Death and the Gentle Bull Read online

  He stopped. He and the Landcraft brothers looked at Heimrich and waited. Arnold Thayer looked at his fingernails, dissociating himself.

  Heimrich closed his eyes. After a moment, he nodded his head. The implications were obvious, of course; his nod acknowledged them. A man with a bad temper; a man with a grudge. It might well be as simple as that. He opened his eyes and Wade said, “Look at this, captain,” and handed him a glossy photograph of a black bull. “Prince,” Wade said. “Taken night before last. Turn it over, captain.”

  Heimrich turned it over. He nodded again, looked again at the bull. He said that this was very interesting, and gave the photograph to Crowley.

  “You’re not surprised,” Wade said, and Heimrich said, “Now Mr. Landcraft. You didn’t expect me to be, naturally. But it’s interesting, of course. Gives us more to go on.”

  “Smith was handling the bull,” Wade said. “He said—” He told Heimrich what Smith had said. “Of course, he could have been lying.”

  “Why?” Heimrich asked. “It would have been the wrong lie, wouldn’t it? If Smith is the man we want?”

  “If he’d decided he couldn’t get away with the accident theory,” Wade said. “Maybe he—”

  Again Heimrich nodded. It was tenable that Smith, having decided that belief was waning in the theory of accident, had elected a part of the truth. But—how did he know that the first plan had failed? Heimrich thought; again he nodded, this time to himself. Smith had led the bull past Heimrich and Crowley the afternoon before; had seen them look at the scratch; might easily have deduced their thoughts. If the accident theory was to perish, Smith might well have thought it would appear most innocent if he were the one to kill it.

  “We’ll have to find Mr. Smith,” Heimrich said. “See what he has to say.”

  “If you can,” Wade said.

  Heimrich said he thought they probably could. He sent Crowley out to the car, to get the search started.

  “Now,” Heimrich said, “there are one or two other points. I—”

  “You don’t want me here,” Thayer said, rather suddenly. He stood up. He was much shorter than the tall brothers. “Think it over,” he said. “Let me know tomorrow?”

  Thayer started toward the door. For a moment he was close to Wade Landcraft. The contrast in their height was marked.

  “By the way, Mr. Thayer,” Heimrich said. “Where were you last night? Around eleven, say?”

  Thayer stopped abruptly. He looked up at Heimrich, and his gray eyes were a little narrowed. “Last night?” he said. “What about last night?”

  “Miss Merritt had an—encounter,” Heimrich said. “Nothing of much importance, probably. Met a tall man. And a short man—shorter man. It was her impression that they followed her, for a time. To see where she went.”

  “You’re saying I—” Thayer began. He showed sudden anger.

  “Now Mr. Thayer,” Heimrich said. “I’m saying nothing, you know.”

  “I’m average height,” Thayer said. He appeared bitter about it. “I—”

  “Somebody followed Evvie?” Wade said, and spoke quickly, with insistence. “Skip it, Arnold—you’re—what happened to Evvie?”

  “Nothing,” Heimrich said. “She passed a car in the fog. The car was stopped on the road, near an old quarry, she said. After she passed, the car started up behind her. Stopped for a minute at the end of the Merritt drive. Went on. Nothing happened to Miss Merritt, Mr. Landcraft.”

  “Why?” Wade said. “What did they want?”

  Heimrich closed his eyes. He shook his head.

  “She couldn’t identify them?”

  Heimrich hesitated for a second.

  “She says not,” he said. “If she had identified them we’d ask them what they wanted, naturally.” He paused again. “Her lights were on them for a few seconds,” he said. “It was foggy, of course.”

  “I was nowhere around here,” Thayer said. “I was in New York. Took in a movie. What would I be following this girl for?”

  “I don’t know why anybody would,” Heimrich said. “It’s possible nobody did. Except by accident, naturally. Happened to be going the same way, on the same road.”

  “Radio City Music Hall. That’s where I was,” Thayer said. “Lot of girls dancing in rows. Always go there when I have to be in the big town.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “All right, Mr. Thayer. You didn’t happen to be on the road? Either of you?” He spoke to the brothers.

  “I was,” Harvey said. “With my wife. Is that all right with you?”

  “Now Mr. Landcraft. I—”

  “Look,” Harvey said. “You’ve set your mind this was murder? We may as well get it in the open.”

