Melting Clock Read online

  The two state troopers came in and moved past Nelson in my direction. One had a face like Alley Oop with a shave and the other one looked like his brother.

  “Trooper Rangley,” Nelson began. “This—”

  “Where’s the dead man?” interrupted the bigger Rangley.

  “Two doors down,” said Nelson. “In the Old California Antique Shop. His name is …”

  But the Rangley’s, after looking at me as if to say I was one sorry specimen, turned and went back out on the street. They moved out of sight to the right of the window. Nelson turned to me. “I cannot but believe, though it runs counter to reason,” he said, “that you have killed Mr. Claude Street for the sole purpose of bringing tribulation into my life.”

  “I didn’t kill him, Nelson,” I said.

  Nelson’s smile was gone.

  “My lady is waiting for me,” he said. “My fondest wish at this moment is to absent myself and allow the Rangley brothers—who, to the best of my knowledge, have no first names nor any need of them—to persuade you to confess to every crime committed within the state of California from moments after your birth to the instant I confined you to that cell.”

  “Here they come,” I said.

  Nelson put his smile back on and pivoted in his swivel chair to face the Rangleys as they came back into the sheriff’s office.

  “Man’s dead in there,” said the bigger Rangley.

  “That was my conclusion upon witnessing the corpse,” said Nelson.

  There were two possible ways to interpret Sheriff Nelson’s statement: He was either humoring these walking specimens of recently quarried stone, or he was making a joke he was confident would elude them. I would have voted for the former, but Rangley Number Two was taking no chances.

  He was about a foot taller than Nelson. He stopped in front of him and smiled. Though I didn’t think it possible, Nelson’s smile got even broader.

  Big Rangley was moving toward me in the cell. I kept sitting on the cot. His face was red and Alley Oop wasn’t smiling at me.

  “Sardines. ‘Look where he ate the sardine’? I don’t like crazy shit,” he muttered softly.

  Since I agreed with him, there wasn’t much for me to say. I nodded. “The other officer over there behind me,” he went on, “he’s my brother. He likes crazy shit even less than I do.”

  The other brother was losing the grinning battle with Nelson, though I knew the sheriff was doomed to lose the war.

  The big Rangley said, “Keys.”

  Sheriff Nelson pulled his keys out and handed them to the patrolman, who threw them to his brother, who, without removing his brown eyes from me, held up his hand to catch them. The keys flew past him and landed inside the cell at my feet.

  “All the good receivers were drafted,” I said, reaching down for the key ring.

  It was the wrong thing to say.

  “Just pick up the keys and open the cell,” he said. “Officer Rangley and the sheriff are going a few doors down to wait for the evidence truck and the county coroner while you and I palaver.”

  I swear he said “palaver,” but the way he said it convinced even me that I’d be better off playing second banana in this Kermit Maynard western.

  “The prisoner is—” Nelson began.

  “—about to be interrogated,” said the big Rangley as his brother ushered Nelson to and through the front door.

  I got up and opened the door. Rangley came around the corner and entered. He put out his hand and I gave him the key.

  “Been locked up before?” he asked.

  “A few times. Once before in this cell.”

  “Tell me about sardines,” he said.

  “Not much to tell,” I answered. “When I was a kid I liked to make sardine salad—mash up a can with onions and mayo. Still like it once in a while. Or a sandwich on white with butter and a thick slice of onion.”

  Rangley nodded, muttered something like “hmmpff” and closed the cell door. The keys went into his pocket.

  “This came at a bad time …”

  “Peters,” I said. “Toby Peters. I’m a private investigator. I was—”

  “… about to sit,” said Rangley.

  I sat on the cot.

  “You know there’re springs in that cot?” he said, standing over me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He looked around the cell and shook his head.

  “Even a half-assed short-timer could pull a spring at night and cut the eyes off Nelson or his homo Mex deputy,” he went on.

  “That’s an idea,” I said.

