Blood on the Boards

by Gault, William Campbell

  “Not in the last half hour,” Norah said. “I’m sitting here, quietly envying Sharon.”

  “I envy her, too,” Smith said, “but not quietly. What’s wrong with your tongue, Joe?”

  “I’ve been thinking of Alan Dysart,” Joe said.

  Smith’s voice was quiet. “Don’t. I thought about him all afternoon. And it didn’t do me a damned bit of good. Let’s think about the living, for a change.”

  “I’ll second that,” Sharon said.

  In the front seat, Norah’s hand came over to rest on Joe’s knee.

  The mood of the party at Ned’s was somewhat lighter than Joe had expected. He was more familiar with violent death than any of them; it should follow that he would be less moved by it. But no one at the table seemed to be mourning Alan Dysart.

  They talked of the new theater and Sharon’s contract. They talked about the crowd they’d had tonight and their expectations for an audience of equal size tomorrow. For tomorrow night was Saturday night, and that was always their biggest night.

  Kids, play acting, Krivick had called them. And true, to a degree. They were in a world of their own, an illusory world whose values were theatrical and whose reality came with the dawn and the time clock. They didn’t want to be reminded of the time clock after an audience like tonight’s.

  Joe tried, but couldn’t bring himself up to the general festive level. In a corner of the room, he saw a man sitting alone at a table. He didn’t know his name, but he knew he worked out of the West Side Station. He was drinking a cup of coffee and reading tomorrow morning’s Times.

  A little after midnight, Pete Delahunt rose and said,

  “Anyone going back to the Palisades can have a ride with me. A woman, preferably, but the offer is open to both sexes.”

  Walter said, “Jean and I will go with you. Unless Joe’s ready to go, and Leonard? How about it?”

  “I’m ready,” Joe said, and looked at Leonard.

  Leonard sighed. “Just when Sharon and I were doing so well. All right, I’m ready.”

  Joe paid the check, and they went out. Sharon lived only a few blocks away; her Chev headed up the canyon and Joe swung in a U-turn, heading back toward the ocean.

  Smith said, “Sharon finally made it, didn’t she? God knows she’s worked for it, in her own way.”

  Walter said, “I wouldn’t call Monarch the zenith. Have they ever put out a good picture?”

  “Miieeoouww,” Jean said.

  “I’m serious,” Walter protested.

  Leonard said, “They never put out anything that loses money; that’s more important.” He paused. “To Sharon.”

  Jean Hamilton laughed. “If this is a crowd of money-haters, would you drop me off? I’m in the wrong company.”

  “I’ll get out with you,” Norah said. “Let us not be unduly envious tonight.” She moved closer to Joe. “I’ve got my dream.”

  “Some dream,” Smith said. “I’ve seen better faces on clocks.”

  Climbing Chautauqua, where Dick Metzger had died. And how many others? How many unnamed, unrecorded people of the years before there was a road here, a state here, a white man’s nation?

  Chautauqua to Sunset and Sunset to Bollinger to drop the Hamiltons. Leonard rode with him, and Leonard was with him when he dropped Norah off.

  Norah said, “You boys are going home, aren’t you? If you’re not, I want to go along.”

  “We’re going home,” Joe said. “I’ve a hunch I’m in for a big day tomorrow.” He kissed her.

  The headlights of the Chrysler flashed off the apartment windows as Joe turned it around. The hundred and eighty horses under the hood murmured in the quiet night.

  Smith said, “I’ve a feeling about something I can’t analyze. Is there anything new on the murder? Or murders?”

  “I’m not sure,” Joe lied. “Krivick doesn’t confide in me completely. After all, I’m outside the Department, now.”

  “I see,” Smith said, and chuckled.

  Joe kept his eyes on the road. “What’s funny?”

  “The way you lie. You haven’t had much practice, have you?”

  Joe said carefully, “First Norah, and now you. There must be something in the air. If you were going to guess, who would you pick as the murderer, Leonard?”

  “I wouldn’t guess. I wouldn’t even care. Once a man is dead, what does it matter how he died?”

