Shakedown for Murder - Ed Lacy

     I took off my cap. “Excuse me, I was looking for a Miss Endin.”

     “I'm Jane Endin. Why are you snooping around my property?”

Chapter 4

     Being an amateur detective I hadn't given much thought as to the type of man Doc Barnes had been. If anything, I'd pictured him a prissy sort, a bluenose. My respect for the doc soared—this was indeed a woman. Then I told myself to act my age, stop the schoolboy crap—Jane Endin looked capable of anything: passion and/or murder.

     “Why must you stare at me—so rudely? What do you want?”

     “Sorry, I don't mean to be rude. I expected a....

     “A tommyhawk in my hand?” Her voice was sharper than one.

     “My name is Matt Lund. Perhaps you've heard of me, the New York City policeman interested in Doc Barnes' death.” I went through the motion of flashing my badge.

     “I haven't heard of you.” Her voice became a talking-to-herself whisper. Her eyes looked through me, as if I weren't there. She seemed dazed and when her face slackened the high cheekbones stood out.

     “I've been looking for you, Miss Endin. Can we talk?”

     “What have we to talk about?” She turned and started to close the door. Her hair was a thick juicy braid that went to her waist—an exciting braid.

     “Aren't you interested in finding Doc's killer?”

     “Killer?” she repeated, back still to me, everything about her straight and tense. “Who would kill Edward? I can't associate killing with Edward, he was only interested in healing, the living.”

     “Do you think Jerry murdered him?”

     “Murder?” She spun around, her eyes coming alive again. “Jerry, the taxi man? But.... I thought it was an accident? Who says Jerry killed Edward?”

     “The Harbor police. Jerry's in the Riverside jail this second, charged with murder.” I wondered where she could have possibly been not to have heard. Or was it all an act? “I'm trying to help Jerry. I don't think he did it. That's what I wanted to talk about.”

     “Wipe your feet on the mat as you come in.”

     She had an odd walk, sort of threw her legs out—and all the stiffness left her. I followed her into a living room which looked too neat to have been lived in much. The furniture was old but the walls were covered with various-size abstract paintings, violent splashes of color that didn't make sense yet were strangely exciting. There was also a large photo of a brown-skinned man in a gold frame who had to be her father—almost the same features. She pointed toward a maple chair with red cushions but I said I'd rather stand, didn't want to dirty the chair. She shrugged, lit a cigarette, and sat on an ancient leather chair, curling her legs under her. With that one movement, despite the shirt and dungarees, the stern face, a touch of feminine warmth came over her.

     I nodded at the paintings, I guess they were oils. “Very unusual.”

     “Do you understand them?”

     “I don't know, but they give me a feeling of excitement.”

     She studied me over a puff of smoke.

     I got under way. “Miss Endin, I'm a stranger here, a tourist. I'm also a cop. I'm going to ask you some questions. I don't mean to be rude, but I can't be subtle. I'm very tired, especially tired of the runaround I've been getting. End Harbor acts like it's outside the law. I wouldn't care, but a man is being framed—I think. Doc Barnes is murdered and the Harbor acts as if....”

     “You never knew Edward,” she cut in, voice clear and sharp once more. “He was a good man, considerate. Perhaps he has now found greater happiness. We Indians have a saying, that death is but the opening of a new trail. We all must die, including Edward, but no one would kill him.”

     “But someone did. They've arrested Jerry on evidence so thin it doesn't make sense. I think they collared him because he's talked with an accent for most of his life, told the Harbor to leave him alone. Everybody here is trying to hush the murder, pretend it didn't happen— even you. Why?”

     “Who can believe a man like Edward could be murdered?”

     “Nuts. They're putting the lid on it because you and Doc Barnes have been the village scandal for years!”

     She jumped to her feet, a graceful fast movement, “Leave my house!”

     “I said I was going to be blunt. Your personal affairs are your own business. But remember Jerry in the Riverside Jail with not a single End Harbor person caring a cold damn!”

