Chapter 5

I located the electrical distribution box and killed the circuits in that wing of the building so I wouldn't electrocute myself with the hose. Changing into swimming trunks, I went to work. I stood in the doorway playing the hose on walls and ceiling and furniture until water began running over the threshold. I broke open a half-dozen boxes of the soda and scattered it around, and washed down some more. When I tried to move the bedclothes, drapes, and mattresses, they tore into rotten and mushy shreds, so I found some garden tools and raked them out onto the gravel, along with all the carpet I could tear up. It was sickening.

Even as diluted as the stuff was now, it kept stinging my feet when I had to step off the boards. I played the hose on them to wash it off. In about fifteen minutes I had the worst of it out. I dragged the bed frames and headboards, the dresser, the two armchairs, and the night table out onto the concrete porch and played the hose on them some more and scattered the rest of the soda over the wet surfaces. I showered and changed back into my clothes, and went over to the office. Josie said Mrs. Lang was sleeping quietly. She brought me the keys to the station wagon.

"Turn on the NO VACANCY sign," I said. "And if anybody comes in, tell him the place is closed."

She looked doubtful. "You reckon Miss Ida goin' to like that? She's kind of pinched for money."

"I'll square it with her," I said. "She needs rest more than she needs money, and we're going to see she gets it."

That wasn't the only reason, but I saw no point in going into it now. I drove into town and parked near the garage. In the repair department a mechanic was working on the Buick, unbolting the old radiator. He looked up and nodded.

"Borrow one of your screwdrivers?" I asked.

"Sure," he said. "Here."

I went around back and tested one of the screws holding the rear license plates. It came loose freely. So did the other one. You could even see where he'd put machine oil on the threads to break them loose. I heard footsteps beside me, and looked up. It was the sour-faced shop foreman in his white smock.

He nodded. "What's all the whoop-de-do with the license plates? Man from the sheriff's office was fiddlin' with 'em a while ago. And dusting powder over them."

"Which man?" I asked.

"You wouldn't know him. That hard case."

"Magruder?"

He shook his head. "That's the one thinks he's hard. This one is. Kelly Redfield."

I thought he'd sounded like a good cop. He screamed about it and for some reason tried to slough it off, but in the end he had to come and see.

"What'd he say?" I asked. "Say? That guy? He wouldn't give you the time of day."

"But he did tell you where they broke in?" Surprise showed for an instant on the sour and frozen face before he brought it under control again. "How'd you know? He said there was a busted pane in the washroom window. And he wanted to know if we'd missed anything."

"Have you?"

He shook his head. "Not as far as we can tell yet."

"How about battery acid?"

"We haven't got any."

Well, he'd stolen it somewhere in this area, because he had it here at two a.m. He couldn't have gone very far after it. Maybe Redfield had some ideas. I should be able to catch him at the office.

It was at the rear of the courthouse, a dreary room floored with scarred brown linoleum and smelling of dust and sweeping compound. The wall at the right was banked with steel filing cabinets, and across the room at desks near a barred window Magruder and a bull of a man with red hair were doing paper work. The wall at my left was filled with bulletins and wanted posters. A large overhead fan circled with weary futility, stirring the heat. At the left end of the room there was a water cooler and a doorway leading into an inner office.

Magruder came over. I noticed he still wore the heavy gun belt and the .45 even while shuffling papers. Maybe he wore it to bed. "What do you want now?" he asked.

"I want to talk to your boss."

At that moment a lean-hipped man in faded khakis came out of the inner office with a handful of papers which he tossed on one of the desks. Magruder jerked his head at me. "Kelly, here's that guy now."

Redfield turned with a quick, hard glance. "Chatham?"

"That's right," I said.

"Come in here."

I followed him into the inner office. An old roll-top desk stood against the wall at the left. On the right there were two filing cabinets and a hat-rack on which were draped his jacket, a black tie, and a shoulder holster containing a gun. A locked, glass-fronted case held four .30-30 carbines. One barred window looked out onto a parking area paved with white gravel.

He nodded toward the straight chair at the end of the desk. "Sit down."

