Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 07 Page 11

  According to the bulletin board in the waiting room, my plane was on time. I knew Nancy de Marigny would not be joining me, as she was going out on a later flight; but I glanced around, wondering if Lady Oakes would be one of the thirty passengers taking the Caribbean Clipper to Nassau at one o’clock.

  She didn’t seem to be, which was fine with me. I didn’t dislike her—she was a smart, tough lady, if possessed of that superiority that comes of a shopgirl marrying big money—but the notion of being cooped up with her in the clipper cabin for an hour was less than enticing.

  Bag checked, ticket punched, I followed a small, stout, wide-shouldered man in Western shirt and chinos down a canopied walk that opened onto sunshine and the landing dock. I followed the hick down the few steps through a hatchway into the plane; turned out I had the seat across the aisle from him, and he smiled at me, an affable character who was probably a farmer or a rancher or something.

  He said, “First trip to the Bahamas?”

  He had a grating yet ingratiating voice; for a guy clearly in his mid-fifties—as the broad oval of his tanned, weather-beaten face attested—he had a boyish look. Behind gold wire-frames, his eyes narrowed as he smiled, and his longish brown hair, short and gray at the temples, was combed back carelessly.

  “Actually,” I said, “my second in two weeks.”

  “Oh. Go there often, do you? On business?”

  “It’s my second trip, period—but it is business, yes.”

  “Don’t mean to pry,” he said, with a smile, and he looked out the porthole next to him.

  The four engines started up, one at a time, the hatchway clanged shut, and the plane began to coast down the watery runway. It took the pilot half a mile of plowing down the bay, pontoons cleaving the water, till he got into position for the wind, and then the plane yanked itself forward into the sky. I looked out my porthole window, but it was washed with spray.

  The cabin was full, mostly men, business types.

  I leaned into the aisle and said to the hick, “Wonder how many of these guys are reporters?”

  He grinned. “On their way to cover the Oakes case, you mean? Probably damn near all of ‘em. Myself included.”

  “You’re a reporter?”

  “In a half-assed sort of way.” He extended a hand. “Name’s Gardner. Friends call me Erle.”

  “Nate Heller,” I said, and accepted his firm handshake. I rolled his name around in my head for a couple seconds, then said, “Not Erle Stanley Gardner?”

  “That’s right.” He beamed, pleased to have his name recognized. “Ever read my stuff?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I never read mystery novels.”

  “Not your cup of tea?”

  “More like busman’s holiday.”

  “Oh?”

  We were both having to work our voices up a bit, over the roar of the props.

  “I’m president of the A-1 Detective Agency in Chicago,” I said.

  His eyes slitted in thought. Then he pointed at me. “Nathan Heller! Damn. I should’ve recognized the name.”

  “Hardly.”

  He was shaking his head, smiling one-sidedly. “No, I should’ve. The Lindbergh case got you a lot of press. You damn near sprung Hauptmann!”

  “Close only counts in horseshoes,” I said.

  “Point well taken—they did fry the boy. But you’ve been in the thick of all sorts of major cases…the Dillinger shooting, this movie union scandal that’s still in the papers. You’re the genuine article! I’m the goddamn pretender. I’d like to pick your brain, son.”

  “Trust me, Mr. Gardner—if you could pick a brain, it wouldn’t be mine.”

  He had a hearty laugh over that one.

  “What’s a mystery writer doing covering a real-life crime?”

  “I’m Hearst’s trained seal,” he said with a smirk.

  “Trained seal?”

  “You know—these big-city papers like to have some famous-name ‘expert’ who isn’t a newspaperman do color on a big story like this. They want me to stick around for the trial and tell the public how Perry Mason would’ve handled it.”

  “Who?”

  For some reason that amused him. “That’s a character I write about.”

  “Oh.” It did sound familiar. “I may have seen a movie based on one of your books.”