     “What do you want of me? I wouldn't hurt Jerry. He's one of the few men who bothered to tip his hat to me. I have nothing to do with his being in jail.”

     “Miss Endin, all I want you to do is answer a couple of questions.”

     She sat down again, the braid coming over her shoulder like a snake. “What questions? What can I tell you?”

     “The doctor was killed not far from here: did he visit you Sunday night?”

     She shook her head. “I last saw Edward on Friday. He came over to have a cup of tea and watch television. He did that every Friday evening.”

     “Where were you Sunday night?”

     “I was here all day Sunday—painting.”

     “Alone?”

     “Of course.”

     I took my time lighting my pipe, full of mixed feelings: I didn't believe her... and I wished to God I was twenty years younger.

     “If you're hinting I killed Edward, you're so wrong. I worshipped him.”

     “Excuse the bluntness but were you his girlfriend?”

     “I was his friend.”

     I'd heard somewhere that silence can break a person down. I wandered around the room slowly. The TV set was the only new thing in the room, everything else looked very old. Even the bookcase full of book club novels seemed unused. Through a doorway I saw a spotless old-fashioned kitchen, a polished coal stove. I'd lay odds it hadn't seen a fire in years. I stared at the paintings for a moment, then faced her. She wasn't even watching me, her eyes studying the floor. “Have you any boyfriends?”

     “Certainly not.”

     “Now, Miss Endin, you're an attractive woman, you must have....”

     “I'm an Indian!” She sounded as fierce as her paintings. “Do you know what that means in a town like the Harbor, Mr...?”

     “Matt Lund.”

     “Mr. Lund, have you any idea what it means to grow up happy with a loving father, even proud that this is the land of your ancestors? Then it all changes when you're twelve or thirteen, the doors start slamming? The kids you played with and went to school with suddenly become painfully polite. I'm not invited to anyone's house, they never come to mine. Have you any...? No, how could you know what it means to be the only 'colored' person in a white town!”

     “You're not—”

     “I'm proud I am an Indian! And if it was a bitter pill I could take it as long as my father was alive. I never knew my mother, but Dad was a wonderful man, full of living, like Edward. I could forget the rest of the Harbor over Dad's laughter and little jokes at night as we took care of the house, the garden, went fishing and swimming. Best of all were the hunting trips and the stories he remembered from his grandfather—alone in the woods we were living in Indian country again. But it got bad—he died when I was twenty.”

     Her voice died, too. I kept pacing the room slowly, telling myself not to be a sucker, taken in by a sob story. She crushed her cigarette in a clam shell ashtray, a loud noise in the silent house. Even the rain on the roof seemed muffled. After a long wait I asked, “What about Doc, Miss Endin?”

     “I nearly went out of my head when Dad died, I was so lonely. I didn't know what to do with myself. Sometimes I'd read day and night until my head hurt. I turned to painting and that helped a little, more as I gained confidence. You know, for nearly two years I never spoke to a soul, except the storekeeper down the street.”

     “You mean nobody in the Harbor spoke to you? Why?”

     “No occasion to talk. They might nod or wave to me on the street. It was more a case of the Harbor ignoring me. Oh, for a time Larry Anderson was friendly but the kind of relationship he wanted... seems like most white men think that's all we've been placed on this earth for. I went out to the reservation but there wasn't anybody there I really knew.”

     “Ever leave the Harbor? New York's only a few hours away.”

     She laughed, a short, harsh sound. “Who would I know in New York? You forget, this town is named after my family, I belong here!”

     “A person belongs where they're happy. How did Doc come into the picture?”

     She stroked the heavy braid coming down her side. I suddenly wondered how she'd look with all that hair undone, perhaps falling to her hips.

