Seven Steps East

by Ben Benson

  “I wish to God we could,” Dondera said.

  Chapter 24

  Sergeant Bill Uhlberg, Bob Wolk and I were doing our report work in the State Police detective office at the Barnstable courthouse.

  Sergeant Uhlberg said, “He had a catalogue from a gambling-supply house.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Starrett,” Uhlberg said. “He ordered the contact lenses by mail from Chicago. First he went to his local optometrist for an ophthalmometer reading of his eyes. He sent the prescription to the company with a check for a hundred and seventy-five bucks. They mailed him back the contact lenses.”

  “I heard they’re tough to wear,” Wolk said.

  “You get used to them,” Uhlberg said. “The company will even mail you a bottle of liquid to keep the lenses sterilized. For two bucks—cash, that is.”

  “It’s a nice firm,” Wolk said. “They watch after you like a baby.”

  “Nothing but the best of care,” Uhlberg said. “For a hundred bucks they’ll be happy to send you a carton of a dozen decks of the special contact-lens cards. Makes it easy for you. You don’t have to soil the little hands marking the cards. All done for you by experts. But, on the other hand, if you’re the economical type, they stick right by you, too, with their help. The company will sell you a couple of luminous lead pencils at five bucks apiece. They’ll also sell you the cellophane wrappers, the red tear-off strips and the cement; all this to make it nice and easy for you to repack the cards so nobody’ll notice. Yes, sir. They think of everything for you.”

  “Who could ask for more?” Wolk said. “Still, Starrett had to do some of it himself.”

  “You mean the con,” Uhlberg said. “Okay, so he needed to invest a few hundred bucks. He had Arthur Nassim call on five hotels last spring to sell the stuff at half-price. Five hotels on the Cape that he was going to visit later. And he needed a cottage in Sandwich to lay low in between weekends. The investment wasn’t that big. Five different weekends at five different hotels. The same routine in each. Find out where the big games are and get into them. Send down to the lobby for fresh cards. Bet heavy when you used the red-backed cards, lay back when the blue-backed cards are used. Make your killing and get out. Almost impossible to spot.”

  “Kirk Chanslor spotted it,” I said.

  “I said almost impossible to spot.” Uhlberg looked at me reflectively. “You know, the kid would have made a good cop.”

  It wasn’t until nine that evening that I came to Iva Hancock’s house. I parked my car on the street, went up the front walk and rang the bell. I waited a few minutes.

  Iva opened the door.

  “Well, hello,” I said. “You the only one home?”

  She stared at me. “Ralph—”

  “Yes,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

  “But it wasn’t more than five minutes ago when I heard the news flash on the radio—”

  “What news flash?”

  “That the State Police have arrested Wendell Starrett, Constance Ossipee and some man whose name I couldn’t catch. They’re being held in connection with the murder of Kirk Chanslor.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “The other man’s name is Arthur Nassim.”

  She shook her head in bewilderment. “But they mentioned you as being one of the arresting troopers. And here you are.”

  “I’m afraid all that happened fifteen, sixteen hours ago. They just released the news now.”

  “You must forgive me,” she said, opening the door wider and stepping aside, “but I was awfully surprised to see you standing there. I’m glad you came, though.”

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “She and my aunt went over to visit Mrs. Chanslor. Please come in.”

  I stepped inside. She said, “Then it’s all over?”

  “All over,” I said.

  “Are you allowed to tell me about it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It won’t take too long.” On the living room sofa, near the lamp table, was an opened book with its leaves down. I bent and looked at the title. Crime and Punishment.

  “First time you ever read Dostoevski?” I asked.

  “No. I pick him up once in a while and browse over him. Have you read the book?”

  “Yes,” I said. “The hero was tortured with a conscience. I wonder how many murderers are really bothered that way. Statistically.”

  “I think all murderers must have a terrible remorse, Ralph. That’s what makes them human beings.”

  “I sometimes wonder about that. I’ve known killers who had no more conscience than if they’d squashed a bug.”

