Westlake, Donald E - SSC 02 Page 6

  Barry McGivern told her indulgently, "I must say, Ruth, you startled me more than the gunshot did."

  Bray said, "You screamed?"

  "I'm sorry," Ruth Carr said, but her smile was more proud than sheepish. "I've always been that way, I'm a real sucker for movies. They catch me every time."

  "All right." Bray's disinterest in Ruth Carr's little personality traits was so total that even she noticed it, and looked offended. He ignored that, too, saying to the group at large, "Were there any other loud noises in the course of the film? Anything else that might have covered the sound of a shot?"

  Gideon Fergus said, "There were two or three door slams, but I don't know that they were that loud."

  Ruth Carr said, "And the jet taking off. That one hurt my eardrums."

  A little discussion ensued among Gideon Fergus, Ruth Carr and Barry McGivern as to whether or not the wail of a jet taking off was the kind of sound that would cover the noise of a gun being fired. Hugo and Jennifer Lanisch, I noticed, took no part in this discussion, nor in any of the talk that had preceded it. They sat fairly close together, but not touching and not looking at one another, and though God knows they were far from twins-he with his gleaming round bald head and deeply-lined face, she with her oval face framed by heavy ash-blonde hair—their expressions were nearly identical. Both were defensive, blank, rigidly controlled, tightly held in check. Looking at them, the thought came to me: Was Jennifer playing around with young Jim Wicker?

  This same thought had apparently occurred to both Bray and Staples, and once the sound-effects discussion ran itself out the two detectives began poking delicately into the general question of motive. How long had each of our suspects known Jim Wicker, what was the state of each relationship, how had the relationship been formed? The questions were general, and ostensibly aimed at all the suspects equally, but it was plain that the questions were focusing more and more frequently on Jennifer Lanisch.

  Were Bray and Staples doing this out of perversity? Or was it possible they didn't know who the murderer was? Finally it seemed to me the only thing to do was break my promise of silence, which I did by saying, "Well, of course Jack March is the killer, but that still leaves the question of why. I suppose once we find out his real name the motive will become more clear."

  Everybody stared at me, even the uniformed cop in the corner. Bray looked as though he might burst a blood vessel, but Staples was merely bewildered, and when he said, "What are you talking about?" I heard in his voice the forlorn prayer that I would actually know what I was talking about.

  I did. "I suggest his real name isn't Jack March," I said, "because he's so obviously in disguise. You'll notice the tan on the lower half of his face is lighter than on the upper half, meaning he's just recently shaved off a full beard. Also, his clothing is all brand spanking new, suggesting he's been used to a different sort of garb. That short haircut also looks very recent, and those spectacles are fakes, with clear glass. I have a pair myself, they were a prop in a movie, and they reflect light differently."

  By now, everybody was staring at young March instead of at me, and March didn't like it at all. "That's silly," he said. "Yes, I shaved off my beard when I got this job, but that doesn't mean I killed anybody."

  "You were the only one behind Wicker while the film was being screened," I pointed out.

  Staples, looking at me with hope and terror and warning all mixed in his expression, said, "Any of the others could have crawled around behind Wicker, we already established that."

  "Taking a chance on being seen by the projectionist? Besides, I haven't yet mentioned the real proof."

  "Then I wish you would," Staples said, and I could see Bray silently agreeing.

  "The gun was fired," I said, "in conjunction with a loud sound in the film, probably a gunshot. But the gunshot in the film was so unexpected that Miss Carr screamed when it happened. Only someone who had seen the picture before would know about that gunshot and be able to anticipate it and use it. And only March, who carried the print here from Los Angeles, had seen the picture before. Only March knew the film."

  "I knew it, all right," March said, and by the sudden harshness in his voice I knew we'd be hearing the truth now. "I knew it because I wrote it! And that son of a bitch stole it from me! I trusted him, I— I— This was my only chance to get even with him, while he's watching it himself, sitting there watching the script he, he—" And March dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands.

  I turned smiling to Staples. "Elementary, my dear Watson," I said.

