Confidentially Yours (15 page)

“What is it?”

“No, don’t get your hopes up; it has about one chance in a thousand. But you don’t have any where you are now. Is it a deal?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Now, listen—tell Scanlon what you’ve found out about Junior, and about anything else you want, but don’t express any suspicion of George at all. There’s another man mixed up in it, but you have no idea who he is. You want George to defend you, and you want him there when they question you. Insist on it.”

“Okay,” I said. I couldn’t even guess what she had in mind, but as she pointed out I had nothing to lose.

“Good luck,” she said softly. The receiver clicked.

Five minutes passed. I sat waiting for the sound of sirens. They’d converge on the building, surround it, throw their spotlights on the doors, and order me to come out with my hands in the air. The phone rang again.

I picked it up. “Hello.”

“Mr. Warren, listen—this is Barbara Ryan. I want to talk to you; it’s very important. I’m calling from the sheriff’s office, but don’t cut me off till I explain.” I frowned. What was the matter with her? I opened my mouth to say something, but she went right on talking, not giving me a chance.

“…I had to do it, Mr. Warren. I had to; it was the only way. I told them where you are. And I want you to promise me you won’t do anything rash. I’m trying to help you, if you’ll listen to me.”

It began to soak in then. Scanlon would be on another extension, and she was talking fast to keep me from saying anything until she could get her message over.

“…you’ve got to give yourself up. This thing can be solved, if you just go at it the right way, with people helping you. We’ll get detectives, and lawyers. You won’t be alone. But if you try to resist, you’ll be killed; you won’t have a chance. Mr. Scanlon is going to move his men into the area in another few minutes, but I told him if I could talk to you first maybe I could get you to come out. Just don’t resist. Promise me that.”

I wondered what I was going to resist with, even if I were stupid enough to consider it, and then it occurred to me I was in the back room of a sporting goods store and just on the other side of the door were several thousand dollars’ worth of guns and ammunition. I was finally beginning to catch up. Scanlon was convinced I was insane, and could understandably be nervous about sending men into a dark building after a maniac with an arsenal at his disposal. Leverage, she’d said. She wanted something from him, and this was the way she was prying it out of him.

Well, at least I could help her a little. Also, the thought that Scanlon was listening made it irresistible. “What chance have I got after they get hold of me?” I snarled. “That bunch of meat-headed clowns in the Sheriff’s Department couldn’t find their way out of a phone booth. Why bother to try to solve the thing when they’ve got me? They might have to get off their big, fat, political—”

Scanlon’s voice broke in. “You’d better listen to her, Warren. If we have to come in there after you, or drive you out with tear gas—”

“Please, Mr. Scanlon, let me do the talking!” I heard her plead in the background, as though she’d covered the mouthpiece of her extension. He shut up, and her voice came up clear again, begging me to give myself up.

“Well, wait a minute,” I said. “Not so fast. For one thing, I want a lawyer. I’m a little fed up with being accused of all the crimes committed in this county.”

“You’ll have a lawyer. I’ll call anybody you want.”

“I want George Clement,” I said. “And I want him there from the start. They’re not going to railroad me.”

‘I’ll call Mr. Clement right now. Will you do it, Mr. Warren?”

I hesitated a moment. “Well, all right,” I said grudgingly. “Tell ’em I’ll come out the front door with my hands up.”

“Thank God!”

There was so much fervent and heart-felt relief in it she almost convinced me. I let the receiver drop back in the cradle, feeling like Dillinger or Machine-Gun Kelly, and wondering what the odds were on anyone’s refusing that girl anything she decided she wanted. Before they came, I unwound the towel from my hand. With that build-up, they might think I had a gun concealed in it.

I sat back down on the bed again, aware that for the first time in a self-sufficient life I was completely dependent on somebody else. I didn’t have the slightest idea as to what she was up to; the only thing apparent was that she had to have either Scanlon’s permission or help, or both. I started back over everything we’d found out, searching for the glimmer of light she’d spotted and that I’d missed, but gave it up. It only made my head ache. Strangely, I didn’t doubt her at all. That was the only thing I was sure of; she
had
seen something. She hadn’t turned me in merely to get out from under a charge of harboring a fugitive.