     “About two years after Dad died I needed money. Only job I could get was as a domestic. I had headaches all the time, felt sick. One day the woman I worked for sent me to see Edward. He remembered me as a kid, was very kind. When he said I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I became hysterical, spilled all my thoughts out to him. He was shocked, and that was the start of our friendship. He taught me practical nursing, hired me to help in his office. He was interested in my painting, encouraged me. And the Harbor misunderstood, thought we were having an affair. Even Priscilla! Nobody said it openly, they respected Edward too much for that. But I could feel the snickers, the whispered laughter whenever I passed a group of men. Edward was furious, sickened. But how can you combat gossip, an unseen enemy?”

     She was staring at the floor again, didn't expect me to answer—and what is the answer?

     “Edward insisted I get active in the church, even held an exhibition of my paintings there. Everybody laughed at them—except a few artists over from East Hampton and Sag Harbor. I worked in Edward's office for over a year and a half, loved it. But I knew he was having difficulties with Priscilla over me, and she's sickly. Against his wishes—our only fight—I left, took various jobs in Hampton and Southampton as a domestic, in a factory. Of course I didn't mind the Harbor rejecting me, I was used to it. But Edward never stopped being my friend, fighting the town. He made a point of taking me for rides, visiting me several times a week. We read the same books, watched TV. He took me to an art school in East Hampton but I couldn't take it; they were friendly, only they treated me like a pet, a freak. He wanted to send me to a nurses' school, but I was afraid; I hadn't finished high school. He told me to join the WACs during the war, but I didn't want to be with all those white women.” She looked up, stared right into my eyes. “I'll be blunt too. If Edward had wanted me to be his girlfriend, I would have —gladly! I think he desired me but felt it would be giving in to the gossip.”

     I leaned against the kitchen doorway, trying to believe what she was telling me. Or had the doc been trying to break off and she killed him? I said, “The police think Jerry was the last patient Barnes saw that night. Jerry insists the doc said he was going to see somebody else, somebody he called an 'old goat.' Have you any idea who that might be?”

     She shrugged and I realized she had good breasts. “I don't know. It could be a real goat. Edward once raced a small boy and his dog to Riverside to save the dog's life. You see, he was a dedicated man, kindness was his religion. That's why I can't think of him being murdered.”

     Barnes' wife and mistress sure thought alike, at least about the doc. “Did the doc ever mention a man named Nelson, or anybody named Hudon?”

     She shook her head.

     “Anybody in the Harbor by those names?”

     “I never heard them before.”

     “Where were you yesterday, today?”

     Again that interesting shrug. “I heard about his death on my way to work. I felt like the time I'd lost Dad. I drove around, trying to think. I sat on the beach for hours. Then I kept driving about, all the quiet back roads. I couldn't bear seeing anybody. Finally I came back here late this afternoon, tried to sleep.”

     “You worked for him, which of his patients would be call an 'old goat'?”

     “I have no idea. Hardly like Edward to call anybody that. I suppose they'll bury him tomorrow. I know he'll understand if I don't go to the funeral.”

     “You're in a bad spot, Miss Endin. If the jury fails to indict Jerry, if they need another patsy, they'll tag you.”

     “Me?” She jumped.

     “Circumstantial evidence is a darn sight stronger against you than Jerry. You haven't an alibi, Barnes was killed near your house. They could easily cook up a motive— jealousy. Your lover was about to leave you....”

     “Edward wasn't my lover! Let any doctor examine me!”

     I was sold. Perhaps I admired the fierce way she said she was a virgin, the almost terrible way she said it. She could have so easily used a smug tone. This was a wail of protest.

     But that didn't make her innocent of murder. Could she have insisted on bed and the doc refused? Only how could a man refuse something like Jane? Still—all the old saws about a woman spurned banged around in my head.

     She lit another cigarette. “They wouldn't dare accuse me.”

     She was right about that, they'd be afraid it would blow the village apart. But actually, why would it? According to her, Barnes had only tried to help her, felt sorry for her. This required a little mental cooking on my part. “Miss Endin, is it true Priscilla Barnes is fond of Art Roberts?”

     “That nonsense! She helped him, as she would a son. Why, she's....”

     “I know, old enough to be his mother.” I zipped up my windbreaker, “Well, thank you, Miss Endin.”