For a broken second he was unable to believe what he saw, and then relief, followed by exultation, filled him. It was all over! Troubles gone like summer smoke, he thought excitedly, unconsciously paraphrasing the Larry Trevor ballad. With what she knew and what he knew it was just a matter of comparing notes. He pushed open the window, pushed curtains aside and stepped over the sill.
He called softly, ‘Mrs Peterkins …’ and moved towards her. The voice had stopped singing and only music from the guitar—two guitars?—came from the phonograph. One of the guitars seemed to be in a corner of the room. It was strange.
Mr Peterkins was in the corner of the room. So was the guitar. He was playing it, seated on a low bench, the guitar on his lap, and beside him was a frontier model, lever-action Winchester, the burled walnut stock satiny in the light. He seemed to be smiling.
Clay started to ask, ‘Is she …’ and saw something that closed his throat. Draped over the back of a chair as though worn by someone kneeling, was a black cloth—a black habit with a black cowl. The effect was that of a nun praying.
He stood motionless, the ‘Is she …’ suspended in air. He had again the familiar feeling of being in a nightmare. He could relate nothing, curling cigarette smoke, guitars, Winchester rifle, nun’s habit, white bandage on a crushed skull. He wanted to run but he couldn’t move. He wanted to say something but he couldn’t speak.
Suddenly the guitar in the corner was silent and he swung back to face Mr Peterkins. He saw the smile was actually a grimace of pain, of grief, of madness, or possibly of all three combined. The old man sat for a moment, not moving, the smile that was not a smile twisting his face, and then he sighed. He put down the guitar, tucked the rifle under his arm and crossed to the phonograph. The plaintive voice beginning, ‘Bat Masterson’s gone, and Billy the Kid; the Daltons, Cole Younger …’ abruptly ceased singing. Water dripped from the eaves outside.
Turning from the phonograph, Mr Peterkins said gently, ‘Laura loves the old songs.’
‘Loves? Then she isn’t …’
‘She’s listening, wherever she is. And waiting …’ He glanced at the divan. ‘Aren’t you, Laura?’
Almost expecting an answer, icy sweat on face and palms, Clay stared at Laura Peterkins. He realized now that the skin on her face, under heavy rouge and smeared lipstick, was bloodless, that the bulging eyes were sightless.
‘No,’ Peterkins said. ‘I’m not insane.’ He went to the divan, snuffed out the cigarette. ‘At least I don’t think so.’ He lit another cigarette, put it in the ash-tray. ‘Would you care to judge?’
‘I’m no judge.’
‘A trap,’ Peterkins said, watching the blue smoke uncoil. ‘An ambush set by Laura and me.’ He bent, blew on the cigarette. ‘For the killer’s return.’
Clay felt a rush of relief. Things, some things, began to make sense. Cigarette, bandage, whisky and music were props to make it appear Laura was still alive. So the killer would try again.
Peterkins was changing the record on the phonograph. ‘If you will sit on the bench, Mr Clay,’ he murmured. ‘Out of sight.’
‘Red Wing’ played on a jew’s-harp came from the phonograph. Shifting the Winchester from under his arm to an upright position between his knees, Peterkins sat on the bench beside Clay. ‘It was fortunate you called to Laura,’ he whispered. ‘It saved your life.’ He fingered the rifle. ‘Of course, I should have known. Your age.’
‘My age?’
‘He would have to be at least forty.’
‘The killer?’
A hand, the colour and grain of old parchment, touched his arm. ‘You must speak softly. You see, I did not call the police.’
Before Clay could place this in context, Peterkins was whispering again. ‘I realized he would come back if I made no report. To see what had happened. If he had failed the first time. Or if she had not been found. He would have to know. Perhaps he would try again. Perhaps talk to her. Perhaps just to look. But I would be waiting.’
‘But if she saw him …?’ Clay whispered.
‘He struck from behind. The wound, Laura’s position showed that. No. Laura didn’t see him, Mr Clay.’
Acutely conscious of Laura propped up on the divan, maybe listening as Mr Peterkins believed, Clay felt too unsettled to probe very far into the return theory. There was one possible defect, he realized. If the killer knew for certain she was dead, he’d never return. Still, maybe he hadn’t known for certain. He’d have been in a hurry to get away, would never have stopped to make a thorough examination. In that case he might very likely come back.
