One Monday We Killed Them All

by John D. MacDonald

  “The wagon was empty?” Boscatt snapped.

  “Well, not exactly,” McKeen said, looking uneasily at Golden.

  “Load of lumber,” Golden said. “Two by fours. Right up to the roof and out onto the tailgate. Solid two by fours.”

  Boscatt’s heavy face turned tomato-red. “Solid two by fours, Goldy?” he asked in a dangerously quiet voice.

  Golden licked his lips and swallowed. McKeen said, “Well, I suppose you could fake that kind of a load so it would look like—”

  “Give that broad back to me, piece by piece, boys,” Boscatt ordered.

  Golden licked his lips and swallowed. McKeen said, eyes and was silent for about five seconds. “In her thirties some place. Green sweater, jeans, some kind of a jacket she wore unbuttoned. Hefty but not fat. Hair dyed blonde. Some fresh sunburn on her forehead and nose. Husky voice. Talked with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth. A little on the hard side, maybe. Couple of storewrapped packages in the seat beside her. Let me see now. She wanted to know what the hell was the idea of stopping everybody. I told her. She said she was just another truck driver, making a joke sort of. Said her husband was a builder in Polksburg and sent her over to Harpersburg to pick up the lumber. McKeen had walked around the load by then. He nodded and I waved her on and told her not to pick up any hitchhikers. That was a joke too.”

  “Ho ho,” Boscatt said.

  Boscatt left us alone for fifteen minutes. When he came back he said, “There are three lumber outfits in Harpersburg, and not one of them sold any station wagon load of two by fours yesterday morning.”

  “So we goofed it up,” Golden said. “But how would this—this Lieutenant figure that was the way—”

  “I didn’t know how it was done,” I said. “I just had the idea that that car was used and they came out this way. I have no idea who that woman can be.”

  Boscatt slammed a red fist into his palm. “Kelly!” he said. “So they’re in the middle of that fake load of lumber and Kelly maybe starts to moan or thrash around at the wrong time, so while my troopers are making punch lines with the blonde, somebody is strangling Kelly a couple of feet away.” He looked at me. “How about a little more news from you, Lieutenant?”

  “Two men were recently released from Harpersburg, Miller and McAran—” He listened intently as I told him my reasoning.

  “I don’t think we want to publicize this,” I said. “They should believe the gimmick worked, so they’ll feel okay about using it again. We know in a general way where they are. Miller likes banks. There are a lot of reasons why they’ll want to hit my city. If we keep this quiet, they won’t split up and run.”

  “I’m not going to buy any space in the paper for this,” Boscatt said. “But I’ll have to put in a confidential report that’ll go all the way upstairs, right to Major Rice. That south half of Brook County is rugged country. And you say McAran was raised there. And I know you got practically no Sheriff at all over there. And as soon as they rest up, they’ll be ready to make their move, eh? We better be in on it. Either going in after them, or being beefed up to seal the area. These aren’t young punks. Take that Kostinak. A sentence of a hundred and ninety-eight years.”

  I thanked him and told him that my Chief would undoubtedly make a special request for State Police assistance, probably directly to Major Rice, but I couldn’t predict what that request would be. I said I’d tell my Chief that their co-operation had been of great help.

  By then the three of them had become very cordial. I was not misled. Their contempt for city cops was intact, but they had classified me as an exception. I hurried back to Brook City. Larry Brint was anxious to hear how my fifty-to-one shot had come out. I brought Johnny Hooper in on it. I gave them the whole story, and they made a very alert audience indeed.

  x

  After we had talked our way up one side of it and down the other, we adjourned the meeting. Larry called me back in his office later in the afternoon. He said he’d had a long phone conversation with Major Rice.

  “One thing we agree on, Fenn, nothing is going to be gained by letting what we know leak out. But that’s where we stop agreeing. Rice thinks we should mount a joint operation, and hit that hill country all of a sudden with everything we can collect, up to and including the National Guard. Seal all the roads, set up a continuous air search procedure, and narrow the perimeter until we grab them.”

