Detour to Death (13 page)

But to Danny, sitting bolt upright on the edge of the cell cot, they were all like spectators at the zoo. What was Danny Ross in their eyes—a monkey, a tiger, or just a goat? Maybe he should make that a mountain goat after this afternoon’s climb; and then Danny remembered what it was he’d been climbing from, and what he had to tell Trace.

“The cabin,” he began. “Tell the sheriff to look in the cabin!”

There was no need to relay the message. “The cabin’s burned down,” Virgil said.

“Burned down!”

Danny sank back against the wall. He should have kept his mouth shut. He should have waited for somebody else to start the talking; but once he’d stuck his neck out so far there was no stopping the questions.

“Why should Virgil look in the cabin?” Trace demanded. “What happened back there, Danny? How did that fire get started?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t know there was a fire!”

“He was running from it fast enough when I caught him,” Jim drawled.

Nobody invited Jim to horn in. He came shoving forward like a man on a free pass, and the drinks he’d hoisted while relating his exploit to the boys at the Pioneer bar gave his blue eyes a cruel and glassy stare. He laughed, and that was the finish.

Danny wasn’t tired any more. He was on his feet like a bristling cat, and no matter if the pasty-faced doctor did get an elbow in his bifocals. For two days Danny had been hounded, and for two days he’d trembled, hidden, and run for his life; but the time had come when he couldn’t run any more—wouldn’t run even if somebody turned the key and swung open those barred doors! All the way up that canyon wall he’d faced a dozen deaths more terrible than anything these leering faces could threaten—and they were all leering faces: Jim Rice, the sheriff, that big-bosomed woman with the greasy hair. Even Trace was a stranger now, because what could he make of a guy who would take him to a place like that cabin and leave him like a fish in a barrel? Danny hated them all.

“You shut your trap!” he yelled. “All of you—you hear me? I’m fed up with being blamed for things I never did! I wasn’t running from any fire because I didn’t even know there was a fire, but I do know what was in that cabin—blood! Dried blood on the floor, on the skillet, and all over that towel! And clothes—ladies’ clothes, and tire marks on the barn floor just like the treads on this guy’s truck!”

Danny’s words spilled out like colts breaking through a corral, and when his voice stopped he felt lonesome and surprised. He’d shouted at them louder than they shouted at him. He wasn’t afraid any more.

Jim backed up a step as if he d caught a blow on the chin. “You lying bastard!” he howled. “Listen to him lie! Listen to him covering up!”

“Take it easy,” Trace said. “Maybe he isn’t lying.”

“The hell he ain’t! You heard him trying to throw blame on me, and you’re just as bad! How come you always side with the kid, I want to know? How come you’re so dead sure he’s innocent?”

“Shut up, both of you!” Virgil snapped. “I want to hear what the kid has to say. What’s all this about bloodstains?”

And so Danny finally got the chance to have his say. It was easy: all you had to do was yell loud enough and people backed up and listened. Everybody listened, even Jim Rice. Slowly and carefully he told them all about the bloodstains in the cabin, the big one on the floor, and the trail out to the porch, and then he took them all out to the barn with him to hear about those tire marks in the dust. Nobody interrupted Danny now. They were too interested in hearing about that man waiting in the cabin when he returned. The man with the short temper and Virgil’s gun.

“He started yelling about people using his cabin all the time,” Danny said. “He told me to clear out and take all that junk in the dresser—clothes, ladies’ underclothes mostly, and that’s when we found the iron skillet with a bloody towel wrapped around it and yellow hairs matted on the edge.”

It was a dandy story the way Danny told it, and he had a fascinated audience all the way from the doctor inside the cell to the deputy who was supposed to be watching that street door. But the deputy wasn’t watching, and he didn’t see the man who came in while Danny talked. Even Danny didn’t see him come in. He just stopped for breath and looked up, and there the man was listening as intently as the rest.

Danny couldn’t think of another word. He’d never seen the newcomer before, and yet there was something awfully familiar about his appearance. Maybe it was the gun he was drawing from his coat pocket.

“G
OOD EVENING, SHERIFF
,” said Alexander Laurent. “I believe this revolver belongs to you.”

His voice was like the pipe organ coming on after a noisy soap opera. Every eye turned to meet him.

