A Match Made for Murder

by Iona Whishaw

  “Sergeant,” someone called, and he turned to see young Cooper approaching him with a piece of paper. “I’ve tracked down the rooming house, sir. I got lucky. I called six and the sixth one was it. He’s been there for five days.”

  “Thanks, Officer Cooper.” Martinez frowned and called after him. “Did you say five days?”

  “Yeah, that’s what the landlady, Mrs. Parvis, said. She didn’t seem to approve of him much.”

  “Why, what did she say?”

  “She said she ought to show him the door, the way he carries on, but wouldn’t say any more. Said, ‘He pays his bills,’ so I suppose money wins out over whatever it is he does there.”

  Martinez got into the patrol car and looked at the address. It was about a mile away on Park. Though he was sure that what Cooper had learned must be a mistake, he thought he’d better stop there on the way. Edward Renwick said he had only just arrived from Wisconsin the day before. He’d flown, he said, to Phoenix and taken a bus to Tucson, and even produced some proof of the trip. What did this mean?

  “Sergeant Martinez, ma’am,” he said when he got to the rooming house, and flashed his badge. “You talked with one of our officers earlier about one of your guests? Edward Renwick?”

  “Yes, I did. What’s the interest of the police, anyway?” Mrs. Parvis was wearing a handkerchief tied in a turban around her hair, and her plump figure was wrapped in a long apron that ended at the top of her rolled-down stockings and a pair of ancient, stained mules. “Not that I’m surprised,” she added.

  “Can you tell me how long he’s been here?”

  The woman turned toward a small table that held a heavy register. “There, see. He came on the eighth. What are we now? The twelfth? So, five days.”

  Martinez stepped across the threshold and peered at the book.

  “He was gone part of yesterday—no, sorry, the day before, and last night. No need to ask where. He came back today.”

  “Why no need to ask where?” Martinez asked.

  “He was with that hussy, of course! She was sneaking out of here again this morning, thinking I didn’t see her.”

  “I see.” Martinez looked down the dingy hall. “Is he here now?”

  “No. No doubt drinking somewhere. That seems to be his other occupation. I don’t know where he’s getting his money, but he can’t have much, or he wouldn’t be staying here. That woman looks pretty expensive. Maybe she’s keeping him.”

  “Can you describe her?” He looked back at the landlady whose expression was a perfect combination of disapproval and gratification.

  “Tall blonde. Expensive perfume. Came the second day he was here.”

  “How often has she come?” Martinez asked. Could it be Ivy Renwick?

  “Nearly every day since he’s been here. Today, the day before, in fact, I think they went out together, then I guess he was with her somewhere, and then before that as well, after he first got here. I lost track, honestly. Three, four times at least. First couple of times she was here more than two hours.”

  She was there on the day of the murder. Martinez ripped a page out of his notebook and wrote his name and the station number on it. “Call when he comes in. Leave a message if I’m not there. I’ll put an officer nearby to keep an eye out, as well. In the meantime, can you let me into his room?”

  The landlady surveyed him critically for a moment and then shrugged. “On your head be it if he comes home and catches you messing around in his room.”

  It had been a disappointing venture. The tiny, dingy room yielded little more than a few clothes shoved willy-nilly in two drawers of a tall dresser, a battered suitcase thrown into the closet, and a bag of toiletries sitting open on the dresser. He thanked Mrs. Parvis, who seemed disappointed not to learn something wonderfully shocking about her guest.

  Feeling a wave of excitement, Martinez broke the speed limit on his way out of town to the inn. Notwithstanding the lack of anything incriminating in the room, Ivy Renwick had been visiting her brother-in-law at a rooming house when he was supposed to be in Wisconsin on the day her husband was shot dead in front of their honeymoon hotel room. His being able to produce all that ‘evidence’ of his travel made him look even more suspicious. Why had he produced it unless he had something to cover up? As to a weapon, he could have gotten rid of it anywhere. After all, there was a whole desert, right across the road from the hotel, at his disposal.

