Dead on the Level

by Nielsen, Helen

  “Phyllis adored her father!”

  “But he’s dead, and she’s missing.”

  Gorden’s head came up slowly, and he stared at Casey in a deliberate and calculating way. “Your work must keep you busy,” he remarked dryly. “What paper did you say you represented?”

  “Godey’s Lady’s Book,” Casey said.

  “Really?” Gorden was beginning to add things up now, and he seemed to be good at mathematics. “Why don’t you take your theories to the police?” he suggested. “They might be interested; in fact, they might have news for you. Would you care to know where I’ve been for the past hour?”

  A warning bell sounded in Casey’s subconscious, and he began to back away from the desk. Gorden’s eyes were much too intense.

  “I’ve been over in an alleyway near the river, identifying Miss Brunner’s car. Whoever abandoned it there tried to destroy the evidence by setting fire to the upholstery, but a passer-by saw the smoke and turned in an alarm. It’s peculiar about that upholstery. One side of the seat was bloodstained, but it wasn’t the driver’s side.”

  An alleyway near the river. That could be any number of places, but to Casey it meant somewhere between the Cloud Room and an old studio building on Erie Street. He had to force himself to ask the question.

  “And Miss Brunner?”

  “Her handbag was found about half a block away. Nothing else—yet.”

  Gorden was coming to his feet again, his left hand easing toward the desk telephone. “Now about that man she met at the hotel bar—”

  He never completed either the sentence or the maneuver for the phone. He was practically leaning into the fist Casey shot forward. After it landed, he wasn’t a bit talkative.

  And then Casey was running. He was getting down the hall, into the elevator, and out of the building fast, before the blonde came back from lunch and found her hero with his handsome face in her ash tray. He was running, too, from a horde of shadows with faces like a leering bellboy. If Phyllis Brunner was dead— He couldn’t allow his mind to think such things. She couldn’t be dead. Maggie had to be right!

  It was easy, once he hit the street, to get lost in the fast-stepping crowd. He turned left automatically. A few blocks up the line, he grabbed a bus that was just turning to make the loop and then head north again. And all the way back to Erie Street he kept telling himself that Phyllis Brunner couldn’t be dead.

  Maggie hadn’t returned when Casey got there. He let himself in with the key she had given him, wondering how she had made out at the City Hall. Not that there was much to wonder about. If there had been anything at all to that hunch of hers, the odds were all against a local marriage. Phyllis Brunner wouldn’t have chanced a three-day wait even if she’d been able to get a license. Not with the Indiana line so near. Besides, it still seemed like a crazy dream.

  It was almost dark in the studio. Dusk came early on rainy days, and the leaden twilight filtering down from overhead made only an eerie patch below. Casey closed the door behind him and waited for his eyes to get used to the darkness. Only an eerie patch, and the light was falling directly on the face in Maggie’s portrait of Phyllis Brunner. That was the way he remembered her, in a dim, blue-edged light with her eyes like purple smoke.

  What’s happened to you, Casey Morrow? What kind of black magic could the girl possess to have blasted your life this way? Could it be only twenty-four hours since you first saw that face? It seems an age, a long, dark age.

  And then Casey stopped talking to himself. Even in that leaden light he could see that the portrait had moved and was coming toward him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PHYLLIS BRUNNER WAS very much alive. She came forward hesitantly, uncertain of who had entered the studio, and then Casey snapped on the lights. It was the first time he could remember seeing her in a bright light. Her face was very pale, and the mink coat resembled a drowned rat, but she was still beautiful. She stopped about two feet away from him and waited for the words he couldn’t find.

  “I—I was waiting for Maggie,” she began at last. “I used to live here.”

  “I know,” Casey said.

  “I still have a key. I guess the same key must fit all the doors.”

  There was no logic in her standing there holding up an irrelevant door key in one hand—just as if it meant anything. Just as if this small talk meant anything at all. Casey wanted to grab her by the shoulders and give her a good shaking until she started making sense. But her eyes were strange and fearful, and he couldn’t seem to lift the weight of his own arms.

