Shellshock (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  We stood there, angrily eyeballing each other like two idiot kids in the schoolyard. Finally I held my right hand out, palm up, and looked at the gun. He hesitated, then placed the pistol in my palm.

  I hadn't seen the mockingbird fly away, but it was gone. I could barely see the little branch it had been sitting on. I took one step to my left and turned my back on Cimarron, stood at right angles to the almost invisible branch I was supposed to shoot at.

  Then I took a long slow breath, let half of it out, and spun right, bringing the gun up in both hands at the ends of my extended arms as my right leg swung around in a quarter circle. When my shoe slapped against the cement deck, I went down into a half crouch, legs wide apart, finger starting to press gently on the pistol's trigger. I wasn't sure I could see the selected branch, but I saw the tree and then ffft.

  I wasn't even sure if I'd hit the mountain. No matter; I'd accomplished my purpose. I'd selected a target so far away it was an almost impossible shot to begin with, and I'd been moving enough that Cimarron would very likely have been watching me, not my target, and thus wouldn't have any idea how widely I might have missed it.

  Wrong. Sometimes what you hear compensates for what you can't see. Burglars in a store know the cops are coming because they hear the sound of sirens. A pro golfer in the lead of a tournament knows if the challenger, a hole ahead, made or missed his putt by the noise of the crowd. And I knew I must—somehow, by a crazy fluke—have hit that target I hadn't even really aimed at, knew it by the sound from Cimarron.

  It was no more than the same old thing, but very softly breathed, his softest word of the day. Just that same old “Shit."

  I squinted through the heat waves rising from the desert floor, tried to focus a hundred feet away, still not quite ready to believe. But Cimarron was right; he'd called it with an almost beautiful economy of language. I'd hit that shiny branch about a foot from its end; the tip, still attached to the rest of the smooth limb, dangled straight down toward the ground, swaying slightly.

  I handed Cimarron the gun.

  “You're pretty good yourself,” he said grudgingly.

  “Pretty lucky,” I said. “Well, see you around.” I turned and started back toward the house.

  I'd taken half a dozen steps, out from under the canvas shade into bright sunlight, when Cimarron, twenty feet behind me, called, “Scott."

  I glanced back at him.

  He put on another version of that unenthusiastic smile. “See you around,” he said.

  Passing the corner of his house, on the way to my rented Capri, I looked back. Cimarron was halfway to the house himself. No more target practice today. It gave me a little satisfaction to have screwed up his game. But only a little.

  The inside of the car was already hot. I put the air-conditioning on high, cracked the front windows an inch, as I drove out the drive and swung left.

  I started to pass that narrow dirt road I'd seen earlier, but then stopped, backed into it, kept backing up the rutted dirt for thirty yards. When I stopped, I figured this was just about where Cimarron had been aiming his special pistol when I'd first spotted him. Somewhere around here I'd seen a slug kick up a puff of dirt, had glimpsed a rabbit or some small animal running rapidly through the cactus and paloverde.

  I didn't really expect to find anything, but I did. It only took half a minute. It was about a foot from the tangled base of a creosote bush. It was small, fluffy. Gray and white, still limber, loose and warm. A hole had been torn through its neck, half an inch behind the little pink collar.

  It was a dead cat.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Thomas Toker lived on 20th Street south of Glendale Avenue.

  I drove down Lincoln Drive until it became Glendale, took a left at 20th. In Phoenix, houses with even numbers are on the north and west sides of the streets, so I knew Toker's odd-numbered home would be on the east to my left. It was one of those either/or moments we usually aren't aware of, because if I had been looking the other way I would probably never have seen Andy Foster.

  But because I was checking houses on my left, I saw the red Subaru XT coupe pull out from the curb in a hurry, half a block ahead. And because it accelerated so fast, rear wheels spinning and squealing as it started to pick up speed, I took a good look at the car, and the man alone inside, when it raced by me toward the Glendale Avenue intersection I'd just left.

