by Roy Huggins
It was Cabrillo, smelling of formaldehyde and looking like the tired hero of a Paul de Kruif drama.
He said, “Good morning, Mr. Bailey,” and led me into the office and stood by the desk.
“I've more or less finished the case I've been working on,” I said. “As far as I know your wife hasn't any connection with it.”
“I see.” He lifted his head and gazed at me, not distantly, not vaguely but with a steady softness. “I believe you to be a very competent man, Mr. Bailey.”
“Thanks.”
“And you feel you have cleared up the matter of this... show girl, I believe you said she was.”
“Yeah. It's all settled.”
“You keep rather odd hours. It's almost three o'clock.”
“The Research Zoologist's Union wouldn't approve of yours either.”
He waited silently, patiently, so I added, “Something happened tonight that made it important for me to find out whether your wife was involved or not. I just finished talking with her.”
“I want to thank you. It's something of a relief to me ”
I turned and went to the door and opened it. “Don't thank me. It was a fair exchange.”
“I don't believe it was,” he said.
I closed the door and turned and stared at him. My mouth was open and I could taste the formaldehyde on my tongue. It was like a taste of death.
“Sorry you feel that way.”
“I take it that you know who my wife is.”
“No. Who is she?”
“I am a scientist, Mr. Bailey. Not to escape the world but to know it better. Like most scientists, I try to know as much about the world around me as I know about the world under my microscope.”
“All right. Who is she?”
“I would rather you would tell me.”
“Her maiden name might have been Bleeker.”
“And later it became Gloria Gay,” Cabrillo added softly. “Am I to understand that you don't feel it necessary for that information to go any further?”
“Not unless someone comes after it.”
Cabrillo nodded slowly and turned and went back to the door of his laboratory. “Thanks again, Mr. Bailey. Now, if you'll excuse me...” He stepped into his laboratory and closed the door and I wandered out into the night and drove away. The station wagon, I noticed, was still out. At Fair Oaks I switched on the radio. The only news program on the air was telling about preparations for the next Big Three Conference.
I suddenly felt as dry and parched as an Arizona rain barrel. I could get a drink ten minutes sooner by going in on Broadway, past the office. And ten minutes seemed a timeless desert. I took Broadway.
Joe rode me up to my floor in an elevator that smelled like Bradley's bar on a Saturday night. I went on down the cold corridor and let myself in and turned on the light. In the mail tray under the slot there was a single letter. It was addressed to me. I looked at it and put it in my pocket, unopened.
I got out the bottle and a tumbler and sat for a long time trying to tidy up the picture. It wouldn't be made pretty. At four o'clock I picked up the phone and dialed Johnston's home. He answered it on the first ring.
“Glad I didn't get you out of bed. This is Bailey.”
“I don't feel sleepy tonight,” he said simply. His voice was slack and hoarse. He coughed, and sounded like an old man.
“I'm sorry about Mrs. Johnston.”
He didn't say anything.
“I don't like to bother you with this but I want to give you a chance to decide what's best. I came up to the office on my way home to get a drink. There was a special delivery letter for me from your wife—mailed yesterday.”
Silence.
“Well... What's in it?” he said finally, but without sharpness.
“I didn't open it. It may be useful as evidence so it ought to be opened with the law present. But I got to thinking it might contain stuff that the police don't actually need and that might be unnecessarily embarrassing to you. I decided the least I could do was tell you about it and let you...”
“Thanks. It was a considerate thing to do,” he interrupted. “But I don't think it should be opened. Keep it and give it to the police tomorrow. Have you got a safe place for it?”
“I'll take it with me. I'm glad you see it that way.”
“I'd like to be there when it's opened. Will you see that I'm notified?”
“Sure. Good night.”
“Good night.”
I hung up and called Central Homicide and got Quint's home phone. A female voice, thick with sleep, answered. Quint wasn't there. She thought he'd been called back to Headquarters. I filled my pipe, poured another drink and let time pass, as it is wont to do.
I called Quint's office again. He hadn't arrived there yet but he was expected. I left a message for him and started for home. I drove past my street, turned and coasted slowly one block, turned again and found it. It was parked under a jacaranda tree. No one was in it, but it was the Cabrillo station wagon all right. Black initials gleamed smartly on the door panel: J.V.C. I drove on home. I felt wide awake, in a numb uncomfortable sort of way.
I opened the lobby door and went in cautiously. There was someone there, waiting for me but it wasn't any of the Cabrillos.
Chapter Thirty-One
HE NEEDED A shave and his round blue eyes were empty and washed out like the Mojave sky after a rain. He stood up slowly and walked toward me.
“I hope you don't mind my barging in on you like this, but I couldn't sleep. I—I want to talk to you about... this thing.”
“Sure,” I said, “I could use some company myself.” Johnston smiled ruefully. “I'm afraid we both look like fugitives from a vice raid.”
I grinned. “Come on up. I'll make us a couple of phenobarbital floats.” We went along the hall to the elevator and let it grind its way upward. There was no one waiting for me in the hall and my door was still locked. Inside I asked Johnston to sit down and I looked the place over casually. I didn't find the Cabrillo chauffeur and there were no stray blondes in my bed, so I went into the kitchen and brewed some fresh coffee. I brought it in on a tray with cream and sugar and put it down on the table beside Johnston. He was lying back with his eyes shut, the bronzed skin drawn tight and gleaming across the bone in his face.
