A Bullet for Cinderella

by John D. MacDonald

  “Thanks for the information.”

  “I’m keeping an eye on you, Tal. I’m interested in your progress. I’ll keep in touch.”

  “You do that.”

  “Blackman runs east off Delaware. It starts three blocks north of here. Butternut must be about fourteen blocks over. It’s not hard to find.”

  “Thanks.”

  I turned on my heel and left him. It was dusk when I headed out Blackman. I found Butternut without difficulty. I found the blue house and parked in front.

  As I went up the walk toward the front door the first light went on inside the house. I pushed the bell and she opened the door and looked out at me, the light behind her, child in her arms.

  “Mrs. Rorick?”

  “I’m Mrs. Rorick,” she said. Her voice was soft and warm and pleasant.

  “You were Cindy Kirschner then. I was a friend of Timmy Warden in prison camp.”

  She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Won’t you come in a minute.”

  When I was inside and she had turned toward the light I could see her better. The teeth had been fixed. Her face was fuller. She was still a colorless woman with heavy glasses, but now there was a pride about her, a confidence that had been lacking in the picture I had seen. Another child sat on a small tricycle and gave me a wide-eyed stare. Both children looked very much like her. Mrs. Rorick did not ask me to sit down.

  “How well did you know Timmy, Mrs. Rorick?”

  “I don’t think he ever knew I was alive.”

  “In camp, before he died, he mentioned a Cindy. Could you have been the one?”

  “I certainly doubt that.”

  It confused me. I said, “When I mentioned him you asked me to come in. I thought—”

  She smiled. “I guess I’ll have to tell you. I had the most fantastic and awful crush on him. For years and years. It was pathetic. Whenever we were in the same class I used to stare at him all the time. I wrote letters to him and tore them up. I sent him unsigned cards at Easter and Valentine Day and Christmas and on his birthday. I knew when his birthday was because once a girl I knew went to a party at his house. It was really awful. It gave me a lot of miserable years. Now it seems funny. But it wasn’t funny then. It started in the sixth or seventh grade. He was two grades ahead. It lasted until he graduated from high school. He had a red knit cap he wore in winter. I stole it from the cloakroom. I slept with it under my pillow for months and months. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

  She was very pleasant. I smiled back at her. “You got over it.”

  “Oh, yes. At last. And then I met Pat. I’m sorry about Timmy. That was a terrible thing. No, if he mentioned any Cindy it wasn’t me. Maybe he would know me by sight. But I don’t think he’d know my name.”

  “Could he have meant some other Cindy?”

  “It would have to be some other Cindy. But I can’t think who. There was a girl named Cindy Waskowitz but it couldn’t have been her, either. She’s dead now.”

  “Can you think of who it could be?”

  She frowned and shook her head slowly. “N-No, I can’t. There’s something in the back of my mind, though. From a long time ago. Something I heard, or saw. I don’t know. I shouldn’t even try to guess. It’s so vague. No, I can’t help you.”

  “But the name Cindy means something?”

  “For a moment I thought it did. It’s gone now. I’m sorry.”

  “If you remember, could you get in touch with me?”

  She smiled broadly. “You haven’t told me who you are.”

  “I’m sorry. My name is Howard. Tal Howard. I’m staying at the Sunset Motel. You could leave a message there for me.”

  “Why are you so interested in finding this Cindy?”

  I could at least be consistent. “I’m writing a book. I need all the information about Timmy that I can get.”

  “Put in the book that he was kind. Put that in.”

  “In what way, Mrs. Rorick?”

