Extra Kill - Dell Shannon (22 page)

"Undoubtedly," said Alison.

"You know nothing about it,
silencio
."

"I'm only soothing you. Whatever you say is so
must be so,
naturalmente
.”

"
Muy bien
,
soothe me in silence.” He slid down comfortably, cradling the
kitten, stretched out and put his head in her lap. "They could
have. Now, Bainbridge says two to six hours before death for that
beef stew and so on. Seven to eleven. That's all right, that can fit.
Say he's raised his demands, and—of course,
claro
está!
—because whatever plan he was
counting on that Wednesday had fallen through. Yes. They want to see
him. They chase right out there after their damned service, and get
there about ten, say even ten-thirty. And—and there's an argument.
But, a fight? This namby-pamby blackmailer and a smooth con man? Why?
Can we say maybe Twelvetrees insulted Mrs. Kingman, and Kingman was
protecting her honor?"

"
Oyé, la drama
magnifico!
" said Alison. "Next week
East Lynne."

"
Chiton
,
I'm thinking! Well, anyway, there's a struggle, Kingman snatches up
the gun lying there on the bureau—Twelvetrees' gun—and hits him a
little too hard. O.K. Then, just as I built it up befor—the dither,
the inspiration of the trap, etcetera. Only Bartlett had nothing to
do with it, it all happened at least an hour after he'd been
killed—that was the kids after all. And because Kingman doesn't
drive, the woman went off to do that part of it while he buried the
body and so on. It'd have taken that long easily, the time it took
her to drive in with the Porsche—after they'd made the plan,
too—that took some time—to put her on the spot to be the lady in
the serape."

The kitten got up, stretched, yawned to show him a
pink mouth and needle-sharp white teeth, turned around and settled
down again.

"
Perfecto!
"
said Alison. "
Obvio
,
that's how it was."

"You are no help whatever," said Mendoza.
"And this is a most uncomfortable position, regardless of all
the movies and the award-winning photographs of couples in parks. If
it wasn't for disturbing the cat, I'd move .... Obviously it is not
how it was—not exactly, anyway. I can see them finding the trap by
accident, or just possibly Twelvetrees had called their attention to
it on some former visit. As confidence workers, they're used to
making slick plans on the spur of the moment. But how the hell did
they know where to lind that trowel? They—" He stopped
abruptly.

"These are the people from that Temple? Well,
she's psychic, isn't she? She divined it."

"
Aguarda, un momento! Si,
como no? Yo caigo en ello!
—yes, of course,
of course!" He swung his legs off the couch and stood up
abruptly, holding the kitten. "Why didn't I see that before? I
tell you, I'm going senile!"

"But you get it now, or so you just said. Better
late than never. You've solved the whole case—and under my helpful
feminine soothing."

"Well, not exactly. But look. Is it likely—I
ask you—that this brash young fellow with his movie ambitions, his
record as a pimp's apprentice—a city man, an apartment liver—is
it likely that he was remotely interested in gardening? Not by any
stretch of the imagination! Then why did he go to the trouble of
convincing Mrs. Bragg he was, buying that plant food for her damned
Tree of Heaven and so forth? Why else?—because it gave him an
excuse for fooling around it, and probably when he undertook the care
of the thing she wouldn't bother with it any more. I'll bet on any
odds you name that was his safety deposit box. I'll swear it, he had
something concrete on them—and he wouldn't leave it tucked in the
toe of a shoe or in a drawer, he wouldn't carry it on him—not that
cautious, canny, ladylike boy—to be stolen so easy or maybe involve
him in a roughhouse, not that one! He found a safe place to stash it
away, where nobody would think of looking—buried with that Tree of
Heaven—and he'd just brought the trowel from Mrs. Bragg's carport
to dig it up with, to take with him, and that's why the trowel was
there in his kitchen. And—"

The phone rang and Alison went to answer it. The
kitten scrambled up on his shoulder and began to lick his ear
thoughtfully. "For you," said Alison.

