Anatomy of a Murder (18 page)

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Authors: Robert Traver

BOOK: Anatomy of a Murder
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“When did the police arrive?”
“It was shortly after two—the distance and winding roads, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” I paused. “So you were alone with the body for over an hour?”
“Why, yes, that's correct. Somebody had to take the rap and wait.” He was still preoccupied with the same glass, polishing it intently, and I was growing afraid he would wear it out.
“You just told me that,” I said and again I paused. “Would you mind greatly putting down that glass, Mr. Paquette? You've been working on it for the last half-hour. Anyway, I like to look at the people I'm talking with, it's an old-fashioned notion I have.”
He had put down the glass and stood facing me with an air of defiant and unfeigned hostility. “I'm looking, Mister,” he said. “Fire away.”
“Good,” I said. “Now was it during this lonely hour-long vigil that you removed the firearms from behind the bar and got rid of them?”
His eyes bored steadily into mine. But the look of angry hostility now seemed mingled with a sudden gleam of fear. “What pistols?” he said evenly, trying to control himself. “I don't know what you're talking about. Who said anything about pistols? If you've come up here to set smart lawyer traps for me, you'd better be on your way, Mister. I've got work to do.”
“You seem already to have fallen into one of those ‘lawyer traps,' my friend. I said ‘firearms' not ‘pistols.' What did you do with the pistols?”
He had grown suddenly tense and pale. “Well, it—it would scarcely have been a rifle,” he countered.
“I wouldn't know,” I said. “But you called them pistols—I didn't. You'd better remember that for the trial. Don't fall into that trap again.”
“Is that all?” he said coldly. “Is that all you wanted to ask me?”
“Scarcely,” I said. “But perhaps we'd better move on to—to something less sensitive. Had Barney left the place during the evening?”
Sullenly: “Yes.”
“When?”
“Around eleven, shortly before Mrs. Manion left.”
“When did you next see him?”
“Around midnight, shortly before he relieved me.”
“Which way did he enter—from the street or the hotel stairs?” I paused. “Remember, others will know.”
Uneasily: “He came down from the hotel.”
So far so good; that would give Barney the time and opportunity to change and clean up and—ah, yes—get rid of Laura Manion's missing underpants.
“Had he changed his clothes?” I asked. There was no answer and I repeated the question. He still remained silent. “Must I continue to remind you with every question that I can find out from others if you won't talk?”
“Why don't you go and ask the others, then?” he demanded hotly. “Why do you keep firing away at me?”
“One talks to but one witness at a time,” I said. “Right now your number is up.” I shrugged. “But if you want it that way … .” I turned as though to leave. “Perhaps you'd prefer to have me bring
out in court that you wouldn't answer that simple little question?”
He almost spat his reply. “He'd changed from a white shirt to a sweat shirt. He—he often did. It was a hot night. What other clothes he'd changed I wouldn't know. I was the man's bartender, not his valet.”
“Perhaps the sweat shirt gave him more freedom to lift a glass, say —or even a gun?” I said gently. “Weren't you surprised when you wheeled around and saw the Lieutenant still standing and not Barney? And when you wheeled could it have been that you were checking the time so you could testify later—for Barney?”
He smiled frostily and I swiftly concluded I would rather take him scowling. “Suppose,” he said slowly, “suppose you try checking that one with the others.”
His dart was well aimed, I saw, and I saw further that as far as he was concerned I would get little or nothing out of him that could not be confirmed by others. “At any rate,” I said, “Barney comes down in his sweat shirt and immediately relieves you from behind the bar.”
“That's correct. Everybody saw that.” He seemed almost to be apologizing to me—or perhaps to himself—for admitting anything that might help the defense. It was an interesting development; both interesting and challenging. And it could be serious.
Why
was this little man so evasive and hostile?
“Was it Barney's regular practice to relieve you behind the bar?” I said.
His eyes flickered. “Occasionally.”
