The body beneath him contorted as the silenced thunks of the shots tore through it until the hammer fell on empty chambers.
Chapter Fifteen
Jan sat in the kitchen wearing the terry-cloth robe and nervously smoking a cigarette. An occasional hand ran through her hair and then snapped abruptly back to her lap. She tensed as the back door opened behind her. “Is it over, Bux? No details, just yes or no.”
“It’s over.”
The cigarette slipped from her fingers to fall to the floor. Slowly, she turned to face Brian with a low, drawn-out, “Oh, my God.”
He stepped inside and elbowed the screen and outer door shut, then reached back with one hand to throw the bolt. He kept the revolver pointed at her. “Buxton is dead.”
“There’s blood on you. Let me tend to it.” She started toward him solicitously until he waved her back with the gun.
“You have the resilience of a two-dollar whore.”
“That’s not fair, and a horrible thing to say, when I’ve been sitting here crazy with worry while you run around some cemetery with a shovel. You’re back, mostly in one piece, and that’s all that matters.” She began to open and close cabinet doors with great rapidity. “I’m going to forget what you just said. I have a first-aid kit here somewhere.”
“I shot him with his own gun and covered him in the grave meant for me. But you know that.”
She shook her head violently. “No … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You were the only one who knew where I was going tonight. I was careful to make sure I wasn’t followed. Clinton and Gordon didn’t know. Only you, Jan. You were the one who contacted Buxton and told him where to find me.”
“No, Brian. I swear to you.”
“You’re a liar.”
Her fingers plucked agitatedly at the edge of her hair as she shrank back against the kitchen counter. “I was so frightened. I thought he was going to kill me. After you left, I came in the kitchen for a cup of coffee and he was standing in the doorway with that gun.” She began to cry. “He put the gun to my head and said he was going to shoot me. I told him … I didn’t mean to, but I told him where you were.” Her hands went to her face as her shoulders shook.
“God only knows what else you’ve lied about,” he said softly. He inserted the gun barrel between her palms and pushed her hands aside. “I don’t believe a word you’re saying.”
Her composure immediately returned as she stepped away. She ground out the burning cigarette on the floor with her heel and lit another. Exhaled smoke streamed toward his face. “So, you’ve shot a hired killer. Willie might believe you, let you plead self-defense and get away with it. You can’t kill me. Not in my own home with a gun while there are people right next door. You’ve done your thing, you have your revenge. Now get out of here! Go back to Canada where you belong, under some rock.”
He grabbed her chin and tilted her head while thumbing the pistol’s hammer to firing position. “This makes less noise than a cap gun, and I’m going to tell them I found you dead. That he killed you before coming after me. It’s either that, or tell me who hired you.”
For the first time her eyes widened in fright. “Martha. Martha Rubinow started it. It seemed so innocent in the beginning. All she wanted me to do was to see that while Mary was in the hospital she didn’t say certain things. I was there anyway, working night shift, and I couldn’t see any harm in it.”
“How much did they pay you?”
“A hundred a week to begin with.”
“What was Mary going to say?”
“Martha said she had some wild ideas about your birth, and that for the family’s sake everyone wanted it hushed up. That’s all I did, at least until you came.”
“And then?”
“The day you returned to Tallman, Buxton was here in the house when I came back from seeing Gordon. He was sitting right there when I came in the door.” She pointed to the dinette chair. “You know how big he was. He scared me to death … he looked so ominous … that’s when the money got bigger.”
“How much bigger?”
“A lot, more than a lot. More than I had ever seen before. It still seemed harmless enough. He said they only wanted information about you. They paid me to report everything you said and did. They told me to get as close to you as I could.”
“How did you contact Buxton?”
“He left a phone number. That’s all there was to it. Or so I thought.”
“And then someone put a pillow over mother’s face.”
“Martha Rubinow,” she said quickly. “You’ve got to believe that I had nothing to do with it.”
“You never hurt anyone, you were just a font of information. Until tonight. You knew what he was going to do to me.”
“He said he had to have a talk with you, that there was so much money involved that you could be bought off.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You have to.”
“You never had any contact with the Colonel?”
“No. Only Buxton and Martha. Buxton’s the one who brought me the money.”
“Who killed Lockwood?”
“Buxton.”
“The dead are blamed for everything.”
“He was a killer, Brian. A hired gun that would do anything. He frightened me, and once I became involved, there didn’t seem to be anyway to become uninvolved. Look what happened to the Rubinows.”
“The Rubinows got scared after Lockwood died and ran away. And yet Buxton found them.”
“I didn’t know he was going to kill them. He said he had to make a final payoff to them.”
“That he did. And I suppose you’re the one who turned me in for Mary’s death and the desertion charge?”
“I did that on my own. It was safer for you. I thought you’d be in jail a few weeks or months, safely out of the way until everything was over.”
“Why, Jan?”