Mendoza took the receiver, listened, began to smile,
and finally fired rapid orders. "Get hold of Hackett—oh,
beautiful, beautiful, just how I'd figured it!—who's in the office?
O.K., I want Boyce, one man'll be enough, and a blank warrant—jump
to it! I'll be there in twenty minutes, I want it waiting! I felt all
along that was the answer— Tell Hackett to step on it. I'll meet
him at the Temple in forty-five minutes .... O.K., thanks, get busy!"
He slammed the phone down, handed the kitten to Alison, kissed her,
and snatched up his hat. "I'm vindicated—not so senile after
all! Pennsylvania has come through and I think we'll tie up this case
tonight—
se buena, hasta más ver
,"
and he was gone.

"Well," said
Alison, and returned to dissatisfied inspection of the canvas.

* * *

What Pennsylvania-specifically, the Chief of Police
of Philadelphia—said was that the prints of the corpse identified
him in their records as one Robert Trask, particulars as
follows—etcetera. Nothing of Trask's antecedents were known beyond
the fact that he had come from some place in New England, to the
detriment of Philadelphia, some twelve years back. He had been mixed
up in various unsavory businesses, but had been charged and convicted
only once, seven years ago—contributing to delinquency of minors, a
year's sentence. After he got out, he had been on the scene for a
couple of years, and twice private citizens had lodged complaints of
attempted extortion on him, but he had managed to wriggle out of the
legal net. He had then disappeared, and Philadelphia was interested
to learn what had subsequently happened to him.

As for the description appended of a middle-aged
couple calling themselves Kingman, it was of course impossible to say
definitely without fingerprints to check, but it was likely that they
were the same pair known to Philadelphia as Martin and Caroline
Sellers. The Sellers had been charged with fraud on a private
complaint in the same year that Robert Trask had been put inside, but
had got off on some technicality with the aid of a smart lawyer; the
case had attracted some local publicity., They had held private
séances with all the trappings, Mrs. Sellers being the medium, and
been detected in fraud by a local officer of the Society for
Psychical Research. Investigation of their background at the time (by
the Society, not the police) had turned up the fact that they had at
one time been in show business with a mind-reading act, billed as The
Telepathic Turners. Turner appeared to be the legal name. Two years
previously they had been charged and convicted of fraud—on the same
count as the Philadelphia arrest, fake séances—in Chicago, were
fined, and had served a year apiece inside. If Los Angeles could
oblige with prints of these Kingmans, Philadelphia could say
definitely whether they were the Sellers-Turners; but as the latter
had disappeared from the scene so far as the police knew about five
years back, it was a matter of small doubt.

"We'll send prints," said Mendoza to
Hackett happily, "but it does look like a foregone conclusion.
So there's our motive—and I wonder, considering that they were
tried the same year Twelvetrees—Trask was, I wonder if that's where
he met them. Or saw and remembered them. In a courtroom corridor,
somewhere like that. And it's also nice to know that he'd apparently
settled on gentlemanly blackmail as an easier racket than what he'd
been in—you see how the pattern worked out with Whalen."

"Yes, he couldn't leave it alone." They had
just joined forces outside the Temple. "You're going to spring
it on them straight?"

"Might just give them enough of a jolt to come
out with something damaging, yes."

Boyce asked if there was likely to be a roughhouse
about the arrest.

"Nada, they're con artists, grifters—never any
trouble with that kind."

The entrance to the place was dark, only the discreet
sign lighted, and the door locked; but there was a bell push. They
waited, and presently a light went on and beyond the glass-paneled
double doors Kingman could be seen approaching unhurriedly, neat and
respectable in his navy suit and immaculate white shirt, the light
shining on his rimless glasses. He looked like a verger about to
welcome the congregation. He swung back the right-hand door, and
there they were, close, crowding in; he took a couple of steps back,
but his genial expression didn't alter.

"Why, Lieutenant Mendoza—good evening, sir—"

"Good evening, Mr. Turner," said Mendoza,
grinning amiably at him. "Let's go upstairs and include Mrs.
Turner in this little gettogether, shall we? And no fair
communicating telepathically on the way! My friends and I think it's
about time for you to start telling us
the
truth—about various things, but mainly about your dealings with the
late Mr. Robert Trask, and just how you came to murder the poor
fellow."

Kingman took another step back. His round ruddy face
lost some of its color. He said dispiritedly, "Oh, hell. Hell
and damnation?
 

