Small Felonies - Fifty Mystery Short Stories (21 page)

"Paul Ferguson," I answered, nodding. "Mr. Gregg?"

"Yes. Come in, please. That's quite a . . . an imposing animal you have there."

"He is that," I said. Different people have different reactions to ninety pounds of German shepherd, but Gregg struck me as the kind of man who wouldn't be intimidated by man or beast.

My ad in the Press said, "Expertly trained guard dogs are the best home security—satisfaction guaranteed. Write On Guard!, Box 238, this paper." But I've found that most people have no idea of what an expertly trained guard dog is, or what to expect from one. Some think it's merely a large dog that barks a lot if someone passes too close to the house, while others expect the animal to patrol the house and grounds constantly, identify burglarious intent in the mind of the trespasser, and hold him in one place until the return of the owners. Still other people expect a friendly companion who can babysit the kids; and yet another group looks for a ravening monster who must be kept chained and can be handled safely by none but his master.

Gregg led Sam Boy and me down a richly carpeted hall into the living room. He invited me to sit on the couch, and then brought in cups and a silver pot of coffee. His wife was out shopping, he explained, but whatever he decided would be fine with her.

Then he asked, "Just what are this animal's capabilities?"

"Were you thinking of using him inside or outside?"

"Inside. I want to safeguard my collection, among other things." He patted the side of a glass-fronted cabinet.

"China?" I asked.

"It's called majolica," he said. "Actually, it's a type of earthenware."

"Very pretty."

"And very expensive. Every time I go out I'm afraid that when I come home I'll find that I've been cleaned out."

"Surely with this valuable collection and your other property, you've installed a burglar alarm."

"Yes, but I don't trust it," Gregg said. "Burglars are clever, as I'm sure you know. Besides, my neighbors are some distance away on both sides. If the alarm went off, they might not even hear it."

"Well, the ringing alone would probably scare off any housebreaker."

"So I've been told. But I prefer not to take any chances. I might reasonably expect a dog to keep burglars out of the house, mightn't I?"

"Absolutely," I said. "No one but yourself or members of your family would be allowed admittance unless accompanied by one of you."

"What will he do if a burglar shows up?"

"Stop him," I said. "By brute force, if necessary. Before one could get past Sam Boy, he'd have to kill him; and killing an animal like Sam Boy in a darkened house, while the dog is making one heck of a racket and trying to tear his arm off, is a job no sane burglar will undertake."

Gregg thought this over.

"You'd have to take proper care of him, of course," I said. "Both to keep him in top shape and to win his lasting affection. But a dog that loves you is an animal that would do anything for you. You need only to communicate to him what you want done; German shepherds are surprisingly intelligent. I'm not exaggerating, sir. You can't beat a good, well-trained guard dog."

"I don't know," Gregg said, but I could tell that he was already about half-sold.

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Gregg," I said. "The animal is expensive, and I want to be sure you're satisfied and Sam Boy is happy with you before final placement; I'll give you a two-week trial period at no charge. At the end of that time, you either write me a check for five hundred dollars or I take him back."

"Five hundred is a lot of money."

"The dog, untrained, is worth over two hundred, Mr. Gregg. But you'll have two weeks to decide. Why don't I just let Sam Boy sell himself?"

I called Sam Boy over and formally introduced him to Gregg. Customers always like that sort of thing, and Gregg was no exception. Just watching the way he ruffled the dog's fur and responded to the way Sam Boy nuzzled his hand told me we had him sold on the trial-period idea. And he confirmed it a moment later.

For the next half-hour Gregg and I went over the details of feeding, watering, grooming, and otherwise caring for the dog, and I taught him the half-dozen basic commands he would need to work Sam Boy. "I think that's everything," I told him finally. "You won't have any problems, I'm sure, but I'll check back with you periodically just in case."

"Very good, Ferguson."

I declined another cup of coffee, and Gregg took me back into the foyer. That was where the box for the burglar alarm he'd mentioned was, on the wall to one side of the front door. It was a common type that could be turned on or off by a simple lever switch on the box, or from the outside by a key. But as Gregg had said, this kind of system isn't really foolproof; guard dogs, on the other hand, are when properly handled.

I said good-bye to Gregg and Sam Boy, and drove back into downtown St. Albans.

At seven-forty that night I called Gregg from a telephone booth in the Golden Mandarin Chinese restaurant. "How are you getting along with Sam Boy, Mr. Gregg?" I asked him.

"Beautifully," he answered. "What a marvelous animal."

"Isn't he? I was wondering, sir, if I could drop out to see you again one of these evenings? I've just picked up an excellent new book on dog handling and I thought you might enjoy reading it."

"That's good of you, Ferguson," he said. "Come by any night but tonight. My wife and I have a late dinner engagement with friends."

After we said good-byes, I went back to my table and sipped a final cup of tea and broke open my fortune cookie. Early preparations make for early rewards, the fortune said.

I drove around St. Albans for a while, killing time; then, at ten-thirty, I went to Melrose Place. When I saw that Gregg's house was dark I pulled the van into his driveway and parked in the shadows of one of the hedges. I went over and rang the bell a couple of times. Not a sound inside but the padding of a dog's paws coming to the door.

"Hi, Sam Boy," I whispered, and then I blew two short blasts on my silent dog whistle. Inside, as he had been so patiently trained to do—and as he had done so many times before, in a score of towns like St. Albans in eight different states—Sam Boy stood up on his hind legs, with his forepaws on the wall near the door, and used his teeth to flip the lever switch on the burglar alarm box to Off.

