What Kills Good Men

by David Hood

  “I was making a bet.”

  Baxter came closer now, shaking his head, refusing to let Wallace whitewash the scene. “You were threatening him and it was working, until Victor dug up a little dirt of his own.”

  “How do you mean, Inspector?”

  Baxter turned to the chief hoping to see some supportive scepticism in his face. All he got was a stare as beige and vacant and infuriating as the Sphinx. He went back at Wallace. “Victor learned you and Frank McNeally were chums at school. That sent him looking into your business dealings around the time McNeally robbed that bank in Maine. He found proof you were involved, isn’t that what happened?”

  “That is interesting news.”

  “You didn’t know?” asked Tolliver. Was there honest disbelief in the chief’s question? Baxter wondered. Or was he siding with Wallace, pointing him toward an appearance of some innocence and away from greater suspicion?

  “No, I should have guessed, I suppose. Victor was in high spirits that night. His confidence had returned,” Wallace answered looking at himself in the window. Was he checking to see if his face had remained straight? Baxter couldn’t tell. From where he stood there was no reflection. Outside the sky was low. Horses pulled hacks and slovens up and down Barrington Street as they did every other day, the people of the city as reconciled to the harness as the beasts that carried them. Would the truth of this case, if it ever came out, matter to them? Those who had just gone off to fight, was it because they cared or because they didn’t? A rich degenerate, a fallen politician, and the life of another young girl lost. It would have been nothing new to the plebeians of Rome. Fifteen centuries later, a job, a roof, and enough good health to hold on to them mattered more than high ideals of justice, or so it seemed in the dull and weathered faces beyond this particular pane of spotted glass. Too much rest was allowing Baxter’s mind to wander.

  “Victor started winning.” Baxter wished he’d phrased it as a question. He waited expectantly, but neither the chief nor Wallace asked how he might know. Maybe they were keeping it quiet to protect secrets of their own.

  “That night the rest of us were as bad as he was good. In a couple of hours Victor had won back much of what he owed.”

  “Then he sat out.”

  “A little celebration.”

  “That becomes a nightmare.” Baxter reminded himself of how angry Clarke had been leaving the Aberdeen. Of course he and Wallace had had it out. And now, Baxter thought, Wallace is going to hang Clarke before Clarke can point a finger at him. Was the chief in on a play to neatly close the case? Baxter looked at the floor half expecting it to turn to quicksand.

  Wallace had retreated into his own thoughts or maybe he had been trying to read Baxter’s. Now he was talking again. “The game went on for a while, but without Victor there wasn’t much interest. Seabrook had been the biggest loser. He was just getting up to go talk to one of the girls when someone ran down the hall. I thought it was a raid. I think we all did. I don’t remember anyone saying anything. We just kept still. After a bit, I pulled the sliding door just a crack. There were no voices, only grunts and thuds. I couldn’t see what was going on. I didn’t want to. All I wanted to do at that point was run for the front door.”

  “But you didn’t.” Baxter tried to sound encouraging without seeming sympathetic. Wallace seemed to finally be near the moment of truth. The chief looked stunned or disinterested. It was always hard to gauge his capacity, a castle built from guile and leavings.

  “No…”

  “What did you do?”

  “I remember sliding the door shut, then watching from the end of the hallway.

  Wallace stalled. Baxter gave him a nudge. “And?”

  “And they were on the floor of the landing, in front of the back stairs. Victor had gone up with Sarah. He hadn’t bothered to get redressed. He was stark naked. Victor never tanned. He was as huge and white as a polar bear. Charlie isn’t small, but pinned under Victor he looked like a little brown harbour seal.

  “Who had the knife?” Baxter had never been sure that Charlie had told the truth. He claimed Victor had sent Sarah to fetch him a drink, supposedly to help him take the news of her condition. She had put on a nightdress and gone downstairs. She was in the landing on her way back up when she saw Victor on the stairs. No clothes, just a steak knife from an un-cleared plate and a face she didn’t know, a face that told her to call for help. She had managed to whistle before she froze. And if he was to be believed, Charlie had come running with his bait.