“I must apologize for not speaking up sooner,” he added, “but I was intrigued by the young man’s story. Danny Ross, isn’t it?”

Nobody answered. They were all too busy staring at this remarkable man: remarkable because he didn’t belong in a world of dusty hats and faded Levi’s, and because he didn’t seem to mind a bit. His deep-set eyes swept the office, taking in everyone from the deputy at his shoulder to the timid Ada edging forward along the cellblock hall, and Danny had the feeling they were all being X-rayed and catalogued in one brief glance. He just about had this stranger tabbed when Virgil spoke up and clinched the identification.

“It’s my gun all right, Mr. Laurent,” he said, “but how the devil did you get it?”

“From my son—the man Danny Ross encountered in the cabin.”

So this was Laurent! Danny took a good look this time, remembering what Trace had told him. Laurent was on his side, and it was his son he’d faced in the cabin. That made the familiarity easy to understand: the same fine features, the same hairline, the same height. But there was nothing boyish about the elder Laurent, and he didn’t need a gun in his hand to make him impressive. With a careless gesture he handed the weapon to Virgil.

“You’ll notice that one shot has been fired,” he added. “That’s how your mysterious fire began. When young Mr. Ross threw an armful of clothing in Douglas’s face, the gun discharged and ignited a kerosene lamp on the table. But I suppose you’re wondering what Douglas was doing in the cabin in the first place.”

Laurent smiled briefly, and there wasn’t a soul in the place who could give him an argument on that statement. Danny was forgotten now; nobody cared to visit the zoo. When Dr. Glenn picked up his satchel and left the cell (locking it behind him), Danny was left the only outsider to this strange convention. He felt like an eavesdropper.

“For some time,” Laurent continued, “there has been evidence of trespassing at the cabin. Empty food tins and bottles have been found on the premises, and the ranch hands have reported seeing a light in the canyon at night. These things were never reported to you, sheriff, because we weren’t using the cabin, anyway, and I saw no harm in an occasional uninvited guest. Yesterday, however, my son went out to look the place over to see if it would be suitable for a personal retreat as Mr. Cooper had suggested. He made the natural error of taking Danny to be our visitor.”

Everybody else may have been satisfied with this explanation, but Danny wasn’t. “I don’t wear ladies clothes!” he shouted from the cell. “I don’t use face cream and perfume!”

“I doubt if Douglas identified those articles. His temper is a bit explosive, I’m afraid.”

“He identified them all right! He kept talking about some woman he didn’t want hanging around any more!”

For the first time Alexander Laurent lost a little of his poise. This was Danny’s day to hurl charges, and he was making the most of it. With that muttering crowd outside there might not be another one.

“It was a woman using the cabin,” he repeated, “and I know who it was. I’ve heard you all talking about somebody named Francy Allen. Well, I saw a handkerchief out there and it had an F in the corner.”

“Like this?” Trace asked.

When Danny saw the object Trace took out of his pocket, he could stop shouting. It was the handkerchief, and now they could all see it. They could hear him explain how he’d picked it up on that burning porch, and they could reach their own conclusions. It wasn’t difficult to understand that crowd outside. Murderer wasn’t a nice word to fasten on a neighbor; it was much easier to follow Viola’s line and put the blame on a stranger. But if Francy Allen had been hit with an iron skillet instead of an automobile and then left on the highway to die, it meant that murder had come to Cooperton a good twelve hours ahead of Danny Ross.

“What about that?” Virgil demanded of Laurent. “Did your son know who was using the cabin?”

“He couldn’t have known,” Laurent retorted indignantly. “My son isn’t well. That’s why I brought him to this climate in the first place. He doesn’t carry on social activities.”

It was about time for Jim Rice to laugh, and he delivered on schedule. “Social activities!” he howled. “That’s a new name for it! You can’t be too sure about the young fellows, Mr. Laurent. Maybe Virgil should have a talk with Douglas.”

“By all means,” Laurent agreed amiably, “and on the way to the ranch he can stop and have a look at those tire marks in the barn. My son doesn’t drive, you see, but it must be obvious even to you that Miss Allen required transportation to any rendezvous she might have kept in the cabin—especially on the return trip.”

