Extra Kill - Dell Shannon (27 page)

"Nobody's going to arrest you," said
Hackett. He thought, damn it, it's got to be the Kingmans—logical
thing; that story was a slick bunch of lies, that's all. They were on
the spot at the right time, they had a motive; what the hell else did
you need? Look around and the solid evidence would show up. But, he
thought, but . . . That coat. Oh, hell, coincidence. And she was
easily rattled, of course she'd deny it in panic. He took a breath to
begin talking calm and sensible to her, persuade her to tell him all
about the coat; and Mendoza came out to the entry hall down there,
shot a glance up the stairs, and beckoned him down.

"Now don't you be scared,” and he got up
reluctantly. So Mendoza wanted to question her himself. "You
just—"

But Mendoza was taking up his hat, thanking the Ferne
suavely for her help. He looked at the girl with narrowed eyes, a
little grim, and Hackett cursed himself for ever saying anything
about . . . And what the hell had got into him, anyway, feeling like
that?

When the door was shut and they started down the
sunken steppingstones to the street, he said irritably, "And
what the hell got into you? You looked like the villain in an 1890
melodrama, twirling your moustache and ogling that—that—"

Mendoza grinned, getting out his keys. "
Vaya
,
I always like to oblige a lady. She expected it of me." He
looked at Hackett curiously. "Very odd," he murmured to
himself. "You, of all people, too. I won't say you have quite as
good a brain as me, but I've always found you reasonably quick on the
uptake, and you've worried through more complicated cases than this
on your own." He shook his head and slid under the wheel.

"What are you talking about? Look, Luis, that
coat—it looks funny, but she'd naturally deny it when she knew why
we were interested. She got rattled—"

"Oh, the coat," said Mendoza. He had
brought it with him, presumably with the Ferne's gracious permission.
"It's not the one that figured in that little adventure, so
don't worry about it .... Every once in a while I'm surprised to find
all over again that some cliché is true. But it does astonish me to
find this one operating on you. At least I hope it's just that—the
one about love causing temporary derangement—and not that you're
losing your grip on the job."

"I'm not—will you lay off that? What d'you
mean, you've got an idea—"

"
Nada de eso
,
nothing doing," said Mendoza. "I shouldn't have to explain
anything to you, so I'm not going to. But when I think how close I
came to— An idea? I have a very good idea, now, of what happened,
but there are still a lot of little things to fill in. Work it out
for yourself if you can—meanwhile, be quiet, I've got serious
thinking to do."

* * *

They were greeted in the anteroom of Mendoza's office
by an unusually excited Sergeant Lake. "Lieutenant, I've found
that Marner woman for you—"

"Oh, good," said Mendoza. He didn't sound
very interested. "One of the agencies?"

"No, it was the damndest thing, it looked
hopeless, you know—not a smell anywhere—and then I go out for
coffee and buy a paper and there she is on the front page! Look."

They looked, and Mendoza laughed. "Well, I will
be damned! And I wonder now if maybe that ties into this .... "
It was a good-sized cut, of a pretty brunette and a middle-aged man;
and the story took up two short columns. Pickering to Wed Second Wife
was the head. "Revealed yesterday was the forthcoming marriage
of Thomas (‘Toby') Pickering, the famous producer and
vice-president of Capital Films, Inc. A widower for eleven years,
Pickering, 47, confirmed that he is shortly to wed Miss Marian
Marner, 38, model. Miss Marner—"

"Producer," said Hackett. "I don't see
quite how, but it might—Anyway she knew Twelvetrees—Trask, we'd
better see her—"

"
Pronto
," agreed Mendoza. "You
get hold of this Pickering on the phone, Art, and find out where she
is. I've got some routine jobs for, let's see, about three men,
Jimmy—who's available? I'll brief them . . ."

After a good deal of trouble with a succession of
receptionists and secretaries, Hackett got hold of Pickering in his
sanctum sanctorum. (Easier to get on the direct wire to the President
than to any Hollywood film official.) Pickering, curiously enough,
seemed to know more about it than Hackett did. His voice on the phone
was incisive, crisp.

