Holben came to the door when we came alongside. He was a tall, lean old man with a lantern jaw and a handlebar mustache that would have been a dead ringer for the sheriff’s except for being less tidy and more yellowed.
“Howdy, Loftus. Who’s the dude with you?”
“Detective. Caronna hired him to investigate the murder.”
“Huh! If Caronna hired him, he’s likely a thief himself.” Holben stepped back inside and slammed the door.
Loftus chuckled. “Almost as bad as Old Bitner. Wouldn’t think that old sidewinder was worth a cool half-million, would you. No? I guessed not. He is, though. Bitner was worth half again that much. That niece of his will get a nice piece of money.”
“Was she the only relative?”
“Matter of fact, no. There’s a nephew around somewheres. Big game hunter, importer of animals, an’ such as that. Hunts them for shows, I hear.”
“Heard from him?”
“Not yet. He’s out on the road with a show of some kind. We wired their New York headquarters.”
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea to check and see where his show is playing. It might not be far away.”
Loftus glanced at me. “Hadn’t thought of that. Reckon I’m gettin’ old. I’ll do that tonight.”
“Does the girl get all the money? Or does he get some?”
“Don’t know. The Bitner girl, she thinks she gets it. Says her uncle told her she would inherit everything. Seems like he had no use for that nephew. So far we haven’t seen the will, but we’ll have it open tomorrow.”
The path led along the flat top of the mesa over the sparse grass and through the scattered juniper for almost a half-mile. Then we saw the house.
It was built on the edge of the cliff. One side of the house was almost flush with the edge, and the back looked out over a natural rock basin that probably held water during the winter or fall, when it rained.
It was a three-room stone house, very carefully built and surprisingly neat. There were a few books and magazines lying about, but everything else seemed to have its place and to be kept there. There was a dark stain on the tabletop that identified itself for me, and some more of the same on the floor under the chair legs. Looking at the dishes, I figured that Bitner was alone and about to begin eating when death had struck.
The one door into the house opened from a screened-in porch to the room where he had been sitting. Remembering how the spring on the door had screamed protestingly when we opened it, there was small chance that anyone could have entered unannounced.
Moreover, a man seated at the table could look out that door and down the path almost halfway to Ranagat.
The windows offered little more. There were three in the main room of the house, and two of those opened over that rock basin and were at least fifteen feet above the ground. Nobody could have entered quietly from that direction.
The third window appeared to be an even less probable entrance. It opened on the side of the house that stood on the cliff edge. Outside that window and about four feet below the sill was a cracked ledge about two feet wide, but the ledge dwindled away toward the back of the house so it was impossible to gain access to it from there. At the front, the porch ran right to the lip of the precipice, cutting off any approach to the ledge from that direction.
Craning my neck, I could see that it was fifty or sixty feet down an impossible precipice, and then a good two hundred feet that was almost as steep, but could be scaled by a daring man. The last sixty feet, though, made the way entirely impracticable.
The crack that crossed the ledge was three to four inches wide and about nine or ten inches deep. In the sand on the edge of a split in the rock was a track resembling that of a large gila monster, an idea that gave me no comfort. I was speculating on that when Jerry Loftus called me.
NIGHT WALKER
AT THE DOOR I was confronted by three people. Nobody needed to tell me which was Blacky Caronna, and I had already seen Johnny Holben, but it was the third one that caught me flat-footed with my hands down and my chin wide open.
Karen Bitner was the sort of girl no man could look at and ever be the same afterward. She was slim and lovely in whipcord riding breeches and a green wool shirt that didn’t have that shape when she bought it. Her hair was red-gold and her eyes a gray-green that shook me to my heels.
Caronna started the show. He looked like a bulldozer in a flannel shirt. “You!” His voice sounded like a hobnailed boot scraping on a concrete floor. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you come and look me up? Who’s payin’ you, anyway?”
“Take it easy. I came up here to investigate a murder. I’m doing it.”
