Risky Way to Kill

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  They ordered drinks. Heimrich looked morosely at the checkered tablecloth.

  “A bad day, darling?” Susan said. “I’m sorry if it was a bad day.”

  Heimrich turned and smiled at her. He nodded his head.

  “A wasted one,” he said. “I owe the state money. I’ve been chasing wisps. Probably there aren’t any. Except in my mind.”

  “If they’re there,” Susan said, “they’ll be good wisps, Merton. They’ll congeal out of being wisps.”

  “Things are all right now,” Merton Heimrich said, and Mary brought them drinks. She also brought them menus. She said, “There isn’t any more lobster,” and went away.

  “The thing Lyle and Mr. Wallis told you about,” Susan said. “At first you felt there wasn’t anything—that it wasn’t a police matter.”

  “I got a notion,” Merton told her. “Policemen shouldn’t get notions and waste time on them. I had two men raking and they ought to have been patrolling. I drove into New York and somebody jammed me into a parking place. I had a long cozy chat with a man in Virginia, at the expense of the State of New York. I found out that Mr. Paul Wainright doesn’t go to his office on Mondays. I got a notion that nobody goes to his office much.”

  “And nothing came of any of it?”

  “Oh, I found out who sent those damn want ads in. Not that it didn’t stick out a mile. The man who was going to marry the girl. Only, all he had was notions, too. Nothing tangible. You see—”

  Ordinarily, Merton Heimrich does not talk to Susan about his cases. But it had been a dim day, and talking to her brightened it. He told her, briefly, about Andrew Pointer and, even more briefly, about his talk with a banker in a place called Warrenton, in Virginia.

  “A lot of money,” Susan said. “What was your notion, dear?”

  “That somebody hid behind a stone wall and shot a horse,” Heimrich said. “Shot a horse to kill a girl. Because the wall was a hundred yards or so from the place the horse refused the jump and a telescopic sight would have been useful.”

  She waited.

  “That’s all, dear,” Merton said. He looked at his cocktail glass, which was empty. “I think,” he said, “that this is an evening for another drink. What with the low voltage and everything.”

  “I think,” Susan said, “that another drink would be very good for both of us, darling.”

  When the drinks came they clicked glasses.

  “To the materialization of wisps,” Susan said.

  Susan was halfway through sweetbreads and Merton through Dover sole when a tall man walked up to their table. The man had a long brown face and blue eyes and gray hair. He looked down at them. He said, “They tell me you’re Inspector Heimrich. And that you’ve been told about this nasty practical joke that somebody played on my wife and me. I’m Paul Wainright.”

  Heimrich stood part way up behind the table and held his hand out. Wainright took it. Wainright had a hard, strong hand. Heimrich said, “This is my wife, Mr. Wainright,” and Wainright said something like “Meetcha.” Heimrich sat down again, and Wainright continued to lean toward them.

  “I suppose these newspaper people told you,” Wainright said. “Asked them not to. Nothing to drag the police into.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Miss Mercer and Mr. Wallis did come to see me, Mr. Wainright. Wallis feels quite strongly about his newspaper. Feels it’s been made part of something unpleasant.”

  “None of his business, is it?”

  “Now, Mr. Wainright, he thinks it is. Have you got any answers to the ads?”

  “Couple of people asking about the gun. One about the horse. How much did I want for it. Only there isn’t any rifle, and the only bay stallion I ever owned is dead.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I assumed he was. About the wedding dress?”

  “Some nutty woman,” Wainright said. “Rambled on for a couple of pages about the sanctity of marriage. Seems only a very callous person would want to sell a wedding dress, used or not used. There wasn’t—isn’t—any wedding dress.”

  Abruptly, Wainright pulled a chair up and sat on it.

  “The girl at my office,” he said, “says a big man was there looking for me today. Didn’t give his name. Said he didn’t seem to be a client. Knew where we live. Was that you, Inspector?”

  “Yes, Mr. Wainright. That was me.”

  “Anybody could have told you I don’t often go in to the office on Mondays. Unless I have an appointment there. The girl could have told you on the telephone.”

