Come Back Dead (16 page)

25

There was a ruckus going on downstairs. I could hear it from the second-floor hallway outside Gustin's office. The hallway led to a balcony from which I could see the large main room of the first floor. The rotunda, they probably called it. The third of this area nearest the front doors was filled with reporters and photographers. They were all talking at once, as people in their line of work tend to do, firing questions and demands at the courthouse guards who were holding them in check with the aid of fat red ropes strung between brass stanchions, the same setup they use in movie houses to organize the popcorn line. I gathered, as I descended from the balcony on a sweeping marble staircase, that the reporters wanted to talk with Carson Drury.

At the bottom of the stairs I met my friend the skinny deputy. He wasn't surprised to see me walking around loose, which told me he was a man in the know. I asked him where Drury was hiding.

“Out back,” the deputy said without taking his eyes off the reporters. “They're trying to sneak him out of the building. Follow the signs for dog licenses.”

I did, winding my way past offices that became progressively less grand. I found Drury near a back door, but not too near it. He was being looked after by Gilbert Traynor and an older gent in a chauffeur's uniform. I took a liking to the chauffeur right away. He was the only one of the three who didn't grimace at the sight of me.

“Scotty,” Drury said. “Sorry we didn't wait for you. We didn't know how long you'd be.”

“But you were guessing twenty years to life.”

Gilbert actually cringed. “It was our duty not to hold back evidence,” he said. “We didn't have a choice.”

He meant that he hadn't had a choice once Drury had let the Ella-and-Shepard cat out of the bag, which was true. I asked, “Where are you off to?”

Gilbert turned to the chauffeur. “Would you see if there's any sign of the ambulance, John?”

“It's an old ploy I used in New York in my radio days,” Drury said to cover the chauffeur's exit. “I found out it wasn't illegal to use an ambulance for something other than a medical emergency, so I hired one to get me between the studios when scheduling was tight. The city has since passed a law against it.”

“The spoilsports,” I said.

Drury was looking about the way I felt. His trademark hair was stringy and dull, and his chin was blue. There were matching circles around his big, soulful eyes. Gilbert, on the other hand, was as natty as ever. “Keep up appearances” was probably the Traynor motto. But he was spending a lot of time smoothing his perfectly trimmed moustache.

“Carson can't go back to the farm,” he said. “The reporters have already come in from as far away as Chicago. So I've had the top floor of the Roberts Hotel cleared. We can protect Carson there–from the reporters.”

“Good idea,” I said. There was one possibility I hadn't discussed with Gustin and Zimmerman. Shepard might have been killed by mistake or because he had stumbled on someone intent on murdering Drury. That meant my post was at Drury's side, but I had no intention of staying there. So Gilbert's plan to lock Drury away suited me fine.

“I've arranged to have Carson's things brought over from the farm,” Gilbert added. “I'll have yours fetched, too.”

“Don't bother. If it's all right with you, I'll stay where I am.”

“You're not resigning, are you?” Drury asked.

“Not yet. I am dropping the driving and chair pushing and light hauling. I'm going to do what I was hired to do and figure out what's really going on. I can't get that done if I'm holed up in the presidential suite.”

“But you'll report to me,” Drury said.

“Right now I'm doing my reporting to Sheriff Gustin. It's a condition of my parole. Besides, it's my duty not to hold back evidence.”

That echo made Gilbert cringe all over again. “I'll check on John,” he said and left us.

Drury got in the first lie. “I really didn't mean to make trouble for you, Scotty. I've been in a daze since you woke me with the news about Hank. You don't know what his death has done to me. It's more than the shock of losing a friend. I feel as though I've lost a part of myself. I may have been looking around for someone to blame, I don't know. I remembered how you'd struck Hank, and I resented you for it. But that was just a product of my confusion. I could never believe you'd kill him. As for dragging your wife into this, I can only apologize for that, deeply and sincerely.”

