The Good Old Stuff (7 page)

“Okay. You ponder.”

“Like this. Drynfells lied from the beginning. He sold the land to Temple Davisson. They went back. Drynfells took the bundle of cash, possibly a check for the balance. Those twenty minutes inside was when some sort of document was being executed. Davisson mentions where he’s going. In the afternoon Drynfells gets a better offer for the land. He stalls the buyer. He gets hold of Davisson and asks him to come back. Davisson does so. Drynfells wants to cancel the sale. Maybe he offers Davisson a bonus to tear up the document and take his money and check back. Davisson laughs at him. Drynfells asks for just a little bit of time. Davisson says he’ll give him a little time. He’ll be at the Aqua Azul for twenty minutes. From here he phones his wife. Can’t get her. Makes eyes at you. Leaves. Drynfells, steered by his wife’s instincts, has dropped her off and gone up the road a bit. She waits by Temple Davisson’s car. He comes out. He is susceptible, as Mrs. Drynfells has guessed, to a little night walk with a very pretty young lady. She walks him up the road to where Drynfells is waiting. They bash him, tumble him into the Drynfells car, remove document of sale, dispose of body. That leaves them with the wad of cash, plus the money from the sale to the new customer Drynfells stalled. The weak point was the possibility of Davisson’s car being seen at their place. That little scene we witnessed this morning had the flavor of being very well rehearsed.”

Kathy snapped her fingers, eyes glowing. “It fits! Every
little bit of it fits. They couldn’t do it there, when he came back, because that would have left them with the car. He had to be seen someplace else. Here.”

“There’s one fat flaw, Kathy.”

“How could there be?”

“Just how do we go about proving it?”

She thought that over. Her face fell. “I see what you mean.”

“I don’t think that the dark-haired girl he was seen with could be identified as Mrs. Drynfells. Without evidence that the sale was consummated, we lack motive—except, of course, for the possible motive of murder for the money he carried.”

Kathy sat with her chin propped on the backs of her fingers, studying him. “I wouldn’t care to have you on my trail, Mr. Darrigan.”

“How so?”

“You’re very impressive, in your quiet little way, hiding behind that mask.”

“A mask, yet.”

“Of course. And behind it you sit, equipped with extra senses, catching the scent of murder, putting yourself neatly in the murderer’s shoes, with all your reasoning based on emotions, not logic.”

“I’m very logical. I plod. And I now plod out to the phone and see if logic has borne any fruit.”

He went to the lobby and phoned Dinah Davisson.

“I found him, Mr. Darrigan. He’s staying at the Kingfisher with his wife.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No. Just to the desk clerk.”

“Thanks. You’ll hear from me later, Mrs. Davisson.”

He phoned the Kingfisher and had Mr. Brock called from the dining room to the phone. “Mr. Brock, my name is Darrigan. Mr. Temple Davisson told me you were interested in a plot of Gulf-front land.”

“Has he been found?”

“No, he hasn’t. I’m wondering if you’re still in the market.”

“Sorry, I’m not. I think I’m going to get the piece I want.”

“At Redington Beach?”

Brock had a deep voice. “How did you know that?”

“Just a guess, Mr. Brock. Would you mind telling me who you’re buying it from?”

“A Mr. Drynfells. He isn’t an agent. It’s his land.”

“He contacted you last Friday, I suppose. In the afternoon?”

“You must have a crystal ball, Mr. Darrigan. Yes, he did. And he came in to see me late Friday night. We inspected the land Sunday. I suppose you even know what I’ll be paying for it.”

“Probably around one seventy-five.”

“That’s too close for comfort, Mr. Darrigan.”

“Sorry to take you away from your dinner for no good reason. Thanks for being so frank with me.”

“Quite all right.”

Gilbert Darrigan walked slowly back into the bar. Kathy studied him. “Now you’re even more impressive, Gil. Your eyes have gone cold.”

“I feel cold. Right down into my bones. I feel this way when I’ve guessed a bit too accurately.” She listened, eyes narrowed, as he told her the conversation.

“Mr. Drynfells had a busy Friday,” she said.

“Now we have the matter of proof.”

“How do you go about that? Psychological warfare, perhaps?”

“Not with that pair. They’re careful. They’re too selfish to have very much imagination. I believe we should consider the problem of the body.”

