After Midnight (15 page)

“When you and Roger rented this house,” Simon asked, “did you look at any of the others?”

“Several,” Wanda said. “They were all vacant then.”

“Do they all have the same floor plan?”

“Yes—except some of them have three bedrooms. The colors are different. I wanted this one because I like gold.”

Simon stepped over the bed and took the dryer from Wanda’s head.

“Don’t—I’m not dry!” she protested.

“Make the sacrifice,” Simon said. “Now, listen.”

He left her sitting on the edge of the bed with her hair in pin curls and walked back through the living room, down the front stairs and opened the front door. There was always some wind in the afternoon, but it wasn’t anywhere near the velocity of the storm that had occurred the night of Roger Warren’s death. Simon opened the door wide and then slammed it shut. He repeated this action three more times, locked the door and returned upstairs to the bedroom.

Wanda stared at him questioningly.

“Did you hear it?” he asked.

“Hear what?” she countered.

“Did you hear the front door slam?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “How could I hear the front door slam back here on the ocean side of the house? We even had to have an extension put on the doorbell.”

“Where?” Simon demanded.

“I don’t remember. Oh—yes. It’s on the wall behind the teak screen.”

Simon found the bell and disconnected the wires. When Wanda asked him why, he explained that he wanted her to lock him out when he left the house and devote the rest of the evening to drying her hair.

“And forget this house has a door,” he added, “until you hear from me.”

Simon drove to City Hall and found Lieutenant Franzen applying adhesive tape to the frames of his glasses.

“My head must have shrunk,” he said. “They fall off whenever I look down.”

“What do you know about Frank Lodge?” Simon asked.

Franzen fitted the glasses over his ears and reflected.

“Lodge, Frank,” Simon prodded. “A state’s witness at the Warren prelim.”

“I know who Frank Lodge is,” Franzen answered, “but I wonder why you’re asking. Worried, Mr. Drake?”

“What about?”

“Justice. Truth. Murder will out.”

“You still think Wanda Warren killed her husband!”

“Don’t you, Mr. Drake? In a case like this one—a husband and wife problem—it’s usually a pretty basic situation. Love, hate. Hate, love. You got lucky, Mr. Drake. If that neurotic nurse hadn’t tried to play the good citizen—”

“How do you know she’s neurotic?” Simon asked.

“The way she came in here with that yarn about witnessing the murder and then reversed herself before the hearing. It suggests some kind of instability, don’t you think?”

“Do you really want to know why she reversed herself?” Simon asked.

Franzen was immediately interested.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Because I learned she was mixed up with a man and spent at least a part of that Sunday with him. I warned her that I would force her to reveal his identity if she testified at the hearing.”

“If the D.A. knew that!” Franzen exclaimed.

“Duane Thompson is free to make as many inquiries as I do,” Simon said. “It’s not my fault if he’s careless. If he hadn’t been so sold on his own opinion, he would have checked out Nancy Armitage as thoroughly as I did. Now I’ve told you about Armitage. What can you tell me about Lodge?”

Franzen’s integrity had been challenged. He had to cooperate. He went to the files and got the folder on Frank Lodge.

“We’re not as careless as you think,” he said. “I personally had a complete check run on Lodge. Here it is: Age—42. Occupation: salesman for Dover Power Tools, Incorporated, Alameda, California, for the past three years. Married to the former Mae Evelyn Aldrich, 39, for eight years. Mrs. Lodge is a substitute school teacher in the elementary grades. Lodge was hospitalized last August—surgery for kidney stones. He came to Marina Beach early in September to recuperate.”

“I didn’t know a kidney stone operation was so serious,” Simon said. “Did he have complications?”

“He had medical insurance. It’s his money.”

“But those houses on Seacliff Drive are expensive,” Simon protested. “He could do better in a rest home.”

Franzen smiled tolerantly.

“Maybe Lodge doesn’t like rest homes,” he said. “I have to use psychology and imagination in my job, Mr. Drake. Now just suppose you had been on the operating table and it was the first serious illness of your life. It suddenly dawns on you that you aren’t going to live forever and maybe there was one thing you always wanted to do—”

“—rent a house on Seacliff Drive and sun myself on my own private beach,” Simon added. “Fine projecting, Lieutenant. But why doesn’t Mr. Lodge have his wife with him?”

