Crime on My Hands (20 page)

His long face became stern for a moment, relaxed. “I can hardly ask you not to help find the murderer of Peggy. I want you to help me do something, George.”

Before we retake that scene, we must speak to everyone we feel can be safely eliminated. We will ask them to try and remember, as the scene is being retaken, every minute detail they observed the first time. We can confer with each, privately, after the scene is finished. In that way, we may get a lead on the truth.”

“Have you considered the cost on this?” I asked.

“Cost!” he snorted. “Would all the money in the world bring Peggy back? If a few dollars can lead us to her killer, they will have done more work than money usually does.”

“Riegleman,” I said. “I have misjudged you. I apologize.”

He gripped my hand. “Thank you, George.” He gave me one of his rare smiles as I went away.

I adjourned to a near-by bar to consider his proposition over a beer. Those whom I could surely eliminate were myself, Wanda, and–. And? Not Sammy. I waa morally certain of his innocence, but I had no proof. Well, I could gamble on Sammy.

I shook my head in sudden disgust. Paul had done the killing. It remained only to trap him, and when Lamar James returned we would do that little thing.

Still, Riegleman's idea had merit. Surely somebody had seen the murderer. Perhaps he could be made to remember. Then who should be asked?

Curtis? He was a nice little guy. Yes, Curtis. McGuire? He wasn't even near the scene. The electricians and boom crew, yes, and the sound men.

I was lost in the amber depths of my beer, oblivious to the three or four customers at the bar, and didn't notice Fred and Melva until I heard an unctuous admonition.

“But please don't call me Reverend, bartender.”

I looked around my neighbor to see Fred's horse­face molded in sanctity as he raised his beer, and Melva looking angelic on the next stool. He had a gentle smile on his lips, and Melva's green eyes were soft and demure. Immediately to her left, a middle­aged man stared through thick lenses at her. The bartender, arrested with a glass and bar towel in his hands, had a round face full of astonishment for Fred. He said nothing.

“Sister Bellows and I,” Fred went on, indicating Melva, “strive to become as our fellow men on occasion and we wish to be one of the – uh, crowd. Regard us as ordinary customers, if you please. Another beer, if I may.”

“Sure, Rever–”

Fred shut him off with a lean hand. “Not Reverend, please. I am Custer Bellows. Cuss, they called me in school.” He peered at Melva's neighbor. “Brother, your mind is troubled. Perhaps Sister Bellows can give you a word of comfort.”

“I should be most happy,” Melva murmured, and turned the full brilliance of her eyes on the bespectacled man. “If you are in trouble, brother, allow me to advise you.”

The middle-aged man put down his glass. “Ain't in no trouble,” he muttered, and fled through the swinging doors.

Fred and Melva began to chuckle. “He had notions about her,” Fred explained to the bartender. “We've found a good way to get rid of such lugs.”

“You almost had me tossin' in my towel,” the bartender said. “You mean it was a gag?”

“Pure and simple.”

“This one's on the house,” the bartender said.

“That was the idea,” Melva offered. She seemed to see me for the first time. “George! Come and split a beaker of brew.”

The idea in my mind required privacy. I motioned them to a table. When we were seated, I said, “I have a job for both of you.”

“If we have to go back to Hollywood,” Melva said, “no soap. We're staying until you go.”

I ignored her. I took a pencil and notebook, made a list of names. I gave them to Fred. “If necessary, hire a private inquiry agency. I want to know everything about those people, from birth till now. I want it arranged chronologically in separate reports. This is pretty vital. Both of you beat it.”

“Every time we go away, you get in trouble,” Melva objected. “I'm staying, to protect my meal ticket.”

“Your meal ticket will do some punching of its own if you don't go,” I told her. “I need the information as soon as possible. I have no need of you at all, here.”

“Why is this so important?” Melva asked. 

“Somebody on that list is Peggy's murderer. And somewhere in his past will be found the motive for killing Severance Flynne.”

“You promised, George!”

