Killing Cousins

by Flora, Fletcher

  “Oh, I know where he is.”

  He looked up from his hands, and again she had that queer impression of sudden sharp straightening of his body, although nothing actually moved except his head. On the contrary, he stopped the one small motion he was making, the one hand dropping the other and lying down quietly beside it in his lap.

  “What’s that? You know where he is?”

  “Yes. He’s in Dallas, Texas. At least he was there yesterday.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know where he went.”

  “I meant I didn’t know where he went immediately after leaving, but now I know he’s in Dallas, or was yesterday, because I received a letter from him in the afternoon mail.”

  “Is that the letter you’re holding?”

  “Yes. I’d just finished reading it when you came. Would you care to see it?”

  “It’s none of my business, really. You needn’t let me see it if you don’t want to, but it would be kind if you would, and maybe it would definitely settle this business.”

  “I want you to read it. You’ll see that he has simply gone away and doesn’t intend to return.”

  He took the letter and read it with an odd feeling of reluctance and shame, as if he were committing in her presence some kind of obscenity. In order to read the typed words, he put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, which he took from the breast pocket of his seersucker coat. He looked, she thought, like a rather seedy high-school teacher who had probably once dreamed of becoming a scholar and moving up into a university, someplace like that, but had now resigned himself to being no more than he was, if not less. At the same time, however, he conveyed an impression of shrewdness that was brought into focus, like the words on the paper, by the glasses and the manner in which he peered through them. After a couple of minutes, he returned the letter to her and the glasses to his pocket.

  “Isn’t it rather unusual to write a letter like this on a typewriter?” he said.

  “Do you think so? Why?”

  “It’s a personal letter. Usually, it seems to me, such letters are written by hand.”

  “That’s so, of course, usually. Howard, however, never wrote anything at all by hand if he could avoid it. His handwriting was simply atrocious, hardly legible, and I think it embarrassed him. He had a kind of obsession or something about it. As you can see by the letter, he never even signed his own name unless it was on some kind of paper that required it.”

  “Yes. I see. Where do you suppose he came upon a typewriter to use in this case? I mean, hotel and motel rooms are not equipped with typewriters, are they? When you come to think of it, a typewriter is not something that’s readily available unless you have one of your own or know someone who will loan you one.”

  “Howard had his own, of course. I told you that he never wrote anything by hand if he could avoid it.”

  “Did he take it with him?”

  “Yes. It was a Royal portable, and he had it when he left. I remember seeing it.”

  “You said he took three bags. You mean he took two bags and the portable typewriter?”

  “No. I don’t think so. I’m certain not, now that I think about it. He took three bags and the portable.”

  “Four pieces of luggage altogether?”

  “Yes. That’s right. Four.”

  “I just wanted it clarified. You neglected to mention this before.”

  “I didn’t think it was particularly important. Is it?”

  “No. It explains how he was able to type the letter, that’s all.” Necessary stood up, started to cover his head with his straw hat and then, evidently remembering where he was, jerked it away and hid it behind his back. “Thank you for helping me, Mrs. Hogan. You’ve been very considerate.”

  “Not at all. I hope everything has been explained satisfactorily.”

  “It seems clear enough. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “You are obligated to make investigations if they are requested, I suppose, however silly. May I offer you something before you go? A drink or something?”

  “No, thank you. I’d better get along.”

  He walked to the door ahead of her and turned there to say goodbye. He was reluctant to leave and would have liked to stay for the drink she had offered him. Although it was against regulations to drink while on duty, he had broken regulations before under lesser temptation. He didn’t really know why he felt compelled to decline and leave. Perhaps it was because he was aware of a total inability to be detached in her presence. Talking to her and listening to her, watching her all the while as she sat primly with her small stern just catching the edge of the sofa, he had felt a strong impulse to take her in his arms and comfort her with kisses. He had not felt like this in the presence of a girl, or a woman, for much longer than he cared to think about, and it disturbed him. It was far too late for such emotion, almost adolescent in its poignancy, and it had been, in truth, always too late for him, even thirty years ago. Now, outside on the lawn, he yielded to another impulse, turning to wave to her as she stood in the doorway to watch him leave. She waved back and smiled, and he went on across the lawn to the drive and his car.

  Driving downtown, he thought that it all seemed obvious, although a bit queer in spots. It was obvious that Mrs. Howard, Senior, was a stupid and probably vindictive bitch who was getting excited about very little, which was what he had guessed in the beginning, and that Mrs. Hogan’s son Howard had simply gathered up all available cash and deserted his wife, which made him in Necessary’s book a damn fool who didn’t know a good thing when he had it. Necessary was vastly relieved that the case could be closed so quietly and quickly—that there was, in fact, no case at all so far as he was concerned in his official position. He hoped, just as soon as he could get Mrs. Howard Hogan, Senior, off his tail, that it would never be necessary to think of her again, although it would be quite a while, he conceded bleakly, before he would forget, case or no case, Mrs. Howard Hogan, Junior.

