Hunter’s Dance (22 page)

Koski glared, and Ross' voice dropped again. “I took a picture.”

“That's all?”

“Ya.”

“What about a manicure set?”

“A what?”

“A kit for fixing fingernails. With a scissors. A scissors about this big.” Koski held his thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. “One that somebody used to stab your best friend.”

Ross' eyes widened. “Bambi didn't look stabbed to me. He just looked…dead. Stabbed?”

Koski ignored the question. “Bambi had at least a couple of hours to kill between dropping you off at your house and the time you picked up his car. Did he say what he planned to do?”

“No.”

“Do you think he spent that time with Karen Sorenson?”

“No! He just gave her a ride home. Same as me.”

“I've talked to Karen,” Koski pressed. “She seemed to like Bambi quite a lot.”

“She hardly knew him. Anyway she was pretty mad at him. About the fight with Marve.”

“Was Karen your girl?”

“We ran around together some.”

“Was Bambi Morlen cutting in on your time? Was that why you killed him? Was that what made you mad enough to take a bit and brace to his head?”

“I didn't kill him! I only did that with the drill because—”

“Did Bambi spend those two hours with Karen?”

“I don't know what he did.” Ross hesitated. “Well, he might have gone….”

“Where?”

“When we were at the dance, he was mad because he forgot to bring his winter coat, and he was going to need it when he waited for me and for walking back to the cave. In the woodshed, when he was dead, he had it on. I think he must have gone back to the camp.”

XXXIII

The old piano was her own…to it she could tell her troubles. It understood her.

Pete Koski returned from stowing Ross Maki away in the cell recently vacated by Marvin Wall. “John,” he grimaced while kneading the small of his back, “I really hate to put you out, but….”

McIntire pulled the keys to the Lincoln from his pocket and waved toward the door. “After you.”

Koski grabbed his hat, whistled for Geronimo, and recited his litany. “The State police have pretty much robbed me of my deputies, and we still ain't got a replacement for Billy.” He looked greedily at Siobhan's convertible. He peered into the tidy back seat and fingered Geronimo's ears. The sheriff was obviously in the throes of a monumental moral struggle. “Never mind,” he said at last, “we can take my car.” He handed McIntire the keys to the Power Wagon.

The engine turned over on only the second try, and McIntire tried not to look smug as he backed the vehicle out of the lot while his passenger slid down into the seat, braced his knees against the dash, and closed his eyes. A snuffling from the rear told McIntire that the German shepherd was doing a canine version of the same.

“Shit,” the sheriff finally said. “Can't you just picture it? The innocent farm boy turning the lantern up barely enough so he could see, leaning into his best friend's skull with a bit and brace and…shit!”

McIntire had no desire to picture it.

“I've been sheriff here for sixteen years, and I've never come across anything even close to…and just an ordinary kid. Sheee-it.”

“Ross was panic stricken, terrified, drunk, and disoriented from the mixture of brandy and lobelia in Bambi's flask.” Even as he said it, McIntire couldn't believe that he'd taken the position of defending corpse mutilation. “And don't forget he'd been up all night. People will do bizarre things when they're deprived of sleep. It's my theory that half the brutality of war stems from soldiers being exhausted rather than barbaric.”

“Shee-it!” Koski reiterated.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” McIntire asked.

“Why in Christ's name would anybody make up a story like that?”

“I mean about not killing Bambi.”

Koski snorted, as though it was a moot point.

McIntire continued, “Guibard says Bambi was probably stabbed an hour or so before he died, and he wasn't scalped for at least half an hour afterward. Could Ross have done both those things and still been in Chandler to mail the note between three and four in the morning?”

“Why not? We don't know what time the kid died.”

“But if Ross had stabbed him, would he have come back and hour and a half later to scalp him? And if he did stab him, when could it have happened? Ross says he didn't see Bambi after Bambi dropped him at home. Not until he went back to get him from the woodshed attic.”

“Are you trying to say our Ross would never lie?”

McIntire slowed the wagon from its cruising speed of forty miles an hour and stopped to await a porcupine lumbering across the road. “But would Bambi turn his car over to the guy that had just stabbed him? And continue on with their extortion plan?”

“They might have had some kind of tussle over the girl. Bambi gets poked with the scissors, but neither of them know he's badly hurt. They make it up and go on with the plan. When Ross gets back he finds Bambi dead and proceeds with pinning the blame on Marvin Wall. What're we sitting here for?”

