The Excluded Exile (A Nick Williams Mystery Book 12)

by Frank W. Butterfield

  He frowned slightly. "Clean up?"

  I nodded and pointed to the floor where the body had been. "Didn't one of your men clean the blood from the kitchen floor this morning?"

  He shook his head. "The pan was removed with the body so both could be delivered to the examination room at the hospital where Dr. Vinson does his work. But that would have been all." He walked over and looked at the floor for a moment. He knelt down and looked closer.

  I said, "That means someone was in the house after you left and before we heard Tom in the kitchen."

  Hargrove squinted up at me. "Maybe Tom did the cleaning up himself."

  I shook my head. "He was soaked." I then remembered something else. "And he was looking for something. That's what woke Carter up. I heard him say something like, 'OK, mum, where'd you put it?'"

  Hargrove stood. "Any idea what he was looking for?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know. Whatever it was, he didn't find it."

  "You told me you stood in the door—"

  I snapped my fingers. "Wait! It couldn't have been Tom. I saw that the blood was gone within ten or fifteen minutes after you left. Are you sure those men didn't do it?"

  He shook his head. "Quite sure. I'll check nonetheless. How did you know it was ten or fifteen minutes later?"

  "It's a long story, but I came into the kitchen and happened to notice it."

  Hargrove looked grim. "You're pointing to Jenkins and don't even know it."

  "How so?"

  "His story about arriving on Qantas, seeing the friend, and going to eat all checked out. They went to the bar but Jenkins left with someone else, according to the friend. Someone he's seen before. The friend, that is. I wrote some of the details on the card. On the back."

  I pulled it out. It read: Ask around for Jimmy. Tall, red-blond hair, natty dresser, frequently there. Early 30s.

  I looked up. "Another man who's 6'4"?"

  Hargrove nodded.

  "I like tall men but this is getting to be ridiculous."

  Hargrove chuckled and smiled. His smile faded.

  "What?" I asked.

  "What's taking them so long down there?" He walked over to the stairway and called out, "Sergeant Jones?" Getting no reply, he quickly ran down the stairs. I followed him.

  The stairs ended in a small room. There were three doors. One led outside and had a small window that let in the only available light. The second opened into the garage. I could see the hood of the blue Mercedes in the dim light. The third was behind the stairs and was opened. As I came around the stairs, I could hear someone moaning in the dark of the storage room.

  Hargrove reached up and finally found a string that he pulled on. A single bulb illuminated the room. It was full of cartons, some of which were open. The police sergeant was sprawled across a pile of the cartons. His head was bleeding and he was the one moaning.

  Kenworthy was ominously quiet. He was stretched out on the concrete floor. There was blood but it wasn't flowing. I knelt down by his head and felt for a pulse on his neck.

  I looked up at Hargrove. "How's your sergeant?"

  "Alive. How's Kenworthy?"

  "Dead."

  . . .

  Once the sergeant was sent off to the hospital and another team of men in white coasts had removed Kenworthy's body, Dr. Vinson, the police surgeon, sat down with Hargrove and the four of us at the dining table.

  Murphy had made coffee and, after a trip to the nearby grocery store, some sandwiches for all of us. Dr. Vinson took a long drink of his coffee. "I'd say it's the same assailant. At least 6'4" and possibly as tall as 6'8" but no taller. Not from the angle that the wrench hit Kenworthy's skull. The sergeant was lucky. He got a glancing blow. He'll be out of it for a while, but he should pull through." He looked at Carter suspiciously for a moment.

  I said, "Carter was in here, Dr. Vinson."

  O'Reilly said, "The three of us were sitting in the living room, reading."

  Vinson nodded.

  Hargrove sighed. "There are signs that someone is living down there. I found a bedroll, a canteen of water, and a pile of discarded clothes. Whoever it is hasn't bathed recently. His socks also need mending."

  "A hobo?" asked Carter.

  "Hobo?" asked Vinson.

  Carter replied, "Someone who doesn't live anywhere. Rides the rails. Goes from town to town."

  Vinson nodded, sipped his coffee, and said, "Derro."