  “Neither of them,” Wallace said, his voice thin as if coming from far away. “They were wrestling, trying to prevent each other from getting a bat that lay on the floor a few feet away against the bottom stair. All of the sudden Victor let go and stood up. He rolled away then slowly got to his feet. I was relieved. I really thought he had come to his senses, that whatever was going on was some sort of misunderstanding that could be explained. So did Charlie.”

  “Where was Miss Riley?”

  “She was crouched in the corner by the back door, knees under her chin, toes curled up. A tumbler with two fingers of whiskey sat on the floor beside her. Neither of them could move.” The memory of Sarah’s paralysis put Wallace in a trance of his own. This time it was the chief who gave him a push.

  “And Victor?”

  Wallace twitched and took a sharp breath. “Victor had his back to me. He was struggling for air. He smelled like a wet animal. You know what else I remember?”

  Wallace was looking straight at him. He had a queer look on his face as if he had a bad stomach. “What?” Baxter asked, unsure what to expect.

  “Victor’s feet. I’d never seen him in bare feet. His toenails were a rotten yellow and he had huge bunions. They were the ugliest feet I’ve ever seen. Her feet were shapely and light. How does that happen?” Wallace turned from Baxter to the chief, as if he had asked an ordinary question to which there was a simple answer.

  “What brings people together you mean?” the chief asked. You sit mute and half asleep and then this is what you ask? Baxter thought to himself.

  “Yes.”

  “They met in a brothel, not at a coming-out party,” Baxter snapped. “This was not some fairy-tale romance. He was a married man with a family. She had her virtue up for sale.”

  “She wasn’t the villain,” Wallace said calmly, the look on his face now more composed.

  The chief gave Baxter a look of incredulity. Then, looking at Wallace with a face of apology, even a little sympathy, he asked, “So Victor got up?”

  “Yes. It was a trap, though. He hadn’t given up. Charlie was still down on one knee, he took his eyes off Victor just for a second. Victor lunged forward. I knew the force of his personality. I never realized how strong he was. His fist struck Charlie on the jaw just below his ear. There was this sound like an egg hitting the floor. I thought Charlie was dead. Victor picked up the bat.”

  “So this was self-defence.” The chief spoke before he could and Baxter felt cheated and a little nauseous. There it was, they were in this together. And even Clarke would be spared. Victor would be made the devil. He thought of Catherine trying to keep her children from the news. He felt his stomach lurch.

  “No.”

  The answer took Baxter into a state of mild shock, unable to respond. The chief stepped into the silence, uncertainly it seemed. “Do you think he could see you through his rage?” he asked.

  “That’s what I thought too, at first, rage. I couldn’t imagine what, but I assumed someone must have said something or done something and Victor had lost his temper. But Victor was beyond anger. He actually looked calm, almost serene. That’s what made him so terrifying. And to answer your question, Chief Tolliver, no, I don’t think Victor could see me from where he was, mentally I mean. I don’t think he had any sense I was there until I yelled, and by then it was too late.”

  Wal
lace had started by saying he had killed a man. Now he had just claimed it was not self-defence. There didn’t seem to be a plot to get Wallace off the hook. Baxter struggled to regain himself and think. Charlie was unconscious when it happened. Sarah was dead. Regardless of what Victor did or didn’t do, for which they only had Wallace’s word, he still believed the real motive was somehow money and politics. Would Wallace ever tell the truth? Likely not, Baxter guessed, but he may have to. “You found the knife?” Baxter asked, imagining a jury.

  “As you can see.” Wallace eased the glove off of his right hand. The bandage was fresh, a spot of blood in the centre. The cut was deep and slow in healing. “Charlie had knocked the knife out of Victor’s hand. It was at my feet, I hadn’t seen it.”

  “Victor didn’t try to get it back?” Baxter asked, expecting that Victor must have and that from there the end had come.

  “No, Mr. Baxter. Remember, Victor had picked up the bat after knocking Charlie out. Victor went for Miss Riley, not the knife. The outside light was on, shining through the backdoor window. I remember thinking how clearly I could see her, see her face. I saw a tear roll down her cheek. It was the only part of her that moved.”