  “I happened to be in town on another matter,” Heimrich said.

  “What it comes to, you are nosing into this business. Why the hell? Somebody with a grudge puts a couple of crazy want ads in a small-town newspaper. Just to upset my wife and me. So. Did I make a complaint about it? Go to the police about it?”

  “No. Perhaps somebody thought you would, Mr. Wainright Wanted you to.”

  “Somebody like that young squirt Pointer?”

  Heimrich repeated the word “squirt.” He made the word a question.

  “Wanted to marry my stepdaughter,” Wainright said. “For her money. I tried to talk her out of it, and she told him I had. Blew his top, Pointer did. Did this nasty trick to get his own back. That’s all there was to it. Sticks out a mile.”

  “Probably the way it was,” Heimrich said.

  “Listen,” Wainright said, but did not immediately go on. Heimrich waited. “The whole thing,” Wainright said, “has been very tough on my wife. She hasn’t been herself since Virginia was killed. Can’t pull herself together. Now this—this bringing it all up again. She’s been going around in a daze. Forgetting things. Like—like a zombie sometimes. But there’s nothing you can do about that, is there?”

  “No,” Heimrich said.

  “Then why are you nosing into it? Was it a crime to put those ads in, using my name?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “Cruel. Not a crime.”

  “Then what business is it of yours?”

  “Probably none, Mr. Wainright.”

  Wainright pushed his chair back and stood up.

  “It seems to me,” he said, “that you’re acting as if it were. Prying into my business—my wife’s business and mine. Trying to find me in my office. What was that, Inspector? Sightseeing tour or something?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I just wanted to ask you a question, Mr. Wainright.”

  Wainright jerked the chair back to the table and sat down again. He said, “All right. Ask your question.” He paused for a moment and smiled in the pause. He said, “Sorry, I sort of blew up, I guess. Worried about Flo. Worried about the whole damn thing. Sorry I yelled at you.”

  “You didn’t yell,” Heimrich said. “Natural you’re upset, Mr. Wainright. That your wife is.”

  “All right,” Wainright said. “What’s the big question?”

  “Not a big question,” Heimrich said. “Just whether you heard something.”

  Wainright shook his head and said he didn’t get it.

  “At the time of Miss Gant’s accident,” Heimrich said, “you were riding beside her. That’s the way I understand it. Both heading for this jump.”

  “Yes. I was riding beside her. And that damn chancy horse of hers refused and—she went over its head. Into the stone wall.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “That’s the way I understood it. Just before the horse refused and threw Miss Gant, did you hear anything?”

  “What sort of thing? The hounds were baying up ahead. Couple of fields ahead, from the way it sounded. That what you mean?”

  “No. A second or two before the horse refused. Or at about the same time. Did you hear a shot?”

  “What the hell? People don’t shoot foxes. I don’t get the point of any of this, Inspector.”

  “I’m not entirely sure I do, Mr. Wainright. Probably there isn’t any. Did you hear a shot? It would have been rather close. Off to your right. The crack of a rifle.”

  “No. Anyway, not that I remembe
r. Certainly not close by. A good many people fire rifles in the country, Inspector. You ought to know that, living around here.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I do know that. You don’t remember hearing a shot?”

  “No. Is that all you wanted to ask me?”

  He moved his chair to stand up again.

  “About all,” Heimrich said. “You did have a rifle at the Brewster house?”

  “Two. And a shotgun.”

  “And used one of the rifles—a twenty-five—to kill the horse which had thrown your stepdaughter?”

  “He broke his right foreleg. There wasn’t anything else to do.”

  “No. I don’t suppose there was. You had a telescopic sight for the rifle?”

  “Yes.” Instead of standing, Paul Wainright put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “You’re getting back to these damn ads, aren’t you? Yes, I had a telescopic sight.”

  “When you got the rifle,” Heimrich said. “Took it down to kill the horse. Did it have the sight on it?”

