The Watcher

by Dolores Hitchens

  The place had a tomblike quiet—had had, rather, before the caller had begun pounding on the door. The eerie effect was increased by the blinds and drapes being drawn. The only light admitted into the living room flickered in around the edges of the drapes at the big window facing the bay, a watery, uncertain luster that brought surrounding furnishings into brightness only to blot them out in the next moment.

  Something about the place smelled unused, as if it were not actually lived in, though Curt could not pin the impression down.

  He padded silently to the desk and hung over it. He wanted to take something along, a piece of evidence to prove what he had found here. He could steal the books of clippings, of course, but they were awkward to carry, he had nothing with which to cover them unless he took something from this place. And suppose he met the owner on the way to his home?

  And, too, the books might actually prove nothing. Prints might be hard to lift from the rough pages, the newsprint. He had found no indication in them of their owner.

  He studied the typewriter thoughtfully. He knew that the cops could match typewritten material to the machine from which it had come.

  An idea so bold and callous that it somewhat scared him came to mind. Hell, whoever was at the door already knew somebody was in here. He grabbed a sheet of typing paper, an envelope, sat down before the desk and ran the sheet into the machine.

  Come and get me, coppers.

  I live in the flat next door to Edie Tomlinson’s sister. I’ll be waiting.

  You Know Who

  He grinned admiringly at the note.

  He took the sheet out, ran the envelope in, typed a duplicate of the address on the other letter. Hastily he folded the page and slipped it inside and sealed the flap.

  He walked out into the kitchen and listened at the door. The alley outside was silent. He opened the door a crack and peered out. He saw only the narrow, empty way leading to the bay front.

  He stepped out, pulling the door shut behind him.

  At the corner he dropped the letter into the same box. No stamp, but it would be delivered just the same. A bitter and joyful sense of justice filled Curt; the bastard had been playing a joke on everybody, the cops, the people whose kids had died, most of all Lottie who lived close where he could enjoy watching her, and now he was going to have the gag turned right back on him. Curt was whistling cheerfully as he ran up the stairs to the attic apartment.

  He went at once to the window in the bedroom, took the binoculars from under the cot, crawled into the window embrasure. He focused the glasses, trained them on the front door of the flat he had just left.

  The courtyard was empty.

  He searched every cranny before he could be sure. Then he waited and watched for more than fifteen minutes, but no one returned to the door. It annoyed him.

  There were several things he could do for kicks. He would have liked to tell Arnold. He would have enjoyed seeing Amold’s long horsy face go pudding-soft with fear, the Adam’s apple working up and down on the knot of apprehension. Arnold would be scared to death that he might be hooked into the thing and his dad give him another beating with the strap.

  Also, Curt would have liked to hang around the mailbox. He had a bet with himself, the carriers were all warned now to be on the lookout for another letter. The guy who opened the box would get all shook up.

  Cool, man.

  Of course the cops must know, as he did, that the letter was a fake. Written by a real joker. All those deaths—he didn’t remember Barbara Martin, but he was sure about Charles Carrol and Edie—all had been accidents. It had said so in the paper.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHARLES CARROL, SR. came into the police station with the haunted manner of a man carrying a sack of overripe eggs which might explode before he could get rid of them. He was about fifty. He had a small potbelly, a fringe of sandy hair surrounding a bald spot, good clothes, and big crooked teeth which gave his face a look of unexpected strength when he smiled. He wasn’t smiling now.

  He asked for Matthews, who had gone out, and got Archer instead.

  Archer took him into the office and seated him in a chair. Carrol began to talk about his son without preamble.

  “You know, this investigation about my boy . . . I lost my temper earlier today when Mr. Matthews talked to me on the telephone. I guess—well, I’m sensitive about the boy’s death. I’m the one who backed the car over him. For a long time I’ve had to live with grief and guilt. My wife, what she says about it—well, it hasn’t helped either.”.

