‘Well—I——’ She broke off, continued with some defiance. ‘That was Neil’s business. You didn’t tell me he was dead——’
The shrill ring of the telephone cut her off and Murdock took a deep breath before he answered it. The curt, incisive voice that came to him belonged to Lieutenant Bacon.
‘What the hell’s the matter with that phone of yours?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve been trying to get you for an hour. If you weren’t a friend of mine I’d have sent a couple of men to haul you down here.’
‘For what?’
‘Cut it out’, Bacon said. ‘I saw the Courier. I talked to the boys who were at the morgue last night. Who told you the dead guy’s name might be Neil Garvin?’
‘I had a tip.’
‘Yah’, said Bacon. ‘Well, you get down here. Right now, understand?’
Murdock had expected the outburst—he knew the worst was still to come—and he would not let it irritate him. ‘Relax, will you?’ he said. ‘I don’t want to talk in your office but——’
‘Oh, you don’t? Did you ever hear of a subpœna?’
‘A subpœna,’ said Murdock, ‘will deliver me in person but it won’t make me talk. Now listen, will you? I’ll be down to the Courier in half an hour. I think I can bring an important witness with me. Meet me in the board room on the fifth floor.’
He hung up before Bacon could protest and turned to find Audrey standing beside him, a cup and dish towel in her hands.
‘Am I the witness?’
‘I’m afraid so’, Murdock said. ‘They’ll need you to identify Garvin in any case. They’ll have plenty of questions but it’s nothing to worry about. All you’ll have to do is tell the truth.’
Lieutenant Bacon was a stiff-backed veteran with a lot of grey hair and a thin, spare frame which was usually clothed in a blue-serge suit. Experienced, dependable, competent without being brilliant, he had a taste for a brand of stogies no one had ever heard of—they were called Little Wonders and he bought them by the box for six cents apiece—which he invariably smoked down to the last inch.
This morning, as Murdock came into the conference room, Bacon was wearing a blue topcoat that had faded with age, his grey felt was newly cleaned and blocked, and he wore it on the dead centre of his head as he paced the floor. Over in a corner chair was his running mate and foil, a thick-bodied man with a threatening manner and a practised scowl whose name was Sergeant Keogh.
Now Bacon stopped pacing and gave Murdock a long, hard stare. He made no reply to the pleasant good morning. Instead he said:
‘Where’s your witness?’
‘Downstairs in the Studio. A girl named Audrey Wayne. She was a seat-mate of Garvin’s on the way East.’ He glanced at Keogh and then back at Bacon. ‘I wanted to talk to you first.’
Bacon understood Murdock’s glance and told Keogh to go down to the Studio and wait with the girl, adding that he’d phone down when he wanted her brought up.
‘You’d better sit down’, Murdock said when the door closed. ‘This may take a while … You’re not going to like it either’, he added as an afterthought.
‘I know damn well I’m not. We pick up a guy in Allston and don’t know a damn thing about him except he’s got a tie with a Los Angeles label, and you even know his name.’ He grunted softly. ‘Now all I want is the name of the guy who killed him.’
Murdock sat down and put his hat on the conference table. He crossed his legs and got a cigarette burning. He said he might as well start at the beginning and he did, telling all the salient facts with only a minor expurgation here and there.
Bacon continued his pacing, walking stiff-legged now and the back of his neck reddening. It was with a visible effort that he contained himself as long as he did, and when the explosion came it was not loud but vehement.
‘God damn you, Murdock!’ he said. He spun about, coat tails flapping, opened his mouth, choked apoplectically.
‘All right’, Murdock said placatingly. ‘I made a mistake. I should have called you——’
‘Immediately.’
‘—and I didn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t think a delay could hurt anything. I didn’t want to break up the reception’, he added lamely.
‘Why the hell should you care? What are these people to you? Just because they’ve got money and are society you’re so impressed you let ’em get away with murder.’
Murdock was honest enough to admit that what Bacon said was literally true. He did not want to explain how he felt about Pat Canning and her honeymoon so he sat there until Bacon leaned close and accused him again.
‘You didn’t hold out on account of that wedding’, he stormed. ‘You held out because if we broke the murder the afternoon sheets would have the beat. You got smart. You thought you could play it cosy. You figured on a front seat because you were going to be the one to tip me off.’
He would have said more but Murdock interrupted, his tone blunt, morose, and no longer patient.
‘All right. I made a mistake. I played it stupid. I admit it. But I’m here now and I want to co-operate. I didn’t have to identify Garvin.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I could have covered up and said nothing. You’d still be wondering who Garvin was and even when you found out you’d never in a million years have known what happened.’
Bacon quieted somewhat, for what Murdock said made sense and he knew it.
‘You’re not coming clean now because you want to help us,’ he said, ‘or because you want to clean up a murder. They played you for a stupe out there at the house, but what really burns you is that somebody stole your camera. Don’t tell me.’
‘Does it make any difference now?’
