The Fourth Durango (15 page)

After a grateful swallow of the bourbon and water Kelly Vines had handed him, the
chief of police looked at Jack Adair and said, “Tell me something. Was Soldier ever a soldier?”

“In two wars,” Adair said, turning from the window in Vines’s room where he had been inspecting the ocean. “And Soldier, incidentally, was his real name.”

“Couldn’t be,” Fork said.

“Years ago I saw his birth certificate. It was back in the early fifties when a certain Mrs. Shipley in the State Department was suspicious of almost anyone who applied for a passport, but particularly suspicious of applicants who’d served in the Lincoln Battalion in Spain and later with the OSS, which is why Soldier’d come to me.”

Fork made no effort to hide his surprise and disbelief. “What the hell was he doing in Spain?”

“Purely by chance Soldier’d landed a job to shepherd nine Dodge ambulances from Detroit down to Mexico and over to Spain. They’d been bought for the Loyalists by some folks who, I think, were later called premature anti-Fascists.” Adair smiled. “Soldier always said his old pal Hemingway helped raise some of the money.”

“How old was Soldier then?”

“When he went to Spain? He’d have been just twenty. He was born April sixth, nineteen seventeen, and I remember the date because it was the day we declared war on Germany.” Adair smiled again, rather gently, and added, “World War One.”

Sid Fork’s impatient nod indicated he knew all about World War One. “And that’s why his folks named him Soldier?”

Adair nodded. “His full name was Soldier P. Sloan. The ‘P’ was for Pershing. A general—in World War One.”

“And he joined up after he got the ambulances over to Spain?”

“So he claimed. Anyway, it was his experience there that got him commissioned a second lieutenant in the OSS just after the war started.” Adair gave Fork another almost apologetic smile. “World War Two.”

“So what’d he do—or claim he did?”

“In the OSS? Engaged in all sorts of hugger-mugger—at least when it didn’t interfere with his black market operations.” This time Adair’s smile was more knowing than apologetic. “Black markets and wars always seem to go hand in hand.”

Fork neatly cut off any further discussion of black markets by asking, “Why’d he want a passport in the fifties?”

“Debts,” Adair said.

“Wanted to skip out on ’em probably.”

“Something like that. So I called in a favor that a certain Republican congressman owed me and Soldier got his passport. When he came back from Europe four years later in ’fifty-five he was thirty-eight years old and suddenly a retired lieutenant colonel. He promoted himself two more times after that, impressing a never-ending series of gullible but wealthy widows who provided him with clothes, cars, cash and whatever remaining charms they had to offer.”

“I sort of inherited Soldier from Jack,” Kelly Vines said, putting his drink down carefully on the coffee table and leaning forward to stare at Fork. “Where’d you run across him, Chief?”

“He was our first hideout customer,” Fork said. “And afterwards he sent us about a third of our other clients, including you two. He sort of adopted the three of us—B. D., me and Dixie—and liked to take us out for Sunday dinner. Well, that got old pretty quick for me and B. D., but Dixie always went until she married Parvis. She said she liked Soldier’s manners.” He looked at Vines coldly. “Satisfied?”

After Vines replied with a shrug, Fork asked, “So what do we do with him after the autopsy—bury him, cremate him, donate him—what? He have any kids, ex-wives, brothers, sisters, anybody?”

Adair sighed. “He had a thousand acquaintances and Kelly and me. But from what you say, he also had you, the mayor and Dixie. So I suppose we should bury him with a headstone and all.”

“‘Soldier P. Sloan,’” Vines said. “‘1917–1988.’ Then a line or two after that.”

“We’ll leave the wording up to you, Kelly,” Adair said and turned to Fork. “So what’ll it cost, Chief—the plot, the stone, a cheap casket and a few words by a not overly sanctimonious priest?”

“Soldier a Catholic?”

“Fallen away, I’m afraid.”

“Then I know just the priest. As for how much, well, he had about five hundred and fifty in his wallet, but that won’t quite cover what we’re talking about.” When he felt Kelly Vines’s hard stare, he hurried on. “He also had a thousand-dollar bill in his watch pocket, but I’m not sure you can spend that.”

“It’s perfectly legal tender,” Adair said. “And since you’re the chief of police, the bank shouldn’t ask any questions.”

“There was something else in Soldier’s watch pocket,” Fork said. He fished the folded-up diary page from his shirt pocket and handed it to Vines. “Except it doesn’t make sense.”

Vines unfolded the page and studied the numbers and capital letters, as if for the first time. “I was never any good at crossword puzzles,” he said, “but this first notation, ‘KV 431’ and ‘JA 433’ is pretty obvious. It’s Jack’s room number and mine.” He looked up and handed the page to Adair. “The rest is gibberish.”

