Confidentially Yours (2 page)

“Well, we’ll try the store, and his personal gear. Thanks.”

Barbara was watching wide-eyed as I hung up. I told her about it. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “How awful.”

“It’s a rotten shame.” He was probably still in his twenties. But at least he didn’t have a wife and children to break the news to, as far as I knew. In spite of the fact he was a tenant of mine, I didn’t know a great deal about him other than the fact he was a deadly shot at skeet and drove a high-powered sports car. He was a lean, dark, Indian-looking type who was pleasant enough but never talked much about himself. He’d come to Carthage about ten months ago and opened the Sports Shop in the Duquesne Building, in the same space where Frances had had her dress shop, and lived in the small apartment behind it. Just before hunting season he’d joined the Duck Club, buying Art Russell’s membership when Art moved to Florida. We kept it limited to eight members.

But how had he done it? While I’d never hunted with him, I had shot skeet with him a couple of times at the Rutherford Trap and Skeet Club, and he was a natural with a gun. He followed the safety rules in that automatic way of men who’ve been handling guns all their lives. But then hunting accidents were nearly always inexplicable. I tried to push it out of my mind and go on with the letters, but the feeling of depression persisted.

The storm struck a few minutes after five. I went out front and stared through the window at the rain-lashed street where the ropes of tinsel still up from Christmas whipped and billowed in the wind. Evans and Turner had already gone. Barbara was covering the typewriter and taking her purse from a drawer.

“I’ll run you home,” I said.

She smiled, but shook her head. “Thanks. I brought my car today.”

Just as she was going out the door the telephone rang. I motioned for her to go ahead, and picked it up myself. It was Scanlon again. “Warren? Can you get over to the courthouse right away?”

“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

“It’s about Roberts.”

“Have you been able to figure out how it happened?”

“We’re not sure. I’ll tell you about it when you get here.”

I locked the front door and made a run for the car. It was only three blocks over to the. courthouse on Stanley, the second street north of Clebourne. It was perceptibly colder now, and already growing dark under the downpour. I found a parking place near the entrance and dashed up the steps.

The sheriff’s office was on the lower floor left. It was a big room, separated from the doorway by a chest-high counter and a railing with a gate. On the far wall was a large-scale map of the county and a glass-fronted case containing several .30-30 carbines and a couple of tear-gas guns, while most of the space on the right was taken up by a battery of filing cabinets. There were four desks with green-shaded droplights above them. Mulholland, the chief deputy, was standing at the end of one of the desks near the left side of the room, intent on several objects atop it under the hot cone of light. One was a Browning double-barreled shotgun with the breech open, while the others appeared to be a shotgun shell, an envelope, and some photographs. Just as I approached, Scanlon emerged from his private office at the left beyond the desk. He was a big man, still slender and flat-bellied in middle age, and was coatless, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned and the tie pulled open. The graying hair was rumpled and he looked tired, but the hawk-beaked face and gray eyes were expressionless.

Without a word he handed me one of the big 8-by-10 photographs. I looked at it and felt my stomach start to come up into my throat. It had apparently been taken in the entrance to the duck blind. Roberts had fallen back into the small boat in which he’d been sitting, most of the side of his head blown away above the right eyebrow and the eye itself exploded out of the socket by some freak of hydrostatic pressure. I shuddered and put it down on the table, and when I looked up Scanlon’s eyes were on my face.

“Did you shoot him?” he asked.

I was still shaken, and it didn’t penetrate at first. “What?”

“I said, did you shoot him?”

“Are you crazy? Of course I didn’t—”

He cut me off. “Look, Warren, better men than you have shot someone accidentally, and panicked. If you did, say so now, while you can.”

“I’ve told you already,” I said hotly. “I didn’t even see him. And I don’t appreciate—”

“Keep your hair on.” He took a cigar from his shirt pocket and bit the end off it. “I just asked you.”

“I thought you said he shot himself.”

“That was what we were supposed to think,” Mulholland put in with a supercilious smile. He was a big, flashy ex-athlete who always walked as if he were watching himself in a mirror. I’d never liked him.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He wasn’t killed with his own gun.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged, and looked at Scanlon. “You want me to tell him?”

