Dead Run Page 8

  “She means the Flats, Dad,” Michael said. Parents are not only tottering. They have a tendency to be dim-witted. Heimrich said, “Yes, Michael.” He refrained from adding, “Thank you,” although that took a little effort. “Then, Joan?”

  She had been perhaps two miles beyond the last of the small houses of the area which almost constitutes a country slum, when she saw, in the mirror, a car overtaking her. “It seemed to be coming on awfully fast. There were still icy spots down there. I was going very slowly, because I didn’t want to skid on the ice.”

  The following car was a big station wagon. It passed the little red Volks—“It must have been going at least sixty”—and immediately cut in ahead. “He was so close he scraped my fender turning in in front of me. And he didn’t have to, Inspector. There wasn’t anything coming the other way. It was—it was as if he meant to. Like those crazy drivers in TV series, you know. The cars always turn over. Usually they catch fire. They look like brand-new cars, most of the time.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said, “they do waste a lot of cars. You kept yours on the road?”

  “Not really. He didn’t leave me any road to keep on. I fought Jenny—that’s what I call her, Inspector. But I—I guess I must have been on the shoulder. Anyway, she tipped over. Not all the way over. Leaned over’s more like it. Against a bank, really. And there was a lot of noise—scraping and breaking noises. And I was halfway across the seat, but the belt stopped me. I banged my arm against something, I guess. I didn’t really notice. I was fighting Jenny. Still trying to hold her on the road. Then I pushed the door up and managed to get out. I was—oh, just standing and looking at Jenny when the Corporal came along and stopped. Maybe I was shaking a little, I guess.”

  “You had reason to be,” Heimrich told her. “You see this accident, Corporal?”

  “I saw Miss Collins’s car ahead going through the Flats, sir. I was maybe a couple of miles behind her. The station wagon passed me, too. She’s right, sir. It was going at excessive speed. For the road conditions. Maybe I should have chased him down, Inspector. But I was on my way to the Reverend Armstrong’s, Inspector. To ask about his wagon like you said to do, sir.”

  “All right, Asa. You were too far back to see the accident. Happen to get the number of this wagon that was going too fast for road conditions?”

  “I should have, but I guess I didn’t, Inspector. I did look but the plate seemed to have mud smeared on it. There’s a lot of mud around, sir. Now it’s begun to thaw a little some places. Anyhow, like I said, I’d decided to let him get away with it.”

  “Miss Collins, I suppose you didn’t get the license number of this wagon that cut in front of you?”

  “No. I was fighting Jenny It was just a big station wagon. Painted a dark color, I think. Dark blue, maybe. Or just a very dark gray.”

  “Like the one you saw in the parking lot last night?”

  “Pretty much, I guess. But I couldn’t say it was the same one, Inspector. It all happened so fast. And I—I guess I was too scared to notice much of anything. And too busy trying to keep my car on the road. I—I think I kept seeing all those cars turning over on TV and—and exploding.”

  Suddenly she seemed to sway. Michael had an arm around her shoulders. He put her in a chair. He kept his arm around her. Michael looked hard at his stepfather. His gaze was not actually inimical. It was not especially friendly, either.

  “One more question, Joan,” Heimrich said. “Was there ice on the road where this happened? Ice the wagon might have skidded on? Skidded in front of you?”

  She hadn’t noticed any; not just there.

  “And after he brushed you, the driver didn’t stop. And do you know whether the driver was a man or a woman?”

  It was more than one question, and this time Michael shook his head.

  The station wagon had gone on. It had not even slowed. If anything, it had gone on faster. Joan hadn’t noticed the sex of the driver. She had merely been trying to keep her little car on the road—and seeing cars burst into flame on TV screens. There was still one more question, and Heimrich started it.

  “Do you know anyone,” he said, and the door from the parking lot opened again. It was Susan Heimrich who came in this time. She stopped just inside the door and started to speak. She said, “That half-witted dog of ours—” But then she saw Joan Collins, sitting in a straight chair with Michael’s arm protectingly about her.

  It had to be told all over again. When she had been told, Susan went to Joan Collins and crouched in front of her and looked, very carefully, into the girl’s face.

  “Yes,” Joan said, “I’m really all right, Mrs. Heimrich. Didn’t get hurt. Just shaken up a little is all.”

