Bill Pronzini - Acts of Mercy

Augustine leaned back in the chair and watched a faint breeze ripple the water in the swimming pool. This was the best time of night in the mountains, he thought. Quiet except for the steady fiddling hum of crickets, the air clean and sharp and piney, the sky just turning a glossy purpleblack, the pale face of a full moon hanging above the tops of the trees on the western ridge. But it wasn’t the same as it once was; there was something missing, something lost and irreplaceable. As there was with trains. Trains still ran across the country, you still saw them, you could still ride on them, but the spirit of railroading had been taken away…

Justice appeared then, walking rapidly through the garden on the far side of the patio. Augustine watched him come up onto the flagstones and cross past the diving board. There was the same nervous anxiety in his face and in his manner that Augustine had noticed peripherally at the stable earlier.

“Good evening, Mr. President,” he said.

“Christopher. Sit down if you like.”

“Thank you, sir.” Justice took another patio chair to Augustine’s left and placed his hands on his knees.

Augustine said, “Am I correct in assuming you want to talk about Briggs and the attorney general?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, before you ask, there has been no word as yet on either of them. I don’t understand why Briggs, at least, hasn’t been found by now-unless he had made prior arrangements to take yesterday off and to go away for the weekend. That would explain it. In any case, taking everything into account, the fact that he has not been found is best for all concerned.”

Justice nodded.

“Did Mr. Harper tell you I’ve called a press conference for tomorrow morning?”

“No sir. Press conference?”

“Yes. And please don’t ask me why or what statement I intend to make.”

“Just as you say, Mr. President.” With reluctance.

Augustine softened his voice. “I dislike being brusque with you, Christopher. I don’t have to tell you that I appreciate all you’ve done for me, and your concern, and your support; I think you know how grateful I am. It’s just that this is a very difficult time and I don’t feel in the least comradely.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good. Now then-do you have anything specific to discuss? If not, I-”

“There is something specific, yes sir.”

“What is it?”

Justice moved uneasily in his chair; night shadows gave his face a brooding cast. “I don’t know how to say it, sir. It’s… well, it’s incredible.”

“Incredible?”

“Mr. President,” Justice said, and stopped, and then blurted, “Mr. President, I think Mr. Briggs and Mr. Wexford may have been murdered.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I think they were deliberately and coldbloodedly killed by someone who wanted us to believe their deaths were accidents, someone with an unstable mind-”

Astonishment and utter disbelief. Augustine came convulsively to his feet, stood over Justice. “A homicidal maniac? For God’s sake, are you trying to tell me there’s a homicidal maniac among the people on my staff?”

“That’s what I suspect, sir.”

“It’s monstrous!”

Miserably Justice nodded.

“What proof do you have?”

“None, sir.”

“None? You mean you have no evidence at all?”

“No sir. It’s just a feeling, an intuition-”

“Christ Almighty, Christopher!”

“Two men have died in two days, Mr. President,” Justice said, “that’s just too much coincidence; I’ve been a policeman a long time and I’ve learned to trust my Instincts-”

“Instincts!” The astonishment was gone now; only the unbelief remained. “Do these instincts tell you who it could be?”

“No sir.”

“Or why even a lunatic would murder two men?”

Justice shook his head. “I could be wrong, sir, I know that. But I don’t think I am. And I’m afraid something might happen here at The Hollows, that someone else’s life may be in danger.”

“Whose life?”

“I don’t know. But… it could even be yours, sir.” Augustine stared down at him. He had always considered Justice to be the prototype police officer: cool, disciplined, precise to a fault, incapable of wild or unreasonable speculation. But it seemed the strain of the past few days had affected him much more severely than could have been imagined; had filled him with irrational paranoid fantasies. Two murders made to look like accidents, one of the people Augustine had worked closely with for three and a half years a deranged psychopath-preposterous! A potential third murder, another person’s life in jeopardy, his own life in jeopardy-unthinkable!

He sat down carefully and said to Justice, “Have you told anyone else about this?”

“No sir.”

“I see. Well you’d best not. I’ll handle it.”

Justice’s eyes were imploring. “You do believe me, don’t you, Mr. President? About the potential danger, I mean.”

“I believe that you believe.”

“What should we do?”

“What do you suggest we do?”

“Tighten security, first of all. Beyond that… I’m not sure, sir.”

“I’ll know,” Augustine said gently. “After I’ve given it some thought I’ll know just what to do.”

“We don’t have much time, sir. I’m sure of that.”

Augustine looked away. So am I, Christopher, he thought. We don’t have much time left at all.

The conference room, adjacent to the President’s study in the manor house, was a large, oblong enclosure with a stone fireplace at one end. On Sunday morning a podium was set at the other end, and in place of the broad circular conference table which normally sat in the center of the room were several centered rows of folding chairs for the press. Another row of chairs reserved for the staff was arranged along the west side wall, facing the press rows.

Justice sat near the far end of the staff row and looked at the thirty or more reporters who crowded the room. Most of them were from the wire services, the television networks, and California’s large daily newspapers; they stood or sat now in small groups, talking among themselves, waiting as Justice was-It was just ten o’clock-for the announcement that the President was ready to begin.

Their voices were muted and interrogative, creating a low rumble of noise that seemed to reverberate off the redwood walls and the high, beamed ceiling. Justice knew they were asking each other the same questions he had asked himself during the night. Why had the President called this press conference, the first at The Hollows in nearly two years? Was he going to make general statements of no particular news interest, or was he going to drop some sort of bombshell?

He turned his head, glanced over at the study door; it remained closed. Three seats to his left, Maxwell Harper was also looking at the door, looking at it and rubbing his hands back and forth along his trouser legs. There was an air of nervous expectancy about him that Justice had never seen before.

Justice’s face was damp under the hot room lights; he used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe it dry, to dislodge grains of mucus that clung to his eye corners. Tension and lack of sleep had made him logy. He had spent most of last night patrolling the grounds, maintaining a personal vigil that yielded nothing out of the ordinary-and worrying, worrying, because it had become obvious as time passed and there was no tightening of security that the President had not believed him after all.

Augustine had only been patronizing him on the patio, not in an unkind way but patronizing him nonetheless, as if he thought Justice were suffering from hallucinations. Justice could understand his skepticism-without substantiating proof he might have been skeptical himself if their roles had been reversed-but the fact remained that nothing was being done. The responsibility for the safety of the President and those close to him still rested solely on his shoulders.