The Silver Cobweb

by Ben Benson

  “Keith is working on that terrible Mary Fedder murder,” she said, her voice a little hushed. “I’ve been able to help him a little. I told him plenty about the strange men who are around here during the racing season. They’d just as soon make a pass at a girl as light a cigarette. They’re always making passes at me. This Swenke might have tried to get fresh with Mary Ann. She could have spurned him and he got revenge.”

  She had been reading too many confession magazines. I said, “Mary Fedder had been going to college in Boston the last four years. When she did come home to Dorset, she never went anywhere without Russell Westlake. And he never took her any place where a person like Swenke might hang around. I’ll bet Mary and Westlake never came in here.”

  “That’s not so,” she said. “Russell Westlake and she came in here quite a few times on the way home from a movie.”

  “But you never saw Whitey Swenke here.”

  “No. But he might have come in when I was off.”

  “Nobody here remembers Swenke. And Westlake never saw him before.”

  “Keith will find out the truth,” she said. “He’s so quick and clever about everything. Nobody can put anything past him.”

  “Sure,” I said. In her rosy-clouded mind she had the idea that Trooper Keith Ludwell was in charge of the case and was going to solve it singlehandedly.

  “I don’t want to take anything away from you,” she said. “But, of course, you got a big break when you captured Whitey Swenke. It could have been the other way around, you know.”

  “You mean Swenke could have captured me?”

  “No, no,” she said. “I mean Keith got the first call. When he came to the Fedder house he had to stay there and see if the girl needed medical attention. He couldn’t chase the murderer.”

  “No,” I said. “He couldn’t.”

  “So you got the second call. You happened to be in the right spot to capture Swenke. Keith should have been given some of the credit. I think the newspapers were very unfair. It was plain luck. If you had had Keith’s patrol and he had had yours it would have been the other way around.”

  By now her voice had grown hostile as though I were to blame that our positions hadn’t been reversed. I said, “Yes, life is funny that way. A flip of the coin.”

  “Sometimes people just don’t get the breaks.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I said. “Keith is working on the ease and I’m not.”

  “Oh,” she said, brightening. “You’re not?”

  “No. So you can see which one of us is more important to the skipper.”

  That made her a lot happier. When I paid my check and said good-bye to her she actually beamed at me.

  In the cruiser, Ludwell said, “What was Marsha bending your ear about?”

  “All about you.”

  He frowned a little. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

  “You’re old enough to know what you’re doing,” I said. “I’m in no position to advise the senior man.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I’ll tell you this,” I said. “I’m ambitious, too, Keith. Not only for myself. I’ve got a father who thinks a lot of this business. I’m not just putting my time in toward a pension. You might find me up there competing with you for that troop captaincy some day.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve got a six-year jump on you and my record is spotless. Let’s see if yours will be like that in six years.”

  “Maybe it won’t be spotless,” I said. “But if I ever do make it up there, it’ll be on my own. I don’t believe I’d take advantage of a woman in order to make it.”

  “You’re young,” he said, his voice calm and unruffled. “You’ve got a lot to learn, boy.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m learning all the time. Especially about people. Let’s ride, Keith.”

  We arrived back at the barracks at three in the morning. Ludwell took his shower, came back to the room, clipped his fingernails, fussed with the wrinkles in his sheet until he had the bed perfectly smooth, then turned in. Shortly afterwards he was asleep, breathing slowly and evenly.

  I lay back on the bed staring up in the darkness, thinking of Amy Bell and the silver cobweb brooch. She had lost it, apparently, a year ago. There must have been some important reason why she had denied ownership so vehemently. When I had the chance I would look in the files and see what had happened in the area last summer.

  I had been asleep less than three hours when I awoke. The light was on in the room and Ludwell was nudging me. He was already in uniform and was buckling on his leather equipment. From the other rooms I could hear troopers moving about. Bleary-eyed I sat up and looked out the window. It was still dark outside. I asked Ludwell what the emergency was.

  He was checking his revolver. Now he looked at me with bright, hard eyes.

