Kiss and Kill (4 page)

“I'm sure I can't,” said the director. But he sat down, surveying Ed curiously. “Why is he upset?”

Barney walked over to the desk and picked up an easel photograph in a silver frame. It showed a dark, graying woman in shorts and a halter posed beside a sailfish. “Your wife?”

“Yes.”

“You know where she is?”

“At home. I don't get—”

“This man,” Barney pointed at Ed, “doesn't know where his wife is. Put yourself in his shoes. Would you sit around and listen to a lot of evasions?”

“His wife, you say?”

“You might even get violent.”

The director wet his lips. He pressed a button and said into the intercom, “Bring in the file on the December eighteenth tour.” Then he opened a box of cigars and offered them around. When the air was blue with smoke, the little man leaned back.

“That tour has caused me a lot of trouble. That's why I got my back up.”

Barney said, “What trouble?”

“Well, first of all, one of the group was killed in Mexico—”

Barney looked at Ed. “Did you know?”

Ed shook his head. “She never mentioned that. But it explains something.”

“What?”

“Why she didn't talk about the trip. An unpleasantness like that could spoil everything.”

Barney turned back to the director. “Who was it?”

“A young man named John Torrance Talbot. At least that was the name he gave.”

Barney sifted in memory through Liz's letters. The only one who seemed to fit was the one she had called Stone-face. “How was he killed?”

“Struck down by a bus in San Juan del Río, in full view of the group. No, there was no possibility of foul play. That was gone into by the Mexican police, who have occasional attacks of competence. But there was the corpse. I called the name he'd given me to notify in case of emergency—we always get that from our clients—but no such person existed. His home address turned out to be a public laundry. The state of California had no record of a man named John Torrance Talbot. I had to go down and arrange for his burial myself. It wiped out our profit on the tour.”

“And then you fired the driver?”

“I didn't fire him.” The director shrugged. “You may as well hear it all. The driver failed to report for work three weeks ago. Not even his wife knew where he was. At first we filed criminal charges against him, since he'd taken a company limousine—”

“The same one he drove to Mexico?”

“Yes. Each driver is permanently assigned a vehicle; it's supposed to give them a sense of responsibility. Anyway, we dropped the charges when the limousine was found outside our lot the following day. Nearly out of gas, but otherwise undamaged. However, the driver is still missing.”

A woman opened the door, stricken-faced. “Mr. Carmano, that file is gone!”

“Gone?”

“I searched the whole filing cabinet, thinking somebody had misfiled it. But it's just not there.”

“The burglary!” exclaimed the director. “Trouble comes in threes, gentlemen. A little over two weeks ago our office was entered during the night. The lock had been picked; we wouldn't have known at all if the burglar had locked the door when he left.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

The director made a bitter face. “Between Talbot's death and the driver's disappearance, I'd had the police. Besides, I couldn't see that anything had been taken. I never thought of examining the files.”

Barney nodded. A man killed in Mexico; a man with a phony name and address. Three weeks ago the disappearing driver. Two weeks ago a stolen file. Eight days ago, Liz. Find the lost pieces of the jigsaw, fit them all together, and there would be Liz.

Maybe.

The director was saying to his secretary, “Here's what you do, Millie. Those people on the tour wrote us before they came. In the correspondence file you'll find their letters and copies of our replies. Type out their names and addresses and bring them to me.” When she had gone out, he scowled at Barney. “Anything else?”

“You say the driver has a wife. What's her address?”

The director consulted a pad beside his telephone. “Mrs. Elbert Kiddoo, Laurel Trailer Park.”

Mrs. Elbert Kiddoo lived in a peeling house trailer with three towheaded children. The Texas sun had faded her like a chintz curtain in a window. She said in a tired monotone that her husband would come back. This was not the first time he had gone away. She had had plenty of practice waiting.

There was an undertone of hysteria in her voice that hinted at more worry than she professed, but Barney couldn't be sure.

“The police still pestering you?” he asked in a sympathetic tone.

