Smoked Out (Digger)

by Warren Murphy

  "You make it sound really exciting. Why did I build that stupid little fence?"

  "I asked myself about that five o’clock call? What happens, say, between five and seven, that doesn’t happen just as well between seven and nine? You got it, Doc. Sunrise. You know about it because you’re out there running every morning around sunrise. For someone driving up that hill by your house, that rising sun is flush in their eyes. And the way that fence was curved, that sun flicks through those pickets, flash, flash, flash. Just like disco lights. It’s another trigger for an epileptic seizure. And, of course, anybody suffering a big attack there wouldn’t have a chance. They would freeze up at the wheel and just go straight off the edge. Just the way Mrs. Welles did. It was all just a matter of what morning it would happen. I don’t think you could be sure that it would happen while you were away in San Fran. But you could hope."

  "There’s always hope. Life would be a pretty dismal thing without hope, wouldn’t it?"

  "Sure would, Doctor. So you hoped it would happen while you were away. There you’d be, four hundred miles away. A perfect alibi. So you called your wife every morning and pressed her button. And she’d turn on the television so its flicker could get her going. And she’d turn on her disco lights so the flashing could prime her pump. And then just like a zombie, just like you wanted her to, she’d leave the house just as the sun started to rise, just in time to drive up to that fence, just in time to get killed. Tell me, were you surprised when it worked?"

  "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

  "Don’t be modest. I think it was really a good plan."

  "This is all very fanciful, but I don’t think it is going to save your insurance company from paying me the million dollars it owes me."

  "We owe you tapioca. Your wife’s epilepsy, not mentioned on the application, makes the whole application fraudulent. Forget the money, that’s gone. You better worry about your life now."

  "You’re still talking nonsense."

  "One of your problems, Doctor, is your neatness. I said Mrs. Welles was on medication for her epilepsy. Generally, that prevents attacks. You had to do something about that, so you substituted aspirin for her trimethadione. First you had to get trimethadione packaged up as aspirin. I don’t think it’ll be hard to find the chemist who did that for you. Then you had to replace it with aspirin. But you made the mistake of keeping her trimethadione in the center desk drawer instead of just throwing it out. Don’t bother looking. This is the trimethadione here in this envelope. I took them out of your desk when I was here that day. With Fang Two."

  "You bastard."

  "Please don’t raise your voice, Doctor. It upsets Maude and Harold there. That was another thing that got me. When Mrs. Welles died, she had a small plastic vial of aspirins in her purse. Not too unusual, although most people would carry one of those little tin containers of aspirin. In her medicine cabinet, she had another one of those plastic containers. That had aspirin, too. I couldn’t understand why she’d have that in her medicine cabinet when there was a bottle of aspirin in there already. It finally got through that she didn’t know they were aspirin. She thought they were the medicine for her epilepsy."

  "You should write murder mysteries. You’re really clever."

  "It all checks. I had the vial from the medicine cabinet analyzed. There are traces of trimethadione in it. The same thing with the aspirin vial in her purse. Trimethadione traces there, too. The poor woman thought she had medicine to help prevent her seizures, but she was just taking aspirin. She was an accident waiting to happen. I think when the police check the aspirin vial from her purse, they’ll find traces of trimethadione in that one, too. The medicine she thought she was taking."

  "The police haven’t looked into this fanciful theory of yours yet?"

  "No, I haven’t got around to them. That’s next. Cops don’t like somebody interfering unless you can lay it all out for them signed, sealed and delivered. I had to put the pieces together first."

  "There’s one thing you haven’t addressed yourself to yet. The lie-detector test. Have you conveniently forgotten that?"

  "No. But that was a really good touch. I had just about nailed you good, and then you threw that lie-detector curveball at me. It nearly drove me to drink."

  "From what I gather about you, that trip wouldn’t take much gas at all."

  "Very good, Doctor. In jail, maybe you can start a new career as a gag writer. Do you know that Reader’s Digest pays three hundred dollars for items for "Humor in Uniform"? I don’t know if they count prison stripes as a uniform, but what the hell, give it a shot."

  "The lie-detector test, Burroughs."

  "Yeah. Right. I needed help on that. Thank my lucky stars for my girlfriend. You remember her, Doctor. She’s the woman in Las Vegas who owns my car—the one you had your goons check out."

  "What does she do?"

  "She’s a blackjack dealer."

  "Everybody knows what powerful intellects they have."