He said, "Hell. We were hoping it wouldn't be
necessary. And I hope to God we can keep the whole damned mess away
from the press. But if you've got hold of it, of course, that's that.
Yes, well, look, Sergeant—sorry, what did you say the name
was?—Sergeant Hackett, suppose I call Miss Marner and we arrange to
meet in your office. O.K.? Say eleven-thirty .... Right. I don't know
if you have any control over that part of it, the press, but I hope— 
Oh, you do. Yes, but there'll be the legal end, if there's a trial
and so on. Well, we can say the hell with it, if people want to
gossip let them—it's one of the hazards in my business—but that
isn't to say we wouldn't prefer the whole damned thing was kept under
cover. If you see what I mean. At the same time, I'm aware that you'd
like to know what we have to contribute, and while I'm not at all
happy you've connected us with it,"—a short laugh—"maybe
I shouldn't be surprised, I understand from that recent magazine
article we've got a police force to be proud of .... O.K., I'll
contact Miss Marner and we'll be in your office at eleven-thirty."

Hackett relayed this information to Mendoza when he
came in with Higgins, Dwyer, and Landers. "Good, good. I have a
fair idea what they're going to tell us, but it'll be nice to know
the details."

"I'd like to know what's in your mind. You act
like it's about all over, barring an arrest. I tell you, that girl .
. . I still think you swallowed that tale of the Kingmans' too easy.
We know they had a motive, we know they were there at the right time,
or thereabouts—what more—"

"
Atrás, atrás
, out of the way!"
said Mendoza briskly. "Before we get to the arrest, there are
all these niggling little details I have to find out, to satisfy the
D.A., and no time like the present to start. You're getting paid to
be a detective too, I'm not going to explain it in one-syllable
words—you go off somewhere and think, maybe it'll come to you."

Hackett said a rude word and went away. Mendoza sat
down at his desk and called the Temple. He asked Madame Cara a couple
of questions, and the answers were just what he expected to hear.
Then he went through the phone book, made a list of the clothing
wholesalers and divided it up with the three men, and they started on
that tiresome routine.

By the time Sergeant Lake looked in and said Miss
Marner and Mr. Pickering had arrived, among the four of them they had
accumulated a dismaying list of retail stores. Mendoza shooed the
others out to go on checking, and Hackett came in, still looking
disgruntled, behind the two new witnesses.

Mendoza looked at Marian with interest. Twelve years
hadn't changed her a great deal; she didn't look much younger than
she was, but she was still pretty, her figure was still very good,
she was smartly dressed. She checked a little when she saw him
standing there at his desk, and then said, "Oh—well, hello,
Luis. I didn't know we were coming to see you. And I don't suppose
it's Sergeant Mendoza now, is it?"

"Lieutenant."

"Yes, you were always one to get on. I used to
know this one, Toby."

She sat down in the chair Hackett held.

"Really, well, that makes things a little easier
maybe," said Pickering, looking slightly amused. He was
handsomer than the newspaper cut had suggested: a biggish man with
thick graying hair, erect carriage, and his voice and eyes said he
was aggressively capable. He took the chair Hackett indicated and
planted it firmly closer to hers, sat down, and looked at Mendoza
consideringly.

"We can trust him," she said, "that
I'll say." She smiled a little tautly. "He's sharp enough
to cut himself, but he'll be honest."

"I don't know that reassures me," said
Pickering. "We've been compounding felonies and maybe acting as
accessories before the fact all over the place. This is going to make
the hell of a stink if it has to come out."

"Well, suppose you tell us about it, and we'll
see if it has to come out," said Mendoza. "Things don't,
always. You'd be surprised how many little things—and sometimes
big—come into a case that don't get aired in court. I've got some
idea of what you're going to tell me, I think, and it's possible that
it needn't come into the legal end. I'd say even probable, barring
one or two little bits that may serve to confirm times and so on. I
can't say for sure, and of course I can't guarantee that a smart
lawyer wouldn't get hold of it and bring it up to confuse the
issue—but if it's what I deduce, to do with the late Mr.
Twelvetrees' blackmailing operations, well, that's got nothing to do
with the murder—I don't think, anyway."

