Killer in the Street (17 page)

“The
first
time?”

“It was the middle of the night. Somebody—one of the tenants, I think—found Bernie’s body and called the police. They questioned everybody in the building who was available. Later, the next afternoon I think it was, they came back and talked to me. I couldn’t tell them anything. I never drove in the city so I seldom saw Bernie.”

“But Kyle did.”

“Only going in and out of the garage—like all the other tenants who had cars! What are you asking all these questions for, Jimmy? Bernie Chapman was mixed up in the rackets—that’s what everybody said after his death and that’s what it seems to say in the newspaper you found in Donaldson’s room. What has that to do with Kyle?”

“Did Kyle have a good job in New York?”

“Yes. He worked for the city.”

“With a chance for advancement?”

Dee was too worried and tired to take Jameson’s question in the unruffled manner in which it was delivered. “Of course he had a chance for advancement!” she repeated. “Why do you keep asking me about Kyle? He was just one of the tenants at the Cecil Arms!”

“That’s right,” Jameson admitted, “—just one. But the only one who made a special trip to my office this morning to send me off on a wild-goose chase after a nonexistent buddy. Dr. Bryson, you served with Kyle in Korea. Did you know a special friend of his named Charles Dover?”

Van was making paper airplanes from the sheets of Jameson’s desk memo pad. He hadn’t launched any of them. They were all in the mock-up stage at present. He considered Jameson’s question without stopping work on a rudder alteration.

“No,” he admitted, “I didn’t. But that doesn’t prove there was no such person. Quite a few of us had a tax-paid excursion to the peninsula, as I recall.”

“I understand you are a genius, Dr. Bryson,” Jameson said.

“That’s a wildly overworked word these days,” Van observed. “I’m fair in my field, but I have a helluva time opening pickle jars.”

“Do you have any idea why Kyle was so interested in that beige Chrysler with the stolen plates?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Do you have any idea why he was so anxious to leave New York City five years ago?”

“I think so. I think it was the idea of adventure—a new life. Kyle got his job with Sam on his merits and he’s been soaring on his merits ever since. You can’t take that away from him.”

“I’m not trying to take anything away from him,” Jameson said. “I’m trying to find out what the hell kind of mess he’s gotten himself into—if you’ll pardon my language, Mrs. Walker. This”—Jameson angrily tapped the newspaper Geary had long since returned to his desk—”is the sort of thing I don’t want in this city! We have our vices and our problems like any other community, but we don’t want the syndicate moving in!”

Dee looked as shocked as she was. “Jimmy Jameson!” she said. “Are you insinuating that Kyle knows anything about a syndicate killing? Do you think he was ever mixed up in anything like that?”

Jameson rocked forward in his chair and slapped his hands on the desk. “I don’t get paid to think,” he said. “I get paid to assemble facts and act on them. Fact number one is that a man who calls himself R. R. Donaldson came to the city this morning and registered at the Apache Inn. Fact number two is that Kyle saw him driving on the street and trumped up a story so I would find out where he was staying. Fact three is that he sent you and Mike up to Sam Stevens’ cabin in the mountains immediately after seeing Donaldson, and fact four is that Kyle is now missing and, as you so properly brought to my attention, so is the gun from his desk. What do you say, Dr. Bryson? Have I stated the case?”

Van expertly arched one of the tiny paper aircraft across Jameson’s desk so that it landed like a pointer on the news photo of Jake Berendo.

“Incompletely,” he said. “You omitted the fact that Donaldson is driving a car with stolen license plates. I’m not a criminologist but I believe that’s a common practice in the murder-by-contract field.”

“It is,” Jameson admitted.

“And so it follows that, had Kyle any unsavory episodes in his background, he would have realized that and avoided bringing it to the attention of the law.”

