The Complete Bragg Thriller Box Set

by Jack Lynch

  I made my way around the back corner of the squat structure, but the rest of the way was blocked. A big pile of scrap lumber and other junk was all tossed together up against the back wall of the carriage house. It looked like a tank trap, and it extended back to the tangled, bushy growth along the fence at the rear of the grounds.

  That left me two ways to get around to the other side of the carriage house. I could either walk around the corner and introduce myself, or trot back around the big house and come up on it from the other side. I wasn’t ready to introduce myself. I sprinted across the back lawn to the cover of the main residence again. I made a quick circuit and moved out across the driveway on the other side, into the cover of some trees, and continued back toward the rear.

  I was almost there when the big red car drove out of the carriage house. I ducked behind a tree. The gate out by the front road swung open as the car approached, then closed behind it. I could hear the hum of an electric motor driving the gate. Another man had come out of the carriage house and was walking down the driveway toward the gate. He had a shotgun over one arm. In his other hand he had a small, electronic command box that operated the gate. I made a brisk dash around the back of the house, went over the fence and got out of there.

  FOUR

  Peacock Gap is in the hills northeast of San Rafael. It isn’t an exclusive enough area to have a shotgun-toting gatekeeper, but it does have a clubhouse with a bar, and meeting rooms, and other facilities for putting on Saturday afternoon recitals by touring Spanish lute players and people like that.

  The Paul Anderson home was a long, rambling thing of Arizona sandstone surrounded by about a quarter-acre of well-tended lawn with a big swimming pool out back. I’d taken off the sweater and changed my shoes again, so I looked reasonably respectable. I had decided to resort to my Father Conners story. He was a popular cleric out of my boyhood days I would from time to time bring out and dust off in my quest for the Truth. The story usually involved somebody’s mother who had beseeched Father Conners for help in finding her missing son or daughter, as the case might be.

  This time it would be a missing son named Cookie Poole. I figured it had been at least a couple of days since Cookie had been home, because of the state of the dead man back in his Tamalpais Valley home. Father Conners, in turn, would have asked for my help in finding the boy and putting his mother’s worries to rest. I didn’t know if Cookie had a mother in this area, or if Roman Catholic priests ministered to the citizens of Marin City, but I didn’t figure anybody else in the Anderson home would know, either.

  It turned out to be the birthday of Anderson’s daughter, Terri, a young lady who was a bit old and wise-looking to be still having birthday parties, but that’s what I walked in on—a small dinner party that was just about to break up. Duffy Anderson, a tall, innocent-looking chap, answered my ring and invited me in to where the others were sitting.

  The older Anderson was as tall as his son, fit looking and tanned, but he wore the sort of thin, gray mustache with tapered ends that the white-collar crooks in old movies always wore. His wife Dimps was a vague, birdlike creature sitting glassy-eyed at the table with a glass of Scotch beside a plate of cake and ice cream that hadn’t been touched.

  Terri, the birthday girl, was tall and lean, with more of a boy’s figure, but she had good bone structure. She was the sort who would look good modeling high-fashion clothing. And although at the moment she looked as if she’d spent the past several hours having to listen to one of the touring Spanish lute players, there was an occasional flash to her that kept snagging my attention.

  Melody was there, as well. She was a different species altogether. The nearly nude photos hadn’t really done her justice. She had a ripe figure and the smile of a lynx. She wore a snug pair of white slacks and a powder-blue cashmere sweater. She was dazzling and sharp and made big eyes over young Duffy Anderson. It was easy to see why they were engaged, if she’d made up her mind to have him. She had probably turned his mind to hamburger about seven seconds after the first time they’d met.

  Also present was Melody’s uncle and Samuel P. Moss’s brother, Arthur. He was a medium-sized man who sat easily with this group. He dressed well and watched things closely, the way ambitious men watch things.