When I heard him come back to the door and bark once, I knew that he'd done his job. I hurried around the side of the house to the nearest window, used my glass cutter, and then reached in and opened the window and slid up the sash. Sam Boy was sitting on the floor inside; I leaned in and patted his head.

Yes, sir, I thought, you really can't beat a good, well-trained guard dog. Satisfaction guaranteed. Then I climbed over the sill and began teaching a valuable lesson in home security to another of On Guard's burglar-conscious customers . . .

T
here are murder weapons and there are murder weapons, but the thing used to bludgeon Philip Asher to death was the grisliest I'd seen in more than two decades on the police force.

It was a skull—a human skull.

Ed Crane and I stood staring down at what was left of it, lying splintered and gore-streaked to one side of the dead man. It had apparently cracked like an eggshell on the first or second blow, but that had been enough to shatter Asher's skull as well. Judging from the concavity of the wound, he had been struck with considerable force.

I pulled my gaze away and let it move over the room, a large masculine study. Well-used, leather-bound books covered two walls, and a third was adorned with what appeared to be primitive Mexican or Central American art and craftwork: pottery, statuary, wood carvings, weaponry. There were two teakwood desks arranged so that they faced each other—one large and ostentatious, the other small and functional—and several pieces of teak-and-leather furniture. It should have been a comfortable room, but for me it wasn't; there seemed to be a kind of cold, impersonal quality to it, despite the books and art.

Crane said, "If I wasn't seeing it for myself, I don't think I'd believe it."

"Yeah."

He rubbed at the bald spot on the crown of his head. "Well, I've had enough in here if you have."

"More than enough," I agreed.

We crossed to the double entrance doors and went into the hallway beyond. At its far end was a large living room containing more teakwood furniture and primitive art. One of the two patrolmen who had preceded us on the scene stood stoically beside a long sofa; the other officer was waiting outside for the arrival of the lab crew and the coroner. Sitting stiff-backed in middle of the sofa was Douglas Falconer—hands flat on his knees, eyes blinking myopically behind thick-lensed glasses. He was about forty, with a thin, chinless face and sparse sand-colored hair, dressed in slacks and a navy-blue shirt. He looked timid and harmless, but when he'd called headquarters a half hour earlier, he had confessed to the murder of Philip Asher. The dried stains on his right shirt sleeve and on the back of his right hand confirmed his guilt well enough.

All we knew about Falconer and Asher was that the deceased owned this house, an expensive Spanish-style villa in one of the city's finer residential areas; that Falconer had been his secretary; that no one else had been present at the time of the slaying; and that the crime had been committed, in Falconer's words, "during a moment of blind fury." We had no idea as to motive, and we hadn't been prepared at all for the nature of the murder weapon.

Falconer kept on blinking as Crane and I approached and stopped on either side of him, but his eyes did not seem to be seeing anything in the room. I thought maybe he'd gone into delayed shock, but when I said his name, his head jerked up and the eyes focused on me.

I said, "You want to tell us about it, Falconer?" We'd already apprised him of his rights, and he had waived his privilege of presence of counsel during questioning.

"I murdered Asher," he said. "I already told you that. At first I thought of trying to cover it up, make it look as though a burglar had done it. But I'm not a very good liar, even though I've had a lot of practice. Besides, I I. . . I don't much care what happens to me from now on."

"Why did you kill him?" Crane asked.

Falconer shook his head—not so much a refusal to answer as a reluctance or inability to put voice to the reason. We would get it out of him sooner or later, so there was no point in trying to force it.

I said, "Why the skull, Mr. Falconer? Where did you get a thing like that?"

He closed his eyes, popped them open again. "Asher kept it on the shelf behind his desk. He was sitting at the desk when I . . . when I did it."

"He kept a human skull in full view in his study?" Crane's tone was incredulous. "What the hell for?"

"He had a macabre sense of humor. He claimed to enjoy the reactions of visitors when they saw it. It was his
memento mori
, he said."

"His what?"

"Reminder of death," Falconer said.

"That sounds pretty morbid to me."

"Philip Asher was a fearless, cold-blooded man. Death never bothered him in the least. In one sense, it was his life; he devoted his life to the dead."

Crane and I exchanged glances. "You'd better explain that," I said.

"He was an anthropologist, quite a renowned one," Falconer said. "He published several books on the Mayan and Aztec races, and was in great demand as a lecturer and as a consultant to various university anthropological departments specializing in pre-Columbian studies."

"You were his full-time secretary, is that right?"

"Yes. I helped him with research, accompanied him on his expeditions to the Yucatan and other parts of Mexico and Central America, correlated his notes, typed his book manuscripts and business correspondence."

"How long did you work for him?"

"Eight years."

"Do you live here?"

"Yes. I have a room in the south wing."

"Does anyone else live in this house?"

"No. Asher never remarried after his wife left him several years ago. He had no close relatives."

Crane said, "Did you premeditate his death?"

"I didn't plan to kill him today, if that's what you mean."

"The two of you had an argument, then?"

"No, there wasn't any argument."

"Then what triggered this murderous rage of yours?" I asked.

He started to shake his head again, and then slumped backward bonelessly. His eyes seemed to be looking again at something not in the room.

At length he said, "It was a . . . revelation."

"Revelation?"

A heavy sigh. "I received a letter yesterday from another anthropologist I'd met through Asher," he said, "asking me to become his personal secretary at a substantial increase in salary. I considered the offer, and this morning decided that I couldn't afford to turn it down. But when I talked to Asher about it, he refused to accept my resignation. He said he couldn't be certain of my continued silence if I were no longer in his employ or in his house. He ordered me to remain. He said he would take steps against me if I didn't . . ."