Area of Suspicion

by John D. MacDonald

  “How do you mean that?”

  “I don’t know anything about all this company business. I thought I was doing what Ken wanted. I guess he would have wanted you to come back more than anything. I just didn’t see it that way. I do, now.”

  “Thank you, Niki.”

  “Come on out to the house about five, will you darling? We’ll have a drink to you. Just the two of us. Please?”

  “I’ll let you know.” Stanley Mottling came up to us, smiling.

  He congratulated me and then said, “I’ll stick around and help out as long as you need me, Gevan.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  They both smiled at me. Their smiles were warm. It seemed incredible they were acting a part. They hadn’t given up. They would never give up. Blocked in one direction, they were instinctively seeking another.

  My arrival was bad news, but Dolson was gone and LeFay was gone, and they were safe. They could concentrate on taking over Gevan Dean. The woman could marry him. Mottling could stick close to him at the plant. Maybe it could be managed just as well this way. I returned their smiles. I wanted to tell Mottling to be out of the plant in ten minutes, but I didn’t know how Tancey wanted me to handle it. I thanked them for their good wishes and watched them walk down the corridor together, and I heard Niki’s warm, calm laugh.

  I found out which office was Lester’s. I went there and opened the door and walked in without knocking. It was an intrusion. Lester sat behind his desk. Tancey and the young man who had followed Lester Fitch flanked him, facing him. Tancey gave me an annoyed glance.

  Lester said dully, “I tell you I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His face was still yellow.

  “Mr. Fitch,” Tancey said calmly, “You’re being stupid. Sit down, Mr. Dean, and listen to this.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I felt sick and I had to leave. Something I ate, I think.”

  “Who told you Mr. Dean was dead?”

  “His wife called me right after he was shot.”

  “Not that Mr. Dean. This one.”

  “I didn’t think Gevan was dead. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “If I ever saw a man seeing a ghost, it was you, Fitch. We’ve got your playmate, LeFay. He’s told us how it was worked, with you and Dolson. We can prove every bit of it. You’re a lawyer. You must know criminal law. This isn’t a case of nailing you for getting your hands on government money. I want you for murder, too. For being an accessory in the murder of the Brady girl.”

  “But I didn’t even know they were going to—” He stopped abruptly.

  “How did you get in with Dolson?”

  “I found out how he was doing it. Nobody else knew. He had to let me in. I set Acme up on a better basis than they had it. Safer.”

  “Who told you Gevan Dean was dead? Was it Mottling?”

  His eyes went wide. His shock was evident. “Mottling! He hasn’t got anything to do with—” I saw the shock fade and his eyes get wary as he began to figure out some of the things that had evidently bothered him because they hadn’t added up.

  “Come now, Fitch. Mottling and LeFay corrupted Dolson, then used the knowledge of his thefts to blackmail him into sabotaging production. Don’t look so innocent.”

  Lester looked bewildered. “Sabotage? It was only the money. LeFay said Ken had found out about it, and he would fix it. I didn’t know until afterwards he was going to have him killed.”

  I butted in. “Why did you want me to back Mottling if you didn’t know he was in on it?”

  “I didn’t. LeFay was afraid of what Granby might find out, if he was in charge, being a financial man and all. He thought Granby might change the office procedure on purchases and that would spoil it.”

  Tancey sighed. “It hangs together, Mr. Dean. I don’t think Fitch knew about the other. As it is, we can give him a few years in a federal prison.” He talked as if Lester wasn’t in the room. That, more than anything else, seemed to crack Lester Fitch.

  He said, in a quick, thin voice, “Look, I’ll cooperate in any way. I’ll pay back every nickel. I’ll testify to everything. Please, Mr. Tancey. Please. If you want me to, I’ll testify that Mr. Mottling helped set up the Acme swindle and even got some of the money. I know I did wrong, and you’ve got to give me a break.”

  Tancey didn’t even look at him. As far as Tancey was concerned, Lester had not spoken. The young man with Tancey gave Lester a contemptuous glance.