Scanlon was lighting his cigar. He waved a hand. “Go ahead.”

Mulholland pointed to the shotgun. “Both barrels were loaded, but only one had been fired. Here’s the empty shell.” He touched the empty with his finger, rolled it over so the printing was uppermost. “See? Number 6 shot, it says.”

“Yes. So?”

He moved his hand to the white envelope, tilted it, and six or eight shot pellets rolled out onto the surface of the desk. “So these are some of the shot we took out of his head, and they’re number 4’s.”

I
STARED FROM ONE TO
the other. “Are you sure?” I asked at last.

“Positive,” Scanlon said bluntly. “We’ve compared them with 4’s and 6’s from new shells, and miked ’em —the ones that’re still round—and weighed ’em at the physics lab out at the high school. These shot are number 4’s. And the fired shell was loaded with 6’s.”

“Well, wait—maybe it was a reload. I’ll admit it would be silly for him to reload his own shells when he could buy ’em wholesale.”

Scanlon shook his head. “It was no reload. It was a new shell, right from the factory. The same as the unfired one in the gun, and the other 23 in his hunting coat, out of a new box of 25. Somebody killed him, and then fired his gun to make it look like an accident. That’s the reason you heard two shots from over there.”

“If he did,” Mulholland said.

I turned and looked at him. “How was that again?”

“I said, if you did hear two shots—from that other blind.”

“If you want to ask me any questions,” I told Scanlon, “you’d better send your boy home, or tell him to keep his remarks to himself. We’re not going to get anywhere this way.”

“Shut up, both of you!” he snapped. He turned to me. “Now, you say you got out there before daylight. Was there any other car parked at the end of the road besides Roberts’?”

“There was no car at all when I got there.”

“I thought you said you saw his car.”

“When I was leaving,” I explained. “I was already in the blind when the other car got there. I didn’t know whose it was then, of course; I just saw headlights flashing through the trees. When I started home, somewhere around ten o’clock, it was still there, and I saw it was Roberts’ Porsche.”

“And you never did see any other car?”

“No.”

“Could there have been one without your seeing it?”

“It’s not likely, unless he drove in with his lights off, which would be a little hard to do on a road through heavy timber, or unless he arrived after daylight.”

“But at the time you heard those two shots from the other blind it was still too dark to drive without lights?”

“Yes.”

“That blind you were in is the nearest one to the end of the road. Did Roberts try to come out to it?”

“No,” I said. “When he saw my car there, he’d have been pretty sure it was occupied. It’s the best location of the four, and always taken on a first-come first-served basis.”

“Was the gate out there at the highway locked when you went in?”

“Yes,” I said. “And locked when I came out.”

He nodded. “Still, Roberts could have forgotten to lock it after him when he came in, and whoever killed him could have followed him almost to the parking area before he left his car. Going out, he wouldn’t need a key to close a padlock. On the other hand, of course, he could have walked in all the way. It’s less than three miles from the highway.”

“You mean you actually believe somebody went out there deliberately to murder him?”

Scanlon nodded, his eyes bleak. “What else is there? He went hunting alone. You were the only other person out there. He didn’t shoot himself. So somebody shot him in cold blood. And then tried to set up this phony accident. He might have got away with it, too, if he’d thought to check the size shot Roberts was shooting.”

“But why?” I asked blankly. “Who’d have any reason to kill him?”

“If we knew that, he’d be down here now. You can’t think of anybody he’s ever had trouble with?”

“No,” I said.

“How did you get along with him?”

“All right. He was a good tenant, paid his rent on time, no beefs.”

“You usually use number 4 shot for ducks, don’t you?” Mulholland asked.

“That’s right,” I said. “I always do. And I was shooting 4’s today. Why?”

He gave me a cold smile. “I just wanted to be sure.”

“Good. Then your mind’s at rest. Go put some more hair tonic on it.”

Scanlon cursed us, and broke it up. We were an intelligent pair, I thought sourly, grown men acting like children. It was a legitimate question, under the circumstances, but I didn’t like the dirty way he put it. He always rubbed me the wrong way.

