The Spook Lights Affair (23 page)

He cast his gaze back along the dunes. The line of irregular footprints led straight to where the dead man lay. There were no others in the vicinity except for those made by himself and Barnaby Meeker.

*   *   *

With a minimal amount of help from his client, Quincannon dragged and then carried Lucas Whiffing’s corpse back to the lean-to, deposited it in the Meekers’ spring wagon, and covered it with a tarpaulin. No purpose would have been served in allowing the body to remain where it had fallen. Meeker’s daughter had a fit of hysterics when she saw the body; evidently her feelings for the deceased had been stronger than her family believed. Mrs. Meeker seemed more disturbed by this and by the prospect of a murderer on the loose in the night than the youth’s death—hardly a surprise, given her feelings about Lucas Whiffing. She hurried her daughter inside the main car, where she went about lighting every lamp until all four cars were ablaze.

Meeker kept muttering, “Murdered virtually before our eyes. And by whom? Or what? It couldn’t have been a … a malevolent spirit from the Other Side, could it?”

“Not unless ghosts have learned how to fire a handgun loaded with real bullets.”

“But what I saw on the dunes … what
you
saw before we found poor Whiffing…”

“Illusion. A clever trick that backfired.”

“I don’t understand.…”

“Nor do I, yet,” Quincannon said. “But it won’t be long before I do.”

Meeker wanted to immediately transport the youth’s body to the Whiffing home, but Quincannon talked him into waiting until dawn. The dead of a fog-raddled night was no time for such a grim chore. It would be better if not easier done by daylight. There was another reason, too, that he kept to himself. The Whiffings would surely insist on summoning the city police and coroner; there being no telephones in Carville, this would require a drive into the city proper to the nearest line. The longer it took for the bloody bluecoats to arrive, the more time he would have to investigate without interference.

When Meeker had gone inside, Quincannon searched the dead lad’s clothing. An old Remington single-action, top-break revolver was tucked into one deep coat pocket. He sniffed the barrel; it had been fired recently and not cleaned afterward—the weapon used in the panicked shooting of Bob Cantwell in the print shop, no doubt. And it was fully loaded; Whiffing hadn’t been given a chance to use it tonight.

From the other coat pocket Quincannon fished a second item of interest: a twin of the heavy lead sinker he’d found below the parapet retaining wall on Sutro Heights. It confirmed his suspicions of a link between Virginia St. Ives’s disappearance and the Carville ghost business, and gave further credence to his notion of how both mysteries had been perpetrated and why.

*   *   *

At dawn Quincannon helped his distraught employer hitch up the spring wagon. He had managed nearly three hours of sleep sitting in the chair before the banked fire; Meeker, red-eyed and gaunt, seemed not to have slept at all. Evidently neither had Mrs. Meeker, who came out heavily bundled and grim-visaged to join her husband on the ride to the Whiffing home. She made it plain that she was only doing so because it was her “painful duty.” Patricia was “prostrated in her room, poor child,” which suited Quincannon.

When the Meekers had driven away, he embarked on the morning’s first order of business. As early as it was, the fog had not yet begun to recede, but the wind had died down and visibility was good. The dunes lay like a desert wasteland all around him as he trudged down the left fork at an angle between the abandoned cars and the one occupied by E. J. Crabb, who had failed to put in an appearance at any time after the ghost business began.

No smoke rose from the stovepipe jutting from the roof of Crabb’s car, nor did lamplight show behind any of the windows. But Crabb was in residence. A knob-kneed horse, apparently the man’s sole means of transportation, munched hay inside a makeshift pole corral nearby.

Quincannon made his way past the jumble of deserted cars, around behind the line of dunes where he’d seen the white radiance last night. A careful search of the wind-smoothed sand along their backsides turned up nothing. Opposite where he had found Lucas Whiffing was another high-topped dune; he climbed it and inspected the sparse vegetation that grew along the crest.

Ah, just as he’d suspected. Some of the grass stalks had broken ends, and a patch of gorse was gouged and mashed flat. This was where the assassin had lain to fire the fatal shot—and a marksman he was, to have been so accurate on such a foggy night.

Quincannon searched behind the dune. Here and there, in places sheltered from the wind, were footprints leading to and from the abandoned cars. Then he began to range outward in the opposite direction, zigzagging back and forth among the sand hills. Gulls wheeled overhead, shrieking, as he drew nearer to the beach. The Pacific was calmer this morning, the waves breaking more quietly over the white sand.

