John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 09 - Pale Gray for Guilt

by Pale Gray for Guilt(lit)

  "Fifty acres right behind."

  Burgoon nodded. "Probably could move it if he had river frontage to go with it."

  Tom scrubbed his snow-white brush cut and coughed and said, "Bunny, that Bannon woman didn't seem to me to be that kind of woman when I had to go out there and roust her and the kids out and seal it up. That's one part of this job I surely hate. We tried to make it easy as we could, but there isn't any good way to make it easy. She was one upset woman and you can believe it."

  The sheriff asked me for the names of my witnesses and wrote them down.

  I thought of something else. How come they had been waiting for me at the hotel? And did that have anything to do with LaFrance's evasiveness when I had phoned him?

  "Who told you I was coming to the hotel, Sheriff?"

  "Wasn't it Freddy dug that up, Tom?" Burgoon asked. When Tom nodded, Burgoon said, "Didn't you say you were coming here to see Press LaFrance? Then, that answers it, sure enough. Freddy Hazzard is Press's nephew, his sister's eldest boy. He's my youngest deputy, mister. You saw him at the hotel, the lanky one."

  "Is he the son of one of your County Commissioners?"

  "Sure is. Monk's boy. But that's got no bearing on me taking him on. Freddy came out of service with a good record in the M.P and he earns his pay right down the line."

  "Didn't somebody say that it was somebody named Freddy who found the body?"

  "That's right. On a routine patrol at nine thirty. You see, I had a note for Bannon from his missus, and she'd left a suitcase here for him, and I didn't know but what Bannon might hitch a ride to his place or come by boat or something. She'd said he was planning to be back Friday or Saturday, so I had the boys keeping an eye on it out there off and on." He peered at me. "You getting at something?"

  "I don't know, Sheriff. I'm going to check out all right. You have a hunch I will, and you hate to admit it to yourself because it's such a nice neat painless little case."

  He slapped his hand on the desk top. "But why would some other damned fool, if somebody else besides you did it, why would they want to pick you for it? They should know there was a chance you'd be in the clear. Why not some description to fit somebody we'd look for and never find?"

  "Suppose this person heard, second hand, that I had a theory somebody had done too good a job of working Tush Bannon over and killed him, then dropped the engine on him to hide the traces, and fixed the wire to make it look like suicide?"

  "If you can prove you said that to anybody at any time, mister, it might be more help than this list of folks I wrote down."

  "I told that same person that maybe it was somebody who was trying to do him a favor and do Monk Hazzard a favor, by trying to take some of the spunk out of Bannon so he would leave quietly. Because the person I was talking to has been trying to get that land."

  "LaFrance?" Burgoon said, almost whispering it.

  "Tom, you think Press ought to come in for a little talk?"

  "Can I make a suggestion, Sheriff?" I asked.

  "You mean you've got another way to make things worse than they are right now?"

  "Isn't the weakest place the fat girl? She lied and she'll know who made her lie. Don't you think she could be brought in to make a positive identification?"

  "You ever been in this line of work?"

  "Not directly."

  "You got a record, mister?"

  "Four arrests. No convictions, Sheriff. Nothing ever even came to trial."

  'Now, just what would those arrests have been for, mister?"

  "Assault, which turned out to be self-defense. Breaking and entering, and it turned out I had the owner's permission. Conspiracy, and somebody decided to withdraw the charges. Piracy on the high seas, dismissed for lack of evidence."

  "You're not exactly in any rut, are you? Tom, send somebody after that Arlene Denn."

  After he left, I said to the Sheriff, "When did she make that statement?"

  "Saturday, starting about... maybe eleven in the morning."

  "Did you try to have me picked up in Lauderdale?"

  "Sure did."

  "And Deputy Hazzard found out yesterday in the late afternoon that I would be at the hotel this morning?"

  "He got the tip last night and phoned me at home."

  "Did he have any objections to the way you set it up to take me?"

  "Well... he did say maybe if I stationed him across there, like on the roof of the service station with a carbine, it would be good insurance if you smelled something and decided not to go into the hotel at all." He shook his head. "Freddy is a good boy. It doesn't fit the way you want me to think it fits."

  "I'm not trying to sell you anything."

  In twenty minutes Tom brought her in. She stopped abruptly just inside the door and gave me a single glassy blue look and looked away. She wore a paint-spattered man's T-shirt hanging outside her bulging jeans, and apparently nothing under the T-shirt.

  "Move over near Tom and let her set in that chair," he said to me. She sat and stared at Burgoon, her face so vapid she looked dimwitted.

  "Now then, Arlie," said Burgoon, "we had a nice talk day before yesterday and you helped us a lot and we appreciate it. Now, don't you be nervous. There's another part of it you've got to do. Do you know that man setting over there by Tom."

  "... Yes sir."

  "What's his name, Arlie?"

  "The one I told you about. Mr. MeGee."