Without taking his eyes off me, he groped in the pocket of the jacket for cigarettes. He lighted one, not offering them to me, and flipped the match into the tray on his desk. He was a man of thirty-six or eight, with an air of thorough competence about him that matched the way he had sounded on the telephone. The face was lean, the jaw clean-cut and hard, and he had a high and rounded forehead and thinning brown hair. The hard-bitten eyes were gray. It was a face with intelligence in it, and character, but for the moment at least, no warmth at all.

"All right, Chatham," he said, "what are you after around here?"

"Magruder told you," I said. "You sent him to find out."

"I did. And you don't make any sense. Start making some."

He irritated me, and puzzled me at the same time. Honest, hard-working professional cop was written all over him, and he hadn't been able to resist a police problem, but why the antagonism? "Were there any prints on those plates?" I asked.

"No," he said curtly. "Of course not. And there wouldn't have been any in the room, or on those jugs. You think the man who worked out that operation was a fool, or an amateur? But never mind him; let's get back to you."

"Why?"

"I want to know who the hell you are, and what you're doing here. He went to all that trouble to use your plates. Why?"

"The message was for me," I said. I told him about the telephone threat, and the earlier call to her and my efforts to find the booth with the noisy fan.

He walked over in front of me. "In other words, you're not in town thirty minutes before you're up to your neck in police business. You're a troublemaker, Chatham; I can smell you a mile."

"I reported it to this office," I said. "And I was kissed off. Same way you're trying to slough off this acid job. What's the deal here, Redfield; why can't she get police protection?"

"Who says she can't?" he interrupted harshly.

"I do. The whole thing stinks. And I don't get it. I've seen dirt pushed under the rug, but you don't look like the type."

For an instant there was something goaded and savage in his eyes, and I thought he was going to hit me. Then he had it under control. "Nobody's being kissed off here," he said coldly. "Those descriptions have gone out to all adjoining counties and the Highway Patrol. The acid's a blank; in a place this size, he'd have to be from out of town, so if he was hired for the job he brought his own. That just leaves you."

"What do you mean?"

He jabbed a forefinger at me. "You stick out in this mess like a blonde with a pet skunk, and you get wronger every minute. For some reason it happens the very day you show up. They used your plates. You've got some cock-and-bull story about a mysterious phone call. Your identification says you're a cop, and you say you used to be one. What are you now, and who's paying you?"

"I'm not doing anything. I was just on my way to Miami."

"Well, you're still on your way to Miami," he snapped. "Or somewhere." Magruder, in the doorway, grinned nastily.

"Who says so?" I asked.

"That's a stupid question, for a man that used to be a cop. You know who says so. I don't like troublemakers and goons that wander in here for no reason and seem to wind up out there at that motel. We've still got the stink from the last one."

"I thought we'd get around to that," I said. "In other words, you don't care what happens to her, or how she gets pushed around. You've got an unsolved murder on your hands, and as far as you're concerned, she's guilty whether you can prove it or not. Well, I'm staying.

Somebody's deliberately trying to ruin her or drive her insane. I don't know who, or why, but he did that acid job to her because of me, so I'm going to help her find out."

He leaned over me with that savage expression in his eyes again. "Get this straight, Chatham. You make one phony move around here and I'm going to land on you, and land hard. Now get out!"

"I heard you," I said.

Magruder stared coldly as I went past him. "Big shot," he said. I ignored him and went on out. I'd just made things worse, but I was still angry enough not to care. Redfield was an enigma. He was a tough cop, and an honest one unless I was crazy, but he was being too hard, like a man on the defensive.

I stopped at a drugstore to have the prescriptions filled, and drove back to the motel. When I parked in front of the office, I looked at my watch. It was after eleven, and I remembered I'd never had any breakfast. Maybe I could catch Ollie alone at the same time. I walked across the road, ordered a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and carried them into the bar. There was only one customer, a man in a phone linesman's outfit. He finished his beer and went out, clanking like a walking tool kit.

I put my stuff on the bar and pulled up a stool. "You don't mind if I sit here?" I asked. "As long as I'm not bothering your regular customers?"

He shrugged, but there was amusement in the level brown eyes. "I'm sorry about that. But you know how it is."

"Forget it," I said. He had a clean-cut look about him, and I had a hunch he wasn't one of the crowd that was on her back. I wished I could be sure.

He came over, propped a foot on the shelf under the bar, and leaned on his knee. He lighted a cigarette. "That was dirty pool, that acid."

"How did you hear about it?" I asked.

