Hamilton, Donald - Novel 02 (11 page)

 
          
Emmett
put down the phone slowly, aware that the man at the other end of the line
considered him an unknown bum with dubious motives whom his daughter had
probably found, drunk, outside a saloon. Emmett found himself breathing a
little heavily and realized that he was angry, in spite of the fact that Mr.
Nicholson had been quite polite. He looked up and saw the girl in the doorway
watching him, drying her hands on a thin white hotel towel. Her face had a
shiny fresh-scrubbed look.

 
          
Emmett
said, “You’ll be glad to know everything is fine, Miss Nicholson. Your father
told me to tell you not to worry about a thing; everything is all right.”

 
          
Relief
struggled with puzzlement on her face. “Why didn’t you let me talk to him? And
what’s the matter, if—?”

 
          
But
he had picked up the telephone again. “I want police headquarters,
Chicago
,” he said. Looking up, he found her
watching him. “Everything may be as beautiful as your parent thinks, but I’m
not taking the word of a man I’ve only talked to long distance.”

 
          
She
said stiffly, “One would think you
wanted
me to be a fugitive from justice.”

 
          
He
said, “I don’t give a damn what you are, Miss Nicholson. I just want to know
what I am.”

 
          
“Please,”
she whispered. “What’s the matter? What did Dad say to you?”

 
          
His
answer was cut off by a male voice in the telephone saying, “Chicago Police
Headquarters.”

 
          
He
said, “I want to talk to whoever’s handling the case of a man named Stevens who
was found murdered last night.” He was annoyed to find his voice not quite
certain, but there was something a little terrifying about calling the police
about a murder.

 
          
“I’ll
give you Homicide,” the voice said. Presently another voice, soft but with a
hint of hoarseness, as if from too much smoking said, “Polachek here.”

 
          
He
said, “My name’s Emmett. I’m calling for Miss Nicholson, Miss Ann Nicholson.
She understands that you wanted to get in touch with her—”

 
          
“Oh,
that’s all cleared up, Mr. Emmett,” the soft voice said quickly. “We’re sorry
that it happened. The accident of her being the last known person to have
talked to the victim… But of course, the testimony of her doctor and nurse
frees her from any possible suspicion.”

 
          
“Do
you want to talk to her? She’s right here.”

 
          
“No,
I won’t bother Miss Nicholson now,” the man in
Chicago
said. “If we need her to fill in some
background for us we’ll arrange to have her testimony taken by someone in
Denver
. Please give my apologies to Miss Nicholson
and tell her I hope she wasn’t frightened or inconvenienced in any way.”

 
          
The
smooth insincerity of the voice remained in Emmett’s ear after the connection
had been broken; the man had clearly had pressure put on him and had not liked
it. Emmett looked across the bed at the girl in the bathroom doorway.

 
          
“He
hopes you weren’t frightened or inconvenienced in any way.” He turned his back
on her hesitant smile, knowing that she was not quite sure whether the irony
was his or the
Chicago
detective’s, but not pausing to enlighten her. He walked to the closet.

 
          
Her
voice said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like something to eat before we start
driving again.”

 
          
He
turned with his arms full of suitcoat and topcoat.
“I’m
leaving,” he said. “You’re waiting here for Dr. Kaufman. He’s
on his way from
Denver
by now; your dad was going to call him. I’m to get the hell out of here
before I compromise you any further.” He dumped the stuff on the bed. “I can
pick up my check at the
Denver
office of your dad’s company, he told me. He said he thought I’d find
it adequate.”

 
          
The
color left her face. “I’m sure Dad didn’t mean—!” she whispered.

 
          
“I
don’t know what the hell he meant,” Emmett said wearily, “and I don’t care. I’m
glad to get out of it.” He stared at her briefly. “You haven’t asked who was
killed?”

 
          
Her
eyes were innocent. “You mentioned the name. Stevens.”

 
          
“And
it doesn’t mean anything to you?”

 
          
“No.”

 
          
“Not
even,” he asked, “when I tell you that the last person Mr. Stevens is known to
have talked to, is you?”

 
          
“You
mean—” Her breath caught sharply. “He never told me his name.”

 
          
Emmett
said, “He was found behind a signboard on
Chicago
’s west side with his head bashed in from
behind. He died about four-thirty to
five o’clock
, just about the time… just a little after
you’d left the party, Miss Nicholson. Naturally the police were interested in
finding you. The body was discovered around
midnight
, before Dr. Kaufman and the nurse had got
back. When they returned they gave you a complete alibi, and the call that had
been sent out for you was canceled. I understand your father is raising hell
about it.” He looked at her for a moment without liking. “You’ve got between
here and Denver to decide how to explain what you and Stevens were talking
about, and why you ran away. Detective Polachek said he was making arrangements
to have your testimony taken.” He hesitated. “And I just want to warn you, Miss
Nicholson, that man was mad. He didn’t like what your dad had said to him. You’d
better pray that Dr. Kaufman and Miss Bethke weren’t lying about that alibi.”

