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

by Carolyn Weston

  Over the sea, a saffron glow suffused the horizon; gulls flying northward looked black as cinders against it. Lights were already burning on the pier, Rees noticed, pale bluish pinpricks in the sunset flame, which was fading fast as he turned his Volkswagen off Ocean onto a sloping street which gave access to the Coast Highway. Aware of the possibility that the detectives might still be there, he drove by the Godwins’ house first, scrutinizing all the cars parked at the curb nearby. But there was no Mustang to be seen. At a public parking lot several doors south, he pulled in and swung around in order to avoid making a U-turn on the highway. Traffic north and south was heavy, and unsure that he would be able to cross it a second time in order to park in front of the house, he decided to leave the Volks there and walk back.

  All the houses in this section—Rees counted six as he passed by—were of the same vintage as the Godwins’. All old frames probably built in the early twenties. Weekend cottages on narrow lots which soaring land values had priced into the class of desirable full-time residences. There was something stuck in the Godwins’ door, he saw—a business card printed Santa Monica Police Department, with Krug’s name in small letters at the bottom. On the back someone had scrawled: For informational purposes only, please call as soon as possible.

  Without much hope of reply, Rees knocked loudly. But what he was counting on now was a more private entrance—the beachside patio, the French doors which had been open last night. He’d have to walk back to the parking lot, he realized, since there was no public access to the beach until then. Better count houses again to make sure, he told himself as he stuck Krug’s card back into the crack between the front door and its weathered frame. Wouldn’t do at this point to trespass by mistake in the wrong patio.

  He was starting back, retracing his steps, when he noticed the narrow garage door at the south side of the house. Unlike their neighbors, the Godwins had not remodeled, adding the garage to their living space. Rees hesitated again. If a car’s in there, chances are they’re home. So look, he told himself. Nobody’s going to arrest you for taking a look in a garage.

  The door was cumbersome, cross-braced like a shed door and difficult to move. But when Rees cracked it open, a slight breeze caught the door, swinging it wide, throwing him off balance. Inside stood an old two-door Renault, once white, but now rusty from the sea air. Through the rear window, he could see what looked like luggage stacked in the back seat.

  Without considering the risk or his right to do so, Rees stepped into the garage and opened the car door on the driver’s side. The load in the back seat was luggage, all right—packed full, he discovered when he hefted one bag. In the corner of the back seat nearest him, someone had wadded a poplin trench coat. A man’s raincoat. The sleeve he could see was partly rolled up, exposing the faded yellow-and-black tartan lining.

  Rees yanked the coat out of the car. The other sleeve was rolled up also, and this one had a peculiar wedge-shaped tear in the lining. It was the coat Susannah had been wearing the first time he had seen her—in the alley where the motorcyclist had died.

  TWENTY-TWO

  As soon as they check ed into the squad room again, Casey dialed Tinytown Toys. There was no answer from the switchboard, and with a wild feeling that he had lost her already, he tried Joey’s home number which rang and rang, hollow and shrill in his ear, bell pealing endlessly in a deserted house.

  “No answer, hah?” Krug had flopped at his desk and was busily scribbling something. “Better luck next time, sport.”

  “She’s probably on her way home, got held up in traffic.”

  “Sure—or maybe she’s a mind reader. Five’ll get you ten she’s already fixed up with another guy.”

  “Very funny.” Casey peered over his partner’s shoulder. “What’s this?” It was a query, he saw, to be directed north, asking for information about Paul Rees’s friendships and contacts in prison. “Al, what’s the point of this? You’re trying to have it both ways, don’t you see that? Rees can’t be part of the counterfeit setup and a key witness, too.”

  “Don’t bet on it, genius, you could lose your shirt. Ah come on,” Krug added impatiently, “quit worrying about the facts and take a look at all those so-called coincidences. Like that five hundred bucks that turned into a couple, three thousand, maybe more. Or that one-day trip he claims took him four to make. Or just happening to be a witness at four A.M., and then connecting all of a sudden with Witness Number Two—who just also happens to turn out to be the victim’s chick.”

