Read Wife or Death Online

Authors: Ellery Queen

Wife or Death (9 page)

BOOK: Wife or Death
10.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Denton soon concluded that such speculations would get him nowhere. He didn't have enough facts. He turned his thoughts to the identity of the killer.

He saw at once that his former conclusions about Angel's new lover no longer stood up. The fact that none of the males attending the Wyatts' party after the Hallowe'en Ball had left Ridgemore coincidentally with Angel's disappearance now meant nothing. Of course Angel's lover was still in town. He had not left town because Angel had not left town, so to speak, either. He had had to take her no further than ten miles away.

So the men he had diligently eliminated were all back in the running … the four unattached males—Ralph Crosby, old Gerald Trevor, young Arnold Long and the cartoonist, Matthew Fallon.

Or was it necessary now to re-examine the possibility that she had run off with a married man? Denton re-examined it briefly and again dismissed the theory. Angel cared too much for status to run away with a man who could not marry her. (It's too bad, Denton thought; if the man were married he'd have had a powerful motive for using the shotgun—fear of scandal, perhaps; perhaps even love for his wife.)

Crosby. Trevor. Long. Fallon.

Old Trevor? In Angel's eyes, the disadvantage of Trevor's age might well have been counterbalanced by his Hollywood connections. He could make her a “star”—or promise to. And the old fellow was handsome and in pretty good shape physically. Still … Denton shook his head.

Ralph Crosby? On the jealousy theory the district attorney was certainly at the top of the list—he had been the unknown's immediate predecessor and he had given a convincing demonstration of his feelings on the night of Angel's decampment. But hadn't Crosby been too drunk that night to have driven a car without being picked up by a state trooper or ditching somewhere, or to have left no clues in murdering and disposing of his victim? Unless it had all been an act … continued today, Denton thought, in that convincing display of grief over Angel and vindictiveness toward me?

Then there was Arnold Long and his spanking new Avanti. And Matt Fallon …

Denton grimaced. Nothing but ifs, buts and unlesses. I'd make one hell of a detective, he thought.

And suddenly he remembered what George Guest had said about seeing Angel on the night of the ball, necking in a car on the country club parking lot. That had to be the man. And old George knew who he was.

When Denton rolled into Ridgemore he drove directly to the home of Augie Spile. The car clock said the time was 9:02.

Chief Spile and his wife lived in a small brick house on Oak Street, only a few blocks from the square. Mrs. Spile, as ponderous and slow-moving as her husband, came to the door.

“Evening, Emma,” Denton said. “Augie around?”

“Sure, Jim. Come in, come in. I was real sorry to hear about your wife.”

Denton mumbled something. He followed Emma Spile into the front room and found the chief overflowing an easy chair, watching television, drinking beer from the bottle. Two overweight children, a boy of six and a girl of eight, sat side by side on the sofa, their eyes glued to the screen.

The chief heaved himself to his feet. “Let's go in the kitchen, Jim. These hellions'll yell their heads off if I turn off the set.”

He carried his bottle with him. He set it down on the kitchen table and said, “Beer? I ain't got anything stronger.”

“No, thanks,” Denton said. “Augie—”

Spile seated himself carefully at the table. “No sense talking on your feet, Jim. Have a chair.”

Denton sat down. The kitchen smelled of fish; there was a blower going. “I guess I sounded off to our respected D.A. today, didn't I?”

The chief chuckled. “You make a different kind of suspect, Jim, I'll hand you that. Took me fifteen minutes to quiet Crosby down enough to get his voice back and a half hour after that to talk him out of frying you without a trial.”

“Augie,” Denton said. “Crosby's involved in this case. You know it as well as I do. He has no business acting in his official capacity in the investigation. If I'm a suspect—”

“Well, aren't you?” the chief asked dryly. “Jim, you'd be an automatic suspect even under other circumstances. The husband always is when the wife is murdered.”

“And the wife's last-known lover?” Denton asked. “Does being D.A. give him automatic immunity?”

“You know that ain't so, Jim. I'm not forgetting Crosby for one little minute. But let's get back to you. And me. We've been friends since we were kids. Also, I'm chief law enforcement officer in this town. I'm two people, Jim, and I've got to keep 'em separate. Augie Spile says you couldn't kill anybody. Chief Spile says I got to keep you on my suspect list.”

