The Shattered Raven

by Edward D. Hoch

Toward evening they met to assemble their bits and pieces of information. The calls to New York had proven little. The Times obituary had come from Amalgamated Broadcasting information and press releases over the years. There was an article in TV Guide to be consulted, too, but they all were vague about Craigthorn’s early years. A farm in Kansas seemed to be the best lead, but no specific town was mentioned. He’d gotten out of the army in nineteen forty-five, and here was where the trail grew warmer. He’d attended college at the University of Texas. There were more phone calls. Barney debated for a time flying down to Texas.

  “That’s where the answer lies. I’m sure of it. Look, he was in college in late ’45 and ’46 and into ’47. He met his partner there. They headed north in the summer of ’47. Maybe with a car. Probably Craigthorn’s car, since he was driving at the bank. They headed north, and the other boy got the idea of robbing the bank. Of taking Irma Black with them. Exactly what happened that week, we’ll probably never know. But anyway, they were in the clear on it The Clancy brothers got blamed, and Caesar and Raven headed for New York.”

  “Barney, do you really think Craigthorn would have admitted all this? To the nation? Admitted it, as apparently he was going to, at the Mystery Writers dinner?”

  “Under the threat of blackmail? Yes. Irma Black wanted a hundred thousand dollars, and she obviously wouldn’t stand still for much less. How much was taken in the bank robbery? Around thirty thousand, wasn’t it? Craigthorn could have made a contrite speech, explained that he wasn’t directly involved in the bank robbery, and even sent back the thirty thousand dollars. They couldn’t indict him for anything at this late date, unless it was as an accessory to the kidnapping, and that would be hard to prove. His conscience would be clear, and he would have gotten out of it for less than a third of what Irma Black wanted. It’s exactly the sort of thing Craigthorn would have done. It would even have given him a good story, and loads of free publicity. Boyish escapade! A prank!”

  “Maybe,” she said, not entirely convinced.

  “We’ve still got to track him down. Someone here must know him. Let’s see if there are any Craigs in the phone book.”

  There was only one Craig in the county telephone directory—Schuyler Craig. Though it was nearly dark, they drove over to his house.

  He was a man of eighty or more years, and though he held himself well, the shadow of death was already creeping over his features. He sat on the darkened front porch and talked of the old days. Very little of the present. Nothing of the future. But luckily for them, he had a perfect memory. And luckily for them, he had been Ross Craig’s uncle.

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure, I know he went to New York. Terrible thing about him getting killed.”

  “You knew he was killed? You knew he was Ross Craigthorn?”

  “Well, I see him on the television, don’t I? Of course I recognised him! Craigthorn was the family name way back. That’s probably why he reverted to it. Some of us just shortened it to Craig, that’s all.”

  “You knew him. What can you tell us about him?”

  The old man studied his gnarled knuckles. “Well, I can tell you anything you want to know! He was a good boy. He went in the army and was a regular hero during the war. It’s funny! Of all the things I’ve seen about him, he never talked much about his boyhood. Kept it like a big secret. One article even said he was brought up in Kansas, and I sure knew that wasn’t true! I used to bounce him on my knee when he was a baby! He got big—made all that money. But it didn’t do him much good, did it? He died anyway. Just like all of us.” He stared out beyond the trees, possibly at the sunset. Possibly at something neither of them could see. “Just like all of us.”

  “Mr. Craig,” Susan urged, trying to lead the conversation, “we’re interested especially in his college days. He went to the University of Texas, didn’t he?”

  “That’s right. The University of Texas. Star student there.”

  “Did he ever come up to see you any of the times while he was in college?”

  “Sure, during the summer he came. Every summer! He’d drive up here, sometimes with a friend.”

  “Yes, a friend! That’s what we need to know. Mr. Craig, was it always the same friend?”

  “No. Different boys.”

  “Do you remember their names?”

  “Oh, I’ve got a good memory. But I don’t know if it’s that good or not.”