  He eyeballed me, too. And kept on eyeballing, those already surprised-looking glimmers assuming an expression of much greater surprise, so great indeed that they appeared almost entirely white in the consternation of his chocolate-brown face as his brows shot upward and his jaw sagged open. It occurred to me briefly, though I did not dwell on the thought, that I could now recall three separate occasions when slim, good-looking—usually—Andrew H. Foster had lamped me; and on each occasion it was as though Foster had at the same instant become aware that a laxative he didn't even know he'd taken was suddenly working irresistibly. I'm surprised he didn't run clear off the street and into somebody's cacti, because he was still looking at me—head out the window and looking back at me—when I turned to examine house numbers again.

  As I had assumed, the number I wanted was right where Andy's Subaru had been parked. I'd phoned AGL, where Toker worked, and knew he hadn't reported in today; he had instead called in sick, and therefore was presumably at home. I made a U-turn, pulled to the curb at the spot Foster had just vacated.

  Toker's house sat back from the street behind a lawn rather than desert landscaping of rock and cactus. Perhaps in the winter it had been green and well tended, but it looked neglected now. There are a lot of ryegrass lawns and backyards in the Phoenix-Scottsdale area, but the furnace-like heat of Arizona summers kills most rye so it's often oversown with Bermuda, which, if given a lot of water, sometimes survives the blistering of June and July.

  Toker's lawn, bisected by a cement walk leading to the front door of the house, hadn't been mowed for two or three weeks. There were patches of shaggy green, but most of the grass had died down, turned yellow, and now in early October the yard looked diseased, scabrous and sickly.

  I got out of the car, walked over cement squares toward the house. It was two stories, frame construction, painted white with yellow trim. A couple of shiny-leaved citrus trees were planted at the lot's left edge, a large silk oak on the right. At the front door I located the bell—whoever last painted the house had painted right over the bell itself—poked the button. After half a minute I rang again, then knocked vigorously. The door, ajar, swung inward a foot. I pressed my knuckles against the wood and pushed the door open wide.

  Judging by Andy Foster's hasty departure, it was reasonable to assume he'd been inside, left the door open on leaving. I felt a gentle prickle of coolness along my spine, in the hairs at the back of my neck. I stepped inside, swung the door closed behind me.

  “Mr. Toker? Thomas Toker?"

  On my way here I had stopped at a sporting goods store and purchased a box of .38 S&W cartridges, so the revolver in my clamshell holster was now fully loaded. I touched its checked grip with my fingers as my voice boomed in the house, died into whispers. On my right was a large living room, and beyond it part of what looked like a dining area, end of polished dark table and three or four chairs visible from here. I walked straight ahead, past a stairway on my left leading up to the second floor, through a large kitchen adjacent to the dining room, on into what looked like a den or office.

  I could feel my nostrils flare as I breathed in the same distinctive, acrid odor I'd smelled last night in Romanelle's Arizona Room. Burned gunpowder. A shot, or shots, had been fired in here. And not very long before. Strips of bright sunlight slanted into the room through partly closed plastic miniblinds, fell on nubby variegated gray and blue carpet. The ceiling was finished with squares of charcoal-colored cork, and there were half a dozen framed sepia hunting prints on the walnut-paneled walls.

  On my right was a large curved couch, low blond wood table before it, tw
o overstuffed chairs near the table. On my left, a wide low desk of the same blond wood as the coffee table, highly polished. Behind the desk, a large padded leather chair with brass buttons outlining its wide arms and high curved back. I could see Toker sprawled on the nubby carpet—a man, at least, and whoever it was there was no question that the man was dead.

  He was facedown on the carpet, his head—what was left of it—and shoulders visible from where I stood just inside the room, his hips and legs hidden behind the desk. I placed my feet carefully, stepped closer to the body. He was wearing dark brown trousers and brown shoes, a beige sport shirt. There were two bullet holes in his back and one in the right side of his head, behind the temple and well above the ear.

  My heart was pounding. Without being aware of it, I had stopped breathing when I saw the body. I let out my breath, sucked in some lungfuls of air, then carefully stepped over the corpse, squatted near it. There was almost no blood around those two holes in the beige sport shirt. No wonder. The bullet that had gone in over the man's right ear, after ripping through the brain, had lifted off a hand-sized chunk of curved skull and forehead on its way out.

  There wasn't much blood anywhere—nothing like that spout of scarlet from Fred Keats's throat last night—but there was a lot of brain in a lot of places. Hunkered down by the body, I could see the slanting sunlight shining on clots of jellylike pinkish-gray brain tissue at dozens of spots on the nubby carpet. Three feet beyond the shattered head, a larger wrinkled clot glistened, still attached to a curving white fragment of skull.

