Dead Low Tide (20 page)

Wargler started out across the water, peering into the faint starlight. Mullets thrashed and splashed off to our left. “There he is,” Wargler said. “Moving in close.”

I could barely make out the blob that was a boat. There was a splash and then another, and a flick of flashlights.

“Wading ashore,” Wargler said. “Shallows off too slow to bring her right in.”

We could see the intermittent lights once they got into the trees. We waited and slapped and scratched and blew smoke and waved our arms. They were nailing me through the back of my shirt. I wanted one small satisfaction—a minor one. A chance to just edge close enough to him, if he was there, and smash my fist into his mouth. Just leave one mark on him.

We couldn’t see the lights any more. Then somebody lit a gasoline lantern, and it shone hard blue white through the oblong of a window.

Jack yelled, “Chief! Hey, Chief!”

“Anybody there?”

“Yes, he was here. He was sleeping. He says his name is Ken. We’re bringing him along. No fuss.”

“Good. We’re going. About to get eat alive here.”

We hurried back through the woods and piled into the cars with sighs of relief and got out of there. If you saw even the first rocket take-off to Mars, you’d pay little attention to it if you had to stand in a cloud of mosquitoes to watch it.

Once the wind had blown the car clean of the little black demons, I could start thinking about Ken again. It seemed almost too easy. There should have been a running gun fight, wild yells in the night. Too quiet, just waking up a man and taking him in.

It was a half-hour before the car drove up in front and they brought him inside to the Chief’s office. When I heard his footsteps coming down the hall, then heard somebody say, “Right in here,” I found out that up until that minute I had never known what hate was. The thing I used to call hate was just cold anger. This was something else. This was like a sickness. This was like getting hit in the belly.

He came in quietly. And he was the man I had seen that night through the office window, just as I had thought he would be.

He wore a clean white shirt and faded khaki pants, wet halfway to the knees from wading out to the boat. He had a perfectly acceptable face. All the features in the right places. His eyes were gray and his mouth was firm. His brows were sufficiently arched to give him a faint look of surprise. His brown hair was cropped short, and he leaned over after he sat down and carefully put a sand-colored snap-brim fabric hat under the chair where the braces crossed.

He was almost a normal-looking guy. But he brought something strange into the now-familiar office. I know I felt
it. And, glancing at Jack Ryer’s faintly puzzled face, I know he must have felt much the same thing.

He gave me the feeling that I was carrying excess baggage—that I was burdened down with self-doubt, and moral conjectures and vague fragments of philosophies. He made me feel that my normal soul-confusion, all the inward turmoil of merely being a human being, was actually a bit silly—a lessening of efficiency. He was not burdened thusly. He looked as specialized as a knife blade. He brought something chilly and alien into the office, something you felt instinctively, something he compounded by a stillness which at first I did not understand. It took a moment to see that it was a complete lack of mannerisms, of any of the useless movements we indulge in.

Ken merely sat—and looked. And his feet rested flat on the floor and his hands rested on his thighs. He breathed and sat and looked.

That strangeness was in the air, like the echo after a gong has been struck. Men are going to feel that way when the first visitor from outer space sits among them. Kids could feel that way if a man with a battle ax suddenly appeared in the middle of a pillow fight. We were all soft in our special ways, and formless in our individual ways, and this man-thing was silent, and it sat, and you knew that it was amused. The man-thing turned its head slowly and looked at me. I knew then what Cindy meant. I was a bug, but not of sufficient interest to warrant collection.

Wargler looked uncertain. He slid the pictures out of the envelope, all fourteen of them. He had previously got hold of Steve and had him bring his seven in, to add them to mine.

Wargler looked at the pictures in silence. He selected one, came around the desk, snatched Ken’s wrist, looked at the watch. There was no resistance, no change of expression. Wargler had immediately selected the most immediate method of identification. He released the wrist. Ken left his arm poised there for a moment, returned it slowly to his lap.

Wargler held the picture inches in front of Ken’s nose, and said, “Do you deny this is you?”

Ken frowned with regal annoyance and gently pushed Wargler’s heavy hand a bit farther away. He looked at the picture. “Wouldn’t it be just a shade pointless to deny that? A bit self-evident, isn’t it?” His voice was soft and deep, and he enunciated carefully.

