Authors: William Campbell Gault

Bad Samaritan (22 page)

The phone rang. “Watch those chops, will you,” he asked.

The phone was in the living room, but I could hear him clearly. “I didn’t get the chemical toilet, and we don’t need it. You can crap through that hole in the floor where the toilet’s supposed to go. We’ll put a pail under it. Now, stop fretting! I’ve got a dinner burning on the stove!” He hung up.

He walked past me to the stove and turned off the flame. “Villwock,” he explained. “We’re going fishing this weekend.”

I made no comment.

He was taking a pan of French fries out of the oven when he asked, “What’s this about Tishkin?”

“He claimed he saw Gonzales leave town at eight o’clock. That same night, at ten o’clock, two witnesses saw Gonzales in town.”

“Where?”

“Walking up this way, up Chapparal Road.”

“Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. I guess we’ve both dealt with a lot of unreliable witnesses.”

He put his plate of chops and fries on the table without looking at me. He sat down, picked up a fork and finally looked at me. “You didn’t come all the way up here to tell me Lenny Tishkin is a liar. What’s bugging you?”

“A theory. I have this pattern, and I’d like your professional reaction to it.”

“Shoot,” he said, and started to eat.

“Si Marner told me his mother was shopping around for a private investigator. Now, why would she do that?”

“Who knows?” he continued to eat.

“She must have known every cop on the force. If she had something that needed investigating, why didn’t she go to one of them?”

“You tell me.”

“It just hit me a couple days ago. She must have been investigating cops, she and Gonzales together. And then I remembered something your neighbor up the road told me.”

I had his attention now. He stopped eating and looked up. “You mean Villwock?”

“Villwock. Maude used to go up there and talk over her problems with him. But two days before she died, though he noticed she was troubled, she wouldn’t confide in him.”

“And you’re reading that to mean she was investigating cops, and she didn’t trust Villwock to go along with it?”

“Maybe not cops. Maybe
one
cop, a cop who might be a friend of Villwocks.”

He glared at me, his face rigid. “You’re walking on real thin ice, Callahan. Why come here? Why didn’t you take this story to the chief?”

I said. “He’s a cop, too.”

“Easy, now—you’re getting close to a punch in the nose. Don’t let your size give you any ideas. I’ve knocked over bigger men.”

“Cool it, Sergeant. This isn’t anything a prosecutor could take into court. Bear me out.”

“Go on.”

“Tishkin changed his story when he came back from Morro Bay. How would he know, way up there in Morro Bay, that Nowicki had invalidated his first story? How would he know he needed a new one?”

“Because I questioned him about his first story up there.”

“I see. Well, that makes sense.”

“You got some angles that don’t?”

“At least one. That day I walked into your office and you had just finished talking to Mary Serano on the phone.”

A quick interest in his eyes. I had hit a nerve.

“Mary told me later she had already given you all the information you needed on the phone. Why drag me out there to hear it all over again?”

“I’m dying to hear your theory on that.”

“Because it suddenly occurred to you that the hoodlum could serve as a red herring. He could lead me down the road to Mafia involvement. And that was a dead-end road—on this murder.”

“Peeper, you’ve come up with a lot of dumb theories, but no hard facts.”

“That’s true enough, so far. The way I’ve heard it, around town, Locum is the man they pay, the collector. But who was behind Locum, who was the previous collector? It could be the man who knew this out of town muscle, who tried to force Mary into paying.”

“Why don’t you fly to Vegas and ask him?”

I said, “His name is Francis Martin. Know him?”

His hand jerked, resting on the table. In the heavy silence I thought I heard the scrape of a shoe outside. Helms shook his head.

“He used to call himself Frank Martino,” I said.

“Never heard of him.”

“You went to high school with him.”

His voice was hoarse and deadly. “You’ve got a big nose and a big mouth and a small brain—and no case. When you get a case, take it to the chief.”

He stood up abruptly and headed for the living room. He had a gun in there. I had seen it, in its holster, on a table, when I came in. I had no gun.

I stood up and got ready to move. A moving target is harder to hit. I said, “Okay, I’ll take it to the chief.”

He didn’t come back with a gun, only with a package of cigarettes. Again, I thought I heard footsteps outside, this time on the porch. I continued to walk toward the door. I opened it—and saw the shadow of a man.

The man would have to be standing against the wall of the house, between this door and the dim light coming through the living-room window behind him.

Villwock? He could see this house from his place. He could see anyone who came and left. He, too, could be in on the take. He could also be armed.

A moving target was still my safest route and the great outdoors had more places where a man could hide. I was ready to make my run for it. Helms still didn’t have a gun in his hand, but he was close enough to reach it now.

