“You look healthy,” Brad said.
“I am. I take care of myself. Wish most of my patients would do as well. I told Harry, when we were on Corfu together last week, that I was going to take time out, for a fishing trip, even if the whole Saga company came down with a contagious disease. Never dreamed I would be called back for something like this.”
“I take it you had no radio on the boat.”
“None at all. I went native, Smith. Went out with the real Greek fishermen—not some fancy tourist boat. I didn’t know a thing about the crash, until that helicopter picked me up yesterday. It was a shock, I’ll tell you. I hadn’t had almost a week to get used to the idea of Harry’s death, like the rest of the world. Still, I’m not surprised. A man like Harry Avery had no sense of danger, and he drove himself like there was no tomorrow.”
The waiter returned with a bottle of beer and a glass, and Johnson insisted on doing his own pouring. He drank almost half a glass, before putting it down.
“There, I feel better already,” he said. “How’s the food?”
“Excellent,” Brad answered.
“Glad to hear that. I’m starved. I’m a little in the dark about your relationship with the Averys, Smith. Were you Harry’s friend or Rhona’s?”
“Both,” Brad said, “but the relationships weren’t the same. I knew Rhona long before she met Avery.”
“I see. Naturally, when you showed up, she would turn to you. How is she taking it?”
“Why ask me? You’re the doctor.”
“But I haven’t seen her since Corfu. You have.”
“She’s very upset. She seems frightened.”
“Yes, she would be. Harry ran everything, you see. The business, home, everything. She was completely dependent on him. Not that it was a good marriage. It wasn’t. More of an arrangement, if you understand what I mean.” “I think I do.”
“But it gave her security. An emotional woman, like Rhona Brent Avery, needs all the security she can get. Pattison Blair, now, she was a natural for Harry. Has the same wild streak. Takes the same chances. Her coming up here, for instance. Damn the scandal. Damn the protocol. Harry liked that kind of woman.”
“I heard she was going to play his Aphrodite.”
“Really? I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s got all the attributes, shall we say? The name, too. It would have been good box office. Yes, that sounds like something Harry would have done. Well, it’s all finished now.”
Johnson poured the last of the bottle of beer into his glass and savoured it more slowly. “Don’t let me keep you from your dinner,” he said.
“You aren’t. Interesting conversation is good for the digestion. Incidentally, Pattison Blair was looking for you a little earlier. She asked Peter Lange if he’d seen you and he said something that puzzled me. He tried to impress her with the fact that nobody killed Harry. Does that make any sense to you?”
Johnson wiped his mouth with a napkin and sighed. “I heard she wanted to see me when I was still at the morgue. It’s a fixation she has, I believe. Her last two or three fiancés have met with violent deaths. You can see how that would get to her.”
“Fiancé?” Brad echoed. “Did she intend to marry Harry?”
“I don’t see how she could. Rhona would never have given him a divorce. Not that he didn’t give her grounds. There was another woman a year or so ago. Harry wanted his freedom then and got nowhere. Rhona liked being Mrs. Avery too well and, the Good Lord knows, she never gave him grounds. It was as if she’d been given a part to play: the perfect wife, and she was determined to play it flawlessly. But listen to me, I sound like a beauty parlour gossip. Nerves, I guess. That was a bad scene back at the morgue.”
“What did kill Harry?”
“His heart stopped beating. I’m not trying to be cute, Mr. Smith. It’s that simple. A stronger man might have survived what he’d been through—even the internal injuries. Harry wasn’t a strong man. I’ve tried for the last three years to get him to slow down. A rich corpse is just a rich corpse. But Harry had a tiger by the tail and couldn’t let go. I suppose you could say he was compulsively self-destructive. He could have sent any number of assistants out on that aerial survey, but he had to do it himself and it had to be in that Greek’s hybrid plane.”
“A death wish?” Brad asked.
“Hell, no! Not Harry Avery. I never knew a man who wanted to live more, do more, and be more, than Harry Avery. He was a bigger fantasy than anything he put on the screen. Ah, here comes my dinner. Excuse me, Mr. Smith, but I’m hungry.”
