Death and the Gentle Bull Read online

  “Now Mr. Landcraft,” Heimrich said, “you know her better than I do. And I can think of reasons. However—” He stood up. “We’ll be getting along, Crowley,” he said. He started through the house toward the front door.

  “You’ll be back, I’m sure,” Harvey Landcraft said.

  “Yes,” Heimrich agreed. “We’ll be back, I expect.”

  In the car, Heimrich said, “Carmel, Ray,” and then did not speak again until they had left Old Road behind and were on Route 6. Then he said, in the tone of one who notes an abstraction, that it is always annoying to have to let a lie pass, knowing it a lie.

  “Which one’s lying?” Ray asked him, and Heimrich said he could not prove anything—yet. But he had not, he said, been thinking precisely of that.

  “Somebody,” Heimrich said, “and I’d think one of the men at least, knows I’m lying, Ray. Took it pretty well too, considering. But it must have annoyed him a good deal.”

  Ray Crowley took his eyes from the road long enough to look at Heimrich, and then went back to his job.

  “We can’t prove Smith was killed, Ray,” Heimrich said, and told him why.

  “You could—” Ray began, but Heimrich shook his head.

  “Not in court, Ray,” he said. “We have to draw the line somewhere.” He paused. “I suppose,” he said, with regret. “But I don’t like murderers.” He sighed. Then he brightened. “But,” he said, “with any luck it won’t go that far. Not in that way, anyhow. Let’s see what the boys have got in Carmel, shall we?”

  “He’s bluffing,” Harvey told the others. “Trying to throw a scare into—somebody. Because, there’s no way he can know one of the men Evvie saw was Smith. And if it wasn’t Smith, it doesn’t matter who the other man was. There’s nothing he can prove.”

  “Dear Harvey,” Bonita said. “He dragged the pool.”

  “On a chance,” Harvey said. “Or—” He paused. “Under the circumstances, he has to do something. If only for the looks of the thing.”

  “I don’t know,” Bonita said, and looked away from the hills, looked around at the three tall men. “It doesn’t seem right, somehow. Not for him. If he—if he fiddles while Rome burns, it’s to get somebody to dance. To the tune he picks.”

  “Hell,” Harvey said. “He’s just a big, slow-footed cop. Furthermore, he tells everything he knows. He’s—he’s transparent, Bonny. You give him too much. His bluff’s transparent.”

  “He dragged the quarry,” she said. “It took time, and men. Probably it cost money. He knows one of the men was Smith.”

  “How?” Wade said, “Evvie didn’t.”

  “She says she didn’t,” Bonny said. “Anyway, she told you she didn’t.”

  She was told that she, herself, had agreed Evvie didn’t lie, and she said, “Oh, that.” She said, “All for one and one for all.” She said, “Perhaps she’s told the captain. He’s persuaded her not to admit anything to anybody else—even you, Wade.”

  “Or perhaps,” Alec Ballard said, “she did spot Smitty and not whoever was with him. Or—maybe she did spot this other guy and’s protecting him.”

  He did not look at Wade Landcraft; although Wade looked at him, and looked intently.

  “Whatever way it is,” Bonita said, and turned back to the hills, “he’s sure the smaller man was Smith. His dragging the quarry proves that. And so the other man killed Smith. So what he’s got to do, is to get the other man identified.” She paused. “I hope,” she said, “that it’s nobody any of us knows.”

  It boiled down, Ray Crowley said, to one of two men. Or, stretching a point, they could call it three. For both jobs. He braked the car for a stop sign.

  “Now Ray,” Heimrich said. “For Smith, probably. Although at the moment we can’t prove it. For both jobs? It could be another way. It didn’t need a man to kill Mrs. Landcraft. Smith—probably. If he was got drunk and lugged around a good deal. But anybody with any strength at all could have hit Mrs. Landcraft with something, either just outside the bull’s pen or, for that matter, inside it. If she was outside, it wasn’t far to drag her.”

  Crowley started the car. He turned right on the main street of Carmel. He said, “The man with Smith?”

  “Smith may have seen Mrs. Landcraft killed,” Heimrich said. “Somebody else may have decided to help out.”

