Wake Up to Murder (17 page)

“How?”

Lou told him. “Through the vent in her bathroom. The nasty old thing even has an easy chair in there. And you can hear everything that goes on in the other bathrooms on both sides of the vent, just as plain as if you were in the room.”

Woods chuckled. “She should hear plenty.”

Lou’s cheeks turned pink. “She does. We heard plenty the few minutes we were in there.”

Mr. Kiefer looked back at me. “And the Landers woman sticks to her testimony, huh? She insists she heard Tony’s sister threaten this guy with whom she was living? She heard him beg for his life?”

Again Lou answered before I could. “That’s right. Mrs. Landers heard Mr. Summers say, ‘Hey, nix, that’s loaded.’” Her slight breathlessness returned. “Then she heard Joe say, ‘No. Put down that gun. Please, don’t shoot me.’” Lou swallowed a lump in her throat. “Then Mrs. Landers heard six shots.”

Mr. Kiefer sucked at his cigar. It was dead. “Where’s the ten grand now?” he asked me.

I said, “I think Kendall has it. Along with my wife, May.”

“How did he get it?”

“It was in my wife’s purse when we drove out to ask his advice about how to square me with Tony.”

“You don’t think she went with him willingly?”

“No.”

“You didn’t kill both of them and bury their bodies?”

“No.”

“You don’t think your wife has been having an affair with Kendall?”

“No.”

“Then what are you sweating about?”

I told him. “Because I’m worried sick about May. May is a good kid. And she doesn’t deserve to have a thing like this happen to her.”

Mr. Kiefer summed up for the prosecution. “Your story is that you discovered Tony’s body in Kendall’s living room. A few moments later, you were slugged unconscious by a man you believe to have been Kendall. When you came to, Kendall and your wife and the ten grand were gone. So was Tony’s body. And that’s all you know about it, except what you’ve heard on the radio?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’ve been trying to get a line on Kendall ever since?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lou said, “It’s ridiculous. I mean that he should worry about his wife. She went with Mr. Kendall of her own free will. I know she did. And they’re probably well on their way out of the state by now.”

Neither Mr. Kiefer nor Woods said anything. I took a package of Camels from my pocket. I tried to extract a cigarette, but my fingers were shaking so badly, the cigarette dropped on the floor. In trying to pick it up I stepped on it and squashed it into the rug. And that was all right with me. I didn’t really want a smoke. All I wanted was May.

When I could, I said. “Look, Lou. Why are you so anxious that I don’t contact Kendall?”

Lou refused to meet my eyes. “Anxious? I’m certain it doesn’t make any difference to me one way or another.”

“Then why did you talk about a boat? Why didn’t you tell me he had a hideout out on Lake Seminole? With a private landing field?”

Woods said, “You know this to be so?”

I nodded. “Yeah. That’s where I was headed when you picked me up.”

Woods looked at Mr. Kiefer.

Mr. Kiefer relighted his cigar and enjoyed it for a moment. “Not that I give a damn about the personal angles that obviously are involved. My interest is strictly in Tony. No one kills one of Cade Kiefer’s boys with impunity. It would be bad business on my part to allow such a precedent to be set.” Smoke curled up from his cigar, as he studied my face. “I’d like to believe you, son. I really would. If only for Tony’s sake. How far is this Lake Seminole from here?”

I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. I exhaled slowly. “About eighteen miles, sir.”

Mr. Kiefer looked back at Woods. “Get my hat, will you, Jack? And let’s hope, for Charter’s sake, that he isn’t lying.”

IT was as dark as if the frenzied wind had blown the moon out of the sky. From time to time, as the big gray car wound down the narrow back road, a piece of flying debris thudded against the windshield or the body of the car.

Woods drove. I sat on the back seat with Lou. Mr. Kiefer sat sideways on the front seat, one arm dangling over the back of the seat, from time to time addressing a remark to me.

Lou rode with her hands in her lap. It was a physical effort for me to breathe. No one had pushed me around. No one had made any threats. But I knew.
I’d better be right about it being Kendall who had killed Tony Mantin.
Even though Mr. Kiefer looked like a kind old man, the white-haired racketeer lived in a world only a step removed from a modern jungle. A world in which a lost tooth, an eye or a life could only be paid for in kind. And one of his boys named Tony Meares, alias Tony Mantin, was dead.

“You’ve been here before?” Mr. Kiefer asked me.

“No,” I admitted, “I haven’t.”