The doctor dug into his food with a zest that bore out the statement. Brad let him eat in silence, while he absorbed this new information on Harry and Rhona. Rhona hadn’t seemed the dependent type, when he lived with her, but that was a long time ago and Harry Avery wasn’t a boy just out of high school and learning his way with the opposite sex. But the interesting thing was what the doctor had told him about Harry’s physical condition, and the cause of his death.
“Did Harry use drugs?” he asked.
Johnson’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Why do you ask that?” he demanded.
“Because so many people do these days. If Harry was burning the candle at both ends, he might have needed stimulation. Drugs can distort reality and alter judgement.”
“You’re damned right they can! What’s more, Harry knew that. He wouldn’t have anything that could injure his brain. Why do you ask?”
Cards on the table, Brad decided. It was the only way to learn what he had to know. “Because I was with him when he died. Only two other people know that—Rhona and Brooks Martins. I found him in a coma. He came out of it for a few minutes, just before his heart gave out. He wanted me to give him an injection, from a syringe he had in a leather case in his coat pocket. I thought it was something for the pain.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“Yes. It didn’t seem to help.”
“Of course not. A dying man will grasp at any straw, I guess. That injection was a vitamin concentrate. I fixed it for him myself. He was sensitive about it—didn’t want anyone to know he took it. That image of his—Superman Avery. That’s all it was, Smith.”
“Then I didn’t—” Brad caught himself in time, before he completed the thought aloud. I didn’t kill Harry. He took a quick swallow of coffee to cover the release of tension. In a controlled voice, he added: “I’m glad. I thought maybe I did the wrong thing.”
“Forget it. It made no difference one way or the other. Remember, Harry was wandering around, out there in the mountains, for four days, with a shattered arm and a broken rib cage. No food, no shelter, no sense of direction. The crash should have killed him, the shock could have killed him. All that kept him going was that tremendous will and he was only mortal after all. They don’t have the equipment here for a full autopsy and I haven’t asked for one. Mrs. Avery doesn’t want it and I think she’s wise. I’ll spell it out for you once and for all. Harry’s heart was a joke, Smith. It was like an over-driven motorcycle engine, trying to power a Maserati racer. He just couldn’t keep up with himself. Tell that to Pattison Blair if you see her. I hate to keep repeating myself.”
“And there’s to be no autopsy?”
“Why should there be? There’s been enough publicity already. The sooner he gets buried, the better it will be for all concerned. Morbidity is the curse of the masses, and Harry’s been headline news too long. Death is final. The living need the chance to put it behind them and get on with life. I hope I’m not shocking you.”
“Not at all. You’re educating me,” Brad said.
“Good. I judge a man’s intelligence by the degree of things he knows that he doesn’t know. Harry Avery had a good life—exactly the kind of life he wanted for himself.”
Brad pushed back his chair and came to his feet.
“You haven’t had your dessert,” Johnson said.
“Not on my diet. Besides, I have to see about arranging transportation back to Ath
ens.”
“Fly back with me if you wish. I’m going back with the body, in an army transport, tomorrow. Check with me in the morning and I’ll let you know the take-off time.”
“I may do that,” Brad said.
“I’ll be looking for you. Plenty of room if you don’t mind the coffins. I think they’re shipping back that police captain and the anarchist who killed him, in the same plane. It’s a quick flight.”
“It’s a deal,” Brad said.
Vitamins. Brad left the dining room with the comforting thought that he hadn’t contributed to Harry’s death. What was it Harry had told him to tell Martins? Mission accomplished? He could report back to Rhona now, with the same statement. As for the flight back, riding in an army transport, with dead men, was no new experience. The touchy thing was what he would have to do about Katerina Brisos. He would have to tell her about Stephanos and make her understand that nobody was to blame. Nobody could have stopped the boy from killing Koumaris at any cost. She was Greek; she would probably understand. She was also human and alone.
