by Ross Thomas
“That’s my sister,” Dill said.
“You notice something?”
“What?”
“There’s no dust.”
Dill looked around, ran his finger over the edge of the highest bookshelf, and examined it for dust. “You’re right. I guess they went through every book.”
“The police?”
He nodded.
“They were awfully neat.”
“Gene Colder probably saw to that.”
Dill again looked around. There really wasn’t much more to see: a worn Oriental rug on the floor that he guessed was machine woven; some paintings on the walls-Felicity-type paintings, Dill thought—which meant they contained more emotion than art. One was of a sad-faced woman in eighteenth-century European dress leaning on a window ledge. Dill thought her expression was what a suicide might wear. Another was of a fat, uproarious drunk seated on a three-legged stool with a stein of beer on one knee and a plump simpering barmaid on the other. It appeared to be early nineteenth century. A third was an abstract of such harsh colors that it almost screamed of rage. A couch stood against a wall. The coffee table was in front of it. There were also some chairs, a magazine rack (full), and a whatnot stand in one corner. None of the furniture matched, yet none of it seemed out of place.
A short hall led from the living room. Dill moved down it and noted that the bathroom was on the right and a small kitchen on the left. He switched on the kitchen light and saw the spices. There was a six-tier spice rack that held at least thirty or forty kinds. There was also a four-foot shelf crammed with cookbooks. He opened one of the cabinet doors and found it full of canned goods, plus a generous supply of Kool-Aid. As usual, Dill thought with a smile, there were enough canned goods to last the winter. An inspection of the refrigerator revealed that someone had cleaned out all the perishables—the police probably—leaving only six bottles of Beck’s beer. No one had turned off the refrigerator and the beer was still cold.
“You want a beer?” he asked Anna Maude Singe, who was opening and closing kitchen drawers.
“A beer would be good,” she said.
“You see an opener?”
“Here,” she said, took one out of a drawer and gave it to him.
He opened the two beers and handed her one. “You want a glass?” he asked.
“It’ll stay colder in the bottle.” She drank from the bottle, moved back to one of the drawers, and pulled it open. “Her silver is all here.”
“That was her inheritance when our folks died. All of it.”
“She kept it polished,” Singe said, and closed the drawer. “What next—the bathroom?”
“Okay.”
It was a large, old-fashioned bathroom that was covered halfway up its walls with square white tiles. On the floor were small white hexagonal ones. Both the tub and sink had separate faucets for hot and cold water. The medicine cabinet held nothing of interest.
“No prescription drugs,” Dill said, closing the cabinet door.
“Felicity was pretty healthy.” Singe looked at him curiously. “Find what you were looking for?”
He nodded. “She lived here. And she seemed to like it. That’s all I was after really.”
“Shall we try the bedroom?”
“Sure.”
The bedroom was not quite as large as the living room because its size had been reduced by the addition of a large closet. There were pretty yellow curtains on the windows and a cheerful white-and-brown rug on the floor. The bed was of the three-quarter kind, quite large enough for one and even for two, providing number two didn’t plan to stay the night.
The bedroom also contained an old-fashioned chaise longue, which gave it the air of a boudoir. A card table, bridge lamp, portable electric typewriter, and director’s chair gave it the air of Felicity Dill.
Dill crossed to the closet and slid one of its doors back. The closet was filled with women’s clothing, all neatly hung on hangers with winter clothes in plastic bags and summer clothes ready to hand. Dill shoved the hung clothing to one side to see if there was anything else worth noting and discovered the man at the back of the closet. The man had a long narrow face that wore a foolish smile. His eyes were a yellowish brown and looked trapped. Dill thought they also looked clever.
“Who the hell are you, friend?” Dill said.
“Lemme explain,” the man said.
Dill stepped back quickly, looked around for something hard, spotted the windowsill, and smashed the beer bottle against it. It left him with a weapon formed by the bottle’s neck and three or four inches of sharp jagged green glass.