“How about you?” he asked Lou.

Lou looked at him with smoldering eyes. “You had no right to force me to accompany you. I’ve nothing to do with all this. All I was trying to do was help Mr. Charters.”

Now it was
Mr.
Charters.

Mr. Kiefer’s voice had an edge to it. “I asked you a question.”

Lou chewed her lower lip. “Yes.”

“Fine,” Mr. Kiefer said. “You can watch the road and tell us where to turn.”

It wasn’t necessary. A tattered windsock marked the south end of the small landing field that had been hacked out of the saw palmetto. To the left of the road and in about two hundred feet, a light twinkled through the trees.

“This must be it,” Woods said.

“Must be,” Mr. Kiefer agreed. “Pull off the road and let’s look in the hangar first.”

Woods drove the big car off the road and switched off his lights. Then, instead of getting out, he sat looking into his non-glare rear vision mirror.

“See something?” Mr. Kiefer asked.

Woods said, “I thought I saw headlights. I did.”

He slipped his gun from its shoulder holster and sat with it in his lap. The car behind us labored up the road. One headlight wobbled from side to side. Like a drunk’s head. It passed without slackening speed. It was a battered ten-year-old farm pick-up with two men in the front seat and a stack of empty tomato crates in back.

“Tobacco Road,” Woods said. “What some people will drive.”

He waited until the tail light of the pick-up jostled across the bridge over the river and disappeared in the thicket of cabbage palms and moss-hung live oak on the other side. Then, looking at me, Woods said, “I’ll only be a minute. You and the girl friend stay put until I get back. And don’t give Mr. Kiefer any trouble.”

Lou glowered at him. “I’m not his girl friend.”

“Well, whatever you are,” Woods said.

Woods disappeared into the night, in the direction of the hangar on the edge of the landing field.

As soon as he was out of sight, Lou gripped my forearm so hard, her fingernails dug small holes in my flesh.

“Don’t be a sucker, Jim,” she panted. “You aren’t going to get out of this alive. Even if it was Matt Kendall who killed Tony — ” Lou swallowed the lump in her throat. “Well, don’t you see? Are you really that stupid?
They can’t afford to leave any witnesses.
”

“So what do you want me to do?” I asked her.

Lou screamed at me. “Knock the old man out, you fool. And drive on before Woods comes back.”

I shook my head at her. “No.”

“That’s smart,” Mr. Kiefer said, quietly. His left arm and hand was lying along the back of the front seat. He laid his right hand on it. It was holding a duplicate of the pearl handled .38 I’d seen beside the body of Tony.

Lou began to cry. Softly, to herself.

I sat looking at the light twinkling between the trees.

Woods came back to the car. Standing erect now, the wind carrying him along. “He’s got a plane, all right,” he reported. “A four-passenger cabin job. I’m not familiar with the make, but it’s gassed and ready to go. He’d probably be gone by now if it wasn’t for the wind.”

“Probably,” Mr. Kiefer said. He got out of the car and opened the door for Lou. “Let’s go talk to Mr. Kendall. And, seeing that you’ve been here before, you lead the way down the path.”

I followed Lou through the trees. The cabin was new, built of varnished logs. But I recognized the location. There had been an old fishing camp on it the last time I had been at the lake. A new pier led out into the water. Probably to the edge of the deep water channel cut out by the river emptying into it.

There appeared to be three rooms to the cabin. All of them were lighted and the light spilled out onto the unscreened porch.

Woods looked at the big black car pulled up in front of the stairs. “The son-of-a-bitch,” he said, without heat. “He left in such a hell of a hurry he even took Tony’s car.” I looked at the car. It was the black Cadillac I’d seen in Kendall’s drive when May and I had driven in. Of course. I was a hell of a detective. Kendall had only two cars, and both stalls of the garage had been filled.

There was a small clearing around the cabin. When Lou reached the edge of it, Mr. Kiefer put his hand on her shoulder. “From here on, we’ll go first,” he said.

He walked with Woods in the lead. I followed close behind him. There was no need to try to be quiet. The wind whipped all sound away.

Then I saw Kendall pass one of the lighted windows. All he had on was shorts. I felt like I had when I’d discovered Tony’s body, like when I’d gotten hold of a dish of rotten meat in the dark. Kendall came back to the window and looked out. I thought at first he had seen us. He hadn’t. He was looking up. Studying the tops of the trees to see if the wind had lessened any. He shook his head and left the window.

