Justice Once Removed: the third Winston Crisp mystery

Justice Once Removed

by David Crossman

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 David Crossman

JUSTICE ONCE REMOVED

By

David A. Crossman

September 3rd, 1972

Chapter One

What was left of Winston Crisp hadn’t been sleeping well. Those parts of him which events of the past two years had forwarded to the afterlife—assorted toes and fingers awaiting imminent reassembly—were complaining in absentia.

It was his mind that troubled him, though. Somewhere below the waterline the soggy hull of his short-term memory had sprung a leak. Only occasionally did it interfere with his navigation through the present, but it was evident—at least, he imagined—that the Final Phase had begun. While he and the other men of his generation—assembled in parliament around the cast iron candy skillet at the hardware store—would make light of the mind-eating beast in the comforting glow of daylight, camaraderie, and the pot bellied stove, they were tweaking the nose of that which they feared the most; ancient children standing tip-toe, peering in the window of the last haunted house on the street. The one by the graveyard.

Only now they all knew the monster within was real.

Not often, but sometimes it took Herculean effort for Crisp to mentally sequence and catalog recent events, like whether or not he’d put on his underwear, or eaten breakfast. The past, though, was as sharp as shrapnel, tearing through his dreams on a reckless search for his soul, and had lately taken to reliving his activities during World War II. Why? He didn’t know. Lately, he’d gone years at a time without giving it a thought.

He threw aside his blankets, and dragged himself upright, dangling his feet off the bed. Outside his head, everything was quiet. The grandmother clock in the hall below ticked off muted reminders of time passing, passing, passing. Outside the window a leafy pussy willow stood sentinel, the shadow of its branches projected on the wall by a solitary streetlight.

Who would have thought he’d live to see another autumn? Even Matty had been hard-pressed to maintain her optimism. Last winter’s ill-advised jaunt to the Everette place at the far end of the island had nearly proved too much for him. But it had told him how Johnny Bermann had died.

At the end of it all, when the plague of human vices precipitating that grim and pointless death had been forced into the open, he’d achieved the only goal he had left in life – to become a published author. The copy of The Atlantic Monthly in which his poem was printed sat on his bedside table, dog-eared and permanently open to page 137. The Bucket, by Winston Crisp. His legacy in fifty-nine words. The only memento of all his years worth passing along; but there was no one to pass it along to.

Matty, coming into possession of it by default, would probably cut it out, frame it and hang it somewhere she could see it as she went about her endless chores, until the day she could no longer remember what she was doing, or who he had been, or who she was, or what was signified by the strange figures that peopled the yellowed bit of paper in the little doily frame.

Stop it! he scolded, as if the morbid whispers were not his own. He ran his fingers through the folds of his face. Soon reality would overtake the illusion of helplessness that had made him so effective at his craft, obliterating the most potent tool in the arsenal that time had ransacked and depleted.

He put on his glasses, stood up and shuffled to the window, lifting it open gently. If the counterweights banged in the walls, Matty, sleeping in the next room – from which his was separated only by a shallow closet—was sure to hear. If she should find him standing by the open window—and in his t-shirt, no less—who knew how high the mountain of guilt he’d have to climb?

It had been raining off and on since Labor Day, as if the island was mourning the departure of the tourists. Even in his cheerless mental state, Crisp had to smile at the notion.

Cursing the rain, he took his favorite pipe from the tobacco rack and filled it with Edgeworth. He raised the screen and leaned out the window far enough so the smoke wouldn’t seep into the room and tattle all through the house. Of course Matty wouldn’t banish him, should she catch him at it—he wasn’t only her star border, but her prize possession—nevertheless, she had subtle ways of registering disapprobation. She could make something as simple as putting down a teacup seem as lethal as putting down a beloved family pet. And it would all have been his fault.

He lit the pipe and turned the bowl upside-down against the softly falling rain. The leaves of the pussy-willow tree acted as an umbrella, of sorts, keeping him relatively dry, with the exception of an occasional drop finding its way down his neck, tracing his spine like the tip of a surgical blade, a frigid reminder he was still alive. He remembered sneaking cigarettes behind the barn as a boy, now he was eighty-three, and sneaking his pipe. Full circle, he said in response to the thought.