“Then you admit it?”

“You seem to infer a broader admission than you have stated. Wouldn’t it be more intelligent to state whatever it is that I am expected to admit?”

“I’ll do this my way!”

“Obviously.”

Wargler went around the desk and sat down. “All right. Do you admit that you had these pictures taken so you could use ’em to blackmail Mrs. Long?”

“No. I shouldn’t care to admit that.”

“The truth, isn’t it?”

“The truth is that Mary Eleanor is—shall we say, sentimental in her own rather unique way. She wanted some—rather vivid memento of our little moments of sensual pleasure. I see they have been rather spoiled—cut up like that. I am quite sure that should you take the trouble to inquire of her, she will admit that she dotes on such—souvenirs.
As a matter of fact, she forced me to go to quite a bit of trouble in Miami to arrange to have those taken. She’s rather a silly little person, you know. Very animalistic.”

“You know damn well she’s dead. You know damn well we can’t ask her anything because you killed her and put Tom Garver in the hospital with a concussion.”

“Is she dead?” he asked politely. “That seems rather a waste, doesn’t it.”

“You cold-hearted bastard!” Wargler said.

Ken’s eyes didn’t even flicker. “She was hardly more than an acquaintance. Sorry I can’t be more concerned. And I’m afraid I don’t know anyone named Garver.”

“You killed her husband and you killed her.”

“I’m sorry. You must be mistaken. I permitted some rather—shall we say, unflattering pictures to be taken. If there’s some statute against that, I shall be glad to—pay any penalty you see fit to impose.”

“Out of the forty thousand bucks that you pried out of her?”

“Oh,
come
now! Really! If I had that much money, I believe I would have invested in some creature comforts. That’s an excessively dank little island.”

“Why did you kill John Long?”

“Now I am afraid I am going to have to tell you something which might make you quite annoyed with me. During the evening before Mr. Long was killed, Mary Eleanor drove out to visit me. She called and I waded ashore. She seemed nervous and upset. Her husband had found her little souvenirs you have there some time before that—several weeks before that. She seemed desperately afraid of him. I believe it was about two o’clock in the morning. She said she was going to
do something. She didn’t care to tell me what. I walked her to her little car, and she had an object in the seat beside her. One of those underwater arrangements where the propelling force is heavy rubber, in strands. She was very upset, I repeat. And she said she had an appointment, so she drove off. You understand, I was becoming quite weary of her. She is—I guess past tense is more accurate—was, except for what I shall politely term her hobby, quite a desolate little bore. Absolutely no conversation. I met her on the beach, you know. When I heard of the murder the next day, I was quite naturally upset.”

“I can imagine!” Wargler said heavily.

“There’s no need to take that tone. I was upset, not for her, but as to whether I should come in and give you my information. Then when I read of the arrest of—Mr. McClintock, is it?—I thought I had let my imagination run away with me. I can see now, of course, that I should have come in with my information.”

Wargler bit his lip. He suddenly shifted his approach. “Did you work as a dishwasher out at Frankie’s Kitchen?”

“Yes, I did. A very poor restaurant, by the way.”

“Aren’t you a pretty well-educated fella to wash dishes for a living?”

“I’m sufficiently well-educated, sir, to know that it is a much more rewarding profession, from the viewpoint of keeping one’s soul intact than—for example—police work. I hope you can follow me.”

Wargler looked like a man who had just found a hair in the tapioca pudding. “Why did you quit?”

“I’m afraid that, too, is rather self-evident. I became a protégé. Mrs. Long was quite generous. I suppose it was in payment
for services rendered. My wants are simple and except for our trips, I do not feel I was any great drain on her resources. Perhaps not as much as she—as she was on mine.” For the first time he smiled slightly.

“A damn gigolo, eh?” Wargler asked.

“I’m afraid so. And not quite as clean a line of work as washing dishes, I assure you. Though I am perhaps more indifferent than most people to the moralistic aspects of whatever I choose to do.”

“While you worked as a dishwasher were you acquainted with a young woman named Joy Kenney?”

“While I worked there? Don’t you think—I mean, if this is considered to be an informal interrogation, don’t you think you should ask me my full name?”