“I'd prefer to discuss it when you're out of the wheelchair. In the meantime, you can make things up to me by staying put at the hotel.”

“Do you think I was the real target last night?” Drury asked with something like his old élan. The idea clearly appealed to him. Some people would take any spotlight, even one attached to a gun.

To deflate him I said, “Probably not. You were a sitting duck, before and after Shepard caught it. I think the real target was the
Albertsons
negative. Anyone who'd cased the farm and knew what editing equipment looks like could have counted on that negative showing up in the tack room sooner or later. That person could have been checking the barn every night–at least the nights the sheriff's men weren't there.”

Drury looked past me. “Where's that ambulance?”

“Why did you give the deputies the night off? It was because you were meeting Faris last night, wasn't it?”

“Of course. Do we have to speak of that now?”

“Yes. Once you're boarded up inside the hotel, you may forget to give me the password. What were you after from Faris?”

“Money,” Drury said through bared teeth. “Money. Money. Money. All I've ever wanted to do with my life is create beauty. And I've spent most of my time begging money from men who wouldn't know beauty if they woke up in bed with it.”

“Why would you need more of Ralph Lockard's money? Linda Traynor's promised you the moon.”

“A very apt image, I'm afraid. Haven't you caught on yet to the dynamic of the Traynor family? You've spent as much time with them as any of us. More time than any of us with Linda. Poor Hank was jealous of that.”

“What dynamic are we talking about?”

Drury brought his elegant hands together, the tips of their tapering fingers touching. “The individual members of the Traynor family are in tension, in opposition, like the stones of an arch. The opposing forces are held in place by a keystone, but they're pressing the stone, too, threatening to crush it. Linda Traynor is that keystone. She's holding the family together, standing between Gilbert and his mother. She's taken the place of her dead husband in the family as well as the business, but her situation is far from secure, which means that my financing is far from secure. If Linda should decide to give up the fight or if she throws the dynamic out of balance by siding with Gilbert and ends up ousted from her job, her promises to me won't mean much.

“That was the background for my dinner with Eric Faris. I wanted to reopen negotiations with Lockard while I appeared to be in a position of strength. If he thinks he isn't going to get Eden, he might be interested in a percentage of the profits from
Albertsons
in exchange for an infusion of cash.”

“Lockard's not interested in any movie profits.”

“But he might have been interested in increasing the mortgage on Eden to an amount that no one–not even the Traynors–would consider paying off.”

Drury shook his head. “It doesn't matter. None of my scheming matters now. Not with poor Hank gone.”

He gazed off into the middle distance while I wondered if he was being sincere for once or just improvising another scene. I hadn't made up my mind before Gilbert opened the courthouse door to announce the arrival of the ambulance.

I hung around long enough to see Drury off. Then I snuck away myself in the station wagon Gilbert had generously left at my disposal. I drove to the O'Connor Funeral Home and morgue, thinking about how Shepard had once joked that O'Connor's might end up burying the
Albertsons
negative. Now Shepard was somewhere in the old Victorian pile himself, being explored by the deliberate Dr. Cortese.

Paddy had told me to use his methods. One that came to mind was his talent for obtaining official police information before the police had it themselves. I decided to chat up Dr. Cortese.

The front door of O'Connor's was locked, which seemed odd on a business day during business hours. I rang the bell until it couldn't hold my attention any longer. Then I took a walk around.

The place had more doors than a fun house: French doors painted shut on the front porch, doors under a porte cochere where the gentry had once been handed into their broughams–now probably the place where caskets were handed into their hearses–padlocked doors for coal delivery, and three different back doors. Two of this trio served the kitchen, and one, at the bottom of a short flight of steps, led to the basement. That was the door I chose, because its lock was a model I'd teethed on at the Maguire School of Charm and the Dance.

