The Fourth Durango

Chapter 26

Sipping occasionally from the glass of straight bourbon she had demanded and Kelly Vines had served her, Mayor B. D. Huckins paced the ocean-view Holiday Inn room, describing with curious relish how she first had learned of the death of Soldier Sloan.

“Was it from the chief of police or the city attorney or even from those two dopers who drive the meat wagon for Bruner Mortuary?” she asked, obviously not expecting an answer. “No, it was from Lenore Poole who strings for that flaky west coast radio network. And guess what Lenore wants to know?”

Since this wasn’t a real question either, none of the three men answered. The mayor took another small sip of her bourbon, turned to the window, inspected the Pacific and said, “Lenore wants to know my reaction to the serial killer who’s terrorizing Durango.”

She turned quickly from the window to fasten the cold gray stare on Sid Fork. “So here’s Lenore, who teaches English and a course in journalism at the high school-and who’s convinced she’s going to be a TV reporter in Santa Barbara, or maybe even down in L.A., once she saves up enough to have a little corrective surgery done on that chin of hers-telling me about how some plumber stabbed Soldier Sloan to death in an elevator.”

“I thought she was saving up for a Harley,” Sid Fork said. “That’s what she told me.”

B. D. Huckins ignored him and turned to Jack Adair, who sat in one of the room’s three easy chairs and appeared to be the most sympathetic member of her audience.

“Lenore says, Hey, there’s this old Sloan guy today and poor Norm Trice last night, so don’t you think it looks like we’ve got a serial killer on the loose? But all I can tell her is that I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation and she’d better talk to the chief of police, who, Lenore tells me, she’s been trying ‘to get ahold of’-this is an English teacher now-except he can’t be found.” Huckins switched the cold gray eyes back to Fork. “So where the fuck were you, Sid?”

“Right here.”

“Then why didn’t you call me-or have somebody call me?”

“I thought somebody did.”

The mayor responded to this admission of obvious incompetence with a resigned headshake and turned again to Jack Adair, the ex-politician, who remained her most sympathetic listener. “So now Lenore takes off in another direction and says if I won’t agree they’re serial murders by a crazed killer, maybe I’ll at least admit it’s a crime wave. And I tell her, Sorry, Lenore, no crime wave either, and hang up.”

She turned to Fork again. “That’s when I start calling around, Sid, trying to find you. But by then my phone starts ringing-so much for unlisted numbers-and it must be one hell of a slow news day because papers, TV and radio stations from all over are calling me and-”

“Where’s all over?” Fork asked.

“San Francisco. Vegas. L.A. Santa Barbara. San Diego. San Jose. Even Oakland. To me, that’s all over. And they all want to know about the, quote, hysteria that’s gripping a small sleepy California coastal town, unquote. A couple of them even played me parts of Lenore’s nutty radio story that adds two years to my age and says Durango’s thirty-eight-year-old mayor, quote, hotly denied, unquote, that two murders in two days are either a crime wave or the work of a serial killer. But check this, Sid. Lenore must’ve talked to some of your people because she said Soldier’s name is S. Pershing Sloan and that he’s a retired major general.” She paused, wrinkled her forehead into a puzzled frown and said, “Pershing?”

“His middle name,” Fork said, leaning forward in his chair and looking interested for the first time. “What’d Lenore say about Norm Trice?”

“She called him the owner of Durango’s most fashionable night spot.”

“Sounds like Lenore,” Fork said with a grin and asked, “So what’d you tell ’em, B. D.-all those reporters?”

“I told them to call the chief of police, who’d informed me that an arrest is imminent.”

“Good.”

“You know what all this will do, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Fork said. “It’ll create a slowdown in the hideout business.”

The mayor used three slow headshakes to disagree. “It’ll kill it, not slow it down.”

“It’ll come back.”

“Like hell.”

Sid Fork rose from his chair and walked slowly toward the window. “All right,” he agreed. “Let’s say it’s finished. Done with. But what about our deal with Vines and Adair here?”

“Unless you can change my mind,” she said, “that’s dead. Let ’em go hide out somewhere else.”

When he reached the window, Fork gave the ocean a quick just-checking glance, turned, leaned against the sill, folded his arms across his chest and regarded the mayor with the detached gaze of a man who already knows the answers he’ll get to his questions.

