Meet Me at the Morgue (7 page)

“No.” Her face began to crumple, then straightened itself. “I’ve been thinking wishfully. I hated to believe it.”

Cleat caught my eye and held it, rather grimly: “It’s what I always say. Once a man starts to go bad, he’s bound to go all the way.”

It was no time to argue. I said to Mrs. Johnson: “What does your husband think of this development?”

“I haven’t dared tell him. I left him sleeping, poor dear. Well.” She squared her shoulders and turned to Cleat. “You brought me here to see him, didn’t you? I might as well get it over with.”

“We looked at it like this,” Cleat said. “If him and Miner were in cahoots, you might have seen him with Miner some time, or maybe loitering around casing the joint. He certainly had a line on your routine, mail deliveries and such. I realize it’s a painful ordeal, ma’am.”

“Not at all. I’ve frequently handled cadavers.”

Cleat’s eyebrows jumped.

I said: “Mrs. Johnson was a nurse. But wouldn’t Mrs. Miner be more likely—?”

“I got her waiting outside. Now, Mrs. Johnson, if you don’t mind.”

She and Ann approached the table. Cleat switched on a hanging lamp above it and adjusted the toupee. A.G.L. looked straight up into the light without blinking.

“I’ve never seen him.”

Cleat removed the toupee. The bald head gleamed. Ann caught her breath and leaned forward, craning her neck sideways.

“Head’s sunburnt on top,” Cleat said. “I figure he didn’t always wear the hairpiece.”

“No,” Helen Johnson said clearly, “I have never seen him.”

Ann said nothing. They went out together. Ann called back through the closing door: “I’ll be in the office.”

The door was opened again almost immediately, and Mrs. Miner came in. Cleat seized her roughly by the arm:

“I want you to take a good hard look now, Mrs. What’s your first name?”

“Amy.”

“I want the truth now, Amy. You know him, say so. You have any doubts, I’ll give you a little while to make up your mind. That clear?”

“Yessir,” she answered tonelessly.

“Whatever you do, don’t lie to me, Amy. That’s what they call suppressing evidence. It’s just as bad as the original crime itself. That clear?”

“Yessir.”

“You know and I know,” Cleat said, “that if this fella here was mixed up with your husband, you’d know it. You couldn’t help knowing it—”

“Hire a hall, Lieutenant,” I said.

Amy Miner looked at me gratefully. She, too, had changed to different clothes, a knitted jersey suit that
sagged on her thin body. I guessed that she had inherited it from Mrs. Johnson, or from a plumper version of herself.

Cleat placed an arm around her back and propelled her to the table. She winced away, more from Cleat than from the body. Cleat jerked her back by the arm. He hated criminals. He hated anyone connected with criminals.

I moved up behind him. “Easy, Lieutenant.”

His voice remained perfectly bland. “Now watch it, Amy.” With a showman’s gesture, he manipulated the toupee.

Her breath made a small shrill sighing in her nose. “No, I never saw him.”

“Wait now, just take your time.” He whisked the toupee off.

“No,” she said. “I never saw him, with Fred or anybody else.”

“His initials are A.G.L. Doesn’t that suggest a name to you?”

“No. Can I go now?”

“Take one more good look.”

She looked down and wagged her head sharply, twice. “No. And I can tell you, my Fred didn’t do it. He never lifted his hand against man or beast. Never in all the years I’ve known him.”

“What about last February?” Cleat said.

“That was an accident.”

“Maybe. This was no accident. Maybe that wasn’t either. We got two unidentified bodies now. They’re piling up like cordwood. Where’s Fred, Amy?”

She said in a still, cold fury: “If I knew I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Do you know?” Cleat towered over her, working his eyebrows.

“I said I didn’t. Ask me some more if you want, though.”

Balling his fist, Cleat thrust it up into contact with her chin, and held it there. They stared into each other’s eyes like trysting lovers. Cleat moved his fist upward slightly. Her head snapped back.

She stepped away. Her features sharpened to a cutting edge. “Rough me up, why don’t you? Fred isn’t here to protect me.”

“Where is he then? You’re his wife. He wouldn’t leave without telling you.”

“He said that he was coming into town, to see Mr. Linebarge. That’s all he said.”

Cleat glanced questioningly at me.