Wargler turned deep red. “What’s your name?”

“Roy Randolph Kenney.”

I heard a few suppressed gasps. And I knew at once what it was that had rung the distant bells in the back of my mind. Arch of brows, firmness of mouth.

“Your wife!” Wargler barked.

“His sister,” I said involuntarily. Wargler gave me a quick glance of annoyance.

“Is that right?” he asked Roy Kenney.

“Roy and Joy. Rather quaint, don’t you think? My sibling. With a rather pronounced—almost psychopathically strong—maternal urge. My nemesis, gentlemen.”

“That why she went to work out there, too?”

“Isn’t that obvious? Joy seems to feel that my adjustment to the world I seem to be condemned to live in, is not of the best. I’m a bit of a wanderer. Joy always finds me, somehow. She’s got enormously clever at it. I was really quite shocked
when she walked in, because I thought this time I had completely escaped. It turned out to have been quite easy for her. She had written to motor vehicle bureaus in the South, as she knows I prefer warm climates. When I began work in Florida, I had to acquire a Florida title to my car and give up the Mississippi plates. Tallahassee gave her my address. I had used the restaurant as an address. She’s a good, earnest, dedicated child. To my dismay, I seem to be the outlet for her dedication.”

“Why does she follow you around?” Wargler asked. “You keep getting in trouble?”

“Trouble? No, rather I believe that it is because she seems to feel that I am—shall we say, wasting myself, and my poor talents. She has the rather strange impression that should I settle down, I could acquire vast amounts of worldly goods. She can’t quite understand that I am perfectly contented to wander, to work when it seems important, to live as well as I can with a minimum of exertion and responsibility. I believe she will confirm that for you.”

“She can’t confirm anything,” Wargler said.

Roy Kenney leaned forward a few inches. I had the sudden feeling that what I had thought was a steel blade was merely a shining scabbard. And now, suddenly, the actual blade was drawn. “What do you mean, sir?” he asked.

“I mean that your sister has lost her marbles, Kenney. Doc Vayse says she’s cata—cata—”

“Catatonic,” Jack supplied.

“That’s the word. Like a zombie. And don’t kid me. The pair of you tried a big fancy shakedown, and then you got scared and started killing people and that’s why she’s off her rocker.”

The blade was returned to the scabbard and Roy Kenney leaned back again. “I might suggest, sir, that as long as we seem to be discussing mental conditions, you might get a diagnosis of those delusions you seem to have. Frankly, they sound rather wild to me.”

“I’m wild,” Wargler said, “and I don’t mean crazy. Why’d your sister angle a job in John Long’s office?”

“She was distressed at my—liaison with Mrs. Long. She didn’t wish to see her precious brother dismembered by a primitive and excitable husband. I am not quite clear about her motivation. Perhaps she hoped to keep an eye on Mr. Long and warn me in time. Or perhaps she was indirectly threatening me with exposure, so that I would give up Mrs. Long.”

“How come she had these pictures?”

“Did she? That’s a bit—distressing. Joy has no taste for the seamy side; it makes her quite ill. Perhaps, after Mr. Long died, she searched his possessions to make certain there was nothing there which might point to my—relationship with Mary Eleanor. Rather a fortunate thing that she did so, from my point of view, perhaps. But it all is rather confusing at this point. Joy will be all right, I am certain. She is a bit—unstable at times. But she comes out of it. And comes out of it rather rededicated to saving me. It is almost a religious fervor. Take care of your brother. It was, in fact, a deathbed request, so I shouldn’t resent it so much, perhaps. But it does get a bit sticky having a protective sister hanging about your neck like an albatross.”

“You’re older than she is,” Wargler said. “How come she has to promise to look after you? I’d think it would be the other way around?”

“During her—last years, my mother seemed to share my sister’s concern about my economic and social future.”

“Because you were always getting in trouble?”

“My dear sir. Please understand that both you and I are living in a world so regimented that having an outlook which can be called different is half-sin and half-crime. I live my way, and enjoy it. I do not require approval.”

“O.K., Kenney. You’re just different. You’re so damn different you don’t turn a hair about strangling a girl and tossing her in the bay, just because you figured she maybe found out too much from your sister.”