Death Benefits: A Novel

by Thomas Perry

  “It’s almost over,” said Stillman. “Once we get the police to put down their coffee cups, our whole reason for being here is going to begin to fade. About all we’re going to have to do is say, ‘Yep, those are the ones.’ We’ll find out some real names, the cops here will hold them, and the authorities all over the place will have time to start dreaming up the charges that mean something.”

  Walker was frowning. “Why do you suppose they’re here at all?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Stillman. “If I needed a theory to keep me warm, I would guess it’s for the same reason we’re here. They want to get a good look at Jimmy Scully’s house, to see if he left anything lying around that leads to them.” They reached the corner of the first street parallel with Main, which was called Constitution Avenue. As they turned and started up the street, he said, “Come to think of it, I was forgetting about the other guy, the one who had similar DNA to Scully. There’s his house, too. We still don’t know who he was, but they do. We were under the impression that he might have lived around here, and it could be we were right.”

  Walker touched Stillman’s arm. “Wait. What if they leave before we get to the station? We should go back to Main and get the license number of their car.”

  “New Hampshire plate, NXV-76989.”

  “Pretty good,” said Walker.

  “Presence of mind,” said Stillman. “Work on it. In this business, you can’t get by on afterthought.”

  “Good thing I’m not in this business.” Walker held Stillman in the corner of his eye, but his reaction was invisible.

  They walked with the same quick, long strides up Constitution Avenue, under old maple and oak trees that merged above the road to form a canopy over the pavement and kept them in uninterrupted shade until they came to a cross street, then closed over them again until the next one. Walker noted their progress impatiently as they crossed Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Grant, then the streets named after trees: Sycamore, Oak, Maple, Birch, Hemlock. The houses along Constitution were nearly all from a period that had been referred to loosely in Ohio as colonial—mostly white, with two rows of shuttered windows, a center entrance with a pedimented doorway, and chimneys at both ends. It was a strange place to be doing what he was doing now: rushing to the police station to get some murderers arrested.

  He could see that he and Stillmen were coming to the side street where they had parked yesterday to look at the police station. He said, “Is there anything I should know before we tell them? Anything I should keep to myself?”

  Stillman answered, “I’ll do the lying, and you swear to it. While we were in Miami, we got an anonymous tip that one of these guys lived around Keene. We haven’t done any investigating since we got here—just looked around in these little towns to get our bearings—and we just happened to see those two.”

  “The cops are going to buy that?”

  “We’ve only been in Keene two nights, and we can prove it. No cop is going to think that’s a long time not to accomplish anything.”

  They headed for the back doors that opened onto the parking lot. Stillman nodded toward the row of shiny patrol cars. “Fifteen today. Ought to be enough for our purposes.”

  The doors opened onto a short, bare white hallway with doors on either side. To the right, Walker could see that one of the doors was steel, and had an impressive electronic lock with a numbered keypad. He supposed that it led to a cellblock, and this must be the entrance the police used to bring a suspect in from a patrol car. It would preserve the tranquillity of upper Main Street. In a short time, he thought, those two men would be taking a trip through that doorway.

  The corridor opened onto a large reception area, with a low wooden counter along the whole left side, and several plain, unmarked doors along the walls behind it. On the right side of the room were squat, heavy wooden benches that were bolted to the floor.

  Two uniformed policemen were sitting at desks behind the counter. One of them was in his late thirties with blond hair that was cut too short on the sides, revealing the ridges and bumps of his skull. The other was shorter and had a dark mustache waxed at the ends to turn upward and small, close-set blue eyes. Walker was pleased with them: they were just frightening enough to inspire confidence.

  Stillman walked up to the counter, and they both stood up. The smaller one hung back and leaned against a desk, watchful, while the tall one stepped forward. Stillman said, “Good afternoon, officers.” His voice was loud and his words clearly enunciated.

  The policeman at the counter said, “Yes, sir,” and the other folded his arms and waited.

