The Long Lavender Look Page 6

  “He told you a lot, Lennie.”

  “Some of it he told me, some of it he hinted at, and some of it is what I came up with to fill in the blanks. That sheriff went over every inch of the Baither place, and came up empty every time. Now here is another part. Somebody gave Frank a good rap on the head and taped him to a chair, and wound his head with tape, leaving a hole over one ear, and a hole over the mouth. Then they worked on him. They spoiled him. He had to know he was done, and so with nothing left to save except a little more agony, he talked. Then they shoved a rusty ice pick into his heart.”

  “Assumption?”

  “A finality about it. End of interview. From the look of the rest of him, they would have kept going until he died of the special attentions.”

  “So Hyzer,” I said wearily, “buys the idiot idea that we teamed with Frank Baither and took the money truck, and we kept track of him, knew when he got out of Raiford, and set up this complicated cover story, got to him, tortured him and killed him, left an incriminating envelope behind, lost my old car in the canal, and then.… For God’s sake, Lennie! Can’t you straighten him out? Where’s the money?”

  “Right where Frank Baither hid it. But now you and Meyer know where it is, and you can take your time picking it up.”

  He made me go over the incident we should have reported and didn’t. Lots of questions. Estimates of elapsed time.

  He paced in the constricted space, glowering. “The only way to defend a case is to build an alternate possibility up to the stature of reasonable doubt, McGee. There was a girl in the mud beside the canal. Let’s say she was the young girl who played waitress. Let’s say Frank Baither was prowling after her in the night. Hutch is the big one who fits your description. Orville fits Meyer’s description. They came after Frank Baither last night. The girl got away. Baither got in his old truck and went cruising looking for Orville and Hutch. You went in the canal at ten o’clock. The shots were fired a little after eleven. He thought he hit Hutch in the head. He offered to make a deal with Orville. He drove back to his place, off guard because he thought he knew where Hutch and Orville were. He got back and they jumped him. Maybe they had a car hidden away nearby, and maybe the two of them and the girl are five hundred miles gone by now, laughing and singing, with the trunk packed with money. But that damned envelope, Trav. That is physical evidence. You are absolutely positive about what you did with it?”

  “Beyond any doubt.”

  “Then the deputy he posted at the Baither place has to be lying when he told Hyzer nobody entered the place. Can you remember the deputy’s name?”

  “Arnstead, I think. But why would somebody …”

  “ ‘Why’ comes way down the list, client. It comes after ‘how,’ ‘when,’ ‘where,’ and ‘what’. ‘How’ is the big word.”

  He opened the door and whistled. Priskitt took me back after Lennie Sibelius wished me a nice night’s sleep, saying he didn’t count on getting much himself.

  As Priskitt caged me, I asked him about Meyer.

  “Feeling much better. Fascinating man. It’s guests like you two who make this almost a civilized occupation, McGee. Nighty night.”

  They had the cell lights on a rheostat. At ten o’clock they faded from white glare to yellow glow.

  You can’t help wondering what it would feel like to be in such a box for the next dozen years, and wonder if you could handle it, and walk out of it still reasonably sane.

  I remembered reading a sentence long ago, I know not where or when, or who wrote it. It said, “The only thing that prisons demonstrably cure is heterosexuality.”

  Back to the envelope. It had to be an unplanned act on someone’s part. An improvisation. A way to muddy the water. Somebody made the decision after Sheriff Hyzer and Deputy Cable had driven off with us. A customer or an employee. Or the boss. Al Storey, or the big young dull-looking one named Terry. Or the older one who had arrived late in the blue Rambler. Henry … The one with all the white teeth. Or somebody who came on duty later. Al, Terry, and Henry had all heard Hyzer say that Frank Baither had been killed. His attitude made it evident he thought Meyer and I were involved.

  I dug away at my chigger bites. Get me out, Lennie. Get us out of here.

  Six

  Up until eleven o’clock it was a very dull morning. Then Priskitt arrived, humming happily, carrying a hanger with freshly cleaned and pressed slacks and shirt thereon. He had my toilet kit in the other hand.

  He unlocked the cell door and said, “Priskitt at your service, sir. You will wish to shower? You are free to go right ahead, by yourself.”

  “Those clothes were …”

  “In your suitcase which was in your car, and so was the toilet kit. Still damp, but not at all bad. Compliments of Cypress County, Mr. McGee. I’ll be along with shoes and socks and underwear.”

  “Where is my friend?”

  “Under the shower, one might expect.”

  But Meyer was out of the shower, standing at the sink, and carefully, tenderly, shaving the black stubble from his swollen and discolored face. He turned and said, “Don’t make me laugh, please.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “It will add up to a good dental bill. The thing that worries me is a persistent headache, dizziness, some double vision. And something seems to grate in my cheek. Lennie is going to fly me back to Lauderdale and I’ll go in for observation.”

  “Who did it?”

  “A large fellow with big cheekbones and small dark eyes and very long sideburns. I wondered why he was putting a leather glove on. You’d mentioned a few useful things one could do under those circumstances. I tried them and they didn’t work very well.”