  “No, I should imagine not.” Archer was remembering that Mrs. Carrol had become an invalid. No doubt really she wanted to strike out, she wanted to maim or kill the husband who had killed the child; but all she could decently do was to punish him by becoming helplessly sick. Archer had noticed the pattern long ago, in other people. The weak, the repressed, the conventional. Much better, Archer thought in passing, if Mrs. Carrol were to let herself go and throw a few dishes and other household implements.

  “She’s blamed me. Up until today. The nurse called me to come home, she called right after I had talked to Mr. Matthews. Now my wife is screaming that there was someone hidden in that shrubbery. Somebody who whistled, who caused the pup to dash across the drive like that.”

  “She had talked about this before, hadn’t she?”

  “I never believed it.” Carrol was peering at Archer as if Archer was apt to produce a hat and start pulling rabbits out of it. “Do you?”

  “We’re very interested,” Archer said.

  Carrol went on, “And this thing, this utterly silly question: Why would anyone think my boy might be better off dead? Now I ask you, isn’t it ridiculous? I lost my temper, shouldn’t have done that of course, but the whole thing is fantastic.”

  “Is it?” Archer made the finger-steeple and nodded over it.

  Carrol took out a handkerchief and wiped around under his collar. His voice grew lower and humbler. “I thought at first Mr. Matthews must mean some reflection on our family. We weren’t giving Charles the proper kind of care or supervision or something. But then, thinking some more, I got an impression . . . he might have meant morally. Morally better off dead.” Carrol folded his feet together under the chair. He kept his eyes down.

  Archer’s gaze took on a sudden gleam of sympathy, as if he understood the misery of the man across the desk. “And what has occurred to you?”

  “You understand, Charles was just a kid. He was like a lot of boys his age”—Carrol waved a hand vaguely—“insensitive.”

  Archer nodded again. “About what?”

  “Oh. Pain.”

  Archer said nothing, simply waited. Mr. Carrol held his hat on his lap and thought about what he must say.

  He got it out. “You see, we had had another dog. Another puppy. Not long before . . . he hadn’t been dead long. This puppy was a replacement.”

  “Something happened to the first puppy?”

  “Charles . . . wanted to teach it to swim.” Carrol shook his head in sudden denial. “But it’s too ridiculous. You can’t believe—I mean, lots of kids are cruel to pets. They just don’t understand. You have to scold them, you try to explain, you want them to see that the animal has feelings. Just like people do. You might even spank. You don’t kill them for their cruelty?” He hesitated, working on the hat brim. “Do you?”

  “He drowned the puppy?”

  “Not intentionally. He wanted it to swim. He took it too far out in the bay. Too often. And he cried bitterly when it died, Mr. Archer. He was heartbroken.”

  “How was he doing with the new dog?” Archer asked dryly.

  “He’d learned his lesson?”

  “What you’re saying then, Mr. Carrol, is that if your son was killed over some moral transgression, this is the only one you can think of?”

  Carrol nodded wretchedly.

  “Of course,” Archer pointed out, “some people can become pretty wrought up over cruelty to animals?”

  �
��That’s what I’ve been thinking. These fanatics, animal lovers, these people who write letters to the papers. Who leave money to build homes for stray dogs when they die. Old ladies with fifteen cats in a one-bedroom apartment People who get up at meetings and holler that vivisection has got to go.”

  Archer formed the steeple and rubbed his nose with it, staring at Mr. Carrol.

  Carrol showed the big, uneven teeth in a ferocious grin. “If one of them killed my boy, I’d like to get my hands on him.”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Carrol. And so would we. The trouble lies in that single word: if.”

  Carrol glanced up uncertainly. “I supposed, thinking over Matthews’ phone call, that you people had some new evidence. A witness. Or even a confession.”

  “We have a confession of sorts.” Archer picked up the copy of the letter and turned it on the desk so that Carrol could read it.

  Carrol bent forward to read, reacting almost at once with agitation and shocked astonishment. “This . . . it’s unbelievable! Here’s this man, a mass killer—and no one once suspected him?” He dropped the hat, had to bend to pick it up, then read the letter again. “There’s something here that strikes me as . . . sensational. Like a trick. Cheap. Phony.”