“Money. In the beginning, money for information, and later it got complicated. But there was always the money. Such a simple thing to you, you’ve always had enough. Can you imagine what it’s like growing up in Tallman when your father was usually passed out when you came home from school? You remember where I lived in those days, hardly any furniture, dressed in cast-off clothes that the good ladies of the town brought by. Then, after high school, when I went into nurse’s training, I worked as a cocktail waitress for the tips middle-aged men who pinched my rump gave me. Money, Brian, an awful lot.”
Her face had sharpened with the intensity of her feelings. He looked down at the gun as if it were something he had found in the street a few moments before. He slipped the weapon in his belt and leaned back against the kitchen counter. His body arched in fatigue and pain. “Money,” he said softly.
“Would you like a drink?”
“I guess.”
“It’s in the other room.” She left the kitchen as Brian stared bleakly toward the far wall. He heard an almost imperceptible click. It took several seconds for the sound to register. He jerked erect and ran for the hall door leading to the garage. When he flung it open, he saw her running down the street.
He caught her several houses down. His hand pressed against her mouth as he bent her backward. The night was dark, and few lights were on in the surrounding houses. He dragged her back through the garage and into the house. Her teeth bit deeply into his palm as he increased the pressure.
He took her into the bedroom and threw her across the bed, his hand still pressed over her mouth. Her eyes were wide and frightened.
“Listen and listen carefully.” She shook her head as best she could under the pressure of his hand. “We’re going to New York to see your employer. You are going to drive. If anything happens, if you try anything at all, I will shoot you.”
She, shook her head. “You’re choking me,” she managed to mumble.
He took his arm away and stepped back. “Get dressed.” As she sat up in bed, undid the robe and let it sli
p off her shoulders, he glanced down at his wounds. The two bullets had grazed the flesh and missed bone contact. The wound in his forearm still bled slightly through the handkerchief he had knotted over it, but the wound in his side had stopped. He looked back toward the bed, where she sat naked looking toward him with parted lips.
“You wanted me before. We made it together. You want me. I know you do.”
He looked down at her nude body without desire. “Get dressed.”
They were silent during the drive to New York City. Brian, with the gun on his lap, leaned against the door. She hunched over the wheel, driving with extreme concentration. Every few minutes she glanced toward him with apprehension. He felt regret, and wished there were a conceivable way to obliterate past events.
They reached the outskirts of the city and drove through the ravaged ghettos of the South Bronx. “Where are we going?” she finally asked.
“Go down the East River Drive to the Brooklyn Bridge. I’ll give you directions from there.”
“I don’t think I care to meet Colonel Wright.”
“He still owes you a final payment for services rendered. But then again, I don’t believe you have a choice.”
They lapsed into silence until she drove across the bridge, and he directed her down State Street. “That’s it, but go around the block,” he said as they passed the Wright brownstone.
“There’s a parking place over there.”
“Around the block.”
They circled the block twice before he saw what he had been watching for. A briefly lit match held to a cigarette revealed two bulky men in a dark Chevrolet parked down the block from the brownstone. He knew they were city detectives staked out for Buxton. “You can park now,” he told her.
She walked ahead of him up the steps of the house. His elbow momentarily pressed against the reassuring weight of the gun tucked into the waistband of his trousers. She hesitated at the top step until he poked the small of her back. “Ring the buzzer.”
Her extended finger, as if afraid of an electric shock, gingerly pressed the buzzer. In a few moments the door was opened by a uniformed maid.
“Colonel Wright, please.”
“The Colonel is not receiving visitors this evening.”
“Tell him that I have a message from Buxton.”
“One moment, please.”
As they waited on the stoop, Brian glanced down the street toward the two waiting detectives. They had parked away from street lights, and without a match or cigarette glow, the car’s interior was too dark to see them. The front door opened again.
“Please follow me.”
They were ushered into a downstairs room that Brian hadn’t seen on his prior visit. The walls were lined with military texts, while three deep leather chairs were comfortably grouped in the center of the room. A large mahogany desk, covered with mementos, was placed at an angle to dominate the room.
Jan sank sullenly into one of the chairs, and Brian glanced over the clutter on the desk. Cartridges and small shells of various calibers were aligned in neat rows before an intricate design of crisscrossed daggers.
“Do you find them interesting?” Colonel Wright said from the doorway. He held the cane at waist level with both hands.
“Will there be anything else, Colonel?”
“You may go for the night, Mrs. Wilson.” The maid gently closed the door as she departed. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“This is Jan Wholly, one of your employees.”
“The Wright enterprises have many, and it’s a rare occasion when I have opportunity to meet an individual employee. However, I really must ask you to leave. I believe we settled matters most conclusively during your last visit. If you still feel, by some skewered reasoning, that you have a claim against the Wright money, please contact my lawyers.”
“Buxton is dead.” Brian expected a reaction, but the Colonel’s gaze remained unchanged.
“Buxton? I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
Brian drew the gun and gestured toward a chair. “Sit down.”
Colonel Wright looked at him for a long moment before moving stiffly toward one of the leather chairs. “Mrs. Wilson has left by now, but I am sure she could easily identify you in the event that anything happens to me. And I’m quite sure Mrs. Wholly doesn’t wish to become involved in further violence.”
