Seven Steps East Page 7

  “Most of them. The ones who live at the dorm.”

  “Are any of them bookies on the side?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Well, do any of them play the horses or the numbers?”

  “Not anybody I know.”

  “Did Chanslor ever mention Mr. Raynham to you?”

  “No,” she said. “Look, you don’t understand. That kid never confided in me at all. And that’s the truth.”

  “Where do you come from, Connie?”

  She drank from her glass. “Utica, New York.”

  “Are you a full-time waitress?”

  “Yes. Winters in Florida, summers up north. I’m a snow bird with sand in my shoes. The work is hard but you can’t beat the weather.”

  “How long have you been working this way?”

  “Four years. Since I was eighteen.”

  “What made you go into it?”

  She took another drink and chewed her gum thoughtfully. “Well, I wasn’t too smart in high school. I took only a simple general course. When I graduated I had a choice. I could go to work in a factory or become a file clerk or something. Either job would bore me to death. So I became a waitress in a diner in Utica. I worked hard but I made better money than in a factory or in an office. Then I went to Florida and worked a season in a swanky Collins Avenue hotel. I’m honest with myself, I had the looks for it. In Miami Beach I made all kinds of good connections. I got an offer to work a season in a hotel up in the White Mountains. So that summer I went to New Hampshire. The next winter I was back in Florida and the summer afterwards I tried Kennebunkport, Maine. This summer I tried Cape Cod. It’s an interesting life. Next year I might try—”

  She stopped talking. Wendell Starrett had come into the tavern and was approaching us. There was something more familiar about him this time. Then as he came closer the feeling went away. I turned to look at Connie Ossipee. Just for a moment there seemed to be a flicker of apprehension on her face as she watched Starrett. It was immediately replaced by a mechanical little smile.

  Starrett sat down beside us and put his arm around Constance Ossipee’s shoulder. “Well,” he said. “Have you had your chat?”

  “Yes, thanks,” I said.

  Edmonds came over and Starrett ordered a Scotch and soda. He looked up at the low, wide-beamed ceiling. “Good sales idea here,” Starrett said. “They haven’t changed the fixtures in two hundred years. Look at the money saved in redecoration. Ah, these New Englanders. They never repair anything. The tourists then come along and get all hopped up about the quaint Colonial atmosphere.”

  “That’s what brings in the customers,” I said. “They can get neon lights and chrome and colored glass brick and aluminum anywhere in the country. Here they get what they came to New England for. Atmosphere. I think you’re wrong about renovation, though. Both here and the Royal Colonial, they spent a lot of money on the restoration. That authentic look doesn’t come cheap, Mr. Starrett.”

  “Call me Wen,” he said. “Maybe you’re right. Everybody around here makes such a fetish of Colonial atmosphere. Personally, it leaves me cold.”

  Edmonds came with his Scotch and soda, put it down and went away. Starrett lifted his glass and said, “Cheers.”

  Connie took a long sip of hers. I touched mine to my lips and put it down on the table.

  “Well.” Starrett glanced over at me. “Where are you from, Lindsey?”

  “Cambridge, Mass.,” I said. “How about you?”

  “New York City,” he said. “You stationed around here?”

  “More or less,” I said. “What kind of work do you do, Mr. Starrett?”

  “I’m in sales promotion for a food-importing firm,” he said. He threw back his head and laughed. “I should know better than to ask questions of a policeman. Every time I open my mouth you counter with another.”

  I turned to Connie Ossipee. “You two met at the hotel?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I was the waitress at his table. This is the first time Wen and I have been out together. My mother’s going to be impressed when I write and tell her I had a state trooper as a chaperon.”

  “You going back to New York now?” I asked Starrett.

  “No,” he said. “I’ve got more work to do in New England. I want the people in this area to get interested in our kind of foods.”

  “What kind of foods?”

  “The exotic type. We’re going after some of the hotel trade. French-fried grasshoppers and chocolate-covered ants. Ever try ants?”

  “He’s kidding you,” Connie said to me.

