First Come, First Kill

by Frances Lockridge

  ‘And,’ Forniss said, ‘there was one of her boy friend. Anyway, it’s signed, “Brian”—“Brian, yours for keeps,” it says—and her boy friend’s a kid named Brian Fields. I ran into a man I used to know who knew that much.’

  Heimrich was not particularly surprised.

  Brian Fields, age about twenty-seven, member of a family long in Tonaganda, graduate of the Columbia Law School, passed bar examinations the autumn before; currently an associate in one of the three most substantial law firms (corporate) in town; reportedly blond, a little over six feet tall, thin for his height. ‘Sounds like a basketball player,’ Forniss added.

  And—Fields was not to be found.

  ‘Shares an apartment with another guy,’ Forniss said. ‘Could be he’s just away for a weekend. Only, his pal gathered he was going to stay home and do some work. Came home Friday night, his pal did, from a date, and there was a note. “Be back Monday. B.F.” That was the note. Kept his car in a lockup, Fields did. It’s not there now.’

  Heimrich preferred to think that the lockup was one with a window in it—a window through which Sergeant Forniss could look, and had looked.

  ‘Far’s I know,’ Forniss said, ‘nobody’s been following me. Sort of depressing, isn’t it?’

  The ‘far’s I know’ was modesty. Forniss would have known. It was somewhat depressing. Whatever Forniss was doing, he wasn’t disturbing any of Silvo’s boys.

  The chances were, Heimrich thought and told Forniss, that Wade Thompson would show up during the day. Forniss might keep an eye open for his return. And ask him how he had enjoyed his stay at the Old Stone Inn at Van Brunt. And if he knew a man named William Peters.

  ‘He’ll say no,’ Forniss pointed out. ‘Then?’

  ‘Whatever you think,’ Heimrich said. ‘But you probably won’t want to push too hard.’

  ‘Having,’ Forniss said, ‘damn little to push with.’

  ‘Now Charlie,’ Heimrich said. ‘We’ll try to get more. There’ll be Mrs Seeley, when we’re ready. And Perrin. Meanwhile, give him rope.’

  ‘Yep,’ Forniss said. ‘They can have the body, I suppose? For decent burial. If they want it?’

  Heimrich said they could.

  ‘The business about the no divorce, the no marriage?’

  Heimrich thought not yet.

  ‘In other words,’ Forniss said, ‘you don’t really buy Thompson.’

  ‘Still shopping,’ Heimrich said.

  Which was the uncomfortable size of it, Heimrich thought, as he put the telephone in its stand. Thompson. One of Silvo’s boys. (Or somebody else’s boys.) The girl with the amazing eyes. Who had summoned boy friend to her aid?

  The telephone rang. Heimrich said, ‘Yes, Neil?’ to Sergeant Neil Blake, at the barracks.

  The city police had found the floor maid at the Statler who would have made Wade Thompson’s bed on Friday if he had slept in it Thursday night. The city police had been told they must be nuts. Did they think she kept a diary? One room was another room and there were too damned many of them.

  ‘If she’d found Thompson dead in bed,’ the precinct sergeant had told Blake, ‘she’d probably just have made him into it.’

  Heimrich had not, actually, expected much more. It was merely that one must turn the most unlikely stones.

  The Mexican police had acknowledged, promised cooperation. But nobody named Luigi Pirancello had recently come to their attention and Mexico, señors, is a large country.

  (Full of stones to turn over.)

  The continuing enquiry into the life and habits of T. Lyman Mitchell while he was still Old Tom, itinerant odd-job man, had turned up nothing too stimulating. Almost everybody had liked the old codger, in a tolerant fashion. One or two had not. One woman, who lived alone in a small house, had been afraid of him; had thought he looked ‘like one of those degenerates.’ Also, she had heard him talking to himself. ‘Like a crazy man.’ But she was a woman known to be afraid of many things, and prone to summon police to protect her against improbable perils.

  One man had objected to Old Tom’s habit of treating other people’s property as if it were his own, and of ignoring signs which forbade trespass. He was, however, a man rather notoriously opposed to invasions of privacy, and one who took a particularly dim view of small boys.

  Another man, who was not notorious for anything, hated to speak ill of the dead, but had found Tom a ‘nosy old bastard.’ What Tom had stuck his nose into, apparently, was another such small woods lodge as he lived in on the Waltham place. This one, however, was still in use by the family which owned it.