  “Why don’t you go? I think I’d better stay here and support Chela in case Martinez wants to question her. He says he’s coming here to interview someone. He didn’t say whom, but I’m guessing Meg Holden or Ivy Renwick. That poor woman. She’s barely been out of her room since it happened. I should pop over and see her.”

  “Tennis famously is a game one doesn’t play on one’s own,” Darling said. “And if you mean ‘poor’ Ivy Renwick, I saw her getting furtively out of a cab not an hour ago from my vantage point at the tennis court.”

  “It won’t be just you, will it? It will be you and the pro. I’d only be in the way.”

  “That winning smile is not going to mollify me. I’ll go make an arrangement with him, and then later, or tomorrow, we’ll both go have a lesson.”

  “Perfect,” said Lane, but she was already looking toward Ivy Renwick’s room from where they were sitting in the shade outside number 26. Where had she been? “Where do you think she was?” Lane asked Darling. “And why do you say she looked furtive?”

  “I’m a police officer. I am trained in furtive. As to her whereabouts, none of our business, I should have thought.”

  Lane knocked softly at Ivy Renwick’s door. There was a brief shuffling inside and then the door opened just wide enough for Ivy to peer outside.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said, opening the door a bit more, but not enough to suggest she’d welcome anyone in.

  “I just wanted to make sure you’re all right. I’ve felt quite badly about you having to wait here while things get decided after losing your husband,” Lane said.

  Ivy sighed. “You might as well come in,” she said, walking away from the door to the table where they’d drunk coffee two mornings before. She took up a glass of water and drank and then stood with her arms crossed.

  “How are you holding up?” Lane asked.

  Ivy looked at Lane as if she was thinking of saying something significant and then turned away to look out the window.

  “I wish I was home,” she said. “I’d like to bury my husband and attend to the factory. I can’t count on my brother-in-law to run things. He’s useless.” She picked up her cigarettes, lit one, and inhaled deeply.

  “Oh,” Lane said, surprised. “Has he gone back to Wisconsin? We had dinner with him last night. He told us he was moving into a rooming house till this was over.”

  Ivy looked at her sharply. “Why, what did he say?”

  “Just that, and that you wouldn’t see him. Given what you told me, I did rather understand why you wouldn’t see him.”

  Ivy shook her head and produced a mirthless smile. “It’s all a lot more complicated than that.” She stubbed out the barely smoked cigarette. “Thank you for stopping by. I really would like to rest now.”

  Lane opened her mouth to respond when a sharp rapping on the door made them both jump.

  “Mrs. Renwick? It’s Sergeant Martinez. I need a moment of your time, please,” Martinez called through the closed door.

  Ivy Renwick went white and reached for the back of a chair for support. Lane pointed at the door and Ivy nodded.

  “Hello, Sergeant Martinez.”

  Martinez looked surprised to see Lane and asked, “Is Mrs. Renwick here?”

  Before Lane could answer, Ivy said wearily, “Yes. Come in, Sergeant.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” Lane said, starting through the door. “Let me know if you need anything, Mrs. Renwick.”
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  “Oh, can you stay? Can she stay?” She turned to Martinez. “I’d prefer it.”

  Surprised, Lane came back into the room and waited for the sergeant’s response.

  “She can stay,” Martinez said, “but I’ve come to tell you we now know you have not been entirely honest with us, and I’ll have to take you down to the station to answer a few questions.”

  Ivy sat down heavily and looked at her hands.

  “If you could get whatever you need, Mrs. Renwick,” Martinez said patiently.

  Ivy stood up and went to the desk and pulled out the hotel stationery and scribbled something on it. “Mrs. Darling, this is the law office for the business back home. Could you call them, ask them to recommend a legal firm down here, and ask them to send someone immediately to the police station?” She turned to Martinez. “I won’t answer questions until a lawyer is there.”

  Nodding, as if this were par for the course, Martinez said, “That’s fine ma’am. We’ve picked up Mr. Edward Renwick and will be speaking with him for some time, I expect.”