  “My name is Max Stillman, and this is John Walker. We’re here investigating a fraud case for McClaren Life and Casualty.” As he spoke he was producing one of his business cards. He handed it to the cop, who studied it as though it actually said something.

  “What can we do for you?” asked the tall man.

  “A few minutes ago, we happened to recognize two men on Main Street. They’re wanted by police in Pasadena, California, and Wallerton, Illinois, in connection with a kidnapping, murder, and assorted other charges.”

  The policemen looked at each other without speaking, but an understanding passed between them. The shorter one went through one of the doorways behind him, while the other reached under the counter and produced a piece of paper that looked to Walker like some kind of report form and a pen.

  “Can you give me their names?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” said Stillman.

  “Did you bring a warrant for them?”

  “No, we didn’t,” said Stillman. “If you need it, the Illinois State Police can wire you one. The main points are that you’ve got two men in the coffee shop down the street from here who are wanted, dangerous, and probably armed. They’re driving a new blue Chevrolet with New Hampshire plate number NXV-76989.”

  “Description?”

  “One of them is six feet tall, one seventy-five with light brown hair, wearing blue jeans and a tan shirt with a military cut and button breast pockets. The other is six-one, about two hundred, dark hair and mustache, wearing a blue oxford shirt, blue jeans, and a dark green nylon windbreaker. That one is carrying a briefcase.”

  The shorter cop reappeared with a gray-haired man about Stillman’s age. His face was thin, with a strong chin and defined cheekbones, and eyebrows that seemed habitually stuck in a look of determination. He wore a tie and a short-sleeved white shirt with a gold badge pinned to the pocket, but as he walked in, he was putting on a summer-weight sport coat that covered his shoulder holster. Walker was even more pleased with this man. Walker had spent enough time in police stations lately to know this was the boss.

  The tall cop stopped scribbling, looked up from his paper at Stillman, saw where his eyes had focused, and turned. “This is Chief Raines. Chief, these fellows say they just identified two men who were—”

  “I heard that part,” the chief interrupted. “You gentlemen positively identified both suspects yourselves?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Stillman. “They were going into the coffee shop down Main Street, and we came directly here.”

  “You’ve seen them before? Not just a picture on a circular?”

  “Yes,” Stillman answered.

  “Both of you?”

  “Yes,” said Walker. “We’ve seen them at close range. We’re absolutely sure they’re the right ones.”

  The chief turned to the taller cop. “You’ve already got full descriptions of them and gotten all the information?”

  “Not quite, Chief.” The tall cop turned back to Stillman with his pen held ready. “What was that place in Illinois?”

  “Wallerton,” said Stillman. “But it might be quicker to call the state police in Springfield.”

  “And what murder are we talking about?”

  “The victim’s name is Ellen Snyder. You already have our names.”

  “Right.” The tall cop turned around to look at his boss expectantly, holding the paper in
both big hands.

  Chief Raines said, “Elton, get the state police in Springfield and have them verify, fax a description and a warrant.” The tall cop walked through another of the doors behind the counter. Raines said to the shorter cop, “Carlyle, let’s get some officers down there to see what we’ve got.”

  The orders were coming quickly, but they seemed to be contradictory. Walker wasn’t sure whether he should be pleased or not. He looked at Stillman, who had slipped into his expression of quiescent inscrutability. He was looking down, ostensibly at the counter in front of him, but Walker could see that his left arm was bent across his belly. He was looking at his watch.

  Chief Raines said, “I want you to get officers into position on the streets near the coffee shop. No black-and-whites in sight, and no uniforms where the suspects might see them. Nobody moves in until I give you the word on frequency two. Just keep the coffee shop covered, front and back, and stand by.” Carlyle nodded and headed for the door behind the counter.

