The Missing and the Dead: A Bragg Thriller

by Jack Lynch

  The blood was rushing through my head and I couldn't even hear what Janet Lind was saying. I could feel the emotions sparking through the room, and then Big Mike got to his feet and crossed to turn off the television set.

  "Well," I said as flatly as I could manage, "I'm afraid that didn't tell us much."

  "On the contrary, Mr. Bragg, on the contrary," said Big Mike Parsons in a firmly toned voice that had lost all of its gosh and gee and big howdy lummox ways. "I'm afraid it told us everything we all needed to know."

  He raised his eyes to Minnie. "And I'm afraid also, old girl, we'll have to make another of our lightning quick disappearances. They've just gotten too close."

  "Damn you," Minnie said bitterly, and I knew she wasn't addressing her husband.

  I glanced over my shoulder. She was standing there glaring at me with menace on her face and a small automatic pistol pointed at the middle of my back. She gripped it as if she'd had practice. "We'll have to tear up roots once again."

  "Easy, Minnie," soothed Big Mike. "It's not all his fault. He's just the best of them we've seen so far. But there will be others in his wake. We just can't beat them back anymore. Not here." He opened a drawer in the sideboard beneath the camellias and brought out a .45 like the one out in the trunk of my car.

  "On your feet, Mr. Bragg."

  "Where are we going?"

  "At the risk of sounding trite," he said sadly, "we are taking you for a ride."

  TWENTY-ONE

  Jerry Lind, I learned soon enough, was dead. My own situation, as I thought about it a few minutes later, sitting with my arms trussed behind me on the passenger side of my own car with Big Mike driving, was not too hopeful. It was true I had a revolver he didn't know about jammed down in the cushions beneath me, but I didn't see how it would do me much good even if I could dig it out. He'd done a good job of tying me up. I tried to wriggle my arms some and decided it would be some time the following winter before I got free that way. Even if I did reach the hidden weapon, I didn't know what I'd be able to shoot with it outside of my own calf.

  Following us along an old dirt road up into the hills was Minnie, driving the Parsons' trail vehicle. He'd pointed out to me that while her main purpose was to provide him with a lift once my car and I were disposed of, she also would be Johnny-on-the-spot in case I did something cute with my feet and caused Big Mike to crash.

  "You must know," he reminded me gently, "she would just love to empty that pistol of hers into your body, Mr. Bragg. She is really quite angry that we have to move once more."

  On the other hand I did have one very large thing in my favor. He hadn't already raised his gun and drilled me between the eyes the way he admitted he'd done to Dempsey. He'd been forthright about it. Dempsey had scared him.

  So I slouched down in the seat in dejected fashion and went fishing with my fingers for the .38 revolver. You do whatever there is left to do.

  "I used to get headaches, you know," Big Mike told me. He'd been garrulous since we left his place, as if we were going camping together or something.

  "It doesn't surprise me."

  "The painting thing, it all started from that. It helped make the pain go away. But it was dangerous, you know. Forewarning somebody that way to bring out that meaty expression on their face. So the painting of Minnie was an experiment. She's a good little actress. She pretended terror; I painted. There was no risk that way."

  "Did it work?"

  "For a time."

  "You would have been smart to have destroyed the painting. All of them, for that matter."

  "Have you ever created a work of art, Mr. Bragg?"

  "I don't have the eye for it."

  "Then you wouldn't understand."

  "So the Minnie painting turned up in San Francisco and you were afraid somebody from this area would go down to look at the show and recognize her. You already knew Dempsey, in Rey Platte, had made the Pavel-Hobo connection."

  "Exactly. I read a review of the show that mentioned the Pavel works and that one of them was of a woman. She was the only woman I ever painted. I couldn't dare take a chance that the painting would somehow be tied to us in our present identity. So I went down there and stole the painting, without any bother whatsoever. It should have been the end to it."

  "Yeah, it's tough how things go sometimes."

  By arching the right side of my back in an unnatural way and straining my right arm until I wanted to yelp with pain, I managed to nudge a part of the holster with one fingertip. I didn't know what part of the holster it was and I wasn't near getting a decent grip on it. If I stretched myself any more Parsons would think I was attempting to commit suicide by breaking my back. I sat up and tried to think of something different.

  "The next thing I knew," Big Mike continued, "that detective was in town. And somehow, incredibly, he discovered I lived in the area."

  "He was in town working on another matter," I told him. "What tipped him to your being here was the cute trick you pulled in the town mural in Wiley Huggins' window."

  It visibly startled him, a reaction that encouraged me. "You know, the funny grass, thick on the top, with the blades broken in progressive placement."

  "That's impossible! I never told anybody about that little signature. Not even Minnie."

  "Maybe you didn't, but a lot of people know about it now. And it shows up on paintings that have been tied to your murder victims. Frankly, Parsons, or whatever you want to call yourself these days, I think you and Minnie can forget about putting down roots anywhere. It's my guess the two of you are just in for one prolonged run."

  "Now you're bluffing, Mr. Bragg."

  I was, but he had no way of knowing it. I had another desperate thought and dipped a couple fingers into the rear pocket where I carried a comb. I had a small knife in a front pocket, but I couldn't get my hands within half a foot of it. I had trouble enough getting my comb out and down into the crease of the seat.