He drew a jinn of smoke deep into the dungeon of lungs, released it slowly on the night and decided the rain was responsible for his melancholy. At least ninety percent. Well, seventy-percent. Everyone in town had been complaining about it. They were beginning to feel like fungi—human-shaped mushrooms silently bloating in shapeless places of dark and damp—subject to bouts of emotional mildew.

A car went by, its headlights sweeping the neighborhood as it rounded the corner by the bandstand and headed downtown. It would be quiet there this time of night. A few holdouts at the pub, maybe, testing the envelope of Suave Thompson’s patience by nursing their thirty-five cent Narragansetts right up to closing time.

Crisp breathed deeply, inhaling the musty sweetness of decaying leaves sprinkled with sea salt, and released a sigh on the exhale. Strange how smells stirred memories.

The Dordogne, France

May 21st, 1945

The churchyard was still. In the week or ten days since it had last been used, leaves had collected on the shallow grave, and the perpetual dampness of the Dordogne was turning them into fragrant mulch. Bosch guns punched angry holes in the night sky a couple of miles to the north, but they were firing over their shoulders at nothing in particular. The Nazi war machine was, literally, running out of gas. Abandoned military vehicles lined the twisting thoroughfares of the mountainous countryside, and the footsteps of their drivers all headed in the same direction. North.

The primary factions of the guerilla Maquis, tenuously united in their hatred of Germany, sensing their unexpected victory, and had turned on one another, politically, if not yet militarily, vying for supremacy in the wake of the anticipated departure of the occupying forces; an opportunity to shape the ashes of the ancien regime into a new France in their own likeness. Only hours earlier – at the Chateau, Crisp had gotten a taste of what that likeness might be.

The commander of the Communists was called, simply, Louis, and even in a nation full of Louies, his name stood alone. Ensconced in the chateau he had commandeered for his headquarters, Louis epitomized the pettifogging tribal leader—like scores of others Crisp had met slogging through the world’s underbelly in recent years. Living in opulence that peacetime would never have afforded a mechanic, which is what he was, Louis surrounded himself with the requisite cadre of sycophants who fed his vanity and allowed him to gorge on his own self-importance.

He was the kind of man who gains weight during war.

But Crisp refused the impulse to underestimate the man. He was no idiot. Nor was he a coward. Like many of those who had initially fled to the hills to avoid conscription –meaning forced labor under the heel of Nazi oppressors – he had risked all to oppose the Vichy government. That decision, Crisp knew, had cost him two of his three sons. Here though, nearing the end of it all, he was alive and, having clawed his way to the top echelons of the Resistance over the years as it coalesced into an organized fighting force, he had molded a little fiefdom from the spoils of war the likes of which the proletariat—should Moscow appoint him to the position of leadership he so brazenly desired—could never hope to share.

Those under him, among them many fugitives from the Spanish Civil War, were men – and women – hardened by years of privation and hardship. Forever on the run, pursuing the apparition of freedom through the forests, crags, and time-weary caves of Limousin, they lived mostly outdoors – through freezing winters and soaking summers – or among the bats and pigeons in the attics of ruined chateaux. Most of their time had been spent scouring the countryside for food to fuel their bellies, and ammunition to fuel their hatred. Their defining characteristic, evolving in a world where it was impossible to determine friend from foe, was suspicion.

I can’t let you have him, Louis said in response to Crisp’s request. He is of no importance. He smiled, evidently content to let Crisp wrestle with the contradiction.

If that’s the case, why not let GHQ attend to the expense of his care and feeding? Crisp replied. You’ve got bigger fish to fry.

Louis inclined his head slightly, feigned interest in the end of his cigar, and grinned. I could do no such thing. After all your country has done for us, it would be most ungracious to burden you with the annoyance. No. He will stay with us. He may be of some use. The war is not over, you know.

Who knew better than Crisp? The plane that had deposited him behind enemy lines six days earlier had been his last contact with his chain-of-command. In the intervening days he’d fought his own private war behind enemy lines, on his way to the objective given him by that chain-of-command: to secure one Lieutenant Colonel Walter Hertz, presently the unwilling guest of Louis’ Maquis, and return him, alive, to the Allied Command in London. That was the official Top Secret plan. Who knew if there was an unofficial Top Secret Plan?