  “I wanted to find you again,” she added.

  “I’ll bet you did!”

  “I did, really. I wanted to explain why I brought you here last night. Why else do you think I came back?”

  “I don’t know,” Casey admitted, “and I’m afraid to guess. You might have another job for me.”

  The last bit of color drained out of her face, and her hands formed small, tight fists. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “What are you insinuating?”

  “What I’m insinuating is something you should know a lot more about than I do,” Casey replied quietly. “Frankly, my memory isn’t too good. All I know for certain is that you came up to my booth in the Cloud Room yesterday and started talking up some mysterious job you had for me. This morning your father’s found with his head bashed in, and I wake up with a bloody coat sleeve and five thousand dollars. What do you expect me to insinuate?”

  That was giving it to her straight and it hurt. Either Phyllis Brunner was really as shocked as she looked, or she was the greatest actress in the world. She swayed a little, but Casey let her right herself without any help from him. She was an awful liar. Those were Maggie’s very words, and Casey wasn’t a trusting soul.

  “Oh, no—” she finally gasped out. “It wasn’t what you’re thinking. I didn’t hire you to kill my father!”

  He could almost believe her, but that could be because he wanted so badly to believe. “Who said you did?” he countered. “All you needed was a fall guy to take the blame when things got rough. How did you happen to lose your nerve? Why didn’t you go ahead and scream for the cops? Did you think anybody would doubt your sad story?”

  Casey hauled the roll of bills out of his pocket and weighed it in his hands. “Motive and everything,” he added. “And a man without a memory can’t fight back.”

  It was a desperate, defensive kind of cry she made. “You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?”

  “I may have missed a few details.”

  “You’ve got it all figured out!”

  There was something proud about Phyllis Brunner, even in dripping mink. She didn’t seem to be the kind of girl who would cry easily, and she didn’t come right out with her tears now. She didn’t make a sound, but her shoulders were shaking as she turned aside.

  “Of course,” Casey said, “if you have another version—”

  “Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!”

  “For the love of God, what do you expect me to think?”

  He hadn’t meant to cry out that way. He hadn’t meant to betray the fact that he could have any doubts at all, and he didn’t want any doubts. All day he had been telling himself what kind of a girl Phyllis Brunner was, and that’s how he wanted things to remain. But all the time, he knew that he was lying. He knew it even more now that she was turning toward him again, staring at him in a puzzled, searching sort of way. Her eyes seemed larger with tears in them, and she looked very small and very frightened.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been nearly frantic all day. I guess I just didn’t stop to consider what you must have been thinking. If you’ll only listen—”

  Casey listened, but not just then. For the next few minutes he was too busy scooping Phyllis Brunner up from where she’d collapsed on the floor.

  “She fainted,” Casey was saying. “She just stood there talking to me and fainted. She’s awfully cold and wet.”

  “I can see
that,” Maggie announced tersely. “Stop acting like a helpless male and go away somewhere while I get her out of these wet clothes. Go make some coffee—if you know how.”

  Casey retreated to the kitchen and began to make a lot of noise with a coffeepot and a can. Seeing a girl cry was bad enough; seeing her collapse was worse. Nobody had ever been more welcome any place than Maggie had been when she burst into the studio with an amazed expression and a pair of hands that hadn’t turned to thumbs. At first she had glared at him accusingly, as if he’d knocked the girl down—or something worse—but that wasn’t what made Casey’s hands shake so as he measured out the coffee. What was behind that would take a lot of analyzing, and he was working on it when Maggie called him back from the kitchen.

  “She’s alive,” Maggie said, “and talking.”

  “Casey—”

  That was the first he realized that Phyllis knew his name. She must know a lot of other things about him that he couldn’t remember having told, but they weren’t important now. He walked over to the couch where she sat adorned in an army blanket, and not much else, and sat down.

  “All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  “It wasn’t the way you said.”

  “How was it?”