Once inside I didn't tiptoe. It wasn't a place where I felt comfortable tiptoeing. I'd let myself into a dimly lit storage room stacked with caskets. From there I went down a corridor of white-painted brick, saying hello every few steps and ducking my head under caged light bulbs whose switch never came to hand.

There was a light at the end of the corridor, spilling out from a side room. I found Hank Shepard in the room, alone, beneath a sheet on a long metal table that had a conspicuous lip around its edge. At least I assumed it was Shepard. I never got around to looking under the sheet.

Someone else started calling hello, someone in the house above me. A door opened somewhere, and the lights in my corridor came on. I could see a stairway at the far end and the feet and legs of a man, the feet wearing socks and no more. When the rest of him appeared, it was wearing a white lab coat and glasses that reflected the light of the naked bulbs, hiding the eyes behind them. He stood stooped over, and the hair he wore parted down the middle was shot through with gray.

“Dr. Cortese?” I asked.

He didn't make any jokes about how glad he was to see me instead of his patient wandering around. He was too filled with anger for jokes; his little, white fists vibrated with it.

“I'll have you arrested. As God is my witness, I'll have you locked up. I gave you fair warning to stay away and to keep your cameras out of my place.” He looked me over for a Brownie.

I held up my empty hands. “I'm not a reporter,” I said. “And I just came from the sheriff. He's not arresting me today.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Elliott.” I was going to tell him that I was a friend of Shepard's, and maybe even the Traynors' for good measure. I didn't have to.

“You're one of the fellows from out at Riverbend,” the man said. He straightened up slightly as the anger drained out of him. “You're the one who found our guest there.”

“That's right. Are you Dr. Cortese?”

“No. The doc's gone. I'm O'Connor. I own this place.”

I apologized for letting myself in. “I rang the bell, but no one answered.”

“I heard you ringing. I thought you were a reporter. They've worn out that bell today. Did you come to see your friend? I haven't cleaned him up yet. He won't clean up, much. Not after the examination the doc gave him.”

“What did Dr. Cortese find?”

“Nothing the rest of us didn't already know. Your friend died of a single gunshot wound. A contact wound, the doc called it.”

“Time of death between sunset and sunrise?”

O'Connor smiled. He had a gold tooth that somehow inspired confidence. “Sounds like you know our coroner. Eleven to midnight is what he said.”

Just as Gustin had guessed. I'd wasted my time coming to O'Connor's. The owner looked as if he'd waste the rest of my day if I let him. He was scratching at his chin and considering me.

“Heard you had trouble out at the farm the other night,” he finally said.

“Did you?”

“Heard there was an old-time cross burning out there.”

“Did you happen to hear who did the burning?”

“Names, you mean? Wouldn't be anybody I know. There's no Klan around Traynorville. There was once. But there hasn't been for thirty years.”

“That's what people keep telling me.”

O'Connor scratched some more. “I have something here you might be interested in.”

“My widow will make my funeral arrangements,” I said.

That got a chuckle out of him. “I'm not selling, I'm showing. Excuse me.”

He squeezed past me and headed toward the storage room where I'd come in. Before he got there, he took a left. Another overhead light came on. The light was still swinging on its cord when I reached the doorway. I could see trunks and packing cases in the moving light. O'Connor was in a far corner, pulling at a canvas tarp.

“Found this in the basement when I bought the place,” he said. He had the tarp off by then. It had covered two figures, each between three and four feet tall. They were dressed in the regalia of the Ku Klux Klan and mounted one behind the other on a four-wheeled cart.

“That's a man in front and a woman in back, though it's hard to tell with them robes. The women didn't wear masks with their pointy hats is how you tell. Their robes were shorter, too. That's one part of the Klan platform I could agree with.”

The male mannequin was dressed exactly as the speaker at the cross burning had been: a round emblem on each breast and a red cord around his waist.

“What is that thing?” I asked.

“It's a parade float, a little one. Left over from one of the parades the Klan held back in the twenties. Like I said, I found it down here when I bought the place.”