Caronna grabbed me by the arm. “Come over here a minute!” He had a build like a heavyweight wrestler and a face that reminded me of Al Capone with a broken nose.
When we were out of earshot of the others, he thrust his face at me and said angrily, “Listen, you! I gave that outfit of yours a grand for a retainer. You’re to dig into this thing an’ pin it on that dame. She’s the guilty one, see? I ain’t had a hand in a killin’ in—in years.”
“Let’s get this one thing straight right now,” I said. “I didn’t come up here to frame anybody. You haven’t got money enough for that. You hired an investigator, and I’m him. I’ll dig up all I can on this case and if you’re in the clear you’ll have nothing to worry about.”
His little eyes glittered. “You think I’d hire you if I were guilty? Hell, I’d get me a mouthpiece. I think the babe did it. She stands to get the old boy’s dough, so why not? He’d had it long enough, anyway. Just my luck the old billygoat would jump me before he gets knocked off. It’s inconvenient, that’s what it is!”
“What was your trouble with him?”
He looked up at me and his black eyes went flat and deadly. “That’s my business! I ain’t askin’ you to investigate me. It’s that babe’s scalp we want. Now get busy.”
“Look,” I said patiently, “I’ve got to have more. I’ve got to know something to work on. I don’t give a damn what your beef was, just so you didn’t kill him.”
“I didn’t,” he said. He hauled a roll from his pocket and peeled off several of the outer flaps, all of them showing a portrait of Benjamin Franklin. “Stick these in your kick. A guy can’t work without dough. If you need more, come to me. I can’t stand no rap, get me? I can’t even stand no trial.”
“That’s plain enough,” I told him, “and it answers a couple of questions I had. Now, one thing more. Did you actually stop before you got to the house? If I knew whether the old man was alive or dead at that hour, I’d know something.”
A kind of tough humor flickered in his eyes. “You’re the dick, you figure that one out. On’y remember: I didn’t stick no shiv in the old guy. Hell, why should I? I could have squeezed him like a grape. Anyway, that wouldn’t have been smart, would it? Me, I don’t lose my head. I don’t kill guys for fun.”
That I could believe. His story sounded right to me. He could arrange a killing much more conveniently than this one had happened, and when he would not have been involved. Mr. Blacky Caronna, unless I was greatly mistaken, was an alumnus of the old Chicago School for Genteel Elimination. In any rubout job he did he would have a safe and sane alibi.
Yet, one thing I knew. Whether he had killed Bitner or not, and I doubted it, he was a dangerous man. A very dangerous man. Also, he was sweating blood over this. He was a very worried man.
Loftus was talking to Holben, and Karen Bitner stood off to one side, so I walked over to her. The look in her eyes was scarcely more friendly than Caronna’s. “How do you do?” I said. “My name is—”
“I’m not in the least interested in your name!” she said. “I know all about you, and that’s quite enough. You’re a private detective brought up here to prove me guilty of murder. I think that establishes our relationship clearly enough. Now if you have any questions to ask, ask them.”
“I like that perfume you’re wearing. Gardenia, is
n’t it? By Chanel?”
The look she gave me would have curdled a jug of Arkansas corn. “What is that supposed to be—the psychological approach? Am I supposed to be flattered, disarmed, or should I swoon?”
“Just comment. How long has it been since you’ve seen your uncle? I mean, before this trip?”
“I had never seen my uncle before,” she said.
“You have a brother or cousin? I heard there was a nephew?”
“A cousin. His name is Richard Henry Castro. He is traveling with the Greater American Shows. He his thirty-nine years old and rugged enough to give you the slapping around you deserve.”
That made me grin, but I straightened my face. “Thanks. At least you’re concise. I wish everyone would give their information as clearly. Did you murder your uncle?”
She turned icy eyes on me. Just like the sea off Labrador. “No, I did not. I didn’t know him well enough to either murder him or love him. He was my only relative aside from Dick Castro, so I came west to see him.
