The Will to Kill Read online

  I read aloud from the typed copy: “‘Necessity, Plato says, is the father of invention.’ My fan is a show-off.”

  “He’s also wrong. It’s mother of invention, and Plato said something like that, but not exactly.”

  “Same precise use of commas,” I commented.

  “What’s the message, Mike? Neither note was threatening.”

  “They’re not threats, my darling girl. They’re dares.” I threw the sheet back on the desk, and my eyes met hers. “This case is heating up.”

  “Seems like it.”

  “I think it’s time you came in off the bench.”

  Her whole manner changed. She didn’t smile yet she blossomed somehow. “You have something for me?”

  I reached in my pocket for a want ad I’d torn out of the Sullivan County Democrat. Handed it to her.

  “Seems they need dolls to deliver drinks to gamblers,” I said, “at Honest Abe’s Log Cabin. Interested?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When I got back to the Dunbar place, it was around eight, and the cook, Dixie, was already off for the day. I scrounged in the fridge, found some slices of corned beef and Swiss cheese, and helped myself to rye bread and hot mustard and a bottle of Blue Ribbon. I put together a sandwich fit for a top-notch deli, and a canister on the counter provided a bag of potato chips that made it a regular feast.

  The kitchen had a Formica-topped table off to one side, not far from the rec room where not so long ago Madeline Dunbar had taken off her light-green fuzzy sweater for me. The door was closed but the muffled rumble of the TV was going. She might be in there right now, and who knew if this time I could maintain my virtue? So I just sat at the little table and chowed down. I was finished with the food but having a second Blue Ribbon when the back door in the kitchen opened and Willie Walters shuffled in.

  The scrawny caretaker with the wrinkled puss was once again in the white-and-black-and-red plaid hunter’s jacket, but it was unzipped and the flap-ear hat was missing, revealing an unkempt thatch of gray hair. It was only around fifty-five degrees out there now.

  Seeing me, he lit up like somebody threw a light switch. He hustled over and stood next to me, awkwardly.

  “You don’t suppose they’s another one of them Pabst Blue Ribbons in that icebox?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question, Willie?”

  “What kind of what?”

  I grinned and jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “Go ahead, Willie. I’ll cover for you.”

  He got the beer and came over and sat next to me. He guzzled some suds, then said, “I saw you pull in.”

  “Right. You opened the gate for me.”

  “I mean, I been wanting to talk to you, and saw you was back from the city.”

  “Word gets around.”

  “A place like this it sure does. I heard today you went down to see Jamie’s sister at Centre Street.”

  “I did,” I said, with a nod between gulps of brew.

  “How’s she holdin’ up?”

  I shrugged. “She’s doing all right, considering earlier she saw half of her brother on a morgue tray.”

  He shook his head, guzzled some more beer. “It’s a shame. She’s a nice gal. She really is.”

  “Why, Willie, did she come around here to visit Elder quite a bit?”

  “No, no! But he always spoke highly of her. She’s a school teacher, ain’t she?”

  “She is. But so in a way was her brother.”

  Humorless smirk and a nod. “Yep. He taught Chickie good. Really done well with the kid, all things considered.”

  “Chickie’s not really a kid, any more. He’s twenty, isn’t he?”

  Walters sighed. “Well, all kinds of ways, he’s still pretty much a kid.”

  “I can tell you one thing, Willie. That young man is no idiot. He may be stunted in how he’s developed, but there are brains in that noggin somewhere.”

  The caretaker finished off the beer, and let out a resounding burp. You don’t want to know what it smelled like.

  “Mr. Hammer, I been tryin’ to fill in for Jamie, but these Dunbars need to find somebody else to help out with that boy. I ain’t fit for doin’ his schoolin’. I’ll tell you one thing, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s really took a shine to you, yessir. When you was away today, he got real down at the mouth, real damn blue. You know, he’s over in the carriage house. Watchin’ The Man from U.N.C.L.E. long about now. You wouldn’t wanna give the boy a boost, and go over and watch with him? I’d do it myself but the Dunbars want me to stay down in that guardhouse. You know, I had to shoo reporters away twice the other morning.”

