Death and the Gentle Bull Read online

  Wade’s mother was dead, perhaps she had been murdered. Dead—murdered! Her mind sought to reject. In the country night, with the car seeming only to whisper on familiar roads, it was unbelievable that there had been murder so-so close to her. Murder did not come close; murder stayed decently far away, in the columns of newspapers. It did not draw a circle, a tightening circle, about people like Wade, people like Harvey and Bonita, like herself. One did not listen to inflections in the voices of people so close, draw inferences from things said, from glances, even from silences. One did not uneasily, fearingly, doubt those nearest. (Had Bonita really, in the tone of her voice only said—watch out for yourselves, we’re all right? In Wade’s eyes, once, had there been—?)

  She tried to shut her mind to that. If there had been murder, it would not be theirs. There had been—how many people had Wade said? A hundred and sixty?—there had been many people around when Mrs. Landcraft died. The police would find among them—among strangers or casual acquaintances—the one they sought. Or, at the worst, find the sought one among those who worked on the farm—Ballard, William Smith, one of the other men who handled cattle, strung electrified barbed wire to divide the meadows, kept the barns clean. It could not come any closer than that.

  She drove through Carmel and beyond, and sought quiet. But her thoughts swirled ever faster. She thought in circles, and after a time a circle seemed to epitomize all things. They were in a narrowing circle; around them in a circle the police were moving, slowly, carefully, with method. The captain, Heimrich, had not seemed like a man who would hurry, or like a man who would tire. She felt suddenly that now he might be anywhere—behind her in a car, waiting for her around the turn ahead, concealed in the forming fog in the valley toward which the little car now descended. She felt that she was, somehow, surrounded by one man—that he surrounded all of them—that—

  It was then as if she had been asleep, and had wakened suddenly. She was having preposterous notions. Also, the fog was coming up, as it did so often in the evenings of early autumn. Also, it was getting cooler. She looked at her watch. It was after ten.

  She found a place to stop, and put up the top of the convertible. She turned back the way she had come, and realized she should have turned sooner. Fog formed rapidly once it started. Very often, after a few miles, she was dipping the beam of her headlights, slowing the car’s speed, for fog patches. They were as often encountered on high land now as in the valleys, which meant that it would, in an hour or so, be everywhere—everywhere, at any rate, where there was water, and there was water almost everywhere around.

  It was not as long as an hour. She was south of Carmel, on the winding road, when the patches of fog merged into a veil of fog; when the speed of her car dropped into the twenties, and the beams of her headlights stayed low, seeking the road. Cars coming toward her were now unseen until very close, then seen only as flat lights which seemed to peer, with little hope, from under water. Such cars would hug, as she was hugging, the center line of the road, on which one might guide. Such cars would creep, as she crept. She started her windshield wipers, and they helped a little. It was not really dangerous—if she met only other country drivers—but it was a little exhausting, and very slow. (But now the immediate filled her mind, steadied it.)

  The strange thing about it, Evelyn thought, is that, out of a car, this is only a moderate haze. One can walk through fog like this, and see far enough, even at night. One can stand by the side of a road and watch cars grope along it and wonder—although all the time knowing—why drivers made such heavy work of so little. She sighed, continued to make her own heavy work. She almost missed her turnoff when she came to it, although she had taken it hundreds of times.

  The fog was not less on the side road, although she had hoped it might be. Sometimes it was. She knew by turns and vaguely seen contours of ground and trees when she crept past the drive to the Landcraft house. She could not see the house itself. She kept to the middle of the road now, and hoped no neighbors would be abroad. Anyway, she thought, if I do run into anybody now, it’s almost sure to be somebody I know.

  But when she almost did run into a small car stopped on her right, half on road and half on inadequate shoulder, two men were standing behind the car, apparently in conversation, and the taller seemed to have an arm around the shoulders of the shorter. Her headlights picked them up only hazily, as they picked up all other objects. And her mind was instantly occupied—with the need to brake, to swerve, to creep past in space which was just enough. She was too occupied, for the moment, even to resent the stupidity which chose such a place, on such a night, for conversation behind a carelessly parked car.