He asked, ‘When did you find the—Laura?’
‘Soon after you left. A man came out of the cottage—I must have been working on the other side of the main house when he arrived—and I thought surely Laura’d be finished with her nap.’
‘Do you know who the man was?’
‘Abraham Lincoln.’
‘Mr Bundy!’ The hand touched his arm again and he lowered his voice. ‘A private detective.’
‘You must go now.’
“There’re some things I have to know, Mr Peterkins.’
‘Some other time.’
Clay whispered desperately, ‘If he doesn’t come, you’ll still want him tracked down, won’t …’
He caught his breath. By the open window the curtain began to twitch as though a hand was tugging at it. Mist seeped around the edge, lost itself in the yellow light. Jew’s-harp, an accordion, a jug being blown into, a fiddle danced through ‘Red Wing’. The curtain billowed inwards and the Persian cat walked into the room, silver fur gleaming with water drops.
‘He will come,’ whispered Mr Peterkins. ‘We know.’
The cat eyed them incuriously, started across the room.
‘Do you know who he is?’
The old man’s eyes went to the draped habit. ‘He wore that many years ago. Left it when he betrayed Larry Trevor.’ He added, so softly Clay could catch only a few words: ‘… poetic justice … wear it … when he dies.’
The cat jumped on to the divan, curled up on Laura Peterkins’ lap and began to clean a hind leg.
‘Mr Peterkins,’ Clay said. ‘I want to help. I have to help. You must tell me everything you know.’
There was a pause and then the frail voice whispered, ‘Maid … and key.’
Clay suddenly felt that of all things that had happened in the last twelve hours, this was the most incredible. If someone had tried to tell him yesterday that he would be sitting in a darkened cottage on Sunday night, a cat, a dead woman and an unhinged old man for companions, listening to mountain music and waiting for a hooded killer out of a folk song, he wouldn’t have bothered to listen. Yet—‘Maid … and key,’ he prompted.
‘They were talking. Laura and Larry’s daughter.’ The faded eyes noted Clay’s start of surprise. ‘Yes, I saw the letter. Not permitted, but sometimes I looked. Sometimes I listened.’
‘What was said?’
‘Her maid had confessed she had loaned the key to someone. The apartment key. For a hundred dollars. And Larry’s daughter was alarmed about the letter. So she gave it to Laura. To keep.’
‘But who got the key from the maid?’
‘If she knew she didn’t say.’ The worn hand brushed Clay’s arm. ‘Now you must go.’
The record ended. Water began to drip from the eaves. The Persian peered at them over an out-thrust hind leg, eyes glowing.
Clay asked, ‘What can you tell me about Larry Trevor?’
‘Only what everybody knows.’
‘You wrote the ballad, didn’t you?’
The old man went to the phonograph, started the record again and came back to the bench. ‘I’ve written nearly fifty western songs, Mr Clay.’
‘But you must have done research. The nun’s habit, for instance. Where did you get it?’
‘Idabel jail.’ One hand on the barrel, one hand on the walnut butt, Peterkins cradled the Winchester in his lap. ‘Came originally from a Ca
tholic orphanage near Oklahoma City. Convent of the Good Shepherd At Bethany. Near the poor farm where Larry grew up.’ His voice was barely audible. ‘Stolen.’
‘And its purpose?’
Peterkins didn’t answer. He seemed to be listening to something. Fiddle, jug, jew’s-harp jounced along joyfully through ‘Red Wing’. The cat sat up on Laura’s lap. The curtain by the open window began to change colour, darkening as a shadow fell across it. The shadow grew distinct, became the shadow of a man wearing a snap brim hat. The Winchester exploded, then exploded a second time.
When Clay was able to see again, Peterkins and the Persian had vanished. The canary was fluttering in the covered cage. He ran to the window, found the old man kneeling by the shaft of light bisecting the flower-bed. Deep footprints had scored the bed, and by one was a splatter of fresh blood.