Adair read the other line of capital letters silently, then aloud, “C JA O RE DV.” He read it aloud again, rose, walked to the window, as if its light might help, silently read the letters yet again, stared out at the ocean for a few moments and turned to Vines. “Maybe it’s simpler than it looks.”

“Maybe it’s an old OSS code,” Fork said.

“More likely it’s just the crude shorthand of an old man who didn’t trust his memory,” Adair said. “‘C JA’ could mean, ‘See Jack Adair.’ The next thing could be either a zero or a capital O. If it’s a zero, it could read, ‘See Jack Adair zero,’ which doesn’t make sense unless you translate zero into ‘alone’ or ‘by himself.’ RE probably means just what it looks like: ‘in regard to.’ The last initials are DV and the only DV I know is my daughter and Kelly’s wife, Danielle Vines.”

Vines asked, “See Jack Adair alone in regard to Danielle Vines?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But I’d best go see Dannie.”

Sid Fork shook his head and said, “Dumb idea, Judge.”

“Why?”

“You plan to drive?”

Adair nodded.

“Where to?”

“Agoura, isn’t it?” Adair said, looking at Vines, who also nodded.

“Somebody could pull up alongside you on the freeway with a shotgun loaded with double ought and no more Jack Adair.”

“They could walk through that door and do the same thing,” Adair said.

Fork turned to examine the hotel room door, then turned back. “That’s why I’m moving you both in about thirty minutes.”

“Where to?”

“To a place with the tightest security in town.”

“No jail cell, thanks,” Adair said.

“I’m not talking jail cell,” Fork said, “I’m talking about nice clean rooms, semi-private bath, guaranteed privacy, phone, bed and breakfast, and all for only a thousand a week. Each.”

“Must be some breakfast,” Vines said. “Does she really need the money?”

“Yes, sir. She does.”

“Who?” Adair said.

“The wife of the late Norm Trice, who owned the Blue Eagle,” Vines said. “She lives in this huge old Victorian place where the security looks fairly good from what I saw.” Vines took in the hotel room with a small gesture. “Better than this anyhow.”

Adair looked at Fork. “And you’re recommending it?”

“Strongly.”

“I’m still going to go see my daughter.”

“It’s still a dumb idea.”

“He could fly down,” Vines said.

“From where?”

“You told me there used to be a field here.”

“I also told you the Feds closed it down.”

“That wouldn’t stop some pilots.”

“Who you got in mind?”

“That guy who owns Cousin Mary’s,” Vines said. “Merriman Dorr. He told me he could get himself a Cessna and fly us anywhere—providing the mayor said it was okay.”

After several seconds of frowning thought, Fork reluctantly agreed. “Well, at least it makes more sense than driving.”

Vines rose, walked over to Fork and stood, staring down at him. “I don’t quite understand all this sudden concern for our safety, Chief.”

“It’s not all that sudden,” Fork said. “I’ve been worried ever since Norm Trice got killed and those photos turned up. Soldier getting killed doesn’t make me worry any less. But what got me really bothered was when the mayor and I compared notes.”

Fork looked from Vines to Adair and back to Vines to make sure he had their attention. “Remember your telling everybody out at Cousin Mary’s about that doorman who gave you a description of a short fat priest with a snout who stuck those two shoeboxes full of money in the judge here’s closet?”

Vines said yes, he remembered.

“Well, if what B. D. says you said is right, then that doorman’s description of a short fat priest is a perfect fit to the description I got from an eyewitness who claims he saw the same guy go in and come out of the Blue Eagle the night poor old Norm Trice got shot.”

“Also a priest?” Vines asked.

“Dressed up like one. Now this same description, except for the priest suit, fits what one of my best detectives says the plumber who shot Soldier looks like. You both heard Ivy. And what all this means is that I’m damn near positive that the guy with the two shoeboxes full of money and the guy who killed Norm Trice and Soldier Sloan are all one and the same.”

“You’re also beginning to sound as if you know who he is,” Vines said, some reluctant admiration creeping into his tone.

“I know all right. He’s Teddy Smith—or Teddy Jones—depending on which one he feels like that day. The mayor and Dixie and I knew the little shit twenty years ago when I ran him out of town after he—well, it doesn’t matter now.”