“Are you sure you aren’t a lawyer, Dr. Bryson?” Jameson asked. “You’re doing a fine job of defending Kyle and he hasn’t been accused of anything worse than leaving New York in a hurry.” He scooped the paper plane off the desk into his wastebasket and pushed back his chair. He stood up and walked across the room to where a large map of the city and environs covered most of one wall. He was more worried than he cared to have Dee Walker know, and there was a big round hole in Van Bryson’s logic that even a pickle jar wouldn’t fill. Kyle Walker could have known the plates on that Chrysler were apt to be stolen and dropped the matter artfully in Jameson’s lap just to arouse his interest in a newcomer who wasn’t welcome. He pretended to study the map for several seconds and then turned back to Dee Walker. They had met socially a few times and the casual usage of first names was customary in the West. But gossip was customary everywhere, and some people hinted that it wasn’t very smart of Kyle to leave his pretty wife alone so much. Less charitable people said it was her expensive tastes that had made him such a fireball, and people with no charity at all implied that the Walkers, as friendly as they seemed to be, were, after all, carpetbaggers and Sam Stevens could just as well have made a junior partner of one of the local men. One thing was certain: Kyle batted high in the cutthroat league where one error could destroy an empire, and if he had a skeleton in his closet he would do anything possible to keep the door locked.

Jameson turned and faced Dee again. “I think you said it was raining the night Bernie Chapman was killed.”

She admitted that it was.

“Was it raining when Kyle returned from class?”

“It rained all evening—all night, I think. Why?”

Jameson squared his shoulders against the wall and wished Dee Walker weren’t present. He would have liked to massage them like a dog against a hedgerow, but that would have been beneath the dignity of his office.

“Why?” Dee repeated. “I came here to ask you to find my husband. Why aren’t you doing it instead of asking all these strange questions?”

“We are looking for him,” Jameson said. “Geary notified all patrols as soon as we returned from the Apache Inn. There’s a search on for Donaldson, too.”

“But I still don’t understand why you asked me about the rain. What has that to do with where Kyle is now?”

“That depends on how hard it was raining. Would you choose such a night to leave your post and walk out for a cup of coffee?”

“But Bernie must have gone out!” Dee insisted. “He wasn’t on duty when Kyle returned. What else would explain—?”

Dee’s voice died away in a silence broken only by the stodgy ticking of the wall clock and the crackling of the paper Van was still folding into small airplanes. Nobody tried to complete her question or answer it, because each of them knew exactly what would explain Bernie’s dereliction. The evening was warm, but a kind of chill crept into the room. The chill that comes of seeing for the first time a horrible possibility that has been staring you in the face for five years.

In a very small voice Dee said, “But Kyle would have told me. If he had seen anything, or if he knew anything, he would have told me.”

She looked at Van, guiltily, remembering the nervous way Kyle had watched the window to the street. But Jameson was the watcher now. From now on reminiscence would be private.

Jameson sensed the change in the atmosphere. He hitched up his belt and stepped to the door. “Geary!” he yelled down the hall. “Have you got an answer on that New York call yet?”

He glanced back over his shoulder to see how his guests reacted. He was going to dig deep. They might as well know that and start living with it. Geary was in the reception room and he could hear him telling someone that Captain Jameson was busy at the moment.

“Geary!” he bellowed.

This time he got a response. Detective Geary sprang into the hall as if the coil that wound him up had snapped.

“It’s Morrison—” he began.

“Never mind that! What did you get out of New York?”

Geary hesitated. Just behind Jameson’s back Mrs. Walker and Dr. Bryson were listening with ears as keen as a sonar device. Jameson nodded that it was all right to speak freely now.

“The New York police are interested,” he said, “but they’re not about to give away their case. They simply verified the newspaper story. I had the impression they were upset because it broke so soon.”

“Then somebody had enough guts to break it,” Jameson reflected. “Let’s see how much farther he’ll go. Call the editor of this paper we found in Donaldson’s room. When you get him, let me do the talking.”

“And what do I do about Morrison?” Geary asked.

“Who?”

“Morrison—the manager of the Apache Inn. He’s waiting to see you about a pair of binoculars he found in room 228. That’s directly across from room 227.”

“Send him in!” Jameson said. “Don’t just stand there! Send him in!”

Albert Morrison was so conscientious he rebent company-purchased paper clips for reuse. When he walked into Jameson’s office bearing a pair of high-powered binoculars, they were carefully wrapped in a cellophane garment bag to prevent damaging the fingerprints. It was wasted precaution. At the sight of the case Dee Walker gave a start of recognition.

“Those are Kyle’s!” she cried. “He was in the motel. I knew it!”

