The Zebra-Striped Hearse

19

ROYAL AND I waited outside the hospital room while Campion returned to consciousness. It took him the better part of an hour. I had time to fill the Captain in on my activities, and Campion’s.

Royal was unimpressed by my findings in Saline City. “He’s trying to fake an alibi for his wife’s murder.”

“Or establish one. I think you should talk to the key boy Nelson Karp, and see if that registration card is genuine. It’s in the hands of the Saline City police.”

Royal said without much interest: “Alibis like that one come a dime a dozen and you know it. He could have checked in at this motel and even spent part of the night, then driven back to Luna Bay and done her in. It’s only about thirty miles between the two places.”

“Which makes it all the easier to check.”

“Look,” he said, “I’ve got other things on my mind. Take it up with Deputy Mungan if you like. He’s in charge of the substation at Luna Bay, and he’s been handling the evidential details.”

I didn’t pursue the argument. Royal was a good cop but like other good cops he had an inflexible mind, once it was made up. We sat in uneasy silence for a few minutes. Then a young resident wearing a white coat and a high-minded expression came out of Campion’s room and announced that, in view of the importance of the case, his patient could be questioned.

Royal and I went in past the uniformed guard. It was an ordinary small hospital room, with the addition of heavy steel screening on the window. Campion’s bed was slightly raised at the head. He lay still and watched us. His heavy eyes recognized each of us in turn, but he didn’t speak. His head was bandaged, and the flesh around his eyes was turning purple. Scratches stood out on his pale cheeks.

I said: “Hello, Campion.”

Royal said: “Long time no see, Bruce.”

Campion said nothing. The turbanlike bandage on his head, the grimace of pain on his mouth, made him look a little like an Indian fakir lying on a bed of spikes.

Royal’s shadow fell across him. “What did you do with Harriet Blackwell, Bruce?”

“I didn’t do anything with her.”

“She was last seen in your company.”

“I can’t help it.”

“You can’t help killing people, you mean?”

“I’ve never killed anyone.”

“What about your little wife Dolly?”

“I didn’t kill Dolly.”

“Come on now, Bruce. We know different. You’ve had your little burst of freedom. This is the end of the trail. The end of the trail and the beginning of the trial.” Royal grinned at his own bad joke. “Anything you say can be used against you, true, but I’m advising you to speak out now, tell us the whole thing freely. It’ll be easier on you in the long run.”

“Sure,” Campion said. “They’ll put a cushion on the chair in the gas chamber and perfume the cyanide.”

Royal leaned over the bed, his wide shoulders blotting out Campion’s face. “You know you’re headed for the gas chamber, eh? So why not give me the full story, Bruce? I been waiting a long time to hear it. Just come clean about Dolly, and I’m your friend. I’ll do what I can to save you from the green room.”

“Don’t do me any favors, cop. And get away from me. You have bad breath.”

Royal’s open hand jerked up. “Why, you dirty little bas–” He bit the word in two and backed away, with a sideways glance at me.

Campion said: “Go ahead and hit me. Hitting people is what you people are for. I’ve hated you people all my life. You sell out justice to the highest bidder and let the poor people take the gaff.”

“Shut up, you.” Royal was shouting. “You lie there crying about justice with women’s blood on your hands.”

Campion flapped his hands in front of his face. “I don’t see any blood.”

“That’s right, you didn’t shed any blood when you killed Dolly. You used a stocking around her neck. Her own stocking.” Royal made a spitting noise. “What goes on in a mind like yours, Bruce? I’d like to know.”

“You never will. You’re too ignorant.”

“I’m not too ignorant to know a psycho when I see one, fooling around with paintboxes and living on women. Why don’t you do a man’s work?”

“Like vagging prostitutes and shaking them down?”

“Don’t talk to me about prostitutes. I read a book about that whoring psycho French painter – the one that cut off his ear and committed suicide. How psycho can you get?”

Campion sat up in bed. “If you weren’t so ignorant you’d speak of Van Gogh with respect. Incidentally, he wasn’t a Frenchman. He was a Dutchman, and a great religious genius.”

“And you’re another? Is that what you’re trying to say? You’re a great religious genius who goes in for human sacrifice?”

“You’re the one who puts people in the gas chamber.”

“I’m the one, and that’s where you’re going.”

I stepped between them, facing Royal. His face was congested with blood, and his eyes had an oily sheen. I’d never seen him out of control before. Campion had lain back and closed his eyes.

I opened them with a question: “How did the blood get on Harriet’s hat?”

“What hat?”

“The hat I fished out of the lake today. What was it doing in the lake, and how did her blood and hair get on the lining?”

“You better ask her. It’s her hat.”

“You knew it was in the lake?”

“You just told me, and I know you wouldn’t lie. Cops never lie.”

“Change the record, boy. How did that hat get into the lake?”

“I said, why don’t you ask her?”

“She isn’t available. Where is she, Campion?”

“I wouldn’t know. I have a suggestion, however.”

“What is it?”

“Disappear. I’m a sick man. I need rest.”

“The doctor says you’re questionable.”

“Not me. I’m incommunicado. It’s my reputation that’s questionable.”

“Stop playing word games.”

“Why? A man needs some amusement in the long night watches. Storm troopers make dull companions.”

Hot blood rose in my face. I felt a growing solidarity with Royal.

“You don’t show much concern for your fiancé.”

“My what?”

“You were going to marry her, weren’t you?”

“Was I?”

“Answer me.”

“You already know all the answers. Cops always do.”

“If you weren’t going to marry her, why did you take her to Tahoe? Because the lake is deep?”