  “I’m sure all men have a conscience. You have to dig deep enough to find it sometimes.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, with a piteous little smile. “This is like old times, almost. Discussing things, being here together. Would you like a can of cold beer, Ralph?”

  “Thanks, but not right now.”

  She sat down on the sofa and closed the book. I dropped into the lounge chair opposite her. Her big handbag was on the table. She opened it and took out a pack of cigarettes. She offered one to me. I shook my head. She took one for herself and tapped its end on the table. I reached forward and lit it for her.

  She sat back. “What about the arrests, Ralph? About Constance Ossipee?”

  “That’s what I’m here to tell you about,” I said. “I don’t have too much time.”

  “You’re going away again?”

  “I have to report back to the Academy. I’m overdue there as it is. The class graduates a week from today.”

  “Without Kirk,” she said quietly. She looked away for a moment. The ash on the end of her cigarette had grown long.

  “Without Kirk,” I said.

  “He’d have been very good,” she said. “Kirk worked very hard at things. He was very conscientious.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And the tragic part of this case was that it wasn’t of big importance. He had come upon this man Starrett at the Mount Puritan. What aroused Kirk’s curiosity was that the man was able to change the color of his eyes.”

  “I don’t quite follow you,” she said.

  “I’ll explain it in a minute. It was all part of Kirk’s training. He had learned what to look for in the characteristics of a person. Race, sex, age, height, weight, hair, eyes, tone of complexion, tattoos, marks, scars, moles, limp if any, jewelry worn, glasses if any, and the clothing from head to foot. You see, I can recite the sequence. Kirk could, too. He was probably very proud of his new knowledge. Because, by using the system, he had found out about the change in the color of Starrett’s eyes. He remarked about it to his mother. Did he mention it to you, Iva?”

  “No,” she said. “It’s so fantastic that I would have remembered.”

  “Too bad. I imagine he was getting quite a kick out of it. Here he was actually putting to use part of his new knowledge. He was young and eager and he had found out something about Wendell Starrett. Yet he came to nobody with the knowledge. I wonder why not?”

  “If I remember,” she said, “he also told me he had been taught never to discuss police business.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “Let’s go on to Wendell Starrett. There was a bright boy. He had thought of a clever way to cheat at cards. It cost him a little money to put the plan into effect. But Wendell Starrett was a fond believer in the old adage that you had to spend money to make money. For a while it worked fine.” I looked over at her. “Did you know him, Iva?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why are you going away, Iva?”

  She brushed her black, glossy hair away from her forehead. “Who told you? My mother?”

  “Yes. I just came from Mrs. Chanslor’s.”

  “And my mother was there crying?”

  “Yes.”

  “She makes a wonderful mourner at funerals,” Iva said bitterly. “It’s one of her few pleasures in life. She shouldn’t have told you, Ralph.”
/>   “Why not?”

  “Because I didn’t want anyone to know. I’ve had a very bad time about this. I have to get away for a little while. I know you understand.”

  “I do. You want to stop thinking about Kirk.”

  “I’m going to try,” she said.

  “It won’t be easy,” I said. “He was a good kid. Young and eager, and trying very hard. Quite by accident he had stumbled upon a man who was cheating at cards. He didn’t even have a chance to follow it through. He was murdered because he confided in someone about it. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she said helplessly. “Kirk was always very curious.”

  “Yes, he was trying to get more information. By doing so he had to confide in someone at the hotel.”

  “Constance Ossipee?”

  “Why not? A waitress would be of good help. I imagine it was kind of a game to Kirk. He had his suspect, Wendell Starrett. What he needed now was an informant at the hotel. Waitresses had contact with the guests in the dining room. She could listen to conversations and learn where the big card games were being played. Now who sent him to Connie Ossipee? She was the sister of the man he was after.”

  “I don’t know, Ralph.”

