‘I wish you’d gotten hold of him.’
Ignoring this, Mr Bundy picked up the ledger. ‘We now have certain suspects.’ He turned two pages. ‘Adair, Standish, Canning, your friend, Mr Blair,’ The ledger closed slowly. ‘We are checking the movements of each. But which we suspect most depends upon what we learn in Fort Worth.’
‘You haven’t heard anything more?’
‘No. But soon, I trust. And from Washington. I, too, called the Dupont number, carried on a conversation very similar to yours.’
‘Sounded like some kind of a foreigner.’
‘Possibly. Possibly not.’ Mr Bundy eyed him thoughtfully. ‘A call just at the time of death. Very strange. We must find out whose number it is and who received the call and what the call was about. And quickly!’ His voice became faintly apologetic. ‘I have instructed my Washington colleagues to use all measures necessary—short of murder.’
‘Murder’s okay, too.’
Mr Bundy rang his bell. ‘I hoped you would approve.’ To Miss Dewhurst, whose head had appeared in the door, he directed: ‘Mr Ellenstein.’
Before she could reply, a middle-sized man in a French-blue linen suit pushed past her. ‘If it’s my wife, Bundy,’ he said loudly, ‘she’s got a nerve, after what I give her!’ His eyes, blinking angrily behind horn-rimmed glasses, looked too big for his head.
‘It’s not Mrs Ellenstein.’
The man halted in front of the desk, light gleaming from gold-nugget cuff-links. ‘Then it’s that little twitch from the Bomb Shelter!’ Butterflies danced on his silk tie. ‘For her, phooey!’ Spittle accompanied the last word.
‘This has nothing to do with fornication,’ said Mr Bundy sharply. ‘We merely want some help.’
Ellenstein exhaled heavily. His eyes stopped blinking. He unfurled a pongee handkerchief, patted his forehead. ‘In my relief—anything!’
Mr Bundy took the green hat-check out of an envelope, laid it on the desk. ‘Is this from one of those nefarious traps you maintain about the city?’
‘Traps!’ Ellenstein was outraged. ‘People got to have a place to put hats and things, ain’t they? Otherwise people would steal ’em.’ He gave the check an oblique, distrustful glance. ‘Minuet. Mitzi France.’
Clay felt a surge of interest. The Minuet. That was where Charley Adair said he’d left the girl. And if the check meant anything, then he’d been there too.
‘Mitzi France?’ Mr Bundy was asking. ‘The attendant?’
‘Alias Sophie Skouloudes. Old man runs a dirty spoon in Chicago Heights.’ Sudden apprehension made the eyes behind the thick glasses blink. ‘Trouble?’
‘No trouble. A few routine questions.’
Still faintly dubious, Ellenstein produced a small memo book. ‘Mitzi,’ he read. ‘1125 Diversey. Apt. 9A Edgeview 2-3206.’ He looked up from the book. ‘Better give her a jingle first.’
‘We’d rather approach her directly.’
‘She’ll have company, if I’m any judge. And I am.’ Ellenstein sighed in reminiscent awe. ‘Them Greeks!’
He would have gone on, but Mr Bundy, taking his elbow, started to escort him to the door. ‘Indebted,’ the detective said courteously.
Ellenstein rose to the occasion. ‘Yours very truly,’ he replied and went out snickering. His day had been made.
Mr Bundy came back to the hat-rack, removed fedora and umbrella. ‘Let us proceed,’ he said, looking like Abraham Lincoln about to address the crowd at Gettysburg. ‘The damosel awaits.’
Chapter 12
IF the damosel was waiting, she was being very coy about it. For a third time Mr Bundy knocked on the door marked 9A. Clay said, ‘Nobody home.’ Mr Bundy reversed his umbrella, hit the panel a series of blows with the bone handle, sending echoes up and down the shabby hall. The door jerked open and an unshaven man with bloodshot eyes glared out at them. He was naked from the waist up.
‘We don’t want none,’ he snarled.
The door swung violently, would have slammed shut if the umbrella, through what appeared to be Mr Bundy’s awkwardness, had not somehow got between it and the jamb.
In the ensuing confusion, both Clay and Mr Bundy slipped into the apartment. The man backed away from them towards a narrow hallway, his liquor-glazed eyes incredulous. ‘What’s the idea?’ he demanded. ‘What you want?’ The fly on his chalk-stripe pants was open.
