Extra Kill - Dell Shannon (21 page)

". . . And Mr. Lester J. Derwent,"
concluded Kingman, and looked up from the list in his hand. "I
hope that's satisfactory, Lieutenant? I cannot help feeling you are
wasting time here, on ourselves—but I repeat, of course we are
willing and eager to help you however we can, we have no secrets,
indeed your search warrant was quite unnecessary. I'm sure I speak
for my wife too in saying that you would have been welcome to search
anywhere without it."

"Oh, of course," she agreed immediately,
using her eye-widening trick on him. "Anything that will help in
this dreadful thing, though I do agree that it's a waste of time to
suspect us. We thought the world of Brooke—"

Of course, of course. One of these twelve people
(those who had progressed to some higher Temple rank and were
admitted to that particular ritual) was a respected
stockbroker—another was a wealthy art patron whose name appeared
frequently on the social pages. And there were, in any case,
definitely no flies on Kingman, when he sat there so confidently
welcoming the cops to pry into his cupboards, the cupboards would be
bare.

Mendoza looked at them with a dislike he concealed
with difficulty. At paunchy, respectable, plum-voiced Kingman, bald
head shining with honesty, as it were; at Madame Cara gracefully
arranged on her by couch, draperies trailing, silver-nailed hands
gesturing, looking rather like an earnest horse. Damned the pair of
them.

And he was going senile. Now he was wishing they
didn't have all that suggestive evidence to say it had been that
Friday night. Not that it would make any difference; the Kingmans
couldn't have done it on Saturday night either, on account of their
damned Sabbath ritual.

They sat there beaming innocence and integrity at
him, this pair of slick fraud artists, and he shut his teeth on some
impolite remarks.

"Thanks very much," he said. "It's
more or less a formality, you know we have to look everywhere."

"Oh, yes, I see that," said Kingman. "You
can't be sure, of course, until you do. Yours must be an interesting
job, Lieutenant. Of course you can regard these sad
affairs—um—impersonally. I fear we who are involved in them
cannot. I still find it quite incredible that the poor boy—ah,
well, we must not take up your time with irrelevancies."

"By the way, another little matter, while I'm
here. Do both of you have drivers' licenses?"

"Dear me, how mysterious," exclaimed Madame
Cara. "What can that possibly have to do with-? As a matter of
fact, no, Lieutenant, we don't. Poor Martin has some visual defect,
they never would—"

"Er—technically I believe it is called ‘tunnel
vision,' " said Kingman seriously, adjusting his glasses. "In
our home state, it prevented me from obtaining a license, and I have
never, consequently, learned to operate a car."

"I see." That could be checked; but it
would without a doubt prove true. And there was the answer, the
reason the woman had had to dispose of the Porsche alone. And what
the hell good was it to him when they had an alibi for that night?

"I am afraid I'm not a very good driver,"
said Madame Cara with a sudden nervous giggle. "The traffic
quite terrifies me. But one must have faith to accept—it's a little
exercise I practise every time I get into the car—whatsoever the
great All-Parent intends, I say to myself, I must not fear or rebel
against. It's really a great pity that Martin can't drive, I'm sure
he would be much more competent than I am—being an Earth person,
you know—he is a Virgoan—of course it's not to be wondered at
that an Air person like myself isn't good at dealing with these
mechanical things. I expect you find that true yourself as a Piscean,
Lieutenant—a Water sign, of course you are governed by Neptune—"

"My dear," said her husband gently, "we
must not—um—proselytize at the lieutenant. I fear he is not much
in sympathy with our views."

"Oh, do forgive me," she picked up the cue
at once. "Nothing must be forced—understanding must come of
itself, when the spirit is open to receive."

Mendoza eyed her with exasperation and asked (in the
rather vague hope of frightening them a little with how much he knew)
whether she had ever possessed a light-colored coat with dark
trimming down the front and dark cuffs. He did not, of course, have
any hope at all that his men had found such a thing in her wardrobe.

