“Well…” he paused, undecided by my unexpected request. “I’m not a detective, you know,” he said finally.
“We just need someone to investigate the facts, to maybe come up with something we’re all too close to see.”
“Is it…” I heard his intake of breath at the other end of the line as he spoke the words, “…is it anything…in my line of work?”
“No,” I told him. “This would be a personal favor to me.”
I knew he couldn’t refuse when I put it on a friendship basis. “All right,” he said; “I’ll be out there tomorrow. Just where are you?”
“It’s a town called Maple Shades. It’s in Indiana, but you’ll have to take a plane to Cincinnati and get a cab to take you out. It’s only about thirty-five miles outside the city.” I made a snap decision and added, “Shelly and I will be staying at the Shades Hotel. Ask for us there.”
“All right. I’ll see you around noon tomorrow.”
I hung up and returned to the others.
“Is he coming?” Uncle Philip asked.
“Yes. He’ll be here around noon.”
“Can we trust him?” Rita wanted to know.
“As much as you can trust me.”
They were silent at that, and I figured it was probably the wrong thing to say. But right then I didn’t particularly care. I looked around at them all, at Uncle Philip and Rita, at Frank Broderick, and even at Hallison James; and I felt more than ever that these people were somehow responsible for the morning’s tragedy on the River Road.
“Shelly and I will be staying at the Shades,” I told them, and nobody protested. “My man will be here around noon and we can continue things then. I suppose you’ll all be at the funeral parlor tomorrow?”
They all nodded and Frank Broderick said, “The funeral is Monday morning. We decided that two days was long enough to keep them.”
I nodded and picked up my coat. “We’ll see you in the morning, then. Come on, Shelly.”
She followed me out of the big white house and into the streets of Maple Shades, where the snow had settled down to a light but steady fall.
“They’re the same, aren’t they?” she said from my side.
“They’ll always be the same; that’s why I left twenty years ago.”
“Was it Simon Ark you called?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much. He’s coming.”
“What do you think he’ll find?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want him to find?”
“I don’t know. …”
The morning was Saturday; it was clear and cool, and very much like Indiana. The night’s snowfall had totaled possibly two inches, and here and there I could see a shopkeeper sweeping off his sidewalk.
For a long time I lay there in bed, gazing out the window at the town that had once been mine. There was no school for the children today, and I could see them running and playing much as I had myself not too many years before. It had been a good life then. It was still a good life now, but in a different way. I had Shelly, and I had my job, and I didn’t need Maple Shades any more.
I reached out my arm until I could feel Shelly’s sleeping body at my side. She awakened at my touch and rolled over with a yawn. “What time is it?”
“Let’s see. … Almost ten-thirty. We should probably be getting up. It’s going to be a busy day.”
She stretched and yawned again and rolled out of the bed. “It’ll be good to see Simon again; it’s been a long time—for me at least.”
We had breakfast in the room and were just finishing when the desk clerk rang to announce Simon Ark. In another few moments I opened the door to admit him.
Simon Ark was tall and heavy-set; yet he carried himself with an ease and dignity that often made people forget his physical features and remember only the overpowering persuasion of his manner. I’d first met him nearly twenty years earlier, at the time of my meeting with Shelly, and we’d recently renewed our friendship after a lapse of many years.
He was an odd man, without home or family, who seemed content to roam the world in search of the devil’s works. Once he’d told me he was over 1500 years old; and sometimes, after a few hours in his company, I almost believed him. His great knowledge of Satanism—especially in early times—had spurred me to talk Neptune Books into commissioning a book based on his studies. It was for this purpose that he was currently at the College of the Hudson, living there under the name of Dark while he completed his book.
“How are you, Simon?”
“Good, good. First, let me extend my sympathies to you and Shelly on your loss.”
“Thank you, Simon. How’s the book coming?”
He smiled the old sure smile he seemed to reserve for people like Shelly and me, and said, “It’s coming. The college atmosphere seems to help my thinking, if nothing else.”
“Think we’ll be ready to publish next Fall?”
“I hope so. If my…duties don’t call me away.”
Shelly poured some coffee that was left over from breakfast, and the three of us sat down. “Well, Simon,” I began, “I hated to call you away on a personal matter like this, but you don’t know my uncle. He insisted on getting some New York private detective to work on the case; I figured you’d be better all around.”
Simon Ark smiled slightly. “As I’ve constantly reminded you, my boy, I’m not in any way a detective. …”
“I know; but they don’t, and you’re first as far as they’re concerned.”
“All right,” Simon sighed. “I know when I’m beaten. Tell me about it.”
Shelly put down her coffee cup and pointed to Simon’s pocket. “From the looks of that newspaper you already know more about it than we do.”
Simon Ark unfolded the paper and passed it over to me. I looked at the two battered cars and the usual blurred half-column pictures of the victims. I looked at the round smiling face of my sister and suddenly I felt very empty deep down inside.
I remembered the picture very well, even though they’d cropped away everything but her head. It had been taken at a beach party once, and come out so well she’d had it enlarged and framed. The photo of dad was one of his campaign pictures. I folded up the paper and tossed it on the table.
