Silent Are the Dead (4 page)

“It was.”

“How'd you know he was out of town?”

“I called the office here and they told me.”

“He was in the middle on this bond business,” Logan said, talking more to himself now than to Nye. “It probably wasn't the first time he peddled a haul to the insurance company, but it was the first time he got caught at it. He went to see the D.A. this afternoon after the hearing. Suppose he found out they had him cold and wanted to take a plea? If he sang a little it might be tough on the insurance company officials—one of them anyway—and it sure as hell would be tough on the mob that's been knocking off these banks. Once he really got talking, my guess is he could put plenty of guys away.”

“And somebody figured that one out and stopped him,” Nye said casually.

Logan bent an eye at him. “You can shove off for now,” he said.

“Thanks.” Nye buttoned his coat. “Sorry I can't help you any.”

“I know you are,” Logan said. “Sorry as hell.”

Nye grinned at him, an unworried, imperturbable sort of grin. “You don't sound as if you'd got very far with this.”

“We will, Harry,” Logan said. “Just make sure you don't outsmart yourself.”

He watched Nye go out, walked over to the windows, and stared into the night.

“One of these days we're going to nail that baby.”

“For what?” Casey asked.

“I don't know. Maybe for this. Any private dick that lives as well as he does is out of bounds somewhere.”

He went over to the desk, picked up his hat, then glanced at the photographer who was packing up his paraphernalia. He asked him if he had finished. The fellow said he had and Logan turned to the fingerprint man.

“What about you, Len? Get much?”

“I got millions of 'em,” Len said. “The joint is plastered.”

Logan said he'd see them in the morning and nodded to Manahan. “Let's go have a talk with Mrs. Endicott. Want to come, Flash?”

They rode over in the little police sedan, and when Manahan stopped in front of the apartment house on the Riverway, Casey started to haul out his plate case.

“Leave it,” Logan said. “This will be tough enough without you popping a flash bulb in her face.”

“I can take it with me, can't I?” Casey said.

“Leave it. What's the use of scaring her?”

Casey left the plate case as directed but he was still grumbling when he crossed the sidewalk to the Gothic entrance.

“She's not the scaring kind,” he said. “I used to know her.”

“Oh?”

“Sure. Before she married Endicott. She was a manikin.”

“Good?” Manahan asked.

“Plenty,” said Casey, “but expensive.”

A marceled young man, who smelled of hair tonic, sat behind a quarter circle of desk in the lobby.

“Who shall I say is calling?” he demanded, when Logan asked the number of the Endicott apartment.

“You won't say anything, son,” Logan said and flashed his shield. “Catch?”

“Yes, sir.” The youth shrank one full size and called across the way to the Negro elevator boy. “Four-A, Sam.”

Sam's eyes bugged at them and his collar rode up and down on his Adam's apple as he swallowed.

“Do you know if Mrs. Endicott's got company?” Logan asked.

“Seems like she has, sir. Yes, sir, I think she has— There you are, sir. Right over there.”

He was pointing across the hall when the door swung back and as Casey stepped out he saw that there were but two apartments to the floor, a third door at the rear leading to the service doors and stairs.

Logan put his thumb on the mother-of-pearl button.

“You didn't send anyone over before?” Casey said. “You're going to give it to her cold?”

“It's the only decent way,” Logan said.

The door opened up against a chain stop and Casey saw Louise Endicott's face in the opening. She saw him too, and slipped the chain and opened the door wider. Dance music from a radio or record player drifted from some room beyond and with it the sound of voices.

“Oh,” she said, not sounding very cordial, though the recognition was there. “Hello, Jack.”

“Hello, Louise.”

She stood back from the door, watching Logan and Manahan uncertainly. She had a half-filled glass in her hand and wore a dress of sheer white jersey that contrasted sharply with her yellow-blond hair.

“Mrs. Endicott?” Logan said. “I'm Lieutenant Logan. Could we see you a minute?”