  Lane followed them out and stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the sergeant to help Ivy into the back of the car.

  “Sergeant Martinez,” she said when he had closed the door, “what shall I tell the cleaning woman, Chela Ruiz? Will you be interviewing her?”

  “Oh, right. No, I don’t think I’ll need to at this point. You’d best call Mrs. Renwick that lawyer. She’s going to need one.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Wednesday morning, Ames and Terrell sat in Ames’s office. Ames was tapping the desk with his pencil, and Terrell was waiting, his book open.

  “Clearly Barney was not a very nice man,” Ames said. He was troubled by what Tina had told him, which was, in retrospect, not much. But she knew Watts and hated him, and then there was what April had said about Watts and young girls. He’d known Tina. Known her how, exactly? What had Watts done that made Tina hate him?

  “Yes, sir,” said Terrell. “A history of a penchant for young girls, which for the most part is not in itself against the law, but it becomes less and less savoury as he gets older. His wife is a good ten to fifteen years younger than he is, and, in fact, was sixteen when they met, and now we hear he may have been engaged in something with the girlfriend of one of his workmates. And, of course, who belongs to those pretty clothes in the bag?”

  “None of this is going to feed the baby. He was robbed, let’s say by his passenger, but died what appears to be a natural death. We should concentrate on that,” Ames said. “Maybe we were asking the wrong question at the ferry. We need to ask the guy on the ferry if there was a female foot passenger going over to Harrop that day. But it could have been any hitchhiker, really. We’re just thinking it was a woman now because of the clothes. Whoever it was must have walked some distance or caught a ride.”

  “Could we put a notice in the paper and on the radio for anyone seeing a man or woman walking on the road on Monday to contact us?”

  “Yes. Then let’s go see Finch. If he was arguing with him about a woman, it’s possible the woman with Watts was Finch’s wife. Then I’ll go back out and talk to the ferryman. I might give the scene another look as well. I’m puzzled about the keys.”

  When Terrell had gone off to the offices of the Nelson Daily News, Ames sat for a few minutes more looking at his notes and then decided he needed a cup of coffee to stimulate his thinking.

  “Oh, I’m glad you’ve come in,” April said as Ames walked into the diner. She held up a coffee pot and he nodded. “I called my sister to ask”—and here she dropped into a near whisper, looking at the elderly couple sitting at one end of the counter—“about you-know-who. She said he had a real reputation, thought he was the bee’s knees. He even was rumoured to have practically forced girls to . . . you know. And she’s pretty sure he put at least one girl in the family way. Most of the girls in town learned to stay away from him. According to Sis, he even propositioned her, and she told him where to go.”

  “You don’t say. Thank you for calling her.” He could see from the way April hovered that she’d have liked to hear more from him, but it was an ongoing investigation. He was relieved when she was summoned to another table. Besides, he was always slightly embarrassed about the amount of sugar he put in his coffee. He stirred in his customary three spoons and gave himself over to thinking about this new indication of the victim’s unsavoury personality.

  Back at his desk, Ames scribbled some notes and thought about Tina. Was she one of the girls Watts had “forced,” or even put in the family way? He thought of Tina with a secret child somewhere and dismissed the idea, though the thought of it produced an unpleasant sensation between anger and grievance. Aware that his anxiety about Tina could distort his thinking about Barney Watts’s death, he pulled his notepaper toward him and tried to sort what was on it. He had become convinced that a system of note taking he’d learned from an officer in Vancouver might yield results.

  He folded the paper in half lengthwise and on the top of the left-hand side he wrote: b. WATTS, DEATH. Underneath he detailed the finding of the car, the tyre marks indicating a sharp and precipitous turn, its final position, the position of the body, the fact of the car being locked, the keys gone, and the wallet empty and cast away. He’d put something about the cause of death when Gilly came through with his report. Finally, he noted the holdall with Barney’s clothes and those of a woman, most likely his passenger.