It wasn’t Laurent’s words so much as his pointed manner that set Jim off, but the combination was like putting a torch to a haystack. Jim’s face turned as red as the sunset outside the west windows. “Tire tracks don’t mean anything!” he protested. “I buy my tires from Walter. I’ll bet he sells plenty of those tires. I’ll bet he uses them himself.”

“Tires?” Walter echoed freely. “What tires? What’s everybody talking about?”

“About Francy,” Viola screamed in his ear. “She was murdered after all, just like I said. I told you a woman like Francy wouldn’t die by accident!”

Viola was only putting into words what they were all thinking by this time, but the words sounded cold and naked and brought a moment of terrible silence. From where Danny stood, gripping the bars with both hands, everyone in the office looked a bit frightened at the realization. It was beautiful to see these self-assured people beginning to doubt. It was wonderful to hear them scratching for cover. And in the hall just outside the cell door, the reticent Ada gasped and turned pale.

“Is that true?” she cried out. “Is that really what happened to Francy?”

With the exception of Danny no one had previously been aware of the woman’s presence. It was the moment of surprise that gave her the opportunity to continue.

“If it’s true then I have to tell,” she said. “Murder is a terrible sin.”

• • •

No one ever paid heed to Ada. If she spoke her words were lost in the current of conversation; if she remained silent her silence was that of a door, or a wall, or any unseeing, unthinking object. But now Ada had an audience, and before it her voice became strained and self-conscious as if she struggled with an unfamiliar tongue.

“I have to tell about Jim and Francy,” she said. “They were carrying on—”

“That’s a damned lie!” Jim exploded, but now that Ada had found her tongue she wouldn’t be shouted down. “I knew for a long time,” she continued, “but I didn’t say anything on account of Ethel being so poorly. I didn’t want her to fret.”

Of that stunned audience only Trace seemed able to respond. “How long a time?” he demanded.

Ada frowned over her answer. “I can’t rightly say, Mr. Cooper—as long as I’ve been walking out nights. Oh, they’re the smart ones all right, meeting down by the cemetery so’s nobody would know, but somebody always knows. No matter what we do, somebody knows.” The trouble deep in Ada’s eyes seemed old and unconcerned with Jim and Francy Allen, but then she returned from the land of her fancy to complete her quiet indictment. “The important thing,” she said, “is that I saw them together the night before Francy died. It was real late so they weren’t even being careful, and I saw Jim put Francy into the cab of his truck. She was acting peculiar. I thought she was drunk.”

“She was drunk!” Jim yelled, and a little victory smile touched Ada’s lips.
You see
, it seemed to say, I
did have something to say after all
.

But now the audience was all Jim’s. A few moments earlier he’d been a bit drunk himself, but now he sobered under the impact of his own words. A mousy little woman and his own big mouth—that combination was too much to fight. He backed up against the wall and seemed to be groping for an escape behind the plaster.

“All right,” he said thickly, “I admit seeing Francy that night. We had a few drinks together. I’d just made a deal with that cattle buyer and was feeling good. A man has to feel good once in a while even if his wife is ailing!”

Nobody was arguing with Jim. Nobody said anything at all.

“Francy never could hold her liquor,” he added. “I couldn’t take her back to her rooming-house drunk; she’d have been chucked out; so I put her in my truck and drove her out to the cabin.”

“Was that the usual procedure?” Trace asked.

“It’s none of your damn business if it was! I never heard of you being any plaster saint!”

Jim wiped his sweaty face with one hand and tried to remember what else he had to say. All those faces, all those eyes were still waiting. There must be something more. “She was all right when I left her,” he said. “She was sleeping it off quiet as you please. When I heard about her being found on the road next morning, I figured she’d woke up and tried to walk back to town. She could have walked into the side of a truck the shape she was in and never known it.”

Jim paused and thought things over. “For all I know yet, that’s just what happened,” he added.

“You’re forgetting the bloodstains,” Virgil said.

“I’m forgetting nothing! I never saw any bloodstains, and now there ain’t any place to see them! And all I’ve heard about bloodstains is from Danny Ross and his extra-smart lawyer. How do you know this ain’t some trick they’ve cooked up to get everybody excited over Francy and forget all about poor old Doc Gaynor?”