  “Mr. Craig, he started college in the fall of nineteen forty-five. In the summer of forty-seven, he would have finished his sophomore year. With allowances for his army service, he would have been in his mid-twenties. The summer of forty-seven, he came up here with another boy. We need to know the name of that other boy.”

  “You’re asking an awful lot! An awful lot.” The old man continued staring, and for a moment Barney thought he might be blind. And then he looked back at them and his eyes livened a bit. “Of course there’s the album. In those days I used to mark the names on the pictures, and I took pictures a lot. My wife was still alive then, and she liked them. Come into the house for a minute. Maybe we’ll find something.”

  Craig dug deep into the bottom of a sadly-worn cedar chest. “Yeah. The photo albums. Here they are. Ah, here’s a picture of Ross. See him? Recognise him? He didn’t change that much.”

  He had changed quite a bit, but they could recognise him. Ross Craig was Ross Craigthorn, and there was no doubt about it now. A picture of him in an army uniform, smiling shyly at the camera.

  “Here’s a picture of one fellow! This was an army buddy. Summer of ’45. See, I’ve got the date right on the back. It was just after they were out.”

  “I don’t know if this would be the boy you want. Something later.”

  “1946?”

  “No. Later than that.”

  “Summer ’47. July of ’47. Here’s one. Took it out under the old willow tree. He had one boy with him that summer. Drove up with him from the University. Here they are. Clear as anything. That’s my wife there in the middle. And that’s Ross, on the right.”

  Barney was staring hard at the boy on the left, but it was useless. The willow hung too low. And perhaps his face had moved just at the crucial moment. There was only a blur of white. Unidentifiable. “What was his name?” Barney asked.

  The old man turned over the photo and pointed a knobby finger at the handwritten caption. “Name was Jones. Victor Jones.”

  19 Victor Jones

  HE’D NEVER THOUGHT HE’D come back. Not back to June. The place held too many memories for him. He’d spent a lot of time there, especially in the summers when he and Ross Craigthorn would drive up from the university. Those were the days. Driving north, through Oklahoma, over flat country, farm land, past the corn fields, picking up occasional hitchhikers to joke with, stopping in rundown hotels, looking for girls. They’d been buddies then. Jones and Craig. That was a damn good life.

  He remembered the first time Ross had ever mentioned June, Nebraska. He hadn’t believed that such a place existed, even after he’d seen it on the map. They’d driven up there on Thanksgiving vacation in the fall of ’46. That had been the first time. They’d gotten to know a few of the people in the town—Ross renewing old friendships, and Victor making new ones. They were just two guys then, out for the hell of it. They both read mysteries a lot. Perhaps that was what had attracted them to each other at the university. They discussed all the latest plot twists on the road north.

  It was on one of their drives that Victor Jones proposed the great bank robbery. “You know, Ross, there’s a lot of money to be made in these little towns. We roll through them, and we see the banks, and we keep going. You walk in there with a shotgun. It wouldn’t even have to be loaded. You just walk in there with a shotgun, and you tap it on the counter, and they hand you all that money.”

  “You’re going to be a big outlaw, huh?”

  “Maybe. Maybe it’s better than going to college and getting out, and making a hundred dollars a week.”

  “T
imes will get better,” Ross always said.

  “Maybe it’s not so much the money. Maybe I just want to do something for the hell of it. Just to see if I could pull it off. The two of us could pull it off, Ross. I know we could.”

  “I’m not getting involved in any of your screwy schemes! You know, in the books the killer always gets caught in the last chapter.”

  But Victor Jones had only sighed. “I don’t think I would, Ross! I don’t think I’d get caught in the last chapter. I think I could be the greatest criminal in the world if I put my mind to it. Just like I could be the greatest writer.”

  There was a return trip to June at Christmas. And then plans for the big summer ahead. That summer, the summer of ’47 was the last time Victor Jones visited June. After that day, and the week that followed, something happened to their friendship. He thought at times that Ross might actually have been frightened of him.