“We're not.” McIntire let out the clutch. “But that doesn't explain the lobelia in the brandy. And Ross drank it, so he probably didn't put it there.”

“Nothing explains that poison. Course the kid conveniently chucked it back up.”

“This puts things right back to the starting line.”

Koski shifted in the seat and scratched an armpit. “If Bambi was on the road, walking to the hall from the old building where he hid the car, he'd have been fair game for almost anybody.”

“Only anybody who had Karen Sorenson's scissors.”

***

The sounds of Scott Joplin at his most exuberant indicated that Bonnie Morlen was at home, but their knock on the mansion door went unanswered. Koski gave it two more shots before pushing it open and calling out, “Mrs. Morlen, we have news for you!”

Bonnie Morlen appeared in seconds, rubbing her eyes. “I'm sorry, I must have dozed off a little. I didn't hear your knock.” She positioned herself to block the door. “What is it?”

When the sheriff had made it sufficiently clear that he was not about to impart his news while standing outside the door, she walked before them into the dim front room and waved them onto a blanket-covered sofa. The aroma of gingerbread wafted through the air, but she made no offer of coffee or other refreshment. She sat on the piano stool, where she had seemingly been lately dozing, and gripped its edges. “Have you found my son's murderer?” Her voice was brittle, almost angry.

“Is Mr. Morlen at home?” the sheriff asked.

“Mr. Morlen is in Lansing.” McIntire wondered if Wendell had accompanied his wife to St. Adele at all. No one he'd spoken to had actually seen him here. Bonnie asked again, “Have you found my son's murderer?”

“Possibly. We're not sure. What we have found is his kidnapper.”

“Isn't that the same thing?”

“We don't think so.” As she listened to Koski's story of the boys' extortion plan, Bonnie Morlen's face took on a greenish pallor. When she spoke her voice had a flat, breezy quality, as if she was dismissing nothing more than a misunderstanding about the price of eggs.

“No. I'm sorry sheriff. You're wrong. That…that boy, that
Ross,
is lying to save himself. Bambi would never have let me think he'd been abducted if he hadn't. He wouldn't have put me through such a thing.”

The sofa's springs creaked under Koski's weight. “They were planning to leave a note letting people know they were okay, after they got away.”

“Got away? Get away from what? My son had everything a young man could want. What could he be trying to get away from?” She looked belligerently from one of them to the other. When no response was forthcoming, she stated with finality, “Bambi would never have done what you say.” She turned and placed one hand on the piano keys, picking out a lively tinkling melody that McIntire didn't recognize. A curious accompaniment to grief. “He couldn't have hated us that much,” her words were almost drowned by the music, “not even if….”

“Boys can be thoughtless, Mrs. Morlen.” Koski's breaking into Bonnie Morlen's speech was itself pretty thoughtless.

McIntire leaned forward. “Not even if what, Mrs. Morlen?” Was she suggesting that her son might have made the discovery of his parentage? Or possibly some other transgression?

Bonnie swung around and looked blankly at him.

“Was there something that might have made Bambi angry with you or your husband?” McIntire persisted.

“What are you talking about? My son loved me. He didn't do what you say. That boy's lying.”

Her face flushed with anger, and Koski shifted uncomfortably. “It looks like it's true. The ransom note was written with letters cut from one of your magazines.”

Bonnie raised a hand to her throat and swallowed. “My magazines. He took magazines from
my
house.” It was not a question.

“Mrs. Baxter found them in the main lodge. But they were addressed to you.”

“Anybody could get magazines from the lodge.”

“The boys had a hideout fixed up in the woods. A place to wait out the days before they picked up the ransom money.”

Bonnie flinched at this, but made no response.

“It's possible, maybe even most likely,” Koski told her, “that your son's abduction and his death were not related. His murder may have had nothing to do with money.”

“Can't you see how wrong you are?” she begged. “My son was killed for money. That other boy might have been behind some kind of scheme, but Bambi would never have put us through this.”

The fact that Bambi had been posthumously mutilated by his friend seemed not to have made an impression. Bonnie could only steadfastly deny her son's voluntary infliction of suffering upon herself and her family.

“Young men are often in conflict with their parents,” Koski said, “and they often end up suffering for it.”

“What are you saying? That my son brought this on himself? That he's at fault for his own murder? You're too blind to see who did it, so you're putting the blame on Bambi himself?”

