17-Murder Roundabout

by Lockridge, Richard

  “People break through this kind of thing,” Heimrich said; “they leave marks of passage. Make a trail. Crowley’s good at working that sort of thing out. We all trample through, we mess things up, the way the sergeant says.”

  But Brennan started to wrench his arm from Forniss’s hand. Forniss said, “Nope,” and tightened the restraining hand.

  They stood and watched the retreating lights, the beams broken, sometimes obscured, by trees and underbrush. After about ten minutes the lights began to come back toward them. In another five minutes, Crowley and the trooper came in sight, walking slowly, pushing brush aside. Crowley still kept his eyes on the ground. When the two of them reached the waiters, Crowley straightened up.

  “Two of them,” Crowley said. “Near as I can make out. The woman one of them.”

  “My wife,” Brennan said.

  “Sure,” Crowley said. “That’s the way it figures, Mr. Brennan.” He turned back to Heimrich.

  “Not together, at a guess,” Crowley said. “But it’s only guessing. One, a man I’d guess—heavier, anyway—off to the side a little. There was this on one of the bushes.”

  He held out a strip of cloth, and turned the flashlight beam on it.

  “Look at it, Mr. Brennan,” Heimrich said. “Your wife wore a light-colored suit, you say. This torn from it?”

  Brennan looked at the tatter of cloth. He took it and rubbed it between his fingers.

  “I think so,” Brennan said. “Same color, near as I can tell.” Then, again, he shouted his wife’s name. They all listened. They heard nothing.

  “Opens up a bit on beyond,” Crowley said. “Easier to get through. A stone wall beyond that, covered with poison ivy. Broken down some, the ivy is, and one of the heel marks—the woman’s heel marks—on this side. She went over the wall. Heel marks on the other side. It’s overgrown again, there.”

  “She went over? Not the man?”

  “Fifty feet or so off to the right,” Crowley said, “there’s a gap. Looks like he veered off at the wall and worked his way on up to the gap. Daylight, we could tell more.”

  “Now, Ray,” Heimrich said. “We don’t want to wait for daylight, do we?” He turned to Forniss. “Let’s scatter out and get moving, Charlie,” Heimrich said.

  A dozen men, most of them in uniform, scattered out and began to work across the field, through the tangle. They made a thrashing sound in the night.

  Cut in on by another car Heimrich thought, pushing his way among bushes, circling around fallen trees, keeping his light on the ground. Forced to stop. Jumped out and ran up the slope and over the wall and into the tangle, it looked like. And the man after her. It could have been that way. She’s a little thing, Heimrich thought. It would be harder for her to get through this than for a man. Chances are whoever it was caught her before she’d got very far.

  A branch released by the man next to him snapped back and snapped against Heimrich’s face. “Watch it,” Heimrich said. “Watch it, man.” The state police academy didn’t, Heimrich thought, teach its recruits how to go through such a tangle as this. You don’t release branches to snap at companions….

  Could be, Heimrich thought, just some nut—some crazy guy with only rape in mind—after a pretty young woman, who rode alone on an unfrequented road. But why the hell had Leslie Brennan turned into a road like this? Oh, conceivably, she had planned to meet someone here. Conceivably, a man she had planned to meet had turned out to be too rough for her, and she had run. A good many things which are not likely are conceivable.

  They reached the fence and the tangle of ivy vines on it, and the red of ivy leaves in the fall. Anybody who went into that would wish he hadn’t, Heimrich thought. Unless he was immune to ivy poisoning. Gap off to the right, Crowley said. Heimrich, who is not immune to Rhus toxicodendron, turned toward the gap.

  Heimrich reached the gap and found an uncovered section of the wall to sit on, and sat on it. Plenty to thrash around in the brush without him, Heimrich thought. Plenty to shout a woman’s name and go unanswered. I, Heimrich thought, might be more useful thrashing around in my mind.