No, she could not remember ever having a coat like
that and certainly had none now; it sounded quite attractive, very
smart.

Mendoza thanked them, listened again to reassurances
that they were eager to help however possible, and came away.
Downstairs, Piggott and Landers were just finishing an expert
going-over of the Temple; nothing of any interest had showed up. No
weapons, no incriminating documents, nothing unusual among personal
possessions or down here: that is, said Piggott disapprovingly, if
you didn't count all the funny-looking robes and them heathen statues
standing around. Looking downright wicked to him—Piggott was a
pillar of the Free Methodist Church—would it be, he asked (dropping
his tone discreetly) one of these cults, like, where they had orgies?

Mendoza said he doubted it, unfortunately, or they
might be able to turn the damned pair over to Vice. He sent the men
back to headquarters, and most unusual for him sought out a bar and
had a drink before going back downtown himself.

There he met Hackett, and confessed his sins with bad
grace. Hackett looked gloomier than ever, and passed on the gist of
what Morris had said. He was going to take a couple of men and set
out on a hunt for all these show people, in the hope that one of them
would remember something more about the gun: Morris had said he had
to come into town late this afternoon, he'd stop by and take a look
at it.

Nothing had come in from Pennsylvania. "What the
hell are they doing back there," said Mendoza irritably, "pawing
through all their records by hand? Damn it, and what good will it be
if they hand us our motive? You know, I do wonder why Twelvetrees was
so set up that Wednesday night?"

"Does it matter?" asked Hackett.

"It might. It might tie in somewhere.” He
wondered harder about it an hour later. Hackett took off on his hunt,
and Mendoza annoyed Sergeant Lake by wandering around the sergeants'
office and the anteroom, asking every three minutes whether
Pennsylvania had communicated. The patient recheck with all those
agencies hadn't turned up a smell of Marian Marner. Then, about four
o'clock, a trio of nervous men came in together and said they had
something to say about this guy who'd been buried under a house, and
who should they say it to?

They were, it appeared, respectively, the owner,
cashier, and waiter i of a small restaurant on La Brea Avenue, and
what they had to say was that Brooke Twelvetrees had been in the
place about five o'clock on that Friday afternoon. It wasn't the
first time he'd been in; he wasn't a regular, but every now and then
he came in early like that, and once when he'd been talking with
Charlie here—that was the waiter—he'd happened to mention that it
wasn't far from his doctor's office, so maybe it was the days he saw
this doctor he stopped in at the restaurant.

And, deduced Mendoza, the times he wasn't going out
with anyone later; by these men, the restaurant would be the kind of
place without it much tone, a cheap place Twelvetrees would go to
alone to pick up a casual meal.

Well, early like that, there weren't many other
customers, and this guy did a little talking to the waiter and
cashier. They'd gathered he was hoping to get in the movies, and he
sure had the looks for it, didn't he? That Friday, he'd come in (some
confused, anxious calculations of time here) about ten to five, and
left about half past. Charlie, specifically asked about his order,
came up with nothing more definite than that it might have been beef
stew and so on. They could try to pin it down by the waiter's checks,
but of course the name wouldn't be there, it would be a question of
the time the check was filed, and not definite. Anyway, both the
waiter and cashier got the impression the guy wasn't feeling so
hot—like he'd, oh, just lost his job or got slapped down by his
girl or something. He was usually kind of friendly and cheerful, but
that time he hadn't much to say. And when the cashier had remarked it
sure was good to see all this rain, they needed it bad and he'd bet
the farmers were celebrating today, well, the guy had said—with
various profane adjectives—that it was nice somebody was happy. And
he'd paid his check and walked out. And it was always nice to have
additional information, but Mendoza wished he had some idea of what
this meant. It might be quite unimportant as far as the murder was
concerned. But it looked as if something had happened to spoil some
hopeful plan the man had had. On Wednesday night he was on top of the
world, hinting mysteriously at surprises; on Friday he was in a bad
temper, and packing up to clear out.