  “And maybe Victim Number Two. Okay,” Casey admitted, “it’s a load of something—” but one of the outside lines was buzzing and he lost his audience.

  “Detective Bureau,” Krug barked into the receiver. “Sergeant—Oh, hi, Denny, what’s up?”

  Casey could hear the quacking at the other end—Haynes with something hot, obviously.

  “The suspense is killing me,” Krug was saying with heavy sarcasm. “What’s so big you can’t—Okay, we’ll wait, we’ll wait.” He slammed the receiver. “Showboats. That was Denny. Says hold everything, they’ve got a bombshell. Be in right away.”

  While they waited for Haynes and Zwingler to check in, Casey made a fast trip to the lab downstairs.

  “Got some reports ready, if you’re interested,” McGregor told him. He grinned at Casey’s sigh of relief. “Pressure getting to you, young fella? I hear Al’s really hipped on nailing that ex-con.” But diplomatically, he didn’t wait for agreement or denial. “You’ve got word on the Mercedes already. Blurring on the steering wheel—probably gloves, anyway no prints. Specks of some shiny stuff in the back seat. Too soon for analysis yet. Grit on the floor’s the usual combination, but we’re sorting it out in case anybody’s interested.” In the Roche apartment, he went on, they had managed to gather at least six different sets of prints, almost all clear enough for identification—if they were on file. “Got some word here on the vacuum job, too.” He pawed through the papers stacked on his desk. “Here it is. Some hairs on the pillows that don’t match hers. Also some stuff we got out of that fake-fur bedspread. Carpet fluff mostly, and a few grains of what looks like crushed rock. Saliva analysis from those cigar butts in her bedroom is ready, too.”

  “Any of those prints match the ones you lifted out of the Mercedes?”

  “Well, a couple could be Barrett’s, but they’re only fragments.”

  “How about Rees?”

  “Some possibles, but nothing clear enough to stand up in court. A couple on the front doorknob is all. Looks like you’ll have to hang something else on him.”

  Casey intended trying Joey’s number again when he returned upstairs. But when he walked into the squad room, he found that Haynes and Zwingler had just arrived, both wearily self-congratulative over finding one of their previously checked not-at-homes finally home at last.

  “Citizen named Kingsley,” Zwingler was saying happily. “He and his wife live a couple houses from the corner of Fourteenth on the north side of Alta. They went up to Santa Maria yesterday to visit their son, but the missus got sick—”

  “For Chrissake,” Krug snarled, “skip the social notes.”

  “Okay, they woke up about four yesterday morning, see. Figured they might as well get up and get an early start driving north. Their bedroom’s at the front of the house, and they sleep with the shades up—you get the picture?—so they don’t turn a light on right away. Missus is getting into her robe and slippers, and he’s standing there in his pajamas starting to pull down the shades when he sees this car come belting out of the alley down the street. A Mercedes, he’s sure of it. While he’s watching, it pulls up, and he sees this girl jump out of the back seat—”

  “He get a good look at her?” Casey interrupted.

  “Right near the streetlight. That good enough? A young dame in some kind of a crazy outfit, Kingsley said. And this big hat with sparkle stuff on it.”

  “Congratulations,” Casey said. “There’s our missing—”

  But
Zwingler wasn’t stopping for any further comment. “She jumps out of the back seat, Kingsley claims. Takes the hat off, and tosses it in the car. Then she throws on this raincoat the driver hands out to her. Then she heads back for the alley, and the car takes off again like a bat out of hell. Somebody’s wife was what Kingsley figured. Getting dumped quick by her boyfriend before her husband spotted them. Anyhow, all it took was about a minute or less, he told me.”

  “And an hour later, she’s sitting here signing a witness statement.” Casey sighed, remembering the ravishing smile. “She had a lot of guts.”

  “That’s for sure. And you can see what happened,” Haynes said soggily, mopping his nose. “They spot they’ve got a witness, so she jumps out to get a line on how much he saw—”

  “Bullshit,” Krug exploded. “Don’t give me that ‘line’ baloney! She’s sitting there in the back seat with some big hat on. Got shiny stuff all over it. No missing it if you got any kind of a look—but our star witness never mentions a word.”

