‘We were so young, so inexperienced when …’
… 5, 4, 3, the light read, and then the elevator slowed, settled to a cushiony halt.
‘… when we married,’ she continued. ‘So immature.’
The doors opened on an empty lobby.
‘Good-bye.’
She caught his arm. ‘Sam. Can’t we be friends?’
She’d always talked like a B movie, but this was a new low, even for her. He felt a sudden rush of sympathy. ‘Alice,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean to be abrupt. But I’m in a jam.’
‘You can spare two minutes.’
‘I can tell you we’re friends in two seconds. We’re friends. I like you fine, Alice, and I’ll always think of you as a——’
Sound erupted in the lobby. A gong clanged on the rear wall. The telephone by the street doors began to ring, insistent and shrill. A deep voice on a loudspeaker somewhere said: ‘Attention, all Globe employees …’
‘Bitch!’ he exclaimed. ‘Double-crossing bitch!’
Wounded, she released his arm. ‘Sam Clay!’
Another bell joined the clamour. He headed for the doors, hearing the deep voice say: ‘… detain reporter Sam Clay. He is wanted …’ He quickened his pace to a dog trot, not quite daring to run. ‘… for questioning. Wanted for questioning.’
Alice called, ‘Sam!’ in a different tone of voice. He went by the ringing telephone, thankful there was no guard on Sunday, and out the doors to the street. Bitch! he thought again. Her and her five minutes! The loudspeaker voice said: ‘Attention. Detain reporter Sam Clay.’ He started up the street towards the river.
‘Sam!’ Alice came through the doors, came running after him. ‘Sam! Wait!’ Wind moulded the pink dress to heavy breasts, wide hips, fluttered the blonde hair.
Realizing he couldn’t lose her without running, he slowed his pace. She closed rapidly, continuing to call: ‘Sam! Sam!’
‘For God’s sake!’ he said as she caught up. ‘Stop yelling Sam! Yell Tony or something.’
‘I didn’t know …’
The deep voice, muffled by distance but still distinct, said, ‘Attention Globe employees …’
‘I told you I was in a jam.’
‘Here.’ Breathing hard, trotting to keep up with him, she fumbled with her purse. ‘What I’ve been … trying to … reach you for.’ She took out an envelope, thrust it at him. ‘From Laura Peterkins.’
He stopped walking. ‘Laura!’
‘Terribly important, she said.’
He started walking again. ‘How did you get it?’
‘She couldn’t find you … so she thought of me. Sent it this morning … by messenger. Said nobody else on the Globe must see it.’
He stuffed the envelope in his pocket. ‘Thanks.’
‘If there’s anything …’
‘Beat it. Before you get shot.’
She halted, wide eyed, and he went on alone. The building called after him: ‘Wanted for questioning. Wanted for questioning …’ He heard it long after he was out of hearing range.
Chapter 21
THE proprietor of Stan’s Saloon—Ladies Invited had a broken nose, hairy ears and $300 worth of gold teeth. His name was Stan. He bent over the back booth, put coffee, a bowl of peanuts, a dish of herring marinated in sour cream and a jar of dill pickles on the table, said, ‘Thasall we got, Jack.’
‘Fine,’ Clay said. ‘Just what I wanted.’
Stan lingered, staring curiously. ‘Whynchu go resrant you so hungry?’
‘I’m meeting somebody here.’
The gold teeth gleamed. ‘All I say,’ he said and said it: ‘Better call him bring a stomick pump, Jack.’
He went to the table by the door and joined a fat kibitzer wearing bedroom slippers, pants and an unbuttoned undershirt watching two old men play a game involving beer caps, Polish cursing, table thumping and two decks of greasy cards. Nobody was at the bar.
Clay ate some of the herring, some of the peanuts, washed the taste away with coffee and opened the envelope. Some pieces of paper fell out. One, an incoherent scrawl in violet ink with dashes for periods, was evidently a message from Laura Peterkins. It read:
Of course you’re not the one, Sam, even though you were there—I learned enough from Mary to know that—but I must know what you know!
Just can’t name names until we talk—the thought so terrible, so repugnant, so impossible!