  I shook my head slowly. “Twenty-four hundred square miles of rough broken country, Larry. A hundred ways to sneak out once they found out what was happening. And all that display of force would do would be to challenge those hill people to help McAran and his pals in every possible way.”

  “He couldn’t sell me his idea, and I couldn’t sell him yours, Fenn. He says we’re making too many assumptions. He says we’re assuming they’re going to hit something here in Brook City, we’re assuming they’ll use the load of lumber gimmick for the getaway, that they’ll come down out of the hills on Route 882, but, most importantly, that we can give them the initiative and still grab them without somebody getting hurt. He says there could be more than the four of them, and the woman, whoever the hell she is, and they could have other vehicles, and some more cute ideas, and an entirely different target in mind. And he’s right. You know it and I know it, Fenn. And even if we did spot them coming into town, following your plan, it’s no sign that when we move in they’re going to come shuffling out with their hands up and saying shucks.”

  “But—”

  “Now you listen here, and stop trying to tell me this long shot you want to play is a sure thing. Get this whole thing in focus for a minute. Yesterday we had one of the worst prison breaks and riots in the history of the state. A lot of men are dead. Three were guards. One was the deputy warden. Violent and dangerous men are still at large. There is a growing stink about this, and it’s going to get worse. Warden Waley has been suspended. Now let’s just suppose we tried to use your plan and it went sour. Inevitably, dammit, it’s going to get out that we all knew those men were up in the hills and we sat around and waited for them to come to us. What do you think that would do to Rice’s career, to say nothing of yours and mine, fella?”

  “I—I see what you mean.”

  “Prince and Seckler gave themselves up. I got the call just before you came in here. They’d been hiding in a barn six miles from the prison. That leaves just two men loose—Kostinak and Deitwaller. While we’re talking here, Fenn, some smart reporter may be digging around at the prison, and he will be wondering if those two had outside help, and he’ll come up with the names Miller and McAran.”

  “I guess it could happen.”

  “And when they check Youngstown to find out about Miller, they’ll find out just as we did that he dropped out of sight three days before McAran was released. And when they start checking here on McAran, what do we say? That he bought a fast car and loaded it with supplies and went up into the hills and nobody knows where he is? Does it take a genius to figure out Kelly’s body was found near a road that leads from Harpersburg into our south county hills?”

  “Larry, I can understand all that, but—”

  “And so can Major Rice, believe me. And so all I could do was stall him for a very short time. I’ve got to go back at him with a third suggestion, one that he’ll buy. And you know the key to the third suggestion without my telling you. The key is Meg. All that loyalty of hers is fine, but we’ve got to use her now, Fenn. There’s two possible ways. Either you level with her and get her co-operation, or you sell her some yarn that will send her up there to find him, and we follow her in.”

  “I won’t do that to her. You know I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Then you have to make her co-operate.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “You’d have to make her see she’d be helping him, because it would give us a chance to grab him before he gets in so deep he’ll be put away for life.”

  “If I could make her believe those people are up the
re with him, and his car was used in the break—yes, but she’s going to think he’s just up there camping out, and we’re trying to frame him into this whole deal.”

  “Then she’d be doing him a favor by locating him for us so he can prove he had nothing to do with it.”

  “I can try, Larry.”

  “Then start trying. Start this thing rolling. And get the answer to me just as fast as you can.”

  We talked for a little while about what the operational plan would be, if she agreed. And then I went home. It was a little after five. She stared at me and pretended to feel faint, and asked me if headquarters had burned down. I tried to smile, but it was an effort. She realized something was wrong and became concerned about me.

  “I have to talk to you, Meg. I have to explain a long complicated thing.”

  “Has something happened to Dwight!”

  “No. At least not yet. But it’s about Dwight.”