  FOUR

  The Problem of the Copywriter's Island

  Staples went whee-whee-whee all the way home. "Did you see Al Bray's face?" he demanded, and answered his own question by laughing out loud and slapping his gloved palm against the steering wheel.

  I had in fact seen Al Bray's face, and he'd looked as though a movie marquee had fallen on him. He didn't say anything to me, but he kept looking in my direction like a Flat Earther faced with an astronaut. I, on the other hand, had sense enough to remain modest and to fade into the background after I'd done my little turn.

  There was no point preening; any man who intends to rub a cop's nose in it had better be on safer ground than I was.

  Anyway, March's breakdown and confession had essentially finished that job, so Staples soon took me away, leaving Bray to care for the details. Morgue and technical people were just arriving as we reached the sidewalk, and while Staples had a word or two with them I scanned the block for Edgarson. He was nowhere to be seen; had the presence of the police scared him off?

  Now Staples was driving me home, crowing all the way, and not sobering till he'd parked again next to the fire hydrant near my building. Then he said, "If you could do the same thing on the Laura Penney killing, it would be a great help."

  I could do the same thing, as a matter of fact, but I wasn't going to. Young Jack March had been a great lesson to me, had I been in need of a great lesson: he'd demonstrated the folly of quitting. I had made a very nice circumstantial case against him, and no doubt in time the police would have established his true identity and his motive for killing Jim Wicker, but without the confession would it ever have been proved? If the gun couldn't be traced directly to March—and my guess was that it couldn't—some small doubt would have to remain, and with a halfway decent defense attorney that small doubt could surely be turned into an acquittal. March, the premeditated murderer, had planned everything up to the crime itself, but then had lost his moorings, his sense of purpose and his nerve. I, the unpremeditated murderer, hadn't planned anything until after the event, but because I'd retained my nerve and my sense of purpose I was now the only human being on Earth who had been fully cleared in that killing.

  But what Staples wanted was an expression of cooperation and sincerity of purpose. I obliged, telling him, "By God, I wish I could just point a finger and say, ‘That's the killer,’ I was very fond of Laura, you know, I’ve realized that more and more since her death."

  Sympathetic understanding gleamed in Staples' eyes. "I know what you mean. But we do have those photographs. We could go over them now, and maybe some-thing'll click for you."

  "Fine." Then, because hospitality seemed necessary under the circumstances, and also because it was damn cold in Staples' unheated car, I said, "Want to come up? We can have coffee and be comfortable."

  "Good idea."

  So the two of us climbed the stairs to my apartment and spent a while uncoating ourselves. Then I went to the kitchenette to make coffee, while Staples wandered around the living room, looking at my memorabilia. Seeing him near the desk, I called, "Would you mind switching on the phone machine? I want to hear my messages."

  "Sure." He hovered over it, willing but unschooled. "What do I do?"

  "Turn the switch to playback and press the rewind button."

  He did both, and I went on with my coffeemaking while the machine gibberished itself backward at high speed and then began to unreel my la
test messages: "Hi, Carey, it's, urn, Jack Freelander. Um. It looks as though, um, Esquire, um, might want that piece, um, um, I told you about, um, about the pornographic movie biz. Um. Would you be, um, free some time soon? I'd like to, um, pick your brains. Also, um. Do you happen to know, um, where Laura Penney is? Um. She doesn't answer her phone. Um. See you later. Um. Um."

  I called, through the final stutters of Jack Freelander's message, "How do you like your coffee?"

  "Regular." Staples came to the kitchenette doorway, saying, "I feel like I'm eavesdropping, listening to all that."

  "Don't be silly," I said. "I've got nothing to hide."

  Meantime, the second message had started. "Hi, sweetie, it's Kit. I'll be tied up this evening, but give me a call tomorrow. And I still say Jay English did it."

  "Christ," I muttered. I gave Staples his coffee, and the two of us went back to the living room and message number three:

  "Hello, Mr. Thorpe. How does it feel to be a murderer?"