  ‘Peeping Tom, that was Tom,’ the man said and then added, a shade hastily, ‘not that there was anything to peep at,’ thereby raising speculations, politely not voiced, in the mind of the enquiring trooper.

  There had been several reports of the sighting of a slender, large-eyed girl named Enid Mitchell, but probably using another name. They were being checked out.

  Reporters had, for the moment, ceased to swarm. They might be expected to return as the day advanced.

  Did Captain Heimrich plan to come in?

  Captain Heimrich did not plan to; would if anything broke; would, of course, keep the barracks posted on any movements he might make.

  He then made a movement—a movement out of the house, across the lawn, to a chaise on the terrace. The thing, he thought, is to stir up the animals, which is always the thing. Get somebody to make a break for it; that was the modus operandi. But there is a time for that, and it did not seem to Merton Heimrich that the time had yet arrived.

  Perhaps Forniss will stir up something, Heimrich thought. Perhaps I should have gone to Tonaganda myself. Not that Charlie isn’t as good as I am. He considered this. Damn near, anyway, Heimrich told himself. The difference is chiefly rank; a captain carries more weight. I’ve been at it a bit longer than Charlie has. Probably have had a bit more luck. Will Wade Thompson really break cover when asked about William Peters? And, of course, does he really need cover? He probably had been up to something, but the something he was up to need not have been murder.

  There remained the girl. She had broken cover, certainly. The trouble was, at the moment, that she seemed to have got away with it.

  If it was Silvo’s boys, or somebody else’s boys, it was going to be tough.

  It would be pleasant, Heimrich thought, to get a simple one some time. If Old Tom, as Old Tom, had nosed into something that was none of his business and been shot by an enraged landowner—that would be simple. They don’t come that simple, Heimrich thought. Not to me they don’t. Naturally.

  Colonel, who had been lying in the shade, got up and ambled halfway down the drive and sat. Somebody coming, Heimrich thought. He hopes it will be the boy. I hope it will be Susan. We are large animals obsessed by singleness of mind.

  It was Susan. Colonel moved to let her drive the little car past him, and looked in its near window. They were hiding the god from him again. They were nice enough people, but they conspired against dogs. The world conspired against dogs. Colonel left, a dog planning to get away from it all.

  ‘That boy of ours,’ Susan said, ‘has been reading things. He’s breaking out with politeness.’

  Heimrich said Michael had always seemed polite, as boys go.

  ‘He says “sir” and “ma’am,”’ Susan told her husband. ‘He even opened the car door to let Sandy in. If he starts using the broad A we’ll have to move to England. You can get a job at Scotland Yard.’

  Heimrich said, ‘Um-mmm.’

  She looked down at him.

  ‘Repartee,’ Susan said. ‘If there’s one thing I love it’s repartee. The newspapers are in the car.’

  ‘Mm-mmm.’

  ‘What you’re doing is thinking,’ Susan said, her tone accusing. ‘Either you’re not here, or you’re here thinking.’

  Heimrich made a movement.

  ‘You’re a bear,’ Susan said, fondly. ‘It’s Sunday morning and we’re in the great outdoors. Anybody
might come up the drive. All right, I withdraw the statement.’

  ‘Is there,’ Heimrich said, presently, ‘anything in the papers?’

  ‘A lot of what Reston calls “Gee Whiz!” headlines,’ Susan said. ‘And the Herald Tribune is really going berserk, isn’t it? There’s a good deal about Justice Mitchell. The Herald Trib’s got a picture of the place he was living in. The Times has sent a man up to Tonaganda. If you’ll let go, I’ll go get them. Oh, all right.’

  ‘He’s at it again,’ Susan said, presently.

  He was Oliver Perrin. He was at it again, bang, bang.

  ‘Sometimes it’s quite loud,’ Susan said. ‘Sometimes you can hardly hear it.’

  ‘The wind,’ Heimrich said. ‘It’s easterly today. He’s east of us.’

  ‘Actually,’ Susan said, ‘it’s your mind I love. I—’

  ‘All right,’ Susan said, presently. ‘I withdraw that statement too. It’s my day to withdraw statements. Speaking of the Perrins, she sent a card to Marg Drew, too. The Tower of London. Of course, the Perrins and the Drews are rather palsy. Bridge. Am I boring you?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Merton Heimrich said.

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ Susan said. ‘And it is broad daylight and Sunday morning.’