For more than an hour he continued his hunt. He found nothing among the dunes. The long inner sweep of the beach was littered with all manner of flotsam cast up during storms and high winds—shells, bottles, tins, pieces of driftwood large and small, birds and sea creatures alive and dead. Last night’s wind had been blowing from the northeast; he ranged farther to the south, his sharp eyes scanning left and right.

Some two hundred rods from where he had emerged onto the beach, he found what he was looking for, caught and tangled around the bare limb of a tree branch.

He extricated it carefully, examined it, then tucked it inside his coat. A satisfied smile stretched the corners of his mouth as he retraced his path back along the beach and through the dunes.

*   *   *

The Meekers had not yet returned from their unpleasant duty. Quincannon considered the rented rig, decided it was too much trouble to hitch up. He led the plug out of the corral, slipped a halter he found in the lean-to into place, and swung up onto the horse’s swayed back. The animal seemed less than pleased to be carrying so much weight, but after a few balky movements Quincannon succeeded in urging it along the dune lanes and out across the highway to the Whiffing home.

Lucretia Meeker answered his knock. Her husband had gone with a distraught James Whiffing, she told him, to summon the police and the coroner. Mrs. Whiffing was prostrate with grief in their bedroom. Lucas Whiffing’s remains had been consigned to his private car to await the arrival of the coroner and the bluecoats.

“Before they come,” Quincannon said, “I’ll need a few minutes alone in the dead lad’s car.”

Mrs. Meeker narrowed her eyes at him. “What for?”

“For purposes of my investigation.”

“Your investigation, indeed. If you were worth a fig as a detective you would have kept poor Lucas from being slain.”

“A regrettable occurance, though there was nothing I could have done to prevent the shooting. But I won’t fail in apprehending his murderer.”

“That is a matter for the police, now. You are no longer employed by my husband, so don’t expect to be paid for your services. He was a fool to hire you in the first place.”

Quincannon had had enough of this human sourball. He stepped close, rising up on his toes so that he loomed above her like Blackbeard above a prisoner on the plank, and fixed her with a basilisk eye. “No matter what you say, I will continue my investigation until this matter has been resolved to my satisfaction. Now will you point me to Lucas’s car, or would you prefer that I wake Mrs. Whiffing and trouble her for her permission?”

“You … you can’t talk to me like that! I won’t stand for it—”

“I can, I did, and you will. Well, my good woman?”

His piratical loom-and-glare withered her resistance. She muttered, “You’ll pay for your rudeness, I’ll see to that,” but she no longer met his gaze as she showed him the way into Lucas Whiffing’s private car.

He shut the door after him and turned the latch bolt. Curtains had been drawn over the windows, but enough daylight filtered in for Quincannon to see by without lighting one of the lamps. The body lay on the bed, completely covered by a blanket. The rest of the spacious room contained a stove, a few pieces of furniture, a steamer trunk, a framed photograph of contestants in a bicycle race, a poster advertising hot-air balloon rides, and little else.

Quincannon searched the dresser drawers first, then the wardrobe, but it was in the steamer trunk that he struck paydirt. Hidden underneath a layer of miscellaneous cloth items were several hand tools, a ball of twine similar to the one he’d found in the abandoned “ghost” car, a jar of oil-based paint, a board with four ten-penny nails driven through it, and half a dozen lead sinkers that matched in size, shape, and weight the other two in his possession.

Now he had proof positive of how Virginia St. Ives had “disappeared” from Sutro Heights and how spooks had been made to glow and prance and suddenly vanish in Carville-by-the-Sea.

24

QUINCANNON

Knuckles on the door of E. J. Crabb’s car produced no response. Neither did a brace of shouts. But Crabb and his horse were still here, and he was up and about now: thin ribbons of smoke drifted from the stovepipe to mingle with the tendrils of fog. Quincannon used his left fist on the door, at the same time raising his call of the man’s name to a tolerable bellow. This finally brought results. The door jerked open and there Crabb stood, wearing a pair of loose-fitting long johns and his dim shoebutton eyes narrowed to a glare.

“You,” he said. “What do you want?”

Quincannon said bluntly, “One of your neighbors was murdered last night.”

“What? Who was murdered?”

“Lucas Whiffing.”

