“Stop it,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”
He took the lighter away, held it at arm’s length. “That’s better. Walk back to the car—Hey, your hands are bleeding.”
I looked at my bandages. Sure enough, they were getting soaked through with red. I had broken open my palms by clenching my fists at my helplessness, forgetting the pain in fury and frustration.
I dropped my hands. Let them bleed. It wouldn’t last long. He was going to burn us to death inside the car, or something equally charming. He wasn’t going to leave witnesses.
The sunlight filtered through the leaves, bathing everything in a soft green light and giving the proceedings a sort of submarine feeling of unreality. I tried to break it by concentrating on the red of the blood on my hands. On the yellow of the lighter flame.
On the whiteness of Spot’s fur.
The Samoyed had given up on the butterfly, and was coming back to join Eve and me. His paws were silent on the new grass of the clearing. I just prayed he wouldn’t bark.
At the right distance, I raised my hands again, the signal for Spot to stop.
Then I went insane. It was a cold madness, a fury and a desire to punish that took me over completely.
“Look,” I said. “Let her go, and get out of here, and I’ll forget about this.”
He smiled at me. Good. “Who’s making offers? Look, Cobb, I’m sorry I got Mrs. Bowen—excuse me, Ms. Bowen—involved in this, but it was the only way to get to you. I have a job to do, you know.”
I looked dead at him. “You don’t want to screw around with me, Stampe,” I told him.
The smile flickered for a second. He was surprised that I knew his name. Then he said, “Such language! And in the presence of a lady, too. How crude can you get?”
“We’re about to find out,” I said, “aren’t we?”
Spot was sitting quietly on the grass, head cocked, ears pricked, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“All right, I’ve wasted enough time warning you,” Stampe said.
He started to bring the lighter toward Eve’s lighter-fluid-soaked sleeve. Her eyes got round. She’d been silent, but now she said, “Matt—”
And I said, “Hit him, Spot.” Three one-syllable words, quietly spoken. That was the kill command.
The result was amazing. Spot’s happy face became the face of a wolf, and a hungry one. He rose to his feet, took two quick strides, and sprang at Stampe from behind, knocking him forward on the ground.
I ran forward and grabbed Eve with my bloody hands and pulled her away. Her legs started to wobble, and she sank down against a tree trunk. The lighter fell to the ground and went out.
Spot went for Stampe’s throat, and got it. Or at least part of it. Then I saw what was happening, and I realized what I’d done.
“Spot, out!” I said, and the Samoyed backed away. Well trained, indeed. Stampe was bleeding from the base of his throat, but he was alive. I ran over and looked at the damage. Spot had taken hold of Stampe’s throat but had obeyed the order to stop before he tore it out.
I leaned a forearm across Stampe’s throat, to keep him from messing around once he got over his shock, then looked at the sun’s rays filtering through the trees, and thanked God.
I looked around—Spot deserved some thanks, too. Hell, I would have thanked the butterfly that had led him into such a strategic position, if I could find it.
But Spot was still on the job, making sure that Eve was all right. She was just trying to sit up. Apparently, the idea of being made a real Camp Fire Girl had taken some of the starch out of her. Spot didn’t want her to get up before he could do his bit so he started to lick her face.
He gave her a good swipe with that hot, wet bologna slice he used for a tongue. Eve giggled, a good sign. Spot made a terrified noise, and ran away from her with chagrin in his eyes and his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Eve said. She was probably talking to Spot but he was too busy eating grass to clean his mouth out to answer.
“Lighter fluid,” I told her. “You must have touched your face with fluid on your hands. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry, he would have smelled it on you and stayed away. It’ll be a long time before he licks your face again.”
“Is he going to be all right?” Eve was concerned. “He saved our lives, didn’t he?”
