Dead Seed

by William Campbell Gault

  “A phone call to one of Miss Medford’s attorneys, probably. The district attorney could put some heat on them, couldn’t he?”

  “Maybe. If he’s lucky. But what would it prove? Miss Medford has a right to give money to anybody she damn pleases.”

  There was the sound of raindrops on the window. “Now, it starts,” Bernie said bitterly, “after the fire. If it had started yesterday—” He didn’t finish.

  If it had, the twelve-year-old boy would not be missing—or dead. God isn’t always kind about His (or Her?) timing.

  “We haven’t anyplace to go, have we?” I asked.

  “And no way to get there,” he added. “You may as well go home.”

  The rain never got heavy, only a steady drizzle. It started to clear up early in the afternoon. The boy had been found by that time, burned to death. If it had been arson, the arsonist was now a murderer.

  I had picked up a couple of photography magazines downtown on the way home, hoping to find a dated itinerary of the various artists’ showings or appearances this month. There had been none.

  No place to go and no way to get there. The lovers had their moneyed shield; the wanderer held their secret. We couldn’t put out a bulletin on him; there wasn’t any reason to suspect he had been involved in the blackmail or the fire.

  There could be another wanderer far from here by now, the vagrant killer of Sydney Morgenstern. Speculations mean nothing, peeper, and less than nothing in court. Get the facts.

  Corey came for his evening beer around five o’clock. I told him about our suspicion that the fire had been started to get the kids outside the fence.

  “It’s possible,” he agreed. “There have been other deprogrammers who have tried to break in. Sarkissian doesn’t talk about them, Penelope told me. He wants the law to think that Kelly is his only threat. You know—a red herring?”

  “I know. Who is your crooked friend down at the station, Corey?”

  “Crooked—? That’s a hell of a thing to say about my uncle!”

  “I apologize. I didn’t know he was your uncle. He can’t be the same cop Vogel suspects.”

  “Who is that?”

  “I don’t know. Vogel won’t tell me. All he told me was that the man was a friend of Kelly’s.”

  “You can be damned sure my uncle is no friend of Kelly’s. Crooked! What a rotten thing to say.”

  “Calm down. I’ve already apologized once. What did you learn from Joel today?”

  He made a face. “I don’t dig him. You know what his father gave him for his seventeenth birthday? A Hasselblad 2000 FC!”

  I had seen that name in one of the photography magazines. I said, “That’s an expensive camera, isn’t it?”

  “And how! Three thousand dollars retail. And Joel sold it so they could get the money to come here. He doesn’t give one damn about photography.”

  Anyone who isn’t seriously interested in photography, the editor at Arizona Highways had said, is of absolutely no interest to Carl. But a son?

  “How old is Joel now?” I asked.

  “Still seventeen. His father gave him the camera a couple of months ago. How can he resent a father who gave him a birthday present like that?”

  “Money isn’t everything, Corey. Except maybe to you.”

  “Me? How about you? I found out that the minimum wage is three dollars and thirty-five cents an hour, not three-twenty.”

  “The minimum was your figure, not mine. Is that what Sarkissian pays you?”

  “He does. And he only charges me one dollar for my lunch. Besides that, the cook gives me a lot of goodies to take home. I do all right.”

  “I am sure you always will,” I assured him.

  ELEVEN

  A THREE-THOUSAND-DOLLAR camera from a once-a-year father to a son who has no interest in photography? Lacrosse must have known before Joel was seventeen that he was not going to pursue photography as his career. And if he hoped to foster an interest in his field, he certainly would not have started him with equipment that expensive.

  Either Joel was lying or—or what? Or he had stolen it? Or it had been stolen by Mrs. Lacrosse and she had sold it? That made some sense. A man married to Mrs. Lacrosse who came home only once a year would not be likely to leave a three-thousand-dollar camera within her reach.

  Jan came home smiling. “I’ll get my twelve dollars back now,” she declared with an air of triumph.

  “What twelve dollars?”

