Dead Skip

by Joe Gores

“Did you read my last transmission, SF-6? Over.”

  “Loud and clear, NFS. Go ahead with the message from KDM 366.”

  Ballard was amazed his voice was so even. Dread was clutching at him. Giselle wouldn’t be on the DKA radio at midnight unless something had happened. Bart . . . dead? Or maybe worse, Bart waking up with mashed potatoes where his brains had been? Since Oakland Control would be shut down and SF Control hadn’t been able to reach them here, far beyond the East Bay hills, Giselle had used Dunlop Jensen as a relay.

  “Here is the message,” came Jensen’s voice. “ ‘Bart is sitting in with a full deck.’ KDM 366 said you would know what this meant.”

  What it meant? Jesus, Jesus, it meant Bart was awake and all right! It meant . . .

  “10-4! Message received and understood. Do you drink bourbon, over?”

  “Anything I can get, SF-6.” There was immediate warmth in the voice at Ballard’s personal question. “I’ve got the original hollow leg. Two of ’em, in fact. Literally.”

  “Giselle and a bottle and I will be up on Sunday.”

  “I’ll be here,” said Jensen happily, and signed off.

  Ballard’s foot went down, sending the Ford toward the Bay Bridge at a speed that would have gotten him a ticket if the CHP unit patrolling that stretch of freeway hadn’t been stopped for coffee in the all-night café at Orinda Village.

  The T-Bird had no citizens’ band, so Kearny did not hear the exchanges between Ballard and Dunlop Jensen. He was loafing along at a sedentary sixty, listening to KEEN Radio’s country and western out of San Jose, tapping time against the steering wheel with his fingers. If some of Ballard’s frustration at the dead end in the Charles M. Griffin investigation also burned in his gut, he gave no outward sign of it. He had been around a long time, knew himself well enough to control impatience.

  Not that knowing yourself helped a hell of a lot in the detective business. Knowing other people was the secret, knowing enough to ease off on Parker, to ease off on Hawkley, to keep pushing on Griffin. He’d never ease off on that son of a bitch because, unlike Ballard, he had no momentary fears that they might have gotten the wrong case.

  They had the right case. They just hadn’t gotten it turned right side up yet. Heslip had been attacked: the attack had been perpetrated, as the police would say, either by Griffin or because of Griffin.

  So go back to Griffin, then. Start with the given information.

  A big, usually easygoing guy with a mother fixation, early forties, balding, mutton-chop sideburns, drinking too much, six feet tall and 210 pounds, physically well able to clout Heslip over the head, carry him to the Jaguar, run him off Twin Peaks.

  Physically able. But was he the head-roller type? A man like Parker, okay. But Griffin? Hard to accept. Could a guy called sweet by a big lusty broad he had walked out on, a guy hung up on Mom and apple pie and the missionary position, become so devious, so larcenous, so money-hungry as to embezzle, over a period of years, thirty thousand bucks?

  Something flickered through a corner of his mind, too fast to catch, even though his foot came off the accelerator momentarily and he eased into the right lane. He shook his head and picked up speed again. Missed it.

  Back to the contradictory Griffin. And his mother. She died, freeing him at last for the swinging bachelor life. Booze, the big lush topless dancer, a big sedately sporty car. Joy at being free? Or desperation at being alone? Clinging to Cheri as a cockeyed mother substitute? Something there? What about him telling Cheri he was going to “do something” about the kink with the flashlight?

  Kearny shook his head again. Chivalry didn’t fit with Griffin’s animal cunning in confusing his back trail. It didn’t fit with his murderous ability to make murderous decisions and carry them out under the goad of panic.

  It was as if he were two different guys. As if . . .

  Kearny swerved the T-Bird abruptly into the right lane, slowing as he checked the rear-view mirror, letting it roll dead on the shoulder. Griffin, acting like a split personality—what did the head-shrinkers call it, a schizoid personality? One shocked by his kinky friend’s attempted assault on Cheri, the other turning around and selling the furniture she was using. There was the answer, of course. And there was an easy way to find out if he was right or not. Ask Odum the questions he should have asked the first time, as soon as he had realized that Odum was guilty of nothing more than his own native stupidity.

