“Where’s your imagination, kid? Let’s suppose, using the mail or the telephone, some old enemy dared Ben to meet him.” The usually smiling face had gone severe, as if the mind behind it saw circumstances as they had been. “Now the man, whoever he was, wouldn’t want to have it out with Ben in front of Marcy Belle and the kids. Hell, no. They’d be witnesses. So the man dared Ben to meet him on the road where the mailbox is at. Can’t you see it, kid?”
“So far.”
“Ben wasn’t one to take a dare. Don’t you believe it. Though he didn’t make it this time, he always figured he would come out on top, one way or another, overhand, side-arm or underhanded. That’s why the sneakers and that’s why he sneaked.”
An old, held-in hate showed naked for a minute through the bland shine of his eyes. “Apologies to my mother, but Ben was, always was, a low-down, sneaky son of a bitch.”
“You got a theory, all right,” I said.
Mike Day drew a breath and fixed a smile at the end of it. “Sorry, kid.” The eyes turned innocent as onions. “Talk too much, but it’s something you might think about.”
I thought about it, walking along. I thought about Mike Day in particular, Mike who could explain how it all happened. The strange car that Guy Jamison saw could have been one that Mike rented and later returned to the place where he’d left his Cadillac.
It could be, but other situations argued against my telling Charleston, who would probably dismiss my suspicions again.
Felix Underwood stood in the door of his funeral parlors, waiting for business. He asked me, “Ready for Sunday?”
“No. Seen Terry Stephens?”
“Working out on a ranch, so I hear.”
I went to the Commercial Cafe for a Coke. I was the only live one there, if ten cents makes a live one. I looked in the Bar Star, for nothing, which is just what I saw.
At home I gathered up three worn baseballs and threw at my old barn-door target, threw hard too soon and had to shag a bunch of wild pitches with an ache in my arm. Then Mother called me to lunch.
My father lighted his pipe after we’d eaten and, sizing me up, said, “You seem out of sorts, son.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“The sheriff’s cleared the decks, and me along with the clutter.”
My father considered and said, “I see,” and blew out a wondering breath of smoke.
Mother put in, “I don’t. Why would Mr. Charleston do that?”
“I believe you clear the decks for action, Mother,” my father told her.
I said, “That’s my guess, with me out of it.”
“If you mean danger,” Mother said, “then the sheriff’s right. You stay out of it.”
“But I don’t want to.” My voice had risen. “I’m not going to if I can help it. Don’t you see? Can’t you understand? I’ve been in on the case since the beginning and be damned if I’m shuffled out now.”
Mother said, “Son.”
“All right. Son this and son that, but I’m old enough to know what I’m doing!”
My father said, “We hear you, Jase. Please don’t yell. Just tell us what you propose to do if, in fact, what you suspect is true. If the sheriff says no to your presence, what can you do? Or we?”
“No is no,” Mother added, her face drawn with an anxiety I didn’t appreciate.
“I’ll find a way,” I said.
My father kept puffing his pipe. His words came out along the stem. “I have every confidence in Mr. Charleston.” He took the pipe out of his mouth and his eyes away from the smoke. “Also, son, we have confidence in you and good reason for it.” He turned to Mother. “It may be, my dear, that we overdo the business of thinking of Jason as our little boy. Mothers incline to do so and fathers, too, I suppose. But he’s almost eighteen, soon subject to the dratted draft.”
Mother began to cry. Through her hands she said, “Please!”
“Compared to what may face him soon,” my father went on, “what is this small episode? And in view of his age has he not the right to some choice?”
“Not if the sheriff has his way,” I said.
“I am coming to that. I will write Mr. Charleston a note. It will give our permission for you to accompany him. More than that we can’t do.”
He wrote and signed the note, and Mother signed it protestingly, and I left home full of heart but did remember to kiss my mother, who said in my ear, “Oh, do be careful, my son.” I thought of my mother as love and my father as sense but not with the full appreciation that was to come to me with the years.
The question was whether to show Charleston the note now or later, at what might turn out to be the decisive moment. I decided on later and so loafed around town, making frequent excursions to the courthouse to be sure that the Special was still in its parking space.