  “It was—terrible!” She pulled the blanket higher about her shoulders, but it was more than the atmosphere that had set her trembling. “It was late when we reached my father’s apartment,” she went on. “I don’t know just how late, eleven or so. You were awfully drunk, but I managed to get you out of the car and up to the apartment—there’s an automatic elevator. I saw the light in Dad’s study and decided to take you in to meet him.”

  “That’s a new angle,” Casey said. “Your father must have been broad-minded.”

  Phyllis didn’t seem to hear him. Her face was very intense.

  “We were clear into the room before I saw what had happened. I couldn’t cry out or even move for a minute, but you stumbled over the poker on the floor and picked it up. That’s how you got the blood on your coat.”

  “Picked it up!” Casey repeated. “That really makes things fine! Now I’ve got my fingerprints all over that poker.”

  “I guess so. I never thought to wipe it off.”

  He glanced toward Maggie. How do you know when she’s lying, his eyes were asking. How do you know what to believe? But Maggie, if she had an opinion, was keeping it to herself.

  “When I finally realized what had happened,” Phyllis continued, “I got scared. The building was terribly quiet and then I heard the elevator coming back up again. It didn’t stop at our floor, but the very sound of it was enough to make me want to run. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have stayed and called the police, but I was panic-stricken. I was especially afraid for you, Casey. I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “Now that’s what I call being thoughtful,” Maggie said.

  “I mean it!” Phyllis insisted. “It wasn’t easy, but I finally did get Casey downstairs and into my car. It had started to rain in the meantime, and I must have driven around in the rain for hours before I thought of taking him here. This was the only place I could think of.”

  “And then where did you go?” Maggie asked.

  “I started to go home—to Mother’s, but I couldn’t.”

  “And why not?”

  “I don’t know. I just couldn’t.”

  “If she beats you,” Casey remarked, “she has my deepest admiration.”

  The taffy-colored head came up quickly, and he caught a faceful of blazing eyes. “You don’t believe me!” she cried. “You don’t want to believe me! You’ve got your mind made up and that’s how it’s going to be no matter what I say. But why should I kill my father, or have you kill him? He was the only person I ever really loved!”

  Phyllis Brunner brought her knees up against her chin and sat with her face buried in the folds of the blanket. She wasn’t crying again; she was just being very quiet for a few moments that neither Casey nor Maggie dared disturb. And then she raised her head and began to examine Casey’s face in the same calculating manner she had done an afternoon earlier in the Cloud Room.

  “You’re going to help me find out who killed my father,” she announced quietly.

  “Am I?” Casey challenged.

  “Yes, and it won’t be hard to do. The hard part will be in proving it. He’s very, very clever.”

  “You know who it was?” Maggie demanded.

  “I think I know. No, I know that I know! Dad was the only person he was afraid of, the only one who stood in his way. He hypnotized my mother just the way he does all the others, but Dad didn’t fall for his line. He said that I didn’t have to marry him unless I wanted to.”

  Casey glanced at Maggie, and she took a slight bow. And to Phyllis he explained, “Maggie thinks you were running away from Lance Gorden when you came here the first time.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “We’ve met,” Casey answered, rubbing his knuckles thoughtfully.

  “Well, Maggie’s right; I was running away from him. He was always after me to marry him, and so was Mother. That’s why I finally gave in.” Phyllis frowned over the thought, then added: “Mother worries too much; she thinks I should settle down. She means well, I guess, but she just can’t see how Lance has her hypnotized!”

  “He must be a regular Svengali,” Maggie observed, “and no beard, either.”

  There was a warning note in her words that put Casey on guard. Remember, she was saying, this is the kid with the oversized imagination. Remember the ill-fated prima donna and self-sacrificing father.

  “Outside of an obvious reason I won’t go into just now,” Casey queried, “why is Gorden so set on this marriage?”

  “Money,” Phyllis said promptly.

  “He seems to be pretty well fixed.”