“She’s telling the truth,” I said. “Miner came to my office this morning. I told you that.”

Cleat turned back to the woman, hunching his shoulders melodramatically. “What else did he tell you, Amy?”

“Nothing.”

“Who’s A.G.L. here?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

He lifted his open hand, which resembled a rough-cut piece of one-inch planking. Her eyes followed its movement in fascination.

I stepped between them, facing Cleat. “Break it up, Lieutenant. If you want to question her, use words. You have a few.”

There was a brisk tapping on the door.

“I’m doing my job,” he said. “It wouldn’t be so tough if you’d do yours. I don’t care how you treat your Goddamn clients. Only keep them in line, that’s all I ask. Keep them out of trouble, out of my hair.”

I had no good answer. Miner had made me vulnerable.

The door swung wide, flooding half of the room with
sunlight. The uniformed policeman on guard outside said, with the air of a butler announcing a V.I.P.: “Mr. Forest is here, from the F.B.I.”

“Fine.” Cleat swung his cigar towards Amy Miner: “I want this biddy locked up as a material witness. No bail.”

“Witness to what?” she cried on a rising note. “You can’t put me in jail. I haven’t done nothing.”

“It’s for your own protection, Mrs. Miner.” The formula came out pat. “We let you run around loose, you could end up in an alley with an icepick in
your
neck.”

She turned to me, her thin torso leaning tensely forward from the hips: “How can he, Mr. Cross? I’m innocent. They haven’t got nothing on Fred even.”

“Lieutenant Cleat has the right,” I said. “Your husband’s under suspicion. They’ll let you go as soon as he’s cleared.”

“If,” Cleat said.

She batted her eyes like a scared filly, and ran for the door and the sunlight. The man who was coming in caught her around the waist, immobilized her flailing arms and passed her to the police guard. The guard pushed her towards the black car that was waiting in the drive. Her angular shadow merged with the shadow of the car.

The young man in the doorway was florid and stocky. His silhouette was almost square in a double-breasted business suit.

“I’m Forest, Special Agent,” he said briskly, and shook hands with efficient heartiness. “Our technicians are coming down in the mobile unit, should be here very soon. I understand there’s a ransom note?”

I quoted it, almost verbatim. It kept repeating itself in the back of my mind, like a song that was too ugly to forget.

Forest’s quick brown eyes steadied and sobered. “Nasty
piece of work, eh? Who’s in charge of the case here?”

“Lieutenant Cleat is. The
corpus
was found in the city. But the boy lives in the county. If Miner snatched him, the crime originated in sheriff’s territory.”

“You with the sheriff’s department?”

“I’m a probation officer.” I explained who Miner was, and my connection with the case.

Forest turned to Cleat. “Call the sheriff, will you please, Lieutenant?” He added in a rather doctrinaire tone: “Cooperation with local agencies is our first principle.”

Cleat glanced involuntarily at the body on the table. It had been all his until now. “Okay.” He removed his cigar, threw it on the concrete floor, ground it to shreds with his heel, and left the room. A bleat of organ music came through the inner door before he closed it.

Forest went to the body. His practiced hands dove in and out of the pockets. “Ugly customer, eh?”

“Handsome is as handsome does. I searched him when I found him. Nothing useful, except a pocket comb with his initials, A.G.L. The murderer didn’t want him identified too soon.”

“He was stabbed, wasn’t he? Where’s the weapon?”

“It was done with an icepick. They’re testing it for prints now. I don’t think they’re going to find any.”

“Icepicked, eh? And hijacked. It could be a big-time mob at work. Fifty thousand is a lot of hay. The parents wealthy?”

“The father has half a million or so, according to the rumors.”

“Like to talk to him.”

“He’s at home, ill. The mother’s probably in my office now. It isn’t far.”

“She have the ransom letter?”

“I think she left it at home.”

“We want to get to work on that. They’re bringing our file along for comparison.
Modus operandi
is primary in a kidnap case. It’s like a compulsion neurosis repeating itself. Not that it often gets a chance to repeat.”

He shot his cuff with a peculiarly mechanical movement, and looked at his watch. I half expected him to suggest we synchronize our watches.

“Twenty past three,” he said. “Let’s get going. You can give me a rundown on the way and I’ll check back here later.”