  * * *

  After I put the mop away and made myself another cup of coffee, Staples insisted we listen to that last message another half dozen times, in hopes I'd eventually recognize the voice:

  "Hello, Mr. Thorpe. How does it feel to be a murderer? Hello, Mr. Thorpe. How does it Hello, Mr. Thorpe feel to be a how does it Hello, Mr. how does it feel how does it, Mr. Thorpe, feel to be a murderer? a murderer? a murderer?"

  "I just don't know," I said. "The voice sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it."

  Finally Staples gave up, saying, "He called you 'Mr. Thorpe', so I guess whoever he is he doesn't know you all that well."

  "I guess he doesn't. Excuse me a minute." And off I went to the John, to pop a Valium. What did humanity do before these wonderful pills?

  Back in the living room Staples was reading my movie posters, but his mind was still on the message, because he said, "Would you run it just once more? I'm sorry, I know it upsets you, but I want to record it."

  Turned out he had a cassette recorder in his overcoat pocket. Damn it to hell. I considered accidentally erasing the message but I was afraid I'd trigger Staples' suspicions, so we played the thing one last time while his little machine turned a beady ear on my little machine, and then at last I could erase the bastard and sit down with my coffee, waiting for the Valium to take hold.

  Staples tried to reassure me: "We run into a lot of nuts like that, Mr. Thorpe. They get an idea in their heads, and they don't want to be distracted by facts."

  I said, "What if you hadn't already cleared me, what would you be thinking now?"

  He chuckled. "I'd be a lot more interested in talking with that particular nut, to tell the truth." Then he said, "Forget about it, Mr. Thorpe, it's a closed incident. Let's look at those photos."

  So we did. Six pictures of Laura, with as many men, all of whom I knew to one extent or another. Going through them one at a time, I gave Staples a name and capsule biography for each, and resisted the temptation to plant suspicion in his mind about any specific one of these prime suspects.

  That was a question I hadn't as yet resolved in my own mind. If I hadn't killed Laura—and the official line was that I had not—then someone else must have done it. Would it be better to provide that someone else, or could we content ourselves with a simple unsolved murder? There are hundreds of unsolved murders every year, why shouldn't Laura Penney's be among them? For the moment, at least, that seemed the better way, so I made none of the leading remarks that occurred to me concerning each of these escorts, but simply provided Staples with basic uncolored information: name, occupation, relationship with the deceased.

  And one of them turned out to be that same Jay English whose name Staples had heard Kit mention on my answering machine, in the sentence, "I still say Jay English did it." He remembered that comment, of course, and asked several questions, with me assuring him the whole thing had been a joke, if not in very good taste, considering the unequivocal homosexuality of its subject. Joke or not, Staples made sure to get the roommate's name spelled right: David Poumon.

  One of the other photos was of Laura with her father, a straight-backed well-preserved old gent I'd met once several months ago, when he was in town from upstate. If Staples was so interested in unusual sexual relationships, how about intimating something incestuous there to keep his busy mind occupied? No; once again I restrained myself and moved on to the next, which happened to be the same stammering Jack Freelander who'd just left, um, a message on my machine.

  After I'd done all the pictures once, with Staples making notes in his small pad and giving each suspect his own page, he led me back through all six again, asking leading questions, poking here and there in search of motive, and damn if he didn't suggest father-daughter incest himself. He led up to it gradually, with questions about whether Laura saw her father seldom or often, what she had to say about him, and so on, and finally he asked the question straight out: "Do you think there was anything going on there?"

  "Going on?"

  "Well, you say he's a widower, and she's separated from her husband."

  I was astounded, not at the concept but that Staples should voice it. Apparently he specialized in thinking the unthinkable. I said, "He's her father! You don't think— I mean, what do you think?"

  He shrugged, his expression as open and cheerful as ever. "I think people have love lives," he told me. "One way or the other, they make that connection. Now, here's a woman, she's thirty-two years old, she's been married, she's separated from her husband, all she has is these casual non-sexual dates with a number of different men. She doesn't seem to have anybody that's really important to her."

  "That's possible," I said. "There are people who prefer to be alone."