  Now, as Victor Jones parked the rented car down the darkened street in June, he knew he had come home again. Home, to the only living relative Ross Craigthorn still had. Uncle Schyler. He’d thought the old man must be dead. He’d thought anyone must be dead after all this time. And he’d been startled to learn from Irma that he was alive.

  He patted the beard on his chin as he stared through the windshield at the house down the block, and saw the car in the driveway. Could they have gotten there before him? Was that possible? Could they have beaten him again, as they did to Irma Black’s apartment?

  Irma had reminded him of the old uncle’s habit of taking pictures, and that was what had spurred him on. Pictures can be deceptive. They can show only a blur or a blob—or they can show the whole of a person’s life. They had left June before he ever saw the prints, and he did not know if, looking at them, the secret of his whole life might be revealed to all the world.

  He waited a long time before he saw them come out, but he recognised them at once, even at a distance—Barney Hamet and Susan Veldt. He considered the necessity for killing them both—tried rationally to study the problem. But he knew he was beyond rationality now. The crime of his youth had led to one murder. And that had led to a second murder. Now must it lead to two more murders? Would there be no end to it? He had not come to June unprepared. He carried a gun in his belt, a colt .45 that had been in his possession since those distant days of World War II. He’d fired it on only one occasion, back in the late forties, when he and Ross were up at the old farm. But it was the gun that had been with him that day in the bank—the gun in his pocket to back up the sawed-off shotgun that he’d plunked against the tellers’ cage when he asked for the money. The .45 had been there too, because Ross didn’t want it—didn’t want to carry it, or touch it. He’d never had to fire the .45, or even draw it. He’d showed it to Irma once, during that week. Not threatened her with it—because she did not need threats. Irma Black had been more than co-operative. What had started as a kidnapping had become a week of vague pleasure, broken only by the occasional need to eat or sleep.

  Irma Black liked it. She had, to the best of his knowledge, never told anyone of the bizarre pleasures of her kidnapping. She had, in fact, told the police that she had not been harmed—that she’d been kept blindfolded and tied, but untouched—for the entire week. They believed her, of course. There was no reason to examine her or to doubt her word. And she’d done them the further service of falsely identifying the brothers killed at the police roadblock.

  Victor Jones often thought about the Clancy brothers—wondered what crime they had been fleeing from in their own minds when they crashed through into a barrage of gunfire. He owed them a debt of thanks, in a way. And back then, he’d thought of visiting their grave, or sending flowers, or making some gesture of that sort.

  Now it was twenty-two years later, and the .45 automatic was pressing against his stomach again. Victor Jones drove slowly behind the two he sought. There was no need now for visiting the uncle. It was too late for that Barney Hamet would have the picture, if there was a picture. Barney Hamet and Susan Veldt would know the truth, if there was a truth.

  He feared for a time they might check out of the motel at once, without spending the night. But already it was after ten o’clock, and he saw from the way they parked the car, talked for a time, and then went into the motel, that they were settling in for the night

  He waited a while longer, until it was almost eleven, and then strolled by the car casually, stroking his beard as if deep in thought. Her flowery attaché case was in the back seat of the locked automobile, along with some folders of Barney’s. It was just possible that the pictures, or any other information they’d obtained, were in there. He would look there first. Then, if necessary, he would use the gun. Just one more time. Just these two, and then his secret would be safe.

  20 Barney Hamet

  THEY WERE IN HIS room, and Barney flopped on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

  “All right,” he said to Susan, “what do we have? A bank robbery, the kidnapping of a teller named Irma Black, a blurred photograph of someone named Victor Jones. Did you check with the university?”

  She nodded from her chair. “I talked to the dean of men. He’ll have his secretary go through old yearbooks. I told him it was very important that we find a photograph of Victor Jones, and any information we could get about him. He’s going to call us back here.”