  ‘The better the deed,’ Heimrich said.

  But she said, ‘No, darling,’ and freed herself. ‘I’ll get the papers.’

  She got the papers. They read the papers. More of the morning passed.

  ‘Probably,’ Susan said, ‘they keep individual scores. Four columns, with a name at the top of each. Wouldn’t you think?’

  She had, Heimrich thought, worked her way to a bridge column.

  ‘Or an initial,’ Heimrich said. ‘Are you being cryptic?’

  ‘Not especially,’ Susan said. ‘Marian and Marjorie both begin with M, of course. With M-A-R, as a matter of fact. On the postcard, Mrs Perrin misspelled Marg’s name. My mysteries are small mysteries. I retrieve and lay at feet. Like—Merton, where is the dog?’

  ‘He was here a while back,’ Heimrich said. ‘You didn’t bring the boy with you. He’s off somewhere sulking.’

  ‘I hope Ollie Perrin is careful,’ Susan said. ‘It would break Michael’s heart. It wouldn’t do mine any good.’

  ‘Or mine,’ Heimrich said. ‘Perrin’s a careful man, I think. Sounds careful, anyway. Now he’s had a near miss, I think he’ll be pretty sure. Also, he’s a good shot. I suppose we could tie Colonel up.’

  ‘He’d rather be shot,’ Susan said. She turned and looked toward the drive. ‘I told you anybody might come up it,’ Susan said.

  An open car was coming up the drive. The man behind the wheel looked tall. He had pale hair. The girl beside him had a scarf around her head.

  Susan and Merton Heimrich stood up, side by side.

  ‘Look at her eyes,’ Heimrich said, softly. ‘You’ve an eye for color. They are quite remarkable eyes.’

  He stepped off the terrace and walked toward the open sports car.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Wade Thompson said he had already offered to do anything he could. He said he had rented a car and driven from New York to Hawthorne to make the offer. He said he had gathered there wasn’t anything wanted of him. He said he was still as ready as ever to do anything he could.

  ‘We both are,’ he said. ‘Aren’t we, dear?’

  ‘Of course,’ the slender woman with a dramatic streak of white in dark hair said. ‘I’ve already told the sergeant that.’

  Sergeant Charles Forniss said he realized that. Once again the Venetian blinds at the windows of the big living room were partly closed; once again the light in the room was softened. It was almost cool in the room. It was quite early in the morning.

  ‘There are formalities,’ Forniss said. ‘Certain procedures to be gone through. They’ll be ready to release the body tomorrow, they tell me now. Probably, as things are, I should go to Miss Mitchell. Only, she doesn’t seem to be around.’

  ‘As to that,’ Wade Thompson said, ‘we’re quite ready to do anything necessary, sergeant. The change in—er—status doesn’t alter that, I’m sure. Does it, Ruth?’

  She said, ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Good,’ Forniss said. ‘I’ll pass the word on to the Putnam County coroner. He’ll get in touch with you.’

  ‘You haven’t found out anything more?’ Ruth Thompson said.

  ‘Nothing very important,’ Forniss said, in a diminished, he hoped a discouraged, voice. ‘Have you any idea at all where your daughter may be, Mrs Thompson?’

  She was erect in a straight-backed chair; she was very poised, very confident.

  ‘The child lives her own life, sergeant,’ Mrs Thompson said. ‘Makes rather a point of it. But so many of them do nowadays, don’t they?’

  She sounded somehow, Forniss thought, as if she were talking into a microphone. On, possibly, the habits of the younger generation. A woman of precise mind, precise enunciation.

  ‘Yes,’ Forniss said.

  ‘And,’ Thompson said, ‘she’s of age. She’s self-supporting. As Ruth says, very independent. She’s a secretary, you know. With Hopkins, Sneed & Braithwaite. A local law firm.’

  Forniss did know. He also knew that Enid Mitchell had, the previous Thursday, asked for and got Friday off. She was expected back on Monday. He also knew that Brian Fields was a junior in the firm of Hopkins, Sneed & Braithwaite.

  ‘You specially wanted to talk to her, sergeant?’ Wade Thompson said. ‘As I just said, her mother and I will take care of whatever is necessary.’

  ‘Things like this,’ Forniss said, ‘we try to talk to everybody. Waste a good deal of time, of course. By the way, Mr Thompson, you happen to know a—’ Forniss broke off, took a notebook from his pocket and consulted it. ‘Mrs Upton,’ he said. ‘Hortense Upton?’

