Crazybone

by Bill Pronzini

“Archie’s pills, the prescribed 0.05 dosage, were orange. When I went back later, after his body was taken away, I found a pink pill that must have been dropped and accidentally kicked under the bed. I had a feeling something was amiss and the pink pill confirmed it.”

  “The pink pill did.”

  “That’s right. Pink is the color of a 0.10 dosage, twice what Archie was permitted to take each day.”

  “Are you sure it was digitoxin?”

  “Positive. Of that and of the dosage. I showed the pink pill to my own doctor.”

  “Maybe it was from an old prescription of Archie’s. Maybe it’d been under the bed a long time.”

  “Archie never took a dosage larger than 0.05,” Cybil said. “He told me so himself. And there was plenty of dust under his bed but none on the pill.”

  “He didn’t get the larger dosage from Dr. Lengel, by any chance?”

  “No. And there were no other pink digitoxin pills in his unit. I know because I looked.”

  “And that’s why you think he was murdered, the one pink pill you found?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “That’s pretty thin evidence, Cybil.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?”

  “You haven’t talked to the local police, have you?”

  She gave me an up-from-under look, the prototype of the one Kerry used on me from time to time. “Of course not.”

  “Told anyone else of your suspicion? Dr. Lengel? Dr. Johannsen? The Captain’s attorney?”

  “No. An autopsy would corroborate the overdose, I’m sure, but Dr. Lengel saw no reason to request one and no one else will either without evidence of foul play. Besides, I don’t care to be considered a foolish, fanciful old lady by anyone including my daughter and son-in-law.”

  “Did I say you were foolish and fanciful?”

  “It’s what you’re thinking.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I said. “I don’t doubt your good sense and neither does Kerry. I’m just trying to understand why you’re so sure it was murder. Why not suicide? You said Captain Archie was depressed and his health was poor. He could’ve gotten the larger dose of digitoxin himself, some way—”

  “He did not commit suicide,” Cybil said.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Archie Todd was a devout Catholic. He attended Mass regularly every Sunday.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Kerry said, “Why exactly was he depressed?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t talk about it. But it was more than just general melancholy — he was angry about something. Very angry the day before his death.”

  “You’ve no idea why?”

  “The only thing he ever said to me was that he’d made a terrible mistake, he should never have trusted the bastards. His exact words.”

  “Friends or business associates who deceived him in some way,” I said. “Or old enemies come back into his life.”

  “I can’t imagine who would want to do him any kind of harm. Archie Todd was a gentle, easygoing man. He got along with everyone.”

  “Profit is the obvious motive. How large is his estate?”

  “I can’t tell you exactly. I would guess six figures, mostly in stocks and mutual funds.”

  “Then he must’ve had a broker or investment counselor.”

  “Dunbar Asset Management.”

  One of San Francisco’s largest financial management outfits; even I had heard of them. “Who’s the executor of his estate?”

  “Evan Patterson, Archie’s attorney.”

  “Local?”

  “Yes. He has an office on Magnolia Avenue.”

  “And who inherits? Captain Archie had no living relatives, did he?”

  “Only one. A niece in Connecticut. But he hadn’t seen her in twenty-five or thirty years and he told me once he’d left her out of his will. His entire estate goes to the San Francisco Maritime Museum, along with his collection of ferryboating memorabilia. He loved ferries, you know, and he was an expert on their history and lore. The bequest was to establish a permanent museum exhibit in his name.”

  “Well, there goes the only motive that makes sense.”

  “Unless someone was after his collection,” Kerry said. “Is that possible, Cybil? If it’s valuable enough—”

  “Its value is mainly historical. I suppose another collector might be willing to pay dearly for it, but the bulk of the collection is already in storage at the museum. Archie let them have it four years ago, when he moved over here from the city, as a stipulation of his bequest.”

  I said, “Okay. So what all this boils down to is, you want me to conduct an investigation based on not much more than a hunch and a pink pill. I don’t see what I can—”

  “Did I say I wanted you to conduct an investigation?”

