Killer with a Key

by Dan J. Marlowe

  The small mouth pursed sulkily. "Why I ever let you in... You're nothing but trouble--"

  He paid no attention to her. "That a closet?" He gestured at a closed door.

  "That's the bathroom. What--"

  "This must be the closet, then," he deduced, stepped forward and opened the door. He ran his hand sweepingly down the racks of clothing and backed out thoughtfully. Dry-- all dry. He didn't know if he were disappointed or not.

  Mavis emerged from her open-mouthed surprise, advanced and pushed him solidly. She did a double take when nothing happened at the push, but her voice came more strongly. "What the hell's going on here, you big moose?"

  Johnny looked at her admiringly--no violet, Mavis. "What's the matter, small fry?" he asked her. "Am I supposed to bank into the side pocket like your boy friends when you lean on 'em?" He swung himself out of the dripping raincoat. "I need a shower."

  "Sh-shower?" The big girl's voice was a strangled squeak as Johnny rapidly skinned himself out of his saturated uniform, tie, shirt and underwear.

  "Get me something dry I can get into," he told her and bent to remove shoes and socks before walking into the bathroom.

  She followed him to the door, eyes popping. "You crazy?" she hissed at him. "You one of those damn narcis... narciss--" She gave it up. "You get the hell out! You trying to get me thrown out of here? This is a respectable place!"

  "You want me to catch cold?" he asked reasonably, then turned on the shower and ducked inside. Above the rushing sound of the steaming hot water he could hear Mavis fuming, but when he emerged and groped for a towel a pair of tan slacks and a rose-colored sweater lay on the toilet seat. He dried himself roughly and slipped on the slacks; the two top buttons refused to meet over his lean middle. He picked up the sweater, looked at it and shook his head disgustedly. Barefooted he carried it out and waved it at Mavis where she sat in an armchair with a half-consumed cigarette in her hand. She looked up at his entrance, looked away and then back again as though fascinated. He noticed that she had combed her hair. "You dressin' Singer's midgets? I couldn't get one arm in this thing, an' I got about a leg an' a half in these pants. What else 've you got I can get decent in?"

  "Nothing else!" she said spiritedly. "You must think this is a department store for elephants. You gone loco completely, bustin' in on me like this?"

  "I like you, kid. I don't give my business to just anyone." He slung the discarded sweater into an empty chair and casually approached the big girl. Before she realized his intention he loomed up over her chair, took her by the arms and lifted her out effortlessly, then carried her over to the bed where he sat down with her in his lap. Instinctively she fought against the pinioning arms, and for a moment he concentrated upon the exact amount of strength necessary to hold her immobile without hurting her. When she stopped struggling he relaxed his hold on her. "I told you, little one. I like you."

  "One of us--is crazy!" she gasped. "You let me... up out of here!"

  "I kind of like this arrangement. By the way, you never did get to tell me--that carbons bit your own idea?"

  She twisted sharply until she could see his face. "Why do you want to know?"

  He shrugged elaborately. "Maybe I could use a bright little girl in my business."

  "You haven't any business," she said tartly, and then her tone softened. "You know you're the first soul in this world to call me 'little girl' since I was a kid? 'Course compared to you... You're the biggest damn thing I ever--" Her voice trailed off.

  "The carbons," Johnny repeated and pinched her.

  She yipped and bucked in his lap. "Cut that out!"

  He pinched her again, solidly.

  "Oww! That hurt, damn you! I'll--" She flinched at the movement of his arm. "All right, all right, I'll tell you!" she said hastily. He waited, and she continued poutingly. "So it was my own idea. A girl's got to eat."

  "A girl's got to keep her fantail outta the grease, too. You think Russo would front for you if someone caught you like I did?"

  "I can handle Ed," she said confidently.

  So she doesn't know about Ed, he thought. And she hasn't been out in the rain. Which about winds up the charade here. He looked at the big girl in his lap. Almost...

  She was looking at him curiously. "Why? What's it to you?"