I nodded. “Not the first time he’s saved mine.” I took a look at Spot. He was lying in the grass with his tongue still out. He looked hurt and suspicious, but otherwise he seemed okay. I’d take him to a vet as soon as I could, to make certain, but I was already sure about one thing. Spot was a lot safer swallowing a little lighter fluid than he would have been if he’d killed Stampe. Even with a smart lawyer like E. R. Bowen, a pet who kills somebody has a tough time of it.
I’d kill Stampe myself, if I had to. He started to wiggle a little. I leaned some weight on the arm across his neck and said, “Don’t.” He subsided. I asked Eve how she was, then told her to come over and tie him up.
She didn’t follow orders as quickly as Spot did, but she didn’t dally. She got to her feet and joined us. From the expression on her face, I thought she was going to kick Stampe a few times, but she thought better of it.
“Use his belt to tie his feet. Once you do that, we’ll roll him over.” She tied him with little science but great enthusiasm. As she was finishing his hands (we used my tie for that), she said, “Poor Spot. I hope he’s not mad at me.”
“He’ll get over it if he is,” I said. “I’ll wait here with Stampe. You drive back to Hans’s and call the cops. Chief Cooper, if possible.”
“Will you be all right?” She looked at our prisoner. Stampe had been silent since Spot had dropped on him. Maybe he was figuring the angles.
I gave him another one to think about. “Don’t worry. If he gets cute, I’ll have Spot eat him.”
Spot was up and walking around again, and seemed fine. He got curious and came over to join the party. I told him to watch Stampe, and he good-naturedly sat down to do it. Stampe would now move at his own peril.
I watched Eve hurry off to get help and marveled at the beautiful economy of motion. Motion, I reminded myself, that would have stopped forever if it hadn’t been for Spot
“Listen, Cobb. What’s it worth to you to let me go?”
“You must be desperate. What are you going to do, write me a check?”
“I’ll get you the money.”
I laughed at him. “I’m supposed to take an IOU, right?”
Wheedling hadn’t worked, so Stampe tried threats. Tm not going to be in prison long, you know. If at all. What can you get me for? Assault? Attempted murder, at the worst? I’ll be out in seven years, tops.”
“Then what?” I was shooting the breeze with him because I had nothing better to do with my mouth. My brain was bubbling like a witch’s kettle. I was afraid of the evil brew it might churn out.
“I’ll find you. I’ll kill you. It’s not hard. I can make it look like an accident. Like suicide. I can make it look like anything. There are weapons all around. I’ll find you some night—”
I didn’t hear the rest. I froze at a sudden thought that had jumped from the cauldron, vile and dangerous. And so damnably right.
It fit. It all fit.
Then Stampe said, “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”
And that reminded me of Spot. He had his tongue back in his mouth now, and the happy Samoyed grin was back on his face. I remembered the dream I’d had, where he’d demanded to know why I wasn’t listening to him. I hadn’t listened because I hadn’t wanted to. Spot had solved the case, and all he’d done was follow me around and lick people’s faces.
Stampe wanted to know what I was smiling about.
“You were working for Sparn, weren’t you?”
“Sparn who?”
“I told you before, Stampe. I am not to be trifled with. I want a name, or your head is going to know what a soccer bal
l feels like.”
I think I meant it. If I was right about what I had just thought of, I’d spent a week making a total fool of myself. I wanted to take it out on somebody, and Spot had suffered enough. My best suffering was still ahead of me.
Stampe must have read me pretty well. “Yeah, it was Sparn, all right.” Then I asked him why, and he told me. It was just what I figured.
That about settled things. A low whine announced the arrival of the chief’s all-terrain vehicle. He came toward us with gun drawn and handcuffs ready.
He smiled at me. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Cobb? I’m camped not three quarters of a mile from here. Your lawyer friend should be along any minute. They patched her through to me on my radio.”
He started for the prisoner. Spot growled at him. I’d forgotten the watch command was still in effect.
I said, “Okay, Spot,” and the dog subsided.
The chief said, “Fred Stampe, as I live by bread. I owe you a favor, Cobb.”