  “It still might be,” Archer agreed, “but I’m beginning, not to believe so. How could he pick out the three cases in which there was a possibility of murder? In which he knew the question could be raised? When all of the evidence made public classified the three as accidents? In Barbara Martin’s case, you might say, a medical mishap.”

  Carrol tapped the page. “This threat, now. There’s a silly ring about it, as if he wants to scare everyone. He wants to feel important.”

  “Read it again. It will sound different every time you go over it.”

  Carrol coughed into his hand. “I don’t know, I just can’t seem to take it seriously——” He went through the written page again. “But then . . . yes, I can see what you mean. Not a trick. Insane. The mocking self-importance of insanity.”

  “He’s been playing God, according to him.”

  Carrol’s excitement had subsided and he seemed confused. “The Martin girl, a medical mishap. I remember that case. She’d had an abortion. Surely you can’t class Charles’ death with hers.”

  The flicker of sympathy vanished from Archer’s eyes. “I didn’t. This letter did.”

  “She got herself into trouble with some rich man’s boy,” Carrol went on doggedly, “and then called on poor Doc Tatum to help her, and ended up dead, with Doc in prison.”

  “I don’t believe any of it was intentional on the girl’s part,” Archer said with some stiffness. “As for classifying your son, morally, along with Miss Martin, I might point out that this item might possibly come in handy eventually. We need to know how and why he judged these children. To some people the torture and killing of a pet might rouse a hell of a lot more anger than even the killing of a person.”

  “I suppose so. The fanatics I mentioned.”

  Archer was suddenly quite businesslike. “What we’ve asked Miss Tomlinson to do, in regard to her sister . . . make a list. You’ll be pleased to write down the names of any adults who might have known about the dog’s drowning.”

  Carrol shook his head. “Oh, heavens.”

  Archer looked at him patiently. “Anyone come to mind right away?”

  “That’s just it. So many people. Too many.”

  “I should think you’d have kept sort of quiet about how the dog died,” Archer said.

  “Well . . . yes, in a way. I judge you don’t mean relatives.” There was sudden uncertainty, mixed with thought, on Carrol’s face. He rubbed a hand over the bald spot, unhooked his feet from the chair rung, and put them flat on the floor. “My wife, I guess—she’d know.”

  “Did anyone come persistently to offer sympathy?”

  “We had a lot of that, but I’m in business, I discounted most of it.”

  “Anyone not connected in a business way?”

  Carrol, licked his lips, avoiding Archer’s eye. “I don’t want to embarrass anyone.”

  “If he’s the man we want, he won’t be at all embarrassed,” Archer promised. “We’ll keep him much too busy.”

  “Do you want me to make a list now?”

  “Anyone you can think of offhand. Go home and think some more, and telephone.”

  Mr. Carrol took out a gold fountain pen, and Archer offered a fresh sheet of paper. Mr. Carrol, after some hesitation and obvious misgivings, scratched down about a dozen names on the page. He handed it over as if, finally, he were delivering that sack of rotten eggs.

  “Anything else you want of me, Mr. Archer?”

  “That’s all for now. I’ll keep in touch. And . . . oh yes, you’d better talk this over with your wife and daughter as soon as possible. As soon as your wife feels up to it.”

  Carrol got to his feet. “What else are you doing? I don’t mean, the other cases, I know you can’t tell me that. But about Charles——”

  Archer said, ‘We have a man out now in your neighborhood, a uniformed officer, asking questions. Someone may have noticed who stood there to whistle to the dog.”

  “And remember, after all this time? It seems impossible.”

  Archer thought sourly, I don’t believe it either.

  When Carrol had gone, Archer took the list and read it thoughtfully. He consulted a city directory, making notes of addresses and professional or business lines. Then he had a check made of the local files. He telephoned L.A. Central Headquarters. He called the C.I.I. in Sacramento.

