Killer's Payoff

by McBain, Ed

  Today, Sand’s Spit was divided and subdivided and then divided again into small plots with small houses. The congregate Sand’s Spit was a middle-income slum area with clean streets and no juvenile delinquency.

  Phil Kettering lived in a Sand’s Spit development known as Shorecrest Hills. There was no shore near Shorecrest Hills, nor was there the crest of a hill or even the suggestion of a hill. The development sat in almost the exact center of the peninsula on land that had once been as flat as a flapper’s bosom. It was still flat. It was treeless except for the spindly silver maples the builder had magnanimously planted in the exact center of each front lawn. Shorecrest Hills. It was like calling a grimy soot-covered tenement in the 87th “Ash-grey Towers.” Of such titles are million-dollar movies made.

  The Kettering house was a ranch. Lest a Texan become confused, there was nothing even suggestive of a ranch about a Sand’s Spit ranch. Some architect, or perhaps some builder, or perhaps some real estate agent had decided to give the title “ranch” to any house that had all of its living space on one floor. The Sand’s Spit ranches did not have cattle or sheep or horses. They had, usually, three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a dining room, and a bathroom. Phil Kettering lived alone in one of these Sand’s Spit ranches in the development called Shorecrest Hills.

  Phil Kettering, in an attempt to defy the sameness that pervaded each house in the development, had done something radical with the front yard of his house. Instead of the conventional manicured lawn, he had arranged the ground leading to the entrance doorway in a series of white gravel squares and alternating ground cover. The idea was entirely practical. Lawn mowers were going heatedly up and down the block when Carella and Hawes pulled up in the police sedan. But there was no lawn mower clicking away in Kettering’s front yard—and there never would be need for a lawn mower. You can’t mow gravel, and Pachysandra doesn’t need trimming. Kettering had successfully reduced his yard maintenance to zero. The only thing he had to do to it was enjoy it.

  On Thursday morning, July eleventh, Phil Kettering was not around to enjoy his front yard. The house was locked tighter than a miser’s fist, the drapes drawn, the windows shut.

  “He’s probably at work,” Carella said.

  “Mmm,” Hawes replied.

  They rang the front doorbell again. Across the street, a woman looked up from her lawn mower, studying the strangers with open interest.

  “Let’s try the back door,” Hawes said.

  Together, they went around to the back of the house. The yard there was arranged in the same gravel-and-ground-cover squares. The yard was clean and still. The back door had a buzzer instead of a bell. They could hear it humming inside the house when they pressed the button. No one answered the door.

  “We’d better check his office,” Carella said.

  “We don’t know where he works,” Hawes reminded him.

  They came around to the front of the house again. The woman from across the street was now standing near the sedan, looking into the window. The radio was on, and the voices that erupted from it were unmistakably giving police calls. The woman listened intently, her hair in pincurls, and then backed away from the open window as the detectives approached.

  “You cops?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Hawes said.

  “You looking for Phil?”

  “Yes,” Hawes said.

  “He ain’t home.”

  “We know that.”

  “He ain’t been home for quite a while.”

  “How long?”

  “Months,” the woman said. “We think he moved. Around here, we think he put the house up for sale and moved. He’s the only single fellow living in the development, anyway. It’s crazy for a single fellow to live here alone. Everybody else is married. The women pay too much attention to a single fellow, and the men don’t like it. It’s good he moved away.”

  “How do you know he moved away?”

  “Well, he hasn’t been here. So we figure he moved.”

  “When was he here last?”

  “The fall,” the woman said.

  “When in the fall?”

  “I don’t remember. He was always coming and going. Hunting trips. He’s a big hunter, Phil. He’s got heads all over his living-room walls. Animal heads, I mean.” She nodded. “He’s a sportsman all around. Hunting, tennis. He’s a good tennis player. He’s got balls all over his bedroom.” She looked at the detectives somewhat apologetically. “Tennis balls, I mean,” she added.

  “You haven’t seen him since last fall?” Carella asked.

  “Nope.”

  He looked at Hawes.

  “Has his car been here?”

  “Nope.”

  “The house has just been closed up like that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has anyone been around to see it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you said you thought it was up for sale.”

  “Oh. No. No one’s been to see it.”

  “Was there a for-sale sign up?”

