Final Notice

by Jonathan Valin

  I'd been dead wrong about Andrea Gibson. She was anything but the passed-over incompetent that I thought she was, although she clearly wanted to encourage an eccentric impression, perhaps because it made it easier to communicate with those creatures known as children. And with glib detectives, too. I asked her with genuine interest whether she thought Jake was capable of shielding his brother in spite of what Hack had done, whether that would fit her “black sheep” theory. And she pursed her round lips and thought it out.

  “It's hard to say,” she said after a moment. “Jacob's relationship with his brother is intriguing—I mean, of course, from a professional point of view. From all appearances, the two of them were inseparable friends. And yet I know from talking to Haskell that he resented his brother's constant attention. Nor was it ever clear to me whether Jacob's friendship was entirely unambivalent. He certainly had a passionate attachment to his brother. But I think he was more than a little angry at Haskell, too, for allowing himself to be so thoroughly victimized by their mother. I sense a cold rage beneath that fulsome politeness of his. And to answer your question, yes, I think it's possible that Jacob would protect his older brother.”

  “Even though Haskell has murdered two women?”

  “Perhaps because of that, Mr. Stoner,” she said without blinking an eye. “Haskell was the black sheep, remember? And Jacob has had a great deal of practice blaming and excusing his brother for all that's gone wrong in both of their lives. He may not be able to function without that crutch.”

  “I hope you're right,” I said. “Because right now Jacob is all I've got to go on.”

  “In a way,” she said, “I hope I'm not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I'd like to see one of those benighted souls come out of this whole,” Andrea Gibson said. “You might do me a favor, Mr. Stoner.”

  “I'll try.”

  “If you do find Haskell, as you must, try to keep Jacob away from the...what should I call it?” she said heavily. “Don't let him see his brother die, Mr. Stoner. That's what I mean.”

  I told her again that I'd try.

  22

  LIKE BENSON Howell, Andrea Gibson had left me with a good deal to think about—none of it pleasant. It was time, I decided, for a meeting of the minds. When I got back to the library at two, I plucked Kate Davis off her second-floor perch and led her down to Ringold's office, where she and I had a chat. Ringold himself had been called downtown to talk with what Miss Moselle called the “big boys,” so we had his spare little office to ourselves. Or, at least, I thought we had. There really wasn't any way to tell what kind of bugs or peepholes the little old ladies might have planted in the room. Anyway, we spoke as if we were speaking for an audience. And what we talked about was how to deal with Jacob Lord.

  “I don't think I believe it, Harry,” Kate said when I'd finished telling her what Miss Gibson had told me. “He seems so forthright to me. Defensive, of course. Who wouldn't be under the same circumstances. But not at all the kind of person who would deliberately mislead us.”

  I fiddled with one of Ringold's number two pencils. It looked as if he'd been gnawing on it with chagrin. There were toothmarks on the eraser. “I agree that he doesn't seem to be the type. But he hasn't been entirely forthright, as you put it, with us. He lied about not having seen Hack in years. He lied about what Hack was doing up at Withrow. He didn't tell me that Hack was a speed freak when he sent me off on that pleasant little jaunt to Norris Reaves's barn. Which almost got me killed, if you remember.”

  “But that doesn't mean he's hiding Hack somewhere.”

  “I'm not saying that he is. Only that he might know where Hack is holed-up.” I dropped the pencil in the tray and said, “Kate, he's been following his brother around most of his life—for whatever the reasons. It doesn't seem probable that he'd stop now. And the truth is, we don't have anything else to go on.”

  Kate stared glumly at the desk. “This is my fault, damn it, for not digging up a clue to his next victim.”

  I laughed at her. Which was a mistake.

  Her face turned an angry shade of red and for a moment I thought she was going to sock me. “You really don't think I can cut the mustard, do you, Harry,” she said indignantly.

  “If you want to have a fight, Kate, go ahead. But you're fighting with yourself.”

