First Come, First Kill

by Frances Lockridge

  ‘Probably,’ Heimrich said. ‘Yes, I felt that.’

  ‘Because she said something he didn’t believe? Something that made him doubt her?’

  ‘She was very positive,’ Heimrich said. ‘Positive the man she saw was really Thompson. She was a bit more positive than the conditions warranted. You know the parking lot. It isn’t well lighted, at best. At that hour—twilight was beginning—the lights may not have been on at all. Fields probably suspected as much from my asking her several times if she were sure. Decided I had some reason to think she couldn’t be. That may have worried him.’

  ‘Because?’

  It was possible, Heimrich said, that Enid Mitchell had seen not her stepfather, but Peters—and had known the man was not Wade Thompson. But—decided to say he was. To feign reluctance, while actually not at all reluctant. To run only to return; to admit under apparent duress. In fewer words, to put Wade Thompson on a spot, and so get herself off one.

  ‘She wouldn’t have had any way of knowing that this man named Peters would be at the inn.’

  ‘Now Susan,’ Heimrich said. ‘I don’t say she did. An opportunity presented itself. She grabbed the opportunity.’

  ‘And went with it,’ Susan said, ‘a long way around Robin Hood’s barn.’

  There was that, Heimrich admitted. But she might have thought—the guilty sometimes have long thoughts—that to go at once to the police would be too obvious; that what she admitted with apparent unwillingness would be the more convincing.

  ‘The guilty?’ Susan said, and Heimrich shook his head and said he didn’t know. He said he presented a hypothesis—a hypothesis which might have formed in Brian Fields’s mind, and worried him. It was evident that the girl might have had opportunity, and that she stood to gain—stood to gain more than anybody else who, at this stage, came to mind.

  ‘You feel as I do,’ Susan said. ‘Hope she didn’t kill him. Because she’s young, attractive—just starting really?’

  As a captain, New York State Police, Heimrich could, he told his wife, have no such preferences. She said he was a fraud. She added, ‘A dear fraud.’ She pointed out that, as a private citizen, although a policeman’s wife, she was bound to no such rigid impartiality. ‘Since it has to be someone,’ Susan said, ‘I’d much prefer it to be this Mr Thompson.’

  If it was this Mr Thompson, Heimrich told her, Fields might well have had another, and more immediate, cause to worry about his girl.

  ‘If it was Thompson crossing the parking lot,’ Heimrich said, ‘he might have looked up and seen her at the window, been pretty certain that she had seen him and recognized him. Which would leave him with a pretty nasty bit of explaining to do. He’d registered under a false name, been snooping around the countryside. Not things a man likes to be caught doing in the vicinity of a murder from which the man profits. Her identification would be positive.’

  ‘May-Belle Seeley’s,’ Susan pointed out. ‘Oliver Perrin’s, for that matter.’

  Heimrich shook his head. If Peters and Thompson really resembled each other markedly, it would be easy enough to shake the identification of either Mrs Seeley or Perrin. Enid’s identification would be another matter. She had lived in the same house with Thompson, no doubt for several years seen him almost daily.

  ‘Only,’ Susan said, ‘you say yourself the light was bad. May have been bad.’

  That, Heimrich told her, was something Thompson could not count on, be sure of. Nor, he said, could Enid.

  ‘She may have panicked,’ he said. ‘May have thought he’d come after her. May have gone for help and come back when she had it. Fields may be afraid Thompson still will.’

  ‘He must, if it’s this way, count on Peters lying for him,’ Susan said. ‘It would be a—a very big lie, wouldn’t it?’

  It would, Heimrich agreed. It would be a lie which would have to be paid for, in one way or another. And Peters, if he had his wits about him, would have also—however big the payment—to be convinced that appearances were against Thompson, not actual guilt. Still—

  ‘And,’ Susan said, ‘it could be the way she said it was. That she didn’t want to involve Thompson and her mother, and ran before she thought. It—’

  The telephone rang inside the house. ‘That,’ Susan said, with confidence, ‘will be young Michael, full of “ma’ams.”’ She went. Heimrich, through the screened door, could hear her say, ‘Yes, dear,’ and then, ‘why yes, if it’s all right with Mrs Drew.’

  She came back out.