  “It wasn’t a coincidence. Somebody deliberately sent Kirk to Constance Ossipee for information. It was to throw him off the track, to draw his attention elsewhere. Somebody else at the hotel. Somebody who was in the office where the travelers’ checks and personal checks were cashed. Where the bills were made out for the charges at the pool and the cabanas, the dining room, the bar and the cigar stand. Somebody in the office to whom a man might grieve about having had a bad night at poker. If that somebody was an attractive girl it was that much better. A pretty girl is always easier to talk to. For instance, a girl like you, Iva.”

  Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She tried again. “Me?” she asked, in a still, shocked voice.

  “Why not you? Are you that much different from the spinster teller in the small town bank? The civic-minded, industrious old lady, so kind and so gentle? For twenty years she’s shown her sweet, patient smile to the customers. Then one week she’s sick and another teller takes her place and there’s something wrong with her accounts. And the bank auditors come in and find a hundred thousand dollars missing from inactive accounts. How many times a year do you read of a person such as she? Or of the pretty college girl who kills her ex-boy friend’s sister for revenge? What does the devil have to look or act like? Can’t he look like you?”

  “My God,” she said. “What reason would I have? Don’t you care about a reason?”

  “Because you always wanted to get away from here. From this house. From the small town you always hated, where you felt suffocated. From your mother who was like a millstone around your neck. You met Starrett. He was so handsome, so rich, so elegant, so beautifully mannered. Beside him, Kirk was a clod, a nothing. Wendell Starrett was the one. He was the means of entrance into the world you always wanted. Just think of traveling around with him to all the magnificent hotels. Oh, he liked to play cards for money. That was a weakness of his, but you didn’t mind. You didn’t bother to notice that the yacht club crest on his blazer was a fake and that his Cadillac was only rented. No. At last you had found the big man you had always wanted. Not me, not the medical student who didn’t want you anyway, and not Kirk Chanslor. You had found Wendell.”

  I stopped and looked at her. Her face was flushed and tiny beads of perspiration had appeared on her upper lip. She was as tense and as taut as a cat eyeing a strange dog. Her cigarette butt smoldered in the ashtray. She said nothing.

  “Ironically,” I said, “he’d have been the smallest catch of any of us. The weakest fish of all.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “What’s still more ironical,” I said, “is that he’s nowhere as clever as he looks. And not very dangerous. The smalltown girl was the dangerous one. She was no pawn of Starrett’s. She might work only part-time in a hotel office but there never was any nonsense about what she wanted out of life. She had claws, very sharp claws. You’d have to watch her.”

  There was still no answer. Her body was rigidly erect.

  “You sit here tonight,” I said harshly, “and you tell me, with an innocent expression, that you’re going away. Your mother told me it was to be after the funeral tomorrow. Only you had no intention of going to the funeral. You were going to leave tonight because you knew everything was finished. You were running away. Because you yourself had murdered Burk Chanslor.”

  I looked at her again. You couldn’t take away her grace, her beauty, her figure, her angelic face, her suppleness, her flowery scent. If you were searching for pristine beauty on the outside, she had it.

  “Damn you,” I said. “You didn’t have to kill him.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” she said in a voice as tight as piano wire.

  “Yes,” I said. “Because everything was going along beautifully until Kirk got curious about Wendell Starrett. He had found out that Starrett’s eyes changed color and that he played cards. The kid wanted to find out more. Where would he go? To you, of course. In your position at the hotel you could help him. You could look up Wendell Starrett and find out some of his background. But you did even better than that. You told Kirk about the cottage in Sandwich where Nassim was and where Starrett hid out between hotel stays. You offered to show him where it was. You were the passenger in the car when Larry Pierce spoke to Kirk that Friday night near the hotel. Kirk went with you. Why not? Why couldn’t he trust you? He had known you almost all his life and he was going steady with you. Nothing else would occur to him. As for you, he wasn’t a cop yet but he was starting to think like one. That was bad because in a short time he was bound to come up with the right answer. So when you got him to the cottage, and when his back was turned, you hit him on the back of the head with a tire iron, knocking him unconscious. Then you tied his wrists and ankles with a rope and put a gag in his mouth. He wasn’t badly hurt. He had a bump on his head and there was a little subdural bleeding and he was in a coma. But he would have come out of it in time.