  “No, damn it, I'm fighting with you. You're a chauvinist. Not an outrageous chauvinist—you've got too good a heart for that. But a chauvinist, nevertheless. And I'm getting tired of being put on the back burner every time you think it's for the best. I don't want somebody deciding what's good for me. I want to make my own decisions and I don't want to be laughed at for doing it.”

  There was no sense in explaining to her that I wasn't laughing at her powers of will or of mind. And any attempt to justify myself by pointing out that I knew more about the detective business than she did would have been scorned as a rationalization. Besides, that wasn't the reason I was being protective. There's a helluva fine line between chauvinism and what she had called “good-heartedness,” although, I suppose, it's a line that's always going to have to be redrawn between two strong-willed adults who happen to be in love.

  So I did the safe thing and the sane one. I apologized. She looked abashed, as if that was the last thing on earth she'd expected me to say, and sat back sullenly on her chair.

  “Apology accepted,” she said after a time. “Anyway it was a stupid thing for me to say. Dropping me off at the library a couple of hours ago didn't do much for my ego, you know.”

  I knew. And I also knew that we'd just missed having an explosive argument that could have sent us both storming off in a rage. I was a little proud of us.

  “Now what are we going to do about Jacob?” I asked her.

  “I guess we could follow him,” she said.

  “Yeah, but he knows who we are. And he also knows that the police are watching his house. If he is shielding his brother, he's going to be very careful about any contact with Hack. Besides, following him could be a very long process. And there's no need to point out how important it is to get our hands on Haskell before he kills again.”

  “We could get a search warrant from your friend George DeVries. Maybe there's something in the house or in Hack's room that could lead us to him.”

  “It's a good thought,” I said. “Only the cops already paid the Lord house a visit yesterday and didn't turn up a thing. What we have to do is give Jake an urgent reason to get in touch with Hack. An unimpeachable reason. Something that will send him straight to his brother.”

  “If he really does know where he's hiding,” Kate said without much conviction. “And besides, if he's gone to so much trouble to protect Haskell, what would make him bolt and run?”

  It was a damn good question.

  ******

  Al Foster had a few laconic suggestions to make when we gathered in his tiny office at three-thirty that afternoon. And George DeVries, who'd finally managed to convince Walker Parsons that it would be a good idea to cash in on Haskell before the end of the month, had a few brutal ideas of his own. But it wasn't until half-past four, when Cal Levy came down from Harrison to join our strategy session, that we got our first real break.

  We'd been discussing the merits of tailing Jake with plain-clothesmen, and tempers were getting hot. The office was so small that we were almost sitting on top of each other. And it had begun to rain around four, so it was humid as well as cramped in the tiny room. Then George had gotten huffy when Kate had violently disagreed with his plan to drag Jake into Station X and beat the truth out of him. And all hell broke loose. It was a typical DeVries suggestion, vicious and expedient. But Kate didn't know much about George or about police procedures. And the fact that he'd been calling her “little lady” since the moment we'd stepped through the door hadn't helped either.

  “We're not even sure that he knows where Hack is!” she finally exploded. “This isn't a police state where you can just pull anybody you w
ant in off the street and torture them into telling you what you want to hear.”

  Al flashed me his version of a smile and I stared at the floor. What Kate had objected to was standard police practice. Dragging suspects in off the street and subjecting them to forty or fifty hours of grilling under hot lights was all in a day's work.

  “Who the hell is this woman anyway?” DeVries thundered. “Aren't you the little lady who was going to karate the Ripper into submission?”

  Kate's face turned red and she clenched her fists.

  “Take it easy,” I said quickly. “Everybody.”

  “What's she doing here anyway?” DeVries said. “She doesn't need to be in on this case anymore.”

  “She's here, George,” I said, “because she deserves to be. If it weren't for her, we wouldn't know that the Ripper killed Twyla. Without Kate, we wouldn't have a case at all.”

  He mumbled something under his breath about women and the best place for them. And Kate mumbled something about what he could do with himself when he found the time. Then both of them curled up in their chairs and stared daggers at each other while Al and I continued to talk.

