“Got it, Lieutenant,” Casey muttered.
“This gas station the brother worked at—isn’t that owned and run by Synanon?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Which means the same old problem, I suppose. You got a minimum of information from the other guys who worked there.”
“I don’t know,” Casey said, “they seemed cooperative enough. But nobody there seemed to know the brother too well. All they could come up with was that from Thursday the eighth he hasn’t showed up for work. The residence said the same thing. He split Wednesday evening the seventh sometime. In fact, he just missed his uncle by a couple of hours or so, they said.”
“We’re checking out all the tourist spots, Lieutenant,” Krug said. “Nothing yet on this uncle. All we got is a halfway description of him and a fifty-fifty chance his name is Berry, too. We’ll keep checking.” Then he reported that their teletype query to Missouri had elicited nothing in the way of useful information—whereabouts of Delbert Berry unknown to anyone there, no relatives left in the area, sorry they couldn’t help.
“How about those postcards from the brother you found in her room?” Timms asked. “Any chance, you think, he might’ve sent word to her where he is?”
“Could be, there’s no phone where she lived.” Krug cleared his throat noisily. “On the other hand, it’s been two weeks since he disappeared. And if he reads the papers, there’s no chance now.”
“Isn’t it possible the uncle might have spotted a postcard?” Casey asked. “All he had to do was look on that table by the door. The mail’s just dumped there,” he explained to the Lieutenant. “He and her brother might have made contact.”
“In that case,” Timms said, “why hasn’t he come forward? All right, sure the brother dropped out of Synanon—”
“A junkie,” Krug reminded him. “Why does he drop out except he’s hitting the stuff again?”
“Which means the uncle’s protecting him if he’s found him—or maybe he’s already left town.” Squat and bald and somber-faced, Timms stared out the window, squinting in the glare. “Well, there’s nothing to do but go back over what you’ve got so far. Find out from the landlord who she hung out with. Hit Synanon again, and that guy—what’s his—?”
“Farr,” Krug filled in. “The way I see it, he’s our best bet. I’d like to hit his neighbors, the whole bit.”
“Okay, but take it easy, Al,” Timms warned. “There’s no case against the guy, and he’s a lawyer, don’t forget. We don’t want any complaints about harassment.”
“Harassment,” Krug griped as they walked out into the dry heat, heading for the light-colored car which had been assigned to them. “You ask a guy like Farr for the time of day twice, he’s going to say you’re harassing him, you know that. Well, isn’t he? I’ll drive today,” he added nastily. “I’d like to stay alive long enough to draw my goddam pension.”
Exercising restraint, groaning silently at the stale baking-hot air inside the car, Casey climbed in beside his partner and rolled down all the windows.
“First, breakfast,” Krug announced as he turned out onto Main. “I got a wife can’t get up this morning she’s so tired after carving ten bucks’ worth of roast last night. ‘Have some cornflakes,’ she says, and pulls the covers over her head. Cornflakes! I should’ve walked out on her ten years ago when that old bat mother of hers first moved out here.”
“Won’t we miss Farr,” Casey suggested delicately, “if we wait too long?”
“So we miss him, we can catch him later.”
Which, Casey suspected, was the idea—a suspicion which was confirmed forty-five minutes later when Farr didn’t answer his door, and Krug knocked on the nearest neighbor’s. There was no answer, so he tried the door on the other side of Farr’s.
“Just a minute,” a fluting voice called from inside. Then the door opened, letting out a smell of coffee and strong scent. A curly-haired blonde in an Arabic gown—male? female? Casey couldn’t decide—blinked out at them nearsightedly. “Good heavens, what’s this, a raid?”
“We’re looking for Mr. Farr,” Krug said after he had identified them properly. “David J. Farr. You happen to know him?”
“Know of him would be closer. He’s next door,” and a muscular, hairy, obviously masculine arm pointed the way. “Right over there.”
As the man started to close the door, Krug lifted his arm, and seeming unconscious of what he was doing, braced his hand casually on the door panel—an updated version, Casey realized, of the old salesman’s foot-in-the-door technique. “Looks like we must’ve missed him this morning,” he was saying amiably. “Thought maybe you could answer a couple questions. Just little things. That way we won’t have to come back.”
