Accent on Murder Page 11

  IX

  THE BIG BLACK CAR was stenciled “USN.” It wore Navy license plates. It edged past the police car in the driveway and stopped in the turnaround. A sailor in the most immaculate of white hats, the most tailored of dress blues, got nimbly from behind the wheel and went around the car and opened the door for Vice Admiral Jonathan Bennett, retired. Jonathan Bennett got out, while the sailor stood at attention.

  He looks so exactly like an admiral, Dorcas Cameron thought, and got up from a chair on the terrace. How can I ever face him, she thought, and faced him and began to walk toward him.

  Bennett wore gray tweeds; he was lean and had a long brown face and stood erect, unbending. He did, certainly, look exactly like an admiral. He must have looked like that, Dorcas thought—vaguely, putting off other thoughts—almost since he was an ensign. Was that one reason he had, in fact, become an admiral? She supposed not; the Navy has admirals of all shapes and sizes, including some who are pudgy. Dorcas walked to the edge of the terrace and then Alan Kelley took two long steps and stood beside her, straight as the admiral stood.

  Admiral Bennett walked across the grass and stopped and looked down at Dorcas. For the first time, she thought, there was age in Uncle Jon’s face. She looked up at him, and did not know what was in her own face.

  “All right, child,” Bennett said, and smiled. (Except that it was not really a smile, only the shape of a smile.) “Not your fault.”

  Her lips trembled. She wanted to hide her face in her hands, but did not.

  “It—it was,” she said. “Uncle Jon—it—”

  “That’s not true, sir,” Kelley said, and then he put an arm around Dorcas’s shoulders and held her against him.

  “Shouldn’t suppose so,” Bennett said. “Who are you?”

  “Kelley, sir,” Alan said. “Lieutenant.”

  Vice Admiral Bennett looked at him; looked at him carefully; looked at his hands. The ring was there.

  “Get you a drink, sir?” Alan Kelley said.

  “Yes,” Bennett said. “And her, Kelley.”

  Kelley went.

  “Well?” Bennett said. “What did you mean, Dorcas?”

  He went up onto the terrace and stood and looked down at her.

  “A crazy man,” she said. “They said he was harmless. But—I should have done something. I—Uncle Jon, I’m so—” But she stopped. There did not seem to be a word for it.

  “Goes without saying,” Bennett told her, but his voice was a dead voice. “This man kill Carry?”

  “They don’t know,” she said. “He—they think he was there. At the place where—”

  “All right,” Bennett said. “They told me enough. About that. What about the crazy man?”

  She told him. She had half told him when Alan came back through the french doors, with a tray and glasses on it, and bottles. Just beyond the doors he stopped. Bennett did not look at him, but he stopped. Dorcas finished; she told it briefly.

  “Sentimental fools,” Bennett said. “Should keep him locked up. All right, Kelley.”

  Alan set the tray down on a table. “Scotch,” Admiral Bennett said. “Whatever she wants. Have one yourself.”

  “Yes sir,” Alan said, and poured.

  “All right,” Bennett said. “The point is, who’s in charge? And, why isn’t he here?”

  “A man named Heimrich,” Alan Kelley said. “Sir. I don’t know where he is, at the moment. He seems to be a very efficient man, admiral.”

  “We’ll see,” Admiral Bennett said. He took his drink. He said, “Sit down, my dear. Drink your drink.” When Dorcas sat down, he sat too. He said, “Sit down, Kelley.” Alan sat down. Bennett looked over the top of his glass; looked, Alan Kelley thought, at nothing, through blank eyes. Or—did he look over water, endless water, and see ships battered down? He had, Alan Kelley knew; and seen men die—friends die. Alan wanted to say something, but there was nothing to say.

  Bennett looked at him, then. He said, “All right, Kelley. Carry on.”

  The words had no precise meaning. But, surprised a little, Alan thought they were an answer to his thoughts.

  “And you, child,” Bennett said, and his voice was different—not so old, not so flat. “Told you to drink your drink. Apparently there’s no proof this man who yelled at you had anything to do with—the rest of it. Not your fault, anyway.” He looked at her, gray eyes intent. “That’s an order,” he said, and smiled, and this time the smile was a little more than a shape.