Yet I’m frightened that it is true and then what you know and I know and this letter (enclosed) the only evidence—I don’t dare keep it in case—in case! What an awful thought! and I don’t dare send it to the office where wrong hands, the wrong hand, might get it—
Your Alice has promised to take it to you—I don’t dare keep calling the office for you or go myself and your phone doesn’t answer—
Please put it in a safe place and come—
L
He read the note again, wondering if she had been drinking when she wrote it. It didn’t make any better sense the second time. He read: ‘… what you know and I know … only evidence.’ What did he know? Nothing. Yet Laura, if not drinking, had somehow reasoned out they both knew the same thing, possessed the same evidence. And she did know something, otherwise she wouldn’t have been knocked off. He ate some more peanuts, unfolded the other pages. There were three, all part of one letter, and on each page was printed: State Penitentiary—McAlester, Okla. The letter was dated: October 3, 1952. He read:
DEAR MISS BAUMHOLTZ,
I am sorry for the delay in answering your letter, but I have been in Denver the past week, attending a symposium on penology.
I regret to have to inform you, in reply to your request to see Larry Trevor, that he died almost two years ago, on November 6, 1950, of a heart attack.
I will take your questions in order. The records show:
He had no visitors in the nineteen years he was at McAlester.
He wrote and received no letters.
He had no prison friends.
His body was unclaimed.
He made numerous attempts to escape, the last only a month before his death. In one, in 1945, involving a leap from a fifty-foot wall, he broke his back and both legs.
He never revealed the identity of the so-called Hooded Nun.
He never disclosed the hiding place of the money he stole.
So much for the records. He did tell me, when in the prison hospital with the broken back and, I believe, under the impression he was dying, that he was married. He told me, if I recall correctly, that the marriage took place in 1931, in Clearcreek, Oklahoma. If you were born in 1932, as you say, it is quite possible, as far as the time element is concerned, for you to be his daughter, but I am certain he knew nothing of your existence.
At the time of our hospital conversation, the only long talk I had with him in ten years as Assistant Warden and Warden, he gave me a letter to be posted in the event of his death. Upon his recovery, and at his request, I destroyed it.
As he reached for page three, fierce wrangling broke out by the door. The two old men, leaning forward, crimson face to crimson face, pushed beer caps back and forth across the table, shook fists, gobbled at one another. Finally the fat man in the undershirt, with the air of a conjurer, produced a milk bottle from his pants, put it on the table and said something in Polish. This broke everybody up. Stan doubled hysterically, crossing his arms over his belly; the two old men cackled, fell back in their chairs, tears running from their eyes, arms waving helplessly; even the fat man laughed. It was a very funny thing. Maybe the funniest thing that had ever happened. Clay stared blankly, then turned back to the letter.
I now recall, having seen your name, that Trevor’s letter was addressed to an Edna (or Esther) Baumholtz in Fort Worth, Texas. Could this be the woman who told you on her deathbed that you were his daughter?
There is little more I can add. I believe the unusual sentence, 150 years rather than death, was the result of pressure brought by the Bankers’ Associat
ion in the hope he would ultimately reveal the hiding place of the stolen money, more than $100,000 by all accounts.
I was also once told by a Deputy delivering a prisoner from Idabel, where Trevor was captured, that Sheriff Wattling and his men were acting upon information supplied them by the so-called Hooded Nun. This betrayal, if betrayal it was, would account for Larry’s escape fixation, since he would naturally have a burning desire for revenge.
It is my belief, and incidentally the Deputy’s, that the Hooded Nun was a boy, or a young man. There would seem to be no purpose in the disguise except to conceal the sex of the wearer, and the descriptions of the fair-skinned face would fit a boy as well as a girl.
That is all I can tell you. If you will take the advice of an old man who has spent more than forty years in the twin fields of criminology and penology, you will let the matter drop here. I can see no good coming from the disinterment of matters better left buried.
Sincerely,
D. W. GRISCOMB,
WARDEN
He folded the three pages and slid them and Laura’s note back in the envelope, thinking D. W. Griscomb seemed pretty literate for a warden. October 1952, he reflected. Just about the time the girl changed her name to Trevor. The letter certainly cleared up one thing. Instead of a wild hunch about a ballad, there was something concrete to go on now. The girl was Larry Trevor’s daughter and the murder—murders!—were tied up with him. He thought about Laura. She’d found out something, apparently from the letter, that had scared the daylights out of her, made her feel it was too hot to have around. He went back to the letter again. Somewhere in it was a clue, had to be a clue. But what was it? Mr Bundy would have to figure that out.