“What do they say about it?” I asked Simon.
“Well, of course your father was living alone, and nobody knows just what brought him out that early in the morning. He was headed away from the courthouse, so he wasn’t on his way to work. Your brother-in-law, Frank Broderick, says that Stella awakened him quite early and said she had to go out. She didn’t say where she was going, but he has a vague impression that he heard a telephone ring shortly before she woke him. That’s about all the newspaper account covers. Of course there’s no hint of anything suspicious; but no reader can fail to see the odd coincidence of the whole matter.”
“Do you have any ideas about it, Simon?” I asked him.
“Hardly! I don’t even yet know what you want me to find out. Just why did you and your uncle want to hire a private investigator?”
“Uncle Philip tells me the cars met head-on in the center of the road. Both cars were distinctive enough to be recognized by the other driver, and there were no external conditions like darkness or ice on the road to explain the crash. In short, Simon, one of them—either my father or my sister—deliberately crashed into the other car.”
“And you want to know which one?”
“Yes. I want to know.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why? Why do you want to know? What difference does it make, now, whether your father killed your sister or your sister killed your father? They’re both dead, and the guilty one is being punished by a higher court.”
“I don’t know why; I just want to know. If they were your family, you’d want to know, too, Simon. Besides, my uncle is afraid if he doesn’t dig out the facts, someone will spring
the whole story at election time.”
Simon Ark sighed. “All right. What would you like me to do?”
“Talk to people; see what you can dig up about the background. I’ve been away so long myself that I don’t really know too much of what’s been going on. All I can tell you is that Stella and my father were on bad terms ever since he ruled unfavorably against Frank in a court decision.”
“We’d better be getting over to the funeral parlor,” Shelly interrupted. “It’s nearly noon.”
Before I could agree, the telephone rang again and I picked it up. “Hello?”
“I’m glad I could get you, boy.” I recognized the dignified tones of District Attorney Hallison James. “Could you come right out to your sister’s house? Your brother-in-law has been attacked and badly injured.”
“What? What happened?”
“We’re not sure yet. Apparently someone was waiting for him when he returned home last night; he was pretty badly beaten.”
“We’ll be right out,” I said, and hung up.
I told Shelly and Simon about it while we gathered up our coats. Then we were downstairs and in a taxi bound for Stella and Frank’s house. And once, when I glanced sideways at Simon Ark, I noticed that the casual expression was gone from his eyes.
Now they were hard and bleak, and very dangerous; and I knew that he’d already seen something we’d missed. …
-3-
The house was Stella, and to me it always would be. Everything, every little vase and picture and chair, bore her mark. And even now, in the midst of death, Stella seemed still to be there, greeting me as I walked through the door.
The first thing I saw was Hallison James coming out of the kitchen with a uniformed policeman. “How is he, Hallison?” I asked.
“Oh, he’ll live; but he’s got a couple of cracked ribs and a bad bump on the head.” I saw him looking at Simon, so I introduced them. Then we all followed Hallison into the bedroom, where a doctor was leaning over Frank Broderick.
“I’d like to take him to the hospital for x-rays,” the doctor was saying. “I don’t think it’s too serious, but those cracked ribs might be dangerous.”
“Can you talk yet, Frank?” James asked him.
“Sure,” the man on the bed mumbled. To me he looked much the same as he had the night before, except for a bandaged head and a bruised cheek. “I don’t know who it was, though. He jumped me just as I came in the door; punched me in the face and then hit me over the head with something.”
“He must have kicked you a few times, too, judging from those ribs,” the doctor added.
“Any idea what he was after?” I asked.
“None at all,” Frank Broderick replied. “The place is pretty well messed up, especially here in the bedroom. Maybe he was just a sneak thief I surprised. If he was trying to kill me or something, I should think he’d have finished the job; I was in no shape to offer much resistance.”
“Well, go along to the hospital,” Hallison said. “This is Simon Ark, a…gentleman from New York, who’s going to look into the accident. Maybe he’ll turn up something on your assailant as well.”
“Good,” Frank Broderick said. “As soon as they take the x-rays and get me taped up, I’ll try to come over to the funeral parlor.”
An ambulance had arrived to take him to the hospital, but as we left I saw Simon Ark call the doctor aside. I moved in close and heard him ask, “Doctor, is there any chance this man’s injuries were self-inflicted?”
The doctor looked up in surprise. “Two cracked ribs? Not a chance in the world. As near as I can tell without x-rays, it’s a wonder they didn’t cut his lung open. No, people don’t go around cracking their own ribs, or kicking themselves in the chest.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Simon said, and moved back to join Shelly and me.
“What kind of idea are you playing around with?” I asked him.
“None; I simply don’t want to overlook any possibilities. The attack, on your brother-in-law is most significant, and must be fully investigated.”
“Your interest seems to have increased considerably, Simon.”
“It has. Shall we leave for the funeral parlor now? I’m quite anxious to meet the rest of your family.”