  “Who was there at the time?”

  “Deputy Cable. Objecting.”

  “Making any physical attempt to stop him?”

  “Finally, yes. But at first I would say he was merely whining at the fellow, something about Mister Norm getting upset. He called the sideburned fellow Lew. I discovered the whole name later on. Deputy Lew Arnstead.”

  “Where was Sturnevan? The big sloppy one.”

  “He had stepped out. Lew didn’t take long. It seemed long. Maybe fifteen or twenty seconds. By then I wasn’t aware of whether Sturnevan came back or not, but I think he was one of the two men who helped me to the cell.”

  “Meyer?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “I’m sorry about this.”

  He turned and looked solemnly at me, puffy eyes staring out of the big yellow-blue-green-purple face. “Where is any man’s immunity from the unexpected, McGee? I could deny myself the pleasure of your friendship, and decrease the chance of the unexpected. But there is a case on record of a woman in her own bed being struck on the thigh by a bounding chunk of red-hot iron, a meteorite that came whistling in from God only knows what corner of the galaxy. I value that night hike, Travis. And the way the dawn looked, and the feeling of being alive after being shot at. I am a grown-up, making choices. And sufficiently grown up to live with the choices I make. My face hurts and my head aches, and I would like to kill that sideburned fellow with anything I could lift. I feel outraged, humiliated, and very very tired. But I’m glad I came along.”

  “You do go on.”

  “Do us both a favor and get out of that garment.”

  He was ready and I was almost ready when Sturnevan came to get us. He clucked and turned Meyer toward the light and gave him a close inspection. “And you weren’t very pretty to start with, Professor.”

  “King,” I said, “I might get a chance to strike up an acquaintance with Lew Arnstead when he’s off duty.”

  “Which is now sort of one hundred percent of the time, I hear. You serious, McGee?”

  “Serious enough to ask you how to do it.”

  “He’s a strong boy. He likes all the odds his way. With somebody your size, he’d try to fix the odds fast, like a quick kick in the balls. What you do is, you make it look as if he can get away with it. He’s right-handed. He’
ll kick with his right leg. Watch for the weight shift, sidestep the kick and get his ankle, and swing it on up. Then if you can hurt him fast enough and bad enough, he’ll be all through.”

  “Thanks, King.”

  “Mister Norm is waiting on you fellows.”

  No guard just inside the door this time. Just Lennie Sibelius and Sheriff Hyzer, and some exhibits on the bare desktop.

  Lennie slouched, smiling, in a wooden armchair. Hyzer sat at attention behind his desk. He asked us to sit. He said to Meyer, “I assure you that what happened to you is against the policy of this department.”

  “My client accepts that,” Lennie said quickly.

  “Arnstead was not officially on duty at the time of the … incident,” Hyzer said. “He had no business being here. His act was without official sanction or official knowledge. He has been dismissed with prejudice, booked for aggravated assault, and released on bond pending trial. Deputy Cable has been fined and reprimanded for permitting it to happen. Please accept my personal apology.”

  “I accept it,” Meyer said.

  “Mr. Sibelius has suggested that any dental or medical bills be sent here to my attention. They will be taken care of, if not by the county, then by me personally.”

  “Do I get one of those, too?” I asked.

  Hyzer swiveled slowly and stared at me with those frozen eyes. “One what?”

  “An apology?”

  “He’s making a joke, Sheriff,” Lennie said.

  “He is? I have very little sense of humor, Mr. McGee. Your rights … and your person … have been protected. I am releasing you from further questioning because Mr. Sibelius prevailed on me to more carefully investigate your … version … of what happened Thursday night.” There were little hesitations, pauses in which he carefully composed his phrases, making the end product so stilted, so stuffy that it became, in one sense, an armor against the world.

  He indicated a .38 automatic pistol, an old one, rust flecked, with the bluing worn away in places. “This handgun was found on the Baither property under a clump of palmetto about fifteen feet from where the pickup truck was parked, and almost in line with the back porch. There were two rounds in the clip. There is a partial print on the side of the clip which matches Baither’s left thumbprint, and is in the place where a man would logically hold it while loading the weapon. We can assume it was Baither’s weapon and was lost in the darkness when Baither was overpowered while walking from his truck to his house. There is no way to tell how many shots were fired, as we do not know how many were loaded into the clip. Examination proved it had been fired recently. A wax test on the right hand of the decedent indicates he had fired a gun not long before death.”

  He moved along to the next item, three empty brass cartridge cases neatly aligned. “One of these was found on the floor of the truck. The second one was found this morning on the shoulder of the highway three and two tenth miles south of the point where your car went into the canal. That area was searched carefully after certain marks and footprints were found in the soft earth beside the canal. This plaster cast of the best footprint matches the left shoe you were wearing, Mr. McGee, when you were taken into custody. This third case is a test round fired from this handgun. Though we have not arranged a ballistics examination with a comparative microscope, examination through a hand magnifying glass indicates the probability that the indentation made by the firing pin is distinctive enough to allow eventual proof that all three rounds were fired from the same pistol.”

