One Good Deed(108)

“So Lucas Tuttle was getting his revenge on Pittleman.”

“Come again?” said Shaw.

“When I met with him, Tuttle told me that Pittleman had this big plan to get Tuttle’s daughter and then all his property. But I’m thinking that it was actually Tuttle who had that plan. To get all that Pittleman had. Like Marjorie told us, the two men were rivals.”

“And Tuttle would get it on the cheap since Pittleman had all those past-due bills and such.”

“And Marjorie would probably have to rely on Draper to tell her what a fair price for the business would be, and with the man working for Tuttle we know whatever price he told her was fair surely wouldn’t be. Hey, how is Draper? We could ask him flat out about all of this.”

Shaw shook his head. “Still not conscious. But when he does wake up, I’ll be right there with all my questions.”

Archer fell silent and looked out the window.

“What is it?”

“We fought a war for this? Conniving folks killing other folks over money?”

“Wars don’t change how people are, Archer. They just kill a bunch ’a folks and when it’s over, people go back to being how they always were. Most good, some not so good.” He yawned and stretched. “Now, I’m all done in. Need some sack time. Been a long damn day.”

“Okay.”

Shaw gave Archer a thumbs-up. “We’re going to get to the truth, have no fear. I got me some ideas.”

After he left, Archer smoked another cigarette while he stared out the window.

Part of him wished he was back in prison, a thought he never believed he would have. This had all shaken his faith in a lot of things, but mainly in one thing.

Me.

During the war, during most of his life, in fact, Aloysius Archer had been able to trust his instincts. Not now.

A few minutes later he looked down at the framed picture. Pittleman was dead. Tuttle, too. Draper might never wake up and tell them the truth. He picked up the photo and absently tapped the frame against his knee, thinking about a million possibilities.

With his tapping, the backing fell off the frame and the freed paper fluttered to the floor. He reached down and picked it up. It was a letter. He read it through three times, each time growing more incredulous at what the words said.

He wanted to go and tell Shaw, but the man was no doubt already asleep. Well, it would keep until morning.

On impulse, Archer took out his knife and used it to cut the stitching on his hat’s inner lining. He secreted the letter and the photo in there and put his hat on the bureau.

He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.

When he woke up early the next morning, his life was about to totally change.

And not in a good way for him.





Chapter 46



ARCHER YAWNED, STRETCHED, and slowly came awake.

In the distance, he heard a sound that seemed, to his half-asleep state, partly familiar, and unrecognizable. As it grew closer, he sat up, because he now knew what the noise was.

The low-pitched wail-growl of a siren.

He lumbered over to the window, his legs stiff and heavy with sleep.

He lifted the glass, rubbed his eyes clear, and looked out onto a surprisingly cool, overcast day. He watched with interest as a long, white ambulance with red markings on the side raced down the street, its guttural siren shattering the otherwise peaceful commencement of another day in Poca City that at least for variety’s sake did not hold clear skies and sun.

He was about to turn back when a second sound joined the first, another siren, but different from the ambulance’s babble.

It was a police car, with the single roof light on and the siren cranked to an ear-numbing pitch—a one-note, one-instrument orchestra performing a banshee of a song with a troubling melody.

Archer slid out a Lucky Strike from a fresh pack and lit up as he continued to peer out and wonder what all the fuss was about. Ambulances he understood. But that coupled with a police car was disturbing.

The next moment he crushed the smoke out on the windowsill as both the ambulance and police car pulled up to the front of the Derby. He saw uniformed men leap from the patrol car, and men in white smocks and pants jump out of the ambulance. He slipped on his clothes and shoes, grabbed his jacket, and ran out of the room. He took the stairs two at a time to the lobby. He burst out of the fire door and saw that the lobby was half full of onlookers and a handful of anxious guests, some still in their pajamas.

He heard the elevator ding and watched the car ascend to and stop at the third floor.

Archer ran over to the front desk, where there was a different clerk, a young man with narrow shoulders and a pockmarked face.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

The young man was pale and his eyes were large with fear. “They found somebody out in the hallway bleeding like crazy.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know. A maid found him.”

Archer ran back to the stairs and sprinted up to the third-floor landing. He caromed out into the hall and looked in both directions. He saw nothing but heard something. He ran to his left and around the corner, where he stopped abruptly.

The police and ambulance men were gathered in a small knot around someone lying on the floor. Archer hustled over there to see. One of the officers heard his approach, whirled around, and put up a hand. “Stay back, this is police business!”