Just Another Sucker (15 page)

‘We have a good impression of a tyre here, sir,’ he said as Barry came up. ‘There’s a lot of oil too. I guess the car could be in trouble. It fairly leaked oil.’

Barty examined the ground and grunted.

‘I’ve a lot of work to do here, Barber,’ he said to me. ‘Will you take the car and pick John up? Tell him I’ll be here for a couple of hours and to send a car for me.’

‘Sure,’ I said, and leaving the three men, I walked to the police car.

I drove back to Malroux’s house. I just couldn’t believe this was happening to me. It was like living in a nightmare. I kept hoping I would wake up and find it had never happened. Every now and then my mind went to the Packard in my garage, and I would come out in a cold sweat.

As I pulled up outside the main gates to Malroux’s house, I saw Renick waiting. He was carrying a briefcase: it was the same briefcase that Malroux had dropped from his car. It was unmistakable. The sight of it pretty nearly stampeded me.

Renick tossed the case into the back of the car and got in beside me.

‘Barty find anything?’ he asked.

I told him what Barty had found. My voice was flat and dead. I knew I had left the briefcase in the trunk of the car, and yet, here it was, right behind me.

‘What have you got there?’ I asked.

‘That’s like the briefcase Malroux used to hold the ransom money. He had a pair: they are identical.

This is a break for us. We’ll get the case photographed. You never know. The kidnapper may have dumped the case. We might trace it and get his fingerprints. Right now, we’ll report back to Meadows. If he is ready, we’ll alert the Press. All we can hope for now is someone will come forward who saw the girl after she left the Pirates’ Cabin.’

You won’t get anywhere with that angle, I thought. How thankful I was I had insisted that Odette should change her clothes and wear a red wig.

Meadows was waiting for us when we arrived at his office. After Renick’s report, he got up and began to pace up and down his office, chewing his cigar.

Finally, he said, ‘Well, now we go into bat. We’ll be in time for the lunch editions.’ He paused to point a stubby finger at me. ‘This is your job, Barber. We want Press co-operation. I don’t have to tell you what to do. I want plenty of good publicity. Understand?’ He swung around to Renick. ‘And watch this, John! No mistakes. We’ll be right in the limelight. This kidnapper has to be caught – check?’

‘Yeah,’ Renick said. ‘I’ll talk to Reiger, then we’ll get moving with the Press.’

We both went to Reiger’s office. He gave me a batch of photographs of the car.

‘Okay, you get busy, Harry,’ Renick said, ‘I want to talk to the Captain.’

I asked him the question I had been wanting to ask for the past hour.

‘When you talked to Malroux, did you see anything of his wife?’

I could see Renick’s surprise as he shook his head.

‘No. Malroux told me she has collapsed and is in bed.’

Reiger looked up sharply.

‘Collapsed? I wouldn’t have thought she was the collapsing type.’

Renick made an impatient movement.

‘So what? She became hysterical last night while they were waiting for the kidnapper to telephone.

The doctor had to be called. He gave her a strong sedative, and she hasn’t come out of it yet.’

Dry mouthed, I asked, ‘You checked with the doctor, John?’

He frowned at me.

‘Anything on your mind, Harry?’

‘No. Like the Captain just said: she doesn’t strike me from her photos as the collapsing type.’

‘Look, don’t let’s waste time about her,’ Renick said. ‘Whether she is the collapsing type or not, Malroux says she collapsed. Get busy with those prints.’ He handed me the briefcase. ‘Get this photographed and circulate the prints too.’

‘I’ll fix it.’

For the next three hours, I didn’t move from the telephone. The moment I replaced the receiver, the bell rang again. By ten o’clock, the outer office was packed with newspaper men, all clamouring for the story.

At ten-thirty, I took the whole crowd of them to Meadows. He certainly could handle newspaper men.

Police Captain Reiger and Federal Officer Barty were there, but they didn’t get a look in. Meadows hogged the whole show.

Glad of a little respite, I left them with him and returned to my office. As I sat down at my desk, the telephone bell rang. It was Nina.

‘Harry, I’ve lost my car keys and I want to use the car. Did you take them?’

The car!

During the past hectic hours I had forgotten about the car and what was in the trunk.