  With that whole gang there, I wanted to do a bit of long-line fishing, to see if anyone bit or jumped out of the water. So after introducing myself, I told them what I did for a living and dealt out the Father Conners story, still figuring it would get me a lot farther than telling them I really was looking for whoever had sent the photos to Moss of a nearly naked Melody getting it on with a good-looking Sausalito drifter instead of the young fellow now sitting beside her with the stars in his eyes and a dab of vanilla ice cream on one corner of his mouth. Melody saw the dab of ice cream, blotted it with a corner of her napkin and dusted it with a kiss, turning Duffy’s fresh face the color of cranberry sauce. Terri Anderson rolled her eyes and ran one hand through her crop of short, blonde hair. The mother, Dimps, extended a hand and bent stiffly from the waist until she had the hand around the glass of Scotch. She raised it to her mouth, slaked her thirst, put down the glass and leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

  After I told them the Father Conners story, I told them the dead Benjamin Kempe lying shot to death on Cookie’s front room rug story. And I told them that if Cookie didn’t go in and say hello to the sheriff pretty soon, a couple of deputies probably would be coming around asking about him, the same as I was doing.

  It didn’t bring any roar from the crowd. The elder Anderson listened with a serious frown on his face throughout. Arthur Moss wiggled an eyebrow from time to time. I’d been wondering if my talking about Cookie might bring a rise from young Melody, but she watched me with a blank face. Duffy wasn’t even listening, and I think his mother was asleep. Only Terri was sitting a little more erect, watching me as if for the first time that evening she wasn’t bored beyond death.

  Mrs. Anderson hiccupped, and her eyes opened. “Would you care for some cake and ice cream, Mr.—Bragg, was it?”

  “Yes ma’am, and thanks, I’d love a piece of cake. You can hold the ice cream.”

  The girl Terri made something like a semi-snort. Not a real snort, more like one that came from somebody across the drill field, in another formation.

  “You sit still, Mother Anderson,” Melody told her. “I’ll get it.”

  It was a gracious gesture, because Mother Anderson didn’t appear right then to have the capacity to do anything. Melody crossed to a sideboard and cut me a slice of cake. Duffy fiddled with a fork until she returned.

  “You’re sure it was in Poole’s house where you found the body?” Paul Anderson asked.

  “Well, I can’t be positive, of course. I was only going on what his mother and the priest told me.”

  “And no sign of Cookie?” Arthur Moss asked quietly.

  “No recent sign. When was the last time you saw him?”

  “It’s been two or three days, at least. When was that, Paul? Last Thursday? Friday, maybe?”

  “No later than Friday, I would say.”

  “Oh yes, I remember now,” said Arthur. “It was Friday. Paul and I were down at Herman Beamer’s place at the basin. He’s the chap who owns most of the waterfront area where we’re putting up the project. Cookie came by to give us the preliminary results of a survey he’s been conducting in Marin City, of the variously skilled workers we might be able to employ once the Shores project is ready to roll.”

  “What has that to do with your end of things? Aren’t you just the developers?”

  “Not this time,” said Anderson. “We’re going to stay on board and manage the project as well. We want this thing to work. Not that I see it has anything to do with your search for young Poole.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t. But you make it sound like an interesting project. I was just curious.”

  Melody had gotten up again and started clearing dishes from the table, taking them through a
swinging door out into the kitchen. Duffy got up to help, probably so he could get in a grope or two behind the swinging door. She was a girl built for groping.

  “From what I’ve heard,” I told Arthur Moss, “this Cookie Poole is kind of a rough character. How come he’s a part of all this?”

  The man smiled a little bleakly. “When you work with a community, you work through the leaders of that community. That doesn’t mean just the people who might sit on the local council. In Marin City, as in a lot of places, some of the leaders might very well have a streak of, say, meanness, in them. We can’t let that matter. If they have the ear of the people, or a segment of them, as Cookie does, then they are the ones we have to deal with. I wish it were otherwise.”

