County Kill

by Peter Rabe

  His white hair seemed to bristle and his voice was edgy with suppressed emotion. “Every police officer in this town has been looking for Lund. And you casually bring him in. Doesn’t that smell?”

  “Not to me. Could you make it clearer, sir?”

  “Where’d you find him?”

  “On his boat. His friend told me he wasn’t there, at first, but Mr. Lund decided to show himself and make this deal with me.”

  “But you went to the boat. Didn’t Sergeant Vogel warn you to stop asking our citizens questions?”

  “He did, sir. In a moment of unreasonable anger.” I walked slowly back to the desk. “If I am being charged with something, sir, I would like to be represented by counsel.”

  Almost half a minute of a heavy, alien silence, and then he said quietly, “I’m not charging you with anything yet. I’m warning you to stop investigating this murder.”

  “But, Chief, I promised my client I’d — ”

  He raised a hand heavily. “You’ve had the word. Beat it!”

  I looked at Lund. “I couldn’t forsee this, Skip, or I wouldn’t have promised you. I’ll fight it. I can work with the county.”

  “You’re dead,” he told me. “I know these people. Get Farini on it. You did what you could. I’m not blaming you.” He stared dully at the floor.

  And Harris asked me, “What was that crack about county? Who do you think you are, Callahan?”

  I said evenly, “You already know who I am, sir; you checked me. The word ‘county’ was used in a private aside to my client about a case outside your jurisdiction. May I go now?”

  His pudgy face held nothing but malevolence and his voice was pure threat. “Go. Check with the sheriff. I’m calling him now.” He reached for the phone on his desk.

  I said to Skip, “You’ll hear from me. Call Bud.”

  Pointless official arrogance, bred of resentments I had had no part in shaping, a small man in a job growing too big. But his local power wasn’t diminished by these lacks, and his contempt for people of less power was a nourishment he needed for his insubstantial ego.

  I drove out to Montevista.

  My client was throwing a ball to his contemporary when I drove in between the chipped stucco pillars. He was at the side of my car by the time I had turned off the ignition.

  “Pop called! He said everything is going to be all right. Is it, Brock?”

  I said, “If I’m lucky and justice triumphs.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m still working.”

  He studied me doubtfully and then his companion came over. The boy was taller and huskier than Bud and moved with an athlete’s grace, but I was sure he didn’t have Bud’s potential.

  Bud said, “This is Don Boyer, Brock. This is Mr. Brock Callahan, Don.”

  The kid’s eyes bugged. “The Rock?”

  These were the discerning ones. Not Chief Harris or those dopes at Officer Candidate School or San Francisco sports writers. These were the clear minds and unprejudiced judgments.

  I said, “It was only a nickname.” I held out a hand. “Glad to know any friend of Bud’s, Don.”

  “Jeepers!” he said wonderingly. “Holy cow!”

  He was maybe overplaying it a shade, but I needed it after that session with Harris. I said, “Thank you. Would you excuse Bud for a few minutes? We have some private things to discuss.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Natch. Jeepers …”

  Bud and I walked out of the circle of his adulation, around a corner of the house to the side yard.

  There I told him, “Bud, right now your father is being held by the police. You see, the police think your father was with this Chavez when he was killed.”

  “Was he?”

  I shook my head. “He was — doing some work he can’t tell the police about.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “I don’t know, Bud.”

  “Maybe it’s secret, do you think? I mean, like for the government …?”

  “Your father wouldn’t tell me,” I said. “So now I have to find the man who killed this Chavez so your father won’t have to answer all those questions for the police.”

  He seemed to be holding his breath. He still wore his glove and he kept pounding the ball into it, thinking thoughts he may have been afraid to voice.

  “Chin up,” I said. “We’re going to come out all right.”

  And then, from a window above us, the well-bred voice of Glenys Christopher called, “Time for lunch, Bud. Who’s out there?”

  “Mr. Callahan,” he said.

  “Well, invite him to lunch,” she said. “And Don can stay, too.”