“Weren’t there any fingerprints on the gun?” I asked.

“No,” Scanlon said. “Not even Roberts’.”

“Somebody wiped ’em off,” Mulholland said. “Clever, huh?”

I ignored him this time, and spoke to Scanlon. “Is that all?”

He was staring moodily at the shotgun. “Oh? Yeah, that’s all. Thanks for coming down.”

I went back to the car. It was too early for dinner and I couldn’t face the thought of a whole evening in that empty house, so I went back to the office and worked on a rough draft of my income tax until after eight before going into Fuller’s. Everybody was talking about Roberts, and I had to repeat what I knew about it a half-dozen times. It was around ten when I drove home. The house is only six blocks from downtown, a rambling cream-colored brick I’d built when Frances and I were married, replacing the old Warren house which had burned down in 1955. An extension of the circular drive goes back along the side of it to the two-car garage, which adjoins the kitchen. The house is roughly U-shaped, with the kitchen and dining room in the short wing, the long 35-foot living room and my den across the front with the entrance hall between them, while, a continuation of the hall runs back through the other wing past the guest rooms to the master bedroom with its fireplace, dressing room, and bath taking up the far end.

Rain, wind-driven, beat against the house. I mixed a drink and tried to settle down in the living room with a book, but it was no good. I kept thinking of Roberts. It was fantastic. Why would somebody have wanted to kill him? And why out there—aside from the futile attempt to make it appear an accident? Only eight of us had keys to that gate. Besides Roberts and myself, there were Dr. Martin; Jim MacBride, the Ford dealer; George Clement, the town’s leading attorney; Clint Henry, cashier of the Citizens National Bank; and Bill Sorensen and Wally Albers, who were away at the moment, on a cruise to Jamaica with their wives. They were all good friends of mine. Of course, as Scanlon said, Roberts might have left the gate open when he came in, or the man could have walked in, but even so he’d have to be familiar with the terrain and the location of the blinds to get there, three miles from the highway, in the dark. The turnoff was fifteen miles east of town.

I went out and mixed another drink. The telephone rang. There’s an extension in the kitchen; I sat down at the table in. the breakfast nook and reached for it.

“Is this Duke Warren?” It was a girl’s voice.

“Yes,” I said. “Who’s this?”

“Never mind. I just thought I’d tell you—you won’t get away with it.”

I frowned. “Get away with what?”

“I suppose you think because you own most of the town they won’t do anything. Well, I’ve got news for you.”

Somebody on a telephone jag, I thought, though she didn’t sound drunk. “I’ll tell you, why don’t you call me in the morning?”

“Don’t try to brush me off. You know what I’m talking about. Dan Roberts.”

I’d started to hang up, but caught myself just in time when I heard the name. “Roberts?” I snapped. “What about him?”

“If you had to kill somebody, why not her? You don’t think he was the only one, do you?”

I slammed the receiver down on the cradle and stood up, shaking with rage. When I tried to light a cigarette, I fumbled and dropped it in my drink. In a few minutes I began to get it under control, realizing it was childish to let a thing like that get under my skin. Nobody paid any attention to psychos and creeps. They crawled out of the woodwork every time something happened, spewed up their anonymous telephone calls, and went back. I washed out the glass and rebuilt the drink, tried the cigarette again, and got one alight this time, regretting now that I’d hung up on her. I should have made some effort to find out who she was. The telephone rang again. I went over and picked it up, very coldly this time. But it was probably somebody else; she wouldn’t have the guts to call back.

She did. “Don’t hang up when I’m talking to you. You’re in no position to.”

“No?” I asked. “Why not?” I knew practically everybody in town; maybe if she kept talking I could identify her. The voice was vaguely familiar.

“Maybe you think Scanlon’s a fool? Or afraid of you?”

She didn’t sound particularly bright; nobody who’d known Scanlon as long as an hour could have any illusions as to his being a fool, or that he’d ever been afraid of anything. “Get to the point,” I said. “What about Scanlon?”

“I think he’ll be interested to learn that she’s been going to Dan’s apartment. Of course, she used to live there, so maybe she just forgets she’s moved.”