Brennan switched the recorder off. “Well?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “It’s hard to believe.”
“He murdered a guard to get off an honor farm,” Brennan said. “If I can believe that, I can believe this.”
Sam Wagner looked at the faces of the other men in the room. They believed it.
Brennan spoke again. “We ran the whole tape before you got here,” he said. “An hour of it. This guy and a couple of others. They all say the same thing. Want to hear it?”
Sam said, “Some other time.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. This was something. Something a long way from the story he’d given Lila. He was wondering what Lila would say about it when one of the desk phones rang.
Brennan answered it. “Brennan speaking.” He listened for several minutes. The men waiting learned nothing from his heavy face. “Thanks,” he said. “Keep me informed.” He pushed the phone aside and looked at those around the desk.
“Now he’s got a gun,” he said.
The skylight of a hardware store had been forced in the early hours of the morning, four-thirty or five. A .357 Magnum revolver and a box of shells were missing. The local police had checked for prints. It had taken them this long to identify them as Leon Poole’s. Poole was armed.
“The store’s in Tilden,” Brennan said. Lieutenant Snow’s breath hissed through stiff lips. Sam knew why. Tilden was only thirty miles away. The main roadblocks, the center of the search, had been beyond Tilden, closer to the prison. Poole had somehow got past them, he’d come a little more than halfway.
“Don’t ask me how,” Brennan said. “Nobody knows.” He looked at Lieutenant Snow, of the state patrol. “Keep your shirt on,” he said. “Your lads are doing a good job. And they’ve doubled everything now, this side of Tilden. Poole’s still got half the way to go. The tough half.”
Snow said, “They’ll get him.”
“Sure they will,” Brennan said.
“Three-five-seven Magnum,” Sam said. “A nice gun.”
“Very nice,” Brennan said. “Do for elephants.” He looked at Sam. “We’ve got a crew in the railroad yards, checking the incoming trains. Why don’t you and Chris hop out there and give them a hand?” The telephone was ringing again. “And keep in touch,” Brennan said.
* * *
—
The radio called Sam and Chris back to headquarters within the hour. Now the third-floor hall was crowded—reporters, photographers, uniformed state patrol, uniformed city police, plainclothes, and strangers. Brennan’s office was crowded. Sam saw a captain of the state patrol, the chief of city traffic, the vice squad second in command. Brennan’s office had become a headquarters, that was obvious. Sam felt a tightening inside himself as he approached Brennan’s desk.
“Bad news, Sam,” Brennan said.
“Yes, chief?”
“Poole’s in town somewhere.”
A farmer’s dog had found a man slugged, stripped to his shorts, tied and gagged and dumped in a cutover corn field north of Tilden. The dog’s barking had brought the farmer. Pure luck the man had been found at all—side road, open country.
“Victim’s name is Asa Smith,” Brennan said. “Lives in Tilden, works here in town. Got his car out of his garage this morning, drove a block to a stop street. Poole opened the door and got in with him. Made him drive toward Prosser. Slugged him, stripped him, took the car.”
“Rough,” Sam said.
“It gets rougher,” Brennan said. “Smith wouldn’t do for Poole’s twin, but he’d pass for his brother. Weight, height, hair, eyes—all about the same. Y’see? Poole matches Smith’s driver’s license and fits his clothes. The name on the driver’s license matches the car registration. That’s all Poole needed to get past the blockades.”
The captain of the state patrol said, “We can’t arrest everybody we stop. If they can identify themselves, we have to let them through.”
Brennan gave him a level stare. “Nobody blames you, captain. I’d’ve let him through myself.” He looked at Sam. “Smith gave us the license number of his car. Traffic found it parked on Jefferson Street twenty minutes ago. A good piece of work. Fast. But the bird had flown.”
Sam said, “Smith had money in his wallet, I suppose?”
“Twenty-five or thirty bucks.”
“All Poole will need,” Sam said, “if this is as far as he wants to go.”
