The Price of Murder

by John D. MacDonald

  “Okay,” he said wearily. “Skip it.” He stood up and dropped his balled napkin on the table and looked down at her for a silent moment. “I only thought you might be more contented if you had something to do. You don’t seem to have the inclination or the imagination to take up a hobby. I thought it might keep you out of trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble? Just what do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows what kind of trouble? Maybe I thought it might make this marriage a little better.”

  “You’d be surprised at how fast it would get better if we didn’t have to watch every damn dime. If we didn’t have to live in this …”

  “Shut up!” The explosive violence shocked her. He had leaned toward her to yell at her, his expression savage. For once she had no retort. She heard him get his coat out of the hall closet. He banged the door when he left. She listened to the starter grind and grind until the motor caught. She got up then and began to carry the dishes out to the kitchen.

  Who the living hell did he think he was? Who did he think he was veiling at? What right had he to veil? He was the one who sold the big bill of goods. Marry a writer, sure. Teaching was just a hobby. Just temporary. He was scared to write. Look at the money they made writing that junk on television. Thousands and thousands. And him with that one darn book she couldn’t hardly read because nothing seemed to happen in it. And those reviews he used to look at but didn’t any more. “Sensitive new talent.” “Promising young novelist.” He’d get to be sixty and they’d retire him with a lousy little state pension and he’d still be the same promising young novelist. He didn’t have guts, ambition, drive. So he was going over and lick old Haughton’s shoes. Big deal.

  She washed the dishes quickly and carelessly and stacked them away, still faintly a-gleam with grease.

  When the front doorbell rang, she decided it was Ruthie. Maybe she wanted to take in a movie, or maybe their television was broken again. She flipped off her apron, patted her hair, and walked swiftly through the house. She opened the door. The man was big and lean. The wind flapped his dark topcoat. She looked out at the curb but there was no car there.

  “Mrs. Bronson?” His voice was deep and slow and important.

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to speak to you a moment. May I come in?”

  She hesitated. He wasn’t a salesman, she decided. He had the manner of a gentleman. She stepped back and he came into the small hallway.

  “Is Mr. Bronson at home?”

  “He had to go to a meeting. He left just a little while ago. He probably won’t be back for a long time. Is there something I can do?”

  He moved from the hall into the living room. She was forced to follow him. It annoyed her that he didn’t take off his dark hat. He wore leather gloves. There was something strange about him, about his manner, that made her think that perhaps she had made a mistake in letting him in so readily.

  “Can you tell me your name, please?” she asked, and was disturbed that her voice trembled slightly.

  “I am doing a favor for a friend. A mutual friend. He asked me to stop by here and pick up something he left here for safe keeping.”

  He looked down at her. She licked her lips. “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do, Mrs. Bronson. I want the envelope your brother-in-law left here. Get it, please.”

  “He … he sent you?” she asked, and realized at once that she had made a mistake.

  “He sent me. He didn’t think it was safe for him to come into the city. Get it.”

  She took two inadvertent steps toward the kitchen and then stopped and turned. He was so close to her that she took a step back away from him. She looked up at him and said, “I can’t give it to you. My husband took it and locked it up. I don’t know where it is.”

  He did not answer. He walked toward her. She backed away. He backed her out into the kitchen. “I can’t give it to you!” she said thinly.

  “Where is it?” he asked. She glanced toward the canisters. She could not help looking toward them. She looked back at him and saw that under his calm look he was excited, he was under great tension. He grabbed her by the arm. The strength of the grip made her gasp with pain. He whirled her over toward the counter, held her against the counter, twisted her arm up between her shoulder-blades. Her forehead hit the cupboards.

  “Where is it?” he demanded again. She began to cry. He pushed her away so violently she fell and slid half under the sink. The fall dazed her. She looked up and saw him dumping out the contents of the canisters. Sugar, salt, flour, spilling them on the counter top and on the floor. He took the envelope, ripped it open, glanced at the statement and put it in his pocket. She stood up, holding onto the sink.

  “Did he … get the money?” she asked weakly.

  He turned and looked at her. His expression had changed. “You know about the money,” he said softly. “You and your husband know about the money.”

  “Lee doesn’t know …” She stopped abruptly as she read the horrid intention in his face. It was unmistakable. She whirled and yanked open the kitchen knife drawer. As she scrabbled at the knife handles, the big leather hand closed on the nape of her neck. She screamed once in fright and pain. He yanked her away, slammed her head down against the gleaming edge of the sink. She felt the sickening impact, felt her skin split over the bone. And then she was far away, and what was happening was a dream, a boneless, fluid, swarming dream in which she sagged against strength and felt herself lifted, then forced down again, slammed down with violence against the white edge of the sink. The impact was a softness, a whirling white like winter snow, and it was like falling into snow, down through cold gray into a deep blue, into a black …

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lee Bronson

  Dr. Ellis Haughton was a widower who lived with a married daughter in a modern home on the western edge of the city. His son-in-law was a prosperous corporation executive. One wing of the house had been converted into a compact suite for Dr. Haughton, with kitchen, bath, and private entrance.