It was as near to a personal plea as Denton had ever heard the big man make, and he softened. “Sure, Augie,” he said, and even laughed. “Just don't lean over too far backwards in your cop personality. But I didn't stop by to talk about myself. I just remembered two things I think you ought to know.”

“What's that?”

“For one thing, the night Angel ran off she must have taken the car out of the garage after we got home, and then brought it back. Or somebody did. It had fifteen more miles on it the next morning than when we got home from the Wyatts'.”

Spile frowned. “You sure?”

“Positive. I've been checking my gas consumption lately. I look at the mileage meter every time I pull in or out of the garage.”

“Funny,” the chief muttered. “Any notion about it?”

“It's a mystery to me, Augie. Unless their original plan was to take my car, but on the way he decided to kill her and brought the car back afterward. That would have been smart, because if he abandoned the car somewhere it would have caused an investigation. By putting the car back he'd figure I wouldn't ever know it had been gone.”

Augie Spile shook his head. “Her body was found ten miles south of town. Twice ten—up and back—is twenty. You say only fifteen miles were put on.”

“I hadn't thought of that.” Denton scowled. “My car was driven somewhere, though—by somebody, Angel or someone else.”

“What's the other thing, Jim?”

“George Guest knows who the man is. The man she started to run off with. The man I think killed her.”

The chief's heavy lids rose. “George does? How does George figure in this?”

“He saw Angel and some man wrapped around each other in the back seat of a car on the club parking lot the night of the Hallowe'en Ball. Since she ran off with a man only a few hours later, it must have been the same man.”

“Who was he?”

“George wouldn't tell me.”

Spile looked puzzled. “If he told you that much, how come he wouldn't tell you the man's name?”

“At the time, we were both assuming Angel's lover had left town with her. But this guy she was necking with was still around, according to George, so he couldn't be the man she ran away with. That being the case, George didn't want to involve him. I had to agree. Angel was quite capable of such in-between quickies.”

The chief looked embarrassed and glanced at the kitchen wall-clock. The stores stayed open until 9 o'clock on Friday nights, but it was almost 9:30. “George'll be gone by now. Must be just about getting home. Suppose I give him a call.”

“Let me do it, Augie,” Denton said. “Okay?”

The chief thought. “Okay,” he said, rising. “But if you don't mind, Jim, I'll listen on the extension.”

Denton shrugged. That was the cop in Augie Spile speaking. He went to the wall phone just inside the door to the dining room and dialed the Guests' number. Corinne answered.

“Oh, Jim!” She sounded terribly distressed. “I've been trying to reach you. I've heard the news—”

“Already?” Denton said.

“It's all over town that you've been arrested for murder. I knew it couldn't be true, but—Damn people! Do they know yet who did it?”

“Ralph Crosby thinks I did. I'm sure most of Ridgemore thinks so, too. Thanks for being a member of the loyal opposition.”

“Don't be an idiot. You couldn't kill anybody.”

“You're a doll,” he said. “George home?”

“Not yet, Jim.”

“No kidding. Where is he?”

“He phoned just before nine to say he wouldn't be home for a while. He wanted to check something out, he said—he has a hunch about who killed Angel. He said he'd tell me all about it when he got home. Jim, wouldn't that be a risky thing to do?”

Denton was silent. Then he said, “Oh, I don't think so, Corinne. I can't see George doing anything foolish.”

“You sound as if you know what he was talking about.” Her tone was anxious now. “Jim. Do you?”

“Yes,” Denton said slowly. “The night of the ball George happened to spot Angel in some car on the club parking lot in a hot clinch with a man. There's a good chance that's the man she ran away with—and that he's the man who killed her.”

“Well, who is it? George didn't say a word to me about it!”

“He didn't tell me the man's name.”

“Oh, the darned
fool
!”

“Now don't get yourself in an uproar, Corinne. Maybe he went to the police. Let me check.”

“Would you? You're a darling! And Jim, call me back?”

“Of course.” He hung up, and waited.

