Burnt Offering Page 9

  “All right?” Forniss asked then, very softly. The nurse moved away from the bed before she answered. “No change,” she said, then.

  Asa stopped saying that he could not remember, and then for half an hour said nothing. Then he said, “Not the same place. That’s it. Not the same place,” and spoke quite clearly, and as if he had been enlightened about something. He was silent again, and then said, “Somebody at the back. Why at the back?” and then, “I didn’t let anybody touch it, because you said—” but did not finish. After some time he said, “But it was out when they went away—” and, after another pause, “too far away to see, and then the fire was—”

  All of this Forniss noted down, and wondered if the captain would find a pattern in it. He nodded to himself. He thought the captain might.

  It was a little after six that Asa awakened. He started to move and the nurse was instantly at the bed, was saying, softly, that he was to lie still, to lie very still.

  “Where am I?” Asa asked, with great lack of originality, but in an unexpectedly strong voice.

  A doctor came then, and, on order, Sergeant Forniss left.

  VI

  Sergeant charles forniss did not look like a man who had been up all night—like a man who had spent quiet, sleepless hours listening to half-heard words; had, still without sleeping, typed out his notes in the place at an early morning hour the most secluded, the taproom of the Old Stone Inn. Sitting across from Heimrich at a breakfast table on the shady side of the inn’s main dining room, Forniss looked as always—wide awake, almost expressionless, somewhat implacable. He drank coffee while Heimrich read the notes.

  “Makes a pattern, doesn’t it?” Heimrich said. “A possible pattern. Does the boy walk in his sleep?”

  Forniss had thought of that. He had asked Asa’s father, calling him on the telephone, listening to angry words. “Purvis seems pretty upset,” the sergeant noted, in passing.

  “Naturally,” Heimrich said. “At least, I’d suppose so.”

  “Never heard of the kid’s walking in his sleep,” Forniss said. “But it wouldn’t be that, probably.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “‘Had a drink,’ he said. The night of the fire? Or last night?”

  Forniss could only shrug to that. There was a pint of blended whiskey in the boy’s room. It was about three-fourths full.

  “Not much, if that was the only bottle,” he said.

  Heimrich agreed. But the boy was young; with the young a little went a long ways.

  “Suppose he had a drink or two after the fire,” Heimrich said. “Feeling very daring, probably. Very grown up. Went to bed and to sleep. Not much air in the room?”

  “Smells like a garage,” Forniss said.

  “Warm night. Bad air. A couple of drinks,” Heimrich said. “He wakes up in the middle of the night—or half wakes up. Goes outside for some reason.”

  Forniss suggested the most likely reason.

  “Probably,” Heimrich said. “Half awake—very dopey. It’s happened to me. Probably has to you, Charlie.”

  Forniss said, “Yep,” and left it there.

  “Sees something,” Heimrich said, “sees it vaguely, doesn’t take it in. Goes back to bed and to sleep—but he’s never really been awake. Forgets all about what he saw—or almost all. Remembers it as sort of a dream, or half remembers it. Something about the jeep, obviously. ‘In my sleep?’ he says. And, that he saw ‘it’ twice and ‘not the same place.’ I see you’ve underlined that, Charlie.”

  “He did,” Forniss said.

  “‘Somebody at the back,’ ” Heimrich read from the typescript. “Not much to go on there, is there? Back of the jeep? Or back of something else?”

  “The lot the fire house was on?”

  “Perhaps,” Heimrich said, “‘too far away to see’ would fit—if the jeep was across the road when he saw it during the night. If he did see it during the night. It would have been, probably. If they took the body out of it—or somebody took the body out of it. And ‘it was out when they went away’ but then ‘the fire was’—was what, do you suppose?”

  “Started up again,” Forniss said.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “It could have been done that way. Simpler just to shoot him during the fire—the fire made plenty of noise. Things cracked. Things fell. You know how it is. Shoot him then—around at the rear of the building, probably—push him in the fire, dust off your hands and join the others and watch things burn. Only it wasn’t done that way, if Noble’s right about seeing the jeep driven off—and if Phipps was the driver, of course. And if what we guess about what Asa saw is good guessing.”

