Psycho (8 page)

Arbogast nodded. "So she didn't phone you. She drove straight up, told you what had happened, and made a date to meet you later, after things cooled down."

Lila bit her lip. "My sister's not a criminal. You don't have any right to talk about her that way. You have no real proof that she took the money. Maybe Mr. Lowery took it himself. Maybe he cooked up this whole story, just to cover up--"

"Sorry," Arbogast murmured. "I know how you feel, but you can't make him your patsy. Unless the thief is found, tried and convicted, our company doesn't pay off--and Lowery is out of the forty grand. So he couldn't profit from the deal in any way. Besides, you're overlooking obvious facts. Mary Crane is missing. She has been missing ever since the afternoon she received that money. She didn't take it to the bank. She didn't hide it in the apartment. But it's gone. And her car is gone. And she's gone." Again a cigarette died and was interred in the ash tray. "It all adds up."

Lila began to sob softly. "No, it doesn't! You should have listened to me when I wanted to call the police. Instead I let you and Mr. Lowery talk me out of it. Because you said you wanted to keep things quiet, and maybe if we waited Mary would decide to bring the money back. You wouldn't believe what I said, but I know now that I was right. Mary didn't take that money. Somebody must have kidnaped her. Somebody who knew about it --"

Arbogast shrugged, then rose wearily and walked over to the girl. He patted her shoulder. "Listen, Miss Crane--we went through this before, remember? Nobody else knew about the money. Your sister wasn't kidnaped. She went home and packed her bags, drove off in her own car, and she was alone. Didn't your landlady see her off? So be reasonable."

"I _am_ reasonable! You're the one who doesn't make sense! Following me up here to see Mr. Loomis --"

The investigator shook his head. "What makes you think I followed you?" he asked quietly.

"How else did you happen to come here tonight? You didn't know that Mary and Sam Loomis were engaged. Outside of me, no one knew. You didn't even know Sam Loomis existed."

Arbogast shook his head. "I knew. Remember up at your apartment, when I looked through your sister's desk? I came across this envelope." He flourished it.

"Why, it's addressed to me," Sam muttered--and rose to reach for it.

Arbogast drew his hand away. "You won't need this," he said. "There's no letter inside, just the envelope. But I can use it, because it's in her handwriting." He paused. "As a matter of fact, I _have_ been using it, ever since Wednesday morning when I started out for here."

"You started out for here--on _Wednesday_?" Lila dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

"That's right. I wasn't following you. I was way ahead of you. The address on the envelope gave me a lead. That, plus Loomis' picture in the frame next to your sister's bed. '_With all my love--Sam._' Easy enough to figure out the connection. So I decided to put myself in your sister's place. I've just laid my hands on forty thousand dollars in cash. I've got to get out of town, fast. Where do I go? Canada, Mexico, the West Indies? Too risky. Besides, I haven't had time to make long-range plans. My natural impulses would be to come straight to loverboy, here."

Sam hit the kitchen table so hard that the cigarette butts jumped out of the ash tray. "That's about enough!" he said. "You have no official right to make such accusations. So far you haven't offered one word of proof to back up any of this."

Arbogast fumbled for another cigarette. "You want proof, eh? What do you think I've been doing back there on the road, ever since Wednesday morning? That's when I found the car."

"You found my sister's car?" Lila was on her feet.

"Sure. I had a funny hunch that one of the first things she'd do would be to ditch it. So I called around town, to all the dealers and the used car lots, giving a description and the license number. Sure enough, it paid off. I found the place. Showed the guy my credentials and he talked. Talked fast, too--guess he thought the car was hot. I didn't exactly contradict his notion, either.

"Turned out that Mary Crane made a fast trade with him on Friday night, just before closing time. Took a hell of a beating on the deal, too. But I got all the info on the title, and a full description of the heap she drove out with. Heading north.

"So I headed north, too. But I couldn't go very fast. I was playing one hunch--that she'd stick to the highway because she was coming here. Probably drive straight through, the first night. So I drove straight through, for eight hours. Then I spent a lot of time around Oklahoma City, checking motels along the highway, and used car places on the road. I figured she might switch again, just ta be on the safe side. But no dice. Thursday I got up as far as Tulsa. Same routine, same results. It wasn't until this morning when the needle turned up in the haystack. Another lot, another dealer, just north of there. She made the second trade early last Saturday--took another shellacking and ended up with a blue 1953 Plymouth, with a bad front fender.

