First Come, First Kill Page 5

  He had not seemed to have any money. Heimrich thought that, probably, Mitchell had decided, after six years or so, that he wanted to go home. He had written his daughter. Heimrich told Susan about that.

  ‘Will it make it easier?’ she said. ‘Now that he’s not—anonymous, as Ollie said.’

  ‘Now Susan,’ Heimrich said. ‘A tangle to pull at, anyway. Perrin’s been back, I gather?’

  ‘To use the telephone,’ she said. ‘His went out in the storm. Although it wasn’t really a storm. Just a shaken fist. I wasn’t especially cordial. He wanted to stay and talk and I—’ She paused. ‘Never mind that,’ she said. ‘They were going to have him presumed dead. He was going to show up. Now he is dead. Who gets the money?’

  ‘A very neat nutshell,’ Heimrich told her. ‘His former wife, I suppose. His daughter seems to think. His former wife and her present husband.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ Susan said, ‘and to be fair—perhaps there are others who don’t want him to reappear. Perhaps the ones who made him disappear.’

  ‘The shell game,’ Heimrich said. ‘Which shell is it under? Forniss has gone up. I—’

  The telephone rang in the house. Young Michael and Colonel went to answer it. Heimrich finished his drink and put the glass down on a table and Michael appeared at the door and said, ‘Dad, it’s for you, sir.’ ‘Sirs’ had showed up recently in Michael’s speech, their source obscure.

  ‘Another round?’ Susan said to her husband’s back, and Heimrich said he hoped so, and went into the house. He was gone some time. When he appeared at the door, Susan put empty glasses on a tray, and thought that she sometimes wished he were a nine-to-five man, and carried the tray into the house.

  ‘Yes,’ Heimrich said, ‘I’ll have to go see a man.’ She got the casserole out of the oven. The telephone rang again and Heimrich answered it. He said, ‘I see.’ He said, ‘Not your fault.’ He came back. The casserole was served by then.

  The news had been on the seven-o’clock report on Channel 2. J. T. Woodborne had been wondering what he had better do, and the news had ended uncertainty. As a lawyer there was, now, only one thing he could do. He telephoned the White Plains police, was told that the State Police were, at the moment, handling it, and telephoned Hawthorne to say he had something they’d better have.

  What Woodborne had was what purported to be a holograph will, signed by T. Lyman Mitchell. It had come to his office by mail the previous day—come in an envelope with no return address.

  There was no covering letter. To J. T. Woodborne, who knew of the former justice only what everybody had read in newspapers, it came from the blue, and rather as a bolt from the blue. In other words, and the words he used in talking to a sergeant at Hawthorne Barracks, it was ‘the damnedest thing.’

  ‘Why,’ Woodborne wanted to know, ‘did he pick on me?’

  There was no ready answer.

  That had been the first report to Merton Heimrich. To it had been added a summary of what had been found out about Old Tom.

  He had, as nearly as it could be pinned down, shown up in the area about five years previously. At any rate, it had been that long ago when a man named Hamilton had gone out one morning to pick up the New York Times from his front porch and found an elderly man raking his driveway. He had stared for a moment and then said, reasonably enough, ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Needs it,’ the elderly man said. ‘Pay me what it’s worth, if you want to.’

  He had not, Hamilton thought, sounded as if he cared too much whether Hamilton would want to or not.

  Hamilton had asked him who the hell he was, and the man, continuing to use the rake, had said, ‘People call me Tom.’

  He had worked, that first time, for about two hours, and left the drive, which had needed raking, looking the better for it. Hamilton had given him two dollars and a half, which was below the going rate, and Tom had put the money in his pocket and said, ‘Be back, maybe,’ and gone.

  He had, during succeeding years, often been back to Hamilton’s place, and picked his own odd jobs and done them—done them rather slowly, and quite well, and he had always let Hamilton fix his wage. After a time, Hamilton had told the trooper, he had begun to pay the old man the going rate—a dollar and a half an hour at first; then, when the going rate went up, two dollars. Sometimes a week passed between Tom’s appearances; sometimes it was longer—now and then nothing was seen of him for a month. He never selected jobs that, on a place as large as Hamilton’s, had to be done regularly and were done by regular workmen. ‘Little odds and ends that got overlooked,’ Hamilton said. ‘About the time I’d notice them—once it was weeds crowding out hollyhocks in a sort of out of the way place—he’d show up and fix things. Strange old duck. Who the hell’d want to kill him?’