THIRTEEN

"Oh, dear," said Cara Kingman. "Well,
I suppose you'd better come in. I was afraid they would find out,
Martin, you know I said at the time, let it go and be thankful it was
only the twenty-three hundred. You see what's come of it, not that
I'd dream of reproaching you, dear, you only did what you thought
best." She looked at Mendoza resignedly.

Kingman put an arm around her. "Now don't you be
frightened, Cara, but it's a bit more than that, they think we did
it, you see. I—"

"Murdered him? Oh, Martin! Well—well, we'd
just better tell them the truth—”

"I'd advise it," said Mendoza, sitting
down. "And not the kind of truth you've seen in a crystal ball,
Mrs. Turner. Of course there's quite a lot you don't have to tell us.
I know that Trask was blackmailing you, and what he had—that last
business in Philadelphia. Your present little flock wouldn't like
hearing about that, and how well you knew it. A spotless reputation
is the chief thing in your business, and it annoyed you considerably
when Trask showed up. You had to play ball with him, but that five
hundred a month was quite a bite out of your take—"

Kingman said gloomily, "You couldn't speak a
truer word."

"It was wicked," said his wife. "After
all the bad luck we'd had, it's not a very steady living after
all—those awful night clubs and so on—horrible places most of
them, but I shouldn't be uncharitable, perhaps all this liquor does
serve some purpose of destiny. But when everything was going so well,
and we'd quite settled down— We're neither of us getting any
younger, you know, Lieutenant, and we must try to save toward our old
age, and besides it's been so nice here, so peaceful, we'd quite felt
we were settled for good until that wicked young man came. He was,
truly. Going to all the trouble of sending back East for that copy of
the Telegraph—the one where the trial was reported, you know, and
our pictures in it too, quite good ones, I'm sorry to say—and he
had it, what do I mean, Martin, photo—?"

"Photostated," sighed Kingman. They sat
side by side on the couch, holding hands, looking at the police
solemnly; a little of Kingman's precise manner dropped away, but not
much—he'd played his part for so many years, he'd grown into it.
"Oh, it was awkward, I can't deny it. In a way, the most
annoying thing about it was that, well, it wasn't as if we'd been
convicted of any wrongdoing—”

"However, you had been before—in Chicago,"
said Mendoza, and mentioned the year.

"That terrible jail," said Madame Cara, and
closed her eyes.

"Now wait just a minute here," said Kingman
fussily, adjusting his glasses. "Wait a minute. (Don't fret, my
dear.) I do not think of myself as a—a confidence man, Lieutenant,
nor do I hold any sort of grudge against the police for doing their
duty. That unfortunate affair in Chicago was due to a
misunderstanding on my part regarding Illinois law. We have always
made an earnest effort to see that we conform to the law—it's only
common sense, after all. When you come down to it, Lieutenant, we are
only selling a service the public wants and is eager to buy. And I
confess I do not see the difference between presenting an—ah—act
to amuse an audience, and doing essentially the same thing without
the footlights."

"I always hated all the traveling about,"
said his wife. She looked about the room sadly. "This is such a
nice place, and I did think we were settled down at last. But—but
it doesn't really matter, Martin dear, we'll get along as well
somewhere else, I daresay, the main thing is to explain to them that
of course we didn't kill him. Why, I'm sure such an idea never
entered our heads, even when he was being horridest. Really,
Lieutenant Mendoza, we're not that kind of people."

"Boyce, close your mouth," said Mendoza
sotto voce, "and try to look more dignified. Now to go on a step
further—we'1l hear your side of it in a moment—the annoying Mr.
Trask had recently increased his demands, hadn't he? He was asking
too much, and it decided you not to be bullied any longer. You had
had a few words with him that Friday afternoon, and far from not
being sure what mood he was in, you knew he was feeling ugly. A
little side racket he'd been planning had fallen through—" He
paused, ostensibly to light a cigarette, watching Kingman: did he
know what the side racket had been?—but the other man only nodded
glumly. "You had a show to put on here at eight, you couldn't
chase after him then, but as soon as you could get away, you drove
out to his apartment. You got there about a quarter past ten—"