  "No, I'm not bluffing, Parsons. I don't see much future for myself. Why bluff? It's just a plain fact. Your cover is becoming all unraveled. I suspect that within a couple more days there'll be several hundred law enforcement people looking for you. You'll see soon enough that I'm not bluffing."

  "It won't matter by then. We will be far away. With new identities. We have had vast practice. But tell me, Bragg. Barring the incredible misfortune of Minnie's painting being recorded on tape at the television station, do you think you would have found me out?"

  "I had already found you out."

  He glanced quickly at me. I had to quit fiddling with the comb down in the seat.

  "Not quite soon enough," I admitted. "About a half a second before the painting was shown on the screen. Something that had been bothering me locked into place. By the time Jerry Lind got to Barracks Cove he was curious about Dempsey's moves, and Dempsey's great curiosity about the stolen painting. Lind wasn't the world's foremost investigator by any means, but he knew the rudiments. The Frame Up was the logical place for him to visit to see if he could get a line on Dempsey. But Wiley Huggins hadn't seen Lind. The reason, of course, is the same as why he didn't see Emil Stoval earlier today. He was away from the shop both times. Minnie was minding the store. She was a great early warning system for you throughout the whole thing."

  "Yes," he agreed, glancing in the rear-view mirror. "She was indeed."

  "But Wiley was at the shop when Dempsey got there. How did you learn about him?"

  "Minnie was there as well. And we knew about that Dempsey fellow. He was the one who nearly caught up with us down south. We took measures to learn his identity, and obtain a photograph of him. It cost us some money, that. But, as it turned out, it was well worth it. Dempsey asked a great many questions about the town mural. He wanted to learn more about the people who had worked on it. So Minnie stepped forward and suggested he drive out and query me. When he left the shop she phoned to alert me."

  "And you must have shot him soon after he arrived."

  "The mom
ent he stepped from his car. I could take no risk there."

  "But he wasn't in his car when I found his body, he was in Lind's. How come?"

  Big Mike snorted. "The cars! Always the cars. They were very nearly more trouble than the people who drove them."

  He took a deep breath and thought about it. I probed around with my comb some more.

  "It was growing dark when the detective came to the house," he resumed. "I concealed his body and auto on our property for the night, planning to decide the next day what best to do with them. But before I could make that decision, Lind showed up at the Frame Up. Minnie sent him along to our place. I didn't plan to kill him. I simply told him I had never seen Dempsey. It seemed to satisfy him, and he could have turned and left at that point and have been alive today. But then he made the profound error of disclosing that he had a small transparency of the stolen painting. Once he had seen Minnie, if he ever studied it in a projector, he might well have recognized her.

  "And so, I shot him. I now had two bodies and two automobiles on my hands. I had searched through the Dempsey vehicle and learned it was a rental. That made it less incriminating. So later that day, with Minnie's help, I drove Lind's car with Dempsey's body in it to where you found them. They should have remained undiscovered there for years. And then we drove the rental car to Willits and abandoned it, as if the man who rented it had flown out from there."

  "So it must have been you who saw me and the boy at the Stannis River the other day, near where you'd concealed the auto. You cut my rope so it would break when we tried to cross, sweeping us downriver from the car."

  "Of course. The plane crash, all those men thrashing around on the mountain—it could have ruined everything."

  "But Fairbanks told me this evening it was Whelan who searched the lower river."

  "It was Whelan he sent. Two minutes later, without a word to Fairbanks or anybody else, I followed Abe in my own vehicle. I passed him on the highway and signaled for him to stop. I told him that Fairbanks had sent me as well, and we were to explore a more extensive area. I suggested how we could divide the territory. Abe agreed, and of course he searched a section of the river miles from the auto. Meanwhile, I myself made straight for a high point where I could keep an eye out for anybody approaching the crucial terrain. Yes, I cut the rope. I only wish now the two of you had drowned."

  "Cute. I can understand your wanting me out of the way. But that little kid? That takes stomach."

  Big Mike smiled grimly, concentrating on the road ahead. My comb was feathering across something I hoped to be the holster and gun. I settled deeper and fished away.

  "Where my own welfare is concerned, Mr. Bragg, I can hardly let age enter into it, now can I? And believe me, one does not toil in the vineyard where I have toiled, for as long as I have, without proper mental toughness."

  "What did you do with Lind's body?"

  "I brought it out this very road. To an old cabin a few of us in town share ownership in. There are streams nearby. One can fish and do a bit of hunting in season. It is remote enough. I dug a shallow grave in the woods nearby. Unfortunately, I have been pushed for time recently."

  "That's where you're taking me?"

  "No, not quite. Only another mile or so for you."

  I wriggled the comb around like crazy, got a slight hold on the leather holster and gave a tug. I managed to drag it up about an inch before it snagged on something. I jammed the comb down for a better bite. My back was getting damp. I had the worried sweats.

  "What about Emil Stoval earlier today? I take it you killed him too?"

