Small Felonies - Fifty Mystery Short Stories (22 page)

"Wait a minute," I said. "Your continued silence about what?"

"Something that happened six years ago."

"What something?"

He didn't speak again for several seconds. Then he swallowed and said, "The death of his wife and her lover at Asher's summer lodge on Lake Pontrain."

We stared at him. Crane said, "You told us a couple of minutes ago that his wife had left him, not that she was dead."

"Did I? Yes, I suppose I did. I've told the same lie, in exactly the same way, so many times that it's an automatic response. Mildred and her lover died at Lake Pontrain; that is the truth."

"All right—how did they die?"

"By asphyxiation," he said. "It happened on a Saturday in September, six years ago. Early that morning Asher decided on the spur of the moment to spend a few days at the lodge; the book he was writing at the time was going badly and he thought a change of scenery might help. He drove up alone at eight; I had an errand to do and then followed in my own car about an hour later. When I reached the lodge I found Asher inside with the bodies. They were in bed—Mildred, who was supposed to have been visiting a friend in Los Angeles, and the man. I'd never seen him before; I found out later he was an itinerant musician." Pause. "They were both naked," he said.

"What did Asher say when you walked in?"

"That he'd found them just as they were. The lodge had been full of gas when he arrived, he said, and he'd aired it out. A tragic accident caused by a faulty gas heater in the bedroom."

"Did you believe that?" I asked.

"Yes. I was stunned. I'd always thought Mildred above such a thing as infidelity. She was beautiful, yes—but always so quiet, so dignified . . ."

"Was Asher also stunned?"

"He seemed to be," Falconer said. "But he was quite calm. When I suggested we contact the authorities he wouldn't hear of it. Think of the scandal, he said—the possible damage to his reputation and his career. I asked what else we could do. I wasn't prepared for his answer."

"Which was?"

"He suggested in that cold, calculating way of his that we dispose of the bodies, bury them somewhere at the lake. Then we could concoct a story to explain Mildred's disappearance, say that she had moved out and gone back to Boston, where she was born. He insisted no one would question this explanation, because he and Mildred had few close friends and because of his reputation. As it happened, he was right."

"So you went along with this cover-up?"

"What choice did I have? I'm not a forceful man, and at the time I respected Asher and his judgment. And as I told you, I was stunned. Yes, I went along with it. I helped Asher transfer the bodies to a promontory a mile away, where we buried them beneath piles of rocks."

Crane said, "So for six years you kept this secret—until today, until something happened this morning."

"Yes."

"These 'steps' Asher told you he'd take if you tried to leave his employ—were they threats of bodily harm?"

Falconer nodded. "He said he would kill me."

"Pretty drastic just to insure your silence about two accidental deaths six years ago."

"Yes. I said the same thing to him."

"And?"

"He told me the truth," Falconer said.

"That his wife and her lover didn't die by accident? That he'd murdered them?"

"That's right. He found them in bed together, very much alive; his massive ego had been wounded, the sin was unforgivable and had to be punished—that was how Philip Asher was. He knocked them both out with his fists. I suppose I would have seen evidence of that if I'd looked closely at the bodies, but in my distraught state I noticed nothing. Then he suffocated them with a pillow. I arrived before he could remove the bodies by himself, and so he made up the story about the faulty gas heater. If I hadn't believed it, if I hadn't helped him, he would have killed me too, then and there."

"Did he tell you that too?"

"Yes."

"So when you found out you'd been working for a murderer the past six years, that you'd helped cover up a cold-blooded double homicide, you lost control and picked up the skull and bashed his head in with it."

"No," Falconer said. "No, not exactly. I was sickened by his confession and by my part in the whole ugly affair; I loathed him and I wanted to strike back at him. But I'm not a violent man. It was his second revelation that made me do what I did."

"What was it, this second revelation?"

"Something else he'd done, a year after the murders. I don't know why he told me about it, except that he was quite mad. A mad ghoul." Falconer laughed mirthlessly. "Mad ghoul. It sounds funny, doesn't it? Like an old Bela Lugosi film. But that's just what Asher was, always poking around among the dead."

"Mr. Falconer—"

He let out a shuddering breath. "Asher's
memento mori
didn't come from Mexico, as I always believed; it came from that promontory at Lake Pontrain. I killed him, using the one fitting weapon for his destruction, when he told me I'd been working in that study of his all these years, all these years, with the skull of the only woman I ever loved grinning at me over his shoulder . . ."

T
ruax smiled at Margo London and me across his desk. He was short and round, with a receding hairline and soft smooth jowls; he reminded me of a large, pink, mostly hairless panda bear. "You brought the money, I trust?"

I lifted the briefcase from beside my chair and set it in front of him. "Seventy-five thousand dollars."

"Very good, Bob," he said. "Shall we sign the contracts?" I nodded, but Margo said, "I still don't see why we have to pay cash. Why couldn't we just give you a bank draft?"

"I explained that, Mrs. London," Truax said patiently. "But let me go over it again, in simpler terms. Dealings in land speculation these days are, by necessity, complicated and difficult. Sometimes the strict letter of the law must be, ah, shall we say slightly revised, in order to assure a satisfactory outcome for all concerned."

"In other words," Margo said, "you have to pay people off under the table."

Truax chose to ignore that. "Now in this case," he said, "the undeveloped property that Consolidated Development Corporation will soon purchase is valuable only as second-growth timberland. It is owned by a small independent logging company that is willing to part with it for five thousand dollars an acre."

"Because they don't know the state is planning to build a freeway through the area," I. said.

