Accent on Murder Page 7

  Adams’s face stiffened. He said, “God!”

  Heimrich waited.

  “I—I don’t believe it,” Adams said. “Not that it was the old man. I tell you—” But he gave it up with that.

  “Where is he?” Heimrich asked.

  “Like I said. Around—” Again he stopped. “O.K.,” he said. “I don’t know exactly. Here when I left this morning. Sitting right here on the porch. The wife says he was here until eleven o’clock, maybe. Had something to eat and—went for a walk.”

  It was obvious. “You’ve checked up already,” Heimrich said. “Had you heard already? About Mrs. Wilkins?”

  “No,” Adams said. “Only about Miss Cameron. That—well, that’s all over town. I told some friends, asked them to keep an eye out for him. All the same, there was nothing this morning—or last night, come to that—to show he was having a spell. You can prove he was around there today?”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “Not yet, anyway. You got a shotgun, Mr. Adams?”

  “So,” Adams said, “that was it. Shotgun. Yep. Twelvegauge. Got a patch of garden out back and there’s a family of woodchucks—” He stopped.

  “Let’s have a look at the gun,” Heimrich said.

  Adams looked at him for a moment. Then, without saying anything, he went into the house. They could hear a woman’s voice, but not the words. They could hear what Adams said—“State Police. That Mrs. Wilkins’s been killed. They think the old man—”

  “Oh Ash,” the woman said. “I’ve kept telling you. Now—trouble. More—”

  But she did not go on with that, obviously—Heimrich thought—because Ash Adams had walked away from her. They could hear his heavy steps inside the house. After a time he came out with a double-barreled shotgun—an old gun. A gun, Heimrich discovered quickly, which had been cleaned since it was last fired—barrels cleaned and wiped off; stock cleaned. With a rag which had a little oil on it.

  “When did you clean it?” Heimrich asked.

  “Hell,” Adams said, “week ago. Had a go at the varmint. Missed him.”

  “You keep it locked up? Or could your father have taken it? Without your wife’s noticing?”

  “It’s in a closet,” Adams said. “Yes—I suppose he could. The wife’s got things to do.”

  “Taken it,” Heimrich said. “Brought it back. Cleaned it.”

  “He’d never hurt anybody,” Adams said. “Never has. Never would. Ask up at Wingdale. They’ll tell you that. Harmless. That’s why, when he gets over a spell, they let him out.”

  That was why—that and the fact that the State hospital at Wingdale, like all such hospitals everywhere, had, always, more patients than it could handle; took the optimistic view, sometimes, in a kind of desperation.

  “He’ll have to be found,” Heimrich said. “Talked to. He—remembers what happens?”

  “Mostly,” Adams said. “But sometimes he gets a little fuzzy. Look, mister—you didn’t say what your name was.” Heimrich told him. “Look, captain—it wouldn’t be murder.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “But the woman’s dead, all the same. We’ll take the gun along, Mr. Adams.”

  “Ash!” Ash Adams’s wife called from inside the house.

  “In a minute,” Adams said. “It figures you’d want to take the gun. Listen—this makes it easy for you, don’t it?”

  “Now Mr. Adams,” Heimrich said. “Like rolling off a log. Naturally.” He spoke in a certain way.

  “All right,” Adams said. “Forget I said it. All the same. Could be somebody had it in for her. Or wanted something she had. Like money. Hear she’s got a lot of money. Had a lot.”

  “Do you?” Heimrich said. “I don’t know, Mr. Adams.”

  “Hired Joe Parks couple months ago,” Adams said. “Had him straightening up an old stone fence. And they don’t even own the place. Paid two dollars an hour. Won’t get it back from high and mighty James.”

  Heimrich had turned to go down the porch steps. He turned back. It couldn’t matter less, but he mildly wondered what Ash Adams was talking about. He said, “James?”

  “James Adams,” Ash said. “Same name as mine. Same family, you go back far enough. Owns the house they rented.”

  “Oh,” Heimrich said, and started down again.