Not until along about four o’clock did I enter the office. Halvor had come on duty early, and Charleston was reading a book, The Immense Journey, which sounded like some kind of adventure story. He looked up from it to say, “I thought you were taking the day off.”
“I thought maybe I would write more on my report,” I answered, hopeful he would take stock in my lie.
He gave me a hm-m and returned to his book, and I walked into the private office. My report was there but not the excerpts he had hand-copied. The Savage stood in a corner. I picked it up and looked it over. It was a working model with a steel butt plate, stamped SAVAGE QUALITY above and below an Indian-head outline which together constituted the trademark. A good light rifle, though discontinued. A good rifle once. Why hadn’t the most recent user run a cleaning rag through it? Why hadn’t Junior?
I listened for the ring of the phone, suspecting Charleston was waiting a call. Why else sit there in office hours reading a book? Twice, when the phone did ring, he answered at the first buzz. One call, I gathered, was from Monk Fitzroy, his out-of-town deputy, and was no more than routine. Apparently the second came from a householder who had just discovered the fridge had been raided. I heard Charleston mutter, after he had hung up, “Damn town needs a town marshal.”
I waited, rifle in hand, doing nothing.
Then the phone rang again, and Charleston said, “Yes, Mabel. Thanks. Remember, under the hat,” and there was quiet again.
And still I waited, waited until I heard Halvor go out to get grub for a couple of offending drunks who would be released once they’d paid their hangover penalties. Then I couldn’t wait any longer.
Charleston glanced up. “You still here?” he asked me as if I shouldn’t be.
“Still here.” I added, feeling brash, “Waiting, like you.”
He smiled then, but yet as if to dismiss me, and said, “Reminds me somehow of a maiden lady in my old town. She swore she wouldn’t die wonderin’, but she was sixty-four at the time and died two years later and left the rest of us wonderin’. Maybe that’s us, Jase, forever wonderin’. Now, boy, clear out.”
But the phone jingled again, and Charleston seized it and listened and said into it, “Good. Good. And thanks. I’ll see you shortly.”
He got up then, full of purpose, and told me, “Jase, I reckon I’d better borrow your fingerprint kit.” From a drawer of his desk he was pulling the prints already taken.
“Sure,” I answered, “but borrow me along with it. Aren’t I your print man?”
“Sorry, boy.”
“But wait! Look here!” I brought from my pocket the note signed by my father and mother and handed it over. I knew by heart what he was reading:
Dear Sheriff Charleston,
Reluctantly, but at his insistence, we agree that our son, Jason, may accompany you in your investigations if you want him to, this with no risk or liability to yourself or the county. For us to deny him, we feel, would be wrong in view of the strength of his sentiments. With faith in your judgment.
Sincerely,
Charleston frowned, reading it and for a long minute afterward, and my breath blew shallo
w. He said, “Oh, goddammit, Jase, nothing’s going to happen, nothing violent and maybe nothing at all except I might make a fool of myself.”
“Yes, sir,” I answered and held up for his decision.
“All right, then,” he said finally. “But you stand aside. Hear me? Completely aside all the time. Take your baseball along and don’t interfere.”
It was plain enough that he wasn’t pleased, but I answered gratefully, “Yes, sir. I promise. I do.”
I got my baseball and kit, and he took up the fingerprints and for an instant seemed to think of buckling on the six-shooter that hung on the wall but voted against it. Halvor came in with the prisoners’ grub as we were about to take off. Charleston told him, “It’s all yours.”
It wasn’t to my surprise that he turned off on the rocky-assed road again, for I had come to look on it as a flyway, which birds of the law and other assorted fowls followed.
The wind of yesterday had long since blown itself out, and we jolted along to the blessing of a sky without clouds and a lowering sun without blister. It was hard to think that hereabouts in such peace and quiet, with the ribbon of the river winding along to our left and the grand rise of the mountains ahead, murder had been done. There was plenty of time for such observations, for Charleston said not a word all the way.
