Obit Delayed (6 page)

Herbie Boyle’s presence did that to some people. It must have been the dead-fish expression in his eyes.

“You had too much to drink,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Not much of a statement, surely. Nothing to make anyone turn sickly pale.

“I didn’t say anything,” Rita whimpered. “I didn’t open my mouth.”

“It’s open now!”

Herbie’s hand moved too fast to be followed, but the red patch that suddenly appeared on Rita’s cheek was no birthmark. After that she didn’t make a sound. She just climbed down off the barstool and followed him out like a puppy on a leash, leaving Mitch something new to think about during that fruitless watch for Dave Singer.

THE HANDS OF THE BIG CLOCK over the desk were pointing straight up when Mitch and Norma returned to the El Rey Hotel. Everything seemed normal. Ernie’s sedan was no longer parked at the curbing, and all that remained of the law-enforcement convention was McMahon, armed with a comic book, who was holding down the softest chair in the lobby. He glanced at his watch as they appeared, shaking his head reproachfully.

“I told you not to wait up,” Mitch scolded.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” McMahon sighed, “I get paid for it. But there’s been a lady trying to get you on the phone for half an hour or so. I don’t think she’s so happy.”

For a moment Mitch had the wild hope that it might be Rita wanting to warm up that cold shoulder. She might have resented having her face slapped and her drinks rationed, and remembered that Mitch Gorman was interested in her memoirs; but a visit to the desk dashed that hope. A call for Mr. Gorman? Oh, yes, several calls. The lady was most insistent— But at that moment the phone rang again, and Mitch learned for himself how insistent the lady was.

“So you finally came back!” The Duchess stormed in his ear. “What a time to go cementing Latin-American relations—and with another man’s wife!”

“How did you know where I was?” Mitch demanded.

“I’ll tell you all about it when you get over here.”

“But it’s late—”

That brief pause on the other end of the wire could only be The Duchess counting ten. “Mitchell,” she said in a strained voice, “to coin a phrase, it’s later than you think!”

When she put it that way he just couldn’t resist.

The Duchess lived in a big house across town where the residents spent most of the time figuring ways to outsmart the internal revenue department; but it was only ten minutes from Main Street. Ten minutes and Mitch was sitting in her kitchen with a cup of freshly brewed coffee in one hand and his chin in the other.

“Well, what is it?” he demanded. “What’s so important the crime reporter can’t wait until morning?”

The Duchess was taking coffee like a wino hitting a new bottle. She had to refill her cup before answering.

“Do you want the whole evening?” she asked.

“Do I have a choice?”

It was a foolish question.

Carmen Atturbury (that’s what it said on her by-line) was a woman of action. She had wasted no time getting started on her end of the investigation, but the first try came a cropper. Pinky’s Quick Lunch—after all, who spent more time with Virginia than Pinky?—was locked up tight with a “Closed Tuesday” sign on the door. That left no alternative but to take Mitch’s advice and proceed to Mrs. Molina’s down at the edge of Mexican town. Next door to Virginia’s—that much she remembered, and everybody knew where to find the house Virginia Wales had died in. It crouched dark and ominous with its doors padlocked and its windows black.

But Mrs. Molina’s door wasn’t padlocked, and all her windows were bright. Mamma Molina (“Call me Mamma,” she insisted. “Everybody does.”) liked plenty of light now that she was left all alone. Being a widow after forty years married was bad enough, but now with Virginia gone—

“The old soul’s lonely,” The Duchess explained, “and all worked up over Virginia’s death. She talked an arm off me—even wanted me to help her get in touch with Virginia on the Ouija board!”

“That’s the best lead I’ve had yet,” Mitch muttered. “Why didn’t you?”

“We couldn’t. The boy came to steal the dog off the service porch, and I took my chance to get away before they stopped fighting.”

The Duchess paused long enough to light a cigarette and inhale deeply. “You’re not making any sense, you know,” Mitch remarked.

“Of course not!” she said. “I’m just telling you what happened.

“Mrs. Molina had just gone to the kitchen for the Ouija when this kid slipped in through the back window and tried to make off with a puppy she had out on the porch. She caught him and they got into a terrific argument. From what I gathered, the dog had been Virginia’s and the boy was trying to claim it—”

“What about Virginia’s illness?” Mitch reminded.

