Bernie punched out brother Robert.
Dr. Corliss said Spritz easily disturbed. I say he's not alone around here.
At five-forty-five, he left for the fifteen-minute drive to the other end of the city. Running north to south within a chain-link fence, the Regional Recycling Center was a strip of land sunk in the middle of a crater, not unlike the rectangular bottom of a wicker basket. A dirt road encircled the Center while, laterally, bushy terrain rose to the level of elm tops which were based alongside the road below. The high ground formed a rim which sloped on all sides to main streets leading to the city proper. Below and from opposite sides of the elevation, two blacktops shot to the rim only to become, on the other side, dirt themselves.
A block from the foot of the elevation, David stopped his car under a streetlight while he kept the motor running. He opened Friday, pulled out his Blackhawk Magnum and laid it on the seat between his thighs. He shrugged his left shoulder to feel the Minx.22, then reached down and patted his ankle snubby.
Halfway up the hill, he turned off the headlights and shifted to a lower gear for a slower, less noisy accent. A single lamp on a pole flooded the enclosure from the south side, and as his car bent down over the east rim, David saw the shadow of a hoisting crane spilling against the left bank, a giant crustacean perched on the latticed pattern of the fence.
Light fog drifted in the silent, sharp air and David pounced on his Blackhawk when he heard the guttural meows of cats in a standoff. Easy now. He returned his hand to the wheel and eased the car forward, head still, eyes sweeping to and fro. He stopped abruptly when, over the dimly lit rows of barrels and dumpsters and through the links on the other side, he spotted the shape of a car.
David was about to flash his lights. Wait! Who says he's in the car? He wanted to slouch down but the Mercedes wasn't built for his frame. He thus hunched his back and buried his head in his shoulders, turtle-like. Whipping out the Minx and grabbing the Blackhawk, he switched them in his hands and kept them close to his chest as he waited.
The other car's lights blinked. David returned the blink, put down only the Minx and took his foot off the brakes. His car reached level land and, instead of gradually accelerating, he swerved to the left and gunned around to reach the far end in less than a moment, screeching to a halt opposite the driver's side of a late model sedan. He felt the floodlight in his eyes and, in one motion, pointed the Magnum at a darkened figure as he tightened his finger on the trigger, fully expecting to see a gun butt similarly leveled in his direction. There was none. The figure disappeared beneath the window and David heard a muffled plea, 'David, don't. It's me, Nick Medicore.'
What the!
The other car's door opened slowly and the figure slid out. David verified it was Nick-outwardly unarmed. And he recognized the car as a white Buick Park Avenue.
'Stay down,' David said, exiting. 'Just in case.' He raced to Nick's side and they both crouched between the cars. Nick pulled out a revolver from his waistband.
'You got the same call?' David asked.
'That I did,' Nick said.
David raised up and peered over the top of each car. He returned to his crouch and said, 'I don't think he's here at all. Looks like we've been snookered. The creep's toying with us. Whoever he is, he's toying with us.' Nick nodded.
David wondered why Nick hadn't offered the same conclusion instead of a nod and then the proclamation, 'Such are the wild chases in police work.'
David didn't need that and, after searching Nick's face, responded, 'Well, I'm hungry and I need a drink.'
'Me, too,' Nick said.
David drove off without saying good-bye or bothering to ask Nick how long he had been parked there. It was unusual behavior but he had a gut feeling Nick preferred it that way, too. Ordinarily, David would have censured himself for leaving an associate so brusquely, but he held that Nick Medicore was no ordinary associate and that the last week was no ordinary time.
On the way to Kathy's mother's house, he stewed in his Mercedes, ambivalent over feelings of being duped and of becoming quasi-competitive with Nick. Dismissing any dire consequences of a different outcome, he was disappointed he hadn't found a stranger there, an out-of-towner. Not a Spritz or a Foster, and certainly not a Medicore. What the episode did was reinforce what he had thought all along. It placed the killer closer to home, roaming the spots David knew. And it compelled him to wonder about Nick's nonchalance. Somehow, he had difficulty visualizing the Chief Detective taking the same precautions he had taken in approaching the Center. But no difficulty in imagining his driving straight to the spot where his car was parked.
And another thing. Why did he blink his lights? Did he think the killer was coming down that hill? Or yours truly?
Kathy greeted David at the door with, 'You got held up?'
'Not exactly,' he said, removing his scarf and gloves and tossing them on the hall. table. They embraced and kissed, longer than he expected.
Standing in the hall of plaster, wainscotting and high ceiling, he sketched what had transpired at the recycling center, leaving out his offense-as-a-defense maneuver.
Kathy listened and proffered her opinion: 'I think both of you were nuts. Men!'
David made like he hadn't heard and said, 'By the way-your boss?'
'Nick? What about him?'
'Did he come here well-recommended?'
'Very. They hated to give him up, I understand. His wife's from these parts, her parents aren't well and that kind of thing. I guess she worked on him pretty good. We had the opening, as you know, and he relocated. Why?' Kathy's eyes narrowed speculatively. 'You're not insinuating …?'
'Who's insinuating?' He took Kathy's hand and led her into the living room.
'Then why the question?'
'Curious, that's all.'
But David had been aroused by more than curiosity. Perhaps our Chief Detective truly relishes my taking a lead role in the investigation for his own selfish-or devilish-purposes: to dilute professional input, maybe to screw things up. It's lame reasoning, and I'll concede he's a lame suspect, but right about now, nothing and no one's written off. He's either the killer and wants an amateur on the case-or he's not and is investigating as hard as I am.
He refused dinner and stayed but ten minutes more, engaging in a round of unfocused converation with Mrs. Dupre before he left.
For most of the trip home, a pair of bright lights filled David's rearview mirror. Their shape reminded him of a frog's eyes.
Chapter 14
The next day, Wednesday, David felt the sting of January winds in the hollow of Cannon Cemetery. Specks of snow floated and disappeared into the ground, belying the morning's sun and reflections off parking lot bumpers and antennas. He considered whether snow flurries and bright sun could combine for a rainbow, deduced not, but scanned the sky anyway. Bedecked in his double-breasted funereal suit, he strode from his car along a rigid path which curled among mounds of tombstones, flowers and flags, toward a yellow and white canopy set at path level and to the right. Within its shade, most of the folding chairs were unoccupied, and he recognized those seated- perhaps thirty-as the most seasoned doctors and nurses from crosstown Bowie Hospital. Alton and Nora Foster were the only others there to represent Hollings General.
Earlier, David thought it hypocritical even to consider attending the church service for Dr. Everett Coughlin, but irreverence aside, reasoned it was necessary to check out the graveside gathering. Would the killer dare come? A surveillance mission, that's all.
He queried how the nearby burial pit had been dug through hardened turf and noticed the front end of a