  Stillman seemed to awaken. “Chief Raines, if I may—”

  “No, you may not,” said the chief, evenly. “Here’s how it is. Maybe some big-city police forces will burst into a coffee shop any old afternoon and arrest whoever you say, just because it was you that said it. Around here, we need to have more to go on. If what you said is true, then it won’t take but a few minutes to get confirmation.”

  “Of course,” said Stillman in the same cool, even tone. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Good,” said the chief with finality. He began to turn toward the doorway where Carlyle had disappeared.

  “But,” said Stillman. The chief stopped in mid-turn. “It’s just that I happened to notice that there seemed to be only one road out of town.”

  Chief Raines cocked his head. “Yeah. We have noticed that too. Sit tight and I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve gotten through to Springfield.” He walked off to the complex of inner offices.

  Stillman turned, walked across the open floor, and sat down on one of the benches. Walker hesitated, then went to join him. Stillman was hunched over, his elbows on his knees, his eyes on the floor.

  Walker whispered, “Is this the way you expected it to go?”

  Stillman pursed his lips as though deciding not what the answer was, but whether he was going to answer. “I was hoping they’d haul them in and take care of the formalities at their leisure. But he’s doing pretty much what he’s supposed to do, given all considerations.”

  “What considerations?”

  “He doesn’t work for us. He works for the town of Coulter. The voters don’t mind if he locks up a couple of out-of-town murderers, but there’s not much thanks in it. He’s not going to take on any foolish risks to do it.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We already did it. Now we wait.”

  Walker looked at his watch. It was two thirty-five. He sat back on the hard wooden bench and stared at the front of the wooden counter across the big room. He stared until he got to know every line of the wood grain, then stared at the smooth floor until he began to alternate the patterns in the dark granite squares and the white marble squares, first seeing them as a white floor with black on it, then as a black floor with white on it.

  He heard a door swing open on the back hallway, and stood up to walk to the center of the floor. He counted six policemen striding out the rear entrance to the parking lot. He saw Stillman’s eyes on him and nodded. Stillman’s shoulders lowered, as though the muscles had relaxed, and he leaned his back on the bench. When the sounds of engines starting and cars in motion reached him, Stillman looked at his watch again. Walker didn’t have to. Twenty-five minutes had elapsed.

  Chief Raines emerged from the door beyond the counter and beckoned to them once. When they had moved close enough so he didn’t need to raise his voice, he said, “Okay. You’re for real, and the murder is real. We ought to have them before long.”

  “Thanks, Chief,” said Stillman. He turned to go back to his bench.

  “Before they get in here, you and I had better have a talk,” said the chief. He stepped to the side and lifted a hinged section of the countertop to make an opening.

  Walker and Stillman followed him into a large office in the corner of the building. Walker had started anticipating the questions. He had been in three police stations in a month, and he was beginning to feel expert. Raines had the manner of a man who had a great penchant for getting straight to the part of a story that mattered, but whose position made everybody he ever listened to give him obfuscation, evasion, and misdirection. He sat down behind his desk, leaving Walker and Stillman to decide whether they wanted to sit, and which of the four chairs in the room they would do it in.

  “What are these two suspects from Illinois doing in Coulter, New Hampshire? What do they want here?”

  Stillman said, “We can’t say for sure, of course. What we think is that they’re here because they had a friend—a confederate in the fraud case, anyway—who lived here. He was killed in Florida, and they’ll want to be sure he didn’t leave anything that will get them into trouble.”

  “Who killed him?”

  Stillman answered, “Strictly speaking, it was my friend Walker, here.” Walker’s jaw tightened, and Stillman hastened to add, “Purely in self-defense.”

  “And he lived in Coulter, you say? What was his name?”

  “Scully. James Scully. He lived over on Birch Street.”

  Raines grunted, but Walker couldn’t tell whether it was puzzlement or a confirmation of a long-held expectation. He looked at Walker. “Has it crossed your mind that they might be here looking for you?”

  “Sure,” said Stillman.

