by Dell Shannon
* * *
The waiter at Federico’s saw Mendoza come in, and when he presented the menu also brought the two fingers of rye that was usually Mendoza’s one drink of the day, and, five minutes later, the black coffee. They never hurried you at Federico’s, and they knew their regular patrons.
Mendoza brooded over the coffee; he had something else to think about now, which was probably quite irrelevant, and that was Morgan.
Morgan, so much friendlier than he had been this morning, expanding on what information he’d got at the school, and then asking questions. Had Mendoza got anywhere on the Lindstroms, anything suggestive from the men watching the apartment, and just how did they go about that anyway, he’d think it was an awkward job, that they’d be spotted…oh, from a car, and tailing the woman when she—and only up to midnight, that was interesting…
Morgan, being affable in order to ask questions? And just why? Morgan—now Mendoza looked at him with more attention—strung-up, a little tense, putting on an act of being just as usual. So all right, he was worried about something, he’d had a fight with his wife, he was coming down with a cold or—quite likely—he’d felt a trifle ashamed of his barely courteous manner this morning and was trying to make up for it.
There were more interesting things to think about than Morgan. Over his dinner Mendoza thought about them.
The school, somewhat bewildered at being asked but polite to an accredited civic agency, said in effect that young Martin Lindstrom was one of its more satisfactory pupils. A good student, not brilliant but intelligent, co-operative, well-mannered and reliable. He had a good record of attendance and punctuality. He was somewhat immature for his age, not physically or academically but socially: not a particularly good mixer with other children, shy, a little withdrawn but not to any abnormal degree. Mrs. Lindstrom had never attended any P.-T.A. meetings, none of the teachers had ever met her, but that was not too unusual.
The tailers. Mendoza had debated about taking them off: a waste of time? Not likely to come up with anything, and there was no real reason to single these people out. In twenty-four hours she had left the place only once, between seven and eight last evening, the boy then being home; she had walked three blocks to a grocery store on Main and home again with a modest bag of supplies.
On Thursday she had an appointment at the county clinic. He toyed with the idea of putting a policewoman in there, to inveigle her into casual conversation, but what could he hope to get, after all? No lead, no line… He’d like to talk with her himself, judge for himself what kind of woman—See the boy, get some idea—Remembering Mrs. Cotter’s graphic description, he reflected that Mrs. Lindstrom wouldn’t be an easy woman to talk with, sound out.
The doll, his only excuse for approach, and not a very good one. He knew now definitely that it was the same doll: the factory had identified it by a serial number as the one sold to Mrs. Breen, and that was something: it might be a lot. Definite facts he liked: this was one of the few he had to contemplate in this business. But—as he’d said to Mrs. Breen and Mrs. Demarest—make it an excuse to see the Lindstrom woman: forget Elena Ramirez and go back to Brooks, say, you were inordinately interested in this piece of merchandise—and all the rest of it. She would only tell him some plausible tale of a niece or godchild, and that was that—no further excuse to pry at her.
He got out the little strip of lace and brooded over that awhile. He muttered to it, “Eso no vale un comino—not worth a hang!”62 Both ends of this thing had come to a dead stop: blind alleys. There was nowhere new to go, on either Brooks or Ramirez. And yet at the same time he felt even more certain now that the cases were essentially the same case, that the Lindstroms were the link (or one of them), and that just a couple of steps beyond this dead end lay something—someone—some one more definite fact—that would lead him to the ultimate truth, and to a murderer.
He had also, for no reason, a feeling of urgency—a feeling that time was running out.
When he left Federico’s he went back to his office. And that was for no reason either. He stood there, hat and coat still on, looking down at that doll on his desk.
He thought, It might mean this and it might mean that, but the one thing it meant, sure as death, was that somebody was trying to tell him something with it. And what he would like to think somebody was telling him was that the Lindstroms were definitely involved.