“She’s teaching school and they need the money. Lodge told me that part himself. Everything he told me checked out—the wife, the operation, the job.”

It looked complete on paper but Simon wasn’t satisfied.

“Why did he choose Marina Beach for the convalescence?” he persisted. “Had he been down this way before?”

“Twice—both times representing his company,” Franzen said. “He stayed at City Motel both trips—and it’s on their records. Now, do you still think we’re careless?”

“I think you’re perfectionists,” Simon said, “but so am I.”

Simon left the lieutenant to straighten out his files and drove downtown to the City Motel. It was a posh new commercial hostelry with hot and cold swimming pools and piped music in every room. It had been open for exactly eleven months and every registration card completed during that period was still on file. The first date of Lodge’s stay was a dry well. The motel had been open only three days and Lodge was put on the second floor all by himself. The second date, late in August, was more interesting. Again Lodge chose the second floor, but this time he had a next door neighbor for the duration of his stay. A merchant seaman named Samuel Olson.

Samuel Olson was a merchant seaman on the S.S.
Dobson
assigned to the regular run between Los Angeles and Hong Kong by way of Honolulu and Yokohama. It was mid-morning of the day after Simon’s discovery of the volume of the surf sound below the Seacliff Drive houses, and, now that he had the key to the puzzle, everything was falling into place the way the sky fell on Henny Penny. Hannah’s contact came through with the needed information within hours of her call of inquiry. She relayed the message and waited for Simon’s reaction.

“Finally,” he said, “I’ve got a connection. All those suspects and not one thing in common but some point of contact with Roger Warren, And now, when it comes, it’s not one of my suspects at all.”

“By suspects you mean August Mayerling and Eddie Berman,” Hannah reflected.

“And Nancy Armitage and Commander Warren.”

“Commander Warren! You can’t think the commander killed his own son!”

Simon didn’t blame her for being shocked. It was a wild idea.

“I try to keep an open mind,” he explained. “The old boy’s playing it too coy, Hannah. He had to know Roger was mixed up in something off color. He’s an opinionated old goat, but he’s not stupid. And the Warren name and record is important to him. Whether he knows it or not, that’s why he’s intent on convicting Wanda. It would be so neat that way. Put all of the blame on the image he has of his son’s wife and resurrect Roger without blemish or wound. But resurrections aren’t brought about by shifting guilt. There’s more to it than that.”

“But murder, Simon! No, I can’t see the commander committing murder even to save his precious honor.”

“We all have a weakness—a breaking point somewhere,” Simon insisted. “For Commander Warren it’s that stiff-necked hero image that won’t let him forgive human weakness or even acknowledge that it exists. His fantasy—” He paused, remembering. “Nancy Armitage told me hers. She’s not stupid either, but she has a weakness.”

“Which is?”

“She’s a woman.”

“And so is Wanda, and hell hath no fury—”

Simon placed a finger firmly over Hannah’s lips.

“Not while I’m thinking,” he said, “there’s another possibility—McKay. He’s the commander’s keeper, so to speak. Bodyguard, companion, keeper of the image. I had him checked out weeks ago. He served with the commander during two wars. I know he would kill if he thought killing would protect the old man from grief. And he had close enough contact with the family to know how Roger and Wanda battled and that Wanda jumped ship the day of the murder. He knew, too, what happened when I visited the commander on the yacht after the hearing, and he was present at the dock when Charley Becker’s body was found. He might very well have known about that juke box and the record Nancy Armitage liked to play. He might have been the man who tried to kill Wanda and me on the highway.”

“He might,” Hannah added, “be the man Nancy Armitage wouldn’t expose on the witness stand.”

It had a good sound to it. Nancy Armitage liked the sea. She walked along the shore and read poetry. She denied knowing Roger Warren and sounded convincing. Moreover, she was a strong, romantic type who wouldn’t stop at perjury herself to save a lover.

“We’re only guessing,” Simon said, “and there’s no time for that. I have one fact: there
is
a Samuel Olson. Nancy Armitage reneged, but perjury was committed at that hearing and I intend to learn why.”