“Explain out here,” Dill said.
The man came out of the closet carrying a small toolchest and still wearing his fool’s smile.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I want you to do,” Dill said. “I want you to put that chest down very carefully, then reach into a pocket just as carefully—I don’t care which one—and come out with some ID. If you don’t, I’m going to cut your face.”
“Take it easy,” the man said, still smiling his fixed smile. He put the toolchest down as instructed, reached into a hip pocket, and brought out a worn black billfold. He offered it to Dill.
“Give it to her,” Dill said.
The man offered the billfold to Anna Maude Singe. She approached him warily, almost snatched the billfold from his hand, and hurriedly stepped back. She opened it and found a driver’s license.
“He’s Harold Snow,” Singe said. “I remember that name.”
“So do I,” Dill said. “You’re Cindy’s roomie, aren’t you?”
“You know Cindy?” the man said, his tone puzzled, the fool’s smile still trying to please.
“We met,” Dill said.
“Harold’s the tenant,” Singe said. “At the duplex. His name was on the lease.”
“I know,” Dill said.
Harold Snow’s foolish smile finally went away. The yellowish-brown eyes stopped looking trapped and began looking wily instead.
“You guys aren’t the cops then,” he said in a relieved tone.
“I’m worse than that, Harold,” Dill said. “I’m the brother.”
CHAPTER 22
Harold Snow obeyed Dill’s instructions exactly. He squatted down, his hands behind him, groped for the handle of the toolchest, found it, and rose, holding the toolchest just below the seat of his chino pants.
“Now we’re going into the living room, Harold, where it’s cooler,” Dill said. “But when I say stop, I want you to stop or I’ll slice off an ear. Got that?”
“I got it,” Snow said.
“Let’s go.”
Snow went first into the hall followed by Dill. Anna Maude Singe came last. When they reached the door to the kitchen, Dill said, “Stop, Harold.”
Snow stopped. “You know where the knives are?” Dill said to Singe.
“What kind d’you want?”
“Something that’ll impress Harold.”
“Right.”
“You don’t need any knife,” Snow said.
“Shut up, Harold,” Dill said.
Dill could hear Singe open and close a drawer in the kitchen. A moment later she was saying, “What about this one?”
Dill turned to look. She was holding up a wicked-looking breadknife. “Fine,” Dill said, took the knife and handed her the broken neck of the beer bottle.
“Okay, Harold, into the living room.”
Still carrying the toolchest behind him, Snow moved into the living room followed by Dill and Singe. She tossed the neck of the beer bottle into a wastebasket.
“You can put the chest down, Harold,” Dill said.
It was awkward going down with the chest behind him, but Snow managed it and then stood up again. “Now what?” he said.
“Sit down over there.”
“Over here?” Snow said, moving to the large easy chair with the ottoman and the brass floor lamp.
“That’s the one.”
Snow sat down in the chai
r. “Is your toolchest unlocked, Harold?” Dill asked.
“It’s unlocked.”
“Let’s open it and see what’s inside.” Snow started to rise. “Not you, Harold,” Dill said, motioning him back down with the breadknife.
Anna Maude Singe knelt by the toolbox and opened it. She lifted up a tray of assorted tools and inspected the bottom of the chest. “He’s either the telephone man or the man who comes to fix the hi-fi,” she said. “Except I don’t think either one would have this in his toolchest.”
Dill looked quickly to his left and then back at Harold Snow. “Is it loaded?” he asked Singe.
“It’s loaded.”
“Let’s have it.” Singe rose, moved over to Dill, and handed him the short-barreled five-shot .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. He gave her the breadknife. Dill aimed the pistol at Snow and smiled. The smile made Snow swallow nervously.
“We’re going to tell the cops, Harold, that we surprised you in a burglary, you pulled this on us, I took it away from you, and then shot you in the knee. The right knee, I think.” Dill moved the gun so that it was pointed at Snow’s right knee.
“You wouldn’t do that,” Snow said.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Anna Maude Singe said.