  He said, “Russell Westlake has disappeared.”

  13

  TROOPERS WERE MILLING AROUND IN THE KITCHEN, some of them still half-dressed like myself, strapping puttees, knotting ties, gulping steaming coffee. While we were at it, Corporal Kerrigan was explaining to us that Westlake had been last seen yesterday afternoon. He had left home without saying where he was going. At midnight he had not returned. His worried family began calling relatives and friends as far away as New York. Nobody had seen or heard from him. At five-thirty in the morning they had finally called Chief Rigsby. A few minutes later we had been awakened.

  “We don’t know what this is yet,” Kerrigan said. “The kid was upset. Maybe he took off and is halfway to Chicago. Maybe he’s on a binge and shacked up with a blonde in a Boston hotel. Or maybe he’s cracked up his car and is hurt. Or maybe he’s done the Dutch act and he’s got a tube running from the exhaust of his car inside. I’ve sent out a File 6 on the teletype, but we’ve all got a job to do. Each of you is going to be given a description of Westlake and his car.”

  Then he gave out the assignments. Wisnioski on U.S. 1 to the Peabody-Danvers line, checking every motor court and bylane for Westlake or his car. At the Peabody line the Andover Barracks would carry on. Doherty north to the Newburyport line, doing the same thing, meeting the patrols from the Salisbury substation. Swanson west on a jagged sweep from Georgetown to Middleton. Ludwell on the Route 1 expressway as far as the New Hampshire state line. Pellegrini directly east as far as Gloucester. All cities and towns with established police departments and communications would conduct their own search.

  “Ralph,” he said to me, “you stick around. I might need a man for something else.”

  The others tramped out of the kitchen, through the dining room and guardroom, and clattered down the stairs to the garage. The cruisers started up and roared away.

  I went with Kerrigan into the duty office. Chief Rigsby, in leather jacket and duck-billed cap, was sitting on the bench talking to a man with a deeply lined face and iron-gray hair. I was introduced to him. He was Ernest Westlake, father of Russell Westlake.

  The detectives and the brass would arrive soon. Meanwhile Kerrigan was trying to take the father out of the shock and inertia that were gripping him. Kerrigan said, “We’ll all have a cup of good hot coffee. You’d be surprised how the coffee will perk you up, Mr. Westlake.”

  Ernest Westlake shook his head in mute refusal.

  “Don’t you worry, Mr. Westlake,” Chief Rigsby said. “If Russell’s car is anywhere around in the state it’ll be found. There’s a regular system for those things.”

  Mr. Westlake stared straight ahead and said tonelessly, “My boy was in a bad turmoil.”

  Kerrigan moved in behind his desk and sat down. He took out a pad of paper and began writing. “We know your boy was upset, Mr. Westlake. It’s only natural. Does he ever take a drink?”

  Westlake swallowed, looked down and said, “My boy doesn’t drink, Corporal.”

  “There’s always a first time, sir. I wouldn’t blame him any in an emotional disturbance like this.”

  “My boy doesn’t drink,” Mr. Westl
ake said.

  “Do you know of any place he might go? Somebody he might want to talk to, to get it off his chest?”

  “We’ve called everybody, Corporal.”

  “Has he been taking any kind of medication, sir?”

  “No.”

  “Has he indicated he might do something desperate?”

  “That’s what’s been bothering me,” Mr. Westlake said, his eyes wandering around the room. “The way he’s been acting, I’m afraid for him.”

  “Why are you afraid, Mr. Westlake? Has he been despondent?”

  “No, not what you’d call despondent. I’d say he was—grim. Russell was determined to get to the bottom of things. He wasn’t satisfied with the police investigation. He said they were too slow, too methodical. He had some ideas of his own. He was going to find out.”

  “He was going to find out what, sir?” Kerrigan asked.

  “I don’t know. He said he could do better than you.”

  “A lot of people feel that way,” Kerrigan said. “And once in a while they accomplish something where we don’t. Usually, it’s because they have some information we don’t have. Trouble is, sir, sometimes they’ll go about it illegally.”

