by Bill Crider
Zintner sighed. "Can you prove any of that, or are you just talking through your asshole."
"I may not be able to prove it, but I know it. I'll be able to prove it sooner or later."
"Let's just start with how you know it. Why don't you explain that to me."
"Why would you care?"
"Well, old Dale's an employee of mine. Just like you are."
"Not just like me," I said. "And that's not why you want to know."
"All right," he said. "Why don't you tell me why I want to know."
"Because you're in on it with him," I said. "I can't quite figure out why you killed Braddy Macklin, but I've got the rest of it."
"Damn," Zintner said, and then he chuckled. "I guess I might's well put my hands in the cuffs then, you being so smart and all."
This wasn't going exactly the way I'd planned it. Zintner was taking things far too calmly.
"Are you trying to tell me that you didn't know Becker was trying to find Harry Mercer? And that you didn't know he'd been shooting at me?"
"No," Zintner said. "I knew all about that."
"Then you know he killed Ro-Jo."
Zintner leaned back in his chair and put his Tony Lamas back up on the desk.
"That part," he said, "I'm not so sure about."
"You're admitting that Dale Becker shot at me, though? I've got that right?"
Zintner pretended to look around the room. Then he looked back at me.
"Any tape recorders in here?" he asked. "I don't see any, so I guess not. Yeah. I'm admitting he shot at you. But that doesn't mean old Dale would admit it."
"And that doesn't bother you? That he shot at me?"
"No," Wally said. "Hell no." He smiled. "Truth is, I don't blame him a bit."
Twenty-Three
Zintner pulled a package of unfiltered Camels from his shirt pocket and took a stainless steel Zippo off the desk. He flipped the lighter open, spun the wheel, and set fire to the Camel. Then he blew a long stream of smoke at the ceiling.
"Cat got your tongue, Smith?" he asked. He clicked the lighter shut and put it back on the desk.
I came out of my momentary trance. "You knew everything?"
Zintner nodded. "That's what I said."
"But not about Ro-Jo?"
"I knew about Ro-Jo being dead. I just didn't know about Dale doing the killing, and I still don't. He was there, sure, but he said he didn't kill anybody. And I think he's telling the truth."
I thought about what Dale had said when I'd confronted him that morning: "I didn't kill anybody."
"Why don't you tell me what you know?" I asked Zintner.
He inhaled, blew out smoke. "Tell you what," he said. "Let's trade."
"Trade what?"
"You tell me how you knew about me and Dale, and I'll tell you what I know about last night."
"And Saturday night too," I said.
"All right. That too. It wasn't just that bruise on Dale's chin that put you onto him, was it?"
"No," I said. "There was a little more to it than that."
"So what was it?"
"It was that both of you knew I was looking for Harry when I came in the office on Monday. I should have wondered about it at the time, but I didn't. Dino wouldn't have told anyone that he'd hired me, and I sure hadn't told anyone. But you two knew it. While I was in the hospital today, I had time to think things over, and I figured out how you knew."
Not everything I'd said was strictly true, but it was close enough. Dino and I had told Cathy Macklin that I was looking for Harry, but I didn't think she moved in the same circles with Zintner and Becker. As it turned out, I was right.
"Dale was afraid you'd come up with it," Zintner said. "We were a little stupid about that."
"So was I. I shouldn't have called out my name when I was looking for Harry at the marine lab. What was Dale doing there, anyway?"
Zintner exhaled smoke. "Looking for Harry, just like you were."
I hadn't expected him to admit that, but then I hadn't expected him to admit any of the things he'd told me so far.
"Why was he looking for Harry?" I asked.
Zintner stubbed out his cigarette in a little glass ashtray that was already full of butts, probably a pack and a half's worth. And that was just from today.
"It's a long story," he said.
"I have time."
"All right. First of all, Macklin was working for me."
"I thought so. I know you're one of the investors who are thinking about buying The Island Retreat."
