The Will to Kill Read online

  I gave him a doubtful look. “It could have hugged the banks where nobody spotted it.”

  “Possibly. Anyway, give the M.E. a little time and he’ll lay a time period on it. These odd kinds of deaths always fascinate the guy. Besides, what are you so interested for?”

  “They fascinate me too,” I said.

  “Stick to live females, pal, with both their top and bottom halves.”

  “Reminds me of the joke about the two mermaids—”

  Before I could finish, McGee again knocked at the open door and bulled in. He pulled an unlit cigar from his mouth and handed Pat another sheet.

  “An easy one, Captain. Jamison Elder was employed as a butler on the Dunbar estate outside Monticello.”

  Pat’s face furrowed. “Not Chester Dunbar?”

  Where had I heard that name?

  The detective nodded. “That’s the one. Elder left yesterday, right after dinner, for a week’s vacation… to go see a relative in Delaware. This morning the State Police found his car jammed into a snowbank at the east end of a covered bridge over a stream feeding into the Hudson. The family’s pretty shook up about it. Elder had been with them a long time.”

  “Were the keys in the car?”

  “Nope. It was locked tight. The state cop I talked to said it looked like Elder skidded in and got stuck, couldn’t back out. The nearest phone is a place near the entrance to Bear Mountain Bridge, and he could have been heading there to get a wrecker.” He paused and stuck the cigar back in his mouth. “That road runs along the embankment. He could have been flipped over by a passing car.”

  Pat was frowning. “Hit-and-run?”

  “Could be,” McGee said, with a who-gives-a-damn shrug. “A fender could have lifted him from below the waist.”

  I said, “I don’t think so.”

  They both looked at me.

  “He would have been wearing an overcoat,” I said.

  The dick shook his head. “Not necessarily. I checked that out. The temperature got up over forty last night, and walking like that? Could’ve warmed him up, and he carried it.”

  I said, “Then you should advise the state boys to look around the area to find any coat Elder might’ve worn.”

  McGee glanced at Pat, who nodded his agreement.

  “Will do,” the dick said. “You need anything else, Captain?”

  Pat shook his head. “No. Good job.”

  When the detective left, Pat was staring past me into nothing. Something was really eating him. He just sat there muttering, “Damn,” again and again.

  I looked at him sideways. “Okay, ‘damn.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”

  His eyes rolled. “Brother, you really know how to make waves.”

  “I didn’t make the waves, that half a corpse did.”

  “Don’t you remember Chester Dunbar?” he asked, sitting forward. “The millionaire who took on the black market trade during the war, and had enough dough and influence to get half a dozen crooked politicians bounced out on their butts into jail cells?”

  “I missed the papers when I was in the Pacific.”

  “Well, right after the war, Dunbar’s money backed that independent investigation of that kid… Christie? The young officer they accused of excessive force after he shot that guy during a hold-up?”

  “Yeah—I do remember that. Vaguely.”

  “Hell, they would have nailed Christie to the wall to please the bleeding hearts and the local politicians, if Dunbar hadn’t forced the issue.”

  I shifted in my hard chair. “So he was a good citizen. Sounds like he could afford to be. What are you all worked up about?”

  Pat’s eyes were distant, his expression somber. “Because Dunbar used to be a cop, Mike. A damn good one. Back when you and I first got out of the academy, he was my precinct captain. That initial year, he guided me through some rough patches, really put me on the right path.”

  I was nodding. “Right. I remember now. I met Dunbar a few times. But didn’t he quit the force in the late ’40s?”

  Pat nodded. “Dunbar was one of these home-grown inventors, ever since he was a kid—always experimenting and fooling around in his basement workshop. That Condon Hale character was a kind of mentor. Well, believe it or not, he invented an electronic gizmo that modulated radio frequencies to control torpedoes. During the war, he let the government have the rights for the duration. But after that, he cleaned up on it. Invented lots of other profitable stuff, too. Like the pacemaker, which would come in handy for you if you had a heart.”

  So that was how an ex-cop became a millionaire.