“Smith,” Adair said, looking at Vines. “Wasn’t that the name of the man Paul told you he was going to see in Tijuana, the one—”

Three quick hard raps on the hotel room door interrupted Adair, who, now wearing a thoughtful expression, went over to open it. B. D. Huckins nodded at him as she strode in, ignored Kelly Vines and crossed the room to where the chief of police sat. She stood with her fists on her hips, glaring down at Sid Fork and impressing Adair with the way she managed to dominate the room without saying a word.

She was still glaring down at the chief of police when she said, “Cancel it, Sid.”

“Cancel what?”

She used a small, almost savage clenched-fist gesture to indicate and cancel Vines and Adair. “Them,” she said. “Everything. It’s all off.”

“Goddamnit, B. D., you can’t do that.”

“Watch me,” she said.

Sipping occasionally from the glass of straight bourbon she had demanded and
Kelly Vines had served her, Mayor B. D. Huckins paced the ocean-view Holiday Inn room, describing with curious relish how she first had learned of the death of Soldier Sloan.

“Was it from the chief of police or the city attorney or even from those two dopers who drive the meat wagon for Bruner Mortuary?” she asked, obviously not expecting an answer. “No, it was from Lenore Poole who strings for that flaky west coast radio network. And guess what Lenore wants to know?”

Since this wasn’t a real question either, none of the three men answered. The mayor took another small sip of her bourbon, turned to the window, inspected the Pacific and said, “Lenore wants to know my reaction to the serial killer who’s terrorizing Durango.”

She turned quickly from the window to fasten the cold gray stare on Sid Fork. “So here’s Lenore, who teaches English and a course in journalism at the high school—and who’s convinced she’s going to be a TV reporter in Santa Barbara, or maybe even down in L.A., once she saves up enough to have a little corrective surgery done on that chin of hers—telling me about how some plumber stabbed Soldier Sloan to death in an elevator.”

“I thought she was saving up for a Harley,” Sid Fork said. “That’s what she told me.”

B. D. Huckins ignored him and turned to Jack Adair, who sat in one of the room’s three easy chairs and appeared to be the most sympathetic member of her audience.

“Lenore says, Hey, there’s this old Sloan guy today and poor Norm Trice last night, so don’t you think it looks like we’ve got a serial killer on the loose? But all I can tell her is that I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation and she’d better talk to the chief of police, who, Lenore tells me, she’s been trying ‘to get ahold of’—this is an English teacher now—except he can’t be found.” Huckins switched the cold gray eyes back to Fork. “So where the fuck were you, Sid?”

“Right here.”

“Then why didn’t you call me—or have somebody call me?”

“I thought somebody did.”

The mayor responded to this admission of obvious incompetence with a resigned headshake and turned again to Jack Adair, the ex-politician, who remained her most sympathetic listener. “So now Lenore takes off in another direction and says if I won’t agree they’re serial murders by a crazed killer, maybe I’ll at least admit it’s a crime wave. And I tell her, Sorry, Lenore, no crime wave either, and hang up.”

She turned to Fork again. “That’s when I start calling around, Sid, trying to find you. But by then my phone starts ringing—so much for unlisted numbers—and it must be one hell of a slow news day because papers, TV and radio stations from all over are calling me and—”

“Where’s all over?” Fork asked.

“San Francisco. Vegas. L.A. Santa Barbara. San Diego. San Jose. Even Oakland. To me, that’s all over. And they all want to know about the, quote, hysteria that’s gripping a small sleepy California coastal town, unquote. A couple of them even played me parts of Lenore’s nutty radio story that adds two years to my age and says Durango’s thirty-eight-year-old mayor, quote, hotly denied, unquote, that two murders in two days are either a crime wave or the work of a serial killer. But check this, Sid. Lenore must’ve talked to some of your people because she said Soldier’s name is S. Pershing Sloan and that he’s a retired major general.” She paused, wrinkled her forehead into a puzzled frown and said, “Pershing?”

“His middle name,” Fork said, leaning forward in his chair and looking interested for the first time. “What’d Lenore say about Norm Trice?”

“She called him the owner of Durango’s most fashionable night spot.”

“Sounds like Lenore,” Fork said with a grin and asked, “So what’d you tell ’em, B. D.—all those reporters?”

“I told them to call the chief of police, who’d informed me that an arrest is imminent.”

“Good.”

“You know what all this will do, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Fork said. “It’ll create a slowdown in the hideout business.”

The mayor used three slow headshakes to disagree. “It’ll kill it, not slow it down.”

“It’ll come back.”

“Like hell.”

Sid Fork rose from his chair and walked slowly toward the window. “All right,” he agreed. “Let’s say it’s finished. Done with. But what about our deal with Vines and Adair here?”

“Unless you can change my mind,” she said, “that’s dead. Let ’em go hide out somewhere else.”