“How often had he relieved you, say, during the last two weeks before the shooting? All this can be checked, too, remember. Now I'll promise cross my heart to quit saying that if you'll just promise to remember it.”
“Well, he just didn't happen to relieve me during that time. Lots of other times, though.”
“During the entire last month then?” I said.
“I don't remember.”
“I don't think a jury would like that answer. They might even suspect you of being evasive or something, and for such a frank and open person that would indeed be a pity. Suppose you try again.”
“He didn't relieve me.”
Despite some glaring gaps, some of the pieces were now falling into place. “Ah, now we're getting somewhere,” I said. “Barney just
happened
to relieve you the very night he also just
happened
to have
raped and beat up Laura Manion.” It was time to level. “Look, chum, didn't he really tell you to get to hell away from the bar so you wouldn't get hurt? And on his orders weren't you standing by that window for nearly an hour so you could spot the Lieutenant coming and warn Barney?”
“Who said Barney raped her?” he demanded.
“You doubt it?” I said.
“I wasn't there.”
“I know you weren't there, comrade. But I just asked you if you doubted that he'd raped her.” He had a cute little habit of turning my question to other channels.
Defiantly: “Yes, I doubt it. If he laid her at all, which I also doubt, it was with her willing consent. Anybody can see she's a floozie.”
There was going to be great fun with this winning character in court, I saw. “I see,” I said. “You couldn't tell me just now whether he raped her, because you weren't there, but now, still not having been there, you have all the answers as to what happened. Is that it?” I paused, pondering whether to risk drying up this man by further antagonizing him or to push on, doggedly getting as much as I could by a softer approach. I decided to take the risk and speak a few homely truths.
“Mr. Paquette,” I said, “you don't like my asking you all these embarrassing questions, I suppose, and I really can't blame you. Nobody likes the hot seat. In fact you obviously bitterly resent my asking them. But that's the penalty for having a ringside seat at a murder, and it so happens that a man's freedom and whole future ride on this case. And you happen to have some of the answers. Now I intend to get those answers, my friend, but you are not coming clean with me, not even halfway clean. And if I can see that you aren't, I promise you I'll make a jury see it. What you've had from me so far, unpleasant as you may find it, will be nothing to the going over I'll give you in court unless you come off this cozy routine. I'll make a damn fool or liar out of you or both. I—I'll burn your ass to a crisp.”
He flushed with hot anger and took a quick step back. “Is that a threat?” For a moment I thought he might try to hit me. The moment passed.
“No, not a threat,” I said, “but a promise. I'd rather call it a little preview of what lies in store for you if you don't try telling the truth. And fast. The truth is so easy, Mr. Paquette; nothing to make up, no evasions, no traps, no entanglements, no inconsistent statements
to try to explain away. Just the simple truth. I recommend you try it sometime. Why not now?”
“You think everything I've told you is a pack of lies?” he demanded.
“Of course not. But you're holding back, you're not telling the
whole
truth. Do you think I'm a goddam dummy, man? I've been bulldozed by experts. While you're good and will doubtless improve, you still don't quite pitch in that league.”
“What do you mean?” he said.
“You're leveling with me only on the things you know I already know or that others will testify to anyway, or things you know I can check you up on. And you're evasive, evasive as hell. A little while ago I asked you if it wasn't true that instead of relieving you Barney sent you away from the bar so you'd be out of range when the fireworks started and also to warn him. You didn't attempt to answer me. Did you think I'd forget that question or that it'd just go away?”
Alphonse Paquette blinked his eyes thoughtfully. I had apparently given him food for thought; he seemed to be weighing something, considering the pros and cons of some situation I knew not of. I wondered what his angle was. I was convinced now that he was holding back, but why was he? Why this loyalty, this desire to shield something or someone? Had the thoughtful and relieving Mister Barney meant so much to him? And, if so, what was there in it for him? Who'd put the “silencer” on him and why?
