Stand Up and Die Page 2

  “That’s right,” Timothy Gates said. After a moment he said again, “That’s right.” Then he said, “Whoever did it was a psychopath, wouldn’t you say? Some kind of a crazy sadist?”

  “I’m afraid there isn’t any doubt of that,” Mr. Tinsley said, unwillingly remembering the slender, outraged body. What he remembered showed in his face.

  “She was a nice kid,” Timothy Gates said. “I mean from the way she looked.”

  Mr. Tinsley wondered, for an instant, whether “nice” was precisely the adjective one would most quickly apply to Virginia Monroe. But then he said, “Oh yes.” It seemed inadequate.

  “Both families have been around here a good many years,” he said. “The Monroes. The Saunders. Her father was an ambassador, you know.”

  “No,” Gates said. “I never saw her before, sir. Never heard of her.” He spoke quickly, with emphasis. “I just liked the looks of the little road and decided to see where it went. You know how it is.”

  Mr. Tinsley didn’t. Nevertheless, he nodded over his drink.

  “I’d sort of forgotten there were little roads like that,” Gates said. “Nothing’s happened to the trees. A guy doesn’t have to—” He stopped. “Well,” he said, “there it is, sir.”

  He was relaxed in the chair, now. Long legs were extended. For a moment he looked even younger, not older, than Mr. Tinsley thought him to be.

  And then the boy spoke again.

  “You know, sir,” he said, “I wonder if I could have a glass of milk? I had sort of an early breakfast.”

  They had more than that, after Timothy Gates had had as much, and drunk it thirstily. They lunched on the terrace, in the shade; this time Gates accepted a cocktail. They did not talk again of what the boy had found in the lane, or of a “jam” or of the police car parked so as to block egress from the drive. They talked about growing vegetables, and about this young Gates seemed to know a good deal, although he expressed surprise that Mr. Tinsley was only now, in June, getting in his second planting of sweet corn. From this, Mr. Tinsley deduced that Timothy Gates had done his gardening farther south, and began to listen for traces of the South in Timothy Gates’s speech.

  It was a little after two in the afternoon when a sedan turned into the drive. The smaller police car backed to give it entrance. The trooper got out of his car and joined two men in civilian clothes and talked to them. This Timothy Gates and Mr. Tinsley could see from the terrace. Then the two men in civilian clothes—solid men with solid faces, one taller than the other—walked with the trooper across the lawn to the men on the terrace. As they approached, Timothy Gates stood up. He seemed to draw himself together.

  “Good afternoon,” the shorter of the two solid men said, as he stepped from the lawn to the flagged terrace. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.” He closed, momentarily, eyes which were intensely blue. He re-opened them. “This sort of thing takes a little time, naturally,” he said. “A very shocking thing.”

  He regarded the two.

  “You’d be Mr. Gates,” he told Timothy. “We’d like you to tell us what happened, naturally.” He nodded, briefly. “My name’s Heimrich,” he said. “State police officer.”

  “I don’t know what happened,” Timothy said. “I mean, it’s clear enough, isn’t it? All I know is—”

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “Now Mr. Gates. You found Miss Monroe’s body. I understand that, naturally.”

  “I’ll tell you anything I know,” Timothy Gates said. “It isn’t much. Ask any questions—”

  “Of course,” Heimrich said. “Suppose we go along then.”

  “So,” Timothy Gates said, and his young voice was hard again. The muscle under his left eye jumped again. “So that’s the way it is.”

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “Just into the village. We don’t want to impose on Mr. Tinsley indefinitely.” He closed his eyes and almost at once re-opened them. “It isn’t any way, particularly,” he said.

  “You’re welcome here,” Mr. Tinsley said, and began to realize that this dreadful, but still interesting, thing was fading away from him. “I mean, to talk to Mr. Gates here, if you’d like.”

  “Naturally,” Heimrich said. “I realize that, Mr. Tinsley. You’ve been very cooperative. However, it might be more convenient in the village.” He paused. “For everybody,” he said.

