Accent on Murder Page 20

  “A point,” Brinkley said. “Debatable, at least as regards many. But—a point. You think Mrs. Wilkins might, in fact, not have recognized her?”

  “I don’t know,” Heimrich said. “She had certainly changed a lot—the picture of her with Schneider might be anyone—in fact, almost anyone rather than Margo Craig. Not only because of the changed hair color. The face—re-formed. But, Margo thought she would be recognized and, as you say, the surface would be cracked. And the whole structure would collapse.”

  “It began with Mrs. Wilkins, then,” Brinkley said. “Not with this Beale?”

  Harry brought drinks. Heimrich looked at his watch. Time enough, still.

  It began, of course, with a farm girl in Kansas—a girl without parents, living with, and working for, distant relatives. On a run-down farm. Even in Kansas, farms do not always mean endless acres of wheat. A Cinderella, Heimrich supposed one could call her—if there were not already far too many “Cinderellas.” A Cinderella with no ball to go to, nor any scheduled, and no prince. Unless The Dutchman was a prince, and in a way he had been—a gangster guarding a load of liquor, holing up at the nearest place, the most inconspicuous farm, when—”Well,” Heimrich said, “I suppose when a fix went sour.” A gangster prince, but prince enough for Opal Potter’s purposes.

  “An unfortunate name,” Brinkley said. “For a pretty girl to carry around. She must have been quite pretty.”

  Heimrich supposed so. Then marriage—Schneider apparently had scruples. Or, since Opal was not much more than a child, a sensible wariness of rape. Then school, and what she learned there, and, at the same time, what she learned from The Dutchman and his associates. “Which probably was plenty,” Heimrich said. “Evidently was. Including the care and use of shotguns. She seems to have learned well.”

  “Intelligent, obviously,” Brinkley said. “This Schneider left her money and she used it to—probably ‘better herself’ is the term.”

  Intelligent, obviously. Intelligent enough to build a new person, learn—almost learn—to speak a new language. Make Opal Potter over into Mary Evans, college student; then into Margo Nowlin, daughter of a proud, if not peculiarly solvent, Maryland family. Finally, into Mrs. Paul Craig, equal to the best of North Wellwood—meeting, for example, the Misses Monroe.

  “She would have been accepted?” Heimrich asked.

  “Now captain,” Brinkley said, and the words seemed faintly familiar to Heimrich, although he could not think precisely why. “Yes. North Wellwood is not—unassailable. And—the Craigs have been here for a long time.” He shook his head, smiling at Heimrich. “You make too much of it, captain.”

  “Perhaps,” Heimrich said. “As no doubt she did. But—doesn’t Craig, Walter? And in a nicer way, the Misses Monroe?” Even you? Heimrich thought, but did not say.

  “I don’t,” Brinkley said, “deny I know what you mean. She covered her tracks well, apparently?”

  She had covered her tracks quite expertly—a trick Schneider, the whole of her early life, had taught her. She had, for example, used what remained of her money from Schneider to hire herself suitable parents, and a suitable sister. Which, admittedly, had thrown Heimrich off—led him to eliminate her as a possible Opal Potter.

  “I had already decided the Schneider bit was more or less a side issue,” Heimrich said, in self-extenuation.

  Tracks covered, goal achieved—and then she found that a girl she had known in college was living only a few miles away. “A damn lousy break,” Margo had said, when she was talking a lot. “Of all the damn lousy breaks.”

  She had decided to take action—not, she still insisted, the action of murder. Not that at first. She had gone to see Caroline Wilkins to find out “how much she wanted to keep her mouth shut.” She had gone around noon on Tuesday.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said, in answer to an expression on Walter Brinkley’s face. “That Mrs. Wilkins would want something, talk if she didn’t get it—Margo accepted that implicitly. That’s the way she thinks people are—all people. Schneider taught her that—Schneider and the rest.”

  She had gone with that intention, had knocked at the screen door of the Wilkins house, and not been answered, and had looked through it and seen, with the hall closet door not quite closed, a shotgun leaning in the closet corner. She still did not think of killing—said now she didn’t. She remembered having heard something about a place, somewhere behind the house, where Dorcas and her cousin sun-bathed. She had gone in that direction, and found a path—and found Caroline sleeping.