  He laughed and the heel of his right hand came forward and slammed against what was left of my nose. That wasn’t too bad, but I flew back on the cot and hit my head on the wall. That was bad. I rebounded and thought I heard a musical saw.

  “How’s the head?” he asked gently, handing me his pocket handkerchief.

  “Fine,” I said, accepting the handkerchief and putting it to my nose.

  “Don’t worry about the blood,” he said with a smile, sitting next to me. “Can I give you a little advice?”

  “You have my undivided attention.”

  He put his hand on my knee and whispered, “Don’t answer me smart again.”

  “That’s good advice,” I said, checking the handkerchief. It was wet and dark red.

  “Keep it,” he said gently.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You kill the guy?”

  “The one with the yellow wig?”

  “Is there more than one?”

  “I just saw the one,” I said.

  “How’s your head?” he asked again, touching my arm. I got the point.

  “I didn’t kill him. I was trying to find him. Someone stole three Salvador Dali paintings and three clocks from my client.”

  “Three clocks, three paintings,” he repeated with a knowing nod of the head. “Big clock in there one of the clocks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And that painting? That grasshopper on the egg crap in there. That one of the paintings?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “This Dali’s a crazy asshole,” he said.

  “That could be,” I said, putting the handkerchief back to my nose.

  Big Rangley chuckled. I didn’t know what was funny but, as Wild Bill Elliot says, I’m a sociable man. I made a sound that might well be taken for a chuckle.

  “Remember what I said when I came in this place, Peters?”

  “You don’t like crazy shit.”

  “Don’t like it at all,” he agreed, clapping me on the back. He reached into his vest pocket and came out with a little notebook, which he flipped open to the first page and read:

  “Time is running out. One clock. One painting. Last chance. ‘Look where he ate the sardine.’”

  He closed the notebook, returned it to his vest pocket and buttoned it.

  “Now,” he said. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Beyond the window a Mirador crowd was gathering. A crowd in Mirador was somewhere between two and six people. This crowd included two girls around ten, the kid from the gas station where I had used the phone book, and a vacant-looking fat man in overalls whose palms and nose were pressed to the window the way they had been pressed against the antique shop window when I had driven down Main Street about an hour ago. Another car pulled up at the curb. The crowd turned and a man about seventy got out of a black Ford coupe. He came to the door of the sheriffs office, opened it and saw Rangley.

  “Two doors over, Doc,” said Rangley, pointing past me. “Melvin’s in there.”

  Doc was wearing a wrinkled long-sleeved blue shirt and suspenders, no tie. He was carrying one of those black doctor bags. Doc looked at me.

  “Don’t hit him again, Beau,” the doctor said and left the office, closing the door behind him.

  “Doc’s a humanitarian,” Rangley confided. “But Doc doesn’t have to talk to many living people during busines
s hours. Easy to be a humanitarian when you don’t have to meet humanity.”

  “Trooper,” I said. “You’re a philosopher.”

  “And you’re one hell of a fool if you think what the doc said and those village half-wits out there watching are going to stop me from ripping what’s left of your nose off if you smart off.”

  The punch was low, short, and hard. It caught me about where my kidney must be.

  “I didn’t kill him,” I said, trying to keep the pain from my voice.

  I knew the next question and my next answer. I considered throwing an elbow into Trooper Beau Rangley’s throat. It might work, but what then? A run for L.A. in my Crosley? I tightened my muscles, those that would still pay attention, and waited.

  “Who you working for, Peters?”

  I looked at the retarded man with his face against the window. He grinned at me. It was a nice friendly grin. He pulled his left hand from the window. It left a bloody handprint.

  “I can’t tell you that without the client’s permission,” I said, forcing myself to look at Rangley and not at the window.

  The outer door to the sheriff’s office came open before Rangley could throw the punch, and his brother came in with Sheriff Nelson.

  “Doc wants to see you, Beau,” Mel Rangley said.

