Grave Error

by Stephen Greenleaf

  “You have no reason to feel that way, Claire,” I said. “You had no way of knowing what Harry would run into. You just hired him to do a job. Harry knew the risks. We all do. It’s what we put up with in order to avoid wearing a necktie every day.”

  “Well, I’d like to go see Mr. Spring’s wife. To tell her how sorry I am about her husband.”

  “I’m sure she’d be happy to talk to you. I’ll set it up if you want,” I said.

  “Please.”

  “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Just find my parents and get this all over with. I feel as though I tossed a pebble over a cliff and it turned into an avalanche. I just want it to end. And please be careful, Mr. Tanner. I don’t want anything to happen to you. And neither does Sara.”

  Claire giggled and I heard Sara say something to her but I couldn’t make out what it was. Somehow a smile had slipped onto my face. “Claire,” I said, “the first thing I want to do is tell the Nelsons everything that’s happened.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s a possibility that you could be in danger, and I think they should be aware of it. So should you, for that matter.”

  “I’m aware of it. It doesn’t bother me. Handicapped people get used to fear at an early age. I worry a lot about other people but I don’t waste time worrying about myself. I’m just afraid Roland will be terribly hurt when he finds out what I’ve done.”

  “As things stand now he’ll be a lot more hurt if you keep him in the dark. Anyway, we’re not going to be able to keep this thing quiet. There have been two murders already. Three, counting old man Peel. The sheriff in Oxtail is all over me to tell him what I know and he’ll probably stick me in jail if I don’t talk. I don’t mind spending some time in jail, but it’s a little hard to turn up leads from inside a cell. The city cops want to talk to you, too. Everything’s breaking open.”

  “I see. Sara told me this would probably happen.”

  “I want you to authorize me to tell the Nelsons and the Oxtail sheriff about the connection between you and Harry and the Peels. It’s time the police were in on it anyway. I thought I might be able to break the case quickly, but I haven’t. The cops may be able to wrap it up in a hurry. They ought to have the chance.”

  “All right, Mr. Tanner. Whatever you think is best. Sara says I should trust you, so I do. I just wish I could be there when you tell Roland and Jackie.”

  “I know, but there isn’t time. It’ll go smoother if you’re not there. I want you to stay down there with Sara until you hear from me. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “One more thing. Do you know where I can find Al Rodman?”

  “Al? Why?”

  “I ran into someone who used to know him and I’m supposed to give him a message,” I said.

  “He has an apartment in The Mission.”

  “I know, but he’s not there.”

  “His office is over in China Basin. Peninsula Imports, it’s called. Other than that I don’t know where he could be. I don’t really know any of his friends.”

  I doubted if Rodman had any friends. “Does Rodman know where you are?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I swore. “The hotel and everything?”

  “No. Just that I went to Carmel with Sara. Why?”

  “I thought he might be on his way down to see you. Will you have Sara call me if he shows up?”

  “Sure.”

  “If he does show up will you stay with Sara anyway? I don’t want you going off and leaving her alone. She could be in danger too.”

  “We’ll stick together. Do you want to talk to Sara again?”

  I told her I did. Sara came back on the line. “You’re wrong about one thing, Marsh,” she said. “Michael didn’t kill Mr. Spring or Mrs. Peel. I know him.”

  “Knew him.”

  “Even so. He might have killed Jed Peel by accident, trying to protect Angie’s mother, but he couldn’t deliberately take a life. I know that as well as I know my own name.”

  “He didn’t exactly proclaim his innocence back when old man Peel was murdered. He just ran.”

  “There are all kinds of explanations for that. He was young. He was probably hurt very badly in the crash. Whatever happened would cause embarrassment to his family. You can understand why he might run the way he did.”

  “I can, but I have to work at it.” I knew everything she said was true, but I had a perverse desire to tarnish her image of Michael Whitson. As with most of my perverse desires, I felt worse than ever after it had been satisfied.