“This is it.” Brennan’s eyes were steady. “He could have gone in a half-dozen directions, all easier than the one he picked. But he came here, straight here. He wants a shot at your wife, Sam. You’ve got to believe that.”
“What about her?” Sam asked.
“She’s safe. I’ve loaded the neighborhood. And the house. He couldn’t get to her with a tank.”
“How’s she taking it?”
“Not good. Worried stiff about you.”
“Me?” Sam said. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Not yet,” Brennan said. “She thinks the police are in the house in case Poole shows up, looking for you. We’re letting it ride like that. Anything else is up to you.”
Sam bit his lips. “My job, I guess.”
“You know what she can take,” Brennan agreed. “The problem now is to grab Poole. Any suggestions?”
Sam looked at the map of the city that hung on the wall. It was a big city. Poole could be anywhere. Downtown, in the residential districts, or in one of the outlying communities. A two-bit bus ride would reach them all.
“He wouldn’t be in a hotel,” Sam said. “Or a rooming house, or a boardinghouse, or a transient apartment. Too easy to find.”
“We’re looking,” Brennan said.
“A first offender, he hasn’t a lot of connections. He couldn’t buy a hideout. Not enough money. And he’s too hot.”
“Right again.”
“A friend wouldn’t take him in.”
“I doubt it, but we’re checking.”
Sam said, “He couldn’t walk the streets or hide in the brush. Somebody’d spot him. He’d know he’d have to get in under a roof somewhere.”
“Whose roof?”
“Anybody’s,” Sam said.
He looked at the map again. There were thousands of homes in the residential areas, more thousands close by. Families in each one. Kids, grownups, old people. A man with a gun could walk into any home. He could take this one or that one of the family as a hostage. The others would dance to his tune. Everyone would know he had killed a guard. They would know they’d die as the guard had died unless they walked a very careful line. And if one of them was foolishly brave? If Poole became nervous, impatient, frightened?
Sam said, “It’s a tough proposition.”
“Very tough,” Brennan said. “And we haven’t got forever. He’ll kill again if we don’t get him soon. I’ve put it on the radio and in the papers—everybody check their neighbor. If they see anything unusual or different, they’re to call us on the quiet. It’s something, but not much.”
“Not enough,” Sam said.
Brennan looked at him steadily. And Sam was conscious, then, of the weight of every other eye in the room. They were looking at him quietly, waiting. Waiting for what? And then Sam knew why he’d been called in, why Brennan had asked him for a suggestion.
“Poole doesn’t know, does he?” Sam said. “I mean, that we know he’s after Lila?”
“How could he?” There was a gleam in Brennan’s eyes. “He didn’t hear the tape. He doesn’t know what his cell mates told the warden.”
“He’ll scout my place,” Sam said. “If he finds the neighborhood loaded with cops, he’ll go back under cover and stay as long as he has to. A week, two weeks, three weeks.”
Brennan nodded.
“But if it looks normal around there—no cops, me going to work,
coming home—he might make his try.” He saw the light growing in Brennan’s eyes. “He’ll know I’m there, at least. He’ll know he can settle for me, if he can’t find Lila.”
“And he’ll buy it,” Brennan said.
Sam saw Brennan’s eyes move to the other men in the room. Besides the light in his eyes, now there was a faint smile on his heavy face. The smile said, “You see?” Bob Brennan’s eyes came back to Sam.
“We talked it over before you came in, Sam,” he said. “We had the same idea. It was your pick, of course. I knew you’d make it. And we’ve got a couple of things to add. Time’s short. We want him to move now—this afternoon, tonight. And I think we can persuade him to do it.”
“How?”
“A diversion,” Brennan said. “We’ll get out a bulletin—radio, newspapers, TV—saying we have him cornered in the Kretlow Hills. Identification positive. That’s rough country out there, take a couple of days to cover it all. And we’ll cover it—planes, roadblocks, bloodhounds, the works. Poole will call it a fine piece of luck. He’ll grab the chance.”