  “Makes a pattern,” Forniss said.

  Heimrich agreed. There were holes in the pattern—one particularly large hole.

  Phipps attended the fire. He drove off after the fire. He saw Jackson. He picked up Sue Faye and dropped her off at her home. Then he drove somewhere and got killed. His body was loaded in his jeep and driven back to the scene of the fire, and dumped out. Gasoline was poured on it. Gasoline would leave an odor for some time, but two fire trucks with filled tanks had burned in the fire. Mr. Phipps was cremated—insufficiently, as it turned out. More, probably, had been hoped for.

  “A very hopeful murderer, all around,” Heimrich said. “Hopes nobody will have seen Phipps leave the fire, or seen him afterward. Hopes we won’t find out what killed him. Hopes we’ll just take it as an unfortunate accident—man falls in fire. While trying to get records as—” He paused. “As somebody suggested,” he said. “Oh yes, Purvis.”

  “All the same,” Forniss said. “It might have worked. Hard to tell what anybody does at a time like that. Where he goes. And there was no reason to suppose two people would see him afterward.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “And, no way to know they had. Unless—”

  He did not finish that. He opened his eyes.

  “Where?” he said. “We’ll have to go over the house in the daylight, but I don’t think I missed anything. Not that much. I don’t think he was killed there. He made another visit, sergeant. If we believe Mrs. Faye, and her friend Jackson.”

  “Yep,” Forniss said. “Do we?”

  “I don’t know,” Heimrich said.

  Phipps could, Forniss suggested, have been killed at the place his body was found. He could have driven the car back there, with his murderer. To look for something, possibly. He, and his murderer, could have left the jeep where Asa saw it in the morning, and walked across the road together, to Phipps’s death.

  Heimrich shook his head at that.

  “Ignition wasn’t locked,” he said. “Phipps was a careful man. Always locked the car whenever he left it. Or so the kid says. Kids are observant about cars. If Phipps had driven it, he’d have locked it before he crossed the road. Done it automatically.”

  “Unless whoever was with him wouldn’t let him.”

  “Why, Charlie?”

  Forniss thought it over. He said, “O. K.”

  “The kid saw the jeep. Saw the body taken out of it. Couldn’t make out—or doesn’t remember—who took it out, and set it afire. But whoever it was doesn’t know that, of course. You left a guard on the boy?”

  “Yep,” Forniss said.

  “And there hadn’t been any more enquiries about him?”

  “Not when I left the hospital,” Forniss said. “I left early.”

  “We—” Heimrich began, and stopped. A tall young man was coming toward them across the dining room. He was blond; he was good-looking. He wore slacks and a shirt with a loosely knotted tie, and a sports jacket. He smiled pleasantly, with just a suggestion of that diffidence which becomes a young man as he approaches his elders. He was, Heimrich thought, in his middle, or late, twenties. He had spent money on his clothes, and wore them well. When he spoke, as Heimrich and Forniss looked up at him and waited, intonation and accent were those, not now often heard, of the Hudson Valley.

  He said, “Captain Heimrich?” and when Heimrich nodded his head,
that he realized he was intruding.

  “I wonder,” he said, “whether you can tell me about young Asa?” He smiled, a little ruefully. “You know how hospitals are, sir,” he said. “I just called and—well, about all they let you know is whether somebody’s still alive.”

  “They may not know much yet,” Heimrich said. “He’s a friend of yours, Mr—?”

  “Van Brunt,” the young man said. “Henry Van Brunt.” He sighed. “The third,” he said. “That’s what the kids used to call me—‘Third.’ I’ve known young. Asa pretty much since he was born. You know how things are in the country—everybody goes to the district school for a while. His brothers are nearer my age, but Asa used to tag along. Kids do.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Mrs. Van Brunt’s your mother?” The question had an odd sound to Heimrich’s own ears; it did not, apparently, to Henry Van Brunt III. There was only one Mrs. Van Brunt.