“Help yourself,” I said, and took the chair across from him. He sat up stiffly, stretched a little, said, “Thanks,” and put some sugar into his cup.
“Bailey, I just don't feel like I'm supposed to,” he said hoarsely. “I... I don't think I care who did this thing... or why it was done. It somehow doesn't seem important. To me it would only belittle what we had together.” He stopped talking abruptly and picked up his coffee and balanced the cup on his knee. His face reddened a little.
A punctual, weary dawn was putting frail fingers of light into the room and in the kitchen the faucet dripped quietly, implacably, punctuating the cold silence.
Johnston said, “Do you keep a cat?”
“Now and then,” I said. “Why?”
“You seemed to be looking for something or someone. If you'd rather I'd leave...?”
“I'd rather you'd stay. But I should warn you there might be some activity around here soon. The principals in this case all work the graveyard shift.”
Johnston looked up sharply and there was a strained intensity in his voice. “You mean Margaret's being... killed hasn't ended this thing as far as you're concerned?”
“Murder usually makes two problems where there was only one, Mr. Johnston. I'm afraid I'm in this one until it's written off the books.”
“But Margaret's letter will probably do that, won't it?”
“I don't know. Would you like some brandy in that?”
“No. No, it's just right.” He leaned back and sighed. The fingers of light were silver tipped now, and the orange glow from the stand-lamp had become nasty and unwholesome. I got up and turned it off.
Johnston made weary furrows in his brow and
said, “I'm beginning to wonder if you didn't step out of line and call on my wife. I can't figure why she should send you a letter if she just suspected you were investigating her.”
“Yeah. It was quite a surprise.”
“Are you positive, Bailey... that the letter's from Margaret?”
“Yeah.”
He took a deep breath and let it whistle past his teeth. He swallowed some coffee and said, “Maybe a spot of brandy would help at that.”
I got out the last of my Christian Brothers and laced both cups generously, warmed them up and sat down again.
We sat and drank and let our thoughts drift where they might. Outside, mockingbirds were warbling inquiringly at one another, assuring themselves that this was indeed another magic day. Inside the building the night quiet still held. And then the sound came. I stood up and held out a hand and listened. Even the rhythmic dripping of the faucet seemed to halt and wait. It came again, from the hall, a small, unhurried sound, carried on the morning stillness. Johnston sat up stiffly, alert, listening.
I said: “Think of something to talk about, will you— in an ordinary tone.” I walked as quietly as possible to the door and put my ear against it. All I could hear was Johnston droning monotonously and with occasional uncertain pauses, about the art of influencing people through advertising. I couldn't hear anything in the hall. I slid the .38 out from under my coat, gripped the knob tightly, turned and pulled. There was no one in front of the door. There was no one in the hall.
I ran to where the stairs started downward and looked over. A shadow fell fleetingly, silently, across the wall below. It was moving fast. I started down, touching a stair here and there, bouncing off a wall or two, and making a noise like a night on Bald Mountain. It didn't help. The lobby doors were swinging emptily.
I turned and ran back down the hall, unlatched the rear “emergency” exit and went out into the cold bright glare. I crossed the garage court at a run, rounded the incinerator, crossed the alley, and cut through a yard to the street where the station wagon waited under the jacaranda tree. There was no one on the street. I ran down to the station wagon and crouched by the rear fender away from the curb. That way I could watch both approaches.
I waited. A car passed doing fifty. The driver gave me a curious stare and went on his way. I was holding the .38 down in front of me. I began to get nervous. People would be getting up soon, the kids would be out. Then I saw him coming. He had taken the long way around the block. He was running with a jerky, punchy stride, slowing only to glance over his shoulder from time to time. Before he turned onto the street where the car was, he slipped up onto a lawn and took a furtive look down the sidewalk toward the apartment. That satisfied him and he trotted over and opened the door and slid under the wheel. I rose up and put the automatic in his face and said, “Wanta buy a gun?” I thought it was funny at the time.
But Martin didn't think it was funny at all. Slowly he lowered his eyes until the dark pupils were almost covered. “You're not reely smart, chowderhead,” he mumbled. “You're just lucky.”
“Who knows who's lucky? Me, I don't feel a bit lucky. Let's go back.”
“Back where?”
“Back up to the fourth floor where you left your hat.”
“I wasn't wearin' no hat.”
I grinned happily. It didn't even worry me that I enjoyed outsmarting Martin.
“Okay, wisenheimer, I'm leaving. Get that water pistol out of my face.”
“Don't encourage me. I might try to drown you with it. We're going upstairs.”
“You've got nothing on me.”
“I want to talk to you—and I don't want you hanging around outside my door.”
He sat for a while thinking about it. Then he decided to come quietly. I took an ugly .45 bull nose out of his pocket as he got out of the car. I tried to talk to him on the way back but he seemed to have gone to sleep. I had warned him about that.