“Sounds good,” Sam said.
“Who do you want to run the show at your place?” Brennan asked. “You can’t do it. You’re the bait.”
“Chris suits me.”
“Fine. And your wife?”
“I’ll move her out,” Sam said. “If she’s not at our phone-book address, she’s on the moon as far as he’s concerned. He won’t know where to look.”
“Take her to my place,” Chris said. “I’ll call the wife and tell her you’re on the way.”
“Can do,” Sam said.
* * *
—
Leon Poole walked east in the rain on Holly Road. The city was a thirty-minute bus ride behind him. This was suburban country: mailboxes standing beside black pavement, small homes, young orchards shivering in the November wind. There was little traffic at ten o’clock in the morning. He was certain that none in the passing cars would note or remember him.
His hat was too small. It rode oddly high on his head. He wore a blue suit, a transparent slicker, and carried a brown brief case. He was cold and hungry and very tired. Never strong, the past hours, the strain, the miles he’d traveled had left his knees shaking with weakness. He forced himself to walk firmly, head erect—an insurance salesman making a morning call or a real-estate agent out to inspect property. He read the names stenciled on the mailboxes as he went along.
The house he sought stood well away from the road, a neat, shingled structure, square and small. The shades were drawn and no smoke came from the chimney. A small sedan was parked on the gravel drive.
He went past the car to the back porch. The blinds here were up. He could see a stove, a table and the white bulk of a refrigerator. He set the brief case beside the door and lifted the skirt of the slicker to put his hand on the gun in his coat pocket. The door was not locked. Leon Poole opened it slowly and carefully and walked into the quiet room.
He went through the house, moving on tiptoe. A living room, dining room. Gray light seeped through the drawn blinds. An inner hall gave upon the bedroom and bath. Poole opened the bedroom door carefully and slowly. A muscle quivered in his cheek. He found the light switch and flicked it up with nervous haste. He stayed in the doorway, a plump, frightened man, wrapped in a dripping slicker. Across the room, a woman sat up in bed, blinking, surprise in her face. Beside her, a man slept with his cheek pillowed on his hands.
“Please don’t scream,” Poole said.
“Who are you?” The woman’s voice was thin. She stared at him, the covers clutched at her breast. “What do you want?”
“Will you wake your husband?” Poole said.
The man was awake, pushing himself up. He was not frightened. A faint grin, almost derisive, turned the corners of his wide mouth.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Poole. Leon Poole.”
“Yes,” Poole said. “Get up. Get dressed.”
The name of the man in bed was Otto Flanders. He’d been an Army first sergeant, and now, sitting up, naked to the waist, he still had the look of one. Hard and confident. Leon Poole had been a corporal in his company—Signal Corps, Calcutta—and Otto Flanders could think of him as nothing else. He sat on the bed, arms around his knees, and grinned at Corporal Poole.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “I will be damned. When I heard you helped yourself to the bank’s cash and got thrown in the can, I said to myself, ‘It can’t be. Not Corporal Poole. Not Fat Boy.’ ”
Leon Poole took the heavy revolver from his pocket. He pointed it at Otto Flanders’s bare chest.
“Get up,” he said.
Flanders’s face hardened. “That’s a lot of ordnance.”
“I know how to use it,” Poole said. “You taught me, remember.”
Flanders stared at him. “How come you’re loose?”
His wife said, “Otto, maybe you’d better—”
“Relax.” Flanders grinned at Poole. “Well?”
“Don’t you read a paper or listen to the radio?”
“Not on my day off. I’m sleepin’ in, or was.” He put brown hands on his knees. “You tryin’ to say you broke out?”
“I escaped,” Poole said. “Late yesterday. I killed a guard. The police everywhere are looking for me.”
“You killed a guard?”
“Yes,” Poole said. “Now will you get up?”
“Oh, Otto—” the woman whispered.
Otto Flanders’s eyes were steady on Poole’s face. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll get up. Take it easy.” To his wife, he said, “You too. Take it easy. I’ll handle this.”