  He went to get his friend; I went around to the front door. Glenys was waiting for me there. Her smile was warm, if self-conscious.

  “You didn’t need my help, luckily. You found Skip.”

  “I found him. What did you mean by ‘luckily’? Couldn’t you reach Ritter?”

  “I reached him halfway through his game of golf and he wasn’t very reasonable.” She sighed. “I probably caught him at a bad time.”

  “Did he refuse to speak with Harris about me?”

  “Not quite that bluntly. He said he didn’t think his one term as mayor gave him the right to interfere in the operation of the Police Department.”

  “Double talk,” I said. “Who asked him to interfere?”

  She rested a hand on my arm. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway, does it? You’ve found Skip.”

  “And he hired me to find Chavez’ killer. Can I do that without Department co-operation?”

  She stared at me quietly. “He hired you? You don’t think — ” She broke off, frowning.

  “Think he killed Chavez?” I finished for her. “I don’t.”

  “Bernie does.”

  “That’s why your brother-in-law hired me. Is there any Einlicher around?”

  “I guess.” She studied me anxiously. “What’s wrong? You seem about ready to blow up.”

  “It’s been a stinking morning. Let’s have a beer and I’ll tell you about it.”

  June was downtown at some luncheon and the kids wanted to watch TV while they ate. So Glenys and I had lunch alone in the sunroom next to the side patio.

  I told her how I had found Skip Lund, deleting the violence. And I went on to relate my words with Chief Chandler Harris and then remembered that I had promised to phone Skip’s lawyer.

  I did that and came back to the table to find Glenys looking bleakly out at the patio.

  “I shouldn’t have come in,” I said. “Now my mood has soured you.”

  She shook her head. “No. I was thinking of June. I think she’s still in love with Skip.”

  “And that makes you blue?”

  “Shouldn’t it? What is he? Look at his friends.”

  I said, “Some fine men have unusual friends. As to what Skip is — he was a self-made man earning a cool eleven grand a year when he married your sister. Who made him what he is now?”

  Her face stiffened and she stared at me angrily.

  “A poor kid,” I went on grimly, “who is earning eleven thousand a year at the age of twenty-three is not a bum. I like this Lund. He went wrong somewhere, maybe, but I like him one hell of a lot better than James Edward Ritter.”

  “You would. He’s your type — a roughneck.”

  “Maybe. Whatever that means. He’s not the kind who can live on his wife’s money without being corrupted.”

  “Who forced him to live on June’s money?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You tell me.”

  “It was Skip’s idea, moving up here,” she said.

  “Up here means San Valdesto. Was Montevista his choice, too?”

  She exhaled heavily. “I — don’t know. I suppose not.”

  From the TV in the den came the sounds of gunfire and horses’ hooves and the shouts of western heroes. “Throw down your gun and come out, Baxter! You’re surrounded.”

  Aren�
��t we all, I thought; aren’t we all….

  Tears moved slowly down the brown cheeks of Glenys Christopher and her long-fingered hands were clenched on top of the table.

  I said softly, “I didn’t accuse you of changing Skip Lund, Glenys. That isn’t what I was trying to say, not this time. I meant, well — hell — money — ”

  “I know!” She stood up and left the table.

  Money. It had brought Roger Scott into her life and probably the fink she had married. It had attracted the nothing men to her and now was breaking up a marriage in her family.

  She came back with a piece of Kleenex, and I said, “Bobby turned out all right, thanks to you. June will have to run her own life.”

  She dabbed at her eyes and her nose. She didn’t look at me. She sat down and sipped her coffee.

  From the den came the shouted merits of a crispy, crunchy, tasty, nutty, high-vitamin, low-calorie, and completely worthless breakfast food. Across from me, Glenys sniffed.

  “That Bud’s a good kid,” I said. “Gutty and honest. Handsome, too. And you’re a very attractive woman. Things aren’t all bad.”

  “Shut up!” she said. “I wasn’t thinking of any of those things.” Her voice was low, intense. “Damn you. Damn you all to hell!”

  I stared, mouth agape.

