Burnt Offering Read online

  In front of the house, a man was taking terrace furniture off a flagged surface, piling it under shelter. He was a stocky man of middle age. He moved hurriedly, with frequent glances at the sky. He tugged at a heavy settee, and swore. Forniss took an end of the settee; Heimrich gathered a chair under either arm. Forniss and the stocky man put the settee under shelter, and Heimrich, the chairs safe, helped strip cushions from two chaises. Then, with sudden violence, the wind came down out of the northwest. The rushing air was as suddenly cool. The wind had no sooner started than it was screaming at them, screaming at the world. They got inside as the rain started. It started, not as drops, but as a sheet of water blown horizontal on the wind.

  “Phew!” the stocky man said, and closed the door behind them. The door slammed. “Came along at a good time.” Only then did it appear to occur to him that Heimrich and Sergeant Forniss had not been expected. “For whatever reason,” he added. “Told you all I know at the office, captain.”

  “This is Mr. Barker, sergeant,” Heimrich said. “Mr. Roger Barker. Vice President at the bank. General manager. I bothered him for a while this morning. Sorry to bother you again, Mr. Barker.”

  A violent flash of lightning, with which thunder was almost simultaneous, lighted up the hall in which they stood. It drowned Heimrich’s voice. The lights flickered, as if the fury of this untamed electricity frightened them. “Damn,” Barker said. “Not that we don’t need the rain. Come on in here, will you?”

  “Here” was a smaller room, and still a hot room. Barker pulled curtains over twin windows, and lighted a lamp. He said, “What’s on your mind, captain?”

  There were several things, Heimrich told him—several odds and ends. Barker waited.

  “For one thing,” Heimrich said, “I ran across a deed in Mr. Phipps’s box—shows he bought a few acres, ten about, from Mrs. Van Brunt. I wondered if you knew anything about the circumstances?”

  “Now look here,” Barker said. “Why not ask Mrs. Van Brunt? If it’s something you need to know?”

  “I did,” Heimrich said. “She regarded it as an invasion of privacy.”

  “Then—” Barker began, but Heimrich said, “Now Mr. Barker.

  “There’s no privacy in murder,” Heimrich said. “Nothing that may not be important in murder. You’re a responsible man. You knew Mr. Phipps had bought this land?”

  Barker hesitated. Then he nodded. He said Phipps had mentioned it. Heimrich waited.

  “Don’t know what you’re getting at,” Barker said. “He owned a good deal of land here and there. Bought more, sold some of what he had. Usually made a profit, I imagine.”

  “This tract,” Heimrich said. “The one he bought a couple of months ago from Mrs. Van Brunt. Any idea what he paid for it?”

  “Now wait a minute,” Barker said. Heimrich closed his eyes, in patience. “Fifteen hundred an acre’s more or less the going rate, on the highway,” Barker said. He paused. “Nice land,” he said. “Good location.”

  “His check will show,” Heimrich said. “His canceled check. You find his checks, sergeant? At the house?”

  “Nope,” Forniss said. “No checks.” He paused. “Funny, come to think of it,” he said. “You think this guy—”

  “Somebody broke into Mr. Phipps’s house,” Heimrich said. “The night he was killed. Opened a safe he had. We don’t know what he got.”

  Barker expressed surprise, and appropriate displeasure at felonious activity. He also expressed doubt that whoever the burglar was had got much. He said that Orville was not a man to keep money about the house. He admitted that it was funny about the checks.

  “The bank has records,” Heimrich said. “Perhaps microfilms? Do we get a court order, Mr. Barker?”

  Barker hesitated. He said he doubted very much if they could. He said he still saw no connection between a routine land purchase and a murder. Heimrich waited.

  “All right,” Barker said. “Between us, and I’m not to be quoted, he got it cheap. Paid four-fifty an acre.”

  “Then,” Heimrich said, “it could be that Mrs. Van Brunt needs money?”

  “Not unless she wants to buy—” Barker began, and halted himself. “No,” he said, “you’ll have to get a court order for that, captain.”