"Correct. It so happens that a close friend of mine is an official with the State Highway Commission. He came to me recently with a proposition: He would divulge certain classified information—in fact, the secret freeway project—in exchange for a one-fifth share in the Consolidated Development Corporation, which I would set up. This share was to be purchased for him in cash by the other four stockholders, each contributing twenty thousand dollars of their total purchase price of seventy-five thousand, so as to prevent any link between himself and the corporation. To put it another way, corporation documents show a total of four stockholders, when in reality there are five; the official's stock will be held in trust. Do you see now?"

"Not really," Margo said. "Oh, I understand why twenty thousand has to be paid in cash, but why the other fifty-five thousand?"

"I'll try to simplify that, too. The logging company wants to avoid a large capital-gains tax, so they've agreed to sell Consolidated the land at a much lower official price than its actual market value. We in turn will give them the difference in cash." He smiled disarmingly. "As you say, Mrs. London, 'under the table.' Therefore, the logging company pays less tax and Consolidated outlays less for the property."

Margo was silent for a time. Then she said, "I see." Finally.

"Fine. Any more questions, then?"

"I don't have any," I said. "Margo?"

"No, I suppose not."

Truax beamed at us again. "Then shall we sign the papers and complete the transaction?"

We signed them. Truax countersigned, gave us our copy of the agreement, put the others away in a portfolio. He made no move toward the briefcase.

Margo asked him, "Aren't you going to count the money?"

"No, that's not necessary. I trust you and Bob implicitly, Mrs. London."

"You don't know us very well," she said. "We don't know you very well, for that matter. Robert only met you a month ago.

"Indeed. But trust is vital in this sort of business dealing, when the eventual rewards are so great. Don't you agree?"

"Mm. You're sure we won't have to wait more than two years?"

"Not absolutely positive, no. It might take as many as three before you begin to reap the profits. No longer than three, though; I think I can guarantee that."

The light of greed glittered in Margo's eyes again. "Several million dollars for each of the stockholders, you said?"

"Exactly. Five million, minimum. Perhaps as much as ten."

We shook hands all around, and Margo and I left Truax's offices and rode the elevator down to the lobby. As we left the building, Margo said, "I'm still not convinced we've done the right thing, Robert."

"Why not?"

"Seventy-five thousand dollars is all the money I . . . we have in the world. After all, Aunt Lucinda intended it for our golden years—a retirement home like the one she had in Sun-crest Acres."

"There isn't any reason we can't still buy a retirement home in Suncrest Acres," I said. "In fact, we can probably afford to buy Suncrest Acres itself with ten million dollars. Think about that."

She thought about it, and the greed came back into her eyes. "Ten million dollars," she said. And nothing more.

The following afternoon I was sitting in the parlor of our small house near one of the city's shopping centers. I sometimes have occasion to work on Saturday afternoons—I am an accountant at Hardiman and Waycroft—but this was not one of them.

I put down the travel magazine I had been reading and said to Margo, who was crocheting, "I've been thinking, dear. It might be a good idea for us to take a drive upstate tomorrow."

She looked up. "What for?"

"Well, to look at the property we bought," I said. "I think I'd like to see our investment first-hand."

"It's just timberland. You saw that in those aerial and ground photos Mr. Truax showed us."

"I'd still like a close-up look. I think I'll call Truax, see if he'll join us. He told me he works a full day on Saturdays." I went to the phone and dialed Truax's number. And a recorded voice answered, saying, "We're sorry, the number you've reached is no longer in service." Frowning, I tried the number again, with the same results.

"What's the matter, Robert?"

"His phone has been disconnected."

"Disconnected? I don't understand."

"Neither do I."

I called the company that handles the renting and leasing of offices in the Wainwright Building; I happened to know which one it was because Hardiman and Waycroft is their accounting firm. I got through to a man I knew slightly named Corday, identified myself, and then told him that I had been trying to reach a Mr. Dalton Truax who occupied an office in the Wainwright Building.

"Not any longer," Corday said.

"What?"

"Mr. Truax vacated this morning. I spoke with him personally, as a matter of fact. He was apologetic that he would have to vacate after only one month, but business pressures and lack of funds made it necessary."

"Only one month? But . . . but he told me he'd been there for years!"

"No, only one month. Is something wrong, Mr. London?"

"No, I . . . no."

I hung up quickly and turned to face Margo. She was livid. "I should have known something like this would happen," she said. "I should have known he was a crook!"

"Maybe he isn't," I said in stunned tones. "Maybe it's some sort of misunderstanding . . ."

"No it isn't. He stole my seventy-five thousand dollars! And it's your fault, Robert, all your fault!"

"But . . ."

"No buts! Get your hat and coat—we're going to the police!"

I had been just about to suggest the same thing.

T
he bunco-squad detective was named Helwig. He listened to our story with a mixture of sympathy and mild reproach in his eyes, and then he did some checking through police channels.

"There's no such person as Dalton Truax," he told us then. "Which means that there's no Consolidated Development Corporation, no undeveloped parcel of land upstate, no crooked official in the State Highway Department, and no secret freeway project. I'm afraid you're the victims of an elaborate con game."

Neither Margo nor I had anything to say. I could feel her eyes boring into me, but I refused to look at her.

"You're not the first and you won't be the last," Helwig said, "if that's any consolation. Land speculation, particularly the shady variety, is one of the con man's stocks in trade. Everybody wants to get rich quick, and it's said there's a little larceny in us all. The con artist counts on that; it's what makes any swindle work."