  “We do sell them,” Starrett said. “But only as a novelty.” He lifted his glass and drank. “Well, all the police problems straightened out?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It wasn’t very important. In fact, I’ll ask you.”

  His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Yes?”

  “We’re looking for a missing person. His name is Kirk Chanslor. Do you know him?”

  “Who? Kirk who?”

  “Chanslor. C-H-A-N-S-L-O-R.”

  “No. Why am I supposed to know him?”

  “Maybe you saw him around the hotel.”

  “One of the guests?”

  “No, just a visitor.”

  “What does he look like?”

  I described Chanslor. He shook his head and said, “Sorry. He doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Let it go,” I said. “Are you married, Wen?”

  He laughed and took another drink from his glass. “Now that’s a loaded question, Ralph. What would I answer in front of Connie? I’d say no anyway.”

  “Are you?”

  “No, really I’m not.” He glanced over at the girl, who was holding her glass cupped in both hands. “You believe me, don’t you, Connie?”

  “Sure,” she said. Her voice was disinterested, as if she did not care one way or another.

  Their glasses were now empty. Starrett asked the girl if she would care for another. She would not.

  She said, “I have to get back to the hotel and change my clothes.”

  Starrett stood up. “Allow me,” he said. He placed some bills on the table and we went out of there.

  We stood outside of the tavern on the narrow, cobble-stoned sidewalk. The girl had entered the car. I turned to Starrett. I said, “Do you gamble much, Wen?”

  “I do my share,” he said. “I like the ponies best. Belmont Park, Jamaica. Hialeah in Florida.”

  “Do you do any off-track betting?”

  “You mean through a bookie? No. I’m not that much of a player.”

  “How would you place a bet at the Mount Puritan?”

  “I wouldn’t. I said I never bet off-track.”

  “Did you know any bookies at the hotel?”

  “No. I didn’t know there were any.”

  “How about playing cards?”

  “I play.”

  “Poker?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Did you play poker at the Mount Puritan?”

  “I’ve played there,” he said carefully.

  “Big games?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve heard there are some big games there.”

  “Are there?” he asked. “I didn’t know. I was in a small one.”

  “How small?”

  “Somebody complain about my winnings?” he asked.

  “No. How small?”

  “I won a hundred and twelve dollars, I think. That’s how small. We played twenty-five and fifty limit. That was cents, not dollars.”

  “You can still lose money in a game like that.”

  “Not with those birds,” he said. “They played close to the vest. You’re not going to raid the hotel, are you? These were just some of the guests playing a friendly little game.”

  I shook my head. I held my hand out. “Thanks for the drink.”

  “Why thank me?” he asked. “I noticed you didn’t touch it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was working. Thanks, any
way.” I bent down and said through the car window, “Good-bye, Connie. Hope to see you again.”

  “Sure thing,” she said. I waited a moment. Starrett went around and got into the car. He started up and drove off.

  I watched them go. Then I got into my own car. I drove down two blocks.

  Chapter 9

  Maitland’s was a tired-looking, open-air used-car lot. Above it the limp colored pennants strung from the sagging wires were faded, grimy and torn. Most of the cars lined up facing the street were old junkers. The coats of polish on their paint and the synthetic whitewalls glued to their tires didn’t quite hide their ancient age and rusted chromium trim. In the center of the gravel lot was a small, white wooden hut. It had a garishly painted red-and-white sign that said: MAITLAND’S. USED CARS BOUGHT, SOLD, AND EXCHANGED.

  I drove in. A young man came out immediately from the shed. He had straight black hair that was combed back. He was tall and thin, and his shoulders were slightly stooped. As I got out of my car and went up to him I saw that he hadn’t changed much from his old gas-station-attendant days, except, perhaps, that he had become thinner. His jacket was old and threadbare. His slacks were clean but baggy. His shirt collar was frayed, but his fingernails were clean, his face freshly shaven, and his worn shoes carefully shined. There was a large red welt on the side of his chin.