  “Well, an alley,” Haynes said doubtfully. “At four in the morning, it’s got to be pitch black there.”

  “But not so black he can’t spot the car as a Mercedes.”

  “Yeah, and a black one at that.” Zwingler nodded. “You got something there, Al.”

  “The car would have passed by the laundromat windows,” Casey reminded them. “And don’t forget, his wife went the same way. Rees was probably in shock when we talked to him.”

  “Every time?” Krug hooted.

  “Maybe he did spot her,” Haynes suggested. “Maybe laid it on her last night she better pay off?”

  “Now you’re talking,” Krug said. “For sure they had some kind of a ploy going, but that smart hooker outsmarted herself.”

  Timms came in then, interrupting their discussion, and Zwingler repeated the story. “So maybe it’s the next connection?” The lieutenant looked pleased, but cautiously so. “If Rees’s story that she picked up the hat at the party is straight, could be the Godwins or one of their guests—”

  “Yeah, or a foul ball,” Krug growled. “With our ex-con’s average so far, I’d lay money on it.” But he was already in motion, unconsciously checking the Detective Special in its belt holster under his shabby sports jacket. “Anybody buying steak if we don’t strike out?”

  Casey caught up with him on the stairs. “No takers, Al.”

  “Bunch of pikers,” Krug grunted. “Won’t even bet on a sure thing.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  His skin felt tight, his body swollen, the fingers clamping the raincoat as thick as sausages. Sand filled his shoes, gritted in his socks, but Rees was unaware of it tramping up the beach, for the whole of his being was focused like a burning glass on confronting Jervis Godwin.

  The patio of the house next door to the Godwins’ was lighted, he noticed vaguely. A boy wearing a Mickey Mouse hat was bouncing a ball, missing every time, running awkwardly to retrieve it. He stopped to stare as Rees crossed the sandy lot to the Godwins’ unlighted beachside patio. Ignoring him, Rees peered through the French doors into a dark room he couldn’t quite remember.

  Shapes of chairs and a long couch made indistinct shadows, tantalizing, enraging. No crack of light from any direction showed inside the house. Lying low, Rees thought savagely. By full dark they would have been on their way in the loaded Renault, carrying all the answers with them. “Godwin,” he shouted, pounding on the French door frame with the flat of his hand. “I know you’re in there!”

  No reply. No trace of movement. Still no light showing anywhere inside. The idea of a trap of some kind flitted through Rees’s mind as he tried the knob, feeling it turn easily. Both halves of the glass-paned door swung open slightly. Pushing them wider, he stepped two paces into the room, then stopped again, calling, “Godwin, I’m not leaving here till I talk to you!” hearing his own voice die away in the musty dusk which, deeper into the room, became impenetrable darkness.

  God damn, where was a light? He moved forward, tripped over something—a coffee table—and overbalanced, fell half on, half off the long couch. Using the cushions to steady himself, he straightened again, still clutching the coat. He spied a glimmer of metal—a standing lamp at the other end of the couch. Fumbling for the switch to turn it on, Rees was aware of his own loud, rapid breathing. His fingers found a knob and turned it. And as light burst like a soundless explosion in the room, his breath whistled out of him.

  Godwin was sitting in the far corner. Sitting still in a chair, his head tilted to one side mockingly, eyes glistening. His mouth was open as if he meant to laugh or scream, but no sound came forth.

  “Oh my God,” Rees whispered, moving slowly closer.

  The left side of Godwin’s head resting so coyly on his left shoulder looked half eaten away. Blasted away. And that whole side of his body was a sticky mass of drying blood. He had been shot point-blank in the right ear, Rees’s horror-struck perceptions noted; even to his untrained eye, the powder burns were apparent.

  Another suicide, his mind registered numbly. But even as he thought this, his searching eyes fed back the message of no gun in sight. “Wife,” he whispered. Emma. Emily. Could she—?

  But through the open door into what had been built as a dining room, he saw a paler-than-darkness bundle heaped on the floor. A human bundle.