“And I've broken my promise. I'm serious, Melva. Please get going.”

She dropped her bantering attitude. “Certainly. If you're that serious, George. Well,” she said to Fred, “harness the horses.”

“Shall I bring this stuff back?” Fred asked.

“I'll be in Hollywood before you can finish.” I wondered if this was true. Sheriff Callahan wasn't going to be happy about an unknown murderer leaving his bailiwick. I had a sudden vision of the whole company staying here indefinitely while the data on an unsolved crime gathered dust.

­­

Lamar James returned late that afternoon. He came to my trailer. I had finished delivering Riegleman's suggestion to a select few, and was reading a copy of
Popular Mechanics
.

“Well,” he said, “I got the dope on Flynne. Fat lot of good.”

I fixed drinks. “Let's hear it.”

He took out his notebook. “I had to do a flock of running around, and I talked to his mother on the telephone. But here it is. He was twenty-nine years old last March. He grew up on a farm, went to grade and high school, then to State College, studying scientific farming. Seems he wanted to be another Burbank. When he tried his newfangled theories, his old man raised hell, and Flynne left home. They didn't hear from him for about four years, except for postcards. These came from Chicago, New York, New Orleans, and finally Hollywood. I talked to a dozen 

people who knew him and they all turned in the same thing: he was a nice guy, he didn't run around with women, he didn't drink too much, but he spent lots of money on his friends. Nobody seemed to know where he got all the money, because he didn't work enough to earn it. He was behind in his board bill, too, but the landlady hadn't been worried. Every time he got a job, he paid up his bills. Between jobs, he just tossed parties for his friends. None of them knew that he had come up here till they read about it. Everybody was sorry, and nobody could think of any enemies he made.”

He handed me his notebook. “Here's a list of all the people he knew from the time he was born, except for the few years he was away. I couldn't get a lead on that. It'd cost a lot, and I didn't know whether you wanted to spend it or not.”

I ran over the list. “Where's Herman Smith? He was one of the persons you were particularly to see. I don't see a report of it.”

“He's gone,” James said. “Just disappeared into thin air. I couldn't find hide nor hair of him.” 

When I reported on location the next morning, I was tired. I had lain awake most of the night pondering the disappearance of Herman Smith and its possible significance. He was a direct contact, he could give us important information, and he was gone.

Paul had proposed a possible explanation of Flynne's death. If some person had deliberately aided Smith to get drunk the night before he was to leave for location, we could assume that that person was the murderer. Flynne was beyond questioning; we'd never know from him if he was tipped off to call Smith, or if Smith was tipped off to call him.

And now Smith was gone. Murdered? We had to find out. He was the critical factor now.

And so I was tired. I had a pair of Monday morning eyes, red-rimmed, puffed, bloodshot. I was in no condition to argue with Wallingford or Riegleman.

They were deadlocked over the sandstorm. I had forgotten to mention it to Riegleman, and he reacted to Wallingford's suggestion with shocked disapproval while Sammy was quietly anxious, looking on. It was Sammy's expression, I think, that brought me into the fray. His round face was tight, his eyes both bitter and hopeful. He looked at me as if he were drowning and I was the man with the straw.

“Look at what it means,” Wallingford said. “All the stuff we're trying to say it means. They fight through everything to give us Highway 101, and Sand Springs, and Hollywood and Vine. Nothing can stop 'em, not even trouble.”

“I don't like it,” Riegleman answered. “We have no script, for one thing, and I shudder to think of three hundred people ad libbing at once. We must find the author.”

Sammy flung a plea at me. He said nothing, but his eyes spoke of McGuire and the missing gun.

“In the early days of pictures,” I told Riegleman, “they made up the story as they went along. Surely we can film one scene that requires practically no dialogue. I agree with Wally. I think his idea is terrific.”

Wallingford beamed at me, taking full credit for the idea. “They come to me, these things,” he said.

Riegleman flung up his hands. “All right,” he said. “It's your money. Let's get at it.”

We worked out the details, with me doing most of the talking. Sammy went off to get the wind machines and cameras set up.

