The Doomsters

12

THE BACK DOOR of the greenhouse opened, and two men came in. One was the eager young deputy who excelled at cross-country running. Carmichael’s blouse was dark with sweat, and he was still breathing deeply. The other man was a Japanese of indeterminate age. When he saw the dead man on the floor, he stood still, with his head bowed, and took off his soiled cloth hat. His sparse gray hair stood erect on his scalp, like magnetized iron filings.

The deputy squatted and lifted the gray handkerchief over the dead man’s face. His held breath came out.

“Take a good long look, Carmichael,” the sheriff said. “You were supposed to be guarding this house and the people in it.”

Carmichael stood up, his mouth tight. “I did my best.”

“Then I’d hate to see your worst. Where in Christ’s name did you go?”

“I went after Carl Hallman, lost him in the groves. He must of circled around and come back here. I ran into Sam Yogan back of the bunkhouse, and he told me he heard some shots.”

“You heard the shots?”

The Japanese bobbed his head. “Yessir. Two shots.” He had a mouthy old-country accent, and some trouble with his esses.

“Where were you when you heard them?”

“In the bunkhouse.”

“Can you see the greenhouse from there?”

“Back door, you can.”

“He must of left by the back door, Grantland was at the front, and the women came in the side here. You see him, going or coming?”

“Mr. Carl?”

“You know I mean him. Did you see him?”

“No sir. Nobody.”

“Did you look?”

“Yessir. I looked out the door of the bunkhouse.”

“But you didn’t come and look in the greenhouse.”

“No sir.”

“Why?” The sheriff’s anger, flaring and veering like fire in the wind, was turned on Yogan now. “Your boss was lying shot in here, and you didn’t move a muscle.”

“I looked out the door.”

“But you didn’t move a muscle to help him, or apprehend the killer.”

“He was probably scared,” Carmichael said. With the heat removed from him, he was relaxing into camaraderie.

Yogan gave the deputy a look of calm disdain. He extended his hands in front of his body, parallel and close together, as though he was measuring off the limits of his knowledge: “I hear two guns – two shots. What does it mean? I see guns all morning. Shooting quail, maybe?”

“All right,” the sheriff said heavily. “Let’s get back to this morning. You told me Mr. Carl was a very good friend of yours, and that was the reason you weren’t scared of him. Is that correct, Sam?”

“I guess so. Yessir.”

“How good a friend, Sam? Would you let him shoot his brother and get away? Is that how good a friend?”

Yogan showed his front teeth in a smile which could have meant anything. His flat black eyes were opaque.

“Answer me, Sam.”

Yogan said without altering his smile: “Very good friend.”

“And Mr. Jerry? Was he a good friend?”

“Very good friend.”

“Come off it, Sam. You don’t like any of us, do you?”

Yogan grinned implacably, like a yellow skull.

Ostervelt raised his voice: “Wipe the smile off, tombstone-teeth. You’re not fooling anybody. You don’t like me, and you don’t like the Hallman family. Why the hell you came back here, I’ll never know.”

“I like the country,” Sam Yogan said.

“Oh sure, you like the country. Did you think you could con the Senator into giving you your farm back?”

The old man didn’t answer. He looked a little ashamed, not for himself. I gathered that he had been one of the Japanese farmers bought out by the Senator and relocated during the War. I gathered further that he made Ostervelt nervous, as though his presence was an accusation. An accusation which had to be reversed: “You didn’t shoot Mr. Jerry Hallman yourself, by any chance?”

Yogan’s smile brightened into scorn.

Ostervelt moved to the workbench and picked up the shingle with the pearl-handled gun attached to it. “Come here, Sam.”

Yogan stayed immobile.

“Come here, I said. I won’t hurt you. I ought to kick those big white teeth down your dirty yellow throat, but I’m not gonna. Come here.”

“You heard the sheriff,” Carmichael said, and gave the small man a push.

Yogan came one step forward, and stood still. By sheer patience, his slight figure had become the central object in the room. Having nothing better to do, I went and stood beside him. He smelled faintly of fish and earth. After a while the sheriff came to him.

“Is this the gun, Sam?”

Yogan drew in his breath in a little hiss of surprise. He took the shingle and examined the gun minutely, from several angles.

“You don’t have to eat it.” Ostervelt snatched it away. “Is this the gun Mr. Carl had?”

“Yessir. I think so.”

“Did he pull it on you? Threaten you with it?”

“No sir.”

“Then how’d you happen to see it?”

“Mr. Carl showed it to me.”

“He just walked up to you and showed you the gun?”

“Yessir.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Yessir. He said, hello Sam, how are you, nice to see you. Very polite. Also, where is my brother? I said he went to town.”

“Anything about the gun, I mean.”

“Said did I recognize it. I said, yes.”

“You recognized it?”

“Yessir. It was Mrs. Hallman’s gun.”

“Which Mrs. Hallman?”

“Old lady Mrs. Hallman, Senator’s wife.”

“This gun belonged to her?”

“Yessir. She used to bring it out to the back garden, shoot at the blackbirds. I said she wanted a better one, a shotgun. No, she said, she didn’t want to hit them. Let them live.”

“That must of been a long time ago.”

“Yessir, ten-twelve years. When I came back here on the ranch, put in her garden for her.”

“What happened to the gun?”

“I dunno.”

“Did Carl tell you how he got it?”

“No sir. I didn’t ask.”

“You’re a close-mouthed s. o. b., Sam. You know what that means?”

“Yessir.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this this morning?”

“You didn’t ask me.”

The sheriff looked up at the glass roof, as if to ask for comfort and help in his deep tribulations. The only apparent result was the arrival of a moon-faced young man wearing shiny rimless spectacles and a shiny blue suit. I needed no intuition to tab him as the deputy coroner. He carried a black medical bag, and the wary good humor of men whose calling is death.

Surveying the situation from the doorway, he raised his hand to the sheriff and made a beeline for the body. A sheriffs captain with a tripod camera followed close on his heels. The sheriff joined them, issuing a steady flux of orders.

Sam Yogan bowed slightly to me, his forehead corrugated, his eyes bland. He picked up a watering can, filled it at a tin sink in the corner, and moved with it among the cymbidiums. Disregarding the flashbulbs, he was remote as a gardener bent in ritual over flowers in a print.