Meet Me at the Morgue (17 page)

“They have to let me out,” Amy was saying. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Your husband has, apparently.”

“I don’t believe that, either.”

“Until it’s settled, one way or the other, they’re going to have to hold you. I don’t like it. Nobody likes it. Still, it’s got to be done.”

I moved up closer to the bars. A wire-netted light burned feebly in the ceiling. Amy’s eyes were puffed from crying. The lines in her face had deepened like erosion scars. Her mouth had set bitterly. Her hair straggled in grayish-brown ropes over her temples.

“What have they done to Fred?”

“Nothing’s been heard from him.”

“They’ve killed him, haven’t they? They’ve killed him and stolen the boy and locked me up and thrown the key away.”

I didn’t like the hysterical lilt in her voice. “Calm down now, Amy. Things could be worse. You’ll be out of here in a day or two.”

Her hands came through the bars. “Do you promise?”

I took her hands. They were as cold as the metal. “I think I can promise that. You’re being held as a witness,
partly for your own good. When you’ve done your job as a witness, you’ll go free.”

“But I didn’t witness anything.”

“You must have. You were married to Fred a long time. How long, ten years?”

“Just about. Long enough to know that Fred’s no criminal.”

“Wives have been mistaken before.” I turned to the matron. “Can we have a little more light?”

She strode to a bank of switches and turned the ceiling light up. For the fourth and last time, I brought the posthumous photographs out of the briefcase.

“Did you ever see this man in your husband’s company?”

I held a blown-up full-face to the bars.

She made a sound in her throat: “Augh.” Her knuckles strained around the bars, and whitened. “Who is he?”

“He served on the
Eureka Bay
. Your husband must have known him. Fred was aboard the ship from the time it was launched.”

“Is it the Snow boy? Is that who it is?”

“Yes. Kerry Snow.”

“What happened to him?”

“He’s the one Fred ran down in February. These pictures were taken after his death.”

“He’s dead?”

“Your husband killed him. Did they know each other well?”

“I don’t think so. I hardly knew him at all. He came to our flat in Dago once or twice. Fred liked to be hospitable to the younger men. But that was way back in forty-five.”

“Has Fred been seeing him since then?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about Arthur Lemp?”

She answered, after a pause: “I never heard of him.”

“You’re sure?”

“Why should I he? You told me if I tell what I know, I go free.”

“One more question, Mrs. Miner. There’s a possibility that Fred took the boy into the desert. Where would he be likely to go in the desert?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry. Fred always hated the desert, it bothers his sinuses. When Mr. and Mrs. Johnson went to the desert, they always left Fred behind, after the first time.”

“Is that what they did in February?”

“Yes. Mrs. Johnson did the driving.”

“Speaking of Mrs. Johnson, how well did Fred know her?”

“She was a good friend of his, she always has been.”

“Did they see much of each other before Fred went to work for her?”

“Naturally they did. She was in charge of his ward in the Navy hospital. He was laid up with his back there for nearly a year.”

“Did they meet outside the hospital?”

“Not that I know of. Fred didn’t get out much, except for a few weekends towards the end.” She thrust her gray face forward between the bars. “I know what you’re hinting at. It isn’t true. Fred never messed with any other woman, let alone Mrs. Johnson. What are you trying to get at, anyway?”

I said I didn’t know, and asked the matron to let me out of there.

Forest was questioning Molly in Sam Dressen’s office. Their voices came low and monotonous through the closed door:

“Can you prove that you were in bed all morning?”

“There wasn’t anybody sitting there watching me.”

“Sleeping in is hardly an alibi.”

“It’s no crime.”

“Stabbing a man to death with an icepick is.”

“I don’t even own an icepick.”

I knocked on the door and handed Sam his photographs. Neither Forest nor Molly looked at me. They were absorbed in their question-and-answer game.

I had seen and heard enough of the girl for one night. She was my responsibility, in a sense. In a deeper sense, there was nothing I could do for her. Her life was running swiftly by its own momentum, streaking across the midnight like a falling star.

“Take good care of her, Sam,” I said out of a sense of inadequacy. Go and catch a falling star.

“The wife will look after her.”