Jim’s meaning was clear. Laurent’s an outsider, he was saying; Laurent’s a tricky lawyer with a big reputation for getting accused killers off scot-free. He looked to Walter and Viola for support, but Walter’s jaw seemed permanently unhinged, and Viola was too thrilled over the prospect of a new item for the party line even to remember which side she was on. Jim didn’t seem to have a friend in the place, but he did have an enemy—a redheaded enemy with a pair of fists clenched big as cabbages.

“So it was you!” Trace exclaimed. “I ought to break your damned neck!”

One of those fists was already on its way to Jim’s jaw, but the strong arms of Arthur stopped Trace on the brink of mayhem. “Gentlemen!” Laurent cried. “You can’t settle anything with violence. You must have facts!”

“I’ll give you facts!” Trace shouted. “I’ll give all of you a few facts you never heard before! Fact number one: Francy didn’t die in a coma as we all thought. She was conscious and closeted with Doctor Gaynor for ten or fifteen minutes before her death. Fact number two: during that time she used Charley’s leaky pen to sign something and got ink on the fingers of her right hand. You can check on the first fact at the hospital, just as Arthur did today, and the other can be verified by calling Fisher’s mortuary.”

Trace had blurted out the whole story at once. He paused and looked about him. “Whatever it was that Francy signed is now conspicuously missing,” he added, “but she wasn’t the type to forgive her own murderer!”

Danny was learning something new every minute—not only about a dying woman and her inkstained fingers, but about the telltale marks on the living. Within a matter of moments a loudmouth who laughed at the wrong places had lost his sense of humor, and Trace Cooper, who hadn’t seemed to have a nerve in his body, had to be restrained by a pair of strong black arms and the tongue of an old man. Alexander Laurent looked even older now, but so did everybody else.

“I hesitate to criticize,” he interrupted, “but isn’t fact number two tainted with conjecture?”

“There’s nothing wrong with conjecture if it’s logical,” Trace snapped. “Figure it out for yourself. Francy was in somebody’s way. She wasn’t wanted any more, and dead women don’t write memoirs, but Francy was a rugged kid who took a lot of killing. She was left for dead on the highway to make her death appear an accident, but she didn’t die soon enough. We were all anxious to know how she came out when Charley took her to Red Rock, but one person must have been a lot more than anxious.”

With words for weapons Trace didn’t need fists. He shrugged off Arthur’s grip and continued.

“Now we come to the interesting part of the story. Francy’s dead, and everybody knows it because old Charley called Fisher on the party line; but nobody knows whether or not she talked before she died. Nobody but Charley, and he’s driving home to Cooperton. But first Charley has to make that stop at Mountain View that was his regular routine when he’d been away from his office most of the day. Anyone who knew Charley knew that.”

Trace’s voice was no less commanding than that of his silver-haired mentor, and back in that tiny cell Danny was hanging on every word. The words were becoming a memory, a memory of an old man with a strange way of talking as if the worry on his mind blotted out all the usual small talk between strangers. Danny tried to recall just exactly what it was the old doctor had said during that brief acquaintance, but Trace was talking again, and he had to listen.

“Under those circumstances, I imagine it would be a little difficult for Francy’s murderer to stay away from Mountain View,” he said.

“That narrows the field of suspects,” Laurent observed. “There were only four people waiting at Mountain View when the doctor arrived.”

“Only four?” Trace paused, his shaggy red eyebrows pushing up on the bridge of his nose. “What about the car Danny says he heard pulling away as the bus left?”

“Danny says!” Jim interrupted. “Who cares what Danny says? You’d think he was judge and jury instead of a young thug who slugged the sheriff and pushed a gun in the ribs of some poor devil down in Junction City!”

The trouble with Jim was that his feelings were hurt. Here he’d gone and captured the escaped killer the whole state was looking for, and instead of thanks he received only accusations and innuendoes. “I wouldn’t belittle Danny’s hypothetical car if I were you,” Trace cautioned. “If there wasn’t any car, then, as Mr. Laurent suggests, we have narrowed the field of suspects— But suppose there was a car, and suppose our person unknown was having a heart-to-heart talk with Charley Gaynor when Steve Malone came around the corner of the café.”