  Susan continued to look at her for a moment. Then she turned and looked at her husband.

  “Yes, dear,” Merton said, answering a question which had not been asked, “Dr. Chandler’s seen her. Can’t find anything wrong. That’s what she tells us, anyway.”

  “You’ve talked to Ernest, Merton? Checked with him?”

  Heimlich admitted he had not talked to Dr. Ernest Chandler. Susan shook her head, and her eyes said a pejorative “Men!” and she left them for the office and, Heimrich knew, the telephone. He also knew that it wouldn’t make much difference if “Doctor’s with a patient, Mrs. Heimlich.” Ernest Chandler would talk to Susan Heimrich.

  “What I was about to ask, Joan,” Heimrich said. “Does anybody here in the village know you by sight? Anybody you know of?”

  “No,” Joan said. “You mean, how did somebody last night know I was the one at the window? The one who might know—well, who was driving the wagon that killed Mr. Jackson. That’s what you’re wondering, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, my dear, that’s what I’m wondering. And knew you were driving a red Volks.”

  “No,” she said again, “I don’t know of anyone here who would recognize me. And try to kill me because I might have seen too much from the window. That’s also what you mean, isn’t it, Inspector?”

  “One of the things I’m wondering about, yes.”

  “You do think it was the same station wagon both times? And that the idea was to kill me so I couldn’t talk? But I have talked. Told you everything I know.”

  “Whoever killed Jackson may not know that,” Heimrich said. “May not, anyway, be sure of that. Not want to take a chance on that. Yes, Joan. There’s a chance somebody wants to keep you from talking. On a witness stand, perhaps. Where it wouldn’t be hearsay. What I say you said, if you know what I mean.”

  She nodded her head, the waist-long hair flowing around it. She pushed the long hair back. Then she said, “I could sign a statement, couldn’t I? A statement about what I saw? So then it wouldn’t matter so much whether I’m alive or not. Except to me, of course. Oh, all right, Michael.”

  The last, Heimrich thought, was response to the tightening of Michael Faye’s arm, which still held her close.

  “A lot of people know me, Dad,” Michael said. “And know I’m your son, of course. And anybody could have seen Joan and me together. Seen us all together last night when we got here. Maybe someone already sitting in this station wagon. Maybe already waiting for Mr. Jackson to come out. And seen Mother and Joan and me together this morning when we were getting into the car to drive home. And followed us. And seen Joan drop me off here and drive away in Jenny. Jenny’s—well, Jenny’s pretty obvious, Dad.”

  “Yes, son,” Heimrich said. “It could have been that way.”

  There was no point in telling Michael that his tottering stepfather had already thought it could have been that way, or that a light going on in an upstairs window a few minutes after the Heimrichs and their son and—their future daughter-in-law—entered the inn would give somebody material to guess on. Particularly when a light went on again in the same window at a time most inopportune for a murderer. A light in a window and a curtain drawn back so someone could look out.

  “You did say you pulled back the curtain when you saw
Mr. Jackson last night, didn’t you, Joan?” he said.

  Michael and Joan both looked at him, with the expressions of those slightly puzzled by an irrelevancy.

  “Why, I guess so,” Joan said. “I must have. I wanted to see if it was still raining. Be sure it wouldn’t rain in after I opened the window.”

  Chapter 7

  An APB went out. Subject: Large station wagon, dark blue or, perhaps, dark gray; possibly brought into a garage or body shop for rear-end repairs to right rear fender, which might be dented; probably not now wearing chains; chains possibly still in the wagon.

  “They won’t be,” Forniss said. “In a garage somewhere, washed nice and clean. And backing into a man isn’t like backing into a stone wall. Men—well, men are softer. Don’t dent a car so much.”

  Heimrich gave an agreeing “Mmm.” They were driving north on NY 11F. They were driving toward Cold Harbor and the residence of the late Burton Lord and the present Amelia Lord; Forniss knew the way. He had been at the Lord house, at what remained of a picnic, on the last Fourth of July. He had been there on duty. He had not performed much duty.

