Wake Up to Murder (16 page)

“Oh,” Lou said. “I see. Okay. So I lied to you.”

Lou touched my cheek with her fingertips. “Maybe I liked the sample. Maybe I wanted to spend another night with you.”

I pushed her hand down to her side. “Don’t give me that crap,” I began. And that was as far as I got.

Muscular fingers bit into my shoulder and spun me around. His face inches from mine, Cass Hardy said:

“For a simpleminded cracker, you’re a tough guy to locate, Charters. Yes, sir. You gave us quite a run. What’s the idea of beating up Shep when he tells you, polite, I’d like a little talk with you?”

I looked over his shoulder at Shep King. Even in the dark, I could see the side of his face was swollen and his right arm in a sling.

Hardy transferred his hand to my shirt front. “I asked you a question.”

I said, “He was polite about it? With a knife?”

A big man and powerful, Hardy held me so my toes barely touched the shell. “Okay. So Shep lost his head when you got gay with him. But look at it our way. You’ve put us in a bad spot, fellow. Shooting off your mouth like you done to Cade Kiefer’s number one man about being able to prove that Pearl Mantinover was framed into the chair. That makes us look awful bad. Believe me, I didn’t shed any tears when Joe Summers got his. At the rate that bastard was cutting in, he’d have had me playing Kelly pool for nickels in another season.”

I didn’t say anything.

Hardy continued, “And now with Matt Kendall scrammed or dead and Tony being found in a boat, with three .38 slugs in his liver, we’re really in a spot.”

“That’s right,” a man’s voice agreed.

Cass set me back on the shell. Gently. Like his muscles were hurting him. He turned and looked behind him. In slow motion. Shep King already had his good palm ear high.

There was nothing about the two men to distinguish them from any other two well-dressed tourists. Except a certain indescribable air of cold self-confidence, and the black .45s in their hands.

“Now, look, fellow,” Cass began.

“My name is Woods. Jack Woods,” the man who had spoken said, pleasantly. He nodded at the man holding the gun on Shep King. “This is my partner, Phil Gleason.”

They were bigtime, both of them. As bigtime as Tony Mantin had been. It showed in every move they made.

Woods smiled. “As you undoubtedly have surmised by now, we are in Mr. Kiefer’s employ. I might add, in the same capacity as the late Tony Meares, or Mantin, if you prefer it.” He looked at me. “You, of course, are Jim Charters. The man to whom Tony gave the ten thousand dollars.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “That’s right.”

Woods continued to smile. “Fine. Let’s all go talk to Mr. Kiefer.”

Cass Hardy started a protest and thought better of it. “Sure. Why not?” he said.

Woods looked at Lou, undecided. He made up his mind. “And I think you’d better come, too, young lady. This little meeting might have an unpleasant aftermath. And if there’s one thing I despise, it’s a witness.”

Lou opened her mouth and closed it.

Woods pointed with his gun toward a long gray sedan. “I’m certain we can all fit into the one car. If we all sit quietly.”

Lou took a deep breath and moved away from the fender of the Ford. I looked back at the barn. The shouting had begun again. Another main was on.

I wished now that I hadn’t shaken Hap Arnold and Bill David. A wave of resentment swept me. Lieutenant David was a hell of a cop. If he’d been smart enough not to let me trick him, after we’d left the Casa Mañana Apartments, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

A drop of cold sweat trickled down my spine. It stopped half way, then trickled on again.

I’d never felt so sad. I felt that I’d failed May.

Now anything might happen.

THE house was big. On the Gulf. Twenty rooms or more. With a high white masonry wall around it and huge wrought-iron gates barring the drive. Over the top of the wall I could see the writhing tops of palms being tortured by the wind.

Gleason braked in front of the gates. Woods got out of the car and picked a phone from a niche in one of the masonry posts. A moment later, the gates swung in.

Gleason drove a few feet into the grounds and stopped again. The wind was stronger here, skittering sand and shell across the drive.

Lou looked at the big house with sullen eyes. “You got me into this,” she said. “If you’d done what I wanted you to, they wouldn’t have found us. At least, not tonight.”

I didn’t say anything.

Gleason looked over his shoulder. “What’s this you wanted to do, Miss?”

“Check into a motel,” Lou told him.

Gleason shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I think we’d have found you before morning. Jack and I stayed pretty close to you all evening. Up until you lost us just this side of the causeway.”

