Burnt Offering Page 14

  “The night of the fire,” Heimrich said. “The night of the murder. You didn’t happen to see lights in Mr. Phipps’s house that night?”

  Stidworthy looked at him for a moment. Then he shook his head.

  “Didn’t look,” he said. “Got home late after the Westlakes’. Went to bed. We’d have had to make a point of looking.”

  “And you didn’t,” Heimrich said, and then he thanked Stidworthy again, and got into his car. Stidworthy raised a hand and carried his glass toward the house. Somebody else was being helpful, Heimrich thought, as he rolled down the drive to Van Brunt Lane, and turned left into it. This time, he did not pass the Van Brunt driveway.

  IX

  The station wagon no longer stood in the Van Brunt porte-cochère, the very existence of which was a post mortem on other days—the days of Cornelia Van Brunt’s youth. Carriages must have rolled through it, once—rolled into it, stopped, rolled on again to the stables behind. Heimrich stopped his car short of the porte-cochère and walked across the grass toward the plump white-haired woman who wore a green linen suit, and who stood, hands on hips, in the sun, on the cropped grass, and looked around her with the disapproving resignation characteristic, that summer, of all who nurtured lawns. When Heimrich turned into the drive, she had been looking at the western sky, which was very blue, and in which the sun blazed. She took off green sun glasses when she heard the car, and looked at it.

  Her face was pink and smooth and soft. But she had sharp blue eyes, which now she pointed at Heimrich. Then she said, oh, he was the policeman. The police captain, wasn’t it? Heimrich agreed it was. She stood an inch or two over five feet; at a guess, she weighed a hundred and forty. She spoke, as her son had, in the vanishing accents of the Hudson Valley, but her speech was less modified than his by modern idiom. Her voice was even deeper than he had remembered.

  “One wonders,” she said, “if it will ever rain.”

  Heimrich agreed one did. He said, without originality, that it always had, in the end. His remark received the treatment it deserved; it was ignored.

  “I suppose,” Mrs. Van Brunt said, “you want to ask me something about Orville? The poor man.”

  There were, Captain Heimrich admitted, one or two points.

  “I suppose,” she said, “that you’d better come inside, then. Out of the sun.”

  Heimrich agreed that might be best. But he did not move, immediately. He looked across the lawn—the grass was certainly burning up—and across lower land, toward the high land above Van Brunt Avenue. The highway, it was clear, had taken a line of lesser resistance, through a valley.

  “Well?” she said. “Shall we go inside, then?”

  Heimrich could see, distantly, a house on the far hill, or could see part of a house, through trees.

  “The old Varney place,” Mrs. Van Brunt said, and she sighed and shook her head. “All gone now. One of the really old families.”

  “Oh,” Heimrich said. “I thought it was Mr. Phipps’s house.”

  “Poor Orville,” she said. “He did live there. That’s true.”

  ’Tis true ’tis pity; and pity ’tis ’tis true. Or had been.

  “Of course,” she said, “we always think of it as the Varney place. I suppose we resist change. It may seem absurd to you, captain.”

  “No. Most people do,” Heimrich said, and she looked at him closely with the sharp blue eyes.

  “Do they?” she said. “Perhaps they do, in one way or another. But I was thinking especially—” She shook her head, and did not say what, especially, she had been thinking of. “We’ll go in, then,” she said, and turned and walked away from him across the lawn. She did not look to see if Heimrich followed her; certain things went without saying. Faintly amused, Heimrich followed “the duchess.” He wondered whether she often looked behind her to see if the chair was there.

  On the porch of the house, she stopped before a screen door and waited for Heimrich to open it. When he did, quickly, she thanked him, the conventional words casually dropped to mark a place. She led him into a wide central hall, and through it into a long drawing room, curtained and dim after the sunlight, and cool, although air did not stir in it.

  “Would you care for something?” she asked. “A cup of tea, perhaps?”

  He would only take a few minutes of her time, Heimrich said, and she said, “Very well, captain,” and sat in a chair, not relaxing in it. She looked up at him. “Oh,” she said, “won’t you sit down, captain?”

  Heimrich did. He was, he said, trying to trace Mr. Phipps’s movements on the night of his death. At the Stidworthys’, he had learned that, from the terrace there, one could see, across the valley, something of the Phipps house. He had been told that, at night, Mr. Stidworthy could see lights in the Phipps house, when lights were on. That night, he had not looked. Mr. Stidworthy had thought Mrs. Van Brunt could see as much.