His was not to reason why.

He’s of no use to you, said Crisp, following the script he’d been given in anticipation of Louis’ likely unwillingness to surrender his captive.

Louis raised an eyebrow, but didn’t take his eyes of the end of his cigar. You have a saying, do you not: what is good for the goose, is good for the gander? Which of us is the goose, and which the gander, I cannot say. But we are allies, are we not? If he’s of no use to me, he can be no use to you. He looked piercingly at Crisp, and smiled.

Crisp spread his hands. As far as I’m concerned, a goose is only good for foi gras. I’m here at the direction of the High Command. If you wish to run the risk of their displeasure, that’s entirely up to you.

Louis appeared to consider for a moment. He sipped his Armagnac brandy with exaggerated satisfaction. Perhaps the Germans are only the first phase of a greater war, he said, High Commands may come and go. He extinguished his cigar. No. Hertz will stay here. That is the end of it. He stood and extended his hand. You’ve come a long way, and I am desolated to disappoint you . . . but disappointment is a step-child of war, is it not? Now, as you say, I have other fish to fry.

Crisp had four days in which to get Hertz where he needed to be. Failure was not an option.

It is my natural desire, of course, to help you in any way I can, especially as you have just saved our lives, said Louis, his tone of voice and expression registering offense at having been preserved from destruction by this American derelict, mais, c’est la vie.

C’est la guerre, said Crisp.

Louis smiled, and gestured toward the door. Yes. That’s war.

The sudden ringing of the phone downstairs in the entryway startled him, so that he bumped his head on the window. Matty’s phone never rang after 8:30. He looked at the phosphorous dial of the bedside alarm: 3:17. That told him two things, the call was for him – because no one who knew Matty would call her at such an hour except to announce the arrival of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse – and it was an emergency of some kind because, well, because nobody would call somebody as old as he was at this time of night unless it was an emergency.

The sound of Matty stirring in the next room reminded him he had a more pressing emergency of his own to worry about. There was no time to tap his pipe out, so he just dropped it into the hydrangea below—making a mental note to fetch it in the morning, if he’d remember—drew himself in and closed the window. By the time he’d tip-toed back to bed, he could hear Matty muttering in the hall and descending the stairs to the accompaniment of the phone ringing for the fourth time.

Hold your horses, said Matty, securing her flannel robe around her ample waist with a sharp tug at the worn terry cloth belt.

Crisp followed in his mind’s eye as her slippers scuffed across the floor, then padded onto the oriental runner that muffled them the rest of the way to the phone. He got up, took his bathrobe from the bedpost, and went to the door. He opened it softly and stepped out onto the landing.

Hello? … Yes, speaking … What? … why, yes, he’s here, but … Who is this? Do you know what time it is?

Apparently the caller was suitably contrite because, when Matty spoke again, there was a little less edge to her voice. Well, I don’t know. Can’t this wait ‘til morning? Pause. Sigh. Yes, yes. I’m sure it’s an emergency. It always is. He’s an old man, you know … yes. Well … she glanced woefully up the stairs. All right, I’ll see if he wants to talk to you. Her voice became stern. I make no promises, understand. Pause. More contrition. Yes. Well. You just hold the line.

She trudged up the stairs. Of course, she could have made promises. She’d never known Winston—the ‘Professor’, as the caller kept calling him, much to her consternation—to turn down someone with a problem.

They were all emergencies. Seemed like it had been just one after the other, lately. He needs his rest, poor thing, she muttered as she reached the landing. Why can’t they leave him alone?

Crisp shuffled back near the bed, the better to appear to have just awakened in response to the phone ringing, and awaited her knock. When it came, he could barely hear it. Yes? Matty?

Matty pressed her forehead to the door. Winston, dear, are you awake?

I heard the phone…

It woke you, I know, she said, before he could lie.

That’s what he liked about people jumping to conclusions, it left a great deal of latitude in the construction of facts. Was it a lie to let someone continue to think what they were determined to believe?