It was to my surprise that Charleston turned into the Powell Hawthorne place, but I didn’t comment or question. If he wanted to play mummy, let him. I would stand aside, as ordered and promised.
The friendly dog greeted us, and Geet came out, her hair touched by a whisper of breeze, and gave her hand to Charleston and then to me. Her face had that clean, open, somehow pitiful look that had struck me before as both invitation and warning. “It didn’t take you long,” she said, smiling.
Charleston was carrying my kit and I my baseball, and he answered, “Hi, operative. Thanks.”
She led us into the lodge room, where Professor Hawthorne rose and shook hands, his welcome moving his beard. “So you’ve located my rifle,” he said as a statement of fact.
I had thought the .303 was a secret, shared only by Charleston, Junior and me, but I kept silent as befitted a stander-aside.
“And I am led to suspect—but won’t guess—that you have a suspect,” Professor Hawthorne continued.
“Unnamed,” Charleston told him, speaking from his chair with a little wave of his hand. “Right now we hope you’ll let us fingerprint you.”
Professor Hawthorne took a long time in answering while his eyes measured Charleston. Then he ventured, seeing or knowing more than I did, “For verisimilitude, I would imagine.”
Geet said, “Meaning the appearance of truth.”
“Have it your way,” Charleston answered, his grin showing his teeth. “Also, a man feels supported if he has some sure-enough facts underfoot. What’s more, a public servant has to act even-handed, else he’ll get kicks from behind if he’s wrong.”
“Ah, yes,” Professor Hawthorne said. “By all means take my prints.”
“Jase.”
I took the kit and did the best job I could, and while I was doing it Charleston sat back and talked. “Our office isn’t much. Not up to date. A haywire operation by modern standards. No real communications system. No lab at all. We just bungle along.”
“Muddle through, the English would say,” Geet threw in.
“The ‘muddle’ is right, the ‘through’ is questionable,” Charleston replied. “Underfunded, every bureaucrat complains, but underfunded we are. Otherwise these murders, maybe—” An outward wave of his hand completed the sentence.
“Not by Mr. Gewald,” I dared to put in, speaking for almost the first time.
“There are few substitutes for horse sense,” Professor Hawthorne said. “Without it, what use are systems, electronics, computers?”
“I think Father is betting on you,” Geet told Charleston. “Faith is the word.”
Charleston, always discomfited by praise, hitched in his chair. “Thanks, but I’ve never seen it move a mountain.”
I was done with the printing by that time, and we, meaning Professor Hawthorne and me, proceeded to clean up.
Charleston got up and looked out the window and then consulted his watch. “Time to go, I guess, Jase. Oh, but first, Mr. Hawthorne, will you sign your name to the prints?”
I put my stuff together and saw through the window that the day would soon fade off into dusk. We were six weeks or more past the solstice but still in the time of long twilight. It would be an hour, maybe more, before a man could distinguish a star.
Outside, Geet said, “Good luck. Let us know.”
Charleston answered, “Why, sure,” and walked to the car, the fresh prints in his hand.
It was my day for dumb astonishment. Just short of the river bridge Charleston turned right, toward the small patch of land owned by Dr. Ulysses Pierpont. No-trespassing signs, big, red and newly erected, introduced the trail to his trailer house, which was parked close to a stunted jack pine and seemed as alien to its surroundings as a painted igloo. Dr. Pierpont came to the door and, seeing us, jumped down the steps and charged out as if to give the boot to invaders. Then, recognizing us or the Special, he held up.
Charleston commanded me, “Remember, you stand aside.” He pushed out of the car, the whole collection of prints in his hand, and I trailed off at an angle. What breeze there was carried a good smell from the door, like potatoes frying with onions.
Charleston said, “Good evening, Doctor. Hope we’re not interrupting your supper.”
Dr. Pierpont returned the greeting, not mentioning supper. He stood waiting, a picture of cool and competent professionalism even in an unbuttoned shirt and old slacks. From the west the half-sunken sun shed a red glow.