  She went on hands and knees along the dry gully bed. There was pain with each slow movement. The pain in her head seemed to be getting worse; when her ankle struck against the thick main stem of a bush the pain stabbed. I don’t know which way to go, she thought. I don’t know which way to go. He’s waiting somewhere for me, and I don’t know which creeping way will take me from him. I must try to stand up so I can see around me. I cannot crawl to anywhere. My head feels funny, as if there were some kind of blanket too tight around my mind.

  The blanket around her mind muffled everything; muffled sound as it muffled thought. She groped under the blanket around her mind. He’s waiting for me somewhere, she thought. I must stand up and look around and perhaps I can see him; perhaps he has a light now and I can see the light. Then I will know where he is and can go the other way. He will be between me and the car but somehow I must get to the car. I must tell somebody what I know. I must—

  She pulled herself up by the bushes which were around her; pulled herself up slowly, with infinite effort and with the pain in the ankle almost unbearable, and with her head pain throbbing. The bushes were high around her and she could not see over them. She would have to force her way through the high bushes and stand where it was clearer if she was to see any—

  A circle of blackness, blackness deeper than the night’s darkness, began to contract around her. She clung desperately to the bushes in this new blackness. As she pitched forward into the ditch she thought she heard somebody call her name. But the sound came muffled through the blackness, through the blanket around her mind.

  XI

  Heimrich sat on a stone fence and thrashed around in his mind. He could hear others thrashing through the underbrush and he could, from time to time, hear their voices. They talked to each other in the darkness. “Watch it, for God’s sake!” one voice said harshly, and Heimrich could guess what had happened. Somebody had released a branch and it had snapped back into somebody else’s face. “Les!” one man shouted, and that was James Brennan. “Mrs. Brennan,” another called loudly into the darkness, and that was Charles Forniss.

  Start with what was most obvious, Heimrich thought. The Volkswagen was Leslie Brennan’s. The license numbers told them that. That was something they knew. A woman had run from the Volks, and that the running woman was Leslie Brennan they could be almost certain. A car ahead had blocked the Volks off and somebody had got out of the car and run after Leslie Brennan. That was not so certain, but that was probable. That whoever had chased her had caught her was also probable, in which case a good deal of time was being wasted here. But it had to be wasted.

  She got as far as the fence I’m sitting on and got over it, Heimrich thought. That is pretty certain. She went through the ivy. Perhaps she did not recognize it. It may have been dark then. Perhaps she was too frightened to care that it was ivy. And perhaps she is immune, or thinks she is.

  But somebody did not follow her over the wall. Somebody worked his way up to the gap where I’m sitting. Somebody went along beside the wall, looking for a gap. Crowley is pretty sure of that, and I’m pretty sure of that. Somebody who recognized the vines on the wall for what they are and wasn’t, even to catch his quarry, going to plow through it? Somebody, then, who is susceptible to poison ivy? Susceptibility varies a lot. It stops with most people’s skin, and with some it is only a rash and with some a furious burning, and great blisters. But a few, very sensitive to the stuff, end up in hospitals.

  Heimrich turned the flashlight on the part of the wall he was sitting on. Bare enough, just there. Matted with ivy a few feet from him.

  Somebody who knew the place, and that there was a gap here? Possible; not very likely. Not a place many knew, or would want to. Somebody who had seen the ivy in daylight, and recognized it for what it was and so detoured around it? Possible; on the whole likely. Then the chase had started while it still was light.
That fitted, if Leslie Brennan had left New York some time around four that afternoon. The days were shorter than the nights now that September was dwindling into October, but not yet all that short.

  Then the Volks had stood by the side of the road for a good many hours. And if somebody had caught Leslie and taken her somewhere he had hours’ start. Or if he had caught her and silenced her for good, he’d had hours to get away.

  The word “silenced” came into Heimrich’s mind with sharp clarity. But the concept was by no means as sharp as that. That was sheer guessing. A time comes when a policeman has to guess. Guess, then, that Leslie Brennan knew something which was dangerous to someone, and guess that it was about the murder of Annette Weaver. And guess that she had been at the Weaver house and that Brennan either did not know it or was lying. Guess that he had made up the story about another car there and the shot, which he had mistaken for a backfire, while he was trying to start the Porsche. Guess he did know his wife had been there and was lying to protect her. And, of course, protect himself at the same time.