“You were driving this car?” I asked Gleason.

He shook his head. “No. We were using a small black two-door.”

The car purred on down the winding drive.

I gasped. “It was you fellows, then, who picked me up just outside Mr. Kendall’s place.”

“That’s right,” Woods smiled. “At the time we thought the police were foolish to let you go, so we sort of tagged along behind you, just to make sure you didn’t do anything rash. And we were just about to gather you in when you up and disappeared.”

“I told you,” Shep King said. “If Bill David had a tail on you, you wouldn’t ever have known it.”

“You,” Woods told Shep, “shut up.”

Cass protested, “But if you guys were watching Kendall’s place, you know we weren’t anywhere near it. And we didn’t have a thing to do with Charters shooting off his mouth to Tony. Or with the Mantinover affair.”

“So you say,” Woods said quietly. “We’ll come to you fellows later. Right now, Mr. Kiefer is interested in Mr. Charters.”

The car stopped under a porte cochere. I got out and looked back at the gate. How big a fool could a man be? All the time I’d been sore because I’d thought Hap Arnold and Bill David had been tailing me, in the back of my mind I’d felt secure. Because they were the law. Because whatever they did, they would do it legally and openly.

“All right,” Woods said. “Let’s go.”

I reached out a hand to help Lou from the car. She slapped my hand away. “Don’t even touch me,” she said.

Woods led the way into the house, with Gleason bringing up the rear. The place had a closed-up smell to it. A little white-haired man, with his hands clasped behind his back, was rocking heel and toe at the far end of a huge living room with a high-beamed cathedral ceiling.

I wondered if he was Cade Kiefer. He looked more like old Mr. Phillips, who passed the collection plate at the First Avenue Methodist Church, than he did a racketeer.

The white-haired man read my mind and stopped rocking. “That’s right,” he said quietly. “I’m Cade Kiefer, horns and tail and all.” He looked at Woods. “This is Charters?”

“Yes, sir,” Woods said.

Mr. Kiefer looked back at me. “The James Charters who sold Tony the idea you could spring his sister out of the death house for ten thousand dollars?”

I had nothing to gain by lying. “Yes, sir.”

Mr. Kiefer looked at Lou. “And the girl?”

Woods said, “She was with him when we picked him up out at the cock fights. In fact, he drove almost directly to her hotel after leaving Kendall’s place. So I thought we’d better bring her along.”

Mr. Kiefer nodded. “That probably was wise.” He looked at Shep King and Cass Hardy. “And who are these two men?”

“One is the local big shot,” Gleason said. “I believe his name is Cass Hardy.”

“Oh, yes,” Mr. Kiefer said. “I’ve heard of you, Hardy.”

Cass was as pleased as if he’d just guessed the mystery tune on a television quiz show. “Thank you, sir,” he beamed. “And we aren’t mixed up in this, believe me, Mr. Kiefer. Sure, I stood to gain the most by Joe Summers being knocked off, but — ”

Mr. Kiefer held up a well-cared-for-hand. “Please,” he said. “Spare me. I don’t give a damn about Joe Summers or the local situation. I doubt if I ever will. A one-day survey had convinced me I’d lose money moving in here.” He looked at Gleason. “Take Mr. Hardy and his friend into the other room and buy them a drink, will you, Phil?”

“This way, fellows,” Gleason said.

Cass looked back at me over his shoulder. Smug. I shifted my weight from one foot to another. No one needed to tell me. I knew. I was about to be judged. Just as certainly as if I were standing in front of the same judge who had pronounced sentence of Pearl.

Mr. Kiefer motioned Lou to a chair. “Sit down, my dear, please.”

Lou’s voice was low and throaty. “Thank you.” She sat in a low chair. With her legs crossed. So a patch of white showed.

I knew. I think I knew right then. More, I knew what was in Lou’s mind. So Mr. Kiefer was an old man. Maybe too old. He was male. He might still like to look.

“You’re very pretty, my dear,” he smiled.

Lou fluttered her eyes at him. “Thank you.”

Kiefer bit the end off a cigar and looked at me. He sounded tired. “All right, let’s get at it, Charters. You admit that you killed Tony?”

“No, sir.”

“Who did?”

“I think Kendall did.”

“With your gun?”

“No, sir. That was a plant to pin it on me.”

“How did he get your gun?”