  "Now, you turn and look at him and be sure and if you, are sure it's the man you saw dropping that engine onto Mr. Bannon, you point your finger at him and you say, 'That's the same man.' "

  She turned and she looked at the wall about a foot over my head and stabbed a finger at me and said, "That's the same man."

  "You had a clear view of him on the morning of December seventeenth? No chance of a mistake?"

  "No Sir!"

  'Now, don't be nervous. You're doing just fine. We've got another little problem you can help us with. It turns out Mr. McGee was way down in Fort Lauderdale that same identical morning at the same time you think you saw him, and he was on a boat with some very important people. A federal judge and a state senator and a famous surgeon, and they say he. was right there at that same time. Now, Arlie, just how in the wide world are we going to get around that?"

  She stared fixedly at him, her mouth sagging open. "Arlie, are those big people lying and are you the one telling the truth, so help you God?"

  "I saw what I saw."

  "Who told you to make up these lies, Arlie?"

  "I told you what I saw."

  "Now, Arlie, you recall what I said before, about you having the right to be represented by a lawyer and so on?"

  "So?"

  "I'm telling you again, girl. You don't have to answer any questions. Because I think I'm going to hold you and book you."

  She shrugged plump shoulders. "Do what you feel like."

  Crickety little Burgoon glanced over at Tom and then looked at the fat girl again. "Girl, I don't think you rightly know just how much trouble you're asking for. You see, I know you're lying."

  Tom, responding to his signal, came in on cue. "Bunny, why in God's name you being so kindly to this fat dumb slut? Let me run her on out to the stockade and turn her over to Miss Mary. Leave her out there three or four days and Miss Mary would purely enjoy sweatin' off fifteen pounds of slop and teaching her some manners. She'd have a nice attitude when you have her brought back in."

  Arlene Denn turned and stared at Tom. She bit her lip and swallowed and looked back at Burgoon, who said, "Now, if we have to come to that, Tom, we'll come to that. But this isn't any ninety-day county case. And this isn't any one to five up to the state women's prison. What the law of the State of Florida says is that giving false testimony in a capital case, or withholding evidence in a capital case is punishable by a maximum sentence of imprisonment for the rest of her natural life."

  She stiffened as much as her figure permitted, sat up straight and said, "You've got to be kidding,
Sheriff!"

  "You know how to read, girl?"

  "Of course I know how to read!"

  He dug a battered manual out of a desk drawer, licked his thumb and found the right page. He handed it across to her. "Second paragraph down. That there is sort of a short form of everything against the law. It's what new deputies have to study up on and pass a test."

  She read it and handed the manual back. She looked over at me. The look of vacuous stupidity was gone, and I realized it was the mask she wore for the world she was in.

  "Now, without me saying I would change my story, Sheriff, let's suppose I did. What would happen to me?"

  "Would the new story be the exact truth, Arlie?"

  "Let's say it would be."

  "Would it have you out there seeing anything at all?"

  "Let's say it would have me seeing somebody else instead of Mr. McGee. Let's say that when I looked in the window, Mr. McGee and Mrs. Bannon were just talking."

  Burgoon said, "What do you think, Tom?"

  "I think she ought to do some laundry work for Miss Mary for thirty days."

  "Maybe. Maybe not. I'd say it's going to depend on why she showed up with those lies."

  "Regardless," said Arlie, "would you bust me for any more than thirty days?"

  "Only if it turns out you're telling more lies. We are going to check this new one out every way there is, girl."

  "Okay then, here is the way it really was..." The sheriff told her to wait a moment. He spoke into his intercom and got hold of Willie and told him to bring in some fresh tape, and told him the Denn girl was changing her story, and stop the transcript on the old story. Willie groaned audibly. He came in with the fresh tape, took the old one off the machine and set it for record.

  "It's mostly all still good what I said before," Arlene said. "I just have to change some parts. I mean it would save doing the whole question bit right from the start, wouldn't it?"

  "Then, save that tape, Willie," said Bunny Burgoon, "and close the door on the way out."

  He started the tape rolling, and established time and place and the identity of the witness.

  "Now, Mrs. Denn, you have told us that you wish to change portions of your previous statement."

  "Just two... no, three parts."

  "What would be the first change?"

  "I didn't hear anybody say anything that sounded like Jan. The two men were mad at each other, but I didn't hear any word like that."

  "And what is the second change you wish to make?"

  "What if you decide to protect your own and throw me to the dogs, Sheriff?"

  "What is the second change you wish to make?"

  "Well... it wasn't Mr. McGee I saw. The man I saw did everything in the other statement the way I told it. But it was Deputy Sheriff Freddy Hazzard."

  "Oh, God damn it!" said Tom.

  "Hush up," said Bunny.

  "And the third change?"

  "I looked in the window back in October but they were just talking. Drinking tea. That was all."

  "Now, hold it a minute, girl. Tom, you go tell Walker and Englert to pick Freddy up and bring him back here and... Damn it, tell them to take his weapon and put him in the interrogation room and hold him until I can get around to him. When does he come on duty, Tom?"