“I shot Buxton and buried him in the child’s grave.”
“Did you really? Then I owe you a token of gratitude. Captain Buxton’s financial demands were becoming quite excessive. His last request for payment was outrageous. So, you have saved me a considerable fee. A pity about the captain but, unlike works of art, men like Buxton can be replaced.”
“This is the weapon used to kill the Rubinows. I’m sure a ballistics test will prove that.”
“Perhaps it would. The captain was thorough in many ways, but too attached to his hardware. With Buxton dead, there is no way a connection can be established between myself and certain unpleasantries. The authorities will undoubtedly be pleased to close their files on the Rubinows without my involvement.”
“I have talked to Mrs. Wright.”
The Colonel eyed him speculatively before crossing the room to pour a sherry from a cut-glass decanter. “Alisha has so few visitors these days, but, unfortunately, I am sure you found her most uncommunicative.”
“And I have talked to Sergeant Henry.”
“It must amuse you to widen your circle of acquaintances.”
“And Jan tells me you hired her.”
“Quite mistaken. I have never been in Tallman. My servants would be quite willing to testify to my recent whereabouts. Sherry, Mrs. Wholly?”
“No, thank you.”
“I think I have enough to hang you.”
“Really, Brian. For what? Mrs. Wholly has never seen me before, isn’t that right, my dear?”
“Yes.”
“The charge will be conspiracy to murder.”
“I think not. I may be an old man, Lieutenant, but I am not a foolish one. With Buxton gone, there is no way a conspiracy charge would even be brought to trial. I’m a wealthy man, and money buys a good deal of insulation from such nonsense. And why, for heaven’s sake, would I wish to destroy the Rubinows, Mary Dwight and that half-wit uncle of yours?”
“Once you talked of revenge. But I know better now, Colonel. I know what really happened at Bellchamp.”
“The kidnapping was an unfortunate incident best forgotten. And it will be. Drink, Brian? I’ve heard that you sometimes have a certain predilection for the grape, in addition to your other problems.”
“I said, I know what happened.”
“So do a hundred million other Americans. The case was well covered by the newspapers at the time.”
“What really happened.”
“Perhaps you might enlighten me.”
“It didn’t fit that you’d wait nearly thirty years to kill the Rubinows. You left them alone, you allowed them to prosper with the money you gave them.”
“Actually, they did quite well in that area.”
“You didn’t even think of them again, until you heard that they hadn’t fully carried out their end of the bargain. You arranged that kidnapping, Colonel.”
“There have been a great many speculations over the Wright case through the years, but this, I confess, is most unusual.”
“You invited Captain Ralston and Sergeant Henry to stay at Bellchamp on recuperative leave. When you returned home, Henry told you about your wife’s affair with Ralston. Wilton Henry even told me how you beat the captain. Later, when a child was born, you assumed it was yours until …” Brian faltered. “Somehow, you discovered the child was not yours.”
“I raised the child as my own for two years,” the Colonel said with the first traces of bitterness. “It might have continued to this day except for an accidental discovery. The boy developed a minor stomach problem, something to do with the duodenum, which required surgery. In the
event a blood transfusion might be necessary, the usual blood and cross-match tests were run.” The Colonel’s left lip twitched downward. “As the doting father, I followed everything most carefully. That’s how I discovered the little bastard wasn’t mine. I’m sure you’ve noticed the scar on your right abdomen, Lieutenant.”
The words lashed at Brian as the first absolute proof of his identity. He struggled to speak. “And for that you wanted me destroyed?”
“You overestimate your worth. The discovery of your parentage was only the final culmination of several events. The infidelity was a relatively simple matter to handle. I made Alisha suffer appropriately in countless ways. As for Ralston, of course he wanted to stay in the service after the war, but friends and former classmates of mine were able to arrange his discharge. Eventually, he moved to this city for work, but, remarkably, he was somehow unable to hold the most menial job for more than a few weeks.”
“Through your intervention.”
“But of course. Then there was the child. Yes, the child. That was a different matter. They had lied to me, you see. They had told me he was mine, and for two years I raised him as a Wright. That, of course, was unforgivable.”
“You had ruined the captain. You could have divorced your wife and thrown her and the baby out.”
“And have the three of them together? Allow her to join him and hide from me, to forge some other life? After what they’d done? My own aide, whom I’d befriended, had taken my wife, my child and my career.”
“Your career?”
The Colonel walked stiffly to the desk and yanked open the center drawer, as Brian tightened his finger on the trigger of the pistol. Colonel Wright held a small jewelry box in his hand, clicked open the top to look inside and then threw it across the room toward Brian. “That’s what he stole from me.”
Brian looked down at the small case by his feet, on which two silver stars, of a general officer lay imbedded on the cushion. “Then it was Ralston who made the report to Eisenhower about the prisoner massacre.”
“He took my life, my career, my future. He took my wife and impregnated her and then called the baby a Wright. For that, they had to be destroyed. Both of them, utterly destroyed for all time.”
The Laughing Man Page 17