‘Miss France,’ Mr Bundy said.
‘She ain’t here.’
‘Do you mind if we look?’
The man continued to back towards the hall, muscles bunching on his shoulders. ‘Mind?’ he asked as though he didn’t understand.
The living-room, curtained against sunlight, was littered with strewn clothing, empty bottles, ash trays and glasses. Clay was thinking it must have been quite a party when the man, reaching behind him into a chalk-stripe coat draped over a chair, produced a short-barrelled .38, levelled it at Mr Bundy’s stomach.
‘Mind?’ he repeated. ‘Yeah, I mind.’
Mr Bundy ignored the weapon. ‘It will be to Miss France’s advantage to speak to us.’
‘In a pig’s eye!’ the man said. ‘Blow!’ The pistol’s safety, thumbed off, clicked ominously.
‘Put that away,’ said Mr Bundy.
‘Yeah?’ The man grinned mirthlessly, showing crooked teeth. ‘Gonna be a dime comic, is it? Pete Gromek pushed around by an old man.’
‘A private investigator,’ corrected Mr Bundy. ‘Inquiring into the murder of a young woman named Mary Trevor.’
‘So?’ Something flickered back of the man’s eyes and he added, ‘So we read about it. And Sophie don’t know from nothin’.’
‘Not even who took Miss Trevor home from the Minuet last night?’
‘She don’t know from nothin’.’
‘She must have seen someone.’
‘I told you. I told you twice. Sophie never seen nothin’!’ Anger made his face dangerous. ‘I’m sick of sayin’ it!’ His knuckles, tightening around the revolver, whitened. ‘Don’t make me say it no more.’
‘Let’s go,’ Clay said.
‘Do that,’ the man said, shifting the revolver. ‘While you——’
The umbrella, handle forward, hooked his wrist, sent the revolver spinning across the room. The man snarled, dived at Mr Bundy, who stepped aside, reversed the umbrella and lunged, the point held Adam’s-apple high. The man’s knees buckled and he sank to the rug, both hands clutching his throat. Mr Bundy examined the umbrella tip and, ascertaining it was undamaged, nodded with satisfaction. The man pulled at his throat with writhing fingers, heaved his chest spasmodically, but no air came to his lungs. On his sweat-beaded face the skin began to turn black.
Clay stared in horror, certain he was dying.
At last air rasped through the constricted throat and at the same time a dark-haired girl came down the hallway. She had on a filmy green nightgown and light from the bedroom behind her outlined legs, curved hips and shoulders. ‘For heaven’s sake, Pete!’ she called. ‘Why lie? I told you I saw the guy went home with her.’
She came into the living-room. Brown nipples on heavy breasts showed through the nightgown. She halted as she caught sight of the man kneeling on the rug, breath still rattling in his throat, and turned puzzled ripe-olive eyes on Mr Bundy. ‘I saw him,’ she said. The eyes moved to Clay. ‘The murderer …’ she added mechanically. Then her mouth opened, her eyes rolled up into her skull until only whites showed and it began. A wild animal’s screaming, frenzied, uncontrolled, insane.
Chapter 13
CREEPING bent, mowed so close it had the pile and texture of a broadloom rug, grew between the Peterkins’ house and the street. On the lawn sprinklers whirred, sending up a mist that glittered in the still-high summer sun. To the east of three oak trees stretched shadows the shape of exclamation points, and on the house ivy rustled in air moved by the sprinklers. Tulips, in garish postcard colours, grew by the side of the house.
Circling a sprinkler on his way to the fr
ont door, Sam Clay had for the tenth time that day the feeling of being in a dream. It might be, he thought, a delayed reaction from the screaming, which had persisted like a short-circuited air-raid siren even after he and Mr Bundy had fled from the apartment building, but it seemed to have more to do with the Peterkinses’ front yard. The too perfect grass and the trees and the monotonously whirling sprinklers made him feel alien. There was a remoteness about the yard, a timelessness, as though it had been this way—grass, trees, water, shadows and ivy—since creation and would remain so for ever. As though, he thought, it had nothing to do with anything alive.
But when he neared the porch steps he saw this impression was wrong. In the centre of the tulip bed were two living creatures: a man and a silver Persian cat. The man was on his knees, trowelling leaf mould, from a burlap sack into the bed, and the cat was watching him. Relieved, Sam crossed to them, asked, ‘Mr Peterkins?’