“The hell you say. Who done it?”

“From all appearances, the Carville ghost.”

Crabb backed up a step, his eyes widening. “The … ghost? It walked again last night?”

“Same time and place as before. You didn’t see it?”

“Not me. Once was enough. Ever since that time I bolt my door, shutter all the windows, and sleep with a weapon close to hand.”

“That Bisley Colt of yours, eh?”

“That’s right. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Heard nothing, either, around midnight?”

“Just the wind. Where’d it happen?”

“On the dunes beyond the abandoned cars.”

“How?”

“Shot, clean through the gizzard.”

“Huh?” Crabb said. “How can a damned ghost shoot somebody?”

“A ghost didn’t. A man did.”

“What man? Who’d want to kill the Whiffing kid?”

“Who indeed?” Quincannon hunched his shoulders in a mock shiver. “Cold out here, Mr. Crabb. Mind if I come inside?”

“… What for?”

“Stove warmth. And if that’s brewing coffee I smell, a cup to warm my innards would be welcome. You don’t object to being neighborly, do you?”

“You ain’t a neighbor.”

“I am temporarily. Staying with the Meekers, as I told you yesterday.”

Crabb hesitated a few seconds later, finally backed up to allow Quincannon to enter, and shut the door behind him. The interior of the car was meagerly furnished: a cot, a scarred table, a three-legged stool, an unpainted cabinet, a soot-blackened woodstove with a pile of driftwood beside it, and a scarred saddle and bridle for the horse outside. Clothing, dishes, utensils, and glasses, all of them unwashed and giving off a fetid scent, were strewn helter-skelter throughout. The Bisley Colt in its holster lay draped across the foot of the cot. There was nothing else of interest in sight.

Quincannon said, “Pleasant little nest you’ve made for yourself.”

The irony was lost on Crabb. “Yeah, it’s all right.” He went to the stove where a tin coffeepot was heating, found a cup that was no doubt dirty, and splashed dark brown liquid into it. Quincannon made no move to take the cup from him, so Crabb set it down on the table.

“Now, then,” Quincannon said. “To business.”

“Business? What business? Thought you wanted the stove and coffee.”

“The business of Lucas Whiffing’s murder. Among other things.”

“I don’t know nothing about that. I told you, I spent last night locked inside this here car.”

“No, you didn’t, not all of it. You spent an hour or two before midnight lying in wait on one of the dunes, with that cocked Bisley in your hand.”

The hard glare was back in Crabb’s eyes. “What would I do that for?”

“To lay the Carville ghost once and for all.”

“You don’t make no sense, mister. Spook stuff scares the bejesus out of me. Ask Meeker, ask that old coot in the coffee saloon—they’ll tell you.”

“Spook stuff that you fear might be authentic, yes. Not the bogus kind that went on here.”

“What the hell you trying to say? That I shot the Whiffing kid?”

“With malice aforethought, after you figured out he was responsible for the ghost business. And why.”

“That’s a damn lie! You think I’d kill some kid just because he was trying to scare me?”

“That was only part of the reason,” Quincannon said. “Tell me, Crabb. What do the initials E.J. stand for?”

Crabb blinked, blinked again. “What the hell?” he said.

“The initials E.J. Your first name wouldn’t happen to be Ezekial, would it?”

“… What if it is?”

“I thought as much. Zeke for short, eh?”

“What does my name have to do with—” Crabb broke off abruptly, goggling.

Quincannon had had his right hand in his coat pocket the entire time, wrapped around the butt of the Navy he’d transferred there before knocking on the door. Now, in one swift motion, he had produced the weapon. Crabb continued to gawp, his gaze shifting back and forth between the pistol and Quincannon’s face.

“Where’s the money, Zeke?”

“Money? What money?”

“The money Lucas Whiffing was after. The Wells, Fargo Express money you swiped from Jack Travers after you killed him.”

“You’re crazy, man! Who the hell are you?”

“John Quincannon, peerless detective. Now answer my question. Where’s the money?”

For a slow-witted hulk of a man, Crabb moved with the quickness of a cat. He swept the tin cup off the table, hurled it and a swirl of hot coffee at Quincannon, and lunged sideways to where the Bisley Colt lay on the cot. Quincannon managed to dodge the cup and most of the scalding spray, but the evasive action cost him any chance of putting a disabling bullet in Crabb. There was no other choice but to rush the man.