  “Two in it?” Crowley said, and stopped the car near the county court house.

  He was told that it happened; that it often happened. Conspiracy to murder, the conspirators most often two; conspiracy to save the murderer.

  “For example,” he said, “if Bonita killed her mother-in-law, her husband probably would help her. If Miss Merritt did, I’d think Wade would help, wouldn’t you, Ray? To the point of disposing of Smith, even. If there wasn’t another way.”

  “I can’t,” Ray said, “see how you can figure Evvie—Miss Merritt, in.”

  “Can’t?” Heimrich said. “Or don’t want to? You’re not in high school now, Ray.”

  Ray Crowley flushed.

  “Nothing you can help, naturally,” Heimrich said. “Let’s see what the boys have got for us.”

  The “boys”—in the person of a county detective, who was in his sixties—had odds and ends. Smith had died drunk, as Heimrich had supposed. Harvey Landcraft’s present television show would go off the air in twelve weeks, unless a new sponsor picked it up. So far as anyone knew, it was his only source of income. He and his wife had probably lived up to the income. Friends of Wade Landcraft were of the belief that he might do a good deal to get out of cattle breeding—“fed to the teeth with it,” one said. They were also sceptical of, even indignant at, any implied suggestion that, to get out of it, he might have killed his mother. He wasn’t “that kind of a guy.”

  “They never are, of course,” Heimrich said, and the county detective agreed they never were, to their friends.

  Deep Meadow ran about two hundred head of cattle. There was no way to do more than guess the value of the herd. Before the big bull killed, the herd—excepting its herd bull—might conceivably have sold for half a million dollars; Deep Meadow Prince might himself have brought almost any sum. One international grand champion was reported to have been sold for two hundred thousand. “Some breeders doubt that, though,” the county detective said. If Deep Meadow Prince died before he was ten, Lloyd’s paid eighty thousand.

  Alec Ballard had been a cattle man since he was a boy; had come east from a big breeding farm in Iowa, where he had been herdsman; had been five years at Deep Meadow. He had a small breeding farm of his own, adjacent to the Landcraft farm. He had acquired a few heifers from the Deep Meadow Herd; one or two from Florence Haskins’ Rocking River Herd. He had, presumably, got them cheap; they were therefore not, presumably, likely to win many prizes. “His bull’s an Angus,” the county detective said. “Apparently that’s about all.” Nobody had heard any rumors that Mrs. Landcraft had been dissatisfied with Ballard—nobody but Miss Haskins. “Quite a girl, Florrie,” the county detective said. “Doesn’t like Ballard.”

  The Haskins herd was somewhat larger than that at Deep Meadow. It was generally considered a good herd, but with no outstanding animals. Miss Haskins had, before Prince went international grand champion, offered to buy a half interest in him. Margaret Landcraft had not been interested. Ballard had advised his employer against selling.

  “Make Miss Haskins mad?” Heimrich asked, and was told there was nothing to show it. The two women were a good deal together. The incident probably had not made her fonder of Ballard.

  “She’s well thought of by other breeders?” Heimrich asked. “No suggestion, say, that her records aren’t reliable?”

  “No,” the detective said. “Nothing against her. You think there would be?”

  “Now Henry,” Heimrich said, “you know how it is.”

  Bonita Landcraft—then Bonita Carroll—had been a show girl when Harvey met her. She had got into television, first as a dancer, then had sung an occasional song, now and th
en read a line or two. She had worked in a show Landcraft was directing. They had got married. “Tried it out first, apparently,” the detective said. “Lots do, nowadays.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “She wasn’t popular with her mother-in-law. That might be one reason.”

  “Might,” the county detective admitted. “Not modern, the old lady wasn’t.” He paused. “Not myself,” he added. “However, everybody says she’s a nice kid. Pretty bright, too.”

  Heimrich said he had noticed that. There was no suggestion that she drank more than was good for her? There was not.

  Arnold Thayer was one of the country’s outstanding breeders of Aberdeen Angus. He owned a big farm in Missouri, not far from Jefferson City; some of the best Blacks pastured there, and went from there to win prizes on the circuit. He had shown the reserve grand champion at the International show where Deep Meadow Prince had earned his grand championship. He had, at the same show, won the grand championship in the female class with a heifer named, among other things, Bessie. “By and large, from what we hear, he’s about the biggest in the business,” the county detective said.