  There were a dozen property owners within a three-mile radius—that guess as to distance had turned out to be approximately correct—who had had similar experiences with Old Tom. At no place, apparently, had he worked more than an hour or two at a time. At one or two he had showed up twice a week for considerable periods; at others he had arrived only once every month or so. At no place had he asked in advance what he should do; several of his more or less involuntary employers had made suggestions as to tasks, and sometimes the old man had accepted them and sometimes he had not. By no means all who were subjected to his indirect approach had accepted his services. A surprising number had. Most of those interviewed appeared to have grown tolerantly fond of him, and to be shocked at his death. Nobody could make any guesses as to his murderer. ‘Who the hell’d want to kill him?’ was the repeated question, variously phrased.

  Listening to the summarized report, Heimrich had thought it filled in a picture—but a picture no longer of much significance. They were, now, investigating the killing of a former Supreme Court justice, not of a town eccentric. Old Tom, as such, remained a puzzle—a rather interesting puzzle, if one had time for it. Heimrich decided he had not.

  A few things, nevertheless, became small, rather irritating, question marks left in the mind. What had the old man done during the winters, which can be long and cold in Putnam County? He had never, so far as it appeared, turned up to shovel snow. When autumnal leaf-raking was finished, Old Tom was finished too, until spring. It was as if he hibernated. In the cottage on the abandoned Waltham place? He might well have been snowed in there; have died of the cold there. Then?

  It was likely, Heimrich had thought as he replaced the telephone after the first call, and told Susan that he would have to go and see a man, that they would never know. Nor would they know why Old Tom had almost never been seen on the roads. Crossing them—he had been seen crossing them. But to get from place to place he had, it appeared, gone across country. When he was seen coming to do one of his jobs, he came through fields, over walls. He knew paths unknown to those who owned the paths. One property owner had seen him come out of a swamp area into which he, who owned it, had never been able to penetrate, and the owner was both younger and more vigorous than Old Tom.

  Small puzzles, Heimrich thought, only tangentially part of the major puzzle. It was T. Lyman Mitchell who had been shot and killed. Old Tom had been merely the eccentric form he chose to hide in.

  The second telephone call had brought a more immediate puzzle, and Merton Heimrich phrased it, succinctly, to Susan as they ate. ‘Girl’s skipped,’ Heimrich said. ‘Anyway, it looks like a skip.’

  A trooper, not in uniform, acting on instructions, had proceeded from Hawthorne to the Old Stone Inn in Van Brunt Center. The instructions were to keep an eye on Miss Enid Mitchell. This had proved to be impossible.

  Miss Mitchell had registered. Her bags—a suitcase and an overnight case—had been taken up to her room. Room 12A.

  But ten minutes later, Enid Mitchell had carried her bags down again, said she was sorry and would of course pay whatever was correct, but had decided she would not stay. No, certainly there was nothing wrong with the room. It was a charming room. It was merely that �
�something had come up.’

  How it had ‘come up’ was not clear. Enid Mitchell had received no telephone calls, and had made none. Nobody, during the brief time she had been at the inn, had asked for her at the desk, nor sent a message up to her nor, so far as was known, gone up to her room. The last was possible. It was considered highly unlikely. The inn has two stories and is without elevator; the main staircase is in sight of the registration desk. There is a service stairway, but it is reached through the kitchen. During the time Miss Mitchell was in the inn the kitchen was a busy place, and well tenanted. A stranger would, almost certainly, have been noticed.

  Miss Mitchell’s bags had been carried out and put in the trunk of her car. Miss Mitchell had driven her car out of the lot and, the bellman thought, turned north on Van Brunt Avenue. He was not especially sure of this.

  The trooper, who had arrived too late by only ten minutes or so, realized that it was not his fault. It was, nevertheless, reassuring to have Captain M. L. Heimrich agree with him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was still not quite dark when Captain M. L. Heimrich found a parking space on Main Street in White Plains and walked three blocks to the building in which J. T. Woodborne, attorney-at-law, had an office. Heimrich had stopped at the barracks, which was on his way from Van Brunt to White Plains, and picked up the letter Enid Mitchell had received from her father. (Said she had received, Heimrich corrected in his mind.)