  Joe slowed for the intersection at Via. “It matters to me. Though that might be because of my training.”

  “It doesn’t matter to the corpse,” Smith said.

  “You don’t know if it does or not, Leonard. Unless you’ve talked to corpses. You’re bitter again, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m sad. Because of Alan. Why couldn’t it have been I? I’ve had a lot of years to accomplish something in. This would have been Alan’s big chance.”

  Joe had stopped now, in front of Leonard’s house. He looked over at him. “Chin up, mister. You’re still alive.”

  In the dim light of the street lamp Leonard’s smile was visible. “Yes. Yes, indeed. And perhaps, Joe, in this new theater, we can try something experimental once in a while, something decidedly not commercial?”

  “I hope so. I think Larry will agree to that. You see, I’m just putting up the money. I haven’t the background to make those decisions. But Larry, I think, is a fine, all around man. He’s going to make us all happy.”

  Smith nodded. “You couldn’t have picked a better man. Sam never really appreciated him.” He chuckled. “I apologize for my sourness. I should be mature enough, now, never to feel sorry for myself. It’s a quality I detest in others.” He got out and turned. “Good night, Joe. I wish you and Norah all the luck in the world. You both deserve each other.”

  “Thank you, Leonard. And good night.”

  Very few houses were showing light as he came back to Via and turned toward the ocean. The houses on either side of his were dark and he turned on the light in the garage before extinguishing the car lights.

  It was a gesture that shamed him, after he considered it; it had been prompted by the general uneasiness of the evening since Larry had talked to Krivick. Norah had noticed that. And who else?

  He snapped off the garage light and stood there in the darkness a moment in silent rebellion against the goblins of his imagination.

  He walked through the dark house to his bedroom before turning on a light. Brave man, he told himself. Only thirty-four years old and no longer afraid of ghosts.

  He was emotionally and physically fatigued; he was asleep a few minutes after getting into bed.

  His phone wakened him, and there was sunlight in the bedroom. He wished he’d thought of having an extension put into this room. The phone shrilled twice more before he got to it.

  It was Krivick. “Nystrom made the contact last night. It seems to be the way you figured it.” “All circumstantial so far, Ernie.” “I can get a search warrant.” “And if we’re wrong?” “If we’re wrong, so what? We apologize.” “And the real killer is warned and knows that we know the wire is missing and the can of film. I think it would be better to go in without a search warrant, Ernie.”

  “You know I can’t do that, Joe.”

  “But I can.”

  “Not legally, you can’t. And I can’t make it official for you. Nor can anybody else.” “I know.”

  Krivick’s voice was edgy. “Listen, Joe, you’re not making sense. I told you Nystrom made the contact.”

  “Have you ever thought that Nystrom could add two and two and get five? He knows I’m interested in somebody and he has some information on the somebody. He figures it must be worth money and he’s looking for the highest bidder.”

  “How does that make five? That makes four to me.”

  “It makes four if the information he has and I want is information on the real killer. Nystrom thinks I know who that is, and I don’t for sure.”

  “Well, I’m damned near sure and I don’t want you to go snooping a
round without authority and get yourself in trouble. I’ll come out. Will you be home?”

  “I will. You woke me up. I’m not even dressed.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock. What a life. Put some beer on ice.”

  Joe had shaved and was scrambling some eggs when Krivick came. Joe gestured toward the refrigerator. “Help yourself.”

  Krivick took the opened can with him to the breakfast nook. “I’ve been thinking about it, Joe, since I phoned, and you could be right. But do you really want to go through with it? What’s in it for you?”

  Joe grinned. “Don’t be cynical, Ernie. I’m a citizen. Now here’s the way I think we’d have the soundest case …”

  • • •

  It was a slow day. After Krivick had left, Joe cut the lawn and turned the sprinkler system on and then went in to scrub and wax the kitchen and bathroom floors. He ate lunch around three and at three-thirty, Norah phoned.

  She asked, “I didn’t get you out of bed, did I?”

