Leopold's Way (42 page)

“He'd already killed his wife and was escaping on the Expressway. And he probably did hit that abutment deliberately.”

“Could be,” Leopold said. “Small Street dead-ends at the Expressway. Franklin could have seen—or at least heard—the crash from where he was. He got there on his motorcycle almost at once, saw that Aspeth was dead, and called for the morgue wagon. Only this accident he
didn't
report. This accident became the 8:27 accident he'd already radioed in to headquarters.”

“But…” Connie still wasn't convinced. “What about the detectives investigating the hit-and-run? They must have heard Aspeth's crash, too. What about the other motorists who stopped? What about the morgue records?”

“The detectives already had their hands full. The motorists would never see the time on Franklin's report. The morgue records were easily changed by Doc Hayes. It was a one-car accident, remember, so there wasn't likely to be any court case where witnesses would be testifying. Franklin saw a lucky chance to switch the order of the two accidents and thereby explain his earlier radio report. Fortunately for him, he hadn't mentioned Small Street in the earlier report, only the Expressway. And luckily no other patrol car happened along while he was at Aspeth's wreck. Luck was all on his side till he asked Hayes for more money.”

“But how did you know all this?” Connie wondered. “How did you know enough to arrest Doc Hayes in the first place?”

“When you repeated Franklin's remark about it being dark at the time Aspeth smashed up, we knew he hadn't died in the 8:27 accident. That had to be something else Cycle 404 investigated. But Franklin had only two accidents in the crucial period—Aspeth and the hit-and-run on Small Street. If it wasn't Aspeth at 8:27, it had to be the hit-and-run. Fletcher and I went over to Small Street last night and saw how close it was to the Wilson Avenue exit. So Franklin lied about the hit-and-run. Why? Only one answer went with his expectation of money—he was blackmailing the driver.”

“All right—but why Doc?”

“Three things pointed to him. First, he lied when he said Aspeth's body came into the morgue before nine. Second, he told us he had to take his car into the garage, implying some necessary repair work. And third, at the time of the hit-and-run he would have been in his car, driving to the morgue. Circumstantial, sure, but it was circumstantial too when he said he had a flat tire that made him late for work while Franklin was being killed.”

“You took a gamble accusing him on that evidence.”

“I take gambles every day in this job, Connie. Just the way Pete Franklin did. After he thought of switching the accident times he had to phone Doc at the morgue and tell him to switch his records, too. The records were the important thing. The morgue drivers would never be asked, any more than those passing motorists. The time of Kurt Aspeth's death would be an unimportant fact buried forever in police files. It would have happened that way too, except for one crazy thing—Kurt Aspeth had just come from murdering his wife. When that fact became known, Franklin asked Doc for more money to keep quiet. And Doc got out a shotgun to pay him off.”

“It kept building up, didn't it?” Connie said. “From an auto accident to bribery to murder. But at least it wasn't Aspeth's ghost on the prowl. I was almost beginning to believe that.”

“So was I,” Leopold said.

(1974)

F
LETCHER AND CONNIE WERE
at the office to see him off, their faces grim. “There's no need for tears,” Captain Leopold told them both. “I haven't seen my uncle in something like twenty years. He was seventy-eight years old and he had a good life. I'll fly out for the funeral and be back in the office on Monday.”

Fletcher walked him down to the street. “Don't you worry about a thing, Captain. Connie and I have everything under control. Stay as long as you want. It's been a slow month anyway.”

That wasn't quite true because August was never slow for the Violent Crimes Division, but Leopold thanked him anyway. He waved goodbye as the taxi pulled away from the curb, taking him to the airport, and from there on to home.

Captain Leopold had always thought of Riger Falls as home even though he'd been born in Chicago and moved from Riger Falls to New York as soon as he was old enough to be on his own. The reason was Uncle Joe Leopold, who'd raised him like a son after the Captain's parents died. He'd gone to live with Uncle Joe when he was eight, and taken the town of Riger Falls as his own.