He took a notebook from his pocket. "It's all down here in black and white," he said. "Title dope, engine number, everything. Both dealers are having photostats made and sending them back to the home office for me. But that doesn't matter, now. What matters is that Mary Crane drove north out of Tulsa on the main highway last Saturday morning, after switching cars twice in sixteen hours. As far as I'm concerned, this is the place she was heading for. And unless something unexpected happened--unless the car broke down, or there was an accident--she should have arrived here last Saturday night."

"But she didn't," Sam said. "I haven't seen her. Look, I can dig up proof, if you want it. Last Saturday night I was over at the Legion Hall playing cards. Plenty of witnesses. Sunday morning I went to church. Sunday noon I had dinner at --"

Arbogast raised a hand wearily. "Okay I get the message. You didn't see her. So something must have happened. I'll start checking back."

"What about the police?" Lila asked. "I still think you ought to go to the police." She moistened her lips. "Suppose there _was_ an accident--you couldn't stop at every hospital between here and Tulsa. Why, for all we know, Mary may be lying unconscious somewhere right now. She might even be --"

This time it was Sam who patted her shoulder. "Nonsense," he muttered. "If anything like that had happened, you'd have been notified by now. Mary's all right." But he glared over Lila's shoulder at the investigator. "You can't do a thorough job all alone," he said. "Lila's being sensible. Why not let the police in on it? Report Mary missing, see if they can locate her --"

Arbogast picked up the gray Stetson. "We've tried it the hard way so far. I admit it. Because if we could locate her without dragging in the authorities, we might save our client and the company a lot of bad publicity. For that matter, we could save Mary Crane some grief, too, if we picked her up ourselves and recovered the money. Maybe there wouldn't be any charges that way. You've got to agree it was worth a

"But if you're right, and Mary did get this far, then why hasn't she been to see me? That's what I want to know, just as badly as you do," Sam told him. "And I'm not going to wait much longer to find out."

"Will you wait another twenty-four hours?" Arbogast asked.

"What do you have in mind?"

"More checking, like I said." He raised his hand to forestall Sam's objections. "Not all the way back to Tulsa--I admit that's impossible. But I'd like to nose around this territory a bit; visit the highway restaurants, filling stations, car dealers, motels. Maybe somebody saw her. Because I still think my hunch is right. She intended to come here. Perhaps she changed her mind after she arrived, and went on. But I'd like to be sure."

"And if you don't find out in twenty-four hours --?"

"Then I'm willing to call it quits, go to the police, do the whole Missing Persons routine. Okay?

Sam glanced at Lila. "What do you think?" he asked.

"I don't know. I'm so worried now, I _can't_ think." She sighed. "Sam, you decide."

He nodded at Arbogast. "All right. It's a deal. But I'm warning you right now. If nothing happens tomorrow, and you don't notify the police, I will."

Arbogast put on his jacket. "Guess I'll get a room over at the hotel. How about you, Miss Crane?"

Lila looked at Sam. "I'll take her over in a little while," Sam said. "First I thought we'd go and eat. But I'll see that she's checked in. And we'll both be here tomorrow. Waiting."

For the first time that evening, Arbogast smiled. It wasn't the kind of a smile that would ever offer any competition to Mona Lisa, but it was a smile.

"I believe you," he said. "Sorry about the pressure act, but I had to make sure." He nodded at Lila. "We're going to find your sister for you. Don't you worry."

Then he went out. Long before the front door closed behind him, Lisa was sobbing against Sam's shoulder. Her voice was a muffled moan. "Sam, I'm scared--something's happened to Mary, I know it!"

"It's all right," he said, wondering at the same time why there were no better words, why there never are any better words to answer fear and grief and loneliness. "It's all right, believe me."

Suddenly she stepped away from him, stepped back, and her tear-stained eyes went wide. Her voice, when it. came, was low but firm.