  “The twelve dollars I lost to Joyce yesterday.”

  “Who is Joyce? Ms. Impeccable?”

  “One and the same. We played a three-dollar Nassau yesterday, and I pressed her on the seventeenth hole. That’s how she won the extra three dollars.”

  “And now, I suppose, you’ve set up a game of snooker with her at the Ace Pool Parlor?”

  “Aren’t you the funny one! We are going to redo her house, top to bottom.”

  “I see. And you will add the twelve dollars to your regular two-hundred-percent markup.”

  “Shut up,” she said, “and go make me a celebration drink.”

  I added an extra celebration ounce of vodka to her glass of tonic and did the same to mine. I had to be part of her celebration; I was her most fervent fan.

  She had her shoes off when I came back with our drinks. “And what did you accomplish today?” she asked.

  I told her about Vogel’s argument with the uniformed man and about Carl Lacrosse’s birthday gift to his son.

  “A Hasselblad,” she said, “for a seventeen-year-old boy? Maybe a Leica or a Konica if the boy is ready for it. But not a Hasselblad. Do you know what they cost?”

  I yawned, and said in most superior and knowledgeable voice, “Not too much. You can pick up that new Hasselblad 2000 FC with an eighty-millimeter lens and one magazine for about three grand.”

  She stared at me suspiciously. “Corey told you that.”

  I shook my head. “Not all of it.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Mr. Polaroid One-Shot.”

  “I am not lying. I was leafing through my latest copy of Popular Photography this afternoon, and I came across their lab report on the model.”

  She laughed. “Your latest copy and your first copy and undoubtedly your last copy. Joel lied, Brock. He must have stolen it.”

  “Joel or his mother,” I agreed. “I lean toward the mother theory.”

  She nodded. “So do I. And that’s all that happened today?”

  “That’s it.”

  She sipped her drink. “You’re nowhere, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve been there before. Vogel seems more interested in collaring Kelly than in learning who killed Morgenstern.”

  “Help him with that then,” she said. “He’s your friend. And remember, Mr. Morgenstern could have been killed by a mugger. His wallet was stolen.”

  The six o’clock news confirmed that theory. A vagrant had been picked up in Pismo Beach and was being questioned by the police up there as a possible suspect in the Morgenstern murder.

  The parents that Kelly had used as his alibi lived in Pismo Beach. Was that only a coincidence?

  Apparently it was. The eleven o’clock news reported that the suspect had been released after questioning.

  On the same newscast there was a picture of the boy who had died in the fire, one Juan Garcia, a smiling, beautiful boy with curly black hair and warm brown eyes.

  It had been a Boys’ Club outing, and Juan had been the last in line as they fled the fire. He was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. José Garcia of Torrance. They would not have another; Mrs. Garcia had recently returned from the hospital where she had undergone a hysterectomy.

  The Morgenstern case seemed to have dead-ended, at least for now. As Jan had suggested, I could still help Bernie on his Kelly mission. If Penelope had something more substantial than rumors or hearsay, that could be the route. And it still could connect with the murder.

  I phoned The New Awareness next morning and Penelope answered. I asked her i
f the boss was within hearing range.

  “No,” she said. “He’s down at the gate, talking to the guard. You may speak freely.”

  I told her what Corey had told me and asked her if she had any solid evidence that her boss and Kelly worked together.

  “Nothing you could take into court,” she said. “Only gossip I’ve picked up around here. Our stalwart guard, the man Mr. Sarkissian is talking with now, is your best approach.”

  “Is he the same man who was there when I came up?”

  “That’s the man, Gus Ketchum. He’s a horseplayer and a bottle-baby. He does his off-duty drinking at the Alamo Cafe, down on lower Main Street. He told me there were a couple of bookies in town who are threatening him with physical violence if he doesn’t pay up. He tried to borrow the money from me.”

  He sounded like a man who could be bought. I said, “Thank you, lovely one. Are you and Corey serious?”

  “Almost. But he is a little quirky. I mean, I have this feeling that I’d be working all our lives to support us.”