“I almost never,” she added, “murder people on short acquaintance—unless they’re detectives.”
“You knew you were to inherit his estate?”
“Yes. He told me so three years ago, in a letter. He told me so again on Saturday.”
“I see. What’s your profession?”
“I’m a secretary.”
“You ever let anybody in to see your boss?” I asked. “No, don’t answer that. How many times did you visit your uncle on this visit?”
“Three times, actually. I came to see him on the day I arrived and stayed approximately two hours. I went to see him the following day, and then the night he was killed.”
“How did he impress you?”
She glanced at me quickly. “As a very lonely and tired old man. I thought he was sweet.”
That stopped me for a minute. Was she trying to impress me? No, I decided, this girl wouldn’t try to impress anyone. She was what she was, for better or worse. Also, with a figure like that she would never have felt it necessary to impress anyone.
For almost an hour we stood there, and I asked the questions and she shot back the answers. She had met her cousin, a big, handsome man given to many trips into the jungle after his strange animals, up to a few years before. He had his own show traveling as a special exhibit with a larger show. They made expositions and state fairs, and followed a route across country, occasionally playing carnival dates or conventions.
Her short relationship with her uncle had been friendly. She had cooked lunch the day before he was killed, and he had been alive when she had left him on her last visit. He had said nothing to her about his trouble with Caronna, but she knew he was very angry about something. Also, he kept a pistol handy.
“He did? Where is it?”
“In the sideboard, on the shelf with some dishes. He kept a folded towel over it, but it was freshly oiled and cleaned. I saw it when I was getting some cups.”
Then Bitner had been expecting trouble. From Caronna? Or was it someone else, someone of whom we had not learned?
* * *
THAT NIGHT, IN the café, I sat at my table and ran over what little I knew. Certainly, the day had given me nothing. Yet in a sense it had not been entirely wasted. The three suspects were now known to me, and I had visited the scene.
The waitress who came up to my table to get my order was a sultry-looking brunette with a figure that needed no emphasis. She took my order, and my eyes followed her back toward the kitchen. Then I saw something else. She had been reading a copy of Billboard, the show business magazine. It was spread out on the counter now.
Bitner’s nephew, Castro, was in show business. It was something to think about.
Caronna came in. He was still wearing the wool shirt that stretched tight over his powerful chest and shoulders, and a pair of tweed trousers. He dropped into the chair across from me and leaned his heavy forearms on the table. “You got anything?” he said. “Have you got anything on that broad?”
I cut a piece of steak, then looked up at him. “A couple of things. I’m working on them.”
He was in a pleasanter mood tonight, and I noticed his eyes straying around, looking for somebody, something. I even had an idea who he was looking for. “They got nothing on me,” he said, not looking at me. “The old man an’ me, we had a fuss, all right. They know that, an’ that I went up the trail to see him. That wasn’t smart of me. It was a sucker’s trick, but despite that they’ve got less on me than on that Bitner babe.
“Nobody can prove I went in the house or even went near it. Holben can testify that I wasn’t gone long. Your job is to dig up something that will definitely put me in the clear.”
“Maybe I’ve got something.”
He leaned back in his chair, looking me over. It was the first time he’d taken a good look. This Caronna was nobody’s fool. He had more up his sleeve than a lot of muscle, but I couldn’t see him killing Jack Bitner. Not that way.
Murder was not new to Caronna, but he knew enough about it so he would have had an out. He was in this, up to his neck. That much I believed, and I was sure there was more behind the killing than there seemed. That was when I began to get the idea that Caronna had a hunch who had done the job, and somehow figured to cash in.
The waitress came over, and while I couldn’t see their expressions, and she only said, “Anything for you, Mr. Caronna?” I had a hunch they were telling each other a thing or two. She dropped her napkin then, and Caronna picked it up for her. Where did they think I was born? I caught the corner of the paper in my glance as they both stooped, but the paper was palmed very neatly by Caronna as he returned the napkin to the waitress.