Campion looked up at me with a deathly boredom. Royal spoke behind me in a new quiet voice: “Mr. Archer deserves an answer, Bruce. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to ask you that question.”

“Mr. Archer can take a running jump in the lake.”

“Is that what Harriet did,” I said, “with a little help from you?”

“I don’t know what she did. I never touched her.”

“How did you get those marks on your face?”

One of his hands crawled up to his face. His fingers explored it like a blind man’s fingers palpating a strange object.

“I was wandering around in the woods last night. I must have scratched myself on the bushes.”

“This was after your trouble with Harriet?”

He nodded almost imperceptibly.

“What was the trouble about?”

He lay and looked at me. “What trouble?”

“You mentioned trouble with Harriet.”

“You were the one who mentioned trouble,” he said.

“But you agreed that trouble had occurred.”

“You must have been hearing things.”

“I saw you nod your head.”

“I have a slight tremor. Please excuse it. It comes from being beaten half to death by storm troopers. Now why don’t you go away?”

“We’re not going away,” Royal said at my shoulder. “You admitted you had trouble with the girl. You’ve taken the first step toward the truth. You might as well give us the rest of it and get it over with. How about it, Bruce?”

“Don’t call me Bruce.”

“Bruce is your name, isn’t it?”

“Not to you. To my friends.”

“What friends?” Royal said in bitter contempt.

“I have friends.”

“Where are they? Under the ground?”

Campion turned his face away.

“Did Ralph Simpson call you Bruce?” I said.

“What?” he said to the wall.

“Did Ralph Simpson call you Bruce?”

“Yes, he did.”

“You were friends?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you knock him off and steal his papers?”

His eyes rolled in my direction. “I didn’t steal his papers.”

“We found his birth certificate in your pocket,” Royal said.

“Ralph lent it to me.”

“The same night you stuck the icepick in him?”

Campion’s mouth became rectangular. I could see the red tongue curled behind his teeth. He raised his voice and cried out. His eyes turned up, and their veined whites glared at us as he went on yelling inarticulately.

Royal and I exchanged shameful looks. For some reason we were feeling guilty, at least I was. When Campion stopped his noise and fell back onto the pillow, other noises could be heard in the corridor. A woman seemed to be arguing with more than one man.

Royal started for the door. It was flung open before he reached it. The woman who burst in resembled Campion, though she was older and softer and better cared for.

“What are you doing to my brother?”

“Nothing, ma’am,” Royal said. “That is, we had some questions–”

“Have you been torturing him?”

“It’s been more like the other way around.”

She moved past him to the bed. “They’ve hurt you, Bruce.”

Campion looked at her bleakly. “If I can stand it, you can. Go away.”

“He’s right, Mrs. Jurgensen,” Royal said. “You shouldn’t be in here, you know.”

The guard spoke up from the doorway. “That’s what I was trying to tell her, Captain. I didn’t know if I should use physical force.”

Royal shook his head curtly. A tall man came in past the guard. He had greying blond crewcut hair and a long face. His mouth was pinched as though he’d been sucking a lemon. He took the woman by the arm and tried to drag her away from the bed.

She resisted his efforts without looking at him. She was staring hungrily at her brother’s face.

“Don’t you want me to help you?”

“You were among the missing when I needed it. You know what you can do with it now. Get lost.”

“You heard him, Evelyn,” the tall man said. He had a faint Scandinavian accent, more a lack of timbre than an accent. “He wants no part of us. We want no part of him.”

“But he’s my brother.”

“I know that, Evelyn. Do you want everyone in the Bay area to know it? Do you want young Thor to lose his fraternity connection? Do you want people pointing me out on Montgomery Street?”

“You hear your husband,” Campion said. “Why don’t you amscray, sister? Fold your tents like the Arabs and silently steal away.”

The resident doctor appeared with a nurse in tow. He cast a withering glance around the room.

“May I remind you this is a hospital, Captain. This man is your prisoner but also my patient. I gave you permission to question him on the understanding that it would be quiet and brief.”

Royal started to say: “I’m not responsible–”

“I am. I want this room cleared immediately. That includes you, Captain.”

“I’m not finished with my interrogation.”

“It can wait till morning.”

Royal dropped the issue. He had the trial to think of, and the use that Campion’s defense could make of the doctor’s testimony. He walked out. The rest of us went along.

Not entirely by accident, I met the Jurgensen couple in the parking lot. They pretended not to see me, but I planted myself between them and their Mercedes sedan and made a fast pitch to her.

“I’m a private detective working on this case and it’s come to my attention that there are some holes in the case against your brother. I’d like very much to talk to you about it.”

“Don’t say a word, Evelyn,” her husband said.

“If we could sit down and have an exchange of views, Mrs. Jurgensen–”

“Pay no attention, Evelyn. He’s simply trying to pump you.”

“Why don’t you stay out of this?” I said. “He isn’t your brother.”

She turned to him. “I’m worried about him, Thor, and I’m ashamed. All these months we’ve pretended he didn’t exist, that we had no connection–”

“We have no connection. We decided that between us and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

“Why don’t you let the lady do her own talking?” I said.

“There isn’t going to be any talking. You get out of the way.”

He took me by the shoulder and pushed me to one side. There was no point in hitting him. The Mercedes whisked them away to their half-acre earthly paradise.

I checked in at a Camino Real motel and went to sleep trying to think of some one thing I could do that would be absolutely right and final. I dreamed that Campion was innocent and I had to prove it by re-enacting the crimes with paper dolls that stuck to my fingers. Then I found Harriet’s body in the lake. She had talon marks on her head.

I awoke in a cold sweat. The late night traffic whirred with a sound like wings along the highway.