 
          
She
whispered,
“Why, you think I killed him!”

 
          
He
wished she would not look so extremely vulnerable, like a rumpled child,
standing there with her face washed clean of the last traces of makeup. He
reminded himself that the delicate face and the slight body had survived
experiences that he could barely imagine. It was, he told himself, none of his
business, and there was no reason for him to stick around. Very few innocent
people were convicted of murder. He slung the camera case back over his
shoulder. It was well after dark when he reached Denver.

 
          
He
stood in the lighted station for a while, knowing that he was going back. He
told himself to take it easy, at least stop and have a snack to eat. Then he
heard the bus called and hurried out to it, driven by a mounting urgency. The
bus driver had to wake him at the stop.

 
          
“Hey,
Mac, you wanted Boyne, didn’t you?”

 
          
The
other passengers obviously thought he’d had a big night in Denver and was
coming home to Boyne to sleep it off. The driver helped him wrestle his
belongings out the door. He looked at his watch as the bus pulled away; it read
past midnight. He had never been so sleepy in his life.

 
          
The
clerk at the hotel looked surprised to see him back.

 
          
“Quick
trip, sir?” he asked and passed over the key. “Just leave the bags and I’ll
have the boy bring them up in a minute.”

 
          
He
walked stiffly across the lobby to the elevators. As he rode up he had not yet
made up his mind what he was going to say to her. There was no explaining the
vague panic that had seized him as he got off the bus in Denver; it would sound
silly to say that he had ridden all the way there and come all the way back to
see that she was all right, that Dr. Kaufman had arrived and taken over, that
she had not jumped out of a window or hung herself with a stocking or drowned
herself in the bathtub. It would sound as if she were very important to him, to
draw him back over sixty miles, as tired as he was; it would be difficult to
explain the feeling of guilt that he had had about her. She was a human being
for whom he had been made responsible, and he could not feel that he had
discharged the responsibility very well.

 
          
He
hesitated in front of the door and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked a
second time, waited, put the key into the lock and opened the door. The room
was quite dark except for the faintly visible rectangle of the open window.

 
          
“Miss
Nicholson,” he whispered, acutely conscious of the misinterpretations that
could be put on his sneaking back into the room like this in the middle of the
night. All around him the hotel was silent. “Miss Nicholson. Ann.” His voice
seemed to resound through the room. He knew a sudden taste of defeat and panic
as he pressed the light switch.

 
          
There
was still a moment for him to try to tell himself that it was all right; that
she was only sound asleep, exhausted by the events of the night and the day.
She was lying in the big iron bed, covered by a sheet that was thrown back a
little so that he could see her slight shoulders bare except for the narrow
ribbon straps of the slip she had worn to bed, lacking a nightgown. Her blouse
hung neatly on a wire hanger inside the open closet; the closet looking barren
and empty with nothing inside but the blouse and her jacket and hat. Her skirt
was carefully folded over the back of the only chair in the room; her stockings
and undergarments lay on the seat of the chair; and her shoes stood tidily,
side by side, beneath it. There was a green glass bottle lying, with her purse,
beside the telephone. A single brownish capsule had spilled from it, and the
screw cap lay beside it. There were not many capsules left in the bottle.

 
          
He
walked slowly across the bare floor, hearing the sound of his own feet and his
own breathing.

 
          
“Ann,”
he said. “Ann!”

 
          
His
voice sounded like the voice of a frightened man about to burst into tears. It
annoyed him. Her face was rather pale. Her hair was almost smooth; it showed
that she had combed it carefully before going to bed, and the pillow had only
disarranged it a little. Her lips were slightly parted. She had not put on
lipstick to die. He could see the tiny scar.

 
          
He
picked up her wrist and tried to remember how he had been told to take a pulse
in the first-aid course he had taken during the war. Under his thumb he could
feel only the heavy beating of his own blood. With his forefinger he could feel
nothing at all. Then she moved her head a little and her breath caught in a
little gasp and she was still again. He whirled and snatched up the telephone.

 
          
He
washed his face and studied it in the bathroom mirror, but washing it had not
helped it. It still needed a shave, some nourishment other than coffee, and
about twelve hours of sleep. He dried it and combed the black hair out of it.
The door behind him opened to show the head of the local doctor, whose name was
Williams.

 
          
“Sorry,”
Dr. Williams said, starting to retreat.

 
          
“Plenty
of room,” Emmett said. The doctor came in and glanced at himself in the mirror
over Emmett’s shoulder, rubbing a hand over his rough chin. He was still in the
trousers, T-shirt, and moccasins he had arrived in just about ten hours
earlier; a young man with light crisp hair and a confident air of knowing what
he was about. He had lectured Emmett on the latest methods of combating
barbiturate poisoning while injecting benzedrine into Ann Nicholson as if
performing a laboratory demonstration.

 
          
“How
is she?” Emmett asked.