Anger flickered in her pale blue eyes. She moved her thin shoulders. “They came around.”

“
We've
got nothing against him.”

“Why should I care? Put him in jail. What good is he doing me this way?”

Barney disliked following a police investigation. It always left people on their guard.

“I understand your husband weighed three hundred pounds.”

“Two-sixty.”

“But still light on his feet? Not a bad dancer?”

She looked surprised. “Who told you that?”

“I can't reveal her name.”

“You tell that son of a bitch—” Suddenly her face became human and she began to cry. “I can't take it any more. Three kids to feed, the baby colicky—I can't work and take care of his kids at the same time. If he'd just come home …”

Barney put his hand on her shoulder. “We don't know where he is, but we'll find him. Will you help us, Mrs. Kiddoo?”

“I've checked everywhere, his old hangouts, his friends, his family. Nobody's seen him.”

“Do you have a picture of him?”

She went to the rear of the trailer, drying her eyes on her apron. She returned with a photograph of a man who was big rather than fat; he spread out in all directions, like a tree. He was standing with his hand on the hood of a shiny limousine, looking as if he owned it.

Barney put the photo in his pocket, told the woman not to worry, and they left.

When they were on the road again, Ed shook his head admiringly. “I've got to hand it to you, Barney. The way you got her mad, then worried, then made her cry. What technique do you use on men?”

“Men or women, it doesn't make any difference. Everybody's full of troubles and problems. You get a line on your patsy's particular ones, and jump off from there. If you know human nature, you can't miss. Every successful salesman pulls the same trick.” He steered onto the highway. “Check that list the tour guy, Carmano, gave us. Who's nearest?”

Ed spread out a typewritten sheet. “Maynard and Susan Barton, Rural Route 2, Corby, Colorado.”

“The old retired couple, Fibber McGee and Bess Truman. We'll stop in a motel if you're tired.”

“I couldn't rest. Keep driving.”

In the valley below, a village lay in strong shadow. The snow-capped peaks beyond were salmony in the setting sun. A graveled drive led past a gatepost with a crude sign: “THE BARTONS.” A weathered little frame cottage snuggled beneath scented pines.

“What the hell did they want to go to Mexico for when they live in country like this?” Barney said. “But I suppose the angels get tired of Paradise. Nobody home?”

There was no car in the little garage. The front door was barred and padlocked.

“A new lock,” said Barney. “That's funny.”

“Maybe,” said Ed, “the Bartons have gone on another trip.”

“Let's check the windows.”

All the windows were shuttered tight except one; it looked into an old-fashioned kitchen. A bunch of Dutchman's-breeches drooped in a vase. Unwashed dishes filled the sink.

“People don't usually leave dirty dishes when they go on a trip,” said Barney. “Get the tire iron out of the car, Ed, and I'll jimmy this window.”

“Wait!” Ed pointed to a thin insulated wire running between the window molding and the frame. His finger traced it to where it led into the house. “If you pry up that window, Barney, you'll break a connection.”

“You're the electrician.”

Ed shrugged. “It could be attached to a bomb.”

“There's only one way to find out,” said Barney.

They located a coil of bailing wire in the garage and hooked it to the window wire. Reeling out about twenty yards of it, Barney got behind a tree and yanked. He was braced for an explosion, but nothing happened. After two minutes Ed stepped out from behind his tree and checked the window. He listened for a moment, then walked back.

“You started some mechanism working inside the house. I think it's a signaling device.”

Barney grinned. “We'll hide the car, take cover, and see who set the alarm.”

They parked in a woods a hundred yards down the road, then hid behind a clump of evergreens beside the driveway. Cold air flowed down from the peaks like a mountain stream, and they began to shiver.

“How long do we wait?” asked Ed. “It's been a good half hour.”

“There's somebody coming now.”

A car had appeared on the road below, its headlights shooting here and there like tracers as it rounded the hairpin turns. It negotiated the last half mile with its lights off and halted at the gate with a crunch of tires. Barney drew his gun.