Its shaded streets and quiet country atmosphere were a world away from the noisy crowded avenues of Chicago, and the young Leopold welcomed the change. Now, flying back after all these years, he looked forward to the quiet as something close to a vacation. He tried to remember Uncle Joe's face the last time he'd seen him, back in the mid-fifties when Uncle Joe's wife died. She'd been almost like a mother to Leopold and her death had saddened Joe terribly. One of the greatest surprises of Captain Leopold's young life had come when he learned a year later that Uncle Joe had remarried.

He'd never met the second wife, though she was the one who'd signed the telegram informing him of his uncle's death. Her name was Margaret, and Leopold knew only that she was a good deal younger than Joe. When the plane landed and he saw from the bus schedule that he would not reach Riger Falls before dinner he phoned her from a booth at the airport.

“We're so glad you could come,” her voice assured him. “Joe was always talking about you and what a success you've become in the east.”

“He was like a father to me,” Leopold said. “Look, I'll be there as soon as I can, but it'll probably be after seven. I'll take the next bus.”

“Henry will meet you at the station. That's my son.”

“Fine.” He hung up and went out to wait for the next bus to Riger Falls.

In the long evening sunshine his first view of the town was a reassuring one. The trees, the streets, the houses were all as he remembered them. Progress had not yet polluted the place where he grew up. Farther on, near the center of town, he came upon one concession to change—a sprawling shopping center with a supermarket and a drive-in movie. But even here the design of the place was muted, in keeping with its quiet surroundings. Riger Falls had always been a quiet town, if nothing else.

A thin well-dressed man was waiting at the bus station and he introduced himself as Henry Cole. He was a few years younger than Leopold, perhaps still under 40, but he carried himself with a round-shouldered stoop that made him seem older. “I'm Margaret's son by her first marriage,” he explained. “I live down the old Creek Road.”

Leopold remembered the area—a dirt road lined with older houses that were little more than shacks. But that was a long time ago. Perhaps things were different now. “I haven't been back in twenty years,” he told the man. “Haven't seen Uncle Joe in all that time.”

“He was a fine old guy,” Henry Cole said. “Too bad he had to die like that.”

“How did he die?” Leopold asked. The telegram had given no details.

“Hit by a car on Tuesday, right in front of his house. They didn't think he was too bad at first, but at that age it was a terrible shock to his system. Died in the hospital yesterday morning.”

“Who hit him?”

“Don't know. One of them wild kids from the next county, I suppose. That's what the sheriff says, anyway.”

“You mean it was a hit-and-run?”

“That's what they say. My mother was in the house when it happened. She says he just went across the street to mail a letter and then she heard this car racing down the street. And then a thump. She says the car never even slowed down.”

“Was he conscious? Could he say anything?”

“I don't know. You'd have to ask my mother.” He turned the car into a gravel driveway. “Here we are. Raznell's Funeral Home.”

Leopold looked out the car window at the familiar white Colonial structure. “Is Jerry Raznell still around?” Jerry had been his boyhood friend all through school, until Leopold moved away to New York.

“It's his place. The father died.”

Inside, in a coffin surrounded by flowers, Uncle Joe Leopold lay at rest. Leopold said a brief silent prayer and then went over to the white-haired woman who stood with the other mourners. Though they'd never met, he recognized Margaret Leopold at once from the pictures Uncle Joe had sent him.

“So glad you could come,” she said, extending her hand. “Joe would be so happy to know you're back home.”

“I'm only sorry it took this to bring me back.”

“He often spoke of you, and how successful you are.” When she spoke, the lines of her mouth gave her a certain graceful air. Twenty years ago, about the time Uncle Joe married her, she would have been a beautiful woman. Even now, Leopold thought, she bore herself with a handsome dignity.

“Had he been retired for long?” Leopold asked, remembering Uncle Joe's fondness for the little woodworking shop on the highway.

“Only about a year. And even then he could have kept going in. His health was near perfect and he still loved furniture.”