Somebody had turned on the canned music in the lounge and Elvis Presley was singing about a tragedy in the Chicago ghetto to a scattering of people who weren’t listening. Brad ordered his coffee to be sent up to his room, then bought some cigarettes in the lobby. He was getting his change, when Brooks Martins came in, with a stocky male companion he introduced as Sam McKeough from the embassy.
“I’ve convinced Lieutenant Zervios that you’re on the staff with McKeough,” he advised. “We’re flying back to Athens in the morning. You shouldn’t have any trouble.”
Smith grinned. “That’s white of you,” he said.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean that you may not get into trouble, after Zervios has time to check you out. Keep in touch. I may have a proposition for you.”
“Riding shotgun again?” Brad asked. “No, thanks. I’ve got all the fight out of my system.”
“I doubt that. Anyway, look me up in Athens. I still owe you a dinner.”
“I’ve eaten,” Brad said and walked quickly to the elevator. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Pattison Blair coming in the front entrance, as he stepped into the cage. She would nail Dr. Johnson in the dining room, he reflected, and hoped the doctor was through the main course by this time. Pattison Blair looked determined. The elevator doors closed and he went upstairs, to catch up on a lot of lost sleep.
Key in hand, he approached the door of his room. He inserted the key and turned the lock. The door didn’t open. When the waiter arrived with the coffee, Brad was examining the key. The number on the tab matched the number on the door. The door should open.
“Trouble, sir?” the waiter asked.
“I think the lock’s jammed,” Brad said.
“Let me try it, sir.”
Balancing the tray with one hand, the waiter re-inserted the key and the door opened easily.
“You must have the touch,” Brad said.
The waiter switched on the light. “You must have left the door unlocked, sir,” he said. “Shall I put the tray on the coffee table?”
“That seems to be the place for it.”
“Yes, sir. Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No, thanks. That’s all.” Brad deposited a handful of Greek coins in the waiter’s hand and received a broad smile in return.
“I’ll get the tray in the morning, sir. Good night, sir.” When the waiter left the room, Brad locked the door with the safety catch. He hadn’t left the room unlocked—not with Harry’s fat wallet on display, on the dresser top. He crossed the room and checked the contents. Nothing was missing and so he turned his attention back to the pot of coffee. He drank the first cup with his shoes on; the second cup with his shoes off, and by the time the pot was empty he was down to his underwear and ready for that lovely mattress, which was so much more inviting than a shallow cave in the mountains. He was asleep as soon as he got under the blankets.
It was the persistent ringing of the telephone that awakened him. He opened his eyes, blinked at the sunlight streaming in through the window, and closed them again. He groped with one hand until he found the telephone and picked it up. A hearty voice boomed in his ear: “Smith? I got your number from the desk clerk. This is Rolf Johnson.”
“Johnson?” Brad repeated sleepily.
“Are you awake? Better get awake if you aren’t. It’s after seven and I just got word that transport’s taking off at nine-thirty. If you want to fly back to Athens, meet me at the registration desk in the lobby in an hour.”
“Oh, you’re that Johnson,” Brad said. “Okay, I’ll be there. Thanks for calling me.”
He put down the telephone and threw back the blankets. It was a chilly morning. Slapping his arms across his chest to stir up circulation, he ran to the shower and turned on the water. Mission accomplished, he reflected, and it still seemed a strange way to earn the five thousand dollar evaluation Rhona had put on that diamond bracelet. A billfold containing less than three hundred dollars, a watch, sunglasses—The shower was continental style with a head like a French telephone and no curtain on the door. He could see the top of the dresser as he took mental inventory—a couple of cameras and a hypodermic syringe.
Brad let the water pour over his head, washing away the last vestige of sleep. Something was missing from the top of the dresser. He turned off the water and ran, dripping, back into the bedroom. He dropped to his knees and clawed about on the carpet, finding nothing but fluff for his trouble. He stood up and tallied the collection again, until his early-morning thinking apparatus could assimilate the obvious. The leather case, containing a syringe that was still half-filled with Harry’s injection, was gone.