  "Ask me tomorrow, kid." He upended her suddenly and dumped her sprawling across the rumpled bed; in an instant he was full-length beside her. "Funny thing," he said casually and fingered her pajamas. "These things nylon?" She nodded. "Thought so. I'm allergic to it. Just makes me want to pinch--" She kicked quickly at the advancing hand; he trapped the slim ankle in his left hand and rolled her onto her stomach. The big right hand dropped on the waistband of the pajamas. "'Course it's only nylon makes me feel that way," he said thoughtfully and unhurriedly disposed of it. "Say now... that's nothing but fine. Real sugar-cured."

  The big girl flipflopped like a grassed fish. "Put out that damn light!" she husked breathlessly.

  "You think I'm an owl? Now you take this useful-lookin' appliance... you tested the horsepower lately?"

  "Stop--it!"

  Beside them he could see on the wall the magnified shadows blend suddenly as he bent over her purposefully. "You remind me, kid. Later."

  CHAPTER 14

  HE woke in the late afternoon with a pain in his chest; he opened his eyes to find Sassy ensconced on her favorite spot. He lifted her off, and she swished her tail indignantly. "For somethin' that weighs about seven-eighths of a pound, white stuff, you sure walk like a Mack truck."

  He picked up his wrist watch from the table and looked at it. He shook his head; he had been asleep for only an hour and a half. He had had nearly an all-day session with the police; they had landed in force shortly after his own return to the hotel, and only Jimmy Rogers' presence beside him at the critical moment and Patrolman Gliddens' admission that Johnny had not been specifically told to stay put prevented the occasion from being even stickier. The police were mad.

  He lay back on the bed and explored with his hands the two dark spots just below his breastbone, so tender to the touch that the digging of the kitten's paws had awakened him. The twin souvenir of his early-morning encounter with Lorraine Barnes' heels had not only discolored but had swollen slightly. A fraction higher or lower, and she would really have sanded his engine.

  Lorraine Barnes--now there was an all-purpose woman for you. Killed a husband of her own, according to Mike Larsen. Definitely not the delicate type in the clinches, yet with a distinct feminine appeal. Insistent upon doing her own snooping around four murders. And that savatte kick--where could she have learned that?

  He stirred restlessly, leaned up on an elbow and reached for a cigarette from the pack on the table. He sucked in on the smoke and exhaled noisily as he lay down again. Sooner or later, Killain, he briefed himself, you're going to have to make up your mind about Lorraine Barnes. She may be Vic's Wife, but the more you look at it she's about the only qualified entrant left in this murder derby, and the record says she's capable of it.

  A motive? That was a little tougher. If Robert Sanders had been reneging on a romantic attachment she could have wanted him hung out to dry. She had a lot of pride. But the police seemed to have done nothing with that angle, which only went to show their sources of information might not be as good as Mike Larsen's. So--Sanders, possibly. But Ellen, and the Perry girl, and Russo? He felt that Lorraine Barnes was capable of very nearly anything in the white heat of anger, but the cold-blooded elimination of three more people--even though it could hardly have been planned that way originally--had a calculated touch to it that seemed foreign to her.

  Still, on opportunity she rated high. By her own admission she had been close to Robert Sanders when he was killed. No one knew where she had been when Ellen Saxon was killed. She had not been at her apartment--or anywhere else that could be accounted for--when Roberta Perry was killed. And there were those clothes, so closely matching the description of the things worn by th
e killer. She had been out in the rain last night when Ed Russo caught the black pills. Four murders--and she had an alibi for none of them. But did you always have an alibi when you needed one, especially living alone?

  He sat up on the edge of the bed. Well, boy, you've thought yourself full circle. Did she or didn't she? You're not likely to find out from her; you made hardly a dent in her head-on. Although if Cuneo hadn't shown--

  He circled his drawn-up knees with his arms. Robert Sanders, Ellen Saxon, Roberta Perry, Ed Russo. Every one of them connected in one way or another with that public relations office. Some of them connected personally apparently not at all. That public relations office... Johnny stared thoughtfully at the far wall. Have you been missing a bet, Killain? There's at least one other person closely connected with the tight little group of deceased. The widow Sanders. Yet the police seemed to have no interest in her at all; her alibis must have been sheet steel.