  “We didn't really search the house, Harry,” he said, plucking a fresh Tareyton from his coat. “Just the once over and a talk with the mother and with Jake. It might not be a bad idea to take another look, if we can get the kid out of the house for a time so he doesn't doctor things up or get in the way.”

  “That might not be so easy,” I said. “He seems to hang around the house a lot. Does anybody have an idea of what he does for a living?”

  Al pulled a notepad from his desk drawer. “He was a student at D.A.A. for awhile. Or so his mother says. Right now he's ‘looking for suitable employment.’”

  “D.A.A.?” DeVries said suddenly. “That's the University art school, isn't it?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well that's probably how Hack first spotted Twyla,” he said. “A lot of those art students hang around together. And since he and Jake were such close buddies, he might have spotted her at a meeting or a get-together that they had.”

  It was a reasonable guess. Hack could have begun following her after that. Watched her in the library. Cut up the books. And then...

  “We've got to get Jake out of that house,” I said. “We've got to get him to lead us to Hack. Now how the hell are we going to do that?”

  Nobody had a decent suggestion until Cal Levy walked into the room in his calf-skin boots and his Stetson, with his silver-plated .45 on his hip.

  “Sorry I'm late,” he said, swiping the hat off his head and shaking rainwater off the brim. “It's plumb nasty out there. And then I had a D&D to look after.” He glanced at the room. “Mighty crowded in here, ain't it?”

  “That isn't the half of it,” DeVries said.

  Al and I filled him in on the situation. He listened attentively, as if he expected to be quizzed on the details when we were done. Then he hooked his thumbs in his belt and said, “I think I might be able to help.”

  “Go on,” Al said.

  “Well, it's like this. We've been following up on this drug thing that Harry unearthed out in Dent. See, it struck me as kind of strange that Norris Reaves was so damn certain that Haskell'd spill the beans if we got our hands on him. Made me think he might know a good deal more about Hack than he was saying. Old Norris ain't too bright. But you'd be surprised how smart a man can get when his life's at stake. Hearing about what happened to Effie didn't shake him up none. Said he'd expected it, ever since she began hanging around with Hack. He knew that Lord was going to be the death of her, one way or another. But she just wouldn't listen to reason. What finally got him talking was the prospect of fifteen years to life for attempted murder and drug trafficking. Now that really touched him where he lived. I had a long chat with him this morning and when I let it be known that I might do some dickering—maybe knock the attempted murder charge down to assault, if he told me what he knew about Hack—he got real cooperative. Hack was in a bad way last time Norris seen him. Strung out and mean and ‘bout half-starved, I guess, from the speed. He didn't know for sure where Hack had gone after Effie give him the boot. But he said there was an old farmhouse out in Milford that Hack used to talk about when he was stoned. It was a place him and his brother used to go to when they wanted to get away from their mother. That is, before Hack met Effie. Norris thinks Hack might be hiding out there.”

  “Where in Milford?” I said.

  Cal Levy shook his head. “Don't know. And I'll tell you the truth, I ain't even sure Milford is right. Prospect of a jail cell can make an unimaginative man downright fanciful.”

  “Well, it's something,” Al Foster said. “Now what are we going to do with it?”

  “Feed it to Jake,” I said. “And see what happens.”

  “And what makes you think anything will happen?” Kate said.

  “A little old lady named Andrea Gibson,” I said. “And a theory she has about black sheep.”

  ******

  At six that night we assembled at the library—Al Foster, Cal Levy, George DeVries, a couple of plainclothesmen, and Kate and I—synchronized our watches, just like in the war movies, and set Plan Final Notice (Miss Moselle's somewhat morbid suggestion) to work. At six-forty, the two plainclothesmen were scheduled to walk through the rain up to the Lord's front door. The rest of us would be scattered at various spots up and down Stettinius. The plainclothesmen were to tell Jake that they'd had a tip that his brother was hiding out in Milford. He hadn't been pinned down, yet. But there was going to be a house-to-house search of the whole area in the morning. Jake was to stay by the phone in case Hack called. All calls would be monitored.

