The Lenient Beast Page 3

  Frank nodded and moved to the door on our right, and I moved with him. This time he knocked. And this time the knock was answered. A fat Mexican woman with a gray shawl around her shoulders opened it and stared suspiciously at us.

  “Buenos tardes, Madre,” Frank said, taking off his hat. “No esta en casa el senor Stiffler, pero—”

  That far I could follow and then the Spanish got too much for me and sounded like gibberish except for an occasional phrase like lo siento mucho. Which left me out of the conversation, but I knew it was better that way. The woman probably spoke English, maybe fairly good English, but he'd get a lot more out of her by talking to her in the language that came easiest to her.

  They talked at least ten minutes, her voice sullen at first and giving only short answers, but gradually getting friendlier and doing more and more of the talking. Frank's great at handling older women. I think I do better on the younger ones.

  Finally a “Mil gracias,” from Frank and a “De nada, mi hijo,” from her ended it and the door closed.

  “Que pasa?” I asked him. “Which, if you don't speak Spanish, my son, means “What gives?”"

  We moved a little way from the door, toward the head of the stairs.

  “He's still living there — or was,” Frank said. “She last saw him, and talked to him briefly, yesterday morning.”

  “Take her ten minutes to tell you that?”

  “The rest was just general stuff about the Stifflers and about the accident. May not mean anything, but I'll tell you later, after the identification.”

  “Hey,” I said, “what's about the identification? Your madre there knew him. Why don't we snag her off and take her down to the mortuary for a look-see?”

  “Because something she told me gives us a better bet The person closest to him is Father Trent, at St. Matthew's. He probably knows more about Stiffler than anyone alive. And I know him, slightly. I'd a lot rather have him do the identifying.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let's get him and get it over with.” We were going to feel plenty foolish already if the guy who'd been killed turned out to be somebody else who just happened to look like Stiffler. But Frank's pretty good on remembering faces, as well as other things, and I wasn't too worried.

  In fact, I felt sure enough so when we got in the car, I said, “Frank, will you brief me again on that God damn accident? I read about it casually but I don't remember all the details. Just what a horrible thing it was.”

  “Kurt Stiffler was driving. An old jalopy he'd bought for fifty bucks the week before. It was the first car he'd ever owned — but that doesn't mean he wasn't a good driver, or couldn't have been one, because he'd driven a taxi in Mexico City.”

  “Than which,” I said, “there is no whicher. They drive like maniacs down there. But go on.”

  “His wife — Mexican girl — and three kids were in the car with him. Two boys and a girl, all under ten but I don't remember exact ages or which was which. Or who was sitting where — not that either of those things matters. They'd been to a Mexican wedding down in Nogales — not across the border; Nogales, Arizona, on this side. They'd left around ten and around midnight they were nearing Tucson, a few miles south of the airport.”

  “In which case,” I said, “they hadn't been speeding. Almost two hours to drive sixty miles.”

  “And all of it such smooth straight road that even sixty isn't speeding — although it might be for a jalopy. But there was a car coming toward them and suddenly the Stiffler car swerved toward it across the center of the road. Tire marks proved that — it's not a matter of taking anybody's word. It didn't hit the other car square but it was a hell of a sideswipe and both cars went off the road. The other car plowed through a fence and stopped upright but Kurt's rolled over twice.”

  Frank was pulling the car into a parking space; St. Matthews had been only four blocks away and we were there. I said, “Let's sit here a minute. Finish before we go in.”

  “Okay. Kurt was thrown clear; didn't even get a scratch, somehow or other. His wife and one lad were killed instantly. Another kid died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and the third kid a couple of hours after they got him there. The driver of the other car — only person in it — died the next day. His chest had been crushed against the steering post. A salesman from Phoenix.

  “Well, that's it. Cause was probably a blowout but Stiffler said he didn't hear a tire go; the wheel just jerked in his hands. The shape the car and tires were in afterwards you couldn't prove it one way or another.”