  The man's right cheek was pressed against the carpet, one eye half open and staring at forever, flap of forehead skin hanging down over the other eye and bridge of nose. The face was distorted, but not so misshapen that I couldn't recognize it as the face in pictures of Thomas Toker I'd so recently seen in Steve Whistler's office.

  I straightened up, stepped with care over behind the desk. On its highly polished top were a phone, an ashtray half filled with cigarette butts, a calendar, a five-by-seven white notepad with about half of its pages still unused, two pencils, a ballpoint pen with its tip exposed, a pocket dictionary. By leaning to my right I could see that the shiny desk surface was dulled, smeared over much of its left half, by what might have been tiny droplets or a spray of blood, but with a clear and shiny area, like a large L or right-angled triangle, at the right edge of that smear, near me at the center of the desk.

  Using a handkerchief over my fingers, I opened the desk drawers and went through them quickly, finding nothing of interest. I picked up the notepad, holding it by the edges, toward the light and aslant before my eyes, looking for marks, indentations, impressions from anything that might have been written on the page or pages above. Nothing. The page was virgin, clean, without a dent or ripple.

  I made a quick tour of the house—very quick; I was anxious to get out of here. However, back in the den, using my handkerchief again, I picked up the desk phone. I intended to call Steve Whistler, tell him what I'd found here and ask for information I needed from him now. But seeing Toker's shattered skull, an ugly reminder of sudden death at Romanelle's home last night, made me think of Spree again. Since about 8:20 a.m. when I'd left the Registry Resort, I hadn't spoken to her. And thinking of her now squeezed a knot of anxiety in my stomach that had been there ever since I'd left her alone this morning. I couldn't think of any reason why she shouldn't be safe in our room; still, that gnawing anxiety wouldn't go away, stayed with me, a persistent and annoying ache in my middle.

  So before calling Whistler, I dialed the Registry, was put through to villa 333.

  “Hello?"

  When I heard her voice, the soft sweetness with that strangely musical huskiness in it, I was astonished by the sudden weakness in my knees, the flood of relief that washed over me. I told myself I wasn't being rational, there was no logical reason to feel Spree was in any danger at the moment—unless there was something I'd forgotten, or overlooked, something part of me was aware of but not at the conscious level. More likely it was being in this room with its sights and smells of death, being forcibly reminded of what it really is that's most important about living.

  “Hi,” I said, “this is good old Bill again. You're OK, aren't you?"

  “Yes—Bill. Are you all right?"

  “Tip-top. Nothing to report, yet. A lot of things are happening, but..."

  “But you still don't know if..."

  “No, not yet. I will. And I'd better get back onto the trail. I was just worrying—thinking—wanted to be sure you were OK. Look, I've got to run."

  “Run back here when you can—Bill."

  “I will."

  “I miss you."

  “Miss you, too."

  We hung up. I looked sappily at a framed hunting print for a few seconds, then again became aware, from the corner of my eye, of the corpse on the floor near me. I dialed Exposé, asked for Mr. Whistler.

  He was on the line in five seconds, and I said, “Steve, Shell. I'm at Thomas Toker's home. He's dead, shot."

  “Jesus. Who—"

  “Beats me. But I saw Andrew Foster leaving here as I drove up, just before I let myself inside."

  “Foster. That's ... the young black guy, right?"

  “Yeah. One reason I called you, Steve, when I was going through those files you showed me I made a note that Foster is listed as an employee of the Medigenic Hospital, but I didn't see any home address for him except in Tucson. You got one here in the Valley?"

  “Just a minute, Shell.” I heard him speaking into his intercom, “Helen, send Weinstein in here on the double,"

  And then I heard a siren. Still distant. Maybe cops chasing a speeder, or an ambulance heading for an accident scene. But maybe...

  It took Steve—with the help of speedy Weinstein—not more than a minute to come up with the address I wanted. It was only a few miles away, on 32nd Street. But as I scribbled the number in my book, the siren sound was louder. No doubt about it. Closer than before.

  “Steve,” I said, “are you recording this conversation?"

  “Certainly not."