She sipped her drink, stared over his head at the far wall. “The dramatic place, of course, would be under the concrete of that new pool, with the dark greedy wife sunbathing beside it, sleepy-eyed and callous.”

He reached across the table and put his fingers hard around her wrist. “You are almost beyond price, Kathy. That is exactly where it is.”

She looked faintly ill. “No,” she said weakly. “I was only—”

“You thought you were inventing. But your subconscious mind knew, as mine did.”

It was not too difficult to arrange. The call had to come from Clearwater. They drove there in Kathy’s car, and Darrigan,
lowering his voice, said to Drynfells over the phone, “I’ve got my lawyer here and I’d like you to come in right now, Mr. Drynfells. Bring your wife with you. We’ll make it business and pleasure both.”

“I don’t know as I—”

“I have to make some definite arrangement, Mr. Drynfells. If I can’t complete the deal with you, I’ll have to pick up a different plot.”

“But you took an option, Mr. Brock!”

“I can forfeit that, Mr. Drynfells. How soon can I expect you?”

After a long pause Drynfells said, “We’ll leave here in twenty minutes.”

On the way back out to Madeira Beach, Darrigan drove as fast as he dared. Kathy refused to be dropped off at the Aqua Azul. The Coral Tour Haven was dark, the “No Vacancy” sign lighted.

They walked out to the dark back yard, Kathy carrying the flash, Darrigan carrying the borrowed pickaxe. He found the valve to empty the shallow pool, turned it. He stood by Kathy. She giggled nervously as the water level dropped.

“We’d better not be wrong,” she said.

“We’re not wrong,” Darrigan murmured. The water took an infuriating time to drain out of the pool. He rolled up his pants legs, pulled off shoes and socks, stepped down in when there was a matter of inches left. The cement had set firmly. It took several minutes to break through to the soil underneath. Then, using the pick point as a lever, he broke a piece free. He got his hands on it and turned it over. The flashlight wavered. Only the soil underneath was visible. Again he inserted a curved side of the pick, leaned his weight against it, lifted it up slowly. The flashlight beam focused on the side of a muddy white shoe, a gray sock encasing a heavy ankle. The light went out and Kathy Marrick made a moaning sound, deep in her throat.

Darrigan lowered the broken slab back into position, quite gently. He climbed out of the pool.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I … think so.”

He rolled down his pants legs, pulled socks on over wet feet, shoved his feet into the shoes, laced them neatly and tightly.

“How perfectly dreadful,” Kathy said in a low tone.

“It always is. Natural death is enough to give us a sort of superstitious fear. But violent death always seems obscene. An assault against the dignity of every one of us. Now we do some phoning.”

They waited, afterwards, in the dark car parked across the road. When the Drynfellses returned home, two heavy men advanced on their car from either side, guns drawn, flashlights steady. There was no fuss. No struggle. Just the sound of heavy voices in the night, and a woman’s spiritless weeping.

At the Aqua Azul, Kathy put her hand in his. “I won’t see you again,” she said. It was statement, not question.

“I don’t believe so, Kathy.”

“Take care of yourself.” The words had a special intonation. She made her real meaning clear: Gil, don’t let too many of these things happen to you. Don’t go too far away from life and from warmth. Don’t go to that far place where you are conscious only of evil and the effects of evil.

“I’ll try to,” he said.

As he drove away from her, drove down the dark road that paralleled the beaches, he thought of her as another chance lost, as another milepost on a lonely road that ended at some unguessable destination. There was a shifting sourness in his mind, an unease that was familiar. He drove with his eyes steady, his face fashioned into its mask of tough unconcern. Each time, you bled a little. And each time the hard flutter of excitement ended in this sourness. Murder for money. It was seldom anything else. It was seldom particularly clever. It was invariably brutal.

Dinah Davisson’s house was brightly lighted. The other houses on the street were dark. He had asked that he be permitted to inform her.

She was in the long pastel living room, a man and a woman with her. She had been crying, but she was undefeated. She carried her head high. Something hardened and tautened within
him when he saw the red stripes on her cheek, stripes that only fingers could have made, in anger.

“Mr. Darrigan, this is Miss Davisson and Colonel Davisson.”

They were tall people. Temple had his father’s hard jaw, shrewd eye. The woman was so much like him that it was almost ludicrous. Both of them were very cool, very formal, slightly patronizing.