"Saw the stuff over there where you pulled it out. I went over, and the maid told me about it. Sheriff's office come up with anything?"

"Not yet," I said. I drank some of the coffee.

"That Redfield's a good cop. Tougher than a boot, but smart. And honest."

"Yeah," I said noncommittally. "Listen, do you think she was involved in that murder?"

"You want to know what I really think?" He met my gaze squarely. "I think I've got a nice place here. It makes me a good living, and I like it."

"Don't try to snow me. You're not bird-brained, or gutless."

"All right. Maybe I do think she's getting a rotten deal. But I'm not in the opinion business. I just sell beer and hotcakes to people who do have opinions. Strong ones, sometimes."

"You don't have to wear a campaign button," I said. "If you'd just answer a few questions-"

"Sure. Fire away."

I told him about the filthy telephone calls, and the noisy fan.

He nodded. "Same guy, you think?"

"Sure. He saw me checking all those booths, and caught on."

He made an effort, but couldn't recall who'd used the phone anywhere around that hour. "I never notice, unless they ask for change," he said. "They're in and out all the time. You know how it is."

"What about the ones who were here when I was?"

"Hmmm," he said. "Let's see. The hothead who wanted to jump you was Rupe Hulbert. He's harmless; he hasn't got brains enough to be mixed up in anything. The big guy with him was Red Dunlevy; works in that service station just up the road. He's a harum-scarum screwball, but a pretty good Joe. Pearl Talley gets off some fairly raw jokes, but nothing ever vicious-"

"What about the guy in the guitar-player's shirt, in the booth with the girl?"

Ollie grinned. "That's who I'm talking about; I don't know who the girl was. Talley's a clown type; to look at him you'd think they had to rope him every morning to put shoes on him, but it's a front. He's got the sharpest business mind in the county. Owns a lot of property around here. He can swap nickels with you, even money, and come out two dollars ahead."

There appeared to be nothing in those three to warrant any more questions at the moment. "Why's everybody so bitter about the Lang thing?"

"It was so cold-blooded and dirty, for one thing," he replied. "And Lang was kind of a hometown hero. Greatest football player the high school ever turned out. All-American end at Georgia Tech. Fine war record; executive officer of a submarine that sank a lot of Jap shipping. He went to Miami after the war and made a fortune in the construction business, housing and subdivisions. Then he crashed, like running into a wall. First wife divorced him-"

"Oh," I said. "I didn't know she was his second wife."

"Yeah. The first one got a big chunk of the money. Then he lost a lawsuit over land titles that just about cleaned him out. And to cap it off, his health quit on him. Two heart attacks. The medics said quit, or he'd had it. So just about the time he married again he gave up and bought the motel up here. Little over a year ago. Hunted and fished a lot with the local people he grew up with. And in five months he was killed. You see? He didn't have much time left anyway, and then to be murdered by a cheap stud like Strader-"

He nodded. "That's part of it. But there's more."

"Who got the insurance?" I asked. "Daughter. Kid about thirteen, by the first wife."

"There goes that motive. What about the fake accident?"

"It was like this. Lang had all his tackle and his motor in the station wagon, and was supposed to be going fishing-"

"At four-thirty in the morning?"

"Sure. You fish for bass at daybreak. Anyway, as I said, he was in poor health; and at Finley's Cut where he kept his boat tied up, there's a steep climb down about an eight-foot bank to get to the edge of the water. And a big log at the bottom of it that they padlock their boats to. His outboard motor weighed nearly fifty pounds. So you can see yourself what everybody would naturally think when he was found down there with his head busted open against the log with the motor on top of him."

I nodded. "And what was Strader doing when Calhoun jumped him?"

"He was down there by the water with a flashlight and a piece of the bloody tarp, fixing up the log."

It was deadly, all right. "And Strader was a stranger here, of course, so it had to be the woman who knew the setup where he kept the boat, and how to get there?"

"Sure."

"All right. Now, how do they know it was a woman?"

"My short-order cook saw her when she got out of the car over there. He was just opening up to make coffee."

"Could he describe her?"

"No. The light was too poor. He thought she had dark hair, but wouldn't swear to it. She went across and disappeared into that space between the office and the left wing of the motel building."

"How did Calhoun happen to be down there by the river? He's the city cop, isn't he?"

