John Gardner - Stillness & Shadows

McClaren said. His fingertips drummed elegantly on one of the books on the desk top. “For my part, I’d like to cut through all that, if possible. Though each of us works in his own way, I take it we’re after the same thing. Naturally, protecting your clients, as it were, there are certain things you’re not eager to tell me. But if I tell you what I know, perhaps, in reciprocity, you’ll tell me what you know.”

“Mmm,” Craine said again.

McClaren blushed with anger but steadily smiled. “It was in John Furth’s van that her body was found. I take it by your expression that that’s news to you.”

“Yes it is,” Craine said.

McClaren puckered his lips as if to kiss. “It’s very peculiar,” he said. “As if someone were interested in framing Professor Furth. We know, as no doubt you’re aware, that she was murdered elsewhere.”

“Mmm.”

McClaren smiled, faintly admiring in spite of himself. “We’ve talked with all the people here,” he said after a moment. “Nothing special in her life, so far as anyone knows — including her friendship with your neighbor Ira Katz.” Carefully, or so it seemed to Craine, he did not look up. “She was an excellent programmer, by all reports. A food faddist, sometimes ran workshops on ‘the primal scream.’ No relatives, according to her file; no known former attachments. Lived in a little house in Cobden. Studied in New York, to be an actress, some years ago. Lived in Boston for a while, associated with an ashram — worked there as a cook. Beans and millet, things like that. In school she got A’s in mathematics, also languages. Spent a year teaching Latin. Smart and ordinary, so it seems.” Now he did look up. “What was your impression?”

“Smart and ordinary,” Craine said.

McClaren thought about it, decided to let it go, for now. “It’s a puzzle,” he said.

“How was she killed?” Craine asked.

“Stab wounds,” McClaren said, studying the mess on the desk top. “It’s an interesting problem, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. They were all killed by stab wounds — but never the same knife, never the same way. You can’t help but wonder if maybe we’re dealing with six different murderers. It’s crazy, right? Statistically impossible — six murderers in a year, in one small town. I mean, this is the hypothesis: somebody kills some girl with a knife, somebody else wants to kill some girl, he imitates the earlier murder as best he can, trying to make us believe it’s some psychotic. Six times it happens — one original, five bad imitations. But it’s queer. Too queer. You’d think at least two of them would kill the same way. It’s like sex: how many positions can you find? Most people— you know — without even thinking about it, they do it the same way. You stab into the chest, or you stab into the throat … But six murders, no two of them the same—”

“Interesting,” Craine said.

McClaren shot a look at him, for an instant believing he was innocent. “Yes, interesting,” he said.

After a moment, Craine asked, “What do you know about this Professor Furth? How come he’s not in today? Office like this—”

“I don’t know. That’s interesting too,” McClaren said. “But what I was saying before—” He looked up. “It doesn’t look like the work of a psychotic or a professional killer,” he said. “Both of them, they’d both do the same thing every time. And I can’t quite believe it was six different killers—”

“Any connection between the six different women?” Craine asked.

McClaren studied him, fingertips drumming. “Not that we can find,” he said. “Nothing at all. We’ve had our computers working on it. You’re right, of course. There’s got to be one.”

Craine nodded, thoughtful, then remembered to look drunk.

McClaren’s head had drifted upward a little, lifting his heavy body. He pointed. “What’s that in your coat?”

Startled, Craine looked down, then half rose from his chair and reached down into his bottomless pocket and drew out the book on clairvoyance. “Book I stole from the library,” he said. He held it up so that McClaren could read the binding.

“Clairvoyance,” McClaren said. His eyes sharpened, meeting Craine’s, then he smiled. “Yes, interesting business,” he said. “I imagine you’re familiar with Phil Tummelty’s operation?”

Craine raised his eyebrows.

“You should go check it out, if you’re interested in parapsychology. He’s got people over there — very strange, believe me.”

Craine’s heart jerked. “You’re friends with Tummelty?” he asked mildly.

“Poker pals,” McClaren said. He smiled.

It struck Craine now that he’d been staring for some time at the insurance company calendar, upside down from Craine, on Professor Furth’s desk. Various dates on the calendar were circled and had writing around them. One was the thirteenth. Poker , he thought, almost in panic, hunting for the connection. McClaren and Eggers had talked of poker, it came to him, in the Chinese restaurant, the thirteenth, two days ago. That night, April Vaught had been murdered. His heart recoiled. Wrong track. All the same, there was some track.

“As I’m sure you know, he’s a specialist on the brain,” McClaren was saying. “Very famous surgeon in his younger days — author of several books. I’m afraid he’s a terrible poker player.” He laughed.

Craine smiled, appreciative of McClaren’s implied skill.

Abruptly, the door opened and a young man poked his head in— someone Craine knew or had anyway seen before — then quickly pulled it back and closed the door again. Craine strained to remember where he’d seen him before.

“Dennis Reed,” McClaren said, seeing Craine’s struggle. “He works here — technician. Fixes the computers. Listen.” He leaned forward, planting both elbows on the book-cluttered desk top, his elbows moving things aside as they settled in. “I’ve told you what I know. How about you telling me what you know ?”

“One other question,” Craine said, getting his pipe out, then patting his pockets for matches. “What’s he like, this man Professor Furth? I think you mentioned he’s a friend of yours.”

“We’ve worked together a good deal, yes,” McClaren said. “Over there in Crime and Correction, where I am, we frequently have use for a computer man. Believe me, Furth’s the best. Experience with some of the finest computers in the world, I understand. NASA, Ma Bell, FBI, some computer in Chicago called PLATO …”

“Older man, I take it?”

“Oh, fifty — early fifties. I suppose you could say that’s old in computers.” He smiled, professorial.

“Married, I suppose?”

“No, single man. Married to his work, you might say.”

Craine nodded. “Travels a lot, I take it. Some kind of computer trouble-shooter. You mentioned he’s got a van.”

Suddenly McClaren was uneasy, Craine sensed. His pale blue eyes bored steadily into Craine’s, and his grin went dead. “That’s very clever,” Inspector McClaren said. It was clear that he intended to volunteer no more.

“Nothing going on between Furth and April Vaught, I suppose.” Craine shook his head, saving McClaren the trouble of answering. “No, that’s the first thing you’d have mentioned, if there was. So why isn’t he in today?”

“I imagine it’s upsetting, finding some young woman you know in your van, dead …” Dead and naked, he almost said, Craine saw, but then censored himself. He was an interesting man, this McClaren. Suppose he, McClaren, was the murderer — cracked by a profound inability to deal with the fact that we’re born, as somebody put it, between urine and feces.