The Kissed Corpse

by Brett Halliday

  He nodded. “Nymphomania … and maybe something else. Something we don’t want to lose sight of. A father complex.…” His voice trailed off uncertainly.

  I went to the liquor cabinet and came back with a bottle of brandy and two glasses. Burke watched approvingly as I poured two drinks. He took an appreciative sniff and said:

  “It’s good to get something like this after the fancy mixed stuff I drank out at Dwight’s.”

  I sat down and said: “We’ve gotten sidetracked away from the cross. It intrigues me, Jerry.”

  “Crosses,” he corrected. “Three of them. One on Michaela’s letter … one daubed on Young’s cheek … and this.” He picked the silver cross up and looked at it.

  “Does it look like the one you said Young showed you once?”

  “Very much. An exact duplicate, as nearly as I recall. There must be some particular significance attached to the double bar.”

  “The symbol of the double-cross,” I suggested jokingly.

  “Maybe you’ve got something there.” He spoke seriously. “Could the symbol on Michaela’s note been a warning for Leslie not to double-cross her? Or, had he already double-crossed her, and was the symbol a subtle warning?”

  I said: “I still like Hardiman for a suspect.”

  “Let’s get down to earth and see exactly where we stand.”

  “You said in the beginning that if you knew why Young was invited to the hacienda, you could deduce who wanted to keep him from going … and would know the murderer.”

  He nodded stubbornly. “I still maintain that the invitation and the telephoned threat contain the vital clue to the entire affair. Let’s examine what we know about the meeting at the hacienda. Why was Young invited?”

  “Because Michaela wanted him to meet Dwight and Hardiman there.”

  “Assuming the only connection between them was through her father, she would know Young’s Communistic leanings and might reasonably expect him to bitterly oppose a crooked deal being put through—by a hated capitalist—at the expense of a government which is striving desperately toward socialism.”

  “From that, you might infer that she asked Young to come because she thought he might throw a monkey wrench in the works … which further infers that she wanted to spoil the deal.”

  “Exactly. That’s perfectly in line with what we know of her political convictions.”

  “But she’s been helping to get Dwight and Rodriguez together,” I protested.

  “Wait a minute. That’s merely been an assumption. That’s what she appeared to be doing. How do we know she hasn’t been secretly working against it all along? Look at it this way: Hardiman puts the pressure on Rodriguez in Mexico City. Mexico is determined to avoid a quarrel with us over the oil payments. If a payment to Dwight will appease our State Department (as represented by Hardiman) it would be sensible for Mexico to accede to the demand on the promise that a single payment would suffice.”

  Burke paused to sip some brandy.

  “All that makes sense,” I agreed. “Mexico is torn by internal dissension and certainly wants no serious quarrel with us. Yet, it’s physically impossible for her to pay for all the property she’s expropriated. If paying Dwight’s claim would satisfy our State Department, they would likely do it. But I still don’t understand how Michaela fits into it.”

  “She could have learned of the impending deal in Mexico City … and determined to prevent it if possible. By pretending to act as a go-between and getting into Dwight’s confidence, she would be in a good position to break it up. She could make a pretence of helping him while all the time she waits for a chance to stick a knife in his back.” He paused abruptly, got up and paced back and forth.

  It did make sense. It explained the hitherto inexplicable message to Leslie Young. It supplied, by God, a perfect motive for Dwight’s murder.

  “But it doesn’t,” Burke said as though reading my mind, “explain Young’s death … with the double-cross emblem marked on his cheek.”

  I sighed and poured myself a little more brandy.

  “Nor the shot Myra heard tonight,” Burke added.

  “Do you think she actually heard a shot, Jerry?”

  He looked puzzled. “I don’t know. She must have heard something.”

  “No one else did.”

  “U-m-m.” He came to the table rubbing his jaw. “Perhaps she was listening for a shot … expected one. That would explain her hearing it while no one else did.”