  “That’s why you asked us to lunch, isn’t it?”

  “Smart guy. All right, then. I’ll pay your standard fee.”

  “You will like hell. I won’t take money from you.”

  “You take money from strangers.”

  “That’s different. You’re family.”

  “Crap,” Cybil said. “Samuel Leatherman would take it in a New York minute.”

  “I’m not Samuel Leatherman.”

  “And a good thing, too. If I were writing stories about you I’d still be an unpublished writer.”

  “Cybil,” I said with a tight grip on my patience. “Cybil, I’m only trying to tell you that I doubt there’s much I can do without something more to work with.”

  “So you won’t even try.”

  Kerry said, “Of course he’ll try. Won’t you, dear?”

  I said, “Ow,” because she’d poked me again. Hard.

  “Let him alone, Kerry. If he thinks I’m a silly old lady pursuing a fantasy, well, I can’t really blame him. After all, he’s more experienced in these matters...”

  “Will you knock off that silly old lady stuff? You’re as smart and wily as they come and you know it. If you’re convinced that Captain Archie was murdered I’m not going to argue with you, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Does that mean you’ll look into it?”

  “Yes, okay, I’ll look into it. As a favor. No money — don’t bring up the subject of money again. Monday morning I’ll check with Evan Patterson—”

  “Why wait until Monday? Why not start now?”

  “Lawyers don’t work on Saturday, you know that.”

  “I don’t mean Evan Patterson. I mean you could go over to Archie’s unit and have a look through his things.”

  “It’s all still there?”

  “It is. Patterson hasn’t been able to locate the niece, and Archie’s rent is paid through the end of the month.”

  “Uh-huh. Don’t tell me you haven’t been over there snooping around — more than once, I’ll bet. If you didn’t find anything, there’s nothing there to find.”

  “I’m not a detective,” she said. “You are.”

  “You write detective stories — you know what to look for and where to look as well as I do.”

  “Balls. The difference is that you’re a professional snoop and I’m only an amateur. Will you go and look?”

  “It’d be trespassing. I don’t have any right to enter and search a premises without permission.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have my permission. I was his friend, his close friend, and he entrusted me with a key. I’ll take full responsibility.”

  “Can I at least have some dessert first?”

  Kerry said, “When you come back.”

  Cybil said, “I’ll get the key.”

  Judging from the furnishings in his one-bedroom duplex. Captain Archie had lived something of a Spartan existance. The living room contained an old, deep, cracked-leather armchair, a small portable

  TV on a stand, a rickety secretary desk that looked as if it might have had nautical origins, and a bookcase. In the kitchen there was a dinette table and two chairs. And in the bedroom th
ere was a bed stripped down to mattress and box springs, one nightstand, and a dresser.

  It would’ve been a pretty drab and impersonal place if it hadn’t been for the photographs. There were dozens of them on the walls in every room including the bathroom, all black-and-white posed and candid shots of ferryboats and their crews dating back to the 1800s. Holdouts from his collection, I supposed. The photos created a nostalgic atmosphere, but there was also a certain sadness in the overall effect — glimpses of times and a way of life long gone, and a reminder that the man who had gathered them and been part of those times and ways was gone, too.

  I started my search in the bedroom. Poking through other people’s possessions is uneasy work, and when the owner is deceased the task has a ghoulish feel. Besides, I had nothing specific to hunt for. So I was not quite as methodical as I might’ve been in different circumstances.

  The nightstand yielded a well-used Bible, a rosary, and a spare dental plate in a plastic box. The dresser was less than half filled with underwear, socks, laundered shirts — and facedown in the bottom drawer, a framed and washed-out color photo of a heavyset, attractive young woman with curly blond hair. An inscription at the bottom read “To Archie — Love, Delia.” It was at least fifty years old and the glass was cracked and webbed at the top, as if it had been smacked with something hard. According to Cybil. Captain Archie had never married. An unrequited love, and the glass broken in anger or frustration? Why keep the photo then, turned facedown in a bottom dresser drawer? One of those little pieces of a person’s life that stir your imagination. And that made me feel the sadness again.