  “My boy would never do anything illegal, Corporal.”

  “Sure, he wouldn’t,” Kerrigan said. “But I’m wondering just what information Russell has withheld from us. That’s the biggest trouble we have, Mr. Westlake.”

  Mr. Westlake took a deep breath. “Russell did say he had an idea about something. What it was I don’t know.”

  I moved in closer. “Mr. Westlake,” I said. I saw Kerrigan staring at me for interfering, but I went on. “Mr. Westlake, what about your son’s honeymoon?”

  Westlake turned to me. “What about it?”

  “Had he planned a honeymoon, sir?”

  “Yes, the children were going to have a honeymoon. A week.”

  “Where were they going, sir?” I asked. “I mean, did they have reservations anywhere? Tickets of some kind?”

  Westlake shook his head. “No. You see, Russell and Mary Ann were pretty sensible. They didn’t plan on any lavish honeymoon. They wanted to buy a little house some day. None of us knew where they were going. But I assure you it would be no place expensive.”

  “Even if it wasn’t, sir, you’d think they’d mention their hotel or resort reservation.”

  “No. It was all a big secret. And some kind of funny secret, too. Because every time any of the family brought up the subject of the honeymoon the two children would laugh as though it were a big joke.”

  “Then possibly,” I said, “they weren’t going to have a honeymoon at all. Maybe they decided not to live with the Fedders but to go right into housekeeping. If we could find the house they rented, maybe Russell went there and is staying—”

  “No,” Westlake said. “They were definitely going on a week’s honeymoon because Russell had notified them at the mill. As for housekeeping, they planned to live with the Fedders two years to save money to buy a house of their own.”

  “But can you be absolutely sure, sir?”

  “We’re sure. They were packing wedding gifts and storing them in the attic. Silverware, linens, utensils. If they were going to rent a house they wouldn’t have done that, would they?”

  “No, sir,” I said. “I guess not.”

  I sat down on the bench and smoked a cigarette. I wasn’t doing any better than Kerrigan or Rigsby.

  By seven o’clock Sergeant Neal had arrived, cutting short his day off. Then Captain Crow, the adjutant, came down from GHQ with Detective-Lieutenant Ed Newpole. Captain Dondera, the troop commander, arrived shortly afterwards. There were a great many teletype, telephone and radio messages.

  I received no assignment. At eight o’clock I was ordered into fatigues and sent down to the garage to wash motorcycles. At eight-forty-five I heard heavy footsteps jogging down the stairs to the cars in the parking area. Detectives got into their black cruisers and sped away. Lieutenant Newpole came down, half-running for his car. He saw me standing there in wet-stained fatigues and holding a dripping water hose.

  “Keeping you busy?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “What’s all the commotion, Lieutenant?”

  “Russell Westlake,” Newpole said.

  “They found him?”

  “His car. Pellegrini found it abandoned in Ipswich. It was on Line Brook Road along the edge of the state forest.”

  “And Westlake himself?”

  “No sign of him yet,” Newpole said. He waited for Captain Crow to join him, then got into the cruiser, spun it around and raced out of the parking lot.

  I went back to washing motorcycles. A few minutes later Corporal Kerrigan called down to me to come up and get back into uniform. He said I might be needed somewhere.

  By noon they had established one significant fact. The abandoned car had been examined by the technical experts, who found all fingerprints had been wiped from it.

  At 1:15 P.M. the bloodhounds, which had been sent down from the Andover Barracks, were returned to their kennels. They had been unable to pick up any scent of Westlake in the area. By this time a posse had been formed by troopers from Andover, Concord, Salisbury and Topsfield. Joining them in a search of the Willowdale State Forest were the local police and civilian volunteers. At the Salem County Jail Whitey Swenke was grilled about his associates. No information. The general alarm for George Hozak was repeated. No sign of Russell Westlake.

  Through all this I was fretting impatiently at the barracks. Finally, at two o’clock, I was ordered to take out a blue cruiser and work with Chief Rigsby.