“Your son told me about the accident. A terrible thing. Do the police have any idea who was driving the car?”

“None. Maybe you should talk to the sheriff about it. He might like some help from a New York detective.”

Leopold cleared his throat. “I started out in New York, but I've been up in Connecticut for a good many years now. Not nearly as large as New York. But maybe I will speak to him.” Some others drifted in to pay their respects, and for a time Leopold was caught up in a flow of memories, hearing the old names, seeing the half-remembered faces. It was not until after nine that he could get away. Margaret Leopold asked him to stay at the house but he declined, preferring the freedom of a motel room.

“You can use my car overnight,” Henry Cole volunteered. “Here are the keys.”

Leopold hesitated. “I don't know—”

“Go ahead. It'll save me taking you to the motel and picking you up for the funeral.”

Leopold accepted the keys with thanks. As he turned to leave, the familiar face of Jerry Raznell appeared in the doorway. “Leopold! Good to see you! I heard you'd flown out for the funeral.”

“You haven't changed, Jerry,” he said, and he meant it. Always a bit on the stocky side, Raznell's added weight had helped maintain the jolly boyishness of his face. He was hardly anyone's idea of the town undertaker.

“Nor have you. A little gray at the temples, but you still look pretty fit. How's the wife?”

Had it been that long since they'd seen or talked to each other? “It was a short marriage. We got a divorce and she's dead now.”

“Oh. Sorry.” The grin disappeared, but only for an instant. “Say, I'm just closing up here. How about stopping for a drink? Get caught up on all these years. I'd invite you upstairs but one of the kids is sick.”

“I have to check in at a motel.”

“No problem. I'll show you the way. It's new since you lived here.”

The motel was on the other side of town, part of a nationwide chain that had somehow discovered the rural pleasures of Riger Falls. Leopold checked in, deposited his small overnight bag on the bed, and joined Jerry Raznell in the dimly lit cocktail lounge for a drink.

“It was a shock about your uncle, huh?”

“It should have been more of a shock,” Leopold confessed. “In recent years I'd almost forgotten the old man's existence. And once he was a father to me.”

“We all grow up and get old. My own father died seven years ago and left me the business.”

“You seem to be doing well. I noticed a new wing on the house.”

“People never stop dying.”

“I hear Uncle Joe got it from a hit-and-run driver.”

“Yeah. Awful thing.”

“Are the police investigating?”

A shrug. “You know Sheriff Potter. No, on second thought, I guess you don't. He'd have been after your time. Well, he's a good enough man, but he has his own ideas. Wild kids from the next county, he says, and a lot of people believe him.”

“I gather you don't.”

“I'd rather not say.”

“You think it was somebody here in Riger Falls?”

Jerry Raznell looked down at his hands. “You'd better ask the sheriff about that.”

“I came here to attend a funeral, Jerry, not to investigate a killing.”

“I know. I shouldn't have said anything.”

“You didn't,” Leopold told him. “Maybe you
should
say something.”

“You'd better ask the sheriff,” he repeated.

Leopold downed the rest of his Scotch. “I'll do that. Thanks for the drink, Jerry.”

Sheriff Potter was not in his office, but the night deputy furnished his home address. Leopold phoned first and identified himself. Shortly after ten o'clock, when he parked Henry Cole's car in front of the sheriff's neat little ranch home, the man was waiting for him.

“The wife's having her bridge club,” he explained. “Come on out in the garage.”

It was a double garage with one side given over to a workbench and power tools. Sheriff Potter left the overhead door open while they talked, and large moths began to circle above their heads, risking their powdery wings against the attractive glow of the ceiling light.

With his curly black hair and dimpled chin, Potter did not look like a sheriff. He was too young for one thing, and when he spoke there was something like deference in his voice. “I've heard about you, Captain. Weren't you written up in
Law and Order
recently?”

“They ran an article on our department,” Leopold admitted, “about how we converted the old homicide squad into a violent crimes unit.”

“I read everything I can find about police work. Not that I have much call to use it in Riger Falls.”