They were there in less than five minutes. They converged on the building, surrounded it, threw their spotlights on the doors, and ordered me to come out with my hands in the air.

“Q
UIET!” SCANLON ROARED.
“Mulholland, get those damned people out of here and close the doors. And tell Simpson to keep the corridor clear out there. Nobody can even get in or out of this madhouse.”

It was growing light now beyond the dusty windows of the courthouse; Sunday morning had dawned at last. The cut on my hand had been stitched and bandaged. I was handcuffed, sitting at one of the desks in the sheriffs office. Scanlon and Howard Brill, another of his deputies, were keeping an eye on me from opposite sides of the desk, while Mulholland and another man struggled with the crowd surging in through the doors and threatening to overrun the railing and counter inside the entrance. Scanlon’s face was lined with fatigue, the eyes red from lack of sleep. I had an idea I looked just as bad, or worse.

I lit a cigarette from the pack someone had given me. It was awkward in the handcuffs. Brill pushed an ashtray toward me, his face reflecting the mingled revulsion and pity with which laymen regard the dangerously insane; he hadn’t been a policeman long enough to have acquired the necessary objectivity. I paid no attention. I was too busy with my own bleak thoughts and trying to guess what Barbara was up to. She was nowhere in sight, and hadn’t been here when they brought me in. I supposed she’d gone home.

Mulholland had got the doors closed now and come back. He looked at me, shook his head, and sat down on the corner of another desk. The scuffling of feet and the sound of protesting voices and shouted questions had begun to subside out in the corridor as Simpson pushed back the crowd. Scanlon said something.

“What?” I asked.

“Do you want to make a statement?” he repeated.

“Yes,” I said. “I want to make three. I didn’t kill my wife. I didn’t kill Roberts. And I want George Clement.”

Mulholland sighed. “Here we go again.”

Scanlon took a cigar from his pocket and bit the end off it, regarding me with the blank impersonality of a camera lens. We’d been friends a long time, but he was a professional from the boot-heels up, and if you took the money you did the job. You could get sick later, in private. He struck a match and held it in front of the cigar. “Clement’s on his way over here now.”

Well, he shouldn’t be long, I thought; this time he didn’t have to stop and kill anybody on the way. Just then, there was a commotion at the door as he came in, readjusting the set of his jacket after pushing through the crowd outside. His face was composed and sympathetic as he came over to me. I stood up and we shook hands, a little awkwardly in the handcuffs. She’d said to play it this way. The least I could do was try.

“I’m sorry about this, Duke,” he said in the comforting tone a veterinarian would use to an animal with a broken leg. “The whole thing’s obviously a mistake that’ll be cleared up. I can’t interfere with the investigation, of course, but I’ll be here in case you need me.”

“Fine,” I said. “I knew I could count on you. And I’m sure it’s just as obvious to you as it is to me that the way to clear it up is to find out who killed Roberts and Frances, and why. I think I know why, and if we could get a little help from the police—”

Scanlon cut me off coldly. “That’ll do, Warren. You’re not here to make a speech. You’re under arrest for suspicion of murder, and I have to warn you that anything you say can be used against you. Do you want to make a statement?”

“I’ve already made it. I had nothing to do with those murders. And if you’ll get Doris Bentley in here—”

“Never mind Doris Bentley.”

“Do you want to solve this thing, or don’t you?”

“You’ve got enough charges against you now, without attempted rape. So far, she hasn’t filed a complaint, but I wouldn’t crowd my luck if I were you.”

“Did she tell you what I went there to see her about?”

“She said you tried to rape her.”

“That’s all?”

“Maybe she thought that covered it. You broke into her room at three o’clock in the morning and started tearing her clothes off; if you were just trying to get her recipe for meat loaf, you should have said so.”

George had sat down at another desk off to my left. I stole a glance at him as I said to Scanlon, “I still think you’d better get her in here. She might be able to tell you where Junior Delevan was killed that night.”

Scanlon’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

There wasn’t a quiver in George’s face. He merely glanced curiously in my direction as though wondering why I’d dragged that in.