  She sipped the drink. Poor Uncle Jon, she thought. On a boat in bright waters and a telephone rings and—this. She held the glass in her hands—both hands—and looked at it, and did not see it. She saw a circle of grass and horror there. Would she never see anything else? Really see anything else? Even—even Alan?

  “My dear,” Admiral Bennett said, “I won’t have this. No fault of yours.” His eyes made her look at him. “None,” he said. “However it was.” Then, abruptly, he looked at the watch on his wrist.

  “Kelley,” he said, “find out where this Heimrich is. Tell him to get along here. Tell him I want to see him.”

  Alan Kelley put his glass down and stood up, more or less at attention, as one does for admirals. But he said, a little hesitantly, “I don’t know, sir. I—”

  Admiral Bennett looked at him and Alan Kelley stopped.

  “Yes sir,” Kelley said and turned to go into the house. He took two steps.

  “Kelley,” Admiral Bennett said, and Alan stopped and turned back. “I’d appreciate it if you’d try to get in touch with this Heimrich,” Bennett said. “And—thanks for standing by.”

  And again, as he went into the house to the telephone—supposing he had better try the police barracks first—it seemed to Alan Kelley that the vice admiral, retired, had answered thoughts unspoken. Quite an admiral this admiral must have been, Alan Kelley thought and then, unexpectedly, thought of Heimrich—not as a man to find, but as a man of square solidity and—He considered a word, and nodded and dialed Operator and waited. Yes, the word was right. A man with the habit of command.

  It was, he thought, going to be interesting when the two—well, this word probably was “collided.”

  “I want—” he began, but then heard a car stop outside and looked through the front door. “Never mind,” he said.

  Captain Heimrich was getting out of the police car. He was not quite as tall as Admiral Bennett. On the other hand, he was a little thicker. It’s a hell of a time to be amused, even on the surface of the mind, Alan Kelley thought, and went out onto the terrace to attend a collision.

  The police car, with Forniss in it, backed and turned and went down the drive.

  Heimrich walked across the grass to the terrace. He noted that Vice Admiral Jonathan Bennett, standing, waiting, looked very like an admiral should; he noted that the Navy had provided superior transportation, and that rank—even retired rank—retains its privileges. He noted that he was being regarded, assayed, through very level gray eyes.

  “You’re the man in charge?” Admiral Bennett said. It was not really a question.

  “This is Admiral Bennett, Captain Heimrich,” Alan Kelley said, at much the same time, and Bennett looked at him briefly and Alan stiffened somewhat.

  “I’m very sorry about your daughter, admiral,” Heimrich said, which was inadequate, as anything would be. For an instant, the gray eyes went blank, shuttering the tall man alone with pain which was nobody’s business but his own. The blankness passed.

  “Very well,” Bennett said. “What have you to report, Heimrich?”

  Heimrich closed his own eyes momentarily. He opened them.

  “Now admiral,” Heimrich said. “Nothing conclusive at the moment. We—”

  “My daughter,” Admiral Bennett said, “was killed more than twenty-four hours ago. Considerably more. If your reports are accurate.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “It’s been less than that since Miss Cameron found her body.” He managed to speak without inflection.


  “Well?” Admiral Bennett said. “What action are you taking, Heimrich?”

  Heimrich walked up onto the terrace, which was raised a foot or so above the lawn. Height was equalized, or nearly. If Admiral Bennett planned to be difficult, there was no point in looking up at him.

  “What I think necessary, admiral,” Heimrich said, still without inflection. “I appreciate how you must be feeling but—”

  “That,” Bennett said, “has nothing to do with it. Leave that out of it. I asked what progress you’ve made.”

  “And,” Heimrich said, “I told you, nothing conclusive.” Bennett look at him, measured him.

  “You are in charge?” Bennett said.

  It seemed a good time.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “The responsibility is mine.” He regarded Bennett, blue eyes as frosty as gray eyes. “Naturally,” Heimrich said.