“Well, I don’t know—”
“For instance, this girl.” Krug whipped the photo out of his right-hand pocket. “You ever see her around here?”
Curly hesitated, but only for an instant. Then, succumbing, he peered myopically at the photo. “Oh, her, sure.” He shrugged. “One of his weekend tricks. What happen, she get busted?”
“Not exactly. So you think you’ve seen her around here a lot, is that it?”
“I don’t know about a lot, but she was certainly here a couple weekends ago. Not that I’m a snoop,” he added with a glint of malice, “but who could’ve missed her? She was in and out of there like a jack-in-the-box. I mean, every time I opened this door, there she was, either coming”—he giggled—“or going.”
A couple weekends, Krug started to repeat when someone inside—a deep man’s voice—called, “San, who the hell are you talking to?”
“The police, sweetie,” San called back over his shoulder. “Thrillies, yes?”
“The what? Listen, if this is a gag—” They heard feet thumping, and from behind San a tallish gray-haired man stared out at them—one furious look, then he disappeared again.
San giggled. “Don’t mind him, he’s a bear in the morning. Me, I wake up every day simply singing! Now what was that—?”
“Saturday and Sunday—the eleventh and twelfth?” Krug asked. “Both days she was here?”
“Weekend before last—the whole weekend, that’s right. Imagine, she must’ve died of boredom with that stuffed shirt. And such a darling girl, too. Not that he isn’t attractive, mind you. But so square! I mean, you know the type. Straight Arrow Sportsman all the way. Tennis and golf. Sailing and skiing. Karate lessons—the whole hairy ape bit.”
“Sounds like you might be pretty friendly with him,” Casey suggested mildly, “to know all that.”
“I’m not, but Larry is. He of the bearish morning mood.”
“Oh, for Christ sake,” they heard Larry groan inside.
“See what I mean?” San giggled again. “Now he’ll probably beat me, the brute.”
“San, will you shut up and close that door?”
San wriggled his fingers. “Sorry. Can’t help you any more. But look, you could phone. I’m in the book. Sanford Blair. You got that? B-l-a-i-r.” Then he pushed the door shut.
“Well, they told me at the Academy that police work would be a broadening experience,” Casey commented as they stepped back into the elevator again. “And just think, I doubted it. So tell me, partner, what happens when Farr starts screaming harassment?”
“What happens is he finds out what the word really means.” Then Krug punched their floor button savagely.
THIRTEEN
“A Mr. Miles calling, Mr. Farr,” the secretary’s voice said gently on the intercom. “I know you didn’t want to be interrupted, but he says it’s important. Otherwise I wouldn’t disturb you—”
Yeah, he thought, like Mama Portnoy you wouldn’t. Disturb and Fuss are your middle names. But feeling guilty as usual for the irritation she set up in him, he said, “All right,” pleasantly, “but hold him for a minute. And see if you can find out if there’s another part of this Jasprey file floating around somewhere. On somebody’s desk or something. I’m missing
a whole section bearing on the SEC hearings.”
“I’ll look, Mr. Farr. You want to talk to Mr. Miles while I do?”
“I suppose so. All right. Which line is he on?”
“Three, Mr. Farr.”
Who in hell can Miles be, he wondered as he punched the third button on the base of his extension phone. Something important. But they all said that. “David Farr speaking, Mr. Miles. What can I do for you?”
“Oh, hi, Dave. Sorry to bother you at the office like this—”
The voice seemed familiar, but only vaguely. Miles, he thought, trying to make a connection as he said it was no bother at all. Then he realized it must be Larry Miles, who lived in the apartment next door to his. A pleasant sort of guy, he had thought at first. They had gone sailing several times until Farr had discovered Miles was a homosexual.
“Listen, Dave,” he was saying, “I don’t know whether you care or not, but I thought you’d want to know. The cops were just here asking about that chick.”
Something in his chest seemed to expand painfully, suffocating him for an instant. Farr swallowed, caught his breath, then asked calmly, “What chick?”