“And Doris,” I went on, “is also the girl who called you Thursday night and told you I killed Roberts because he was having an affair with my wife.” If I couldn’t get action one way, I could in another.

“How did you know about that?” Scanlon barked.

“Because she also called me.”

“Before your wife came home?”

“That’s right.”

That did it. Without turning his head, Scanlon snapped to Mulholland. “Get that girl in here.”

Mulholland went out, on the double. When Scanlon used that tone, he meant jump, and jump fast.

I turned to George. “I realize I’m probably making your job tougher, but it was necessary.” Obviously, Doris’ confirmation of the telephone call to me would nail down the two things the prosecution would be overjoyed to prove: motive and premeditation. “But since I didn’t kill her,” I went on, “it doesn’t make any difference anyway.”

They all looked at me pityingly—everybody except George. He took a cigarette from a silver case, studied it thoughtfully as he tapped it on a thumbnail, and said, “Well, my hands are more or less tied here, Duke, since I can’t interfere with the investigation, but perhaps it no would have been better…” He let his voice trail off. In other words:
I’ll do my best, but you’ve probably already hanged yourself.

We waited. I wondered if I could break her down when she got here; if she managed to brazen it out, it’d just be my word against hers. Maybe I could get some help from Scanlon; he was too brainy an investigator to ignore a lead in an unsolved murder case, even if it came from an obvious madman. In less than ten minutes they pushed through the crowd in the corridor and came in; Mulholland apparently hadn’t given her time to do more than throw some clothes on. She had on no makeup, and her hair was sloppily combed, which probably wasn’t going to help her morale any. I could tell she was scared, all right; she was trying to look tough and assured, but was merely defiant as they came over to the desk. She glanced at me and then quickly away before I could meet her eye.

“I didn’t want to file any charges,” she said sullenly. “He’s just a nut.”

“That’s not what we wanted to see you about,” Scanlon told her. “Are you the girl who called here the other night and told us Mrs. Warren had been visiting Dan Roberts’ apartment?”

For a moment I thought she was going to deny it. Then she looked bitterly at me, and said, “I suppose he accused me of it?”

“Never mind. Did you?”

“All right, what if I did? It’s true.”

“I see. And you also called Warren, and said the same thing?”

“Yes.” She was in now, so there was no use denying that part.

“Was it before you called us, or after?”

“It was before.”

“Do you remember the time exactly?”

“Not exactly, but it was between ten and eleven. About twenty minutes before I called you.”

Scanlon nodded. “And you’d be prepared to testify to that under oath?”

“Will I have to?”

“Probably. If it’s the truth, there’s no reason you shouldn’t, is there?”

“No-o, I guess not. It’s the truth, all right.”

Scanlon was silent for a moment, just watching her. Then he asked, “When you called Warren, did you identify yourself?”

“No,” she said.

“I see. Then how did he know it was you?”

“I guess he recognized my voice.”

“But when he broke into your room this morning, he didn’t say anything about that? He just tried to rape you?”

She hesitated. She wasn’t a very imaginative liar. “Well, he started tearing my clothes off—”

“Don’t you think it’s more likely he intended to kill you? Your testimony might convict him of murder.”

She brightened. “Yes, maybe that was it. I bet that’s why he grabbed me.”

“Probably. How long would you say he’d been in the room when he made this grab for you?”

“Maybe five minutes. Not much longer.”

“That’s a little odd, isn’t it? Why do you suppose he wasted so much time?”

You could see her realizing she’d made a mistake, after it was too late. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t that long.”

“Ummm. It was more like—three minutes, maybe?”

“Yeah. That was probably it. About three minutes.”

“I see. But that still seems like quite a while for a man to horse around with small talk when he’s going to kill a girl in an apartment house with people asleep just on the other side of the wall. You’d think he’d want to get the show on the road before you could scream. And, incidentally, why didn’t you? No—wait—at that time you didn’t know he intended to kill you. You just thought he was going to rape you.”

“Uh—yes. That was it.”

“Why? At that time, he still hadn’t grabbed you.”

“Well—I really didn’t know
what
he wanted.”