‘I hadn’t time to tell you,’ I said. ‘You can’t use the car. The gearbox has packed up. I had to get a tow home last night.’

‘What shall I do? I have a lot of pots to take to the shop. Can’t we get it fixed? Shall I get someone from the garage…?’

‘No! It means a new gearbox. We just can’t afford that. Take a taxi. Look, Nina, I’m right up to my eyes. Forget the car. I’ll see you some time tonight,’ and I hung up.

I hadn’t got over that shock before there was a tap on the door and Tim Cowley walked in.

The sight of him jarred me down to my heels.

‘Hello, boy,’ he said. ‘So you’re really in the thick of it.’

‘You’re missing something,’ I said. ‘The D.A. is holding a Press meeting right now. All the boys are in there.’

He pursed his lips and made a rude noise.

‘That old wind-bag! All he thinks about is getting his ugly mug in the papers.’ He came in and folded himself down in one of the armchairs. ‘When I write my piece about this kidnapping, it’s going to be from a completely different angle from those suckers in with your boss. This, Harry, could be the big story if it is handled right and I’m going to handle it right. Renick is a smart boy. I’ll talk to him, but not to his boss. He’s no use to me.’ He lit a cigarette, his quizzing eyes searching my face. ‘They reckon she’s dead, don’t they?’

‘That’s their guess. They don’t know for sure.’

‘How’s Malroux taking it? I went there, but the house is surrounded by cops. I couldn’t get near him.’

‘He seems to be taking it pretty well. You must remember he is a dying man. He hasn’t more than a couple of months to live.’

‘And how’s his glamorous wife taking it?’

‘She’s collapsed.’

Cowley stared at me.

‘She’s – what?’

‘She’s under doctor’s orders. She has collapsed. You know what the word collapse means?’

He threw his head back and laughed like a hyena.

‘That’s rich! I would have betted she would have been dancing the can-can on the roof.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look, these people – the Malroux – are French. Do you know anything about the heredity laws in France?’

‘I can’t say I do. What has that to do with it?’

‘By law, a child inherits half the parents’ estate. That means this girl would have got half Malroux’s millions. Even if Malroux wanted to give his wife all his money, he couldn’t do it. Half what he owns goes automatically and by law to the girl when he dies, and half what he owns must be a very, very large slice of dough.’

I felt a spooky feeling run through me.

‘If these kidnappers have murdered the girl, and it seems likely, and if Malroux dies shortly, and that seems likely too, Rhea Malroux inherits the whole fortune. That’s why I’m surprised to hear she has collapsed – probably with joy.’

Here then could be the motive for Odette’s death: had this faked kidnapping been a blind to set the stage for murder? Had Rhea picked on me for a catspaw?

Cowley said, ‘What’s on your mind, Harry? You look as if you have swallowed a bee.’

The inter-com buzzed at this moment. I flicked down the switch.

‘I want you,’ Meadows bawled. ‘Come on in.’

‘His Master’s Voice,’ Cowley said, grinning.

I got to my feet.

‘See you, Tim,’ I said. ‘Anything I can do, just let me know.’

Glad to escape from his quizzing eyes, I left the office at a run.

II

By midday, the organised search for Odette Malroux had swung into its stride and it was on a scale that had me scared. Every road out of town was blocked. Army personnel from a nearby camp had been called in to help. More than a thousand men, police and troops, were allotted territory in the needle-in-a-haystack hunt for the missing girl. Three helicopters buzzed over Palm Bay and Palm City with a direct radio link to Meadow’s headquarters.

Meadows told the newspaper men who still hung around, waiting hopefully. ‘We’re playing a hunch that she’s in the district. We reckon she’s dead, but we could be wrong. If she’s dead, then it’s my guess her body has been dumped somewhere and we are going to find it. If she’s still alive, then she could be hidden somewhere close and we are going to find her. Every house, every apartment and farm will be checked. We have plenty of men. It’ll take time, but if she’s within fifty miles of this office, sooner or later we’ll find her.’

Later, when the newspaper men had gone, Renick came in. He had been down to the hospital to talk again to Walter Kerby in the hope Kerby had remembered now something that would give a clue to the kidnapper.

Meadows looked searchingly at him.

‘Anything?’