‘Laura’s expecting you,’ the man said. ‘That is, if you’re Mr Clay.’
As Clay was saying he was, Peterkins got to his feet. He was a very small man, close to seventy, with a wrinkled brown skin and a gentle face. Over a dark suit he wore blue and white striped coveralls. He looked like the engineer on a children’s railroad.
He said, ‘Laura’s taking a nap.’
‘I can come back later.’
‘No. No. Wake her.’ Vague lilac eyes searched Clay’s face. ‘You see, we’re to have dinner with Mrs Cornelia Palmer tonight.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Is it?’ The eyes were troubled. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. But what does one talk to Mrs Cornelia Palmer about?’
Clay said he didn’t know. He said he’d never talked to Mrs Palmer.
‘Nor I.’ Peterkins smiled shyly. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t worry. Laura always talks for us both anyway.’ He pointed the trowel towards the rear of the house. ‘Laura’s in her studio. I’d guide you but I’m not permitted.’
Accompanied by the cat, Clay went along a curving flagstone path past tulips and rose bushes to a tiny frame structure on the back property line. The structure seemed more wood-shed than studio, but an out of plumb chimney and a Chinese red door with a brass knocker gave it a fairy-tale look, as though a dwarf lived in it. He halted by the door and the cat five feet behind him halted too.
He did not want to see Laura Peterkins, but he lifted the knocker, let it drop. He had to face her. Mr Bundy had insisted. He’d pointed out that if she had recognized his voice, something had kept her from informing Standish or the police. It was essential they find out what it was, he’d declared, even if it meant telling her the whole story. It was possible the something, if there was a something, might incline her to shield Clay for a while longer. It was a gamble they had to take.
He tried the knocker again, then the knob. The door was unlocked and he pushed it open, called, ‘Mrs Peterkins …?’ and went into the studio.
It was bigger than he had imagined. On one long wall shelves of books reached to the ceiling, and at the far end was a large brick fireplace in which rested three creosote-stained Illinois Central ties. The floor was of hand-pegged oak, the satiny finish shining in north light from long windows. A canary chirped in a wicker cage, and on an enormous, pillow-littered divan under the windows lay Laura Peterkins.
He knew she was dead, but he went to her anyway. She was on her side, partially wrapped in a lavender kimono, one fat knee drawn up against her stomach. Blood and broken skin by her ear marked the place where her skull had been crushed. Her eyes were open, staring accusingly at a water-smooth statuette of a naked girl on the floor. One of the girl’s arms was freshly broken off, the exposed stone a chalky white. She was smiling impishly.
Clay stared down at the dead woman. He felt no particular shock; it was almost as though he had expected her death. He wondered if she had been killed in her sleep, like the girl. He didn’t know enough about corpses’ eyes to tell. He reached down to adjust the kimono, and a book, caught in a fold of cloth, fell from the divan to the floor. Awake, he decided. Probably reading when it happened.
He looked around for a second door the murderer might have used, but found none. However, one of the long windows was open a crack. The murderer could have come in there, just stepping over the sill from the garden. As he moved towards the window, he caught sight of papers strewn around a knee-hole desk in the corner.
He went to the desk, saw it had been ransacked. The drawers, half open, were rats’ nests of pencils, crumpled papers, ink bottles, rubber bands, carbons, newspaper clippings, shorthand notebooks, old letters. On the desk was a ripped accordion manila folder, evidently the source of the papers on the floor. In an old Corona typewriter, turned at an angle, was a sheet of yellow copy paper on which was written: ‘One of the loveliest of summer brides, in a bouffant gown of white nylon tulle outlined with seed pearls, was Miss Linda Jane Griswold, daughter of Dr and Mrs Alfred …’ The story stopped there. Evidently Laura had either been interrupted or had decided to take a nap.
From the jumble of papers Clay could get no idea of what the killer had been looking for, or if he’d found it. The only thing apparent was that he hadn’t bothered to conceal the fact he had been searching for something. Most likely something written, since he’d concentrated on the desk. As Clay was wishing Mr Bundy was there a strange feeling of exultation began to take possession of him. He began to realize what he should have realized at once. This second killing meant almost certainly that he hadn’t done the first, hadn’t murdered Mary Trevor. Almost certainly, hell! He hadn’t murdered her!
