Stuart Woods - Imperfect Strangers

"What did he do after you landed at the Wilburn strip?"

"He took off into the woods with a flashlight."

"In which direction?"

"Let's see, the strip ran northeast-southwest, so it would have been to the north."

"How long was he gone?"

"I'm not too sure about that; I dozed off for a while."

"How did he behave when he came back?"

"I can't help you there; he got into the backseat, sat right behind me, facing aft. He did want to get out of there in a hurry, though, and after we took off, I saw a police car or an ambulance headed in the direction he'd come from."

"That was probably me," Tony said. "I caught the call. Did he say anything after you landed?"

"He was out of the airplane before I had time to cut the engines, drove off."

"Did you see the car?"

"Yeah, but only from a distance going away. I don't know what it was, sort of mid-sized, maybe."

"You hear from him again?"

"Nope, and I don't think I will."

Tony stood up. "If you do, don't tell him we talked, okay?"

"Okay. Am I going to have to testify or anything?"

"Probably. I'm going to have to talk to the sheriff about arranging some sort of lineup, so you may have to come to Napa. We'll pay your expenses, though."

Shorty shrugged. "It's not like I'm all that busy," he said. "You think you could recognize him if you saw him again?"

"Beats me. I mean, he was wearing the beard and all."

"You'll be hearing from me," Tony said, laying a card on the desk. "Call me if you hear from the guy again."

Tony Wheeler and Sheriff Ferris sat in the district attorney's office, and the D.A. listened patiently while Tony told of his interrogation of Shorty Barnum.

"So," Tony said, "to sum up, we've got the LAPD's report that Martindale could have left his room unseen any time after seven-thirty and returned any time before twelve-fifty a.m.; Barnum's description of the man he flew up here matches Martindale, right down to the accent; Barnum saw him go off into the woods less than half a mile from Kinsolving's house; Mrs. Kinsolving said the man smelled like her ex-husband but had a beard, which tallies with Barnum's description of his passenger; and finally, Martindale has an excellent motive-he had just been forced by Kinsolving to admit that he'd sold a fake painting and to pay eighty-five thousand dollars in restitution. Add to that, Mr. and Mrs. Kinsolving both threw drinks at him at a party in San Francisco, in front of everybody that Martindale does business with." Tony sat back, looked at the sheriff for support and waited.

"What do you think, Dan?" the sheriff asked.

"I like the motive," the D.A. said. "You forgot to mention that Kinsolving had just married Martindale's ex-wife; that makes it an extra-good motive."

"Good," the sheriff said.

"We've got opportunity, too," the D.A. said, "but there we run into trouble. What we'd be telling a jury is that Martindale could have sneaked out of his hotel room, could have chartered an airplane for cash, and could have run through the woods, hit Kinsolving over the head and tried to strangle his wife. I mean, it's opportunity, but it wouldn't take much of a defense attorney to point out that there's lots of room for reasonable doubt."

"What I want to do is to bring Barnum and Martindale up here and run Martindale through a lineup," Tony said. "If Barnum picks him, we're home free, aren't we?"

"Yeah, but what if he doesn't pick him, deputy?" the D.A. said. "Then, no matter what other evidence we were able to develop over time, the defense would always have the fact that Barnum couldn't identify the man. And it sounds like to me that the guy was just well enough disguised that Barnum couldn't nail him in a lineup of similar-sized men."

"How about his voice?"

The D.A. shook his head. "Sounds to me like Martindale, who's English, was faking an American accent. You're not going to be able to get him to do that at a lineup, and I'm not going to be able to get him to do it on the stand, in the unlikely event that his attorney was crazy enough to let him take the stand."

Tony sat and stared at the D.A.'s desktop. "How about if we brought him up here in handcuffs, throw what we've got at him, and see if he cracks?"

The D.A. shook his head again. "You're dealing with a pretty cool customer here, deputy, the kind who'd have the sense to clam up until his attorney arrived."

The sheriff tried to be helpful. "What if we subpoenaed his bank records. If there's a big enough withdrawal to account for the five thousand dollars he paid Barnum, that would help, wouldn't it?"

"It might help," the DA. said, "but it would hardly be conclusive. I mean, I might be willing to go with less than an airtight case, but I want more than this in a trial that's going to attract a lot of media attention to the county. Is there any physical evidence at all?"

Tony shook his head. "I dusted the likely spots at the Kinsolving place, but there was nothing usable."

"How about Barnum's airplane? He could have touched something there, couldn't he?"

Tony shook his head. "Barnum said the man wore gloves."

The D.A. shrugged. "Well, I'm always ready to listen, if you come up with something else."

The sheriff stood up. "Thanks, Dan, we appreciate your time." He looked at Tony and made a motion with his head toward the door.

Tony got up and trudged after him.

On the front steps of the courthouse, the sheriff stopped. "You got any other leads on this one? Anything at all?"

Tony shook his head. "I've wracked my brain; I don't know where to go from here."

"I've thought about it, too," the sheriff said, "and I agree; there isn't anywhere else to go, unless somebody comes to us with something else."

Tony nodded. "There's always that hope, I guess."

"Listen, son," the sheriff said, placing a fatherly hand on the younger man's shoulder, "there a great truth about law enforcement that may not have sunk in with you yet."

"What's that?"

"We don't solve ' em all. We do pretty good, I think, but sometimes we just don't have enough to go on, and this could turn out to be one of those times. At least nobody got seriously hurt."

"I hate to let it get away," Tony said, "when we've got so much already."

"Maybe it won't get away," the sheriff said. "Maybe you'll find another way."

"How 'bout if I took Shorty Barnum to San Francisco, to where he could get a look at Martindale? A kind of preview to a lineup?" Tony asked hopefully.

The sheriff shook his head. "That wouldn't be an ID that would stand up in court, son, and it's not the way I do business, either. You don't want to start shaving off corners at this stage of your career; it gets to be habit forming."

"You're right, Norm, and I'm sorry I brought it up."

"That's okay; we all need somebody to steer us around the rough spots at times. I just wish I could be of more help to you on this one. I'd like to see Martindale get locked up, myself. He's a smartass who thinks he's always a step ahead of us, and I'd love to tag him."

"So would I," Tony replied.

"Well," the sheriff said, squaring his hat, "let's get back to work. I've got a lot of paperwork looking at me, and you're due back riding the north end of the county."

Driving north, Tony Wheeler struck the steering wheel of his patrol car several times, venting his very considerable frustration.

Tony Wheeler drove north more slowly than he usually did when he patrolled. The case was eating at him, and he tried to figure out why. It was more than that he had almost nailed Martin-dale; he might nail Martindale yet, after all. It was more than what bothered the sheriff-that Martindale was a smartass who thought the police couldn't nail him. What bothered him, Tony decided, was that Martindale was a cold, calculating potential murderer, and that, having failed once, he would almost certainly try again. At that moment, the radio came alive.