‘Winged him!’ Mr Peterkins’ voice was anguished. ‘Just winged the bastard!’
Excited voices soared from near-by houses. A bulb, turned on back of a second-story window, lit the mist overhead. A door slammed somewhere. In the cottage, shrill above music, the telephone began to ring. Clay backed into the mist, turned and started for the street. A rose bush tugged at his coat, scratched his hand; crushed tulips made sighing noises under his feet. He began to run as he neared the sidewalk.
Chapter 23
THE counter-man banged the coffee mug on white porcelain, shoved containers of sugar and cream towards it and asked, ‘That all?’
Nodding absently, Clay took hold of the mug. It burned his fingers and he took the hand away. Maid and key, he thought. To from airplanes fly, he thought. Poor farm at Bethany, mechanical man, snap brim hat, winged, he thought.
Winged! He halted on that. Winged! There was something! Find the bullet-hole and win a Bermuda vacation, all expenses paid. Easy, too. All he had to do was call Diffendorf and tell him what had happened. He was searching his pockets for a dime when he realized it wasn’t so simple after all. The lieutenant couldn’t order a medical examination of everybody on the Globe. Couldn’t even order the examination of one person without a warrant. And who would he tell him to make the warrant out for? A snap brim hat?
And besides, he realized further, it would be fatal to call the lieutenant. By the time he got through explaining, his telephone number would have been traced and half a dozen squad cars packed with cops and machine guns would be converging on him. No. No call to Diffendorf.
He tried the mug but the coffee was still too hot to drink. He went to the phone booth at the back of the lunch-room and dialled Mr Bundy’s number. To his relief a woman’s voice spoke softly after the second ring. ‘Dewhurst here.’
‘You get that drink?’
‘Oh, my goodness, yes! Compliments of the management.’
‘Police?’
‘Still here.’
‘Bundy?’
‘Durance vile.’
‘Son of a bitch!’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I beg yours.’
‘Q.’
‘Look. What came of the check on Standish and Canning?’
‘No alibis.’
‘Saul Blair?’
‘No check.’
‘Will you do something for me?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Can you have someone get hold of the passenger lists of planes to Washington between five and seven this morning?’
‘Will do.’ Her voice became a little more distinct. ‘Police are in a lather about you. Be careful.’
‘You’re telling me!’
‘Where will you be when the mechanical man arrives?’
‘They got it?’
‘Yes. We had a wire from Washington.’
‘I’ll be on the South Side. In a whorehouse.’
‘Right,’ Miss Dewhurst said and hung up.
The splintered stairway leading to the tenement’s fourth floor creaked under his feet, seemed to sway as he climbed towards the bare landing. Light from a bulb two floors above hazily defined the steps, but the landing, sheltered by further stairs, was a black pocket. He hesitated a second before entering the pocket, then cautiously felt his way to a rectangle of lesser blackness that marked a door. He knocked on the door.
There was no answer. Wondering if he’d correctly remembered the number Alma Plummer had mentioned—421 West Thirty-first Street he thought it was—he knocked again. There was still no answer and he turned the knob and the door came open.
Past a narrow entrance hall with an ornate gold-framed mirror in what was evidently the parlour, were two pottery lamps with fringed rose-coloured shades, table draped with a fringed shawl and half a red velvet sofa. He moved into the hall, conscious of an odd acrid-sweet smell in his nostrils, and an upright piano and the rest of the sofa came into view. On the newly-disclosed section of the sofa, staring at the piano through enormous eyes, sat Clarissa Simpson. She had on a black silk dress, a starched maid’s apron and a starched maid’s cap, and in the rose light her face was extremely pretty.
She didn’t move as Clay came across the room. ‘Clarissa,’ he said. He saw the pupils of her eyes were dilated.
When she failed to answer he touched her shoulder lightly, spoke again. ‘Clarissa.’
Her eyelids dropped, hiding the big pupils. ‘Don’ open till twelve,’ she murmured.
‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Goof balls. Three sticks. Red wine.’ Her voice was drowsy, indistinct. ‘No good. No good at all.’
‘Do you remember me, Clarissa? The reporter from the Globe?’
