Solomon's Vineyard (21 page)

We walked over to the coffin, keeping the pistols in our hands.
Solomon lay on his side. Blood made the robe red in a dozen places, and
there was a mess of blood where the lower part of his jaw had been shot
away. The gold knife was still in his fist.

I said: “Dead as a mackerel.”

The stink was terrible. I looked around the coffin, but I couldn't
see where it was coming from. It reminded me again of the Kansas City
stockyards.

“What the hell was his idea?” the chief said. “Living in a temple for
five years. In a coffin.”

One of the detectives began to nose around the altar. I got the white
cloth and threw it over the Princess. Grayson went downstairs to
Penelope. There was a sound of voices outside the temple, and I went to
the door and peeked out. About thirty Elders and Brothers had gathered
by the steps, but the chief's men were keeping them back. I suppose
they had heard the shooting. The cop by the altar called me, and I went
back.

“What is it?”

He put his shoulder against the wall back of the altar and a door
swung open. I went in behind him and the chief. Our flashlights showed
a small room with a couple of tiny windows near the ceiling. There was
a bed, a chair, a bookcase with some books and a dresser. In the
dresser the detective found some black robes, sandals, and a rifle with
a silencer.

“Remember a guy named Johnson?” I asked the chief.

“The one who was murdered?”

I nodded. “There's the gun that killed him.”

We went out into the big room again, the cop carrying the silenced
rifle. The chief said: “I think you got some explaining to do.”

“Not here,” I said. “Bodies always give me goose pimples.”

After we'd left Penelope at St Ann's Hospital, we went to an
all-night bar. Over a whisky and a steak sandwich I made things as
clear as I thought I ought. I told Grayson and the chief I'd found from
the records that McGee was the Vineyard's business manager. Pug Banta
had killed him, I said, because McGee was trying to get rid of him. I
showed them the Legion button I'd found in the temple basement.

“I figured Oke Johnson was killed,” I said, “by someone who didn't
like him nosing around the temple.”

And when I found from Jeliff, the butcher, that he was sending old
meat to the Vineyard, I said, I had a pretty good idea Solomon was
still alive. “What else would they want decayed meat for but to make a
stink?” And if Solomon was alive he'd want to keep it a secret, even if
he had to kill Johnson

“Sure.”

“How the hell did he get his food?”

“I suppose a couple of Elders fed him. They probably didn't know
whether he was really dead or alive.”

“He was sure crazy,” the chief said. While Grayson told the chief how
he'd happened to hire me and Oke Johnson and then went on to some of
the things I'd told him at the Arkady, I ate steak and drought about
what I'd done. Usually Justice was supposed to be a tall dame in a
white robe, but in Paulton, I decided, if the citizens ever stuck a
statue of Justice on the courthouse steps, it would have to be a fat,
red-faced guy with a scar on his belly.

That was a laugh, but a funny thing: I'd always played on the Justice
team. Even now. Nobody could deny that Banta, the Princess and even
McGee had it coming. I felt sorry for Caryle Waterman, but it was his
own fault. And I had saved Penelope Grayson. I tried to think how I
might have got her out in some other way, but I couldn't. It was a
case, as the saying goes, of fighting fire with fire.

Grayson turned to me from the chief and asked: “Would Penelope
actually have been the Bride if that poor woman hadn't...?”

I said: “Yeah.”

Chief Piper scowled at me. “That brings up the one thing I don't
understand.”

I drank the rest of my whisky. “What?”

“Why'd the Princess take Miss Grayson's place?”

They both stared at me. “Oh,” I said; “she just . . . just wanted to
help out.”

“Didn't she know Solomon ... uh ... and killed the Bride?”

“Neither of us knew that,” I said earnestly. “Otherwise she'd never
done it.” I took a bite of steak. '-'I'd never have let her. The
Princess. . . well, I went for her in a big way.”

Grayson said: “You don't seem exactly stricken with grief.”

“Well,” I said, “being a detective toughens a fellow up, Mr.
Grayson.”