  No hidey holes in the bedroom. Nothing taped under drawers or behind dresser, nightstand, headboard. Nothing hidden between mattress and box springs. I moved on to the bathroom. In the medicine cabinet I found a half-full bottle of small orange pills. Archie

  Todd’s heart medicine, prescribed by Dr. Johannsen. The only other thing I found out from the cabinet was that Captain Archie had shaved with an old-fashioned straight razor.

  Nothing of interest in the kitchen. The living room bookcase contained a few dozen beat-up paperback Western and historical novels, and half as many nonfiction texts on ferryboating. One of the texts, Lore of the Ferrymen, looked pretty old; I plucked it out, opened it to the copyright page. Published in 1891. As I started to put it back, I noticed writing on a scrap of paper that had been used as a bookmark. I slipped the paper free.

  One word, Inca or Inco — I couldn’t quite make out the last letter — and a telephone number, penned in a crabbed hand. The paper was white, with no signs of age; the phone prefix indicated it might be a San Francisco number. I tucked the scrap into my shirt pocket. Relevant or not, I would show it to Cybil as proof that I was every bit as thorough and sharp-eyed as Samuel Leatherman.

  I’d saved the desk for last. The usual miscellany that accumulates in desk drawers; plain envelopes jammed with bill receipts marked Paid; bank envelopes bound together with a thick rubber band, each containing statements and a few cancelled checks written in the same crabbed hand. I found the three most recent statements and thumbed through the checks. Redwood Village, Dr. Johannsen, a local pharmacy, a supermarket, a credit card company. None were made out to individuals. I glanced at the statements. A deposit had been made on the first of each month in the amount of $2,500 — either a draw from his stock portfolio or a pension payment, because the amount was too large for a social security check. Most of the $2,500 went for rent; gracious retirement living in Redwood Village didn’t come cheap. The average balance was in the $1,500 range, slightly more than that as of the latest statement.

  Nothing.

  I rummaged through the rest of the drawers. No personal correspondence of any kind. No copy of his will. No address book or Rolodex; if he’d had one of either, it had probably been turned over to the attorney, Evan Patterson. The only odd note was the absence of any account statements of other mailings from Dunbar Asset Management. There ought to be a fairly large file, given the size of Captain Archie’s portfolio. Chances were they’d been turned over to Evan Patterson as well, though why he would want all but the most recent—

  “You there!” a voice said behind me, so suddenly and with such forcefulness that I twisted around, banged my knee, and nearly knocked over the desk. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  9

  It was a woman, a big woman because she pretty much filled the open doorway. I hadn’t heard the door open; I must not have closed it tightly when I let myself in, the afternoon breeze had blown it open, and I’d been too intent on my search to notice. She was backlit by sunlight, so I couldn’t tell much about her at first except her size.

  “I asked what you’re doing here.” Gravelly voice, the kind that brooks no nonsense.

  When you get caught with your drawers down or your hand in a cookie jar, the smart thing to do is to play dumb and bluff it out. I pasted on a sheepish smile and said, “Doing a favor for my mother-in-law. I should’ve known better.”

  “That’s right, you should have.” She came inside and a little to one side, so that I had a clearer look at her. Mid-forties, gray-streaked blond hair, a prominent nose. And big all over, more bone and muscle than fat — nearly six feet and a solid hundred and sixty pounds, with a chest that strained the front of her white blouse and probably required a D cup. “Just how did you get in?”

  “She gave me a key. My mother-in-law.”

  “That’s against the rules. If she has a key to Mr. Todd’s unit, she should have turned it in after he died. What’s her name?”

  “Cybil Wade. The cottage across—”

  “Oh, the writer. What’s your name?”

  I told her. Only that, not my profession.

  “I’m Jocelyn Dunn, one of the nurses here. What’re you looking for?”