  Dr. Haughton was a burly old man in his early seventies. He had headed up the English Department of the State University at the time of his retirement. With the establishment of Brookton Junior College he had consented to come out of retirement and take over the job for two years. The two years had become five. He had been the man who had interviewed Lee Bronson three years before.

  Lee had, at first, wondered why Haughton had been considered so desirable they had asked him to come out of retirement. He had seemed a quaint old man, vague, bumbling, eccentric. He took no classes. He had turned his neat modern office into a wilderness of papers, notes, books, disordered files. He had a staff of nine. He seemed to take no interest in how the instructors, assistant professors, and associate professors organized and conducted their courses. He was an authority on Chaucer, and every conversation with him seemed to have a fatal tendency to drift off into Chaucerian lore. He always seemed to be a little more than half asleep at faculty meetings.

  But slowly Lee came to realize that the carefully hidden talent, the invaluable talent, was that of the administrator. Haughton was an expert at the imperceptible nudge. Somehow each staff member was assigned to that work he did best and liked most. For some reason his department was free of the cliques and jealousies that hamstrung other departments. Staff members came up with practical ideas which, when they thought back, had started to germinate after some vague comment by Dr. Haughton. The available scholarships seemed to go to the students who most deserved them. The departmental share of the budget seemed to remain high without any special fuss or energy. And when Haughton came out of his half sleep at faculty meetings, his grumbled comments were highly pertinent and, after argument, were usually adopted.

  Lee had asked Haughton if he could see him on a personal matter. Ever since the interview with Keefler, he had worried about the harm Keefler could do him. He had decided to lay it in Haughton’s lap, so at least the
old man would be forewarned.

  The first half hour was given over to a mildly virulent discussion, by Haughton, of a recently published essay on Chaucer written by an instructor at Queen’s College who, Haughton said, “has all the organizational ability of a kitten with dysentery.”

  They sat in two deep leather chairs, half facing the small grate where cannel coal glowed. Haughton sighed and said, “World full of fools. What fool thing have you done, Lee?”

  It was difficult to start, but as he went along it became more and more easy to tell Haughton the whole story: the past, the present, and his fear of what could happen in the future. Haughton sat, eyes half closed, thick hands crossed over his belly, fire glint on the lenses of his glasses. When Lee had finished, Haughton was silent. He took off his glasses, huffed on them, cleaned them on the lining of his necktie.

  “You like what you are doing, Lee?”

  “Why … yes. Yes, of course.”

  “But there is a thing you would like better.”

  “I … I thought so once.”

  “I read your novel. It interested me. A man writing before he had enough to say. But saying that little bit well. This place, this … junior college … isn’t that a terrible name for a place, a trivial name?… it is supported by state funds. That is something to be considered always. The rafters over our heads are full of little termite clerks and experts on the state level. We try to ignore them as much as we can. In times of stress they wave a great banner at you. In great crimson letters it says Taxpayers. We do not have the freedoms of an endowed institution. This Keefler person, if he is as you say he is, and I believe I can trust your judgment about people, could make it impossible for your contract to be renewed. But no matter what he does, I will see that you finish out the academic year.”

  “Thank you, I …”

  “It is not entirely a personal thing. You are very good with the young people. And now please do not think for one little moment that I am talking about this insane preoccupation with throwing balls of various shapes and sizes back and forth. That is merely one of the diseases of the era we must endure.” He tapped his creased forehead. “The mind. The incredible miracles of intelligence and creative imagination. That is the essence, Lee. These days our young instructors are so crammed with curriculum construction, pedagogical phrases, and modern testing methods they have no time for the development of the mind of the individual pupil. I had a plan of giving you a heavier work load next year, so as to make you give up some of this muscle nonsense. Obviously you have come here for advice.”

  “Yes.”

  “It will be blunt. Your brother, in imposing on you, has forfeited his rights to any protection based on silence and sentimentality. Surely this Keefler is not a great and powerful man. If your brother is being hunted, it is a police matter, not a parole matter any longer. I would take that money and I would go to the police. I would go as high as I could get and make a complete statement, and in that statement I would accuse this Keefler of abusing the privileges of his position. He sounds like the sort one must counterattack briskly.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “It may be that he will cause trouble anyway. So before he has a chance to cause trouble, I will write to a friend of mine. He has bothered me for years. He thinks I am in this world to be a talent scout for him and for that incredibly dignified institution which employs him. I have sent him two young men in the last ten years. You will definitely receive an offer, written on that superior parchment used for Ivy League communications. Then if it becomes impossible for you here, you can leave gracefully. Even if Keefler can be tamed, perhaps you should leave anyway. Three years here is enough for you, I think. I have one more bit of advice. Also blunt. That pretty little wife of yours might benefit greatly if you were to beat her frequently. I have attempted to converse with her. You would be supplying something her own people obviously neglected. She could have caused you great trouble. She should be made to see the seriousness of that. You have a child wife, and I believe you should face that problem and treat her as a child until she begins to become an adult. If she never changes, you will at least be maintaining control. Now, if you reach far to your right, my young associate, you will find that you can reach the chess set without getting out of your chair. Of the eleven times we have played, you have won three and tied three, and it is your turn to have white, and I consider it highly probable that you will open with that Ruy Lopez again.”

