Leopold's Way (12 page)

Over coffee in the store's gaudy restaurant they talked of old times and people they'd known, and finally after a decent interval of casualness Leopold asked her, “Remember George Fisher? The fellow that drowned at the senior picnic?”

“Oh yes, George Fisher.” Her eyes seemed suddenly to blur.

“I was thinking about that day, trying to figure what really happened. You were with George, weren't you?”

“Not when he died.”

“No, no. I meant earlier.”

“It's hard to remember. Twenty-five years next month. You know, Harry Tolliver called me the other day about a class reunion.”

“I know.”

“Yes, I guess I was with George most of that day. I remember he rented the canoe and we paddled all over the park, up and down those creeks and streams, under the bridges, through the branches of the trees where they touched the water.”

“Then what happened?”

“Oh, I don't know. We rested for a time on the bank. I remember how nice the grass was, how soft. Then it was dark, and he said he had to return the canoe. I never saw him alive again. I heard the shouting and ran down and saw them trying to revive him. It was horrible.”

Leopold wanted to leave her in peace, but there was one other question he had to ask. “When…when you rested on the bank, did he kiss you, neck with you?”

“Say, what is this?” Her blurred eyes were suddenly sharp with suspicion. “Why are you asking me all these questions?”

“I'm looking into Fisher's death.”

“Are you a cop or something?”

“It's not an official investigation,” he said quickly, but he saw that he had already lost her. He had gone too far with his casual questions. She finished her coffee and hurried back to the candy counter with hardly a good-bye.

Leopold sighed and ordered a second cup of coffee. He should forget the thing, then and there. Nothing good could come of what he was doing. He was just stirring up a lot of memories better left buried after twenty-five years. At times he had too much of the detective's mentality—the ability to see evil where no evil lurked. Perhaps this was one of those times.

That night Harry Tolliver—an alarmed Harry Tolliver—phoned Leopold at his apartment. His voice over the telephone had lost now all of the friendly charm he'd tried to show that first day.

“Leopold, what in hell are you trying to do?”

“About what?”

“You know. George Fisher. You've got everybody all upset.”

“Oh? Who?”

“Marge Alguard, just to name one. She found out you were with the police and she's scared half out of her wits. What did you ask her, anyway?”

“Nothing special.”

“Her name wasn't on your list, even. What in hell are you trying to stir up?”

“Just the truth.”

“After twenty-five years there isn't any truth, only memories. Stop bothering these people. Stop bothering
me!”

“You?”

“I want this reunion to be a success. You think anyone'll show up if you turn it into a murder investigation?”

“No one's mentioned murder. No one till now.”

“Look, just forget I ever approached you about the reunion. Forget everything, huh?”

“That's difficult to do at this point. Memories linger.”

Tolliver hung up in disgust. Leopold felt a bit sorry for the man, as he did for most people, but the thing was almost out of his hands. He had the decided feeling that wheels had been set in motion, wheels which could not now be stopped until they had ground exceedingly fine.

That night Leopold's dreams were troubled, and he awoke at the first hint of dawn with a cool layer of sweat covering his body. By some trick of memory he was back there, back on that stone bridge over the creek, remembering it all as clearly as if it were yesterday. Yes, the lights playing on the water, the wet stone beneath his hands as he clutched the parapet and peered down; it was all too vividly clear. There was Shirley Quain—Shirley Fazen then—the bathing suit clinging to her strong young form, helping to pull the limp, sodden body from the water. And there too was Jim Groves, aiding her, though his clothes were soaked and his shoes lost somewhere in the creek.

Leopold came suddenly awake. Jim Groves, for all his remarkable memory, had not mentioned to Leopold that he'd helped recover Fisher's body from the creek. Why not? Was it simply that he hadn't been asked?

Leopold rolled out of bed and dressed quickly. He wanted to get down to headquarters, away from his thoughts, away from the memories. When he reached his desk he rang for Fletcher and asked at once for an account of the night's activities.