  “No.”

  “Then what makes you think it’s for sale?”

  “Well, Phil hasn’t been here. What else would you think?”

  “Is it possible Mr. Kettering has another place to live? An apartment in the city?”

  “He never mentioned it.”

  “Was he ever away for extended periods of time before? Except on his hunting trips, I mean.”

  “No,” the woman said.

  “What bank carries his mortgage?”

  “He’s got no mortgage.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he told us. There’s only two people in the whole development who bought the house outright. Phil, and an old couple down the street. The rest of us put a down payment, and we make monthly payments to the bank. Not Phil. He put down the whole eighty-five hundred in one lump. Right after he got out of the Army. He came back from Germany with a lot of money.” She looked at the detectives as if she were about to say more.

  “The statute of limitations covers him,” Carella said. “Besides, we’re civil authorities and can’t handle a military beef. Was he selling Government property on the black market?”

  The woman nodded. “Sugar and coffee. He was an Army mess cook. A sergeant, I think. He used to order more than he needed and then sell it to the German people. He made a lot of money. Enough to buy this house cash, anyway.”

  “You’re sure about that? That he has no mortgage on the house?”

  “Positive.”

  “Which bank handles your mortgage?”

  “Greater Sand’s Spit Savings. There’s only two banks that gave mortgages in the development. Greater Sand’s Spit, and one in Isola. Banker’s Trust, I think.”

  “We’ll check those,” Carella said. “Want to see what’s in the mailbox, Cotton? Look into his milk box, too, will you?”

  “Sure,” Hawes said, and he walked toward the mailbox.

  “What did you say his name was?” the woman asked.

  “Whose?”

  “That red-headed fellow. Your partner.”

  “Cotton.”

  “Oh,” the woman said.

  “Would you know if Kettering has any relations in the city? In the area?”

  “He’s from California originally,” the woman said. “He settled here after the war, when he got back from Germany. His parents are dead, and his sister lives in Los Angeles. I don’t think he gets along too well with her.”

  “Do they correspond?”

  “I don’t know. He never talks much about her.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Susie something. He mentioned her only once. He said she was a…well…” The woman paused. “A witch. Only worse. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” Carella said. “Does Kettering have any lady friends?”

  “He brought girls out every now and then, yes. Nice girls. Everybody in the development kept hocking him to get married. You know h
ow it is.” The woman shrugged. “Misery loves company.”

  Carella grinned. “Where does Kettering work?”

  “In the city.”

  “Where?”

  “Isola.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He has his own business,” the woman said.

  “What kind of business?”

  “He’s a photographer.”

  Carella was silent for a moment. “Commercial? Portrait? What?”

  “Magazine work, I think.”

  “How’d he drift into photography from cooking?”

  “I don’t know. Besides, he cooked for the Army. That isn’t real cooking. I mean, my husband was in the Army. Did you ever eat Army food?”

  “Yes,” Carella said.

  “So there you are. I think Phil went to school for photography after he got out of the service.”

  “Does he have a big business?”

  “Not so. But he makes a living at it.”

  “Would you know where his office is?”

  “Someplace in Isola. It’s in the phone book. Phil Kettering.”

  Hawes came back from the mailbox. “Nothing in it, Steve,” he said.

  “Any milk?”

  “Nope.”

  “His milk delivery stopped a long time ago,” the woman said. “In fact, it was me who called the company and told them it was piling up on his back porch.”

  “When was this?”

  “In the fall. Around October.”

  “Do you remember Kettering going on a hunting trip at the beginning of September?” Hawes asked.

  “Is your name really Cotton?” the woman said.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you remember the hunting trip?”

  “Yes. He was going up to the Adirondacks someplace.”

  “When did he get back?”

  “Well, he didn’t. That was when he moved, I figure.”

  “He didn’t come back to this house after the trip?”

  “If he did,” the woman said, “I didn’t see him.”

  “Did a moving truck come around?”

  “No. All his furniture’s still in there.”

  “Who picks up his mail?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There isn’t any in the box.”

  “Maybe he left a forwarding address,” the woman said. She shrugged.

  “Do you know the names of any of his girlfriends?”

  “Alice was one. I don’t remember her last name. She was a nice girl. He should have married her. Then he wouldn’t all the time be moving around.” The woman glanced across the street. “I have to get back to my mowing. Did Phil do something?”