He felt a surge of lightness, a giddiness, that made him want to shout. The gnawing ulcer in his stomach, composed of fear, of guilt, of self-loathing, vanished. He felt like a new man. He felt hungry. He felt wonderful.
Suddenly reality closed down again. He felt better, but he was still in trouble. Nothing had really changed, except inside. In fact, he thought with new fear, he was in twice as much trouble. He walked back to the body, stood looking down at it. In clearing him with himself, Laura Peterkins had by her death put him in double jeopardy. Inevitably, if he reported her murder, he would become a suspect. In a police investigation, the last person to see the victim alone automatically became the last person to see the victim alive. Until proven otherwise. And he had no way of proving she was dead when he arrived. He should, he realized, have called Peterkins the minute he had seen her. Now it was too late. Even if she’d been dead for half an hour or more, which was unlikely from the look of the blood, the finger would be on him. Rigor mortis was too uncertain a thing, especially with a fat woman on a hot day, to clear him.
Not permitted, he thought disgustedly. Not permitted, Peterkins had said. The local ground rule that had kept the old man from accompanying him had made him fall guy for murder a second time. The local ground rule that might put him in the chair.
In looking down at the body, his eyes caught sight of the book on the floor. It had a marker in it, a piece of torn paper. He picked up the book, saw on the cover, above a drawing of a cowboy roping a calf, the title: Southwest Folksongs. The marker was between pages 152 and 153, and on these pages were bars of music and verse in four-line stanzas. His scalp pricked as he read the ballad’s title: ‘Larry Trevor and the Hooded Nun.’
At the end of the ballad, by the last four stanzas, a pencil had made heavy vertical marks. He felt his heartbeat quicken. He read:
The Forty-five spoke a loud and a clear;
Lead entered his mouth, a came out his ear,
Blew off his face, the side of his head:
Before he hit ground, the Sheriff was dead!
The Deputies ran for cover to hide,
More shots rang out; three Deputies died,
Just two were left for Heaven or Hell,
When the hammer clicked on an empty shell.
Tall Larry turned to the Hooded Nun:
‘Now shoot!’ he said. ‘The victory’s won!’
His voice was lost in the silent air.
The Nun had gone. No one was there.
Like smoke she’d gone. Like a spectral sight
That fades to mist on a summer’s …
A thump, a scratching noise, a weird fluttering, another thump constricted his throat, swung him around in a spasm of terror. He found himself staring at a yellow bird beating soft, frantic wings against the bars of a slowly rotating wicker cage. Below the cage, its silver tail twitching, the Persian was crouched for a second leap. He flung the book at the cat, watched it streak out the door. The bird fell to the bottom of the cage, made a drumming noise against paper. He began to shake, a man with malaria. Icy sweat oozed back of his ears, under his arms, along his spine.
He walked stiffly to the door, went through it and closed it behind him. He tried the knob, found the catch was holding, and started along the curving flagstones to the front of the house. His mouth tasted of bile.
Peterkins, shaking the last of the leaf-mould from the burlap sack, spoke as he neared the tulip bed. ‘Have trouble waking Laura?’
‘A little.’
‘I heard you call.’ He doubled the bag, then doubled it again. ‘Laura sleeps hard.’
‘Yes, she does.’
The cat came over to them, sat, and began to clean its paws. A current of warm air made the tulips nod. Peterkins sighed, tucked the sack under his arm.
‘I suppose Laura wants to sleep some more?’
‘Yes. I wouldn’t disturb her. Not for a while.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t think of it.’ He smiled shyly, the lilac eyes deprecatory. ‘I’m not permitted.’
‘Well, good-bye …’
‘Good-bye, Mr Clay.’
The old man and the cat, both motionless, watched him walk to the street. Mist rose from the sprinklers, sparkled on the grass, and shadows stretched deep under the quiet oaks.
Chapter 14
LEANING over the brown composition desk, Clay asked, ‘Where’s Standish?’
‘Dead, I trust,’ said Miss Bentley.
In profile, back straight, breasts high, arrogant green eyes contemptuous of the memorandum she was typing, she looked extremely handsome and extremely bad tempered. A small scar at the corner of her mouth, dark under lipstick, puckered the skin.
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