  “Or she might have had some foreknowledge of Dwight’s impending murder … without knowing what method the killer would use. With her husband’s death vividly in her mind, she would expect a second murder to also be committed with a pistol and her subconscious mind would magnify some slight sound into the shot she expected to hear.”

  He said, “Maybe.”

  “You’ve got something else on your mind,” I charged. “Don’t hold out on me.”

  He picked up his glass and sniffed the brandy. “It isn’t anything I can explain. A feeling … a hunch.…” He lapsed into silence, staring at the floor.

  “What about Laura Yates?” I asked, after a short interval.

  “I don’t know, Asa. Damned if I can figure her.” He shot me a keen glance. “You … could go for her, couldn’t you?”

  I tried to answer honestly. “I don’t know. That is … well, I don’t know. If things were different … but I can’t help thinking and wondering … that lipstick on Young’s mouth and the lipstick daubed on his cheek.…”

  “Everything points to the feminine motif,” Burke agreed calmly.

  “Maybe … maybe that’s what we were meant to think,” I said excitedly. “Maybe the killer took pains to give it the feminine touch. That is …” I paused to straighten out my sudden thought, then went on: “Laura practically admitted kissing him just before he was killed. That accounts for the lipstick on his mouth. If the killer saw that … mightn’t he heighten the impression by marking the cross on his victim’s cheek with lipstick … just to confuse the issue and throw us off the track.”

  “The only thing wrong with that theory,” Burke pointed out gruffly, “is that male murderers aren’t likely to have a lipstick handy.”

  “Still,” I insisted, “it’s possible. And you always contend that we mustn’t disregard any possibility no matter how remote.”

  “Right you are.” Burke emptied his glass, stood up and slapped me on the back. “I have an idea tomorrow … or today, rather … will answer all our questions.”

  He picked up the silver cross and stared at it with puckered forehead. “The double-cross! Could Young have been a double-crosser? And Dwight? We know Dwight would double-cross his grandmother for a Mexican peso. In fact, this deal with Hardiman as the goat was nothing more than a gigantic double-cross on all the other oil firms whose property was expropriated along with his … and on both governments. Dwight fits in all right. Not Young, though.” He shook his head, dropped the double-barred cross with a thump.

  “It’s late for an old man to be up, Asa. If we write finis to the case tomorrow we’ll have to do a lot of stirring around. The brandy, beer, and the dog-food were excellent. Particularly the dog-food. You’re a lucky pair of critters.” He bent to pat the dogs.

  I went to the door with him. “Don’t cross any bridges until you reach them,” he advised with his hand on my shoulder. “And don’t make Jelcoe’s mistake of believing things are what they seem. So often, things aren’t.”

  He sighed and I had a feeling that he was worried about the outcome of the case. Not about his ability to solve it … but what the ultimate solution would be, and (I was afraid) how the solution would affect me.

  Which could only mean he hadn’t wholly dismissed Laura from his mind as a suspect.

  I stood in the lighted doorway and watched him stride down the path, get in his car and drive away. By God, I envied him his one-track mind and his utter lack of sentiment. He was like a machine while on a case. An intelligent, highly r
ational machine, but with no more human emotion inside of him than if he was actually made up of cogs and gears.

  I wished to God I knew how to acquire his impersonal aloofness. It seemed to me it would be swell to be like that.

  I was disgusted with myself, but I couldn’t get Laura off my mind. I whistled to the dogs and took them over to the park. I wasn’t sleepy. I felt as though I’d never be sleepy again. At least not until the case was ended and written into a book where I could forget it.

  It was Hardiman of course. It had to be Hardiman. I pitied the poor devil and wished I could see some out for him … but there aren’t any outs for murderers. I had no idea what he had done in the past to give Dwight a hold on him, but I was pretty sure he’d paid for it a hundred times, no matter what it was. Dwight was the kind of man who would have exacted the last pound of flesh from such a situation.

  But there was some connection between Laura and Hardiman. Much as I hated to admit it, I knew there had to be. I knew Burke realized it, too.…

  Tuck broke into a trot as we went up the walk. He leaped up the steps and over the threshold with a joyous little yap, while Nip hung back at my side, her neck hair rising.

