by Rex Burns
“Yes.”
“That’s really awful. She’s a very pretty girl—a good subject. It’s awful that somebody would kill her and then do something like that. The guy who did it must be a maniac.”
“We’ll find out,” said Wager.
But even insanity has its own structure, Wager told himself as one more time he drove through the downtown streets and swung past the chocolate-colored block of the Brown Palace Hotel. The evidence pointed to an acquaintance of the girl—to more than that, to someone who could get within arm’s reach while carrying a butcher knife. To someone who had a key to the conservatory. Maybe to someone who lied about knowing her.
There were constants in all this: a friend, a place, an opportunity, a motive. Perhaps the motive was insane, but it had its own logic. That logic was seen in the mutilation and careful placing of the head and body. And that was linked to another constant: Rebecca herself.
Wager parked a half-block from the domed flash of the conservatory at an angle that let him watch the employee door. Solano’s red Toyota with its white camper shell had already left—probably for the afternoon papers to see if his interview was in it yet. In a little while, a car full of groundskeepers backed out and drove up the short alley past him. Wager waited. He wasn’t hungry, but he wished for the thermos of coffee that he usually propped on the seat beside him during surveillance. Finally, a bit after five, he recognized Mauro’s heavy shape—the last to leave—bend over the latch of the door and then step back to give it a hard shake before turning away. On the map in his mind, Wager drew a little line between the Botanic Gardens and Mauro’s home; he let the utility worker arc out of sight down a narrow street littered with brown leaves shoaling and skittering in the strong wind. Then he started the car and drove parallel to that imaginary line and waited at the next intersection. In two or three minutes, Mauro crossed at the traffic light a block away. Wager coasted slowly to the next intersection to wait again.
Mauro had lied about recognizing the girl; Wager smelled that odor about the man as sharp as cat shit. He’d never really wondered why, but it was a fact; it was easier to know when an ex-con blew smoke than when a lot of straights did. Maybe Wager just spoke the ex-con’s language better. Or maybe the odds favored an ex-con lying to a cop. Either way, he knew Mauro had lied. And he knew Mauro had a key to the conservatory.
The worker didn’t show at the next crossing. Wager turned quickly through the light traffic and down the block. Halfway along the street Mauro had traveled was a neighborhood tavern: Elton’s Place. From its facade, Wager knew the kind of bar it was—small, the owner himself behind the cash register, dried beef strips and pickled pig’s knuckles and boiled eggs waiting, the customers a few regulars who found a home where they could watch television and buy enough beer to keep the place going. He parked and set the rear-view mirror to watch the tavern’s doorway. A half-hour later, Mauro came out; Wager followed the shape in the glass as it walked with that slightly waddling step that some heavy-legged men have. Looping around the block, Wager trailed Mauro the eight more streets to his home, a house with a steep, English-looking roof and a pointed front door. The yard was filled with carefully tended shrubs and clumps of birch and large spruce. Wager let Mauro disappear inside the house and cruised past to fix it in memory; then he looked for a telephone.
The bulldog himself answered. “What are you doing on duty, Wager?”
“I’m not. But there are some things I want to look into, and everybody’s asleep when I’m working.”
Doyle didn’t know whether to be pleased at Wager’s dedication or worried about him being a prima donna. “What things?”
“I need some information on one Dominick G. Mauro. Residence, 1308 Garfield; his place of work is the Botanic Gardens.”
“What’s he done to deserve this honor?”
“He has a jacket.” Which was enough for most cops, Wager included. “And he wasn’t at work during the twenty-four-hour period when Crowell was killed and dumped.”
“Where was he?”
The bulldog sure went to the heart of things. “I don’t know, Captain. That’s what I want to find out. I’m hoping that somebody can talk to his landlord and see if he was home from, say, 9 A.M. to 3 P.M. on October 19th.
“All right.” A pause while the man on the other end wrote down the information needed. “Is he home now? What time’s he go to work?”