Larry laughed. “Come on, buddy, don’t play it that cool. She was—like they say—very much in evidence the other weekend.”
Running in and out, feeding coins to the goddam parking meter. Farr’s eyes stung. For one terrible second a sob, a gasp, some awful sound, ballooned in his throat, and he choked it down. With a pretense of friendliness, he said, “By cops, you mean uniformed members of our local constabulary, I suppose.”
“No, detectives. Or I guess they were. Plainclothes, anyway.”
“I see.” His mind racing like a mouse in a maze, Farr hesitated. “Wonder what it’s all about. Did they mention any reason?”
“No. All I can figure is, they were checking to see if she was here. But they had a picture of her,” he added. “Doesn’t that mean something serious?”
“Hell, I don’t know what it means!”
“Maybe she’s turned up missing, and they think you’ve still got her chained to that workbench, hunh?” Miles laughed, then stopped abruptly—as if aware of the chilling impulse from Farr’s end. “Well, listen, I just thought you’d want to know—”
“Yes, thanks, Larry. I appreciate your calling.”
“Sure thing.” There was an awkward silence. “Maybe we’ll go sailing again one of these days, how about it?”
“I’d like that,” Farr lied.
“Okay, any time.” Then Miles muttered something, and hung up.
His hand was stiff and wet from clutching the receiver. Farr slowly replaced it on the cradle, flexing his aching fingers. Those same two, he thought. Has to be. Krug and whatever the other one’s name was. Detectives. Oh, Jesus Christ, now what do they want?
Starting as the door of his office clicked open, he stared blankly at the secretary peeping in at him. “What is it now?”
“Mr. Drogey’s got those Jasprey papers. He says he’ll bring them in to you in about ten minutes.”
“All right. Thanks, Angie.”
“You want some coffee, Mr. Farr? You look kind of—”
“No,” he said violently, “I do not want coffee, I want those papers, and then I want absolutely no interruptions—” He was still talking as the door closed, and the sudden silence seemed terrible to him, not privacy any longer, but isolation. He pressed the talk key on his intercom. “Look, I’m sorry I yelled.” But there wasn’t any answer. She was away from her desk. Or sulking, he thought. But that was unfair, she never sulked. “Oh, Christ,” he whispered in the padded quiet. And blindly he bent over the Jasprey file, waiting till he could begin to think again.
Half an hour later Krug called him, and in a calm, almost avuncular tone, informed him they had discovered he had spent a weekend with the dead girl.
“Well, what of it?” Farr said. “Isn’t it perfectly understandable I wouldn’t want to be involved in—what happened?”
Maybe, Krug said, maybe not. Then he asked Farr where he took karate lessons, if he owned a boat, and where it was docked. Nothing further was said about Holly.
“I suppose you realize,” Farr said when he had answered the questions, “you’re cutting it pretty close going around talking to my neighbors?”
“Well, we missed you this morning—”
“Not by accident, I’m sure. You’re out of line, Sergeant, and you know it. Or haven’t you heard of harassment? An unethical practice for a law officer—even in Santa Monica, I’m sure.”
“Well, I’m sorry you feel you’re being harassed, Mr. Farr. No offense meant, we’re just trying to do our jobs.”
“Then find out who took her from the motel,” he shouted, “and quit hounding me!”
“We checked it out, Mr. Farr,” Krug said mildly. “But that was a week ago, you know. Eight days, to be exact. Who was there or wasn’t that night don’t really matter much—unless it’s the same one that killed her.”
“He is, I tell you. He tried to kill her once—”
“And this time he got her, yeah, I remember that story. I also remember you saying you didn’t believe it, Mr. Farr.”
“If I had, do you think I would have left her there alone?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Farr. See, some people call a policeman when they hear stories like that.”
“Oh, stuff it, Sergeant. You know as well as I do there’s no police protection when someone like Holly gets threatened. You’d have written her off as a kook—”
“Like you did, yeah.” Krug hesitated, breathing noisily. “Well, maybe so. Anyhow, it don’t make a hell of a lot of difference, does it?” Then he thanked Farr for his cooperation and hung up.