  I stopped in the open doorway and stared at Laura, who sat comfortably at the table with a glass of my brandy in her hand.

  18

  She appeared perfectly at ease, sipping my brandy and waiting to welcome me into my own home. I wasn’t at all sure she wasn’t a double murderess, yet her very coldness had a physical allure that did funny things to me.

  Nip and I went in together and I heard my voice saying: “Oh, it’s you?”

  She nodded. “The front door was open so I just walked in and made myself at home.”

  I circled her and poured a drink of brandy which I put down in one gulp. It didn’t help very much.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down, muttering: “Do you know Jerry Burke is combing the city for you?”

  She laughed. “That’s one reason why I’m here. He isn’t likely to come back tonight, is he?”

  “How did you know he has been here?”

  “I’ve been crouched out behind the hedge waiting for him to leave for the past hour.”

  My fingers went to the lump on my head. “You’ve done a lot of crouching behind my hedge tonight, haven’t you?”

  She asked: “What are you talking about?”

  “You know damned well,” I flared. “You can’t deny you slugged me or had me slugged to get Jerry’s telegram.”

  “I do deny it,” she said pleasantly.

  I didn’t actually believe her, but I let it go at that.

  I took a sip of brandy and set myself to pull a fast one such as you read about in the best detective fiction. As I set my glass down, I asked:

  “Why did you kill Raymond Dwight?”

  I meant to put it so casually that she’d be caught off-guard and answer truthfully before she had time to collect her thoughts.

  I’m afraid I didn’t put it over very well. She was surprised, all right, but not enough to be caught napping. She sucked in her breath sharply and said:

  “So, that’s what all the rumpus was about? The cops guarding the canyon exit wouldn’t tell me anything. Who killed him? How and when?”

  “I’m asking the questions, damn it!” I scowled at her. “How did you get past the police cordon?”

  A low chuckle came from her red lips. “I told them I was Mrs. Eloise Pelham on my way to a city hospital to give birth to my first baby, and I pulled a fake faint that had them embarrassed for fear I was going to do it right there. They didn’t even make me get out of my car to check up on my silhouette, but gave me a motorcycle escort to the hospital and were awfully kind about the whole thing.”

  There you are. What can you do with a woman like that?

  “Why did you slip back to see Hardiman secretly?” I asked.

  “I wanted to get his side of the thing. I thought he might break down and spill something important.”

  “Did he?”

  “No. He denied everything. But there was a gleam in his fishy eyes that boded ill for Dwight. Do you suppose Hardiman could have.…”

  I cut her off brusquely. “He says he stood there in the yard and watched you sneak in the side door and go up to Dwight’s room about the time murder was committed.”

  “He lies.” She was coldly unemotional about it. “He stood there and watched me go down the slope to where I had parked my car.”

  “If you left the house when you say you did … you wouldn’t have been caught by the police blockade. Dwight’s body wasn’t discovered for at least half an hour.”

  She had an answer for that, too. “I had car trouble. A clogged gas line. I had to hail a passing motorist and get him to blow it out for me.”

  “The Free Press phoned the house to ask if Dwight would verify the blackmail story. How did they get it if you didn’t steal the telegram from me after I was knocked out?”

  “I imagine whoever took it from you must have given them the story,” she suggested, with a gleam of amusement in her eyes.

  I gave her a cigarette and took one myself, lit them both with the same match. Leaning forward to get a light, she spotted the silver cross lying there where Burke had dropped it. Her eyes widened perceptibly and there was a swift rush of terror to her face. She pointed with a trembling forefinger and asked:

  “Where … did that come from?”

  I felt superior and upper-handish for the first time since walking in the door. I leaned back and puffed nonchalantly on my cigarette.

  “You seem to recognize it?”

  “Of course. There was a rough sketch of it on the note Michaela O’Toole wrote Leslie. It excited him strangely but he wouldn’t tell me what it meant to him.”