“You still haven't answered me,” I said.
He sighed and shook his head. “He didn't send me away,” he said almost doggedly. “He relieved me, just like I told you. I wasn't watching for Lieutenant Manion or anyone.”
I sensed that I'd almost had him. “Very well, my friend. You want it that way; you've chosen your course. But don't forget I warned you. And I don't mind telling you you're lying by the clock. Even a child can see that.”
“It's the truth, I tell you,” he said sullenly, almost resignedly. The anger and defiance were gone now—gone or hidden—; all he wanted was for me to go away.
I decided to gratify his desire up to a point; I would leave temporarily to go visit the wash room. “Excuse me,” I said. “I'm going to the can and I'll expect to see you here when I come back.”
I was mildly surprised to find him there upon my return and I wasted no time in boring in. “How long did you work for Barney?” I began. “Cheer up. See, that's another question you can afford to answer truthfully. I can check it and it surely can't hurt anything any- way.”
Tonelessly: “Eighteen months.”
“Had you known him before that?”
“No. I just blew in. He needed a bartender and I got the job.”
“Who are you working for now?”
After a pause, “I'm not sure.”
“Come, come, man. Surely somebody is in charge of this joint. Who is he? Or are you the new boss man?”
“It's a woman.”
I felt a small inward jolt of recognition. Of course, a woman—there simply had to be a dame. Why hadn't I thought of
that
before? Well, a man couldn't think of everything—and during trout season women were the farthest thing from my mind. Well, almost the farthest … . “This woman,” I said, “who is she?”
“Mary Pilant. You'll find her upstairs. She's running things up there. She—she was Barney's hostess.”
He had hesitated ever so little over the word “hostess.” It opened up new vistas. “Is she—is she going to own the place now?”
“I wouldn't know,” he said. “I'm just a dumb bartender, you know. I just work here. Why don't you try asking her?”
“Not so dumb,” I said. “But we'll pass that; I can find that out easily enough elsewhere.”
“You can?” he said, looking surprised. “How?”
“By checking the files in probate court or the records in the register of deeds office down in Iron Bay. Or else by wiring the Liquor Control Commission in Lansing regarding any pending application for the transfer of your liquor license. And there are other ways. We live in an age of papers and records, you know; one can't even properly die these days without some notary or other clamping his official seal on the corpse. But it seems a shame, doesn't it, to put me to all that needless bother?” I paused. “Come, Alphonse, does she own the joint? Don't mar our budding new friendship by making me suspect you're holding out on me.”
“Barney left a will,” he said resignedly. “I guess he left the works
to Mary—Miss Pilant. In fact I know he did. It's still got to go through probate court and all, but I guess she'll eventually get everything.” He spread out his thin supple hands as though to embrace the place. “
Everything
.”
“Was this Mary person present during the shooting?”
“No.”
“Hm … . Where was she?”
He dropped his eyes. “I really wouldn't know,” he replied, and I made a mental note to check on that one.
I had a sudden hunch. “This will, Alphonse,” I said, “were you one of the witnesses to it?”
He looked startled. “How do you know that?”
I laughed. “I have lived, Alphonse, I have lived. And when did Barney make out this will that you witnessed, Alphonse? Or would you prefer me to check up on that myself?”
“About three weeks before—before he was killed.”
“Was Barney married?”
“Married and divorced. Long ago. Down in Wisconsin.”
“Any parents?”
“Both dead.”
“Any children?”
He smiled fleetingly, and I put the smile away in cold storage. So Barney had been that way … . “I think there was a daughter,” he said.
“Did he leave any other relatives and did any of them show up for the funeral?”
“He was buried down in Wisconsin.”
“Very well, but my question had two horns,” I said. “How about the relatives?”
He glanced nervously in the direction of the stairway. “Besides the divorced wife and daughter there may have been a married sister. I don't know nothing about that.” He stirred uneasily; oddly enough, this new subject seemed to bother him more than the shooting itself.