‘No. At least he is sure the man was tall and broad-shouldered. It doesn’t help much, but it is something. We know we are looking for a tall, broad-shouldered man who smokes Luckies, who owns a pretty wackey car, and weighs around one hundred and eighty pounds.’

‘How did you get his weight?’ Meadows asked.

‘From the heel print. Barty experimented. The impression came right when one of his men weighing one hundred and eighty-five pounds trod down on the soil.’

Meadows looked pleased.

‘A little more information like that, and we’ll be able to put out a composite picture.’

I listened to all this with a tension that made my muscles ache.

Then the door jerked open and Police Captain Reiger came in. His broad fleshy face was alight with excitement.

‘We’ve gotta break!’ he said. ‘A guy living out at West Beach has reported an accident. His name is Herbert Carey. He owns a drug store at West Beach. Last night, he and his wife were visiting relatives at Lone Bay. He parked his car at Lone Bay parking lot. As he was leaving the parking lot a T.R.3 came into the lot and Carey collided with it.’

While he was talking, I went over to the window and lit a cigarette. I kept my back turned to the room. I knew I had lost colour. I was sure they would see something wrong if they got a look at my face.

‘It was the Malroux girl’s car. Carey took the number. He admits the accident was his fault. And listen – a man was driving!’ As Reiger talked in his hard cop voice, every word he said stabbed into me.

‘This guy must have been one of the kidnappers. Although it was Carey’s fault, the guy wouldn’t stop.

He drove to the end of the lot, parked the car and ran off.’

Meadows demanded, ‘Why the hell didn’t Carey report the accident right away?’

‘He does what his wife tells him. It was his fault, and she wouldn’t let him admit it. He only made up his mind this morning to report it.’

Renick said, ‘I want to talk to him.’

‘He’s on his way down now. I sent a squad car to pick him up. He’ll be here any minute.’

‘Did he get a good look at this guy?’

‘I think so. The park was dark, but at least he talked to him.’

By now I had control of my nerves. I didn’t dare meet Carey. I came away from the window.

‘I guess I’ll get back to my desk. I’ve a whale of a lot of work to do,’ I said and made for the door.

‘Hey!’ Renick said. ‘Stick around. I want you to hear what this guy says.’

Would Carey recognise me? Would he walk into this office, stare at me and then say, ‘This is the man!’

I went over to an empty desk and sat down. The next twenty minutes were the worst minutes I have ever lived through.

Reiger, who had been studying the wall map, said suddenly, ‘You know that old silver mine off Highway Seven? Could be a place to dump a body. I’d better check it,’ and he picked up the telephone receiver and began to give orders.

These guys are professionals, I thought. Where was I going to hide Odette’s body? With road blocks in operation, with over a thousand men already in action, searching, checking house after house, apartment after apartment, how was I going to get rid of the body?

While we waited, the telephone bell kept ringing. Every five minutes or so we got a report of progress. These guys were really working. Already a quarter of the map had been checked. I saw the search was drawing closer to my street. Would they think to check the garage? Would they think to check the car?

There came a sudden knock on the door and in came Herbert Carey and his wife.

They made an odd looking couple. She towered above him. His bald head glistened with sweat and he was twisting his hat nervously as he followed his wife in. Looking at him, not having seen his face in the darkness of the car park, I looked curiously at him. He was one of those weak nondescript characters who always got imposed upon, and who live in nervous bewilderment, never quite sure if he is doing the right thing at the wrong moment or the wrong thing at the right moment.

The woman was big and blowsy with small, hard eyes and an aggressive chin. She was the boss.

Anyone could see that. She sailed in as if she owned the place and selecting Meadows as her target, she went into the attack.

The accident, she declared, was not her husband’s fault. The fact the man had run away proved it.

What was the idea of bringing them down here? They had their store to look after. Did Meadows imagine an eighteen-year-old chit of a girl could handle the store while they wasted time with the police, and so on and so on with Meadows trying to stem the flood.

I sat there, frozen with panic while I stared at Carey.

Maybe that was the wrong thing to have done. My concentrated stare attracted his attention and he turned suddenly and looked at me.

I felt my heart contract as I saw him stiffen. He looked away, then looked again at me. Our eyes met.

I had a horrible feeling that he recognised me. For a long moment we stared at each other, then he turned away, hunching his shoulders, back into his role of bewilderment.