When Old Men Die (29 page)

I didn't know much about the inheritance laws, but there was still a lot of money in Macklin's account.
 
I supposed that Cathy was his only heir, but would the money be considered legally hers?

While I was wondering, Lytle was talking.
 
"But you're wrong about one thing, Mr. Smith.
 
I didn't kill
Braddy
Macklin."

"Who did?" I asked.
 
"Alex Minor?"

Lytle was genuinely surprised.
 
"What do you know about Alex Minor?"

"Enough," I said.
 
"I didn't know you two were friends."

"Not friends exactly," Lytle told me.

And then it all snapped together.
 
"I'll be damned.
 
Minor wasn't working for any syndicate back East.
 
He was working for you."

Lytle looked regretful.
 
"I really wish you hadn't reached that conclusion, though it is of course true.
 
Or at least partially so."

"
You're
trying to buy the Retreat.
 
You're not really opposed to gambling at all, not if you're the one making a profit from it."

"Sad but true.
 
Gambling took everything from me.
 
Everything.
 
I thought it was time to see what it could give back."

"But what about the money?"

"I have . . . partners.
 
In a way, you were right about Minor when you said he was from the East.
 
He most certainly was.
 
But the men for whom he worked didn't want to make a direct attempt to achieve a presence on the Island.
 
They wanted a respected local, a man whose reputation was above reproach, to, as they put it, 'front for them.'
 
I was the man they chose."

"Why you?"

He shrugged thin shoulders.
 
"Who knows?
 
I'm sure they did a great deal of research to discover just the right man.
 
Certainly I need the money.
 
I'm known to be rabidly opposed to gambling, but when the right moment arrives, I'll announce my conversion and say that I'm convinced gaming will be good for the Island if the right man is in charge."

"And the right man is you."

"Who could be better?"

I suppose he had a point there.
 
"So you had Macklin killed not just because you hated him but because he was working for the opposition.
 
Your reputation is really going to suffer on the Island after that gets out, Lytle."

"No one will find out about any of the sordid details.
 
That is all in the past."

"The people here have awfully long memories," I reminded him.
 
"And the police have Minor.
 
He'll tell them what happened."

"Minor knows very little, Mr. Smith, and he won't tell about me."

"You can't be sure of that."

"No, I suppose that I can't, but I am convinced that Minor's masters are not the sort of men who would easily forgive him if he talked too much."

"He killed Macklin," I said, though I still found it hard to believe.
 
He'd sounded so convincing.
 
"The cops will get him for that, and he might talk to save himself."

"No," Lytle said.
 
"He won't talk for that reason.
 
A good attorney will get that charge dropped almost at once, even if it is made.
 
You see, Minor did not kill
Braddy
Macklin."

I was getting confused.
 
I thought I had things all figured out, but apparently I didn't.

"You've already told me that you didn't kill Macklin," I said.
 
"And if you didn't, and Minor didn't, who did?"

"I did," Paul Lytle said from behind me.

I turned and saw him in the doorway.
 
He had a .38 leveled at my chest.

Now I knew who'd been watching me from the window as I drove away on my first visit.

I was just sorry I hadn't figured it out sooner.

P
atrick Lytle smiled.
 
"Paul hated
Braddy
Macklin even more than I did."

"He stole from me," Paul explained.
 
His voice was curiously toneless.
 
"He took my inheritance.
 
He took money that was rightfully mine, and he had to pay for that.
 
I knew he had a key to the Retreat, and I called him about meeting there to discuss working for us.
 
He didn't want to do that, but who cared?
 
I shot him for what he did to me and my grandfather."

It was a nice little speech, and he probably believed most of it.
 
Maybe he even believed all of it.

But I didn't.
 
I was sure that his grandfather had planted the seed of revenge in his mind so that Paul would do what Patrick couldn't.

Not that it made any difference.
 
Macklin was dead all the same, and he'd been killed by one of the
Lytles
.

"And Harry was there," I said.
 
"He saw you kill Macklin."

"That was unfortunate," Paul said.
 
"If he hadn't yelled out when I shot Macklin, I might never have known he was hiding there.
 
He must have been somewhere in the back and come to see what was going on.
 
I would never have thought he could get through that hold in the floor so quickly."

"He did, though," I said.
 
"And he can still identify you."

"That is also unfortunate," Patrick said.
 
"But we'll find him eventually.
 
He doesn't seem exactly eager to go to the police, which is fine with us but too bad for him."

"If something happens to me, the cops are going to be very suspicious," I said.
 
"They know I was looking for Harry."

"And so does your client, I'm sure," Patrick said.
 
"But suspicions really mean nothing.
 
No one will be able to trace you to us."

"You're wrong about that," I said.
 
"People know where I am."

Paul laughed.
 
"I doubt that.
 
But even if they do, it won't help you.
 