  The girl smiled bitterly. “Seems to be is right!” she mocked. “Where do you think he would be without my father’s backing? And even that was Mother’s idea.”

  “And so, maybe because he’s tired of paying income tax, he kills off his meal ticket. Is that your theory?”

  It was plain to see that Phyllis Brunner didn’t like being challenged. One minute she was a white-faced kid with trembling lips and troubled eyes; the next she was a fireball. “I’m not giving you a theory,” she snapped, “I’m giving you the truth! And it doesn’t matter if you won’t believe me, because you’re to do just what I tell you to do anyway.”

  “You might at least say ‘please,’” Maggie suggested, but there was no stopping Phyllis now.

  “To begin with, neither one of you is going to report me to the police. I don’t want to be found—not yet, anyway. That’s why I set fire to my car.”

  “I’ve got news for you,” Casey said. “You failed your scout test. It didn’t burn.”

  That bit of news delayed her only an instant. “Anyway, I’m rid of it,” she said. “And now I’m going to hide out for a while and let Lance worry about where I am and why. You’re going to help me in that, too.”

  “I seem to be getting awfully helpful all of a sudden.”

  “You’d better, Casey, because if you don’t I’ll just have to go to the police and tell them how you abducted me after killing my father.”

  All this time Casey had been waiting for the boom to fall. Some things in life could be argued with, but not the grim determination in Phyllis Brunner’s face. He glanced at Maggie. “I think she has you,” Maggie said, but Casey was mad.

  “Maybe not!” he challenged.

  He swung back and faced the girl on the couch beside him. Very sure of herself, she was. Very smug and sure. “It’s your story against mine,” Casey countered, “and I like mine better. The police are narrow-minded about murder; they always try to find a motive. The more I think about it, the less I see any motive for me unless you paid me to do the job, in which case you won’t be telling anybody anything. After all, Darius Brunner was nothing to me.”

 
“Oh, but he was!”

  “I missed something?”

  A slow smile spread across Phyllis’s face and it boded no good for Casey Morrow. He could feel that in the pit of his stomach. “You missed everything,” she said. “I had to drive all the way to Indiana and prop you up during the ceremony, but I found a justice of the peace who was nearsighted and almost as fond of money as you are. I’ve got news for you, Casey. I’m Mrs. Casey Morrow.”

  She let the words stand alone for a moment, taking a brief bow by themselves. Actually, Casey wasn’t surprised. It was the way she’d told him that left him dumb. She obviously had her reasons for doing a thing like that and what those reasons were could mean trouble in the large, family-sized package.

  “I paid five thousand dollars for that privilege,” she added.

  “I’m flattered,” Casey said.

  “You should be. I could have found what I was looking for much cheaper, but when I saw you nursing along that last dollar of yours in the Cloud Room I knew that you were the one. ‘Here’s a man I can understand,’ I told myself. ‘Here’s a man I can do business with.’ I was right, wasn’t I, Casey?”

  That was a question Casey was happy to ignore. “The marriage is because of Gorden?” he countered.

  “That’s right.”

  “Now he can’t marry you.”

  “Now he can’t marry me, and he can’t get control of the money.”

  “Money?” Casey echoed. “What money?”

  Phyllis indulged in a sharp, silver laugh. “I thought that would interest you,” she said. “My money, of course. Father never had much faith in Mother’s business ability and he hated inheritance taxes, so he made over the bulk of the estate to me. A couple of million in case you want to drool. The catch is that I’m not legally of age. I have to have a guardian—or a husband.”

  Casey needed a little time to get used to the idea. Yes, now he could see what Phyllis Brunner had in mind; he could also see way ahead of her. Maybe he wasn’t the smartest man in the world but he could recognize an opportunity even if it came wrapped in an army blanket. Suppose the girl was right? Suppose he could prove that Lance Gorden had murdered Darius Brunner? It was an awfully long chance, but the long chances were the ones that paid off and Phyllis Brunner would pay off plenty. She had already paid five thousand dollars to get a husband. She’d pay a lot more than that to get rid of him.