  “Trooper Lindsey, sir,” he said, stretching out his hand. “Long time no see.”

  “Over a year, Larry,” I said. “What happened to your chin?”

  His fingers went up and touched the mark. “Nothing. Working on a car.”

  “How are you doing here, Larry?”

  “Good, Ralph. I’m head salesman here now. Sales manager, sort of. I heard you were in town. Made a big arrest with Andy Reardon.”

  “It was Andy’s. I went along for the ride.” Head salesman was merely a self-imposed title, I knew. Maitland had only one salesman besides himself. “You haven’t been friendly with Aguerra, have you, Larry?”

  “Hell,” he said, “I’m all done with that kind of stuff.”

  I brought out my cigarettes and offered him one. He took it eagerly. After we lit up, he inhaled the smoke deeply. I had an idea he hadn’t had a smoke for a while.

  “I guess you’re around asking about Kirk,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “They announced on the radio that his car was found in Buford this morning.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “How have you been getting along with Kirk?”

  “Pretty good now.”

  “I’m glad,” I said.

  The young man’s name was Lawrence Pierce and he had lived in Sachem all his life. The first time I met him he was working in a gas station near Otis Air Force Base. This was after I had broken off with Iva Hancock. Larry Pierce was seeing her occasionally. At the same time Kirk Chanslor began taking Iva out, too. The people around Sachem were talking about the triangle and wondering which boy would win out. Larry Pierce had the lesser appearance of the two, but he seemed to have a lot more money to spend.

  One evening Kirk Chanslor and Larry Pierce got into an argument outside the drugstore. There was a little pushing around. Then Pierce swung wildly at Kirk. Kirk ducked, hit Pierce with a single punch and knocked him down. Chanslor, who outweighed Pierce, helped him to his feet and apologized immediately.

  Pierce was bleeding from a puffed mouth. He shook off Kirk and walked away. That was the last time I knew of any contact between Kirk Chanslor and Larry Pierce. They had studiously avoided each other, and Pierce had stopped seeing Iva Hancock. His courtship had not been much anyway. He had filled in when Kirk was away, taking her to good eating places, a movie or a dance. If Iva had a date with somebody else, Larry Pierce would sit around and talk to Mrs. Hancock.

  “Kirk and I patched it up,” he said.

  “Fine,” I said. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Friday night. He came by here a little after half-past seven.”

  “Did he stop to talk?”

  “Yes.”

  “About what?”

  His shoe scuffed the gravel. “He wanted to know if I was still booking numbers. I told him I wasn’t. He was curious about somebody at the hotel.”

  “Who?”

  “He didn’t give me the name. But he asked if anyone was gambling through me. I told him I wasn’t in the business any more. He isn’t a cop yet, is he, Ralph?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t know why he bothered with me,” Pierce said. “But I haven’t booked any numbers since that last time. I want you to believe that.”

  “Okay,” I said. He was referring to the time I had arrested him. I had been stationed at the Yarmouth Barracks then. A report came in from the provost marshal of the Otis Air Force Base. Some of the wives of the non-commissioned officers were complaining that their husbands were losing much money on the numbers pool. The trail led to the gas station where Larry Pierce worked. I watched him and I saw the airmen visiting the place and learned that Pierce was living far beyond his salary. After a few days I went in and made the pinch. I caught him transacting business with a fat sergeant, and the slips and money were in his pockets.

  Pierce had co-operated and had named Jed Pontius of Barnstable as the man who was banker behind the pool. After we had picked up Pontius, the judge gave Larry a ten-dollar fine. Pontius got thirty days in the county house of correction and a five-hundred-dollar fine. Larry Pierce was fired from his job at the gas station and went to work in a garage in Falmouth. A few months later he came back to Sachem and went to work for Howard Maitland at the used-car lot. Pierce told me it was my personal recommendation that had given him the break and he would never forget it.

  “Do you know if any gambling is going on around the hotel?” I asked.

  “Only that the guests play some poker,” he said.

  “How much poker?”

  “I heard there was ten grand lost by a guest in a game this weekend.”