  He was waiting for me downstairs in the rear parking lot. His car was an old 1948 Pontiac, the paint a faded, chalky blue, but with a motor that hummed like a contented cat.

  He said, “They suggest we use two cars. Yours has a shortwave radio, mine doesn’t. Also, we might have to separate to save time.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  He fiddled with his duck-billed cap. “Just because they found Russell Westlake’s car in Ipswich, that doesn’t mean the kid was there.”

  “No. Not when somebody took the trouble to wipe off all prints.”

  He nodded. “There are a few hangouts around Dorset where the kids park and look at the moon. I figure we ought to check every one of them. Russell might have been nosing around one of those places and something happened to him.”

  “I know one good spot. The bluff at Dorset Pond.”

  “I’ve already been there. I tried that first. There are others. I know them all.” He wiped his hands on his work pants. “I hope you don’t think it’s a waste of time working with me.”

  “No,” I said. “Why do you say that, Chief?”

  “Nothing,” he said. He brushed a bead of sweat from his brow, as though anxious to do something with his hands. “Dorset’s a small town and there aren’t too many places to look. I didn’t think they’d waste the time of a trooper going with me.”

  “One thing they taught me,” I said. “Nothing’s ever wasted.”

  “Anyway, I don’t think we’ll find Russell.” His voice was bleak and far away. “I’ve got a feeling Russell is dead.”

  14

  WE DIDN’T FIND RUSSELL WESTLAKE THAT FRIDAY AFTERNOON. We worked until five, covering every spot where young people were apt to go. We asked many questions of many people. The work was thorough, but nothing came of it.

  Returning to the barracks I had to thread my way through crowds of newspapermen and photographers. In the guardroom I saw the captain of detectives had come down from GHQ and was surrounded by his plain-clothes men. Nobody else had found Russell Westlake, either.

  I was getting ready to wash up for supper when I got a call to report to the duty office. As soon as I came in Sergeant Neal told me to sit down and wait. He walked out of the room. Then Captain Dondera, the troop commander, came in and sat down behind the desk.

  “Ralph,” he said, “the postma
n seems to like us. We got another letter. How’d you like to look at this one?”

  He took an envelope out of the desk drawer and passed it over to me. My heart gave a skip as I looked at the address. It was the same as the first one. A Dorset postmark. Inside was the same notepaper. The typing on it said:

  Dear Sir:

  I think it’s disgusting that a young officer of yours who drives a 1946 Ford coupe would get involved in a drunken brawl with several men at The Red Wheel. Even though this trooper was in civilian clothes I think it’s a disgrace to your organization. How long will this type of thing go on? If something drastic isn’t done I will release all this news to all the newspapers.

  Patriotic Observer

  When I finished reading the letter, Captain Dondera was holding his hand out for it. I passed it over to him.

  “I’m waiting for an explanation,” he said. His voice was impersonal. Dondera had a reputation for poise and affability. He was often a speaker at clubs and luncheons, lecturing on police matters and civic responsibility. But this was another Dondera talking, the hard-bitten troop commander in his strictly business voice. A seasoned cop with a mind tuned to suspicion and distrust.

  “It’s a big exaggeration, Captain,” I said.

  “Is that all you have to say?” he asked, granite-faced. “An exaggeration?”

  “No, sir,” I said. Then I explained to him what had happened at The Red Wheel. He listened with an alert, wary expression on his face.

  “So you were in there cadging free drinks,” he said. “What were you going to give Podre in return?”

  “Nothing. It wasn’t anything like that.”

  “A man sets up free drinks for a cop,” Dondera said, watching my face closely, “he expects favors back. Don’t kid yourself, Lindsey. You’re not that naïve.”

  “I’m not trying to kid myself. It was only one drink and I saw nothing wrong with it. I’ve known Carl Podre a long time. He came from my neighborhood. I had been friendly with his kid brother. If Carl invited me into his house for a drink, nobody would have thought that was wrong. I figure this is the same thing. He wasn’t trying to buy anything, and I wasn’t in uniform.”