  Heimrich lighted a cigarette and listened to the continuing sound of the search in front of him; heard Brennan calling his wife’s name. Very concerned about her, Brennan is. With reason, naturally.

  He knew his way to Shady Lane, Heimrich thought. Didn’t have to grope around for it. I wasn’t five minutes behind him, and he was here, and the Porsche parked and he over the fence. Not many, even of those who live around here, know where Shady Lane is, or that it exists. Guess that he had been here earlier, and so knew his way here? Guess that he and his wife had planned to meet here? And wonder, of course, whether James Brennan is especially susceptible to the poisoning oils of ivy.

  To meet here why? Make up a story about that while you thrash in your mind; do some guessing about that and call it logic. Don’t implicitly believe the story you make up, because there is not really any evidence to base it on. But suppose—

  Suppose both the Brennans were at the Weaver house last night, by coincidence or prearrangement. Prearrangement did not seem very reasonable. But coincidence is, to a policeman, a possibility to be shied from. Admit coincidence and everything collapses around you. But its possibility must still be reckoned with.

  Somebody named Knight called Leslie Brennan during the afternoon or early evening and arranged to be shown the Weaver house. She wrote his name down carefully, so emphatically that she left its tracing on the pad sheet below. Because it was a new name to her? Possibly. Knight, who remained so elusive—but not necessarily by intention—had arranged to meet her at the house? Possible again. Had failed to show up; got lost on the way? Or, of course, met her there and found Annette’s body there and said nothing about it? Then elusive now by intent. Or got there before Leslie and killed Annette, and Leslie Brennan had waited for him in the rainy darkness and not gone into the house at all? But then she had lied to Crowley, and there is no reason for innocence to lie. Not that it doesn’t often, Heimrich thought, and sighed. He also thought that he probably would further things more by going out into the brush and thrashing through it. He was fraying his mind by his thrashing in it.

  Annette Weaver had called James Brennan at his office and summoned him and he had responded to summons. He had arrived at the Weaver house, after walking to it through a field, while his wife was waiting in her car. Very coincidental. But coincidence is always a possibility to be considered. Had anybody actually called him at the office? That could be checked out at the offices of Sharpless, Drake, Lipsky & Brennan. Somebody might remember. But nothing could be done about that tonight. Had somebody actually called, but not been Annette Weaver? Been somebody pretending to be Annette Weaver? Brennan was very sure it had been she, if he was telling any part of the truth. He had been sure that her voice was unmistakable. But it is a voice with a special quality which is most easy to imitate, if one has any flair for imitation. Make the special quality stand out and the rest is assumed.

  If an impostor, one as elusive as J. K. Knight. But one a man and the other a woman. So, two in on it, if “it” was to get the Brennans both to the Weaver house at a time which would be difficult to explain. Except that there was no real evidence that both had been there. Brennan admitted he had been—and had not been forced to admit it. Stephen Drake had thought for a moment that the car he had heard was Brennan’s, but was not at all sure of it. Which put no pressure on Brennan to make a damaging admission.

  Leslie Brennan had been there in her Volks? She had heard the Porsche start up, and she had been sure. When her husband had come home late she had had more than his lateness to make her suspect him? He had admitted what she suspected? They had planned how he could get away—keep quiet for hours; give him time to arrange a “business trip”? And—she to get money out of a bank in town and meet him here in this lonely spot and give it to him? And he, deciding one travels fastest who travels alone and leaves no confession behind, turned on her and chased her into the woods when she knew what he was about to do and fled? And caught up with her and took the money she had brought him and left an overtrusting wife dead in a ditch.

  Am I getting warm? Heimrich wondered. Or is my mind as cold and unresponsive as the stone I’m sitting on? Does this theory fit with time?

  He would check on that but he thought it might. Brennan could have taken an early train during the afternoon, picked up his car and driven to Shady Lane, where he had arranged to meet his wife. He could have caught her and killed her and got home in time to call the police at around nine-thirty and report his wife missing.