  Frank lit a cigarette. He said, “Well, they took Kurt in and booked him after he admitted he'd been drinking. Open charge — they were going to decide later between drunken driving and manslaughter.”

  “The poor guy,” I said.

  “Yeah. Hearing was the next day. I happened to be going by the door and looked in; that's the one time I saw him. He looked like a dead man and I think he wanted to be one. And from his own answers — I didn't hear them because I had time to look in for only a minute — he wanted to take the blame, and I guess he'd have had the book thrown at him.

  “But somebody — and now that I know Father Trent was close to Kurt, I've got a pretty good idea who — had got him a lawyer. Lawyer talked the judge into an adjournment till the next day, and the next day he had half a dozen witnesses who'd been at that wedding party in Nogales. And they swore Kurt had been sober when he left there. He'd had a few glasses-not over three small ones, they all agreed-of light wine early in the evening. But at eight o'clock they'd had a big dinner and Kurt had not drunk during the dinner or after. So the few light drinks he'd had he'd taken over four hours before the accident, and with a gut full of grub and then two hours of driving in between, he couldn't possibly still have been feeling them. That put him in the clear, except for the civil suit.”

  “Civil suit? I didn't read about that, Frank. Must have missed it.”

  “The wife of the salesman who was killed in the other car was bringing suit against him, some fantastic figure considering his ability to pay. And he didn't have insurance, naturally.”

  “The court would have cut down a figure that was out of line,” I said.

  “Sure, but there'd still have been a sizeable judgment against him. In the thousands, regardless of how many. You see, he was liable, no doubt about that. Even if an accident is the fault of a defect in your car, like a tire blowout, you're legally liable for damages. Not criminally liable, now, but if the other driver is in his lane and you cross over the middle line and smash him, brother, you've had it. You're liable for damages to him, no matter whether it's really your fault or not.”

  “Consider me briefed,” I said. “Let's go see Father-uh, what'd you say his name was?”

  “Trent. Let me do the talking.”

  “When don't I?”

  And a few minutes later we were sitting in the Father's study; Frank had introduced me and we'd made ourselves comfortable. The Father looked younger than either Frank or me; I'd say thirty or a year or two under.

  “Social call, Frank?” he asked. “Or bad news about one of my people?”

  “I'm not sure, Father,” Frank said. “We haven't identification as yet. We'd like you to look at a body, if you will, and tell us if it is one of your parishioners.”

  He nodded slowly. “Of course — but you must have some reason for thinking so. May I ask who you think it is?”

  “We're not sure. It may be Kurt Stiffler.”

  He bent his head a moment and closed his eyes; his lips didn't move but he may have been praying.

  Frank said, “If it is Kurt, it's not what you've probably been afraid of. It wasn't accident, but the wound that caused death could not have been self-inflicted. He didn't commit suicide.”

  He kept his eyes closed a second longer, then opened them and stood up. “Will you take me there right away? I know you'll have a lot of questions to ask, if it is he. But that can wait, can't it?”

  “Of course,” Frank said. We were standing too, by then. “Well use our car, Father. And well bring you back here afterwards. Whether or not.”

  It was whether, and not not. He made the identification all right. And I phoned in and told Cap the identification was official before we left the mortuary. He said okay and he'd get a post-mortem order over to Raeburn right away and that we should stay with Father Trent and get his story before we reported in. Since we had to take him back to St. Matthews anyway.

  It was quite a story.

  THREE

  FRANK RAMOS

  Night pressed against the windshield. I was driving and I was tired. I turned the car into the police garage and parked it, turned off the lights and the ignition.

  “What time is it, Red?” I asked.

  “Pushing nine. Well, I'm for a beer. How's about you?”

  I said, “A drink might do me good. Not a beer.”

  “Okay, let's get in my heap then. Well stop at El Presidio and I'll drive you on home if we're ready to leave at the same time.” Red lives way out on Oracle Road and drives to and from work; my place is only seven blocks from downtown and it's less trouble to leave my car in the garage and walk. But I was so tired tonight that the offer of a lift home sounded more enticing than the drink.