  It was, as Alan Kelley had anticipated, collision, none the less direct for being, in the moment of its greatest intensity, silent—a matter of eyes only, of wills only. Alan found him-self wondering whether anything precisely like it had happened to Admiral Bennett before, and thought it improbable. The admiral’s life had been—as mine will be, Alan thought—so arranged that direct collision is unlikely. For much of his life, Admiral Bennett had taken orders—from, of course, progressively fewer. He had obeyed them, whatever he thought. For the rest of his active career, he had given orders, to increasing numbers, and they were obeyed, whatever the recipients thought of them. His was, had always been, a world of seniors and juniors, fixed in place.

  The two large men looked frostily at each other, and both waited.

  It is, Heimrich thought, all a little ridiculous. It is, however, apparently necessary.

  It was, clearly, a question of which would speak next. It hung there for some seconds. And it was Vice Admiral Bennett who spoke.

  “I take it,” he said, “you know your job. Or—think you do.”

  It was not much; it was enough. Heimrich smiled faintly.

  “Yes, admiral,” he said. “I think I do.”

  For further seconds, the admiral looked at him.

  “You may,” he said then, “be right. So—carry on.”

  It was permission granted—at any rate, the form of that. The form didn’t matter.

  “I want,” Heimrich said, “to find out everything I can about your daughter, admiral. Everything you can tell me. I’m—sorry to ask.”

  “You can belay that,” Admiral Bennett said. “She was a fine girl. Everything I could—” For an instant the firm voice slowed, almost broke. “Could have asked,” Bennett said, his voice firm again. “Married to a good officer. Where is he?”

  He was, Heimrich said, supposed to be on his way there, from some place undesignated, but apparently not distant. Bennett nodded. “Know his duties are very hush-hush,” he said.

  “There’s an Intelligence lieutenant more or less riding herd,” Heimrich said.

  Bennett looked at Alan Kelley.

  “Reserve, sir,” Alan said, to which Admiral Bennett, in a certain way, said, “Oh.”

  Heimrich waited.

  “Well,” Admiral Bennett said, “what do you want to know? Specifically?”

  It always came to that. That was always, in the nature of things, unanswerable.

  “Anything that might help,” he said. “The usual thing, naturally. Is there anything in her past which would explain what happened? Give a hint of why it happened?”

  “No,” Bennett said. “This—psychopath? You don’t accept him?”

  “Say I don’t stop with him,” Heimrich said. He looked at Dorcas Cameron, who was sitting in a chair, watching, listening. At the admiral’s question there was a quickening in her eyes. At Heimrich’s answer, the eyes were quenched again. Heimrich waited.

  “You’re inexact,” Bennett told him.

  “Now admiral,” Heimrich said. “Mine’s an inexact occupation. You might say, we navigate most of the time in fog. Without charts. Anything about your daughter. Where, for example, did she go to school?”

  It was inevitable that Bennett should say, frosty again, that he could not see what that could have to do with it. It was inevitable that Heimrich, patiently, said he had no idea; that there was no reason to suppose it had any. It was a place to start.

  “A good many places,” Bennett said. “We lived a good many places—my wife and Carry and I. My wife’s dead. Now we’re—” He stopped again. He did not go on immediately; he sat down in a terrace chair. He said, “Sit down, Heimrich,” courteously, abstractedly, giving permission.

  “An American school in Paris,” Bennett said. “She was just a child then. A school in Honolulu. College in California for the first two years and then the University of Missouri. Journalism. I never did know why but—it was her life.” Again he stopped, again the gray eyes were momentarily shuttered. “Married Wilkins a few years ago,” Bennett said. “None of this is any good to you.”

  “Since then?”

  Bennett shook his head.

  “Living where they sent him. Recently here with Dorcas,” he said. “Wilkins, when he could get here. I know nothing about that—except from her letters. Seemed happy. Complained that her husband was usually somewhere else. Navy wives have cause for that. Part of what they take on.”

  “There wasn’t anything,” Dorcas said. “Not since we’ve been here. Just—ordinary things.”