  Hargrove said, "It's possible. The outside door down there isn't locked." He looked at me with that same expression he'd had when they'd arrived earlier. He obviously had an idea of who the person was but didn't want to say anything, for whatever reason.

  Vinson stood. "Thanks for the sandwich, Mr. Murphy. And the coffee. Unfortunately, I have my work to get to." With that, he walked over to the front door, put on his trench coat, and said, "I'll have my report on both bodies first thing tomorrow morning, Chief Inspector."

  Hargrove, who didn't move, nodded and said, "Thanks, Doc."

  Vinson bounded down the stairs and back into the rain.

  O'Reilly said, "Tom still needs a change of clothes."

  Hargrove said, "Right." He put his hands on the table and stood. "Mr. Williams?"

  "Yes, Chief Inspector?" I stood.

  "Will you help me gather a few things for young Tom?"

  I said, "Sure." I looked at Carter, who was frowning slightly. "Carter? Can you come with us? We need to figure out how to lock that outside door."

  Carter replied, using his favorite nickname for me, "Sure thing, Boss."

  Everyone else chuckled at that as the three of us filed into the kitchen and down the stairs.

  . . .

  Hargrove and I were both looking at the floor in the storage room. Carter had gone back upstairs to grab some towels, soap, and a bucket of warm water so we could get the blood up.

  He came down much quicker than I thought he would. Walking around the stairs, he said, "Chief Inspector, I thought you'd want to see this." He handed over a dark green bucket to Hargrove. In it were several blood-stained white towels.

  The chief inspector looked at it for a moment. Looking up at Carter, he asked, "Where was it?"

  "Right under the sink."

  Hargrove nodded.

  "So, this confirms your theory, right?" I asked.

  He nodded. "It's improbable, but it's the only thing that fits."

  Carter said, "The father."

  Hargrove and I both looked up at him. I grinned. He winked at me.

  Hargrove cleared his throat. Nervously, from the sounds of it. Not that I blamed him. Carter was definitely the most handsome man on five continents.

  "Yes, the father. I don't know all the details but I do remember the bit of a row that was caused when Mrs. Jenkins asked the court to declare her husband legally dead back in '49. Kenworthy filed the papers for her on the first day after the seven-year waiting period. The government had published a notice a few months earlier that men considered missing in action would be considered dead on the last day of the Battle of Singapore which, from my recollection, was the fifteenth of February."

  "How tall was he?" asked Carter.

  "Considering Tom, I'd say he'd have to be somewhere close to your height."

  Carter shrugged. "My father was just over six feet."

  I said, "But your mother is tall. She's 5'8"."

  He nodded but said, "You just don't know from the children how tall the parents were."

  I looked over at Hargrove who was nodding slowly. "I can call Canberra and ask about his induction papers. But that can take weeks to get an answer on." He looked up at Carter and said, "So, you think there could be someone else involved?"

  Carter shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just saying that it's possible that Mr. Jenkins, the father, was staying here and that the killer could be someone else."

  I shook my head. "Someone else who knew how to get in the house down here? Someone else who was coincidentally waiting down here when the sergeant and Ke
nworthy came downstairs? That's too many coincidences."

  Carter shrugged and said, "You could be right. But I do know something."

  "What's that?"

  "The smell down here is driving me nuts. I'm going to go look at that door."

  I followed him as he walked around the stairs to the outside door. "What's the smell? All I can smell is damp and mold." Carter had a very sensitive nose. It made him an excellent arson investigator.

  Carter knelt down at the door and was looking at the lock. "Someone has been taking a leak down here. I can smell the urine. And the body odor."

  I walked over and kissed him on the neck. "Sorry, Chief."

  He stood, pulled me into his arms, and said, "It's OK. I'm not made for chewing the fat about theories and motives. That's what you're good at." He leaned down, gently bit my ear, and then whispered how he was going to even the score later. I grinned and blushed as he kissed me gently on the lips and said, "Go back and play cops while I figure out how to lock this door."

  I walked back into the storage room, rubbing my face hoping it would hide my blushing.