He said, “Before you go, peeper, you got anything more solid than those kooky theories?”

“Some testimonies on tape. They are from people who used to pay you off, before you teamed up with Locum. Don’t panic; it’s nothing I could take into court. But if we combed the acreage up here, there could be a grave. And there might still be traces of carbon monoxide in that camper.”

“You son of a bitch!” he growled. “You really mean to nail me, don’t you?”

“Only if you’re guilty, Joe.”

I went out, slamming the door behind me, crouching low, to avoid a quick shot from the man on the porch, and scrambled down the steps.

I was about twenty feet from the porch when the door opened again. Helms shouted, “Hold it, Callahan! Stay right where you are, if you want to live.”

And then another voice. It wasn’t Villwock’s. It was Vogel’s. “Don’t do anything foolish, Joe. You’re an easy target in that light.”

In Captain Dahl’s office, Vogel said, “You’re really insane! Did you think your size might scare him? Do you really think you’re bigger than his .38?”

“The fact speaks for itself. Here I sit, still breathing.”

“The thought never occurred to you to take a police officer along?”

“Which one? How could I be sure which one to pick? You, sure. But you didn’t phone, and when I phoned you, you weren’t home. How come you knew I’d be out there?”

“My wife inherited Maude’s long nose. She told me you’d been asking about Frank Martino and had checked the annuals. I don’t know the man, but I know the name from some of the locals I play poker with. They seem proud of his big-shot connections.”

“That was three days ago, Bernie.”

“I know. But tonight we were coming home from a restaurant, and she told me Helms had been a classmate of Martino’s. I phoned your house, and you wife told me you had gone out to meet some man. As a matter of fact, I’ve been leery of Helms myself, lately.”

“Sure. When the hell is Harris going to get here? I want to go home.”

“Sit tight. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

Dahl came in while he was gone. I said, “I don’t suppose you’ll be digging around Helms’s place in the dark?”

“There’s no hurry. He knows we will, so he’s already cooked up a story. He said Gonzales came up and threatened him, came with a gun.”

“Not that one! They struggled—and the gun went off?”

Dahl nodded. “Joe’s not very imaginative. On Mrs. Marner’s death he’s got an even phonier story. She came up there and had a heart attack. But we’ve got the hose he used, and it still stinks of carbon monoxide. I suppose he ran it though that hole where the chemical toilet is supposed to be connected

“I suppose.”

Dahl shook his head. “You know what? Helms was the leading contender for this years’ Good Samaritan medal!”

Vogel came in with my coffee. “The chief is here. He wants to talk with you in his office. You can take the coffee along.”

Chief Chandler Harris was behind his desk, wearing his Santa Claus mask. “Sit down, Mr. Callahan.”

I did as directed.

“First of all,” he said, “I must thank you. You are a very foolish man, sir, but also very brave.”

I smiled modestly.

“Also,” he said, “you quite often speak out without measuring the effect of your words.”

I’ll get a ruler, I thought. “I guess,” I said.

“This case,” he went on, “has drawn a lot of attention. There are a number of reporters waiting in the assembly room. Not only from this area, but stringers from some of the big city papers.”

“I won’t need to be there, will I? I want to go home.”

“You won’t need to be there. I intend to play down Helms’s participation in this case. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Of course. Anything new on Locum? Do you think that could have been Helms’s work, too?”

He shook his head. “He was giving a talk to some City College students when Locum was killed.”

“How about Pontius? Do you think he knows who killed Locum?”

“Why should he?”

“Just a dumb theory of mine. Sorry I mentioned it.”

His face was sterner. “You don’t have a very high regard for me, do you?”

“I’m sure it’s higher than your regard for me, sir. I wouldn’t want your job. I know I couldn’t handle it.”

“Now about those tapes you mentioned,” he said. “You’ll give us a copy, won’t you?”

“Nope.”

“And why not?”

“They’re not admissible in court, but they could be a source for harassment for the people I talked with. And those are my people, Chief, penny-ante bookies and free-lance hookers. Losers are my people. I fight tigers, not lambs.”

“You’re a strange man.”

“I guess. Well, I came into this case through the front door, but I’ll go out through the back. I won’t embarrass you.”

“Damn you! Do you think I’m a crook?”

“No way, sir. You’re doing the best you can in an impossible job. I’m on your side, believe me.”

I went out through the back door and into the dark night. So, I had done some good. Don and Dianne were back in Mill Valley, Patty was with her mother. As any good quarterback will tell you, you can only take what the opposition will give you. They had given me that.

I would go home to my Jan and we would drink cocoa in our snug little house, while the wolves prowled the dark night.

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