  She shifted uneasily. “I used to have dreadful buck teeth. My people could never afford to have them fixed. One day—that’s when I was in John L. Davis School, that’s the grade school where Timmy went, too, and it was before they built the junior high, I was in the sixth grade and Timmy was in the eighth. A boy came with some funny teeth that stuck way out like mine. He put them in his mouth in assembly and he was making faces at me. I was trying not to cry. A lot of them were laughing. Timmy took the teeth away from the boy and dropped them on the floor and smashed them under his heel. I never forgot that. I started working while I was in high school and saving money. I had enough after I was out to go to get my teeth straightened. But it was too late to straighten them then. So I had them taken out. I wanted marriage and I wanted children, and the way I was no man would even take me out.” She straightened her shoulders a little. “I guess it worked,” she said.

  “I guess it did.”

  “So put that in the book. It belongs in the book.”

  “I will.”

  “And if I can remember that other, I’ll phone you, Mr. Howard.”

  I thanked her and left. I drove back toward the center of town. I began to think of Fitz again. Ruth was right when she used the word creepy. But it was more than that. You sensed that Fitz was a man who would not be restrained by the things that restrain the rest of us. He had proved in the camp that he didn’t give a damn what people thought of him. He depended on himself to an almost psychopathic extent. It made you feel helpless in trying to deal with him. You could think of no appeal that would work. He couldn’t be scared or reasoned with. He was as primitive and functional as the design of an ax. He could not even be anticipated, because his logic was not of normal pattern. And then, too, there was the startling physical strength.

  In camp I had seen several minor exhibitions of that power, but only one that showed the true extent of it. Those of us who saw it talked about it a long time. The guards who saw it treated Fitz with uneasy respect after that. One of the supply trucks became mired inside the compound, rear duals down to the hubs. They broke a towline trying to snake it out. Then they rounded up a bunch of us to unload the supply truck. The cases aboard had obviously been loaded on with a winch. We got all the stuff off except one big wooden packing case. We never did learn what was in it. We only knew it was heavy. We were trying to get a crude dolly under it, but when we tilted it, we couldn’t get the dolly far enough back. Every guard was yelling incomprehensible orders. I imagine Fitz lost patience. He jumped up into the bed of the truck, put his back against the case, squatted and got his fingers under the edge. Then he came up with it, his face a mask of effort, cords standing out on his throat. He lifted it high enough so the dolly could be put under it. He lowered it again and jumped down off the truck, oddly pale and perspiring heavily.

  Once it was rolled to the tail gate on the dolly, enough men could get hold of it to ease it down. When it was on the ground one of the biggest of the guards swaggered up, grinning at his friends, and tried to do what Fitz had done. He couldn’t budge it. He and one of his friends got it up a few inches, but not as high as Fitz had. They were humiliated and they took it out on the rest of us, but not on Fitz. He was left alone.

  Back in town I decided I would have a drink at the Inn and a solitary meal and try to think of what the next step should be. I was picked up in front of the Inn, ten steps from my car.

  • FIVE •

  There were two of them. One was a thin, sandy man in uniform and the other was a massive middle-aged man in a gray suit with a pouched, florid face.

  “Your name Howard?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Police. Come on along.”

  “What for?”

  “Lieutenant wants to talk to you.”

  I went along. They put me in a police sedan and drove about eight blocks and turned into an enclosed courtyard through a gray stone arch. Other cars were parked there. They took me through a door that was one of several opening onto the courtyard. We went up wide
wooden stairs that were badly worn to the second floor. It was an old building with an institutional smell of dust, carbolic, and urine. We went by open doors. One door opened onto a big file room with fluorescent lights and gray steel filing cases. Some men played cards in another room. I could hear the metallic gabbling voice of some sort of communication system.

  We turned into a small office where a thin, bald man sat behind a desk that faced the door. His face was young, with a swarthy Indian harshness about it, black brows. His hands were large. He looked tall. A small wooden sign on his desk said Det. Lt. Stephen D. Prine. The office had cracked buff plaster walls. Books and pamphlets were piled in disorder in a glass-front bookcase. A smallish man with white hair and a red whisky face sat half behind Lieutenant Prine, on the small gilded radiator in front of the single window.

  One of the men behind me gave me an unnecessary push that made me thump my knee against the front of the desk and almost lose my balance. Prine looked at me with complete coldness.