  “Did it stink?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you probably did. Those Hollywood sons of bitches pay good money to buy a good story and then invent a thousand new ways to turn it lousy.”

  “I wouldn’t think a successful book writer like you would even want to bother with newspaper work.”

  He snorted a laugh. “I don’t. When they approached my agent, he knew I didn’t want the job and made an outrageous offer. That goddamn Hearst double-crossed us and accepted it!”

  Hearst sending one of America’s most popular writers to cover the case meant Sir Harry’s murder wasn’t just the hot story of the moment: it would stay big news through the trial, at least.

  Gardner was a likable, energetic, jovial guy and made pleasant company on the ride. His Western apparel and leathery complexion were explained by the four-hundred-acre ranch he lived on in Southern California. Seemed he did most of his writing in a trailer that he hauled around his own property, as well as on excursions to Arizona and Mexico.

  “I’m strictly a free-lance writer,” he said. “It’s one of the few businesses where you can take your work with you, anywhere you go.”

  I’d met my share of literary lions in Chicago, some of whom—like Nelson Algren and Willard Motley—were men’s men who belied the artsy-fartsy stereotype. But even so, this Gardner was one of a kind: an outdoorsman who viewed writing as a trade, not an art.

  He’d be writing a daily column for Hearst on the Oakes case, for the foreseeable future, while working on a novel and radio scripts for an upcoming show about his Mason character. Like his fictional hero, Gardner—despite his unpretentious farmer appearance—was a criminal lawyer himself, though he didn’t practice anymore.

  “Novels, radio shows, columns—hell, Erle…how will you manage all that out of a Nassau hotel room?”

  “Well, it’ll be dicey at first,” he said, “but my girls will be following me down in a few days.”

  “Girls?”

  “Secretaries—three of ’em. Sisters. Cute as buttons and smart as whips. I dictate everything. Haven’t used a typewriter in years.”

  We fell into silence for a while. The stewardess came by with coffee, which we both took. I was chewing on whether or not to reveal to him that I was working the Oakes case. Before I’d decided, he spoke.

  “So,” he said, “you’re working for de Marigny.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Look, son—stands to reason you’re not working for the prosecution. They’ve supposedly got a couple Miami dicks working the case. What else would Nate Heller be doing in Nassau right now but helping de Marigny’s lawyer collect evidence?”

  I just looked at his wide, farmer face and shook my head and laughed. Who was the detective here?

  “Actually,” I said, and I kept my voice down as much as possible so none of these other possible reporters could hear, “I’m working for Nancy de Marigny.”

  “The poor little rich girl! Is she as cute as they say?”

  “As a button.”

  His brow creased with thought, but he kept smiling; he usually was. “So how the hell did a Chicago op get pulled in on an exotic crime like this?”

  I gave him a condensed version, which he ate up eagerly.

  Now his expression was wistful. “If I made up a yarn like that…gold miner becomes the world’s richest man…murder in a tropical storm…voodoo kill…cradle-robbing count and beautiful child bride…I’d either make a million or get laughed out of the business.”

  “Don’t forget the part where the victim’s best friend in the bedroom next door sleeps through the killing.”

  “Oh, I haven’t. I’
ve read every news report I can, and in a case that smells a hundred ways, that part smells the worst. What do you say we team up?”

  “Mr. Gardner…Erle…I don’t think that would be appropriate. I don’t think my client would want me working hand in hand with the press.”

  He scowled; even his scowl seemed affable. “I’m not the goddamn press! Look—these other reporters are going to go check in this afternoon and then head to the hotel bar and start guzzling booze out of hollowed-out coconuts. But you and me, we can go right out to Westbourne and have a look. I bet you could get us in.”

  I thought about it.

  “I’ll go with you or without you,” he said, head to one side.

  “You got a car lined up?” I asked. Nancy had promised to have either a rental or family car for me, by tomorrow, with a ration book full of stamps. But for this afternoon and tonight, I had no wheels.