"I won't ask you how you found that out, but you had to dig. We've been trying to keep it a secret. Anyway, you're right. I think it's time for gambling to come back to the Island, and I think there's a lot of money to be made from it. There's plenty of opposition, like always, but I think this time the gamblers are going to win. And I wanted a part of the action."
"That's no reason to be looking for Harry," I said.
He got out another Camel and lit it with the Zippo. I sat and watched him smoke.
"You know Dale," he said finally.
I didn't know what that was supposed to mean, and I said so.
"Dale's got all kinds of snitches, all over the Island. They like to tell him things."
"They tell him because they're afraid he'd beat the hell out of them. Like he did Ro-Jo."
"You want to hear this or not?" Zintner asked.
I said that I wanted to hear it.
"Then let's forget Ro-Jo for a minute. Like I said, Dale's got ears everywhere, and he heard that somebody had killed Braddy Macklin in the Retreat. The realtor had let me have a key to the place, and Braddy was checking it out for us. You know, see what kind of equipment was there, how much we'd have to spend to fix it up, that kind of thing. Somebody didn't like that, so they killed him."
"And Harry saw it."
"That's what Dale heard. But he couldn't find Harry. Now and then Ro-Jo told Becker things, but he swore he didn't know where Harry was. Said he hadn't seen Harry in a long time, but that there were places Harry used to hang out. That old lab was one."
"You know you've got competition for the Retreat?" I asked.
"You mean the boys from back East? Yeah. I know about them. You met Alex Minor?"
"I've met him."
"Well, then. You know the kind of people we're up against. We wouldn't want that in Galveston."
"You think Minor killed Macklin?"
"He's what you might call the logical suspect. He's about as hard to find as old Harry is, though."
"Have you told the police all this?"
Zintner laughed, coughed, and laughed some more. Then he crushed his Camel in the ashtray.
"Those things are gonna kill me someday," he said. "No, I haven't told the cops. After I find Harry, maybe I will."
"I thought you told me you were the policeman's friend."
"You knew better, though. Besides, I might be wrong. Minor might not have killed Braddy. I gotta be sure. Maybe there's somebody else in on this, somebody I don't know about."
I thought about Dino. Then I put that thought out of my mind. I also thought about Lawrence Hobart, but I didn't mention him, either. I wasn't going to tell Zintner everything I knew. I figured he wasn't going to level with me, either, not all the way.
"Assuming you're telling me the truth about all this, why did Becker try to kill me?" I asked.
Zintner smiled a thin, mean smile. "Now who says he was trying to kill you? Just because he took a few shots, that doesn't mean a thing. The way Dale told it to me, he was just trying to scare you."
Well, he'd certainly succeeded, but I wasn't going to give Zintner or Becker the satisfaction of admitting it.
"The way Dale tells it," Zintner went on, "he could have finished you off last night, but he didn't. At first, yeah, he was shooting at you. He thought you were the killer coming back to make sure that Ro-Jo was dead or something. He didn't get a good look at you until you were out cold on the floor. When he realized who y
ou were, he didn't try anything else. He just left you right where you were, sleeping like a baby."
I'd wondered why I'd survived. Now I knew. The man I'd tangled with -- Becker -- hadn't wanted to kill me. Or so Zintner wanted me to believe.
"When he was shooting, the bullets came awfully close to me."
"I told you: he wanted to scare you. He didn't know why you were looking for Harry. For all he knew, you were the one who'd killed Macklin." He smiled again. "We still don't know you aren't, not for sure."
"Let's say I didn't kill Macklin. And let's say Becker didn't. Then who killed Ro-Jo?"
"That's what we'd like to know. You didn't, not unless you were doubling back to check on the body, and Dale didn't. Who does that leave?"
Dale was big enough to have done it, but then so was Alex Minor. I hadn't seen Minor following me last night, but maybe he was ahead of me like everyone else seemed to be.
"Minor?" I said.
Zintner shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Could be."