 
          
“Patient’s
fine,” the doctor said. “They’re taking her to St. Luke’s, in Denver, for
observation. I didn’t try to convince them that a night’s sleep and a good
spanking…” He yawned at his image in the mirror. “None of my business,” he
said. “Through here?”

 
          
“It’s
all yours,” Emmett said. He put the comb away and went out into the bedroom,
bright again with daylight.

 
          
There
was no one in the room; they had moved her into the suite at the end of the
hall several hours before. After getting Dr. Williams, Emmett had called Dr.
Kaufman, in Denver. The psychiatrist had been startled to learn that Ann was in
Boyne; Mr. Nicholson’s message had not reached him, he said; he had been out to
dinner and the hotel had not notified him when he returned. Having flown down
himself, he had not expected them, driving, to reach the vicinity of Denver for
another day. He had arrived within an hour. Later in the morning Mr. Nicholson,
himself, had arrived by private plane from Chicago; Dr. Kaufman had notified
him before starting out. Between them they had managed to keep the fourth floor
of the hotel in an uproar until they had found a suitable place for the
patient.

 
          
Emmett
squeezed his face between his fingers to work some life into it. As he stepped
into the hall the door of the suite at the end opened and the psychiatrist came
out, looking clean-shaven and neatly brushed, pressed, and polished for a man
who had been called in the early morning hours to drive sixty miles on an
emergency call, but then, Emmett reflected, he had looked the same way in the
lunchwagon in the middle of Iowa where they had first met in the middle of the
night. The doctor turned in the doorway, reaching back a helping hand, and Ann
Nicholson came out, leaning on the arm of one of the hotel maids.

 
          
She
was dressed exactly as she had been when Emmett first saw her, her costume
complete to hat and purse and white gloves; her blouse had been washed and
ironed and the pale gabardine suit cleaned and pressed. Her hair was brushed
smoothly out of sight beneath the fragile veiled hat, and under the veil she
had the proper amount of makeup in the proper places; and she had the
painted-clown look of a sick person who had been washed, dressed, and made
presentable by someone else. As she was turning away toward the elevators she
looked at him briefly, a blank look of nonrecognition that shocked and
bewildered him. She did not know him at all.

 
          
He
heard the elevator descend. Poor kid, he thought; and he felt again the sense
of loss that he had felt once before, when Dr. Kaufman had first told him about
her case while she slept in the car across the road—as if some part of his
consciousness had recognized something that he could have become very fond of.
Yes,
he said to himself irritably,
sure, she had damn nice legs.
It was
like thinking of someone who was dead.

 
          
“Oh,
there you are, Emmett.”

 
          
He
looked up to see her father come toward him down the hall; not a tall man but
given an impression of height by the way he carried himself. Someone during the
morning had told Emmett that Mr. Nicholson had served with the marines during
the First World War; he had apparently never forgotten the training. He had a
lined, brown, rectangular face, a little too big for his body, and stiff,
short, graying dark hair. He carried a panama hat in one hand and a slip of
yellow paper in the other, which he extended to Emmett. Emmett took the slip
and saw that it was a check for five hundred dollars. He was a little relieved.
He had been more or less expecting to catch hell.

 
          
“That’s
all you’re going to get, young man,” Mr. Nicholson’s voice said.

 
          
Emmett
looked up, startled.

 
          
The
older man said harshly, “I don’t want to see you coming around again with your
hand out, Emmett. I don’t know what you’ve managed to worm out of Ann; if you’re
smart you can probably add a few things together, and maybe you think you’ve
got something worth my paying for, but remember this: you picked her up and
drove her across four or five states, and took her to a hotel, where she tried
to kill herself. Figure what that would look like to a jury.”

 
          
He
shook his head impatiently as Emmett tried to speak. “I’m not saying you laid a
hand on my daughter,” he went on. “We both know she’s a screwball who’s tried
to kill herself before, but don’t kid yourself you’ll be able to prove that in
court. And figure your chances of ever holding another professional job after
being tried for a morals offense, even if you did get off. Blackmail is a sucker’s
game, Emmett. Don’t try it on me. I don’t care what you think you know. I’m not
going to pay for it. If I see your face again, I’ll have you in jail on a
federal charge.”

 
          
Emmett
stared at him and thought, he got that tan on a golf course. Then he realized
that the older man was afraid.
He’s
bluffing,
Emmett thought,
he wonders
how much I know. If I wanted to shake him down I could flatten him like a toy
balloon.
He watched Mr. Nicholson set the panama hat on his head and pull
it down carefully, back and front, hesitate as if to say something more, then
turn without speaking and march away to the elevators.

 
          
Emmett
looked down and watched his own fingers tear the check across, place the pieces
together, and tear them again, while the muscles of his face gradually relaxed.
But he felt a little cold and a little sick with the knowledge that he had
spent more than a day with, and rather liked, a girl whose father considered
her dangerously insane and was in panic lest John Emmett had learned too much
about her.