  “Who’d you hear that from?”

  “Oh, here and there, Ralph.”

  “Who, Larry?”

  “Alfie Murdock.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Alfie.” Murdock was Sachem’s town clown, court jester, general buffoon and the town character. He was a handyman and a great dispenser of rumors and gossip. Usually very little was true.

  “I realize it was Alfie,” Pierce said. “That’s why I didn’t put too much stock in it.” He shook his head. “Still it would be kind of interesting to know who could lose that kind of money in a friendly little card game.”

  “If it was true,” I said. “Where was Kirk heading after he left you?”

  “Down the road toward the hotel.”

  “Any other rumors around, Larry?”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Like if anyone is booking horses or numbers around here.”

  “Not anybody I know, Ralph.” He knew he could trust me with information and not revealing its source. His sentence had been light and nobody had hounded him afterwards. I had a habit after that of using him as a source of information in the area. Every trooper cultivates and builds up his own little group of informants. If he doesn’t he never makes a good investigator.

  “Have you been seeing Iva again?” I asked.

  “A little. But not lately.”

  “When?”

  “When Kirk started to go to the Academy in the spring. Nothing to it, though. Kirk was away all week and she was lonesome. So I’d take her for a ride once in a while. To tell the truth, business has been a little slow and I’ve had a thin pocketbook. I’d put a pair of dealer’s plates on one of the cars on the lot and take her for a ride down to Howard Johnson’s. We’d have an ice-cream cone and come home. That’s about the size of it, Ralph.”

  “Did Kirk know you were seeing Iva?”

  “I guess he did. It was no secret.”

  “When was the last time you took her out?”

  “Some time ago.”

&n
bsp; “When?”

  “Must be three, four weeks.”

  “Have you phoned her since?”

  “I called her a couple of times, yes. But she’s been busy.”

  “And you and Kirk didn’t talk about it Friday night?”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “Then that’s all, Larry,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Glad to help,” Pierce said. “I hope he shows up.”

  “Good-bye, Larry,” I said.

  I left him standing there in the middle of the lot. He watched my car turn out onto the street. Then he went over to one of the cars and kicked a tire. There didn’t seem to be anything else for him to do.

  Chapter 10

  I drove out to Route 28 and north over the Bourne Bridge of the Cape Cod Canal, heading for the Middleboro Barracks. When I got there I telephoned Lieutenant Sam Gahagan and gave him all I had. Then I went into the paneled dining room for supper.

  At ten o’clock that night Lieutenant Gahagan came in. He brought with him the laboratory reports on Kirk Chanslor’s car. The car was still impounded below us in the secured-evidence room.

  Gahagan and I went into the guardroom and discussed the laboratory report. The car functioned properly and the gasoline tank was half full. What fingerprints there were, were mostly smudges, except those of Chanslor himself. There were a few good prints around the outside of the gas tank, but Gahagan thought they would turn out to be those of some service-station attendant and were to be expected.

  As we sat on the red-leather lounge chairs and talked, there were footsteps in the corridor. The duty sergeant loomed in the doorway.

  He said, “Lindsey, phone call for you. You can take it in the Report Room across the hall.”

  I got up, crossed the corridor and went into the Report Room. One of the desks had a telephone on it. I picked it up, automatically looking up at the electric wall clock. It was 10:45.

  I said, “Hello. This is Trooper Lindsey.”

  “Lindsey?” The voice was so faint, so muffled and disguised that I could barely hear it. There was no way for me to tell if it was that of a man, woman or child.

  “Yes,” I said. “Who’s this, please?”

  “Listen,” the voice said hurriedly, almost inarticulately. “I’m saying… only once. You’re looking for something. To find it…” The voice became more disjointed, fading, unintelligible in spots. “… Willow Lake in Cornwall. Route 151. When you see… Esso gas station… slow down. On back… dirt road… bad… ride to end… get… car… walk… yards ahead. Big oak tree. Turn… pace seven steps east. You’ll find… looking for. Go alone…”