He caught Stan’s eye and ordered more coffee, at the same time discovering he’d eaten all the peanuts and herring, all but three of the dill pickles. One way of cheating the electric chair, he thought, and began to try to fit together what he already knew and what he’d just learned.
Okay. The girl was Trevor’s daughter. She had been left by her mother with Esther Baumholtz. Esther was either a friend or a relative of Trevor’s since he’d written to her when he thought he was dying in 1945. More likely a relative, which would explain her being willing to take the baby. On her deathbed Esther had told Mary who she was. Probably other things, too. Possibly the hiding place of the money which would account for her sudden wealth.
No, by God! Not the hiding place, because she’d asked the warden about that. Sudden wealth unaccounted for, and blackmail still the best angle. But who would she be blackmailing? Moses! he thought, suddenly excited. The Hooded Nun! It was a natural. Boy or young man in 1932, he’d be a man somewhere now. And no special reason for his not being a newspaperman. No special reason for his not being Charley Adair or Widdecomb, or Canning, Standish, Saul Blair for that matter. What had Mrs Palmer said about the person Mary had told her she was having trouble with? Someone in the organization, someone highly placed! A perfect fit! And the trouble wouldn’t exactly be blackmail, just a demand for a share of the loot. That fitted in better with his impression of the girl, even though he remembered her only as she looked after she …
The street door opened and a woman carrying a purple umbrella and wearing something resembling an old-fashioned touring duster, backed into the saloon. All play at the table stopped abruptly. The woman backed to the exact centre of the floor, eyes on the door, and then surveyed the card players with evident distaste. Clay saw it was Miss Dewhurst, but before he could rise she had backed to the booth, was sitting down, her face still towards the door.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘Followed …’ Miss Dewhurst whispered. ‘Police.’
Alarmed, Clay slid along the seat. ‘Let’s get out of here!’
‘No.’ She was breathing hard. ‘Almost certain … threw them off.’ She turned, narrowly missing his head with the purple umbrella, and moved into the booth.
‘Where’s Mr Bundy?’
She put the umbrella on the table. ‘Poor man. In jail.’
It sounded like ‘Porman ingel’, and while he was deciphering, she went on: ‘Detectives about to leave just after your call when bracelet and bloody shears uncovered in desk drawer. Very unpleasant. Threats. Handcuffs. Et cetera. Et cetera.’
Stan came to the booth with Clay’s coffee. ‘Cup for you, ma’am?’ he asked.
‘A triple shot of straight brandy,’ said Miss Dewhurst in a business-like aside and went on: ‘Men left to watch me, office. Eluded them.’
Stan was having trouble with his Adam’s apple. He finally got it back in place, said, ‘Triple brandy, yes, ma’am!’ in a too loud voice and went to the bar. Clay asked:
‘You get a chance to talk to Mr Bundy?’
‘I managed to give him your message about the girl’s earlier calls, about the evidence and the mechanical man and her looking at plane schedules. He seemed excited.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing.’ She took a crumpled piece of paper, evidently a sheet torn from one of Mr Bundy’s ledgers, from a pocket in the duster. ‘But he left this on his desk. I doubt you can read it. It’s in a kind of code …’
‘You read it.’
She bent over the paper. ‘“Cherry blossom number Yankee Lady Beaverbrook.”’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘The Washington number belongs to Mrs Cornelia Palmer.’ She read the next notation. ‘“To from airplanes fly.”’
‘Who does he think he is—e e cummings?’
‘I don’t know what it means myself,’ she confessed, and read: ‘“Already ordered cherry blossom associates kidnap mechanical man. Office twelvestroke all go well.”’
Stan appeared, holding the half glass of brandy like a time bomb. ‘I was you, lady …’ he began.
Miss Dewhurst took the glass, drained it. ‘Another!’ Adam’s apple permanently dislodged, Stan carried the glass back to the bar. Colour appeared on Miss Dewhurst’s cheeks. ‘Unstrung,’ she explained. ‘A drop or two. Sedation.’ She licked her lips.