  “To buy a yacht?” Heimrich said, and got half a smile, and no other answer, and was so answered.

  “This land,” he said. “It would be off the southern end of the Van Brunt property?”

  “You can check that,” Barker said. “It’s a matter of record at Carmel. Yes—a strip off the south end.”

  Lightning flashed behind the curtains, and there was a great crash of thunder. “Close, that one,” Barker said. “Is that—”

  The door to the small room opened, and a woman in her thirties—a woman with a pleasant face, reddened from summer suns—came in. She guided a small boy in front of her, holding his shoulders. “So this is where you’re hiding,” she said. “I looked under all the beds—oh. I didn’t know we had company.”

  “Captain Heimrich,” Barker said. “I told you about him. And Sergeant—afraid I don’t know your name, sergeant.” It was supplied. “My wife,” Barker said. “And the boy—Johnny. You scared, Johnny?”

  “N-no,” Johnny said. “Only, it’s an awful noisy one, dad.”

  There was a loud, rending sound.

  “Damn,” Barker said. “There goes the old apple tree, Grace. What was left of it.”

  “There wasn’t much,” Grace Barker said, equably. “Are Johnny and I in the way?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I met a friend of Johnny’s this afternoon. Michael Faye.”

  “Did you?” Johnny said, with no evident interest. “Will the lights go out, dad?”

  “Haven’t yet,” Barker said.

  “I hope they don’t,” Johnny said. “Because then it’s dark.”

  “Michael was here for lunch,” Grace Barker said. “He got home all right, then. He always does, of course.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “He got home all right. A little later than his mother expected, I gather.”

  “Then he must have stopped somewhere,” Mrs. Barker said. “I know how Sue feels—how any mother feels.”

  “Well,” Heimrich said. “He got home safe. I understand you know my niece, Mrs. Barker? Marian Alden?”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Barker said. “I knew I’d heard something about you somewhere. Such a dear, Marian. I was telling the duchess that only today.” She looked slightly embarrassed. “Mrs. Van Brunt,” she said. “I don’t know how the subject came up—oh yes, it was about the church. Whether your niece would do something or other for Saint Bart’s and—” She shook her head. “I was getting lunch for two boys,” she said. “Boys making a great thing about being hungry.” She considered herself. “I rattle on,” she said. “Actually, a storm like this—”

  The flash, the roar, were even closer.

  “—like that,” she said. “I talk on and on so as not to notice. As if that would help.”

  “It came suddenly,” Heimrich said. “Been so long, we’ve almost forgotten what they’re like.”

  That, Mrs. Barker told them, was exactly what Sam Jackson had said that very day—that when they got a storm, it would be a beauty, and probably scare them all out of their wits. “He was driving by about lunchtime,” she said, to her husband, in explanation. “I’d gone down to the box for the mail.”

  Her husband nodded, abstractedly. Lightning filled the room and thunder shook the air.

  “By the way,” Heimrich said. “When Mr. Jackson went by, were the boys in sight—Johnny and his friend Michael?”

  “Chasing Nero around the yard,” Mrs. Barker said. “Nero’s our—” She stopped. “Why?” she asked.

  Heimrich merely shook his head. Both the Barkers looked at him curiously, and then he closed his eyes. The Barkers looked at each other, and Roger Barker shrugged his shoulders.

  “Nero’s my dog,” Johnny said. “He hides under the bed when i
t thunders. Michael can’t bring the Colonel when he comes because he’s afraid of Nero. But Nero’s much smaller.” He looked at Captain Heimrich, who had reopened his eyes. “Of course,” he said, “Nero’s black.”

  “I don’t suppose the captain’s interested in that, Johnny,” his mother said. “But—for all I know, he is.”

  Heimrich told Johnny, with gravity, that he was very interested in Nero. He said he had known many dogs who hid under beds when there was thunder. But he had known one dog who went out and barked back at the thunder.

  “There are a lot of different kinds of dogs,” Johnny said, politely, giving Heimrich’s unlikely statement the benefit of any doubt which might exist.