  I was ready for that. I said, “Two chapters of her new novel, the one she’s writing now. She can’t find them and she thinks she may have given them to Captain Archie to read before he died. That’s Cybil for you. Absentminded as all get out.”

  “Did you find the chapters?”

  “No. They’re not in the desk. Maybe the bedroom—”

  “I’ll look. You wait outside. Then we’ll go over and talk to Mrs. Wade.”

  I waited outside. Pretty soon Ms. Dunn came out and said, “No manuscript pages that I can see.” Then she said. “The key, please.”

  “Well, it is Cybil’s...”

  “No, it’s not. It’s the property of Redwood Village. The key, please. I’ll lock the door.”

  I didn’t have much choice; I gave her the key. She locked up and tucked the key into her pocket, and we went across the street to Cybil’s duplex. I knocked on the door before I opened it, called out, “Company!” and did the ungentlemanly thing of going in first. Nurse Dunn didn’t wait for an invitation; she came right in after me.

  Kerry and Cybil were on the couch, drinking coffee. I said, “Cybil, I didn’t find those two chapters from your manuscript. You must’ve misplaced them here somewhere.”

  She was a quick study. Without missing a beat she said, “Oh, dear. And I’ve torn the place apart. Hello, Nurse Dunn.”

  “Mrs. Wade, I’m surprised at you. Keeping a key to Archie Todd’s unit and then sending your son-in-law over there to trespass. I really ought to report you.”

  Cybil managed to look contrite, and her apology was a model of false sincerity. Nurse Dunn relented, lectured Cybil on abiding by the rules, and then took her big hide out of there and left the three of us alone.

  Cybil, reproachfully: “So you got caught.”

  Me, defensively: “Nobody’s perfect. Not even that fictional super-dick of yours.”

  “Did you find anything before the side of beef spotted you?”

  “Probably not. Unless this means something to you.” I showed her the scrap of paper. “It was in one of his books.”

  “Inca? No, nothing.”

  “Last letter could be an ‘o.’ Inco.”


  “I never heard Archie use either word.”

  “Well, let’s see what calling the number gets us.”

  It didn’t get us a thing. San Francisco number, all right, but it had been disconnected.

  “Monday,” I said. “This, Evan Patterson, whatever else I can do. Just don’t expect much to come of it, okay?”

  “I don’t,” Cybil said. “I didn’t when I decided to hire you.”

  Which may or may not have been a mild shot. With Cybil you can’t always tell. She likes me, I think she respects me, but down deep she’s never quite forgiven me for not living up to her Samuel Leatherman ideal of the tough and infallible private eye.

  When the phone rang at six-thirty that evening I was trying to relax by watching a forties film noir on TV. The Web, with Edmond O’Brien. Pretty good, but my head wasn’t into it. Cybil kept intruding; so did little Emily Hunter.

  Kerry answered the call and sang out that it was for me. I went to take it on the kitchen phone.

  A male voice said angrily, “She’s gone, goddamn it. You may as well know.”

  “Who’s gone? Who is this?”

  “Trevor Smith. You know damn well who’s gone.”

  “Sheila Hunter?”

  “And her kid. Both of them.”

  I could hear my breath in my throat; it had a ground-glass sound. “Gone where?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday afternoon sometime.”

  “And you waited this long to call me?”

  “She told me not to tell anybody, particularly you. I wasn’t going to, but... ah, Christ, I don’t know what to do.”

  “Gone away for a while, or—?”

  “Two or three weeks, she said. Someplace where she can pull herself together. But I don’t know... the way the two of them acted Thursday night, the way Sheila put me off on the phone yesterday, I don’t think they’re coming back.”

  “Easy, back up a little. What happened—”

  “Don’t tell me to take it easy,” he snapped. “You and your investigation, harassing her... this is your fault. If you’d just left her alone...”

  “I’ll take the blame if you want to lay it on me. But the truth is, she’s running because of whatever she and her husband were mixed up in ten years ago.”