  “Joe Parks lost his job account of working for them,” Ash Adams said. “Regular job, that is. Job taking care of the Craig place. Seems old man Craig figured Parks was laying down on his real job and fired him. Seems he’d told Parks to pretty much stay on the property. Parks is sore as hell, from what I hear.”

  “At Mr. Craig?”

  “Sure,” Adams said. “But hell, he was always sore at Craig. At this Mrs. Wilkins. Calling her names at the tavern last night, fellow told me. Says she promised to keep it quiet he’d been working for her and figures she didn’t.”

  “All right,” Heimrich said, “When your father shows up, call the sub-station. A man will be over. Be sure you do that, Mr. Adams.”

  “O.K.,” Adams said, and turned around and went into the house.

  Heimrich and Sergeant Forniss went back to the car. They used the radio telephone to start a search going for Ashley Adams, Senior.

  “Parks,” Forniss said. “Red herring, defense exhibit A.”

  “Naturally,” Heimrich said. “Can’t really blame him, though. Adams, I mean. And—I suppose we’ll have to have one of the boys talk to Parks, Charlie.”

  “Yep,” Charles Forniss said. “But what the hell. Suppose he did get fired for that. Makes Craig out an old meanie. But anybody could have known he was working for the girls. You don’t point up a wall without somebody seeing you. Anybody could have told Craig.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “And—anybody could have used a shotgun. Any shotgun. Not like a rifle or a revolver. Anonymous little round balls. And—lots of people around here have shotguns, Charlie. Women who are alone nights, a good many times. Scare off marauders.”

  “Yep,” Forniss said. “Miss Cameron and Mrs. Wilkins, you think?”

  “We’ll look around.”

  “You’re not so sold on the old man?”

  “Now Charlie,” Heimrich said. “We have to shop around, don’t we?”

  Neighbors had rallied. Two young women, “ranch-houseset” women, had rallied, one of them with phenobarbital. Dorcas Cameron was in bed. “You just leave her alone tonight,” one of the young women said to Heimrich, and was a lithe young cat, defending. She stood, defiant, at the foot of the staircase leading to the upper floor.

  Then Alan Kelley came down the stairs, walking carefully, making little noise. Heimrich started to speak, and Kelley put a finger across his lips. Heimrich and Forniss went with him, across the living room, out onto the terrace.

  “All right now,” Kelley said. “She’s finally got to sleep. Room’s on the other side of the house and—you don’t have to bother her any more tonight, do you?”

  “I wanted—” Heimrich began.

  “I got hold of the admiral,” Kelley said. “That is, they got him on ship-to-shore phone. He was out on his cruiser. The Navy’s flying him back. So far, I haven’t been able to get in touch with Brady. And—” He hesitated. He shrugged.

  “I was going to get in touch with you,” he said. “The girls had a shotgun. Kept it in the hall closet. Being here alone—” He shrugged again.

  “Naturally,” Heimrich said. “Wise precaution. I suppose—you said “had,’ lieutenant?”

  “Yes,” Kelley said. “Anyway, it isn’t there now. Could be somewhere else in the house, but Dorcas says they always kept it there. Kept it handy. So—it’s gone.”

  They went back into the house, into the entrance hall. The door to the hall closet was a little open. Heimrich opened it further. The gun had, it was clear, been stood, butt down, on a felt mat. The butt had left an impress on the mat. Heimrich made sure the gun was not elsewhere in the closet. He closed the closet door. It did not stay fully closed.

  “Warped,” Kelley said, spe
aking low. “Lot of old houses—”

  “I know,” Heimrich said.

  He moved back until he stood just inside the front door. Standing there, he could see into the partly opened closet. Dark in there, at the moment. But, in daylight, anyone standing at the door could have seen a shotgun in the closet. If, of course, there had been one there.