“Oh, that! A pain in the belly, the old lady said. An operation. I checked at the hospital after making my escape, and regret to inform you that Virginia had her appendix out last fall.”

The wise-old-owl expression on The Duchess’s face was entirely unnecessary. Mitch didn’t have to be reminded that his one and only theory had vanished. Virginia could have picked up the habit after her operation, but without proof it wasn’t going to do Frank Wales any good. And without a link to Virginia’s death, Dave Singer and Rita and Herbie Boyle could go about giving extemporaneous exhibitions all over the county.

“Did Mrs. Molina say anything else?” he prodded.

“Constantly.”

“About Virginia, I mean.”

“Only that she was such a lovely girl. So pretty, so popular, so many friends.”

“What about enemies?”

“I asked about that and the old lady gave me an eerie smile. Only the noises, she said. I tried to find out what she meant, and that’s when she went after the Ouija board. I ducked out while the main event was on.”

It was more coffee The Duchess needed now. More coffee and time to frame her next episode. Her face was tired and haggard above a bright-orange blouse, and her hand shook a little with the cup. But Mitch couldn’t escape the feeling that she was enjoying herself immensely—and at his expense.

“You didn’t drag me over here to tell me Virginia had her appendix out,” he said. “What is it? What have you come up with?”

“Don’t get fidgety!” The Duchess snapped. “It’s my story and I’ll tell it my way!”

It sounded easy to say she’d checked at the hospital and learned the truth about Virginia’s illness, but the general hospital at something like ten p.m. was no open fount of information. A less insistent character than The Duchess would have let the whole thing ride until morning; but this was murder with a man hunt thrown in for good measure, and she’d never had so much fun in her life. So she badgered nurses, cooled her heels and warmed her temper in waiting-rooms, buttonholed a doctor who had more important things to do, and finally came up with the case history of Virginia Wales. One try and one miss. Mitch Gorman would want to know about this.

Mitch’s apartment was at the opposite end of town, and The Duchess wasn’t feeling too happy as she drove down Main Street for the second time. A peculiar old woman with a Ouija board and a terse hospital record weren’t much to show for a night’s effort, especially when you were looking for sinister clues and excitement. And look at this street! Dark and sleeping as if murder were just a word in the dictionary. Not a car on the street. Not a light showing except for the street lamps and that one dim bulb in Pinky’s kitchen.

Suddenly The Duchess slammed on the brakes. A light in Pinky’s kitchen? There’d been no light there a few hours ago because Pinky was closed Tuesday and his door was locked. And even if he had been open, this was long past closing-time. She made a U turn and drove back to investigate.

There was a service entrance running along the side of the restaurant that led to a narrow alley in the rear. The Duchess parked in front and walked back, moving quietly to pick up the furtive noises in the kitchen. It might be Pinky coming in to clean up for tomorrow, but why so late? If she could just pull herself up to that high kitchen window—

“What did you kick over?” Mitch interrupted.

“The garbage can. The light in the kitchen went out and somebody tore out of the back door like the devil was on his tail. We didn’t have time for introductions, but it was a man.”

“Not Pinky?”

“Naturally! Would he be prowling around in his own kitchen? This character drove off in a car he had parked in the alley. A wicked looking convertible that looked like a wasp and took off like a buzz bomb.”

It took all of ten seconds for Mitch to realize what The Duchess had said. “Dave Singer!” he yelled, and almost fell off his chair. “That was Dave Singer prowling through Pinky’s kitchen!”

“I thought you’d be interested,” The Duchess observed.

“You didn’t follow him by any chance?”

“On what? A broomstick?”

It didn’t matter. Dave was back in circulation again, and that in itself was interesting. But Dave prowling about in Pinky’s kitchen was a lot more incriminating than Dave making remarks over the counter. This boy just couldn’t seem to stay out of the picture—and then Mitch remembered something Rita had said in Mexicali. Maybe he wasn’t and maybe he was. Maybe he was making a play for Virginia for the obvious reasons; but there was another possibility that pulled Mitch off his chair in a hurry.

“Sit down!” The Duchess ordered. “I haven’t finished.”

“Neither have I,” Mitch said. “I just remembered an invitation I got down in Mexicali a few hours ago. Dave’s girl friend is lonely. I think it’s only neighborly of me to go over and talk to her awhile.”