  “I promised Jan I’d keep an eye on you, damn you!” she stormed. “Oh, you sly son-of-a-bitch!”

  It was the wrong time, but I had to laugh.

  And finally she had to join me.

  Because, for sure, she had kept an eye on me, on much more of me than she had ever promised Jan.

  NINE

  I HAD BEEN warned against doing any further investigating, but what could Harris prove? If I asked some stalwart citizen questions, Harris might have a case. But the kind of people who were involved in the local life of Skip Lund weren’t people who would be likely to complain to the Department. And I wanted to talk with Mary Chavez.

  Her place, not more than two or three blocks from Chickie’s, was a brown-and-yellow frame cottage, flanking a lumberyard, smothered in bougainvillaea and geraniums. I had to park a block away; both sides of the street were banked with mourners’ cars.

  I sat there, realizing that it would be in bad taste to wade through all those mourners at the house just to ask the deceased man’s sister some questions. She had come to me after he had died, but going through those mourners made it seem different.

  I was about to leave again when a Ford pickup parked behind me and Pete Chavez, somber in a serge suit, stepped out of it and started down the walk toward the house.

  I opened my door on the curb side and called to him.

  He stayed on the sidewalk, glaring at me.

  I said, “Skip hired me. Didn’t he tell you?”

  “So? That don’t make us buddies, Callahan. Skip’s crazy, lining up with you.”

  “I’d like to speak with Mary,” I said. “Would you tell her?”

  He sneered and shook his head.

  “I have a message for her,” I lied, “from Skip. A private message.”

  “You’re lying,” he said.

  “Believe what you want,” I said quietly. “I’ll wait here five minutes. If she comes, O.K. If she doesn’t, you can explain to Skip why you wouldn’t help. So long.”

  He smiled cynically, muttered something, and continued toward the house.

  Three minutes later Mary Chavez was hurrying down my way. She was completely in black, including hat and veil. Her enormous eyes were free of tears.

  She asked in that cello voice, “Is Skip going to be all right?”

  “We can hope. Mary, if I’m going to do him any good, I’ll need all the help I can get. Why do you think Skip lied to you about going to that cabin?”

  She studied me fearfully. “Won’t he tell you?”

  “He wouldn’t. Who is he working for? He said something about a boss. Have you any idea who that could be?”

  She stared at me and then past me as a squad car went slowly by. “What are they doing here?”

  “Just cruising, I suppose. I didn’t bring them.”

  She watched the car until it was out of sight and then looked back at me. “I don’t know what my brother and Skip were doing. Why doesn’t Skip want to tell you?”

  I shrugged. “You can’t help? Do you think it might be narcotics, Mary?”

  She stared at me doubtfully. “Who told you that? Where did you hear that?”

  “Nobody told me. It’s a pattern that’s been forming in my mind. Do you have any reason to think it might be a sound guess?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Though it would be a good business in this end of town. But not Skip, no …”

  “Haven’t you wondered?” I persisted. “I should think if you and Skip were serious about getting married, you would have talked about his business.”

  “Talk to Pete,” she said. “Talk to Skip. They don’t tell me anything!”

  “O.K. I guess Skip is wasting his money, hiring me. I can’t help him — not without some help. Well, goodbye.”

  She didn’t move. She stood there in the hot sun, small, black-garbed, beautiful, and desolate.

  I turned on the ignition and started the engine. And she said, “Talk to Juanita. If she wants to help you, she can. She has to help you.”

  “Why, if you won’t? Goodbye, Mary.”

  I stalled, but no further words came from her. She still hadn’t started back for the house when I pulled away; she seemed lost in thought.

  Her brother dead for reasons unknown to her and Skip apparently taking the same road that her brother had followed. She had enough to think about.

  She was an innocent, I felt sure. And because she was, Skip had been forced to lie about going to the cabin with her brother. It could mean only that he needed an acceptable excuse for a trip that he couldn’t reveal to her. And wouldn’t reveal to me.

  I stopped at a drugstore and bought a carton of cigarettes. Harris had told me not to investigate the murder, so he would have reason to prevent me from talking with Skip. But certainly I had a right to bring a friend a carton of cigarettes.