Tan lids came up, vacant eyes turned to his face, but it was as though he wasn’t there. ‘Don’ want to remember anything.’ Coked to the gills, he was thinking, when she began to mumble again. ‘What’ll I say?’
‘Say to who?’
‘What’d you do on earth, He’ll ask. What’d you do for a living? Maid in a whorehouse. Towels and tips and pearly gates closing.’ Her hand caught him, closed convulsively on his arm. ‘No place for whorehouse maids!’
‘Clarissa!’
Her voice rose in minor hysteria. ‘All He wrote down anyway. Be there in the book for Him to read. That key He’ll ask. That hundred dollars. What about Miss Mary? How you get the gall to come knockin’ at my gate? How … how …?’
She choked on a sob and a huge coloured woman in a kelly-green wrapper hurried into the room. She was carrying a cup of coffee. Pushing herself past Clay, she said, ‘Here, honey. You feel better get this in your belly.’ She helped the girl lift the cup to her lips. ‘Every last drop now.’
Her sobs diminishing, Clarissa drank dutifully, like a child. The woman looked at Clay. ‘Girls’ll be along soon, Mister Man.’
‘I want to talk to Clarissa.’
Gold teeth gleamed in a knowing smile. ‘They’s all want to talk to Clarissa.’
‘I really mean talk.’
‘We got real good talkers. You just wait an’ see.’ She turned back to the cup, now nearly empty. ‘That’s fine, honey.’
Clay said, ‘All I want is five minutes.’
Cupidity and something else, possibly fear, were reflected on the heavy face. The woman glanced over her shoulder, then asked cautiously: ‘Got fifty dollars, Mister Man?’
‘For five minutes?’
‘Have to be paid now.’
Reluctantly he counted out a twenty, two tens and two fives, handed them to the woman. She folded the bills into a strip the size of a piece of chewing gun, then jerked the green wrapper open, exposing massive thighs. Above the knees red garters with red bows choked the flesh like tourniquets. She tucked the strip under one of the garters, took hold of the girl’s arm.
‘Le’s go, honey,’ she said. ‘Talk to Mister Man.’
The room was back of the second door from the hallway entrance. It contained a sheet-covered double bed, two wicker chairs, a night stand with an ivory bedside lamp and a stained off-white cotton rug. Over the single window the shade had been pulled and unevenly thumb-tac
ked in place. Under the bed were lint and an empty wine bottle.
Leaning against the woman, eyes half closed, Clarissa allowed herself to be guided to the bed. ‘Grass,’ she said dreamily. ‘Happy, happy grass.’ If she knew what was happening, her serene face didn’t show it. The woman glanced at the door and then at Clay.
‘Hurry, Mister Man,’ she whispered. ‘Hurry real fast.’
Clay watched her tip-toe from the room, close the door noiselessly. He saw it had no lock. He turned to Clarissa.
‘For God’s sake!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t do that!’
Caramel fingers fumbling with the last button on the black silk dress became quiet and Clarissa sat motionless on the bed. Where the buttons had been undone, smooth skin the colour of heavily creamed coffee showed. She wore no brassière.
‘Clarissa,’ Clay said. ‘You remember me.’
The luminous, too big eyes looked at and past his face. ‘Man in the closet …’
‘That’s right. And I need your help.’
‘Miss Mary,’ she said drowsily.
‘Who got the key from you?’
The eyes had drifted down to the off-white rug. ‘All wrote down. Wrote down in the book.’
‘If you help me catch Miss Mary’s killer, Clarissa, that’ll be written down, too.’
He stared at her face but it was empty. Except for the glowing eyes she might have been asleep. The dress, silk sliding on skin, had fallen off one shoulder.
‘Don’t you want something on the good side?’
‘Numb,’ she said.
‘Numb?’
‘In the big church.’
‘A nun!’
‘Big church off Chicago Avenue.’ He could barely hear her voice. ‘Called me meet her there.’
‘The Holy Name Cathedral?’
‘Twice. Gave key. Get key back. While we pray.’ She sighed, rested one elbow on the bed. The dress slid over her arm. ‘Wasn’t nun—at all.’
‘What do you mean, wasn’t nun?’
Sinners and Shrouds Page 17