  There was a brief pause. They all looked at Heimrich; all waited.

  “Oh yes,” Heimrich said. “We may as well get it in the open, as you say. Your mother’s death was arranged. I am quite sure of that, Mr. Landcraft.”

  “Are you,” Harvey said, “sure you can prove it?”

  Heimrich looked at him. He nodded his head, slowly. He said, “Did you and Mrs. Landcraft happen to stop near this quarry? And—did Mrs. Landcraft happen to be wearing slacks?”

  “She was,” Harvey said. “We didn’t. We drove around a while, other side of Brewster, got caught in the fog, came home.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Mr. Ballard?”

  “In bed,” Ballard said. “Asleep. At the cottage. But I couldn’t prove it, I guess.”

  “I was here,” Wade said. “Not asleep. But—what would I want to follow Evvie for?”

  “I don’t know,” Heimrich said. “As I said. I don’t know why anyone would. Or that she was. Have you decided what you’re going to do with the herd?”

  “Who stands to profit,” Harvey said. “That’s the point, isn’t it?”

  “Now Mr. Landcraft. One of the points. Well?”

  Harvey looked at his brother, and shrugged.

  “Probably,” Wade said, “we’ll have a dispersion sale in the spring. Unless—” He stopped.

  “Nope,” Arnold Thayer said. “All I want is the big fellow. No tie-in.”

  “Then it’s a general sale in the spring,” Wade said. “What you offer doesn’t make sense. You know that as well as we do.”

  “Don’t take it then,” Thayer said. “You’ll go farther and do worse. Ask Ballard. He’s your own man.”

  It occurred to Heimrich that they had, momentarily, almost forgotten him. Of that he approved; it is often convenient to be forgotten.

  “There’s something in what he says, Mr. Landcraft,” Alec Ballard said, slowly. “That’s all I say. It’s something to think about.”

  “Thirty thousand!” Wade said. “You’re both crazy. An international grand—”

  “A killer,” Thayer said. “Who wants a killer as a herd sire? Don’t know why I do.”

  “Except he’s about the best bull in the world.”

  “Maybe,” Thayer said. “Was, maybe. Who wants to handle him now?”

  “That’s all I say,” Alec Ballard said. “You asked me. I don’t say it’s not pretty much giving him away. All I say is—at an open sale you’re taking a chance. Way I see it, you’re over a barrel.”

  “Hell of a chance,” Thayer said. “I can tell you that. Tell you something else, if you don’t see it.” He paused. He shrugged. “What’s the point?” he said. “Take it or leave it.”

  “No,” Harvey Landcraft said. “What don’t we see, Mr. Thayer?” Wade started to speak. “Wait a minute,” Harvey said. “We want to get the picture.” Wade shrugged, then.

  “O.K.,” Arnold Thayer said. “I’ve been a breeder a long time. Everybody knows that. Knows my herd. I buy Deep Meadow Prince. Looks like I didn’t think he’s so mean, don’t it? People who might think twice about buying his get’ll say, ‘Old man Thayer don’t mind taking a chance. Maybe he knows something.’ See what I mean? This gets around you go ahead and have your sale—”

  “And it gets around we let a
quarter of a million dollars’ worth of bull go for thirty thousand,” Wade said. “What do we get for the rest of the herd? Nickel apiece?”

  Thayer looked at Harvey. He shook his head.

  “Sure,” Harvey said. “Does Macy’s tell Gimble’s? Be your age, Wade. Who’s to know what he pays? Except—” He looked around the room, then. Heimrich was no longer forgotten. “Hell!” Harvey said.

  “Now Mr. Landcraft,” Heimrich said. “Nothing illegal’s been proposed, as I understand it. The police aren’t interested. I’m not.” He paused; he closed his eyes. “Directly,” he added. “Also, I’m not the Better Business Bureau.” He opened his eyes. “I’m interested in murder,” he said. “In finding a man named Smith. In a tall man and a shorter man. In—”

  “Smith,” Thayer said, “is a good deal shorter than I am.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten that,” Heimrich said. “By the way—you and Mrs. Landcraft were on good terms, Mr. Thayer?”

  Thayer opened his eyes. He appeared to be astonished. So, Heimrich thought, did the Landcrafts and Ballard.

