by P. N. Elrod
No. He was imagining it. His fever was bringing back one of his really bad memories and casting it upon his friends here.
Then his gaze was finally drawn to Bianca, who lay just a few feet from him. She often played the doomed Queen Gertrude when they did Hamlet and always died quite well in the arms of the young prince. Now she seemed to have achieved a similar stillness, that same slight arch of torment to her body. But Bianca always closed her eyes for that scene. However dramatic an open-eyed death might be, sooner or later you betrayed yourself to the audience by blinking.
This time, however, Bianca did not blink. Charles stared at her a full minute, waiting.
He gave up and looked away, not wanting to understand what was before him. He turned toward Cornelius, who lay on his stomach, his head pressed against the bare floor in what must be an uncomfortable position. He usually played Polonius, but never did he die at the hands of Hamlet in such a pose. He usually sank slowly down, managing to instill even that action with a hint of comic pomposity. He never just gracelessly dropped.
Then Charles saw the blood, saw that it was everywhere, on everyone, on every single one of them—and the dread comprehension he’d refused to accept broke upon his numbed mind like an avalanche.
HOURS later in the too bright light of morning, the properties truck lurched into the yard and paused next to the remaining Ford. Clarence Coldfield got out and went around to help Katherine Hamilton down. They’d left Elkfoot Flats at dawn to search for the lost members of the company, and Clarence had spotted tire tracks coming out from a side road that cut into the woods. Being the only available clue, they decided to follow it and it had unexpectedly paid off.
Both walked toward the small cabin, calling out to announce their arrival, but getting no answer.
Chicago, 1937
SHOE Coldfield improvised another cup of coffee for himself with the cooking pan. I didn’t think he really wanted to drink it so much as have something to do with his hands.
“That’s pretty much it,” he said, sitting again. “That’s what we pieced together from what Charles told us and the guesswork on what we knew about Raymond and the investigations the cops did. At first they thought Charles had done it and threw him in jail, but Katherine Hamilton raised holy hell and made the police go to work. That’s when they found all the money was gone, then they traced the car to Ottawa. The only member of the company who was missing was Raymond Yorke, and a man fitting his description had sold the car that afternoon after the murders.”
“Then he skipped?”
“Christ in heaven, he vanished off the face of the earth. Not easy to do, because everyone was after him. The papers up there called it ‘The Cabin Killings’ and played on it for weeks, demanding action, but nothing came of it. We had no picture of Raymond to pass around, and when we tried to trace his history nothing came of that, either. His description fit half a dozen con men and thieves from all over. He’d made himself up from head to toe when he joined us and tossed the role away when he left.”
“What about Charles?”
He shook his head, looking down at the coffee. “The doctors said it was like shell shock. He was in a bad way. Crazy and scared out of his mind. Soon as I walked in the door and saw, I shoved Katherine back and made her stand out in the yard. I wasn’t raised in what you would call a nice neighborhood; I’ve seen a lot of bad, but not then or since have I ever seen anything as bad as what was in that cabin. Twelve of my friends, twelve good and harmless people . . . I heard a moaning sound over by the fireplace, and found Charles just sitting there, and the look on his face . . .
“I asked him what had happened, and that set him off. He screamed, just shrieked out at me that he didn’t do it, and that’s all we could get out of him for a time. Of course he didn’t do it, but he felt guilty all the same. I got him out of there and then had to tell Katherine and then had to keep her from going in. She didn’t need to see.
“The whole thing was one wicked mess after that, what with the cops accusing him and his condition adding to their suspicions. They thought he’d gone crazy and killed them all. There’s probably a few up there who still think he did it. When the smarter ones started looking for Raymond, things eased up, but didn’t improve much beyond that.”
“What happened to the company?”
