Find a Victim

Chapter 30

I was grateful for the interruption when it came. Captain Danelaw opened the door and called Westmore out. The room was perfectly quiet for a moment after he left, the four living as still as the three dead. Then I said: “You’re in a box, Leonard. If you don’t talk now, you may not have another chance. You’ll be sniffling cyanide before you can turn around.”

“They can’t frame an innocent man.”

“But you’re not innocent. You took the truck and we know it. That makes you accessory to the driver’s murder, even if you didn’t shoot him yourself. Your only out is to turn state’s evidence.”

He thought about it “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth. How did it happen?”

He wagged his head in melodramatic despair. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway. What’s the use of telling you what I saw?”

“Try me.”

“You’ll call me a liar. I waited for the truck out on the highway. Kerrigan said it would be along around six o’clock. It went past me on schedule, in a breeze, rolling along about sixty. It stopped a half a mile or so down the road, and I followed along on foot as fast as I could.”

“What stopped it?”

“There was a car there. A green Chewy sedan. The Chewy drove away, and that’s all that I saw.”

“You saw it drive away from the truck?”

“Yeah. I was still a piece up the highway.”

“Was Aquista in it? This man?”

“Yeah. He was sitting in the front seat. I guess it was him.”

“Was he driving the Chewy?”

“No. There was somebody else with him.”

“Who was it, Bozey?”

“You won’t believe me,” he said. “I know it don’t make sense.”

“Say it anyway.”

He lifted his arm and pointed to the stretcher where Anne Meyer lay. “Her. I think it was her.”

“You saw that woman drive Aquista away from the truck on Thursday afternoon?”

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

Treloar shook his head from side to side in sad tolerance. “You’ll have to do better than that, boy. This woman has been dead for a week.”

“You saw her body Monday night,” I said.

Bozey began to talk in a high, rapid voice: “What’s the use? You don’t believe me when I tell you the truth. You’re all a bunch of creeps.” He raised his handcuffed arms and shook them at us. “You’re all in cahoots with the sheriff, tryin’ to railroad me and cover up for yourselves. Go ahead and gas me. I’m not afraid to die. I’m sick of breathing the same air you bastards breathe.”

The guard struck him across the face with the back of his hand. “Knock off now, guy. You’re getting loud.”

I pushed between them. “What’s that about the sheriff?”

“He was there in the pass when I broke out with the truck. He sat there in his Goddamn Mercury and let on he didn’t see me – didn’t even turn his head when I went by. He was setting me up for the murder rap. I can see it now.”

“There won’t be any murder rap if you’re leveling.”

“Won’t there? He’s got you all on a string.”

“Not me. And I’ve cut down bigger ones.”

“Who did they fall on? People like me?”

It was a hard question.

Danelaw opened the door and looked in. “What’s the trouble?”

“No trouble. Is Westmore out there?”

“He left.”

“Left?”

“That’s right. He’s got some official business.”

I stepped out into the corridor. “This is a hell of a time for Westmore to leave.”

“He has a hell of a reason. Meyer’s waiting for him at the courthouse.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked complacent. “I just arrested Meyer.”

“On what charge?”

“Murder. I went over to Meyer’s house last night and got his permission to look around. I let on I was searching for traces of his daughter. He made no objection, probably didn’t know what could be done with old bullet. There were plenty of old bullets in that shooting-gallery of his down in the basement. I dug some out of the boards where he pins the targets.

“Most of them were too beat up to be any use to me. A few were in pretty good shape, though – good enough for the comparison microscope. It took me until now to sort them out and make my case, but I made it. Some of the slugs in Meyer’s basement were fired from a .38 revolver. And the ones that were good enough to compare came from the same revolver as the murder slugs. That includes the one that killed Anne Meyer.”

“Are you sure?”

“I can prove it in court. Wait until you see my blown-up microphotos. I can prove it even if we never find the gun. You see, Meyer has a .38 revolver registered under his name. I asked him for it when I arrested him. He told me a cock-and-bull story, claimed he didn’t have it any more.”

“What was his story?”

“He said he lent it to his daughter last fall and never got it back. Of course he’s lying.”

“I thought so yesterday. Now I’m not so certain.”

“Sure he’s lying. He has to lie. He’s got no alibi for any of the shootings. He was by himself all day Sunday, when Annie got it, and he had plenty of chance to drive up to the lake. On Thursday afternoon, he claims his other daughter for an alibi. But she was right there in his house from five o’clock on, and he didn’t get home until after seven. He admits that himself, he claims he went for a drive when he left the yard. The same for the Kerrigan shooting. No alibi.”

“No motive, either.”

“He had a motive. Aquista and Kerrigan both went with Annie at one time or another.” His thin nose wrinkled, as if it detected an odor worse than iodoform. “And Meyer had some kind of an insane crush on his own daughter.”

“It’s a pretty story,” I said. “Did you tell it to the sheriff?”

For the first time Danelaw seemed uneasy. “I haven’t seen him. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to put him in the position of arresting his own father-in-law. I went over his head for once and laid it out for Westmore.”

“And Westmore bought it?”

“Sure he did. Don’t you?”

“I’ll take an option on it. But I want to do a little more shopping around. Meyer drives a Lincoln, doesn’t he?”

“That’s right. He has another car, too, an old Chewy he uses for transportation.”

“A green Chewy sedan?”

“Yeah. I’m going to work on those cars next shot out of the box. One of them must have been seen around the time and place of one of the shootings.”

“I can save you some trouble there. Talk to the prisoner inside. Ask him about the car Aquista drove away in on Thursday.”

Danelaw turned to the door. I went the other way.