  “The Appleton farm,” Mrs. Van Brunt said. “Where the Stidworthys built. So many changes.” She shook her head slightly. “Yes, we can see lights in the old Varney place, of course. We always could.”

  “That night,” Heimrich said. “Did you see lights?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m afraid I didn’t, captain. After the meeting—weren’t you at the meeting?” Heimrich agreed he had been. “With the Aldens,” she said. “I remember now. New people, but I’ve heard they’re quite nice, really. Grace Barker knows them, I believe. What was I saying?”

  “That you hadn’t seen lights in the Phi—in the Varney place,” Heimrich said. “That, after the meeting—”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “After the meeting, and the fire. I didn’t stop to watch the fire, of course. I came home and retired early. My rooms are on that side of the house and I do remember looking out. The Varney house was dark.” She paused, briefly. She said, “Why, captain?”

  “Mrs. Faye met him,” Heimrich said. “That would have been later, of course. I’m trying to find out where he went after that. If he had gone home, he would have turned on lights, naturally. But that would have been after you were in bed. Perhaps the servants?”

  “Oh,” she said, “I shouldn’t think so. I sent Florence to bed after she had fixed my milk. The others don’t live in the house, of course. But, if you feel it necessary, you can ask them. At another time. At this hour in the afternoon—”

  Heimrich agreed another time would do.

  “And poor little Susan saw him last,” Mrs. Van Brunt said. “That’s interesting, isn’t it?”

  “Now Mrs. Van Brunt,” Heimrich said. “Is it?”

  She had not, she said, meant anything. Not anything at all. Of course, the captain knew that Susan and poor Orville had been cousins? That they, and Michael Faye, came from The Flats?

  Heimrich admitted knowledge.

  “It is,” she said, “remarkable how far some people can go, regardless of background, isn’t it? Orville growing up there, and ending as town supervisor? It used to be so different, you know. The Van Brunts, or the Varneys. Even the Jacksons or the Barkers—the town revolved around them, of course.”

  “And the Uptons?” Heimrich said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I suppose so. Although they weren’t—well, really responsible people, you know. They did such foolish things, we all thought. Married so—oddly. Where did Susan Faye see Orville, captain?”

  Heimrich told her, and told her the direction Phipps had taken when he left. He could have been, she pointed out, going anywhere. Heimrich agreed; he said that that was, naturally, the trouble.

  “She’s quite a strong girl, isn’t she?” Mrs. Van Brunt said. “Susan Faye, I mean. Although she doesn’t go in for sports, I believe.”

  “I doubt,” Heimrich said, “that she has the time, Mrs. Van Brunt.”

  “Her husband killed in that war Truman got us into,” Mrs. Van Brunt said. “But, of course, they had nothing, even before. Some of the Fayes still live in The Flats.” She paused. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help,” she said.
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  Heimrich stood up. He thanked her. She said he could find his way out, and he agreed he could.

  “By the way,” he said, “you sold Mr. Phipps some property a few months ago. Ten acres or so.”

  Her blue eyes were very sharp.

  “Really,” she said. “I can’t see the connection.”

  “Probably there isn’t any,” Heimrich said.

  “There certainly is not,” Mrs. Van Brunt said. “A strip down the road I had no use for. Was glad to get rid of, actually. What connection could there be?”

  “Now Mrs. Van Brunt,” Heimrich said. “I just happened to come across the deed.”

  “One sometimes feels,” Mrs. Cornelia Van Brunt said, “that all respect for privacy has been lost. Along with respect for—so many other things.” She stood. “I fear you are wasting time, captain,” she said. “We can tell you nothing about Mr. Phipps.” She waited, then, for him to go.

  He said some waste of time was inevitable, was an occupational hazard. He went, and was not accompanied to the door. He walked across the cropped grass to his car. He drove back to Van Brunt Center, and the Old Stone Inn.

  Sergeant Forniss was waiting for him in the taproom. Sergeant Forniss sipped a beer. Heimrich sat opposite him, and was at once attended. He thought of bourbon, remembered gin and tonic, ordered a tom collins, with little sugar.