  THIRTEEN

  It was about five o’clock when the phone rang. Mrs. Tweedy, who was just leaving, answered in the downstairs hall. She called up the stairs to Willie, who was in her room getting ready to go out to the Club to meet Quincy, and Willie took the call on the upstairs extension.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Is this Mrs. Howard Hogan?” a voice asked.

  It was a woman’s voice, but it did not sound like the voice of any of Willies friends or any voice that Willie had ever heard before.

  “Yes,” Willie said, “it is.”

  “This is Gertrude Haversack speaking.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve called to ask you to come and see me.”

  “I think you must have the wrong person. I’m Mrs. Howard Hogan, Junior. Perhaps you want Mrs. Howard Hogan, Senior.”

  “No. Not at all. You’re the person I want, Mrs. Hogan.”

  “Have we met before?”

  “No, we haven’t. You’ve probably seen me around town, but I doubt that you’d remember me.”

  “In that case, why should I come and see you?”

  “I think it’s time we became acquainted.”

  “Do you? That’s very flattering, I’m sure, but I’m not so sure that I agree with you. Is there any particular reason why we should know each other?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’d be interested to know what it is.”

  “Because I’m Howard’s mistress. Or was.”

  It was a sneaky and devastating verbal punch. Not the light jab that old Howard had actually been crawling into bed with someone named Gertrude Haversack, which was in Willie’s opinion a minor aberrance that she could accept with no great sense of shock, but the thundering right cross of the changed tense. What did it mean? Did it mean only that Gertrude Haversack, whoever she was, had been Howard’s mistress but had now ceased to be for any one or more of the various reasons that women routinely cease to be mistresses or wives or whatever they were? Or did it mean, perhaps, that Ger
trude had ceased necessarily to be a mistress because Howard had necessarily ceased to be a lover by reason of being dead and disposed of? But this was not possible. It simply was not possible for anyone except Willie and Quincy to know the truth about Howard. Standing silently with the phone in her hand, thinking with a kind of fierce intensity in the sudden and thunderous roaring of the live wire between her and Gertrude Haversack, Willie needed considerably more than the sporting ten seconds to recover from the blow she had received. Having recovered, however, she began to feel angry at Gertrude Haversack for playing such a damn dirty trick on her, even if inadvertently.

  “Are you there?” Gertrude Haversack said.

  “I am,” Willie said. “I damn surely am.”

  “Do you agree now that you should come and see me?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because I have something to tell you that you will be interested to hear.”

  “I don’t think so. You are certainly a liar with something on your mind, although I can’t imagine what it is, and if you have anything to tell me you had better tell it now, on the telephone, for I’m going to hang up if you don’t.”

  “You better hadn’t.”

  “Tell me whatever it is you have to tell.”

  “Not on the telephone.”

  “Goodbye, then.”

  “You’ll be sorry if you don’t come.”

  “Will I? Why?”

  “Because, if you don’t, I’ll have to go directly to the police.”

  There was that sneaky punch again. Only this time Gertrude Haversack didn’t even bother to set Willie up with a jab first, damn her. She just hauled off and threw the bomb without any preliminary. Again Willie stood clutching the phone while the live wire roared in her ear, and it was a favorable reflection on her toughness that she was able to recover quickly from such an attack for the second time in as many minutes.

  “What in the world do the police have to do with it?” she said.

  “With what?”

  “I’m not sure. Whatever you’re talking about.”

  “You know as well as I what they have to do with it.”

  “I really haven’t the slightest idea what you mean. Are you certain that you do yourself? Could it be that you’re crazy or something?”

  “It could be, but I’m not.”

  “In my opinion you are.”

  “You’ll find out if I am or not when you come and see me.”

  “I’ve already said that I won’t come.”

  “I heard what you said, but I think you will.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “I’m sure that you’re not such a fool as to let me talk to the police without finding out first what I have to tell them.”

  “The truth is, I’m becoming rather curious about you. It might be rather interesting to meet such an accomplished liar.”

  “I’ll be expecting you, then.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not far away. You could be here easily in fifteen minutes, but I’ll give you half an hour.”

  “That’s very considerate of you, but I happen to have a previous engagement and can’t possibly come that soon.”

  “I’d advise you to break your engagement, whatever it is. I have a strong feeling that I should go to the police directly anyhow, and if you’re not here within half an hour I’ll go.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “On West Olive Street. The Cibola Apartments in the 700 block. Apartment 310.”

  “Well, I may come and I may not. I’ll think about it.”

  “Do as you please. As I said, you’ll be sorry if you don’t.”

  “Whether I don’t or do,” Willie said softly, “it may be you who is sorry in the end.”