Suddenly he swore aloud, folded the wrapping paper round the thing, and thrust it under his arm. There were times you had to sit down and think, and other times you had to act, even if you weren’t sure what action to take—there was a chance you’d pick up a new lead somehow, somewhere, if you went out and about just at random.
Take the excuse: go and see the woman, talk with her—about anything; something might show up, he might get the smell of a new line.
It was just before seven when he nosed the Ferrari into the curb outside Graham Court. Already dark, but the city truck had been around, finally, to replace the bulb in the street lamp a little way down from the entrance to the cul-de-sac, and he recognized the man just turning in there, walking fast.
Morgan. Small and rather dubious satisfaction slid through Mendoza’s mind for a possible answer to this one little irrelevant puzzle: Morgan, perhaps, infected with boyish detective fever, using his own excuse to get at the Lindstroms?
If so, and if they were involved in this thing, the blundering amateur effort might warn them—or it could be useful, frightening them into some revealing action.
Mendoza got out of the car and stood there a minute at the curb with the doll under his arm, debating his own next move now—whether to join Morgan or wait until he came out.
* * *
Marty hadn’t gone home after school, and he wasn’t lying to himself about why: he couldn’t. He was just plain scared, more than he’d ever been before his whole life. It had been bad enough this morning, he’d got out just as quick as he could, long before usual, and of course she couldn’t come after to drag him back, make him answer questions. This morning had been pretty bad.
He’d had some idea what was going to happen right off, but he just hadn’t cared—then. The thing was, maybe like a silly little kid believing in fairies and like that, when he thought about the afterward part (vague and eager) he’d thought, if it was going to tell Them anything at all, it’d be right away, and maybe even by this morning—sometime today—everything would—
Not like that. Maybe not even some time today. Maybe never. And what might happen now, when he went home, he just couldn’t imagine how bad it’d be, or even what it might be. She knew he had something to do with its being gone, with the door always locked inside and all.
And besides Ma, what she’d do and say and ask—
This had been about the longest and awfullest day of his whole life. He’d got up early, before it was light even: he hadn’t really got to sleep after he was back in from—doing that—just laid there miserable and scared and wondering what would happen now. And then getting out soon as ever he could, after it started to happen. He hadn’t really had breakfast, she’d been too upset and he thought some scared too, to fix much, and he hadn’t wanted that; and she hadn’t fixed his lunch to carry either, so he didn’t have any.
Times today he’d felt sort of empty, but not like being hungry. An awful day, other ways: all the ways it could be. He’d been dumb in history class and Mr. Protheroe had scolded him, and then in English class he’d felt so sleepy, couldn’t lift his head up hardly, take in what Miss Skinner was saying, and she’d been mad. He was glad, sort of, when it was three thirty and school was out, but another way he wasn’t, because it was at least somewhere to be.
He didn’t go home. He had the thirty cents Ma’d given him, hadn’t bought anything in the school cafeteria at lunchtime, because he wasn’t hungry then, but now he was and he bought a ten-cent chocolate bar and ate it while he just walked al
ong going nowhere. Staying away from home.
He walked for a while, just anywhere, and sat on the curb sometimes to rest; he started to feel like he couldn’t breathe, from being so scared and not knowing what to do.
Because he had to go home some time. There wasn’t anything else to do, anywhere else to go. It’d get dark, and he couldn’t go on walking, sitting on curbs, all night.
Somewhere along one street, down near Main, he met Danny’s ma. It was just starting to get dark then. She saw him, and she made him stop, and said, “Oh, you’re the boy lives downstairs, aren’t you? You know Danny, Danny S-Smith, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Marty, and he took off his cap like Ma and Dad both always said you ought to talking to a lady or when you came inside, to be polite.
“Oh, have you seen him anywheres? Was he to school today?”