  VI

  THE SUN wakened her. For moments, still only half wakened, she lay in a lovely floating between wakefulness and sleep. The first moments were ones of peace, assurance. She and Alan—

  But then she saw that the sun was not in the right place—that the patch it made on the floor was too near the window, which meant that the sun had risen higher than it should have risen. It was like that on Sundays, not on days with a train to catch. The alarm clock must—

  And then, before she remembered why, sadness came down on her like fog—sadness and a kind of desolation. She turned in bed and, for seconds, pressed her face in the pillow, shutting out light and the new day. But she could not shut out memory. Caroline was dead—dead through her fault, her indifference; her taking of the easier way. If I had stood by idly and watched her drown, thinking that somebody else would do something, somebody else save her, it would be the same, Dorcas Cameron thought. If I had known a bridge was out, and not warned her.

  With that, although she buried her face in the pillow, pulled the pillow around her head with both hands, the picture of Caroline lying dead, lying torn, on a mattress soaked with blood, was hideously vivid in Dorcas’s mind. The darkness she pulled around her could not dim the picture.

  She lay so for seconds and thought, It’s no good, this is no good, and turned to lie on her back and look up at nothing, lost still in a fog of sadness. But after a time that was no good, either, and she got out of bed and, slowly, making each movement a conscious thing—that might be the way—put clothes on—pants and bra and shoes and a yellow linen dress.

  The house was silent, hushed. There had been people there the night before—Sally Blake (was it Sally?) and a girl who had come with her, and a square, solid man with a square solid face and very blue eyes. And Alan. And others—who had been there? I can’t think, she thought. Something’s happened to my mind—all numb, all dead.

  She went downstairs slowly, going consciously down each step. She went into the living room, and then could hear that somebody was in the kitchen. She went out to the kitchen. Alan was pouring boiling water on coffee in a glass coffeemaker. Why was Alan there? Why—

  He put the kettle down and came to her and put his arms around her and she could feel his strong, wiry body pressing against hers. He held her so for a moment, without speaking, and then released her so that he could look into her face.

  “It’ll be all right,” Alan said. He held her and looked at her. “Come back,” he said.

  She smiled—she could feel the smile on her lips so it must be that she smiled. She said, “I’ve not gone anywhere. It’s only—oh, Alan, it’s all so awful.”

  And with that, the fog diminished, the fog and the numbness of her mind. The sadness stayed; a kind of hopelessness stayed. But—he was real. And she was real and all of it.

  “Good,” he said. “Ought to be ready now,” and turned to look at the coffee dripping through the filter paper. He spoke as if this were any morning in any life, and did not, yet, try to do more. Why, she thought, he must have stayed here all night. Slept on the big sofa. The coffee was hot and fragrant and afterward, because he expected her to, she ate an egg and a little toast. He drank coffee and watched her while she ate.

  “Good,” he said. “Now—snap out of it.”

  His tone, suddenly, was crisp. It was as if he spoke crisply to awaken her.

  “I’ll try,” she said, and then, “I’ll be all right, after awhile.”

  “You did what anybody would do,” he said. “Get that into your mind. You asked a man who ought to have known and that was all you could do. However it turns out.”

  “I didn’t warn her,” she said. “Oh—I called once. Late—too late. She must have been dead then and—”

  She broke. He held her close and she shook in his arms.

  “Listen,” he said. “Because you’d been convinced there wasn’t really anything to warn her against. Not anything real. No—danger. You couldn’t know he’d be able to get hold of a gun.”

  She sobbed still. He could only hold her. After a time she said, “I’m sorry. I’ll try, Alan.” And then, as she grew quieter in his arms, she said, “They’re coming back?”

  “The police? I don’t know. I suppose they will. Your uncle’s on his way. Gave him a very special ride, probably, so it won’t be long. Dorcas—”

  He paused. She stirred in his arms. He released her.

  “I told him about the gun,” he said.

  “Of course,” she said, and then the picture came again, and she put her hands over both eyes. But only for a moment. “We were here alone so often at night,” she said. “Somebody—Brade, I think—said we ought to have a gun and—fire it into the air, if anybody bothered us. To frighten them away.”

  “Yes,” Alan said. “Did you? Fire it into the air. Or—did Caroline?”

  He named the dead girl carefully, hesitantly.

  “Why,” she said. “No. I never did. And—” She hesitated. That was no good, either. “Caroline never did that I know of. Not when I was here. I never even touched it.”