  Thayer was one of those who had pioneered with Angus; one of those who had done most to popularize the breed, so that on the ranges throughout the country more and more cattle were black, and hornless. He was one of the best known judges in the middle west; he was prominent in the breeders’ association.

  “No suggestion his judgments have ever been influenced?” Heimrich asked. He got an emphatic shake of the head. “Or that he was ever suspected of sharp practices?”

  “None,” the county detective said.

  “A paragon,” Heimrich said.

  “He’s very well thought of, apparently,” the county detective said. “Makes a lot of money out of cattle, too. Good breeder; shrewd business man, from what we hear.”

  “But,” Heimrich said, “Mrs. Landcraft’s bull got the grand championship. He’d be an addition even to a farm like you say Thayer’s is.”

  “Apparently,” the detective said. “That’s about what we’ve got, captain.”

  He was told he had got a lot. Heimrich stood up.

  “There’s one other little thing,” the county detective said. “This place Smith died in. The one you found locked and broke open.”

  “Oh yes,” Heimrich said. “That.”

  “Smith’s prints on the padlock,” the county detective said. “One of yours overlaying. No others.” He regarded Heimrich, looking up from his desk. “We talked to Mrs. Smith. Very upset she is. Not very coherent. She does say they almost never locked up the place. No particular reason to.”

  “Didn’t they?” Heimrich said. “I wondered about that.”

  “So the man who took Smith there probably wouldn’t have found it locked,” the detective said. “But, he must have locked it after he put Smith in there. He didn’t wipe it off, because Smith’s prints are there. But, he had to handle the lock to fasten it. You did when you broke it open, apparently. Things like that puzzle a jury, captain.”

  “Now Henry,” Heimrich said. “He must have worn gloves, naturally.”

  “Yes,” the detective said. “He must have, I guess. But—locking it at all was a damn fool thing to do, wasn’t it? Leaving it locked for you to find, since that proved it wasn’t suicide. You’d figure he was excited, didn’t rightly know what he was doing. But here he is, putting on gloves so as not to leave prints. You can see how a jury might be puzzled, can’t you?”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I can see that, Henry. But—Smith was murdered. Got drunk and murdered. I haven’t told anybody he was drunk, by the way.”

  “Oh,” Henry said, “sure.”

  “And,” Heimrich said, “we’ll try to make it as simple as we can for the jury. When we get a jury, naturally. Try not to puzzle them.”

  “If you ask me,” the county detective said, “it’s puzzling already. Damn puzzling.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Well. We’ll be seeing you, Henry.”

  He went out of the office, with Ray Crowley after him. In the car, Heimrich said, after looking at his watch, that he thought it might be a good time to have a drink. He said that he gathered there was an inn around somewhere, and to this Ray Crowley agreed, and drove him there. It was an inn which provided accommodations for overnight guests; which had a cocktail lounge; which had leaded panes on windows facing the road. They found the lounge, which was almost empty; they found, in a corner, a table for four. Heimrich ordered bourbon on ice, and looked at the young trooper. “Coke, I guess,” Ray said. “I don’t drink much, captain.” He was told that that was very wise of him.

  Heimrich seemed to be in no hurry with his first drink and he was not talkative. He sat, indeed, with his eyes closed. After several minutes, Crowley said that it was a little unfortunate about the fingerprints, and after a long pause, Heimrich agreed it was. “By the way,” he said, “we won’t mention the point, naturally. Might puzzle people, as Henry says. Or that Smith doesn’t seem to have been knocked out.” Heimrich thereupon relapsed into what, Ray Crowley thought, a little resembled a coma.

  It was, nevertheless, Captain Heimrich who first became conscious that Arnold Thayer had come into the room—was walking across it to the small bar, with its two stools. (It was only after Heimrich had begun to push the table back a little, part way stand, that Crowley recognized Thayer in the dimly lit room. It was several seconds later that he realized two things—that Thayer had said he was staying at the inn in Carmel; that it was Thayer for whom Heimrich had been waiting.) Thayer paused in his progress toward the bar and looked at Heimrich and Crowley, squinting a little.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “We do get around, Mr. Thayer. Join us, won’t you?”

