I wandered over. “You’re not going to find anything.”
Ritchie gave me a startled look.
“Burt Hull is not an idiot,” I said. “We’re close to alligator country. I think Amos Rhodes has long since been digested. If you could drain the swamps you might find his skeleton. Hull would have had to cart the body off in a car, that sports job, so there might be some evidence there.”
Ritchie nodded. “We’ll impound it for the lab boys, but let’s have a quick look first.”
They examined the interior. Then Bruback used the spade to spring the lid of the trunk. Ritchie rummaged around. He hefted a small bundle of rags and when he unwrapped it a revolver was resting on his palm.
“Well, now,” he said. “The counselor may be onto something. A .32 caliber Short Colt, taking a .315 diameter bullet. Which squares exactly with the slug we dug out of your friend Sam Gifford.”
The county attorney grew excited. “A ballistics check would lock it up. Let’s go back and do it now.”
Ritchie shook his head. “Burt Hull is in the area. He can’t be far off without wheels. If he comes back and finds the house door broken and his car missing he’ll hightail it out of here fast. So we sit tight and put the arm on him when he shows.”
He deployed his men out of sight and stationed me and the county attorney at different windows. I was on my third cigarette when Hull sauntered in off the road. They let him get close. Then I saw Bruback materialize behind him and the other deputy move in at an angle. Ritchie stepped out on the terrace.
Hull pulled up short. His head swiveled and he saw the deputies. He protested, smiling tautly, as they hustled him into the house. “Hey, now! What goes on here? What’s this all about?”
“We’re trying to locate Mr. Amos Rhodes,” Ritchie said.
“That’s easy. He’s in Mexico.”
“No,” I said. “Hasn’t your mother called to tell you I was down there?”
“All right. Where do you think he is?”
“Rotting in some nearby swamp — what’s left of him anyway.”
Hull met my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a dead man. Amos Rhodes. A man who probably died from old age. But you and your mother decided to keep it a secret. Because once the news was out it would cut off the income. All those monthly payments on his nice fat lifetime annuity — they’d all stop. So you never told anyone and carted off the body and fed it to the big lizards. That kept the checks coming and you and your mother continued to cash them.”
The taut smile congealed. Hull turned to Ritchie. “This guy is crazy.”
“It won’t wash,” I said. “The Mexicans are sticklers for paperwork. There’s no record Rhodes ever arrived down there. You’re caught, Hull. You want to throw off the hook, produce him.”
“I don’t have to produce him. Mr. Rhodes is a free agent. He wants to go somewhere else, that’s his privilege.”
“He was an old man. Sick. Helpless. Unable to take care of himself. Where could he go without your mother’s help?”
“Maybe he hired somebody else.”
“Then why did she lie and give the impression he was in San Miguel?”
“That’s your story. She’ll say otherwise.”
“You still insist Rhodes is alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he getting money? Who’s supporting him?”
“That annuity you were talking about.”
“Impossible. Somebody’s been forging his endorsements and pinching the cash. If Rhodes is alive, why didn’t he complain to the insurance company?”
Hull gave a forced and hollow laugh, but bubbles of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “How do I know? He never consulted me about his problems. For all I know you may be lying about the forgeries.”
“No, sir. We have evidence that will convince the insurance company. And they’ll stop payment pending an investigation.”
“I welcome it.”
“Even if it includes the murder of Sam Gifford?”
“Now, wait a minute! You can’t tie me into that.”
“We can tie you into possession of the murder gun,” Ritchie said. “A Short Colt we found in your car. Exactly the type of weapon that killed Gifford.”
It jolted him, draining the blood from his face. His voice shook. “Why would I kill the man? Hell, I didn’t even know him.”
“Because he came down here to put the bite on Rhodes for a campaign contribution. You tried to fob him off, but he wouldn’t let go. A Gifford characteristic. He began nosing around, got wind of something, and suddenly it looked like the end of the ball game for you. You were afraid he’d blow the whistle, so you had to silence him. You killed him and then tried to throw a curve by dumping him in Mrs. Faber’s cabana because you saw them having a drink together at the Everglades bar.”
He swallowed painfully. “You can’t prove anything like that.”
“Your gun will prove it for us. When ballistics matches it with the slug found in Gifford’s skull you’re sunk, finished, kaput.”
He knew what ballistics would show and his body sagged. His eyes were bankrupt.
Ritchie said, “You’ll have your day in court, mister. That’s more than you gave Gifford.”
James M. Ullman
Operation Bonaparte
Ted Bennett nodded to the receptionist, deposited a two-suiter in a corner, and strode unannounced into the office of Michael Dane James, business and industrial espionage consultant.
James, a broad-shouldered, middle-aged man of medium height, looked up with a scowl. He settled his horn-rimmed glasses on his pug nose and demanded, “What are you doing back in New York? You’re supposed to be on assignment in Rio, finding out where Lou Orloff is hiding the eight million he stole.”
“I left hurriedly,” Bennett explained. He pulled up a chair and lit a cigarette. “Anyhow, I didn’t see much point in sticking around.”
“You didn’t? Well, I do. That stockholders’ committee is paying us good money to investigate Orloff’s finances.” James rubbed a hand over his close-cropped hair and sighed. “Not that the information will help them much. Once a thief like Orloff gets himself and his loot out of the country, the cause is lost. Those poor investors who paid thirty dollars a share for Orloff’s stock in its heyday will be lucky to get one cent on a dollar. But Sam Powell, the attorney for the committee, is a good friend of mine. What little help we can give him, I want to give him.”
Bennett, a tall, lean man in his late thirties, said positively, “Mickey, I spent two weeks nosing around in Rio. And believe me, we won’t learn anything more about Orloff’s finances down there than we know now.”
“Sure we will, Ted. He’s living in a lavish villa, keeping to himself and making only rare public appearances, just as he did in the States — before his corporate house of cards started tumbling, before the stockholders learned he was looting their company like a bank robber going through a vault, exchanging the company’s assets for stock in a pyramid of worthless holding companies under his control, and then selling the assets and stashing the money nobody-knows-where. But a man like Orloff — he won’t allow those stolen millions to lie idle. He’s probably putting it all into South American real estate, or making a down payment on a fleet of tankers.”
Bennett shook his head. “Orloff is not doing any of those things. His tangible assets in Brazil consist of one villa and one Mercedes-Benz automobile. Less than a hundred thousand dollars in value at the very most.”