  “Never! He’s a very shrewd man around a dollar. He’s drawing two salaries right now on the same job and he’s only twenty-one.”

  “That’s true. And he does have a kind of offbeat charm, doesn’t he?”

  “Well—? Let’s stick with quirky and shrewd.”

  She laughed. “Don’t be rough with Gus. He has this idea he is one tough guy. But underneath, he’s a dreamer. All horseplayers are.”

  She and Corey should make an ideal match, the quick and the quirky.

  Going to the Alamo Cafe tonight on the off chance that I would run into Gus Ketchum was probably a dumb idea. But I had been housebound too long. I went to the bank and picked up a couple hundred. Then I went to the station to ask Bernie what he thought of it.

  His desk was loaded with paper, as usual. I told him what I had learned from Penelope and what I planned to do tonight.

  “Muscle again?” he asked doubtfully.

  “Of course not! I could buy him a drink and feel him out, maybe find out what he knows about Kelly. Call it an exploratory trip.”

  “Kelly,” he said, “did not kill Morgenstern.”

  “I know. But we’ve gone as far as we can with that investigation for now. Unless you have something new on it?”

  He shook his head. He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I’m getting the picture. You’re doing this for me.”

  “Partly. But remember—Morgenstern did phone Kelly’s house.”

  He still looked doubtful.

  “You could clean up your paperwork,” I explained, “while I’m out working for you.”

  “I can’t give you the nod on this,” he said finally. “I can’t be connected with it. But there’s no law to prevent you from going to that joint. Now, damn it, play it cool!”

  I promised him I would. Cops can play it cool; they had the law behind them and their uniformed brothers. The private eye was all alone in the swampy jungle where his vocation too often led him.

  My explanation to Jan was that I had to go to a board meeting at the club. What I was doing was not only dumb, it was dangerous. She would understand the dumb part; the dangerous part would disturb her.

  I am not sure she heard me; she was working on a list of all the expensive furnishings her latest client so sorely needed. Another victim. Nobody takes twelve dollars away from Jan Bonnet Callahan without risking retribution.

  The Alamo Cafe was an ancient, weather-stained stucco building in one of the meaner parts of town. The interior was dim and smoky, decorated mostly with colorful posters advertising various brands of wine and beer. About half of the men at the bar were Chicanos, the rest of mixed ancestry. The few women in the place were sitting in booths with their escorts.

  I was in luck. Gus Ketchum was all alone in a corner booth, nursing a beer and studying The Racing Form. I bought a bottle of beer and took it with me to the booth.

  He looked up and scowled at me. “The galloping ghost! You lying bastard! The boss warned me about you this morning.”

  “I had to lie,” I said quietly. “I wanted Sarkissian to think Joel Lacrosse was a relative of mine.”

  “And why did you want to see him?”

  “I’d rather not say. Can I buy you a drink?”

  He looked at his beer and back at me. “You could bring me a double bourbon to go with this chaser.”

  “Any particular brand? Wild Turkey?”

  “If they got it and you can afford it.”

  They didn’t have it. I bought a double slug of the best they had and brought it back to the booth. I put it in front of him and slid into the booth on the opposite side.

  He sipped some whiskey and washed it down with a swallow of beer. He asked, “What’s on your mind? Your name is Callahan, right?”

  I nodded. “And yours?”

  “Gus Ketchum,” he said. “You can call me Mr. Ketchum.”

  I smiled. “Another bad day with the ponies?”

  “No worse than usual. I asked you—what’s on your mind?”

  “Dwight Kelly. I don’t like the way he operates. He’s no deprogrammer. He’s a kidnapper. All he does is bust kids loose. Who deprograms them?”

  Ketchum shrugged. “The way I hear it, some woman works with him. You know a—a—”

  “Psychiatrist?” I supplied.

  “No. It sounds like that, though.”

  “Psychologist?”

  “That’s the word. What have I got to do with Kelly?”

  “You must know how he operates. He and Sarkissian are in cahoots, aren’t they?”

