Lindsey,” Raynham said, pointing a fat finger at me. “This kid here. He’s been hanging around my hotel bothering the help. A real nuisance. I want it stopped. He hasn’t found out one damn thing anyway.”

  Gahagan said, “He found out you fired the waitress, Connie Ossipee.”

  “She resigned,” Raynham said. He took a short puff on his cigar. “And that’s my business, Sam.”

  “At this point it’s mine, too. Tell me why, Chet.”

  “Why? Because I just told you. This trooper’s been hanging around the hotel and giving the place a bad name. Who’s he looking for? Don’t tell me, I know. For somebody who was connected with Kirk Chanslor. And who was the only person in the hotel who had any connection with Chanslor? The waitress, Connie Ossipee. You want to talk to Connie Ossipee, I’ve made it easy for you. After Saturday she’ll have all the time in the world to talk to you. She won’t be at the Mount Puritan.”

  “You’re a hell of a nice guy, Chet.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “A real sweet guy,” Gahagan said. “We never said the girl was connected with the murder in any way.”

  “You never say anything, Sam,” Raynham said comfortably. His cigar had gone out. He lit it again with a gold lighter. “That’s the trouble with you. Sometimes you ought to ask for a little help. Maybe somebody could tell you how to work things better.”

  “Now I’m a humble man,” Gahagan said. “I’m always willing to learn. Just how would you work things?”

  “Get smart, Sam. You know how to lean on people. This kid Chanslor’s been knocked off. Connie Ossipee knew him. She was one of his stoolies. So you get the girl in and sweat her a little.”

  “Just how would you do that, Chet?”

  “Pressure. You’re handling her with kid gloves. You mean you couldn’t fix up some kind of morals charge on her?”

  “I couldn’t,” Gahagan said. “You think I ought to frame her on something?”

  Raynham inhaled the cigar. “You said it, I didn’t. But who is this broad? She’s a nothing. A drifter. I know the kind. Down in Miami I’ve seen them by the dozens. They work as a waitress or at some club selling cigarettes or checking hats. If they’ve got any kind of shape and they’re young enough, they do a little hustling on the side. Winter is the big season for them. They make enough to loaf around until summer when they come north to another hotel for the short season. This girl’s available, Sam.”

  “You mean at a hotel like yours she’s available?” Gahagan said.

  “I didn’t say my hotel, dammit. Any hotel. If she plays it smart she can make a few extra bucks.”

  “Now you know a lot about this girl. Tell me more.”

  “I don’t know nothing about this one. But if I wanted, I’d find out in five minutes. Everything. Right down to the mole on her hip and the day she was born.”

  “Maybe you can teach me,” Gahagan said. “How?”

  Raynham yawned. “I could push her around a little. A girl’s scared like hell about her face. But with her I wouldn’t have to. I hold her references. Those are the crown jewels. She needs papers to work. I tell her she’s no good. She steals. I bounce her out on her fanny in the middle of the season and where’s she going to go without references? She’ll see things my way quick and lick my hand at the same time.”

  “I always said you were a nice guy, Chet.”

  “Nice guys don’t win ball games.”

  Gahagan made a noise in his throat. He stood up. “Let me make myself clear, once and for all, Chet. You stick to your hotel business and away from my witnesses. Understand?”

  Raynham spread his hands. “You’ve got me wrong. I’m only trying to help. This case don’t do my hotel no good.”

  “I know your reasons. But you heard me. If I find out you’re messing around with my witnesses I’ll put the arm on you for obstructing justice.”

  Raynham moved his fat shoulders indifferently. “I’m just as happy, Sam. I want no part of it. You can have it all.”

  “Fine,” Gahagan said. “Now get out of here.”

  Chapter 17

  After Raynham left, Gahagan looked balefully at the soggy stub of Raynham’s cigar in the ashtray and dumped it into the wastebasket.

  “Come sit over here,” he said to me.

  I went around to his side of the desk and pu
lled up a chair beside him. There was a stack of papers before him on top of the desk. He lit a cigarette and began to sort them.

  “I’ve got work for you,” he said. “We’re beginning to move faster. We’re on our way. These are pretty complete reports.” He examined the top one. “Here, this one is from our chem lab at GHQ. They found sand in the cuffs of Chanslor’s pants.”