  ‘Sandy,’ she said, ‘has a new gadget, or possibly gimmick. It’s something you throw a ball at, and the ball bounces back and you field it. Does that make any sense to you? And Michael wants to stay and throw at it, and have lunch. As a matter of fact, I think he’s having it.’

  ‘Something with elastic in it, no doubt,’ Heimrich said. ‘I mean the gadget, naturally.’ He stood up. ‘I’ve half sold myself,’ he said. ‘Thompson hasn’t any way I can see offhand of knowing the girl’s already identified him. Been positive about it. He might come down to see she doesn’t. Men do odd things when they’re scared.’

  Heimrich went to the telephone, hoping for a bit of luck. He got it. Forniss would keep an eye on Wade Thompson. He’d be pleased to. He’d run out of things to do until places opened up on Monday. TV reception in his hotel room was bad. He’d park his car in an appropriate place and sit in it.

  Heimrich telephoned the Old Stone Inn. A Miss Enid Mitchell and a Mr Brian Fields had just registered. Fields had said they might be there for several days. Miss Mitchell had been given the room she had had before; Mr Fields, at his request, a room immediately across the hall. Enid Mitchell was being looked after, if she was in need of being.

  It remained a clutter, Heimrich thought. Had somebody been waiting for Mitchell, with some pre-knowledge—but how acquired?—of his destination? Or had somebody—the girl, Wade Thompson, an agent of the syndicate?—been tracking the old man down? If Thompson—if, indeed, any of them—why wait to kill in the open? Heimrich sighed. He was not glad he had asked himself any of the questions.

  It was time for a break, but none seemed imminent. It is a nuisance when murderers wisely sit tight; do not seek to make those little improvements which so often are entrapping. (Unless the girl had?)

  He would have to go on chipping at it. The next chip was fairly obvious. It meant, if he was to avoid considerable tiresome paper work, going in to the office. Heimrich changed to go in to the office. He was knotting his tie when Susan called from the terrace—called his name with urgency, her voice raised. Heimrich went fast across the big living room, to the terrace.

  Susan was running from the terrace across the lawn, toward the drive.

  A big Great Dane lay on the white gravel of the drive. He lay not far from the place an old man had lain, had died, a little more than forty-eight hours before.

  Damn Perrin, Heimrich thought. Damn Perrin to hell!

  He ran after Susan, across the grass. Colonel raised his big head when Susan knelt beside him. He made a low, whimpering sound.

  ‘He came from the road,’ Susan said. ‘Came up the drive limping—limping dreadfully. Then he—’

  Heimrich sat on his heels on the other side of the big dog.

  ‘A car,’ Susan said. ‘It must have been—good dog, Colonel. Good boy.’

  The dog reached his head toward her, rested it heavily against her.

  The injury was to the big dog’s right shoulder—a gash through glossy coat. Blood flowed from the wound freely—a good deal too freely. Heimrich took a folded handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it where the blood flowed, and the handkerchief reddened quickly. Susan, watching, put the dog’s head gently down on the gravel and ran. She came back, in seconds, tearing a sheet as she came.

  It is hard to bandage a Great Dane; it is hard to do anything with a Great Dane. Heimrich replaced the soggy handkerchief with a large, thick square of towel and pressed harder. He thought the blood flow lessened.

  �
��I’ll call the vet,’ Susan said. ‘Tell him we’re coming.’

  Again she ran. Heimrich talked gently to Colonel, who kept on whimpering. He ran a bandage around the dog, tied it tightly. It might keep pressure on the wound. But the dog was still bleeding a good deal; had already bled a good deal. (It would break the boy’s heart.)

  Susan ran back.

  ‘He’ll be there by the time we are,’ she said. ‘It’s bad, isn’t it? I’ll get the car.’

  She ran Heimrich’s car as near as she could to the big dog. Heimrich lifted the dog, who weighed a lot; manoeuvred him into the back seat. ‘Keep pressing where the pad is,’ he told Susan, and she got into the back of the car, and knelt on the floor and pressed. While they were rolling down the drive she said, ‘A car?’

  ‘A bullet,’ Heimrich said. ‘I’m pretty sure. In the muscle, I think. He was walking?’

  ‘Limping,’ she said. ‘But—yes, using the leg. Can you go faster?’

  Heimrich was going fast for the narrow road—the narrow, twisting road. He took a chance on going faster. He thought, damn Oliver Perrin to hell. Damn all civilians who mess with firearms. Damn them all to hell.