  “My God,” Wainright said. “This all happened a year ago. I’d—I’d just seen my daughter killed. Could be the sight was on the rifle. Could be it wasn’t. What the hell difference does it make?”

  “Probably none,” Heimrich said.

  “I don’t get any part of it,” Wainright said. “My God, man, you’re making it sound as if you think somebody shot Virginia. You must be crazy.”

  “No,” Heimrich said, “I don’t think anybody shot Miss Gant, Mr. Wainright. And I’m sorry the accident—the bad times for you and your wife—were brought up again this way. Any way.”

  Wainright pushed his chair back and stood up. He said, “That’s all you wanted to ask me about.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “That’s all, Mr. Wainright.”

  They watched as Wainright went up the long taproom. He went to a table for four, with two women and a man at it. He sat down there.

  “One of the women,” Susan said, “is Mrs. Wainright. She looks all right now. From here.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I didn’t know you knew her.”

  “Not until this morning,” Susan said. “She came into the shop. With the other woman at the table now. She’s a cousin, Mrs. Wainright said. Mrs. Gant.”

  “Came to the shop?”

  “To look at fabrics. She wants new curtains for her living room. She calls them ‘drapes.’ I’m to take some swatches out tomorrow to see about colors. I’m afraid she’s going to want something pinkish.”

  Susan does not like things which are pinkish. There are no pinks in any of her own designs, which are dominant in susan faye, fabrics on Van Brunt Avenue. If customers are insistent enough, Susan will, regretfully, get them curtain materials and upholstery fabrics in which pink shilly-shallys.

  “It will be good for her to redecorate,” Susan said, absently, to her empty plate. “It is always good for women to redecorate.”

  Mary said. “Finished, folks? There aren’t any more pastries.”

  “Coffee,” Heimrich said, and Mary carried used plates away.

  “And to switch furniture around,” Susan said. “That’s good for women, too. What’s the line from that song—one of the old songs that doesn’t die?”

  “‘A lady needs a change,’” Heimrich told her.

  They sipped coffee. Heimrich looked now and then at the table up the room where the Wainrights and Mrs. Gant—and, presumably, Bruce Gant—had finished food and returned to drinks.

  Soon the two men at the table up the room got up from it and walked, side by side, across to the dart board. The group which had been thudding darts into it had finished; four of them were standing against the bar. Wainright and Gant pulled darts out of the board and moved away and began to throw darts at the board.

  Heimrich watched briefly and turned to Susan. He said, “Do we want brandies? On account of low voltage?”

  “No,” Susan said. “I don’t think we want brandies, dear. Let’s go home,” she said. “Let’s go home and have a fire.”

  There had been half a moon in sight when they went into Old Stone Inn. The moon had been shining bright. It was still there, if one looked for it. But now it was a hazy luminance behind clouds.

  They had turned dim yellow lights off when they left the house above the Hudson. Heimrich flicked the switch by the front door, and the lights came brightly on. He flicked up another switch, and the furnace coughed and began to thump. The pump did nothing at all when its switch was flicked. Heimrich laid a fire and lighted it, and they sat in front of it.

  Colonel, who had been lying in a corner with Mite between his outstretched paws, got up in sections and Mite, disturbed, said “Ow-uh,” as two words. Colonel went in front of the fire and collapsed; Mite went to the door and said he wanted to go out.

  “All right,” Susan said. “It’s probably going to rain, but all right.”

  She let Mite out and went back to her chair. Flames licked up around the logs and Susan said, “Maybe after all.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Heimrich said, and got them cognacs in very small glasses. They clicked the glasses.

  “To the materialization of wisps,” Merton Heimrich said.

  There was, Susan thought, a difference in his voice and she looked at him and raised her eyebrows.

  “Perhaps,” Merton said. “Perhaps a new light on things, with the voltage back.”

  Car lights flashed in a window and swerved, and Merton Heimrich went to the door to let his stepson in. Michael said, “Thank you, Dad.” At first, Heimrich thought, he always called me “Sir.” As if he were speaking from far off, across a chasm.

  “Was it a good meeting, Michael?” Susan said.