“With her sister dead Katherine didn’t have the heart for it anymore, so it broke up. The rest of the players moved on. Some of the bodies were shipped off to relatives, others with no families to claim them were buried side by side at Elkfoot Flats. It was the worst thing that had happened up there in anyone’s memory. The town church always has a special mass every year for those dead on the day they were killed. People still stop at the cemetery to look at the markers and hear the story. The man who owned the hunting cabin eventually burned it. Said he couldn’t stand to go inside for thinking of what happened there, and no one blamed him for it.”
“What about Charles?”
“Charles had what you would call a breakdown. Hell, he was only twenty-five, just a kid. He’d been in the war, but this was different. This was like his family was dead, and he felt guilty for being alive. My God, while they were being murdered he was outside half asleep in a damned shithouse.”
“But he was sick and drugged. The tea Raymond gave him—”
“Yeah, it had a dose of morphine, too, only it didn’t stay in him long enough to have as strong an effect. We figured that in the heat of the moment Raymond didn’t make a body count, and that’s how he overlooked Charles. Or maybe he remembered and thought Charles would get some of the blame, which did almost happen.”
“What sort of breakdown did he have?”
“The kind where a man’s sorry he’s alive. He used to say he should have been with them, either to save them or die with them as well. It tore him up in his soul, and he couldn’t shake free of it. The authorities finally put him in a sanitarium, and the doctors there shot him full of morphine to keep him quiet. When I found out no one was really helping him I asked Katherine to see about getting him released. I took him home with me to Chicago, tried to find a doctor who could help, but it turned out the best doctor was time. Once the morphine got cleared out of him, he seemed to get better, started sounding like his old self again. He even found an acting company here that he joined for a time. I think it was mostly to prove he could go back to the work, not because he really wanted to. But every so often he’d save up, buy a few bottles of booze, and try to kill himself with it.”
“Good God.”
“He knew what he was doing. I finally got fed up with it and beat the hell out of him one night. That opened his eyes. Maybe it scared him, maybe he was angry. A couple days later he tells me he’s going back to England, and off he went. I never expected to see him again, but a few years later he turned up in the Belt asking after me. By then I had a start looking after my business, and he tells me he’s doing insurance investigation work. Said it was something like what his father did. When Charles got enough experience behind him to get his investigator’s license he broke away and opened his own agency. Considering what he’d been through, he’s not done bad for himself at all. Leastwise until now.”
“And if this bender he went on is connected to the shooting, you think he found Raymond?”
“I think it’s more of a case that Raymond must have found him.”
“And Raymond’s calling himself Ike LaCelle?”
A third voice, very subdued, cut in to answer. “No. No, he is not.”
Startled, we both turned toward the speaker. Charles stood in the hall doorway, looking bad. He still hadn’t shaved, though he’d otherwise cleaned up and dressed. His face was fish-belly gray, his eyes haunted pits, and he swayed slightly. He’d sobered up some, but not completely; it hurt to see him like this. Coldfield rose and brought him over to the table. Escott slumped into the chair and groped for the coffee. He choked on it at first, but got half of it in him.
“Can’t either of y
ou learn to brew a decent cup?” he complained. “Tastes like ashtray leavings.”
“Did you find Raymond?” Coldfield asked.
“I did.”
“And he’s not LaCelle?”
“No, but he is very good friends with the man. You see, Raymond’s name these days is now Archy Grant.”
Coldfield stared at him a long time, his mouth open. I did the same. “Oh, sweet Jesus, are you sure?”
Escott laughed, a dry whisper of sound without mirth, without joy. “Yes, my friend. I am very sure. I am as certain of that as I am of death itself.”
14
“HOW can that be?” I asked. “I mean, how? He’s Archy Grant. He’s famous. Everyone knows who he is.”
“Who he is, not who he was. His life history, prior to ten years back, is but a sketch, and, I’m sure, entirely fiction.”
“What’s your proof? I mean, you gotta have something solid to take to the cops before they’ll do anything.”
More of that whispery laughter. I wanted to hit him to make it stop.