  She got around and then, on the crown of the road again, sounded her horn briefly, chiding. She continued her slow groping way toward home. She had gone only a hundred yards when headlights appeared in the rear vision mirror.

  She regretted her horn’s angry comment, then. The two men were using her as a guide; probably had been waiting for a guiding car. She slowed even further, so as not to out-run them; so as to give what brief help she could. It could only be a few more yards of help.

  She came to her drive, blinked her signal light, and turned in. She half expected the trailing car to follow up the drive, but it did not. When she stopped outside the garage and got out to open the overhead door, the car which had trailed her was not in the drive.

  When she was out of the car there was, as she had supposed would be true, hardly any fog at all. She could see the length of the drive, to the road.

  And she saw a car stopped there, opposite the entrance to the drive, its lights appearing to cut ahead of it through the fog. They’re really lost, she thought, and wondered whether she should go down, on foot, and advise the groping men. But at that moment the car started up, and went ahead on the road.

  It went surprisingly fast, with confidence. While she still watched, the driver switched on amber fog lights, which hugged the ground.

  She watched the car move away, at first only with surprise. But then she thought, it’s as if they had been following me to see where I went, to find out who I was.

  She found she was trembling a little as she got back into the convertible and drove it into the garage. She did not stop the car quite in time, and bumped gently into the back wall of the garage.

  Why, Evelyn Merritt thought, I never did that before!

  VIII

  Above Pawling, at a little after nine the next morning, Ray Crowley turned the unidentified sedan off Route 22, onto a side road. Almost at once, in the field on their right, there were black cattle, seemingly afloat in the grass. Half a mile farther along the road, there was a gateway, with a sign beside it—“The Haskins Farm.” Under the lettering, there was pictured the head of a black bull. Crowley turned the car into the drive, and it was almost at once surrounded by dogs which appeared to be on stilts. It was evident that they resented the car, would be happy to destroy it, and its occupants. “Breeds wolfhounds,” Crowley said, and slowed his speed, sounded his horn at a hound which nonchalantly risked long body and high, spindly legs. The drive branched, a section circling toward a brick house. Crowley took the other.

  “Be at the barns this time of day,” he said. “Or the kennels. Or where she keeps the cats.”

  “Cats?” Heimrich said.

  “Breeds cats, too,” Crowley said. “The ones with blue eyes and funny voices. Siamese?”

  They approached barns.

  “Used to breed horses,” Crowley said. “Gave them up for Angus.” He braked, and sounded the horn again. He grinned, suddenly. “Compensation, in a way, maybe,” he said. “It’s Miss Haskins. Always has been, they say.”

  A man in dungarees came out of the nearest barn and looked at them. He was asked, by Crowley, if Miss Haskins was around. He jerked his head toward the interior of the barn. The dogs leaped around the car and barked at it.

  “Come off it, you,” the man said, in a voice of command. The dogs stopped and looked at him.
There were, after all, only three dogs. Heimrich had estimated a dozen. “You heard me,” the man said, to the most attentive dog. “Think they’re watch dogs,” the man said, to nobody in particular. “Get out of here,” he said, to the dogs, who looked at him with reproach. “Out!” he said, with emphasis. The first dog went, in no hurry, to the shade of a tree and lay in it. The remaining dogs looked at the first with interest, appeared suddenly to remember long nurtured plans to lie in shade, and joined their leader. They all put out pink tongues.

  The man went back into the barn, and Heimrich and Crowley followed him. The man pointed to a stall, very like the stalls at the Landcraft place, occupied by another large black bull. Florence Haskins was squatting beside the bull, looking at its feet.

  “Miss Haskins,” Crowley said, and she stood up. She wore dungarees and was compressed by them. She wore what appeared to be an old army shirt. Her very white hair was neatly coiled; her round pink face shone brightly. She looked at the two men through smallish blue eyes. She said, “Oh, it’s you. Finish up here, Ben,” and came out of the stall. “Want to talk to me, Ray?”

  “If you don’t mind,” Heimrich said, and was looked at. “So you’re the one,” Florence Haskins said. “All right, come on up to the house.”

