One Good Deed

Chapter 16

After Jackie dropped him off, Archer walked down the hall of the Derby Hotel. As he passed by Number 615, a man in his forties stepped out dressed in a wrinkled dark blue three-piece pinstriped suit, worn black leather shoes, and a solid red tie that could have done with some laundering. He was about five-ten and 160 pounds, and looked lean and wiry and tough, with a face that reminded Archer of a boxer he had once seen in the ring during an impromptu match he’d attended during the war when they’d had a brief respite from fighting. A jutting chin of granite, a nose knocked off center, two hardened lumps for cheeks, and flattened, cauliflower ears. His hair was thick, unkempt, and graying. Over his mouth was a ribbon of dark mustache. He wore a black homburg with a gray band.

Most remarkably for Archer, his eyes were twin darts of crystallized coal, or close to it. They were the calmest pair of eyes Archer had ever seen.

Those eyes now looked at Archer with interest.

“You staying here on this floor, son?” the man said.

“Who’s asking?”

The man opened his coat, revealing a silver pointy badge on his vest. “State police. Detective Lieutenant Irving Shaw is asking, Mr....?”

“Archer. You’re a homicide dick, then?”

Shaw ignored this and said, “So you’re Archer? You were at Miss Jackie Tuttle’s residence this morning, correct? The deputies reported that to me.”

“I was.”

“You two going out or something?”

“Just a friend. Told the same to your deputies.”

“A friend who’s at her house early in the morning? You sure you didn’t spend the night?”

“I slept here last night. I went to see Jackie at her place this morning.”

“Why that early?”

“Missed her, I guess.”

Shaw took out a worn, small notebook and a stubby pencil and wrote something down. “You say you slept here last night? What room?”

“Number 610.”

Shaw eyed the location of Archer’s room and his bits of coal eyes lit up like someone had flamed them.

“You hear anything last night?”

“Like what?”

“Anything out of the ordinary.”

“I haven’t been here that long. So I don’t think I know what’s ordinary for Poca City yet.”

“Just use your common sense then.”

“No, I slept pretty hard. Didn’t hear anything.”

Shaw wrote something else down. “You coulda just told me that to begin with.”

“I could’ve, sure. Sorry about that.”

“You’re in from Carderock Prison, I hear.”

“And I served my time.”

“Not all of it. I looked you up. You’re on parole now. Ernestine Crabtree?”

“That’s right. Already reported in.”

“Good for you. So, your story is you were asleep from when to when?”

“Oh, about midnight to six or so.”

“You see the deceased last night?”

Archer had been stunned that the two deputies had not earlier asked this question. But this fellow Shaw appeared to be a far superior sort of person. He seemed to like asking questions as much as Archer did.

Shaw had his pencil poised over his notebook.

“You hear me, Mr. Archer?”

“Yeah, I saw him. He was drunk. Outside the Cat’s Meow. Me and Miss Tuttle helped him to his bed in there and left.”

“So you were at the bar last night with them?”

“I’m not allowed in the bar. Against my parole.”

“So it is. Then how’d you run into them?”

“I was passing by the bar last night when I saw them come out. Miss Tuttle was having a struggle holding him up. So, I helped her out.”

Shaw rubbed at his mustache with the pencil. “And she let a stranger do that?”

“I had met her before. Both of them, actually.”

“Is that right? Where would that have been?”

Archer felt something go hard in the pit of his stomach.

“Around town. My first night here, actually. We struck up a conversation. Interesting man. And she was nice, too.”

Shaw wrote something else down and shook his head.

“What?” asked Archer, trying to peer at his scribblings.

“Every question I ask you, it seems to get deeper and deeper.”

“What does?”

He ignored this query, too. “The deputies said Mr. Pittleman had hired you to collect a debt owed by one Lucas Tuttle?”

“That’s right.”

“And you have not been successful?”

“Not yet.”

“Would that have been Miss Tuttle who dropped you off in front of the hotel? I just happened to be looking out the window.”

Archer felt the stomach pit grow larger. “Yeah, it was. We went out to pay our respects to Mr. Pittleman’s widow.”

He chuckled. “Short time in town and you met all these folks already. Impressive.”

“I’m a friendly sort.”

“I’m sure you are, Archer, I’m sure you are. So you and Miss Tuttle helped the deceased from the bar back to here and put him in his bed right there in Room 615? Correct?”

“That’s right.”

“And what time was that?”

“Eleven or so.”

“Eleven or so. And then what’d you two do?”

Archer wanted to lie, desperately wanted to say they had gone their separate ways, but he was unsure what Jackie would say, and once you lied to the law, it was all over.

“We went to my room.”

The man’s eyebrow went up as he wrote this down. “You went to your room. Number 610 right there? You and Miss Tuttle?”

“That’s right.”

“What for?”

“We had a drink, well maybe more than one when all was said and done.”

“Doesn’t your parole forbid the consumption of alcohol?”