We'll simply tell them that you were here, that you knew nothing of interest to us, and that you left."

"My Jeep's out front," I pointed out.

"I can drive," Paul said.
 
"It won't be there long."

"He's wasting our time," Patrick told his grandson.
 
"Kill him."

"In here?" Paul said.

The old man looked at his grandson with distaste.
 
"No, of course not in here.
 
Take him to the garage."

Paul stepped out of the room and motioned with the gun barrel for me to follow him.
 
I guess he thought that I would, though I couldn't imagine why he'd think I'd want to make things easy for him.

I wished I'd brought along the Mauser.
 
If I'd had it, I would have tried to make things even more difficult for them, but the pistol was outside, under the front seat of the Jeep.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said, standing right where I'd been all along.
 
"If you want to kill me, you'll have to do it here."

Patrick Lytle wheezed a sigh.
 
"It would be messy.
 
But Paul can clean it up.
 
You might at least have a little dignity, Mr. Smith."

I didn't see anything dignified about dying in a garage as opposed to an old man's bedroom.

"Sorry," I said.
 
"I'm just naturally uncooperative."

"Very well.
 
Shoot him, Paul."

Paul might have shot Macklin, but that didn't make him a cold-blooded killer.
 
He still had to take a deep breath before he pulled the trigger of the pistol.

When he breathed in, I dived for him.

He fired a shot that singed the top of my shoulder and we both heard the unmistakable sound of a bullet hitting flesh.

Patrick Lytle gave a weak cry and began flopping around in his wheelchair just as I crashed into his grandson.
 
The two of us hit the floor in a heap, and Paul shoved me aside, swinging the pistol at my head as he did so.

If he'd hit me, it would have been the end of things from my point of view, but I got my arm up in time to intercept the gun, which hit me right on the elbow.
 
A sharp pain shot through my arm, and then the whole arm went numb.
 
Paul jumped up and scooted for the door.

I was a little slower, and I took the time to look back at Patrick Lytle.
 
He was leaning limply over the arm of the wheelchair, and he wasn't flopping anymore.

I didn't think that he'd be going anywhere, so I went after Paul.

I heard a door slam in the back of the house, but I wasn't going after Paul without a weapon.

So I ran to the front and went to the Jeep.
 
By the time I had the Mauser out of the case, Paul was backing the van out of the garage.

I shot three times.
 
The first one missed, but the next two hit the back tire on the driver's side.
 
I put a couple of slugs into the other back tire just for good measure, and Paul brought the van to a stop.

He jumped out and started running toward the back of the house.
 
I thought that there was probably a gate in the fence somewhere in that direction, though I didn't know where it was.
 
Paul did, however.
 
I had to catch up with him before he got to it, either that or shoot him.
 
I didn't want to shoot him.
 
I was afraid I might kill him.
 
I'd been lucky with Minor, but I couldn't be sure my luck would hold.

I started running, hoping that my knee would hold up.
 
And that I wouldn't run into a tree.
 
I dodged the trunks as best I could, but the low-hanging branches kept swatting me in the face.

Paul kept running.
 
The fence was about thirty yards away, and I could see that I wasn't going to catch him before he got there.
 
I was going to have to shoot.

I stopped and gripped the Mauser with both hands.
 
I tried not to shake too hard.
 
Firing a pistol after running is never a good idea.
 
You might hit someone by accident.

My shot glanced off one of the concrete posts of the gate, which was what I'd intended, and it was close enough to Paul to throw a scare into him.
 
He looked back over his shoulder, and that caused him to trip.
 
He landed on his belly and skidded across the damp grass.

But he didn't drop the pistol.
 
He was able to twist around and fire.

None of his shots came close.
 
Falling affects accuracy even more than running.

Before he could get back to his feet, I caught up with him. He fired one more shot, which missed me by ten feet, and I kicked the pistol out of his hand.

He lay back on the ground and looked straight up at the night sky, his eyes blank.
 

"You can get up now," I said.

After a few seconds, he did.

W
e went back to the house, and I had Paul sit in the spindly chair in his grandfather's bedroom.
 
I kept the pistol on him while I checked Patrick.
 
There was a dark stain on his shirt, and it looked as if Paul had shot him right in the heart.

Paul didn't even look at the old man.
 
He just sat quietly in the chair while I called the police.

I
missed my date with Cathy that night, but I promised to make up for it later.
 
She seemed to hope that I would.
 
I didn't tell her that I'd caught up with her father's killer.
 
That could come later too.

I didn't know what to tell her about her inheritance or about the way her father had obtained the money to buy Seawall Courts.
 
I was sure that some of it would come out at Paul Lytle's trial, and Cathy could decide then what to do.

After the police finally got through with me, I went by Dino's house.
 
Evelyn was there, and they were watching
Nightline
.
 
They turned it off to hear my story, which took a while.