  The plainclothesmen would drive off, and if Miss Gibson were right and Jake really did feel that mixture of devotion, anger, and guilt that bonded him to his brother, and if he did know where he was, and if there was a childhood hideaway in Milford, then he'd lead us to him. And once he'd delivered his warning—judging by what Lester the speed freak had told me, the same warning he must have been giving Hack all his life, that admonition that was his peculiar form of brotherly love—we'd close in on Haskell Lord.

  There were an awful lot of “ifs” in that formula. An awful lot that could go wrong, as Miss Moselle, who'd been lending an ear, quickly pointed out. Even to me it sounded vaguely ridiculous—the plotting of a television melodrama. Things just didn't work that neatly in the real world, even if that neatness was a true reflection of the symmetry of Lord family life, of what Miss Moselle might term the Capricorn-like fit of Jake and Haskell's psyches.

  “I may be wrong,” Jessie said, “but it seems to me that Jacob could simply drive to a pay phone and ring his brother up, without even taking you any closer to his hiding place than that. Of course there may not be a phone in this farmhouse. Still, it's something to consider.”

  Al and George looked at me and I shook my head. I was beginning to feel a little sympathy for Ringold.

  “And there's no guarantee,” Kate added, “that Norris Reaves was telling the truth. Hack doesn't have to be in Milford. He could be anywhere.”

  “Just what the hell do you ladies suggest we do?” George DeVries said.

  We all looked at Miss Moselle, who pinked a little, cleared her throat, and said, “If I'm not being too bold, would it not be judicious to—what is the word—divide your forces? Perhaps Mrs. Lord knows something of this boyhood hideaway. I mean, of course, if it does exist. And then there's always the possibility that you might find something of value—a clue—in the boy's room. Haskell is an artist, after all. Perhaps he drew a sketch of his hiding place?”

  “Waste of time,” DeVries said.

  But I wasn't so sure. Hack had left those drawings Effie's trailer as a clue. Art or its destruction seem to run through the case like a theme. Cal Levy agreed with me in.

  “Sounds right smart,” he said.

  So after a bit of debate, we modified the plan to the degree that Kate would sta
y behind at the Lord home while the rest of us followed Jake. I was a little surprised at how quickly Kate acquiesced, seeing that DeVries, in particular, had made it clear that she'd be better off out of the way. But when I asked her, as we walked out to the parking lot, why she'd changed her mind about helping to catch the Ripper, she said, “I haven't. But if catching the Ripper means watching a man like DeVries shoot him down in cold blood, I'm willing to forgo the pleasure.”

  “That's not going to happen,” I said. “Not unless Hack makes it happen.”

  She shook her head and said, “I wouldn't bet on it. Besides I think I have a better chance of locating our Ripper at the Lord house than you do off in Milford.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But if you do come up with something, Kate, for chrissake, don't go after him on your own.”

  “I may be headstrong, Harry,” she said with a wink, “but I'm not an idiot.”

  23

  AT SIX-THIRTY, Kate and I drove through the rain to Stettinius and parked about three doors down from the Lord house. At six-forty on the nose, the plain clothesmen pulled up in a blue-and-white city car. We watched them through the rain-spattered windshield as they walked briskly up to the Lord front door—two husky men in green raincoats and khaki hats, with tough, efficient looks on their faces.

  “Now keep your fingers crossed,” I said to Kate.

  The door opened and Jake stepped out onto the stoop. He smiled his subdued, choirboy's smile and the two men began their spiel. Jake stopped them once, with an upturned palm, then pointed with his arm to the street, as if he were trying to get his geography straight. One of the agents nodded and said a few more words.

  “That's it,” I said. “They've given him the bait.”

  The two cops turned on their heels and walked back down to their car. Jake kept an eye on them as they drove off, then looked back through the door with something like resignation—as if he'd caught sight of his mother standing at the foot of the stairs. He walked slowly into the house, closing the door behind him.