Susannah Screaming (The Krug & Kellog Thriller Series Book 2)

by Carolyn Weston

  Except for the occupant of 1004, a stockbroker who was gone by six every morning to catch the opening of the New York Exchange—seven o’clock on the West Coast because of the time differential—they covered the other tenants on the tenth floor. Then they went on to Mrs. Hale, who was still shaking, still almost incoherent, but positive all the same that it was barely light when she had heard the screaming. After leaving the Hale apartment on the first floor, they rode the elevator back up to the tenth. A patrolman guarded the door of 1005; inside they could hear the voices of the technicians. As the cop opened the door for them, they heard the telephone. Krug was across the room in two long strides, grabbing it on the third ring.

  “Guess who,” he said as he hung up. “I told Timms we should nail that guy. You”—he pointed to a fresh-faced rookie patrolman standing just inside the door—“get over to the Pelican Motel and baby-sit with a guy named Rees—Paul Joseph Rees—till we get there.”

  “Yes, sir.” The rookie hesitated. “But what’ll I tell him, Sergeant?”

  Krug groaned. “For Chrissake, don’t they teach you guys anything at the Academy anymore? Tell him any damn thing you want, just keep him there. Now get moving!”

  The rookie disappeared.

  “You guys on round-the-clock duty too, I see,” McGregor, the senior laboratory technician, commented bitterly. “You know it was almost midnight by the time we finished with that Mercedes last night?”

  “Tough luck, Mac.” Krug sucked his teeth, surveying the small pop-style living room furnished in molded plastic and bean-bag chairs in op-art colors. White shutters closed off all but one of the south-facing windows—a casement which stood wide open. “That the window she went out of?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “No screen,” Casey commented when McGregor opened the shutters, revealing a wide stationary pane flanked by tall casements on either side. “The other window has one, I see.”

  “Somebody unhooked it and took it down,” McGregor said. “Watch that shoe.” They carefully stepped around the white sandal lying on the floor near the window. “Figure she lost it going out. They usually take their shoes off for some reason, but it don’t look like this one bothered.”

  “Any sign it could’ve been an accident?” Krug inquired. “Or maybe she had help?”

  The lab man shrugged. “We got a couple marks here—” He pointed with his pencil to two small gouges in the wall below the window embrasure. “Could be a heel did those. Could be furniture, too. Or somebody careless with a vacuum cleaner. If somebody pushed her, you got trouble, Al.”

  “Convince me.”

  “Well, for starters, why no hand marks around the window? Gouges in the carpet? Anybody fighting for their life, stands to reason they’ll be stomping and clawing every which way. But there isn’t a sign of a struggle.”

  “Okay, where’s this window screen?”

  “Behind the door in the bedroom.” McGregor grinned. “And there goes your accident theory.”

  “So maybe a window washer forgot it. Make a note to ask the manager,” Krug instructed Casey. “While we’re at it, we better find out whether she was late on her rent, any money problems he might know about.”

  Casey was still scribbling in his notebook when the lieutenant arrived. In his usual fashion on a new case, Timms walked around with his hands in his pockets while Krug filled him in. “Coincidence,” he kept muttering. “The sudden death of a witness in a homicide case. Jesus,” he exploded, “even if it is suicide, we’ll have to prove it! And if it’s accident, our necks are really in a sling. No coroner’s inquest is going to sit still for anything but concrete proof there’s no connection when they hear she’s on record in that Barrett mess.”

  Glum-faced, he turned to the other detectives who had arrived with him. “Everyone in the building must be questioned,” he instructed, “help as well as tenants. Find out when trash was collected, milk was delivered. Find out when the Times deliveryman usually gets here in the morning. With the tenants, find out who was out and how late. Find out if anybody saw her in the halls or the elevator—

  “You know the drill,” he added impatiently. “What we’re looking for is anything and everything right now. Hopefully somebody who saw her coming home. Somebody who can fix time as near exact as possible. And I want every detail called in to me the minute you get anything. We’ll keep a running collation of what everybody comes up with. Suicide or no, we’ve got to hit this like a ton of bricks.”

  “Ton of shit, he means,” Krug muttered to Casey as the others dispersed. “One ripe possible we got, you want to bet we leave him out there hanging on the tree?”

  “Nobody’s leaving anything hanging,” Timms snapped. “Smitty’s doing a fast check of the Pelican Motel right now, and as soon as he knows anything, we’ll hear.” He disappeared into the bedroom.