  Thayer hesitated.

  “As good a place as any,” Heimrich said. “May as well be comfortable while we talk.”

  Thayer did not appear to think that “comfortable” was the word best chosen. He nevertheless came to the table and pulled out a chair. He looked at Heimrich’s glass, and Heimrich said, “Bourbon. Not bad.”

  “Bourbon,” Thayer said, to the waiter. “Bourbon and ginger ale.”

  Heimrich avoided shuddering. Mr. Thayer got what he had asked for.

  XII

  Arnold Thayer had heard Smith had been killed. (He drowned good bourbon in ginger ale.) He would have thought it suicide, but no doubt the police had reason for thinking otherwise. (He lighted a corncob pipe, which was unexpected, since he was not dressed for it.) He would have thought that Margaret Landcraft had caught the man stealing and threatened to fire him, that the man had become enraged and killed her, that he had killed himself when he realized what he had done and that his effort to make death appear accidental was going to fail.

  “You can take it that Smith was murdered,” Heimrich said.

  “Whatever you say,” Thayer’s tone was equable. “Well? Where do I come in?”

  There was, Heimrich assured him, nothing to indicate that he came in anywhere. There were, however, one or two points. For example—how was his deal to buy Deep Meadow Prince coming along?

  “I don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” Thayer said. “Or what business it is of yours.” His tone, however, remained undisturbed.

  “Now Mr. Thayer,” Heimrich said. “It’s often hard to tell what my business is, precisely. But I’ve got to try to get the picture. Need all the help I can get.”

  “Guess you do,” Thayer said. “Well, depends on the boys. I reckon they’ll sell, in the end. For my price.”

  “A low price,” Heimrich said.

  “Look,” Thayer said. “Get this straight, captain. You don’t price doddies like you do suits of clothes. The bull’s worth what they can get for him. If they think they can do better, that’s all right with me.”

  He was asked to put it this way: If the bull were his, would he sell for thirty thousand?

  “Probably not,” Thayer said. “All right—sure not. But, I’m a breeder. Harve
y Landcraft isn’t and doesn’t want to be. Wade isn’t much of one, and doesn’t want to be. They want to get out. Also, the bull’s lost value. Nobody wants a mean bull.”

  “I think the bull was—” Heimrich hesitated for a word. “Well, in a way the bull was framed.”

  “Maybe,” Thayer said. “What people are going to remember—next year, year after next—‘that’s a mean bull.’ If he’s prepotent, his get will be mean. If he isn’t, what’s the good of him? But, it’s up to the Landcrafts. I think they want the cash. Harvey needs it, from what I hear. Wade wants to get out of breeding so bad he can taste it.”

  “He’s told you that?”

  “His mother did. Or as good as told me.”

  “You knew Mrs. Landcraft pretty well?”

  “Well enough,” Thayer said. “Like I know a lot of breeders.”

  “You were planning to stay at the house,” Heimrich said.

  “Sure,” Thayer said. “Maggie asked me to. Why not?”

  “Why?”

  “You mean, why did she? Well—” Thayer paused. “O.K.,” he said. “If you don’t know already, you can find out. I’m pretty well known in the business. Well as anyone. If the sale had gone off, they’re a lot would have watched to see what I bought, and what I paid. Say I put up good money for a heifer or two, one of the young bulls maybe. That would get things started the way Maggie wanted them. So—get me feeling friendly. See what I’m getting at?”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Another drink, Mr. Thayer?”

  Thayer hesitated; decided he would have another drink. Heimrich joined him.

  “Mrs. Landcraft,” Heimrich said, “you’d call her a breeder? In the sense you used the word. The sense Wade Landcraft isn’t?”

  “Sure,” Thayer said. “Also, she had Ballard with her. He’s one of the best in the business. I’d take him on any time. Will, probably, if they decide to sell out. He’s got the feel of cattle. Put Maggie on to Prince when he was a junior yearling and going cheap. It was Alec brought him along.”