  “It was all right,” Michael said. “Tony Caspiri and Mike Rayburn want us to draw up a petition against Mr. Larrimore, because he’s oppressive. But nobody else wanted to.”

  “Did you have anything to eat, Michael?”

  “Hamburgers,” Michael said. “Is there any cake left, Mother?”

  “Yes, dear,” Susan said. “And there’s Coke on ice. Or sort of on ice, because of the electricity.”

  “At the school,” Michael said, “it’s been all right for more than an hour.”

  He went to the kitchen for cake and Coke. He did not come back to sit with them in front of the fire. He said, “Good night, Mother. Dad,” and carried a plate and a glass and a bottle of Coke into his room.

  Mite rattled the screen door and was urgent about it. Merton Heimrich let him in and Mite had a good many things to say about the delay. He went over in front of the fire and began to lick himself. Merton leaned down and touched the sleek black coat. It was damp, even where Mite had not licked.

  “We told you it was going to rain,” Merton Heimrich told their cat. “You ought to listen to people.”

  Mite said “Yah” and went back to licking.

  The rainfall started modestly, like a gentle, almost summer shower. It rapidly outgrew modesty and the wind rose. By a little after eleven rain slashed at the windows of the hilltop house and wind and rain plastered red and yellow leaves against the panes. Heimrich dialed WE6-1212 and a voice which was cheerfully dulcet said “Good evening. United States Weather Bureau forecast for New York City. Eleven P.M. Central Park readings: Temperature fifty-seven degrees, barometric pressure twenty-nine and ninety-one one hundredths and falling. Rain moderate to heavy tonight, continuing through tomorrow, with increasing northeast winds becoming thirty to thirty-five miles per hour with stronger gusts. Temperatures remaining in the fifties except in the forties in normally cooler interior sections. Partial clearing and colder tomorrow night; Wednesday, partly cloudy, windy and unseasonably cool.”

  October had charged out of summer. It had ended up in late November. October can be a fickle month.

  All night long rain poured on the house and the wind raged at it; the partly opened bedroom window on the lee side shook and rattled and a big ash tree on the windward side rasped and squea
ked against the roof. Things were worse when morning came dimly and they turned on lights. The school bus, due at a quarter of eight, was almost ten minutes late, and Michael waited for it, braced against the wind, in a slicker which reached to his ankles. Colonel, who is faithful in his fashion, and who was wearing nothing at all, stood beside him and shivered and made small moaning sounds. When the bus finally came and god got into it, Colonel did not wait to watch it safely around the bend. Colonel went home in bounds, revived.

  Mite sat on a window sill and looked out into the violent world. He said “Yah” at it and went to his rainy-day corner of a sofa and curled tightly and put a paw over his eyes.

  Heimrich put on a winter suit. At breakfast he said to Susan, “The Wainright place is at the end of nowhere. The wind will blow the squab off the road.” The “squab” is Susan’s tiny SAAB. “The road will be covered with wet leaves. Slippery wet leaves.”

  “I know,” Susan said. “As bad as ice, almost. I’ll be careful, darling.”

  Heimrich was careful in the Buick and crept on slippery, leaf-plastered roads to Hawthorne Barracks. From his slot in the parking lot—a slot with his name and rank painted on it—he ran to shelter. His topcoat was supposed to be water-repellent. The driven rain taught it better. A good day to sit at a desk and delegate, Heimrich thought, hanging up his damp coat. The bottoms of his trousers were wet on his ankles. A very good day to sit at a desk and delegate.

  He was reaching toward his IN basket, full already at nine-thirty in the morning, when his telephone rang. He said his name into it.

  “Morning, M.L.,” Lieutenant Charles Forniss said. “A hell of a nasty one, isn’t it? Mrs. Wainright died in the night. In her sleep, apparently. Overdose of sleeping pills, the doctor thinks. And he can’t sign the certificate because he’s never treated Mrs. Wainright. Patrick Kelly, the doctor is. Says there ought to be an autopsy. So he called in. I’ve got a trooper from the Brewster station on his way over. Seems—”