  “Can you? I mean, now, no delay?"

  “Sure, just push one little switch and—"

  “Push it. I've got to get out of here fast. So I'm going to say this once and split. I want all this on the record in case ... well, just in case, not only for you but also for the police. And I don't mean for the police now, but when turning it over to them won't screw me up, along with some other people I'm not going to mention yet. You recording?"

  “Ever since you said ‘push it.’”

  I talked about as fast as it's possible for me to speak, for not quite a minute—because the siren kept getting louder, and now I had no doubt it was at least coming this way, if not straight at me. I hit the high points, mentioning Romanelle and Worthington—but not Spree, not by name—and explaining not only that I was the man who'd shot Fred Keats last night but also why. I covered seeing Andrew Foster leaving this address and my then finding Toker's body—and that was it.

  “No time for more, Steve. Keep this under your hat for now."

  “You've got it. Where—"

  But by then I'd hung up the phone and was gone, running. Running through the house, out the front door, leaving it wide open, then to the Capri.

  Across the street two middle-aged ladies stood in a yard, one holding a bunch of cut flowers in her hand, both ladies scrutinizing me with the fixity of interest usually given to TV game shows. Thus I assumed they would enjoy describing my appearance, and speedy sprint to my car and tire-burning flight from the murder scene, to the officers who would soon be interrogating them.

  I made it to Glendale and pulled far right at the stop sign there before the first car, siren wailing and rooftop light flashing red and blue, skidded into 20th Street and raced past me, a second patrol car right behind it.

  I gunned the engine, headed east on Glendale Avenue. I didn't look back; no need; I knew where those officers were going. This was
the second time police cars had passed me only moments after I'd left behind me a house with a dead man in it. I'd made the first guy dead, true; but not Toker. I had a hunch, though, that it might be a little difficult to convince the law I was an innocent victim of accelerating circumstance.

  And I kept wondering—all the way up into Lincoln Drive, past a carefree foursome of golfers teeing off on the par-three fifteenth hole of the Arizona Biltmore Country Club course, even after I turned onto 32nd Street—if maybe, just maybe, I was getting in over my head.

  * * * *

  By 11:30 a.m. I had been waiting inside Andy Foster's empty apartment for half an hour.

  I had driven straight here, left my rented car—already hot, but soon to be incandescent—parked obtrusively in front of the four-unit condominium complex near the corner of 32nd Street and Osborn Road. Foster's unit was ground-floor left, and I'd walked right up to the door and rung the bell like your standard magazine salesman. No answer. No car in his covered parking slot. I had been almost relieved.

  So I'd moved the Mercury four blocks away, walked back and around to the rear of the complex, and a minute later let myself inside. After half an hour I was ready to climb the walls, so it's probably a good thing I only had to wait another five minutes.

  For one thing, during that long half hour my left shoulder began throbbing again, building an ache that filled the entire arm. It had probably been just as sore, throbbing just as much, earlier in the day; but with my mind fully occupied by externally directed thoughts and with movement-going-doing, I hadn't been aware of pain. I suppose, though, despite my itchy impatience, there were some small benefits. I was able to go over again all the things about the Toker death scene that were wrong, get a little more ready for Foster if he showed.

  I thought, too, about my client, reaffirming my awareness that, while I had talked to Claude Romanelle in the hospital on Monday morning, during my later call to his home yesterday a.m. it had undoubtedly been someone else—probably the late Fred Keats himself—with whom I'd had that brief preflight dialogue. The evidence for that conclusion was just a series of little things, small anomalies. Like the increased hoarseness from a more severe cold—or an attempt to disguise the imperfectly imitated voice. And the language, of course. Aside from the fact that the real Romanelle called me “Mr. Scott” only when somewhat bugged with me, while the second man had referred to me only as “Mr. Scott,” the phony hadn't been as sharp, as recklessly correct in his use of language, as the real one. Like his mention of the passionate doctors who removed fourteen pieces of mestatasized cancers and transplanted it into his lungs—instead of impassioned, metastasized, them. Worthington had spoken to me of the $10,000 bonus he'd wangled for me upon my delivery of Spree to her father; the second “Romanelle” mentioned a bonus of half that amount, or $5,000. Small things, small words; but words I felt sure the real Romanelle would not have used.