  Just inside was a light switch found blindly by instinct. He flicked it on, saw the woman’s blank chalky face, the pool of blood, and flicked it off again, standing panting in a dark now whirling with retinal ghosts. All the ordinary impulses—phone for ambulance, phone for police, run yelling for help to neighbors—leaped to life in him and died instantly, killed by a piercing vision of Krug.

  Then somewhere in the dark house a phone began ringing. And dropping the coat, Rees bolted.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Less than half an hour ago. Maybe only fifteen minutes. Bobby saw him. He went in through the patio door—same as you did—and he was yelling, Bobby said.”

  “Yelling what, Mrs. Killigrew?”

  “Well, I don’t suppose Bobby could hear exactly. I mean, with the surf and all. Anyway, he was only in there a few minutes, Bobby said. Then he came running out”—she pointed south—“that way. Isn’t that right, Bobby?” She tweaked the boy’s hat. “Honey, isn’t that what you told Mama?” But he only looked at her blankly.

  Well, it was almost dark, after all, she went on defensively when they asked her to try to get a description from her son. And Bobby had been playing in the light. Probably all he’d been able to see was a shadow. Anyway, a child his age. Well, he couldn’t be expected to notice the same things as an adult, could he?

  The information they were finally able to extract was virtually useless for purposes of identification—a person, probably a man, in darkish clothing; probably hatless; who might or might not be of medium height.

  “Boy, we really got it all going for us in the witness department,” Krug kept grousing while they plodded through the sand back to the Godwin house. “Ain’t we the lucky Sherlocks? A onetime loser as phony as they come, and a dummy can’t even talk so you can understand him.”

  “Well, as long as his mother can translate—”

  “So what’s that mean? A lot of secondhand crap, that’s all. What she’s interested in is making her kid look good.”

  By now the inevitable cluster of onlookers had gathered on the beach near the Godwins’ patio, watching the four patrolmen with extra-power flashlights who were searching the area for the weapon. They found out later that a fifth member of the team had been sent out to round up metal detectors of the sort beachcombers used—a useless task, as was the search, it turned out, because the murder gun was not in the vicinity.

  Without apology, Krug shoved through the rubbernecks, and following him, Casey tried to guess when he might be able to phone again. Too late now anyway, he thought gloomily. She had been sitting there for hours—no dinner, no excuses, stood up. In her book the name Kellog would be writ
in mud now. Mud, or worse. They never told you at the Academy that police work in the detectives grades would doom you to a life totally devoid of anything as human as romance.

  When they entered the beach house again, a flash bulb popped, its phosphorescent glare taking color from the faces of the technicians. Lieutenant Timms had arrived, Casey saw. Krug buttonholed him immediately, covering the question of their entry as an emergency procedure: they had knocked on the front door, and not getting any answer, had hoofed it down the road till they could get through to the beach. “When we got here it was open”—Krug pointed to the French doors—“and that lamp was on. Spotted him right away. Took a couple minutes before we found out we had a double bill going here.”

  “Not quite, Al.” Timms was smiling slightly. “Turns out the woman’s alive. She’s on her way to the hospital.”

  “For Chrissake, after three hits and all that blood lost?”

  “Could be a real break, Al.”

  “Don’t count your chickens, Lieutenant,” the medical man working over the corpse in the corner advised. “With the injuries she sustained, they’ll be lucky to get her into surgery still alive.”

  “You got any ideas about time yet?” Krug asked him.

  “Three, four hours ago, maybe. Tell you better after the coagulation tests.”

  “That lets out our mysterious assailant.” Krug explained Mrs. Killigrew’s story to the lieutenant. “Looks like the kid’s either stringing us along, or somebody beat us to the punch here.”

  “Could be.” Timms nodded. “There’s a coat on the floor there. Looks like somebody dropped it. Maybe it was your visitor.”

  Pulling one of the lab’s portable high-intensity lamps closer, they crouched near the raincoat. Without shifting its position on the floor, Timms flipped back one lapel. “No maker’s label.” He reached delicately into a pocket, pulling out a matchbook bearing the imprint Mayfair Markets, a huge grocery chain. “Not much help there, either.”