When he reached the window, Fork gave the ocean a quick just-checking glance, turned, leaned against the sill, folded his arms across his chest and regarded the mayor with the detached gaze of a man who already knows the answers he’ll get to his questions.

“Tell me something, B. D. Tell me how you’re going to scrape up the money to keep the library open after our fiscal year ends next month? Or start up that summer-in-the-park program you promised for June and here it is damn near July? Or keep the clap clinic open? Or even, for God’s sake, find enough money to clean up the horseshit after the parade on the Fourth?” Pausing to indicate both Vines and Adair with a nod, Fork said, “There’s a million bucks sitting right here in this room on two chairs. So before you walk away from it, think about what I just said.”

Huckins was already looking appropriately thoughtful when she turned and sank slowly into the chair Fork had just vacated. She rested her drink on the chair’s arm and thrust out her long bare tanned legs, crossing them at the ankles. She wore a bright yellow cotton blouse and a tan cotton twill skirt that ended at her knees. On her feet were a pair of Mexican sandals. Jack Adair stared at her legs until she asked, “Never seen a pair before?”

“Not recently,” he said.

Huckins once again looked at Sid Fork, who, arms still folded, leaned against the windowsill. “What I’ve been thinking about most, Sid, is the eighth of November—not the fourth of July.”

Mention of the election date transformed Adair’s sympathy into deep interest. “How’s it look?” he asked.

Still staring at Fork, she said, “What about it, Sid? What’s your guess on how many votes there’ll be in two unsolved murders with maybe more to come between now and November?”

“There’d be just one hell of a lot of votes in catching the killer, B. D.”

“But when’re you going to catch him? After Adair and Vines are dead?”

Before Fork could reply, Kelly Vines said, “We might as well get this straight. Jack and I aren’t going to sit around indefinitely, waiting for negotiations to start, while some guy dressed up like a priest or the United Parcel man is figuring out how to shoot, stab or garotte us. There comes a time when patience runs out and common sense takes over.”

“Which brings us to Sid’s Teddy theory,” the mayor said.

Fork made a noise far down in his throat that got the room’s attention. “It’s more than a theory,” he said.

The mayor gave him a dubious look. “You really think it was Teddy who killed Soldier Sloan?”

“Know it was. Killed him in the elevator all decked out like a plumber. Toolbox and everything.”

“So when you find Teddy and arrest him,” she said, “he’ll stand trial, right?”

Fork’s answering shrug could have meant yes, no or maybe.

“And if he stands trial,” the mayor continued, “a lot of funny stuff could come out about you, me, Teddy and Dixie from the old days—funny-peculiar stuff that most people don’t know or have forgotten. Stuff that wouldn’t do me any good on November eighth.”

“If there is a trial,” Fork said.

“You mean, of course, a trial that soon,” Adair said. “Before November eighth.”

“Ever,” Fork said.

“The chief’s talking about something else, Jack,” Vines said.

“I’m well aware of that.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to find Teddy,” Fork said, almost musing aloud. “Or maybe he’ll find me. But either way I’m pretty sure he’ll resist being arrested.”

“Which means you’re pretty sure you’re going to kill him,” Adair said in a mild and almost indifferent tone he might have used to remark upon the weather.

The tone made Fork suspicious. “That bother you just a whole lot, Judge?”

All mildness left Adair’s voice. It now sounded sternly judicial and, in his opinion, terribly pompous. “I’ve never been convinced that premeditated homicide is ever justified, whether committed by the individual or the state.”

“That’s bullshit if I ever heard it,” B. D. Huckins said.

“Is it now?”

“Sure it is. Look. You and Vines dreamed this thing up, this plan of yours, set it in motion and it’s already got two people killed. Maybe three, counting that friend of yours in Lompoc. So it’s time to switch off the sermonette. But if you guys want to walk away, fine. That’s your business. Of course, Sid and I’ll have to finish what you started because now there’s just no way to stop it.”

“None at all,” Fork said.

“I could be off base,” she continued, “but I think the only way you two can come out of this thing about even or a little ahead—and I’m not talking about money—is to finish what you started. Otherwise, you’ve wasted three lives for nothing—although maybe you can justify that but somehow I don’t think so. And that, Mr. Adair, is why I said you were talking bullshit.”

Adair, his cheeks a bright pink, stared down between his knees at the hotel room carpet while the woman and the two men stared at him. Finally, he looked up at Huckins and said, “After careful reconsideration, Mayor, you’re not altogether wrong.”

She looked at Vines. “What’s that mean?”

“It means we’re still in business.”

“Good,” B. D. Huckins said.