Death Trap

by John D. MacDonald

  “Is that what you call him?”

  “We used to call him that. Now we—I—call him Billy on account of he said he liked it better.”

  I could think of only one possibility that might account for her curious reaction. Suppose that family tradition required her to feel fond of Billy Mackin. Yet she despised him. She was cowed by her father. She could force herself to believe, on the surface of her mind, that she liked Billy. Then the subconscious pressure of her hatred for him would give her that too bland look of the unpracticed liar. And it would bring that sing-song quality into her voice, that flavor of childish chant.

  “And you like him too?”

  “Of course I like him. He has always been good to us. I don’t know why you keep asking me about him. He is my father’s very best friend and he lived with us when we were little.”

  I could see no way to penetrate the wall. And I knew it was a wall. I sensed it had been built up over a long period of time. I wished I could remove one stone and look on the other side of that wall.

  “Has Billy Mackin ever given you money?”

  “Yes, and other things too. Presents on my birthday and Christmas. We give him presents too. And Angela.”

  “Angela is very sick, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. And Billy is very upset. She’s been sick a long time. They say she is going to die.” Her manner was more that of eleven than eighteen.

  “Did Jane Ann ever go in Billy’s store?”

  “Yes. We both went to Billy’s store. Lots of times.”

  I leaned slightly toward the look of wide-eyed innocence. “Do you go there at all now?”

  “No,” she whispered, and she had a look as though a shadow had moved behind her eyes, drifted quickly across her conscious mind.

  “Why not?” I asked sharply.

  “I do go there. To buy things. Yes, I go there.” There was a shrillness in her voice.

  “Then why did you say you didn’t?”

  “I didn’t say that. You—you’re getting me all mixed up. I don’t know what you—”

  “You’re mixed up, Nancy. But I didn’t mix you up. You’re mixed up all the way.”

  “I’m not. I’m not!”

  “Then why should you be starting to cry? I’m only asking you about your father’s best friend. You ought to be able to talk about Billy Mackin without getting all mixed up.”

  “But you—”

  I leaned closer, and made my voice harsh. I punished her with my voice. “I’m not mixing you up. You can answer simple questions. Why do you hate Billy Mackin? What happened to make you hate him?”

  “He is my father’s—”

  “—very best friend. And you hate his guts. Why?”

  I don’t know what I expected. I wasn’t prepared for what happened. Her face and body went rigid. Her eyes focused beyond me for a moment and then rolled up until I could see but thin slices of the bottom of the irises. Her jaw locked and the muscles at the corners of her jaw bulged against the skin. Her hands had been resting on her thighs. The fingers curled back, almost impossibly far back. Cords in her neck stood out. Her breathing was fast and shallow and very noisy.

  “Nancy!” I said. There was no change. I put my hand on her shoulder to shake her. Her shoulder should have been soft. It was like stone. I was frightened. It looked like some sort of fit. Her color was very bad.

  I heard footsteps approaching rapidly. I turned and saw Mr. Paulson hurrying toward us. He had put a coat on. He hadn’t buttoned it. The white butcher apron showed where the coat was parted. His face was ghastly white, mouth so bloodlessly tight it was like a half-healed scar. The wind had disarranged the careful camouflage of hair over the bald head. Billy Mackin was twenty feet behind him, hurrying along in a gray topcoat, gray felt hat with small green feather in the band.

  “Nancy!” Paulson roared. She started to come out of it even before he grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. She looked dazed, as though coming out of deep sleep, looked around as though to orient herself. He pushed her with a vicious explosion of strength. She stumbled and very nearly fell. “Get on home. I’ll tend to you later, young lady.”

  She walked slowly away, not looking back. Her walk was somnambulistic.

  I had stood up. The bench was behind me. Paulson and Mackin faced me, side by side.

  “Why are you bothering my daughter?” Paulson yelled into my face.

  Chapter Ten

  Paulson was a big man, and so angry that he shook, and his voice shook. Mackin looked scornfully amused. There wasn’t a soul within sixty feet of us.

