Rex Stout - Death of a Dude

"I prefer," I said, "not to touch any part of the car. If I wanted to blow I probably wouldn't have waited here for you. I'm pretty sharp in an emergency. Is a doctor coming?"

"I ordered you to get in the front seat." He pulled the gun out.

"Go climb a mountain, with all respect."

It was a relevant question, was he actually dumb enough to think I might scoot or jump him, or was he just being J. Edgar Hoover? I haven't answered it definitely, even yet, because it got complicated by the sound of stumbling feet in the passage, and Haight pointed the flashlight that way as a baldheaded man in a loud plaid sports jacket came into view. It was Frank Milhaus, M.D., whom I knew by sight but had not met. He stopped at the rear end of the station wagon and looked around, and Haight said, "In the car, Frank," and he came and looked in. He turned to Haight and asked, "What happened to him?"

"You tell me," Haight said.

By stooping and putting his right foot in and his left knee on the seat, Milhaus got his eyes and hands where they could see and feel. In three minutes he came back out and said, "His head was hit hard at least three times. I think he's gone, but I can't be sure until-here he comes."

It was Ed Welch, with a flashlight in one hand and something black in the other. He came and looked at the object in the station wagon and said, "That's Sam Peacock." For the lowdown on anything, you couldn't beat the law officers of Monroe County. Milhaus took the black thing, a doctor's kit case, put it on the front seat, opened it, took out a stethoscope, and again maneuvered in to what had now been officially identified as Sam Peacock. In a couple of minutes he came out again, said, "He's dead," and started folding the stethoscope tubes.

"That's final?" Haight asked.:

"Of course it's final. Death is always final."

"Anything besides the blows on the head?"

"I don't know." He put the stethoscope in the case, shut it, and picked it up. "He's dead, evidently by violence, and I'm not the coroner."

"We'll get him out where you can look him over."

"Not me. As you know, I've had a run-in that I don't care to repeat."

He started off. Haight said something to his back, but he kept going, to the passage, and was gone. Haight turned to me and said, "You're under arrest. Get in the front seat."

"Charged with what?" I asked.

"Held for questioning will do for now. Material witness. Get in the front seat."

"You're in the saddle," I said. "For now. But every inch of this car is going to be-"

I stopped because of the kind of movement Ed Welch made with his shoulder as he took a step toward me. It meant what it usually means. His right fist came around for my jaw, not a jab or a hook, but in orbit. By the time it got there my jaw was some six inches to the rear, and it went on by. But Haight was moving too, to my right, with his gun out, and he poked it in my ribs, the lower ones. Welch was starting another swing, and when it came I did a fancy job of dodging; I turned my head just enough so that it connected, but on a slant. It wouldn't have toppled a window dummy, but I staggered, lost my balance, and went down flat on the ground.

Welch kicked me, probably aiming for my head, but there wasn't enough light and it got my shoulder. I don't like to report what he said because you probably won't believe it, but it's a fact and I'll include it. He said, "Resisting arrest." With no one to hear him but Haight and me. I sent my eyes right and left into the darkness, thinking there might be an audience he had wanted to impress, but no. Then he said, "Get up, you."

I stayed flat on the ground for the same reason that I had gone down, because I knew what would happen if I stayed on my feet. Perhaps I haven't made it clear enough, the mood I was in after those two weeks of fizzles, and then Wolfe coming, and then Gil Haight out. And now Sam Peacock gone. The edge I was on was just too damn thin. If I had stayed upright, either I would have put both Welch and Haight on the ground, and don't think I couldn't, or I would have got a bullet or bullets in me. So there I was with a sharp pebble under my hip and a bigger one under my shoulder.

Welch said, very rude, "Goddam you, get up."

I thought he was going to kick me again and so did he, but Haight said, "He's pissed his pants. If Milhaus leaks there'll soon be a mob out here. Go in and send Farnham out, and Evers if you find him quick, and phone Doc Hutchins to come and come fast. The body's not supposed to be moved until he sees it, for Christ's sake."

I know exactly how long I stayed down. Forty-two minutes, from 12:46 to 1:28. I like to keep track of important events. As far as Haight and Welch were concerned I could have been up much earlier, since they soon had all they could do with the arrivals from three directions-through the passage and around the corners of Vawter's and the Hall of Culture. Whether the word had been started by Dr Milhaus, who obviously had no love for Haight, or by Farnham or even Welch himself, here they came, and for half an hour I had a good worm's-eye view of Haight waving his gun and squawking, and Welch shoving, and Bill Farnham trying to guard both sides of the station wagon at once. At that, they did the job. The only man who got close enough to the car to touch it was Dr Hutchins, the coroner, who arrived at 1:19. By that time Haight had recruited three or four men to lend a hand with the crowd, and two more to bring their cars for illumination from their headlights, and things were pretty well under control. At 1:28 Haight was standing just four steps from me, talking with Dr Hutchins, and I thought I might as well see if he was still set on getting me into the front seat, and got to my feet. I leaned over to brush my slacks off, and when I straightened up Ed Welch was there. His right hand wasn't a fist; it couldn't be because it held a pair of handcuffs. His left hand started for my right one, but missed it because I extended both of mine, to give him no excuse for wrist-twisting, and he snapped the cuffs on. They were one of the newer models, nice and shiny.

"My car's out front," he said. He pointed to the passage. "That way." He gripped my arm.

The crowd may have thinned a little, but there were more than a hundred pairs of eyes to watch their officer of the law escort his prisoner, obviously dangerous since he was manacled, away from the scene of the crime. I used my pair of eyes too, and as we neared the end of the passage I saw her, Lily, standing at the edge of the beam from one of the headlights. Diana and Wade and Pete Ingalls were with her. They waved to me, and I waved back-with both hands, of course-and Lily called, "Woody took him." That was a relief. I had been half expecting that when we got to the car Wolfe would be in it, also handcuffed, and that would be too high a price even for me.

But there was someone in the car, a Mercury sedan, double-parked in front of Vawter's. It was Gil Haight, in the driver's seat. As Welch opened the rear door Gil swiveled his head around on his long neck, and as I climbed in I said distinctly, "Nice mahrnin'," and Gil laughed. Not a mean laugh, just a nervous laugh. Welch got in beside me and pulled the door shut and said, "Okay, Gil, roll. Your dad said to tell you to come right back."

It was a quarter past two when we pulled up at the kerb in front of the courthouse in Timberburg, and nobody had said a word. When three men ride that many bumps and curves together and no one speaks there's a bad circuit somewhere, and on that occasion probably two-between Welch and me, and between Gil and Welch. When Welch and I were out and the door shut, he said, "Tell your dad I'll be right here," and Gil said, "Yeah." Four teen-agers, two male and two female, passing by, stopped to look when they saw I was handcuffed, so Welch had an audience again as he took me to the steps and up to the entrance. In the big lobby he steered me to the side hall at the right, and along it, and when we got to the door I had entered sixteen hours earlier, not handcuffed, he stopped, got a ring of keys from a pocket, and used one. That surprised me because I had supposed that by that time someone would be on post in the sheriff's office to channel communications. Welch flipped the wall switch for light, motioned me through the gate in the railing and to a chair at the end of a desk, and sat at the desk.