  “That’s when you yelled?” Baxter asked, thinking back to what Annie Higgenbottom remembered hearing.

  “More like a high-pitched scream. If anyone has told you they heard Sarah scream, they are wrong. She never made a sound. They heard me. Lucky really. I’m not sure Victor would have reacted to the normal sound of my voice.”

  “What did he do?” the chief asked. He and Baxter exchanged a glance, both men together for once, bracing themselves for the answer.

  Wallace began slowly rubbing his hands along the arms of his chair. “Victor raised the bat over his head. He was going to open Miss Riley’s skull like a piñata. Then he turned toward the sound. I know this is going to sound silly but at that moment I felt like a child lost in the forest, one that’s been found by the big bad wolf not some friendly woodsman.” Now Wallace’s hands were still, no longer able to find any manner of control or comfort in the motion.

  “You mean Victor turned on you with the bat?” the chief asked, his confusion obvious. Baxter wondered if Wallace was going to claim self-defence after all.

  “No…not exactly. When Victor turned toward me I could see…he was very aroused. It was his erection that was pointed at me, not the bat…and those feet.” Wallace shook as if taken by a fever chill. “As I told you, his face was placid. I knew he wasn’t himself. But it was only at that moment I knew Victor had truly lost his mind. Who else but a crazy man could knock another man unconscious, then casually pick up a bat and prepare to use it on a woman too petrified to move, a woman I know he cared for? Who else but a crazy man does all that wearing nothing but the expression of a dull child and in the process gets a raging erection? I should have fled instead of just stepping back.” Wallace paused again, looking from Baxter to the chief and back again. Baxter wasn’t sure what Wallace expected him to say. Neither did the chief, it seemed. Both men held off from saying anything, merely waited for Wallace to continue. “That’s when I noticed the knife, I’d stepped on the handle. Lucky again…I suppose.”

  “Victor didn’t notice the knife?” Baxter wanted to ask what kind of knife it was or if Wallace knew where it had come from. He let it go. Clarke was right. It didn’t matter.

  “I thought he did. His eyes went down. But he wasn’t looking at the knife. Perhaps the look was a warning. Then he turned back to Miss Riley.”

  “You picked up the knife.”

  “I can’t say I remember doing it. I remember feeling some pain and the sight of blood, first mine and then Victor’s. Apparently I had the knife by the blade as much as the handle. It must not have gone in very far. Victor didn’t seem to notice. He had gotten to Sarah, pulled her up and pinned her against the wall with a hand on her throat. He was about to swing the bat when I pushed with the palm of my hand as hard as I could. The knife went into the handle.”

  Baxter wasn’t pinned. He was leaning against the wall, the hours of sleep suddenly unable to hold him steady. As much as he did not want to look at it, the picture had been slowly emerging over the past few days. For months, perhaps years, there had been two Victors, not one. The man Victor was supposed to be, the man Baxter knew, and someone Baxter had no desire to meet. In the end it seemed these two men had to confront one another, reconcile themselves and their deeds face to face. Now Baxter was forced to face them and their struggle and to come to a reconciliation of his own. Had a better man lost or had he only existed in disguise? The person most able to say had reconciled herself to eternity. Had she done so in self-pity or from some notion of a greater good? That question would go unanswered, another ghost of a city all too familiar with misery and sacrifice. Meanwhile, if what Baxter had just heard were true, in the worst of moments, only Wallace had somehow managed to keep his head. Exact truth or not, better he had kept his head sooner rather than later so far as Baxter was concerned. When he was finally able to speak, it was his memory of Victor as the better man and his lament for the best parts of the city that came out of Baxter’s mouth. “And then you threw the man you had jus stabbed in the harbour and let him die trying to breathe water in the dark alone.”

  Wallace flinched as if Baxter had struck him. “I was bloody terrified. You know what he said to me? ‘Good to see you, Maynard.’ As if we were meeting at the Aberdeen for lunch. Then he pulled out the knife and collapsed.”

  Baxter still could not let go. “And you don’t suppose Victor was terrified? He needed help,” he protested. “He wasn’t dead.”