"I think we should go to the police," I said.
Zintner didn't laugh. He just looked at me.
"All right, maybe that's not such a good idea."
"Damn right it's not. You and Dale might get thrown under the jail."
"We know a bondsman," I said. "He'd get us out."
Zintner smiled, and this time it wasn't so mean. "I don't think he'd take the risk."
"Look," I said. "My only interest in this whole thing is finding Harry. If I can do that, I'll forget the rest of it. We could work together."
"What you mean is that you want me and Dale to tell you everything we find out, but you won't tell us anything. Is that about right?"
It was, but I couldn't say that. So I said, "No. I'll cooperate."
Just like I was cooperating with Barnes.
"Tell you what," Zintner said. "Not that I don't trust you, but why don't we just go on like we are. Maybe you and Dale'll quit stumbling over each other. It doesn't matter which one of you finds Harry, just as long as one of you does."
It made a difference to me, all right. I didn't want Harry to wind up like Ro-Jo had, but I don't think Zintner really cared one way or another. All he wanted was information, and if he couldn't get it from Harry, he'd get it some other way. And the truth was that I'd just about run out of places to look. I wanted the kind of information Becker could get from his collection of snitches.
On the other hand, I had a few things to work on that Zintner knew nothing about. Or that he hadn't said anything about. That didn't mean he didn't know.
"All right," I said. "We keep on working separately. But if Dale gets in my way again, he might get hurt."
"From the looks of you, I'd say you won't be hurting anybody for a while. By the way, Dale's sorry about the fight here in the office. He wouldn't have got into it with you if you hadn't pushed him."
I said, "Tell him that if it happens again, I'm going to pull that gold earring right out of his earlobe."
Zintner laughed and reached for his Camels. "Now there's a sight I'd like to see."
Twenty-Four
When I went home, the little red light on the answering machine was flashing. I ignored it and called Cathy Macklin in the hopes that she might go out for dinner with me.
She told me that she didn't feel like going anywhere. She'd gotten word that the autopsy on her father was complete, and she'd scheduled the funeral for the next morning. I was sorry that she didn't feel like seeing me that evening, but the truth was that I wasn't feeling much like going out myself. I told her I'd see her at the funeral.
Nameless was rumbling around my legs as I talked, so I hung up and fed him. As soon as he gobbled his food, he wanted back out. He probably had a date.
After letting him out, I listened to my messages. There were three of them, and they were all from Patrick Lytle. He wanted to know whether I'd found Harry, why I hadn't called, and when he could expect to see me. I didn't feel like talking to him, so I erased the messages and listened to Elvis on the CD player while I read a few pages of Look Homeward, Angel.
I put the book aside after a few minutes because I couldn't keep my mind on what I was reading. I was too wrapped up in other things. And the thing that bothered me most was something about Lytle. I knew how Becker and Zintner had found out about my looking for Harry. That had been my fault.
But who had told Patrick Lytle?
There was to be no memorial service for Braddy Macklin, so the next morning a little before nine, I drove the Jeep to the old city cemetery on Broadway. The cemetery predates the Civil War, and some of the headstones are faded now with time and age. There are soaring monuments topped with angels, too, and marble tombs streaked with rust-colored weather stains.
I drove through the gate at the 40th Street entrance and wound my way around until I saw a small group gathered near a mausoleum. There was a hearse parked nearby, and the name of a local funeral home appeared in one of its windows in tastefully small silver letters.
Braddy Macklin wasn't going to be buried, as it turned out. He was going to be entombed alongside his wife. On the Island you can't dig down very far before you strike water.
There were several people at the tomb when I arrived. They included Cathy Macklin, Gerald Barnes, and a man whom I supposed was the minister designated to say a few final words about Macklin. There were also two men in black suits who probably worked for the funeral home. All those were people I'd expected to see.