  Hargrove smiled at me. "He loves you, doesn't he?"

  I nodded.

  With a sigh, Hargrove began to go through the boxes that had clothes in them. "Must be nice."

  "It is." While we looked for some clothes for Tom, I asked, "What would happen if you got caught?"

  "Official reprimand at best. Time in jail at worst. I know there are others like us on the force. There are at least two that I know of who are a little too eager to volunteer for policing the public toilets." He took a deep breath. "The New South Wales police have a fine history of entrapping homosexuals in their trysting places. Goes back to at least the 1930s, if not longer. The courts, I think, are wising up to it."

  "What about your station? I bet there's a lot of stuff happening at that place called Bondi Pavilion by the beach."

  "Been there, have you?"

  "No. We drove by it this morning after we left the station. Wanted to have a look at the beach, even in the rain. Looks like a place that would have changing rooms. Maybe a Turkish bath."

  Hargrove laughed. He pulled some BVDs out of a box. "Here we go."

  I took them and stuffed them into a small canvas bag I'd found. Looking at where Hargrove was standing, I said, "Looks like there's shirts and socks and trousers right next to where you got those from."

  He pulled out a pair of all of those and handed them to me.

  "Do you often go get clothes for a prisoner?"

  Hargrove sighed. "Never. But this is different. He's not as much a prisoner as a ward. I'm concerned about him, for a variety of reasons." He looked around. "Young Tom has no living relatives now."

  "Except for his father."

  "Perhaps."

  "Do you think she hid him down here?"

  He shrugged. "Why?"

  "Good question. Here's another one. Why stay in your own house as a maid and cook when you could get a hotel room somewhere else?"

  "How much did you pay for this?"

  "Forty pounds per week."

  Hargrove looked at me. "That much?"

  I nodded. "But we heard that she doesn't... I mean, she didn't have control of the money. Maybe she was renting out the house to make some money on her own. There was something in the will or the trust that specified only male heirs could control the money."

  Hargrove sighed. "No wonder she wanted to have the father declared dead."

  "But he was from somewhere else. He wasn't a Tutwiler."

  "No, but I've seen a trust set up like that before. The wife, if she's the heiress, has her money under the guardianship of her husband and, upon his death, that transfers to the oldest son. It's horribly Victorian." He handed me one more shirt.

  I rolled it up, stuffed it in the bag, and tied the top closed. "I think we've got everything."

  Carter walked in right then. He said, "I got that door secured. I don't think anyone can get in." He looked at me for a moment and then asked, "You two lovebirds finished playing cops yet?"

  Hargrove smiled his thousand-watt smile. "Careful there, Mr. Jones. Wouldn't want to have to take you in for anything, now would I? Sometimes we have to search prisoners for contraband. I'm known to be quite thorough."

  Carter smiled back. "I've been searched by the best, Chief Inspector." He winked at me. "You do your worst and I'll let you know how it compares."

  I was beginning to feel warm all over. I suddenly had a mental image and laughed.

  "What?" he asked.

  "It's like watching two bulls circling each other. Two devilishly handsome bulls."

  Carter walked over and put his hand on Hargrove's shoulder. They were quite a pair. Carter was almost a foot taller. He asked, "What does that make you? One of those Spanish gals in black lace?"

  I laughed. "It makes me the bullfighter. The one with the tight pants."

  They both laughed as we walked upstairs.

  . . .

  Hargrove asked Carter and me to go with him to the station. We followed him there in the Holden. As we walked in, there was quite a crowd assembled, including reporters and photographers. We got our pictures taken even as one of the officers was saying, "Now, please stand back, gentlemen. No photographs, please."

  Once we made it through the crowd and into the large room where all the desks were, Hargrove barked out, "Thompson!"

  One of the younger men at a desk stood and said, "Sir?"

  "Escort these gentlemen to Jenkins' cell. They've brought personal items for the young man."

  The officer walked towards the hallway that led back to the cells and said, "Follow me, please."

  As we walked, he asked, "Ever had your pictures in the paper?" He seemed to be amused by the whole thing.