  Harris wasn’t at Headquarters. The sergeant at the desk looked at me doubtfully and said, “Lund’s attorney is with him now. Maybe you’d better wait until he comes out.”

  “I only need a few minutes,” I said. “And I’d like to meet his attorney.”

  The man hesitated and then said quietly, “O.K. Five minutes.”

  Attorney Joseph Farini was an enormous man, as tall as I was and at least fifty pounds heavier. In Skip’s cell he shook my hand and shared my sentiment; we weren’t going to do Skip any good with the information he was willing to give us.

  “I was with Johnny’s cousin,” Skip protested. “How much alibi does a man need? You’re telling me, as a lawyer, that you can’t successfully defend an innocent man?”

  Farini said heavily, “I can defend you, innocent or guilty. I like to have as many weapons as I can in any defense. And an evasive innocent man makes a poor client. The police and the prosecution are going to hammer at your alibi — the trip. And your refusing to tell why you took the trip is a highly vulnerable point.”

  “Especially,” I added, “when you had already told Miss Chavez that you were going to the cabin with Johnny.”

  Farini nodded agreement.

  Skip said, “Mary won’t repeat that story under oath.”

  Farini asked, “Will she lie under oath?”

  “No. She’ll refuse to answer that question.”

  “On what grounds?”

  Skip shrugged. “That’s your job — to give her grounds.”

  I said, “You admitted to Harris that you told Mary that. Harris is a pretty substantial witness for the state, Skip.” I looked at Farini. “Maybe I’d have better luck if Skip and I were alone.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. I’ll wait for you, Mr. Callahan.”

  The turnkey let him out and told me gruffly, “Three more minutes
, Callahan. Sergeant’s orders.”

  Farini frowned. “What’s this? Which sergeant?”

  “The sergeant at the desk,” I told him. “Perhaps a word from you, Mr. Farini …?”

  “He’ll hear ‘em,” the big man promised. “Take all the goddamned time you like.” And, to the turnkey, “You come with me, officer.”

  Skip was smiling as they went down the corridor.

  “Must be a big man,” I said. “Where’d you get him?”

  “We go fishing together. I have a few rich friends, Callahan.”

  “All right,” I said, “he’s gone. And only this crummy private eye can hear you. What’s your racket?”

  He stared at the cell floor. “It was never that, not to me. I’m sorry I ever got into it, but I never thought of it as a racket, believe me.” He lifted his eyes to face me earnestly. “I can’t tell you. That much I still owe the people involved.”

  “I can guess it isn’t political,” I said, “and involves a boat. That could mean running booze or pearls or wetbacks.”

  No sign of interest in his face.

  “Or dope,” I threw at him.

  A flicker in his eyes.

  “Dope?” I repeated.

  “You’re wasting your time.”

  “O.K.” I said patiently, “we won’t name it. Let’s just assume for the moment that it’s illegal. Now, if Chavez was in it, too, it could be the reason he died. Does that make sense?”

  “It doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s a possibility.”

  “So Johnny went to the cabin alone. Why did he go there? It’s not deer country and it wasn’t deer season.”

  “I don’t know why Johnny went there, so help me.”

  “Maybe he went there to meet somebody,” I suggested.

  He nodded. “That could easily be. He was a real quiff hound, that Johnny. Some dame, you mean?”

  “No. I wasn’t thinking of a woman. I’ve been told that Johnny had some contact with the L. A. emigrants up here — some hoodlum contacts. Maybe Johnny was arranging a meeting with the competition — and was double-crossed.” I looked at him questioningly.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “You’re reaching now.”

  “I have to. I’m working blind, thanks to you. Do you have any better theories?”

  He shook his head slowly, staring past me. “I’ve been trying to come up with something ever since I heard about it. I heard it on the radio while we were still at sea. Hell, for a whole day Pete and I didn’t talk about anything else. And Pete’s as much in the dark as I am. But he’s going to look into it, you can be damned sure.”