  Kearny pulled back into the deserted freeway, went on swiftly to the first overpass which would let him wishbone back toward Antioch. Toward Howard Odum and his ugly girl friend. Toward the answers to two questions.

  Not that they would clear up all the problems. But they would confirm who—if he was right; and if he was, they would confirm why Bart had gotten it. Because Bart had been close, very close, without even realizing there was anything to be close to. Had stopped, of course, just to be a nice guy. I got something funny on one of the files, probably just a coincidence . . .

  Which it hadn’t been. It had been deadly.

  Yes, Kearny was getting old, soft between the ears. To miss such obvious answers concerning that whole San Jose episode. Misdirection. Making the dead appear alive days, even weeks, after the actual death. Which had been, Kearny figured, on February 9.

  It was after midnight when he went up the walk to 1902 Gavallo Road in Antioch. He was turning over in his mind the four possible methods for getting through the locked front door of the building in a hurry, but none of them was necessary. Just as he got there a grumpy-faced man in a bathrobe and slippers was dragged out by a long-haired Chihuahua the size and general configuration of a squirrel.

  The dog yapped in ferocious challenge as Kearny caught the door before its pneumatic closer did. The detective beamed and said “Good evening” at the same time the sour-faced man said, “Every goddamn night at midnight. Every goddamn night.”

  Kearny nodded and kept smiling and kept going, up the inner stairs to the top floor, turning left to number seven. He took a wrench out of his pocket—brought along for method three of getting into the building, breaking out a pane of glass—and began tapping with it on the hollow-core birch door. He kept on tapping, neither louder nor softer, faster nor slower, until a strangled angry voice called from within.

  A few moments later the door was wrenched open and Odum, minus his glasses and unexpectedly hairy in hastily donned shorts, peered out. “I oughta bust in your nose, buddy, this time of night! I—”

  “Two questions I should have asked before.” Kearny’s heavy uncompromising voice was full of an inevitability few could withstand. Odum, he knew, could not. Odum was a born loser; he’d be back inside before the year was out. He would always go for the wrong decision as a moth would always go for the candle.

  The myopic eyes had finally recognized Kearny. “Oh!” he exclaimed, “I didn’t . . . I thought . . . Ah . . . what are the questions?”

  “One. What did Griffin look like? Two. Did you give his description to a black investigator named Heslip on Tuesday afternoon?”

  And Odum answered them.

  Ten minutes later Kearny was in the Thunderbird and picking up an on-ramp for California 4 west. No time now to bury Griffin’s car in Concord while he picked up his station wagon. If someone tried to get him on the radio they couldn’t, of course—but who would be on the air this time of night anyway?

  No, he’d just drive the T-Bird into the city, stop somewhere to check a phone book, get the address. If it was an unlisted number, stop at the DKA office to check the city directory. Because Odum’s answers had confirmed it.

  The killer hadn’t just been stupid; he just hadn’t realized how complex people’s lives were. Hadn’t known that being docketed for a court appearance, and being out on $600 bail, coupled with the disappearance, would send a lawyer and an insurance agent and finally a firm of private detectives snooping into Griffin’s life. And talk about stupid: why hadn’t Kearny realized long before that Griffin had used the Castro Vall
ey address in good faith on his credit application for the T-Bird, even though he had moved out the month before? It probably still was his legal residence, because he would have owned it once the will cleared probate. He probably still had been registered to vote out of that address. A shame. A damned shame.

  At least Bart hadn’t died. Yet. Kearny would call the hospital later, maybe even drop in there after he had wrapped up the case. No need to ask Bart what he had done after leaving Odum on Tuesday afternoon. Kearny already knew. He hoped the body wouldn’t be too hard to find. He had a pretty good idea of where it would be. The simplistic reason for selling the furniture told him that. And, of course, the fact that the killer seemed always to act under the grip of emotion. Strike first, consider the consequences later, as he had done with Bart.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE FOG was in, ponderous and wet, when Ballard parked on Bush, went in the ambulance entrance of Trinity Hospital. Fifty paces through the misty fog had furred his clothes and hair with moisture. He wiped his face with his handkerchief as he pushed the button; the elevator was slow enough so he had gotten two Mr. Goodbars from the candy machine, had bolted one and was crunching on the other before it arrived.