  I drained the beer and said, “Sure. I’ll go keep Chickie company a while. Kind of wanted to chat with him about things, anyway.”

  So I cleaned up after myself, then went out with Walters still at my side, chattering about this and that. We trotted over to the fieldstone path, which could only be directly accessed through the library, and made our way along. The two-story gray-stone carriage was silhouetted in the moonlight, and what had been snow-covered ground was now a patchwork of white and brown. The caretaker grinned as he pointed to the tilled ground at the rear of the building.

  “Way this thaw is settin’ in, we’ll be working in that garden ’fore you know it. That’s where I had Jamie all beat with that boy—gardening is my specialty.”

  Presumably not something he picked up as a guard in the Tombs.

  When we got to the side door that opened onto the recreation room, Walters paused and said, “I best get back to my post. They’s a fridge in there, but it’s only got milk and pop in it. So if you want more beer, you’ll have to hoof it back to the house.”

  Then he sauntered off, starting down the gentle slope.

  I opened the door and it hit me: the gas smell.

  That sulfurous, rotten-egg smell.

  Chickie was settled deep in his comfy chair opposite the television, where Napoleon Solo and his Russian partner were bantering. The young man was in western-styled pajamas with the Lone Ranger on a breast pocket and on his matching slippers as well. His head was to one side and he was out.

  Maybe dead.

  I ran to him, gathered him in my arms like he really was a slumbering child and not a young man of twenty, and hustled him out into the crisp air, away from the mouth of that gas chamber.

  Walters was well down the slope but still in sight and I yelled, “Willie! Get your ass up here! Now!”

  He turned, startled, but paused for only an instant as he could see me in the nearly full moon’s light with the human bundle sagging in my arms. By the time the caretaker reached me, I had rested my charge gently on the ground, finding a spot with neither snow nor mud, and I checked him over.

  “He’s breathing,” I said.

  “Jeez Louise! What happened, Mr. Hammer?”

  “Gas leak maybe. I’m going back to take a look. Are you a smoker, Willie?”

  “Sure. Why, you want a ciggie?”

  “No, and right now neither do you. A spark would send that carriage house up like a Titan missile. Here—I’ll help you get him to his feet. You strong enough to walk him by yourself, Willie?”

  “I’ll make myself that strong, Mr. Hammer.”

  The caretaker had Chickie on his feet now and was hobbling around with him. But he was mostly dragging the boy, who was not walking yet, not near conscious.

  I took a deep breath of good, clean non-city air and went back into the place, fast. The first most logical culprit would be that gas fireplace in one corner, a black metal conical freestanding job. No fire was going, but the switch in back was at full throttle. I shut it off, then started throwing open windows. I leaned my head out the last one, grabbed some fresh air, and headed upstairs. The gas had found its way into the two bedrooms, though not so heavily as below, and I opened the windows up there as well.

  When I emerged from the carriage house, I bent over with my hands on my knees and helped myself to some
more untainted air. Walters was walking the boy now, Chickie conscious but stumbling.

  I went over and got on the other side of the staggering young man, gripped him around the shoulders, and the caretaker and I drunk-walked him till he was fully conscious and able to stand without falling. Still holding onto him, we walked him up to the house and into the kitchen. I put him at the Formica-topped table and got him a glass of water from the tap.

  He drank about a third of it, then sat there in his pajamas with his hands folded in say-grace fashion. I plopped down next to him, and he looked at me with his boyish face needing a shave.

  “Mike, I fell asleep.”

  “You did at that.”

  “My tummy aches. My head hurts.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “You’ll get over that. Shouldn’t take too long. There was a gas leak over at the carriage house.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Gas that heats a house or a stove can make you sick if it isn’t handled right. Your room and that whole place has to be aired out. All the windows are open to let fresh air in. Follow, son?”

  Maybe he did, because he nodded.