  Melody and Duffy were back in the room, hovering at the end of the table. Mrs. Anderson made a light flutter with her mouth. Paul Anderson looked at his watch and nudged Arthur Moss to bring his attention to the time. Terri watched these things also. And me.

  “Do you know Cookie, by any chance?” I asked Melody.

  She stopped flirting with Duffy and looked a little puzzled. “Why, I believe so. Wasn’t he at the big barbecue out back last summer?” she asked of the room in general.

  “That’s right,” replied the elder Anderson. “We were doing a lot of negotiating and trying to butter up various county officials, labor union people and others, to get the Shores project through. Arthur here suggested an informal get-together. Had forty or fifty people here. A lot of good came out of it.”

  I asked the next question of Arthur Moss. “How is the racial end of things? Any conflicts or problems?”

  “Not really. It’s been pretty smooth. Some of the construction unions were afraid we might want to bring in a lot of blacks at a time when so many of their present union members are sitting around on their hands. But when we convinced them we weren’t interested in the temporary building jobs, they were satisfied.”

  “And what exactly is Cookie’s role in all of this? Does he have a specific job? And if he does, who does he work for?”

  Paul Anderson cleared his throat. “We have to be going, Arthur.”

  Arthur dismissed it with a wave. “Let’s help this man as best we can, Paul. If Cookie is involved in somebody’s death, we have to be ready to answer these sorts of questions. But in the interest of time, Mr. Bragg, I’ll make this somewhat simplified. We have set up a corporation—Paul, Herman Beamer, myself and one or two others—and that is the entity putting together all of this. At present, Cookie is doing general projects, such as the survey I mentioned, on contract with the corporation. After the development is built and operating, we’ll try to find some position for him to fill, but he doesn’t hold any, as such, right now. The point is, he is not being paid for any organizational or executive genius he might show in the future. We are paying him because he is a vital part of the black community and is in a position to keep any of the local harebrains or hotshots from making our job more difficult. The community—a portion of it—knows him and accepts him and listens to him.”

  “I should think you could fill that role yourself.”

  “I can, with other segments of the community. But my roots aren’t there, as Cookie’s are. I don’t drive a flashy car and deal in God only knows what of an illegal nature. So there is a significant number of young people there I do not appeal to nearly so powerfully as does our friend Mr. Poole. It might not sound terribly pure to an outsider, but it is the only practical way some of these things can be attended to. I think the end result, Marinship Shores, and what it will mean to the entire community of Marin City, significantly outweighs some of the bad taste we might have to endure.”

  “And if Cookie was involved in this man’s death?”

  Arthur Moss shook his head. “I don’t know. It won’t necessarily alter his standing in the community. As I said to Paul earlier, somebody like Cookie might from time to time embarrass us, but then his work for us has so far been on a contract basis…We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Another strange thought came loping into my brain, and I decided to put it into words. “Has Cookie been doing any surveys to do with the houseboat community down there?”

  Arthur’s face made me feel as if I’d hit him a little below the belt. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I happen to live in Sausalito myself. I know there are a lot of houseboats down in the area of the Shores project. I was just wondering what their future is.”

  The attorney didn’t really want to talk about that. He took a deep breath. “As a matter of fact, that is one of the things Paul and I will be discussing this evening at the civic center with a committee of the county supervisors. We’re not quite sure what we’ll do about the houseboats. At first, we thought there would be no problem with them. But as things have moved along, we realized that we will have to insist that they bring their structures up to county code. Install sewer hookups with a piping network to shore, things like that. It’s the least we can ask to assure the safety and public health of the rest of the marina community who will be using those waters. We’ll know a little more about it after tonight’s meeting. And to answer your original question, I do believe Cookie has been gathering some information to do with the houseboat community. That would have been for Herman Beamer, though. After the project is complete, Herman will continue to manage the marina area.”

