“… soft!” Keefler yelled. “Every damn one of you! Mush! Soup! You gotta go after the bastards. You got to get ’em one way or another. Get ’em off the streets. Any way you can. Got to get ’em like I got Kowalsik. Filth! They’re all filth! They killed Mose. They tried to kill me. You mushbellies don’t understand what it is to be a cop. You don’t …”
Ben Wixler let the words fade from his consciousness as he leafed through old files, old names. The open file on murder was much larger in Hancock than it should have been. He had been through the file many times. Many of the murders had been committed long before he had joined the force, but there was no statute of limitations on murder. He remembered the grimy label on the faded file folder, a folder of a type no longer in use. Kowalsik, Gilbert Peter. And a particularly unsavory glossy photograph of the body flashed into his mind. Tortured to death. Body found in the lake.
“… try to lose me my job, a pansy cop like you, and I’ll go to every paper in town and I’ll …”
“Shut your mouth!” Ben roared. It startled Dan Means as much as it startled Keefler. Keefler sagged back in the chair.
“I want to hear just a little bit more about how you got Gilbert Kowalsik, Johnny,” he said gently. “Tell me a little bit more.”
Keefler looked at Wixler. He snapped his head around and looked at Dan Means. His eyes were wide and staring and curiously blank. He looked like a man suddenly awakening from a sound sleep. His eyes narrowed. He looked down at his artificial hand. In far too casual a voice he said, “I didn’t say anything about Gil Kowalsik. I don’t know where you got an idea like that.”
Ben didn’t even have to glance at Dan Means to have him come in on cue. “We both heard you, Johnny. We want to know about it.”
“Tell us,” Ben said. “First you called him just Kowalsik. I called him Gilbert Kowalsik, but you called him Gil. I guess you knew him pretty well.”
“Gil? Oh! Oh, sure, I knew Gil. When I was a kid. I think he got killed. I remember something about it. A long time ago, I think.”
“But, Johnny. You didn’t say you fixed him. You didn’t use a word like that. You said you ‘got’ him. I think you were explaining how a good cop takes the law into his own hands. We both heard you, Johnny. We just want to know how you got Kowalsik.”
“You guys are nuts. I didn’t say anything about him. You didn’t hear me right.”
Ben leaned back. “You know something? We got all night, Johnny. All night long. Dan, suppose you go pull the Kowalsik file. Check the estimated time of death. Send somebody into dead records to pull Keefler’s duty reports for the estimated time of death. Bring the file back up here. And bring a fresh pot of coffee.”
“You guys are way off the beam,” Keefler mumbled.
“We’ve got all the time in the world, Johnny.”
The sedan pulled away and Ben walked up his front walk in the first pale gray of dawn. He managed to undress so quietly Beth didn’t stir. But when he eased himself into bed the sag of the bed aroused her.
“ ’Lo, honey,” she murmured. “Gosh, s’nearly morning.”
“Go to sleep, baby.”
She braced herself on one elbow and looked at him. “You got the grumps, haven’t you? Bad night?”
“I’ve got to be back at nine. We’ve got a hot one. But I guess it was a good night. We took an old one off the books. Got a confession. In detail. Seems a cop did it.”
“Oh, honey! How awful for you!”
“An ex-cop, but he was a cop when he did it, and I personally think he’s been crazy all his life, and he did it in a way that turned my stomach and I … The hell with it. Good night, baby.”
She kissed him. “Sleep fast because you haven’t got much sleeping time, darling.”
CHAPTER TEN
Paul Verney
Verney awoke at six on Wednesday morning. During the first few moments of consciousness he wondered only why the alarm had been set so early, and then it all came roaring back into his mind. He remembered the curious things that had happened to him after he had grabbed the woman. It seemed that he had stood a little bit aside from himself and heard the hollow metallic sound as he kept slamming her head against the edge of the sink. It seemed to him that he had gotten back into himself with an effort. She had seemed utterly without weight. Only as he had regained control had he felt the slack heaviness of her and realized she was dead and had been dead for many long seconds.
He had let her slip from his hands and thud to the floor, and he had backed away from her. He remembered telling himself to look at the scene coldly and objectively and see if he had left any clue. Yet in the very next second, it seemed, he was walking down a dark street, walking too fast, breathing too hard, with absolutely no memory of having left the house. He had slowed and stopped, thinking that he should go back and empty drawers and make it look as though a thief had been in the house. Maybe he should take some small things of value and dispose of them.
And again, frighteningly without transition, he found himself trying to turn the door handle of his locked car three blocks from the Bronson house. As he hunted in his pockets for the car keys, he saw the telltale white on the front of his topcoat and on his shoes. He stamped his shoes hard, frantically dusted the white flour from the front of his topcoat. He was still breathing very fast, very deeply, as though he had been running.
He got into the car and he started to think of how the fragile nape of the neck had felt in his right hand … and he was putting his key into the door of his room on the third floor of the Center Club. The hiatus frightened him. It was as though his brain kept cutting out, as though a wire to some essential terminal came loose.
Once he was in his locked room, and deep in the leather chair, his mind began to function in the orderly way he depended upon.