  I studied the sheet. It was a density and gradient test of the sand. Both a chemical and spectrographic analysis. The sand was made up of sodium chloride, silica, shell, calcium, magnesium, iron, aluminum and D.D.T.

  “Plain ordinary beach sand,” Gahagan said. “The sodium chloride makes it salt-water sand and not lake sand.”

  “And the D.D.T.?” I asked.

  “That’s an interesting thing,” Gahagan said. “Last week they sprayed for mosquito control. The north side of the Cape from the canal entrance to a little past Sandwich.”

  “That’s the other side of the Cape,” I said.

  “Yes. Those slacks were worn fresh on Friday night. They’d been dry-cleaned the week before while Chanslor was at the Academy. So we can presume that the sand has been collected there since Friday night.”

  Friday night, I thought. Chanslor had last been seen at the entrance of the Mount Puritan in Sachem. Sachem was on the southwest side of the Cape. On Monday morning Chanslor’s car was found in Buford, which was near Sachem and was also on the southwest side of the Cape. On Monday night we had found his body in Cornwall, near Willow Lake, also on the southwest side of the Cape. Yet the sand would place him on the north side of the Cape between those times. “Anything else, Lieutenant?” I asked.

  “Yes. They found the same type of sand imbedded in the treads of his tires. And look at this report from the state pathologist. Chanslor had been hit on the head. There was some subdural bleeding for some time before he was smothered. During that time he’d been tied up. His wrists were chafed and they found tiny bits of sisal on his skin and socks.”

  “I wonder if there was a real cohesive murder plan,” I said.

  “You can’t tell,” Gahagan said. “And here’s something else. It was found in Chanslor’s wallet.”

  It was a sheet of paper from the State Police Academy which was used to train recruits in identifying people. It was entitled “Description of Persons” and was illustrated with the picture of a man. On either side of the drawing, in numerical order, were the things to look for. Number 8 was EYES. That was circled in pencil.

  “I remember you telling me what Mrs. Chanslor said,” Gahagan told me. “Kirk was curious about someone changing the color of his eyes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ve had some photos made up of Chanslor,” Gahagan said. “We’ll send some men out to the Sandwich area and try to find out if anyone saw him around there last weekend.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Meanwhile we’re keeping a tight watch on Constance Ossipee.” He looked at his wristwatch. “I think you ought to go out and relieve Bill Uhlberg now. He’s been staked out near the dorm for quite a few hours.”

  “Okay.”

  “Maybe you’d better get yourself a change of clothes first. Don’t wear a suit. Put on some sports clothes and see if you can dig up a golf cap or something. And watch that girl. She has her own car.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And another thing. We took some scrapings from her tire treads. We found the same kind of sand with the D.D.T. in it.

  Chapter 18

  Sergeant Bill Uhlberg had picked out such a good spot that I had some trouble finding him. He was in a little wooded glen to the left of the Mount Puritan, halfway between the hotel and the dormitory. He could see anyone leaving the dormitory and also the employees’ entrance to the hotel.

  He was leaning against a tree when I found him, the binoculars hanging down around his middle from a strap looped around his neck. He needed a shave and he was hungry and tired. He reported that Constance Ossipee was inside the dormitory. Her car was in the employees’ parking lot.

  He went away. I took up my position, using the binoculars, watching the front entrance and the parking lot. I searched the windows of the dorm. I couldn’t see anything.

  At four that afternoon the waitresses began to stream down from the dorm in their black, lace-trimmed uniforms, passing the wooded area. I watched them closely. Connie Ossipee wasn’t among them. I stayed there.

  At 4:10 I saw her come out of the dorm and walk quickly to the parking area. She was not in her waitress uniform but wore, instead, a skirt, blouse and flat sandals. I followed her with the binoculars.

  She got into a small gray foreign car with a Florida back-plate. I ran down from the woods to the road where my car was parked. The little gray car came down the driveway, through the gates and out onto the highway. I hunched down out of sight as the car passed me. When she was a good distance ahead I started up and followed her.