  I held my breath, waiting to see if she would say anything to betray the fact that she knew about the same mark being found on Young’s cheek in death. It hadn’t been mentioned publicly and we thought no one knew about it except the authorities, Mrs. Young, and the murderer.

  When she didn’t mention it I wanted to believe it was because she was unaware of it, but I couldn’t rid myself of the thought that she was a fast-thinking female and wasn’t likely to give herself away like that.

  She was still looking down at the cross, and I finally answered her original question:

  “It was found on Dwight’s body … left there by the murderer, I suppose.”

  She looked at me with dilated eyes, and there was a sudden flash of understanding in them. She started to speak but checked herself before a word came out. I felt balked, thwarted. I sensed that she had hold of something important, the clue to everything, perhaps … and that she was going to hold out on me.

  I felt desperately like slapping the truth out of her. Instead of that masterful course, I prompted her with a weak: “Well, what are you going to tell me about it?”

  She wet her lips and smiled enigmatically. “It brings up an interesting speculation.” She held out her glass.

  I poured her another drink. I didn’t take any more. I knew I needed all my faculties to cope with her.

  As she drank, I asked her: “What did you do with Burke’s telegram from Washington?”

  She looked at me innocently. “I told you I haven’t seen it.”

  “And I don’t believe you. You can get yourself locked up for stunts like that.”

  “I imagine Mr. Burke keeps a nice clean jail.” She leaned both her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in palms. “Are you going to swear out a warrant for my arrest?”

  I tried to avoid her eyes but I couldn’t. There was a warm glow in their depths. The palms of my hands were clammy and my heart was pumping absurdly fast.

  I said, “No,” and then suddenly I was standing up. I felt lightheaded. “But I can’t harbor you. Jerry would never forgive me if he found out you were here and I didn’t hold you.”

  “In that case … why don’t you hold me?”

  She was standing
, too. She moved around the table and stood very close to me.

  I don’t know much about women but I knew she wanted to be kissed.

  Nip and Tuck sat there on their haunches with their ears tipped forward in surprise and (I think) approval.

  19

  Jerry Burke woke me the next morning, standing over me and shaking my shoulder. I stared up at him stupidly, blinking in the bright sunlight streaming in my east window. He was cleanly shaved and his eyes had a bright alertness that was disgusting so early in the morning. I sat up in bed and muttered:

  “This is a hell of a time to come visiting.”

  He sat down on the edge of my bed and grinned at me. “It’s a guilty conscience that’s keeping you abed, Asa. Harboring wanted women isn’t in your line.”

  “I didn’t harbor her very lon …” I began, then broke off with a curse. “How do you know Laura was here?”

  “A couple of my men picked her up as she drove away last night. I sent them here as soon as I got home.”

  “But how … what made you think she’d come here?”

  He laughed out loud with an exuberant cheerfulness that told me he felt the case was tightening up. “It was the one place I knew she’d come. That gal has designs on you, Asa, whether you know it or not.”

  I worked up a good imitation of a yawn and avoided his probing eyes. “I suppose you’ve got her locked up in a cell next to Hardiman,” I grunted.

  “Not yet,” he drawled. “Either she or Hardiman lied about her going into the house last night. I checked her story about passing the barricade with her story of expectant motherhood, and released her for the time being, at least. But I’ve got a good man tailing her and I can put my finger on her any time I want.”

  I got up and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Coming back to get dressed, I asked:

  “What are the latest developments? I suppose you’ve been up for hours and hours running down clues.”

  He ticked them off on his fingers while I dressed: “No fingerprints found on the pistol. Ballistics positively identifies it as the gun used to kill both Leslie Young and Raymond Dwight. Confronted with it, Myra Young tentatively identified the pistol as the one given to her by Leslie … which she claims disappeared from the house immediately after Laura Yates’ last visit there. The serial number positively identifies it as one purchased by Leslie Young from a downtown sporting goods store. Laura Yates denies ever having seen it.”