“No, ma’am, I guess he wasn’t, I haven’t seen—”
“Oh, dear,” she said in her funny soft little voice. “I guess he’s for sure run off. I don’t know what I better do about it. You see, his dad was kind of nice to him awhile, just lately, an’ then he got mad at him, and I guess it sort of turned Danny—d’you suppose? Boys, they’re funny anyways—never know what they’re up to.” It was like she was talking to herself. “I better ask Ray what to do. Only he said not to come home till eight anyways. Oh, well—” and she smiled sort of absent-minded at Marty and went past and he saw her stop and look at the ads outside the movie house there and go in.
He couldn’t be bothered, think much about her or Danny.
It got darker, and then it was really dark and getting cold too, and his head began to feel funny, light, and he wasn’t sure he could keep on walking, like, even if he sat down somewhere he might fall over.
There wasn’t anything left to do but go home. And it’d be worse now, after a whole day… And worse too with Ma, because he’d stayed away so long.
It took a long time to get there, and he thought for a while he’d never get to the top of the stairs. And now he wasn’t feeling so awful scared any longer—like he’d got past that—part of him was just feeling sick and so tired and wanting to get home because that was the place to go when you felt that way, and another part just wanted to have it all over with, whatever was going to happen.
He leaned on the door when he knocked and waited for her to come, and so when the door opened he almost fell down, and she grabbed at him. She hadn’t called out sharp, way she always did, who was there, first before unlocking—but he hardly noticed.
“Marty!” she said, and there wasn’t so much crossness in her voice as he’d expected, she sounded—almost like the way he’d been feeling—plain scared. “Marty, where you been?—I been nearly crazy all day—you got to say what you did, where you—go an’ get it back! Marty—”
And that was the first time he ever remembered she didn’t right away lock the door—but he didn’t notice that much either, right then.
* * *
Gunn was starting a cold, and left the office early. As usual, he denied the vague stuffy sensation in the head, the little soreness in the throat, the general feeling of lassitude; he said he wouldn’t dare have a cold after the way she’d been stuffing him with Vitamin C all winter. Christy, having been married to him for thirty-nine years next June, ignored that, stood over him to see he finished the glass of hot lemonade and honey, and said he’d better have something light for dinner instead of the hamburger, and why didn’t he get into his robe and slippers and be comfortable, so far as she knew nobody was coming in.
Gunn said defiantly he felt perfectly all right, never better. “Of course,” said Christy briskly, “but no law against making yourself comfortable.”
“I suppose you’ll give me no peace until I do,” said Gunn, relieved at being argued into it. And then the phone rang, and she said vexedly, There, if that was the MacDonalds wanting to play bridge tonight they could go on wanting—not, of course, because Gunn wasn’t feeling well but because she didn’t feel like it herself.
He had his tie off, in the bedroom, listening to her murmuring protests at the phone, when she came to the door and said crossly it was somebody who insisted on speaking with him, wouldn’t take no for an answer. So he went out and picked up the phone.
“Mr. Gunn?” said a male voice, confident, courteous, used to doing business over the phone. “I’ve got a little deal for you, sorry to disturb you at home, but I’m glad I’ve finally got hold of you—your office let me have your number. You don’t know me, I’m Earl King, King Contracting out on Western—but your office sent a memo to me, and I guess a lot of other places, about a fellow named Lindstrom, wanting to know if he’d applied for work or been hired, under that name or any other—”
“Yes?” Gunn sat down beside the telephone table.
“Well, I’ve got him for you. It was quite a little surprise to me, I tell you, because of the kind of thing it is—deserting his family—if you’d asked me, I’d have said he was the last man. He’s been working for me nearly six months, one of my steadiest men, and under his own name too. When—”
“Well, that’s fine,” said Gunn. “We’re glad to know where he is, and in the morning—”
“Wait a minute, this is just the start. When I got your form letter asking about him, well, there wasn’t any doubt it was him, name and description and all. But I tell you, it staggered me. I couldn’t help feeling there must be something on his side, you know, because of the kind of guy he is. And I didn’t want to go and haul him off the job in front of the other men, make a big thing of it. What I did, I met him at the job half an hour ago when he’d be through for the day, and tackled him about it. No trouble at all, he broke right down, said he was glad it’d come out and he’d thought it would before this, and anyway he’d been feeling so bad about it he couldn’t have gone on much longer—”
“That’s fine,” said Gunn, yawning. “Glad to hear it. He’s decided to go back to his family? So that’s that.” Surreptitiously he swallowed, testing that soreness at the back of his throat.