  Walters, standing nearby, his concern making vertical lines of the wrinkles in his face, said, “You best not sleep over there tonight, Chickie.”

  I nodded. “We’ll talk to Dorena and get you a bed here at the house.”

  As if I’d summoned her, Dorena came in from the TV room. Apparently she was the one watching in there tonight—no sign of Madeline. Her hair ponytailed back, Dorena was all in light blue—a blouse with an Italian collar and capri pants, her feet bare.

  “What’s going on out here?” she asked, not irritated, just confused, the big brown eyes bigger yet. I could hear the TV going. Sounded like Peyton Place.

  I explained to her there’d been a gas leak, and watched her carefully to see how she reacted, since it wasn’t a leak at all. Someone had thrown that lever to fill the carriage house with gas. She had no reaction except concern for Chickie, who she hugged; he hugged her back. She was either innocent of the crime, or very, very good.

  Because it was becoming obvious that one of the siblings was trying to kill the others, to inherit the entire family fortune. And Dorena alone had not been the intended victim of an apparent murder attempt.

  I said, “The carriage house is getting a good airing out. We’ll need to find a bed for Chickie here.”

  She sat next to him and held both of his hands in hers. “Well, we have plenty of bedrooms, don’t we, Chickie? You can have your pick of the guest rooms.”

  He beamed at her. “I like the one that looks out on the trees.”

  “You got it. And you’re already in your jammies. You want to go on up now? Or would you like to watch TV with me?”

  Dark eyes brightened in the unused-looking face. “Can I stay up for The Fugitive? Jamie always let me stay up for The Fugitive.”

  She gave him a lovely smile. “Sure, honey. Just let me get you some aspirin to go with that water, okay?”

  She left to go do that, presumably from a bathroom cabinet, and I asked Chickie, “Did you have any visitors tonight?”

  “I hardly ever have visitors.”

  “No, I mean, did anyone drop by to say hello? From the family, this evening?”

  He shrugged. “Just my brother.”

  “Which brother?”

  “Wake. He came in and watched TV with me a while.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder again. “Chickie, I need you to think back. I need you to answer me very carefully. Did your brother Wake ever go near the fireplace tonight?”

  “Just to turn it off before he left. He said we didn’t need a fire tonight.”

  Walters was frowning. He got it. Like me, he knew. But he didn’t say anything. Not to Chickie or to Dorena, when she returned with the aspirin bottle.

  As her brother was taking the pills, I asked her, “Do you know if Wake went into the city tonight?”

  She shook her head, obviously wondering why I was asking. “I don’t believe so. I think he might be working out in his studio. He’s got an exhibit coming up.”

  “Who else is home?”

  “Madeline. She’s in the library, reading.” A tiny condescending smile twisted the coral-touched lips. “The new Harold Robbins paperback, I think. Dex is out, as usual. Likely at the Log Cabin. Why?”

  “No reason. I’m just a paid snoop, remember?”

  She smiled a little at that, then gathered Chickie and led him off.

  When they were gone, the caretaker said, “After Wake turned that fireplace off, he turned the gas back on, didn’t he, Mr. Hammer?”

  “Go back down to your guardhouse, Willie,” I said, ignoring the question. “Take a beer with you, if you like.”

  He did both those things.

  * * *

  The four-car garage was missing only one ride: Dex’s Lincoln. The others—Wake’s Jag, Dorena’s Thunderbird, and Madeline’s Triumph—were in their designated places. The lights in here were off, but toward the back a shaft of illumination poured through the hole in the ceiling left by the collapsible steps, which were dropped down and just waiting for me to come up.

  I got out the .45.

  I didn’t really think Wake would be waiting for me with a gun or knife, or maybe a blunt object like whatever killed Jamison Elder. He would do the innocent bit, claiming he had shut off the fireplace in the carriage house rec room, nothing more. That he clearly remembered switching the lever to OFF.

  Turning on that gas, with a flip of a lever, Wake could have increased the Dunbar inheritance pot by another million. If I hadn’t found Chickie in time.