  “You’ve been very helpful, Mrs.—”

  “Jennings,” she said. “Did Phil do something?”

  “Can you direct us to the local post office?” Carella asked.

  “Sure. Just drive straight into town. You can’t miss it. It’s right on the main street as you come into town. Did Phil do something?”

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Jennings,” Carella said. Both men got into the car. Mrs. Jennings watched them as they drove away. Then she went to her next-door neighbor and told her some cops were around asking about Phil Kettering.

  “He must have done something,” she told her neighbor.

  THE POST OFFICE CLERK was a harassed man trying to keep pace with the mushrooming developments on Sand’s Spit.

  “No sooner do we get mail service going to one development, than another one springs up,” he said. “Where are we supposed to get all the mailmen? This isn’t like the city, you know. In the city, a mailman steps into one apartment building and he gets rid of half his bag. Just pulls down the boxes, zing, zing, zing, files in the letters. Here, the mailman has to walk up the block, and he’s got to go up each front walk and put the letters in the box, and then walk down the path, and then to the next house, and then up the path—and he picks up letters from the boxes, too, takes them back to the office for mailing. Half the time he’s battling dogs and cats and what-not. A dame in one of the developments has a pet owl, would you believe it? The damn thing flies at the mailman’s head every time he goes up that front path. It’s murder. And every day there’s a new damn development. We can’t keep up with it.”

  “Do you deliver mail to a man named Phil Kettering?” Hawes asked.

  “Yes.” The clerk’s face lighted up. “Did you come for his mail? Did he send you for his mail?”

  “We—”

  “Jesus, am I glad to see you,” the clerk said. “We’ve got mail for him stacked to the goddamn ceiling. We had to stop putting it in his box because it was falling all over the front stoop. We finally brought it all back to the office. We’re hoping the stupid bastard’ll contact us with a forwarding address. You should see that pile. We’re not crowded enough, we’ve got to keep stacking his damn mail for him. Did you come for it?”

  “No. But we’d like to see it.”

  “I can’t let you take it out of this office,” the clerk said. “It’s addressed to him. We can’t deliver it to nobody but him.”

  “We’re cops,” Carella said, and he showed his identification.

  “It don’t make any difference,” the clerk said. “This mail is Government property. You’ll need a court order to take it with you.”

  “Can we look at it first?”

  “Sure. You’ve got an afternoon’s work cut out for you. That stuff’s been piling up since last September.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Back there in Kettering’s Korner. That’s what we call it. We’re thinking of starting a substation just to take care of that damn pile of mail. Why don’t people leave forwarding addresses? It’s the simplest thing in the world, you know. All you do is fill out a card.”

  “Maybe Kettering didn’t want anyone to know where he was going,” Hawes said.

  “What reason could he have for that?”

  Hawes shrugged. “Can we see the mail?”

  “Sure. Come on back with me.” The clerk shook his head. “It’s murder. Absolute murder.”

  “Which is one good reason for not leaving a forwarding address,” Hawes said.

  “Huh?” the clerk asked.

  TOGETHER, CARELLA AND HAWES went through the stack of mail. There were circulars, bills, magazines, personal letters. The earliest postmark was August twenty-ninth. Some of the personal letters were from a man named Arthur Banks in Los Angeles. Some of the personal letters were from a woman named Alice Lossing in Isola. They copied her address from the envelope flaps. At this stage of the game, it did not seem necessary to obtain a court order granting possession of the mail.

  At this stage of the game, it seemed necessary to visit Kettering’s office in Isola. They thanked the clerk and went out to the automobile.

  “What do you make of it?”

  “You don’t think he could have planned a murder as far back as September, do you?” Carella asked.

  “I don’t know. But why else would he disappear?”

  “Maybe he hasn’t. Maybe he’s just changed his residence. I doubt if a guy’s going to pick up and leave his business just because he had a little argument over a dinner table. Does that sound likely to you, Cotton?”

  “It depends on what kind of a guy Kettering is. A patient hunter might do it. Wipe out all trace of himself, and then plan to kill Kramer. Who knows, Steve? There’ve been weirder ones, that’s for sure.”

  “He’s a photographer, you know. That’s interesting, isn’t it?”