  “Me?” Thayer said. “Good terms. Why, sure, captain. Margaret and I were—” He broke off, and his eyes narrowed. “You been talking to Florrie Haskins?”

  “Among others,” Heimrich said.

  Then Thayer laughed, and then the others smiled.

  “Good old Florrie,” Thayer said. “Contented rattlesnake. Much as a man’s reputation is worth to judge one of her Blacks. Unless she wins, and mostly she doesn’t. That right, Wade?”

  Wade seemed to hesitate. Then he said, “She has that reputation, captain. I like the old girl and—well, anyway, you do hear stories.”

  Heimrich merely waited. It was his business to hear stories, of various kinds; his habit to wonder who started them; his fate to hear denials. He heard one now, from Thayer. He said, “Now Mr. Thayer, I haven’t accused you of anything. Haven’t accused anybody.”

  “But,” Harvey said, “you expect to. The people who profit, captain?”

  “I try,” Heimrich said, “to make the character fit the crime. And—people often help me, Mr. Landcraft. Often by—”

  He broke off, as Bonita Landcraft came into the room. She massaged her eyes with delicate finger tips, although her eyes were bright. Just inside the door she said, “Oh, you again, captain,” and paused, a hand on the jamb. But then she came on into the room. “Been catching up with my sleep,” she said. “Still plugging away, captain?”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Still plugging away.”

  “Thata policeman,” Bonita Landcraft said. She was immaculate in a dress of pale yellow linen. Her brown legs were bare; green shoes matched the belt of the dress. She was all that a pretty lady from New York should be except—and this Captain Heimrich observed belatedly—quite sober. She had started pre-lunch drinking rather early.

  Indications of insobriety had not been obvious, and were not now. It was true that she had, for an instant, steadied herself as she came through the door; it was true that, moving into the room, there had been the faintest possible imprecision in her walk. Yet her eyes were bright; her voice hardly higher in pitch than Heimrich remembered it from the day before. There was more to be inferred from Harvey Landcraft’s quick glance at his wife than from anything, since there was so little to put a finger on, that an outsider might have observed unaided. Heimrich had, nevertheless, no doubt that pretty Bonita was a little drunk.

  What he did to reveal this knowledge, since he practiced to reveal little inadvertently, he could not have said. But Bonita, swaying not at all (but with the fingers of her right hand pressing a little on a table) looked at him from bright eyes and said, “Shows, doesn’t it? The lady is a bum. The lady has drink taken.”

  “Come off it, Bonny,” Harvey said.

  Bonita looked at him and smiled pleasantly, and spoke to Heimrich.

  “Drowning my sorrow,” she said. “Mother-in-law cut off in her prime. My ever-loving mother-in-law. But what can you expect of that-wife-of-Harvey’s?”

  “Now Mrs. Landcraft,” Heimrich said.

  “Now Mrs. Landcraft,” she repeated. “Now Mrs. Landcraft. Try to be a little lady, Mrs. Landcraft. Remember you’re in a house of mourning, Mrs. Landcraft.”

  She was making it clear enough now. She was, Heimrich thought, doing more than make it clear enough. She was dramatizing it. She was told, by her husband, to be herself and said, “Oh, but darling. I am, aren’t I?” with the pleased air of a child. She turned back to Heimrich.

  “What it is,” she said, “the cork’s out. The thumb’s off. The cup bubbleth over. Surely—” She stopped, and shook her head. “Not nice to say that,” she said. “Not nice at all.”

  So she sang for a few seconds, instead—in a sweet clear voice; sang, “Shall we dance? shall we dance? shall we dance?”

  Then, with entire grace, she sat down, looked around at all of them, and said, “I’m really very sorry, Harvey.”

  “It’s all right,” Harvey said. He looked at Heimrich and, for an instant, Heimrich thought he was going to explain something. But he did not—did not even say, although Heimrich thought it obvious enough—that Bonita had been, and probably still was, under strain, or—

  “It’s just,” Bonita said, “that it’s so wonderful—so really wonderful—not to be hated. Not to know that off there, wherever, there’s someone hating you, waiting for you to stumble down the stairs and fall on your—break your neck. To make your husband see what kind of woman he’s married to while there’s still—”

  —or, Heimrich finished, to himself, release from strain; from strain too long imposed, too racking.