They all looked at him. "I see," said
Pickering interestedly. "You know who it was, and you think it
was—another reason? I see .... But all the same, I suppose you want
the loose ends tied up." He got I out cigarettes, gave her one,
lit both with an angry little snap of the lighter. "I can't say
I feel vindictive toward whoever killed the bastard."

"Vindictive, possibly, no," said Mendoza,
"but it's a funny one, an offbeat one, Mr. Pickering—if it's
what I'm beginning to think. Let's save a little time. I think Miss
Marner was being blackmailed by our late friend?"

"Attempted," said Pickering. "Just
attempted, Lieutenant. I saw to that. I don't think there's any
necessity to go into details—"

"I think maybe we'd better," she said
quietly. "Maybe not in a formal statement, if we've got to make
one, but you'll want to know enough to—add it up, won't you, Luis?
I don't mind. I mean, it was—in a way—the sort of thing that
might happen to anybody, though I don't excuse myself. It was—oh,
well." She shrugged; her tone was even but her hand shook as she
raised the cigarette to her mouth. "And a legal charge too—I
wouldn't like to go to jail for it now—I don't know how that kind
of thing works, if you could—"

"I think it would be a question of a fine,
that's all," said Pickering, "but if the press get hold of
it there'd be a little mess, and while it wouldn't make any
difference to my position, anything like that—and the hell with it
if it would—we'd just as soon that didn't happen. But if you think
we'd better come out with the whole thing, hon, O.K., we're in this
together."

"I do, Toby. Well, I don't want to bore you,
Luis, but I guess you'd better have a little background—not that
I'm trying to excuse myself, as I say. I got married a while after we
knew each other, and it didn't it turn out so well. To make a long
story short, he was a drinker and I got to drinking too, and by the
time I'd got the divorce, well, I wasn't much good for anything. I'd
lost a lot of jobs, and the agencies got to know I wasn't—very
reliable, and finally I couldn't get any jobs. It's all right, I
don't mind talking about it now—I pulled myself up and used some
common sense, got back on an even keel. But it was while I
was—down—that way, and pretty desperate—I hadn't any money and
I had to do something—I ran into this Shorter. He had a photography
shop, a little hole in the wall, but it seemed he did a nice side
business in—in
feelthy peectures
, if you see what I mean.
Well, he offered me good money and I took it. I did two series for
him—six shots apiece—and maybe you can say the whole business was
what—pulled me up, because I loathed it, and I got to thinking, how
low can you get? I used that money to live on while I got myself back
in some kind of physical shape, and after a while I got a decent job,
in a department store. As a clerk really, but when they found I'd had
modeling experience they used me for that too, sometimes, at the
fashion shows. I just quit there last week, because Toby and I are
going to be married.

"Well, every once in a while I'd think about
those pictures, and I didn't like the idea of them floating around.
Shorter had the negatives, of course. About two years later, when I'd
saved some money, I went and saw him and asked if he'd sell the negs
to me, and he just laughed and said for five hundred apiece. I didn't
have that kind of money.

Well, about a year ago I was introduced to this
Brooke Twelvetrees at a party. A couple of girls I know do extra
work, bits in TV mostly, and it was in that crowd I met him, he was a
hanger-on, I gathered. I didn't think much of him one way or another,
you know—I saw him maybe three or four times in this crowd, at
parties, that's all—it just came out of the blue when he—approached
me." She took a breath, leaned forward to put out her cigarette.

"You take it easy now," said Pickering, and
she smiled at him.

"It's O.K., Toby, I don't mind really .... You
see, I—I got to know Toby, and we'd been going around some
together, and of course there'd been a little smart talk—you
know—gossip. And when I read in the paper one morning, about three
weeks back it was, that Shorter had been arrested and all
his—stuff—confiscated, I nearly died of fright. I mean, there'd
have been those things I posed for in with the others, and
identifiable as me, if the c—the police—"