“It should be clear any time after eleven in the morning.”
“I’ll send somebody over tomorrow. Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
CHAPTER 12
THOUGH WAGER HAD seen the Jetliner Motel countless times, he’d never been there; it was one of the kind that blended into the tangle of businesses along every highway through Denver. Some twenty blocks west of Stapleton International on Smith Road, it was a convenient taxi ride from the airport and visible but hard to get to from 1-70. Its yellow neon airplane rose in the night sky above lesser marquees and signs beside the bumpy road, and to judge from the neighboring ranks of tractor-trailers, small ill-lit bars, warehouses, and cattle-loading docks, the motel had most of its trade from truckers and visitors to the National Western Stock Show. Wager parked just beyond the A-frame that tried to make the entry look impressive. Through the glass wall at the back of the lobby, he saw a large court of two-story units surrounding a pool. Small wisps of steam rose from the glowing water, but no one was swimming. In the lobby, the ashtrays overflowed onto the orange carpet, and here and there in the short pile, heel marks of old mud aimed at the reception desk. It wasn’t the kind of place Wager associated with either conventions or fashion shows, but a letter board welcomed members of the A.A.A.I. and told them to please register here.
“What’s the A.A.A.I?” Wager asked the clerk.
The slim young man looked as if his feet had been nailed to the floor two days ago. He answered without a smile, “American Association of Artificial Inseminators.”
“They’re having the convention?”
“The regional arm is.”
An arm of the Artificial Inseminators Association? Wager looked to see if the young man was joking, but the gray face was blank.
“Do you want a room?” he asked Wager.
“No. I was told there’s a fashion show here tonight.”
The tired face finally showed a quiver of life. “You’re interested in fashions?”
“Something wrong with that?”
A weary shrug; he saw all kinds on the night shift. “In the Jetliner Lounge. Just around there.”
It was too dark to tell if the lounge was as ill-kept as the lobby. A purple neon tube ran atop the mirror behind the bar and gave a little glow, but most of the light on that side of the room splashed up from the working area beneath the bar. A scattering of orange candle glasses marked tables drifting out to the left; and Wager made out a line of silhouettes sitting on barstools and the pale reflection of clothes and flesh at the dark tables. In the center of the ceiling hung a model 747 with glowing portholes. He groped his way to a vinyl chair that felt sticky and rose no higher than the small of his back.
“Yes, sir?” The waitress wore something like the upper half of a stewardess uniform.
“Is this where they have the fashion show?” He saw no stage, none of the runways or platforms that, from newspaper pictures, he thought fashion shows needed.
“Yes, sir. The girls will be on at seven o’clock. What do you want to drink?”
“Just a draw.”
She faded into the darkness. Slowly, Wager began to see faces and shapes grouped in the glow of candlelight. At a very tiny table against one wall, Jeri Roberts talked to another woman, who also had cropped hair. Her lips moved rapidly and she leaned forward tensely as if the stream of words needed pushing. He would speak with Roberts later; right now, he just wanted to sit and look and feel—to see the place as Rebecca Crowell might have seen it, or as somebody might have seen her in it.
Plastic tags that said
“Hello! I’m——” glinted here and there on men’s coats; the women at those tables were wives. A few talked to each other with wagging hands and nervous laughter; most tried to make their husbands think they weren’t bored—after all, they’d wanted to come along. At other tables, men wearing open shirts, short hair, and cowboy boots looked as if they would feel more at home on the barstools—except that other men like them were already there: truck drivers whose lines booked them overnight at the Jetliner. Here and there, in the darker corners, sat a few men alone like Wager. Like Mauro might have sat. Wager was very interested in them.
His second beer was losing its chill when three slender, overdressed women clustered in the bright hall just outside the doorway. They took a deep breath, then blew in with a graceful sway that, in its own way, was as out of place as the awkward truck drivers hunched over the tiny tables. The three spread through the room to pause like butterflies at each table and to smile and spin around and say something that Wager couldn’t quite hear over the talk and laughter and television noises from the bar. One of the wives at the next table reached to finger the transparent cape of a dress and Wager thought he caught the word “washable.” Then a light swirl of cloth brushed near his arm.
