“What, all of them? From both bags?”
A nod.
Her smile was broad. “Nice try, Philip, but your prints weren’t on all of them. They weren’t on the other blood samples from Mr. Peyer and Mrs. Ascherson, only on the samples taken for cross-matching.”
Before he could say anything more she said, “You know, I could almost forgive you for what you did, except that you might have killed someone who was entirely innocent. That’s unforgivable, Philip.”
He shook his head.
For a moment all three of them remained still. Then Beverley nodded at Rich and he took Waterhouse’s arm.
Framed
by James H. Cobb
Copyright © 2006 James H. Cobb
Art by Laurie Harden
James Cobb writes both science fiction and mystery fiction. Science fiction fans know him as the author of the Amanda Garrett techno-thriller series from G.P. Putnam, and more recently for “The First Cup of Coffee War” in the Joe Haldeman anthology Future Weapons. In the crime field, the Tacoma author has one published novel, West on 66 (St.Martin’s), which features the protagonist of this new story, Kevin Pulaski.
The little man in the cheap blue suit crouched in the dark under the sycamore tree, fingering the gun in his pocket. The roadside diner was located on an isolated stretch of Indiana State 22 and the only light he had to fear issued from its glowing strip of windows. It glinted off the chrome and glass of the scattered cars in the graveled parking lot. The little man gathered himself to move...
It had been the 1948 season opener at the Gas City dirt track, and I had killed the universe.
I’d won my four-lap trophy dash, picking up the trophy, the five-buck pot, and a kiss from the cute cheerleader doing duty as trophy girl. I’d nailed a second in my heat race, blowing Nick Tompkins and his lead sled ’34 out of the water. And I’d run solid in the big twenty-lap final.
I never had any real chance in that one. A street rod like mine just couldn’t run against dedicated racing roadsters. The A-bomb and I started in the middle of the pack and we stayed there, but we’d had a lot of fun doing it. I also had the consolation of knowing that everything finishing ahead of me had come in on a trailer or a tow-bar.
Afterwards, our usual crowd descended on the checkerboard-tiled environs of the Route 22 diner. Martin Luther Snustaad and Johnny Roy Tardell were there, and Lee Curtis and his girlfriend Estelle Archer. A station-wagon load of teenaged Fairmont females had shown up as well, running in a pack to avoid trouble while hoping they’d still get into some anyway. Between standing for Cokes and malts and keeping the jukebox primed, my five bucks’ worth of trophy money didn’t last long.
As for me, man, I was a violent collision between Duke Nalon and Juan Fangio with an order of Clark Gable on the side. I was wearing my genuine Navy surplus ponyhide jacket and my genuine Army surplus silk aviator’s scarf and I’d been careful not to smear the oily dust I’d accumulated on my face so you could see the outline of my driving goggles. Given the giggles and glances being cut in my direction from the ponytailed and poodle-skirted gang in the back booth, I, Kevin no-middle-initial Pulaski, was destined for greatness that night.
Then Lee and Estelle said they’d be heading home early.
Yeah, sure, tell me another one, guys. It was one of our first really good springtime parking nights outside — starry, clear, and just cool enough to encourage cuddling.
Lee was a fellow hot rodder, a tall, lanky, slightly homely farm boy who met all of the qualifications for “damn nice guy,” while Estelle was a sweet little pretty-plain brunette who could see the value in the damn nice guys of the world. As they headed for the diner’s door, holding hands and dreamy eyed, I silently wished them good times.
So inspired, I headed for the back booth to see if any of the ladies might be interested in driving over to the river to see if the water still ran downhill. I’d just started to unreel my line when somebody screamed out in the parking lot.
I was the one on my feet, so I was the first one out the door.
A second scream guided me toward a pale blur at the far side of the lot. The blur was Lee Curtis’s gray-primered A-V8 coupe. Lee was sprawled on the ground beside the open driver’s door with Estelle kneeling beside him. For a second I thought I heard the sound of running footsteps crunching on the gravel, then I had other things to worry about. Reaching past Estelle to the dashboard of Lee’s rod, I pulled on the headlight switch. In the back-glare from the sealed beams I could see blood smearing Lee’s face and soaking his T-shirt. I put my hand on his chest, trying to ignore the sticky wetness. He was breathing.
“ ’Stelle, what the hell happened?”
“He hit Lee,” she blubbered. “Over and over!”
“Who did, ’Stelle?”
“The old man trying to steal Lee’s car.”
Sure enough, by the dash light I could see a couple of wires torn loose from the ignition switch.
The gang gathered around us, stunned and goggling. Fairmont wasn’t a place where you got to see a lot of people beaten into a fair imitation of a cube steak. With nobody else around to do it, I started giving orders.
“Marty, go inside and call the doctor and Lee’s folks! Hey, Johnny Roy, I got a blanket behind the seat in my rod. Bring it here!”
I peeled off my jacket and wadded it up under Lee’s head. Then I used my driving scarf to sop off some of the blood. After a minute Lee started to moan.
“Take it easy, man.” I said.
“Wha...” he started to mush, then his swelling eyes snapped open. “My car!”
“Still here. He didn’t get it.”
“ ’Stelle...”
“He didn’t get her, either.”
Lee groped for his girl and she caught his hand, pressing it against her teary cheek.
“He was hot-wiring my rod, Kevin. He had a gun... Swear to God... He busted me with it... Moved faster’n a snake... Never had a chance.”
A bulky shadow fell across me, blocking out the lights of the diner. “The doc and Lee’s folks are on their way,” Marty Snustaad reported.
Eddie, the counter man from the Route 22, came hustling up as well. “I called the night marshal, too.”
I looked up at him sourly. “Jeez, Eddie! Aren’t things bad enough as is?”
Night Marshal Hiram Dooley was a redoubtable and fearless foe of Fairmont township’s most dangerous criminal elements, like anyone under twenty who wears a leather jacket and drives a hot rod. Broad-shouldered, bullet-headed, and bristle-skulled, he scribbled in his little black notebook between glowers at my gang and me.
Dooley and I go way back. Mostly it’s for laughs (on my part, anyway) but tonight, with a friend of mine beaten to a pulp and his girl crying, with his blood on her skirt, the Dewlap was beginning to bug me.
Lee’s folks had him propped up in the end booth while Doc Jorgenson, our sawed-off local sawbones, worked on him. The doc was worried about a possible concussion. That only left ’Stelle for Dooley to pick on.
“All right, Miss Archer, let’s have it again,” the Dewlap demanded. “You left the diner and then what happened?”
Estelle sat perched on one of the maroon Naugahyde counter stools, shivering hard. “We left the diner,” she repeated, fighting to keep her voice steady, “and we were about halfway across the parking lot when we saw the door on Lee’s car was open. Somebody was kneeling on the ground beside it.
“Lee yelled that someone was trying to steal his car and he ran over to stop him. There was a fight. The man... the thief, had a gun, and he hit Lee with it... he kept hitting him, as hard as he could! I saw Lee fall and all I could do was scream and then everyone was coming out of the diner and the thief ran off. That’s all.”