Caronna left after drinking a cup of coffee and rambling on a little. When I went over to pay my check, the Billboard was still lying there. Deliberately, although I had the change, I sprung one of Caronna’s C-notes on her. I was praying she would have to go to the kitchen for change, and she did.
This gave me a chance at the Billboard and I glanced down. It was right there in front of me, big as life:
GREATER AMERICAN
PLAYING TO BIG CROWDS
IN NEVADA
When I got my change I walked outside. The night was still and the stars were out. Up at the mine I could hear the pounding of the compressor, an ever-present sound wherever mine’s are working.
I really had my fingers on something now, I thought. If Greater American was playing Nevada, then Castro might have been within only a few miles of Ranagat when Bitner was killed.
If Loftus knew that, he was fooling me, and somehow I couldn’t picture that sheriff, smart as he was in his own line, knowing about Billboard. There was a telephone booth in the hotel, so I hurried over, and when I got the boss in Los Angeles, I talked for twenty minutes. It would take the home office only a short time to get the information I wanted, and in the meantime I had an idea.
Oh, yes. I was going to check Karen Bitner, all right. I was also going to check Johnny Holben. But all my mind was pointing the other way now.
There were several things I had to find out.
Where had Richard Henry Castro been on the night of the murder at the hour of the crime?
What was the trouble between Caronna and Old Jack Bitner?
What was the connection between that walking hothouse plant in the café and Caronna? Or between her and Castro? Or—this was a sudden thought—both of them?
Had either Holben or Karen seen anything they weren’t telling?
It made a lot to do, but the ball was rolling, and in the meantime I had a few definite things to work on. From the sign, I saw that the restaurant closed at ten o’clock, so I strolled back again to the hotel and dropped into one of the black leather chairs in the lobby and began to think.
* * *
NOT MORE THAN an hour after my call went in, I got the first part of an answer. The telephone rang, and it was Los Angeles calling me. The Great American, said the boss, had played Las Vegas th
e day before the murder…and its next date had been Ogden, Utah!
In a rack near the desk were some timetables, and some maps put out by filling stations. I picked up one of the latter and glanced over the map. Something clicked in me. I was hot. It was rolling my way, for there was one highway they could have followed, and probably did follow that would have carried them by not over a mile from the mesa!
Studying it, I knew I didn’t have such a lot, although this did bring another suspect into the picture, and a good hot one. One thing I wanted to know now was the trouble between Caronna and Bitner. I walked restlessly up and down the lobby, racking my brain, and only one angle promised anything at all. Loftus had hinted that Caronna was buying highgrade ore from miners who had smuggled it out of the mines.
Then I looked up and saw Karen Bitner coming down the stairs from her room.
Somehow, the idea of her staying here had never occurred to me, but when I thought about it, where else in this town could she stay?
Our eyes met, and she started to turn away, but I crossed over to her. “Look,” I said, “this isn’t much of a town, and it’s pretty quiet. Why don’t we go have some coffee or something? Then we can talk. I don’t know about you, but I’m lonely.”
That drew a half smile. After a momentary hesitation, she nodded. “All right, why not?”
Over coffee our eyes met and she smiled a little. “Have you decided that I’m a murderer yet?”
“Look,” I said, “you want your uncle’s murderer found, don’t you? Then why not forget the hostility and help me? After all, I’m just a poor boy trying to get along, and if you aren’t guilty, you’ve nothing to fret about.”
“Aren’t you here to prove me guilty?”
“No. Definitely not. I was retained by Caronna to prove him innocent. Surprising as it may seem, I think he is. I believe the man has killed a dozen men, more or less, but this isn’t his kind of job. He doesn’t get mad and do things. When he kills it’s always for a good enough reason, and with himself in the clear.
Collection 1983 - The Hills Of Homicide (v5.0) Page 2