“Hi—this evening we’re showing Ardree Innis’s spring fashions. This number follows the peasant styling so popular this season. It’s cotton plisse accentuated with a fringed sash. The skirt and bodice can be worn together or separately.” The tall girl with short blond hair smiled widely and spun once to make the long dress flare out in a restless shimmer of flowered patterns. Then she stood still for a count of three.
She had very small breasts, he thought. “Yes, ma’am.”
“It costs eighty-nine ninety-five and comes in all sizes. The Ardree Innis store is located at 1601 South Broadway, and their spring fashion preview will be held tomorrow at 2 P.M.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She left a calling card on the edge of the table and spun away. It said “Ardree Innis Exquisite Fashions” and repeated the address. Wager watched the thin ankles twinkle to a halt at the truck drivers’ table, and he wondered how the girl could smile that widely and talk at the same time.
“Boy, howdy!” The skinniest of the truck drivers grinned up at the girl. “I don’t know much about dresses, but you sure are something. How much for you?”
The blonde kept smiling. “Only the dress is for sale.” She quickly floated to the next table.
The truck driver hopped up to call after her, “I’ll buy it! Right now! Take it off!” He sank back, giggling under the laughing thumps of one of his buddies.
Suddenly the waitresses started their rounds and the models were gone.
“Is it all over?” he asked the girl in half a uniform.
“Oh, no. They got two more showings. You want another beer or are you going to make that one last?”
In five minutes they were back, this time wearing light-colored suits or shirts and slacks. They moved directly between tables now, spending time at those with conventioneers or where the men nodded and tried to look serious and act as if they knew what to ask about cut or material. Wager again just said “Yes, ma’am,” and the girls didn’t stay long at his table. When the tall blonde crossed the room, the skinny truck driver stood again. “Hey, girlie, I’ll buy that one, too—right now!”
As they finished their round, each passed Jeri Roberts’s table; there it was all business—a silent pirouette, no smile, an occasional quick question, and an answer just as terse. He waited until the three models left the room, then took his beer to the Roberts table. “Can I sit here?”
She squinted up. “The detective? What’s your name?”
“Wager.”
“Wager. Sit down, Wager.” She made as much room as she could at the small Formica table and introduced him to the other woman, who said, “Oh, I heard about it! It’s one of the worst things I ever heard of in my life!”
Jeri Roberts drank deeply and lit a cigarette; a little blue flame shot up at the cigarette’s end and Wager wondered how much whiskey the woman had had since he saw her this afternoon. “Thanks a hell of a lot, Detective Wager.”
“For what?”
“For siccing that goddamned reporter on me. This business is tough enough without that kind of publicity.”
Wager didn’t think of murder as publicity. “What did Gargan tell you?”
“Yeah. Gargan. That was his name. He said you told him Tommie Lee worked for me and that you gave him the go-ahead to do a feature on her.”
“He was lying and using my name to make you talk to him. Somebody else told him who she worked for, and I don’t have authority to give him a go-ahead on anything.”
She weighed his words very deliberately, and Wager figured she had done a lot of drinking since this afternoon. “Oh.” Then, “I apologize.”
“No offense. Did Miss Crowell do much work in this place?”
“Yes. A lot of the girls don’t like it here, so I always need somebody. Tommie—Rebecca—worked whenever I asked her to.”
“Why don’t they like it?”
Roberts snorted and poked her cigarette at the table of truck drivers. “The wise-asses. This place has more than its share of wise-asses.”
“Do any of these people try to date the girls?”
“Sure. All the time. It’s part of the business. But unless they’re a customer of the agency, it’s a no-no.”
“Crowell never got picked up? Maybe by a heavyset man a little bit taller than me?”
“No. She did not.”
“None of the girls ever get picked up?”