  There was no local police information on any of the names Carrol had given him. L.A. and Sacramento would take longer; but Archer had a hunch. The man he wanted didn’t have a record. Archer folded Carrol’s list and put it in his pocket, went out and got into his car, and headed for Lottie Tomlinson.

  She opened the door reluctantly and as soon as the light struck her, Archer knew. Something had sickened and destroyed her. A memory. All of that blush and aliveness, the change he had noticed on seeing her waiting for him, was gone.

  “Miss Tomlinson, I wanted to give you the rest of the day. Really I did. But I don’t have a choice. I have to move when I can.”

  She seemed to shrivel. She still wore the brown linen, the smart white pumps, but they didn’t do anything for her now. She wavered in the half-open doorway, obviously wanting to tell him to go away and leave her alone; but then she moved slowly back into the room. “I suppose you do.”

  He stepped in, pulled the door shut behind him. She made no move to offer a chair, just stood there watching him. “Can we sit down?”

  She nodded. They sat down.

  “Will you look at a list of names? Will you try to remember if your sister knew any of these people?”

  She licked her mouth as if tasting a bruise on it. “Yes.”

  “Mr. Carrol gave us these.” He leaned over, put the sheet of paper into her hands, waited while she looked at it witlessly. “Are any of them familiar?”

  She roused herself. “Yes. Several. This Mr. Winthrop owns the market where we trade. He’s a very pleasant man. He was always nice to Edie, and she seemed fond of him.

  “What sort of man is he?”

  “Oh . . . middle-aged. He has a family. They live on the upper bay somewhere, moved there about a year ago. He used to scold Edie for buying candy. He said it wasn’t good for her, and they used to argue. Nothing serious, it was mostly fun.”

  “He doesn’t sound like the one I’m looking for,” Archer admitted.

  “He’s . . . very friendly and tolerant.”

  “What about the others?”

  “This Mr. Warren—doesn’t he own a boatyard?”

  “That’s right”

  “I think Edie used to hang around there. There was a boat being built or repaired, I can’t remember which, and the people who owned it were the parents of a friend of hers, and while the work was being done Edie and the girl made nuisances of themselves until I
heard about it and put a stop to it.”

  “How long was this before her death?”

  “A few weeks.” Lottie let the paper slide into her lap. When she looked at Archer there wasn’t even any animosity, and this worried him; he’d wanted to rouse her defiance, get her started thinking, get her milling over things to prove him wrong . . . and so bring up something he didn’t have yet. But the girl was beaten.

  “You know Warren by sight?”

  “No. I’ve never seen him. Edie chattered about him, ‘Mr. Warren says this,’ or ‘Mr. Warren explained that,’ and I knew she was much impressed, always was by anyone with a great knowledge of boats.”

  “Did he offer sympathy . . . phone, send flowers . . . when she died?”

  In her dull hoarse voice Lottie said, “I believe there were some flowers at the funeral with his card in them.”

  “What about the other names on the list?”

  She glanced down at the paper, blinked as if with sudden weariness. “These two . . . Edie did baby-sitting for them once in a while. The Forsters and the Waddells. They live along the bay front, big homes; they rent the houses to vacationers in the summer, as so many do here.”

  “Of these four—Winthrop the grocer, Warren, the Forsters, and Waddells—which had she seen most recently?”

  Lottie frowned, then shook her head. “I don’t know. Mr. Winthrop, I suppose, offhand. She went into the market at least once each day to shop for our food or for snacks.” She folded the paper, offered it back to Archer.

  “Winthrop lives near the Carrol house on the upper bay,” Archer said slowly.

  “This . . . person . . . who wrote the letter”—she looked past Archer, or through him, with bitterly knowing eyes—“isn’t a family man. He doesn’t live with other people. He’s not that normal. To be like this, he must live a twisted and solitary life. He’s removed himself. He no longer even thinks of himself as a member of the human race. He has become God, the old-fashioned image of God who listened and peeped and grew indignant, who kept track of misdemeanors, who passed judgment on minor frailties and mistakes.”