“You are from Guardsman Life?” Colonel Davisson asked. “Bit unusual for you to be here, isn’t it?”

“Not entirely. I’d like to speak to you alone, Mrs. Davisson.”

“Anything you wish to say to her can be said in front of us,” Alicia Davisson said acidly.

“I’d prefer to speak to her alone,” Gil said, quite softly.

“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Darrigan,” the young widow said.

“The police have found your husband’s body,” he said bluntly, knowing that bluntness was more merciful than trying to cushion the blow with mealy half-truths.

Dinah closed her lovely eyes, kept them closed for long seconds. Her hand tightened on the arm of the chair and then relaxed. “How—”

“I knew a stupid marriage of this sort would end in some kind of disaster,” Alicia said.

The cruelty of that statement took Darrigan’s breath for a moment. Shock gave way to anger. The colonel walked to the dark windows, looked out into the night, hands locked behind him, head bowed.

Alicia rapped a cigarette briskly on her thumbnail, lighted it.

“Marriage had nothing to do with it,” Darrigan said. “He was murdered for the sake of profit. He was murdered by a thoroughly unpleasant little man with a greedy wife.”

“And our young friend here profits nicely,” Alicia said.

Dinah stared at her. “How on earth can you say a thing like that when you’ve just found out? You’re his daughter. It doesn’t seem—”

“Kindly spare us the violin music,” Alicia said.

“I don’t want any of the insurance money,” Dinah said. “I don’t want any part of it. You two can have it. All of it.”

The colonel wheeled slowly and stared at her. He wet his lips. “Do you mean that?”

Dinah lifted her chin. “I mean it.”

The colonel said ingratiatingly, “You’ll have the trust fund, of course, as it states in the will. That certainly will be enough to take care of you.”

“I don’t know as I want that, either.”

“We can discuss that later,” the colonel said soothingly. “This is a great shock to all of us. Darrigan, can you draw up some sort of document she can sign where she relinquishes her claim as principal beneficiary?” When he spoke to Darrigan, his voice had a Pentagon crispness.

Darrigan had seen this too many times before. Money had changed the faces of the children. A croupier would recognize that glitter in the eyes, that moistness of mouth. Darrigan looked at Dinah. Her face was proud, unchanged.

“I could, I suppose. But I won’t,” Darrigan said.

“Don’t be impudent. If you can’t, a lawyer can.”

Darrigan spoke very slowly, very distinctly. “Possibly you don’t understand, Colonel. The relationship between insurance company and policyholder is one of trust. A policyholder does not name his principal beneficiary through whim. We have accepted his money over a period of years. We intend to see that his wishes are carried out. The policy options state that his widow will have an excellent income during her lifetime. She does not receive a lump sum, except for a single payment of ten thousand. What she does with the income is her own business, once it is received. She can give it to you, if she wishes.”

“I couldn’t accept that sort of … charity,” the colonel said stiffly. “You heard her state her wishes, man! She wants to give up all claims against the policies.”

Darrigan allowed himself a smile. “She’s only trying to dissociate herself from you two scavengers. She has a certain amount of pride. She is mourning her husband. Maybe you can’t understand that.”

“Throw him out, Tem,” Alicia whispered.

The colonel had turned white. “I shall do exactly that,” he said.

Dinah stood up slowly, her face white. “Leave my house,” she said.

The colonel turned toward her. “What do—”

“Yes, the two of you. You and your sister. Leave my house at once.”

The tension lasted for long seconds. Dinah’s eyes didn’t waver. Alicia shattered the moment by standing up and saying, in tones of infinite disgust, “Come on, Tem. The only thing to do with that little bitch is start dragging her through the courts.”

They left silently, wrapped in dignity like stained cloaks.

Dinah came to Darrigan. She put her face against his chest, her brow hard against the angle of his jaw. The sobs were tiny spasms, tearing her, contorting her.

He cupped the back of her head in his hand, feeling a sense of wonder at the silk texture of her hair, at the tender outline of fragile bone underneath. Something more than forgotten welled up within him, stinging his eyes, husking his voice as he said, “They aren’t worth … this.”

“He … was worth … more than … this,” she gasped.

The torment was gone as suddenly as it had come. She stepped back, rubbing at streaming eyes with the backs of her hands, the way a child does.