  She went through the village of Sachem and turned onto Route 28 heading north, passing Pocasset, moving up toward the Bourne Bridge and the canal. When she came to the traffic circle that entered onto the bridge, she did not take it. She continued parallel to the canal moving toward the northeast.

  She came to Sagamore and turned east on Route 6A. Here the traffic thinned and I stayed quite far behind. Her car was like a little gray bug in the distance.

  She went through into the town of Sandwich. From the road I could see the sand dunes, the gray drifting fog and the patches of gray water of Cape Cod Bay.

  Suddenly she turned left onto a narrow road. I stopped and waited. Then I turned in after her. I bumped over a single set of railroad tracks. Here, on both sides of the road, the ground was marshy and I saw few trees. I drove ahead, passing scattered cottages along the road. I did not see her car. The road ended abruptly at a pier at the water’s edge.

  I stopped. There was an empty parking lot overlooking the foggy water. Through the haze I could make out the stone breakwater at the entrance to the canal and the huge light there. A foghorn nearby hooted loudly and intermittently.

  I swung the car around and turned right. It was the only street I could see, a narrow, black macadam road. The sign at the corner said Beachplum Road. It was lined on both sides with small summer cottages.

  I drove along slowly, looking between the cottages on both sides. All were occupied. Most of them had a car pulled up alongside. I kept going. Toward the end of the street was a small bungalow. It was white with a neat blue trim. It stood some distance apart from its neighbors on either side.

  The little gray foreign car was in front of it. Connie Ossipee was standing along the left side of the house trying to open a window. She failed. Then she disappeared around back. A short time later she appeared out front again, trying the door there. She was unsuccessful. She stood still for a moment indecisively.

  I backed up my car and turned it around. When I came out of Beachplum Road I turned left at the pier, went down the road, crossed the single line of track again, and back onto Route 6A. There I waited.

  Moments later the little gray sedan came bumping over the tracks and onto Route 6A. It turned right, crossed the superhighway at the Sagamore Bridge and kept going southwest. As we drove the sun began to break through the overcast. She entered Route 28, passed Pocasset, turned onto the Sachem road, went through the town to the shore road and out to the Mount Puritan. She drove into the employees’ parking lot, then hurried into the dormitory. I looked at my watch. It was 6:30.

  I went down to a gas-station pay telephone and called Lieutenant Gahagan. Twenty minutes later Detective-Sergeant Bob Wolk came and relieved me.

  I sped back to Sandwich immediately, taking the same route and the same narrow road to the beach. The fog had blown off and the sun was out, low in the west, casting long lingering shadows. The air was much clearer and the sea was blue. The foghorn had stopped hooting. There was a fresh southeast breeze.

  Along 6A the traffic had thickened and my progress was a little
slower. At the parking lot near the pier there was an out-of-state car. A man and a woman were taking snapshots of the canal entrance.

  I drove down Beachplum Road, cruising slowly, and passed the white bungalow. There was no car near it and the cottage seemed unoccupied. I drove on. The road ended in a small dirt parking area under the dunes. Two cars were there, families spewing out, lugging beach umbrellas, beachbags, shrill children scampering about barefooted.

  I left my car in the lot and walked up the sandy path to the top of the sand dunes. I stood in the middle of the swaying, reedy grass and looked along the beach. To my left was the breakwater at the canal entrance. From there the beach curved toward me, interspersed with small stone jetties.

  I went down onto the beach, my shoes sinking into the soft sand. There was one young couple lying on their stomachs on a brightly striped beach towel. The tide was half out and a few people in bathing suits were walking along the hard, sandy flats. There was still a fogbank on the horizon toward the east.

  I took out my handkerchief, bent down, scooped up some sand into it and tied a knot. The young couple on the towel gazed at me curiously, the girl in a black bathing suit fluffing her wheat-colored hair and saying something to the young man. Two children raced by me and plunged into the water shrieking.

  I went back to the sand dunes. From there I had a good look at the white, blue-trimmed bungalow. It had a screened porch facing the water. I could detect no sign of life there.

  I moved down into the parking area, passing my car, turned and walked along Beachplum Road until I came to the front of the bungalow. It was set back from the street on a sandy hillock. Opposite was an empty, weed-infested lot.