Augie Spile came lumbering back with quite untypical speed. “What the hell is
he
trying to do?” he cried, and lunged for the wall-phone. “Went to the police!” He dialed.

“I had to say something,” Denton muttered.

“Harley!” the chief shouted. “George Guest been in?… Well, if he shows, hold him and call me at home.” He hung up with a bang and whirled. “Jim, do you think George would pull a dumb stunt like trying to be an amateur detective or something?”

“I don't know, Augie—”

“Better call Corinne back.”

“I think I'll run over there instead. She's got a head start on a case of hysterics. I'll sit it out with her till George shows up.”

“Phone me when you get there.”

“What for?”

“I want the license number of George's car.”

“Augie, you can't really think—”

“I'm not thinking anything, Jim, I'm just getting set in case. If this guy George went after is our man, he's already killed once. Will you get the hell over to Corinne's and phone me that license number?”

11

The big Guest house was a block west and two blocks north of Denton's—a white clapboard two-story-and-attic job with three bedrooms and a nursery; Corinne and George had planned for a sizable family. After seven years of marriage they were still childless and had begun to talk of registering with an adoption agency.

Corinne answered the door wearing black lounging pajamas, her dark hair tied back with a black velvet ribbon. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup.

“Hey, chick,” Denton said. “You look sixteen. And your nose is shiny.”

Corinne did not smile. “How come the personal call? I thought you were going to phone me.” As he closed the door she walked over to the wall mirror in the foyer. “It is not.”

“Is too,” Denton said. “George hasn't been to the cops.”

“Jim.” Corinne turned, her little hands clutching the edge of the foyer table under the mirror. “How serious is this?”

“I don't know. Augie Spile wants to put a message on the air to look for the car—purely precautionary. What's the license number?”

She was quite pale. “George went to see that man, didn't he?”

“We don't really know that to be a fact, Corinne. Look, there's no sense in panicking. This is a small enough town so the two radio patrol cars can cover every street in a short time. What's the license number?”

“It's on a tag with my keys,” she said. “I never remember it.”

She ran upstairs and returned quickly. A tab in the shape of a license plate was among the keys.

The phone was in the foyer. Denton looked up Chief Spile's home number and dialed. Spile's voice answered after one ring.

“Jim Denton, Augie,” Denton said. “Got a pencil?”

“Go ahead.”

“The license is 1-H-3005. Mercury sedan with a white body and a turquoise top.” He turned to Corinne. “That's a nineteen sixty-one, Corinne, isn't it?”

“Sixty-two.”

“Nineteen sixty-two model, Augie.”

“I'll get it right on the air. And tell Corinne not to worry. If he's in town the boys ought to spot him in less than an hour.”

Denton hung up. “I told you there was nothing to worry about. Augie says they'll spot him in an hour.”

Corinne nodded; there was the faintest crease between her brows. “Can I give you a drink? Or some coffee?”

“Make some coffee.”

He followed her into the shiny kitchen and sat down at the table while she filled the percolator and plugged it in. She set out cups, cream and sugar in silence, and in silence took a chair across from him and waited for the coffee to perk. Her pallor did not go away.

“Why don't you relax?” Denton glanced at the kitchen clock. “It's only forty-five minutes or so since George closed the store. Maybe he's stopped somewhere for a drink.”

“He'd have phoned. He always does.”

“He's already phoned you once. Be reasonable, Corinne. He wouldn't be likely to phone again.”

She summoned a smile. “I'm just being a worry-wart, I guess.”

The coffee finished perking. Corinne poured. They sat sipping, slowly, as if it were important to conserve the coffee. Neither looked at the kitchen clock until their cups were empty. The hands stood at a quarter past ten.

“I could use a refill,” Denton murmured. Silently she refilled his cup. She took no more for herself.

At a quarter to eleven Denton rose without a word and dialed from the kitchen extension.

BOOK: Wife or Death
10.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Through the Deep Waters by Kim Vogel Sawyer
Deviant Knights by Alexandra O'Hurley
The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot
Wolfsbane by Ronie Kendig
JASON by Candace Smith
Will Shetterly - Witch Blood by Witch Blood (v1.0)