Slowly and methodically Brad got into his clothes. Slowly and methodically he mentally catalogued all he had learned since his arrival in Athens, until, at last, he understood why the information about the contents of the syringe was wrong, and that there was one more thing to learn before he could be certain how he had murdered Harry Avery.
Chapter Eighteen
THE VEHICLE THAT carried Brad and Dr. Johnson to the air strip was an aging Volvo. There was no commercial airport. The strip was improvised in a wide meadow that had serviced military transports in past campaigns. Two planes were on the ground when they arrived: the larger transport from Athens and a smaller cabin job from Corfu. In addition to the planes, there were three other vehicles at the scene: the van that had conveyed the four bodies, a police car containing local officers and Zervios, a second taxi that brought Brooks Martins and Sam McKeough to supervise the departure, and, surprisingly, Pattison Blair’s Ferrari. The reason for the presence of the Ferrari was quickly discovered: she had driven Peter Lange, who insisted on accompanying Harry Avery on his last flight, as a legal duty.
“I expect there will be clearances to sign before the body can be released for burial,” he explained to Martins, as Brad arrived. “Everything will go smoother if I’m on hand.”
“That’s your privilege,” Martins said. “Dr. Johnson is flying back in the plane, too, and Zervios insists on accompanying his captain. With three coffins it may be a little crowded, Smith. McKeough and I are flying back to Athens this afternoon in our amphibian. We can take you with us. Might have a chat on the way.”
Brad, laden with what he still possessed of Harry’s effects, dug through his pockets for the cigarettes he had purchased at the hotel. They were Greek cigarettes. Lighting one, he remembered Katerina and her fierce pride. Zervios was already climbing up into the transport and his grim expression boded no good for anyone. Brad nodded in his direction. “What happens to the sister of Brisos now?” he asked.
“She concerns you?” Martins asked.
“She concerns me.”
“Then we’ll have to look after her. I think I can stretch my jurisdiction that far.”
“You won’t get to Athens until this afternoon.”
“I can telephone ahead.”
“Perhap
s Smith is anxious to get back to Athens, so he can console Avery’s widow,” Lange suggested.
“I wouldn’t dream of stepping on your toes.”
“In that case,” Lange said, “why don’t you drive back with Miss Blair? She has a good, ten-hour drive ahead of her and it’s not the pleasantest of drives, for a woman alone.”
Pattison Blair stood a few feet away gazing out over the meadow, where a few sheep were grazing in the take-off path. Cloud veiled mountains in the background, completed a melancholy pastorale. At the sound of her name she looked up. “I don’t mind driving alone,” she said. “Of course, if Mr. Smith needs a ride—”
“What’s the other plane for?” Brad asked.
“The pilot of Avery’s plane,” Martins explained. “One of his fellow pilots from Corfu flew in yesterday, to pick him up. We set up this time so what’s left of the working press wouldn’t know about it and confuse the operation.”
“It’s going to Corfu, then?”
“That’s right.”
When the third coffin had been loaded into the transport, the van drove to the smaller plane to discharge the last of its cargo. Brad broke away from the group and approached the pilot. English was spoken, however brokenly, and when he returned to the others a deal had been made.
“I must be more likeable than I thought,” he said. “Here I am with three modes of transportation and I have to refuse them all. I’ve decided to go to Corfu.”
Peter Lange’s icy calm fragmented slightly.
“Corfu?” he echoed. “Why do you want to go to Corfu?”
“Maybe I think George is getting short-changed. Nobody seems to care what happens to him.”
“Why should they? He has family waiting to bury him on Corfu.”
“Good. Then I’ll go to the funeral.”
“I never heard of anything so stupid in my life! What shall I tell Mrs. Avery? She’s expecting you.”
The pilot of the small plane had climbed into the cockpit and was warming up the motor. He beckoned across the field and Brad took off towards the plane at a trot.
“Tell her to wait,” he yelled back over his shoulder, and the sound of the motors drowned out Lange’s explosive reply. Moments later the small plane moved slowly down the runway, while the men from the van drove away the grazing sheep. The last thing Brad saw through the window was Peter Lange’s bewildered expression.
Shot on Location Page 19