  “Yes,” he said. “Came home on vacation. Surprised her.” He shook his head. “Got in late yesterday afternoon,” he said. “Got a surprise myself. Poor old Phipps. And now Asa. And I thought this would be a quiet place, after Chicago. Got off the train at Harmon and got a cab down and—well, all very peaceful driving down. Got home, and my old boss has been killed and somebody’s been shooting at young Asa. Or getting ready to, I suppose I ought to say.”

  “Rather melodramatic,” Heimrich agreed. “You say Mr. Phipps used to be your boss, Mr. Van Brunt?” He motioned toward a chair. “Sit down, why don’t you?” he said. The agreeable young man pulled a chair up.

  “Worked in the bank after I got out of college,” he said. “Mr. Phipps’s bank, that is. I was—well, sort of assistant to the assistant cashier. It wasn’t very exciting. I got to feeling that nothing ever happened around here, and that I wanted to go—well, where things did. You see what I mean, sir?”

  “Oh yes,” Heimrich said. “Naturally.”

  “And where more might,” Van Brunt said. “And—well, things seem cut and dried here for a Van Brunt, if you know what I mean. You get to feel you’re part of a pattern. Want to try your own—well, wings.” His smile was now deprecatory. “Not that I’ve got any,” he said. “I don’t mean that. Now I’m sort of second assistant to an assistant in an automobile finance company. Name might be Smith for all anybody cares. Get a two-week vacation and come home to see mother. She’s pretty upset. Known Phipps most of her life, actually.”

  “And liked him, I gather?” Heimrich said.

  Young Van Brunt shrugged at that. He said he didn’t know that anybody actually “liked” Phipps. “Respected member of the community,” he said. “Sort of a—well, an apparently permanent feature of the landscape. You know what I mean, sir? Hard to picture things without him.” He paused momentarily. “I don’t mean mother disliked him,” he said. “But somebody must have, all right.”

  Heimrich nodded to that. “Or,” he said, “he was in somebody’s way.”

  “Yes,” Van Brunt said. “Or—he was a fairly rich man, I suppose. But I guess that didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  The last was just perceptibly a question.

  “I don’t know,” Heimrich said. “We haven’t got very far yet, Mr. Van Brunt. Money’s often a factor, naturally. You had something in mind?”

  “Not me,” Van Brunt said. “Well—I’ve bothered you long enough, sir.”

  “Now Mr. Van Brunt,” Heimrich said. “No bother. In fact, I want to know how the boy’s getting along. You want to call the hospital, sergeant?”

  “Yep,” Forniss said. “Sure.” He got up and went across the dining room.

  “We’ll find out who inherits from Mr. Phipps,” Heimrich said. “You feel there was a good deal to inherit?”

  “Well,” Van Brunt said. “Not millions. But, quite a bit probably. Nice for his cousin.” He stopped, rather abruptly.

  “His cousin?” Heimrich said.

  “Why yes,” Van Brunt said. “Mrs. Faye. Susan Faye. She’s the only relative of his I know about. Probably others, of course. And Mr. Phipps wasn’t overly fond of her I’ve heard. Still—”

  “I didn’t know she and Mr. Phipps were related,” Heimrich said, and at this Van Brunt’s eyebrows went up.

  “You didn’t?” he said. “Everybody does. You mean, nobody’s mentioned it?”

  Heimrich shook his head. Van Brunt shook his.

  “One of those things,” Van Brunt said. “Everybody around knows, nobody thinks to mention it. Everybody supposes somebody already has, probably.”

  Heimrich agreed it did happen that way. He asked what relationship there was between Mrs. Faye and the late Mr. Phipps.

  “Not close,” Van Brunt said. “Second cousins. Something like that.” He paused again. “Listen, sir,” he said, “I didn’t mean—”

  “Now Mr. Van Brunt,” Heimrich said. “I don’t jump to conclusions.” He looked off across the room, at Forniss, who was returning. Forniss shook his head, and pulled out his chair and sat in it.

  “No change,” he said. “They don’t expect any for several hours.” He paused momentarily. “They say,” he added, and poured more coffee from the pot into his cup.

  Van Brunt stood up. He thanked them; he said he’d keep in touch with the hospital. He went; he nodded and smiled at a waitress, who was evidently pleased.

  “Well?” Heimrich said.