  But if I accused Wake directly, and he thought I had him cold, I figured he might be capable of anything. There was something demented about all of this. Something of a madman scheming, making a murder attempt on Dex so that Abe Hazard would take the blame, faking two murder tries on himself, to arrange for his long-suffering wife to take the fall.

  And a madman—a mad killer—can do almost anything. I should know.

  I stood beneath the hole that was the gateway to the artist’s studio above and listened. Listened.

  But for a gentle night breeze at the windows, I heard not a thing. If Wake was working, wouldn’t there be some sound? I didn’t expect to hear a brush stroke, of course, but he’d be dabbing paint from his palette, and his chair would squeak, his sleeves would rustle as his arms moved.

  Unless he wasn’t working.

  Unless he was waiting for me, the only one who might discern his crazy scheme, the renowned vigilante P.I. who’d made more self-defense murder pleas than most people get parking tickets.

  I started up the steps. Slow, careful. If he wasn’t making noise, I sure as hell couldn’t afford to. The wood of a drop-down glorified ladder was not exactly designed to stay silent. But my gum soles helped, and I kept my eye on the glowing square above me, ready to trigger the son of a bitch to Hell if need be.

  The next step was the new one, the replacement—would it be rigged? I checked it with the hand gripping the .45, not an easy maneuver. Seemed fine. Seemed secure. As soon as I had half-emerged, I came up the rest of the way quick, not giving a damn about noise.

  His back was to me in his chair. He was in the white smock again and chinos, leaned back appraising his latest canvas, a work that seemed at first abstract but, if you looked carefully, a nude male figure could be made out. They’d love it in the Village.

  “Wake,” I said, approaching carefully, .45 poised to do whatever it had to. “I want you to stand up slowly. Hands high. Turn slow and easy. Okay, pal?”

  But he remained motionless.

  And I knew.

  Some of it was a familiar stench. Partly it was the Pollock-like splash of red spattering the canvas, not really going with the otherwise geometric nature of the design. Mostly it was the small black hole in the back of his chair.

  When I came around to where I could really see him, he was
n’t appraising anything but his own sudden death, his mouth and his eyes wide open, but sightless, soundless.

  Had someone else stopped the madman?

  Or was he just another victim?

  I explored the studio, looking for clues. The State Police lab boys would give it a real once-over, but I was looking for more obvious things. Like an ejected shell, or the lack of one. The former could mean an automatic had been used, if the killer didn’t collect his or her brass, and judging by the size of that bullet hole, probably a .22. The latter would mean a revolver had signed Wake Dunbar’s last painting. Again, something small, a purse gun, perhaps.

  And then there it was, about where an ejected shell might be: a single plastic green button earring.

  I left it where it was, knowing I shouldn’t tamper with the crime scene, but not ready to call in the official boys.

  Not yet.

  At the house, I checked the library to see if Madeline was still reading in there. In a cobalt-blue blouse and matching slacks, she was settled in a big, brown leather button-tufted chair, her long legs tucked up under her, a paperback in her lap (Where Love Has Gone) and her head drifted to one side. Her snoring was light enough to be feminine and heavy enough to be convincing.

  Dorena and Chickie were still in the TV room, watching The Fugitive, and Dex was as usual out. And, of course, Wake was dead as hell. So I should have the upstairs to myself…

  Madeline’s bedroom was smaller than mine, without a private bath, though still fairly spacious. As with the rest of the house, the floor was parquet, though a light-green shag throw rug was home to a French Provincial white bed and nightstands, with matching dresser against a wall and a vanity with round mirror in one corner, each with its own similar shag. The bedspread was deeper green and plush, the pillows in their pillowcases big and fluffy. A very female room. Well, Madeline was a very female female.

  I checked the closet, a walk-in affair with a lot of attractive, sexy outfits on hangers, some in the mod vein, but nothing Fifth Avenue. Her husband gave her a decent clothing allowance, it would seem, but not generous. Lots of green on display, but fabric, not folding money.

  A blind man could have found the .22 automatic.