“Is that identification positive?” Jameson demanded.

“Open the case and look inside. There’s a silver identification plate engraved with his name and address. I should know. I gave him those binoculars for his birthday last year.”

Morrison watched his cooperative efforts brought to naught as Jameson ripped open the bag and unfastened the case. Dee was right. The plate was inside.

“How did you find these?” he asked Morrison.

“It was because of a policy I instituted at the start,” Morrison answered. “I gave strict orders that keys were not to be left on the outside of the doors. Whenever a porter or a maid sees a key in such a position, he or she must knock on the door to inform the occupant. If there is no response, the key is to be brought to the registration desk. One of the night maids found the key to 228 in the door when she went to turn down the bed. She knocked and nobody answered, so she brought the key to the desk and we checked the registration cards. The room had been taken by a Kenneth Wayne of Springerville just a few hours earlier. We paged Mr. Wayne in the bar and the dining room and then I realized that room 228 is located exactly opposite room 227, where another guest was missing. I had the parking lot checked and there was no car in the place reserved for 228. Under the circumstances, there seemed no alternative but to enter the room just to make sure the guest wasn’t ill and needed assistance.”

“Bully for you!” Van said. “Now that we’re in the room, what happens?”

Morrison ignored the interruption with magnificent silence.

“I myself made the entry,” he continued. “I saw at once that it had been used as a lookout post. The bed hadn’t been used—not even a towel had been touched. But the lounge chair was drawn up before the window and the drapes were open. An ash tray on a table near the chair was filled with half-smoked cigarettes. I have the butts in an envelope.”

“You’re a thorough man,” Jameson said.

“Yes, thank you,” Morrison answered. “Naturally, by that time I was very suspicious—” He struggled with a fat hotel envelope that was wedged inside his jacket pocket and finally pulled it free. He presented it to Jameson with the solemnity of a Rowan delivering the message to Garcia. Jameson accepted it without comment.

“I tried not to leave fingerprints,” Morrison added, “but I can’t be positive—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jameson said. “Is that all you have to report?”

“No, not at all,” Morrison said brightly. “I can add that Mrs. Walker’s identification of the binoculars didn’t come as a surprise. In my position I learn quite a bit about human nature. If a guest wishes to conceal his identity, for instance, he frequently uses an alias utilizing his real initials. There are practical reasons: monogrammed luggage, clothing—even jewelry. So, what do we have in room 228? We have a Mr. Kenneth Wayne. Initials: K.W. And who is Mrs. Walker so interested in locating? A Mr. Kyle Walker. Initials: K.W.”

Morrison ended his story on a note of unconcealed triumph. Jameson’s anger was even less concealed.

“Not only did Kyle lie to me,” he muttered. “He used me! He used me like an errand boy! Why, Mrs. Walker? He’s your husband. You must have some idea why he’s doing this.”

The easygoing first-name stage was over. There was no way to explain Kyle’s binoculars in that room if he hadn’t been watching Donaldson, and now both Donaldson and Kyle had disappeared in the blackness of a night that was getting darker by the moment. But the shock on Dee Walker’s face was genuine. Jameson didn’t need an over-zealous motel manager to point that out to him.

“But I don’t!” she said. “That’s why I came to you for help. How could I know?”

“You live with him. You must have noticed if he’s been upset—”

“We had a situation similar to this a few months ago,” Morrison purred. “A husband—quite prominent locally—used the motel to entrap his wife and her lover. He didn’t have binoculars, as I recall. He had a tape recorder and a camera. A nasty situation—ended in Las Vegas. We were discreet, of course.”

Morrison’s tone made Jameson want to send out for a janitor with a bucket of Lysol. He swung about and glared at the little man. “All right, you’ve done your duty and said your piece,” he declared. “Thank you, Mr. Morrison. Now, don’t you have a motel to operate?”

Morrison, wilting, backed toward the door.

“And, Mr. Morrison, one more thing. That policy of discretion is a good one. If, for instance, you should get careless and discuss this problem with anyone besides myself or my officers, I might have to send a man around to check out the extracurricular activities of your water ‘ballerinas.’ ”

“I—I don’t understand!” Morrison gasped.