Part 20 (1/2)
”And you took out the part about Mrs. Kapp.”
”Mr. McGee took me to the place where he thought he saw her, but he was apparently mistaken.”
”I don't want to upset you, Sher'f, but shouldn't your chief deputy know what the h.e.l.l is-”
”Come back here after you send that off and I'll tell you.”
When the door shut, I said, ”Many thanks.”
”I'll try to stick with that, McGee. But if somebody goes on trial for killing Lillian, I'm not going to turn over a doctored file to the State's attorney for grand jury indictment. You'll have to go back into the picture, and with that weapon he had to stab you with, and with the photographs of the holes in the trailer, you should be able to satisfy the court that it was self-defense. I will testify that you made immediate confession, but that I kept it quiet for the sake of not giving the killer too much free information. Raise your right hand.”
It had a lot of golden ornamentation and an eagle and three shades of colored enamel, red, white, and blue. It said that I had finally finked out all the way, and was a sworn deputy sheriff of Cypress County Florida, with all the rights and privileges pertaining there-to. There was a wallet card with the sheriff's signature and mine. And I pinned the badge inside the wallet, and practiced flipping it open a few times, thinking of how Meyer would laugh himself into hiccups.
Billy Cable came in as I made the final practice flip, and tucked the wallet away. His eyes bulged. ”Norm!” he wailed. ”I mean, Sheriff. Him? After all!”
The whip cracked, and Cable came to sudden attention. Hyzer said, ”You are the best officer I have, Cable. And in ninety-five percent of your duty a.s.signments you are superior. In the remaining five percent you turn into a vain, stupid, inept man, causing me more trouble than you are worth. Do you know what this flaw is?”
”I... ah... no, sir!”
”I request you to make a guess, then.”
”I guess... well, sometimes I maybe let my own personal feelings... Sir, a man can't be a machine!”
”Cable, off duty you will let your feelings and your emotions and your prejudices slop all over your personal landscape. You can roll and wallow in them. On duty, on my time, you will be a machine. Is that absolutely clear?”
”Yes, sir.” It was a very small ”yes, sir.” Cable was swaying. Only the most effective chewing can make a grown man sway.
”Temporary Deputy McGee will be privately a.s.signed by me, and will not be subject to your authority or control in any way, nor will you make any mention of his status. Now go and shake his hand and welcome him to this department.”
Cable came over. His eyes looked slightly gla.s.sy and his palm was damp. ”Deputy... glad to... hope you enjoy your...”
”Thanks, Billy. The name is Trav.”
”Now you can both sit down,” Hyzer said. ”We will discuss McGee's theory of gravitation, and the identification of unknown influences. Billy, I made out a schedule of... recent events. I checked out the duty cards and duty reports, and I have placed your approximate location and activities in the righthand column. I see no chance of your having been involved directly in any way.”
”For G.o.d's sake, Sheriff! If you think I-”
”Didn't we just have a little discussion about emotion?”
”... Sorry, sir.”
”This is a guide, merely to show you how I want a special project handled. You are the sample. I want you to run these six deputies through the same thing, without letting anyone know what you are checking out. I want you to make certain that the deputy cards and duty reports are correct as to the hours involved.”
”Somebody in the family?” Billy asked.
”McGee thought it had to be either you or me. It isn't either of us. So let's be certain it isn't any of us.”
For one precarious moment, full of fellows.h.i.+p and conscious of the ornate badge of authority, I wanted to give them the full report on Lew Arnstead, so it could be added to Hyzer's list of unusual events. Sure, and good old Betsy would swear to every word of it as being the truth. I would bounce about three times right on the place where now the badge rested, and hear the steel door clang.
Hyzer stared with raised eyebrows at Cable until suddenly Cable came to with a start and hopped up and hurried out of the office.
”And that leaves us,” said Mister Norm, ”with two more places to go. Or three. Lew Arnstead. Mrs. Kapp could have guessed where he would be, could have known about that hideaway shack gone out there, and found him closing the store, picking up the money, getting ready to move.”
”And forgot where the safe was?”
”Or tore the place up after he killed Mrs. Kapp to make it look like a stranger. Relocked the safe and tore the door off.”
”Was he that subtle?”
”Any police officer learns what other police officers look for and how they make their judgments. Acquired subtlety, call it. He knew that Lillian had tricked him and left that envelope of yours in the Baither place. So he goes after her. And he finds her.”
”You said three possibilities?”
”Somebody trying to either get a woman free and clear of Arnstead for good, or get even for what happened to the woman.”
”Featherman?”
”A possibility. Maybe Mrs. Kapp arrived and found someone there, and Arnstead was there, dead. He could be under those pine needles too.”
”The black jeep hidden on Betsy's street doesn't fit that one.”
”Or the first one, either. Unless we get too fancy, and jam pieces into the puzzle whether they fit or not. Lew abandoned the jeep there to cause confusion. Or somebody picked him up right there and took him out to his shack.”
”Or, Sheriff, Henry and Lillian killed him because they couldn't risk you finding out who engineered leaving that envelope. Maybe Henry and Lillian knew about that shack and they had to make sure Arnstead hadn't hidden anything out there that could tie them into Baither's death. And Betsy walked into that scene.”
”That was my third guess,” he said. ”Save the best until last.”
”Lillian knew about the shack. That photograph of her in that batch in your desk drawer was taken out there. Remember that clock on the wall?”
He took them out, found hers and studied it. ”Very good, Deputy. Observant.”
”When you find yourself in a sling, it's time to start thinking clearly or start running.”
He put the pictures back, slammed the drawer hard. ”Around and around and around,” he said. ”The mythological animal that grabs its own tail and starts eating and disappears down its own throat.”
”A fifth man in on the money-truck job? Or maybe Henry and Lillian nailed either Hutch or Orville, but not both.”
”We're going further and further into the mist,” he said. ”So we haul it back to specifics. Mrs. Kapp's car might tell us something. There are hundreds of little tracks across that scrubland up there. Tomorrow I call in a chopper for an air search. The biggest specific is the plausible a.s.sumption Lillian told someone what she learned from Frank Baither. That bucket technique is efficient. She would probably try some lies. So the technique is to keep at it until you get the same answer time and again.”
”Do you have any idea how powerful she was?”
”Yes. I saw one demonstration. I see your point. Either one strong person or two people to handle her like that, even taped up.”
”I'd buy two.”
Then he told me my a.s.signment. We checked the inventory of confiscated weapons, and I settled for a Ruger standard carbine in.44 Magnum, with a five-round capacity, four in a front tube and one in the chamber. I'd had one aboard the Busted Flush for a time and had used it on shark coming after the hooked billfish, until one day I had decided that the shark was doing his thing, and it was b.l.o.o.d.y and disrespectful to kill an honest scavenger just because he happened to come into the ball park when you are trying to win. From that day on, the rule when fis.h.i.+ng from the Munequita, after towing it to billfish country behind the Flush, was that the lookout would yell out when he saw the first fin, and you would release the billfish then and there instead of later, at the side of the boat. We do not bring dead meat home and hang it high for the tourists to say Aaah over. We take a picture of the good ones as somebody leans down to clip off the leader wire. The stainless hook corrodes out of the marlin, tuna, or sailfish jaw in days, leaving him free to go take the dangling bait of the commercial long-liners, fight his heart away against the resistance of the buoys, and, after the shark have browsed this free lunch, leave his jaw or his whole head on the hook for the deckhands to haul up and toss away on the pickup round.