  Everybody except Mrs. Anderson was standing by now. Melody whisked away my empty cake plate. Arthur Moss extended his hand. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Bragg. I hope your search for Cookie is a success. I would appreciate hearing from you when you do locate him. We of course have an interest in his whereabouts and activities.”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  Dimps Anderson turned to Melody. “I’m planting the marigolds along the side fence tomorrow, Melody. Would you care to help me? In the afternoon, perhaps?”

  “Oh, I’d love to, Mother Anderson, but I promised to drive some friends up to my father’s cabin on the coast tomorrow. They might want to rent it this summer.”

  The older woman nodded, as if it didn’t matter all that much about the marigolds.

  Arthur and Paul Anderson left. Duffy was standing on one foot and then the other at the far end of the table. He cleared his throat and addressed his sister.

  “Melody and I thought we’d run down to the Sea Deck in Sausalito, sis. They have a new group playing. Would you care to join us?”

  His voice, like the rest of him, was polite enough, but his heart wasn’t in it. I guess it wasn’t meant to be. It was interesting how people and places kept popping up in different ways that day. I guess there wasn’t anything all that unusual about these two going to the Sea Deck, where Shirley said she worked. They brought in good jazz groups there, and drew a crowd of young people from throughout the Bay Area. Even older birds like myself went there from time to time.

  “No, thank you, Duffy, you two run along. I have other plans.”

  “Oh, well, okay then.” He glanced over at me, not knowing if he should leave with me still there in the house with his mother and sister. Terri made it all right for him.

  “Would you care for a drink, Mr. Bragg?”

  “Sure, as long as I’m here. Some bourbon with a little water would be fine.”

  She went to the sideboard and started fixing drinks while Duffy and Melody passed me on the way to the door. Duffy touched hands briefly and told me how nice it was to have met me. He waited for Melody to do the same, but that one had her own technique. She offered her hand, but when I took it she let it linger in my own for an extended moment. Not long enough to give Duffy a chance to take a jealous breath, but long enough to leave the impression of her presence with me. She had nice teeth, among other things.

  “I’ve never met a private investigator before,” she told me with a twinkle in her eye. “You’re certainly big enough for the job. Are you rough and tough?”

  “Sometimes, when I’ve missed breakfast. Bu
t there really isn’t much call for that sort of thing these days.”

  “Do you think you’ll find this Mr. Poole person?”

  “If there’s enough sustained interest in his being found, I’ll find him. Or the sheriff’s men will. They’re apt to have a lot of sustained interest.”

  “But you and most of the police are white. Couldn’t he just hide out in some poor, black neighborhood?”

  “From what I’ve heard about Cookie, he’d never settle for something like that again. He might do some of his work there, but he’d never live there.”

  The girl gave me a shrewd little smile. “You’re smart too. Good night, Mr. Bragg.”

  I good-nighted them out the door. Terri returned with the drink and excused herself to nudge her mother awake and lead her off somewhere in the rear of the house. I drifted into the front room and wondered where all the warmth of a family home had gone. The house felt like a motel. Lived in, but not loved nor missed.

  I sat down on one end of a sofa beside a vacant stand. I didn’t see any magazines anywhere. Terri came in presently with a drink of her own and sat in a Danish-modern bucket across from me. She lifted her glass in toast.

  “Here’s to the boys down at the detective bureau.”

  “Which detective bureau, Miss Anderson?”

  She shrugged elaborately. “Any of them. All of them. Who cares?”

  “I certainly don’t,” I told her, having a sip of the bourbon. She fixed a hearty drink, this girl. And she wasn’t wasting much time downing the one she’d poured for herself. Maybe it was her mother’s influence.

  “Was there anything special you wanted to talk about?” I asked.

  “No, not anything special.” She got up and did some stunting around, walking the length of the room and back with a slow, exaggerated step. She turned to me. “Do you think I’m too skinny?”

  “Too skinny for what?”