  She walked off, and they walked after her. They went in through the rear of the house, and through a room in which some cats were caged, and others wandered freely. It was a large room. She stopped at a cage and peered in. She said, “Hello, buster,” to the occupant, a slender, sleek cat with brown ears and narrow brown face, a café-au-lait body. The cat responded in a guttural voice.

  “Grand champion,” she said. “At stud.” Absently, she picked up one of the free-roaming cats, who climbed to her shoulders and draped there. She wore the cat out of the room and along a corridor, into what was evidently an office. She sat behind a desk and the cat remained on her shoulders, so that two pairs of bright blue eyes regarded Captain Heimrich and Trooper Crowley.

  “Want a drink?” Florence Haskins said, and opened a desk drawer. Crowley looked abashed; Heimrich said it was a little early for him.

  “Been up since five myself,” Florence Haskins told them and took out a bottle and a shot glass. She poured the glass full, and emptied it. “Your name’s Heimrich,” she told Heimrich. “Get down, sweetheart, you’re hot.” She lifted the cat from her shoulders. The cat sat on the desk and continued to regard Heimrich and Crowley. Heimrich regarded the cat; it was the cat who closed eyes. “What you want is gossip,” Miss Haskins said. “You think somebody got the bull to kill Margaret.”

  “Now Miss Haskins,” Heimrich said, “I’m trying to find out.”

  He was not surprised. He had worked many years in country places. News spread by osmosis.

  “Never heard of anything like that,” Florence Haskins said. She looked at the bottle thoughtfully. She corked it and put it back in the drawer. “What’s your theory?”

  Heimrich told her; she appeared to consider it. She nodded. “Doc Nugent ought to know,” she said. She stroked the cat absently, and the cat purred.

  “She was thinking of firing Ballard,” Miss Haskins said, and looked at Heimrich with very bright eyes. “She knew Prince was out of condition, even if Wade didn’t. The bull’s peaked.”

  Heimrich closed his eyes, and remembered a bull which had seemed perfect. He said, his eyes still closed, that the bull had looked all right.

  “You know anything about bulls?” she asked, and Heimrich shook his head. “So,” she said. “Wake up, man.”

  Heimrich opened his eyes.

  “You wanted a motive,” she said. “What do you think of that one?”

  “Now Miss Haskins,” Heimrich said. “Go on.”

  “She talked it over with me,” the bright-eyed woman said. “Said she’d begun to think Ballard didn’t know his job. Thought she could get along without him, be her own manager. Ballard’s got a nice thing there. House of his own. Good wages. Also, she’s let him buy a few pretty good heifers cheap. He wants to start a herd, but he’s not ready yet. He needs the job.” She stroked the cat. “You want gossip,” she said.

  “You think,” Heimrich said, “that with Mrs. Landcraft no longer in charge, Ballard will keep his job? That the brothers won’t fire him?”

  “No,” she said, “I don’t. But—I think he probably does. Thinks that with Wade in charge, he’ll be the one who really runs the farm. Because he’s not a cattle man, poor Wade. Nice enough boy, going to marry a pretty girl, but he’s no cattle man.” She sighed and shook her head. Heimrich found himself sharing her evident feeling that it was too bad about poor Wade, cut off, thus, in his youthful prime.

  “What I think,” Miss Haskins said, “is that they’ll disperse the herd. You read Variety?”

  It was a long jump. Heimrich did not take it without a stumble. He said, “I’m sorry, Miss Haskins?” and waited.

  “Bible of show biz,” she said, and Heimrich said, “Oh, I know Variety, naturally.”

  “Harvey’s show’s been axed,” she said. “So, he’ll need money. The quick way is to sell the herd. He doesn’t even pretend he’s a cattle man.”

  Heimrich had not used all the previous night for sleeping. He had used the telephone. He had learned that Harvey Landcraft was the producer-director of a television show. (“Domestic comedy. Like the Lucy show, or as near as is legal,” his informant had told him.) He made a good thing out of it. But—

  “Axed?” Heimrich repeated.

  “Sponsor’s dropped it,” Miss Haskins said. “You ought to read Variety, captain. Wouldn’t miss an issue myself. Of course—” She stopped, because Heimrich had begun to nod at her; because, so, Heimrich indicated that he had remembered.