‘No’, Bacon said honestly. ‘Let’s get that girl up here.’ He nodded toward the telephone and Murdock reached for it. When he hung up Bacon sighed aloud. ‘I could have wrapped it up if you had called in time’, he said, sorrowfully, and more to himself than Murdock. ‘Now all I got is a corpse, and only your word that he was ever at the Canning place.’
Bacon took off his hat when Keogh brought in Audrey Wayne. He arranged a chair for her, calm now as he reached for one of his panatelas and began to manicure the end with a pearl-handled penknife. She watched him quietly, her chin up, a little afraid, it seemed, but trying not to show it.
Finally Bacon was ready. He said he had just heard a story that was so crazy he would not believe it at all unless someone like Murdock had told it. What he wanted from her was all the information he could get about Neil Garvin.
‘Start at the beginning. Tell me what happened on the plane, everything you can remember.’
The things she had to say then were much the same as those she had told Murdock the night before. He did not pay too much attention now, but he continued to watch her, liking her more all the time but feeling too that he had not heard all the story, that something was being left out. He still could not believe that she had gone to the Canning place and into the grounds just because of some womanly curiosity; neither, it seemed, did Bacon.
‘Let’s get this straight’, the lieutenant said. ‘You were going to New York, but Garvin talked you into coming to Boston because you thought you could get some sort of audition for television or radio.’
‘That’s right.’
‘He didn’t tell you who his friend was?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Or who these two guys were he said he was going to collect from? Or what was in that envelope?’
‘No, sir.’
Bacon sucked on his stogie and examined the ceiling, his glance remaining there as he continued.
‘He showed you this clipping and told you he used to be married to the Canning girl. He explained how it happened and how her uncle and cousin broke up the elopement. He said he was going to the wedding——’
‘I don’t think he actually said so’, Audrey cut in. ‘I had the impression that he was going to the house but I’m n
ot sure he said so.’
Bacon said: ‘Umm’, and looked at her. ‘When did you see him last?’
‘The night before last. After dinner.’
‘Did he come back to the hotel with you?’
‘No. He said he had some things to do.’
‘He didn’t refer again to these two fellows he was going to collect from?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Or give you any idea that maybe these two fellows had something to do with the wedding the next day?’ He watched her shake her head. ‘All right, let’s get back to last night. You insist you don’t know what was in that envelope. But you were surprised when the clerk gave it to you.’
‘Naturally.’
‘What, exactly, did you think at the time?’
She hesitated, her eyes harried. She glanced at Murdock and then away. She worried her lower lip with her teeth and finally stared at the table-top.
‘I don’t know that I thought anything except that he wanted me to keep the envelope for him.’
Bacon sucked on his cigar and sat unmoving for five long seconds. When he realized that Murdock was watching him he shrugged faintly and tipped one hand.
‘All right, Miss Wayne’, he said. ‘You were pretty sure Garvin was going to do something about the wedding, and we know now he had a reason for being interested. What was your reason?’
He got her attention then. Her eyes came up and she looked startled and uncertain. ‘What?’ she said, finally.
‘Do you know any of the Cannings?’
‘Why—no, sir.’
‘Yet you went to the trouble of going out to the house and tricking your way into the grounds. You sat outside where you could watch things. Why?’
She took a breath; then answered stiffly. ‘I told Mr. Murdock. I was curious. A woman always is about——’
‘It’s not good enough.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Bacon pointed the cigar at her, his gaze narrowed and his voice no longer conversational.
‘I’ll explain it for you’, he said. ‘You’re a witness, Miss Wayne. What you know makes you a material witness. When you co-operate, we co-operate because we don’t want to make trouble for you. When you don’t we have to get tough. How do I know you’ll be around when I want you? Once I get the idea you’re lying it’s safer for me to hold you.’
‘You mean, in jail?’ She waited, a paleness growing in her cheeks. Finally she seemed to understand that was exactly what Bacon meant. Suddenly she seemed to slump, as though she no longer had the will to argue. She leaned back, her blonde head bowed, and began to pick at her bag.
‘I said I didn’t know the Cannings’, she said. ‘I don’t. But I know one of the Elliott boys, one of the twins.’
Bacon said: ‘Ahh’, and looked interested. ‘Which one?’
‘Jeff.’
‘How do you know him?’
‘I was married to him for nearly two years.’
‘You what?’ said Bacon in slow astonishment.
Murdock heard what she said. He heard each syllable distinctly and with a mounting incredulity that left him momentarily stunned and speechless.
Keogh said: ‘Oh, Brother.’
Bacon eyed his assistant with acute displeasure, as though resenting the intrusion. He put his cigar in his mouth. It was no longer lighted but he did not seem to notice. Finally, accepting the simple statement at face value, he took another moment to study the girl and then he was ready. He asked for dates. He wanted to know when she was divorced, if there was a settlement or alimony, when she had last seen Jeff Elliott.
Out of all this came her story, some of which Murdock already knew, and she told it simply and without embellishment. She had, she said, been singing with a band when an assistant casting director had seen her and offered her a screen test. On the strength of this she had signed a stock contract and gone to the coast. Jeff had been under contract as a writer at the same studio and they had started going around together.