  "Jumping to conclusions is a bad mental trait, Doctor. The fact is that Koko does have a powerful mind. Even if you don’t count the Phi Beta Kappa and the University of Chicago at fifteen and all that. She has one of these minds that remembers everything it ever saw or read or heard."

  "A sponge can do that and it’s not very bright."

  "True. But now take a sponge that can do that and give it the ability to tie things together and see connections and find patterns and then you’ve got a very powerful intellect indeed. That’s Koko. Beautiful, too. You’d like her, Doctor. Maybe she’ll come to your trial. I’ll introduce you."

  "The lie-detector test."

  "Oh, yeah. As I say, Koko helped. I got the information, but she figured it all out for me. You weren’t taking any chances. You used three different ways to beat it."

  "I’m fascinated at hearing how smart I am."

  "First there was the meprobamate I found in your desk. Don’t bother looking…it’s in that little sample bottle. A common little mild tranquilizer. But Koko remembered reading in a scientific review last spring that people who had taken meprobamate were able to foul up the lie-detector machine in a controlled test. No matter what they said, the machine said it was the truth. What’s the matter, Doctor? You look pale."

  "Just listening to your nonsense."

  "That was one. I really did buy these cigarettes in San Francisco. I was there yesterday. That was your second method. I met your friend, Dr. Bogley, at that center for living bullshit or whatever he calls it. He showed me how somebody can work to control his involuntary responses. Even well enough to confound a polygraph. The lie detector measures blood pressure and breathing and electrical conduction of the skin. If you can control those things you can tell the damn machine that two times four is applesauce and it’ll come out true. Bogley showed me how dedicated a pupil you were at learning to control your responses. He even showed me your little home-study device. A little machine just like the one you’ve got in your desk. I thought it was a battery charger, but it was for you to practice on. I guess you had figured beating a lie-detector test would be your ace in the hole. If things got sticky, you just wanted to be in shape. Koko figured that out, too."

  "You said three ways."

  "Well, I’ve got to admit we’re just guessing on the third way. Probably you wrote out the questions yourself that you wanted your friendly neighborhood lie-detector expert to ask you. When you know the questions that are coming, the whole thing’s easier. Plus, you practice. Ask yourself the same questions day after day, until they become routine and so does your answer. Did you kill your wife? No. If you do it long enough, you really begin to believe it and that makes beating the machine easier. It’s a snap."

  "Prove it. Prove any of it."

  "I don’t have to. All I have to do is satisfy my company. Mrs. Welles’s epilepsy takes my company off the hook for the million dollars. As far as the murder rap is concerned, I’ll give what I’ve got to the police. Let them do whate
ver they want. I’m going to headquarters tomorrow morning and then it’s their baby."

  "When did you begin to suspect me?"

  "The first time I saw you. I didn’t like your house-counting eyes. They reminded me of somebody, but I couldn’t remember who. I finally remembered. You reminded me of my Uncle Phil. You had the same eyes."

  "Good old Uncle Phil."

  "Yeah. He was a committeeman in Jersey City. I remember the first time my father took me to meet him. After we left, Sarge said to me that Phil’d steal a hot stove and come back for the smoke. You have his kind of eyes. You’d come back for the smoke."

  "Pretty flimsy reason to harass me this way."

  "Your eyes. And your wife’s death. I guess the second is more important. I don’t think that murderers ought to get off."

  "Nobody knows about this but you?"

  "Not yet. Just Koko."

  "You want to know your one mistake?" Welles said.

  "Go ahead."

  "The trimethadione. When I first prescribed it for my wife, she couldn’t take it. It’s got this awful camphor smell. So I had some made up special wrapped in an aspirin coating. That made the switch easy later on."

  "Very clever," Digger said.

  "You know, Burroughs, it was really foolish of you to come here."

  "Why?"

  "I told my lawyer you were harassing me. And you never seem to learn. So you come here again today after you see me go out. Then you break in and, poor man, Scylla and Charybdis here don’t understand your dedication and just tear you apart. What a tragedy. Then that poor lady in Las Vegas will probably have an accident, too."

  "You wouldn’t do that."

  "You know damn well I will. You’re really too good, Burroughs. Nothing should have gone wrong."

  "Nothing did. It went just the way you wanted it. You were just careless about the pills."

  "Carelessness kills. Just as you were careless today breaking into a house patrolled by vicious guard dogs. Scylla! Charybdis!"