  Chapter II

  Great and ancient trees grew on either side of Main Street, East Belford. Behind the trees, set deep in smooth lawns, were big white houses. There was little traffic at first on Main Street, as they came in from the north, but the police car moved slowly, the taller of the two solid men driving it, the other—whose name was Heimrich—sitting in the rear beside Timothy Gates. The pace of the police sedan seemed to reflect the pace of the town, to conform to unhurried peace. The young man beside Heimrich looked out of the car. As they passed one of the big old houses, two small old ladies came down the walk from it, side by side. They wore such hats as one does not commonly see.

  “A nice little place,” Heimrich said. “You’ve seen it before, Mr. Gates?”

  Gates shook his head.

  “Like a little New England village, gone astray,” Heimrich said. “A little unreal, naturally. It’s off the main road, you see.” He paused. “The main road to anywhere,” he added. “You were coming here, Mr. Gates?”

  Gates looked at him, now. Heimrich’s eyes were closed. It was as if the quiet of the little town, which seemed to doze in the afternoon sun, had lulled this solid policeman near to sleep. But then Heimrich opened his eyes, and they were not sleepy.

  “Not particularly,” Timothy Gates said, “I’m just—” he paused. “Batting around,” he said. “Not going anywhere. I don’t suppose you believe that, Sergeant?”

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “Why not? It’s captain, by the way. Not that that matters.” He closed his eyes. “Of course, it pays better, naturally,” he added, in a tone of abstraction.

  “Captain,” the tall young man said. “I suppose you’ll grab on to me. Makes it easy.”

  The young voice was hard. There was contempt in it; there was also a kind of resignation. The contempt seemed to be impartial; it might, Heimrich thought, include almost everything, past and future, of which Timothy Gates knew.

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Captain Heimrich said mildly, as the car moved slowly south on Main Street, between ancient trees and the white houses behind them. “There’s nothing to be gained by that, you know.”

  “By what, then?” Gates asked him, and asked as if he anticipated a reply.

  Captain Heimrich of the division of criminal identification, New York State Police, sighed audibly.

  “I’m from nowhere, going nowhere,” Timothy Gates said. “I’m a big guy. There’s a funny muscle in my face that keeps jumping, so there’s strain somewhere. Your pet psychiatrist’ll spot that. I come along with a story about finding this girl’s body. So, I’m up the creek.”

  He did not speak rapidly, or loudly. But there was violence in his voice. There was also bitterness in it.

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “Did you kill the girl, Mr. Gates?”

  “No,” Gates said. “She was dead when I found her. Whenever that was. I haven’t got a watch.”

  “No?” Heimrich said.

  “I threw it away,” Gates said. “It was an all right watch, but I threw it away. It didn’t make any difference what the time was.”

  “That was an impetuous thing to do,” Captain Heimrich said, and his voice expressed no surprise. “You could have pawned it. Or sold it.”

  “I’ve got some money,” Timothy Gates said. “Won it in a crap game just before—” He stopped. “Before I went on the bum,” he said. “Said, ‘The hell with it’ and started going nowhere.” He looked hard at Heimrich, whose blue eyes regarded him. “What else do you want?” Timothy Gates demanded. “Don’t say I’m not making it easy for you.”

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “Are you, do you
think?”

  The car stopped at a red light; at East Belford’s only red light. The block beyond was a block of stores, all white, all restrained, looking rather like East Belford than like themselves—A. & P. and First National, Rexall and Grand Union, at one with East Belford Hardware and Handy’s Men’s Shop in reticent façade, withdrawn dignity.

  But on the sidewalks here there were little groups of men and women—young women in slacks, clutching small children; business men in ties and jackets, grocery clerks in white aprons, neat and elderly ladies, for the most part in twos. A man in gardening clothes got out of a Cadillac and a man in a business suit called to him, “Hey! D’ ja hear about—” East Belford was hearing about it; East Belford was vibrating with it.

  The light changed. The car went through the block, between cars parked diagonally. At the next corner, the car turned left. It went down a hill.

