The Jugger (14 page)

He was after the money, that had to be it. A crook, a criminal, one of Joe Sheer's old pals, come to steal the dead man's money.

Maybe this Willis knew where the money was. Maybe all Younger had to do was keep him in sight, and this Willis would lead him right to the cash. Maybe this wasn't so bad, having this Willis here, maybe it was the best break of all.

Younger kept Willis in sight. The next day Willis took the town cab to Lynbrooke and stopped in the newspaper office there. Younger questioned Sammy, the taxi driver, but Sammy didn't know a thing about his passenger. Younger warned him to keep his mouth shut and not to tell Willis anything about the questions, and then he went on back to his Ford as Willis came out of the newspaper office.

There was something almost frightening about Willis. He was big and rangy and hard-looking, with the coldest eyes Younger had ever seen, and hands as gnarled as tree branches. His clothes fit him like an impatient compromise with society, as though the man inside them could never really be comfortable in a suit and a white shirt, with a tie knotted around his neck and leather shoes encasing his feet.

If it weren't for all the money, Younger might have stayed away from Willis, but half a million dollars was too much to give up, too much. He clung.

But then Willis disappeared, and turned up at Gliffe's place, and then at Rayborn's. Younger felt Willis rocking the boat, rocking the boat, and he ran around town in a panic, trying to find Willis, head him off, stop him before he blew the whole thing sky high.

Then he did find him, unconscious in the cellar of the old man's house. Coming down the cellar stairs, seeing Willis sprawled out there on the floor, Younger had a terrible urge to kill him, kill him now, as he might kill a rattlesnake sleeping in the sun. Willis was defenceless now, and Younger had the opportunity, and in the holster under his coat he had the method. He'd never get a second chance, never another chance like this.

But the money hunger was too strong, and he didn't do it.

Besides, there was another one now, the man Tiftus, another stranger slipping into town to get his hands on Sheer's money. Who knew how many of them would come in before it was all over, criminals, hard and dangerous men, brutal men, all after that money?

Then Tiftus was killed, and Younger knew he was in over his head. He forced a partnership with Willis so he wouldn't feel so exposed any more, and then it turned out Willis didn't know any more about where the money was than he did.

So they split the job into two halves. Willis would look for the money, and Younger would look for whoever had killed Tiftus. The killer had to be found; otherwise, he could be off somewhere getting his hands on the money without anybody knowing about it.

Younger knew he couldn't trust Willis. He knew that Willis, as soon as he found the money, would try to get away with the whole thing. But Younger wasn't that dumb; he had men watching Willis all the time. He would know when Willis got his hands on the money, and a little while later his own hands would be on it.

All of it. Willis would try to double-cross him, wouldn't he? So there was no reason to share, none at all.

YOUNGER walked back and forth in the field behind Joe Sheer's house; back and forth, back and forth, his eyes on the weedy, uneven ground. He was looking for the shovel.

The way he had it figured, this was where the shovel would be. Maybe not back here exactly, but somewhere close by, close by. Because the killer
had
hit Willis with the shovel, but he
hadn't
hit Tiftus with it. The state police had finally done something useful; sent him a report on the murder weapon, which wasn't a shovel after all but was a heavy glass ashtray that had already been in the room when the killer got there.

What he couldn't understand was why the killer had taken the shovel away from Joe's place at all. Was he trying to hold up other people from digging down there? That didn't make any sense. And he wouldn't have taken it because of fingerprints either; he could have just wiped it off, like he'd wiped off the ashtray at the hotel.

The only thing Younger could think was that he'd panicked. He'd been crouched behind the cellar door for an hour, in the dark, hearing somebody walk around and not knowing what it was or what he wanted or if he'd open the cellar door, and when it finally did happen and he managed to hit Willis just right, and Willis went crashing on down the stairs, he was probably too rattled to think straight. The farthest thing from his mind was to go downstairs and put the shovel back where he found it. He probably didn't even think about it being in his hand until he was already out of the house.

Well, how far would he go with it? He didn't have it an hour later, when he got to the hotel. So what did he do, go a few steps, a block, two blocks, and then realize he still had the shovel, and throw it away somewhere? That was likeliest.

Except that he maybe had a car. That shovel might right now be on the back seat of a car some place, or in the trunk. If the killer had had a car close by Joe's house, then that's what might have happened.

But Younger was gambling that it wasn't. Younger was gambling the killer had come to Joe's house across the back way here, across the fields, to avoid being seen by anybody, and had gone back the same way, and had most likely thrown the shovel away out here somewhere. That was Younger's theory and he was out here testing it.

Because what he needed was a lead, a starting point, and he didn't have one. He had no idea at all who the killer might be. If his theory that the shovel had been taken out of panic was right, then the killer was an amateur, not a professional like Willis or Tiftus. And if he was an amateur, then he was probably a local citizen.

But who? Nobody knew the whole story here, nobody but Younger. Rayborn and Gliffe each knew their little piece of the story, three of Younger's patrolmen each knew a little piece, but only Younger knew it all. Besides, those five were all clear. He'd checked them, going by where each of them had been during the hour when the killer was hiding in the cellar at Sheer's house and the time when Tiftus was being killed, and all five of them had airtight alibis for at least some part of that time.

Somebody else. Younger wanted to catch a corner of him, just an edge of him, just to get started. And the shovel was it.