  Woodborne was a handsome man, with snowy hair—curly snowy hair. He had a handsome voice. He was alone in his office, which was a reasonably handsome office. When Heimrich introduced himself, Woodborne said, ‘Ah,’ and looked at his watch. He was, Heimrich suspected, a man who looked often at his watch. There were papers on his desk. He was a man who would always have papers, probably of importance, on his desk. He opened the top right-hand drawer of his desk and took an envelope out of it and told Heimrich that there he was.

  ‘The damnedest thing,’ he said. ‘Why me?’

  Heimrich, taking paper from the envelope, shook his head.

  ‘All I knew about the old boy was what I read in the papers,’ Woodborne said. ‘Never in his court. Why me? Must have known a hundred lawyers.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Heimrich said.

  ‘I’m a trial lawyer, for God’s sake,’ Woodborne said. ‘Criminal lawyer.’

  ‘I know,’ Heimrich said. ‘Probably just looked you up in the yellow pages, counselor.’

  ‘A hell of a note,’ Woodborne said.

  Heimrich read the will. It was written, in ink, on a sheet and a half of typewriter paper. The writing was small and clear and steady. The will began, ‘I, Thomas Lyman Mitchell, being of—’ and went on. It sounded entirely legal to Heimrich. It left all property, of whatever kind, of which Thomas Lyman Mitchell might die possessed to his daughter, Enid Mitchell. All previous wills were rescinded. Heimrich looked up at Woodborne. He said, ‘No witnesses, are there?’

  ‘If it’s in his writing,’ Woodborne said, ‘it’ll probably be accepted for probate. Somebody would have to prove it is, of course. There could be a wrangle about it, if somebody wanted to wrangle. It’s not my line of country—I told you that—but I think it will stand.’

  ‘No covering letter?’

  ‘No.’

  Heimrich turned the envelope which had held the holograph will over in his hands. It was a legal-size envelope. Woodborne’s address was written in the same neat hand. There was no return address. The postmark was Van Brunt, New York; the date two days before.

  ‘Got it yesterday morning,’ Woodborne said. ‘Hadn’t made up my mind what to do about it. Just got it in under the wire, didn’t he?’

  Heimrich agreed that Mitchell had just got it in under the wire.

  ‘Suppose he knew what was coming?’

  That might be, naturally.

  ‘Or, arranged it? Sounds preposterous. But a lot of things are. We both run into a lot of preposterous things.’

  ‘We do,’ Heimrich agreed. He took the letter Enid Mitchell had received—said she had received—out of his pocket and put it down on Woodborne’s desk beside the will—the purported will. He looked from one to the other. He turned them toward the handsome lawyer. Woodborne looked from one to the other.

  ‘I’d say so,’ he said. ‘Subject to identification. Subject to expertise. Wouldn’t you, captain?’

  ‘Yes,’ Heimrich said. ‘I’d say so, counselor.’

  ‘You can prove the letter?’

  ‘Not at the moment. The girl says she got it. Have you told anybody about this will, Mr Woodborne?’

  ‘My secretary. Very confidential secretary, captain. Outside the office—no. For one thing, I might have got an explanation, mightn’t I? A letter from Mitchell. I might have been retained, you know. Put a new light on it, that would have.’

  He smiled across the desk at Heimrich. He had a very engaging smile, a confiding smile; a smile which shared. A good jury smile, Heimrich thought. J. T. Woodborne had a reputation as a defense lawyer. It was, Heimrich imagined, justified.

  ‘I’ll want to take the will along,’ Heimrich said. ‘Have it gone over.’

  ‘My prints,’ Woodborne said. ‘Yours now. And half a dozen post office people’s. Sure. With a proper receipt.’

  He got a proper receipt. Heimrich hoped he hadn’t kept Mr Woodborne from anything.

  ‘Bridge,’ Woodborne said. ‘But I’m not too keen about bridge. Good hunting. I’ll be watching the newspapers.’

  Heimrich disentangled himself from the one-way streets of the city of White Plains and drove the few miles to Hawthorne Barracks. The report on the letter, which had been in preparation when he had picked it up, was in the basket on his desk.