  The third-floor hall was warm, quiet, dim except for the hard white light from the duty desk at the far end. A bulky white shape came from behind the desk; he recognized the gimlet-eyed nurse who’d been shocked at Whitaker’s language on Wednesday morning. Wednesday? Seemed weeks rather than days ago. Involuntarily, he gave a huge yawn.

  “Mr. Ballard?” she asked in a hushed angry whisper.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well . . . Doctor said you could go in,” she said grudgingly. “Visiting time was over hours ago . . .”

  For a moment Ballard thought the radio message had been a cruel hoax. Heslip still lay as silent as before. His eyes were still shut, his head was still swathed in bandages. Then Ballard saw the look on Corinne’s face as she started to her feet, and he knew it was all right.

  “He just fell asleep waiting for you to get here,” said Whitaker.

  The jaunty little doctor was sitting on the arm of Giselle Marc’s chair, one arm across the back of it and thus draped loosely around her shoulders, the fingers of the other hand resting with artful casualness on one of her bare forearms. The tall blonde looked bemused, like a greyhound under amorous assault by a Pekingese.

  “You got my radio message?” She seemed delighted with the diversion Ballard provided.

  “From Dunlop Jensen? Yeah. I promised him a bottle of booze.”

  She stood up with a lithe, quick movement, smoothed down her short plaid wool skirt. “Want me to go with you when you deliver it?”

  “I’ve already volunteered you.”

  He turned toward Corinne, almost warily. She reached up to put her fingertips against the side of his neck.

  “You know I’m sorry, don’t you, Larry? Giselle told me—”

  Ballard put his arms around her. She clung fiercely to him. Whitaker cleared his throat as a somewhat wan voice came from the bed.

  “Hands off the woman, honky.”

  Without releasing Corinne, Ballard turned to look down at Heslip. He let his eyes move over the still form under the blankets, from bandaged crown to toe and back again. Then he slowly shook his head in disbelief. “It looks like it was strained through a handkerchief.”

  “I hear you’ve been working my assignments, screwing them up.”

  “Trying to get them unscrewed from the mess you left them in.”

  Ballard let go of Corinne and went around the bed to the head of it. He made a fist and touched Heslip’s cheekbone with it, then reached behind him to pull up a spare chair and sit down.

  “Dan wanted to bring you a watermelon as soon as you woke up,” he said, “but I took him over to East Bay and lost him. Last I saw he was driving a red and white T-Bird—”

  “You mean the Griffin car?” exclaimed Heslip.

  “Griffin!” yelped Giselle. “You got Griffin?”

  “We got his car,” said Ballard. He turned back to Heslip. “How much do you remember about Tuesday night?” He looked over to Whitaker. “Or aren’t I supposed to ask?”

  “Ask,” said Whitaker. He waved the chromed watch. Ballard wondered if the wife had gotten him into the bathtub yet. “There’s mental shock connected with this sort of injury and coma, a disorientation that can be quite devastating to the patient. The more that he can place himself in time and event without becoming agitated, the better for his own peace of mind.”

  “Oh no!” wailed Corinne softly. “Not you too, Doctor! Not tonight!”

  Whitaker gave an apologetic shrug.

  Heslip was frowning. “I’ve been trying to . . . get it together since they told me what happened. Truth is, I coulda actually been driving that damn Jaguar for all I can remember . . .”

  “Remember talking to me on the radio?”

  “I remember the Willets repo, I remember . . . yeah, I remember telling you about it. I was gonna meet you at the office, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Giselle, can’t you stop them?” asked Corinne, as if she hated the idea of Heslip even talking about it.

  Giselle looked over at Whitaker. He gave no reaction, so she shrugged wryly. “I’m as bad as they are, Corinne. I want to hear.”

  “Do you remember working the Griffin case on Tuesday?” asked Ballard.

  That Heslip remembered. He had seen Leo at JRS Garage in the morning, had gotten the California Street address in Concord; that had seemed not enough to warrant a run over there. He usually would have just turned it over to the Oakland office, but on a dead skip like Griffin any field agent would love to turn him alone, thus giving a not too subtle finger to the field agents working out of the office of origin.