She blinked at that, but recovered quickly. “Why—I have some people here but—why, yes, Lieutenant. Come in, please.”

She left them to move along the entrance foyer and closed the door, shutting off the music from the other room. She opened another door.

“We could go in here.”

They followed her and Casey found himself in a small library. She shut the door and turned, and then Logan told her.

“I've some bad news. Your husband was killed a little while ago.”

Like that he gave it to her, and Casey saw the facial muscles recoil, the sudden blanching of her skin so that the make-up stood out in crude patches. For just an instant she seemed to stagger; then she was fighting and her chin snapped up and her shoulders came back.

Casey pushed a chair toward her and she sat down. “Killed?” she said huskily.

“Murdered.”

Her blue eyes were still wide, the mascaraed lashes pinned back. She caught her breath and said, “Oh,” and pulled her gaze from Logan.

“Should I—do you want me to tell my friends to leave?”

“That won't be necessary,” Logan said. “I just wanted to let you know and—well, ask a few questions if you feel up to it.”

“All right.” She leaned back in the chair and folded her hands in her lap, her face still pale but no longer chalky. “You'd better sit down, hadn't you?”

“Thanks.”

He swiveled a straight-backed chair to face her. Casey went over and perched on the edge of a kneehole desk and Manahan leaned against the door.

“What time did he leave here?”

“About eight o'clock. But—please! Can't you tell me what happened?”

Logan said he could, and while he explained what he knew, Casey's mind folded back and he thought about the Louise Amory he had once known. He had taken her out just twice and that had been enough to tell him how things were. Even then Louise had known what she wanted, and she hadn't been a hypocrite either. Tall, deep-breasted, she had a showy type of beauty that hit you between the eyes until you realized it was pretty shallow and depended largely upon make-up. She wore good clothes and when you took her out it had to be to the best places and at a table where she could see and be seen. She was, quite frankly, out to better herself and whatever she did for you—if she was especially nice—was going to cost you something, one way or another. Well, she'd got what she wanted and now, at 28, she still had her figure and her blond beauty. Her mouth was a bit more selfish, a little more set at the corners, but you couldn't have everything.

“And you were here all evening?” Logan was saying. “What about servants?”

“There's only a cook and a houseboy now. She sleeps home and I—I let the boy go at eight tonight.”

“When did these—friends drop in?”

“Just a little while ago.” She glanced at her wrist watch. “About ten.”

Logan asked if he could have their names, and took them down in a little book. There were only four of them, two men and two women, none of whom was familiar to Casey. Logan stood up. He asked her if she knew anyone who might have wanted to kill her husband, and she said no, that's what made it so awful. Logan said he was sorry, and thanked her for her help. He said nothing more until they were down on the sidewalk.

“I've heard that Bernie Dixon's been giving her a play lately. I wonder how she was taking this rap against her husband.”

Casey thought about Dixon as he crossed the sidewalk, remembering now that he had heard the same thing. Bernie Dixon ran the Club Berkely, and those columnists who had the run of the club referred to him in print as a restaurateur and night-club impresario. Ten years ago he'd been a New York gangster and although all that had been forgotten by the best people who now flocked to his Club and fought for ringside tables, for Casey's dough he was still a gangster.

He got in the back seat of the sedan, reaching for his plate case as Manahan pressed the starter. The case wasn't on the seat nor on the floor and he tapped Logan's shoulder.

“Hand me the plate case.”

“It's in the back.”

Casey searched the floor. “It ain't here. It must be up front.”

“You had it,” Logan said. “You started to get out with it and I told you to leave it.”

Manahan let out the clutch and Casey yelled at him. “Wait, damn it!”

Manahan stopped the car with a jerk. He looked at Casey; so did Logan. Casey said, very quietly now, “Is it up there?”

“No. I told you—” That's as far as Logan got. He saw the grim twist of the big photographer's mouth, the ridged line of his jaw. “Gone?” he said in slow bewilderment.

Casey just looked at him, trying to put down the unreasoning anger that churned inside him. Now that he knew it was gone, now that the shock was over, the bitterness was on him hot and implacable.