“Guess the magic word and you win a free cup of coffee,” he said as he slid onto the counter stool beside Casey’s. “I’ll give you a clue—it begins with H.”
“Horse,” said Casey, watching a waitress cutting pie. “House. Hereafter.”
“You lose, genius. Is that stuff in the cream pitcher real you think?”
“ ‘A dairy-type food rich in vitamins,’ it says on the menu.”
“Rich in crap. Ten years ago they’d of closed up a place serving crap like that. Hand me the sugar.” Krug stirred a spoonful into his cup, staring glumly across the counter at the freshly filled glassed-in display of pies and cakes. “He’s got a boat at the marina. A sail job. It’s out of our territory, but I’ll call Pete Springer. He’s honcho in that division. Nine chances out of ten we can do our own snooping.” He glanced at Casey. “You got any objections?”
“Not if you don’t.” But Farr said she was afraid of water, he almost added, and stopped himself. What Farr said didn’t matter any longer. “Where to first—the marina?” Casey asked.
“No, the karate joint. It’s here in town. Kenji’s—you ever hear of it?”
Casey shook his head.
“He goes there twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays from eight to ten.” Krug grunted. “Brassy bastard. Said he lost his keys there Tuesday night, would we be sure and ask Kenji if he found ’em.”
Enjoying the idea of Farr’s brass, Casey grinned. He’ll need it, he thought. With Krug hammering him, innocent or guilty, Farr’s going to need all the brass he can find.
FOURTEEN
“‘Predecessor company a proprietorship,’ ” he kept reading over and over again, trying to steer his thoughts. But his mind was like a vehicle skidding over ice patches. And on either side of the concrete language of his profession lay the dark unseen country of his fears—as familiar to him as a recurring nightmare.
He had always been afraid, Farr realized—of his grandmother, his parents, his schoolmates, his teachers—a kind of seminal cowardice which was not physical, but rather a bone-deep doubt of his own worth. Once he had believed the trouble had its source in some peasant heritage from the Old Country, but he had long since given up that idea. For, as an adult, he had discovered others like himself, a few intuited social
ly, the rest read about in volumes of psychiatric case histories. And instead of the backgrounds he had expected—poverty, struggle, some sort of hardship—what they shared, he had found, was an infinitely more subtle sort of kinship: that anxiety to please and achieve which is the legacy of the emotionally brutalized. All had in common childhoods dominated by anxious or fearful or neurotic parents.
So much, he had thought, for parlor- and self-analysis. But even so, feeling armed with this insight, Farr had believed himself freed from his cowardice.
But it didn’t work that way, he had discovered. For, like a disease kept at bay with drugs, his weakness still lived in him despite his wisdom, appearing now and then in unrecognizable forms which he was almost always able to rationalize. Holly, he knew now, was the latest example.
Listening to the steady flutter of the pulse in his ears, Farr closed his eyes, morbidly summoning the flickering images which he had willfully censored until this moment. But all he could see now was that drowned face locked forever in the loneliness of death.
“To sleep,” an eerie whisper intruded on his thoughts, “perchance to dream—”
Farr’s eyes snapped open, and for one heart-stopping second, a breath of eternity seemed to chill him. Then he saw that his door stood slightly ajar. Thank God, it couldn’t be Scobie. Concealing his fury, he smiled as Drogey peered in. “It will be noted,” Farr exaggerated a Cambridge drawl, “that the quaint Eastern custom of knocking may never be experienced on the West Coast.”
“Knocking. Listen to him! Don’t you know that ain’t neighborly?” His chubby joker’s face flushed with delight at catching Farr off guard, Drogey tossed a sheaf of papers on the desk. “Out here we’ve got this open-door policy, man. Catnappers do so at their own risk.”
“I was concentrating.”
“Hoho.” Rivals by nature as well as circumstance, they grinned insincerely. “That’s the Jasprey stuff,” Drogey said. “Ask and ye shall receive.”
“Knock and it shall be opened. That’s a request, by the way. And thanks—for everything.”
The Complete Krug & Kellog Page 7