“We need your cooperation but won’t keep you long,” Charleston said. “You see, the murder weapon’s turned up, the one that killed Hogue and Day, and it happened to have some good fingerprints on it.”
“Is that so?” Dr. Pierpont answered in the tone of a man who believed that it wasn’t.
“Yep. Lots of metal on a Savage three-oh-three. Butt plate, lever and trigger guard, breach housing. The man was careless or else thought our dinky office couldn’t lift prints.”
“What has that to do with me?” Dr. Pierpont asked.
“For all I know, nothing, no more than with all the others. I’m taking fingerprints from everybody around. Routine for me, so the county will have some excuse for my wages.” He fanned out the fingerprints. “See. Here’s Buster Hogue’s prints, signed by himself, and Old Man McNair’s and Guy Jamison’s, and just now I took Mr. Hawthorne’s, signed by him, too.”
Dr. Pierpont said, “Nonsense.”
“Probably so. It would take a miracle to match up any prints with the prints on the rifle.” Charleston paused and said in another tone, “All the same, I want your prints, Doctor.”
Still the cool and capable professional, Dr. Pierpont answered, “It is an insult, an insult to my known standing and to my profession, an insult to me as a person.”
“But you don’t mind, Doctor?”
“I object to the exercise of petty authority.”
“No compulsion,” Charleston answered and went on in that harder, that slow-cutting voice, “but your refusal would look mighty funny. Yours alone. That news would shock the profession.”
I thought Dr. Pierpont would continue to balk. He looked at Charleston, his face cold and set like that of a man weighing insults. Then he said, “You give me no alternative. Let me turn down the stove.”
It was time to turn it down. I could smell onions scorching.
“I’ll bring the kit,” Charleston said to his back. He made for the car, waving me off as I started toward it.
Then two scenes appeared, right and left, and grew into one. Charleston came from the car, the kit in his hand, and Dr. Pierpont stepped from the trailer house, an automatic pistol in his.
“Get off my property!” Dr. Pierpont said, mov
ing the pistol for emphasis. “Get off, you and your boy!”
Charleston halted. “Are you out of your wits?”
“I recognize conspiracy. Get off!”
“What conspiracy, Doctor?”
“You’re paid by it. Wealth. Arrogance, Power. Position.” The words came out distinct, separate, charged with cold certainty.
“Like Buster Hogue’s?”
“I said get off!”
“Like Ben Day’s?”
“Not Ben Day. Get!” Dr. Pierpont lifted the pistol.
“By God,” I heard Charleston say, “if you’re not a madman!”
That one word burst on me, like daylight seen when a blind is jerked up. Madman! The body fixed, steady in purpose, and the voice controlled but with ice in it, the ice of conviction, of righteousness, or certain grievance. The automatic, pointed, didn’t waver.
I knew Charleston wouldn’t retreat. He would walk into that gun. And I knew Dr. Pierpont would fire.
Charleston took a pace forward. The pistol fixed on its target. And I stood there helpless.
“I don’t miss,” Dr. Pierpont said. “It seems you have noticed.”
Then my hand felt the ball, waking my mind. No time for a windup. Rear back and fire. I aimed for the head. The ball went wide. It hit the gun and the gun hand and knocked the hand down but left the gun in it.
This much I saw as I ran. I swung for the jaw. The pistol jerked around and met my fist. It went off.
Then, deafened, slammed back and down, I scrambled on the ground and rolled free and saw Charleston, on his knees, strike at a face already bloodied. He struck again.
I heard myself cry out, “Sheriff!”
It was with a wrench, like breaking out of a spell, that Charleston left off, picked up the loose pistol and climbed to his feet. Dr. Pierpont didn’t move. He was out.
“All right, Jase?” Charleston panted.
“Maybe singed just a little.”
“He could have killed you, and, son of a bitch, I told you to stay out of things.”
There was anger in his voice yet, and I answered, “Yes, sir.”
Then he smiled the smile that was never far from his face and touched my arm, “You’re a good boy, Jase. Thanks.” He turned his eyes down on Dr. Pierpont. “I was afraid,” he said, “that he would go through with it.”
Wild Pitch Page 16