“Mrs. Morlen, Ross Maki admits that he, and your son, manufactured the evidence against Adam and Marvin Wall. He denies causing your son's death. He might be lying, but I don't think he is, and if he ain't, we're right back where we started from. In other words, you're right, we don't know shit about who killed your son. So if there's anything you know, or think you might know—if you have the slightest, the flimsiest, the fuzziest idea, I'd suggest you tell me!”

The sheriff's outburst had little effect. “Could you please go now? You've said what you came for.” She turned back to the piano.

“Your husband—”

“I'll let Wendell know what you've told me. You can see yourselves out.”

McIntire touched her arm. “Are you sure you'll be all right, Mrs. Morlen?”

“I most certainly am not all right! I won't be all right until the people who took my son's life are every bit as dead as he is.” She moved away from his touch. “I want to be alone now.”

“There's one more thing.” Koski fingered the brim of his hat. Bonnie lifted dead eyes to his face. “We've been told that your husband was not Bambi's natural father.”

McIntire tried to hold back the groan. Cross Mia Thorsen off as their final source of information.

Bonnie didn't look surprised or offended, only nodded.

“What was his father's name?”

She looked for a time as if she was trying to remember. “Anatole Pavil.” The stool swivelled back.

Pavil. It was an unusual name, but hazily familiar. McIntire couldn't think why. Mia had said Bambi's father was a musician and had been exiled to California, but he was sure she hadn't mentioned his name.

The strains of
Maple Leaf Rag
accompanied their exit. “Quite a place.” Koski closed the door with a thump.

“Looks like it was decorated by the firm of D. Boone and Farouk,” McIntire commented. “Do you think she should be left alone?”

“Hell no, but I don't know that we have much choice.”

“You managed to get hold of Wendell yet?”

“Not so far. The number he left is a hotel. He's checked out. The legal tussle with Adam Wall was wrapped up a week ago without ever going to court. Morlen got the Clubbers what they wanted, even if they had to dip into their extra pin money. He's had no more work for the Club. He hasn't been there, or at that hotel in Lansing, and from what we can tell, he hasn't been at home, not here or back in Westchester.”

Koski looked back at the closed door and the pulled curtains. “Well, he ain't been reported missing,” he went on, “and there's no law says he has to let us know every move he makes. But I figure it's time to smoke him out some way. There's something about this whole thing that don't smell right. His son's been murdered, for Christ's sake. He might try to at least fake some concern. At least if he don't care all that much about Bambi, he might want to take care of his wife.”

“I'm led to believe that's what he's paying Fratelli to do.”

“Ha!”

“Ha, what?”

“Far as I can see, Wendell Morlen hasn't paid his so-called detective one red cent.”

McIntire waited for the sheriff to elaborate. He might as well wait for him to rip off his shirt and burst into a chorus of
Old Man River
. He asked, “How do you know?”

“Morlen has paid all his bills with checks written on an account at the First National in Marquette. He gets cash from the same account. There's no record of any payments to Fratelli. The last big cash withdrawal was the Thursday
before
the murder.”

“Before Morlen went to Lansing.”

“Yep. He left with three grand.”

McIntire whistled. “Lansing is an expensive place, but…hang on a bit, I thought you said he borrowed the money for the train ticket from James What's-His-Name III.”

“He did. So it seems he needed cash for something. And it was before he had any need for Fratelli that we know about. Like I said, it doesn't look like he's given his investigator a penny.”

“Maybe the guy gets paid only if he gets results.”

“If that's the case he must be one of those wealthy lords in the books, detecting as a hobby. He ain't been doing much to get results, but he's been plenty free with his spending. Wining and dining your aunt, for instance.”

That did seem to be the case.

“I didn't suppose private investigators were all that flush,” Koski went on. “
If
that's what he is.”

“You have doubts?”

“He's got no license in the state of New York. Or anywhere else that I can find.” The sheriff gave a short laugh. “Well, with the amount of investigating he's been doing, we sure as hell can't accuse him of operating without a license.”

He also didn't seem to be sticking around much to stand guard over Mrs. Morlen, if that's what he was here for. She shouldn't be left alone now. McIntire thought of calling Mia, the one person Bonnie seemed to trust, or had before the sheriff brought up Bambi's parentage. The memory of that thin shoulder under his hand gave him a twinge of uneasiness. He pulled open the car door. “I'll ask Leonie to stop over soon as I get home.”