  “For a while,” Pat said, “he worked with that Hale character, but it didn’t last long. Bad blood over an invention both men claimed as theirs. But that must be how Chet met Jamison Elder… when Elder was Hale’s butler.”

  I said, “I’m sure your pal Chet’ll be sorry to see his butler go. But otherwise, how’s a probable accidental death going to bother him?”

  Pat leaned across the desk, his face serious, his eyes intense. “It won’t bother him one small bit, old buddy. Chester Dunbar’s been dead three years. Had a heart attack one night and couldn’t get to his nitro capsules in time. He was on the floor, where he’d been crawling toward the bathroom and the pills. The coroner up there ruled that accidental death too.”

  “So?”

  Pat’s mouth was a thin, hard line. “Chet never took a chance like that in his life! He used to keep two spare pills on him at all times, in case the bottle was out of reach.”

  “Even in his pajamas?”

  “Even there. They weren’t on him that night.”

  I sat forward. “Wasn’t that enough to prompt an investigation?”

  His mouth twisted in a scornful grimace. “Yes, but there was enough to stop it before it began. Chet complained of chest pains that afternoon, and had his medicine brought to him, and retired to his room to rest and get feeling better. The next time he was seen… he was dead. There were still traces of nitro in his body, so it was assumed that he’d had another attack, used the spares and lay down, then had another, more serious, attack later. Apparently couldn’t make it to the bottle on a table by where he’d been reading earlier. And that was all she wrote.”

  “Sounds possible.”

  “Not when you knew Chet.” He rocked back in his swivel chair, staring past me at the wall. “The books are closed on it, Mike… but the smell’s still there.”

  “It’s out of your jurisdiction, Pat.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “I get it. I do get it. You see a second accidental death and the accidental part starts to bug you.”

  “It does.”

  “So what else is bugging you about it?”

  “I don’t know, Mike. Chet’s kids, maybe.”

  “Somebody got anxious to inherit, you think? Sounds like he had plenty of loot.”

  “Oh, he did, but my understanding is that everybody’s taken care of. Equal shares.”

  “Equal suspects. You know these kids?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “So what’s the rundown, Pat?”

  He grunted something like a laugh. “Two are bums, one’s beautiful, and one’s a congenital idiot.”

  I almost laughed myself. “That’s a hell of a summary. How about a little more?”

  With a look of disgust, he elaborated: “Dexter and Wake were his late wife’s kids by a previous marriage. Their own father was already dead, and Chet adopted them legally after he and their mother got married. Those two are in their mid-thirties and have lived off their father’s wealth forever. Lovely Dorena was the Dunbar couple’s first natural child. Three years later they had Charles, ‘Chickie,’ they call him. His wife died having the boy. Chet was never the same.”

  “Tough.”

  “Damn right,” Pat said. He sighed. “The law firm of Hines & Carroll has been taking care of the estate since Chet died. The mansion is, well, it’s a damn mansion, and they all live there, the
kids—adult children, I should say, and you can take that any way you like. Until now, though, everything’s been going along pretty well.” He sighed heavily. “I would hate like hell to see the papers make anything of Elder’s death.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  Pat shrugged. “I just know Chet wouldn’t have wanted the publicity. He turned reclusive after the retarded boy was born. They’ve been protecting Chickie since they found out he was… special. Kind of keeping the lid on. You see, the other Dunbars are still in the social swing, and I doubt if more than half a dozen people know about there being the likes of Chickie in the family.”

  “Not an easy secret to keep.”

  “Maybe so, but they pretty much kept it. You know what really used to bother Chet? Ever since she was very small, Dorena has been scared to death of marriage… for fear of adding another subnormal member to the family. That could be a rough damn prospect to live with—not just for Dorena, but Chet, who would dearly have loved to have grandchildren.”

  “Hell, Pat, didn’t Dunbar check this slow kid out with the medical people?”

  “Oh, he had Chickie thoroughly checked out, as much as possible. But it’s still uncertain whether it’s a congenital condition or one of those things that happened with a difficult labor. One doctor even suggested possible brain damage from improper use of forceps during the delivery, but refused to be quoted on it.”