  “What are they trying to make you do to him now?”

  “That’s the attitude I don’t want you to have, honey. I want you to please, please listen with an open mind, and ask all the questions you want to, but please try not to be—emotional about it.”

  “Whatever you have on your mind, that’s a poor way to start, to ask me not to be emotional.”

  The kids were playing in the back yard. We went into the living room. I started at the beginning, making a full confession of the file I’d started on her brother, the close surveillance that neither she nor he had known anything about. She sat quietly, her face still and pale. I knew that this was the time to tell her about Cathie Perkins. I had the feeling I was throwing stones at my wife, that the words were stones and I was taking slow and careful aim. I brought the account up to date, explaining to her the attitude of Major Rice and Chief Brint.

  There were evening shadows in the room when I had finished. She got up slowly and went to the mantel and moved a small blue vase to a new position. I heard her sigh. She stood there with her back to me.

  “It satisfied you,” she said. “You don’t want me to be emotional. You build the whole thing so it points right at Dwight.”

  “With all the facts, yes. The supplies he bought prove he expected guests. The plywood and two by fours and carpenter tools he bought were what he’d need to build a fake load of lumber, with the back end of it hinged.

  “But you don’t know it was his car, and you don’t know who the woman was. All of you—all of you are so anxious to prove you’re right about him, you twist everything to make it fit. I know he’s wild and impulsive, and he’s done bad things—but I can’t seem to see him planning so carefully.”

  “Morgan Miller would be the planner.”

  She turned and faced me. “What makes me really sick is Cathie. Could she have been lying?”

  “No.”

  “Then Dwight must have some kind of sickness. Those five years did something to him.”

  “Then help us find him, Meg.”

  “I don’t want him beaten or hurt in any way.”

  “I swear we’ll try to take him without any fuss. He’ll be given every chance.”

  “What do I have to do, dear? How will it be arranged?”

  “Do you think you can find out where he is?”

  “Not right down to within a dozen feet, but certainly to within a mile or so. I’ll ask around Laurel Valley first, and from there I might have to phone old friends in Stoney Ridge or Ironville. At first it will be sort of eliminating the areas where he’s not, and then narrowing it down and finding somebody who’s seen him coming or going, or seen lights at night.”

  “We can do it carefully now, Meg, and take the time we need to do it right, so there won’t be any slips. We’ll want to block every road out of the hills when you go in. And when you get it narrowed down to one small area, then you come on out and we’ll move in on that area.”

  “I wouldn’t see him?”

  “Not until we’ve brought him out.”

  “It’s a strange thing to—do to your brother, Fenn.”

  “I know.”

  “If you hadn’t told me about Cathie I wouldn’t do it. I think all this other stuff is nonsense, really. I think he’ll be alone up there. But if he could do that to Cathie, and come right back here and act as if nothing had happened—then I think he needs help. I don’t think he should be alone up there. Would I be able to—talk to Cathie about it?”

  “I guess she’d expect me to tell you.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “What would it have accomplished?”

  “You’re a strange man, Fenn. It would have hurt me, yes. Not having you tell me hurts me too, in a different way.”

  “I have to call Larry.”

  “How many other things do you hide from me?”

  “Larry will want to know right away so he can phone Rice.”

  On that Wednesday evening I phoned Larry. He said he knew Rice would agree that we should all plan it carefully and use maximum manpower. On Thursday we began to plan it. And it was on Thursday we made a positive identification of the woman who had been driving the station wagon. Larry had a hunch she might be Morgan Miller’s woman. Trooper Golden was flown to Youngs-town. He found her picture among the mug shots on file. Her name was Angela Frankel, also known as Angel France. At the time Morgan Miller had been picked up for the bank job, she was living with him. She was a young stripper. In the first few years after Miller was sent up, she got into several kinds of police trouble, extortion, badger game, drunk rolling, soliciting. Then she apparently learned how to keep her name off the blotter. For the past few years she was believed to have been operating a call-girl ring. She had left the last address they had for her, and they could get no line on her.