“Tell Forest I’m waiting for him.”

Someone had abandoned a local newspaper on the bench at the end of the corridor. It carried no story on the kidnapping or the murder. One of the front-page items interested me, however. My matron had succumbed to her kleptomania once again. Out on bail, she had walked into a department store and stolen two bathing-suits, size nine.

I leaned my head back against the wall and lapsed into a coma approximating sleep. Forest’s quick footsteps aroused me. He sat down on the bench, looking as sharp and well groomed as he had that afternoon, but just a little white around the mouth.

“You’ve been doing some nice work, Cross. I had my doubts about your wild-goosing off by yourself, but you seem to have an instinct.”

“I know the local people. That always helps. Sam Dressen there, for example, is getting a little old and slow, but he’ll die trying.”

“I told him to get some rest. How did you happen to turn up the girl?”

“That story can wait. You talked to Bourke?”

“I did. What’s your opinion of him?”

“A sharp operator, but cautious.”

“You don’t think he could be the mastermind behind all this?”

“Not Bourke. He was too ready with his information, and it checked. I think Arthur Lemp plotted the kidnapping himself.” From my inside pocket, I produced the penciled envelope containing Lemp’s birth certificate. “This seems to be proof of it.”

Forest read the “timetable” aloud, punctuating the reading with an exclamatory whistle. “Miner’s definitely in it then. What’s this about taking the boy to the desert?”

“I can’t add anything to that. There’s a lot of desert in California.”

Forest thought in silence for a minute, biting the inside of his upper lip. “Lemp plotted the kidnapping, it would seem. He didn’t plot his own murder.”

“That seems to be a reasonable working-hypothesis.”

Forest smiled, rather grimly. “And it isn’t likely that Miner killed him. His assignment was to dispose of the boy. Certainly he’d get out of town before the ransom letter was delivered. A third member of the gang is indicated.”

“Or nonmember. Lemp was a very small-time criminal, until today. A big-time criminal, or an organized mob, may have got wind of his plan and decided to pluck the reward.”

Forest said, musingly: “Murder Incorporated favored the icepick m.o. But then, a number of private individuals have, too. Icepicks are too convenient. What do you think of the Fawn girl as a possibility? She was in a position, or could have been, to know what was going on.”

“It’s possible she did it. Not very probable, though. If she had fifty thousand dollars cached somewhere, she wouldn’t sit around and wait to be picked up.”

“If she was smart.”

“She isn’t. In her world, everyone’s either a victim or a victimizer. She’s a victim.”

“Worms can turn, littler fleas have littler fleas, and all that. She had reason to hate this Lemp, I understand, which gives her a double motive.”

“Frankly, I’m more interested in her husband—her ex-husband—Kerry Snow. I’ve established a connection between him and Miner. They served on the same Navy vessel during the war, and Snow and Miner were friendly acquaintances. I got that out of Mrs. Miner just now. So long as there was no connection, Miner could claim it was a hit-run accident. Not any more.”

“I had a feeling,” Forest said. “What ship were they on?”

“The
Eureka Bay
. Kerry Snow was ship’s photographer.”

“Damn my eyes!” He struck himself sharply on the scalp with his clenched fist, but in such a way as not to disturb the part. “I should have remembered the name of that ship from your report on Miner. We’ve got a record on Snow, you see. As soon as we ascertained his name, I teletyped Washington. Our Los Angeles office arrested him in January 1946. We turned him over to the Naval authorities as a deserter. They found him guilty on a desertion charge, and another charge of theft of Navy property. He served six years and four months in Portsmouth, and was released last spring.”

“Molly told me some of that.”

“Do you know who gave us the information that led to his arrest in 1946?”

“She mentioned a red-headed woman—”

“No, sir. Snow’s Los Angeles address was provided to
us by Lieutenant (j.g.) Lawrence Seifel, then attached to the Eleventh Naval District in San Diego.”

“Are you certain?”

“There’s no mistake. His name is on file in the Los Angeles office. We keep fairly thorough records on our cases,” he said a little combatively. “What do you know about Seifel?”