No one had seen him go to her house. No one, he hoped, had seen him leave it. Because it was a self-service elevator, and there was no attendant on the front desk of the club after six, no one could prove how long he had been away from the club. As there was no note under his door, there had been no phone call and no visitor during the hour and a half he had been gone. He was certain no one had seen him in the heavy shadows where he had stood and watched them eat, and watched the man drive away.
The girl had been vapid and easily handled. He inspected his clothing and his shoes and found them clean of flour. He took the statement Bronson had written from his topcoat pocket, read it through again. It would have been infinitely damaging. He held it until the flame scorched his fingers, and dropped it into the toilet and flushed it. The girl had known about the money. Her death had been essential. Yet it would have been essential anyway, once he had the statement. Because the statement was a warrant for Bronson’s death. He wondered if he would have had the nerve to wait for the man and kill him also if she had not revealed that the man was ignorant of the statement Bronson had left.
The next step was to meet with Danny Bronson before he could get word of the death of his sister-in-law. It would have to be early. Before Bronson was up, and listening to a news broadcast. It was likely that he slept late. It could all go wrong if Danny Bronson was not at the camp. But again it was unlikely he would leave and take a chance of getting picked up on the morning of the day he expected to receive the money.
Before going to bed he prepared three articles—a suitcase with enough books in it to give it a convincing weight, a note to leave at the front desk downstairs asking Harry to please call his office at nine and tell them he would be in a little later than usual, and a Belgian .32 automatic with a full clip. He had taken it from a hot-tempered client many years before, and knew it was untraceable.
He dressed hurriedly. He left the note on the front desk, carried the suitcase through the club to his car parked in the rear. It was a clear morning, a chill morning, smelling of the coming of winter. The automatic was in the right-hand pocket of his top coat. As he drove he rehearsed exactly how he would do it, and where he would do it, and how it
would be.
He turned down the gravel road, rounded the curve by the woods and saw the camp ahead, the gray sedan parked behind it. He pulled in beside the sedan, raced his motor, then gave a prolonged blast on his car horn. He got out and put the suitcase on the ground beside him and waited. He gave another blast, picked up the suitcase and walked around the camp to the terrace. He laid the suitcase flat on the metal-topped table, stood slightly beyond the table, his hands in his topcoat pocket. He wormed his right hand into the black leather glove and found the trigger guard with his first finger.
Danny Bronson came out of the door, hair tousled, face thick and ugly with sleep. He wore a pale blue terrycloth robe.
“What the hell, Verney?”
“I brought it.”
“Hell it’s not eight o’clock yet.”
“Shall I take it away and bring it back this afternoon? Would that suit you better? Frankly. I don’t like driving around with that much money in the car.”
Bronson moved closer and touched the suitcase with his fingertips. “Where’s the good five grand?”
“Inside. It’s separately wrapped.”
Danny thumbed back the latches to raise the top. When both his hands were in sight, thumbs on the two brass latches, Paul Verney yanked the automatic out of his pocket and, from a distance of four feet, with arm outstretched, he shot Bronson full in the face. The shot made a feeble snapping sound in the open air. Bronson yelled harshly and staggered back, arms lifting. Verney fired at the broad chest. He felt coldly competent. He aimed at the left side of the chest. Bronson fell awkwardly. Verney stepped around the table. Bronson was looking up, face agonized, mouth working. Verney put the gun six inches from Bronson’s broad forehead and fired again.
… and then he was bending over Bronson who lay quite dead on his back and he had the muzzle against the dead forehead and he was pulling the trigger and it was not working and his finger ached from pulling it so hard, and he did not know how long he had been there.
He straightened up. There was a hole beside Bronson’s nose. There was a stain no larger than a quarter on the left side of the chest of the blue robe. There were five holes in the tan forehead, and all could have been covered by a silver dollar.
… and he was driving down the gravel road and swerved violently when the big convertible swung around the corner, and he put his right wheels in the shallow ditch. The car stopped opposite him and Drusilla Catton rolled down her window, leaned toward him and said with consternation, “What in the world are you doing here, Paul?”
“Dru,” he said quickly, “Dru, I’m so glad to see you. There’s something I must talk to you about. I … I’ll ride down to the camp with you.”
“But …”
“I’ve talked to Bronson. He … he was going to tell you but I can tell you.”
He got in beside her. “Goodness!” she said. “I’ve never seen you so upset. You’re actually dithering like a girl. Old solemn rock Verney. I guess you know about Danny and me.”
“Yes.”
“And maybe you want to give me a fatherly talk. I hope to hell not, Paul. I happen to know exactly what I’m doing.”
“I suppose you know Danny is trying to blackmail me?”
She giggled. “I rather imagined he’d try that the moment he forced it out of me. Yes, I knew he was. Does it make you squirm, Paul dear?”
She parked behind the house. He knew she would see Danny the moment she walked around the house. A coherent and reasonable plan was beginning to form in his mind. It had looked lost for a time, but this could be even better. This could result in a better kind of deception.