  The lights flickered. It was as if they winced. They steadied again.

  “Jackson had got on to this land sale,” Barker said, suddenly. “The one you were asking about. He asked about it, too. Wondered if I had any idea what Orville paid.” He looked at Heimrich. “I didn’t,” he said. Heimrich waited. “There’s been a good deal of interest in property in that area,” Barker said. “In its—er—future.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “I gathered that. There’s one other—”

  Thunder drowned his voice. It seemed, now, that the furious storm was centered directly above their heads.

  “—one other thing,” Heimrich continued, when the storm allowed. “I’ve heard that Mrs. Van Brunt’s son left here very suddenly about—oh, four or five years ago. Had been working at the bank. Left more or less over a week end.”

  He was asked by Barker, whose eyes narrowed with the question, who had told him that. He said that it didn’t matter.

  “Did he?” Heimrich asked.

  “Well—” Barker said. “I suppose it could be called that. I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “What happened,” Heimrich told him.

  “When you come down to it,” Barker said, “anybody has to leave any place, or any job, suddenly. Unless he can manage just to fade away, like a general. Or dim out slowly, like a Cheshire cat. Here one day and gone the next.”

  “Now Mr. Barker,” Heimrich said. “You’re the bank manager. Were then, weren’t you?” Barker nodded his head. “Did you know—oh, say the usual two weeks in advance, that young Mr. Van Brunt was leaving the township? Going out west?”

  “No,” Barker said. “I didn’t, as it happens. But—Orville did, of course. Van Brunt went straight to him. Natural enough—the way a Van Brunt would do it.”

  “It was over a week end?”

  “Far as I was concerned, yes,” Barker said. “He was at the bank Friday. Monday, Orville told me he wouldn’t be in that day, or any other day.”

  It must, Heimrich said, have been inconvenient for Mr. Barker.

  “Oh,” Barker said, “we managed to scrape along. Ferguson was back—he was assistant cashier then. Van Brunt had been—well, filling in as well as he could, while Ferguson was away. With Ferguson back there wasn’t any real—inconvenience.”

  “Van Brunt’s work had been satisfactory?”

  “Quite,” Barker said. “We were sorry to lose him but—well, future in any bank looks a long way off to a young man. Is, too, usually. Not sure if I had it to do over again I—” He stopped and shrugged. “Which,” he said, “I haven’t. Is there any use asking what you’re getting at, captain?”

  “Now Mr. Barker,” Heimrich said. “Any information I can get. Any—confirmation.”

  “There was nothing irregular about it,” Barker said. “I’d have known if there had been.”

  Again there was sudden light in the room, and quick thunder. But now it was no longer directly overhead; now there was, perceptibly, an interval between lightning and the great sound.

  “Moving along,” Barker said. “There’ll be another, probably. At least another.” He hesitated. “Can we give you a drink, captain? Or—is there more—information—you need from us?”

  There was, Heimrich said, nothing more at the moment. They would go between storms; if Mr. Barker thought of anything which might help, Heimrich would be at the Old Stone Inn—at least for an hour or two. Heimrich and Forniss went out into the much cooler air—into the drip from trees, among puddles on the driveway. It had grown somewhat lighter, although the sun—in any case not far from setting—had not reappeared. Directly overhead, the gray clouds were to some degree broken, but to the south and east the sky was black, and laced by lightning. And, to the northwest, another cloud blackness was lighted from beneath by flashes, as a second storm took its place in the wings.

  They would, Forniss said, have just about time, if they hurried, and they hurried as much as was possible on Van Brunt Pass and, afterward, on Route 11-F. They outran the following storm to the Old Stone Inn, and did not overtake the fury which had led the way down the Hudson Valley. It seemed warm in the taproom, where before it had seemed cool. The barman assured them it had been quite a storm and that more was coming. He said there were lobsters, if they wanted lobsters.

  “You see how it shapes up, Charlie?” Heimrich said, while they waited.