“Christ, lady, people don’t just go around shooting people.”
“He’s the brother, Harold—remember? The death of his sister’s made him sort of crazy.”
“Harold,” Dill said.
Snow looked at him. “What?”
“I’m going to ask you what you’re doing here. If you lie to me, I promise I’ll shoot you—in the knee. Understand?”
“You’re not gonna shoot me,” Snow said, his tone as defiant as he could manage.
Dill squeezed the trigger of the pistol. The gun fired. The .38-caliber slug tore into the ottoman in front of Snow’s knees. Snow yelped and shrank back in the chair. Dill wondered if anyone had heard the shot. Probably not, he decided, not back here in the alley at the rear of a two-hundred-foot lot. He also decided he didn’t really care.
“Sorry, Harold,” Dill said and carefully aimed the pistol, with both hands this time, at Snow’s right knee.
“The tape!” Snow shouted. “That’s all. Just the tape.”
Dill lowered the pistol. “What tape, Harold?” he said pleasantly.
“The last one,” Snow said.
“The last one. And where is this last tape?”
Snow pointed toward the ceiling. “In the crawl space. It’s sort of an attic. You get to it by going up through the trap in the closet ceiling in the bedroom.”
“How did you know the tape is up there, Harold?”
“I put the recorder in.”
“The tape recorder?”
Snow nodded. “It’s voice-activated and I ran it off of house power so I wouldn’t have to fool with batteries.”
“When did you do all this, Harold?” Anna Maude Singe asked.
Snow looked at her, then back at Dill. “Who the hell’s she?” he said.
“She’s my witness for when I shoot you in the knee, Harold. But if you answer our questions, maybe I won’t have to.”
“Can I smoke?” Snow said.
“No,” Dill said. “When did you put the tape recorder up in the attic?”
“About six months ago.” Snow sulked. “Why can’t I smoke?”
“Because,” Dill said. “Why’d you put the recorder up there?”
“I got paid to, that’s why.”
“Who paid you, Harold?”
“Some guy.”
“I’ll bet some guy’s got a name.”
“I can’t tell you his name,” Snow said. “He’s a … a client.”
“Harold,” Anna Maude Singe said softly.
He looked at her. “What?”
“You’re not a lawyer, Harold, or a doctor, or a priest, or even a private detective, so there’s no rule of confidentiality involved here. You don’t have clients, Harold. All you’ve got are slippery customers, and if you don’t tell us who some guy is, Mr. Dill is going to shoot you in the knee. Right, Mr. Dill?”
“Absolutely,” Dill said.
Snow looked at Dill, then at Singe again, and then once more at Dill. He ran his tongue over his upper lip as if trying to lick away the sweat. His forehead was also covered with it. He used the sleeve of his soaked blue T-shirt to wipe it away. After that, he dried his hands on the legs of his chino pants. Finally, he lowered his gaze until his eyes rested on the ragged hole the .38 bullet had made in the ottoman. He spoke to the ottoman in a low, almost inaudible voice. “His name’s Corcoran. Clay Corcoran.” He looked up at Dill. “He used to be gone on your sister and he’s gonna tear my fuckin’ head off when he finds out I told you.”
Dill shook his head. “He won’t tear your head off, Harold.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Sure I know him. But he won’t tear your head off because somebody shot him. Around noon. Today.”
Snow’s surprise was obviously real. His mouth sagged open and his eyes widened. Disbelief was written across his face. He finally managed to say, “Shot him?” and there was nothing but doubt in his voice.
“Shot him dead, Harold,” Anna Maude Singe said. “In the cemetery.”
“Tell us, Harold,” Dill said almost gently. “Start way back there at the beginning and tell us all about you and my sister and Clay Corcoran.”
“Can I smoke?”
“Of course you can.”
Snow fished a package of Vantage menthols out of his pants pocket and lit the cigarette with a paper match. He blew the smoke out and looked at Dill. “You sure he’s dead?” he said.