  I wonder, Heimrich thought, moving on the stone to try to find a softer spot, whether James Brennan is susceptible to poison ivy? Did he go over the fence tonight with the others? Or did he follow the same trail I followed to the gap and go through it? As he had earlier. One thing I can ask him. If I make it casual enough he may not be wary and so may not lie. I wonder if he lied about his golf scores when he was winning so many tournaments? No, I suppose they keep a check on that, since cash prizes are at stake.

  Who else have I got? Heimrich wondered, and slid off the fence and stood in the gap and stamped his feet to stamp a cramp out of his right leg. Weaver himself? He owed his wife money, apparently. That sort of thing is usually all in the family. Money Susan gets from the shop and I get from the State of New York go into the same well. Call it puddle. Annette Weaver didn’t feel that way about it, if Brennan is to be trusted. But Brennan is not to be trusted. She has considerable property in California, again according to Brennan. California has something called a community property law. I wonder if Ralph Weaver is susceptible to poison ivy?

  It doesn’t narrow down, Heimrich thought. However I push it, it doesn’t narrow down. Doesn’t narrow to the Brennans, either of them or both of them. Doesn’t narrow to Ralph Weaver. It is quite possible that somebody I’ve never heard of killed Annette Weaver—came in the big car Brennan says he saw to kill her. For reasons I’ve no inkling of; reasons which have foundation in her past, which was varied enough. She knew a good many people and she was a woman intent on getting her own, without much regard for anyone who might be hurt by her getting of it.

  Stephen Drake could have walked down from his house to the Weavers’ house and killed his former wife. His mother and his wife would back him up in any story he chose to tell and the servants need not have known he left the house yesterday evening. I wish I had a recording of that picnic outburst of Annette Weaver’s. Was there a veiled or, for that matter, an open threat in something she said? More than two months since that outburst. A considerable time for somebody to brood. But murder is, with some, a thing to work up to. Stephen Drake or, for that matter, Mrs. Drake herself? I’ve no idea of a motive for either of them, but one may lie hidden.

  Or, come to that, Oliver Drake. He watched her from his office window. That one time, at least. Perhaps other times, with other men. He wanted her himself, I suspect. Violently enough to lead to this final violence? That doesn’t fit with what little I know about him.
Easygoing, I’d take him to be. A man who plays the field and I’d guess rather casually.

  Heimrich ground his cigarette out very carefully on the stone he’d been sitting on. Everything was dry. A brush fire could run wild through a place like this. After he had ground fire out of the cigarette he pinched the end. It was cold. But he put the butt on the stone, not on the ground—not on dry leaves which had fallen from ash trees.

  Then there was a kind of flutter in his mind. There is, he thought, something I ought to remember. It is fluttering in my memory, but out of reach. Something about—

  A man shouted in the field beyond. He shouted, “Here she is!” At once the sound of men thrashing through brush became louder and lights began to converge. Heimrich, the beam of his own light stabbing into the darkness, went toward the converging lights.

  He had gone only fifty yards or so when he stopped, and his light focused on those coming toward him. Forniss came first, pushing his way among bushes, holding branches until Ray Crowley, behind him, could reach them and hold them back for James Brennan. Brennan carried his wife in his arms. Her body was limp in his arms. One of her arms hung down and swayed with Brennan’s slow movements.

  The sleeve was ripped from the arm which dangled and, as they came nearer, Heimrich could see scratches and blood on the bare arm.

  “Alive,” Forniss said. “Banged up like hell, but alive. Somebody knocked her on the head.”

  It was Heimrich who drove to the Van Brunt Memorial Hospital, with Forniss beside him and Brennan in the back seat, his wife cradled in his arms. Now and then Brennan spoke to her, his voice low. Once he said, “Les. Hear me, darling. Hear me.”

  But she did not hear him; did not hear anything. “Concussion, anyway,” Forniss said to Heimrich as they got into the car. “Hell of a wallop. Could be a fracture. She was lying in a ditch. Out of sight.”