  "Certainly. He was another investigator, from the same company as the other one, Lind. Unfortunately, I was late getting on top of this latest development. I was out running errands this morning. When I arrived back home I found a rather desperate message from Allison pinned to the door. She said Joe Dodge wanted to avoid some man in town looking for him. So she was taking him up into the hills, to the cabin. I had shown it to her once, and where we kept a spare key hidden, thinking she could go there to work when she felt like a change of pace. The note apologized for her presumption, but said it was very important and begged me to keep it a secret.

  "I was trying to absorb this jolting message when I received a call from Minnie telling me about this Stoval. There could be little mystery as to what he was up to. He was trying to find Joe Dodge, but it must have been as a step toward finding Lind. I couldn't think what that connection might be, but I hardly had time to dwell on it. Things were moving too fast. I stewed about it, then decided to run over to Joe's place to see if I could intercept Stoval. And I did. He was inside, snooping. I went in through the back and confronted him. I didn't want to shoot him there in the house. I ordered him outside, but the crazy man attacked me. He fought savagely for a moment, then broke off and tried to escape through the kitchen. I could no longer afford the niceties. I put a bullet through his back, dragged him up behind the house and left him."

  "But you also left his Cadillac parked out front."

  "Yes. I wanted his body found as soon as possible."

  "I don't get it."

  "It doesn't matter, Mr. Bragg," Big Mike said with a sigh. "It really doesn't matter."

  "Maybe not. But you're a real curiosity. How many people do you figure you've killed?"

  "I don't know. Tried to sort it out once. Four hundred, anyway."

  "Jesus Christ." I got another bite on the holster with my comb and tugged, but nothing gave. My fingers were getting numb. I rested a moment, then tried to rotate the holster to get it around whatever had snagged it.

  "But time is now short for you as well, Mr. Bragg. Because of the great threat you pose. It is my respect for your prowess as a hunter that condemns you. I am not, after all, quite the monster you might suppose. I have mellowed with age. Take Joe Dodge, and Allison, for instance."

  "What about them?"

  "It is one of the reasons I wanted Stoval's body found as soon as possible. To make it safe for them to return home. I don't want to have to kill them. I like them. But young Lind's body was hastily concealed. Curious animals could have unearthed it by now. I only hope we shall be in time. That they haven't found the body yet. Otherwise, much as I like them both..."

  I made one last, herculean effort to dig up the holster. It was too herculean. The thing slid around and fell deeper into the crease between the cushions, and my near-paralyzed fingers lost the comb as well.

  "It is why I must dispose of you before we get to the cabin, Mr. Bragg. So that if they haven't discovered the body, I can allow the two of them to live."

  I kept flexing my fingers to bring them back to life. There wasn't any more to be done around there, I decided. I only had one move left. It was foolhardy and a longshot, but so was the whole rest of my life right then. The car I drive has both lock and latch mechanism embedded one over the other on the door panel. I sat abruptly, tugged lock and latch levers and was tumbling backward down out of the car before you could shout four hundred and one.

  I slammed hard onto the dirt roadway, rolling as best I could with my arms trussed behind me. Dirt and pebbles scraped skin off one ear and the side of my face, and inflicted varying injuries to my knees, leg and elbow. My head took a painful whack and my body made one last jarring flip, but I came to rest still conscious and heard the skidding of braked tires, both on my car and on the one Minnie was in just before she rear-ended her husband. I gave blessings for the moment of confusion down the road, dragged myself up and pitched headlong down a brushy gully, banging into this and tripping over that, but scrambling as hard as I could, across the bottom of the gully and up the far side until my wind gave out and I had to sink to one knee and gasp for breath.

  TWENTY-TWO

  My lungs felt raw. Not even hauling Tuffy down off the mountain had cut into my wind the way scrambling up and down with my arms roped behind me did. But as soon as I could get a half breath, I was up on my feet and climbing and slipping and pumping my legs toward t
he high ground. Over my raspy breath and the conga beat of my heart I could hear Big Mike and Minnie across the way. They were talking loudly. I know the sound of domestic argument when I hear it. Minnie let out a little cry. Parsons countered with a barely suppressed bellow. It was fine with me. The longer they stayed there spatting, the farther away I'd be. I made the top of the far rise and crashed on through the wooded brow of the hill, then was surprised to stumble out onto a dirt road. We weren't in the sort of country apt to support a grid of highways. I reasoned it was the same road Big Mike was on, and that it circled the far end of the gully I'd just crossed. That put me closer to the cabin and Jerry Lind's body and Allison and Joe Dodge. I was ready for some different company. I started trotting up the road. A few moments later, just before rounding a bend, I heard the spin and whir of tires on dirt back across the gully. They were coming. I kept on running, studying the roadside areas ahead of me to pick out likely spots for me to roll into when I heard them approach.

  It took two or three minutes before I heard them again. The gully loop must have been a lengthy one. Down at the end of it must have been where they intended to plant me and my car. I trotted around another bend and saw a column of smoke rising above the trees about a quarter mile ahead. It had to be the cabin. The distance was too far for me to get there before the people behind me. I was pressing my luck and I knew it. I lumbered heavily off the road into the brush and trees, only to have a shadowy root catch one foot and send me spilling onto my belly.