by Cave, Hugh
He picked the most comfortable chair in Will Platt's living room and slouched into it, thrusting his legs out and letting his gaze linger on the ceiling while the others seated themselves.
His melon-shaped face was putty hued, Will noticed. For some reason he looked as though he had been up longer than anyone else in the room, though the others had not been to bed at all. And he kept one hand pressed hard against his bulging abdomen, as though in pain.
"You know, I'm a little weary of this business," Jurzak complained. "Aren't you people a little weary of it?"
No one answered him.
He swept them slowly with his gaze: Will on his left, Lynne Kimball next, Sam Norman beside her, then the two men from the other boat, big Ed Lawson and Haydn Clay. "All right. Now who wants to tell me exactly what happened? From the beginning. Which of you went out on the lake first?"
"Clay and I did," Lawson said.
"Clay and you, hey?" The watery eyes focused on Haydn Clay. "This fellow whose death we're discussing —this Carl Helpin—told me not long ago you're from Los Angeles, Mr. Clay. That right?"
"Yes."
"He said you were in real estate out there."
"No, that's incorrect."
"Pardon?"
"There was a Hayden Clay in real estate out there. He's doing time for some sort of swindle, I believe—you could look it up. But his name is spelled with an 'e'—Ha-y-d-e-n—while I was named for the composer." Clay shrugged. "We got each other's phone calls sometimes. A real nuisance. I was never in real estate. I'm a photographer."
"In motion pictures?"
"No, just a photographer. Wildlife, mostly."
"Mmm." The gray eyes hadn't blinked even once. "So what were you and Mr. Lawson doing on the lake tonight?"
"Looking for wildlife. And for the 'gator, of course."
"To take its picture?"
"If we found him. I've been taking other pictures of the lake right along. I've a contract from my publisher to do a book of Florida wildlife photos."
Jurzak's face resembled a gray balloon on which a frown had been drawn. "This thing you all saw come up out of the water—this misty thing that seemed to float out over Helpin while he was trying to escape from the 'gator—did you get a picture of that, Mr. Clay?"
"I took some. I won't know if I got anything until the film is processed."
"Maybe you ought to let me have that film, Mr. Clay. I'll have our lab look after it."
It was Clay's turn to frown. "This isn't ordinary film, Inspector. It's infrared, and has to be—"
"I thought you said you were looking for the 'gator," Jurzak interrupted softly.
"We were.
"And trying to photograph it on infrared? I was under the impression that such film is sensitive only to objects that give off some degree of heat." He scratched his nose. "Does a cold-blooded reptile give off any heat, Mr. Clay? I'monly asking, you understand. I'm not up on sophisticated photography."
"For the 'gator, if we were lucky enough to find him, I had another camera in my bag, with color film and flash," Clay said.
"Why didn't you use it, then, when the animal attacked Mr. Helpin?"
"There wasn't time when it overturned the canoe. Everything happened too fast. Then when it attacked him the second time and pulled him under, I was busy with the infrared, trying to get some shots of the misty thing. And—well, frankly, with the 'gator that close to us, I was too scared even to reach for the flash camera." The recollection caused Clay to begin shaking, and he paused to get control of himself. "My God, if you had seen the size of that alligator, Inspector—"
"Investigator. That's my title: homicide investigator. But call me Karl, eh? With a K. Our people know a good deal about film, Mr. Clay. If this is too tricky for them to handle, they'll be sure someone reliable takes care of it. We want to see what's on it too, you know."
Haydn Clay hesitated for a few seconds, then expelled a noisy sigh and reached into his pocket. Jurzak took the film with his outthrust hand and peered at it, then dropped it into his own pocket and said, "Thank you." Then he looked at Ed Lawson.
"Mr. Lawson, there's a thing that's been puzzling me for some time now. Want to clear it up, do you?"