  “Nothing at the house,” Forniss said. “He cut a screen over an open window. A few smudges. He wore gloves when he could, remembered what he had touched—didn’t work the combination with gloves on, probably—and cleaned up. Plenty of prints of Phipps. Match those on the station wagon. Plenty of the housekeeper’s. A few latents, unidentified. Most of them over-layed by Phipps’s or the housekeeper’s. Path down the hill to the main road. Nothing to show he took it, or didn’t take it. No signs a car was parked down there. No sign there wasn’t.”

  “Now Charlie,” Heimrich said. “You mean, nothing to go on.”

  Forniss said, “Yep,” at that.

  Asa Purvis, at the Cold Harbor Hospital, continued to do as well as could be expected—which was, on the whole, well. Officially, he remained on the critical list, and was denied visitors, except his parents. There had been several enquiries about his condition by telephone—Forniss had a list of the names of those who had called, and Heimrich glanced at names for the most part unfamiliar. Myra Burns had called; so had Timothy Westlake. Of the others, Heimrich had not heard. Henry Van Brunt III had called in person, had not seen Asa, had been told only what others were told. No effort to remove the bullet would be made for at least forty-eight hours. It was doing no particular harm where it was lodged. The boy still was low on blood.

  “Jackson was there, too,” Forniss said. “Asked about the kid. Got standard answers. At about the same time Van Brunt was there. Around lunchtime.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I ran into Mr. Jackson.” He told Forniss where, told him the circumstances. Forniss whistled, on two notes.

  “Does she know anything?” he asked.

  “She says not,” Heimrich told him. “And—that she wouldn’t tell us if she did. Understandable enough—if it’s all on the level.”

  Forniss waited.

  “Since it clears her,” Heimrich said, “we look at it twice, naturally. I’d have thought she would have heard my car coming up the drive. There’s nothing to prevent anyone’s talking on a dead telephone, is there, sergeant? But there’s the boy, of course. He’s an honest boy.”

  “Then,” Forniss said, “he was kidnaped. So it wasn’t an act.” He paused. “Unless—” he said, and paused again.

  “She was helped,” Heimrich finished. “Mr. Jackson spoke about a couple who work for him. Perhaps Michael doesn’t know the man. Perhaps the man wears a hat. Perhaps he’ll do what Jackson tells him. And—there’s no law against taking a boy for a ride, Charlie. Not if you bring him back.”

  “An accessory,” Forniss said, “can get five years. And a fine.”

  “Accessory to a felony,” Heimrich agreed. “But, who’s the felon, Charlie?”

  “Not the girl,” Forniss said. “Not any woman. Somebody who could hoist Phipps into the station wagon. Big or little, they’re heavy when they’re dead. You know that.”

  “And awkward to handle,” Heimrich said. “Yes. He could have been forced to get in, shot while he was in. Only, there’s no blood, is there? So, he was wrapped up. In something that would burn, naturally. What about the fire, Charlie?”

  “So far as they can tell,” Forniss said, “it started from defective wiring. They’ve been crawling around in it all day. Nothing to show it was set.”

  “Which,” Heimrich said, “leaves us with a coincidence, doesn’t it?”

  “Or,” Forniss said, “somebody who hears opportunity when it knocks. Bodies are a nuisance. You really think it might have been this Faye woman?”

  Heimrich drank before he answered. Then he said only that he’d rather not. Forniss looked at him and waited. “She seems a nice person,” Heimrich said, and mildly surprised Charles Forniss, who had known several murderers who seemed nice persons, and had never before known Captain Heimrich to make a point of anything so obvious. “You talked to the Purvis boy, Charlie?” Heimrich asked.

  Forniss had, briefly. He had not been allowed to ask many questions, to press the boy in any way. But, he doubted that longer questioning would bring out more than they had—Asa had been asleep. Pain and a great noise had awakened him. He did not know the origin of either; before he lost consciousness his only effort had been to find help.

  “Somebody fired through the window,” Forniss said. “Saw he had made a hit. Ran without waiting for more. What would the boy have seen?”

  “Nothing,” Heimrich agreed. “Of course, whoever shot him can’t be sure of that, Charlie. And, not being sure worries murderers. Was young Van Brunt much of a friend of Asa’s, Charlie?”