Stampe spat. The chief turned him over, cuffed him, returned my tie, and led him off to the car. I followed. The chief invited me along, but I told him I’d wait for Eve.
“I mean that about the favor, you know, Cobb.” I told him I appreciated it. “Okay, then,” he said. “You and Ms. Bowen meet me at headquarters as soon as you get fixed up.”
I said we would, and he drove off.
I stood there by the side of the road. I looked back into the glen at the light and the leaves.
It occurred to me that maybe I had thanked God a little too soon.
CHAPTER 27
“... Let’s recap and see where we stand.”
–Art Fleming, “Jeopardy” (NBC)
“YOU TELL A WEIRD story, Cobb,” Chief Cooper said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Imagine what I could do if I could just make them up instead of having to act them out.”
We were in the chief’s office at headquarters. I had nice new bandages on my hands that almost let me forget the mess underneath them. A veterinarian had pronounced Spot none the worse for his taste of hydrocarbon, and everything was swell. Unless the chief didn’t believe my story.
“Haven’t you talked to Stampe?” I asked.
“Oh, sure. He backs you up. I buy it, Cobb, don’t worry about that. It’s just an odd one. Sparn hiring Stampe to kill you. Want to know how much your life is worth?”
Eve was at my side. She’d gone home to change, and had come back in her famous jeans and sweatshirt outfit. She had a scarf around her hair. She looked delicious. I could feel a shudder run through her when the chief asked the question.
“Tell me later,” I said.
“Sure.” The chief smiled. “But let me tell you something. You ever want anyone dead, kill him yourself. Somebody selfish enough to kill for a living is not all of a sudden going to get noble and keep your name out of it once we drop on him.”
“Stampe also did the hit-and-run on the Network man in New York, didn’t he?” Eve asked.
Chief Cooper nodded. “Just like Cobb here figured, Ms. Bowen.”
“I didn’t figure it, I guessed.”
“Well, just like he guessed, then. Roger Sparn and Grant Sewall hadn’t given up on Sewall’s coming in to run ComCab. This time, though, they were working behind the backs of Sparn’s associates, some pretty rough guys. If they found out Sparn was trying to cross them before he was ready for them to find out, it would have been Sparn who was dodging the hit men.”
I went to a vending machine and bought a cup of soapy-tasting chicken soup while the chief filled Eve in. I could have figured it out, maybe, if I’d been thinking. Grant knew me, knew I wasn’t in town just to hear a bunch of local politicians ask questions. And since he was working with Sparn, he knew the Network was working to shut the two of them down.
They moved fast. Grant called Sparn, Sparn called Stampe, Stampe caught a plane to New York (maximum travel time, including getting to and from airports, two hours), and ran Marty over. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on your point of view—he failed to kill him.
They wanted Marty out of the way for a simple reason—Marty had seen Sparn and Grant together in New York. They used to meet there, far away from the home base of either. Marty didn’t know Grant, but they feared Marty might describe him to me, and I’d make things difficult.
As I did anyway, once Harris found out about the deal that fell through, the one that precipitated Grant’s broken engagement with Debbie. I went around asking questions. On Sunday morning, I’d asked Sparn about it. He called Stampe, who’d returned to Rochester, a short drive away. I even went back to the hotel, to make myself easy to find. And an hour later, I was flying in for a landing on a slanted runway.
If you ask me, they weren’t thinking too clearly—or Sparn wasn’t. According to Stampe (and according to Sparn, too, who was in custody in Rochester), Grant had nothing to do with either of the attacks. Of course, Sparn was also saying he had nothing to do with the attacks, so we were taking him with salt. But Stampe, who had no reason to be concerned with anybody’s welfare but his own, told how Sparn had instructed him that Grant Sewall must never find out about this under any circumstances.
I could see where that made sense. Grant, it seemed to me, was quite capable of blackmailing his prospective partner into a smaller share of the profits once the deal went through. Sparn seemed to have summed him up the same way.