I’m so sorry, she fretted. I can’t think what anybody’s doing out of bed at this hour. You’d think he was a Hindoo.

For some reason Matty had long ago gotten the idea, probably from something she read in Kipling as a child, that Hindus stayed up all night and slept most of the day. Not that Kipling had said anything of the kind but, having applied her own interpretation to some incidental phrase in one of his poems, it had become a idée fix, and through no amount of cajoling over many years, had Crisp been able jostle it loose.

It’s for you, she continued, tracing the doorknob with the tip of her finger. Michael Jessup. Didn’t be move down to Washington? Anyway, she said, not caring enough to wait for a reply, it’s long distance. An emergency.

Crisp emerged slowly, like a moth from its cocoon, and she stepped back to allow him room on the landing. He’s still with the government, I suppose, she said, nodding toward the front hall, as if he might have forgotten where the phone was. Which was not impossible.

Thanks, Mat, he said gently, patting her shoulder. You go on back to bed. I’ll take care of it.

Matty looked up at him, her eyes pooled with the sleep she’d been denied. You want me to fix you something hot? Coffee, or cocoa?

No, Crisp said, patting her again in emphasis. You go on, I’ll be fine.

Well, she replied reluctantly, though a little relieved, you tell him to stop having emergencies this time of the night.

I’ll do that. He watched her away, then descended the stairs, his body struggling to catch up to his brain, which was already at the phone.

Hello?

Professor? This is Michael Jessup.

Formerly one of Maine’s assistant attorneys general, Crisp added mentally. Now one of J. Edgar Hoover’s bright young men. This is unexpected, said Crisp. What can I do for you?

Jessup had been prepared with an obligatory social preamble for which Crisp had left little room. He dove in. Yes. Well . . . A couple of weeks ago a Supreme Court associate justice – Hartley Willis – bought a house on Spruce Head.

Yes.

Yes?

Yes, I know that.

How could you? The information’s been under wraps.

Crisp smiled. Ever heard of the pot-warp telegraph?

What’s that? said Jessup. Maybe it was something J. Edgar should know about.

There’s not much that happens around the Bay that fishermen don’t know about, Crisp explained. I first heard about Justice Willis week before last. It was big news down at the lobster co-op.

Damn, said Jessup.

Anyway, Crisp prompted, having allowed Jessup a moment to absorb the news. What can I do for you?

What I’m about to tell you is . . . very sensitive.

Crisp waited, and wondered how many fishermen already knew whatever it was.

Jessup seemed to be deliberating. He got a call last night.

Willis?

Yes.

He’s on Spruce Head? Crisp interrupted. If he was to make sense of whatever information Jessup was about to impart, he had to have a handle on the incidentals.

Yes.

Crisp waited.

The caller said he’d kidnapped Willis’s daughter, then went on into all the Barnaby Jones crap about not contacting the police, and that he’d be notified where to deliver the ransom. TV has standardized the script for these idiots.

It was meant to be a joke, but was apparently wasted on Crisp, who didn’t know who Barnaby Jones was. He adjusted his spectacles. But he notified you anyway?

Not immediately. The first thing he did was get in touch with the governess. Apparently she and the girl are en route from Washington; they were supposed to have arrived in Spruce Head last night, but got held up in Boston with car trouble.

Where’s the child’s mother?

Willis says his wife’s visiting her sister in Denver, said Jessup. Anyway, the governess out she was in bed, sound asleep. He had the woman double-check. She woke the girl up and he spoke to her.

Sounds like a prank, said Crisp. Some people had so much time on their hands and had nothing better to do than come up with ways to make others miserable. Was there anything distinctive about the caller’s voice?

Willis said it was a male. Sounded nervous. Probably in their twenties or thirties. Thereabouts.

Accent?

Maine local, as far as he could tell. Could’ve been someone faking it.

I see. Crisp had yet to hear a believable fake Maine accent. Most mimics were under the impression that all you had to do was drop your ‘r’s. Not true. A lot of dialects orphaned or misplaced their r’s: Bostonians, Brits, Kiwis, South Africans, Aussies, even certain southerners, yet they sounded nothing alike. The trained ear would have detected the absence of linguistic subtleties, of tonal intricacies, and colloquial emphasis.