  “This is very reassuring to my clients,” Lennie said.

  “Taken alone,” Hyzer said, “these indications would not be enough to cause me to release these people. There could be too many alternative explanations. And the fact of the envelope seemed conclusive evidence that one of you or both of you were inside the Baither house. However, Mr. Sibelius suggested a method of … making Arnstead change his report to me about his assignment to guard the Baither house.”

  “All Arnstead had to do,” Lennie explained, “was leave one little hole in his story, one period of time when that envelope could have been planted. I could drive trucks through any hole like that. Norman, my friend Meyer is looking rocky, and with your permission I’d like to fly him over to Lauderdale. Trav, I’m assuming you’d like to get that old crock truck of yours dried out and running.”

  Hyzer said, “I would prefer to have Mr. McGee remain in Cypress County until I have completed my—”

  “But, Norman, you have my personal guarantee, my personal word that I can produce them right here any time you say.”

  “I think it would be better if—”

  Lennie smiled his best smile. “Hell, Norm, it’s all give and take, after all. Famed economist brutally beaten and held, without charges, in Cypress County jail cell.”

  “I refuse to be—”

  “Come on, Norm! I like the way you’re thinking. I think you are the first lawman who’s got a decent lead on that racetrack money. I don’t blame you for keeping a tight lid on it because if word got out, somehow, people would be swarming all over you. I wouldn’t want that to happen because I wouldn’t want you to look foolish. I wouldn’t want one of those hard-case types the Miami Herald would send over here asking you, for the record, if you were so sure Baither was in on the money-truck job, why you didn’t have him under twenty-four-hour surveillance. They wouldn’t understand your reasoning, and they might use some rude head such as: HICK SHERIFF BLOWS BIG CASE.” He shrugged and, turning, managed to wink at me—a combination wink and frown.

  I caught on and grabbed my cue. “Lennie, look. It isn’t that important I get home. I’m perfectly willing to hang around if Sheriff Hyzer wants me to. But I haven’t even got enough cash to take care of the car. If you could …”

  “Any time at all, pal,” Lennie said, and produced the platinum money clip with the emeralds, the one given him in gratitude by the Other Woman after he had secured an acquittal for the heir to a pulp mill and timberlands fortune who had shot and killed what he thought was a prowler, but who had turned out to be his insomniac wife.

  Counting off money for me would not have been consistent with Lennie Sibelius’s lifestyle. He slipped the cash out of the clip, took off a couple of fifties for himself, put them back in the clip, and handed me the rest of it.

  “I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. McGee,” Hyzer said. “Let me know where you will be staying.”

  Meyer and I collected the rest of our gear. Laundry and dry cleaning courtesy of Cypress County. A form of apology. We put the small amount of luggage into the white Buick convertible Lennie had rented. I could see them off and bring it back into town from the airstrip, and either turn it in or keep it. I sat in the back. It was impossible to talk with the top down and with Lennie pretending he was being challenged for the lead in the Daytona 500. The strip was about five miles east of the city limits. He drove past the hangar and on out onto the hard pan and stopped next to his Apache, all chocked and tied down to eyebolts.

  “You can get a very nice room at the White Ibis Motor Inn,” Lennie said. “You go back through town—”

  “I saw it when they were taking us in.”

  “But don’t eat there. Eat right in town at Mrs. Teffer’s Live Oak Lodge and Dining Room. Exceptional!”

  “Now hold it a minute, Lennie. I picked up your cue. But it would be very comforting to know what the hell is going on.”

  Meyer said, “Nine hundred thousand dollars is going on.” His voice was slightly blurred by the mouth damage.

  “So don’t be in too big a hurry to leave,” Lennie said.

  “This is one of my stupid days,” I told them. “Draw me some pictures.”

  “I like Norm’s thinking. It all seems to fit together. And I think that sooner or later he’s going to pick somebody up for it.”

  “Wouldn’t they be long gone?”

  Lennie smiled. “By Gad, it is one of your stupid days. If they were long gone, there would be very little point in going t
o the trouble of planting that envelope. One or more of the people involved have to be right here in the area, tied to it in such a way that the act of leaving would blow the whistle. When Norm grabs somebody, they are going to need the best legal talent they can find. And they should be able to afford me.”

  “I can have a sandwich sign made and walk back and forth in front of the jail?”

  “The Association would frown on that. Hell, they even frown on my little decorations on the airplane and the cruiser.”

  He pointed and I stepped up and took a closer look. They were small decals, hardly bigger than a postage stamp. A stylized gallows in black on a white background with a black border, and with an X in red canceling out the gallows. The custom decals were on the cowling under the pilot’s window. Almost three rows. Twenty-eight of them.

  “All this trouble to plant a shill in the area?”

  “Trav, pal, I had the idea you might stir around a little. A catalytic agent, bringing the brew to a nice simmer. Then Norm might be able to nail somebody sooner than otherwise.”