It was to be a short scene on the screen. We decided on a freak sandstorm that rose and died within a few moments. All we wanted to show was the steel determination of the pioneers, and their attitude during the storm would be as symbolic whether it lasted for minutes or days.

We decided also to push our actors through actual blasts of sand instead of making a process shot. Since they were to be in it for fifteen minutes at most, nobody would get hurt. Their defenses against it would be all the more realistic.

We were finally ready to begin, and my starting point was near the two stakes I had driven. The wind machines began to whip up a cloud on the big dune, and we began to stagger through it.

Carla and I were together. I had sent Frank to some other part of the caravan. Carla and I exchanged a significant glance, in close-up.

It was a tough scene, and I repented my bid for realism before I had gone fif teen steps into that opaque blast. I wrapped my nose and mouth with a bandanna, and shielded my eyes with my hand. I must arrive at the spot where Listless had thrown the guns within ten minutes.

But I began to be caught up in the historical significance of the scene. When the men and women we were portraying came to the far edge of the desert, they didn't know how far it extended. They could see only sand, sparse desert growth, and brown rocks pushing their naked heads against the tide of erosion that had leveled the land about them. Those men and women didn't know when, if ever, they would find water. They didn't know whether they would die and leave their bones to bleach with the skulls of cattle which were white warts on the desert's face. They went on with high courage.

I have been told that I was very good in the scene. If so, it was because of that sudden kinship with the man I represented. Hilary Weston had set himself a goal; I had set mine. His was to win through to life against odds. Mine was similar. Though he thought in terms of green valleys and fertile fields, and though I thought in terms of freedom from jail and appeasement of the property department, our aims were the same.

We fought that million-toothed wind for each inch we gained. We were not acting, we were struggling against the elements. Though they were man-made, they had the same effect on us as the blind forces of nature.

Carla and I became separated somehow, at about the point where I should begin my search. It was this accident which made my behavior a highlight of the picture.

I turned my back to the driving wind, and tried to locate the stakes, now far behind. I couldn't see twenty feet, of course, and a little panic struck me. Was I to fail, after this elaborate preparation? I stared wildly around, trying to find the big dune. I took quick, uncertain steps this way and that.

When this sequence showed on the screen, everyone who saw it knew that Hilary Weston, beset with death on all sides, threatened with painful extinction, still held the thought of Carla in his mind. Yes, he was bound to deliver his band, but he was also bound to have this beautiful girl.

As a matter of fact, any thought I gave to Carla was purely accidental. My stumbling this way and that was fright. I collected my emotions and stuffed them back where they belonged. I turned into the wind and pushed on.

This brought scattered handclaps later, at the preview. It was obvious that Hilary Weston, torn between the power of his desire and his unswerving purpose, decided to reach safety for the greatest number even if a few, Carla among them, were left behind.

I saw before me the dim, dark outline of the great dune. I skirted its base and stumbled forward to what I thought was the spot Sammy and I had searched yesterday. I staggered and fell to one knee, flinging up an arm to hide my searching eyes. I got up and fell forward again.

A dull gleam caught my eye, and I flung myself upon it. It was one of the guns. I lay quite still, my back to the camera, and felt in the sand. I found the other gun. I began a series of mighty heaves. I flung myself about, all the while stuffing the guns into my belt. I got to one knee, to my feet. I staggered on, straight at the lens, a gleam of unholy triumph in my eyes.

When all the stragglers were in, Curtis stepped up and shook my gritty hand. “If I know anything about how a scene will look on the screen,” he said warmly, “you were magnificent. We got every move.”

Sammy came over to whisper, “Did you get 'em?”

In my dressing room, Sammy looked at the Smith & Wesson while I made up for a retake of the fight scene.

“So this is it,” he commented.

“Fully loaded,” I pointed out, “except for one shot. That was the one which got Flynne, I believe.”

“What do we do with it?”

“I'll turn it over to James in good time. Meanwhile, we flaunt it.”