There were two men in the photo.
One was Lucas Tuttle. The other was Malcolm Draper.
What in the hell?
He slid the frame into his jacket pocket, stepped back, and looked over at the desk. There was nothing of particular importance on it except for the bloodstains. There were some on the floor, too, where the man had fallen. Archer looked through the drawers and wastebasket and came up empty. He figured Shaw had been all over this room anyway. But maybe he had missed something else besides the photo of the two men. Archer pulled out the drawers again and checked not in the drawers, but under them.
He found nothing.
He perched on the desk and his eyes alighted on the Remington over-under leaning against the fireplace stone. He picked it up, broke the breech, and saw that there were no shells inside. Then he turned it around and shone his light down the one barrel where he had previously seen something strange. There was definitely an object hidden in there.
He used a letter opener on the desk to work the item from the barrel. It was a curled-up piece of onionskin, a carbon copy of a typed letter. He uncurled it and started reading. It was from Tuttle and was addressed to Poca City’s district attorney, a Mr. Herbert Brooks. As he read down the letter, Archer’s insides turned to putty.
That son of a bitch.
He put the letter in his pocket. Well, at least the damn shotgun had been good for something.
He glanced at the device on the desk.
A Dictaphone, Tuttle had called it. The little receiver he had been holding when Archer had walked in here previously was lying on the desk, its squiggly cord attached to the machine.
As Archer kept staring at the thing, the image of Shaw’s recording their talk at the police station popped into his head. He shone his light on the machine and, as he had with Desiree’s machine, he quickly figured out the functions of the buttons.
He hit one and heard a whirring sound coming from within the innards of the Dictaphone as the tape rewound fully. He also saw that the thing you spoke into had a little button that you held down, presumably when you were speaking into it. There was also a little catch that you could engage. This kept the speaking button down without having to use your thumb the whole time. Archer saw that this catch had indeed been set, keeping the button down.
When the tape stopped rewinding, he pressed another button. The whirring sound took up once more.
He flinched, as the dead man’s voice suddenly filled the room.
He was dictating more letters to various people, methodically, without pause. Then there was a long gap. Then he heard the man say in connection with a letter to another gent, “Desiree, depending on how my meeting with Jackie goes tonight, we may have to make arrangements for her to move back in here. I will discuss those details when I return from my business trip next week.” Tuttle went on with some more instructions for the woman, and then the tape fell silent. Archer turned the machine off.
It appeared that Tuttle had every intention of visiting his daughter that night. So what had happened? The thoughts were catapulting through his head like ack-ack fired at enemy planes. Because on the one hand it seemed that Tuttle was expecting his daughter to move back in. But then there was the letter to Herbert Brooks: What he had communicated in there did not mesh with having his daughter back home. But maybe it did somehow to Lucas Tuttle.
Desiree had typed up a letter from Tuttle where he had disinherited his daughter. He had a feeling that Desiree had let Jackie know about this. That would explain why Jackie would come here and clean out the safe. Otherwise, she would get nothing.
Next to the desk, he spied a small wooden box with a handle that the Dictaphone was evidently meant to be stored in. With a sudden thought, he wound up the machine’s electrical cord and slipped it into the box. He wanted to know what Shaw would make of all this.
Overcome with all that he’d just learned, he eyed the little bar set up against the wall, went over, and poured himself a stiff one. He drank it down, planted his palms on the wood of the bar, hung his head down, and took three long breaths.
You survived the war, you can damn well survive this, Archer.
I hope.
Chapter 44
He set off down the road carrying the wooden case on his hike back to Poca City proper.
It was a long walk, and the dusk grew into night as he went along. He would put out his thumb whenever a vehicle passed but no one even slowed down. Archer finally thrust out his thumb one more time as the headlights bore down on him. However, he held out no hope the vehicle would stop for him until he heard the gnashing of lowering gears and the slowing of an engine.
He turned around as the car pulled off onto the shoulder. The passenger’s-side window came down with a jerky motion.
“Mr. Shaw?”
The detective was grinning at him through the opening.
Archer eyed the big Buick. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Drove over to Texas yesterday. Took me near to forever. Just getting back.”
“Texas? Why?”
“Get in and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“And I’ll do the same with what I found out.”
Archer climbed in, and Shaw pulled the big Buick back onto the road.
“Guess your arm’s okay,” said Archer, noting the sling was gone.
“Aches a bit, but I’m fine. What’s in the case there?”
“I’ll show you when we get to town.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you found out first?” said Shaw.
Archer went through some of what he had learned. But he did leave out the details of the carbon copy letter he had found. He wasn’t certain why he had, but his gut was telling him to keep that to himself.
“So Jackie and Ernestine Crabtree had something going together?” said Shaw, when Archer was done.
“That’s right. And they went over to Marjorie Pittleman’s that night. But Marjorie later told me she hadn’t seen Jackie or the money I gave her.”
“Good catch on the muddy car, Archer. I didn’t see that one and I was staring right at the dang thing. And you think they emptied out the safe that night. Why?”
In answer, Archer told the detective about the recording where Tuttle had cut his daughter out of his will.
“That would give her a motive to steal what was in that safe,” said Shaw. “Only how did she get it open? She didn’t have the combination.”
“No, I think she did.”
He showed Shaw the slip of paper he’d found in Jackie’s trash.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Sure looks like a safe combo to me.” He eyed Archer proudly. “You did good, son. Damn good. You got the makings of a fine detective.” He paused as he watched Archer frown.
“What’s wrong?”
When Archer didn’t answer, Shaw did it for him. “You like these two gals. And you don’t want to see them in trouble?”
Archer nodded. “You hit it right on the head.”
“If they broke the law, Archer, nothing you can do about that.”
“I guess.”
“So Ernestine has up and gone. And you can’t find Jackie?”
“I think they’re both gone.” He sat up straighter in his seat and stared out the windshield into the dark. “Now, tell me what you were doing over in Texas.”
“After you told me what happened with Ernestine’s father, I called a friend of mine at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“The FBI! You mean J. Edgar Hoover and those boys?”
“I do indeed. Anyway, this buddy of mine is assigned to Amarillo, Texas.”
“Okay.” Archer took the pack of Lucky Strikes out of his pocket. “You want one?”