Big Ed had chosen a straight-backed chair and was sitting on it in reverse, with his chin on his arms. He lifted his head now and sat straight. "Clear what up?"
"This thing about you and Helpin. I've heard from quite a few people in the building here that Helpin was trying to get you fired as manager. That so, is it?"
Lawson slowly nodded. "That's so."
"Why?"
"He thought the building could do better, I suppose."
"Please, Mr. Lawson." Jurzak's look of pain perhaps had nothing to do with his apparent illness.
"Well, hell, I don't know what he had against me. He disliked a lot of people. I guess it was mutual."
"You seem to have been a special target. Something exceptional must have happened between you."
Finding the unblinking stare of the gray eyes more than he could endure, Lawson looked down at the carpet.
Jurzak waited. Then he said gently, "Mr. Lawson?"
"Leave it alone, for God's sake. He's dead now. It has nothing to do with what killed him!"
"Being the judge of that kind of thing is what they pay me for," Jurzak said. "Why did Helpin hate you so bitterly, Mr. Lawson?"
"Oh, hell." Lawson jerked his head up and sat straight again. After looking helplessly at the others in the room, he returned his gaze to the investigator's implacable face. "He propositioned me and I told him to shove it."
"He propositioned you how, please?"
"In the pool one evening. The two of us were there alone. He got chummy, swimming up close to me and pawing me. Then he told me I was just the kind of man he'd been waiting for, and he was well off and could do me a lot of favors."
"And you rejected him."
"I told him to go peddle himself somewhere else." Lawson's voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Then the bastard started really pawing me, begging me to change my mind, and I got mad. I shoved his head under water and damned near drowned him, I was so mad. From that day on, all he wanted was to get even."
Putting an end to the long silence that followed, Jurzak said quietly, "Well, thank you. We seem to be solving a few of the puzzles, at least, don't we?"
Will Platt had been listening intently to every word that came from the investigator's lips. Now with grudging admiration he said, more to break the tension than anything else, "Karl, have you ever read Victor Hugo?"
"Victor Hugo? Why, yes, I believe I have. Some of his books, at least."
"Les Misérables?"
"Ah, yes. One of my favorites."
"I thought it might be," Will said dryly. "May I answer your earlier question now?"
"Please do."
"Exactly what happened, you said. Very well. Mr. Norman, Mrs. Kimball and I were talking in her apartment. It was about one o'clock—"
"Talking about what, Mr. Platt?"
"The killings. Sam Norman is an old friend of mine, visiting from New England. Mrs. Kimball and I were telling him what's been going on here."
"I see." Jurzak helped himself to a good look at Sam. Perhaps not the first.
"We went onto the veranda and saw Ed and Mr. Clay taking out a boat," Will went on. "Then we saw Helpin, in the canoe, come from the pump house canal and follow them. Sam and I decided to follow Helpin and find out, if we could, what he was up to." He finished the story, describing the 'gator's attack on the canoe, the appearance of the lake thing, and Helpin's death. "Have I left anything out?" he then asked the others.
"That's about it," Sam said, "Except, of course, we don't know what the thing is that came out of the lake."
"Or its connection with the 'gator. We don't know that, either, do we?" Jurzak said.
The room filled with silence.
"Have you heard anything more about your wife, Mr. Platt?" Jurzak asked.
Will shook his head.
"Nothing at all?"
"Not a word."
"Perhaps you should employ a different detective agency."
"Perhaps I should. I thought this one was supposed to be competent. They charge enough."
Again silence.
"Mrs. Kimball," Jurzak said, "you haven't said anything about all this."
Lynne Kimball shrugged. "I didn't see much of it, being on my veranda the whole time. I heard someone yelling or screaming, that was all."
Jurzak gazed at her without expression, but there was something probing in his very lack of it. "Mrs. Kimball, forgive me, please, if I seem a bit rude, but certain people in this building, and in the motel now, are talking about your friendship with Mr. Platt."
"I know."
"No comment?"