  I said, “The possibility of malpractice probably had the medics covering each other’s tails.”

  Pat didn’t contradict that. “Funny thing is, Chet’s hope was that it was accidental.” He fired up another cigarette and took a deep pull on it. “And now here we are… with another goddamn accident.”

  I was shaking my head. “Pat, these things don’t have anything to do with each other—a possible accident at birth in delivery, a heart patient who didn’t take his medicine, a family retainer who likely had an automobile accident?”

  But I was remembering what I’d said to that cop at the scene: You’re still making excuses for the world. You’ve seen so much dirt, you’ve started hiding it under the rug.

  “If nothing else,” Pat said, “I ought to express my condolences as a friend of the family… You doing anything today?”

  “Lunch date with Velda,” I said.

  Velda was my secretary, a P.I. herself, and my partner in several ways.

  “Cancel it,” he said, “and let’s take a run up there.”

  “I thought you wanted me to stick with live females.”

  “Both halves of her will still be intact,” he said, “when we get back.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  You came over the crest of the hill and saw the Dunbar estate snowbound in all its formal elegance like something on a Christmas card. Winter ivy relieved the stark gray stones of the outer wall and buildings, the pines towering past the roof peaks, the only motion the thin wisps of wood smoke that rose wraith-like from two of the massive chimneys.

  Overhead the sun made the snow sparkle with a weird brilliance, burning it from the roadbeds to run bubbling into drainage ditches. A mile away a horseshoe bend in the Hudson River was a jigsaw puzzle of broken ice flowing toward the Atlantic from the spring thaw that had hit farther upstate.

  We drove up to the wrought-iron gates and waited while a slight figure in his fifties in a black-and-white-and-red plaid hunter’s jacket and a matching cap with ear flaps came crunching in galoshes through the snow out of the fieldstone guardhouse on the left and inspected us both through the bars.

  Leaning on the wheel, Pat said, “That’s Willie Walters. He used to be a jailer in the Tombs. Got retired out early and was having a hard time of it till Chet put him back on his feet with a caretaker job here.”

  I took in the looming gates. “He must like being behind bars.”

  Pat grinned at me. “Hell, man, that’s the ultimate in socialism. They tell you where and when to go, what to do and how to do it. You’re clothed, fed, numbered, and protected behind a wall. What a feeling of security. It’s a wonder you haven’t tried it yet.”

  “Drop dead,” I said pleasantly.

  Pat got out and spoke to the slender caretaker, getting a watery look of recognition in sky-blue eyes and an enthusiastic handclasp through the gate. Willie Walters had a face wrinkled beyond his years and a pointed chin that gave him a Punch-and-Judy look. He waved Pat and me through the gates, leaving them ajar with the car still outside. Just inside, my friend introduced me to Walters before asking him, “Anything new on Elder?”

  “Naw. Got the body in New York yet, ain’t they?”

  What was left of it.

  “In the morgue,” Pat said.

  The caretaker’s voice was high-pitched and raspy, like a table saw. “Heard them two boys arguing about which one has to go down there to identify him. Guess Wake’s goin’ in to do that later.”

  I said, “‘Boys?’ Aren’t the Dunbar brothers both in their thirties?”

  “That they are,” Walters said. “But they’re still a couple of kids, you ask me. About a year apart, Dex the older. Them two are pissers! Wake fancies himself as some kinda artist, and Dex goes into town now and then to a little office, tendin’ his investments. Really, neither one wants to do nothin’ but drink and spend money and chase tail—even Wake, the married one!”

  “Everybody needs a hobby,” I said.

  “What gets me is that Jamie’s been here almost twenty years, like a part of the family, and them punks don’t even give a rat’s ass that he’s dead!”

  Pat asked, “How about Dorena?”

  “Oh, she’s the best of a bad lot. You can tell she really cares—her and Jamison was friendly, in a servant and master kinda way.” He shook his head and the ear flaps flapped. “But it’s Chickie what’s really shook up about it. Jamie like to raise him from a pup. Mr. Dunbar just let Jamie take charge of the boy… even fixed up the old carriage house so they could live there together. I’m up there, too.”

