I Scarce Can Die (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 5)

by Michael Wallace

“Absolutely. And on me.”

  “You’re too kind. Shall we say a little after five? One doesn’t want to get into the habit of drinking too early.”

  “That would be fine. See you in about 45 minutes then.”

  “Righto.”

  Gordon shaved, showered and changed out of his fishing jeans and flannel shirt into khakis and a blue button-down shirt with white pencil stripes. Peter had come out of his bedroom, and Gordon turned to him.

  “Are you up for another visit to the Rope’s End? Dill just called. He remembered something about the play and wanted to spill it.”

  “As long as they’re not out of club soda.”

  “Grab your jacket then. I want to have a few words with Reg the bartender before Dill arrives.”

  “So much for letting go of the case,” Peter said. “I’ll be ready in two minutes.”

  THEY WALKED TO THE BAR, arriving at 4:45. Gordon got a club soda with a twist for Peter and ordered a beer for himself, figuring he’d need to at least pretend to be keeping up with Basil Dill. The afternoon rush hadn’t yet begun, and only two other customers were on hand, so they sat at the bar and Gordon leaned over it, addressing the bartender in a confidential tone of voice.

  “So, Reg, could I pick your brain for a couple of minutes? You strike me as being a man who notices what’s going on.”

  “Pick away,” Reg said, “as long as it’s understood I have to take care of the customers first.”

  “Of course. Now I was looking at the program from when they did The Philadelphia Story at the Acorn Theater two summers ago. Are you the Reg Cooper who played the part of Mac, the night watchman?”

  “It was more of a walk-on than a part, but yeah.”

  “And you were able to get time off from here to do it?”

  “I wasn’t working here then. I had a day job.”

  “Ah. Do you remember much about it? The play, I mean.”

  “Quite a bit, actually.”

  “Sounds as if you’re sitting on something.”

  “No, not really. It’s just that — let me put it this way. You know how you go up to a lake in the mountains, and it’s clear and beautiful, and reflecting everything?”

  “We were at Tres Piños this morning. It was like that.”

  “Yeah. Well, on the surface it looks really calm and peaceful and lovely, but then you realize that underneath the surface, everybody’s trying to eat everybody else. That’s what it was like being in that play. A lot of intrigue going on behind the scenes.”

  “How did you end up in it, anyway?”

  “I was asked.”

  “Who asked you?”

  “Kevin Hawkins. I was working at Harrison’s then. That was before I wrecked my knee. Kevin was being dragged into the play by Amy, just like the year before, and I think he was concerned that there might be too much togetherness, if you know what I mean, and he wanted a guy around he could talk to. We got along OK at work, so I was easy.”

  “I hear Amy was expecting to get the lead role.”

  “Everybody was expecting Amy to get top billing. I mean, Harrison underwrote the play, right?”

  “Was she cheated out of it?”

  Reg picked up a glass behind the bar and absently wiped it with a towel.

  “Between you, me and the lamppost,” he said, “No. She still thinks so, but anybody who saw her and Connie audition will tell you it was no contest.”

  “So part of the intrigue was Amy’s resentment over that?”

  “Sure, but not just that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Reg sighed. “I guess it’s no secret that Connie had a rough life. Married to a man who was going down and taking her with him. When she got up to audition, it’s like something possessed her all of a sudden. You could see it in her eyes that night, and you could see it as the play came together. She was starting to believe in herself again.”

  “And how did that create intrigue?

  “Well, when a woman’s been having man trouble, and she suddenly gets a hit of self-confidence, what usually happens?”

  “Having been often married,” Peter said, “I can answer that one. She starts thinking about a better man.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Do you think Connie was going after one of the men in the show?” Gordon asked.

  “Hard to say for sure, but I don’t think so. More like she was refining her flirting skills for later on.”

  “And how were her flirting skills?”