  “Anyone coming in the front door could have seen the gun,” Kelley said. “Heimrich tried it. After they left I did myself. Would have been in plain sight, if anyone happened to look.”

  “Oh,” she said. “They think—but how could he?”

  “The old man?” he said. “I don’t see how he could. Look, Dorcas. It doesn’t have to be old Adams. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But—he was awful, Alan. You didn’t see him. What does he say? They must—”

  “When Heimrich was here,” Alan said, “they hadn’t found him. Apparently he’s—wandered off.” He looked at her face. “That doesn’t prove anything,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “It doesn’t prove anything. But there’s no use pretending—”

  Knocking on the front door interrupted her. It was firm knocking, unhurried, without special demand.

  They both went to the door, down the hall from the kitchen.

  Captain Heimrich was the one who had knocked. He said, “Good morning, Miss Cameron. Lieutenant.” He said, “All right, sergeant,” but they had already seen Sergeant Forniss and a small old man—an old man with straggly white hair, white stubble on his old face; an old man wearing blue trousers and a white, collar-band shirt, with a collar button in it. And, an old gray coat sweater, although already the day was hot.

  Dorcas shrank back against Alan Kelley for a moment. But then she straightened and stood alone.

  “Yes,” she said. “He—you found him? Does he—” She did not finish that.

  “Came home around midnight, his son says,” Heimrich told her. “They waited until this morning to call us. But—did keep an eye on him. No, Miss Cameron. He’s not clear about things, he says. There’s no doubt this is the man?”

  “None,” she said.

  “Don’t remember,” Ash Adams said. “Keep telling people, I don’t remember everything.” He looked at Dorcas. “Don’t remember you,” he said. His voice was not the harsh voice which had forced ugly words on her, words under which she had cowered. His voice quavered. “Don’t mean to harm nobody,” he said. “Sometimes I can’t remember things.”

  “Take him down and show him the place, Charlie,” Heimrich said. “Maybe he’ll remember then.” Forniss took the old man off around the house. He was, Alan Kelley thought, gentle with him. They watched him go. “Come in, captain,” Dorcas said, and they went back into the cool shadows of the living room.

  “Mrs. Wilkins’s husband?” Heimrich asked.

  “Nothing,” Alan said. “Her father’s on his way
.”

  “The gun in the hall closet,” Heimrich said. “When did you see it last, Miss Cameron?”

  She looked at him a moment. Then she shook her head, the soft hair swaying.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It—it had been there for months. You don’t—anyway I don’t—see things that are always there.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “You’ve looked for it, I suppose? In the house.”

  “Pretty thoroughly,” Alan Kelley said for her. “I don’t think you’ll find it, captain.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “I don’t think we’ll find it either. The closet door wasn’t kept locked, obviously.”

  “Never,” she said. “Captain—he—the old man—he could have started in and seen the gun and—” She put her hands over her eyes.

  “Miss Cameron,” Heimrich said, “you shouldn’t feel—responsible. Even if it turns out to have been the old man. We’ve talked to the people at the hospital. They agree with Mr. Brinkley that he’s harmless. Always has been. Has spells of excitement and—talks wildly. So, even if they’re wrong, you shouldn’t blame yourself.”

  “Because others were wrong too?” she said. “But—thank you, captain. I suppose you’re right-about facts. Not about—about the way it feels. If I’d warned—”

  She did not finish. It was as if she had slipped under water. Alan again put his arms around her but, this time, she freed herself almost at once. But she tried to smile at Alan Kelley. It was a smile from under water.

  Heimrich gave her time. There was nothing to be gained by giving her too much—nothing for him, nothing for her.

  “I suppose you don’t keep the front door locked during the daytime? When you’re here? Or—even when you’re down sun-bathing?”

  “No,” she said. “Oh—sometimes we do. Did. When we remembered it. You think somebody—”

  “Obviously, it’s possible,” Heimrich said. “Anybody could have come to the front door. Knocked. Or called through the screen. Come in, when nobody answered. Seen the shotgun if the hall closet door was partly open.”