  “Did you talk to a girl named Cheri?” asked Ballard.

  He hadn’t. He’d dug out the landlady, found out about the accident to the T-Bird, had gone to the Concord cops and asked them what garage it had been towed to after the Christmas Eve smash. Ballard just shook his head on that one. Jesus! Some investigator he was! Heslip had made all the moves that Ballard should have made.

  “Doctor, can’t you stop them?” demanded Corinne.

  Whitaker looked at his watch and nodded thoughtfully. “It is late, and he does need rest.”

  “Cat at the garage had a mailing address on Griffin,” said Heslip.

  The address Ballard had been able to get only roundabout, through Harvey E. Wyman, insurance agent. At the Beaghler house, Heslip had seen the kids playing in the yard and had talked with them. They knew all about the T-Bird, knew “Howie” drove it and had been in prison. When Sharon had come back from the laundromat, Heslip had said he was an ex-con just out of stir, and she had given him the address of the rooming house in Concord. Just like that. Any friend of Howie’s . . .

  “And you talked with Odum,” said Ballard in total self-disgust. He didn’t even make it a question.

  “I think that’s enough now,” said Whitaker.

  Both men jumped; they had been in that shared professional world from which Corinne was excluded because she was without the manhunting instincts they had, that Giselle had, that Kearny epitomized.

  “I talked with him,” said Heslip quickly. “Didn’t get anything out of him; he said he dropped the car off at the garage in April for a guy he met in a bar. Griffin, of course. Only the description he gave me was a phony . . .” He stopped there, an odd remembering look on his face.

  Ballard stood up guiltily; he didn’t want to cause a relapse or some damned thing.

  Heslip was frowning again. “I keep thinking that on the way back . . . I stopped . . . somewhere . . .”

  “Out,” said Whitaker in a suddenly no-nonsense doctor-ish voice. Corinne had gotten a smile of triumph on her face, when he turned to her also. “Even you, my sweet, my love. The crisis is past. Shoo.”

  “But . . . he needs me, he . . .”

  “
Out out out—before the nurse reports me to the AMA.”

  “. . . remember talking with the cop on that Willets repo,” said Heslip dreamily. “I . . . yeah! Left my damned case sheets out above the visor of the Plymouth . . .”

  “And you went out to get them?” supplied Ballard. “And . . . what?”

  “And nothing,” said Heslip ruefully. His eyelids were drooping again. “I went out to get them . . . I turned around . . . And baby, it was Friday night . . .”

  Ballard let himself be herded easily; it was Giselle who held back. She started explaining that they had to probe Bart’s memory for anything else he could remember of that Tuesday night, but Whitaker just shook his head. “He never will, my dear. Not ever. I’m amazed he can recall as close to the moment of impact as he can. Most unusual. A remarkably well-balanced mind to penetrate its own defenses as far as it has.”

  He paused; and then a look of beatific evil suffused his features. He thrust out a pointing arm in the classic, old-time gesture. He ended with a quivering forefinger pointing down the hall toward the blinding snowstorm obligatory to all such scenes. “Do not darken my doorway again,” he said to Giselle in a thunderously Victorian voice. “I am not the father of your child!”

  “Doctor!” gasped Gimlet-Eyes, just passing on her rounds.

  But Whitaker had firmly shut the door in all of their faces.

  “He doesn’t understand!” exclaimed Corinne disconsolately. “Bart needs me, he’s going to have a bad night, he—”

  “He needs sleep,” said Gimlet-Eyes triumphantly. “And from now on, you will have to observe normal visiting hours like everyone else.”

  The nurse stopped; she had lost Ballard. He was over at the duty desk, delving behind the counter with a long arm.

  “Oh!” She charged him, her several corpulences jouncing to make Corinne break into sudden giggles. “What are you doing? You get away from that counter . . .”

  “Phone book,” said Ballard curtly. When she didn’t respond, he snapped his fingers under her nose impatiently. “Come on, come on. Phone book.”

  She got him a phone book, almost meekly. No telling what sort of disturbance he would cause if she didn’t. And no use appealing to Dr. Whitaker, either; he was as eccentric as the rest of them.