“Not too much. He seems to be very intelligent, and very nervous. I should say, for the record, you haven’t seen him at his best today, he’s having private troubles of some kind. You did see him?”

“Naturally, as soon as his name turned up.”

“A mutual acquaintance says he’s money-hungry and highly egotistical. And Seifel did know Lemp slightly, by his own admission.”

“Lemp approached him, once, according to his story. As for the Kerry Snow affair, he admits he must have given us the address of Snow’s hideout, since it’s on the record, but he claims he doesn’t recall the circumstances, or even the name. His wartime job was handling courts-martial for the Eleventh Naval District, and as he says scores of cases passed through his hands. So it’s possible he’s telling the truth, and actually doesn’t remember.”

“Where is he now? At home?”

“When he left here, about eleven, he was going out to the Johnson place. He said he wanted to do whatever he could for Mrs. Johnson in her bereavement.” Forest’s tone was edged with sardonic mimicry.

“Bereavement! Is the boy dead?”

“Johnson is. I thought you’d have heard about it.”

“Has he been murdered, too?”

“He died a natural death, early this evening. I suppose you could call it indirect murder. The doctor told me the strain was too much for his heart.”

CHAPTER
21
:
      
I drove up to the summit of the
ridge. The night was still and silent, balanced on its dead center. The city’s web of lights lay behind me like a tangled net hauled phosphorescent from the sea and flung up along the slopes. Beyond, the sea itself was a gray emptiness lit between the moving clouds by a few small hurrying stars.

In the hedged tunnel of road where Kerry Snow had met his death, the darkness beyond my headlights was so solid that day was unimaginable. Murder was imaginable, though. I could see the three of them: the faceless victim fallen in the road, the blind-drunk murderer driving on over him, and Arthur Lemp watching from the darkness, planning to fashion a second crime from the leavings of the first.

I shifted into second and let the motor’s inertia hold the car on the descending curves. My own excitement had long since settled down into a stubborn anger. If the boy was alive, I was determined to find him. If the boy was dead, his death would have to be paid for.

My headlights swept the gatehouse where Miner had lived, where Miner would live no longer. In the drive ahead, long brown leaves from the eucalyptus trees formed desolate hieroglyphics on the stones. The trees themselves stood overhead like tremulous giants, shaking in fear of the wind and the shifting sky.

There was a car in the turnaround, and lights from the main house spilled down into the ravine. The car was a new Buick convertible, which I associated with Larry Seifel.

Seifel answered the door. His eyes looked sleepy, and a little out of focus. Passing him in the doorway, I caught a
whiff of his breath, pungent with alcohol. He stopped me in the glass-bricked entrance hall and spoke for the first time, in a whisper:

“You know what’s happened, don’t you?”

“A lot of things have happened.”

His hand grew heavier on my arm. “I mean the old man. He died tonight—last night.”

“Forest just told me. Are they going to have an autopsy?”

“I don’t see why they should. The doctor assured Helen it was the coronary, nothing else.”

“That must have been a great comfort to her.”

His mouth opened, unevenly. “Does that have some hidden meaning?”

“The things that have been happening have,” I said. “I’m trying to find it. Now here’s a possibility that should be interesting to the legal mind. A man is seriously ill. It’s known that excessive excitement is likely to kill him. A highly exciting event is made to occur; a kidnapping, to be exact. The man dies, and the question is: Is it murder?”

“Are you asking me for my opinion? I’d say its arguable. There have been comparable cases where murder has been proved—”

“I’m asking you for your evidence. Forest tells me you turned in Kerry Snow for desertion in 1946. I don’t believe you could have done that to a man and not remember it.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“I’m suggesting that the memory is a voluntary faculty, to a great extent. It can be turned off and on. You should get to work on yours.”

“I’ve taken enough from you today. Who do you think you are?”

“Diogenes. I have a Diogenes complex. What’s yours?”

“Œdipus,” Helen Johnson said from the inner doorway. “Larry’s as Œdipal as all get out. We were just discussing it
before you arrived. Abel was Larry’s father-image, he says. Now that his father-image is kaput, Larry has an irresistible urge to possesss the father-image’s wife-image. That is, me. Isn’t that what you said, Larry?”