Johnston looked over his shoulder when we walked in, started to say something, then stopped. He had been pouring coffee. He set the percolator down hard and said, “Good Lord, I thought you were just playing cops and robbers... Who's... who's this?”
I pointed at the sofa and asked Martin to sit down. He looked around the room with bored contempt, let his eyes fall on Johnston without interest or curiosity, and sat down at the other end from where Johnston had been sitting.
Johnston stood uncertainly in the center of the room, looking from Martin to me and back to Martin. He said, “You seem to have plans. Perhaps you'd like me to leave.”
“No plans. And I hope you'll stay. I want to bring you up to date on things—now that Martin's with us.” I sat down in the armchair across from the sofa and laid the gun on the table where it was handy. “He won't be good company. He doesn't want to talk.” Martin sat with his huge shoulders thrust forward, one knotted fist clamped tight in a hairy hand. He was staring at me with a mute implacable hatred.
Johnston paced about the room for a while, if what the space allowed could be called pacing. He looked down at me quizzically, one blond brow raised slightly, and said, “I suppose you'll answer my question about who he is when you get around to it but if he's involved in Margaret's death, shouldn't you be calling the police?”
I said, “The police have a rather wonderful set of mores. The arrest in this case belongs to a man who works days. He wouldn't like it if I let somebody else get credit for it.”
Johnston threw a doubtful look at Martin and sat down at the other end of the sofa. “All right,” he said, “you had something you wanted to tell me.”
I leaned forward and spoke softly, trying to choose my words. “I'm telling you this now because I don't think the police will tell a straight story when it gets into their hands.... There was only one person involved in your wife's death—that's the man sitting beside you there.”
Johnston's face was abruptly empty, drawn, as if he were being called upon to express an emotion he found himself hopelessly incapable of expressing. And then as abruptly his mouth drew taut and the eyes seemed to darken and retreat into their deep shadowed clefts. He rose slowly and turned.
I put my hand on the .38 and said, “Hold it Johnston. There's too much at stake to let anything happen to bring the law in here before I get hold of Quint.”
Martin had stiffened and turned so that he could bring up a foot in case he found he had to. Johnston's eyes dropped and he slowly put his hands into his coat pockets.
Martin relaxed and looked over at me and drew his lipless mouth back from the angled, ugly teeth and growled, “A murder rap! Keep throwing your weight around, shamus. With your luck you might hang me at that.”
Johnston sat down with a swift, impatient gesture and snapped, “I'm sorry, Bailey, I suppose you know what you're doing but I'm not used to this kind of thing. If you've got anything to tell me or if there's any way I can help, let's have it.”
Martin was leaning back now, his hands open, drumming on his heavy knees. I looked at Johnston and said, “I made a mistake when I told you your wife's name was Gloria Gay. Gloria Gay was someone else, someone who managed to get involved in the case.” Martin looked up sharply at that.
Johnston's reaction was slow, but it was there. And then it suddenly ceased to be a reaction at all and his face was just empty and tired. He said, “You made bigger mistakes than that... I'd rather not dwell on the thing just now.”
“You've got to know just where you stand, Mr. Johnston. They're pretty apt to suspect you of this thing... and the case against Martin here isn't airtight. He works for Gloria Gay. Of course she isn't Gloria Gay any more, but she's rather sensitive about her stripper past. It seems that it haunts her. She sent Martin around when she heard I was looking into Gloria and Martin did about as well as he could. He made matters worse. He tried hard, though, and it occurred to him that killing the woman who could be identified as Gloria Gay might be a fine way out, a solution, and a kind of absolution for past errors.”
M
artin sat up. He said hollowly, “Chowderhead, you're nuts; but nuts!”
Johnston said, “Why do you say they might suspect me...?”
“You're the husband. When a wife is murdered, nine times out of ten the husband did it. The police know their statistics and they like to make something out of them. Then there was the gun she left behind. That won't look right to them. They won't understand her leaving a murder gun behind. They'll think you packed those bags.”
Johnston brought up a hand and rubbed his temple slowly. “I wondered about that too,” he murmured.
“Then there's you,” I went on. “You want to be President maybe, or just state senator.... They'll find out you're politically active—that you're a Planning Commissioner, and they'll go on from there.”
Johnston looked interested and puzzled. He smiled nicely. “You're right that I'm politically active,” he said. “I think it's obvious that business is going to have to work through political channels as it never had to in the past. I saw that some time ago and decided to get into politics. I ran for Congress two years ago.... But isn't that a little subtle for a cop? It's far too subtle for me, frankly.”
“Don't ever underestimate a cop. And it isn't really very subtle. You ran for Congress two years ago. Six months later you marry a girl who appears to be everything a budding politician might want. Not too beautiful, but plump and homey looking, just the thing to stand beside you in the newsreels and look determinedly disinterested in Man's Affairs. She appeared to have a fortune when you married her and that always helps, too. Politics are expensive. Then she turns out to be downright anti-social,” I went on. “She won't join anything, seems to be practically hiding from the world. That's a bitter enough fate for a man with stars in his eyes. But to cap the climax, if I may coin a phrase, she doesn't have a cent...!”