Visualize him. Standing behind the cellar door, burlap bag on his head, shovel in his hands. He waits an hour, shaky, scared, then he slugs Willis and runs. He's got to take the burlap bag off his head right away, but that isn't around either. So he's so panicky he runs off with the shovel in one hand and the burlap bag in the other. Out the back door, to be out of sight, and across the fields, and somewhere along the way he drops the shovel and the bag.

Younger could almost see him, see everything but his face, see him running away across the field, crouched over, shovel and burlap bag in his hands. Then see him pause, stop, look around like a hunted animal, then hurl the shovel and bag away and run on.

Would he think to wipe his fingerprints from the shovel handle? Maybe, but maybe not.

So this was the thing to do; go over the ground himself, every inch of the field back here behind the old man's house. And if the shovel wasn't here, then start questioning the neighbours. Maybe one of them saw the man with the shovel. It was possible, certainly possible, and people would remember something like that, a man running along carrying a shovel.

'Hello, Captain! You looking for something?'

Younger looked up, startled, and there in front of him was a boy of about nineteen, tall, gangly, acned. It took Younger a second to break away from his own thoughts, and then he placed the boy; the Ricks boy, from the house next door to Joe Sheer. The one Willis had been talking to that first night.

Younger said, 'Hello, there.' What was the boy's first name? Alfred, that was it. 'Hello, there, Alfred.'

'Maybe I can help,' the boy said. 'If you lost something.'

On the off chance, Younger said, 'Did you see a man with a shovel out here yesterday?'

'Man with a shovel?' The boy frowned and shook his head. 'I saw a
shovel
, but I didn't see—'

Younger said, 'A shovel? Where?'

'Over there, by that red bush. This morning I found it, and a bag, like a potato sack, right next to it.'

The captain started off towards the red bush. 'Is it still there, do you suppose? If it's still—'

'
I
took them,' the boy said. 'I didn't think they belonged to anybody, just thrown a—'

'You've got them? Where?'

'In the house, down cellar.'

'Show me.'

'Sure.'

The boy led the way, back to his house and down into the cellar. The shovel and bag were on an old worktable down there.

Younger looked at them and smiled. They'd have the boy's prints all over them now, but there might still be others they could use. At least this proved his theory; the killer had panicked, and run out across the fields carrying the bag and shovel. He was an amateur, probably a local citizen. He could be found.

Younger said, 'I'll have to take these along, Alfred. They're evidence, in a case I'm working on. When I'm done, I'll bring them back. Finders keepers. All right?'

The boy shrugged. 'You can keep them,' he said. 'We've got a shovel of our own anyway.'

Younger went upstairs and out the front door and headed for his Ford. Before he got there, Willis came out of Joe's house and across the lawn and said, 'Where'd you get that stuff?'

Younger was pleased with himself. 'I had a theory,' he said. 'I figured the guy got panicky and—'

'Where'd you get them?'

Irritated, wanting to tell Willis the whole theory, he said, 'The guy threw them away out in the field behind the house.'

Willis looked at the Ricks house. 'That's where you found them?'

'The kid next door found them.'

'Oh.'

'What about you?'

Willis shook his head. 'No luck so far.'

'I don't think the money's in the house. We'd of found it by now.'

'I'll keep looking,' Willis said. He turned around and went back into the house.

Surly bastard. Younger would be glad to have the partnership done with. He put the shovel and bag in his car and drove away.

PARKER went back in the house. He knew Younger would keep himself busy for a while, have fun looking the shovel over for fingerprints. He might even dust the burlap bag.

Inactivity was making Parker irritable, testy. All he did was sit here in Joe Sheer's house and wait for that state cop, Regan, to come up with whoever killed Tiftus. And even then that might not ease the situation. The Willis cover might be loused up no matter what way things went here.

But maybe not. He knew more now than he'd known five minutes ago.

After Younger had driven away with the useless shovel and burlap bag, Parker went over to the side window in the living-room and looked over at the house next door. Through the window there he could see another small living room like this one, but more crowded with furniture, and the furniture all older. He looked up, and saw bedroom windows on the second floor, overlooking this window and the window in Joe's kitchen.

The kid was out on the porch again. Parker moved away from the window, across the room and out on the front porch. Only the width of a driveway separated this house from the one next door. Parker called to the kid. 'Hey, Come over here a minute.'

The kid looked at him. 'Me?'

'Yeah, come here.'

'What do you want?'

'I want to talk to you.'

The kid looked around, but there wasn't anyone else in sight. He said, 'I got to stay here and listen for the phone.'

'This won't take long.'

The kid didn't want to do it, but he couldn't come out with a flat refusal and he couldn't think of an excuse. He uhhhhed a few times, and then he said, 'All right. But then I gotta get back here and listen for the phone.'

'Sure.'

The kid came across the lawn and up on the porch. Parker held the door open for him. The kid wouldn't quite meet his eye. He went into the house, and Parker went in after him, shut the door, and said, 'Why'd you go to my room in the hotel?'

The kid turned around, wide-eyed and scared. 'What? What do you mean?'

Parker shook his head. 'Don't waste time. You went there and Tiftus caught you, and you slugged him. Same as you slugged me when you were in the cellar.'

'I don't — I don't know what you're—'

'What I can't figure,' Parker told him, 'is what you went to my room for. You figure I already had the money?'

'Mister, I swear to you—'