  After an instant’s hesitation, Krug followed with Casey at his heels. Silently, Timms pointed out the wrinkled depression in the fake-fur spread on the bed. Two pillows were propped against the wall at the head, rumpled from the weight of someone leaning against them.

  “Cigar smoker flopped there,” McGregor, the lab man, reported. “Got three butts from the ashtray on the nightstand. We’ll vacuum for hair samples on the pillows, anything we can find in that fake fur. We’ve already started on the latents. I’ll get the photographing done before we start moving stuff.” He grinned at Krug. “Little cigars, Al. Like you smoke. You sure you haven’t been making time on the sly?”

  “Yeah, in my dreams I’m a big lover. Speaking of that,” Krug added, “I’ll try offering a smoke to Rees when we see him. Be interesting to know when he left here last night.”

  “You didn’t tell me he admitted he was here,” Timms said.

  “He didn’t. But I’ll lay you even money we’ll find his prints all over this place.”

  One look at him and they knew the rookie must have spilled the beans. Appearing sick and shaky, shrunken somehow, he sat in an armchair in the corner of the motel room, his shirt and trousers wrinkled, obviously thrown on, his hair uncombed.

  He had barely managed to catch him, the rookie had reported outside when Casey and Krug arrived at the motel; Rees was in his Volkswagen, ready to drive off, and only the threat of arrest had stopped him.

  “Skipping,” Krug had said.

  “No, sir, I don’t think so. He kept yelling about an accident—”

  “You tell him she’s dead?”

  Red-faced, the rookie had stared at Krug mutely.

  “Okay, catch up with your partner, we’ll take over here.”

  The motel room smelled of smoke and vomit. Someone had pulled up the counterpane without making the bed, Casey noticed.

  “Hear you had company last night,” Krug was saying. “According to the people on either side of you here, it was a woman. You want to tell us who she was?”

  “You already know,” Rees said dully.

  “Yeah, I guess we do, but we’d like you to tell us.”

  “Susannah Roche.”

  “Uh-hunh. So she spent the night here?”

  “A few hours, yes.”

  “Yeah, we heard about those few hours. Okay, then what? You took her home, I guess.”

  “No, I was asleep when she—she—” A spasm distorted his face suddenly, and he masked it with his hands. “Oh, Jesus,” they heard him whisper, “what in God’s name happened?”

  They took him to the station for a brief questioning, then left him alone in the interrogation room and trudged upstairs to the Detective Bureau. Lieutenant Timms was back also, but on the phone when they walked in, so Casey made a fast trip down the stairs again to the coffee-vending machine.

  “This’s got sugar in it,” Timms complained after the first sip. “Yours, Al.” They switched cups. “All right, what’d you get out of Rees so far?”

  “Mostly a big act how shocked he is.” Krug gulped his coffee, shuddering. “Christ, what do they make this stuff out of, ground-up t
ennis shoes? They had a dinner date, he claims, and went on to some party. We’ll check it out later. Then they came back to his motel and balled for a while. No reason he knows of for her to dive out the window.”

  “You didn’t give him any hints we’re doing a full-scale investigation?” Timms smiled at Krug’s expression. “All right, Al, just checking. Even an old dog can miss a trick now and then. He give you any indication he might’ve known her before?”

  “Only since yesterday.” Krug grunted. “Same old crap about it’s an ill wind, I guess.”

  “Yeah, a fast worker, this guy. All right, what about times?”

  “Well, he’s either fuzzy or faking on that one. Have to dig some more, I guess. Guy in the room next to Rees’s heard ’em roll in about two, but that’s all he could tell us. Rees claims he was asleep when she left.”

  “Some lover,” Timms snorted. “My day, it was the men who put their pants back on and did the disappearing act. You hit him at all on the parole business?”

  “Not yet. Figured we’d save that for later.”

  “Good. I’ll call San Francisco now. With any luck, he’s a violator, which means we can keep him on ice till we make some connections.”

  While Timms was on the phone, Casey made another fast trip downstairs with the information Rees had given them about the clothing Susannah Roche had been wearing last evening.

  “A sleeveless dress, a groovy print,” the morgue attendant repeated after him. “Check, we got it. Heeled sandals, white. We got one. The other’s probably still at the scene. Same with the black hat.” He grinned at Casey, whose weak stomach was well known. “Want to see the body? No? Sure? It’s a nice one—but kind of accordion-pleated.” He laughed as Casey gulped. “Don’t puke on the help, it’s bad for interdepartmental relations. You want time of death, I suppose, right to the minute. Well, stick around. So far all we’ve got is prints, measurements, the usual. Lab’s got everything. With any luck you’ll have a make by this afternoon.”