  “Take him in,” Tancey said.

  The lunch bells were sounding out in the production areas. Lester stood up slowly, pushing the chair out of his way. Then he whirled and moved with a speed that caught us off balance. He plunged through the ground-floor window, protecting his face with his arms. I saw him roll and bound to his feet and start running toward the lunch crowd thronging toward the gates.

  Tancey shoved me out of the way. He had a short-barreled revolver in his hand. He aimed at the running man and fired once. Lester went down hard, with a long, shrill scream. His thigh was curiously shortened and twisted and he grasped at it with his hands as he worked himself in a slow circle on the ground, like a crippled insect.

  People ran over, formed a circle around him. He screamed again and again. It reminded me of another scene long ago, when the kids at recess had gathered around Lester in that same way. A boy who came up to Lester’s shoulder had belted him solidly on the nose. And Lester had screamed in that same way, and the crowd standing around him had looked just the same. Awed, and ashamed.

  Tancey said quietly, holstering the gun, “We need him for the LeFay testimony.”

  “Nice shooting, sir.”

  “Thank you, Larkin. Make the necessary arrangements, please.”

  Larkin left. The gate guards were dispersing the curious. I saw the shards of Lester’s broken glasses glinting in the noon sun.

  I said to Tancey, “Niki—Mary Gerrity, or whatever I’m supposed to call her—asked me to stop out at her house at five.”

  “We’ll be picking her up before then.”

  “Let me go out there at five. Pick her up after that. Give me some time with her first. Just ten minutes. I owe Ken that much.”

  “I don’t like it. I don’t want to lose her.”

  “You can cover the place, can’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’ve earned it, haven’t I?”

  He shrugged. “All right. It’s not smart. But all right.”

  We talked some more. “I don’t think we can tag Mottling. We’d have to have a good reliable witness who saw Mottling and LeFay together. After we pick up the woman, I’ll pay Mottling a private visit. It’s about all I can do.”

  “Couldn’t you make Niki talk?”

  He gave me a pitying smile. “If we could use their methods, perhaps.”

  He left and I had no time for lunch. I was busy with the reporters and then I was closeted with Uncle Al’s lawyer.

  When he heard that Ken’s widow had taken someone else’s name, he assured me that gave me enough basis to have Ken’s will broken, and it would be almost automatic if it could be proven that she had entered into the marriage for some illegal purpose. After he left I was on the phone for nearly an hour. I got a yes from Garroway and Poulson and a maybe from Fitz. It felt good to be reorganizing the team. Dolson’s replacement arrived, a lean man with a snow plow jaw.

  There were some Washington brass with him who needed reassurance, and I did the best I could. They were miffed that Mottling was out, and I wished I could tell them more of the score. I wanted to see how far their eyes would bulge. But Tancey had told me to keep my mouth shut.

  I talked to Joan on the phone and told her I would pick her up at her house some time before six. I called the car rental place and told them where they could find their car.

  I drew a company sedan for my personal use until I could buy something or get my car shipped up from Florida. There was the problem of disposing of the beach house, after it had been u
sed for a very short honeymoon.

  When it was time to go see Niki, I checked with Tancey and he said his arrangements were all made.

  My palms were sweating on the wheel of the company car as I drove out to the Lime Ridge house for the last time. I knew I would never go in there again. After the estate thing was fixed up, it would go on the market. It would make a nice house for somebody who didn’t know what had happened in it. I would build Joan a house.

  There was no wind and the late afternoon sun was low and bright as I drove in. Victoria let me in. She seemed nervous and glad to see me. I wondered how much they had told her, and how much she had guessed.

  Niki was in the living-room. She came toward me and took my hands in hers. She looked regal and lovely. “Darling!” she said. “This is a celebration, you know. Can I be as bold as brass?”

  “Of course.”

  “Victoria is going out later. I’ll cook for you. I have good wine. I want us to forget everything tonight. Everything but us, darling.”