  Digger leaned back in his chair and smiled at Dr. Welles. He put his right hand into his pocket.

  He spoke loudly.

  "Lt. Breslin," he said, "you’d better get your ass in here right away, before these two saber-toothed tigers come at me."

  Welles jumped up behind his desk, his smooth tanned features suddenly red, contorted with anger.

  "You bastard. You son of a bitch. Scylla, Charybdis, attack! Attack!"

  The two dogs skittered around the desk toward Digger, growls rolling from their throats. Digger aimed a black metal spray can at them. He pressed the button on top. A heavy liquid mist spurted from the can. He waved it back and forth. Both dogs stopped as if they had run into a wall. They slowly sank to the floor and lay there, whimpering. Digger stood up. Welles looked left and right, unsure of what to do, unable to charge Digger because of the can of Mace.

  A few seconds later, Breslin came into the office, his gun drawn.

  Digger said, "He’s all yours."

  "Aren’t you glad I made you bring the Mace?"

  "Yes, indeed."

  "You said you didn’t tell anybody," Welles said.

  Digger stopped at the door. "Anyone who believes someone who works for an insurance company is telling the truth deserves what he gets. Have a nice day, Doctor."

  Before returning to the Sportsland Lodge, Digger had a stop to make.

  The maid had parked her smile and gone back to being brusque. "Mrs. Walker left instructions that she did not want to see you."

  "That’s fine," Digger said. "Just tell her that Dr. Welles has been arrested for his wife’s murder. She’ll be interested." He turned to walk back down the steps, then paused. "And tell Mrs. Walker I don’t want to see her, either. Not until she steps out of the shadows, back into the sunlight of the living."

  Koko was asleep in his bed when Digger returned to his hotel room. She fought open one eye.

  "Everything go all right?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Tell me about it when I wake up."

  She was instantly asleep again. Digger telephoned Frank Stevens.

  "Welles was just arrested for his wife’s murder," Digger said.

  "You do good work, Digger."

  "Should I tell Brackler or will you?"

  "Let me," Stevens said. "He called me tonight and suggested you be fired. I told him to let me think about it. I want to tell him I thought about it and the answer is no."

  "I may quit," Digger said.

  "You won’t quit."

  "Why not? Only a crazy man would do this kind of work."

  "Exactly. That’s why you won’t quit."

  Chapter Twenty-six

  November thirteenth.

  Uncle Mel, brother of Digger’s mother, demanded to know what you gave somebody on their fortieth anniversary. "Twenty-five is silver and fifty is gold, but what’s forty?" he asked.

  The question was academic, since everyone knew that Uncle Mel never gave anyone a gift for anything, which thrift allowed him to struggle through on the seven million he had made in the stock market.

  "Come on, anybody. What do you give for forty?"

  "Poultices," Digger said. "And prosthetic devices."

  His mother did not think this was funny. Her good humor, ephemeral at best, had vanished when Digger arrived with Koko. Throughout the day, Mrs. Burroughs had stared at the young Japanese woman as if expecting her to turn into an eggplant if she should just once relax her vigilance.

  Frank Stevens had come to the party and met Koko for the first time.

  "We owe you a lot," he told her. "How did you know?"

  "The woman’s inscrutable," Digger said.

  His father, passing by, stopped short and looked Koko over carefully.

  "Son, you’re an idiot," he said.

  "Why?"

  "That’s the most scrutable woman I ever saw."

  Koko winked at him. "Meet you in the cellar when everybody else is blotto," she said. She squeezed his thigh.

  "You’re on, girl." Digger’s father grabbed Frank Stevens’s arm and took him out on the heated back porch, where they attacked a bottle of Irish whiskey.

  Digger was satisfied. He had gotten Stevens aside long enough to make sure that Lorelei Church would get a secretarial job at the Los Angeles office of BSLI and that the home office would not raise its eyes at his expense account when Digger had a police guest from Los Angeles in Las Vegas in a few months. Stevens thought this was a reasonable bill to pay to save a million dollars.

  Koko kept Digger sober enough so that when the doorbell rang he was able to walk to it and open the door.

  His ex-wife, Cora, was there.

  She looked at him, her eyes firing hate.

  "Nobody home," he said, and shut the door in her face.

  The bell did not ring again.

  The moment gave Digger great pleasure. Later on, thinking about it, he said to his father, "It’s a great life, Sarge."

  "Only if you weaken, son. Only if you weaken."