  He didn’t have time to answer. Two men were standing next to the booth, looking down at us. They weren’t big and they weren’t scary, two medium-sized men in vested business suits. They looked like broker types, horse brokers.

  “We want to talk with you, Gus,” one of them said.

  “He’s talking with me,” I said. “Take a number and stand in line.”

  The other man said, “We want to talk with him outside. You can wait for him in here.”

  I shook my head. “If he goes out, I go out. That could mean that both of you might go home crippled. Does he owe you money?”

  “One hundred and ten smackers. And we owe him some lumps.”

  I reached into my jacket pocket. I took out five twenties and a ten and handed them to the nearest broker. “Now buzz off,” I said, “while you’re still vertical.”

  The man took the money and smiled. “You’re real tough, aren’t you?”

  “Let’s find out,” I said, and started to slide out of the booth.

  They studied me—and walked quietly away.

  Gus expelled his breath. “Wow! You’re nuts, man.”

  “Why? Because punks don’t scare me? I crippled men twice their size when I was with the Rams.”

  “You’re that Callahan? The Rock?”

  I nodded.

  “Sarkissian told me you were a private eye.”

  “I was for a while, after I left the Rams. That was down in L.A. I’m retired now.” I pointed at his glass. “Want another jolt?”

  “Why not?”

  I bought us both a double and him another glass of beer. I said, “Sarkissian can’t run that scam forever. Then you’ll be out of work. I have several friends who run research and electronic firms in this town. They’re always in need of security guards. If—”

  He held up a hand. “Take it slower. You’re beginning to sound like Sarkissian. What’s your angle on all this?”

  I took a chance on the truth. I said, “There is a police officer who is a very good friend of mine. I figure I owe him.”

  “You owe him what—Sarkissian?”

  I shook my head. “Kelly.”

  “This cop friend of yours got a name?”

  “Lieutenant Bernard Vogel. Kelly was a crooked cop. Vogel hates crooked cops even more than he hates crooks.”

  “And this Vogel knows that Sarkissian and Kelly work together?”

 
; “Hell, every cop at the station knows that. But they’ve never been able to prove it.”

  He took another sip of whiskey, another swallow of beer. “To tell you the truth, Sarkissian ain’t my all-time favorite boss. He gave me hell again this morning. But—” He frowned and took a deep breath. “Give me some time to think about it, huh? Are you in the phone book?”

  “I am. You go along with me and you won’t regret it, Mr. Ketchum.”

  “You can call me Gus,” he said.

  TWELVE

  IT WAS STILL SHORT of ten o’clock when I came home. I phoned Bernie and related my conversation with Ketchum.

  “Nice work,” he said. “Thanks. If he comes through, I hope you have some friends who are willing to hire an alcoholic gambler.”

  “I don’t think he’s an alcoholic—yet. And my guess is that he’s a five-dollar horseplayer. You could check to see if he has a drunk tank record.”

  “I did, after you left,” he told me. “He’s clean there, not even a 502. Did you get the name of Kelly’s deprogrammer?”

  “No. It shouldn’t be impossible to get.”

  “I’ll try tomorrow. And thanks again.”

  I had done Bernie a favor and he had thanked me for it, a new high in our relationship.

  Jan was in the dining room, putting away her furniture price lists. “And what,” she asked, “did the all-male board of directors of our chauvinistic little club decide tonight?”

  “We decided it was time to put some women on the board.”

  “Finally! How noble of you!”

  “And also to eliminate the women’s tees.”

  “Like hell they will!”

  “We have to, Jan, if we’re going to be consistent. From now on, we’re all equals in the club, male and female alike.”

  She looked at me suspiciously. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “I was simply giving you a consistency test.”

  She sniffed. “What have you been drinking? It smells like canned heat.”

  “It’s a new whiskey we’re thinking of buying. We sampled it tonight. It could double our bar profit.”

  “Dear God!” she said. “You had better get some women on that board as soon as it can be arranged.”