Killer's Payoff

by Ed McBain

  “Was there any trouble that week?”

  “How do you mean, trouble?”

  “Any fights? Arguments?”

  “Yes. One. Kramer got into a little tiff with one of the fellows.”

  “Which one?” Hawes asked, moving quickly to the edge of his seat.

  “Frank Ruther. The advertising man.”

  “What was the argument about?”

  “Clams.”

  “What?”

  “Clams. Kramer was talking about how good steamed clams were. Ruther told him to please change the subject because it made him ill just to think about clams. We were all at the dinner table, you see. Well, Kramer wouldn’t change the subject. He began telling about how to prepare them, and how to serve them, and I guess Ruther got a little sick.”

  “What happened?”

  “He got up and yelled, ‘Will you shut your goddamn mouth?’ He was a little touchy to begin with, you understand. Either that divorce theory of mine, or something else. Whatever it was, he was real touchy.”

  “Any blows exchanged?”

  “No. Kramer told Ruther he could go straight to hell. Ruther just left the table.”

  “Who’d the other men side with?”

  “Funny thing there. I told you Kettering and Kramer had hit it off pretty well, mainly because Kramer knew a little bit about hunting. Well, this was the day before Kettering was supposed to leave. He got pretty p.o.’d at Kramer. Told him he should have had the decency to shut up when he saw the talk was making another man sick. Kramer told him to go to hell, too.”

  “Sounds like a lovely fellow, Kramer does.”

  “Well, I think he knew he was on the wrong end of the argument. Lots of fellows, when they know they’re wrong, they just plunge ahead and try to make it right by making it wronger.”

  “What happened when he told Kettering to go to hell?”

  “Kettering got up from the table and said, ‘Would you care to repeat that outside, Sy?’ The other fellows—Miller and the old man—finally cooled off Kettering.”

  “Was Kramer ready to fight?”

  “Sure. He was committed. The only way he could stop making an ass of himself was to make a bigger ass of himself. But I think he was glad Miller and the old man stepped in.”

  “What’s the old man’s name?”

  “Murphy. John Murphy.”

  “He from the city, too?”

  “Sure.” Fielding paused. “A suburb, but that’s the city, ain’t it?”

  “This thing between Kramer and Kettering? Did Kettering seem very angry?”

  “Very. It lasted through the next day. He didn’t even say good-by to Kramer when he went off into the woods.”

  “He did say good-by to the other men, though?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “He loaded his bags into the trunk of his car, and took off. Drove his car around the lake a ways. Said he’d head for the highway as soon as he’d bagged a few that morning. He’d come down for breakfast very early. The other men went off hunting about an hour later.”

  “Kramer go with them?”

  “No. He went into the woods, but alone. He was pretty surly that morning. He resented Kettering’s interference, and I guess he felt the other men had sided with Ruther, too. In any case, Miller and Murphy went with Ruther. Kramer went alone.”

  “Can we get back to Kettering for a moment?”

  “Sure. I’ve got all the time in the world. Sure you won’t stay for dinner?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. Did Kettering threaten Kramer in any way?”

  “You mean…threaten his life?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, he didn’t. Why?”

  “Do you think…do you think his anger was large enough to last from September to now?”

  “I don’t know. He was pretty damn sore at Kramer. He’d have beat him up sure if Kramer had stepped outside with him.”

  “Was he angry enough to kill Kramer?”

  Fielding reflected upon this for a moment “Kettering,” he said slowly, “was a good hunter because he liked to kill. I don’t hold with that kind of thinking, but that didn’t make him any less a good hunter.” Fielding paused. “Has Sy Kramer been killed?”

  “Yes,” Hawes said.

  “When?”

  “June twenty-sixth.”

  “And you think possibly Kettering waited all this time to get even for an argument that happened in September?”

  “I don’t know. You said Kettering was a hunter. Hunters are patient people, aren’t they?”

  “Kettering was patient, yes. How was Kramer killed?”

  “He was shot from an automobile.”

  “Mmm. Kettering was a damn good shot. I don’t know.”

  “I don’t, either.” Hawes rose. “Thank you for the drink, Mr. Fielding. And thank you for the talk. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “It’s been a pleasure,” Fielding said. “Where are you off to now?”

  “Back to the city,” Hawes said.

  “And then?”

  “And then we’ll talk to the four men who were here with Kramer. It’d save us a little time if you had their addresses.”

  “I’ve got registry cards on all of them,” Fielding said. “It doesn’t take a cop to know which one you’ll look up first.”

  “No?” Hawes said, grinning.

  “No, sir. If I were Phil Kettering, I’d start getting a damn good alibi ready.”

  11.

  SAND’S SPIT WAS A suburb of the city.

  There was a time when the long finger of land served only two interests: that of the potato farmers and that of the East Shore estate owners. The farms covered most of the peninsula, rushing east and west almost to the water’s edge. The estates crowded the choice waterfront sites. The farmers sowed their crops and the estate owners sowed their oats. The farmers were interested in reaping, and the estate owners were interested in sleeping. Day and night, the estates reverberated with the sound of revelry. The current Stem musical star, the tight-lipped star of silent films, producers, directors, artists, tennis players, all were entertained daily on the estates. The stars enjoyed the good clean fun on the estates. The farmers toiled in the potato fields.

  And sometimes, after the sun had dropped its molten fire into the black waters of the ocean, when the potato fields rested black and silent under a pale moon, the farmers would walk down to the beach with blankets. And there they would lie on the sand and look up at the stars.

  And sometimes, after the sun had dropped behind the Australian pines lining the farthermost hundred acres of an estate, after the guests had drunk their cognac and smoked their cigars, the estate owners would walk down to the beach with their guests. And there they would lie on the stars and look down at the sand.

  All this was long, long ago. When the war came and it was no longer an easy thing to get help to run the twenty-five-room houses, when it was no longer an easy thing to get fuel to heat the twenty-five-room houses and the indoor tennis courts, the owners began to sell the estates—and began to discover there were no buyers for them. And shortly after the war, the potato farmers discovered they were not sitting on potato land; they were sitting on gold. An industrious builder named Isadore Morris bought the first two hundred acres of potato land for a song and built a low-cost housing development for returning veterans, naming the development “Morristown.” Isadore Morris started a boom and a way of life. Other builders leaped onto the Morris bandwagon. Land that originally was priced high at two hundred dollars an acre was now going for ten thousand dollars an acre. The builders subdivided the acreage into sixty-by-a-hundred plots, and the exodus from the city to Sand’s Spit was on.

  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 how 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?”