  Sara read my mind. “Please don’t let your personal feelings get in the way of your judgment, Marsh. That wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Don’t worry,” I muttered. “Is Claire still there?”

  “She went back in the bathroom. Why?”

  “I don’t want her to hear any of this. Did Al Rodman and Angie Peel know each other back in Oxtail?”

  “Let me think. I think so. Sure they did. They were all part of the same crowd. Hot rods and motorcycles and leather jackets and greasy hair. Angie was their queen. Why? Is that important?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll give you a ring in the morning after I talk to the Nelsons and watch them bury Harry.”

  “Take care.”

  “You, too.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Andy Potter was scowling as he let me in the Nelson’s front door, his puffy face kneaded into unfamiliarity by his irritation. “This better be important,” he grumbled. “If Wagler gets elected to the House I could have a shot at the federal bench. He’s probably upset that I left the party early.”

  “Politicians only care who’s there when they arrive, not who’s around when they leave.”

  “Yeah,” Andy replied. “Actually, he probably won’t even notice I’m gone. The last I saw he was draped around a secretary from my office like a drunk in a wax museum. Politics. Every campaign I’ve ever been in was run more like a stud farm than an exercise in democracy.”

  I told Andy he shouldn’t slander our public servants and he told me the only thing a politician knows how to serve is a highball. “I’ve been reading the papers about the Spring death,” he added in a whisper. “They still don’t have a suspect, do they?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure Roland isn’t going to get involved? Claire sounded so mysterious when I talked to her. And the police were just as bad.”

  I told Andy I wasn’t sure of anything, then followed him into the front parlor.

  Mrs. Nelson was sitting on the couch, staring absently at the piano as she swirled the ice in her drink. The room was lit by a single lamp at the far end of the room and shadows screened her face. Her body seemed tense, as though she were waiting for something. When she heard us come in she looked up and greeted Andy and ignored me completely. I walked over to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel and wondered when I was going to get a good night’s sleep.

  Nelson was in the room, too, standing motionless at the front window, looking out into the night, a dark apparition in the penumbra of the street lamp.

  “Roland?” Andy said quietly. Nelson stiffened, then turned and faced us. Whatever he was thinking was hidden behind his beard. He glanced briefly at Andy, then looked at me. “Where’s my daughter?” he demanded levelly.

  “She’s safe,” I said. “I’d like to explain the situation, if I can.”

  “There’s nothing to explain,” Nelson returned. “Claire is gone and I want her back. Immediately.”

  “Some things have happened,” I said. “They affect your family, particularly Claire. There could be some danger involved. I think you should know about it before you decide whether to have Claire come back here.”

  “Danger? Is this some kind of threat?” Nelson took a step toward me. I made sure I wouldn’t be pinned against the fireplace if he kept coming.

  “I have no reason to threaten you, Nelson,” I said.

  Nelson snorted. “Half the peopl
e I deal with threaten me with something or other. The other half beg me for something or other.” Something seemed to slacken inside him and he backed away from me and began to pace the room, as big as a bear and just as menacing.

  “I’m only here to give you some information,” I said calmly. “I hope you appreciate its significance.”

  “Get on with it, please,” Mrs. Nelson said impatiently.

  “Okay,” I said. “I should tell you before I begin that I’ve already told your daughter everything I’m about to tell you. She knew some of it already, of course, since it all started when she hired Harry Spring.”

  Nelson stopped abruptly and swung toward me. “Spring. Isn’t that the man who was killed? Is that him, Andy?”

  Andy told him it was.

  “It’s absurd to think Claire has any culpability in such a crime,” Nelson declared. His voice was clear and heavy, as if his saying something would make it so.

  “It isn’t a question of culpability,” I said, “it’s a question of vulnerability.”

  “All I know,” Nelson went on as though he hadn’t heard me, “is that Claire told me she was going away for a few days. She refused to tell me where, or why. Now I want to know, Tanner. Do you know where she is?”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “Where is she? I want to know that before we go any further.”