  “The kid’s conscious,” Forniss said. “Wants to eat. He’ll do, they think. But he can’t be talked to—not today. Or tomorrow, probably. He’s still on the critical list. I said we’d rather he stayed there—officially. O. K.?”

  “Yes, Charlie,” Heimrich said. “No use being sieves, is there? Although I’ve been called that. Mr. Van Brunt is a communicative young man, isn’t he? Helpful.”

  “Seems like,” Forniss said. “Want to check Harmon?”

  “Naturally,” Heimrich said. “But not you, Charlie. You get some sleep. Or—send somebody and then get some sleep.”

  “I’m O. K.,” Forniss said, and was told that everybody had to sleep, occasionally. “O. K.,” Forniss said again. “A couple of hours’ll do.”

  Heimrich crossed the sunny street to the First National Bank and Trust Company, where he was patient, as policemen needs must be with banks. He got more than he had a right to expect. He drove down the Taconic State Parkway to the Hawthorne Circle, and beyond to the police barracks and up its curving drive. He sat at a desk and read reports, and used the telephone and listened. The officer in charge of an investigation is a variety of things. He is the spearhead of a thrust. He is also a sponge, upon whose receptive surface much information is trickled. As he drove back toward Van Brunt at a little after noon, Heimrich was somewhat distended with knowledge, and was philosophically aware that much of it would not be relevant.

  He knew, for example, that, two months previously, Orville Phipps had been deeded all of “that parcel here in below described,” amounting to ten acres and a fraction, by Cornelia Van Brunt, and that one boundary of the parcel was Van Brunt Avenue, known also as New York State Route 11-F. He did not know what Mr. Phipps had paid for this land, except that a dollar had been amplified by other good and valuable considerations.

  He knew that Mr. Phipps had died with $20,365.80 (less whatever checks might prove to be outstanding) in his account at the First National Bank and Trust Company, and with $7,346.12 in his account in the Cold Harbor Savings Bank. He knew that Mr. Phipps’s safe deposit box had contained—and still did contain, for that matter; Heimrich had merely looked and made notes—securities of an approximate market value of $225,000 and that he had, further, a credit with his broker of some $25,000 more.

  He knew that a will executed by Mr. Phipps a year before provided that the Phipps house, together with the grounds surrounding it, (amounting to one hundred and thirty-seven acres more or less) should become the property of the Town of Van Brunt, providing it was used, and properly maintained, for recreational purposes only and provided, further, that it be known as the O
rville Phipps Memorial Park. The Town—which might be expected to raise its corporate eyebrows in astonishment at its good fortune, and to bear the name of Orville Phipps forever gratefully in mind—received also the residue of the Phipps estate, to be used for the proper maintenance of the park.

  When he had first read the will, Heimrich had raised his own eyebrows. He had not thought of Orville Phipps as a man of such munificence—or such desire for immortality. But he had also been a little disappointed. A township is not likely to kill for its inheritance.

  He had read further, and found the will short. There were a few small bequests—Phipps’s housekeeper profited modestly. There was one bequest less modest, although under the circumstances by no means large. Susan Faye, née Upton, received the sum of ten thousand dollars.

  Heimrich knew also that Phipps had been sixty-four years old the previous autumn, that he had lived in the house which was to become the center of a park since 1932, that when he moved into it he had been married and childless, that his wife had died in 1934, that Phipps had not remarried. He knew that, back-tracking, the New York City police had found first traces of Mr. Phipps in 1920, when he would have been thirty years old, and when he apparently had already acquired considerable money. (How was not evident; where did not appear.) He had played the market during the twenties, and was generally thought to have done well. He had sold out, with providence amounting to necromancy, in the summer of 1929.

  Transposed to rural fields, and to the banking profession, Mr. Phipps had remained active—extremely active. Within five years of his arrival in Van Brunt, he had begun—on the authority of a county official, questioned in Carmel—“to take the town over—him and his gang.” (There had been an immediate addendum that the word “gang” was used only in the most laudatory of senses.) He had been town supervisor for twelve years at the time of his death. In addition to the tract which was now to become the Orville Phipps Memorial Park, he owned other real estate, probably a good deal of it. Records were being checked.