  “I’ve been up for hours. What’s new?”

  She chuckled. “The doughnuts and coffee. I—uh—wondered if you were going to handle them again tonight?”

  “I won’t be there tonight, honey. Think you can stand it?”

  A momentary silence. “I guess. Something—important, Joe, or isn’t it any of my business?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Or late tonight. If it’s not too late before I’m through.”

  “Joe, is it connected with—with the Dysarts?”

  “No, dear. Please don’t question me.”

  “Joe, you’re lying. I can tell. Joe—”

  “Please,” he interrupted. “You’ll get yourself all wrought up again. Don’t forget to hold that house for me. Do you want me to come down and make a deposit?”

  “I’ll give them my commission as deposit. I want to contribute too, Joe.” A pause. “Honey, be very, very careful, won’t you?”

  “I will. I promise. And you be good tonight.”

  “I’ll be waiting for your call. I’ll stay up.”

  At four, he went to the market for groceries. He took his time but couldn’t manage to use more than forty-five minutes.

  He consumed another forty minutes in the barber shop and then went home to store away the groceries and beer he’d bought. It was now a quarter to seven.

  He made himself a sandwich and reheated the coffee left over from lunch. He wondered if Nystrom had phoned while he was out. Nystrom wasn’t obligated to tell him anything but he had also talked to Krivick, and told him nothing. If his hunch was right, Nystrom was going to be in very hot water.

  At seven-thirty he phoned Krivick at home and told him, “I’m on the way. Have a man there by ten-thirty.”

  “I’ll be there myself,” Krivick said. “I want some of the ink, if we’re right. I’ll check the car in the meantime.”

  “I want a man who can write shorthand,” Joe explained.

  “I can. You’re not going unarmed, Joe?”

  “No. See you later.”

  Via to Sunset and Sunset to Chautauqua and at the foot of the hill he parked in a vacant parking lot, hidden by the buildings around it from the casual viewer on the street. He walked the rest of the way.

  The front door had a cylinder lock. The rear door was a duplicate of the front. He walked along the narrow porch to a high, small window and saw that it was unlatched.

  The screen was a tension screen, held by three tighteners screwed into the outer sill. The screws were loose; the screen swung free after a slight tug from the edge. He didn’t make much more noise than a fire truck, worming through the small window.

  He was in the bathroom and the odor of bath salts still lingered in the room. He went through to the living-room and turned on a low light in there.

  There were ashes in the small, high-hearth fireplace. Joe went over to examine them and saw the small strip of Celluloid that had escaped the fire. The odor of burned Celluloid still lingered. Well, another straw, though not conclusive evidence.

  There was a chance all the Celluloid was not burned; it would make an almost unmanageable fire. He put the three-inch, unburned strip in his pocket.

  In the same pocket he had the yellow piece of cardboard he’d torn from his purchase at the novelty store.

  He went over the apartment carefully and slowly, trying to overlook no remote place of concealment. In a two-hour search he found nothing.

  He had probed the stuffed furniture, pulled all drawers completely out of their slides, examined every panel in the small den. The fireplace was open on two sides, serving both the den and the living-room. He knelt, to send the beam of his little flashlight up the dark chimney. Nothing.

  There must be a garage. He went out the back door and down a flight of wooden steps. The management helped here; each garage was marked.

  Under a litter of papers on a shelf at the far end of the garage, he found the film can. There was nothing in it but an empty reel. The metal tag that had identified it was missing, torn from the rivets.

  He continued to search the garage and finally found, in a battered gasoline can, a tangle of chrome wire. There was no reel.

  He carried the film can and the tangle of wire down to his car and locked them in the luggage compartment. Then he came back to the living-room. He put on a brighter light and stacked some records on the player and went out to see if there was any beer in the refrigerator….

  • • •

  It was a quarter to eleven when he heard the car come in below. He sat in a huge, upholstered, armless chair, facing the door. He had a half glass of beer in his hand and some Arty Shaw on the record player.

  He heard the scrape of a foot on the steps and then a pause. And then the key was turning in the lock.