  We went to the parking lot and got Red's car. A better one than mine, because being single he can afford a better one. Red drives a sleek black Buick convertible; it's four years old but he keeps it shined and tuned within an inch of its life. It looks like, and is, a lot of car.

  “Hell of a nice night,” Red said, as we got into the Buick.

  It was, but I didn't feel like talking so I just grunted an affirmative. I didn't feel like thinking, either, particularly about the case we were working on, but I couldn't help that.
br />   I didn't hike it, and I was going to like it less. Call that a premonition if you want; I don't believe in premonitions but I've had a few and this one was the strongest yet.

  Nothing I could put my finger on. We didn't have a single lead that seemed to mean anything, but it wasn't that; cases often start that way. Then something breaks and it's in the bag. But this one made nuts.

  Take John Medley. A solid citizen. Jay Byrne put in a good afternoon's work on him and everything he'd turned up checked with what Medley had told us. Up to six and a half years ago, anyway, and there didn't seem to be any point in checking back farther than that. That was when he'd bought the house on Campbell Street, as he'd told us. And at about the same time he'd opened an account at the Cowmen's Bank with a sizable draft on a Chicago bank. Occasional largish withdrawals and deposits were always, the head teller told Jay, checks to and from several escrow companies handling real estate transactions. Approximately once a month he drew a hundred in cash and the other small checks he wrote were routine ones, for department store accounts, utility bills and the like. The real estate transaction checks totaled considerably higher on the deposit side than on the withdrawal side; his account had for several years remained at about the same level despite the cash and other routine checks drawn against it. Obviously his dabbling, as he'd called it, in real estate was earning him a living. His credit rating was excellent and the bank and the escrow companies with which he dealt thought highly of him. Nothing against him that Jay could find, not even a traffic ticket. Yes, a very solid citizen.

  Take Kurt Stiffler. Not even a citizen, solid or otherwise. Father Trent had given us his background. Kurt had been born in Germany in very troubled times there, the early twenties. Very poor timing, for his father had had a Jewish grandmother. That made Reinhard Stiffler a Jew, despite the fact that he was a Catholic and had raised Kurt as one. Kurt's mother had died in bearing him; he was an only child, and sickly. He was ten years old when Hitler came into power and the pogroms started. Two years later, when Kurt was twelve, his father had had a chance to escape from Germany and had taken the opportunity despite the fact that he was unable to take his son with him. He had left Kurt with an aunt and uncle; the aunt had been Kurt's mother's sister and there was no taint of Jewry in the family so Kurt might have been safe with them. Might have been, but had not been. Within a few months his uncle had been accused and convicted of opposition to the Nazis and the investigation had brought out Kurt's ancestry. What had happened to the aunt and uncle neither Kurt nor his father ever learned but Kurt, now branded not only as a Jew but as the ward of traitors, had been put into a concentration camp at the age of twelve. Miraculously, he survived ten years there, and grew to young manhood behind barbed wire. But it broke his health completely; he was never strong again and was to be a semi-invalid all his life.

  Meanwhile Reinhard Stiffler had reached Mexico and after working for another German there for a few years had learned the language and the ropes sufficiently and had become solvent enough to open a small haberdashery shop in Mexico City. After the war, he was able to locate Kurt and send for him.

  Kurt was twenty-two when he joined his father in Mexico. For a while he was unable to do more than rest, try to regain his health and, with the help of his father and a friend of his father's who was a teacher, work at supplementing his very scanty education and' at learning a new language. For a while things went well; he did gain enough stamina to enable him to be of some help to his father in the shop and he seemed to be getting stronger. At twenty-four he had married a Mexican girl; they had three children in the next five years and all the children, at least, were strong and healthy. Then again, four years ago when he was twenty-nine, the bottom had fallen out of things. His father died and, quite suddenly, the shop was bankrupt and lost and he was broke. He struggled to make a living, trying one thing after another, most of them too hard for him. Soon he found himself and his family living near the edge of bare subsistence — and subsistence in Mexico can be far barer than Americans realize.