  “What you’re getting at,” Bennett told Heimrich, “is—it was something that started in the past. Somebody she knew in the past.”

  “I don’t know,” Heimrich said. “It usually is. There is usually a reason somewhere. Unless killing is a mistake. Or, an insanity. Something a person knows or has or does—something that endangers another person, or denies another person. Money, sometimes. Dangerous knowledge.”

  “Not money,” Bennett said. “Oh—Carry had money. Her mother had a good deal. Her will divided it between Carry and me. But—not money. It will go to her husband, I suppose.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “It goes to her husband, admiral.”

  “So,” Bennett said, “that’s out.”

  He said it simply, as a simple, entirely incontrovertible fact. His life, Heimrich thought, must be largely composed of such incontrovertible facts, must long have been. It must be a comfortable way to live, if one did not know that it was precarious.

  “There was never any other man?” Heimrich asked, since he had to. He looked at Dorcas, who shook her head. He looked at the admiral.

  “I don’t like that question, Heimrich,” Admiral Bennett said. Frost was in his eyes again; his eyes said, “Erase that.”

  Heimrich sighed. He said, “Nevertheless, admiral.”

  “Carry wasn’t like that,” Dorcas said, and spoke quickly, impetuously. “Not at all like that.”

  Another incontrovertible fact. But Dorcas Cameron was, of course, very young.

  “Well, admiral?” Heimrich said.

  Admiral Bennett looked at him, and the look was a reprimand. Heimrich closed his eyes briefly, and opened them, and waited.

  “Dorcas is quite right,” Bennett said. “Since Carry married Wilkins, I doubt if she’s looked at—” He did not finish.

  “Very well,” Heimrich said. “Before that.” He waited another second or two. “It is quite evident there was, admiral,” he said. “That you’ve remembered something.”

  “Long time ago,” Bennett said. “Got nothing to do with this. Couldn’t have.”

  “Now admiral,” Heimrich said. “How do we know that? Another man, obviously. And—it couldn’t have been too long ago, could it? Your daughter was a young woman. About—twenty-five, wasn’t it?”

  “Twenty-six,” Bennett said. He considered Heimrich further, made up his mind. “Very well,” he said. “When she was twenty, at the university—Missouri University—she met this—young pup. Wrong kind. Mongrel pup. But—nothing would do. I was in Washington. Her mother was dead. She—lacked judgment. Al
l over and done with.” The admiral paused and again, momentarily, the sharp gray eyes were shuttered. “No need to say that, was there?” he said. “Since—everything is.”

  “This man—” Heimrich began, and Bennett did not seem to hear him, or want to wait for him.

  “Married him,” Bennett said. “Thoroughly nasty specimen, the pup was. After her money, of course. She—she thanked me, Heimrich.” He looked at Heimrich sharply. “In so many words,” he said.

  “For?”

  “Paying him off,” Bennett said. “Convincing him he’d better take a bird in the hand, since—well, all she got was the income until she was twenty-one. And, I controlled it. It didn’t take much argument, Heimrich. Walked off with the money, all right and she sued him. Desertion is enough, thereabouts.”

  “And,” Heimrich said, “she thanked you?”

  “Later on,” Bennett said. “Not much later on. Yes. Since she wasn’t stupid.”

  “He was, what?” Heimrich said. “A fellow student?”

  “Yes. You meet all kinds at a big school like that. He was several years older. Time out for his military training, I suppose. Army, probably. Not a type we’d want. Scribbled things. Commie, shouldn’t wonder.”

  The Army was not represented on the pleasant, shady terrace, where nothing was really pleasant any more. Heimrich thought it was probably just as well. He supposed Admiral Bennett meant the “mongrel pup” who had been Caroline Bennett’s first husband had been a writer, or had wanted to be one; he supposed that the word “Commie” was no more than a handy stick, and that it didn’t greatly matter, in any case. He supposed that none of it mattered. Most of what one turned up with didn’t. He heard the telephone ringing in the house.

  “Very well, Kelley,” Admiral Bennett said. “Get that.”

  “Sir,” Alan Kelley said, and went to answer the telephone.