Coldfield stepped in. “Come on, Charles. Tell us what you found out.”
Escott gave up laughing and just stared ahead, but without seeing. “The irony of this is that I was not looking for Raymond Yorke. I was looking for the man who shot at me. Gil Dalhauser was the most likely suspect, but when I let him see me today he scowled, but wasn’t particularly surprised. The man is doubtless an excellent poker player; he did not so much as flick an eyelid. So I dismissed him from my list and sought to test the lesser probability that Ike LaCelle represented.”
“Did you tell Gordy any of this?” I asked. “Warn him someone wasn’t listening to his orders?”
“I’d planned to call him, but only after I ascertained the identity of the guilty party. I made other calls and learned what I needed to know. Ike LaCelle usually spends his ample free time in the company of Archy Grant, perhaps because it affords the opportunity to meet new celebrities. Grant was having a rehearsal today for his show next week, something LaCelle usually attends, so I went to the studio.”
“Bobbi was there, she didn’t mention seeing you.”
“That is what you may expect when I do not wish to be noticed. I sat in the back and did not draw attention to myself, wanting to have the full effect on LaCelle when I finally confronted him.”
“So he could shoot you again?”
“I still wore my vest. It was a reasonable gamble.”
“Reasonable?”
Coldfield waved a warning hand at me from where he stood just behind Escott and mouthed the words “Let him talk.” I recalled what he’d said about our mutual friend’s desire not to live, and suddenly all those times Escott had risked himself made sense. “Go on, Charles,” he said. “What did you do?”
“Waited until the end of rehearsal. I watched them working through things, making changes, suggestions, laughing, arguing—it quite took me back to old times. Grant had piqued my curiosity last night. I couldn’t help but think I’d met him before, yet his face was unfamiliar to me. But sitting so far in the back of the auditorium, where his face was only a small pink oval, I paid more attention to his body movements and his voice.
“I did not grasp it at first, and then I told myself I certainly must be mistaken. It’s been thirteen years since I last saw Raymond, and he’d only been with the company for a month, but some details do stay in the brain, hidden deep and difficult to coax forth, but there all the same. The longer I watched Grant work, the more the past came back to me. I remembered how he carried himself, that cocky I-own-the-world walk, the shape of his head, his laugh, patterns of speech, and accent. All of it.
“By the end of the afternoon, they finished the rehearsal and everyone left. I took myself around to the exit Grant was heading toward and waited for him on the other side. He was alone for the moment, but LaCelle was not far behind. Grant came through the door, saw me, and stopped. Stopped and simply stared at me. He didn’t say a word. Neither of us did. But I knew. I knew. And so did he.
“LaCelle came through just then, with a crowd of hangers-on, but I turned and walked away before he could notice me and react. I had what I wanted, the name of the gunman and the reason why he tried to kill me. Then I had to leave before . . . before . . .”
“You went nuts and killed him?” asked Coldfield.
“Yes. Exactly that. I began shaking all over and couldn’t seem to stop. Thought I’d pass out in the elevator down to the street. It came right back to me again, the rage. I had to calm myself and try to think.”
“So you went out and got drunk.”
“I don’t remember much of that part. I suppose I must have, for the both of you to make such a fuss, and I don’t feel at all well.”
“But you did it, Charles. You found that son of a bitch. You got what you most wanted.”
“Except for proof, my friend. I’ve no admissible proof against him.” He breathed out one short puff of air to express defeat. “No proof. There’s no way to prove he did the shooting last night or that he was ever Raymond Yorke. All I have is inside my head, and you cannot set a personal conviction on an evidence table in a courtroom.”
“Fingerprints,” I said. “The cops must have taken fingerprints back then. It wouldn’t be much to—”
“There are no prints of his on record from the scene. He wore gloves.”
“Come on, he must have left some for them to find. Did he wear gloves the whole month he was with the company?”
