Dead Letter (Digger) (13 page)

Digger shook his head. "The last time I saw Arlo, he was sitting home brooding, trying to make his Space Invaders’ game love him. What happened, Ev?"

"I just got tired, Julian. Tired of the hours, the drinking, the goddam career, tired of being Mrs. Doctor Buehler."

She looked at him, inviting understanding, but Digger said, "You sure you didn’t just get tired of being thirty-seven years old?"

She paused before answering. "Yeah. Maybe that, too."

"Maybe that’s more than a ‘too,’" Digger said. "But Arlo’s getting older, too. What makes you different? He’s getting ready for the middle-age crazies and you were the only thing keeping him from it."

"Sure," she said derisively. "Me and all those nurses and patients and sweet young things."

"You know damn well they’re all in his mind," Digger said. "He is the most home-bound one-woman person I ever met. If I were like him, I’d cut my wrists. You know…if he was the guy you thought, he’d be sitting down at the table with me right now, with a girl on his arm. That blonde back there would have had a friend. Evvie, there’s never been any other woman."

She shrugged. Digger noticed that Connie was fidgeting at their table, playing with a pepper shaker.

"Are you still staying at the Copley Arms?" Digger asked.

"Yes."

"Be in tomorrow night?"

"Should be. My dance book’s not exactly full yet."

"I’ll buy you a drink when we can talk, all right?"

"That’ll be nice," she said.

"And if you’re really serious about ditching Arlo, I’ll make a run at you myself. You know I always had the hots for you. I never could understand what you saw in that reprobate."

"A good heart, Julian," she said reflexively, and Digger nodded.

"That’s what I mean. Even you know it," he said. "I’ll call you tomorrow."

"Room 718," she said.

"Okay. By the way, Ev, the blonde back there is business."

She nodded and Digger knew he had done right by telling her that but he would have told her the same thing even if it hadn’t been true. Women got nervous when they thought their husband’s best friend was a womanizer; almost as if lechery were a contagious disease.

When he returned to his table, Connie nodded her head toward Evvie and said "Beautiful woman," which Digger knew meant, "I’d like to kill that brazen whore bitch because she’s too perfect to let live." So much for sisterly feminism.

"I didn’t notice," Digger said.

"Digger," she said, "we’re getting along fine because I like you and you’re honest. Don’t mess it up now by lying to me."

"Not really a lie," he said. "My best friend’s wife. I’ve known her forever. Yeah, you’re right, I guess she
is
beautiful. If you like that type."

"What type do you like?" she asked, and Digger, as he was required to do, said, "Your type," and as Connie was required to do, she said, "Let’s get out of here."

She held his arm tightly as they walked past Evvie at her table and Digger nodded to her.

Connie lived on Beacon Street in a stately old brownstone and Digger was impressed until he found out that her apartment was Basement Left and included a closet-size bedroom, and a long tunnel which housed kitchen, dinette, living room, and bathroom, laid out with all the architectural novelty of a railroad car.

As soon as they were inside the triple-locked door, Connie turned and put herself in Digger’s arms. Her hands came up and she ran her fingertips around his ears. She pushed herself against him, then winced and pulled away.

"That stupid tie clip of yours," she said, rubbing a spot on her chest.

He leaned over and kissed her. "Let me go take it off," he said.

In the bathroom, Digger undid the tape recorder and the taped wires on his side, and placed the whole works in his jacket pocket, after checking to make sure he had enough tape to handle their whole conversation. Then he turned the recorder on.

Connie was in the bedroom, already undressed, under the thin cover. Digger put his jacket over a chair, turning it carefully so the frog microphone would face toward them. As he stripped off his clothes, the young blond woman turned off the light.

She had not told him the truth. Earlier, she had said that her talent lay with administration, but five minutes in bed with her showed Digger that she was mistaken. Her talent lay in sex, not frantic or labored, but calm and open and inventive. She had a habit, before she touched Digger’s body with her hands, of licking and wetting her fingertips and the cool moisture felt almost electric on his skin.

It was forty minutes later when Digger lit a cigarette, and dialed Buehler’s answering service.

But there had been no calls for him.