  Barney glanced at his watch. It was nearly eleven. “Good. I’d like to catch an early afternoon plane back, if we could.”

  The phone rang then, and she scooped it up. “Susan Veldt here.” Very professional.

  “Yes, professor … yes. I certainly appreciate your working so late on it Oh … I see. Nothing at all? How about fraternity pictures? Underclassmen? Sports events? No, we’ve got one that’s probably as good as what you have. But thanks very much, sir. Goodbye.”

  “That didn’t sound very promising,” Barney remarked.

  “It wasn’t. He stayed up and looked through his own set of yearbooks, but didn’t find a thing. Victor Jones never graduated. Two years is all he put in. After that he just sort of dropped from sight. Went east, somebody said. Ross Craigthorn graduated, of course, under the name of Craig, but he was alone in his final two years. No Victor Jones.”

  “No pictures at all?”

  “None. The dean looked through all the underclassmen books. He was apparently absent for the photograph one year. They were just group things, of course, for undergraduates, and quite often didn’t show everybody. If you’ll remember your own college days, they weren’t too fussy about who they got in, except for the seniors. He also checked fraternity pictures and sports events, but found nothing. There’s just one picture as good as the one we’ve got. Nothing worth identifying. Not twenty-two years later, at least.”

  “Where’s the picture we got from the uncle? Out in the car?”

  “I think so. We left it there in my attaché case.”

  “I want to look at it again,” he said.

  He went downstairs quickly, out the side door of the motel, and across to where the cars were parked. He was almost to their rented sedan when he saw the smashed side window. He glanced around, seeing no one. It was parked next to an identical blue Ford, probably rented from the same place, but the other car hadn’t been touched.

  The attaché case had been gone through quickly. The picture, for what little it was worth, was gone. Barney straightened things up, closed the back door, opened the front and brushed some of the glass from the seat. Damn, he thought! So someone had followed them out here to June! That someone could only be the mysterious Victor Jones.

  It was a noise, a noise like a cinder scraping a shoe, that caused him to turn. He had only the briefest of glimpses. A figure—perhaps thirty feet away. A bearded man, outlined against the lights of the motel parking lot. A bearded man with a gun. Then Barney threw himself sideways, as the gun roared, surprisingly loud. A .45, or something big. He felt the slug tear into the car next to him, actually shaking it with the impact.
>
  “I’m armed!” Barney yelled, bluffing to the end. “Throw down your gun and give up!”

  The .45 coughed again—louder this time, closer. The bullet chipped into the cinders by his feet. He couldn’t see the man now. He was in the shadows, edging around to Barney’s right, behind the car somewhere. In another moment he’d have Barney between his gun and the lights, and then it would be all over.

  Barney dropped flat against the cinders and edged himself beneath the car next to his own. His only hope was to hold out for another moment or two. Even in a town like June, shots from a .45 were going to attract attention pretty quickly. The guy couldn’t stalk him out here for long. Already he heard someone shouting from the motel, “What’s going on out there? What’s going on?”

  There was a scraping of cinders somewhere off to Barney’s right—about two or three cars away. Barney hopped up on hands and feet, ready to give chase, then thought better of it There was no arguing with a .45.

  He waited another moment, till the running footsteps receded. Susan Veldt was there—her face full of apprehension. “What was it, Barney? What was it?”

  “Someone took a shot at me. A man with a beard.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “Only that.” He leaned against the door frame. “He’s gone now. But he broke into our car and got the picture.”

  “Why could he have been after that? It doesn’t show anything.” She answered her own question. “But I don’t suppose he knew until he saw it.”

  “We’d better call the police. Report the whole thing and have them put a guard on the uncle’s farm for a day or two. We don’t want him to end up the same way as Irma Black.”

  He called the police, then waited until a state highway patrol car came by, and answered a few routine questions from a trooper. There were a few cigarette butts found along with the two ejected cartridges, but they proved nothing except that the man might have stood there a while, waiting.

  The police left, and finally they were alone again.