  “You said ‘boy’ again,” I said. “How old is Chickie, anyway?”

  “Twenty. But he’s half that in his mind.” Walters sighed, staring at his toes. “Don’t know what that kid’s gonna do now. Dorena, she’s good with him, really loves the boy, but she’s got her own life to live… the others? They don’t even make out like he’s alive.”

  Pat nodded toward the mansion-like structure. “Everybody up at the house?”

  “Sure are—at each other, like usual. Them lawyers are comin’ out later. Mr. Dunbar had us all in the will, you know—me and Jamie, I mean. We were the only full-time live-in staff, but there’s a cook, a maid, and some cleaning gals from town. All colored.”

  I asked, “What are the ‘kids’ at each other about?”

  He sighed again but there was a weary laugh in it. “Hell’s bells, they fight about everything! I think they’re mostly scared somebody’s gonna poke their noses in here ’cause of Jamie buying it. You’d think he done it on purpose! But what I think is they’re afraid somebody’s gonna open up Mr. Dunbar’s death for another look-see.”

  Pat asked, “Why, Willie—do you suspect foul play where Chester Dunbar is concerned?”

  He held up mittened hands of surrender. “I said too much already. I’m just a hired hand—what the hell do I know? But what a bunch those kids is! Good thing Chet left a will they couldn’t break, or they’d have tangled asses all over the place, scratchin’ after his dough.”

  Pat threw me a glance, then said to the caretaker, “What about Jamie Elder, Willie? You think that was an accident?”

  The caretaker snorted. “Well, he sure didn’t take himself out! Jamie liked it here; pay was good, room and board was free, and Chickie was like his own kid. He woulda never took a week of vacation if his sister wasn’t sick. He kinda got it in his head that she was on her last legs, and there was no stopping him.”

  Pat nodded. “Who was supposed to take care of Chickie while Jamie was gone?”

  “Ah, the kid ain’
t no trouble nohow. Sits and watches TV, plays with kid toys. Gardens all the time, when he can. That’s all he knows and understands, really. Maybe he wasn’t born with much of a brain, but he’s sure got a green thumb—digs plants, trims bushes. I taught him that. When the thaw comes, he’ll be back at it.”

  “Still,” Pat said, “it sounds like young Chickie’ll be lost without Jamie.”

  “Won’t be easy on him. But Dorena looks out for him pretty good, and sometimes the boy comes down here and we mess around some, tossin’ a ball around. Like I say, I stay up in the carriage house with him—so did Jamie. But right now, they moved me down here…” He nodded to the modest fieldstone guardhouse. “…to stay on the gates round-the-clock, in case anybody comes pokin’ around, sticking their nose in. You know, reporters and sightseers and such.”

  I offered the old man a cigarette, took one myself, and said, “You said it hit Chickie hard about Elder, Willie. Who broke the news to him?”

  The wizened face scowled as he lighted up the Lucky. “It was Dexter—that bum! It was almost like he enjoyed it. Chickie’s twenty years old but he bawled like a baby. Did the same thing when the dog was killed, and when them lousy kids drowned those ducks in the pond.”

  “Someday he’ll kick back at Dexter,” I said.

  Pat gave me a wry grin and shook his head. “Not likely, Mike. Unfortunately, Chickie’s deficient physically as well as mentally. He can’t weigh over a hundred-twenty pounds and only comes up to my shoulder.”

  “Smaller than that have got even,” I pointed out.

  Pat shrugged, flipped his cigarette into the driveway, then stared up at the big house. “Okay, Willie, keep doing what you’re doing and don’t let in any strangers. But if Corporal Sheridan from the State Police stops by, well, of course send him up.”

  “Will do, Captain.” He squinted at Pat and me and managed a feeble smile. “Glad you come by. Feels like old times. You, uh… don’t think somebody murdered ol’ Jamie, do you?”

  “Don’t know,” Pat said. “What’s your opinion, Willie?”