  “You used to be on the stage,” he said. “A—few years—”

  “Few!” she said, and laughed, and her laughter was hearty. The Siamese cat turned and looked at her in reproach, and poured herself to the floor, and went away from there. “A generation, man. Before your time.”

  “Now Miss Haskins,” Heimrich said. “Not entirely. However—”

  (She had been slender then; her blue eyes, in a face less plump, had been larger. And one play in which she had been first featured, then starred, had run for almost two years.)

  “No business like show business,” she quoted now. “Phooey. Dad died and left me this money and you can keep me down on the farm, all right. Where was I?”

  “You were suggesting,” Heimrich told her, “that the Landcrafts will sell the herd, because—I gather—Wade isn’t much interested, and Harvey’s not interested at all—and needs money.”

  “You wanted gossip,” she said. “Actually, I don’t think you’ve got anything. Because, I think Margaret annoyed the animal and he turned on her.” She paused. “Margaret was a great girl,” she said. “But she did annoy sometimes. People, anyway. About cattle—” She paused.

  “The bull was gentle,” Heimrich said. “Everybody agrees to that.”

  It occurred to him that he had been saying very much that for hours.

  “How did Mrs. Landcraft annoy people?” he asked.

  “Didn’t baby them,” Miss Haskins said. “People like to be babied. Call it tact, Margaret, when she thought she was right she went ahead. Thought something was coming to her, went out to get it. Sometimes, I’ll give you, her bark was worse than her bite, but how were people going to tell? Take Arnold, now. I’m not saying yes or no, you understand but—”

  “Now Miss Haskins,” Heimrich said. “Arnold? Arnold Thayer?”

  “Only Arnold I know,” Florence Haskins said. She paused, however. “In the business, anyway,” she said, clearing that up. “How was he to know whether she’d go through with it?”

  Heimrich closed his eyes and for seconds said nothing.

  “I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about,” he said then. “As you know, naturally.”

  “It’ll be libel, probably,” she said. “Or would it be slander?”

/>   Heimrich merely waited, with his eyes closed.

  “She told me about it,” Florence Haskins said. “Maybe told other people. Arnold’s got this bull—Archimedes Two Hundred Thirty-First. Number’s part of the name, you know. Or do you?”

  “All right, Miss Haskins,” Heimrich said. “Go on.”

  “Showing him at the International this winter,” Miss Haskins said. “Been showing him in the western shows and had good luck. Margaret and I were out west and saw him and Margaret said there was a tie, and accused Arnold of fixing it. Said she’d challenge at the International if he showed Archimedes. Whether she would have, nobody’ll ever know now. But you can see where it put Arnold.”

  “No,” Heimrich said. “You mean a tie between this animal and—”

  “My god,” Florrie Haskins said. “What do you know, captain?” She looked at the large watch on her wrist, and appeared to find confirmation in its report. She opened the drawer again and removed the bottle and the glass. She said, “Got another glass. Got a couple more.”

  Heimrich found himself tempted. He resisted. Miss Haskins did not resist. “Doctor’s orders,” she said, and put the bottle back. “A tie in the back, of course.” She appeared to think that all had been made glass-clear. But Heimrich shook his head. Miss Haskins had pity and explained.

  There is, Heimrich learned, a tendon in the bovine back which may be too tight, drawing so as to leave a depression, a kind of cup, in a back which—with Angus—should be table-flat. A bull, or steer or heifer, with such a tie has no chance in competition. “Like a Siamese with a kinked tail,” Miss Haskins said, again making all clear.

  There are two ways to remedy this defect, but both are illegal. The tendon may be cut. The depression in the animal’s back may be filled with paraffin, under the skin. “Friend of mine had her nose fixed that way, long time ago,” Florence Haskins said. “It spread, though.” She paused. “Worst in hot weather, as I remember,” she said.

  It was a “fix” by the paraffin method which Margaret Landcraft had charged against Arnold Thayer, in relation to the bull Archimedes. The charge, Margaret had told Florrie Haskins, was made privately, and denied with vehemence.