Clay said, ‘You got any ideas about the last thing you read?’
‘Why, it’s perfectly clear. Mr Bundy has notified his Washington operatives to kidnap the mechanical man. If they do their job he—it will be in our office at midnight.’
‘That’s dandy. Who—what’s a mechanical man?’
‘I thought you would know that.’
He shook his head, asked, ‘What else?’
‘That’s all.’ She pushed the ledger sheet across the table. ‘You may have it if you like.’
‘No. You keep it. And this.’ He gave her the envelope containing the note and the letter. ‘When—if Mr Bundy gets free, give it to him.’
‘Right,’ she said cheerfully. ‘That man!’
‘What man?’
‘So slow bringing the brandy.’ She turned, crooked an imperious finger at the bar. ‘You there! Pip, pip! Chip, chip!’
Play ceased at the table again. From behind the bar, Stan eyed her apprehensively. ‘This respectful place lady, so no more. Please.’ The card players nodded agreement.
‘Well!’ Outraged, Miss Dewhurst swung back to Clay. ‘Will you do something about this or must I?’
‘Me, I’m leaving,’ he said. ‘Before the rioting starts.’ He put a five-dollar bill on the table.
‘I am not!’ She settled herself firmly on the seat. ‘Where will you be?’
‘Jail, most likely.’ He stood up. ‘Where can I tell you?’
‘Right here until I’m properly served.’ She grasped the umbrella, shook it wickedly. ‘And then at the office.’
He nodded and went to the door, passing the listening, waxwork figures at the table. As he stepped into the street he looked back over his shoulder, saw Miss Dewhurst approaching the bar, the purple umbrella held in a clubbing position like an elongated hatchet. He heard her say, ‘Now then!’ as the door swung shut.
Chapter 22
WALKING cautiously
on wet grass beside the flagstone path, eyes on the light ahead, Clay felt the mist resist him damply. It was a strange mist, warm and cloyingly perfumed, and it undulated faintly. It filled the entire garden, wispy silk among tulips and rose bushes, dark on grass, milky against the sky. Through it, growing steadily brighter, the light burned lemon pale behind the windows of Laura Peterkins’ fairy-tale cottage.
The mist and the odour of tuberoses decaying on a grave and the waiting silence made him want to turn, leave dwarf cottage and blurred garden to whatever spell held them, but he kept on. It was a gamble. A crazy gamble. But it was the only gamble he had. Elmo Peterkins. If only the police had come and gone, left the old man alone. And if only he could be persuaded …
Music came from the cottage, random notes plucked from a guitar. He halted abruptly, his spine tingling. The notes came closer together, merged, became chords, and a plaintive voice sang: ‘The long trail’s gone, the range lies bare; sun burns red in dust-filled air …’ Another guitar joined the first, the muted notes more distinct, and the voice sang: ‘… where dogies grazed on buff’lo grass …’
Soft earth in a flower bed gave under his feet as he moved to one of the tall windows, peered past half-drawn curtains into the room. Wan light from a cast-iron lamp diffused by a yellow shade made pastels of book jackets in the ceiling-high cases, faded the red bricks of the fireplace. On the canary’s cage was a linen cover and on a table under the lamp, lid open, a portable phonograph relayed guitar and plaintive voice singing: ‘… now Frank James rides the piebald sky …’
The ballad, continuing, ‘… on a piebald horse with a piebald eye …’ gave him an eerie feeling. It had a funereal quality all right, but it seemed an odd thing to play at a wake, if wake it was. He moved closer so that he could see more of the room. There was no sign of the police. No sign of anybody, for that matter. Just a disembodied voice rising in an empty room from a machine that nobody had started.
What the hell? he thought and stepped across the shaft of light from the window to peer from another angle. What he saw froze him in startled surprise. On the enormous divan, back propped up by pillows, head swathed in a white bandage, was Laura Peterkins. A plaid lap robe covered the lower part of her body and on a stand beside her were a whisky bottle and a half-empty tumbler glistening with sweat beads. Smoke curled from a cigarette in an ash-tray by the bottle.
Sinners and Shrouds Page 16