For a minute nothing happened. Then suddenly a powerful searchlight blazed from the top of the car. It played over the cottage as a voice bellowed through a speaker:

“COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!”

Barney let his breath out. He was chuckling. “We hooked ourselves a lawman.”

“Then there's no problem,” said Ed.

At that moment the beam vanished. A wiry figure in khaki got out of the car and walked up the drive, spearing his flashlight before him. He passed ten feet from the hidden men, and they saw a gun in his right hand. Barney gripped Ed's arm, cautioning him to keep quiet; he had found it wise not to try to surprise men who carried guns. The lawman went directly to the wired window, studied it for a moment, then directed his flash into the kitchen.

“The problem is,” whispered Barney, “how to talk to him without getting shot.”

“We could leave,” Ed whispered back.

“Without finding out where the Bartons went?”

“I mean, get the car and come in as though we'd just arrived.”

Barney shrugged. “I doubt if he'll swallow it—he's no country dummy if he rigged up that device. But we can try. At least nobody'll get hurt.”

They crawled out and into the woods, retrieved their car, and drove up beside the other car. The word “sheriff” decorated its door in foot-high letters. As Barney and Ed stepped out of their car, the spotlight flared in their eyes.

“Stay right there, boys,” said a voice cracked with age from inside the sheriffs car. “And state your business.”

“We came to see the Bartons,” said Barney. “Are they home?”

The light remained on them for another thirty seconds. Then it went out. “You got a license to carry that hogleg, son?”

Barney thought wryly: Two hundred dollars for a specially tailored suit, and what does it get me? “Yes. I'm a private detective from Chicago.”

“Bring it here, sonny. Move slow. I've got a forty-five aimed at your gizzard.”

Barney drew out his wallet very carefully and walked over to the other car. The gun muzzle resting on the window frame was the dominant feature of the Sheriff's personality; by the dashlight of the car Barney saw a narrow, seamed face, like the face of Grandfather Fox. A hand took the card and held it under the map light. The Sheriff grunted.

“Your license is good for Cook County, sonny. You ain't in Cook County. Hand me the gun, butt foremost.”

Barney did so, moving slowly.

“Now walk around to the other side of my bus and get in. We'll head back to town. Your friend can drive the other one.” To Ed the old man said: “You go ahead of us. Stay on the blacktop right into town. If I blink my lights, you stop your car and set there.”

As they drove down the twisting road, the Sheriff said to Barney conversationally: “You didn't try to get into the house, but you set off my beeper. How come?”

“We wanted to see who showed up.”

“Why?”

With crusty old lawmen like this sheriff Barney had found that the best strategy was no strategy at all. He told the old fellow the full story of Liz Tollman's disappearance. The Sheriff drove in silence. Suddenly he blinked his brights and pulled onto the shoulder. Ahead, taillights flared as Ed instantly stopped.

“You're two weeks too late to see Maynard Barton and his wife. They went off here.” He pointed to the guardrail; where he pointed, it was scored and bent outward. “We had to scrape their remains up in baskets.”

Barney peered over the edge. There appeared to be no bottom to the canyon. He drew back, shivering. “Accident?”

“The State Police lab checked out what was left of the car. Found traces of another car's paint on the right-hand door. A black, late-model Buick. Tire marks on the pavement told us the Bartons were forced off. It was murder, all right, premeditated. There ain't another spot on this road where you could be as sure of killing someone.”

He blinked his lights again and both cars drove on.

“Old Barton was retired, didn't have more'n a few years left, anyway. His wife, Sue, I guess she'd have wanted to go with him if she'd had a choice. Known 'em both forty years; reason I got so mad when the killers got away. Thought of taking a vacation and trying to track 'em, but it looks like you're on the same trail. I'll tell you what I know, and you do your damnedest. Just let me know when you find 'em.”

“It's a deal,” said Barney. “What do you know?”

“Tell you in my office,” said the Sheriff.