  ‘He keeps on breathing,’ Susan said. ‘I think he’s bleeding less.’

  It was almost four miles to the Van Brunt Small Animal Hospital, known more commonly as Doc Pope’s place. Vincent Pope, DVM, was a slender young man in a sports shirt and chino slacks. ‘Good boy,’ he said. Poor old boy,’ and helped Heimrich lift the dog out of the car; inside, onto an examining table. Colonel was too big for the table. He was, Pope thought, almost too big for a small animal hospital. Pope said, ‘Good boy. Steady, Colonel,’ and peeled off impromptu bandaging. ‘Good job, captain,’ he said, absently. Then he said, ‘Some bastard shot him.’

  His hands moved quickly. ‘Missed the bone, apparently,’ he said. ‘Got an artery. Uh—here it is. Just under the skin. He’ll do, I think.’ Colonel stirred; he sighed deeply. ‘Good boy,’ Pope said. ‘Make you as good as new, fellow.’

  He straightened; kept one hand pressed hard on the wadded, reddened sheet. He reached out and pressed a button set in the wall, and a buzzer sounded loudly somewhere.

  ‘He’ll be all right?’ Susan said. ‘My son—’

  ‘I know,’ Pope said. ‘Nice kid, Michael. Yes, I think he’ll do. He—’

  A very large young man came into the examining room.

  ‘Patient for surgery, Harry,’ Pope said.

  The large young man said, ‘Hello, fellow,’ to Colonel and lifted the big dog gently—and as easily, it seemed to Susan Heimrich, as if Colonel were a kitten.

  ‘Sew him up,’ Pope said. ‘Keep him a few days. Give him a few shots. Transfusion, probably.’

  ‘I’ll want the bullet,’ Heimrich said. ‘Don’t scratch it if you can help.’

  ‘Take a while to put him under,’ Pope said. ‘He’s a big one. You want to wait?’

  ‘Yes,’ Susan said. ‘The boy—he’s the boy’s dog. Michael—wouldn’t understand if we—if we didn’t wait. Until you’re quite sure.’

  Pope was sure enough already. But a veterinarian meets many animal owners, few of whom are particularly logical when in veterinary hospitals. He said, ‘Of course, Mrs Heimrich.’

  ‘I’ll go back and look around a little,’ Heimrich said. ‘Come back for you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Susan said. ‘Perrin?’

  ‘Probably,’ Heimrich said. His voice was hard. ‘Probably Mr Perrin.’

  But there wouldn’t, Heimrich thought, driving back to the house which overlooked the Hudson, be anything he could do about Perrin, even if Perrin had shot the dog. He wouldn’t have meant to shoot the dog. Colonel would have been a trespasser on Perrin’s land, on Perrin’s pistol range. And damn, damn to hell and gone, all civilians with firearms in their hands, and all who gave them permits to carry arms.

  Heimrich parked the car in front of the house, and followed a trail of blood down the drive. It was easy, at first; blood was clear on the white gravel of the drive. Colonel had bled a lot; it was a good thing he was so big a dog, with so much blood to spare.

  It was a little odd, Heimrich thought, that Colonel had come up the drive. Normally, he would have come straight, over fences. He was not much of a dog for roads, which was why he had been around so long. He hadn’t felt up to coming over fences? More foresight than Heimrich would have expected from Colonel, who had never seemed to him notable for foresight.

  Where drive met road, Heimrich had to search for several minutes. The State Police are trained in many things, but tracking is not high among them. What I need, Merton Heimrich thought, is someone out of Fenimore Cooper.

  He found the trail, finally. Colonel had limped west on High Road, which meant he had come from the direction of Perrin’s place. He had walked on the shoulder, which meant he had shown rather more sense than Heimrich would have expected.

  It was some two hundred yards from Heimrich’s own drive to that which led up to the Perrin house. There was blood on grass, on weeds, to show the way.

  The trail he followed would, Heimrich thought, be plainer on the gravel of Perrin’s drive. He would follow it up the drive and, with enough proved, tell Oliver Perrin what he had done to a friendly, harmless big dog. That much he could do about it.

  There was no blood on the white gravel of Perrin’s driveway where it joined the road. Heimrich went up the drive for a few yards and looked carefully. If Colonel had come this way, he had not been bleeding as he came.