  “I told you, Dick,” Billy Mackin said. “A meddler. I thought there was something funny about him. I described him to Perry Score. He’s a pal of the Landys.”

  “What did you want with my daughter? She lied to me. She said you were a teacher.”

  “I was asking her some questions about Jane Ann.”

  “What is your name?”

  “His name is MacReedy, Dick. He’s staying at the Inn. He’s the one who was hanging around the Garson girl before the Smith kid killed her. He’s the one who beat up on Garson and the Smith kid.”

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Let me answer him one time, Mackin,” I said. “I’m here to prove Alister Landy innocent.”

  He stared at me as though I’d lost my mind. “Innocent?”

  “Why not? Other innocent people have been convicted. Not often, but it happens.”

  “It didn’t this time.”

  “Why argue with him, Dick?” Billy said. “It isn’t hard to figure. He’s trying to stir up trouble enough so maybe that shyster Tennant can get another stay of execution. That will put MacReedy here in big with Vicky Landy. What the hell did you come around and bother me with a bunch of lies for, MacReedy? You make a lousy real estate agent.”

  I looked at him as steadily as I could. “I wanted to find out what kind of a man you are.”

  He grinned at me. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was certainly disarming. The hint of the feline behind the grin was very remote. “Trying to elect a suspect, maybe? You must be hard up. Now ask me where I was at the time the crime was committed.”

  “All right, Mackin. Where were you?”

  “In the store. Back in the office. Working on the books. A dozen people saw the light on. Now try somebody else. Maybe the Chief of Police did it.”

  “Be quiet, Billy,” Paulson said. “MacReedy, I’ve got a lot of friends in this town. I don’t care what you may think your legal rights are. You may have a hell of a lot less rights than you think. You’ve molested my daughter.”

  “She was willing to talk to me.”

  “I lost one girl. I’m not fixing to—”

  “She was lost as far as you are concerned a long time before somebody killed her, Mr. Paulson. She was a lonely, mixed-up kid.”

  The butcher hands flexed. His voice was nearly a whisper, almost lost in the wind and the sound of the dry leaves. “She was evil. She was a foulness.”

  “Easy, Dick. Easy,” Billy Mackin said, putting his hand on the older man’s arm.

  “And Nancy’s spirit is broken,” I said. “She hasn’t got enough guts left to admit to herself she hates you. The Landy boy was her last chance to get clear of you.”

  Paulson raised a fist as though to strike me. He did not raise it in the way a man usually raises a fist. He lifted it high, as though he held a mace, or a crusader’s sword. He looked as though he wanted to strike me down into the earth. I stepped back. His expression changed. The white look changed to a gray pallor. He slumped and his mouth opened. He pressed a hand against his chest, under his heart. He took three tottering steps to the bench, Mackin supporting him, and sat down slowly, arms braced on his knees, chin on his chest.

  Mackin looked at him, moved over to one side, motioned me toward him. I approached boldly.

  “Lay off him. He hasn’t been well. I don’t care what games you want to play, but leave him out of them, and stay a
way from Nancy.”

  “That’s an order?”

  “I think you’d better get out of town.”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  “You’re not making any friends.”

  “It doesn’t worry me.”

  He tilted his head and looked up at me. “That was quite an act, last night. An amateur act. I don’t know what the hell you had in mind.” The grin wrinkles were very evident around his eyes. There was a little nick in his chin where he had evidently cut himself shaving. He looked compact, handsome, plausible, likable. “Actually, MacReedy, and level with me now—did you have any crazy notion I’d killed that girl?”

  I waited long seconds before I answered. I had the curious feeling of a man who, showing off for his girl, puts his hand inside the bars where a tiger is sleeping.

  “I know you killed her, Mackin. And I know why.”