  “Pretty damn good. Dick Holmes would have forgotten his vows and followed her into the bedroom if she just winked at him. Basil Dill would have made a pass at her if he wasn’t such a coward. Kevin, though, I’m not so sure about.”

  “Interesting,” Gordon said. “From my brief encounter with him, he didn’t strike me as being a man of steely resolve.”

  “With Amy around all the time, he didn’t have to be. She had enough resolve for both of them. And Kev’s a realist. You could tell Connie was getting under his skin, but he had to think about both his wife and his job.”

  “His job?”

  “He’s the floor manager at Harrison’s. From what I can tell, he does the job OK, but you have to wonder if being married to the boss’s daughter didn’t have some small part to play in getting hired. Also, whether he’d still have that job if Amy left him.”

  “I see.”

  Gordon took a sip of his beer, and before he could formulate another question, the quiet of the bar was overwhelmed by the sound of a loud siren outside. It quickly became a crescendo of sirens, lasting for a couple of minutes before fading into the distance.

  “That was a hat trick,” Reg said, when it quieted down enough for conversation. “Fire, ambulance and sheriff. We don’t get that too often around here. It must be something really big.”

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Basil Dill had not shown up, and Gordon was getting worried. He looked at Peter and could tell that he, too, was thinking the same thing. Were the sirens somehow for Basil Dill? Another 15 minutes later, at 5:35, the phone rang, and Reg answered it.

  “Yep,” he said, looking at Gordon and Peter. “They’re here.” A slight pause. “All right. I’ll tell them.”

  He set down the phone.

  “That was the sheriff. He said not to leave until he gets here.”

  “Did he say how long that was going to take?”

  “He said he’d be here as soon as the crime scene’s secure.”

  “Did he say what the crime was?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Having finished his beer, and wanting to be sober for the sheriff, Gordon ordered club soda with a twist for himself and Peter and they moved to a table along the far wall. Tense and apprehensive, they spoke little.

  At 6:10, Sheriff Ketch walked through the front door. In full authority mode now, he looked taller than he had in Pope’s office. He spotted Gordon and headed right at him, grabbing a chair along the way.

  “All right, Gordon. Were you meeting Basil Dill here this afternoon?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “Why were you meeting him?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Cut the crap, Gordon. One more line like that, and I’m bringing you to the courthouse.”

  “Am I correct in assuming the sirens were for Dill?”

  “I’m asking the questions. Why were you meeting him?”

  “He called me at 4:15 to say he’d remembered something about the production of The Philadelphia Story and he wanted to discuss it over a drink.”

  “Why the hell would you be interested in that?”

  “Well, if Gary didn’t kill his wife, somebody else did. And the play she was in the month before she died may have been where she met her killer.”

  Ketch snorted. “You’re wasting your time. Gary Baxter killed his wife. Open and shut.”

  “Then did he kill Basil Dill, too? I mean, that would be hard to do from inside Folsom Prison.”

  “Ho
w did you know Dill was killed?”

  “Oh, come on, sheriff. He doesn’t show up for an appointment he just made. Every emergency vehicle in the county suddenly goes into action. And then you come in here and start asking questions about him. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that out. Watson would have known in a minute.”

  “Where were you at five minutes to five?”

  “Right here. Talking to Reg. Peter and I both. You can ask Reg.”

  “Don’t worry. I will.”

  “And you can drive by the house I’m renting and see that my Cherokee’s parked there. If I’d killed Dill at five minutes to five, I’d have had to get here on foot. I’m in the clear.”

  Ketch stood up.

  “Now are you going to tell me what happened?” Gordon asked.

  Ketch glared at him.

  “No,” he snapped.

  Ketch walked to the bar and engaged Reg in an animated conversation, looking over at Gordon and Peter a couple of times. Reg kept nodding, and finally, Ketch shook his head in disgust and stormed out the door.

  A couple of minutes later, when Reg had a breather, Gordon and Peter walked up to him.

  “I gather Ketch was asking about when we got here,” Gordon said.