  Preconceptions are unwise on the part of a detective, even one who is merely trying to prove who shot a pet dog. Heimrich went back to the road and on it a little farther to the east. And—picked up the trail again. It was beyond the Perrin drive that the big dog had taken to the road, started to limp his way home—limp his way to somebody who would do something to stop the pain in his shoulder; to somebody who would talk to him, and hold his big head.

  Heimrich was a hundred yards—more than a hundred yards—beyond the Perrin drive before the trail suddenly played out. He back-tracked for a dozen feet and picked it up again. Here Colonel had come down a bank to the left; here he had come over a stone fence. Heimrich learned this by climbing the bank, and going over the fence.

  Beyond the fence, the grass was high, unmowed. He looked for a time, and found nothing. End of the trail—for him, at any rate. He thought of Crowley, who spent a good deal of spare time hunting. Probably Crowley would know his way around better. But Heimrich could not use a trooper to track an injured dog.

  He looked around. On his right, as he faced north, a field of grass—a meadow once; a hayfield now, and one some weeks from mowing. (If anybody bothered any more.) On his left, uncleared ground, with heavy undergrowth. At a guess, he was at the property line between Perrin’s place and Van Brunt acreage which was now for sale. Which, he thought, gets me nowhere.

  None of this, Heimrich thought, had got him much of anywhere, except to the probability that he had been unjust to Oliver Perrin. It was still possible, of course, that Colonel had been shot on Perrin’s pistol range and, in fear and pain, had first run the wrong way. It did not seem very probable. Colonel would have taken the shortest way home.

  Captain Heimrich did what Colonel would have done. He picked up his car there and drove back to Pope’s hospital.

  Susan was still waiting where humans waited. She had been joined by a woman with a poodle and a man with a cat carrier. The cat carrier was vocal, in Siamese accents. When Heimrich came in, Susan shook her head and he sat in a chair beside her.

  ‘It’s taking a long time,’ Susan said, and there was anxiety in her tone. But then Dr Pope, wearing white now, came out. He carried a small box, and he smiled with contentment.

  ‘The big boy’s right as rain,’ he said. ‘Or will be when he comes to. Home in—oh, two or three days.’ He handed Heimrich the small box. ‘What you wanted,’ he said. ‘What you wanted plus. Been pawing at something, our large friend. Got a helluva splinter in
his right forepaw.’

  Heimrich opened the box. ‘Not a scratch on it,’ Pope said. ‘Not of my making, anyway.’

  The bullet was jacketed, a rifle bullet. It was a .30-calibre bullet.

  The splinter was, as Pope had said, a helluva big splinter. It was, at a guess, from a weathered board. The sharp end was blackened, which would be from Colonel’s blood.

  Colonel had, obviously, been trying hard to get into some place which was boarded up. Or—trying to get out of some place?

  ‘Same calibre as killed Mitchell,’ Heimrich told Susan, driving her home. ‘If it’s from the same rifle—’

  ‘If it’s from the same rifle,’ Susan said, ‘Mr Thompson’s out of it, isn’t he? Being in Tonaganda. And the girl and Mr Fields—’

  ‘If Thompson is,’ Heimrich said. ‘It’s possible that Charlie’s sitting outside an empty hole.’

  ‘Too far,’ Susan said. She was told that people in a hurry had been known to charter airplanes. Or, for that matter, fly them. She was told that the Westchester County Airport was only minutes away, for a man in a hurry. As for Enid Mitchell and her tall lawyer—

  ‘We don’t know at all closely,’ Heimrich said, ‘when Colonel was hit. He may have taken quite a while to get home. He may have stopped and rested; may have wandered. We don’t know where he was when he was shot. One of them could have shot him, possibly, before they showed up to tell their story—her story.’

  ‘Why on earth?’

  ‘I haven’t,’ Heimrich said, ‘the least idea in the world, darling.’

  He left her at the house. He said he would be back when he could.

  She watched him drive away. ‘Damn,’ Susan Heimrich said. ‘Everything comes before me. And I’ll have to tell Michael about his dog.’

  The day, she thought, had started out so well, too.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Half an hour after he returned to the barracks, the question Susan had asked was loud in Merton Heimrich’s mind. ‘Why on earth?’ He found that he still hadn’t the least idea in the world and that discovery, at this stage, was disconcerting. What did T. Lyman Mitchell and a Great Dane named Colonel have in common that the same person should shoot them both?