Bill Pronzini: Deadfall

All I had working now was a background investigation on a guy in San Rafael who had applied to Great Western Insurance for a very large double indemnity policy on his life. Insurance companies get edgy when private individuals apply for such policies. Skeptics and cynics all, they worry that maybe there is some ulterior motive behind the application. Fraud, for instance. Such as an intention to commit suicide under the guise of a fatal accident. My job was to gather as much background material on the individual as possible and turn it over to the insurance people; I could also provide a recommendation, if I was so inclined, but they were the ones who made a final decision as to whether or not to issue a policy. If they did issue it and they got burned, they couldn’t put the onus on me. Not legally, anyhow. There were a couple of companies in the Bay Area who had got burned and who had refused to hire me anymore because of it. But I didn’t have to worry about that happening with Great Western: their chief claims adjustor, Barney Rivera, had been a poker buddy for years. He threw a good deal of business my way, and I handed it back with plenty of care.

I was looking through the application and the other papers Barney had given me yesterday when I heard the door open. I glanced up, expecting to see Eberhardt, but instead I was looking at somebody I had never expected to see again: Tom Washburn.

He said formally, “Good morning. I’d like to talk to you, if you have the time.”

“Of course, Mr. Washburn.”

He shut the door, looked briefly around the office before he came ahead to my desk. The place didn’t seem to make much of an impression on him, but that was all right: it had never impressed me either. It had once been an art studio and the owner of the studio had got permission to put in a skylight; the skylight was the place’s only attractive feature. Otherwise it was just a big room full of furniture, a couple of pieces of which-Eberhardt’s mustard-yellow fiberboard file cabinets-were pretty hideous to look at. Also hideous to look at was a hanging light fixture that just missed being obscene, intentionally on the part of its manufacturer or otherwise.

Washburn sat stiff-backed on one of the clients’ chairs, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. He was wearing black shoes, black slacks, a black shirt, and a black leather coat-a typical getup for some gays in the city. But it didn’t look right on him, and the thought struck me that it was a mourning outfit. There was no question that the death of his lover had affected him profoundly: his face was pale, haggard, with discolored pouches under his eyes; and the eyes themselves had a tragic, haunted look. I felt a sharp twinge of pity for him. I understood what he was going through, because I had known too many others who had suffered the same kind of pain. It was what I would have been going through myself if I had lost Kerry the way he had lost Leonard.

I said, “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

He didn’t answer for a time. Then he seemed to shiver slightly and said, “Yes, all right. It’s cold in here.”

“The landlord’s a jerk. He won’t allow the heat turned up past sixty.”

I got up and poured two cups of coffee. When I asked him if he took anything in his he said no, just black. I gave him his cup, took mine around the desk, and reoccupied my chair. He sat holding the cup between both hands, as if they were cold; they were pale hands, delicate-looking, the skin almost translucent, so that you could see the fine blue tracery of veins running through them.

At length he said, “I came here because I want to hire you. I don’t know what else to do, who else to turn to. You were kind the night Leonard… the night it happened, and I thought…” He let the words run out and looked down into his cup, as if he might find more words in there.

“Hire me to do what, Mr. Washburn?”

“Find the man who killed Leonard.”

“There’s nothing I can do that the police aren’t doing,” I said gently. “Give them enough time and they-”

His head jerked up. “Enough time? My God, they’ve had a week, haven’t they? They haven’t found him yet. They won’t find him, damn them, because they won’t listen to me. They simply won’t listen. ”

“Listen to you about what?”

“About the phone call and the missing money,” he said. “About Leonard’s brother, Kenneth. I can’t make them believe me!”

“Take it easy,” I said, “slow down a little. You think there’s a connection between Kenneth’s death and Leonard’s?”

“I don’t think there is, I know there is.”

“How do you know it? Leonard’s last words aren’t really much to-”

“No, not that. The call last week, three days before Leonard was shot. The man on the phone.”

“What man?”

“I don’t know. A stranger-a voice I didn’t recognize.”

“He called you, this stranger?”

“No, he was calling Leonard. He thought I was Leonard.” Washburn quit talking, gave me a muddled sort of frown, shook himself like a cat, and then said, “Am I making any sense?”

“You’re starting to. Just go slow. This man on the phone mistook you for Leonard?”

“Yes. I’d just come home from work; Leonard wasn’t in yet. I said hello and this man’s voice said, ‘Mr. Purcell?’ Then he went right on talking before I could tell him I wasn’t.”

“What did he say?”

“I can quote his exact words. He said, ‘Your brother didn’t fall off the cliff that night, Mr. Purcell. He was pushed. And I know who pushed him.’ ”

“That’s all?”

“Not quite. I was shocked; I said, ‘Who is this? What do you want?’ He said, ‘Money, Mr. Purcell, that’s what I want.’ I heard Leonard’s car just then, and I was so upset I blurted out that I wasn’t Mr. Purcell, that Mr. Purcell had just come home and would take the call. He hung up without another word.”

“Did you tell Leonard all this when he came in?”

“Of course.”

“How did he take it?”

“He said the man must have been a crank. He said Kenneth’s death had been an accident, there was no question of that.” Washburn’s mouth quirked bitterly. “The same things the police said. But Leonard was as upset as I was. I knew him so well-I could always tell when he was upset. He and his brother were very close; he just hadn’t been himself since Kenneth’s death. If there was even a remote chance Kenneth’s fall wasn’t an accident, Leonard would have pursued it.”

“Did the man call again?”

“Not as far as I know. But I’m convinced he contacted Leonard later on, at his office.”

“Even though Leonard didn’t mention it to you?”

Washburn nodded emphatically.

“What makes you so sure?” I asked.

“The missing money. Two thousand dollars from the house safe.”

“Two thousand cash?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a lot of money to keep around the house.”

“I suppose so,” he said. “But the safe is hidden in the master bathroom; Leonard had it specially built. No one could find it if he didn’t know it was there.”

I had heard that one before; professional burglars fell all over themselves laughing when they heard it. But all I said was, “Why did the two of you need that much cash on hand?”

“Grocery money. Mad money. Spur-of-the-moment trips to Nevada. Emergencies. All sorts of reasons. We each put in a percentage of our income every month.”

I said, “Nevada?”

“Leonard liked to gamble. Poker, blackjack, roulette. Nothing compulsive; he only went three or four times a year. I usually went with him. And he won more than he lost, so I didn’t mind. Gambling was his only bad habit.”