  “About as he says,” Forniss said. “He and the older Purvis boys knocked around together when they were kids. Before Van Brunt went away to school. Kids are democratic in the country. Asa was the small brother who tagged along. But—Van Brunt’s no good to us, captain.”

  Heimrich waited. He was told. Unless three men were lying, Henry Van Brunt III had spent Monday evening in Chicago—had had dinner with friends, had boarded a train for New York at a little before midnight. When Orville Phipps was shot, it was to be presumed that Henry Van Brunt was stretched at ease in a Pullman berth. At any rate, he was on a train some hundreds of miles to the west.

  “So,” Forniss said, “it lets him out of the Phipps killing. You wanted him in?”

  “Somebody,” Heimrich said. “I wouldn’t be hard to satisfy, Charlie. But—I’ve more or less been offered young Van Brunt. Not in so many words, naturally. But the offer was made. I’m not sure it wasn’t made twice. By different men. Mr. Jackson. Mr. Stidworthy. Of course, young Michael knows them both. He knows almost everybody around, Susan says. Most of the men his mother knows, which would be most of the people we’ve run into. With one exception, naturally.”

  “You mean this man of Jackson’s?”

  Heimrich closed his eyes. After a time he said, “Now Charlie. Jackson’s man, of course. I wasn’t—” He stopped; he listened. “Wasn’t that thunder, Charlie?” he asked.

  Thunder answered him.

  “Lots of people’ll be glad to hear that,” Forniss said. “It’s been a dry summer.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “A very dry summer, hasn’t it?” He finished his drink; he stood up. “Come on, Charlie,” he said. “We’ve got a man to see.” Forniss stood up. “A man named Barker—Roger Barker. Obliging man, as bankers go.” He looked at his watch. “We can catch him before dinner,” Heimrich said. “If he doesn’t eat too early.”

  Outside the inn, the late afternoon sun still blazed on the cement walks and on the burning grass, still softened the black surface of the highway. But, below the unrelenting sun, a black cloud mass drew a line across the
sky—a line as sharply drawn as if a ruler had guided it. The sun hung just above the cloud edge. At the horizon, in the sullen darkness of the black cloud, lightning flashed and, after what seemed a long time, thunder sounded, rolling slowly among the hills. It was, Forniss remarked, going to be a honey. He added that they were frequently honeys hereabouts.

  In that place, where the Hudson lies broad between hills, thunderstorms can have a somewhat frightening grandeur. They do not so much break as shatter; they seem to follow the river down, and to be moved to great anger by their confinement between the hills. This storm, which would almost certainly be the first of several, shook its lightning off-stage, awaiting an entrance—waiting to hurl itself downriver. “Chance of afternoon thundershowers,” the forecast that morning had said, and now Heimrich remembered it. The description seemed inadequate to the brooding blackness of the waiting cloud.

  There were few people visible in Van Brunt Center. The library was long since closed; in the bank a single light burned dimly, waiting for darkness to give it purpose. Down the street, two men in white aprons stood in front of the A. & P. and looked at the coming storm; south along the road a car hurried, seeming to flee the thunder. Heimrich and Sergeant Forniss walked around the inn and got the police sedan, which was not identified as such, from the parking lot. Forniss drove, and they headed north, toward the storm.

  They reached The Corners and turned west there on Elm Street, which was also N. Y. 109, and as they turned, as if it had been waiting for them to turn and start climbing into the hills, the sun dropped into the cloud. Instantly, it was much darker, but it was not, yet, any cooler. The air was still; it seemed to press heavily on the little sedan. The car climbed a curving road, and seemed to climb toward the storm.

  They almost missed the turning at Van Brunt Pass; it was a road which might easily be taken for someone’s driveway. The sign which identified it was inconspicuous; just in time, Heimrich saw it, and said, “Turn here.” They turned right, climbing more steeply, up a road which twisted on itself. The road was narrow; there were ditches on either side. “Must be fun in winter,” Forniss said, as he spun the wheel. They came to a straight stretch of the little road, where it ran briefly on a plateau. To the left, toward the Hudson, a dry stone fence went parallel, and a house loomed beyond it. When they were opposite the house, a light went on on the lower floor, and then another. As they turned in to a drive, at a sign lettered “Barker,” jagged lightning tore at the dark cloud which was now halfway to the zenith, and now the thunder was quick; now it began with an explosion and ended in a snarl.