  Thompson shook his head.

  ‘Runs a kind of inn in Van Brunt,’ Forniss said.

  Thompson said, ‘No. Should I? Nearest I’ve been to this Van Brunt was the barracks in Hawthorne, sergeant. You work out of that barracks usually?’

  ‘Yep,’ Forniss said. ‘The Old Stone Inn, it’s called.’

  Thompson shook his head again.

  ‘Or,’ Forniss said, ‘a man named William Peters?’

  And at that, to Forniss’s surprise, somewhat to his consternation, Thompson’s long face brightened. He certainly did know Bill Peters.

  ‘One of our salesmen,’ Thompson said. ‘One of our best. How on earth does he come into this?’

  Forniss wished he knew. He did not say that.

  ‘Man of that name,’ he said, ‘stayed at the Old Stone Inn I told you about. Checked in Thursday morning, checked out Friday evening. One thing we have to do, Mr Thompson, is to find out what we can about any strangers in the community when Justice Mitchell was killed. Check them off.’

  ‘You can certainly check Bill off,’ Thompson said, and narrowed his eyes as he looked at Forniss. ‘Funny you should ask me about him, sergeant,’ Wade Thompson said.

  It certainly was, Forniss thought. He wished he had a good explanation.

  ‘Fact is,’ Forniss said, ‘we more or less ask everybody about everybody, cases like this.’

  It wasn’t, he thought, a very good explanation.

  ‘Give me an idea what Mr Peters looks like?’ he said. ‘Could be an entirely different Peters, of course. Not an unusual name.’

  ‘Well,’ Thompson said, ‘a good many people seem to think he and I look alike. Can’t see it myself, but who knows what he looks like to other people?’ He turned to Ruth Thompson. ‘Do you think there’s a resemblance, dear?’

  ‘Some,’ she said. I’d say some, Wade. Height, coloring—that sort of thing.’

  ‘And,’ Thompson said, ‘we both wear glasses. There’s that. And—’ He stopped abruptly and looked hard at Sergeant Forniss. ‘If you’ve got some crazy idea—’ He did not finish. Forniss gave him time to say it, but he didn’t.

  ‘We get a good man
y ideas,’ Forniss said, finally. ‘Some of them you could call crazy, I suppose. Any reason he should have stayed at this inn?’

  ‘No reason he shouldn’t,’ Thompson said. ‘Seeing prospects in Peekskill, probably. A hop, skip and jump, that would be. Probably thought it would be cooler in the country than in town. How would I know?’

  ‘I suppose he has a territory? And that Peekskill’s in it?’

  He did have, and Peekskill was. He sold in the down-state counties; worked over into Connecticut, as far as Hartford. On his own schedule. Offhand, Thompson didn’t know that Peters’ schedule would have taken him to Peekskill and vicinity on Thursday. Except by the fact that it had.

  ‘We have to check things out,’ Forniss said. ‘Mr Peters was looking at houses while he was around Van Brunt. Did you know he was planning to buy a house? At a good distance from here?’

  ‘No,’ Thompson said. ‘I can’t say I did.’ He again narrowed his eyes. ‘Unless—’ He paused and Forniss waited.

  ‘There’s an outfit in the Bronx,’ Thompson said. ‘Competitors of ours. Expanding at the moment. Could be they’re looking for new people. Probably are. Good salesmen, like Bill is.’ He paused again and appeared to regard something in the distance. Then he said, slowly, that he’d be damned.

  ‘He lives here now?’ Forniss said. ‘In Tonaganda?’

  ‘Out in the Hillsdale section,’ Thompson said. ‘Rents a house there. If the son—’ He looked at his wife and did not finish that. ‘Have a word with Bill when he gets back,’ Thompson said, in a tone of some threat.

  ‘Back?’ Forniss said.

  ‘Vacation starts Monday,’ Thompson said. ‘Finished up Friday night, of course. He and his wife flew to Europe yesterday. Pan Am, I think. At least, that’s the way they planned it. Be gone about a month. If Bill’s trying to pull something—’

  If Bill was trying to pull something, he’d apparently pulled it, Forniss thought. And if Wade Thompson was trying to pull something, it looked rather as if he had succeeded. For the time, at any rate. It would take time to have William Peters rounded up in Europe, asked how he had liked his room at the Old Stone Inn in Van Brunt.