One Good Deed

Chapter 40

Late the next morning, Archer was lying on his bed in his pants and undershirt, gazing at the ceiling and thinking hard about all that was troubling him, when someone knocked on his door. He opened it and found Irving Shaw leaning on the doorjamb and staring back at him.

“What?” said Archer.

“Got a problem.”

“Dammit, Mr. Shaw, every time you come to see me you say something like that.”

“Don’t blame me. It sure as hell ain’t my fault.”

He barged past Archer and into the room.

Archer slowly shut the door and watched as the lawman paced the small footprint of the room.

“You gonna tell me or do I have to guess?” asked Archer finally.

“We went out to Lucas Tuttle’s house this morning.”

“Who did?”

“Me and Jackie Tuttle.” Shaw sat down in the sole chair. “You been here the whole night?”

“Yeah. Man at the front desk can tell you that. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“Why, what did you find out there?”

“I’ll tell you what we didn’t find.”

Archer sat on the edge of the bed. “Okay, shoot.”

“We didn’t find anything in the man’s safe. I mean, not a damn thing.”

Archer said nothing. He just gaped at the man like he’d been uttering Chinese.

“You look surprised.”

“Well, that’s because I am. There was all kinds of stuff in that safe, I’m telling you. Including gold bars. I never had the pleasure of carrying gold bars, but I imagine they’re pretty damn heavy.”

“They are.”

“Well, where the hell did it all get to?”

“Now, that’s the question.”

“Did Jackie open the safe for you?”

Shaw shook his head. “She didn’t have the combination. I had to get a locksmith to come out and do it.”

“Damn.”

Shaw looked at him oddly. “You drove Jackie Tuttle’s Nash out there?”

“I told you that already.”

“And nobody’s been there since you were up until Bobby Kent found the man’s body.”

“No, hold on, that’s not right. Whoever killed Tuttle was there after I was. They must have cleared out the safe. You yourself said you couldn’t look in it because it was locked. It might have already been empty when you got there.”

“But the thing is, you’re the only one who has admitted to being there on the day the man died. And by your admission he opened the safe to get the money to pay you.”

“Whoa there. I don’t like where this is headed.”

“That’s not all. I had the Nash searched just now over at the garage on Fulsome.”

“What for?”

“For the contents of the missing safe, Archer! What else, son?”

“Hold on now, are you—”

“Just hush for a minute.” Shaw fell silent for a moment, gathering his words. “We didn’t find any of the items from the safe in the Nash.”

“Well, of course you didn’t because—”

“But we did find traces of them.”

“What sort of traces?”

“Imprints of the gold bars on the carpet in the trunk. And a few grains of what turned out to be gold dust.”

“But I was the only one to drive the Nash out there that day,” Archer replied.

“That’s true. And I was with Jackie Tuttle much of the day yesterday and I had a matron with her last night before I picked her up and we headed out to her father’s place today.”

“Hell, Jackie didn’t have anything to do with this, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I agree. Which is why I’m here, son.” Shaw looked sad, painfully so.

“What are you getting at, Mr. Shaw?”

“Remember I told you folks not as smart as me in the detecting business might throw a monkey wrench in the works? Well, they have. I got my marching orders from the higher-ups. So, stand up.”

“What?”

“Stand up.”

Archer did so.

Shaw took out a pair of shiny handcuffs and put them on Archer’s wrists after gently tugging them behind his back.

“You arresting me?”

“What was your first clue, son?”

“Arresting me for what?”

“That’ll be put into writing down at the police station. You’re gonna get your picture taken, have ink on your fingers, and then I’ll want a statement.”

“Hell, I’ll give you a statement right here and now. I’m innocent.”

“I know you are, Archer, but I got no choice. But let me work this, son. I know what I’m doing.”

He grabbed up Archer’s shirt and jacket and then led the man down the stairs and out the back door.

“Why not the front?” asked Archer.

“I’m trying to let you avoid the shame of being arrested. Bad enough for the guilty. Doubly so for the innocent.”

The ride over to the police station took all of three minutes.

Archer was fingerprinted and photographed. Then he was allowed to wash his face and shave, and put on his shirt and jacket. Shaw even managed to find some hot coffee and cold eggs for Archer before he set him down in front of a recording machine in a small room with one table and two opposing chairs.

Shaw said in a low voice, “Now look, since I have to record this, I got to go by the book. I’m gonna sound like you’re guilty as hell. But you just stick to your guns, okay, son?”

“Listen, I’m not gonna do anything to get you in trouble, Mr. Shaw. And if this will, I don’t want you to do it.”

Shaw gave Archer a look that many of his fellow soldiers had right before they went into battle together. It was a cross between a sad smile and a dropped tear.

“I appreciate that, son, but we’re gonna get through this. Just do what I said.”

Shaw clicked on the machine, recited the date and time and their names. And then the crimes that Archer had been charged with, including the murder of Lucas Tuttle.

“Mr. Archer, if you want to tell the truth, now would be a good time to do so.”

“Everything I know, I’ve already told you.”

“If you tell us what you did with the stuff in that safe I can put in a good word for you with the court.”