  A priest who was a friend thought he might do better in the United States; another friend offered to lend him money for the trip. The priest was a friend of Father Trent's; with Trent's help he had got into the country on a temporary visa which might be renewable. They'd reached Tucson four months ago. Father Trent had helped him get a job as timekeeper on a construction project and he had been doing well at it. Most of the workers were Spanish-speaking and he had already enough English to get by with the others. The boss spoke German and had himself been a refugee from the Nazis twenty years before. Kurt's health, Father Trent told us, was at least no worse. Both Trent and Kurt's boss had been working on his behalf and there seemed little doubt but that, when the six months of his visa were up he'd be able to obtain an extension and eventually to become an American citizen. There was no doubt at all but that he liked it here. He had already paid off almost all the money his father's friend had lent him for bus fare from Mexico City to Tucson. And had bought, on time payments, the old jalopy that was the first car he had ever owned, and in which their first trip out of town had been the sixty-odd mile trip down to Nogales to the wedding.

  What connection could there possibly be between John Medley and Kurt Stiffler? Logically, none. To date, no one we'd talked to who knew Kurt had ever heard of Medley; no one who knew Medley knew Kurt, except through reading of his tragic accident in the newspapers.

  Maybe I was wrong.

  “Well, you going to sit there?” Red asked me. I woke up to the fact that we were parked in front of El Presidio and that he'd already got out of his side of the car and had closed the door. I got out, too, and went into the bar.

  We took stools. Red ordered beer. (Beer, cowboy music, Western stories, square dancing; that's my Red. He'd wear a Stetson and twin six guns if they'd let him, and carry a git-tar too.) I usually drink highballs but this time I needed a quick lift so I took a double straight and downed it, then ordered myself a highball to drink at leisure. Red was dropping coins in the juke box. I don't know why he does; he never seems to listen to the resulting noise, talks right over it.

  He came back. “Look,” he said, “it could of been this way. This Stiffler and somebody else plan a burglary and pick that house. In the back yard there they get in a fight and the other guy shoots Stiffler.”

  “To put it in a nutshell,” I said, “nuts.”

  “Why not? Just because Trent says Stiffler was a wonderful young man. Maybe he was, but maybe losing his whole family all at once like that, and blaming himself for it, sent him off his rocker.”

  “It might have, Red. But not that way.”

  “All right then, smart guy. What did happen?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “I haven't the faintest God damn idea. Let's forget about it for tonight.”

  “Okay. What'll we do tomorrow?”

  “Go to work,” I said. “And do whatever the captain tells us to do. What else?”

  “Aw, go soak your head. How'd you like to bowl a game?”

  “With human heads it might be interesting. Not otherwise. But I'll shake you dice for a drink.”

  We shook and I lost, as usual, and bought myself another drink and bought Red a beer and a pack of cigarettes. When we shake for drinks we always do it that way, since he always drinks beer and I never do, and it comes out even.

  Red put more money in the juke box and then got into a baseball argument with the man on the next stool and I sat and watched myself in the backbar mirror until my drink was finished and then I nudged Red and asked him if I should shake back.

  He considered it. “Guess not, Frank. Think I'm getting sleepy. Let's pull freight.”

  “You pull freight,” I said. “I'm not sleepy and I'm too tired to go home. I'm going to have a couple more.” And I signaled the bartender to make me one.

  Red finished his beer and then turned to go, putting a hand on my shoulder. I think that, since I'm a Mexican — by race, of course, not nationality — it makes him feel democratic to do that once in a while. Well, I guess he is democratic, except when it comes to Negroes; he wouldn't put a friendly hand on a Negro's shoulder.

  “'Night, Frank,” he said. And then, “Watch it, boy; don't turn into an alcoholic.”