The Price of Murder

by John D. MacDonald

  “Now let’s get this straight, Johnny. After Verney told you about the envelope, then you and he discussed where Danny could have left it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What did you say, specifically?”

  “—”

  “Come on, Johnny. What did you say?”

  “I … I said if Lee Bronson and his wife had lied to me I was going to give them a hard time.”

  “Did you say when you were going to give them this hard time?”

  “I guess I said right away.”

  “And then he suddenly happened to remember those two names?”

  “Yes. He forgot them, he said. Then he remembered. He told me. And I checked them out and …”

  “I can’t hear you, Johnny. Talk louder.”

  “Then you picked me up.”

  He tried to ask more questions, but Keefler had gone too far away. He did not seem to hear. When Ben shook him by the shoulder there was no resistance, no awareness. The man’s lips moved. He looked back after he left the cell. Johnny Keefler sat in a gray huddle on the bunk, good hand clasping the wrist of the mutilated left arm, his shadow made starkly black by the blue-white flare of the recessed fluorescence in the ceiling overhead.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  At eight o’clock on Friday evening, Ben Wixler sat waiting. He did not hear Beth tell him the kids were in bed until she spoke the second time. Then he stood up heavily and went in and said good night to them.

  They walked back into the living room. He stood by the picture window and looked out at the rainy street under the lights. She came up beside him and touched his arm.

  “Bad?” she said softly.

  “It’s supposed to be good,” he said. “It’s what they pay me for. Remember me? I’m Ben Wixler, nemesis.”

  “So bitter, baby.”

  “It’s all so damn stupid. Three of them dead. And two dying. I didn’t tell you about that. About Catton. Wendy interrogated him. Catton was fine. Then Wendy worked his way around to the key question. What illegal thing was he doing, in partnership with Paul Verney? Wendy said Catton’s mouth worked and nothing came out and he turned the color of spoiled yeast and Wendy caught him as he toppled off the chair. He’s in an oxygen tent. He can’t talk and we won’t talk, and the medical profession is astonished he lasted until this afternoon. He may be gone by now. It stoned Wendy. But it was another confirmation.”

  “You’re certain now?”

  “Certain. Verney is the other dying man. He doesn’t know it yet. I don’t know why he didn’t cover himself better. He left it so open he can’t prove he wasn’t at Lee Bronson’s Tuesday night. And he even told his office staff he was out near Kemp on Wednesday morning. I think it’s a kind of intellectual arrogance with him. In his own way he may be as crazy as poor Johnny Keefler. He should have known that sooner or later we’d check him. Even if there was no talk with Keefler, we would have checked him as a matter of routine when we ran out of other answers. And he isn’t ready for it. My God, his own secretary was able to tell us he left his office with Danny Bronson Thursday morning. He withdrew one thousand and one hundred dollars in cash. The teller remembers he asked for a thousand in fifties, a hundred in twenties. He thinks he’s so damn shrewd. He’s a sitting rabbit. We’ll blow his head off before he can wiggle.”

  She gave him a wry smile. “So you prefer your killers to be smarter, darling?”

  He smiled back. “Even though he was clumsy, it’s a change from the ball peen hammer in the furnished room type deal.”

  She winced. “Puh-leeze.”

  The phone rang. He hurried to it.

  “Cullin, Sergeant. It’s all set. He got in fifteen minutes ago. It’s staked out. Dan has the warrant and he’s on the way to pick you up, along with Catelli.”

  Ben put on his raincoat and hat. He kissed Beth. She stood and watched through the picture window as he got into the sedan. She saw it drive away. She felt a great gladness that he was the sort of man he was, able to be depressed by the things he had to do. She hoped the years would never dull that sensitivity. She hoped he could never become callously indifferent to the human beings he trapped.

  Lee Bronson arrived back at his rented house at eight-fifteen on Friday night. He had left immediately after the funeral and had driven back through the gray rain to Hancock. He felt emotionally drained. Through all their tears they had looked at him with eyes of stone. He was the betrayer who had taken their lovely child, their only child, to a faraway place and, through his negligence, had permitted her to be slain. They made no attempt to speak to him, nor did any of her childhood friends. He had stood apart from all of them.

  When he watched the casket lowered into the October ground it was still unbelievable to him. He remembered how she had reveled in sunlight, how she enjoyed the hot pulse of the sun on her perfect body.

  Now he was permitted to return to his home.

  She had left an emptiness. When, with the permission of the police, her parents had come to this house to take away her personal belongings, the screaming scene they made had made him wish he could turn and run from them. They had stripped the house of everything that had been hers, and a few things that were not hers, such as the small radio she had given him, and one table lamp that had been in the house when they had rented it. It was not worth a protest.

  He walked through the oppressive silence of the house and estimated how long it would take him to pack, how much luggage he would need. His two suitcases and a big crate for the books and papers. That should do it.

  When the phone rang, startling him, he let it ring five times before he answered it. He thought it could be a diehard reporter.

  “Yes?” he said cautiously.

  “Lee. Haughton here. I’m wondering about Monday. Will you take your classes?”

  “I … don’t know.”

  “The first day will be difficult. But the little animals have short memories.”

  “I had the idea I might go away for a while, Dr. Haughton.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t want to let you down.”

  “My dear young man, I have been disappointed in the human race my entire life. I will call your attention to two things. One—your sad showing in our chess match. Two—the mute and helpless woe that will be the lot of one Jill Grossman, a highly talented child who can use much guidance.”