  “No problem there—we’re pretty sure who she is. All we need is a formal identification.”

  “Well, bring a bucket with whoever’s elected, because there’s nothing left of her head but the stalk. And the—Hey, where you going?” he called after Casey. “Listen, I haven’t even started on the good part yet…”

  “His PO in San Francisco is a guy named Stevens,” Lieutenant Timms reported. “Jake Stevens. According to him, Rees is clean so far. Seems he requested a transfer to LA Parole Authority a month ago, and the clearance came through Monday, May twenty-ninth. Rees supposedly left the San Francisco area the same day, driving. He’s due to report to his new PO down here tomorrow.”

  “It’s a one-day trip from Frisco,” Krug said. “So what took him so long? He told us he only got here Friday. That’s four days to drive less than five hundred miles.”

  “Well, maybe he stopped along the way, Al. Check it out, anyway. You clear the clothing list yet?” he asked Casey.

  “Yes, sir. Couple items missing but they’re probably at the scene.”

  “Mac’ll have it all listed,” Krug predicted. “Down to the last piece of fuzz on the carpet. This guy Stevens give with any dope about lover boy’s felony rap?”

  Timms nodded. “Sounds like a bad break to me. But you never know. Could be a good lawyer instead of extenuating circumstances.” He leaned back in his swivel chair, a storyteller now. “Seems a couple years ago, Rees let his wife out of the car—to mail a letter or something—and when she crossed the street some nut ran the signal and knocked her down with his pickup truck. On top of that, the guy tried to run. But a witness chased him in his own car and cut him off. Okay! So the wife is DOA by the time the ambulance gets there. And the hit-and-runner’s got a felony tag, of course. But by the time he gets to court, he’s got a blackout story worked up, and some lawyer like Belli to tell it for him. You know the result—haven’t you seen it enough? The guy gets off with a slap on the wrist and a nice little suspension—”

  “And Rees goes ape?”

  “You guessed it, Al. According to Stevens, he attacked the ex-defendant outside the courtroom. Knocked him clear down a flight of stairs. Marble ones. Result, a broken neck, the guy’s dead as a mackerel.”

  “Tough luck,” Krug said grudgingly. “But it still makes him a rough customer, a guy who blows his stack like that.”

  “I agree, Al. So the question now is, Could he do it again? The only way we’ll find out is to push him till he cracks.”

  FIFTEEN

  They kept as king the same questions, reworded, rephrased, working patiently as weavers across the pattern of his evening with Susannah. Time seemed to obsess them—When had he picked her up at her apartment? Exactly what time had they walked out the door? How long had they spent dining at the Ultimate Perception? What time had they arrived at the beach-house party? When had they left? What was the last time Rees had looked at his watch?—on and on. “I keep telling you,” he said exhaustedly, “I can’t say exactly. We weren’t on any kind of schedule.”

  “Get as near as you can.”

  “But why does it matter?” Rees asked the young detective, but.

  It was Krug who answered. “Just take our word, it does.”

  Hoisting a haunch onto the corner of the table nearest Rees, Krug fished in a breast pocket, producing a thin, narrow carton and opening the flap. “Smoke?” he offered.

  “No, thanks, I don’t use cigars.”

  “Un-hunh.” Krug glanced at his partner. “You want to part with one of your gaspers, Casey?”

  “Sure, why not?” He offered a pack of Carltons, and Rees took one gratefully.

  Krug lit it and his own small cigar with a kitchen match he snapped alight with his thumbnail. “Okay,” he said, puffing, “it’s about four, you think, maybe four-thirty this morning when you go to sleep, right? And she’s tucked in there with you, no worries about getting home. So then what?”

  “I don’t know,” Rees said miserably. “She seemed so happy. I can’t believe anything was preying on her mind. It can’t be suicide! She wasn’t—”

  “Mr. Rees,” Casey stopped him. “She was an actress. And you said yourself you hardly knew her.”

  “But she wasn’t that sort of—”

  “Okay, okay,” Krug interrupted, “let’s go on.” He blew a plume of smoke just over Rees’s head. “She a good lay?” he asked softly. “Kicky, maybe? Little whory?”

  “Go to hell!”