  I just replied, "Once or twice."

  "Be sure to get a copy tonight. The Sun. That's the one that copped your photo."

  Carter replied, "We'll do that. Thanks."

  We turned a corner. There was a row of cells along a dark hallway. About half of the eight were occupied. From the smell of things, they were drunks drying out.

  Tom was all the way in the back. The officer unlocked the cell door and said, "These gentlemen are here to see you, Mr. Jenkins." I noticed there was a sneer to his voice.

  Tom looked up from his cot and smiled wanly. "Thanks, Bill."

  "Sure thing, Mr. Jenkins."

  We walked in. Bill locked the door behind us. "I'll be back in ten minutes to check on you."

  I handed Tom the canvas bag. "We brought you some clothes."

  He looked up at me but didn't take the bag. "My mum's dead."

  I nodded and put the bag next to the cot. His expression was blank. I figured he was in shock.

  Carter walked over and sat next to Tom. He put his arm around the kid's shoulder and said, "I don't think you'll be in here much longer."

  Tom nodded. "It's awful to be locked up. You have no idea."

  I leaned against the wall as Carter said, "Actually, we do, son. Nick's been in lock-up twice. I was in once."

  "What for?"

  "Nick was in the first time because a lazy-ass sheriff in my hometown in Georgia had it in for him. I nearly went out of my mind while he was in there."

  I added, "He even stood out in the rain in the middle of the night and watched me from the street."

  Tom said, "That's so romantic."

  I said, "It was."

  Carter continued, "Last summer we got locked up for vagrancy. Had to do a few days in the county jail near San Francisco. We could see each other but we couldn't even kiss. Nick, though, learned how to cook breakfast for thirty and had the warden eating out of his hand by the time the whole thing was over."

  Tom laughed. He glanced over at me. He was looking a little better. To Carter, he whispered, "My Bobby is short like Nick. Shorter, in fact."

  Carter whispered back, "Aren't they fun when you can throw 'em around?"

  Tom guffawed.

&nbs
p; I said, "Hey!"

  Carter replied, "Sorry, son. The truth is the truth."

  I laughed and said, "I'm not complaining."

  Tom sighed. "Where's Bobby?"

  I said, "I have a better question. Who did you actually go home with last night?"

  Tom stiffened. "Like I told you—"

  "No, Tom," I said. "The cops checked out your story. Your friend said you left the bar with someone else."

  Tom began to cry.

  "What is it, son?" asked Carter.

  "I was just up the street the whole time." He sniffed. Carter handed him his handkerchief. The kid wiped his face with it and gave it back.

  "What?" I asked.

  He nodded. "The man I went home with. His name is Jimmy Branch. He lives a few houses up the street. He offered to drive me home. I'd had a few and then, when we got to his house, he asked me in for a couple of beers. One thing led to another." He whispered to Carter, "He's too tall for me, though. And he wanted to do to me what I usually do to Bobby."

  Carter nodded sympathetically but didn't say anything.

  "What were you looking for in the kitchen?" I asked.

  "Aspirin. Some bloke in San Francisco told me to take two aspirin and drink a lot of water before going to bed. Keeps the hangover away. And it works." He wiped his face with the back of his hand. "I thought Mum was in her room."

  "The one in the back?"

  "The back?" He looked at me with a frown.

  I nodded. "That's where she was sleeping."

  He thought for a moment. "Sure. Her room is the big one. Mine is the smaller one." He cracked his neck. "Oh. Now I understand why my bedroom door was closed. Those other gents were sleeping in there, weren't they?"

  Carter nodded.

  I said, "So you drove home with Jimmy. Whose Holden is parked at the end of the street?"

  "I don't know. Never seen it before until this morning. Why?"

  "You told us you borrowed your friend's car."

  "Oh, right. You thought that was his. I don't know who it was."

  "Who it was?"

  "Sure. When I walked down the street, there was a man in the car. He got out as I was pushing up the driveway of my house. I thought he'd just driven up."

  "Where'd he go?" I asked.

  "Up the street, I guess."

  "Why'd you lie about being up the street?"