Dead Soldiers (15 page)

Burns told them again that he was leaving.

“You going to lunch?“ Mal asked.

“No. I’m going to look at some antiques.“

“There are a couple teaching in my department.“

“Not that kind,“ Burns said.

When he went out the door, Mal and Earl were lighting up again. The Surgeon General couldn’t scare them.

S
tilwell’s antique store was only a few blocks from the campus, so Burns decided to walk. It was depressing in a way. When Burns had come to Hartley Gorman College, Pecan City had been a bustling community, but the last few years had been devastating to the local economy. Downtown buildings that had been home to clothing shops and appliance stores were now mostly deserted. Someone had opened a used-book store in one of them. A spa had opened in another, but it had gone out of business within a couple of months. The work-out equipment had been repossessed, and the owner had absconded with all the membership fees he had been able to collect.

Stilwell’s antique store was in an old building that had originally been a hardware store. It was one of the oldest buildings in town, and it was a perfect setting for the antiques.

Burns went in through the front door. He had never seen an actual puncheon floor, but the one on which he found himself standing was close enough. If it hadn’t been made of planed and shaped logs, it was constructed of something similar. The old wood creaked when Burns walked on it. The stamped tin ceiling was high overheard, as high as the ceilings in the old Main Building on the HGC campus.

Stilwell was nowhere to be seen. Burns could hear low voices, and he assumed that Stilwell was with a customer in the back of the store, where they were hidden behind a wall that had once separated the business office of the hardware store from the sale goods. Stilwell had his own office back there, with most of the original furnishings still in place.

Burns didn’t want to interrupt a business conference, so he stood and looked around the store. It was full of things that some people might have considered valuable collectibles, while others might have considered them nothing more than junk. Standing near a wooden counter on which a heavy cast-iron cash register rested, there was a wooden cigar-store Indian that looked almost new, and Burns decided that it probably was. He also thought that to be politically correct, he should think of it as a cigar-store Native American, and he did try, but somehow he couldn’t get used to the idea.

On one wall there hung a number of clocks. One of the larger ones had a wooden frame and a glass front. The top half of the glass was clear, while the bottom half was painted black. On the black, in gold script, was an advertisement for Calumet Baking Powder. Burns could hear the clocks ticking and wondered if Stilwell wound them every day.

On the wall beside the clocks there were three free-standing cabinets with barred doors. The cabinets all held rifles, and Burns went over to look at them. The barred doors were locked, and there was a handwritten sign on each one that said “Military Rifles.“ Burns didn’t know a military rifle from a BB gun, so all he could tell about them was that some looked different from others. There were several bayonets in the cases as well.

     
As little as he knew about military weaponry, Burns was nevertheless certain that a bullet fired from a rifle like one of those in the cases would never be mistaken for a .22 caliber such as the one that had killed Matthew Hart.

There were glass showcases all around the store, and Burns browsed around looking in them. One of them was filled with costume jewelry that reminded Burns of the kind of stuff he’d seen on top of his grandmother’s dresser when he was a kid. Another showcase held watches of all kinds, and Burns walked over to check it out. Sure enough, on one shelf there was a Mickey Mouse watch like the one Burns had worn in the first grade. It had a cracked black leather band, and Mickey was missing one arm.

A free-standing bookshelf was in the center of the big showroom, and Burns went over to see if there were any interesting books in it. He didn’t see any rare first editions, but there was a shelf of old paperbacks labeled “pulp fiction“ on a piece of tape that was stuck to the shelf. Most of the books were at least forty years old, and Burns pulled out a couple to look them over. They weren’t really what he would have considered pulp fiction, but he had to admit that they had colorful covers, most of them featuring women in various stages of undress. They had a different idea of how to sell books in the old days, Burns thought, and it wasn’t exactly politically correct. It wouldn’t have gone over well at HGC.

He put the books back and wandered over to another showcase that had old periodicals stacked on top. There was a pile of
Life
magazines from the 1950s, and Burns thumbed through them, finding the advertisements at least as interesting as the photographs that accompanied the sparse text of the articles. There were some comic books as well, but they were locked inside the showcase. Burns saw that on the top shelf there were several 3-D comics, including one with the Three Stooges on the cover. A note beside it said “Glasses still inside.“

By now about fifteen minutes had passed since Burns had entered the store, but he continued to hear the low voices from the back room. He wondered if Stilwell was having difficulty closing the sale, or if he was just engaged in friendly conversation. Burns drifted in the direction of the voices, looking idly at the things he passed: stacks of old baskets and baking tins, metal advertising signs, racks of what a small paper sign referred to as “Retro Clothing,“ wooden toys, old plastic radios, cases of glasses, bowls, pitchers, and plates.

Some plates were probably pressed glass, Burns thought, and some Depression glass, but he hadn’t attended Stilwell’s lecture on how to distinguish between them.

One corner of the big store was given over to antique furniture, and Burns looked at a canopy bed and several chairs that appeared even more uncomfortable than those in Dean Partridge’s office.

So far, Burns was not impressed. He’d been in the store before, and he’d never seen anything that he thought he couldn’t live without. He supposed that he didn’t understand the collector mentality, and he certainly didn’t see why people would drive from Dallas or Houston to shop among Stilwell’s admittedly abundant accumulation of seemingly worthless items.

Burns was wondering about it when he heard a short burst of maniacal laughter from the back room. It was loud and frightening, and Burns turned in the direction it had come from. It wasn’t repeated, but Burns decided it was time for him to have a look in the office. He threaded his way past more of Stilwell’s hoard, and when he came to the office, he saw that the door was half open. He knocked on the facing.