“Tell me something, B. D. Tell me how you’re going to scrape up the money to keep the library open after our fiscal year ends next month? Or start up that summer-in-the-park program you promised for June and here it is damn near July? Or keep the clap clinic open? Or even, for God’s sake, find enough money to clean up the horseshit after the parade on the Fourth?” Pausing to indicate both Vines and Adair with a nod, Fork said, “There’s a million bucks sitting right here in this room on two chairs. So before you walk away from it, think about what I just said.”

Huckins was already looking appropriately thoughtful when she turned and sank slowly into the chair Fork had just vacated. She rested her drink on the chair’s arm and thrust out her long bare tanned legs, crossing them at the ankles. She wore a bright yellow cotton blouse and a tan cotton twill skirt that ended at her knees. On her feet were a pair of Mexican sandals. Jack Adair stared at her legs until she asked, “Never seen a pair before?”

“Not recently,” he said.

Huckins once again looked at Sid Fork, who, arms still folded, leaned against the windowsill. “What I’ve been thinking about most, Sid, is the eighth of November-not the fourth of July.”

Mention of the election date transformed Adair’s sympathy into deep interest. “How’s it look?” he asked.

Still staring at Fork, she said, “What about it, Sid? What’s your guess on how many votes there’ll be in two unsolved murders with maybe more to come between now and November?”

“There’d be just one hell of a lot of votes in catching the killer, B. D.”

“But when’re you going to catch him? After Adair and Vines are dead?”

Before Fork could reply, Kelly Vines said, “We might as well get this straight. Jack and I aren’t going to sit around indefinitely, waiting for negotiations to start, while some guy dressed up like a priest or the United Parcel man is figuring out how to shoot, stab or garotte us. There comes a time when patience runs out and common sense takes over.”

“Which brings us to Sid’s Teddy theory,” the mayor said.

Fork made a noise far down in his throat that got the room’s attention. “It’s more than a theory,” he said.

The mayor gave him a dubious look. “You really think it was Teddy who killed Soldier Sloan?”

“Know it was. Killed him in the elevator all decked out like a plumber. Toolbox and everything.”

“So when you find Teddy and arrest him,” she said, “he’ll stand trial, right?”

Fork’s answering shrug could have meant yes, no or maybe.

“And if he stands trial,” the mayor continued, “a lot of funny stuff could come out about you, me, Teddy and Dixie from the old days-funny-peculiar stuff that most people don’t know or have forgotten. Stuff that wouldn’t do me any good on November eighth.”

“If there is a trial,” Fork said.

“You mean, of course, a trial that soon,” Adair said. “Before November eighth.”

“Ever,” Fork said.

“The chief’s talking about something else, Jack,” Vines said.

“I’m well aware of that.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to find Teddy,” Fork said, almost musing aloud. “Or maybe he’ll find me. But either way I’m pretty sure he’ll resist being arrested.”

“Which means you’re pretty sure you’re going to kill him,” Adair said in a mild and almost indifferent tone he might have used to remark upon the weather.

The tone made Fork suspicious. “That bother you just a whole lot, Judge?”

All mildness left Adair’s voice. It now sounded sternly judicial and, in his opinion, terribly pompous. “I’ve never been convinced that premeditated homicide is ever justified, whether committed by the individual or the state.”

“That’s bullshit if I ever heard it,” B. D. Huckins said.

“Is it now?”

“Sure it is. Look. You and Vines dreamed this thing up, this plan of yours, set it in motion and it’s already got two people killed. Maybe three, counting that friend of yours in Lompoc. So it’s time to switch off the sermonette. But if you guys want to walk away, fine. That’s your business. Of course, Sid and I’ll have to finish what you started because now there’s just no way to stop it.”

“None at all,” Fork said.

“I could be off base,” she continued, “but I think the only way you two can come out of this thing about even or a little ahead-and I’m not talking about money-is to finish what you started. Otherwise, you’ve wasted three lives for nothing-although maybe you can justify that but somehow I don’t think so. And that, Mr. Adair, is why I said you were talking bullshit.”

Adair, his cheeks a bright pink, stared down between his knees at the hotel room carpet while the woman and the two men stared at him. Finally, he looked up at Huckins and said, “After careful reconsideration, Mayor, you’re not altogether wrong.”

She looked at Vines. “What’s that mean?”

“It means we’re still in business.”

“Good,” B. D. Huckins said.