  Beau smiled and stood up. He straightened the creases in his brown uniform and gently slapped my cheek. He got blood on his palm.

  “We’ll talk again in a few minutes,” he said, moving to the cell door and opening it.

  I kept my mouth shut until Beau and Mel were out the door. The crowd, except for the retarded man, followed them in the direction of the Old California Antique Shop.

  “You see,” said Nelson, pointing his hat at me.

  I wasn’t sure what it was I was supposed to see, but I doubted Nelson planned to explain and I knew I didn’t care. He sat in his chair and swiveled so that his back was to me again. He looked up at the retarded man and shouted, “Martin Sawyer, you are, as you have been for the past thirty-five years, looking through the wrong window.”

  Nelson pointed to his right; the retarded man watched with curiosity and no understanding.

  “Nelson,” I said. “I didn’t do it.”

  Nelson swung around and looked at me.

  “Well,” he said with a deep sigh. “I am relieved. Why did you not make that clear to me when I first found you, gun in hand? I think I’ll just let you out and apologize.”

  “I want a lawyer,” I said.

  “You will have to take that up with the troopers Rangley,” he said.

  “I’m your prisoner,” I reminded him.

  “I have washed my hands of the whole—Martin Sawyer, get the hell away from that window.”

  We were at this crucial point in the conversation when the Rangleys and the doctor came back in, leaving their audience outside.

  “Peters,” said the senior Rangley, “when did you get to Mirador?”

  “About an hour ago, maybe an hour and a half,” I said.

  “And,” he went on, “you went right to the antique shop?”

  “No, I got gas from that kid, the one standing out there on the sidewalk. The pimply one with the overalls.”

  “He told us,” said Rangley.

  “I’m going back to the body,” said the old doctor wearily.

  “Hold your horses,” said Rangley, holding up his hand. Then to me, “Where were you last night, between—”

  “Midnight to five or so,” said the doctor. “That’s safe enough.”

  “Culver City lockup,” I said, standing up. “From about eleven to nine in the morning.”

  “Go check it, Mel,” Rangley said. His brother nodded and went out the door. I watched him muscle through the watching kids and head for the car.

  “I’m going back,” said the doc. He turned and went back to the street, leaving me, Nelson, and the trooper who hated puzzles.

  No one spoke for a while. Nelson sat. Rangley stood and I held onto the bars with one hand and used my other one to dab my bloody nose with Rangley’s handkerchief. My head hurt but I decided to put on a happy face.

  Mel Rangley came running back in about two minutes.

  “He was in the Culver City lockup,” Mel said.

  I grinned broadly and threw the bloody handkerchief to Beau Rangley, who wasn’t ready for it. The balled piece of cloth hit his neatly pressed shirt, leaving a dark, deep spot, and fell to the floor.

  “Sorry,” I said pleasantly.

  “I think you’d better come with us,” he said. “We’ve got a few more questions to ask you. Somewhere quiet. Let him out, Nelson.”

  Nelson put his straw hat on his head and swiveled toward Rangley.

  “I think not,” he said.

  Rangley shook his head as if the world were a series of unexpected little heartbreaks that had to be endured.

  “Open it,” he repeated.

  “No,” said Nelson, standing.

  Rangley was not looking at the sheriff, but I was. I could see the tremor in his knees, the twitch of his jaw, and the determination in his eyes.

  “Nelson, one half-hearted piss and you’d flush down the toilet.”

  “Given the information provided by the good doctor, the confirmation of presence by the Culver City police and your obvious hostility toward the prisoner,” said Nelson, “I do not believe it is in the best interest of the laws of the State of California and the Municipality of Mirador to release the prisoner to you. And that I do not intend to do.”

  Rangley turned to the sheriff and took three steps till they were nose to forehead. Nelson quaked and almost lost his straw hat, but he didn’t back down.

  “You’re one simple shit, Nelson,” Rangley hissed.

  “That is as it may be,” Nelson agreed, “but Peters remains in my charge.”