  Walker nodded, hiding his surprise. He had never thought of the possibility, and Stillman had never mentioned it. Walker felt foolish. He had allowed the enemy to become a group of nonhuman abstractions, beings who acted only out of logic and efficiency. He had imagined them simply trying to steal the most money and gain the most anonymity because that made simple sense. Motives like hatred and revenge had dropped out of his cogitations. He had fallen into a trap that he had never known existed, and it could have killed him.

  The chief persisted with his questions, but Walker’s tension was not the fear of incrimination that he had felt when he had been interrogated in other places. He was acutely aware that time was passing. He told himself that the chief’s glacial pace meant nothing had gone wrong, but behind the voice he kept straining his ears for gunshots. The distance couldn’t be more than half a mile, he estimated. The chief had by now perceived that there was no question he could ask that Stillman could not answer instantly and flawlessly but to little purpose, so he directed one now and then to Walker. It was always one that Walker had anticipated, because he had become adept at picking out which parts of Stillman’s answers the chief would want to rephrase and repeat to Walker to detect a contradiction. When the questions came, he was not alarmed. It was what cops did.

  When he heard footsteps outside the door, Walker stiffened. The door swung open and the tall cop stood in the doorway without stepping inside. Raines slipped outside and closed the door behind him. Walker strained his ears, but he could not hear the voices, and Stillman had settled again into his barely animate stolidity, his eyes focused on the wall as though he were unaware of Walker’s impatience. After a minute or two, Raines returned. His expression was weary and irritated.

  “When you recognized those suspects, they must have recognized you too,” he said. “They weren’t in the coffee shop. Officers have been checking other shops and restaurants for over an hour, but they haven’t turned up.” He walked to his desk, took a roll of Life Savers out of the top drawer and put them in his pocket, then walked back to the door. “I’ve just sent one team to Scully’s house to watch that. But it’s not looking real good. There aren’t a lot of places in this town where two strangers could hide.” He opened the door and walked out.

  35

  For a minute after Chief
Raines disappeared, Stillman sat in his state of immobility, staring at the carpet. Then he stood abruptly. “You heard the man. We’re waiting around for nothing.” Walker noticed that when Stillman stepped to the door, he opened it only a crack, then listened before he swung it wide. They stepped quickly through the hinged opening in the counter, then out the rear entrance to the parking lot. Stillman set a quick pace until they had returned to Constitution Avenue. Then he slowed a bit, as though he was forcing his body to convey a kind of leisure.

  Walker said, “If leaving was the right thing to do, why did you peek out the door to be sure nobody was looking?”

  “Because I didn’t want somebody to give me a competing opinion that I had to listen to.”

  “Are we going back to Keene?”

  “Afraid not,” said Stillman.

  “Is there something I’m missing?”

  “It took us about five minutes of fast walking from the time we saw those guys on Main Street until we got to the police station. We didn’t even stop to get the car, because it would have cost us extra time to circle around those guys and back to Main to get it. So why did they leave?”

  “Maybe the chief was right. We saw them, and they saw us.”

  Stillman’s eyes were narrow and intense. “Suppose he is right. What would those two guys do?”

  “Beats me. Get in their car and leave, I guess. If the car wasn’t there when the police arrived, I’d say it’s settled.”

  “Right. But they’re playing the same game we are. They didn’t come here because they needed a break from stealing money. They want to get into Scully’s house, just as we did, and the cousin’s house.”

  Walker held Stillman in the corner of his eye. “How do you know they haven’t already done it?”

  “Because if we had gotten it done, we wouldn’t go down the street and stop for espresso and a Danish afterward. We’d get the hell out of here. They’re here in daylight, casing the town, just the way we did. They’re playing a game with rules that we know. They’ve stolen a lot of money, and they think there’s probably something in a house in this town that implicates them. If they get to it before anybody else does, they win. If we get to it first, they lose. You have to look at the situation and say, ‘What would we do?’ ”