Leopold's Way (44 page)

As he pulled away, Jerry Raznell was still standing by the side of the road. In his rearview mirror Leopold saw him start slowly back toward his hearse.

Henry Cole, the stoop-shouldered druggist, was still at the Leopold house when he pulled up. “I brought your car back in one piece,” he said, greeting the man in the front yard.

“Sure did. But I wasn't worried.”

“I don't want you to think I put that dent in the front end of your car.”

“No, I wouldn't think that. Did it myself last week.”

“How'd it happen?”

The man glanced away, obviously nervous. “I—I bumped into another car.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No,” Leopold said. “That's not the way it happened. Do you want to tell me the truth now?”

“I gotta be going,” he said quickly. He snatched the keys from Leopold's hand and hurried to the car.

Margaret Leopold came out to the porch. “Why'd he leave in such a hurry?”

“I asked him a question he wouldn't answer,” Leopold said.

The others had all departed and the house was empty now, except for the two of them. “What question was that?”

“How the front of his car got dented.”

“Come up here on the porch, where we can talk. It's been a long day for me.”

“A long day for all of us,” Leopold conceded. He chose a wicker chair opposite her and sat down. “My cousin Sara says I'm too much of a detective, that I see things where there's nothing to be seen.”

“And do you?”

Leopold shook his head. “Quite the opposite, really. I don't see things where there is something to be seen.”

“What don't you see?”

“The mailbox across the street.”

“What?” Her forehead creased with wrinkles. “What do you mean?”

“I stood out here this afternoon and asked Sheriff Potter everything he saw across the street and he told me. There's no mailbox. I went out to the street and looked both ways, and there was still no mailbox. And yet you told your son Henry that Uncle Joe was crossing the street to mail a letter.”

“It's a very odd lie, really, because anyone around here looking across the street would see there's no mailbox over there. I thought about that a long time, and then this afternoon Sheriff Potter mentioned another hit-and-run accident in Sedgeville the same day. I drove over there and saw the mother of the boy who was killed—Mrs. Flynn.”

Her face had gone white as chalk. Her hands gripped the wicker arms of the chair. “You saw her?”

Leopold nodded. “She told me her son was running across the street to mail a letter, and then of course I was pretty sure what happened. The driver of the car slammed on the brakes, but too late. There must have been an image there in the driver's eyes of a boy darting off the curb, clutching an envelope in his hand. And he told that to you, didn't he? His image became your image, and when it came time to tell about Uncle Joe's accident, you used those same words. Letter in hand, crossing the street.”

“You know it all, don't you?”

“I know it all. The recent dent in the bumper, Mrs. Flynn's description of the car. And both accidents the same day. It couldn't be coincidence. I only had to ask myself who was driving that day. Your son Henry would have been working at the drug store, and even if he hadn't been—could we imagine him lending me his car knowing what had caused that dent? No, not Henry. And not you, of course, because you never drove. And that only left one person, didn't it?” She stared out at the trees, and at the evening sun caught in their branches. “Yes,” she answered after a while. “It was your Uncle Joe who killed the boy.”

“Tell me about it, Margaret,” he said quietly.

“There's not much to tell, not really. He wanted to go over to Sedgeville to look at some antiques he'd seen advertised. You know how he was about woodworking and fine old furniture. Well, Henry was busy at the drug store and couldn't take him. But the car was here as it often was, and Joe decided to drive over there himself. He'd driven a few times since losing his license, but never as far as that. I was sick about it, but he went anyway. When he came back—” Her voice broke and Leopold put out a hand to steady her.

“Go on,” he urged.

“When he came back he looked horrible. He was bleeding from the mouth and his clothes were covered with spots of blood. He said he'd hit a boy who was crossing the street to mail a letter. He'd slammed on the brakes at the last moment, and injured his own chin and mouth on the steering wheel. But then he'd panicked and kept on going, because he was driving without a license. I guess it was all that blood gave me the idea for another hit-and-run accident in front of our house. I had to protect him somehow.”