I paused and lit another Italian cigar, pondering this swift change in the picture. The plot, like homemade French pea soup, was getting thicker and thicker. If Barney had not left any will his daughter would get everything; that was plainly the law; she would be his sole heir. If he left no wife, and willed everything to a stranger, then the stranger would get everything and the daughter nothing; that was equally the law. But if a relative or guardian or someone contested
and could somehow successfully block the will—because of coercion, undue influence, fraud, drunkenness, mental incapacity and the like —then the will would fall and the daughter take all. And the stakes were certainly high enough—a prosperous and well kept summer hotel located on the main tourist beat. In any will contest, too, the witnesses to the will would hold important—and
valuable
trumps. A light was beginning to dawn.
“Who was the other witness to the will?” I said.
“The night clerk upstairs.”
It was almost too neat; this left Mary Pilant and her loyal employees solely in the driver's seat. I decided to test my growing hunch of the cause—or one of the causes—of all this reticence. Could it be from fear of someone upsetting the will?
“How about Barney's drinking?” I said.
He threw out his hands. “He drank some. Most people in this business almost have to.”
“Yes, I suppose. Like the well-known fact that proprietors of candy-stores hang around all day eating candy,” I said. “But on the day of the shooting—how about his drinking then?”
“He drank about the same as usual. In fact he drank about the same amount every day.”
“Look, friend, one could truthfully say that about a quart-a-day-man, or even a hopeless drunk. The question is: how
much
was he drinking?”
“If you mean he was drunk, he wasn't. He'd had his regular quota.”
Patiently: “And how much was that?”
“Oh, a few shots more or less.”
“Hell, man, don't give me that stuff—he drank more than that with Laura Manion alone. What in hell was he doing behind the bar for an hour buying house drinks and all—swiggling soda pop? But we'll pass that for now and take up this interesting Mary person—what was she to Barney?”
He smiled a tight knowing little smile. “Why don't you go ask her? She's very friendly. I've already told you she was his hostess.” He glanced quickly at the clock over the bar. “Excuse me, I've got to go unlock the street door.” He sighed. “It's about time for the tourist gang to show up.”
It was 11:30 and the sign on the door had said 12:00. Did my nervous friend want to let the tourist herd in simply so that he might be interrupted? I decided to let it pass.
Instead of unlocking the outside door Alphonse Paquette had quickly scampered up the stairs to the hotel, doubtless to warn the heiress apparent, Mary Pilant, that the villainous and nosy Biegler was abroad. I was left alone in the big empty barroom, whereupon all the malty frustrated yearnings and boozy instincts implanted in me by generations of sturdy distillers and brewers and saloonkeepers by the name of Biegler swept suddenly over me; I found myself gliding behind the bar as though drawn by a magnet. “Hm … .” I said, and paused.
On the floor in the middle of the bar was a large dark blotch. That would be the spot where Barney had fallen. I carefully studied the bar at this point. Then I knelt and surveyed the situation from that position. “Hm … .” About six inches below the surface of the bar itself, near the bar service station and out of sight of anyone standing in front, I found a narrow wooden shelf about four feet long. I whistled softly and leaned closer. It was made of wood inferior to that of the bar itself and had been added later, crudely added, I saw, as though the job had been done by an amateur. And to what purpose? Right now it held a forlorn collection of assorted salt and pepper shakers and mustard jars. But it could also, I plainly saw, have held a small arsenal of firearms, yes, even a sawed-off shotgun or short rifle in a pinch. It could even have held a brace of pistols.