‘A few months later we decided to get married. I didn’t know much about his family at the time but I knew they didn’t like the idea because they never wrote me or sent us a wedding present. I worked two years for the same studio without doing anything but pose in a bathing suit, or do publicity stuff, or if I was lucky, wind up in some B picture as the third girl on the right in a group shot. Jeff left the studio and I stayed on because I was always expecting the right break.’
She took a breath and said, still looking at her bag: ‘I don’t know what happened. One thing, his family kept writing him and telling him he should come home. He wouldn’t tell me what they said but I know it wasn’t good and that made me furious. It got so we quarrelled too often, about nothing at all, both of us selfish and neither really trying to understand the other. Maybe neither of us had what it takes. Maybe I nagged him.’
She hesitated and said: ‘He started staying out nights and I made one of those cross-country publicity junkets with a bunch of others to advertise some picture and I guess it gave me the big head. I thought I was set, that the option would be renewed. One day we talked it over. We still liked each other most of the time but neither of us was really happy and so I went to Reno. About that time the studio dropped me. There wasn’t any settlement, except community property, which wasn’t much except some furniture and two cars, or any alimony. I didn’t want any.’
She stopped, and when no one spoke she looked at Bacon, spots of colour in her tawny cheeks now and her green eyes no longer afraid. Murdock watched her with secret approval, liking her spunk and understanding that although she had not yet been able to find the break she had been waiting for she had not given up trying.
‘That,’ she said finally, ‘is why I went to the reception. I guess that’s the main reason why I changed my mind and came to Boston. I thought if I went out there I might see Jeff. I didn’t want to call him up but I thought if——’
What it was she thought was left unsaid because her voice trailed off and then Bacon stood up and spoke to Keogh.
‘Take her down to the morgue for identification’, he said. ‘Then take her to the interrogation room and get a statement.’
Waiting until the door closed, he turned to Murdock. ‘The D.A. wouldn’t touch what I’ve got with a ten-foot pole,’ he said, ‘but by God I’m going to have a crack at it. I’m going to get old man Canning and that brother from California and those twin nephews——’
‘And Damin and Klime’, Murdock said.
‘Yes, and Damin and Klime. And especially you. Come on.’
Murdock demurred. He said it would take a little time.
‘Not too long’, Bacon said.
‘I’ll be there when you say so,’ Murdock said, ‘but first I want a look in the morgue—our morgue’, he added. ‘The library.’
Bacon thought it over, finally nodded assent. He pulled a heavy gold watch from his vest pocket and told Murdock to be at Headquarters at eleven o’clock.
Chapter 9
WHEN Kent Murdock walked through the detective’s room into the cubby that served as Lieutenant Bacon’s office the veteran was slumped in his desk chair, his feet on a pulled-out drawer, clasped hands cradling his thin neck. His greeting was a grunt, a jerk of his head an invitation to sit down. He continued his contemplation of the ceiling while Murdock fanned out his coat and settled himself; then he pulled out his watch.
‘Glad you’re early’, he said.
‘Where’s the girl?’
‘Down the hall. What did you find out in that morgue of yours?’
‘Nothing much about Luther Canning and the Elliott twins except what you probably already know.’
‘I don’t keep up with the society news’, Bacon said. ‘Tell me.’
Murdock did as directed, reviewing Luther Canning’s career and telling what he knew about the twins.
‘I did find out some things about Todd Canning’, he added.
‘The uncle from California? I’m listening.’
‘He was sort of a family maverick, at least when he was young. He wanted no part of the Canning Mills and left college in his junior year. I can’t tell you all he did, but he worked in oil fields in California, Texas, Canada, and Mexico. For the last several years he’s been living on a ranch near Santa Barbara.’
Murdock paused to glance at a piece of paper on which he had made some notes. ‘He was married rather late—in 1928—and divorced in ’45. His wife is now dead. A little more than three years ago his daughter—she was an only child—was killed in an automobile accident. You can find out more about that than I can.’
Bacon made a note on his desk pad. ‘And he’s the guy that broke up the marriage between his niece and Garvin.’
‘He helped. Now what about this eleven o’clock conference you were going to have?’
‘It will take place as scheduled.’ Bacon unfolded himself in the chair and stood up. ‘I’ve been doing some gabbing long distance’, he said. ‘Four different times. I may have some news for the Canning crowd. Come on.’
The interrogation room was a bare-looking room with a long yellow-oak table in the middle, around which were eight matching chairs. The floor was bare, like the walls, and had a dusty, unvarnished look. There were some ash trays on the table, a cuspidor on a rubber mat, a small table in one corner near the window; in the chair beside it a bald-headed man sat smoking and idly contemplating the stenotype machine in front of him. Sergeant Keogh sat next to Audrey Wayne, and the smile she gave Murdock when he entered was more forced than convincing.
Bacon sat down at the head of the table, put the folder he carried beside him, and looked at his watch again. He told the girl he appreciated her co-operation. He said she had nothing to worry about, that this would be just an informal questioning; it might be a little embarrassing in spots but unfortunately that could not be helped. He was still reassuring her when a plain-clothes man from the adjoining room opened the door and said the Cannings were here.
Crimson Clue Page 7