“So you called for an ambulance and they took him to the hospital.”

She nodded. “They said he wasn't hurt bad, but the shock of what he'd done had set in. I had to get him away. I told Henry some lie about the bumper and he never questioned it, never connected it with the accident in the next county.”

“Sheriff Potter knew,” Leopold said.

“Oh, yes. He's a smart young man. He knew. The Sedgeville police contacted him, of course, and he had a description of the car. He talked to the doctors at the hospital about the nature of Joe's injuries, and he guessed what had happened. He told me he would have to arrest Joe.”

“And he would have, if Uncle Joe hadn't died first.”

“Yes.” She looked away, perhaps toward the garden in the back yard, and her firm hands tightened on the wicker chair. “I got to the hospital ahead of the sheriff to warn Joe. But they'd given him a sedative and he was sleeping. He just—never woke up.”

It was almost dark, and Leopold had to be getting back. Perhaps he could still catch the bus to the airport and a night flight home.

He stood up and said, “I must be going. There's nothing more for me here.”

“No. It was good of you to come.”

He paused at the steps. “Potter isn't the only one who knows. Jerry Raznell knows, too.”

She nodded. “Jerry uses the hearse as an ambulance. He took Joe to the hospital after—after I said the car hit him. He was suspicious then. I think he talked to the sheriff.”

She seemed suddenly old to his eyes, older than yesterday when he'd come to Riger Falls. “I suppose it's a blessing this way,” Leopold said. “At his age the trial would have killed him. Or just the publicity, even if it never got to trial.”

“I know,” she said. “I thought of that, too.”

He kissed her lightly on the cheek and went down the steps without looking back. He did not ask the meaning of her last words, because he knew. Now, remembering Jerry Raznell's suspicions, remembering his uncle's sudden death from those minor mouth injuries, remembering most of all her firm hands and the way they tightened on the chair, he knew there was one question he could never ask Margaret Leopold.

He could never ask her if, alone with Uncle Joe in that hospital room, she'd held a pillow over his sleeping face until the life drained from his old body, just minutes before Sheriff Potter arrived to arrest him.

(1975)

E
VER SINCE BROWN-EYED CONNIE
Trent joined the department, she and Fletcher had engaged in some good-natured kidding of Captain Leopold whenever the occasion warranted. He enjoyed the kidding, as he enjoyed Connie's presence, and the afternoon coffee breaks on slow days were relaxing for all three of them.

Usually it would start with Fletcher getting the coffee from the cranky old machine in the hallway and bringing three cups into Leopold's office. If Connie wasn't busy she joined them. Officially it was a time for discussion of pending cases, but on those rare afternoons when violent crime was at a minimum the conversation generally turned to light-hearted banter.

“I'm off to the convention tomorrow,” Leopold was telling them both this day. “You'll be in charge, Fletcher.”

“What convention?” Connie asked.

“International Conference of Chiefs of Police,” Fletcher replied. “The Captain's one of the featured speakers.”

Leopold nodded. “At the New York Hilton. I'll drive down tomorrow morning and come back the next day.”

Connie put down her coffee cup and sat there grinning. “Well, we can expect to read about a murder at the Hilton!”

Fletcher joined in, smiling. “That's right. You never go anywhere, Captain, that you don't bump into a murder—a Christmas party, class reunion, vacation, even a family funeral!”

“Come on, now!” Leopold pleaded. “You make me sound like one of those detectives on TV.”

“But it's true,” Connie insisted. “I'll make you a bet right now that somewhere at that convention tomorrow you run smack into a murder or other violent crime. The speaker ahead of you will be poisoned, or some visiting police chief will be thrown from a window. Something will happen!”

Leopold chuckled and took out his wallet. “Come on now, it's not quite that bad. Here's a dollar says I don't get involved with any crime or violence on this trip.”

“I'll hold the money,” Fletcher volunteered, taking their dollar bills.

“Have a good trip,” Connie said. “But that's one bet I'm going to win.”