  “So now you sat down and waited calmly for Starrett and Nassim to show up. When they came later and saw what you had done, they were badly shocked and frightened. You had made a mistake about them. They weren’t killers. They were weaklings, timid men. They fed on carrion. If they were exposed they would run away. But not you. You wouldn’t let them go. A meddlesome kid named Kirk Chanslor had interfered with your beautiful dream of the future. It had become such an obsession with you that you knew you had to get rid of him. Then suddenly the idea came to you. Why not drag him out into the outgoing tide and let him simply disappear? So you had Nassim and Starrett drag the kid out onto the beach. But the tide was slow in turning and you were afraid that people might come strolling along the beach and notice something. You brought the kid back into the cottage and you waited for the tide to change. When the time came Starrett wouldn’t go through with it. He was scared. So was Nassim. They wouldn’t drag Chanslor out again.

  “Now the chips were down. You saw Chanslor was starting to regain consciousness. You told Starrett and Nassim to go outside and wait. You would revive Kirk and speak with him, convincing him not to spoil things. The two men went out. You were running the show now completely. When they came in again, Kirk was dead. You told them his heart had stopped beating. You hadn’t touched him. At first Starrett and Nassim didn’t believe you. Then you told them that Kirk had always had a hereditary heart condition and that his father had died of it. But if the body was found in the cottage there would be a lot of explaining to do.

  “You revised the plans now. The new idea was to bring the body away from Sandwich and the seashore, to the other side of Sachem. The old logging road out at Willow Lake in Cornwall. You were familiar enough with it. There were a couple of clam-digging shovels around the cottage and you had those put into the car with the body. Then the three of you drove out to Cornwall to bury the bod
y where you were sure nobody would ever find it. But as you drove up the old logging road, there were a couple of cars parked along it, the kids using it just like you had so many times. You realized that if the parkers were sitting there in the quiet they might hear the sound of the shovels digging. You couldn’t wait much longer because you had to be home. So you had the body covered with leaves and left it near the oak tree. The two men would come back and dig the grave later. Meanwhile Wendell ought to get back to the hotel and earn some of that investment you had in him. You were running the whole damn pitiful show now. A terrible, floundering mess.”

  I watched as she clenched her hands. She maintained the weird silence.

  I said, “Then Connie Ossipee found out about everything. She could usually tell when her brother was in trouble. At first she thought it was one of his cunning little confidence schemes that he always kept dragging her into, and which she detested. But the more she spoke to him the more he talked. Until he finally blurted out to her what had happened. She was shocked, of course, and she told her brother to get out. After that Starrett wouldn’t go back to Cornwall for anything. Or to you either. And that’s how it ended, Iva.”

  “Are you all through?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Part of your story is wrong,” she said. She crossed her legs carefully and some of the high coloring had left her cheeks. “I didn’t kill Kirk.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to admit it,” I said.

  “You’re wrong, Ralph. I’ll admit a lot of things. I’ll go along with you about bringing Kirk out to the cottage. But Wendell Starrett or Connie Ossipee or Arthur Nassim can’t testify to something that happened when they weren’t there. I’ll tell you what happened at the bungalow.”

  She took a cigarette from her handbag and held it with steady fingers. I reached forward and lit it for her. She sat back against the sofa. “Listen,” she said. “My God, listen to me.”

  She did take Kirk Chanslor out to the bungalow, she did admit, speaking in her low, vibrant earnest voice. When they got there the place was empty. Kirk got angry when he saw nobody. He accused her of double-crossing him. He pushed and cuffed her and became so violent that she thought he was going to do her serious harm. To protect herself she struck back with the tire iron, hitting him on the back of the head, rendering him unconscious. For a moment she was panic-stricken. But she could see no bleeding and it appeared that Kirk was not hurt too badly. She was afraid of her safety when he came to. So she did tie him up and waited for Starrett and Nassim to come there. They would then decide what to do.