  “Ah come on, fella, you only knew her the one day. Isn’t as if she was your steady.” Krug hitched himself closer. “So you ball maybe an hour at your place, right? Then you catch your breath and try some new tricks at her place—” Rees kept shaking his head, but Krug went bulldozing on: “How many times did you do it? Two? Three? Don’t just sit there wagging your head, lover boy. Tell us what happened.”

  “I’m trying to,” Rees said hoarsely, suppressing his rage. “I have told you.” He blinked at Krug dizzily, seeing him double for an instant. “Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to get at with all this. I told you I was asleep when she left, so I don’t know what happened.” He hesitated, but neither detective spoke. “You’re right, I suppose,” he went on quietly. “I didn’t know her at all. But I can’t believe I couldn’t have sensed it if she was troubled. Sensed something, anyway.” His voice cracked and he swallowed a lump. “We’d had a lot to drink. And she couldn’t see very well. She could’ve opened the window and—and lost her balance—” But there was no response, and helpless, baffled, he gave up.

  Krug kept puffing, staring impassively at some point just behind Rees. His partner seemed lost in thought also, and the silence in the ugly, almost bare room expanded. Then abruptly Casey said, “Mr. Rees, we’ve been wondering why you didn’t level with us yesterday.” His glance was mild, but Rees was not fooled. He realized now why they were questioning him like a criminal. “Maybe you didn’t realize we’d check up on you? It’s standard procedure.”

 
“Pretty low standards,” Rees said bitterly. “Wouldn’t a phone call have been easier than all that hocus-pocus with my luggage?”

  Krug leaned toward him, puffing smoke in his face. “What hocus-pocus you talking about?”

  “Slitting linings, messing everything around. For God’s sake, even my shaving kit—!”

  “Wait a minute,” Krug stopped him. “You saying your room was searched?”

  Rees ground his teeth. “Don’t worry, Sergeant, I’m not silly enough to think it would do any good to complain. I know my limitations as a parolee. Keep my nose clean and my mouth shut. All the privileges are on your side now.”

  “Well, there’s a poser,” Lieutenant Timms said later when they reported upstairs. “You checked, of course.”

  “Damn right we checked,” Krug said furiously. “Hustled him back to the Pelican, and sure enough—” He blew out his breath. “So what’s it mean? All it takes is a razor blade. Sly bastard could’ve done it himself.”

  “Possible, I suppose. So the next question is why.” Timms chewed his lower lip. “You trying for any prints?”

  “Yeah, we brought him and the stuff back here. Two suitcases and a shaving rig. Lab’s got it now.” Then he glared at Casey. “Okay, speak your piece and get it over with. This guy’s still harping about protection.”

  “For Rees you mean?”

  Casey nodded. “Seems like negligence on our part if we don’t at least consider it, Lieutenant. Because if someone did search his luggage—”

  “When did he say he noticed it first?”

  “Yesterday, in the afternoon.”

  “Could be coincidence—he had a thief in there.” Timms steepled his fingers, leaning his chin on the peak the tips made. “Check the manager at the Pelican. Chances are if they had a sneak around there, he’d hit more than one room.”

  “That fella’s really got a complex,” the motel manager said irritably. “Not enough he bothers me with it, now he’s got to call cops. Told him yesterday I’d keep that wad of money in the safe here for him. Look at that—” He pointed toward the rear of the small office and a safe like an old-fashioned blued-steel stove. “Couldn’t want better protection. But no, he’s got to carry it with him, flash the roll around. I tell you, some fellas just don’t have half sense, picking up women and carrying on the way they do. I try to protect my guests, but you can’t protect a man that won’t have it.” He paused, squinting, apparently never in need of breath. “Say, one of my regulars—he stops here a couple times every month—had the unit next to Rees. Anyway, he told me you was asking about him earlier. Some woman he had in there with him last night. Must be the same one messed up the mirror. Maid was in here bellyaching about it before I even got a chance to eat my breakfast. They like to get in the units fast—you know how they are. Anybody goes out early for breakfast or something, they’re in there like a shot. That way the units don’t stack up on ’em around checkout time later. Anyhow! She comes in crying about this lipstick all over the mirror in Number Eleven. That’s Rees’s unit. Had to use kerosene to get it off. ‘You scare me.’ Can y’imagine the kind of woman writes that all over a man’s mirror? ‘You scare me.’ ”He chuckled breathlessly. “Maybe he did, too! Place was a mess for sure. Had a real bang-up time in there from two on, according to the guy next door. Windows wide open and just a-going at it. If he paid her, he must’ve really owed her plenty, getting a time like that out of her…”