Poole said, “Be careful.”
“Always careful. Careful Otto, that’s me.”
He got up without haste, without nervousness or fear—with care. His eyes never left the gray face of Leon Poole. He found shorts and jeans and put them on. He put his fists on his hips—six feet of lean brown man, hard and capable.
“Now what d’we do?”
“We’ll go out in the kitchen,” Poole said. “Your wife will get up and get me something to eat. I’ll kill one of you if the other tries anything. Don’t scream, don’t try to telephone, don’t try to get away.”
Flanders said, “Do what he says, hon.”
Poole backed through the door into the living room. Flanders followed him. He turned his back on the gun and went into the kitchen. He made preparations for coffee—kettle on the stove, coffee in the drip pot. He didn’t look at Poole, but he was very much aware of him. Poole had shed the slicker and hat. He was standing where he could look into the small kitchen, a soft-looking man, gray with fatigue, who held a heavy revolver in his pudgy hand. Flanders’s wife came in, a rough bathrobe thrown over her nightdress.
“Easy does it,” Otto Flanders said.
His wife, Grace Flanders, was a big woman in her middle thirties. Her face was the color of sand now, and her eyes held fear that was almost anguish. She clattered a frying pan on the range.
“You’re scaring hell outa my wife,” Flanders said.
Poole said, “That can’t be helped.”
“What’d you come here for?”
“No one knows I know you,” Poole said. “In Calcutta you talked a lot about this place. It’s near the city, you have no close neighbors.” The plump shoulders moved in a tired shrug. “I didn’t have a lot of choice,” he said, “or a lot of time.”
“So you picked me.” Flanders came out of the kitchen to stand with his bare back against the door frame. “You’re nuts,” he said. “Y’can’t get away with this. All the cops in the country lookin’ for you—they’ll find you.”
“I know that,” Poole said. “I expect it. But I’ll have time to kill the woman I want to kill before they find me.”
“Gimme that again?”
“The m
an who sent me to prison killed a woman I loved more than anything in the world. More than life, much more.” Poole’s voice was faint, almost listless, but still matter-of-fact. “It was murder. I think he should suffer the way I suffered. Then they can do what they want with me.”
Flanders stared at him. A line of white came to rim his tight lips.
Slowly he said, “I guess you mean that.”
“I most certainly do.”
Flanders waited a moment. “You’ll never make it.”
“I think I will,” Poole said.
“Unh-uh,” Flanders said. “And I’ll tell you why. You’re tired. I can see yuh shakin’. You got to rest sometime, you got to sleep, don’t you? How’re you goin’ to do it? Tie me up? Tie my wife up? You can do that—maybe. But I’ve handled some real tough characters in my time. You’ll make a mistake. When you do, I’ll take you. And I won’t leave enough of you to send home for cat food.”
“You’re strong,” Poole said. “I know that.”
“Want a piece of advice?” Flanders held out a big hand, palm up. “Give me that gun now and I’ll treat you gentle.”
“No,” Poole said.
Flanders’s voice took a rough edge. “Think I can’t take you, gun or no gun? Think you aren’t goin’ to make a mistake, sooner or later? Turn your head a minute, take your eyes offa me one second—that’s all I need. I’m not kiddin’!”
“I know you’re not,” Poole said. His round face seemed to sag even more, his large brown eyes held something close to tears. “You’re quick,” he said. “I’m tired and not very sharp. It wouldn’t be hard. You could throw something—”
“O.K.,” Flanders said. “How about it?”
Poole shot Flanders through the chest. The gun was big—one shot was all that was needed. The sound of it crashed enormously in the room. Poole saw Flanders punched backward against the door frame, saw him turn slowly and fall. Beyond the door, in the kitchen, Grace Flanders stood motionless before the range, then closed her eyes and crumpled to the floor. She hadn’t screamed. Poole went to a chair and sat down. He stared at Otto Flanders and his wife.
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 38