  And then she had remembered what she had just heard—what everybody had heard—about Old Ash Adams and the other girl, and had thought, “They don’t squeal when they’re dead,” and gone back and got the gun. “It looked,” she said, talking—talking far too much, but not being stopped—“like a perfect setup. They’d hang it on this crazy old coot.” She had gone back for the gun and used it and got out, taking the gun. So that, when “they” started looking for a gun, they would find a wrong gun—preferably, of course, Ash Adams’s gun.

  “Her prints aren’t on the gun, you say,” Brinkley said.

  “Now Walter,” Heimrich said. “Ladies always wear gloves, you know.”

  Brinkley looked at him.

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “She thought so. One of the things she’d picked up along the way. Wear or carry. Like naval officers, incidentally. Oh, people pay undue attention to the little things. When they’re not too sure. And you’ll have to admit, the Monroe sisters do wear or carry.”

  “The commander’s prints?”

  “When you’ve cleaned a gun,” Heimrich said, “you pick it up and put it where you keep it. Not, obviously, bothering about prints. In this case, in a corner of a hall closet.”

  Brinkley nodded.

  So—Margo had Caroline taken care of. And then—Beale came into the picture. There they would have to guess, with Beale dead and Caroline Wilkins dead. Margo herself denied knowing how “the lousy little punk had got on to it.” Heimrich himself supposed that Beale had seen a picture of Margo—one had been run, for example, in the North Wellwood Advertiser at the time of her marriage to one of North Well-wood’s more distinguished residents. Beale might have seen such a picture, and seen through superficial changes and said to himself, “Margo Nowlin? The hell it is. That’s Mary Evans at M.U., and before that it’s Opal Potter Schneider and boy-oh-boy!”

  He had—again this was an assumption—kept some track of Caroline Wilkins, his former wife—enough track to know that she, too, now lived in North Wellwood. He had gone to see Caroline—this was another guess, but a safe one—for corroboration—to find out whether she, too, had recognized a schoolmate in masquerade. He had found Caroline dead.

  “And that was corroboration,” Heimrich said. “Plenty. He knew the kind of person Margo was, knowing her background. I imagine they thought pretty much alike. And now he really had something—not just a minor scandal: ‘Gangster’s Widow Makes New Life for Herself.’ What he had now was worth real money. He went after it.”

  Exposure of the masquerade would have been bad enough—would have undone all Margo had worked for. That alone.

  “Craig would have thrown her out,” Heimrich said. “Because—she’d affronted him by lying to him. And, for other reasons. You agree, Walter?”

  “Oh yes,” Brinkley said. “I’m afraid so. Poor Paul.”

  That would have been bad enough; this, obviously, was worse. This might bring a murder charge. So—there was only one thing to do. Stall Beale until this setup, too, was right. Then, use the gun again. She did. “And,” Heimrich said, “did her best to kill me in the bargain.”

  “And,” Walter Brinkley said, “me. Why me?”

  Heimrich considered briefly. There was no reason to tell his friend that he was, to Margo Craig, “that silly old fool.” Editing was indicated.

  “Having gone as far as she had,” Heimrich said, “it was essential that she stay entirely free of suspicion. Any suspicion,
any enquiry, would be fatal. Because, you see, Walter, her prints are on file. In Kansas City. As Opal Schneider, of course. No actual police record, no arrests. But—picked up for questioning once or twice, along with her husband. And, printed. Policemen like to keep a lot of records, you know.”

  “Yes,” Brinkley said. “But, why me?”

  “At the party,” Heimrich said, “you talked a bit about regional accents. About the man on the radio. It—gave Mrs. Craig a headache.”

  Brinkley said, “Oh.” He said, “But, I didn’t then mean anything by it. Anything about her. It was just—I was riding a hobby. Probably, it gives a good many people a headache.”