  “The D.A. took over,” Forniss told Heimrich as they pulled out of the inn’s lot and out onto an almost dry Van Brunt Avenue. The sun was melting ice from trees; trees were dripping. Only in a few shaded spots did ice still cling to the pavements. Near The Corners a tree had come down, and taken wires with it. A crew from the Dunlop Tree Service was sawing the tree up; a crew from the New York State Gas and Electric Company was clinging to poles, and yelling back and forth. But it might be a crew from Connecticut or

  New Jersey, called in to lend a hand. At least, somebody was trying.

  They pulled in at Purvis’s Garage. Jenny, the red Volks, was standing in front of the garage, out of the way of anybody who might want to buy gas. Jenny looked considerably banged up. The right side was bashed.

  One of the many Purvis boys—Obadiah, Heimrich guessed—came out of the office to help them look at the little red car. “Lot of body work, it’ll need,” he told them. “Have to take it to the body shop up at the Harbor. I’d guess. Maybe cost more than the car’s worth.”

  Heimrich agreed that Jenny would need a lot of body work.

  “Only,” the Purvis boy said, “engine seems to be O.K. And the frame ain’t damaged much, far as we can tell. So maybe.”

  Heimrich said “Mmm” and looked at the left front fender of the Volks. It was scraped and rather deeply dented. It would need rolling out and repainting. It might even need to be replaced. The car had tipped on its right side into the bank when it went off NY 11F. The station wagon which had sideswiped Jenny would show similar marks of scraping. Probably on the right rear fender. Probably with red paint ground in. Heimrich used the office telephone to add to the things to be looked for on a large, dark-colored station wagon, make unknown.

  They went back to the police car and on north toward Cold Harbor and the Lords’ house. Forniss drove.

  “It’s not much to go on, is it?” Forniss said. “Sam Jackson was defending this Mrs. Kemper. So? She’s going to need somebody. Need somebody damn bad. With the D.A. himself a witness against her. Actually saw her fire the gun. Swore himself in before the grand jury and testified, you know. And he was not the only one saw her, M. L. Open and shut, like I said.”

  Heimrich said it did sound like it. And he agreed that they did not have much to go on. “Only,” he said, “it was a break in pattern. Sam Jackson’s pattern. He didn’t handle criminal cases. Then all at once he takes one on. A pretty hopeless one. And then he gets killed. Probably no connection, I’ll admit. But—two breaks in a man’s pattern, Charlie. Doing something unusual for him and getting killed. Sort of thing we look for, wouldn’t you say, Charlie? And about all we’ve got until we find this damn wagon.”

  Forniss said, “Yeah.” He did not say it with enthusiasm. Then he said, “Hey, the traffic light’s on.”

  It was the first of Cold Harbor’s three traffic lights. It was on, all right. It was on red. Forniss stopped for it. “Wonder about on up,” Forniss said, and used the radio. Yes, power was on again at the barracks. And one station wagon had showed up for repairs, at a garage in Poughkeepsie. But it was a light green station wagon and it had skidded into a tree. People in another car had seen it skid into the tree. It had also raised hell with the tree. Sure, they had the owner’s name and address. A local doctor. If the Lieutenant wanted the name? Forniss didn’t.

  “They’re really working on this one,” Forniss said, and pulled ahead as the light turned green. “The electric company guys, I mean. Last time it took them damn near a week, some places.”

  The next light turned green just as they reached it A filling station had a light on over a sign which read “ICE COLD BEER.” And on the business block of Main Street, which 11F became for half a dozen blocks, shops were lighted. On the sidewalk in front of Herzog’s Hardware, a young couple was looking for the right Christmas tree in a stack of trees. A clerk was helping them look. The best trees would be gone by now, Heimrich thought. They would be set up in houses, and people would be putting ornaments on them, and stringing lights through them. Would Michael be able to find a decent tree anywhere? And will I be home on Christmas Eve to look at it? And will the repair crews have worked down to Van Brunt by this evening?

  They had to wait at the traffic light. Then they were out of Cold Harbor. The yellow warning was blinking at the shopping center. Things were getting back to normal. Except that Sam Jackson was dead. When Heimrich had driven past the shopping center the evening before, Sam had been alive and, presumably, expecting to remain so.