“Get out of here, you two,” Leopold grumbled. “Let me finish working on my speech.”

The autumn drive to New York was a pleasant one for Leopold. There were times when he liked just being alone, away from the constant turmoil of the office. Perhaps he was getting too old for violent crimes, and the additional violence that so often went with their solution. Something like this—a speech to other law enforcement officers—could still be enjoyed, because it was crime in the abstract.

At the hotel someone stuck an adhesive-backed name tag on his jacket and handed him a folder of press releases. He wandered through the crowded lobby until he spotted a familiar face.

“Cartwright! How've you been?” he greeted a tall handsome man in cowboy boots.

“My God, it's Leopold! I heard you were speakin' tonight.” Eagle Cartwright was the police chief of Blue Hills, Ohio—a Cleveland suburb near Shaker Heights. Leopold had worked with him 20 years ago on the New York City police force, before they both went their separate ways.

“How's crime in Blue Hills these days?”

Cartwright shrugged. “Caught some kids smokin' pot and stealin' cars. Biggest excitement we've had all year.”

“And the family?”

“Sarah's fine. The boy's away at college, so we're alone now.”

He was a few years younger than Leopold, and he still had the appearance of a vigorous, athletic man. Perhaps it was only laziness that took him away from big-city law enforcement and dropped him into an affluent Ohio suburb.

Leopold had met his wife at a convention some years back. Now, as Cartwright opened his wallet to show a color snapshot of the family posed beside a camping trailer, he said honestly, “Sarah's still a beautiful woman. And your boy has really grown up.”

“Time passes,” Cartwright agreed. “Sarah came with me this year. You'll see her at dinner tonight.”

“I'm looking forward to it.”

The program chairman appeared to grip Leopold's hand and whisk him away. “Let's have a drink later,” he suggested to Cartwright. “We've got a lot of years to catch up on.”

The tall man nodded and then they were separated by a milling throng of new arrivals.

The speech was well received, and Leopold found himself the center of attention when the dinner session ended. Men he'd barely known over the years insisted on buying him a drink, and his mind was growing a bit fuzzy by the time he encountered Eagle Cartwright and his wife.

Sarah was as charming and gracious as he remembered her, and he was tempted to accept their invitation for a drink, but at that moment he felt like nothing more than a cup of coffee. “I'm getting too old for these conventions, Sarah. I'd better pass up another drink.”

“I hope we see you tomorrow before we leave,” she said.

“Maybe for breakfast,” he suggested.

As they separated, he caught a troubled look on Cartwright's face. Something was bothering the man, but Leopold had no idea what.

After a shower in his room Leopold felt better. It was not yet eleven o'clock, and he decided to go back downstairs for his coffee. He took the elevator directly to the lower-level coffee shop, avoiding the partying delegates in the lobby. Seated at a table in the nearly deserted place, he was not especially surprised a few minutes later when Eagle Cartwright entered to join him.

“You mentioned wanting coffee,” Cartwright explained. “I took a chance you might be here.”

“Glad you did. Is Sarah coming down, too?”

Cartwright shook his head. “She's gone to bed.” He sat opposite Leopold and ordered coffee. After a moment's silence he said, “Actually, I wanted to talk to you. I've got a problem.”

“If it's anything I can help you with, Eagle, I'll be glad to. You did me a few favors back in the 29th Precinct.”

“Hell, I don't really know if you can help me or not. To tell the truth, I don't know that it's so much a problem as it is a puzzle. And we lawmen these days aren't much on puzzles. I drive around Blue Hills in my Chief's car and occasionally I help question a car thief or a kid with a few joints—but if I ever got hit with a real murder mystery like on TV I don't know what in hell I'd do!”

“You haven't had one, have you?”

“No, no.” Cartwright gave a forced laugh. “This is something personal. I guess you'd hardly call it a crime at all. But it's botherin' me, and maybe if I talk about it I can get set straight. I may be too close to the thing to judge it rightly.”

Leopold sipped his coffee. “Tell me about it.”