  Timothy Gates had only shrugged an answer. He had looked out of the window, fixedly, at the groups on the sidewalk in East Belford’s shopping block. The shrug had been curt. After the car had turned, he continued to look away from Captain Heimrich, although now there was less to see. There was the two-story brick building of the East Belford Advance; there was the East Belford Builders’ Supply. At the bottom of the hill there was the Italian-American Grocery. The car crossed a railroad track, the steel rails bright where the wheels of cars polished them at the intersection, elsewhere filmed with rust. There was not much to see; Timothy Gates kept his eyes intent on what there was. Captain Heimrich regarded Gates.

  The car went part way up the hill beyond the tracks, turned right for half a block, went up a driveway to a white house. There was a neatly lettered sign hanging from the porch roof: “New York State Police, Substation, Troop K.”

  “Well,” Heimrich said, “here we are, Mr. Gates.”

  They walked, three big men, Heimrich leading, across the porch and through an open door. The room inside was divided by a rail. A uniformed man who had been sitting behind the rail, at a desk, stood up and said, “Good afternoon, sir,” to Heimrich. To the other policeman he said, “Hi-ya, Sergeant.” He merely looked at Timothy Gates.

  “This gentleman found the body,” Heimrich said. “You got an office free, Townsend?”

  Townsend had. He showed it to them. It was small, held a desk, two wooden chairs, a bench.

  “With you in a minute, Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. Gates went into the office and Heimrich closed the door and left him alone. Gates sat on the bench, by the window, which was open, which was only a few feet above the ground outside.

  Heimrich was more than a minute. He was a quarter of an hour. Then he came in, alone, and sat at the desk.

  “Where do you come from, Mr. Gates?” Heimrich asked.

  Gates hesitated. Then he said, “Chicago.” Heimrich closed his eyes and waited a second or two. Then he repeated, “Chicago.” Then he said, “Have you some form of identification, Mr. Gates?”

  Gates put a hand in his trouser pocket. He brought it out and opened it above the desk. Metal tinkled on the desk top. Heimrich picked up, examined, a Marine Corps identification disc. It bore the name Timothy Gates, a serial number, the letter “O,” the letter “T” followed by a date. Heimrich put it down on the desk and closed his eyes again.

  “I’ve sweated it out,” Gates said. “I’m a civilian since a few weeks ago.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Where were you, Mr. Gates?”

  “Where you’d think,” Gates said. “Korea, Captain.”

  Heimrich opened his eyes, looked at Gates, closed his eyes.

  “Now,” he said, “tell me about finding poor Miss Monroe.”

  “I was walking along,” Gates said. “I saw her. There were flies. I covered her up and went to find somebody.”

  “Naturally,” Heimrich said. “But let’s begin a little earlier. Let’s begin with last night, Mr. Gates. Where were you last night?”

  “In some bars,” Gates said. “In New York. Then in Grand Central.” He stopped. He was told to go on. When he did not, after a moment, Heimrich opened his eyes.

  “I’m listening, Mr. Gates,” he said. “You realize the account is—bare.”

  “What good will it do?” Gates asked him.

  “I don’t know, naturally,” Heimrich said. “How can I, Mr. Gates? But, go ahead.”

  Gates considered. Then he went ahead. He stopped often, each time as if he had completed what he had to say. Each time he did, and after a moment, Captain Heimrich opened blue eyes, said, “Go on, Mr. Gates.”

  There was not much to it, even so. He had been in New York a couple of days, staying at a hotel, which he named. He had got tired of being in New York, of being at the hotel. He had checked out.

  “I’ve been batting around for a couple of weeks,” he said. “Doing what I wanted to do, or thought I wanted to do. With nobody to say, ‘This is what you do, Sergeant. This is when you get up. This is where you go to be killed, maybe.’” Then was one of the times he stopped, was asked to go on.

  Well, he had checked out of the hotel. He had bought the clothes he had on, except for the slacks, which had been uniform. He had bought the duffle bag and put into it—

  “Where?” Heimrich asked him. “The bag, I mean?”

  “Abercrombie’s,” Gates said.

  Heimrich opened his eyes briefly at that; closed them again.

  Gates had checked two suitcases of “stuff” at Grand Central.