  With that Trooper Rangley stormed out the door and went to join his brother in their car. The small crowd turned to watch them drive off.

  “Thanks,” I said as Nelson’s knees began a serious wobble. He made it back to his chair and grasped the arms as he sat heavily.

  “There comes a moment when one least expects it that dignity takes precedence over survival,” he said. “That is a moment to be watched for and avoided or one runs the risk of losing a secure job with a pension.”

  “What now?” I asked.

  The crowd on the street was still there but it had dwindled to three, including the retarded man who had now fixed his gaze on me. I waved to him. He waved back and Doc appeared behind him, started toward his car, changed his mind, and entered Nelson’s office, closing the door behind him.

  “Street was killed by a gunshot,” he said. “I’ve recovered the bullet Death took place last night or early this morning. I called Hal Overmeyer. He’ll bring the corpus to San Plentia Hospital and I’ll play with it till I know more.”

  Doc looked at me and shifted his black bag to his other hand.

  “Want me to look at your nose?” he asked.

  “I’ll be peachy,” I said.

  “Any other wounds need tending?” he asked. “I usually have to do a little patching in the wake of the Rangleys.”

  My head was throbbing and the ache in my side sucked deep and sharp.

  “I feel great,” I said. “Trooper Rangley knows how to treat a fella.”

  Doc looked at me and shook his head.

  “Never that simple, mister,” he said. “Beau and Mel are the last of the Rangley brothers. Rick died on Guam. Sam got killed in Morocco on a tank. And Harry, well, they never found enough of him to make it official. The oldest brother, Carl, he took a broken beer bottle in the gut half a year before the war broke out. Beau and Mel are draft-free and they promised their mother they wouldn’t join. So, every time they’re introduced to a new friend like you, they make ’em welcome. Rangleys are none too brilliant. You know what sublimate means?”

  “No,” I said. “Let me guess. They feel better when they kick someone’s teeth out.�
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  “Something like that,” Doc agreed. “But to give you your due, the Rangleys weren’t a friendly bunch even when there was an even half dozen of them. Sheriff Nelson, what say you let the innocent man out and all of us go over to Hijo’s and have a few beers before my date with the deceased?”

  Nelson’s legs were back, at least back enough for him to nod and get up.

  “Why not?” he said wearily. “I’ve got to give my wife a call first.”

  Doc took the keys from Nelson and moved toward me as Nelson picked up the phone.

  “One more painting?” Doc asked as he opened the cell door.

  “One more clock,” I added, stepping into the office where Nelson was whispering into the receiver.

  “Running out of time,” said Doc, looking at the keys.

  I looked out the window at the retarded man, who was still watching me with a happy grin. This was probably the most exciting day of his life.

  “There was fresh blood on the floor of the antique shop,” I said low enough so Nelson couldn’t hear me from across the room.

  “Not the victim’s,” said Doc. “Probably not the killer’s either. I’d imagine whoever did it was long gone and far away before dawn.”

  I pointed to the window. Doc looked where I was pointing and saw the handprint.

  We moved past Nelson’s desk. The sheriff gave us a shrug, turned his back to us and continued whispering into the phone.

  “Martin Sawyer,” I said, looking at the retarded man.

  Doc looked up as we reached the door.

  “Like many of the inhabitants of Mirador, I delivered him.”

  “Harmless?”

  “Harmless,” said Doc, stepping out onto the sidewalk and holding the door open for me.

  Nelson, still on the phone, waved us ahead.

  We were standing in front of Martin Sawyer now, and Sawyer turned from the sheriff’s office window and smiled gently at us as Doc sighed.

  “Let me look at your hand, Martin.”

  Martin took his right hand out of his pocket and held it out. It was pink with flecks of fast-drying blood.

  “Peters,” said Doc, looking at the hand. “Martin Sawyer is incapable of committing violence.”

  “But not of witnessing it.”

  Through the window we could see Sheriff Nelson hang up the phone.