  Her husband and three of her employees. She'd been with Ed Russo last night just before he died. The widow Sanders...

  He slid from the bed and reached for his clothes. He thought of Lieutenant Dameron and shrugged. Cross that bridge when you come to it, Killain. The back of your hand to Joe Dameron, anyway.

  He walked to the window and drew back the shade for a look outside. A little hazy. He closed the window against the chance of more rain. In the phone book he looked up the agency address and headed for the street. In the cab on the way over he tried to decide on an approach that would get him in to see the widow Sanders. He discarded two or three notions and finally gave it up; he'd think of something when the time came.

  The agency offices were impressive; he looked around at the walnut paneling and the limed oak desk in the receptionist's corner behind the little wooden fence before he spoke to the girl seated at the desk. "My name's Killain, and I'd like to see Mrs. Sanders. If she's busy I'll wait."

  He had waited only five minutes when the girl beckoned to him. "Through that door and the third door on the right, sir."

  The third door on the right was frosted all the way to the top and was completely unmarked. He knocked once and turned the knob. The tall blonde he had seen on the mezzanine with Ed Russo last night sat behind a desk overflowing with papers and half-filled ash trays. His first really good look at her disclosed clear, tanned skin and a healthy outdoors look, a little surprising in the executive type. Her linen suit stayed crisp-looking, even in the heat. The eyes were blue and direct; the mouth was firm, with a shade too much chin below it for prettiness. It was a strong face, and she did not boggle at his inspection.

  "Mrs. Sanders, my name's Killain," Johnny said. He took a deep breath and waited for the next line to appear on the prompter's card.

  "Helen Sanders," the tall woman amended absently. The blue eyes took him in inch by inch. "Killain. I don't seem to know the name, but don't I know-- Of course; you're from the hotel." She smiled, a frank, open smile. "And you came to see me. That's rather remarkable, since I had already told someone to see you in the morning."

  "See me, ma'am?"

  "Exactly." The blue eyes retraced him, this time in quarter inches. "You've been at the hotel ten years, give or take a few months. I'm told that you exercise authority over and above what might reasonably be asked of you and exercise it well. Did you ever think of making a change?"

  "What kind of a change, ma'am?"

  "Mr. Killain--"

  "The name is Johnny, ma'am," he interrupted her.

  "Johnny, then. You'll forgive me, I hope, if I'm a little abrupt." Again the frank smile. "It's a habit of mine. I'm a businesswoman, not a sentimentalist. Ed Russo told me about you, and I checked you with another source. The public stenographer's office at the hotel is mine, Johnny. My money supported it, and Ed Russo ran it for me. I need a man to take Ed Russo's place, a man with a little raw intelligence, nerve and drive. Would you like to be that man?"

  Johnny removed his cigarettes from his shirt pocket, shook one free and placed it in his mouth. As an afterthought he rose and offered one to the woman behind the desk; she accepted, and he lighted it for her. He sat down again and tried to keep his voice noncommittal. "I'd have thought Russo's attitude toward me might be a little negative."

  Helen Sanders smiled again. "It was. So was the attitude of the other party I checked. I was told--even warned-- not to make this offer to you." The smile widened; she had a really nice smile, Johnny decided. "I felt I had to decide for myself. The right man over there is worth a good deal to me, the wrong man is worthless."

  "Does Tim Connor fit into the picture over there, Mrs. Sanders?"

  "You've met Tim? I'll put it this way--Tim Connor was an independent contractor taken on by Ed for specific jobs. I personally feel that Connor was one of Ed's major mistakes."

  "And here I thought Connor was a wheel."

  "In his own circles, possibly; I can tell you explicitly that as far as the operation over there was concerned, far from being a wheel, Tim Connor was a very small gear."

  Johnny settled back in his chair. "So you've warmed me up. Roll the cameras."