  As Lee drove home, he felt renewed and confident. Haughton had lightened the strain of the past four days. Not only that, but he had made the future enormously more promising. It was possible, too, that he was right about Lucille. Perhaps he had been wrong in expecting adult reactions from her, when she was not yet ready to give them. She might be happier and feel more secure in a world where she could expect implacable reward and punishment.

  He turned into the drive, seeing that the lights were on in living room and kitchen, and not on in the bedroom. He eased the car into the narrow old garage, turned off the weary motor. Halfway between the garage and the house, he stopped and looked up at the night sky. A sliver of moon sailed rapidly through the clouds, and here and there a patch of stars showed. The air was cool and damp. Haughton was an old fox. He had built up a pawn structure that had severely constricted the movements of

  Lee’s pieces. Haughton, grunting with satisfaction, had slowly strangled him to death, and then had slanted in with the two bishops and forced the checkmate. He grinned and shook his head and went lightly up the back steps.

  He was halfway through the kitchen when he saw the spilled canisters. He stopped, puzzled. Then he turned slightly and saw her. She lay on the linoleum in front of the sink, half on her side, cheek against the floor, one arm folded under her, one leg sharply bent. The dark puddle of blood under her head had reached to the sleeve of her outflung arm, had soaked into the aqua cordurory. He did not know how long he stood there. He felt as if he stood with heart and breathing stopped. He went to her, went down on one knee, touched her shoulder. There was no warmth. Her resilient flesh was not cold. It just had no temperature. The touch sickened him. He bent down and he could see a portion of the ruin of her face. He stood up quickly and gagged and put his fist to his mouth and bit hard on his knuckle.

  Dead child. No more to be punished or loved. There was a pink smear of blood on the edge of the sink and the enamel was freshly chipped. He looked at the canisters. Somebody had been looking for something. Danny had come after his money.

  He went to the phone, almost on tiptoe. He looked up the police emergency number in the front of the book, dialed it.

  “Police Headquarters, Sergeant Foltz.”

  “This is Lee Bronson of 1024 Arcadia Street, Brookton. Somebody has killed my wife.” The words, spoken so carefully, sounded insane.

  “Don’t touch anything, Mr. Bronson. If there’s anybody with you, don’t let them leave. Officers will be there in a few moments.”

  Lee hung up. He stood by the phone. The house was very still. He heard the refrigerator go on. He heard the hiss of bus brakes. Then he heard the thin, oncoming whine of a siren, and he stood without moving until he heard the sound drop to a low growling, and saw the sweep of the spotlight as they picked up house numbers. He turned on the porch lights and opened the door. Two uniformed men came swiftly up the walk and up the steps. One was young and thin and the other was older, short and wide.

  “Bronson? Where is it?”

  “In … the kitchen. I’d just come home, just a couple of minutes ago, and …”

  “Save it, Mr. Bronson. They’ll be coming along to ask you questions in a couple minutes. Take a look, Billy.”

  The young one walked heavily through the house. He came back quickly. “No question about this one.”

  “You stay with Mr. Bronson. I’ll confirm.” The wide man trotted out to the car.

  “Confirm?” Lee said weakly.

  “You get some funny calls sometimes. Maybe somebody faint
s. Maybe somebody’s got a knot on the head. That your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rough deal, mister.”

  “Can I sit down?”

  “You better just stay right here. They won’t want nothing messed up in the house. They’ll be along any minute. A whole swarm of them. Homicide Section and lab guys and the coroner and D.A. office guys and the newspapers. You won’t be lonesome.” He took two steps out onto the unscreened part of the porch and yelled, “All right, there. Move along. Nothing to see. Move along. Go on back home. Nothing to see, folks.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Ben Wixler

  Sergeant Ben Wixler had worked from eight-thirty to five on Tuesday, the sixteenth of October, and had been driven home by one of the beat cars on the four to twelve which had brought in an early and, for Ben, an opportune D and D they had netted out in his usually circumspect neighborhood. Though he knew that as the acting head of a section he could order up a department sedan and driver, it always made him feel too much as though he was swinging his weight around. It might be different when he made lieutenant, a boost that Matthews had told him was coming up any day now.

  The boys let him off in front of his house and as Ben got out he saw Beth looking out the picture window in front. It was a smallish house on a generous lot—a lot that matched the size of the mortgage. Even on such a dismal day the house looked inviting. He’d been very dubious about Beth’s idea of painting it barn red with white trim. He had favored white with green trim. But she had won and he had to admit it looked fine. The outside finish was board and batten, and the stubby chimney was painted white.

  She opened the front door for him, her pretty face a mock mask of woe, and said, “And there’s the police bringing your poor father home again, children.”

  He kissed her and touched the front of her smock very lightly and said, “Children, indeed! And have you no restraint, woman? If I haven’t lost count, and some days I’m not sure if I haven’t, that will be number four you’re a-carrying. Where are the other monsters?”