  "Not many. And not Laura Penney. It doesn't feel right, Mr. Thorpe. She had a lover, I'm sure of it." Gesturing at the photos on the table next to me, he said, "In among all those men in her life was the man in her life. But he was kept hidden. Why?"

  "I see what you mean," I said. "A lover wouldn't be kept hidden unless there was a reason for it."

  "Right." He checked off the possibilities on his fingers. "He's married. He's homosexual and doesn't want to make a complete break with the homosexual world. He's her father."

  "I don't believe it."

  "Neither do I," Staples assured me. "But at this stage of the game, I keep an open mind."

  I was beginning to feel a bit wary of that open mind of Staples'. If he was so eager to think the unthinkable, why wouldn't it occur to him to play with the thought that my guaranteed innocence might in itself be an indication of guilt? I was, after all, the Least Likely Suspect. And as with all Least Likely Suspects, I was in reality the Murderer.

  Staples and I talked for half an hour more, with him drawing another three or four names from me of men who knew Laura but whose pictures had not been snapped by the private detectives. Finally he seemed satisfied that he'd squeezed me dry, and he made ready to leave, saying, "I do appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Thorpe. And the coup you pulled in the Wicker killing this afternoon was really beautiful. You made my day."

  "It'd be interesting to find out the rest of that story."

  "Oh, I'm sure Al Bray's got the whole thing by now." Then, seeming to be struck by a sudden thought, he said, "Say. That girl friend of yours is tied up tonight, isn't she?"

  Meaning Kit, who had said so on the machine. "Yes, I guess she is."

  "Why not have dinner with us? Patricia and me. She'd love to meet you, she's as big a fan as I am. And I'll have the story from Al by then, I can tell it to you at dinner."

  "Oh, I don't think I should—"

  "Listen, you're not imposing." He was very eager, very determined. "And Patricia's a wonderful cook. I tell you what, I'll call her from here, you'll see there's no problem. Okay?"

  I was ambivalent. On the one hand, I wanted to be near Staples as much as possible, I wanted to know what he was thinking so I could steer him away from dangerous shallows. On the other hand, his p
resence made me nervous. As to the grubby details of Jack March and his fatal grudge against Jim Wicker, they interested me not at all.

  But Staples was waiting for an answer, all eagerness and bounce. "All right," I said. "If it's all right with your wife."

  "Patricia's gonna flip," he assured me. "Okay if I use your phone?"

  "Go right ahead."

  He did, and though he kept his voice too low for me to hear the exact words—I had politely removed myself to the far end of the room—the syrupy note in everything he said suggested he couldn't have been a husband more than fifteen minutes. True love birds, icky-wickies together. But it was too late now to back out.

  Cradling the phone at last, Staples turned his beaming smile toward me and said, "It's all set, Mr. Thorpe. I'll pick you up around seven-thirty, okay?"

  "Fine," I said. "But if I'm going to eat at your table, I think you'd better call me Carey."

  "Terrific." He stuck out his hand, saying, "And I'm Fred."

  The hunter and the quarry shook hands.

  * * *

  It was like being stuck in one of the sweeter Disney cartoons, one of the early ones where the sentimentality really cloys. Great pink clouds of love floated everywhere, and tiny bluebirds seemed to flutter just beyond my peripheral vision.

  Patricia Staples wasn't at all difficult to look at, but God have mercy if she wasn't a penance to listen to. Of medium height and weight, with silky blonde hair and clear innocent blue eyes, pert lips and straight nose, she looked like something on a corn flakes box or on the cover of a 1943 issue of Liberty Magazine, and in the course of dinner alone she called her husband "sweetness" and "honey" and "sugar" often enough to produce terminal diabetes. (Even though he did send nearly half of them back.)

  Staples had told me that he and his Patricia had been married almost three years, yet they looked and sounded and acted like the most simpering of honeymooners.

  Staples later claimed this aspect was the result of their decision not to have children, apparently allowing them to be infantile without competition, but I prefer to believe that Staples was attracted to her lavish wholesome-ness because of its contrast with the seamier side of his own work.