  It had Margo Craig, at any rate. Not immediately—at least not a severe headache, immediately. “I decided nobody would pay any attention to the silly old fool,” Margo had said, and Heimrich did not now repeat. But that had been when she thought she could brazen it out—if it ever did come up—before, leaving the party, she had seen Caroline arriving, and recognized her. When, further, it became a case of Murder One, Margo had decided that somebody might well believe the silly old fool—believe him enough, at any rate, to ask questions. She couldn’t have questions asked.

  “So,” Heimrich said, “she put you next on her list. Called up, posing as a long lines operator, find out if you were home; found you weren’t and went around to wait until you came. It had worked fine that way with Beale. Almost with you. But she missed.”

  “Not entirely,” Walter Brinkley said and, reminded, uneasily changed position in his chair. “And left the gun, figuring she’d wound things up?”

  Heimrich nodded.

  “But,” Brinkley said, “how would she know the commander’s prints were on it?”

  “She didn’t,” Heimrich said. “That was—call it a bonus. But—she knew her prints weren’t on it. That was all that mattered. If anybody else had explaining to do, that was fine with her.”

  “I suppose so,” Brinkley said. He finished his drink and looked at his empty glass. “It’s too bad,” Walter Brinkley said, “that Paul is such a—such a really hopeless snob. Poor Paul.”

  There are, Heimrich thought, a good many ways of looking at almost anything. In a sense, of course, his friend had, again, gone to the heart of the matter. If Opal Potter’s long quest had brought her, in the end, to a different man—Well, it hadn’t. Heimrich looked at his watch.

  “Why not stay and have dinner?” Walter Brinkley asked. “Young Dorcas is coming over. And her boy, of course.” Heimrich enquired with eyebrows. “Oh,” Walter said, “she’s quite all right now. At least—will be. Why not stay and see for yourself?”

  “No,” Heimrich said, and stood up. “Some other time, Walter. Tonight, there’re some things I’ve got to do.”

  “Of course,” Brinkley said, and stood up too. “I realize—things to wind up.”

  “In a sense,” Heimrich said. “Actually—well, Walter, I’ve got a date with a dog. A very large dog. A Great Dane.”

  Brinkley looked at him. It was the first thing in all of it, Heimrich thought, which had really surprised this professor emeritus of English Literature.

  “I will admit,” Heimrich said, “the dog lives with a lady, Walter.”

  Walter Brinkley beamed at Heimrich and walked with him to the car. He said that he would like to meet the lady. He said that, if sometime Heimrich would bring her to it, he would give another party.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Captain Heimrich Mysteries

  I

  From where they sat they could see the Hudson. It was wide and quiet and far below them; there was haze to the west and the late sun, sinking into haze, was dimmed, so that there was a golden cast in the slanting light. The distant water of the river held the faintly golden hue.

  They sat on a wide chaise on the terrace of a house which once had been a barn, and still somewhat resembled a bam. A big ash tree shaded them and Heimrich looked up into its branches. Pruned now. It had badly needed pruning when he had first seen it, noting its need casually, with the instinctively assaying eye of a countryman. A good many things had happened in the past two years or so—trees pruned and a driveway mended, so that it might be said that minor good had come of major evil. Murder is always evil, in Heimrich’s view, even if the victim can be said to have asked for it. As, many in the town felt, Orville Phipps had asked. So— A long time ago. Over and done with, and he here.

  He turned his head slightly and looked at Susan Faye—at the clear line of her thin face, at the widely set gray eyes, fixed now on the distant river. Thinking of what, he wondered. Of days even longer ago? Of a younger man long dead who once had shared this terrace with her, looked down with her at the great river? It was likely. Much too likely.

  Her face had been far too thin when he had first seen it, and thought, absently, that she was not pretty—that nobody could really call her pretty—but that it was fun to look at her. Her face was still thin, the cheeks still faintly hollowed. But there was repose in her face now, he thought, and she did not, at any rate, look so tired—so tired and strained. An improvement, he thought, which could be credited to the late Mr. Phipps who had—Heimrich thought it must have been inadvertently—left a second cousin ten thousand dollars. Hence a fabric shop, hence a pruned ash tree, hence relaxation in a face. A face now very dear.