Hallison James drove us back to town, to the squat marble slab of a building that served as Maple Shades’ principal funeral parlor. Uncle Philip and his wife were already there, and while Hallison handled the introductions, I went in to look at the twin coffins that held the bodies of my father and sister.
Both tops were closed, and I asked Uncle Philip about it.
“Stella’s face was pretty much cut up when she went through the windshield,” he explained, “so we decided it would be best to keep Richard’s coffin closed as well.”
I knelt and said a silent prayer for them both, and then returned to the outer room, where Simon Ark was talking with Hallison and Uncle Philip. Shelly and Aunt Rita had disappeared somewhere into the further depths of the place.
“I just can’t understand this attack on Frank,” my uncle was saying. “There’s no possible reason for it, unless the thing was simply a robbery attempt.”
“The police are dusting the place for fingerprints,” Hallison told us, reverting to his role of District Attorney. “We hope to get a lead on whoever it was.”
“All this would have to happen in an election year,” Uncle Philip mumbled.
“At least they can’t use the old Judges of Hades tag,” Hallison said; “you’re the only one left now, Philip.”
I saw Simon Ark’s face come alive at the mention of the Judges of Hades. “What’s this?”
“Just something somebody thought up for a political campaign,” Hallison explained. “It was a painting on an old Greek vase that somebody came across in a book; and, of course, the fact that the boys are always changing the sign. …”
Simon Ark interrupted to ask about this, and we explained the ritual with the Maple Shades sign. “So this is really Hades,” he said, with a slight smile on his face. “You should have told me this over the telephone last night; I’d have been more eager to come.”
“Anyway,” James continued, “the point was that their court decisions were so lacking in human mercy that they were like the Judges of Hades. And I suppose, if Philip here will forgive me saying it, that there was something to it. The case of Frank Broderick is a perfect example.”
“I’d be interested in knowing more about that myself,” I said.
“Well, it seems that Frank Broderick owned some land that was to be used for a large shopping center. He’d bought the land for that express purpose, sinking most of his money into the deal. Just as he was about to close a deal with the backers of the shopping center, the local government re-zoned that particular piece of property into a residential area. Of course Frank fought it, claiming the town government had known of the plans for the shopping center, and had originally approved them. He took the case to court on the grounds that the re-zoning should not be allowed to interfere with the already-approved shopping center.”
He paused a moment to light a cigar, then continued. “Well, Frank’s father-in-law drew the case. Of course he should have disqualified himself at once, on the grounds of personal relationship with the plaintiff. He must have known, as everyone else did, that whatever decision he reached would immediately be thrown out by a higher court. But he sat on the case anyway, and he ruled against his son-in-law on the zoning battle. And while the high court was busy reprimanding him, and tossing out the decision, the shopping center backers got tired of waiting and bought another location.”
“With the result,” Uncle Philip interjected, “that Frank was forced to sell the property at a loss of around fifteen thousand dollars. I suppose at times I can’t blame him for his hatred of Richard and myself.”
“And this is the reason for the enmity between my father and Stella?” I asked.
“That was the main cause,” Uncle Philip agreed, “though of course t
here were others. After this shopping center deal fell through, your father blamed Frank for the Judges of Hades tag. It could never be proven, but I suspect myself that it was Frank’s way of getting back at us.”
Some people were arriving to pay their last respects to the dead, and Uncle Philip and his wife hurried off. Shelly, Simon Ark, Hallison and I remained in the outer room. After a moment Simon rose and strode to the window. I followed him and we stood together looking out at the drifting snowflakes.
“What is it, Simon?” I asked at last, because I knew there was something bothering him.
“I don’t quite know,” he answered. “Is your local library open on Saturdays?”
“It always used to be. Why?”
“If you can get away from here for a while and accompany me, we might possibly learn some facts of mild interest.”
That was enough for me. I left Shelly in Hallison’s care, made my excuses to the others, and we were off.
“Now what’s all this about?” I asked Simon as we walked briskly through the snow toward the library.
“Well…it probably means nothing; but since my arrival here, all of these people have been most silent on one point.”
“Which point is that, Simon?” I asked him.
“No one has even mentioned the third judge.”
“The third judge?”
“Certainly! Your knowledge of Greek vase paintings is most limited, my friend. There were always three Judges of Hades. …”
The low, sprawling building that housed the meager collection of the Maple Shades Public Library was all but deserted when we entered. Here and there a high school student was busily pondering over thick volumes, but otherwise we seemed to be the only customers. Simon Ark went immediately to the librarian and asked to see the file of local newspapers covering the last election of judges.
She gave him a curious look and then disappeared into the rear. Presently she returned, bearing a large bound volume that was already beginning to show signs of wear.
Simon turned quickly to the October issues of Maple Shades’ single daily newspaper and ran over the columns of political news he found there. Finally we found what we sought, buried halfway down a column reporting on speech of the previous night: “In an obvious reference to the three men running on the rival ticket, he said further that he does not want to see our courts presided over by the ‘Judges of Hades.’ This apparently was a reiteration of the charges that some recent court decisions have been unfair, and that jail sentences have been extremely harsh.”
The Judges of Hades Page 12