  She held her chin up and half-closed her eyes in a way that clearly indicated her desire to be kissed. She released my wrists and gave me a look of quick annoyance and moved away from me.

  “Will you make martinis?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t stay. I’ve got a date.”

  “Break it.”

  “Can’t. Sorry.”

  She tilted her head. “I must say, you’re looking and acting very, very strange, Gevan.”

  “I feel strange.”

  “With me? Or is it that you’re worried about the job and all?”

  “It’s you, Niki. I don’t know how I should react to you.”

  “I thought I made that clear. And not in a ladylike way, either.” Her smile was lascivious. I felt utterly no response to her hints, to her warmth and ripeness. Joan was too much with me.

  “I came to say good-by, Niki.”

  She snorted. “I’m not going anywhere, and after that vote today, it doesn’t look as though you are.”

  “You’re leaving. Not as Niki Webb, or Niki Dean. As Mary Gerrity.”

  She was facing me and for a long time her features were absolutely immobile, frozen in a look of habitual, delicate lust. Her features smoothed into a puzzled smile.

  “Am I supposed to understand that? Is it supposed to mean something to me?”

  “That isn’t any good, Niki. You know it and I know it. So let’s drop it. Before they take you, I’d like to know why. I planned to enjoy this, to enjoy taking your mask off, but I don’t. I just feel—very, very tired.”

  “Have you gone mad?”

  “Please don’t, Niki. It’s over. They know all about it. All about Dolson and LeFay and Mottling and Fitch and the rest of it. They’ve fixed the D4D’s that were gimmicked. LeFay and Fitch are in custody. Tancey told me a half-hour ago they’ve picked up two more, the two who with LeFay tried to dump us in the river. They know Ken and the Brady girl were murdered and why. So it’s over.”

  She walked slowly to one of the couches and sat down, her hands slack on her thighs. “You did it,” she said.

  “Some of it.”

  “I said I could handle you. I should have remembered from before—you’re the only person who has ever made me fell uncertain of myself, insecure. Maybe it’s because I was closer to being in love with you than with anybody else.”

  “But never in love with anybody, ever.”

  “No, Gevan. Never.”

  “How did you get on—your side of the fence?”

  “You wouldn’t understand if I told you.”

  Tancey came in, almost apologetically. He had two men with him and a husky police matron. “You’ll want to pack something, Miss Gerrity.”

  Niki-Mary got up obediently. She gave me a long, opaque, unreadable look, and turned away from me. The matron went with her. She did not speak. I knew I would not see her again unless I saw her while testifying.

  I walked to the windows. Tancey, behind me, said, “You’re lucky, Mr. Dean.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Look here. This is what I mean.” I turned. He showed me a small chromed automatic. He said, “This was down between the cushions where she was sitting. I can’t understand why she didn’t use it on you. It would have helped ease the defeat. It would have made sense to use it—from their point of view.”

  I thought I knew why she hadn’t. But I couldn’t be sure. I could never be sure, because even if I asked her, I knew she could give me no clear reason. I walked out, thinking of what might have been. No victory is absolute. The victor always loses something.

  I knew I would be late picking up Joan, but I drove back to the plant and parked, with the motor turned off. The last of the sun made flame in the windows. I listened to the deep voice of the production areas, listened to the shrillness as metal was peeled back from high-speed cutting edges.

  After the sound and the look of the place had filled me and strengthened me and brought me back from the edge of gloom, I turned the car around and headed for Joan’s house.

  As I got out of the car Joan came hurrying down the steps. Some of her bandaging was gone and the rest was concealed under an absurd hat. She said, “They wanted you to come in and so on and be social, but that can come later.”

  It was good to see her and be with her. I got behind the wheel. I kissed her. We drove downtown.

  “A genuine date,” she said.

  “For real.”

  “You’re gloomy, Gevan. It was bad, wasn’t it?”

  “Bad?”

  “With her, I mean. With Niki.”