  She hung up and wondered what to do, but all the time she knew that she was going to see Gertrude Haversack simply because she did not dare to refuse. She couldn’t imagine what was on the woman’s mind, but it was clearly related to Howard, whatever it was, and for a breathless moment or two of terror Willie wondered if she and Quincy could have been observed in the act of disposing of Howard, by Gertrude Haversack herself or someone else who had told her about it, but this seemed so fantastic and remote a possibility that it was surely absurd to become excessively disturbed about it. She must go and find out what this development was all about, of course, for the suspense and uncertainty would be unbearable if she didn’t, but she wished desperately that there was time to talk with Quincy first, and perhaps there was, on the telephone, if she could only catch him at home or at the Club without delay. She dialed his home number, but there was no answer, and then she dialed the number of the telephone in the bar at the Club. The bartender said Quincy wasn’t there, but might be outside, and went to look. After a minute or two he came back and said Quincy wasn’t there at all, inside or outside, and so he hadn’t arrived yet, and there was nothing for Willie to do but go ahead to Gertrude Haversack’s without talking with him.

  She drove in the station wagon to West Olive Street and along the street to the 700 block, and in the middle of the block, standing flush with the sidewalk and rising four stories above it, was the buff brick Cibola building. Parking at the curb about fifty feet beyond the building, she walked back and into a small lobby with a self-service elevator standing idle in its shaft behind closed doors. She entered the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor, and she was, while rising in the shaft, surprisingly detached and oddly curious. At this time, she was more interested in seeing what kind of woman old Howard had been sleeping with, or more exactly what kind of woman had considered sleeping with old Howard a pleasure, than she was in the vastly more serious question of what Gertrude Haversack knew that she thought might concern the police.

  In the third-floor hall, she looked right and left and then walked right, and Apartment 310 was the third door down on the side overlooking the street. She pressed a little button set into the wall beside the door and stood listening to the buzzer inside the apartment. In order to establish a kind of imperious position, which might be a psychological advantage, she kept her finger on the button constantly until the door was opened suddenly by Gertrude Haversack, who was, Willie thought, just about the type you would picture in connection with sleeping with Howard, Willie herself excepted. She was taller than Willie and heavier, although her figure wasn’t bad in an ample sort of way, and she had medium brown hair, braided and wrapped around her head, and a rather long face which, like her figure, wasn’t bad or really good, and it was in fact the kind of face you’d expect to see on a woman who would make a good thing out of understanding another woman’s husband. Willie wasn’t sure, actually, that such a woman could be expected to have a certain kind of face, but if she could be, at any rate, the face would surely be like this one. It was the face of a woman who would try to make adultery seem like spiritual therapy.

  “Are you Gertrude Haversack?” Willie said.

  “That’s right. I recognize you, Mrs. Hogan, even if you don’t me. Please come in.”

  Willie walked past her directly into a small living room, and there on a little table at the end of a sofa was a picture of Howard with his shirt open at the throat and a smile on his fat face that was plainly meant to be virile but only managed on him to look foolish. It was a shock, nevertheless, to see the picture, and Willie turned her back to it, pretending that she hadn’t even seen it, and faced Gertrude Haversack, who had closed the door and come back into the room a couple of steps.

  “Please say whatever you have to say,” Willie said, “for I’m in a hurry.”

  “Well, you may as well sit down and be comfortable,” Gertrude Haversack said.

  “No, thank you. I don’t intend to stay that long.”

  “I’ve just made some tea in the kitchen. Will you have a cup?”

  Willie, who might have been seduced by a Martini, was not even tempted by tea. She shook her head and began to tap the carpet with the toe of one shoe to dem
onstrate her impatience.

  “I don’t care for any tea. I didn’t come here on a social call, as you know. I’ve come only out of curiosity because I’m sure you must be out of your mind.”

  Gertrude Haversack shrugged and sat down in a chair facing Willie and crossed her legs. She took cigarettes and paper matches out of the breast pocket of her blouse and lit one of the cigarettes with elaborate slowness, as if she thought this would irritate Willie, which it did. She blew out a cloud of smoke and waved it away with a languid motion, her hand flapping back and forth on a limp wrist.

  “Suit yourself, of course. I’m prepared to be congenial, but it really makes no difference to me if you prefer it otherwise.”

  “Why did you ask me to come here?”

  “As I told you on the phone, I was Howard’s mistress. ‘Mistress’ is such an absurd word, though, to call oneself. I don’t like it at all, do you? Maybe you’d rather I called myself his girl. I like that much better.”

  “I don’t care in the least which you call yourself, for you are probably a liar in either event.”

  “Why should I lie about it? What’s to be gained?”

  “That’s what I’m waiting to find out.”

  “I was his girl. I’ve been his girl for almost a year, and you may as well accept it.”

  “To tell the truth, I couldn’t care less. It may be true, I admit, for there’s no accounting for the tastes of some men.”

  “You needn’t be insulting. It won’t help you. Do you realize how sick Howard had become of you in the last year or two?”

  “I wasn’t greatly concerned about it.”

  “I guess you weren’t. You were probably too concerned about other men. Howard said you were always getting laid by someone. He said you were no better than a whore.”

  “Is that so? Well, at least I was a better whore than the one he took up with.”