At 2 A.M., he left Connie’s apartment with a warm feeling, a promise to return, and the knowledge that Allison Stevens was the young Waldo coed who had been "almost living with" Henry Hatcher last year and who had finally dumped the dean of students.

Sweet, lovable, virginal Allie, Frank Stevens’s straight-A’s, magna-cum-laude, college-glee-club and church-every-Sunday daughter.

She had certainly led an interesting life for somebody as sheltered as her father thought she had been.

Chapter Ten

DIGGER’S LOG:

Julian Burroughs in the matter of Allison Stevens, 3 A.M., Wednesday.

The plot thickens.

In the master file is a tape made tonight with Connie McArdle of the president’s office at Waldo College, in Muggsy’s Restaurant, a dump that inflicts scrod. How can you eat a fish that sounds like a disease? Tape continued elsewhere.

So Otis Redwing was in line for the job that Henry Hatcher wanted. Isn’t that interesting?

And isn’t it interesting that Hatcher’s wife left him because of his womanizing and one of his young women, and a serious one, I suppose, was Allison Stevens.

Why didn’t Allie tell me that? Probably she figured it isn’t any of my business and it wouldn’t be, except for Redwing getting killed. Maybe, just maybe, Hatcher had something to do with that.

But I don’t know.

Hatcher as car thief? That doesn’t seem likely. He wears those patches on his elbows and sucks a pipe. That doesn’t spell car thief to me. That spells to me a bubble of air in the bloodstream if you want to kill somebody. Or poison in the pemmican. Not run down the redskin with a stolen car.

Connie is one of the great women of the world in bed. Her politics suck, but why should they be different?

Evvie Buehler also eats at Muggsy’s. I have to call her tonight. If I do it right, maybe I can get them together again. She sounded like there was room for movement in that direction.

If I didn’t have to go to the hospital in the morning, I would have stayed with Connie.

Allison Stevens, I guess, busted up Jayne Langston’s marriage. Now, would that make Langston hate her? Enough to try to make her crazy?

No. That just doesn’t square. First of all, when I talked to the esteemed Doctor Langston, she was sympathetic to "poor Allie" getting that nut note. And second, I think whoever wrote it killed Otis Redwing. What reason would Jayne have to kill him? Maybe she’s been hanging around with nuts so long that she’s ready for shelling herself.

What am I doing here anyway?

I’d better go to sleep if I’m going to be at the top of my form in the hospital tomorrow.

Signing off.

Chapter Eleven

"Oh, Digger, I got another letter." Allison Stevens’s voice cracked over the telephone, the sound of a woman very close to panic.

Digger fought himself into wakefulness and said, "Just take it easy. Tell me what happened." He glanced at his watch. It was 8 A.M.

"Just now, when I got up there was an envelope pushed under my door. It was the same letter, but it said I was going to die. My name was on the list and…Digger, I’m afraid."

"Good. I’m glad you’re finally afraid. Where’s Danny?"

"He’s here."

"Make sure he stays there until I get there."

"When are you coming?" she asked.

"Right now. And don’t mess up that letter any more with fingerprints."

Arlo Buehler was still sleeping when Digger left the apartment. Digger left him a note on the small breakfast table. "See you later at the hospital. Had an early stop."

The doorman called him a cab but it was go-to-work rush hour and by the time the cab had arrived, then crawled slowly across town, it was after 9 A.M. when Digger reached Allie’s dorm.

He looked at the letter, holding it carefully by a corner. It was another Xerox copy of a typed original. But typed across the top of the chain letter was an additional message. It was written all in capital letters and again the O’s were slightly below the line of type.

The added message read:

YOU BROKE THE CHAIN. NOW YOU WILL DIE.

The name of Allison Stevens was now on the list, right below the name of Jayne Langston. There was a black line through Otis Redwing’s name as there had been through Wally Strickland’s.

"Shit," Digger said. "Have you heard anything about Langston?"

"No," Allie said. She was sitting on an overstuffed chair in the corner of her neatly decorated room. Danny Gilligan was perched on the arm of the chair, his arm around Allie’s shoulders.