“Certainly he did on the night of the murders. He also wiped down everything he’d touched in the cabin and the car. Even the cup of tea he gave me had been polished clean. As for other items he may have handled, any prints he might have left were obscured by those of the other company members.”
“He was one careful bastard,” said Coldfield.
“There’s still your testimony,” I said. “And a lot of circumstantial evidence to go with it. If you found other members of the troupe, they could probably identify him just as you did.”
Escott shook his head and finished the rest of his coffee; from the grimace he made it had gone cold. “Believe me, I’ve thought this through, and even under the most favorable of legal proceedings, it is not enough to hang him. I did not actually see the crime take place, and was in the partial thrall of morphine at the time. Any attorney he hired would get the case thrown out. Grant’s too well protected, by the passage of time and his own fame.”
He didn’t sound like himself at all. He was still carrying a load of liquor, though, maybe that was why he was so readily giving up before even starting.
“He’s not protected from me,” I said. “We get him to confess. I’ve done that before. Give me ten minutes with him, and he’ll be marching straight to the nearest station house to give himself up. Hell, I could have him drive straight to the Elkfoot Flats station if you wanted.”
Escott stopped staring at nothing and focused his eyes on me. They were the eyes of a man who’s been to hell and back and still has the stench of damnation clinging to his soul. “Oh, my dear friend, this is not your fight.”
“It is now, because I’ve practically invited Ike LaCelle to come over here. If I’d known about any of this, I’d have gone to see him first and stopped things.”
“It’s progressed too far for that.”
Between this and what Dalhauser told me, I was ready to agree, but not give up. “Okay, maybe so, but at the moment you’re in no shape to deal with him. When he gets here anything could happen, so you two get scarce. Go to the Shoe Box and I’ll phone you there when I’ve got news.”
“I think we’re about to get a firsthand report right now,” said Coldfield. “That was the front door, wasn’t it?”
“Stay here and keep quiet.” I hurried past him to the hall.
He’d called it right. LaCelle was just stepping inside. With him were Shep and the prizefighter, who were already in, their guns drawn. All three turned to face me.
LaCelle gri
nned. “Hey, Fleming! Good to see you, I got your message. What’s the something I can learn to my advantage?” He’d put on his usual pose of a hearty good mood, but under it all was the sly confidence of a man who knows he has all the best cards in the deck. He wasn’t afraid, and he should have been.
“Take me to see Raymond Yorke.”
His grin faltered, and he cocked his head inquiringly. “Who?”
“Can the let’s-pretend game, Ike. You may hang around the talent, but none of it’s rubbed off. We both know what’s going on and how it’s going to end. Before it does I want to talk to Yorke or Grant or whatever he’s calling himself now.”
“What a lot you seem to know—or think you do.”
“What I know or not doesn’t matter, you’re going to take me to him.”
“Okay, okay. I’m glad you’re making this easy on yourself. But that partner of yours who doesn’t know how to die is coming, too.”
“He’s not here.”
“Now who’s playing pretend? His Nash is sitting right outside.”
“That’s my neighbor’s car. Take me to Grant. After I talk with him he won’t be interested in Escott.”
LaCelle snorted. “That’ll be the day.”
Somewhere behind me I heard a thump followed by a grunt and a soft thud. What the hell . . . ?
“What was that?” LaCelle had heard it, too.
“Don’t move!” Escott snapped. He stood in the parlor looking out at us, and in his hands was his granddaddy crossbow. He had a bolt loaded in it, and the string was pulled back, ready to shoot.
“Ike?” Shep, uncertain of the change in the situation, aimed his gun at Escott.
“Hold it, both of you,” Ike said, also bringing his gun around. The fighter continued to cover me. “No shooting.”
“Yes,” Escott agreed. “Let us all behave as gentlemen and no one will get hurt.”
“What the hell’s that thing?” asked Shep. “Some kinda cockeyed bow and arrow?”