  Mitchell’s prints were on the letter, which would help the proof Woodborne had mentioned. There were the prints of a good many other people on both letter and envelope. The letter had been written recently; a No. 2 pencil had been used. (Eberhard Faber, Mongol, probably.) The handwriting was distinctive and the sample was adequate for comparison, when there was an authenticated sample to compare it with.

  There were indications that the envelope had, at some time, been steamed open and then resealed. Library paste had been used to stick the flap down again.

  An observant Miss Mitchell, Heimrich thought. If she had needed to observe, naturally.

  The technical boys were off duty by now. They could be rounded up again. Policemen can always be rounded up, and expect to be. Tomorrow would do, Heimrich thought—for the technical boys, for a captain, B.C.I. He stood up and looked at the telephone. It would have seen him standing up. It would have been waiting.

  The telephone rang. He was getting extrasensory perception, Merton Heimrich thought, somewhat gloomily, and picked the receiver up, and said, ‘Heimrich’ into it.

  ‘Well,’ Heimrich said. ‘Think of that. Ask him to come in.’

  He sat down, and waited for Mr Wade Thompson, second husband of Mrs T. Lyman Mitchell, stepfather of Miss Enid Mitchell, to come in. To come in and, if Enid was right, be disappointed. If Enid Mitchell was right, and truthful; if the holograph will was provably in the handwriting of T. Lyman Mitchell—if a good many things.

  Wade Thompson was shorter than Heimrich himself, as most men were, and a good deal narrower. He had black hair, which lay smooth on a long head, and was parted on the left. He had a long face and wore heavy glasses. He was, at a guess, in his late thirties. That would, certainly, make him a bit younger than the mother of a woman in her middle twenties. A point for Enid Mitchell’s truthfulness.

  Wade Thompson came to Heimrich’s desk and held his hand out and Heimrich, standing behind the desk, shook hands across it. Thompson gave his name and Heimrich said, receptively, ‘Mr Thompson.’

  ‘About the judge,’ Thompson said. His voice was rather light, rather sharp. ‘I just heard it on TV. A terrible thing, captain. Inexplicable.’ He looked at Heimrich. ‘Justice Mitchell,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Heimrich sa
id. ‘Sit down, Mr Thompson.’

  Thompson sat down.

  ‘Who’s this man?’ Thompson said. ‘What’s it got to do with him? You’ll be wondering that.’

  ‘Now Mr Thompson,’ Heimrich said. ‘Not—’

  ‘My wife,’ Thompson said, not waiting—speaking, Heimrich thought, as one who has prepared his speech in advance—‘was formerly Justice Mitchell’s wife. Divorced him two or three years after he disappeared. But it’ll be a shock to her. And to poor Enid. Never gave up hoping, Enid didn’t.’ He paused to explain. ‘His daughter,’ he explained. ‘Poor kid.’

  ‘Miss Mitch—’ Heimrich said.

  ‘Telephoned Ruth,’ Thompson said. ‘My wife. Broke her up, the news did. Not that—well, it’s been a long time. She’s been reconciled for a long time. All the same. See what I mean, captain?’

  ‘Now Mr Thompson. I see. I was going to say—’

  ‘Arrangements,’ Thompson said. ‘There always are, aren’t there? Told her I’d come up and see what I could do. Spare her what I can of it, you know.’

  ‘Up?’ Heimrich said. To the people of Tonaganda, Hawthorne is ‘down’—well down. It verges on the city of New York, and Democratic iniquity.

  ‘Why—’ Thompson began, uncertainly. Then he seemed to snap mental fingers. ‘See what you mean,’ he said. ‘I was in town—in New York. Business trip. Lots of customers in New York. Boxes.’

  Heimrich said ‘Oh.’

  ‘Paper boxes,’ Thompson said. ‘Ironclad Products, Inc. I’m sales manager. Heard the news on TV in my room at the Statler. Rented a car after I called Ruth. Figured there’d be things that’d have to be done. Formalities. Identified by fingerprints, the TV said. But, somebody has to look and—’

  ‘That’s been taken care of,’ Heimrich said. Thompson looked surprised. ‘Miss Mitchell,’ Heimrich told him. Thompson continued to look surprised. He said, ‘Enid? How on earth did she—?’

  ‘She was looking for her father,’ Heimrich said. ‘Had reason to believe he was in this area. Came to us for help.’