  “This is that Howard,” one of the men behind me said.

  “Okay.” The door behind me closed. I glanced back and saw that the man in uniform had left. The big man in the gray suit leaned against the closed door. “Empty your pockets onto the desk,” Prine said. “Everything.”

  “But—”

  “Empty your pockets.” There was no threat in the words. Cold, bored command.

  I put everything on the desk. Wallet, change, pen and pencil, notebook, cigarettes, lighter, penknife, folder of traveler’s checks. Prine reached a big hand over and separated the items into two piles, notebook, wallet, and checks in one pile that he pulled toward him.

  “Put the rest of that stuff back in your pockets.”

  “Could I ask why—”

  “Shut up.”

  I stood in uncomfortable silence while he went through my wallet. He looked carefully at every card and piece of paper, at the photograph of Charlotte, at the reduced Photostat of my discharge laminated in plastic. He went through the notebook and then examined the traveler’s checks.

  “Now answer some questions.” He opened a desk drawer, flipped a switch, and said, “April 20, seven-ten p.m., interrogation by Lieutenant Prine of suspect picked up by Hillis and Brubaker in vicinity of Hillston Inn. What is your full name?”

  “Talbert Owen Howard.”

  “Speak a little louder. Age and place of birth.”

  “Twenty-nine. Bakersfield, California.”

  “Home address.”

  “None at the present time.”

  “What was your last address?”

  “Eighteen Norwalk Road, San Diego.”

  “Are you employed?”

  “No.”

  “When were you last employed and by who?”

  “Up until two and a half weeks ago. By the Guaranty Federated Insurance Company. I had a debit. Health and life. I was fired.”

  “For what reason?”

  “I wasn’t producing.”

  “How long did you work for them?”

  “Four years all together. Three and a half before the Korean war. The rest of it since I got back.”

  “Are you married? Have you ever been married?”

  “No.”

  “Parents living?”

  “No.”

  “Brothers or sisters?”

  “One sister. Older than I am. She lives in Perth, Australia. She was a Wave and she married an Aussie during the war.”

  “Do you have any criminal record?”

  “N—No.”

  “You don’t seem sure.”

  “I don’t know if you’d call it a criminal record. It was when I was in school. One of those student riots. Disturbing the peace and resisting an officer.”

  “Were you booked and mugged and fingerprinted and found guilty?”

  “Yes. I paid a fine and spent three days in jail.”

  “Then you have a criminal record. How long have you been in Hillston?”

  “I arrived here—Wednesday night. Two days.”

  “What is your local address?”

  “The Sunset Motel.”

  “On this vehicle registration, do you own the vehicle free and clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have a little over a thousand dollars. Where did you get it?”

  “I earned it. I saved it. I’m getting a little sick of all this. It’s beginning to make me sore.”

  “Why did you come to Hillston?”

  “Do I have to have a reason?”

  “Yes. You need a reason.”

  “I knew Timmy Warden in prison camp. And I knew others there that didn’t come back. I’m going to write a book about them. There’s my notes. You have them there.”

  “Why didn’t you tell George Warden that?”

  “I didn’t know how he’d take it.”

  “You didn’t tell Fitzmartin, either?”

  “He has no reason to know my business.”

  “But you went out there to see him. And you were both in the same camp with Timmy Warden. It would seem natural to tell him.”

  “I don’t care how it seems. I didn’t tell him.”

  “If a man came to town with a cooked-up story about writing a book, it would give him a chance to nose around, wouldn’t it?”

  “I guess it would.”

  “What else have you written?”

  “Nothing else.”

  “Are you familiar with the state laws and local ordinances covering private investigators?”

  I stared at him blankly. “No.”

  “Are you licensed in any state?”

  “No. I don’t know what—”

  “If you were licensed, it would be necessary for you to find out whether this state has any reciprocal agreement. If so, you would merely have to make a courtesy call and announce your presence in this county and give the name of your employer.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Do you know a woman named Rose Fulton?”