The Duchess gave him a peculiar look—the kind that might have come from eating Pinky’s cooking. And then she let him have it all at once.

“In that case you’ll need Mamma Molina’s Ouija board,” she said. “Rita Royale is dead.”

SO THAT WAS IT. That was the reason behind all those phone calls to the El Rey; that was the news that wouldn’t wait until morning. The rest of the story was just a build-up for the climax, because The Duchess liked her punch lines loaded. When Mitch realized he wasn’t going anywhere, he sat down again.

But Rita dead! A thing like that took time to understand. It was such a little while ago since she’d grabbed his arm and tried to get cozy at that Mexicali bar. But a fat-faced clock on the kitchen wall said it was three hours ago, and anybody can die in three hours—with help. Now Mitch was remembering the way she had paled at the sight of Herbie, and the way Herbie had slapped her to silence before they left. The silence was permanent now.

“What happened?” he demanded. “How do you know she’s dead?” And across the table The Duchess dropped a cigarette butt into her coffee cup and shuddered.

“I found her body,” she said.

This was the incredible part of her story; the part she couldn’t understand herself. She had no business walking into Rita’s apartment when there was no response to her knock—not even if the door was ajar and a light burning. And it was all Mitch’s fault. If he’d been at home when she tried to reach him with that report of Pinky’s prowler, she wouldn’t have gone to Rita at all.

“I don’t know what I had in mind,” she admitted. “A woman-to-woman talk, maybe. After all, Rita has a charge hanging over her—” The Duchess paused and then brought her tenses up to date. “Had a charge hanging over her,” she corrected. “I thought reminding her of that might encourage a little co-operation. But knocking on the door caused it to come open, and the temptation was too much. She could have gone out without realizing the latch hadn’t caught. It seemed a wonderful opportunity to look for clues.”

Mitch was trying to follow, but this was something new. “Clues?” he echoed. “What clues?”

“Use your imagination! Little black books and such. A woman like Rita could have some very interesting memoirs, and some of them might concern Virginia Wales.”

“I yield,” Mitch said. “Go ahead.”

“That’s exactly what I did. I went straight ahead to where the light was coming from—the bedroom; but all I found was a half-empty bottle of rum and Rita’s remains.”

She tried to sound casual, but for all her outspoken ways The Duchess did lead a sheltered life. Turning up an unexpected corpse didn’t come under the heading of social events, and her hand was trembling as she lit up a fresh cigarette.

But now that he was getting used to the idea, Mitch’s spirits rose. “That’s it!” he cried. “That’s the break I’ve been waiting for! Killing Rita only proves there’s something behind Virginia’s death!”

It was all very clear to Mitch, but The Duchess failed to share his enthusiasm.

“Outside of you and me,” she observed, “just who associates Rita Royale with the Wales case? And who said anything about her being murdered?”

“But you just said—” Mitch began.

“—that she was dead. Listen to me, Mitchell. Just close your mouth again and listen to me.

“Rita was in bed when I found her, all tucked in for the night. I thought she was asleep until I tried to awaken her. The rum bottle and a glass were on the bedside table—the whole room smelled like a cheap saloon—and also a small box containing a few pellets of what Auntie Atturbury analyzed as sleeping-pills. I hate to be a-kill-joy, but I’ll bet a month’s pay this one draws a verdict of accidental overdose while intoxicated, or just plain old-fashioned suicide.”

That was The Duchess. Straight to the point and to hell with his sensitive nature. But it just couldn’t be. Rita’s death was too convenient, and there was that little scene in Mexicali to remember. There was a limit to how far credulity would stretch.

But there was nothing wrong with The Duchess’s reasoning. He could just see Ernie leaning a sympathetic ear toward any claim to a tie-in between the deaths of these two blondes! The burden of proof rested with Mitch Gorman.

“What time was all this?” he demanded.

The Duchess came up with a quick frown. “I really didn’t take time to look at my watch,” she recalled, “but maybe I can track it down. After leaving Pinky’s alley I went directly to your place, but you weren’t home. Then I remembered that you had a pile-up on your desk this afternoon, so I drove back uptown to the office. I was rattling the doorknob when a prowl car came along and turned the spotlight on me. It was that big policeman who found Virginia’s body—Hoyt. When I told him what I wanted, he said you’d gone to Mexicali with Mrs. Wales and hadn’t come back yet so far as he knew. I looked at my watch then and it was after eleven. It must have been eleven-thirty when I left her.”