Simon sent six telegrams for delivery in mid-afternoon. The message in each was identical:

“Trouble. Meet me at Marina Beach Post Office at 7 PM. (signed) S. Olson.”

The original list of recipients contained only five names: Lodge, Berman, Mayerling, McKay and Nancy Armitage. As an afterthought he added Wanda, There seemed to be nothing to lose. Once the messages were sent, Simon called a car rental and ordered a small dark sedan. When it was delivered, he drove to Seacliff Drive and parked within sight of Frank Lodge’s front door. He hadn’t waited more than twenty minutes when a boy on a motorbike came with the wires. He stopped at Lodge’s house first.

Frank Lodge, attired in a loose-fitting cardigan and slacks, answered the doorbell and accepted the wire. He stood in the doorway for the few seconds it took to locate a coin in his pocket and tip the boy, and then disappeared behind the closing door. Simon transferred his attention to the house next door. Here the messenger didn’t get such a swift response. He rang and waited. He rang again, leaning heavily and long on the bell, and Simon remembered the disconnected wire in the bedroom with misgivings. Whatever happened before the day was finished would be incomplete if Wanda didn’t receive her message. He wanted to know that Samuel Olson meant nothing to her. She would call the telegraph office and demand an explanation or call Simon or throw the senseless thing in the wastebasket. But not until she received it could he be certain. Finally the door did open, and Wanda accepted the wire. She was puzzled. She forgot to tip the boy until he was gone and called after him as the motorbike pulled out of the drive. Then she closed the door again and Simon relaxed.

He hadn’t long to wait. It wasn’t ten seconds before Lodge, now wearing a dark business suit and tightening his tie as he came emerged from the house and hurried to the carport. Moments later, he was backing the compact out of the driveway. Simon turned his head and feigned an ardent study of a city street map until the car was gone. The first seed sown was bearing fruit.

Simon gave Lodge time to get a few blocks away and then opened the door of the rented car. He would have to risk not being seen by Wanda because he had to get inside that house. He made a circuitous approach and came up on the farthest side from the Warren home. Nobody locked the sliding doors leading to the rear decks; they were too high above the beach. But the structure was supported by steel beams and the beams could be scaled up to the wrought-iron ballustrade. Then it was merely a matter of vaulting the railing.

The glass door slid open at the touch. Frank Lodge was no sun-worshiper. The drapes were drawn tight against the impending sunset, and Simon stepped through them into sudden darkness after the glare of the deck. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the change. The room was exactly like the bedrooms next door except for a less glamorous decor. As in Wanda’s bedroom, the surf was deafening. He closed the door behind him and the sound softened somewhat, but nothing could change the fact that Frank Lodge, contrary to his sworn statements, couldn’t possibly have been awakened in this room by the sound of the Warrens’ sports car in the driveway, or disturbed by their quarreling. Like Nancy Armitage, he had volunteered testimony. Like Nancy Armitage, he had lied.

It was a masculine room with a king size bed, and on the bed was a partially packed suitcase. Simon moved toward it and then stopped—arrested by the sound of breaking glass. The sound came from the living room. He listened but now there was no sound but the constant background of the surf. The suitcase could wait. Simon opened the bedroom door and stepped into the living room.

The floorplan was identical to that of the Warren menage. The drapes were closed and one panel billowed restlessly in the wind, occasionally touching a small, circular dinner table that had been meticulously set with china, silver and stemware. A crystal candelabra centerpiece had blown across one setting, shattering two of the wine glasses and accounting for the disturbance. Simon righted it and stepped to the window. He parted the drapes and found the open panel and paused, listening. His experiment of the previous night was proving out. It was impossible from the bedroom—where Frank Lodge claimed to be when the noises next door at the Warren house awakened him—to hear anything in the front of the house. His hand groped for the window latch and touched leather—a binocular case. He opened it and focused the glasses on the driveway below, and then he knew exactly what Frank Lodge had been doing the night Roger Warren came home from his father’s yacht carrying a tennis trophy in his fishing box and a bamboo paper package in his hand.

And then, unexpectedly, Simon heard the sound Lodge claimed had lured him from the bedroom: the banging of the front door of the Warren house. The wind was rising. He focused the glasses as it banged again and realized, with a sense of dread, that Wanda had left the house. She had received the Sam Olson telegram….