"Do you have her office phone number?" Digger asked. Allie read him the number from a well-used telephone book she picked up from an end table.

"Psychologist’s office," said Mrs. McBride’s voice.

"Is Doctor Langston in, please?"

"Yes, but she’s busy with an appointment right now. Who’s calling?"

"That’s all right," Digger said. "I’ll call back." He hung up quickly and said, "She’s okay. She’s in her office." He sat on the bed and read the letter again and then said, "That’s it. You’re going home. I’m calling your father."

He lifted the telephone receiver but Allie, barefooted, walked quickly across the room and held down the receiver button. He looked up at her face, his eyes passing first across her wonderful bosom. He could see the small dark rings of her erect nipples through the thin cloth of the plain white T-shirt.

"No, Digger, please," she said.

"Dammit, Allie, what does it take for you to wake up? This is a fucking death threat. You got that? A death threat. It’s not a fucking lark anymore. Somebody’s threatened to kill you. Dead. In a fucking grave. With maggots where your beautiful green eyes used to be."

The young woman blinked tears into her eyes.

"Digger, I don’t…I…I don’t want to leave town right now. With school and everything."

"If you go, I’ll go with you," Danny said from across the room.

"No," she said sharply. She turned back to Digger. "You can put me in a hotel. Nobody will know I’m there except you and Danny. I’ll be safe there. Can you catch the person who wrote this note?"

"Yes," Digger said. "I can."

"Well, whoever he is, he won’t know where I am. I’ll be safe and I can take my tests."

"No," Digger said.

"A deal," she said. "I’ve got one last exam tomorrow. If you don’t catch him by then, then you can call my father. Then I’ll go home."

Looking at her, into her pleading eyes, Digger understood how Frank Stevens would believe anything his daughter wanted him to believe. Her eyes were not eyes you could deny, not eyes you could argue with. Digger found himself, almost against his will, nodding one more time.

"All right, goddammit," he said. "But now I need some answers from you."

She smiled at him.

"Anything you want, Digger," she said.

"I want to know about Hatcher."

"What about him?"

"You lived with him," Digger said.

Young Gilligan got up from the chair. "I’m going next door to shave and shower up. Call me when you want me," he said.

Digger nodded.

After he had left the room, Allie said, "Danny can’t stand to think about me with another man. Even though it was a long time ago. He’s still jealous. How did you learn about me and Henry?"

"It doesn’t matter. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?"

"I didn’t think it was important," she said. She sat alongside him on the bed. In other times, in other circumstances, Digger knew he would have put his arm around her, pulled her back onto the bed and made love to her. But not here. Not now. And, Jesus Christ, she was the boss’s daughter whose vanished virginity he had been sent to Boston to protect.

"Well, it goddam well is important," Digger said. "Especially if he’s the guy who’s writing these notes. Now talk."

"I told you, last year, this was a girls’ dorm. It didn’t bother me much because I spent most of the year hooked up with Henry."

"How’d it happen?" Digger asked.

"I went next door to his office to talk about some courses and he was really nice to me. Doctor Langston was living with him then, still together, I mean. And then one time when she was away at some psychologist’s convention, he called me and invited me to stop by that evening. Well, he had a candlelight dinner and the whole number. One thing led to another and we wound up in bed. When Doctor Langston came back, she left him and got an apartment in town. I didn’t really cause it, Digger. I wasn’t the first."

"I know," Digger said.

"I liked her, too, and I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt her," Allie said.

No, Digger thought, women never would do anything to hurt another woman, particularly one they liked. But somehow they always seemed to find some kind of rationalization for sleeping with that woman’s husband or boyfriend or whatever. Men never slept with best friends’ wives, but women were always climbing into bed with their best friends’ husbands.

"So what happened?"

"As I said, Doctor Langston moved out and I hated it here in this stupid women’s dorm, so I started to spend my time over with Henry."

"And of course you thought you loved him?" Digger said.

She shook her head and he watched her breasts vibrate.

"No. Well, maybe, just for a little while, but I understood it was really teacher-student infatuation. But he was in love, Digger. He started talking about getting married and us leaving and going somewhere else. It started to spook me. So, finally, I left. He was awful about it."