“Morning report's not ready yet,” Fletcher said. “What's the trouble this morning, Captain?”

Leopold ran a hand over his eyes. “I don't know. Talk to me about something, will you? What about that jewel robbery yesterday?”

Fletcher's smile broadened. “We cracked that one. The bird they grabbed outside the building finally confessed.”

“What did he do with the diamond rings?”

“Damnedest thing you ever heard of! He's got a girl friend working in the building and he had it set up that she'd leave her office and go down for coffee at exactly three o'clock. He staged the robbery when he saw her coming back along the hallway with her paper cup full of coffee. As he ran by her he just dropped the rings into the coffee and kept going. It was perfect.”

“Not quite perfect,” Leopold said.

“What?”

“You caught him.”

“Yeah, but if he hadn't broken down and talked we'd never have gotten wise to the way he worked it.”

The conversation depressed Leopold. Everything seemed to depress him. “Fletcher, perfect crimes can become an obsession with detectives sometimes. I wonder if that's what's happening to me.”

“What's the trouble, Captain?”

“Twenty-five years ago an eighteen-year-old boy drowned at Venice Park during a class picnic. I was practically a witness to the thing. Now I'm wondering about it, wondering if someone might have killed him.”

“Take my advice and forget it, Captain. We have enough new murders coming in every day without worrying about anything that old.”

Leopold sighed and swiveled around to look out the window. These first few days in May were always among his favorites, a special time when the earth seemed alive again not just with spring but with an electric impulse to accomplish the strident tasks of winter. Perhaps it was the weather that was against him this day. “Fletcher, I value your opinion, but I just can't accept it. Go down to the records room and dig me out what they've got on this drowning, will you?”

“How
long ago did you say it was?”

“Twenty-five years next month, but we must have something on it. The boy's name was George Fisher. He was a senior at Washington High.”

“That stuff's probably in the basement, under a ton of dust.”

“See what you can find,” Leopold said. “Just to humor me.”

Fletcher was gone for the better part of an hour, and when he returned his brow was streaked with a line of dust. He collapsed into Leopold's straight-backed chair and blew more dust from a thin legal-sized folder. “I hope you're satisfied, Captain.”

Leopold smiled through tight lips. “I don't think anything could satisfy me today. What've you got?”

“Who knows? I only hope the paper hasn't all crumbled into dust. Weren't they talking about putting all this old stuff on microfilm?”

“They'll do that about the same time they give us a new building, “Leopold said. He was now suddenly anxious to see these old reports, anxious to delve into this page from his past. He wondered if somewhere on these pages his own name might even appear, like a ghostly vision of another, forgotten life. “What've you got, Fletcher?”

“Not too much, really. Let's see—autopsy report, statements by some of the kids, and the report of the investigating detective.”

“Detective?” Leopold sat up straighter in his chair. “Why a detective?”

“Don't know. Nothing to indicate why, but apparently they thought something was funny at first.”

“Yeah. The autopsy—what were the findings?”

“Death by drowning. Nothing irregular there.”

“Any other marks or wounds on the body?”

“Not a thing. Some hair pulled out, but that probably happened when they tried to rescue him.”

Leopold stared off into space. “Do you have a statement by Chuck Quain there?”

Fletcher flipped through the papers. “Here it is…He was in a canoe about a hundred feet behind Fisher. It was dark, but there was an occasional moon through the clouds. He hadn't been with Fisher, but had seen him earlier in the boat with a girl named Marge Alguard…”

Leopold nodded. “What about the drowning?”

“…Well, Quain heard a yell and a splash from around a bend in the creek. By the time he reached the spot, he saw Fisher struggling in the water. Quain couldn't swim, and hesitated about going in after him. He shouted for help, and some of the others came running. It was hard to see anything, and by that time Fisher had gone under for good. But after a moment or two Shirley Fazen and Jim Groves found him and pulled him out. They applied artificial respiration, but it was too late.”