Woods and Mr. Kiefer moved closer to the cabin. I followed on their heels. I saw the divan first. Then May. She was sitting on the edge of it, leaning on her hands. Her disordered hair covered half of her face. A lighted cigarette drooped from her lips. She was wearing so little that not much was left to the imagination.

“I told you,” Lou screamed in my ear.

Kendall came in sight again. He had a shot glass in his hand. His lips moved as he said something. He gulped the drink and threw the glass away. Then, reaching out, he caressed May. It was like he’d touched a live wire. She spat the cigarette in his face. Her feet came up from the floor. She used her spike heels to kick him, where it would do the most good.

“Good for her,” Mr. Kiefer said.

Kendall staggered away from the bed, doubled up in agony, holding where he hurt. Then, his face contorted with anger, he straightened. He doubled his fists and walked toward May.

Woods pushed open the door and walked in. I followed him across a knotty pine-paneled living room to the open bedroom door. The fingers of one of Kendall’s hands were tangled in May’s hair. His other hand was lifted to strike her.

“You bitch. You little blonde bitch,” he panted. “You’ve tormented me long enough.” His muscles tensed for the blow.

“Uh uh,” Woods said sharply. “I wouldn’t, Counselor.”

Kendall melted like a snowman. His raised fist fell to his side. His muscles went visibly flabby. His mouth gaped. His knees sagged. His head lolled on his neck.

I walked on into the room and sat down on the divan and took May into my arms. “Hello, sweetheart,” I said.

May didn’t seem too surprised. “I knew you’d find me, Jim,” she said. “And I told Mr. Kendall so.” One of her eyes was swollen shut and beginning to discolor, but her other eye was as bright as a star. “And he didn’t, Jim,” she told me, earnestly. “He didn’t get to first base.” The first of a series of pent-up sobs shook her slim body. “Although God knows he’s tried. He — he ripped off my dress. And he hit me. He beat me until I screamed.”

I started to get up.

Mr. Kiefer put his hand on my shoulder. “You hug your wife, son. We’ll take care of this guy.”

May buried her face on my chest and sobbed.

Woods looked at a packed suitcase open on the table in the room, then back at Kendall. “You were going somewhere, Counselor?” he asked.

Matthew Kendall didn’t look distinguished any more. There were deep bags under his eyes. Even the hair on his chest was grizzled. He looked like an old gray weasel trapped in a corner of a chicken coop. His voice sounded like it was being forced through a space too small for it.

“Now, wait a minute, fellows,” he pleaded. “You have to believe me. Meares burst into my place like a madman. Shouting a lot of gibberish that didn’t make sense. It was self-defense. I had to kill him.”

“Why?” Mr. Kiefer asked. “It wouldn’t be because you had a guilty conscience, would it, Kendall? Because you
did
throw his sister to the wolves?”

“No,” Kendall panted. “Of course not.”

I covered as much of May’s bare back as I could with one hand. “You lie. You did throw Pearl to the wolves.”

“How do you know that, son?” Mr. Kiefer asked me.

I told him. “Because Pearl didn’t kill Joe Summers. Lou did.”

“Oh, God. Oh dear God,” Lou moaned from the doorway of the bedroom.

I said, “If I wasn’t dumb, I’d have seen it from the first. That’s what this whole merry-go-round has been about. Lou didn’t check into a hotel with me because I could give her anything she couldn’t get from any other man. She and Kendall saw me talking to Tony. And they were afraid. They wanted to tuck me away. But by the time they did the damage had been done.”

“You can prove this?” Woods asked.

I shook my head. “No. But I think the law can. Lou is not normal. She
has
to have her loving. Not normally, like other women, but all the time. Joe Summers was a big, good-looking guy. Lou was stopping at the Casa Mañana Apartments at the time he was killed. Joe was a cheater from way back. It was only natural that they got together. Mrs. Landers heard a woman in the apartment, all right. But she didn’t hear Pearl. She heard Lou. I haven’t the slightest idea what they quarreled about.

“Maybe Joe wanted to break it up. And Lou didn’t. He even named her as his killer. Mrs. Landers heard him. When Lou picked up the gun that he kept in his bathroom, Mrs. Landers said he yelled, ‘Hey, nix, you, that’s loaded.’ But Joe didn’t say ‘you’. He said, ‘Lou’. He said,
‘Hey, nix, Lou, that’s loaded.’
”