“Just leave it here,” he mocked stiffly. “It'll be all right. Oh, yes. Hell, yes. This is a police car, boys. Can't you see the shield on the door?—Those shots I took of Endicott were in that case. So was my camera.” He gave Manahan's arm a jab. “Well, go on. I want to report this. Let's go find a cop.”

Logan made no reply to these sarcasms and Casey didn't subside much as the car started off. “Boy, if this isn't something,” he said. “We'll put it in a box on page three. You can cut it out and hang it on your wall, Logan.”

He said other things too, pointless things, because he was sore. And all through it Logan didn't say a word. He waited until Casey ran out of breath before he looked back and said, “What did you have in that case besides those plates and that camera?”

That cooled Casey off; it cooled him off plenty. Not until then did he think of the two pictures that were
not
in the case: the one of the woman, the one of the man in the sedan. One of these he had tucked away in his pocket; the other Perry Austin had.

“Nothing,” he said shortly, and kept right on thinking. Suppose Logan was right? Ordinarily his exposed film holders would be in that plate case. If someone wanted them bad enough he might hang around outside Endicott's offices—or have someone do it for him—and wait for Casey to come out. But Casey had come out with two cops, had driven away and left that plate case in the car— He leaned back in the corner, no longer angry, but troubled, brooding, the conviction growing that Logan
was
right.

Chapter Five:
PURE DYNAMITE!

T
HERE WAS NO ONE ELSE
in the studio when Casey got back to the
Express
building. It was not quite eleven o'clock and he looked first on his desk to see if Austin had left the other film holder for him. When he could not find it, he took the holder with the picture of the woman in it and went into one of the darkroom cubicles.

He knew he had a good negative when he took it from the hypo but he still did not know who his subject was and he stood impatiently before the warm-air fan as he waited for the film to dry. He was still there when he heard someone in the anteroom. He left the clips on the film and went out to take a look.

The man who stood there carried about 260 or 270 pounds on a five-foot-ten frame. His hair was thick and gray under his pushed-back felt, his face was heavy and pasty-colored and he did not look very well in spite of his size. He was past 60 and until three years ago when he had been sent to prison for manslaughter, he had worked for the
Express.
His name was Jim Bishop.

“Hello, Flash.” He was puffing noisily, as though he had been hurrying. “Hoped I'd find you.”

“Hello, Jim. You're out late, aren't you?”

“Sort of.” Jim Bishop took off his hat and ran his hand around the sweatband. He got out a handkerchief and mopped his face, though the room was not warm.

“What's on your mind?” Casey asked, aware of the other's nervousness now and wondering about it.

“A picture.”

Casey let his brows come up but said nothing.

“A picture you took tonight. I think it was you, anyway. You were in Endicott's office, weren't you?”

Casey leaned against the desk, eyes narrowing. “How'd you know?”

Bishop sighed. He swallowed, and a look of relief struck his puffy face. “I thought it was you from the way she described you.”

“Oh.” Casey went around the desk and sat down, thinking fast and getting nowhere. “I don't get it, Jim,” he said. “Where do you come in? Who was she?”

“You don't know?”

Casey shook his head. “But there are a lot of things I. don't know. Come on.” He got up suddenly and led the way into the semidarkness of the printing-room.

He could hear Bishop waddling behind him, but he did not look at him then; instead he took the clips off the film, went over to the enlarger, slid a piece of paper in the easel. He put the film in the machine and snapped on the light, knowing from long experience just about how much exposure that particular print would need. He snapped off the light, slipped out the paper, and slid it into the developing-tray. Behind him he heard Bishop say, “Is that it?”

Casey did not answer. He took another piece of paper and repeated the performance, giving this one another second or two of exposure and taking the first from the developer and putting it in water. Presently, when he had both prints in the fixing bath, he pulled out one and held it under the safe-light. One look was all he needed. He put the print back in the hypo and turned, folding his arms.