Perhaps Willis, however, like most people, was not a discerning listener. And he said he’d call again?

The shuffling of papers could be heard on Jessup’s end of the line as he consulted his notes. ‘. . . you’ll be contacted,’ that’s all he said.

I take it he has only the one daughter?

That’s right.

Okay. So, said Crisp, he could feel his heart rate increasing in anticipation of the news about to come, what are you not telling me?

Jessup fidgeted, and sighed. The granddaughter of Mrs. Boatwright – his house keeper at the Spruce Head place – turned up missing this morning.

Same general description?

Roughly.

Mistaken identity?

Likely. Like I said, the girl – Willis’s daughter – was supposed to be here.

And how do you think I can help?

The name of the girl the kidnapper’s ended up with is Tabitha. Tabby, they call her. She’s seven or so, he read his notes again. Seven. That’s right. She’s a severe asthmatic . . . but her medication was left behind. The kind of excitement she’s going through . . .

I can imagine, Crisp sympathized.

I don’t think you can, Jessup interjected. She’s also autistic, easily traumatized by abrupt changes in her routine. Time is definitely a factor.

What can I do? said Crisp. More importantly, he thought, what can I do that you can’t?

Frankly, I don’t know, Jessup confessed. "I’m on unsure ground here, legally. I mean, the telephone call and the girl’s disappearance may not be related. It might just be coincidence. She might have just wandered off. She’s done that before, her mother said. If that’s the case, it’s not the FBI’s business.

At the same time . . . understand, I’m not demeaning the local authorities, but if she has been kidnapped . . . I don’t have a whole lot of faith that they’ll find her before …

Crisp was wishing he’d taken Matty up on her offer of a hot drink. A faint, cool breeze had found its way around the stuffed terry-cloth dachshund lying at the foot of the front door, and was crawling up his pajama legs.

You’re good at this kind of thing, Jessup affirmed, if somewhat reluctantly. I just thought if I laid it out, you might have some idea. Anything. Two heads are better than one, and all that. And I’m worried for the kid.

Crisp’s experience of Jessup hadn’t indicated someone guided by sentiment. Quite the opposite. In fact, he’d found this somewhat officious son of a long-dead colleague overtly ambitious. Truth be told, Crisp suspected he’d taken much of the credit for the resolution of the Bermann case, and had ridden it all the way to his present position with the Bureau. He was welcome to it. Perhaps there was another, more human, dimension to the man after all. Crisp was happy to extend the benefit of the doubt.

Is there anything else you can tell me?

Jessup thought a while, again referring to his notes. Like what?

Can you check the phone records?

Already did. The call came from a phone booth in Camden.

What time was the call made?

A little after one this morning.

Not likely to have been any witnesses, then. I take it you’ve begun a search?

We haven’t, said Jessup. That is, the FBI hasn’t. The county sheriff’s department is on it. They’re doing a door-to-door, covering the fish houses and boat shops. The usual stuff, he paused, and Crisp let him. God, I hope they find her.

You don’t think all that activity is going to tip the kidnappers that police have been brought in?

If a shrug makes a sound, it made one now at the other end of the line. They’ll be as discrete as possible.

There was a long silence, during which distant voices could be heard in the electronic hiss. May I ask you something? Crisp said finally.

Sure.

Why are you so interested in this? Please don’t take any offense but, at least on the surface, it’s a missing child case. Happens all the time.

My wife’s little sister is autistic, said Jessup. A special kid.

Crisp allowed the silence to answer for him. I’ll call the Chief Justice first thing in the morning.

Well, you won’t have to, said Jessup. There was hesitancy in his voice.

No?

I’ve sent the Coast Guard out to pick you up. They’ll be at the public landing within the hour.

Objection sprang from Crisp’s throat. That’s really not … I couldn’t possibly. Hello? Hello?