  “Hearst’ll have one waiting. I’m at the Royal Victoria. Where are you staying?”

  “The British Colonial.”

  “Sir Harry’s own hotel.” He clapped his hands, once, like a sultan summoning his harem. “All right, after we’re both checked in, I’ll swing by, and we’ll go see what’s up out at Westbourne.”

  One of Nassau’s finest was on the Westbourne gate, late-afternoon sun gleaming off the gold spike of his white helmet.

  Gardner was behind the wheel of the black rental Ford and left it running as I stepped out to speak to the bobbie.

  “Is Colonel Lindop inside?” I asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Damn!”

  “Something wrong, sir?”

  “I was supposed to meet him here.”

  “Meet him, sir?”

  “I’m one of the American detectives working the case. Damn.”

  “Well, he’s not here, sir.”

  “Hell. Well…I guess I’ll just have to go on in and wait, then.”

  He thought about that for a long couple of seconds, then nodded, and swung the gate open. Several more of the spiffy black coppers were standing around inside the front entry. I told them I was meeting Lindop and they seemed to buy it; then I said I needed to have another look at the murder room.

  One of them asked me who Gardner was and I said, “My assistant.”

  That was explanation enough. Even with Sir Harry dead, security around here stunk.

  The air, however, no longer stunk; with the murder a little over a week old, the place was aired out, only the faintest bouquet of the aftermath of fire remained. But Gardner, following me up the curving staircase, was taking in the scorched wood and walls with wide eyes.

  The Chinese screen was gone, but the bedroom otherwise seemed the same—the scorched circular area as we stepped into the room, the burnt face of the wardrobe, the blood on the phone book by the French phone on the writing table, wind whispering in the open window, ruffling the frilly curtains.

  But as we stepped into the portion of the room where the murder bed waited, we saw an incredible tableau; I couldn’t have been much more surprised—or outraged—if I’d interrupted Sir Harry’s murder itself.

  Kneeling on the floor, in their perfect uniforms, wearing their goddamned spiked helmets, were a pair of Bahamian cops who had, between them, a soapy bucket and two sponges.

  They were cleaning the blood off the walls.

  Specifically, they were removing—erasing—the small, now-dried bloody handprints by the windows overlooking the north porch.

  “What the hell are you men doing?” I yelled.

  Gardner was frozen, too; he seemed horrified. It was like finding a couple kids with gum erasers removing Da Vinci’s Last Supper off the wall.

  They looked at us mildly; we hadn’t even startled them.

  “We’re removin’ the bloodstains,” one of them said, even as he was doing so.

  “Why, in God’s name?”

  The other one said, “Because dey is not de Marigny’s prints…too small.”

  He was right, of course; they looked like the palm prints of a woman or an adolescent.

  “So?” I asked, numbly.

  The first one spoke again. “So de Miami detectives say dese only confuse de evidence. Why get some innocent guy in trouble? Wash down de walls, dey say.”

  “Holy Christ,” I said. “Stop it!”

  But it was too late.

  “Who are you?” one said, standing.

  The other said, “He’s not from Miami. He’s dat guy who saw de Marigny. What are you doin’ here, mon?”

  “Supposed to meet Colonel Lindop,” I lied.

  “He’s not here.”

  “I know. But he’s on his way.”

  They looked at each other, and the other one got up; their uniforms remained spotless. So, now, were the walls. As they went out, the one carrying the bucket said, “Don’t touch anyt’ing.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’d hate for you boys to have to scrub the room down again.”

  They gave me blank looks that managed to seem nasty, and left.

  “We’d better make this quick,” I told Gardner. “I don’t know how long my story’s going to hold.”

  He looked properly astounded. “What the hell’s going on here, Heller? What sort of criminal investigation is this?”

  “One of these days you’ll meet Barker and Melchen and find out.”