He nodded. "Just one of those things. He was on a fishing trip too, camped right below there. The car woke him up."

I thought about it. "It's too pat. Do they think she'd be stupid enough to drive the car right back here to the motel?"

"The theory is that she didn't know Calhoun got the license number. It's logical. She couldn't have seen him chasing her, in the dark, and he didn't shoot because he fell down and lost the gun. And if she left it somewhere else, she'd have to walk back, with the chance of being seen."

"But she was seen. And she didn't go into the office."

"There's a rear entrance. Out of sight from here."

"How soon did they find the car?"

"In less than thirty minutes. As soon as Calhoun could make it to town and report it, the sheriff drove out to tell her Lang had been killed. And the first thing he saw when he drove in was that same Dade County license they were looking for."

"Was she asleep when he knocked? He'd be able to make a pretty good guess."

"No. She was in her nightgown and robe when she came to the door, but she was wide awake."

"Did she say why?"

"Said it was a phone call. Just before he got there."

"Who was it?"

"A wrong number. Or that is, the wrong motel. Some woman that sounded about half-drunk wanted to talk to a party that wasn't even registered."

"So she had to shuffle through all the cards to be sure?"

"Yeah."

I nodded. This appeared to be a great place for telephone calls. I thanked him, and went back across the road. Josie had been in to make up the room. I switched on the air-conditioner and sat down to see if I could make sense of what I was doing. The only thing that was readily apparent was that I was going to get my head knocked off. In less than twenty-four hours I'd been warned by two different sets of people to leave town or get hurt. And since I had no intention of doing it, I must be crazy.

Two sets of people? Yes. It almost had to be. Redfield was a complex man I didn't understand at all yet, and potentially a highly dangerous one, but I simply didn't believe he was corrupt-or corrupt enough to be at the bottom of all this. Maybe the savagery in him was warping his judgment, but it could be the result of an honest conviction that she was guilty and that she had beaten him. Therefore, he probably didn't even know who the others were, and I did have two separate outfits bent on getting rid of me.

I lighted a cigarette. Somehow, you always came back to Lang's murder, and the thing that really damned her was baffling because of its very simplicity. One of them had known he'd be suspected if there were a homicide investigation; otherwise, there was no point in faking an accident. Strader and Lang didn't even know each other, so it had to be the woman. And when the accident thing went sour and there was a homicide investigation, Ida Lang was the only woman in sight. It was a perfect, unbreakable circle, like two snakes swallowing each other. Maybe she was guilty, I thought. And on the other hand, maybe somebody had deliberately tried to frame her. Some of the ugly little touches were there if you looked for them closely enough.

If you assumed the whole thing tied together, where did you start? There was no lead at all in the acid job. Strader, I thought. It all began with him, and whatever he'd come up here for. Maybe they'd missed it completely because the obvious answer was too easy and they hadn't tried to look beyond it. But Strader had come from Miami. Well, that presented no great problem The phone rang. When I picked it up, a woman's voice said softly, "Mr. Chatham?"

"Yes," I said. "Who is this?"

"You wouldn't know me, but I might be able to tell you something."

"About what?" I asked quickly.

"About some acid, maybe. If you thought it was worth a hundred dollars."

She left it hanging there, and then I caught something in the background that made the pulse leap in my throat. It was the rough whirring sound of that fan with the defective bearing.

"Yes," I said, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. "It might be worth that. Where could I meet you?"

"You can't," she said softly. "I wouldn't risk it for a thousand, let alone a hundred. But if you get the money to me, I'll phone-" She stopped abruptly, gasped, and the receiver clicked as she hung up.

I dropped the instrument back on the cradle and was out the door in three strides. The entrance to the Silver King was in plain sight from here. Nobody came out. I almost ran, going across the highway. When I pushed into the lunchroom a lone trucker was at the counter and the waitress was emerging from the kitchen with a tray. I forced myself to slow down, and strolled casually into the bar.

It was empty, except for Ollie. He was disassembling and cleaning a big salt-water reel on a newspaper spread out on the bar. I looked stupidly around. He glanced up and sighed. "Corrosion," he said.

"Where'd she go?" I asked.

"Who?"

"The woman that just used the phone booth."

"In here?" He stared at me, frowning. "There hasn't been any woman here. There hasn't been anybody since you left."