Chapter Two

Of the several impracticalities of rousing from his slumber at midnight an eighty-three year-old whose inventory of digits had been significantly diminished, who had been all but murdered a year earlier and lain in a coma for the better part of nine months, and whose adrenaline, even after the fact, coursed wildly through his neurons at the thought that Matty might have caught him smoking – among those that didn’t occur to Jessup in his implied command was how the hell was the octogenarian in question supposed to get to the public landing at just after three in the morning, by which time everyone but Clyde Bickford would have been several hours in bed?

Clyde Bickford.

Instinctively Crisp reached for the island phone book, then thought better of it. Clyde wouldn’t be at home this time of night. The town’s resident insomniac and de facto guardian angel, he’d be out driving the streets of town in his gold Toronado, the occasional sweep of its headlights reassuring those islanders stumbling through the darkness of their homes to empty their bilges that all was well.

The island entrepreneur, Clyde’s considerable holdings dotted the waterfront from the lobster pound to the crab factory and, together with his trawlers, the Althea & Clyde, the Kingfisher, and the Betsy – all tied securely to their respective piers or at work on Georges Bank – were his primary concern. That everything else in town fell under his all-night jurisdiction was a given.

At the end of the thirty minutes it took to assemble himself, tip-toe out the front door without waking his Keeper, retrieve his pipe from the bushes, and put a stone’s throw between himself and the house, Crisp was leaning his fleshless haunches against the pyramid of startlingly cold cannonballs by the little monument across from the library.

The effort had nearly killed him. He was breathless. Pain shot through his left ankle, the result of having to compensate for lack of balance owning to the missing toes. They hurt, too, absent or not.

He looked down the street, toward the harbor. Something between an eighth and a quarter mile. Child’s play. If he had his bike…

But Matty had had the wheels removed, until summer, when there’s no leaves, or ice, or sand all over the place. By which time, she hoped, he’d have forgotten all about such foolishness. It hung in the shed, impotent; stripped of that motive element which defined it. Matty’s modus operendi. Very effective. Besides, he was no child.

Crisp waited. Sooner or later, Clyde would be by. Meantime, he should try to focus on the missing girl. What was her name? Tammy? Patty? The tether slipped slowly though his mental fingers – so often the case with recent events – and began to sink in irretrievable depths. His attempts to snatch it back only churned up sedimentary memories, particularly those so recently awakened. They, though unbidden, came back so easily, with such ice-down-the-neck clarity that he drew a sharp breath.

London, May 14th – 1944

As Colonel Buckmaster, swaddled in shadow, leaned into the yellow smudge of light, the ash from his cigarette fell on the map, obscuring the railroad junction at which he’d been pointing. As far as anyone’s concerned, you’re a Jed. He blew the ash away.

Since being seconded to the British Special Operations Executive at Bletchley Park in his role as head of cryptanalysis for the Navy’s OP-20-G, Crisp had heard of the Jedburghs, shadowy three-man military units that operated behind enemy lines in France. Their purpose, as he understood it, was to help the Resistance make a nuisance of themselves by providing communications between the guerillas and Special Forces HQ in London, together with advice and whatever armaments and explosives it took to implement that advice.

Crisp wasn’t expected to respond. He listened.

Which means you’ll be in uniform, until you’re safely on the ground and away from the landing strip, Buckmaster continued. According to the Geneva Convention that should keep you from getting shot on the spot, should you fall into enemy hands. Not that Hitler’s much of a stickler for the Convention. In fact, he’s issued something called the Commando Order which, as far as the Bosche are concerned, makes it perfectly legal to shoot you on the spot regardless.

It had been Crisp who had intercepted and decoded that particular tidbit of information, a fact he refrained from mentioning.

Somewhere nearby another bomb took a bite out of the city. Buckmaster, who’d been in London during much of the Blitz, didn’t seem to notice.

Might as well dress up like Napoleon or Queen Victoria for all they care. Still, said the Colonel, standing and massaging his back, something to complain about in the court of public opinion if they shoot you, I suppose. But you are, in fact, a spy so, what does it matter? He studied Crisp as he sipped his scotch and seemed to be thinking ‘What the hell is HQ doing sending an old fogey like you on a mission like this?’ Crisp, at fifty-six and already sampling from the banquet of physical limitations that would one day be his, was thinking pretty much the same