“Come on in,“ a voice called, and Burns went inside.

Steven Stilwell was sitting at a roll-top desk in an old wooden swivel chair on rollers. He was reading a tabloid that Burns could see was called
The Antique Trader
. There was no one else in the office, but sitting on a small table near the desk there was a nearly new compact stereo unit, from which had come the voices that Burns had been hearing. At the moment an organ was playing some very odd-sounding music. Stilwell laid down the paper and turned off the stereo.

“I was listening to an episode of
The Shadow
,“ he said. “One of the episodes that Orson Welles starred in. He was the best Shadow, don’t you think? And the shows he was in are more like the magazine stories.“

Burns had to admit that he didn’t really know much about the Shadow. He’d read about the program and about the pulp magazine stories, of course, but he was far from an expert.

“Well, you should know more,“ Stilwell said. “Great show. And that laugh of his is priceless.“ Stilwell did a lame imitation of the spooky laugh Burns had heard earlier. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?“

“Boss Napier,“ Burns said.

Stilwell leaned forward a bit in his chair and gave a more genuine laugh. He was thin, with a scraggly beard and long hair. Napier would have called him a hippie. He wore glasses with very small lenses, and his hair was black with a good bit of gray mixed in. Mal had been wrong about the dye job.

“Napier couldn’t find his fanny with a flashlight,“ Stilwell said. “And if you think he knows anything about human psychology, he really has you fooled.“

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,“ Burns said. “He might surprise you.“

“I doubt it. He wouldn’t know a Marx character figure from a cheap Hong Kong knockoff.“

Burns knew that Stilwell was wrong, but he didn’t think it was worth arguing about.

“What brings you to my humble establishment, anyway, Dr. Burns? You didn’t come to talk about Boss Napier and Old Time Radio, I’m sure.“

“I was just looking around. You have an amazing assortment of odds and ends out there.“

“You aren’t interested in buying anything, though, are you.“

“How would you know that?“

“Because you hardly ever come around to look. People who collect antiques like to come in every week or so just to see what’s new. They never know when I might have located something they need.“

“Need?“ Burns said.

“That’s right. They need the things I sell just the way a drug addict needs his dope. Don’t ask me to explain it. That’s just the way it is. And I’m glad. It’s how I make my living, after all.“

Burns had talked to Stilwell on the campus a few times, but he’d never thought of him as a cynic. He said, “Some of that stuff out there looks as if it might be hard to sell to nearly anybody.“

“It’s that
nearly
that makes the difference,“ Stilwell said. “I believe in what I call the ’one sucker theory’ of selling antiques.“

“I don’t think I know that theory.“

“It’s simple. If you’re selling something, you just have to find the one sucker who wants what you have. You take that wooden Indian out there, for example.“

Burns didn’t want to take it and said as much.

“I know you don’t want it,“ Stilwell said. “Hardly anyone would. It’s not even an antique. But somewhere there’s one sucker who wants it. Sooner or later, that one sucker will come into my store, and I’ll make the sale. That’s all it takes.“

“What if that one sucker never shows up?“

“I wouldn’t know. He always does. Eventually.“

“You don’t seem too busy right at the moment.“

“Noon is always a slow time during the week. I come back here to the office and eat a sandwich while I read a magazine and listen to an old radio show.“

Burns saw a sandwich bag, empty except for a few crumbs, on the desk beside a plastic Vanilla Coke bottle.

“What about toy soldiers?“ Burns asked. “Ever get any calls for something like that?“

Stilwell leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. He crossed his arms and said, “So that’s what this is all about.“

Burns said he didn’t get it.

“Oh, yes you do. I know all about those soldiers that are missing from Gwen Partridge’s place, and since I’m the antique dealer, naturally I’m the suspect. Well, I didn’t take them. They’re nice items, and I could probably sell them.“

“To someone like Neal Bruce, maybe.“

“Maybe. He likes soldiers, and I’ve found a few for him here and there. He doesn’t collect
Britains
, though. He goes for
Staddens
, which is another thing entirely. Maybe not to you and me, but to him.“

“So you were definitely interested in Dr. Partridge’s soldiers.“

“You could say that. I even tried to buy them once. But I didn’t take them. Be logical, Burns. Stealing them wouldn’t be worth the risk. Why ruin my reputation for a few thousand bucks?“

“Mary Mason seems to think you were pretty fond of them.“

“A-ha,“ Stilwell said.

Burns didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone say that before. Maybe it was something Stilwell had picked up by listening to Old Time Radio.

“You know what they say about women scorned?“ Stilwell asked. “Hell and fury and all that?“

“I’ve heard about it,“ Burns said, thinking about the way Elaine had acted after she’d seen him and Mason on the elevator. And he hadn’t even spurned her.

“Mary Mason and I dated for a while. That was some time ago, and we didn’t hit it off. I was the one who decided to call it quits. That’s probably the first time that’s ever happened to her. She’s usually the dumper, not the
dumpee
. So she’s never forgiven me.“

“She called you Stevie.“

Stilwell’s mouth twisted in his beard.

“I thought it was sweet,“ Burns said.

“I don’t, but it’s typical. That woman is capable of anything.“

Stilwell didn’t seem to like Mason as much as other men did, Burns thought, but then maybe that was because he knew her better than they did.

“She was probably just covering up, anyway,“ Stilwell continued. “She may have taken them herself. She had an affair with Matthew Hart years ago, and she might even be the one who killed him.“

“What does Matthew Hart have to do with this?“

“Nothing. I was just talking out of turn.“