  A mile or so beyond the shopping center, Forniss guided the Car left onto a narrow blacktop. A just discernible sign read “HAWTHORNE DRIVE.” A more visible sign said “DEAD END.” “Last place on it’s the Lords,” Forniss said, and followed the road’s sharp turn to the right and stopped the car. It skidded a little as he put the brakes on. Tall trees shaded the road there. And a branch from one of them lay halfway across the pavement. The Dunlop Tree Service hadn’t yet got round to side roads.

  “Guess we can make it,” Forniss said, and proved they could—just could, with twigs scratching the right side of the police car.

  “Pull up for a minute, Charlie,” Heimrich said, with the fallen limb safely behind them. “Fill me in a bit before we see Mrs. Lord to check up on what she’s going to say at the trial. As District Attorney Peters has asked us to.”

  Forniss pulled the car to the side of the road and stopped it there. He did not go off on the softened shoulder. If some other car wanted to pass it would have to wait its turn.

  “Thing is,” Forniss said, “it was pretty much wrapped up by the time I got there. Like I said, M. L., Peters is pretty much a takeover guy. He’d got a couple of county detectives down before it got to us. Got to us roundabout. Nothing much left for us by the time the Sergeant and I got there. Jenkins and I could just as well have stood in bed. And it was hot as hell.”

  It is likely to be hot in the late afternoon of the Fourth of July. Forniss and Sergeant Jenkins had got to the Lords’ picnic at a little before six. There wasn’t, by then, much picnic left to get to. Burton Lord had been dead since around four thirty. “As nearly as they could pin it down.” Most of the hundred or so guests at Burton Lord’s third annual, and last, picnic had been allowed to go home.

  “Peters himself had taken off, M. L. Left a county detective named Jones over at the Kemper house to keep an eye on Mrs. Kemper. I talked to Detective Connolly, who’d set a little table up and was asking people what they’d seen. Most of them hadn’t seen so damn much. Or, I guess, heard too damn much of what Lord was saying. Most of them were sitting around in the shade with their drinks and Lord was up on this sort of platform spouting. One man said Lord was pretty funny when he started, but that he’d sort of wound down. Said it had been the same way at the other two picnics, and that maybe people didn’t listen too hard toward the end. Lord was still going
strong at around four twentyfive, maybe four thirty, when he stopped. Stopped because he was dead.”

  Lord had, Forniss had been told, been shot by a slim woman with long blond hair, from the Kemper property. She had used a rifle; she had been about a hundred yards—perhaps 150—from her target. “Show you about where when we get there, M. L.”

  “Pretty good shooting,” Heimrich said.

  “Yeah. Only it seems this Mrs. Kemper is—I guess it’s ‘was’ now—a member of a rifle team. Country club rifle team. Was a damn good shot. Everybody agrees to that. She doesn’t deny that herself. Does deny having fired at Lord. Says she was at the swimming pool on the other side of the house. Trouble is, people saw her fire. Not a lot of people, Connolly told me. Maybe half a dozen. But one of them was the honorable Jonathan Peters, district attorney of Putnam County. They’ll all swear it was Loren Kemper, all right. Four of them did for the grand jury, including Mr. Takeover himself.”

  “Only four of this half dozen, Charlie?”

  “All Peters called. Probably figured four was enough. Seems to have been. He got a true bill in less than half an hour, from what I hear. They all said the same thing, according to the minutes. Loren Kemper just stood up in plain sight on this slope—show you when we get there—and took aim and fired. The slug got Lord in the back of the head. Right where she meant it to. Like you said, pretty good shooting.”

  “Perfect shooting,” Heimrich said. “After she’d killed him, Charlie? What did she do then?”

  “According to Connolly, who says he got it from the D.A., she leaned down and rubbed the rifle in the grass. Getting prints off, probably. And then took off for her house at a dead run. Went into it. Was still there when the county boys went over. Didn’t know what they were talking about. Hadn’t heard a shot. Yeah, she owned a rifle. Right in the hall closet, where it always was. Handy near the front door if she needed it. Had kept it there for years. Only, M. L., they looked in the closet and it wasn’t there. It was out in the grass where she’d used it. She didn’t deny it was her gun. Had no idea how it got there. She’d just come in from the pool and changed into slacks and a yellow sports shirt when the county boys got there. She could show them her wet swim suit. It was hanging up to dry in one of the bathrooms.”