  On the right-hand side he wrote WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT b. WATTS. Here he laid out, in point form, his home life, his work— including his demotion, which he had kept from his wife. He sketched out nights away, the argument at work with Finch, and his reputation for pursuing young girls before the war: Tina, his wife, possibly a woman connected to Finch.

  Across the bottom third of the page he drew a line and under it wrote NOT KNOWN and listed the location of keys, the reason for the position of the car at the ferry turnoff, the passenger, the reason for the argument with Finch, and who had emptied his wallet.

  Staring at the lists, he wondered how the right and left columns were related. It was possible that it really was just Watts’s unlucky day, Ames thought. He was happily on his way to a tryst with someone, picked someone up, had a heart attack, and was robbed and left for dead. He put his pencil down. Two possibilities presented themselves: Watts was going somewhere with a woman and began to experience the heart attack. The woman, instead of trying to help him, took advantage of the situation—stole his wallet and locked him in the car so he wouldn’t give chase. Not exactly murder, but was there a statute somewhere about not offering aid? Or Watts was alone in the car and on the way to meet someone and had the heart attack; a passing hitchhiker, or motorist for that matter, stopped, saw Watts was dead, helped himself to the wallet and keys, and drove off.

  He added to the NOT KNOWN section: “How much money did he have on him, and where the hell was he going?” He threw his pencil on the table, watched it bounce and roll off the desk, and, cursing, went to retrieve it.

  “Chasing mice, Ames?” Sergeant O’Brien had appeared in his doorway and was watching with interest as Ames scrabbled under his desk where his pencil had rolled.

  Ames pulled himself out cautiously to avoid hitting his head, stood up dusting his knees, and said with defiant dignity, “Yes, Sergeant O’Brien?” It was unusual for the desk sergeant to haul his considerable frame up the stairs.

  “Do you have a moment, Sarge?”

  “Have a seat,” Ames said, waving his hand graciously at a chair that looked a bit small for his colleague.

  O’Brien sank gratefully onto the chair and then pulled it forward. “It’s about the young darkie.”

  Ames could detect no animus. “You mean Constable Terrell,” he said firmly.

  “Yes. It’s just that the other lads, well, I mean, he keeps himself to himself, if you see what I mean.”

 
“Not entirely. Are you saying they don’t like him?”

  “No. Not exactly. But he doesn’t help by being a loner. He doesn’t, you know, shoot the breeze and the like, like the rest of them.”

  Ames looked at O’Brien, feeling a little at sea. “Perhaps he’s just hesitant. He is new. Has anyone asked him for a beer? He’s a vet. So is Pritchard, isn’t he? They could go to the Legion.”

  O’Brien looked noncommittal. “People say things, you know, out and about.”

  “For God’s sake, O’Brien, what people? What things?”

  “You know. They ask about people on the force. Sometimes on the phone I get, ‘don’t send the darkie.’ Like that.”

  “So you’re telling me that the men don’t ask him to join them after work because people might disapprove? I’m not surprised he’s standoffish. What do you think he hears from people when he does go out?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “No. I suppose not. How are people going to get used to the idea if we can’t even stand by our own? And while we’re at it, what do you think the inspector would think about it?”

  O’Brien, who had never addressed Ames with any real deference before, heaved himself off the chair and said mildly, “You do have a point, Sarge.”

  Ames watched O’Brien clomping out the door and shook his head, exhaling a long breath. If there was ever a time he could use the steadying thoughts of Inspector Darling, this was it.

  “Sergeant.”

  Ames heard Terrell’s greeting to O’Brien just outside in the hall and winced. Terrell must have overheard part of the conversation.

  “Sir?” Terrell said with a quick knock at the door. “Paper will print our request to the public for information.

  “Excellent. Next stop, the rail yard. Let’s see if we can track down Craig Finch.” He stood up, drumming his fingers lightly on his desk, and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about what you might have just heard, Constable.”

  Terrell shook his head. “Don’t trouble yourself, sir. I’ve heard worse. And for what it’s worth I thought you handled it well.”