He got out of the car as she did, and put the heavy leather gloves on quickly. As she started around the side of the house, he came up behind her. He took a single deep breath and locked his forearm across her throat. Her body spasmed with astonishing strength. He was swung off balance and he fell heavily, without losing his hold on her. When she tried to reach back for his face, he turned his face down behind her shoulder, his cheek against her back. Her struggle rolled them completely over. A sharp heel dug into his shin. He held her tightly. He felt her body begin to loosen. Her shoe scraped on the walk.
… and he lay holding her, his arm cramped, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, and he had no way of knowing how long he had been there. It was difficult for him to unbend his locked arm. He got up and staggered weakly and caught his balance. As he left her, the body sagged onto its back. The bloated face was frightful, and he looked away from it. He listened to the sounds of the morning. A commercial airliner went over, already settling for the landing at Hancock. He suppressed the desire to run. They could see nothing from such a height.
He stood for a long time, planning just what he would do. He carried her into the house, dangling over his shoulder, arms around her slack legs. He sat her carefully on the edge of the bed, the huge bed, and let her fall back. It took him a long time to undress her. His hands in the leather gloves were clumsy, and the job was distasteful, and much more difficult than he had imagined it would be. He was going to put her into the bed and then, remembering the violence of her struggle, he pushed her off onto the floor on the other side of the bed. Her head struck the hardwood floor with an impact that made his stomach twist.
He put her clothing away carefully.
In a small shed apart from the house he found what he needed. A length of heavy insulated wire, some cinder blocks. He carried wire and cinder blocks down to the dock and lowered them into the green rowboat tied up there. He got Danny under the arms and dragged him down, tumbled the body into the boat. He wired the cinder blocks firmly to Danny’s ankles, rowed out into the middle of the artificial lake. The water was glassy calm. The boat made a long wake. He lifted legs and blocks over the side. He pushed Danny into a sitting position on the side of the boat. The boat tipped and suddenly he was gone. Cold water was splashed into Verney’s face. The boat rocked violently, shipping some water. When it was still again he looked down. He could not see him. He rowed back and tied up the boat.
He went back into the house and looked for the keys to the gray sedan. He looked everywhere. He found them just as he was beginning to become frantic. They were in an ash tray on a table near the living room door. He took a last look around, and was glad he did. He hooked up a hose from the shed to an outside faucet and rinsed off the flagstones where Danny’s head had been, rinsed off the blood and flecks of tissue and a single curved fragment of bone.
He drove the sedan up the gravel road, watching the ditch carefully. When he saw a deep enough place, he backed up, then ran the car violently into the ditch. It shook him up badly, and he bit the inside of his lower lip. He raced the motor in gear until the back wheels were buried deep. He left the keys in it, got into his own car, rocked it until it came up out of the shallow ditch.
Verney was in his office by eleven o’clock. He told his secretary he had driven out toward Kemp to look at some property that might come on the market soon. She gave him the phone messages and said a policeman named Spence had stopped in to see him at ten o’clock and said he’d be back later.
“Did he say what it was about?”
“No, sir.”
The man came back at quarter to twelve and introduced himself as Detective Spence of the Homicide Section. He was a spare man with scurfy hair and a long face so dry as to look dusty. Verney was relieved by his casual manner. Spence was pleased to accept a cigar.
“I want to ask some questions about a parole officer named Keefler who came to see you the other day about a visit you got from Danny Bronson.”
“Oh yes, of course.”
Verney told the story of Bronson’s visit, of his curiosity about the man and about the suspicious way he had acted. And he related his conversation with Keefler.
“We got Keefler locked up for murder.”
“Keefler! Indeed?”
“An oldie from way back. He got excited and spilled it to Sergeant Ben Wixler. We were talking to
Keefler actually about the murder of Bronson’s sister-in-law last night.”
“Murder?”
“How could you miss it, Mr. Verney?”
“I’m afraid I did. I haven’t seen a paper yet and I haven’t heard the radio newscasts.”
Spence stood up. “It was about this same thing, we think. About the envelope, the same one he tried to leave with you. Wixler will get to the bottom of it. He nearly always does. Danny is about nineteen times as hot as he was yesterday.”
“This Sergeant Wexler thinks Bronson did it?”
“Not Wexler. Wixler. I don’t know exactly what he thinks, Mr. Verney. I know he wants to talk to Danny.”
“If you ever find out what was in that envelope, I would like very much to know, Mr. Spence.”
“We’ll find out. We always do. See you around,” Spence said, and drifted out.
Verney tried to compose himself after Spence had gone. There had been something peculiarly disquieting about the man. He had the air of utter casual confidence.
We always do.
He quieted himself with logical thought. Four people had known or could make a good guess at the contents of that envelope. Mrs. Lee Bronson, Drusilla Catton, Danny Bronson and himself. And he was certainly never going to share that knowledge with anybody.
In review he decided that he had moved quickly and deftly, and had improvised well. He had done something distasteful to him and yet necessary to his well-being. Three had died. A pretty, superficial, shallow young woman. A trashy older woman. A wanted man. There was no loss to society.
It would be well, he decided, to set up the date of his trip to South America.
The Price of Murder Page 14