Mitch was about to make a point, but this last statement brought him up short. “When you left her?” he repeated.

“Did you just walk off and leave her there?”

“I didn’t exactly walk. What did you expect me to do? Take her home with me?”

“It’s customary to notify the police when you find a corpse.”

“Not when you’re housebreaking! For your information, Mitchell, I intend to be the most surprised mortal in town when Rita’s body is discovered!”

“Then nobody knows about Rita’s death,” Mitch mused, “except you and me—and whoever slipped those pills into her nightcap.”

Half an hour ago he’d been annoyed by that telephoned invitation. Half an hour ago he’d been tired and ready to hit the sack. But now the night was getting young again, and Mitch was getting ideas. The Duchess seemed to sense trouble on the way.

“Maybe it really was an accidental dosage,” she suggested.

“At that hour?” Mitch challenged. “I saw Herbie hustle Rita out of that bar in Mexicali somewhere around ten o’clock. At eleven-thirty you find her dead. Use your head, Duchess. A night-blooming flower like Rita Royale doesn’t woo the sandman in what, for her, is practically the middle of the afternoon. Even if it was an accident, which I don’t believe for an instant, Rita didn’t take those pills herself.”

It sounded good when he said it, especially when he said it real loud. The Duchess sighed and dropped another cigarette butt into her coffee.

“All right.” She sighed. “Let’s go. I don’t know what that gleam in your eye means, but I’m going to find out.”

The night was just a baby out at the Club Serape, where life was an upside-down affair and dawn was just the signal to close the doors and count the take. The parking-lot was crowded, as usual, but Mitch waved aside the white-coated attendant and drove around to the service entrance. That’s where he found what he was looking for—Dave’s speedster with the open top all zipped over with a cute canvas cover like a baby in its bunting.

“Look familiar?” he suggested, and The Duchess bore him out. “That’s it!” she cried. “That’s the car I saw racing away from Pinky’s!”

Of course it was, and unless Mitch had missed a signal somewhere the owner wasn’t far away. “Wait for me,” he said, slipping out from behind the wheel. “I won’t be long.” The Duchess was raising a protest when he left, but this was one time Mitch wanted to go stag. Anything could happen if too many questions made Dave nervous.

Everything was normal inside the club. The usual people were burning candles at both ends and not enough light came from the lot to find one’s weary way home. Mitch tried the bar first, but Dave wasn’t there. Since he was back in circulation something must have convinced him the heat was off, or else he was getting careless—a trait Vince Costro vigorously discouraged. Mitch didn’t expect volunteered information in any event; he just wanted one good look at Dave’s face when he mentioned Rita Royale. Rita’s death was neat—too neat for Herbie’s horny hand unless it really was an accident, and Dave had been in Valley City at the right time.

Mitch was checking the dining-room while giving these thoughts a trial run, and it was a bit of a surprise suddenly to have that same horny hand fastened on his shoulder. But Herbie couldn’t help being menacing. That was nature’s mistake.

“Vince wants to see you,” he said, “in his office.”

Herbie the errand boy, the nursemaid, the handyman. Mitch might have known he couldn’t set foot in the club without his presence being reported. “You really get around, don’t you?” he remarked, as Herbie led the way to Costro’s office. “How’s Rita? Sleeping it off?”

Herbie looked right at him as he opened the door, but his face didn’t register a thing.

Vince Costro appreciated the simple things of life, things that could be had for nothing but money. Everything in his office was big, expensive, and without taste—a perfect example of matching the surroundings to the man. But Vince wasn’t alone, and Dave looked a little silly swimming in that huge leather chair.

“Look who’s back,” Mitch murmured. “What’s the matter? Forget your water colors?”

Apparently Dave wasn’t up on the latest repartee because his frown didn’t change at all. But Vince’s smile was big enough for both of them. “Dave didn’t know you were looking for him,” he explained. “He hurried back as soon as he heard.”

“That’s nice of him,” Mitch said.

“Sure it is, but that’s Dave all over. Always anxious to get along with everybody. Ain’t that right, Dave?”