"Why bother?"
"No comment from you, either, Mr. Platt?"
"Just one," Will said. "The three favorite diversions here are golf, bridge, and gossip. The greatest of these is gossip."
"Well," Jurzak said, removing his hand from his abdomen and wincing with apparent pain as he pushed himself erect, "that seems to be about it, doesn't it? For now, at least. I believe I'll just go see if my men have found anything."
It was daylight when the investigator returned. By that time Will and Sam were alone, drinking coffee to restore some energy after the total loss of a night's sleep. Lawson, Clay, and Lynne Kimball had gone to their apartments.
Responding to the knock on the door, Will rose and opened it. Jurzak stood there with a black plastic bag in one hand, peering at him out of those deceptively watery eyes.
"May I come in, please? I have something here that may interest you."
Entering, he lowered himself into the chair he had occupied before, and placed the plastic bag at his feet.
Gazing at both Will and Sam, he sadly shook his head. "I had no idea alligators made such a mess of things," he said. "This must have been a big one."
"It was," Will said.
"My men found bits and pieces of Mr. Helpin, nothing more. Do 'gators have some special antipathy toward such men, do you suppose?" He smiled weakly and on getting no answer, stopped smiling and reached into the bag between his feet. "We also found this, Mr. Platt."
Out of the black plastic he lifted a ragged piece of white nylon with part of a sleeve attached. There was a red stripe, or what remained of one, running down the sleeve fragment.
"Look here, Mr. Platt," Jurzak said, turning the scrap of cloth as he handed it to Will.
Will found himself looking at the inside of the collar, where a sewn-on label bore the name Willard Platt in black script. Vicky had sewn it on months ago, he recalled, after ordering labels of both their names from a mail order house.
"He was wearing your jacket, Mr. Platt?" Jurzak said.
"It seems he was."
"I wasn't aware you were that friendly with him."
With a chill settling deep inside him, Will had trouble keeping his voice steady as he explained how Carl Helpin had been wearing the jacket. It sounded, he thought, too pat.
Murmuring "Thank you, Mr. Platt" but offering no comment, the homicide investigator quietly returned the torn piece of apparel to the bag and departed.
But at ten o'clock the following morning he was back, this time with a large brown envelope from which he silently withdrew a number of 11 x 14 black and white photographs. Laying them out on the dining room table, face up, he stepped back and motioned Will to look at them.
Will did so. Sam Norman was at the pool.
The photos were in sequence. They showed a misty spiral rising from the lake's dark water. They showed the spiral swelling into an almost human shape and moving over the water to zero in on a swimming form below. They showed the shape descending into the swimmer's turbulence and becoming a part of it.
"Does that thing look like a woman to you, Mr. Platt?" Jurzak asked in his exasperatingly neutral voice.
Will hesitated. "In a way, yes."
"It does to me, too. So the question now is—wouldn't you say?—what woman? Does it remind you of anyone you know?"
Damn you, Will thought. "No, I don't think so."
"Do you have a full length picture of your wife, Mr. Platt?"
"I—think so. Yes."
"Shall we look at it?"
Will went into the bedroom Vicky had used and took from atop the chest of drawers there a framed photograph he was fairly sure Jurzak had already seen. He carried it back to the dining room and placed it on the table with the pictures the investigator had brought.
Jurzak picked it up and studied it.
"Am I too eager, Mr. Platt, or do I see a resemblance?"
"What the devil are you driving at, Jurzak?"
"A resemblance. Yes, definitely. What am I driving at? Who knows, Mr. Platt? But have you considered the possibility that your wife may not have run away, as you say she did? That she may have—ah—drowned herself in the lake here?"
"Why in God's name would she do that?"
"Mr. Platt," Jurzak said mildly, "I'msure I don't know. I was just hoping you might be able to tell me. Because I keep thinking of what the man next door to you here kept saying to his wife when he was dying. You remember what he said, Mr. Platt? According to her statement he uttered just one word, the word 'bat,' over and over again in trying to tell her what, or who, had attacked him."