  When the door opened, Sharon stood there for seconds, staring at him. Anxiety at first, and then composure came to her face.

  Her throaty voice: “Are you drunk? How did you get in?”

  “The door wasn’t locked. I walked in. I’ve been talking to Nels Nystrom, Sharon.”

  She came in a few steps and closed the door. “So have I. He threatened me. What is this, Joe, blackmail?”

  He shook his head. “Murder, Sharon. You fit it like a glove.”

  “You’re drunk. You must be drunk. Don’t make a move, now; I’m phoning the police.”

  Joe sat quietly in the armless chair, watching her. She took two steps toward the phone, and then turned to face him. She opened her mouth, and closed it.

  “I’ll phone them, if you want,” Joe said. “Neither one of us want them very much, though, do we?”

  She came over to sit down on the long davenport, facing him. “What is the—the meaning of this, Joe? You’re really not drunk?”

  “On two bottles of beer? No. Cigarette?” He held up a package.

  She shook her head. “Say what you have to say and then get out, Joe.” Her gaze was steady on his face.

  He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath and expelled it. “All right. When Dysart was killed, you were the logical suspect. You were the only one in the group who knew he was coming over to the clubhouse. You were thus the only one who could intercept him at the bottom of the slope. You met him there, on the way over, and killed him.”

  “How could I? Joe, I was standing right next to you, when the gun went off.”

  He shook his head. “A .32 doesn’t make that much noise. It makes a much smaller sound than that, Sharon. A .32 with a silencer makes hardly any sound at all. Who else in the Players would know about silencers?”

  “You’re being ridiculous, Joe. What was that noise, a backfire?”

  He reached into his pocket and took out the yellow cardboard. “This is a piece of it, a little practical joker’s gimmick called a Smithfield Delayed Action Salute. You put this into the incinerator out at the playground, after you’d killed Dysart, ditched the gun in your car, somewhere, and then came into the kitchen. If it was a new gun, you wouldn’t
have to worry about a paraffin test.

  If it was an old gun, you could wear a glove.” He put the cardboard back into his pocket. “You come into the kitchen and give us a reason for Bruce Dysart’s trip to the clubhouse. Then we hear the explosion.”

  Sharon shook her head. “Ridiculous. And all guesswork.”

  “So far. Alan thought of the gimmick, and that’s why he was rummaging through the incinerator. Larry tells us that you bought some shoes at Sam’s the afternoon before the murder. Is that when you first saw this Smithfield gimmick? Or is it an old trick of Lonnie’s?”

  She stared at him for seconds, leaning forward on the davenport. “If you really believe all this, why haven’t you taken it to the police?”

  “Because,” he lied, “I wouldn’t want anyone to go to the gas chamber who didn’t deserve it. I’ve sent some up there and regretted it ever since. Shall I go on?”

  She nodded, staring down at her hands.

  “When Alan moved in, he found the old film Bruce was saving. He probably found the record on you that Bruce had paid Nystrom to get. Bruce would go to any lengths to prevent you from marrying Alan. He threatened to ruin you in Hollywood after that last trick you pulled on Week End Widow. You told him to come over to the clubhouse and you and he and Alan would talk it all out. Is that right?”

  “It’s your story.” She didn’t look at him.

  “I don’t know what the film was about, but remembering your background, it could have been the kind of thing they show only at stags.”

  On the davenport, Sharon seemed to shudder visibly. She put her hands to her face.

  Joe felt a faint nausea in his stomach. “Alan found the record and the film and put his pieces together and made his big mistake. He had to play detective.”

  Sharon said quietly, “I’ll have a cigarette now.”

  Joe rose and gave her one, and held a light. “He had enough ham in him to relish the scene; his accusation and your denial, all recorded on the wire recorder. Adolescent, wasn’t it?”

  “The scene you’ve described is. Will you turn off that damned record player?”

  Joe went over to turn it off. He turned and stood there. “Alan didn’t know about Lonnie Goetz and the kind of woman who could take two years with him. He underestimated you, didn’t he?”