Mendoza swore to himself, called the Kingmans, and
put the question. After fractional hesitation, he thought, Kingman
said, really, the exchange he'd had with Twelvetrees that Friday
afternoon had been so casual, he couldn't say what mood the boy had
been in. Mendoza was slightly encouraged to detect this as a lie; but
what did that mean, why should Kingman lie about it?

About then, Dwyer, who'd been out seeing various
people, came in and said that if it meant anything, it looked like
those Kingmans had been on the hunt for Twelvetrees as early as that
Saturday morning. Four people so far, Miss Webster among them, had
said that Mr. Kingman had phoned them that morning asking if they'd
seen Twelvetrees or knew where he was. Giving as excuse some
unspecified business suddenly arisen.

"
Oyé, para qué?
”
said Mendoza vexedly. "What's the use—this I don't see head or
tail of! I'm getting old, Bert. Old and decrepit."

Dwyer said sympathetically
that sometimes a thing got stuck, that was all, until all of a sudden
you got hold of something that explained the whole thing. Mendoza
said morosely that when and if it came along probably somebody would
have to point it out to him, the elementary mistakes he'd been
making—premature senility, without a doubt. He told Dwyer about
Morris coming in to see the gun, left a note on the sergeant's desk
of a few places where he might be between now and midnight, added an
injunction to call him
immediatamente
if anything came in from Pennsylvania, took up his hat, and left the
office.

* * *

He walked into Alison's apartment at seven o'clock
and found her contemplating a small canvas propped on an easel in
front of the window. She operated a moderately successful charm
school through the week, in her spare time was a painter—and a
ruthlessly self-critical one. She said now despondently, "I've
missed it—it's no good at all, is it? Looks like a postcard."

Mendoza looked briefly at a pleasant, if
undistinguished, painted view over the immediate rooftops, and said
it looked all right to him.

"All right!" said Alison crossly. "I
don't know what you mean by that! It's hopeless, that's all."

"
Claro qué si
,
it's hopeless.
Ambos tu y yo mismo
,
you and me both. Stop worrying over that, come and soothe me. I need
soothing like the very devil. I need to have my hand held by a
sympathetic female and be told what a big strong smart masterful
fellow I really am. I might even find it helpful to lie down quiet
with my head in your lap, of all ridiculous conventional poses, and
listen to the same theme at infinite length."

"
Pobrecito, qué paso?
"
asked Alison, sufficiently alarmed by this unprecedented behavior to
forget her art. "Come and sit down, tell Mother who's been mean
to you."

He pulled her down beside him on the couch. "That's
the damned awful thing,
mi vida
,
it's nobody else but me—I've been a stupid, thickheaded, imbecilic
dunce. I don't know any more of importance about this thing than I
did before we found the corpse—and because I  am—tell me,
tell me!—because I am a brilliant and gifted detective, quite
unused to failure, I'm out of sorts with myself."

"You are," said Alison obediently, "a
brilliant and gifted detective,
un macho muy
valoroso, un hombre intelligente, y agraciado, y amiable, y de
aspecto bravo y bello, y attractivo, y importante, y—y cancuntador,
y concienzudo, y—y elegante, y honorable, y un jefe muy justamente,
y—y—y magminimo, y absolutamente un caballero muy satisgfactorio
y maravilloso.
Do you feel any better now?"

"A little, a little. This I like to hear. So I
am, I know—"

"
Y un egotiste!
"
said Alison.

"That I know too." The kitten Sheba, who
resembled her mother in being brown, sleek, and affectionate, leaped
up beside him, walked onto his stomach, and settled down to purr as
he stroked her. "Ah, I do begin to feel better—I am being duly
appreciated .... Even I think my mind begins to work with its usual
acuteness .... Damn it, I can still be right! Friday night—Friday
night. That ritual or whatever it is, it was over at nine. All right.
Say they got away by a quarter or twenty past, they could be out at
267th by ten o'clock. I'd give myself an hour at least, that drive,
but they could have done it."