  “No. I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Were you employed by Rose Fulton to come to Hillston?”

  “No. I told you I never heard of her.”

  “We were advised a month ago that Rose Fulton had hired an investigator to come here on an undercover assignment. We’ve been looking for the man. He would be the third one she’s sent here. The first two made a botch of their job. There was no job here for them in the first place. Rose Fulton is a persistent and misguided woman. The case, if there was any case, was completely investigated by this department. Part of our job is to keep citizens of Hillston from being annoyed and persecuted by people who have no business here. Is that clear to you?”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I really don’t.”

  He looked at me for what seemed a long time. Then he said, “End of interrogation witnessed by Brubaker and Sparkman. Copies for file. Prine.” He clicked the switch and closed the desk drawer. He leaned back in his chair and yawned, then pushed my wallet, checks, and notebook toward me. “It’s just this, Howard. We get damned tired of characters nosing around here. The implication is that we didn’t do our job. The hell we didn’t. This Rose Fulton is the wife of the guy who ran off with George Warden’s wife, Eloise.”

  “That name Fulton sounded familiar, but I didn’t know why.”

  “It happened nearly two years ago. The first inquiry came from the company Fulton worked for. We did some hard work on it. Fulton was in town for three days. He was registered at the Hillston Inn. He stayed there every time he was in town. On the last night he was here, Friday night, he had dinner at the hotel with Eloise Warden. She waited in the lobby and he checked out. They got in his car. They drove to the Warden house. Eloise went in. Fulton waited out in the car. It was the evening of the eleventh of April. A neighbor saw him waiting and saw her come out to the car with a big suitcase. They drove off. George Warden hadn’t reported it to us. He knew what the score was when he got back to town and
saw the things she’d taken. It was an open and shut situation. It happens all the time. But Rose Fulton can’t bring herself to believe that her dear husband would take off with another woman. So she keeps sicking these investigators on us. You could be the third. I don’t think so. No proof. Just a hunch. She thinks something happened to him here. We know nothing happened to him here. I’ve lost patience, so this time we’re making it tough. You can go. If I happen to be wrong, if you happen to be hired by that crazy dame, you better keep right on going, friend. We’ve got a small force here, but we know our business.”

  The big middle-aged man moved away from the door to let me out. There was no offer of a ride back to where they had picked me up. I walked. The walk wasn’t long enough. By the time I got to the Inn I was still sore at Prine and company. I could grudgingly admit that maybe he thought he had cause to swing his weight around. But I didn’t like being picked up like that. And it had irritated me to have to tell them I had no job, no permanent residence. I wasn’t certain what legal right they had to take that sort of a statement from me.

  I had a drink at the dark bar at the end of the cocktail lounge at the Inn. Business was light. I nursed my drink and wondered how they had picked me up so quickly. I guessed it was from the motel register. I’d had to write down the make of my car and the license number. They’d known who I’d talked to and what had been said. It was a small city and they acted like men who made a business of knowing what was going on.

  Just as I ordered the second drink I saw a big man come in and stand at the other end of the bar. He looked like the man I had seen in the blue sedan. But I couldn’t be certain. I had forgotten him and the effect he had had on Fitzmartin. He became aware of my interest. He turned and gave me a long look and turned back to the drink the bartender put in front of him. He had moved his head slowly when he turned to look at me. His eyes were in shadow. I had a sudden instinctive premonition of danger. Fitz was danger, but a known quantity. I did not know this man or where he fitted in. I did not want to attempt to ask him. He finished his drink quickly and left. I looked down into my drink and saw myself lying dead, sprawled, cold. It was a fantasy that had been with me in the prison camp and later. You think of your own death. You try to imagine how it will be—to just cease, abruptly, eternally. It is a chilling thought, and once you have started it, it is difficult to shake off.