  “I told him. This is bad. Basil Dill was shot three times as he was getting into his car just before five o’clock. The lady next door heard the shots but was washing her hands, and by the time she got to the window, the shooter was gone. She called the sheriff at 5:02. I told him you were here from quarter to five on.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I think he was disappointed he couldn’t pin it on you.”

  “A fast and easy arrest,” Gordon said. “That does seem to be his style.”

  BEFORE LEAVING THE SALOON, Gordon checked his phone and discovered he had missed two calls from Elizabeth. He left Peter in the warmth of Rope’s End while he stepped outside to make the call with some privacy. With the sun behind the mountains, it was distinctly chilly, and a number of residents had gotten their fireplaces and wood stoves going, cloaking the town in a homey bouquet of smoke. Gordon walked to the Acorn Theater and looked at the poster in front as he called Elizabeth. Who, he wondered, would take over for Dill? Would anybody? Perhaps Dutchtown had seen its last summer theater production.

  “Gordon!” Elizabeth answered. “What have you been doing?”

  “Waiting for a dead man, I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t tell me. At a bar?”

  “That’s where we were going to meet.”

  “Well, I have news, too, but yours sounds more dramatic.”

  “On Tuesday, we talked to Basil Dill, who directed the summer theater production Connie starred in. I asked him if he remembered anything going on between Connie and anyone else involved in the play, and he said no, but he’d call me if he thought of something. This afternoon he called me at 4:15 to tell me he’d remembered something, and we agreed to meet at five at the Rope’s End.”

  “And he didn’t show up?”

  “He never got off his property. He was gunned down in front of his car.”

  “Oh, my God. How did you hear about it?”

  “Right about five, every emergency vehicle in the county roared through Dutchtown with sirens blaring. An hour later, the sheriff came into the bar and all but accused me of killing Dill. Fortunately, Peter and I had gotten to the bar early because I wanted to talk to the bartender, who was also in the play, so I had a rock-solid alibi. But I can’t deny I’m pretty rattled.”

  “About Dill or about being suspected?”

  “Both, I guess. But more about Dill.”

  “Do you think he was killed because he was coming to see you?”

  “I doubt he was shot by a disgruntled theater critic. I think he may have had something, and that he was killed to keep him from telling us.”

  “And now you’ll never know.”

  “We’ll never know. And if I’m right, he probably had no idea how important it was. Poor guy.”

  “That’s awful.”

  They dwelled in their own thoughts silently for a moment before Gordon spoke.

  “So how was your interview today?”

  Elizabeth gave him a rundown of what Barbara Chandler had said.

  “She’s confirming a lot of what we already found out on this end,” Gordon finally said. “It’s interesting that she has doubts about Gary as the killer, but his stepbrother didn’t.”

  “I don’t think Roger Gow does much thinking for himself,” she said. “He tends to take the surface view of things. But at least he has no pretensions. Barbara was almost nothing but pretensions.”

  “She’s from Marin County. What do you expect?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still getting the hang of all these different communities in the Bay Area. From Tony’s Tip Top Tavern on Tuesday to Lorelei’s in San Anselmo today. It was like two different worlds.”

  “Lorelei’s. That’s where you met Barbara?”

  “Yes, it was. A Marilyn Monroe-themed coffee house downtown.”

  “Oh, right. After her character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

  “And do you prefer blondes, Gordon?”

  “Are you calling me a gentleman?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I prefer you. And I’m missing you a lot right now.”

  “Sweet of you to say so. And you haven’t seen ‘Marlene’ since Saturday?”

  “Only her alter ego, the real estate agent.”

  “Really. You lost your keys, did you?”

  Gordon had to think quickly. He hadn’t yet told Elizabeth about the woman in white, and he was disinclined to until he thought it through a bit more.

  “No. Just a question about a house in town.”

  “I’ll let that go for now. But listen, Gordon. Be careful. If Gary Baxter is innocent, there’s somebody out there who has a lot to lose if the case gets reopened.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t thought of that. And Basil Dill’s being murdered has driven the point home unmistakably.”