“It happens. Yes, it does happen every now and then that I end up with a girl who tries to use my shows to advertise her own business. They’re the kind that can’t type and can’t model either. But when I find out about it, they’re out on their tail. I’ll be goddamned if I let my company turn into a whorehouse. What they do on their own time is one thing, but my shows are strictly business. Strictly!”
“So Crowell never had a date with anybody she met at a show?”
“I’ve said that. She wasn’t the kind I had to worry about.”
Wager started to ask another question, but the woman held up her hand like a traffic cop. “Here they come. How long did that change take, honey?”
“Twelve minutes,” said the friend.
“Too goddamned long. They lose momentum when they take too long.”
The three wore evening clothes this time, long dresses that either clung smoothly to straight, slender hips or swung out into a hem that looked to Wager like the points of a tablecloth hanging down. The one girl with long hair had piled it into a swirl on top of her head, and the skinny truck driver called out, “Oh, man, look at that one!”
“Cindy’s still too stiff,” said the friend.
“Maybe I should have given her another drink,” said Roberts. “But I’m not sure it would help.”
“Do they drink before a show?” asked Wager.
“I usually give them just one. To relax them.” She showed Wager her taut smile. “Provided they’re of age, of course.”
“Would Miss Crowell drink?”
“Yes.” Her attention was on the girls. “There—that’s a good turn. If only she’d remember to show the clothes instead of herself.” Roberts waited until the girl with long hair glided near the table: “Cindy, dear!”
“Yes, Jeri”
“Take a moment to hold the dress out. Let the customers see the fabric.”
“All right.” She poised at a conventioneers’ table and lifted one side of the dress.
“Did Crowell work on the morning of Tuesday, October 19th?”
Roberts frowned. “Jesus, that was nine days ago. Who can remember? We do a few morning shows—call the secretary tomorrow. She’ll have a record of anything Rebecca was paid for.”
“Are these three girls in the Famous Faces School?”
“Only Cindy.”
“Are they all fu
ll-time models?”
“Julie is.” Roberts nodded toward the blonde. “And she works her tail off at it. She has herself and a daughter to support. Ann’s a part-timer—she’s replacing Tommie, uh, Rebecca. Cindy—well—when she gets better, I’ll use her on some better shows.”
“Did any of them work with Crowell?”
“Julie and Cindy.”
“Can I talk with them after the show?”
“I’ll ask.”
He finished his beer and waited; the three wafted away as rapidly as they arrived. Roberts and her friend seemed to be in no hurry.
“Are they all through now?”
“They’re changing. They’ll be here to pick up their checks. In this business, you don’t write the checks until after a show. Too many part-timers fall through at the last minute.”
“But you pay them promptly, Jeri,” said the friend. “That’s more than a lot of others do.”
“Right. I pay them promptly.”
Five minutes later, the blonde strode up. From the change of clothes and manner, Wager almost didn’t recognize her. “Did it go all right?” she asked.
“Very good, Julie, dear, except you took too long between the second and third showings. Honey, twelve minutes is simply too long. You lose your audience.”
“Don’t blame me. Ann and I were ready—it was Cindy’s hair.”
“I understand, honey, and I’ll ask her again to cut it.” She signed a check. “Do you have time to talk to Detective Wager, here? He’d like to ask you some questions about poor Tommie.”
The blonde studied him a long moment. “My daughter’s waiting for me in the lobby. Can we talk there?”
“Sure.”
“We’ll have one more drink,” said Roberts. “I’ll ask Cindy to wait with us.”
He followed the blonde into the hard glare of the lobby and away from the ears of the desk clerk, who stood wearily in the same spot. Wager saw that the model wasn’t as young as she seemed in the dim light; the lines in her neck and beside her mouth said she was in her late twenties or early thirties. Still, she was one very good-looking woman, and those lines made her more interesting than a smooth, younger face. If Wager let himself, or had the time, he could wish she were half a foot shorter.