I hadn't expected to see Patrick Lytle and his grandson, Paul, however. They were there, not far from the hearse, Patrick in his wheelchair and his grandson standing right behind him. There was a smile of fierce satisfaction on the elder Lytle's face, as if he had waited years for what he was about to see. The grandson, on the other hand, looked completely detached, almost bored. He wasn't even watching the funerary proceedings; he was watching a white gull sailing through the intensely blue sky.
I hadn't expected Dino and Evelyn to be there, either, but they were, and after saying a few meaningless words to Cathy, I walked over to join them.
"I'm surprised to see you outside the house," I told Dino. "Isn't it about time for Donahue?"
"I got an obligation to Macklin," Dino said. "I had to be here."
"What obligation?" I asked.
Dino was about to answer, but Evelyn punched him in the arm and he hushed. The minister was talking. He had a soft voice, and we were standing far enough away that I couldn't quite make out all the words, not that the words mattered. I'd heard them all before. I listened to the cars passing on Broadway, the squeal of tires, the occasional horn honking.
The minister's words didn't take long. The tomb doors were closed, and the hearse drove away.
"What obligation?" I asked again.
"Macklin worked for the family," Dino said. "No matter what happened to him, he worked for the family. I stick up for the family."
Friends and family. Dino was big on things like that. Somebody said that nobody noticed when old men died except other old men. That wasn't true. There was always someone to notice and to care, even if it was someone like Dino, who cared for reasons that the dead man might not even have understood.
I said good-bye to Dino and Evelyn and walked toward the tomb. I was going to talk to Cathy again, but Barnes headed me off. I said hello and started to step around him, but he put a hand on my arm.
"How's the investigation coming, Smith?" he asked.
"What investigation?" I asked. I didn't want to talk to Barnes.
"Harry Mercer. You said you were looking for him."
"I was. I haven't found him."
"Yeah. I bet. And you don't have anything for me?"
I reached into the pocket of my jeans. "As a matter of fact, I do." I handed him the flattened piece of lead I'd picked up at the lab.
He rolled it between his fingers, hardly looking at it, and slipped it into his own pocket.
"Did you find any casings?"
"No. Either the sh
ooter was using a revolver or someone came back and picked them up."
I knew that the shooter had been using an automatic, and I suspected that I'd even seen the gun, in Zintner's desk drawer, though there hadn't been a silencer on it. Homemade silencers don't last long.
Barnes didn't really care about the casings at the marine lab. He had something else on his mind.
"I guess you wouldn't know a thing about Harry's friend Ro-Jo, either," he said.
"What about him?"
"Somebody killed him last night, in one of the old cotton warehouses."
I tried to look surprised. "Was he shot?"
"That's a good question, Smith. Let me put it this way: we found a lot of shell casings around. And because the place has a wooden floor, we found some slugs that are in a lot better shape than that piece of crap you just gave me."
I hadn't given any thought to the casings and slugs at the warehouse. I wondered if Becker had found the time to go back and clean his up. Probably not.
"We'll be sending them off for ballistics tests," Barnes said. "Does that bother you?"
"Should it?"
"I guess that depends," he said. "On whether some of them came from a certain Mauser that's been used around here before."
"You wouldn't be accusing me of anything, would you?"
"Not me. I'm just a cop doing a job. But if I find out that your gun was used in that warehouse, you're in big trouble, Smith."
"I didn't shoot Ro-Jo," I said.
"Hell, Smith, I know that. But that doesn't mean you didn't kill him."
I shook my head. "You're too slick for me, Barnes. I don't know what you're getting at."
"Maybe not," he said, as if he didn't believe a word of it. "But I wouldn't bet my house payment on it. See you around, Smith."
He walked away through the headstones, and I turned to look for Cathy. She was still standing at the tomb, but the Lytles were with her. I didn't want to talk to Patrick, though it appeared that I wasn't going to be able to avoid it.
When Paul saw me walking in their direction, he bent down and said something to his grandfather, who said a few more words to Cathy and then nodded to Paul. Paul turned the chair and pushed it toward me.