“Well, not quite,” said King. “Now the dam’s broken, he’s been telling me a lot of things, but more to the point he insists on seeing you—you’re the one’s after him, so to speak, and he’s in such a state—well, he’s one of those terribly honest fellows, you know, can’t sleep if they forget to pay for a cup of coffee at a drugstore counter—you know what I mean. He’s got to get it all off his chest right away, to you.”
“In the morning,” said Gunn, remembering that Mendoza would also be interested and want to see Lindstrom, “if he’ll come—”
“I can’t talk him into that, Mr. Gunn. He’s in such a state—not wild, you know, don’t mean that, but—Look, I can’t help feeling so damned sorry for the guy, he’s sort of desperate—keeps saying he can’t rest till he explains how he came to—you see how it is. Look, if you’ll agree to see him tonight, I’ve said I’ll drive him over there. I know it’s an imposition, but—there’s one thing about it, too, I don’t know but what it’d be just as well for—Well, I think you’ll be interested, and if—”
“Oh, hell,” said Gunn. But this was, in a way, a funny sort of job, and you ran into these things sometimes. Strictly speaking it was Morgan’s case and he ought to be the one to handle this, but let it go. At least it didn’t mean going out again, and an hour should take care of it. “All right, bring him here if it’s like that. Have you got the address?”
“Just a minute, I’ll take it down… That’s quite a little drive, don’t expect us much before seven, O.K.? Thanks very much, Mr. Gunn, I hope this isn’t interfering with any plans—I appreciate it. He’s really a nice fellow, I can’t help feeling he—Well, we’ll see you about seven then, thanks again.”
Gunn hung up and said “Hell!” again. Christy wasn’t very pleased either, said she thought he’d given up being on twenty-four-hour call when h
e retired. But she got dinner a little early, and they’d eaten and Gunn was sitting in the front room in his robe and slippers when the doorbell sounded, while she cleaned up in the kitchen. He’d left the porch light on; he went and let them in, brought them into the living room.
King, fortyish, nice-looking, responsible-looking fellow. And Lindstrom, a big man, tall and also broad, still in his work clothes, and yes, the very look of him making you think, The last man. A steady type, you’d say—mild blue eyes behind steel-framed glasses, square honest-looking face, big blunt workman’s hands twisting his white work cap.
“Come in, sit down, won’t you?”
Lindstrom burst out, nervous, apologetic, “It’s awful good of you, see me this way, and Mr. King too, drive all this far over—I got to thank you—I just got to tell, explain to you, sir, I—I don’t mind whatever you got to do to me for it, it was a terrible wrong thing, I knew that all the while, I felt so bad after—but I—”
“No one’s going to do anything to you, Mr. Lindstrom. It’s just that when a family is deserted, you understand, the county has to support them, and we try to find the husband to save ourselves a little money.” Gunn smiled, to put the man more at ease. “It costs the county quite a bit, you know. Even in a case like your wife’s, where there’s only one child—”
Lindstrom looked down at his cap; for a minute it seemed as if his big hands would tear it apart, straining and twisting. “That’s what I—you don’t understand—I—” He raised desperate, suddenly tear-filled eyes to Gunn. “I—we—got two boys,” he said. “Two. The—the other one, Eddy, our oldest one, he’s—not right. Not noways. She wouldn’t ever hear to—even when that doctor said—But she allus kep’ him hid away from ever’body too, account of being—shamed. Secret, like.”