  There was no change of posture or expression. I thought I saw something shift behind his eyes. It was half seen. It made me remember a job we had in the southwest, in rattlesnake country. I was climbing a hill. The sun was so bright hot that it made the rocks blaze white and made the shadows deep and black. I saw the heavy shadow in a pocket of the rocks and I thought of snakes and as I had the thought I saw the hint of movement, a slight change in the shades of blackness. I fired into the pocket. The rattler came writhing, spasming out, slithering down the rocks, thick belly punctured. I put the third slug through his head.

  This was the same. A slight shifting, a change in the colors of blackness.

  Then he turned and spat and looked at me again and said, “Where do you take that needle? Right in the vein?”

  “There’s one thing you should know. So you can worry about it, Mackin. There’ll be no execution on Monday.”

  “A score for your side? So it’ll be a week from Monday. Do you think that’s a kindness to the kid? It’s a hell of a way to buy a ticket into Vicky’s bed. You must be hard up, fella. This is friendly advice. I don’t hold grudges. Dick does. You pack up and get out or there’s going to be trouble, believe me.”

  I had nothing more to say to him. Dusk was beginning to thicken. I went back to the Inn. When I looked back, Billy was sitting next to Paulson on the bench, one hand on his shoulder.

  After I had shaved and changed I hunted up Charlie. I had one question for him, and it grew into two. “How is Dick Paulson’s health?”

  “I don’t really know. There’s a rumor he has a bad heart. I don’t know how bad it is, or if he’s had an actual attack, but I do remember one lodge thing where we were advised not to initiate him. The lodge dreams up some pretty depressing stuff. Paulson has a lot of dignity. A humiliating initiation might have made him mad. And I hear he’s supposed to avoid getting mad.”

  And I thought of my second question. “How well off is he?”

  “Damn well off. He doesn’t live up to it though, so few would think so. He doesn’t have to do his own meat cutting. But he saves plenty by doing it. It isn’t the store so much as the good real estate guesses he’s made. Then he got into scrap as a sideline during the war. Sold his yard out at just the right moment. He’s got five or six good farms I know of. And he’s got a nice fat piece of the new shopping center. He’s doing fine.”

  Once you start a train of thought, there are a lot more questions. “Billy Mackin started from nothing. I understand he didn’t make it all himself.”

  “Angela had some money. About twenty thousand, I’d guess. Then I think Dick loaned him some when he put up the new building. I don’t know how much or whether he’s paid it back.”

  “I suppose you could say Dick has treated him like a son.”

  “That’s pretty close. And you’re close to sneering, Hugh. I don’t get it. Billy is—”

  “I know. He’s a good joe. You told me.”

  “And he’s having a bad time right now.”

  “Nobody has said anything at all about Mrs. Paulson. What’s she like?”

  Charlie sipped his beer and glanced at the clock. “I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows. You’d have to meet her ten times before you could even come close to remembering her face. I think of her as being about ten shades of gray. Gray hair, dress, face, hands and conversation. I hear that long ago she was good looking and high spirited. You’d never know it. She does a lot of church work. She’s— Hell, Hugh, she’s a zombie. She acts one-tenth alive, and you think that if you yelled boo, she’d keel over.”

  “Suppose Paulson has put the lid on her?”

  “I wouldn’t figure him as the easiest man in the world to live with. Look at the clerks he’s got. They either get to be mice or they don’t stay.”

  “Jane Ann was the one he couldn’t control.”

  “I think she was just as tough as he is.”

  “One thing more, and then I’ll let you go. After the body was found, did Paulson get sick?”

  “He didn’t come back to the store for ten days. They kept it open and they couldn’t get a butcher so they closed the meat department. He looked like hell when he came back. They say it nearly killed him.”

  “It could have?”

  “If what I hear about his heart is true, it could have. But it didn’t.”

  “Then suppose somebody told him about me and told him I was sitting in the park out there on a bench pumping Nancy, and pointed the two of us out and he came storming out and I got lippy with him, that could kill him too?”

  “Maybe, if he got mad enough.”

  “Suppose that good joe, Billy Mackin, brought him out?”