"Why should I believe you, Sam?" she asked softly. "Is there a reason? A reason you didn't tell that inspector? Sam--was Mary here to see you? Did you know about this, about the money?"

He shook his head. "No, I didn't know. You'll have to take my word for that. The way I have to take yours."

She turned away, facing the wall. "I guess you're right," she told him. "Mary _could_ have come to either one of us during the week, couldn't she? But she didn't. I trust you, Sam. Only it's just that it's so hard to believe anything any more, when your own sister turns out to be a --"

"Take it easy," Sam cut in. "What you need right now is a little food, and a lot of rest. Things won't look so black tomorrow."

"Do you _really_ think so, Sam?"

"Yes, I do."

It was the first time he'd ever lied to a woman.

EIGHT

Tomorrow became today, Saturday, and for Sam it was a time of waiting.

He phoned Lila from the store around ten, and she was already up, had already eaten breakfast. Arbogast wasn't in--apparently he'd gotten an early start. But he had left a note for Lila downstairs, saying that he would call in sometime during the day.

Why don't you come over here and keep me company?" Sam suggested, over the phone. "No sense sitting around in your room. We can have lunch together and check back at the hotel to see if Arbogast calls. Better still, I'll ask the operator to transfer any calls over here to the store.

Lila agreed, and Sam felt better. He didn't want her to be alone today. Too easy for her to start brooding about Mary. God knows, he'd done enough of it himself, all night.

He'd done his best to resist the idea, but he had to admit that Arbogast's theory made sense. Mary must have planned to come here after she took the money. If she had taken it, that is.

That was the worst part: accepting Mary in the role of a thief. Mary wasn't that kind of a person; everything he knew about her contradicted the possibility.

And yet, just how much did he know about Mary, really? Just last night he'd acknowledged to himself how little he actually understood his fiance. Why, he knew so little that he'd even mistaken another girl for her, in a dim light.

Funny, Sam told himself, how we take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie. Why, right here in Fairvale there were plenty of examples of what he meant. Like old Tomkins, superintendent of schools for years and a big wheel in Rotary, running away from his wife and family with a sixteen-year-old girl. Who ever suspected he'd do a thing like that? Any more than they'd suspected Mike Fisher, the biggest lush and gambler in this part of the state, would die and leave all his money to the Presbyterian Orphans' Home. Bob Summerfield, Sam's clerk in the store, had worked here every day for over a year before Sam knew he'd pulled a Section Eight in service--and for trying to beat out his chaplain's brains with a pistol butt, too. Bob was all right now, of course; a nicer, quieter guy you wouldn't find in a hundred years. But he'd been nice and quiet in the army, too, until something set him off. And nobody had noticed. Nice old ladies did away with their husbands after twenty years of happy marriage, meek little bank clerks suddenly up and embezzled the funds--you never could tell what might happen

So perhaps Mary did steal the money. Perhaps she was tired of waiting for him to pay off his debts, and the sudden temptation was just too much. Maybe she thought she'd bring it here, cook up some story, get him to accept it. Maybe she planned for them to run away together. He had to be honest about the possibility, even the probability, that this was the case.

And if he granted that much, then he had to face the next question. Why hadn't she arrived? Where else could she have headed for after leaving the outskirts of Tulsa?

Once you began speculation about that, once you admitted to yourself that you didn't really know how another person's mind operated, then you came up against the ultimate admission-- anything was possible. A decision to take a wild fling out in Las Vegas; a sudden impulse to drop out of sight completely and start a whole new life under another name, a traumatic access of guilt, resulting in amnesia --

But he was beginning to make a federal case out of it, Sam told himself wryly. Or a clinical case. If he was going off on such farfetched speculations, he'd have to admit a thousand and one other alternatives. That she had been in an accident, as Lila feared, or picked up some hitchhiker who --

Again, Sam closed off the thought. He couldn't afford to carry it any further. It was bad enough keeping it to himself without the added burden of keeping it from Lila. His job today was to cheer her up. There was always the slim chance that Arbogast would find a lead. If not, he'd go to the authorities. Then, and only then, would he allow himself to think about the worst that might happen.