“Well, since I didn’t take any of it, that’s not really an option for me.”

“So you deny all involvement in any crime hereabouts?”

“I lied to you about going into Mr. Pittleman’s room and taking those debt papers. You can charge me with that if you want, and I’ll confess to that. But not to another thing.”

“You sure?”

“Hell yes. I’m innocent!”

Shaw clicked off the recorder. “That was fine, Archer.”

“I hope so, because it’s all the truth.”

Shaw lit up a smoke. “Where were you last night?”

“At the Cat’s Meow and then at Ernestine Crabtree’s house. And then back at the Derby where you found me.”

Shaw frowned. “At Crabtree’s house, why?

“I was trying to figure out why she and Jackie lied and said they didn’t know each other when the bartender at the Cat’s Meow told me they were regulars there and knew each other really well.”

“Come again?”

Archer told him what the bartender had shared.

“But as a parole officer if she saw you drinking at the bar, she should have turned you in for a violation.”

“I know that! I’m wondering why she didn’t. And why would they hide that they were friends and all? When I brought Jackie over to stay at Ernestine’s I introduced them to each other. They acted like strangers till I did that.”

“That is a puzzler.”

“And now she’s gone.”

Shaw started. “What? Who’s gone?”

“Ernestine. Her clothes are all gone from her closet. I think she’s left town.”

Shaw narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin. “What else?”

“Look, you know about her father?”

Shaw shook his head, so Archer decided to fill him in on Carson Crabtree’s history and also about what he had found in the scrapbook.

“So what do you think about that?” asked Archer. “Her father was a policeman. Then he ups and kills three men and confesses without giving any reason?”

“And one of them was a Peeping Tom,” said Shaw thoughtfully. “You think?”

“Well, it’s possible he was peeping on Ernestine. And maybe the others were too.”

“But then why wouldn’t her old man say that in his defense? Hell, he might’ve gotten off scot-free if he had. I could see a jury siding with him over that, especially if he had a bunch of fathers on the jury.”

“I don’t know,” said Archer. “But her mother killed herself later.”

“Damn. That woman’s been through the wringer all right. Did she act surprised when she saw you at your first parole meeting even though she’d probably already seen you at the bar?”

“Not a jot, no.”

“Good poker face then.”

“And then some.”

Shaw looked thoughtfully at Archer. “Sheila Dixon?”

Archer’s face collapsed. “What about her?”

“She’s the mayor’s daughter you were charged and convicted with kidnapping, and false imprisoning and contributing to the delinquency of.”

“Well, hell, I know that!”

“You got a pretty short sentence comparatively.”

“I worked a deal so she wouldn’t have to testify. And then I got paroled early. And dammit, for the record she told me she was twenty. I had no idea she was four days short of being sixteen. She didn’t look it, I can tell you that. And I swear on a stack of Bibles, we didn’t do anything. No fooling around or nothing. I just gave her a ride because she couldn’t drive.”

“I know all that, Archer.”

Archer’s jaw dropped perceptibly. “What! How?”

“I spoke by phone with the lady and she told me the whole story. How she loved you, but you were a real gentleman. That she lied about her age and the car and pretty much everything else to get you on her side. And that her father browbeat her into lying about you, because he was worried it would sully his reputation having, as she told me he called her, ‘a slut’ for a daughter. And by the way, she’s still head over heels for you, though she’s married now and just had a baby.”

“Well, damn,” said an astonished Archer. “Why’d you call her in the first place?”

“Because I wanted to know what sort of man you were, Archer. See, what you do in the past can matter to what you do in the present and in the future. I believed you, in my gut. But it’s nice to have corroboration.”

“You like your corroboration.”

“In the detecting business, it’s damn important. Now the fact that she was still hankering for you shows that you got a real way with women, Archer, but the thing is, son, that’s not always good.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a two-way street. Meaning women can have their way with you.”

Archer thought about this and nodded. “I believe you might be speaking the truth there, Detective.”

“I think I am, Archer. I truly think I am.”

“Did Jackie see her father’s body?”

“She did.”

“How’d that go?”

“Funny you should ask. I’ve watched many a family member view their kin’s mortal remains. But I’ve never seen one who didn’t shed a single tear while doing so until yesterday.”

“So what now?”

“How much money you got?”

“Nearly three hundred dollars.”

“Well, lucky you, your bail is going to be set at two hundred dollars. We’ll go see the judge, you can enter your not-guilty plea, pay that amount over to the court, and you’re free to go for now.”

“Why are you really doing this? I understand that you believe I’m innocent. And I’m damn glad of that. But you’re taking a chance here with me. You could torpedo your whole career over this. The easy thing would be to lock me up and throw away the key. Nobody would care.”

“I would care, Archer. When I took a plane up in the air, I had a whole crew counting on me to make the right decisions. And I tried my best to do that very thing. And I signed up for this job to see that bad folks got punished. Putting the innocent in jail is something I have no interest in, because that would mean I made the worst decision of all. I might as well have put the damn plane in a nosedive.”

“Well, I thank you for that.”

“Don’t thank me just yet, Archer. We got us a long row to hoe.”