  I began filling him in on what the crime scene had looked like on my previous visit: the Chinese screen, the state of Oakes’ burned and feathered body, including such details as the four wounds behind his ear, and the shreds of blue-striped pajamas hanging down from the scorched flesh….

  Gardner was on his knees, looking under the bed, like a husband searching for his wife’s lover. “The cloth covering the box spring is burned away—have a look.”

  I got down and did. “You’re right—completely gone….”

  We stood.

  “Meaning,” Gardner said, his broad face gleeful, “the fire on that bed was blazing, at one point. Those torn pajamas should have incinerated.”

  Damn near the entire surface of the bed was burned black, except a small area under where his hips had been, where Oakes’ bladder had put out the fire.

  “Notice,” I said, pointing, “there’s no indication anywhere of the outline of Oakes’ body. If his body had been on the bed before the fire was set, the sheet and mattress beneath his body would have been virtually untouched.”

  Gardner was right with me, nodding. “The position of the body, and its weight, would have shut the oxygen off from the fire.”

  “Add that to the pajama shreds that didn’t burn, and the trickle of blood that moved uphill, and what do you get?”

  “Well,” Gardner said archly, “I don’t get Sir Harry asleep in bed, getting shot or bludgeoned and his bed set on fire.”

  I paced by the blackened bed, studying it. “I think maybe he was sitting on the edge of the bed. Talking to somebody—maybe arguing….”

  I put my finger behind Gardner’s left ear and said, “Then bang, bang, bang, bang…he’s shot…or maybe struck…anyway, he collapses on the floor.”

  “And the bed is set on fire, without Harry on it!”

  “Sort of.” I frowned. “Look at the ceiling. Right over the bed. What do you see?”

  “The charred framework of the mosquito-netting canopy.”

  “And the mosquito netting is burned away, right?”

  “Right,” he said.

  “But what isn’t burned?”

  Gardner looked; his tiny eyes popped. “The goddamn ceiling!”

  I smiled. “Right. Look at these weird burns on the floor…circular…here and there…and Sir Harry himself was burned like that, too…intermittently.”

  “That means a torch. Something homemade?”

  “Possibly. I think a blowtorch. Something that could be aimed. Something you could point and scorch this bed, even get a fire going, yet still not even touch the ceiling, when you burned the netting away.”

  Now
Gardner’s eyes were so slitted they were gone. “You’ve got something, Heller. You’ve got something….”

  “This bed was on fire when Sir Harry was tossed on it. He was already dead, or nearly dead, from those wounds behind his ear. The killer…”

  “Killers,” Gardner interjected. “With all this going on, there had to be at least two.”

  “You’re probably right. The killers then took their time playing voodoo, burning Sir Harry’s body here and there, particularly the eyes and his private parts, tossing those feathers on him.”

  He pointed at the fan on the floor by the bed. “What about that? Isn’t that how the feathers got blown around?”

  “No,” I said. “There were feathers sticking to him on the side of him away from the fan. Those feathers were sprinkled over him.”

  Gardner looked puzzled, now. “Did they mean to burn the place down?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe they just wanted to leave this phony voodoo calling card. Or maybe one of them burned and feathered Harry while the body was still on the floor, the other one getting the fire on the bed going real good, then they both tossed him on….”

  “And took a powder while the fire was still blazing, figuring the whole place would burn down!”

  I nodded slowly. “Maybe. But the wind put it out. You know, usually when a man kills for money—as de Marigny is accused of—he does it as quickly and simply as possible and makes his getaway.”

  “These killers weren’t in a hurry,” Gardner said. “They took their time, either out of hatred for Sir Harry, or in an effort to suggest a ritual killing. Unless it was a ritual killing….”

  “Whatever the case,” I said, “it’s no hit-and-run job.”

  “Are you gentlemen in need of assistance?” said a voice from the doorway. A familiar voice, actually.

  Colonel Lindop entered the room, his face long and dour under the pith helmet, hands behind him.