  Wallace’s face had gone purple red. “Weren’t you listening!” he screamed. “Or are you one of those deaf saints?”

  “Say what you mean, Mr. Wallace, deaf Catholic, and no, I’ll be the one escorting you to jail.” He wanted to say more, holler “Bigot!” and remind Wallace that England and its church had once been Catholic. That he and his high Anglican superiority were mere contrivances that would do him little good in prison. He would have had the chief not cut him off.

  “Tell us what happened next,” the chief broke in. He looked sorry for both of them and for himself.

  “Mr. Baxter seems to know this part already. It was chaos really, everyone screaming and crying. Charlie came around. Someone got down to the Aberdeen and came back with Robert White and my driver. They took care of Sarah. Charlie and I took care of Victor.”

  “You dumped him in the harbour.”

  “Are we going to pick scabs or…”

  “Send you home with our apologies, sorry to have bothered you?”

  This time the chief came from behind his desk and stood between them. “Wallace, you came in looking for a gentlemen’s agreement, what did you have in mind?”

  Squire was able to keep still for the first half hour. He was not able go back to sleep. The calisthenics prevented that. He had to find something to do. The station was quiet. The office girls filed and gossiped in low voices. He wandered over to the front counter. The door to the chief’s office was still closed. “Officer Squire, long time no see. When you coming back to regular patrol? I’ve been short bodies all week.” Sergeant Meagher had a stack of papers in front of him and looked overwhelmed.

  “Soon, maybe tomorrow. You back on your feet?” Squire asked, keeping an extra step away in any case.

  “Mostly,” Meagher sniffed. “It true Maynard Wallace is in with Baxter and the chief?”

  “No secrets in a police station.” Squire quickly steered to a different topic. “Any more on who’s pilfering a wardrobe from the south end?”

  Meagher shook his head while trying to sound confident. “Sooner or later his buddies will turn stag and our work will be done. Meanwhile, it’s been the usual nonsense.”

  “You see Mackay?” The man was frightening company, but he would likely want to hear about his visit wit
h Sarah’s parents. He needed to tell someone. Much as he was gaining respect for the chief inspector, this would be easier with Mackay.

  Meagher made a face and waved in the direction of the upper streets. “He’s on patrol. Finally got that Green woman off my hands, God bless him. No sooner I get rid of her, though, and Tommy Berrigan gets dragged in, drunk as a lord.”

  “I’m yet to have the pleasure,” Squire replied, bored already with Meagher and wanting to get away before some inane task came his way.

  “You will. Least this time he had some excuse. Victor Mosher was his brother-in-law. Doesn’t look such a mess in a suit.” Meagher was staring off, a form of some sort in one hand. He was either pondering its meaning or studying an image of Thomas he had conjured up. His trance was broken by the telephone at his elbow.

  Squire had a thought. “Was Mr. Berrigan wearing a hat?” he asked.

  “A what…?” Meagher picked up the earpiece. “Police station, Sergeant Meagher speaking…Ma’am…Ma’am…”

  Squire tried again. “A hat, Thomas Berrigan was wearing a new hat, wasn’t he?”

  Meagher held the earpiece away from his head. The voice on the other end continued on without him. He looked at Squire from beneath a furrowed brow as he felt the papers spread about the counter. “Yeah…Ah, I don’t know…Was he wearing a hat?” Meagher found his pencil and took the notepad Squire handed him with a nod and tried to catch up with the telephone. “How would I know whose pig it is in your backyard, ma’am?” Squire left for the stairway to the basement, glad to escape Meagher.

  Thomas Berrigan was asleep in the cell Martha had just left. If either of them were half of what they were made out to be, a cell was the best accommodation they knew. A greatcoat and suit jacket were draped neatly over the end of the bed. Thomas lay on his back, fingers laced across his vest, snoring gently. Meagher was right. Even half out of it, Thomas didn’t look such a mess in a suit. On the other hand, the smell gave him away. What was left of the spicy aftershave could not compete with the sour whiskey breath. “Mr. Berrigan?”