Jurzak's watery eyes never blinked, though he suddenly pressed a hand to his abdomen and grimaced with pain. "Has it occurred to you that he might have been saying Platt in an effort to tell her it was your wife?"
Will returned the man's owlish stare in silence, wondering whether the freeze he felt forming inside him was showing on his face.
"Anyway, Mr. Platt," Jurzak said then, "I trust you're not thinking of going anywhere in the near future."
"Going anywhere?"
"Leaving here."
"No, I'm not."
"I'm glad to hear that. Because I'm not very well just now and don't really want the job of going after you. Good day, Mr. Platt. I'll be keeping in touch. Meanwhile, if you find you have something you want to tell me, just give me a ring, will you?"
At the door he paused and looked back, frowning.
"You know, I'm really curious about these pictures, Mr. Platt. Do you suppose a spectral image would show up on infrared film? There have been some interesting books written by researchers—English, mostly—who photographed ghosts. I must find the time to look at them again."
30
A Truth to Tell
After Jurzak's departure Will remained deep in thought for a few minutes, then looked at his watch. It would be a while before Sam returned from the pool. Lynne Kimball was shopping and would probably be back about the same time. It was now quarter past ten.
He went into his study and sat at his typewriter. What he had to write could be done in an hour, he estimated; it didn't have to be polished for an editor's eyes. For a moment he pondered how and where to begin it, then decided on a simple letter.
Dear Lynne and Sam,
Our friend Jurzak has just been here with the photos Haydn Clay took of the lake thing. The creature resembles my wife, he pointed out. He had seen a photo of her, and his memory appears to be as sharp as his mind. He asked me certain questions that force me to believe he suspects me of lying about her. He even suggested she might have committed suicide by drowning herself in the lake.
There are other things friend Jurzak may come up with as he digs deeper, which he certainly intends to do. But never mind. The point of this letter is that I have not told the whole truth yet—not to anyone—and want you to be the first to know it. And I would rather write it than talk about it, at least just now.
At the time of my return from Jamaica Vicky and I had agreed to a divorce, as you know. I've told you she was behaving strangely. Sam, you can vouch for the truth of that because the strange behavior began in Jamaica and you observed some of it.
I've told yo
u both how Vicky appeared one night in my bedroom doorway here and stood staring in at me in a way that made my hair rise on end. The peculiar glow in her eyes was not natural. I think I've told you how she did the same thing just before we left Jamaica, when she was seeing Sister Merle every day.
All right. Now I have to tell you what you don't know.
The night after Vicky stood in my doorway I couldn't sleep. I lay awake for hours, asking myself what was happening to her, and how much of it was a result of her visits to the obeah woman. About two A.M., when I was still wide awake, she appeared in my doorway again, but with a difference.
This time, though again in her nightgown, she held a knife in her right hand. The same kind of knife, Sam—a common kitchen paring knife—that Sister Merle was killed with.
This time she stopped in the doorway only long enough to make sure I was on the bed. Then she came straight at me with her arm in the air, and if I hadn't almost instinctively reached up and caught her wrist, she would have buried the blade in my chest.
I reared up and struggled with her but, my God, she was strong. This wasn't the woman I'd been married to for so many years; it was someone I'd never known before. I managed to get up off the bed and onto my feet, and we crashed all around the room, she trying to stab me and I battling her to prevent it. I got both hands on her wrist and twisted it so she dropped the weapon, but even that didn't stop her. She shifted both of her hands to my throat and proceeded to strangle me.
To stop that I did the same to her, and there we were, the two of us, stumbling around the room trying to choke each other. I don't know how long it lasted. As I've said, she was abnormally strong —stronger than I, I'm sure—as though she were possessed in some way. And the wild look in her eyes seemed to bear that out.