  I went home that evening to my strangely subdued wife, who treated me as if I were a stranger she had been asked to be polite to. Just as she started to tell me she’d talked to Cathie Perkins, a phone call came for me.

  “Fenn, this is Johnny. Kermer just died on the way to City Hospital.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Relax. They say it was a heart thing. He collapsed at his own place, at the Holiday Lounge. Just keeled over.”

  “What a hell of a time for that to happen.”

  “I know. The king is dead. So who gets to be king?”

  “What’s the Chief’s reaction?”

  “I saw him for about two minutes. He’s talking to himself. There’s no number-two man. Kermer didn’t trust anybody enough for that. Played everybody against everybody else. So somebody local is going to turn up in the saddle or we get a syndicate moving in. Either way, Larry seems to think things are going to be hard to control for a while. And it isn’t going to take them long to start making their moves, and Larry says we’re going to be busy people around here. Do you think McAran will be terribly disappointed?”

  “I’ll eat and come back down. Let me know if anything happens.”

  I hung up and turned toward Meg. She had her head tilted on the side and she was frowning at me. “Every night, darling? Every darn night?”

  “Tonight, anyway.” I told her what had happened. She couldn’t understand why we expected trouble. I said, “Power keeps things in equilibrium, power exerted in several directions. Suddenly there’s a vacuum, and things are going to have to rush in to fill it, and in a rush like that, things can get upset. If we just had the damn manpower, we could move in. Somebody will end up with all the marbles. If they want to be reasonable, we can eventually get back to something like the Kermer years. If they want to tough it out, we’ll have a long term mess, one I might inherit from Larry.”

  “But you hope you can—make a deal.”

  “In a whipped town, honey, even vice is an essential industry. It meets its payroll and keeps the money moving and pays property taxes. Feed me, huh?”

  The emergency call came just as Meg was pouring my second cup of coffee, and I had to leave it right there. I met Larry at the hospital. The coroner was alr
eady there. We went down to the morgue, and walked through to the autopsy room where Dr. Thomas Egree was standing beside Kermer’s body, chatting with one of the interns. Egree is a heart specialist and one of the most well-known and important doctors in Brook City, a blond-gray man with stern gray eyes, a large lumpy nose, a face pitted with the acne scars of long ago.

  He spoke to each of us in turn, “Sam, Chief Brint, Lieutenant.”

  Jeff Kermer was naked under the merciless glaring white of the big overhead operating light. He was blue-white, grotesquely dwindled, puddled as if the light was melting him down. The ruff of hair on his chest was white. His eyes and mouth were half-open. The left side of his chest looked mangled.

  “Gentlemen, I was in the hospital when it became known they were bringing in what was presumed to be a massive coronary infarction, so I went down to emergency and made the necessary preparations. Dr. Walsh here was on duty. The patient was apparently D.O.A., with no respiration, no perceptible pulse. Dr. Walsh injected a stimulant directly into the heart muscle while I opened the rib cage to gain access so as to manually massage the heart itself. As soon as I touched the area I knew I was faced with a different problem. The pericardial sac was full of blood. I opened the sac, removed the blood and tried to find a wound in the heart wall. When the heart is not beating, this is most difficult when the perforation is small. I had ordered an immediate transfusion. I turned the heart slowly, squeezing it gently, and finally found the perforation on the underside of the left ventricle. By then there was no need to suture it because the patient was unquestionably dead. With the heart back in its normal position, I found a matching perforation in the rear of the pericardial sac.”

  He motioned Walsh around to the right side of the body, lifted the left arm of the corpse across the chest and said, “Dave, please pull a little, roll him just a little way over. Gentlemen, here is the primary entrance wound.”

  It was a very tiny, bloody mark about four inches below the bottom of the shoulder blade, and well toward the left side.