  Forniss nodded his head, but was without enthusiasm. He said the shape was all right, but that there was a catch in it. He said the catch was obvious. Granted everything, including fit between character and crime, the catch remained.

  “No,” Heimrich said. “We know the way around that, I think. You mentioned it yourself earlier. In a manner of speaking, naturally. Think it over, Charlie.”

  Charles Forniss thought. But lobsters arrived, and lobsters permit no division of the mind.

  X

  Susan Faye put the receiver back in its place and sat looking at nothing.

  “Mother,” Michael said, “the Colonel’s cold. He’s shivering.”

  Susan looked at the small boy and the big dog, who stood side by side and looked at her.

  “You look cold too,” Michael said. “I’m not cold.”

  “The Colonel’s frightened,” Susan said. “That’s why he’s shivering. You know he’s afraid of storms, Michael.”

  “Do people shiver when they’re frightened?” Michael said. “What’s he afraid of?”

  “Sometimes,” Susan said. “He’s afraid of a good many things, Michael.”

  “Not of woodchucks,” Michael said. “Johnny’s dog is afraid of woodchucks.”

  “The Colonel’s very brave about woodchucks,” Susan said. “Have you finished your dinner, Michael?”

  “Almost,” Michael said. “You quit talking and you didn’t come back so I—”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “Let’s go and finish dinner.”

  The three went together down the long room—the small grave boy and the big sad dog and Susan Faye. They sat at the table from which a ringing telephone bell had summoned Susan, and Michael ate cake, and was counseled to finish his milk. Susan lifted a cup and it shook in her hand, so that coffee sloshed in it.

  “You are too cold,” Michael said, and this time she smiled and said that perhaps she was, that the storm had cooled things off.

  “Michael,” she said, “I’ve got to go out. Will you be all right?”

  “Course,” Michael said. “I’m always all right.”

  “I know you are,” Susan said. “You’re a very brave boy, Michael.”

  “There’s nothing to be brave about,” Michael said. “Lots of times you have to go somewhere.”

  That was true; lots of times she did. It was not satisfactory, but it was the way things were. The Colonel was the result of her having often to go somewhere—sometimes when Michael was not at school, or at the Barkers’. The Colonel was supposed to stand by, to stand on guard. The appearance of this was, Susan had long known, greater than the reality. But the Colonel’s appearance was considerable. An empty gun may often be as useful as a loaded one; it is often enough for a watch dog to appear to watch.

  “I’ll be back before it’s dark,” Susan said. “Before it’s really dark. It’s just dark now because of the storm.”

/>   “I know that,” Michael said. “It’s going to storm again, though.”

  “Perhaps not,” Susan said. “This one may go around us.”

  “Maybe,” Michael said, without conviction. “Anyway, I’ll be all right. The Colonel and I—”

  “Michael,” she said. “The man who was here before dinner. He was a policeman.”

  “When Uncle Sam was here?” Michael said. “He’s a captain.”

  “Later,” she said. “The man who was here—oh, an hour or so after Captain Heimrich left. The one who came to the door and went away again.”

  “Oh,” Michael said. “He wasn’t dressed like a policeman.”

  “No,” Susan said. “But he was. A State trooper. He may come back, Michael. Will you tell him I had to go out? That I won’t be long?”

  “If he comes,” Michael said.

  Susan got up, then. She went to a closet and got a raincoat and put it on over a sleeveless linen dress, belting it tight around her slim waist. The .32 automatic in the right-hand pocket made the coat sag, and as she bent to kiss her son, to tell him again she would not be long, she kept a hand on the gun, lifting it so that its weight did not pull at the coat. She went out of the house which had been a barn, and to her car, which was parked on an incline, which was a help when the car proved stubborn. It was often especially stubborn in wet weather.

  This time it was not. The motor caught almost at once. Susan let the car roll down the incline. She got out, leaving the motor running, and walked a little way from the house. The new storm was coming closer. Already the lightning was jagged in the cloud, no longer a flashing behind it. Already the thunder followed quickly on the slashing fire.