  “It wasn’t that way, Bonny,” Harvey said. “You—”

  “Just imagined it,” Bonny finished for him. “I know. Oh, I know, darling. She loved me, didn’t she. Oh—oh darling. Poor, poor darling.”

  “Skip it, Bonny,” Harvey said, and there was much in his voice—a kind of deep anxiety in his voice. “This isn’t—

  “Isn’t the time,” she said. “I know—I do know.” She looked around. “I’m sorry, everybody,” she said. “It’s just—the cork came out.” She laughed, and now not happily. “In more ways than one,” she said. She put a hand on each arm of her chair and leaned forward. “Nevertheless and notwithstanding, captain,” she said, “I did not kill Mother Landcraft. I—I issued no bull. On my honor as—as a no-good little show girl who was ruining—”

  And then she put her face in her cupped hands and began, almost soundlessly, to cry. Then Harvey knelt beside her chair and put his arms around her, quite as if no one else were there. He said nothing, but merely held her. Wade Landcraft walked to a window and stood looking out; Alec Ballard and Arnold Thayer did not look away. But after a few seconds they looked briefly at each other and it was, Heimrich thought, as if they shared something—no doubt, and understandably, embarrassment.

  Harvey said something in his wife’s ear, and she nodded without removing her hands from her face. They stood up together, and, still with an arm about her, Harvey took his pretty, not entirely sober, girl out of the room.

  Wade turned away from the window after the door closed behind them. Heimrich waited.

  “She—exaggerates,” Wade said, when the silence had begun to be heavy.

  “Does she?” Heimrich said.

  “She gets excited,” Wade said. “It only takes a couple of drinks sometimes.”

  “Oh yes,” Heimrich said. “But—” He waited.

  “Mother didn’t like her much,” Wade said. “That’s true. She didn’t—couldn’t—understand a girl like Bonny. But—she didn’t feel the way Bonny said. Not—waiting for Bonny to make a misstep or—” He stopped. “I’m sure she didn’t,” he said. He did not, Heimrich thought, say it like a man who was sure at all.

  There was a long pause.

  “I didn’t know Mrs. Landcraft was in the theater,” Arnold Thayer said. He spoke as if the fact interested him greatly; Heimrich was for a moment surprised, then
not surprised, to observe that the little cattle breeder, with a face shriveled like an over-baked potato, moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.

  “As I understand it, Mr. Thayer,” Heimrich said, and his voice was as heavy, as without expression, as his face. “As I understand it, Mrs. Landcraft is not in a burlesque show.”

  Thayer looked at Heimrich, and at first looked puzzled. But then, just perceptibly, his red neck grew redder.

  “Sings and dances on television,” Wade said, absently, his mind seemingly elsewhere.

  “Oh,” Thayer said. “Sure. Well—?”

  “Well?” Wade said.

  “Offers open until tomorrow, anyhow,” Thayer said. “Another day if you want. Even two.”

  “All right,” Wade said.

  “Don’t want to rush you,” Thayer said. “Talk it over with your brother. Listen to Alec, here. Alec’s a man knows the business. And, like your brother says, I’m not a man boasts of making a good deal. Say I paid—hell, man, say anything that doesn’t make me look a fool. Hundred thousand if you—”

  “All right,” Wade said. “I’ll talk it over with Harv. Listen to Alec. Only—”

  “Sure,” Thayer said. “I’ll be getting along.” He looked at Heimrich, his gray eyes cold. “If it’s all right with the officer here?”

  “Now Mr. Thayer,” Heimrich said. “Perfectly all right. If there should be anything more, I’ll get in touch with you, naturally. You’re staying here?”

  “At the inn, in Carmel,” Thayer said. “You do that, officer.” He said he would be seeing Alec, but Alec Ballard said he was going back to the barns, if Mr. Landcraft didn’t want him right then and—when Wade shook his head—went through the door after the much shorter man.

  Wade watched them go; waited until they had had time to leave the house.

  “Listen,” he said then. “I’m going over to see Evvie. See—well, be sure she’s all right.”

  He, evidently, gave Heimrich time to object.

  “Of course,” Heimrich said. “Why not, Mr. Landcraft? I’ll go look for Mr. Smith.”

  Wade nodded his head, nodded quickly.