“He’s dead, Harold. I saw him die.”
Snow’s yellowish-brown eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You killed him?”
Dill only smiled and said, “From the beginning, Harold.”
Snow looked around for an ashtray. Anna Maude Singe found one and gave it to him. He didn’t thank her. Instead, he flicked some ash into the tray and said, “We moved in right after your sister bought the place—the place over on Thirty-second and Texas. We didn’t see much of her, me and Cindy. Then one night Corcoran came around when she wasn’t there and started raising hell up on the second floor landing.”
“When my sister wasn’t there, right?”
“Yeah. Right. He’d been there once before raising hell, but your sister’d been home that time. This time she wasn’t. Neither was Cindy. Just me. So I went up to see what the trouble was. He was drunk and talkative and he said he and your sister’d split and now she was shacking up with somebody else. He didn’t say who the other guy was but I already knew. Well, what the hell, it smelled like an easy dollar or two, so I made him a proposition. I told him I could run a spike mike up through the floor and get everything your sister and the other guy said on tape. Corcoran wanted to know who the fuck I was. I told him my name and how I was into electronics. He wanted to know how much it would cost. I told him and he said we had a deal. I told him we didn’t have no deal until I saw some money. He said come by his office the next day and we’d settle everything. So that’s what I did. I went by his office. Turns out he’s a private detective. I remember when he played football, but I didn’t know he was any private detective.”
“He had an office,” Dill said. “Where?”
“The Cordell Building, know it?”
Dill nodded.
“He was sober though when you saw him in his office,” Singe said.
“Stone sober, lady. And all business. He told me exactly what he wanted. He wanted the spike up through the bedroom floor and he wanted a tap on her phone, too. And he wanted it voice-activated. Well, that was gonna cost and I told him so and how much. He pulled out a roll and paid me in hundreds—no receipt, no questions, no nothing. So that’s what I did.”
“How often did Corcoran pick up the tapes?” Dill asked.
“Once a week,” Snow said and ground his cigarette out in the ashtray.
/> “What was on the tapes?” Dill said.
Snow stared at Dill for a moment, and Dill thought he saw the apprehension and fear leave Snow’s eyes. They were replaced with something that Dill finally identified as greed. He believes that somehow he’s going to make a few bucks out of this after all, Dill thought.
“You wanta know what was on the tapes, huh?” Snow said. “Well, the sound of fucking was on the tapes, I guess, but I don’t really know because I didn’t listen to them. I’ve done a lotta this kind of work and when I first got into it, I used to listen to the tapes, but after a while, you don’t because it’s just the same old crap.”
“So you didn’t listen to them?” Singe said.
“No.”
“Not even once.”
“I listened to a little bit of the first one to check the quality, but after that I just dropped ’em in an envelope.”
“Then what?” Dill said.
“Well, then Corcoran calls and says he wants to see me. And once again, he’s all business. I mean it was like doing business with IBM or somebody. He says your sister’s got another place where she spends a lotta time and he wants that wired, too. Well, he meant this place here. So I drove by and took a look and I didn’t like the setup, so I went back and told him so. You wanta know what he said? He said, How much? That’s all. How much? Well, I had a problem here. He wanted both the bedroom and the phone. Now I could do that okay and feed it all up into the attic there. But how was I gonna get the tapes? I mean, I could break in here once and install my gear, but I couldn’t bust in every week just to pick up the tapes, could I?”
“So what’d you do, Harold?” Dill said.
“Bursts,” Snow said.
“Bursts.”
“Yeah. I rigged up a sender, something like a CB?”
Dill nodded.
“I used this voice-activated low-ips tape, right? I mean, you can get hours on that stuff. So every two or three days I’d drive by in the van, park, and send the radio up there in the attic a signal. It’d rewind the tape and shoot it back to me in a burst—maybe two, three, four seconds. Never more’n five. I’d record it on my stuff in the back of the van, then rerecord it at normal speed and give it to Corcoran.”