I turned my back on the bar, facing the bar mirror and bottle shelf. The mirror seemed intact. I craned over the rows of bottles, on my tiptoes. There was a neat small splintered hole near the base of the mirror, about the height—yes—of a man's heart. If this had been caused by one of my man's shots, then at least one of the bottles should have been broken. As I walked out from behind the bar I felt like Sherlock Holmes and longed for a curved bulldog pipe and one of those fore-and-aft-peaked deer-stalker's caps. Yes, damn it, and a checkered tattersall vest. Someone was rattling at the locked street door. I could hear him swearing softly and I visualized him standing out there, sagging with thirst, eyes glazed and tongue parched and dangling. I longed to slip a pair of frilled elastic garters over my shirt sleeves and let him in and then scamper back behind the bar, palms down and elbows out. “What's yores, pardner?” I would say as he advanced. I shook my head. “Down, Grandpa, down,” I thought; this was no time to be playing at saloonkeeper.
It struck me that the bartender and his new boss must be having quite a huddle. And the need must have been pressing for them to leave me alone with all this wealth of booze. I felt touched and honored
by this subtle testimonial to my honesty and sobriety. The thirsting door-rattler had given up and gone away, but I took solace in the knowledge that he had but a short way to go to find another oasis.
I walked over towards the door and stood by the table and window where the bartender had said he stood “resting.” An awning outside somewhat obstructed my view and I stooped to what I judged to be the height of the shorter Paquette. Ah, the view was now fine—I could see outside and, turning slightly, also see the bar, a perfect place for a warning lookout. I glanced around. On the wall adjoining the door on the other side, closer to the bar, was a large bulletin board which appeared to be covered with various anouncements, scores, newspaper clippings, snapshots and the like. I quickly moved over that way and put on my glasses.
I found myself shortly thinking of Max Battisfore, the Sheriff. For this bulletin board, I discovered, was a shrine apparently dedicated by Barney Quill to Barney Quill about Barney Quill; it was devoted almost solely to celebrating his exploits as a fisherman, hunter, expert marksman and, to a lesser extent, as a bowler, downhill skier, and racer of outboard motor-boats. And there had been many exploits; there were dozens and scores of snapshots and photos and newspaper clippings, old and new, all attesting his prowess in all of these things and more: Barney Quill had won the turkey shoot the previous fall, he'd won a skeet shoot, he'd placed first in another pistol shoot; he'd skied the Iron Bay course in 1:53. Over here Barney had shot the biggest buck at over two hundred yards; Barney had caught the largest brook trout last season, and on a mere 5-X leader, too (I read this particular item with an envious pang); Barney and his outboard had won—
“He was really quite a guy, wasn't he?” a voice behind me said. Startled, I wheeled around. Alphonse Paquette, the bartender, had returned.
“What nice soft shoes you wear, Grandma,” I said.
He smiled faintly. “Have to wear 'em for my bunions. Standing all hours at that goddam bar, you know.”
“And standing and enjoying the view from this goddam window when you're not,” I said. “Did you have a nice little chat about me with Mary Pilant?” I said, smiling.
“Most satisfactory and to the point. She told me to keep my trap shut. No more questions and no more answers. Those were the lady's orders—and she's the boss.”
Well, Mary Pilant might have been just a trifle late, I thought. I wondered what kind of witch she would be. Probably a pearl-laden dame with gold teeth and a baritone voice who shaved twice a week; the kind who, after five minutes, started calling total strangers “darling” and “honey” and who wore long loopy earrings from which small boys could depend while performing gymnastics. The picture was not good; maybe I could shove her off on Parnell.
“Well,” I said, “since you can't or won't talk I guess I might as well up and leave. It's time for lunch, anyway. When a journeyman lawyer can't talk he's in a bad way; he can't very well open his mouth without asking questions.”
“So I've noticed.”
Something on the bulletin board had caught my eye. Caught and perplexed me. “But I have just one more question, an easy harmless little one,” I said. “And it demands no more cerebration than those certified questions on TV where people constantly win life annuities and round trips to Jamaica for guessing President Lincoln's first name. Just one little question.”
“Will you promise to lay off and go, then? I've got my work to do.”
“On my honor as an Eagle Scout,” I said. “But I won't promise I won't be back.”

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