“He took it out of my pocket after he’d knocked me unconscious.”

“When was this? I mean when Kendall knocked you unconscious?”

“Right after I found Tony’s body.”

“And why should Kendall kill Tony?”

I said, “I think in self-defense. Because he thought Tony was crazy.”

“Now, that is a new one,” Woods said.

Mr. Kiefer started over again. “You do admit you sold Tony a bill of goods last night?”

“You mean about his sister?”

“I do.”

I said, “It wasn’t exactly a bill of goods. At the time I
thought
I could do something for her. I was drunk, Bigmouth drunk.”

Kiefer sat on the arm of a chair. “That’s no excuse.”

“No,” I admitted. “It isn’t. And when I sobered up this morning I spent the entire day trying to get in touch with him.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to give him back his money.”

Woods chuckled softly. “Believe me, fellow, you’re good. You’ve almost got me believing you.” He stopped chuckling. “Almost.”

I said, “It’s the truth. And when Tony called me this evening around eight o’clock, I tried to tell him how things were. I asked him to name a spot where I could meet him and return his money. But he got sore and hung up before I could convince him I meant it. He thought I’d talked to Kendall and that Kendall had advised me to give him the money back and string along with the local boys.”

Mr. Kiefer looked at Woods.

Woods said, “That would be the big moon-faced lad in the other room.”

Mr. Kiefer lighted his cigar. “In a way, this is my fault. When Tony met me at the plane last night, I should have refused to advance him the money. But you’d sold him such a bill of goods that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I’d never seen him so enthused before. According to him, you were a sort of legal Sir Galahad. And all you needed was ten thousand dollars to pry his sister out of the death house.”

I asked him if I could ask a question.

“You can ask,” Mr. Kiefer said.

I asked the question that had been bothering me. “How come Tony was so long in coming to his sister’s defense?”

“That’s a good question,” Mr. Kiefer said. “It would seem their family was broken up when they were kids. And until I sent Tony down here to scout the situation in advance and he happened to see her picture in a Sun City paper, he didn’t realize she was his sister. I think Tony told me it had been ten or twelve years since he had seen her. That had been in Cuba. And she had been a little girl.”

“He damn near went nuts,” Woods said. “Nothing would do but we drive right over to Raiford. Of course, she claimed she hadn’t killed this Summers, that, in her opinion, her attorney had thrown her to the wolves. Then she told Tony about you.”

I was puzzled. “About me?”

“That’s right,” Mr. Kiefer said. “About how nice you’d been to her, how you’d even brought her flowers.” He sucked at his cigar. “In fact, I think it was those goddamn sweet peas she kept talking about that completely convinced Tony you were on the level.” Mr. Kiefer mimicked Tony. “He said,
‘He’s not only smart, he’s got what they call the milk of human kindness
’.”

The short hairs on the back of my neck tingled. It was like hearing Tony talk. “Then my bumping into him last night was not entirely coincidence?”

“Hell, no,” Woods said. “Tony combed Sun City for you and finally found you right where we picked you up tonight. You don’t remember me, do you?”

I shook my head at him. “No.”

Woods’ smile was dry. “We were bosom buddies last night. I tried to tell Tony that even if you were carrying it well, you were stinking. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He didn’t believe me. He didn’t want to believe me. You were a likeable guy. You told him a plausible story. And it was worth any amount to him to spring his kid sister. Just what did you
think
you could do for her, if anything?”

So what could I lose? I took a deep breath and told them. About how I’d worked on the Casa Mañana Apartments while they were being remodeled. About how I’d thought Mrs. Landers had been paid off by Cass Hardy and I could probably get her to change her testimony for ten thousand dollars.

Mr. Kiefer stopped me there. “Just a minute. If you intended to give this Landers woman the ten thousand, where did you come in? What were you going to get out of it?”

I admitted, “I guess I didn’t think of that.”

“See what I mean?” Woods said.

Mr. Kiefer returned his cigar to his mouth. “You talked to this Landers woman?”

I said, “I did.”

“What did she say?”

Lou answered before I could. “She wasn’t interested in the money. She has more than she can spend if she lives another fifty years.”

“She wouldn’t admit she’d lied, huh?”

Lou continued, slightly breathless. “She didn’t lie. Jim was right about the walls and doors. You can’t hear through them. But Mrs. Landers
did
hear the whole thing. Just as she testified in court.”