  “How did you know I went out there?”

  “I just know. It’s all right. I know you had to. I’m glad you did.”

  “It wasn’t the same, looking at her, after you.”

  “I know that too.”

  I laughed. “My God, you’re smug.”

  “Of course. And now take me to the Copper Lounge and buy me something strong.”

  The late editions were out. My picture was on the front page. So was Lester’s. Joan said they were crummy pictures of both of us. We went to the Copper Lounge. All gloom was gone. I was with my girl. We took a table for two and Hildy Devereaux did her last cocktail turn and Joan told me she thought Hildy was lovely, but I better not voice the same opinion or both my eyes would soon match perfectly. She suggested I wear dark glasses in the office because there was nothing dignified about a president with a black eye.

  Hildy came over to the table and I got up and introduced them and the waiter brought an extra chair.

  Hildy admired my eye. Then she saddened and said, “That poor slob of a colonel, Gevan. That depressed me. And it nearly ruptured Joe, having it happen in the hotel. But, as usual, they kept the name of the hotel out of the paper.”

  The two girls talked politely. They kept their nails sheathed, but I had the feeling they were on guard. Finally Hildy stopped talking and stared at Joan and then at me.

  “My God,” she said, “I’m getting dense. You look like a couple of Halloween pumpkins.”

  “Does it show that much?” Joan asked.

  “That much, Miss Perrit.” Hildy sighed. “I was going to take a hack at him myself.”

  “Too late,” Perry said sweetly.

  “Seems to be.” Hildy grinned. “All a girl has to do is turn her back and some sneaky character moves in.”

  “Oh, I’ve been working on this for four years,” Perry said.

  They kept talking. I stopped listening. Hildy’s choice of phrase, “sneaky character,” had triggered something in my memory. I went back over my talks with Hildy and I remembered.

  I interrupted them. “Hildy, the Colonel is dead now. You said something about some little man who wouldn’t want the Colonel to do any sounding off while drunk. I asked you about him and you hedged the question. What little man was that?”

  She frowned and looked uncertain. “Well—I guess I can tell you now. The Colonel told me to keep it to myself. It was
an FBI man. He’d come in once in a while and drink alone. I noticed that the Colonel would stand next to him at the bar, and one time I saw him slip the Colonel something. So the next time Dolson started bothering me, I asked him what was going on. He got upset and said I shouldn’t mention it to anybody, ever. He said it was an FBI man and he had to give him secret information.”

  “What did the man look like?”

  “One of those dark quiet little guys you never pay any attention to. The next time I saw him I took a better look at him. One of his ears was funny. I can’t remember which one. The right one, I think. The lobe was gone.”

  “Did you swallow that, about him being an FBI man?”

  “It seemed sort of funny to me at first. I thought Curt Dolson was trying to be a big shot or something, but later I found out that he was telling me the truth.”

  “How?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, it was one of those things. I got hungry after everything was closed. Three o’clock one morning, it was. Joe took me to an out-of-the-way place down the valley where they have good hamburgers. I saw the FBI man with that Mr. Mottling from your company. They were in a booth. It had high sides. I went to the girls’ room so I could walk by them to make sure.”

  “Did Joe see them too?”

  “I guess he did. But I didn’t talk about it. Not after what Curt said to me. You know. Secret stuff. I guess he was reporting to Mottling. I recognized Mottling because he used to come in now and then and have a drink with the Colonel after they started getting along well.”

  I excused myself and said I would be right back. It took fifteen minutes to locate Tancey. I asked him if LeFay had anything wrong with his ear.

  “Yes. The lower lobe of the right ear is missing. Why? That’s a funny thing for you to know.”

  “Have you picked up Mottling?”

  “He’s out. I’ve got two men staked out at the Atheltic Club waiting for him to come back. They’ll phone me when he comes in.”

  “I think you can pick him up, officially.”

  There was a long pause. “One witness?”

  “One definite and one probable.”

  “Can you get them over here?”

  “Yes.”