A few feet away, the small table was elegantly set for two. If it was Lodge’s handiwork, he had unsuspected talent. Moreover, he expected a dinner guest. The drape flared out again and Simon remembered he hadn’t closed the window. As he reached out to pull it in, the sharp sound of a woman’s heels sounded on the driveway. Simon glanced down but was too late to see who reached the front door and inserted a key in the lock. He barely had time to close the window latch and beat a hasty retreat to the bedroom before the woman ascended the short flight of stairs and walked into the living room. Simon held the door ajar a few inches. The drapes were still drawn and the shadows lengthening. He couldn’t see the woman’s face but he could see that she wore an ulster type coat and carried a brown paper bag on one arm. She paused at the top of the stairs.

“Frank?” she called.

It was too dark to suit her. She switched on the lights, and Simon breathed easier. It wasn’t Wanda. It was Nancy Armitage.

“Frank, I know you’re here,” she said. “I saw you at the window. I’m early but I had to talk to you about something—”

She took a bottle of wine from the paper bag and placed it on the top of the bar, and then dug a slip of yellow paper out of her coat pocket.

“I got this wire, Frank. I don’t know what it means—”

She started toward the bedroom door, and Simon tensed for an action that didn’t come. A sound behind caught her attention. She turned as Frank Lodge appeared at the head of the stairs.

“Oh, there you are,” she said.

There was no greeting. “What are you doing here?” Lodge demanded. “I telephoned your landlady and told her you weren’t to come. I’m sorry, the dinner’s off.”

“But I had to come,” Nancy insisted. “I got this wire—”

Lodge grabbed the wire from her hand and read it hurriedly.

“It’s worse than I thought,” he said.

“Worse? What do you mean?”

“Somebody knows too much. Nancy, I’ve got to get out of town tonight.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Don’t be silly.”

Lodge moved toward the bedroom, but Nancy blocked the way.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“But you must tell me. Frank, I won’t let you brush me off—not after all I’ve done for you!”

“All you’ve done?” he echoed. “You enjoyed yourself, didn’t you? You were a love-starved little spinster when I found you. I gave you a few thrills.”

The room was quiet. Nancy’s stricken face was all Simon could see.

“Thrills—?” she echoed.

“I told you in the beginning that it wouldn’t last.”

“But that was only in the beginning. It was different after Roger Warren was killed.”

She stopped. She seemed to listen to the echo of her own words. She was beginning to know something her mind didn’t want to accept.

“Frank,” she demanded, “who is Olson?”

“He doesn’t concern you!” Lodge said.

“But he does. He concerns you and you concern me! Frank, you lied to me! You didn’t see Wanda Warren kill her husband!”

“Why should I lie?” Lodge challenged.

“There’s a reason—a good reason!”

She was excited. Lodge tried to push past her and she grabbed his lapels.

“You called me early in the morning after I was up half the night with that horrible old man, Merton,” she said. “You told me you had heard your neighbors quarreling and went to investigate—that you were standing in front of the house when Wanda Warren stabbed Roger with a kitchen knife!”

“I know what I told you,” Lodge said. “You don’t have to run through the whole story again.”

“Story! Yes, that’s what it was—a story! What an imagination you have, Frank! You said you ran inside and found Warren dead. You panicked and picked up the knife—and then, to cover yourself, put it on the bed where Mrs. Warren had fallen asleep. But that’s not really what happened, is it?”

“You’re hysterical,” Lodge said. “We’ll talk about it later.”

“When, Frank?”

“When I send for you.”

“When you send for me from where?”

They were steps away from the bedroom. Lodge brushed her aside and pushed back the bedroom door. Fast footwork got Simon safely behind the drapes before Lodge located the light switch. He went directly to the suitcase and pressed down the lid.

“You killed Roger Warren, didn’t you?” Nancy said.

She stood in the doorway a few feet away from Lodge.

“
You
—not Wanda. It was you I lied for, Frank. You wanted me to convict Wanda—not because you were afraid the police would learn you were in the house after she killed Roger. That was just the story you told me. You made me lie because you killed him!”

Lodge snapped the suitcase locks and faced her bluntly.

“Why would I do that?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Nancy said. “It has something to do with this wire, doesn’t it? And Charles Becker is dead—”