  "Fair enough. The public stenographer bit is a blind, of course. The main purpose of that office is to serve as a briefing center for the people assigned to the special jobs which come out of my office here." Helen Sanders looked down momentarily at the glowing tip of her cigarette. "The girl there now will have to go, incidentally. I made it a practice not to interfere with Ed's pets, but she attracts entirely too much attention."

  "You still haven't said anything," Johnny pointed out when she paused.

  The voice was crisp. "I say I'll pay two hundred a week and expenses to a man who can follow specific directives and who can procure the people to carry them out."

  "That's a good week's pay. Anything illegal?"

  "There shouldn't be. Ed was inclined to trim his sails a little too closely in that respect. When you have a mind as devious as mine, illegality becomes an unnecessary luxury."

  He considered the clear blue eyes in the candid face. "I haven't heard anything yet I can hang a nail on, Mrs. Sanders."

  "I'm sure you're giving me credit for a little common sense. Before I reach the point of no return with you I want a reaction. I think you understand me. You asked if it was illegal, and I said no. If you asked if it was ethical, I might feel it necessary to tell you that a clear two hundred a week buys up a few ethics. My late husband had ethics. I prefer a bank account."

  This woman left no snagged threads at all; Johnny made one more try. "How about a for instance on a directive, Mrs. Sanders?"

  For an instant he thought she was going to refuse, and then she changed her mind. "All right. Follow me closely, now; this is a little complicated. Some time ago a jeweler came to me--in my business I get referrals all the time--with a story of having been tricked by his partner. I checked and found out his story was true. I always do check, because over the years I've found that countermeasures such as we specialize in rarely result in an official protest if there has been an original wrong. Too much dirty linen would be exposed."

  She knuckled a hand and scrubbed it briskly in the other palm. "I thought about it for a week. Then I had Ed Russo contact Tim Connor and three unemployed actors, one of them a woman. I set up a timetable for them, and for once they followed it perfectly. On a day like today, for example, the woman was sent to the jeweler where the wrong was to be righted, and she purchased an expensive watch of a type uncommon enough that the jeweler could not in reason have very many in stock. This watch was taken to a man who does work for us, and the expensive moment was removed and a very cheap movement substituted. The tampered watch was then returned to the woman. Three or four days later, in the early morning a man of the group went in to this same jeweler and bought an identical watch. This, too, was taken to our man, the expensive movement removed and the cheap movement substituted. An hour after the first man left the store, the second man went in and bought up all the watches of that style which were left in the s
tore. Because of the price and style of the item there shouldn't be too many; regardless, it is his job to see that he gets them all, from counters, vault and windows. Hard on the heels of his departure the first man came back and returned the watch he had bought earlier the same morning, only now of course it contained the substituted cheap movement. On a returned item the store's watchmaker will automatically check the merchandise as a matter of course, but where is the watchmaker who will take the back off the case and check the watch movement inside?"

  Helen Sanders smiled as Johnny leaned forward in his chair, trying to follow her story. "In the meantime, Tim Connor had contacted a man he knew on the District Attorney's Racket Squad. Tim told this man that he'd bought an expensive watch for his girl, had had trouble with it, had taken it to another jeweler, and that the second jeweler had told him that it had a cheap, inferior movement in it and that he'd been rooked. The Racket Squad man naturally said let's go and see this crooked jeweler. Tim led his little party on the scene and accused the clerk of selling his girl a doctored watch. The clerk denied it, naturally, and called out the watchmaker, who took the back off the case of the woman's watch and was confounded by what he found. The Racket Squad man moved in and demanded to see all other watches of that type in stock. They could only have one; the returned one which also had a cheap, inferior movement. Try explaining it to a Racket Squad man some time."

  Johnny blew out his breath. "Lady, when you said you had a devious mind it was the understatement of all time!" He thought back over it, step by step. "Foolproof. A perfect frame."

  Helen Sanders nodded. "All purchases are for cash, strictly. Phony names, except for the woman complainant, and phony addresses. It's an expensive operation, but the man who wanted the job done paid fifteen hundred dollars for it. Paid it cheerfully. He didn't know how it was done; he didn't care. He saw the result." She looked at Johnny across the desk. "Well?"