So Sparn panicked. For one thing, he forgot all about Marty, who was still alive and liable to remember any minute. That’s what Harris was doing, back in New York, showing Marty Grant’s picture. For another thing he forgot that I wasn’t concentrating on him anymore. I had a whole new set of problems to worry about.
The set I still had. I took a sip of my soup and wished for a sudden attack of amnesia. I’d been working like crazy to learn the answers, and now that I knew them, I regretted it. What a mess.
The chief had finished his recital and Eve was nodding sagely.
“It will be tough to make a case against Grant the way things are now,” she said.
The chief stretched his left cheek, smoothing out the wrinkles. It was a weird effect. “I know, dammit” he said. “Hell, if he’s not in on the murder conspiracy, he probably didn’t do anything illegal at all. It’s not against the law to try to take over a company. Not even a crooked one. He could say he wanted to clean it up.
I took another oily mouthful of soup.
“Only thing is,” Cooper went on, “as far as I can see, this doesn’t do a bit of good for your friend. I still like him for the other murder.”
Eve was going to argue with him. She opened her mouth, then looked at her old debating partner to make sure we were ready.
She saw me looking into the cup, watching noodles chase parsley flakes. I decided that was as good a metaphor for life as I had ever seen. And it all gets eaten in the end.
She closed her mouth again. The chief shrugged and said, “Sorry. That’s just the way it looks to me.”
“Yeah,” I said again. “Look, Chief, I’m about ready to collect on that favor you owe me.”
He smiled. “Good,” he said. “Hate to have obligations hanging over my head. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I assume you’re going to question Grant about what we’ve learned this afternoon ...”
“Yup. Going to visit him right now, in fact. Unless I decide to have him hauled in. Why?”
“I want you to be finished with him around eight o’clock or so. Then I want you to bring him to the Whitten mansion.”
“Easy enough,” the chief said. “What is it now, five-thirty? I ought to be able to think of enough questions to last from when I catch up with him until eight o’clock. But why, Cobb?”
“Because I’m going to be there at eight o’clock. I’m going to say some things I only want to say once. Okay?”
Eve wanted to know what I was talking about I touched a bandaged hand to her cheek.
Cooper said,
“Sure, I guess. As long as you don’t do anything illegal.”
“Promise.”
“All right then. But you’re not exactly welcome out there. Are you sure they’re going to let you in?”
“I’ll get in.”
It was agreed, then. Eve and I left the building.
“When are we leaving for the Whitten place?” she asked.
“You’re not going. I’ll get Shirley Arnstein to drive me over.”
“I have a right to be there. I’m Dan’s lawyer.”
“That’s exactly why you can’t be there.”
“Why? What are you going to do, for God’s sake?” I looked into her eyes and saw trust, love, and concern. I didn’t want to tell her, but she deserved to know. “Well, for openers,” I said, “I’m going to apologize.”
CHAPTER 28
“Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
—Derek Jacobi, Hamlet (PBS)
I TOLD SHIRLEY TO time our arrival for about quarter after eight. I figured it would ease our entry if Chief Cooper were there already, getting the old man curious. I didn’t mind if he got him irritated either. I didn’t care about much except getting the whole thing over with.
It had been a long couple of hours since Eve and I had left police headquarters. I told her what I was going to do, and she got angry. She said it was her duty to stop me, but she didn’t mean it. Or, rather, she meant it, but she wasn’t going to take any action on it. That was very nice of her, I thought. Still, I left her home and took a cab to Dan’s place.
I arranged things with Shirley, took a phone call from Harris, telling me that Marty Adelman had recognized Grant’s photograph as someone he’d seen talking to Roger Sparn, and, at the last minute, called Les Tilman and told him he might find it interesting to be at the Whitten house this evening.
That was it until Shirley came by. I found out an interesting thing—when you are looking ahead to what you already know will be the worst night of your life, time goes very slowly.
My plan worked. The guard (he was new since the murder) let us sail right past, with a murmur about the chief of police being there already and expecting us.
Killed with a Passion Page 17