Dave looked about as friendly as an embittered cobra; but if Vince said he wanted to get along, he wanted to get along. “I just went for a drive,” he muttered. “It was a nice day for a drive.”

“In more ways than one,” Mitch agreed. “But you should have taken your girl. She got lonesome.”

“He means Rita,” Herbie volunteered. “You remember Rita.”

Herbie only meant to be helpful, but the awkward silence following his contribution to the friendship club suggested that nobody here was supposed to know Rita from the president of the P.T.A. But that wouldn’t work; not after the touching scene in Mexicali.

“Sure, we all remember Rita,” Vince said, switching back to a full-face smile. “But I didn’t call you in here to shoot the breeze about some bar fly, Mr. Gorman. I got to thinking about you chasing all the way out here today just to see Dave, and a hard-working man like yourself shouldn’t have to go to all that trouble. So I asked Dave to drop around and explain things. You happened in just at the right time.”

Mitch wasn’t the man to call Vince Costro a liar—not in his own territory—but he had the distinct impression that the time was anything but right. These boys needed a rehearsal. Herbie had opened his mouth at the wrong time, and Dave looked as if he’d just arrived at a formal party without his pants. But the show was going on, hot or cold, because Vince wanted it that way.

“That was me you saw at Pinky’s,” Dave admitted grudgingly. “I drop in for coffee sometimes, and I used to kid around with Virginia like everybody else. She was always friendly and good for a laugh. So I got mad when I heard she’d been killed. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Mitch said. “All I want to know is who it was you had in mind when you started cussing.”

“What do you think? The rat that killed her!”

“Whose identity you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t then, but I read the papers.”

“There, you see.” Vince beamed. “Nothing for anybody to get excited about.”

Nothing at all. Dave was as innocent as a babe in arms, and his story would stick until somebody blasted it. At the moment Mitch didn’t even have a fuse, but those bright and shining faces were getting on his nerves. “Nothing to get excited about,” he repeated, “and no reason for Dave to be so touchy when I tried talking to him last night.”

“I thought you were trying to pin something on me,” Dave wailed. “You know how it is. Have a little trouble with the law and everybody’s always trying to pin something on you!”

“Sure, I know. Any little thing from breaking into a Main Street hash house right up to murder.”

Mitch let that drop just to hear it land. The silence was such a welcome relief. Now everybody waited, watching to see how far he was going to go and how well he was taking to the yarn.
Have it any way you like
, Vince’s eyes were saying.
Have it easy or have it rough; there’s always a choice with Vince Costro
.

But Mitch wasn’t one to be the life of somebody else’s party—especially when it was so private. “If that’s all you wanted I’ll be moving along,” he said. “It’s getting late for a man who has to be on the job in the morning, and you never know whose body may turn up next.”

Mitch almost took a few random fenders with him when he jockeyed the coupé back to the highway and headed for home, and he was too mad to care. Not that he’d expected the truth from Dave Singer, but that bland trio back in Costro’s office was a little too smug for their own good. They didn’t seem to realize the fire hazard in pouring too much oil on troubled waters.

“You don’t believe that yarn, do you?” The Duchess asked. This was after he’d calmed down enough to relate the great unburdening.

“Like I believe Vishinsky,” Mitch muttered. “But what difference does it make? They’re three against one. What puzzles me is why Dave had to tell any story at all. Why not go on avoiding me instead of waving that olive branch? I don’t have a thing on anybody.”

“Maybe they don’t know that. Nobody recorded that conversation you had with Rita.”

That was an interesting thought, and a rather unpleasant one in view of what had happened to Rita. But The Duchess was right. They couldn’t know what Rita had said. Even if Herbie pumped her, she was in no condition to remember. If only she had said something! If only she’d been just a little more drunk and a little less careful—and then Mitch remembered what he’d been thinking of just before The Duchess announced her untimely demise.

“Did it ever occur to you,” he mused, as they approached the city limits, “that there must be a lot of money changing hands in this town? Off the record, I mean.”

“Meaning protection?” The Duchess suggested.

“Well, that, too. But that’s not all I meant. Vince Costro runs his own little empire. An empire has to have an emperor and a palace guard, but it also has to have peasants. Small fry. Expendables.”

“Like Virginia?”

“Perhaps. Like Rita, certainly. But there are others. There must be.”