We cut across the courthouse grounds. A trusty was mowing the lawn with a power mower. The cut grass smelled fresh and sweet, and after the pavement the springy turf was pleasant underfoot.

I talked and Forest listened. He listened well. I had the impression that my words were being recorded on rolls of permanent tape whizzing round in his skull.

CHAPTER
9
:
      
When we reached the County Annex
, Ann was locking the door of the office. I introduced her to Forest.

“Has Mrs. Johnson gone home?”

“Yes,” she said. “I promised to drive out after her. Helen shouldn’t be alone, and she doesn’t seem to have any friends or relatives available.”

“You’re a dutiful girl.”

She flinched at the compliment, and bit her lower lip. “I have nothing better to do.”

“I wonder, might I hitch a ride with you, Miss Devon?” Forest spoke very politely. Ann was pretty. “I’m not familiar with the local topography.”

“Of course.” She turned to me in a sudden flurry of impulse: “Howie, I have to talk to you, privately.”

“Right now?”

“Please, if you have the time.”

Forest put in swiftly: “That’s all right. I’d like to look over your probation report on Miner.”

Ann brought it out of the files and followed me into my office, closing the door. She stood with her hands behind her, looking down at the worn cork floor-covering between us:

“I’m afraid you’re going to think a good deal less of me, after today.”

“That little business with Seifel? Not a bit of it. It’s even a hopeful sign. I was beginning to be afraid that all your feelings were for other people.”

“I’m really a jealous vixen under the skin. That’s not what I wanted to say, though.”

“Strangely enough, I didn’t think it was.”

“I’m in love with him,” she said.

“I didn’t even know that you and Seifel were friends.”

“We’re not, exactly. I don’t approve of him. He doesn’t take me seriously at all. He baits me for being a bluestocking. But ever since he came to the office that day—”

“What day?”

“It was in February, when he was working up the Miner case. He came in to ask some questions. You were up in the north end of the county, and Alex was out. We got to talking, and he asked me to have lunch with him. I’ve been seeing him ever since.”

“It’s no crime. Why the secrecy?”

“He doesn’t want his mother to know. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want you to know.”

“Both of your reasons sound peculiar to me.”

“Do they? I guess I’m a little ashamed of myself, Howie.
He’s not my type. Sometimes I think I hate him. All he’s interested in is money and social success. He’s a money-hungry egotist. How could I fall in love with a man like that? Yet I can’t get him out of my head. I dream about him at night. What’s happened to me, Howie?”

“First love, maybe. You’re having a late adolescence. Better late than never.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Is that so terrible? I admit I’m surprised, but I’m not exactly shocked. It’s time he got married, anyway, and you, too.”

“You don’t think he’d marry
me?
No. He’ll wait for Mr. Johnson to die, and marry
her.
” Her voice had sunk to a melodramatic whisper.

“You’re making him out worse than he is. There’s nothing the matter with Seifel a good woman couldn’t fix. He’s simply spoiled. I’ll bet a nickel his mother has spoiled him all his life.”

“She has. I’ve seen them together. He’s just like a big cat, purring when she strokes him. Oh, I despise that man!”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

She turned away and wiped her brimming eyes. Her voice came muffled through Kleenex: “Howie, there’s something else. I’m sorry. This wasn’t what I meant to talk about at all. You sort of drew it out of me.”

“Call me Torquemada.”

“No, don’t joke now. This is serious. It may be important. I ought to have told you right away. I couldn’t make myself. I don’t know what’s becoming of me, morally—”

“Buck up,” I said loudly and firmly. “You have something to tell me. I’m here.”

“I’ve seen the dead man before, Howie.”

“Where?”

“With Larry Seifel. I was afraid to tell you.”

“Go on. When was this, lately?”

“It was in February, the day Fred Miner was tried. I met Larry at the door of the courtroom—we were going to have lunch together. He and this man were in the empty courtroom, talking.”

“Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t have spoken if I weren’t. I couldn’t forget that face, those reddish eyes. And the bald head. He wasn’t wearing a toupee that day.”

“What were they talking about?”

“I didn’t listen. They came to the door together. Larry shook hands with him, and said something about getting in touch with him in Los Angeles if he ever needed his help.”

“If Larry ever needed his help?”