  “Well, I …”

  “And think of your cretins who may lose invaluable games because you are not there to tell them how to use their clumsy muscles. Show up on Monday, Mr. Bronson. That is an order.”

  The phone clicked. Lee stood holding the receiver. He replaced it gently on the cradle. And suddenly he smiled.

  It was eight thirty-five on Friday evening when Paul Verney heard the footsteps in the hallway and heard the brisk knock on his door. He had been sitting in his deep leather chair ever since he had returned to his room. He had been trying to think his way out of a mood of blackest depression. The body of Bronson had been found too readily. It was ominous that Burt had collapsed while being questioned by the police. He could see how it could all have been managed in other more careful ways. He wished he had not talked to Keefler. He was trying to hearten himself with the idea they had absolutely no proof. None. They could be suspicious, but there could never be any actual proof. The gun and black gloves were buried in a swamp halfway between Kemp and Hancock.

  The knock had an official sound that made his heart leap in his chest. He crossed the room and opened the door. There were three men. One of them was Detective Spence, whose confidence had been so dismaying. A bigger man with a wet trench coat and an air of authority said, “Mr. Verney? I’m Sergeant Wixler. You know Detective Spence. And this is Mr. Catelli. I have a warrant here to search this room. Would you care to examine it?”

  “A warrant? On what basis, Sergeant?”

  “We’re looking for evidence, Mr. Verney. I hereby inform you that you are under arrest for suspicion of murder. The murder of L
ucille Bronson, Daniel Bronson, and Drusilla Catton.”

  Verney’s mind, racing quickly, decided at once there could be no evidence in this room. It strengthened his response. “You people must be out of your minds.”

  Detective Spence circled him, searched his person quickly and effectively and said, “Stand over against that wall, Mr. Verney.”

  “I’ll be happy to co-operate in any way I can, but …”

  “You can talk later,” Wixler said.

  Verney watched them. The man named Catelli had a small case with him. Catelli went to the closet, opened the closet door and sat on the floor. He opened his case. He took a strong flashlight and began to pick up, one by one, Verney’s shoes, taking the left shoe in each case and paying attention to the outside edge of the shoe. Verney began to feel a surprising emptiness in his belly, pangs like those of hunger.

  Catelli gave a grunt of satisfaction. He was holding a black shoe, examining it closely under the light. Verney knew he had worn that pair when he had gone to 1024 Arcadia Street. He tried to tell himself this was some sort of a trick, but there was a curious roaring sound in his ears.

  “Got it?” Wixler asked.

  “I think so.” Catelli was a wiry man with a satanic grin. The light cast its beams upward onto his face. He said, “How about it, Sarge? A lot of people who don’t know how this is done get a boot out of it. Maybe Mr. Verney wants to see better, hey?”

  Wixler nodded and stepped to one side. Spence urged Verney closer.

  Catelli looked very pleased. “This is one of the things you got to know how to do in my business.” He took a small square of paper, white and flimsy. “Now this here is filter paper. In this bottle here I got a one-tenth-N-saline solution. I get this here paper nice and moist. Then, see, I press it against this little stain here on the edge of the sole of your shoe. Okay. From here on I don’t need the shoe. In this here bottle a two hundred and forty-to-one solution of Eastman 3620 in acetic acid at forty per cent strength. So I take this glass rod and dip it in this bottle and touch it to the filter paper where I pressed it against the shoe. Check? Nothing happens yet, Mr. Verney. Not until we get to this last bottle. In this bottle I got a mixture of eleven parts sodium perborate to thirty parts of a forty per cent acetic acid solution.

  “So I wipe off this here rod and dip it in this bottle.” He held it over the filter paper. “Now if that spot you had on your shoe was human blood, Mr. Verney, you’re going to see this paper change color when I touch it. It’ll change to a nice kinda greeny blue, and there isn’t another damn thing in the world but blood that’ll make it change.”

  With a certain ceremonial grace, Catelli touched the wet rod to the paper. The blue-green stain appeared immediately, and Catelli held it up proudly for Verney to see. “So maybe you cut yourself shaving, or maybe you walked where a pedestrian got clobbered. It ain’t my business how you got it. All I know is it’s blood and it was on your shoe.”

  Verney stared at the piece of paper. He could feel the other two watching him closely. He knew he had to say something. He took in a deep breath and let it out. He knew he had to explain quickly and logically. He could think of nothing. Yet he had to think of something. He kept staring at the blue-green stain. He sucked in another deep breath. And exploded it out of his lungs in a high whistling, whinnying scream, a shocking scream of fright and despair.

  He staggered Spence with a backhand flail of his arm that caught Spence across the chest. He kicked at the paper and missed. Wixler moved trimly, compactly, and with a half swing laid the side of his service revolver over Verney’s ear.

  Verney fell heavily and lay still.

  “The poor son of a bitch,” Spence said.

  “Pack up, Catelli,” Ben said.

  About the Author

  John D. MacDonald was an American novelist and short story writer. His works include the Travis McGee series and the novel The Executioners, which was adapted into the film Cape Fear. In 1962 MacDonald was named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America; in 1980 he won a National Book Award. In print he delighted in smashing the bad guys, deflating the pompous, and exposing the venal. In life he was a truly empathetic man; his friends, family, and colleagues found him to be loyal, generous, and practical. In business he was fastidiously ethical. About being a writer, he once expressed with gleeful astonishment, “They pay me to do this! They don’t realize, I would pay them.” He spent the later part of his life in Florida with his wife and son. He died in 1986.