  “YOU REALIZE, DON’T YOU, that this changes everything,” Peter said.

  “It certainly changed everything for Basil Dill.”

  “Poor guy. I wonder what happened.”

  “I think it’s pretty obvious what happened,” Gordon said. “He told someone he was coming to see me and may even have been fool enough to say what it was about. He either talked to his killer, or to someone who talked to his killer, and he was marked as a dead man at that point.”

  “Bad for him. Bad for your investigation. But it proves you were onto something. Think about it, Gordon. As of midafternoon today, you’d turned up new evidence, raised questions about the case, and shown that local law enforcement was shockingly incurious about some obvious clues. But in spite of all that, it still could have been argued — and pretty well, I might add — that it was most likely Gary who killed his wife.”

  “And now it doesn’t look like that anymore.”

  “Unless Dill was shot by a jealous husband, this has to be tied to the Baxter case.”

  “With the inescapable conclusion that the real killer has been walking free all this time and has a great deal to lose. Elizabeth and I were just talking about that. She wants me to be careful.”

  “A lot of good that’s going to do. Whoever shot Dill could ambush you just as easily. You know what, Gordon? As much as I’d like to get in some more fishing, I think the best thing for us to do is clear out first thing in the morning.”

  They were seated at a window table at River House. It was an old, log cabin style building, built in the 1930s as a roadhouse and speakeasy. It had probably been the place to go in Dutchtown through the sixties, but had spent the past quarter century becoming a local relic, more beloved than patronized. With summer over, it was open four nights a week, Thursday through Sunday, and this Thursday night the dozen or so people in the bar outnumbered the diners at the three occupied tables. No one was seated imme
diately next to them, so Peter and Gordon could speak freely, if softly.

  “Forget it, Peter,” Gordon said. “We’re staying until Sunday morning.”

  “You’re not afraid — after what happened to Dill?”

  “Dill was killed, if I’m right, because he knew something. He didn’t live long enough to tell me, so we may never know what it was. And I’m leaving in two days. If our killer has half a brain, he’ll let me go and figure that’s the end of it.”

  “Well,” Peter said, taking a sip of club soda, “for a marked man, you have an admirable level of confidence.”

  The waitress, a gray-haired plump woman in her late fifties, came up.

  “You gentlemen ready to order?”

  “What’s good tonight?” Peter asked.

  She glanced furtively at the room and leaned toward the table.

  “The chef’s sober tonight, so you’re probably OK with anything. But the T-bone steaks just arrived this morning, and they’re nice and fresh.”

  They ordered the steaks, Gordon with mushrooms on his, and Peter with onions on his. After she walked away, Peter leaned toward Gordon.

  “So let’s pass the time until the food arrives by going over the alternate theories of the crime. Dill’s murder promotes the cause of Gary’s innocence, so if he didn’t do it, who did? And why?”

  Gordon nodded and took a sip of iced tea as he collected his thoughts.

  “From what we’ve found out so far, I’d say the evidence points to the four people I talked to at Harrison’s Wednesday.”

  “The case against each, then. One at a time.”

  “I’ll start with Lee Harrison. The money in Connie’s purse, along with the scrap of paper showing the amount of a county payment to Harrison’s business, suggests she may have caught him out in something shady and was blackmailing him. If, as you suggest, he may have been double-billing the county for years, he’d certainly have a good reason for silencing her.”

  “All right, then,” Peter said, “but to play devil’s advocate, guys like Harrison, who have money and reputation, generally hire lawyers to deal with their problems instead of killing people. Do you think he would be so desperate and unhinged as to attack Connie?”

  “I’d say it’s possible but unlikely, with the caveat that the unlikely is based on a very short time spent with the man. So let’s move on to the two men who played Connie’s lovers in The Philadelphia Story — Dick Holmes and Kevin Hawkins.”