  “She’s in Carmel. At the Cypress Inn. Sara Brooke’s there with her.”

  “Sara?”

  I nodded. “They went there at my suggestion.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think someone may try to harm Claire. And Sara, too, conceivably.”

  Rage flashed once again behind Nelson’s eyes. “You bastard,” he exploded. “I think you’re threatening me. I think you’re hooked up with that Bollo character. Have you taken Claire? Is that it? Are you trying to extort some kind of concession out of me? To get me to stop the Institute from proceeding against him?”

  I looked over at Andy, but he was awed and helpless. Nelson was off the edge of rationality, and every time I opened my mouth it seemed to make him worse. I looked at Mrs. Nelson and she nodded her head briefly and stood up. “I don’t think Mr. Tanner is a mobster, Roland,” she said patiently. “He’s a detective. He used to be a lawyer. Andy knows him well.”

  Andy came out of his trance. “That’s right, Roland. There’s nothing to be upset about.”

  It wasn’t enough. “This—this peeper comes in and tells me he’s sent my daughter off somewhere because her life’s in danger and he doesn’t even bother to mention anything to me until after she’s gone. And I’m not supposed to be upset?”

  “If I’d told you before she left you might not have let her go,” I said.

  “Well, you’re right about that.”

  “There wasn’t time to debate the situation. I felt it was important to get her out of town as soon as possible.”

  “Goddamnit, my wife told me she’d fired you, Tanner. But it seems you’re still wading around in our lives. You’d better have an explanation.”

  “I’ve got one. Maybe by sunup I’ll have a chance to give it.”

  “Roland,” Mrs. Nelson interrupted quietly, “we don’t know what this situation is that Mr. Tanner is so concerned about. Let’s let him tell us before we go into details about Claire.”

  “Details? My daughter leaves town without telling me and you call that details? My God. You ought to be arrested,” Nelson said to me.

  “Yes,” Andy Potter added. “Let’s hear what Tanner has to say. Then we can decide what’s to be done.”

  Nelson shook his head. “Okay, okay. Get on with it. What’s this ‘situation’ you’re so disturbed about? You said it has something to do with that detective. What’s his name?”

  “His name was Harry Spring. They’re burying him tomorrow.”

  “Yes. Well, what does that have to do with Claire?”

  “Do you know why she hired Harry?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything about it. If she had, you wouldn’t be here.”

  I gritted my teeth and let that one go by. “Claire hired Harry Spring to uncover certain information.”

  “What information? This sounds more and more like some kind of joke,” Nelson said. A mirthless smile split his lips.

  “I’ll let you know when I start playing games, Nelson,” I said hotly. “In the meantime, you can listen to what I’m telling you or I can go catch a gimlet before the bars close. It’s your pleasure.”

  The abandon in my voice brought Nelson up short. In the face of my own anger his emotions seemed to stop rioting. He took a deep breath and settled into a chair across from his wife, deflated and suddenly placid. It was like watching a baking pot of beans after you take it off the fire. “Go ahead,” he said. Resignation dripped from the words, and for an instant I was sorry I had put him through all this. Then I remembered what it was I was afraid might happen to Claire, and I didn’t feel sorry for Nelson any longer.

  “As I mentioned,” I began, “Claire hired a friend of mine, a detective named Harry Spring, to get some information for her. Claire wanted Harry to find out the names of her natural parents. And to locate them if he could. That’s what he was doing when he was killed.”

  “No.”

  It was more a prayer than a disclaimer, and more a plea than a prayer. Nelson wanted to reverse time, to run it back over itself and then erase it and alter the impulses to his liking. He wasn’t going to make it.

  Nelson stood up and seemed to topple for an instant. Andy Potter rushed to his side, but Nelson shoved him away and stood staring into the darkness of predawn.