  “What I wanted was to get out in the country,” Gates said. “Away from the noise, from a lot of people. I just realized yesterday afternoon that was what I wanted to do, so what the hell?” He looked at Heimrich, and waited for the very blue eyes to open. When they did, Gates said, “So I’m nuts. I asked you what good it would do.”

  “I remember,” Heimrich said. “Go on, Mr. Gates.”

  “I didn’t kill the girl,” Gates said. “Nuts or not.”

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said, and his voice sounded tired. “We’ll come to that, naturally.”

  Gates waited a moment. Then he went on. He had clothed himself for the country, checked his suitcases, and only then realized that he had “fouled it up.” He did not know where he was going. That did not matter. But wherever it was, he stood now to arrive late in the evening—too late for anything, except to make a groping search for lodging. So, he had decided to have a few drinks, and dinner, and think it over.

  He had, looking for places for which he was dressed, as he was dressed then, walked east. He had found a bar, and after that another. He had eaten some place. He had found another bar.

  “Usually I don’t drink much,” he said. “Not that much, anyway.”

  It had been after midnight when he had gone back to Grand Central. Probably, it had been a good deal past midnight.

  “Did I tell you I threw my watch away?” he asked. “Sure I did.”

  Heimrich nodded.

  He had gone to sleep for a time, on a bench. Nobody had bothered him. At about six he had had some breakfast and felt better, and looked for a train. He had looked on the lower level. There were few trains leaving at that hour, and one of them was a Harlem Division train to Brewster. Gates had looked at the list of stations and one of them was Golden’s Bridge.

  “I read it Golden Bridge,” Gates said. “It sounded—interesting.”

  Heimrich nodded.

  Gates had bought a ticket to “Golden Bridge.” (To the end of the rainbow? Heimrich wondered.) He had reached Golden’s Bridge, which is a station and a few stores, at a little after eight. He had walked south. He had—he could not say when—come to the lane and entered it, and walked through the morning, slowly, going nowhere. He had found the girl.

  “I thought I’d got away from that sort of thing,” he said. “I’ve had my share of it.” He paused. “I hoped I had,” he added.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Naturally. You were a sergeant, Mr. Gates?”

  The tall boy nodded.

  “You came
back on rotation?”

  He nodded again.

  “Having done your hitch?”

  “That’s right,” Gates said. He hesitated. “I volunteered, by the way,” he said. Then, unexpectedly, he reddened. “A hell of a thing to boast about, isn’t it?” he said.

  “No,” Heimrich said, “I don’t think it is, particularly. You weren’t in a hospital? Back here, I mean?”

  “No,” Gates said. “I stopped one a year or so ago, and they patched me up. In Japan, that was. But—” He stopped abruptly. He spoke again, abruptly. “They didn’t find out I was nuts,” he said. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “Now Mr. Gates.”

  “When was she killed?” Gates asked. “Or do you sit on that?”

  Heimrich’s eyes opened wide. He seemed surprised.

  “Why should I?” he said. “I don’t often sit on things, Mr. Gates. Some time after midnight. Before—say three o’clock.”

  “I don’t remember the bars,” Gates said. “Not by name.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I don’t suppose you do, naturally.”

  “So it’s no good,” Gates said. “I told you it wouldn’t be. So why don’t you get on with it, Captain?”

  “Now Mr. Gates,” Heimrich said. “I’m not planning to arrest you. I suppose you mean that? Not now. Why should I?”

  “Who else?” Gates asked him.

  “I don’t know, naturally,” Heimrich said. “Not yet. How old are you, Mr. Gates?”

  “What?” Gates said. Heimrich did not repeat. “Twenty-three,” Gates said.

  Heimrich nodded, his eyes closed.

  “And from Chicago, you say?” he asked. “Where in Chicago?”

  “North side,” Gates said. He paused. “That’s close enough,” he said. “I haven’t been back since I got out.”

  “Your parents?” Heimrich asked. “They live in Chicago?”

  Gates hesitated again.

  “My parents are dead,” he said. “Even if they’re—if they weren’t, I’m not going to—” He stopped. Heimrich waited. “They’re dead,” Gates said.