“What are the other statements?”

“Let's see…Shirley Fazen—she was the only one who still had her bathing suit on, and she was the first to reach the creek and go in after Fisher. But she couldn't find him until Groves joined her after a moment. He was fully dressed, but he dived in anyway and they pulled Fisher out together.”

“What did Groves say?”

“About the same thing. He'd been swimming earlier in the evening with Shirley Fazen, and she stayed in the water while he dried off and got dressed. This was at a pool about a hundred yards from the creek. The first thing he knew he heard Quain shouting for help and he started to run towards the sound. He dived into the creek and found that Shirley was already there, searching for Fisher. They found him together.”

“Is Marge Alguard mentioned anywhere?”

“In Quain's statement.”

“Yeah. Anywhere else?”

“Here's a very brief statement by her, just to the effect that she'd been in the canoe with Fisher earlier.”

“How about Harry Tolliver?”

Fletcher skimmed over the last remaining sheet of paper. “Nothing on him. This is just the detective's conclusions.”

“That should be interesting.”

“It should be, but it isn't. He figures Fisher was standing up in the canoe and fell in. That's all.”

“Why would he stand up?”

Fletcher shrugged. “Beats me.” He fumbled for a cigarette and lit it. “But then I can't figure out why you're so interested in making this a murder, Captain.”

“Shouldn't I be? Isn't it my job?”

“After all this time?”

“If it was murder then, it's still murder today.”

Fletcher frowned into the cigarette smoke, blue against the morning sunshine filtering through the dirty window. “Yeah. But if it's murder, then you could be one of the suspects yourself.”

Leopold blinked. He hadn't really thought of that.

In the afternoon he called again at the candy counter where Marge Alguard worked. He waited patiently while she conducted business with three tiny children, then stepped into her line of vision.

“You again?” she said between tight lips. “I don't want any coffee today, thanks.”

“I just wanted to ask you a question.”

“Didn't you ask enough already?”

“Maybe not the right ones. That day in the park—did you have a fight with Fisher for any reasons?”

She stepped very close to him, so no one else could hear her words. “Look, get out of here. Get out of here with your dirty little questions! What's the trouble—trying to get your kicks this way? You were never much with the girls back in school, were you?”

“Marge…”

“No, I didn't have a fight with George that day. That day was about the happiest in my life, until he died, and your questions aren't going to turn it into something dirty. I don't have much to remember any more, at my age, but I remember George Fisher.”

There was nothing more for Leopold to say, except, “I'm sorry. I won't bother you again.” He went away, wondering if he'd already bothered too many lives with his needless prying. Perhaps it didn't really make any difference, after all these years.

That night, under a clear but moonless sky, a brick fell from the roof of Leopold's apartment building as he was entering, just missing his head. It might have been toppled by the wind, except that there was no wind. He hurried to the roof with his revolver drawn, but there was nothing to be seen. Down in the back alley, at the foot of the fire escape, he caught a split-second glimpse of a running man, who vanished around a corner. Leopold slept the rest of the night with the gun under his pillow, something he'd never done before.

Fletcher turned the unmarked police car into Venice Park, narrowly avoiding a group of bicycling teenagers on a day's outing. “A Saturday in May,” he said, not unkindly. “Brings 'em all out.”

Leopold was smoking an old pipe he'd resurrected that morning from his dresser drawer. He watched the kids on their bicycles until they were out of sight around a curve, then said, “I guess that's what parks are for.”

“That, and lovers after dark, and maybe sometimes a killing or two.”

They crossed a stone bridge over one of the creeks and Leopold asked him to stop. “It was in this area somewhere, I'm sure. The swimming pool's still just over there.”

“I thought you said it was a footbridge.”

“It was, then. But times change.” He opened the door on his side and slid out. “Let's walk awhile, Fletcher. It's a nice day.”