  Charlie looked injured. “Billy is in a better position to know how bad Dick’s heart is. Did this really happen?”

  “Just a little while ago. My act didn’t go over with Mackin. He checked me out with Chief Score.”

  “Oh?”

  “And just rattle this around in your head, Charlie. Maybe my act wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t bad. So why shouldn’t Mackin have taken me at face value? Why all the extra suspicion?”

  He shook his head sorrowfully and clucked his tongue. “You are way, way out in left field.”

  “He’s a good joe?”

  “He hasn’t got all the background in the world. He bummed around when he was a kid. But he’s bright. Darn it all, Hugh, I know the guy. I’ve been drunk with him. I’ve played poker with him. I’ve served on committees with him. He’ll work like a dog for anything that’s for the good of the town. He knows how to tell a good story. Look, he’s a nice guy.”

  “He likes the picture of himself as a pillar of the community. He works hard at it. He— We better skip it.” Charlie stood up. I looked up at him. “I’m told to get out of town,” I said.

  “Again?”

  “Think I should?”

  “I know you won’t, so I won’t waste my breath.”

  Facts, guesses and suspicions were all jumbled in my mind. I couldn’t sort them out logically. I wanted to have things in better order before I saw Vicky again. I had half promised I would be out to see her in the evening. I had some solitary drinks and ate a solitary meal. When I tried processes of orderly thought and logical planning I realized the cumulative strain of the past several days, the nervous tension, had impaired my powers of deduction. I wondered if Vicky could help. I would put everything on the table and we would try to sort it out together.

  The thing that intrigued me most, more even than my suspicions of the wider scope of Mackin’s motivations, was the strange seizure which had turned Nancy into blinded rigidity. I wondered if this was something that happened to her often. Her father had seemed to treat it as something of no importance. But then I realized that it was entirely possible that he had been unaware of it. He might not have seen how she was from the point where he had shouted her name. By the time he took her arm and pulled her from the bench, she had started to come out of it. It seemed reasonable to suppose that this was not an ordinary thing. It seemed like hysteria. And I knew that if Nancy had been subject to such attacks, it wou
ld be known and somebody would have told me—Vicky, Ginny Garson, John Tennant, Don Higel—somebody.

  I knew that the persistence of my questioning had driven her into that curious state. And it was related to Mackin.

  I was lifting the coffee cup to my lips when I had an idea that fit so perfectly there was practically an audible click. I lowered the cup cautiously back to the saucer. My hand was shaking. I exhaled deeply. It all went with what John Tennant had said—about impressions lodging in the subconscious mind. Something Ginny Garson had said had made practically no impression on me at the time she had said it. Now it seemed important. It was when Ginny had been telling me of Jane Arm’s spirited defense of her sister’s prissiness. Jane Ann had told Ginny, without further explanation, that Nancy had a good reason for being that way. There could be a very good reason, and it could be associated with Mackin. It had to be.

  I needed the services of a confirmed gossip, some nosy person who made everybody’s business her business, and coupled curiosity with a good memory. As soon as I thought of the specifications, I remembered the mean and narrow face of Vicky’s landlady, Mrs. Hemsold.

  The wind had died and it did not seem as cold. The air was chill and tart and I decided to walk. There were no other pedestrians. Car tires made silk sounds on smooth asphalt. Mrs. Hemsold’s lights were on. I hesitated in front of the house, wondering what possible approach I could use. She would not be willing to talk to me. I could think of no plan, and decided to try to take my cues from her.

  She must have heard me come onto the porch because the light went on and the door was snatched open as I reached toward the bell. “Have you come about the apartme— It’s you!”

  “Yes. I wondered if you—”

  “I have absolutely nothing to say to you, young man. You had better go back to that woman.” She slammed the door hard and the light went out.

  I pressed the bell button. I kept my thumb on it for a long time. The door opened just far enough for me to see that she had fastened a chain lock across it, just far enough for me to see a narrow slice of her bitter old face.