  “I can’t believe it,” Mrs. Nelson blurted. “We’ve been wonderful to Claire. Why, if it hadn’t been for us she’d still be rotting away in that dreary little orphanage.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with her feelings for either of you,” I said. “I’m sure Claire loves you both. She certainly has no desire to live with her natural parents, or even to contact them. She just feels a need to know her background. Her roots, as they say these days. Most of us would do the same thing in her shoes.”

  There was silence for a moment. “She didn’t even ask us,” Nelson murmured toward the darkness.

  “I think she was afraid of your reaction,” I said. “The kinds of things Mrs. Nelson said a moment ago. She wanted to do it secretly, to examine her past and then let it go. But events have made secrecy inadvisable, if not impossible.”

  “Of course we don’t know who her natural parents were,” Mrs. Nelson said. “The adoption agency didn’t tell us.”

  “They said that Claire would never know, could never find out,” Nelson added, turning back toward the room. “Evidently they were wrong.”

  “They were,” I said, “but I think Harry stumbled onto the information by accident. The same way I did. The official records are still sealed, as far as I know.”

  “So who are they? Claire’s natural parents? Since Claire knows I think we should too,” Nelson said gruffly.

  “It’s a long story. It begins twenty years ago and it hasn’t ended yet. Claire’s parents may both be dead, but it’s also possible one or more of them has murdered three people.”

  “Tell me,” Nelson said simply. The fire was out of his eyes, leaving only charred black pits.

  I told them the whole thing, or almost the whole thing. I didn’t tell them Sara Brooke was from Oxtail and had been in love with Michael before Angie Peel stole him away, and I didn’t tell them about Angie and Al Rodman.

  When I’d finished no one said anything. Somewhere a clock ticked its way around the dial. The wind rattled the panes in the windows. I felt hollow and very fragile; I hoped nobody knocked me over and broke me.

  Nelson was the first to speak. “This is all very tragic,” he said firmly. He was back in control. “You say you told Claire the whole story before coming here?”

  I said I had, with help from Sara Brooke.

  “She must hav
e been upset,” he said.

  “She handled it quite well as a matter of fact,” I replied. “She’s more capable than you give her credit for.”

  “Her genes, I suppose?” Nelson said it as a joke.

  “She could have done worse. Michael Whitson sounds like quite a boy, at least to hear his father tell it. Anyway, I don’t think Claire’s worried about her genetic heritage and I don’t think you should be, either.”

  “So where do we stand now, Marsh?” Andy Potter asked.

  “The most important thing is the possible danger to Claire,” I answered. “We can’t ignore the possibility that someone is trying to eliminate everyone having knowledge of the Peel killing. That could include Claire, because of what she might have learned from Harry, and now it can include everyone in this room. Precautions should be taken.”

  “I don’t know if all that’s so obvious,” Nelson objected. “Spring and the Peel woman could have been killed by entirely different people. You haven’t proved there’s a connection between their deaths and the Peel murder of twenty years ago.”

  “That’s just wishful thinking,” I said. “If you keep it up something tragic might happen. Mrs. Peel’s house was searched, and not by a burglar. The killer was looking for something, and the only thing she might have had that would be even remotely valuable was some link to her husband’s murder.”

  “What would that have been?”

  “I don’t know. It looked like all personal effects were removed. Or almost all.”

  “What do you mean, almost all?” Mrs. Nelson asked.

  “He missed a couple of things. A photograph and a postcard. I don’t know if they’re significant.”

  “Let me see them,” Nelson demanded.

  I shook my head. “There’s no point in it now. I have to be at Sheriff Marks’s office in Oxtail tomorrow morning, and I’m short on sleep. I’m going to tell him the same thing I just told you.”

  “Is that wise?” Nelson asked. “I would prefer that the police not be told.”

  “It’s not your decision to make,” I said.

  “Do you expect to be paid for this, Marsh?” Andy Potter asked. “By Roland, I mean?”