“Does it?”

Shaw gave him a patronizing look. “What else did you have?”

“Why is that important?”

“Use your common sense again, Archer.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that man’s death.”

“And I don’t remember accusing you of it.”

“Well, your questions are kind of funny.”

“These questions are standard procedure, Archer. Didn’t they ask you such when they arrested you before?”

“That wasn’t for killing anybody.”

“But still.”

Archer leaned against the wall. “We spent some time together. I fell asleep. When I woke up, she was gone.”

“This time together. Would that be with clothes on or off?”

Archer’s features darkened, even as his anxiety rose. “Why’s that matter?”

“I can’t see how you would think it doesn’t matter, son.”

“I don’t know if I want to answer any more of your questions.”

“You don’t have a choice, Archer. The law is the law.”

“Yeah, folks keep telling me that. Okay, we were in bed together. Then she left.”

“So, you slept with the dead man’s mistress on the night Hank Pittleman was murdered right down the hall from your room?”

“She’s not his mistress.”

“Really, what is she then?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

“Oh, I will, Archer. Rest assured.”

“Is that all?”

“No, it’s not, son. So, after you left Mr. Pittleman in his room, you never went back there?”

Archer pushed off the wall and gathered his wits. This fellow Shaw was poking him like a stick to a hornet’s nest. Only thing was, he was hitting all the bad spots, for Archer.

“Had no reason to.”

“So that’s a no, is it?”

“That’s a no,” Archer lied.

“Understand you were in the Army.”

“Who told you that?”

“I don’t need to tell you that and I’m not. You know your way around a gun and a knife then?”

“Look, I didn’t have nothing—”

“Were you in the military, Archer?” interrupted Shaw.

“Were you?”

“Okay, I’ll play your game just this one time. I was a pilot in the Army Air Forces. Ninety-three bombing sorties over Europe, then I took my wings to the Pacific and dropped a shitload of TNT on the Japs. Loved every minute of it and was scared to death every minute of it.”

Archer judged him in a new, more respectful light. “That’s impressive. Lot more complicated flying a plane than firing a rifle.”

“I think every man who put on the uniform was impressive. You?”

“Thirty-Fourth Infantry Division. Mostly in Italy, but we did work our way to Germany eventually. Though we fought more Germans in Italy than we did I-talians.”

“Then I think you maybe had it harder than me. That was some damn tough going, I heard. Lot of those GIs never came home from that campaign.”

“Sure seemed tough going to me at the time. I liked my foxhole as much as the next man. Only we never got to spend much time there. And the Germans had damn good aim when it came to shelling us when we were hunkered in the dirt.”

“You get shot up?”

“We all got shot up. You done with me now?”

Shaw put away his notebook and pencil and gave him a bemused look. “You know your way around a gun and a knife, and you were sleeping with the dead man’s whatever on the night that he died. And by your own admission you were drinking. And all night you were maybe fifty feet from where he was killed. And you have no alibi for the time he probably died.” He paused. “So not only am I not done with you, Archer, I’m just starting.” He closed the door to 615 and made a show of locking it.

That was the first time Archer noted the white dust coating the doorknob.

Shaw tipped his hat at Archer and added, “Do not try to leave Poca City, Mr. Archer. That would not be smart. It would make me very unhappy. And you even unhappier than me.”

He walked off leaving Archer feeling like he’d just been rolled over twice by a Panzer. He bent down and looked at the doorknob and the white dust coating it. He reached out to touch it but thought better of that notion and retreated down the hall.

Archer went back to his room, picked up the flask, and drained the contents. He wiped his mouth dry, went over to the one window, and looked out at Poca City. He watched as Shaw walked out of the hotel and then stopped. The blood slowly drained from Archer’s face as he saw the man Shaw was talking to. It was the front desk clerk Archer had queried about seeing Jackie. The man was gesticulating in the direction of the hotel, while Shaw pulled out his pencil and notebook and wrote it all down. Archer thought he could see the lawman’s triumphant look from up here.

Archer sat down on the bed and started to think things through.

None of this was looking particularly good for him. The money in his pocket, the residue from Pittleman’s advance, the papers he’d taken from the dead man, all felt like lumps of white-hot coal melting him away from the inside. He knew Shaw was probably going to see Jackie next, and what would she tell him?

You didn’t kill the man, Archer.

Yet he hadn’t committed the crime he’d been sent to Carderock for, and that hadn’t stopped them, had it?

And from what Shaw had said, the motive would be clear.

I slept with Pittleman’s mistress.

I’d been drinking.

I knew how to slit someone’s throat.

But Pittleman had hired him for a job. Now he had no job, like Jackie had told the deputies. That would cut against any reason he would have to murder Pittleman. But would it be enough? Clearly not if Detective Shaw were the sole arbiter of his guilt or innocence.

He lay back on the bed and wondered if Poca City would be the last stop of his short-lived life.