  "I think tonight he's on the eight to eight again. But you know Freddy."

  "Sheriff?" the girl said as Tom left the office. "You weren't having me on, were you? About how big I could get busted for telling something that didn't happen?"

  "I never said a truer thing in my life, Mrs. Denn."

  "Why box me?" I asked her.

  The vacant blue look she gave me was a total indifference. "Every straight one looks exactly alike to me."

  Tom came back in looking distressed. "Damn it all, Bunny, he was out there checking the skip list when you came over the box telling Willie this girl was changing her story. And he walked right out and took off. He's in uniform, driving number three. Terry is trying to raise him on the horn but no answer. All points?"

  Burgoon closed his eyes and rattled his fingers on the desk top. "No. If he's running, there's eighty-five back ways out of this county and he knows every one of them. Let's see what more we've got here." He leaned wearily and put the recorder back on.

  "Who induced you to lie about what you saw that Sunday morning, Arlie?"

  "Deputy Hazzard."

  "What inducement did he offer you?"

  "Not to get busted for possession, and some other things he said he could bust us for."

  "Possession? Do you mean narcotics, girl?"

  "That's your word. That's the fuzz word. But all we had was acid and grass. Booze is a lot worse for you."

  "Arlie, are you and your husband addicts?"

  "What does that mean? We're affiliates with the group up in Jax. And we get up there now and then. We take trips sometimes here, but it's a group thing. You couldn't comprehend, Sheriff. We all have our own thing. We don't bug the straights, and why shouldn't they leave us alone?"

  "How did Deputy Hazzard learn you'd been a witness?"

  "Like an accident. Last Thursday night out at the Banyan Cottages there was a complaint from somebody, and I guess it would be on your records here someplace. I didn't even know Hazzard's name. But he was the one who came there. Five of the kids had come down from Jax, three of them gals, in an old camper truck in the afternoon, from the Blossom Group in Jacksonville, and they had some new short acid from the Coast that never gives you a down trip and blows your mind for an hour only. We had almost two lids of Acapulco Gold, and we just started a lot of turn-ons there in the cottage, relating to each other, that's all. At night, sometime, I don't know what time, maybe the music got too loud. An Indian record. East Indian, and the player repeats and repeats. Maybe it was the strobes. We've got one and they brought two, and each one had a different recycle time, so there was a kind of pattern changing all the time. I guess you have to know the way it was when Hazzard came busting in. We had the mattresses and the blankets on the floor, and one of the gals was a cute little teeny-bopper and I'd painted her all over eyes."

  "Ice?" said the sheriff.

  "Eyes," she said impatiently. "Like eyeballs and eyelashes. All colors. And one boy and girl were wearing just little bells and rattles. You do whatever. Who are you hurting? It was blossom-time. A love-in, sort of, and our own business. Just with the strobe-lights and the samisen music and he came breaking in because maybe we didn't hear him. Him and his gun and his black leather evil thing for hitting and hurting. You can't turn off a high like in a second. So he found the lights and ordered things in a big voice and nobody did what he said or cared. So he starts yelling and chunking people. The teeny-bopper wanted to tune him in and turn him on I guess and she started throwing flowers at him and he chunked her too. Of the seven of us he chunked the four that were turned on to the biggest high, chunked them cold, and he chunked the record player, busted it all to hell and got the other three of us finally sitting in a row on the cold bare bed springs holding onto the backs of our necks. Not scared or angry or anything. Just sorry there's no way of ever getting through to that kind of a straight. All he thinks of is busting people and busting things. And he chunked all the three strobes and broke them up. They're expensive and hard to find ones that don't overheat and burn out when you keep them cycling a long time. In my high I understood all about him. He was breaking things and hitting heads because he hated himself, and I had seen him mushing Mr. Bannon with that heavy motor, and I knew that was why he hated himself. He collected up all the grass and the three little vials of powdered acid, and he picked up all the color po laroids laying around that a boy had taken earlier to take back to Jax to the group on account of the girl painted all over eyes was a big turn-on for him."

  "Lord Jesus God Almighty," said the sheriff in a hushed voice.

  "He was going to radio for help and take everybody in and bust them, and I just felt sorry for him being so empty of love and so I said
to him that he hated himself for what he did to Mr. Bannon. He looked at me and he picked up a blanket and wrapped it around me and took me out in the night. He shoved me up against his car and I told him the whole thing, just the way I saw it. I told him he could trade in his hate for love, and we could show him the way. I could feel myself beginning to come off the high, because I began to think about it being a lot of bad trouble, and it was a poor time to get busted because of orders Roger and I had to fill. He kept wanting to know who I'd told about it, and while I was coming off the trip I got smart enough to say maybe I had and maybe I hadn't. So he said he was going to keep the evidence and think about what he was going to do, and we should cool it and he would come talk to me the next day.