by Basil Copper
‘Well, I think we’re all finished,’ Tucker said to no-one.
‘What did you do with the gun?’ I asked Merna Freeman.
‘You mean this one?’ she said. The little nickel-plated revolver was out of her bag and lined up on the room in front of her. We were fanned out in a semi-circle and she couldn’t miss. Then I remembered her shooting Krug and realized she wouldn’t miss.
‘Take it easy,’ said Sheriff Andrews. He shuffled forward awkwardly and then stopped.
‘You didn’t have to shoot Krug,’ I said. ‘He was dying anyway.’
Her voice was wistful when she spoke again. ‘That was a mistake, Mike. But I thought he was going to start talking about me. And I couldn’t have that.’
She threw back her head and laughed. ‘And it was all for nothing, anyway. Seven stinking years.’
She stared in front of her. ‘Do you know what it was like, Mike. Seven lousy years. Sucking up to that old man, putting up with his disgusting pawing, waiting for him to die? And then to be cheated by people like Rex Beale and Krug at the last moment? I’m glad they’re dead. Don’t make me force you to join them.’
She jerked the revolver around. The deputy sheriff came up the room at a run, yanking at his hip. The little gun spat flame; the deputy sagged and fell against the table. He clutched the crimson patch on his shoulder and looked at it stupidly.
‘Easy, boys,’ said Merna Freeman. ‘Back up against the wall.’
We got back against the wall. I felt Andrews’ muscles tense as he stood against me. I caught his arm. ‘It’s all right,’ I told him. ‘The season’s over for killing sheriffs.’
Merna Freeman went back down the room very slowly fanning the gun round her.
‘Let her go,’ Tucker called out. ‘Ain’t no sense getting it at this stage of the game.’
‘Sensible, Captain,’ said Merna. She had got almost to the library steps this time. From there it was a straight run to the front porch and her car. I groaned when I saw Kathy Gowan go out of her chair in a flurry of legs. She landed awkwardly and went sliding along the floor towards Merna. The gun spoke again and a shower of splinters went up three feet from Kathy’s head. She stayed where she was. One of the patrolmen had broken ranks by this time. Then the little pistol flamed again and we all went down on the floor. Merna was almost at the door.
‘It was quieter on the Argonne in World War One,’ grunted Andrews on the floor by my side.
‘You might get a break soon,’ said Tucker. ‘She’s used up three already.’
A vase burst thunderously behind us and showered us with broken splinters.
‘And we might not,’ I said grimly. ‘Not unless you’re hankering for a mahogany waistcoat. What do you think that stuff is? Cornflakes?’
‘Flak is pretty thick come to think of it, Captain,’ said the deputy who’d been wounded. He was clutching his shoulder; his face looked green.
There was a shadow at the door and then the clitter of high heels. I went and picked Kathy up. She was shaking as I helped her to her feet. The patrolmen started running down the room as the roar of a car sounded from the terrace below.
‘Aw, let her go,’ said Andrews. ‘She can’t travel far. Better get on the radio.’
He went resignedly over to the centre of the room and finished off his drink. The two patrolmen disappeared in the direction of the garden.
‘We’d best follow, Mike,’ said Tucker. ‘No tellin’ what she might do.’
I saw Kathy pick up her drink again as we went down the great central staircase. I could see the lights of a car going down the winding curve of the road, stencilled faintly between the trees. I went over to the patrol car; one of the police officers was speaking into the telephone. The night air was heavy with tinny instructions.
I got in the car with Tucker and we rolled through the ornamental gates. As we got to the top of the mountain road we could see the lights far below, on the opposite curve. They were going much too fast. As we watched they disappeared, then reappeared, briefly silhouetted against the trees. Flame bloomed in the night, then glared with incandescent brilliance. The light grew until it filled the whole valley. Presently the hollow boom of the explosion echoed back from peak to peak. Tucker stopped the car, made a U-turn and came back. He didn’t look at my face.