  A long girl—long brown legs, wide shoulders, slender feet in sandals. A girl most delectable, pretty or not; a girl of lightness and grace compact. Heimrich sighed, silently, and regarded himself—looked down himself. Certainly not light; a length of great and evident solidity. Not fat—he would give himself that. Merely heavy. In all respects heavy, Heimrich thought of himself. Too heavy for such grace; his hands too square and hard to touch, to imprison, quicksilver.

  Comfortable to be with, he thought, and gave himself that, could not deny himself that. She found him so. That much was evident; he was not wrong about that. Comfortable. Like—like an older brother. Or, possibly, an uncle. He checked his descent into melancholy; into, he had to admit, self-pity. He was older—older as well as heavier. But not that much older. Twelve years, or thereabouts.

  She had kissed him when he came half an hour ago—came to sit on the terrace with her, have a drink with her; take her, in due time, to dinner. And it was by no means the first time. Once or twice he had thought, briefly— He turned the thought off. Young women kiss brothers.

  He’s in it again, Susan Faye thought, regarding the distant Hudson. Whatever will I do with him? It was in a way touching. It was also not a little exasperating. The trouble with them, Susan thought, is that they think too much. Or think they think. Take everything into account, including relative ages. As if one could, or as if there were any point to it. And there was nothing she could do or, at any rate, would do. Beyond what she had done, and if that had not been enough—well. The great oaf.

  Does he think we break? Susan thought, and almost at once corrected the thought. She had no doubt, none whatever, that Merton Heimrich had learned from adequate experience that women are not especially breakable. What it comes to (she thought) is that for one reason and another he puts me in a special category. “Breakable. Handle With Care.” Or do not handle at all. She supposed, in honesty, that she should find this flattering. Instead of damned annoying. The great oaf!

  Different from others. Too special—all right, call it “precious”—for his clumsy hands. Which were not that, except in his mind. Damn, Susan Faye thought. A lovely, lazy afternoon and a man in the doldrums. And, to some degree, my fault. I should never have shown him that picture of big Michael. Things were going fine until I did that.

  She could think now of big Michael, a husband killed in war, with no special pain, with only a kind of soft sadness—a sadness belonging to another life, almost to another woman; a brief sad poem, echoing gently in the mind; there to be recalled but there also to be forgotten. It wasn’t bright of me, she thought—not bright at all to, having come on a photograph while in search o
f something else, have said, “This is a picture of Michael,” and held it out to Merton Heimrich. (Why does he hate his own given name so much? Why isn’t the great oaf simple and uncomplex, the way a big man—and a policeman to boot—ought to be?) Why was I that half-witted? It set us back almost to the beginning. Damn!

  She could herself look now at a picture of big Michael and feel only the sad sweetness of the poem, written down, remembered. And Michael would not, of course, be now as young as he had been when the picture was taken—probably not so darkly handsome, so slimly tall. The great oaf might realize that.

  “He was a very handsome man,” Heimrich had said, those months ago, and handed the photograph back. And, of course, gone into “it” again. She knew the symptoms now; had known them for a long time. He had looked at the picture of Michael and seen her and Michael together, as they had been briefly, long ago—seen youth shared, and the long smooth bodies of youth and—damn the man!

  He was looking at her now. She did not need to turn her head to know that. Looking at her and thinking he was too old for her and too heavy in mind and body. When all he had to do was to turn to her, and to lips that waited. And were, come to that, getting damn tired of waiting.

  He knew they waited, she thought. That was the trouble. He knew but he didn’t believe. What I should do, she thought, is to get sunburned, and peel. Very unbecomingly. Then he’d quit thinking—and you are a conceited filly, aren’t you? For all you know—

  In a few minutes, Susan Faye thought, we’ll both be weeping into our beer. If we had beer to weep into. How can two perfectly normal people get so bollixed up about nothing? Or, as it turns out, about everything?

  “What time is it getting to be?” Susan Faye asked.

  Heimrich looked. It was getting to be on toward six. Six of a July afternoon, a Saturday afternoon.

  Their voices were low, but were heard. There was a soft rubbing sound under the chaise, and a little scratching. A very large dog came out from under the chaise; came out in segments. It was inconceivable that he could have been under the chaise. There was evidently no room under any chaise for so much dog. He could not have got under it; the chaise must have been built over him.