‘Wouldn’t do any good,’ he said. ‘I’ll get a call out to the highway boys.’
We rolled slowly up the hill and through the gates of Salamanca Heights.
Chapter Eighteen - A Voice From the Grave
I sat in my office and concentrated on a sheaf of bills Stella had put before me. She sat opposite with an air of quiet efficiency which I felt rather trying this afternoon.
‘So what happened to Kathy Gowan?’ she said.
‘She slipped on the front steps of Salamanca Heights, sprained her ankle and had to be destroyed,’ I said.
‘I’ll bet,’ Stella grinned. ‘She did pretty well out of this business.’
She passed me the Examiner. I’d already seen the five fat columns on the front page under Kathy Gowan’s by-line so I didn’t re-read it. It was headed; MURDER-CRIME SYNDICATE BEHIND FREEZER FRONT. The paper promised more to come.
‘I’m sorry about the girl, Mike,’ said Stella. ‘You rather liked her, didn’t you?’
‘Who, Kathy?’ I said guiltily. I looked over at Stella. She was wearing her impatient look.
‘No, Merna Freeman,’ she said.
‘I hardly knew her.’ I said. ‘But it was ironic, in a way. Krug won, after all.’
Stella looked up from her filing cabinet. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I had a call from Tucker this morning,’ I said. ‘The L.A. boys established that Krug, or one of his people had tampered with the brake-system of her car. They figure it must have been done several days earlier. The miracle was it held up as long as it did. She got up to Knoxtown all right but it gave out on the way down the hill.’
‘Or her luck did,’ Stella said absently. ‘What a setup, Mike. Everyone double-crossing everyone else.’
I shrugged. ‘It’s the world,’ I said.
Stella looked at me sharply. ‘Our world,’ she said.
I got to the bottom of the pile of correspondence. There was only one letter more. The handwriting on the envelope was unfamiliar. It crackled as I opened it. The writing paper was pale blue. Inside the sheets were five beautiful new thousand dollar bills. I sat with them in my hand and read the letter. She must have posted it the day before she died.
It said: Dear Mike,
If things had been different you would have been what I always wanted. But I could see there was nothing in it for us, which was why I didn’t follow through. I find it difficult to explain. When you get this I shall be a long ways off. I wouldn’t want you to think too badly of me. Please use the enclosed in any way you see fit.
Yours, and always yours,
M.
I put the bills in my pocket and sat staring at the window and the small square of sunshine in the street outside. Stella came back and put the cup down at my elbow. I drank my coffee and tried not to feel too bad about anything. Then I put the letter in my ashtray and set a match to it. I watched it crumple to a grey powder. Stella sat and watched with that marvellous tact of hers.
‘A bad debt,’ I said and went on out.
I rode down in the elevator, got into the Buick and drove across town. I went up the main drive of Sunset Gardens. Bulldozers were busy even here. Men in blue overalls with spades were thick as flies on the hillside. They wore gauze masks over their faces and other men were following them with drums of chemicals. Bundles recovered from the site were wrapped in tarpaulins and white-coated doctors groped among the heaps attaching labels. Dan Tucker stood off at a distance with a handkerchief over his face and watched. He nodded when he saw me arrive but he didn’t say anything.
I stayed about a quarter of an hour; I looked across from the modern version of Inferno to the smoke and smog of L.A
. in the distance. As I got up to the car I could hear pneumatic drills at work on the main buildings of Sunset Gardens. Someday a housing estate would arise on the site.
I had just one more thing to do. I drove over to the Central Post Office and got a thick manila envelope; I put the bills in it, addressed it to the old Salamanca Heights caretaker in the Knoxtown hospital and dropped it in the mailbox. I got back to the Buick and sat behind the wheel. The scar on my wrist was fading now. I looked back over towards the distant hills; the sun was shining again and the far blue of the foothills gave a faint promise of summer. It had been a long spring. Driving across town I almost caught myself smiling.
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