Killing the Goose (21 page)

“This is the lieutenant,” Mullins said, with a kind of pride.

“Yes,” Mr. Pierson said, without inflection. “I supposed it was. You wanted to see me?”

“Oh yes,” Weigand said. He went in the obvious direction across the foyer to the living room beyond. Franklin Martinelli was standing in the center of the living room, with his hat on.

“And Mr. Martinelli,” Weigand said, with a tone of pleased surprise. “
And
Mr. Martinelli.”

“Hello, copper,” Franklin said, with a minimum of animosity. “So you finally got wise.”

Weigand had not even looked around to see whether Pierson and Mullins were following. He knew Mullins would attend to that.

“Oh yes, son,” he said. “We got wise. Finally, as you say. And just what are you doing here, son?”

“Hell,” Martinelli said. “I give a guy a chance. Maybe he had some reason.”

“Some reason for what?” Weigand asked. He made his voice sound as if the question were purely casual, the answer already evident.

“For being at the Lawrence dame's,” Martinelli said. “That night. I was just going to ask him.”

“Were you?” Weigand said. But he heard Mullins, behind him, draw in a quick breath. Weigand turned suddenly.

“And what were you going to answer, Pierson?” he asked, his voice quick and hard.

“I don't know what he's talking about,” Pierson said, with belligerence. “Who the hell is he?”

“Don't you know?” Weigand asked. “You let him in. Didn't you ask him?”

“He said he was a friend of Miss McCalley,” Pierson said. “A—a girl who used to work at the office.”

“Until she got killed,” Martinelli said. “Until some so and so stuck a knife in her.”

“Until she got killed,” Pierson agreed. “But I don't know what he means, I was at Ann's that night. Except at the dinner, of course.”

Martinelli laughed, artificially and boisterously. They looked at him.

“At
dinner
,” he mimicked. “At dinner, he says. And I suppose you didn't come back afterward, Mr. Pierson.”

“No,” Pierson said. “I don't know what you mean.”

But there was no conviction in his voice.

“Sure you know what I mean,” Martinelli said. “Sure you know what I mean. You went away when the others did, maybe—I don't know about that. I wasn't there—
then.
All I know is you come back about one, maybe—one-thirty?”

“Oh,” Pierson said. “That!” He said it as if he had just remembered. “I—I had forgotten something. A—cigarette case.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Mr. Pierson,” Weigand said. “Oh, for God's sake.”

“You were inside half an hour, maybe,” Martinelli said. “Maybe forty-five minutes. I saw you.”

Weigand turned suddenly on Martinelli.

“And how did you see him?” Weigand wanted to know. “You were at home. In bed. Don't you remember?”

“Hell,” the boy said. “What did you expect me to say? What did you expect, copper?”

“About what I got,” Weigand said. “Lies—all around. What were you doing there?”

Martinelli looked sullen. He shook his head.

“Then,” Weigand said, “you're lying now, Martinelli. Lying to involve Mr. Pierson. You weren't there.”

Young Martinelli hesitated, uncertain. He looked at Weigand and then at Pierson.

“All right,” he said. “I was there. Outside—in that little alley thing beside the house. Waiting for the kid.”

“What kid?” Weigand said. “Frances?”

The boy nodded, reluctantly.

“All right,” he said. “She was going away. Miss Lawrence was taking her somewhere on a trip. Anyway, she said it was a trip. I couldn't talk her out of it.”

“And—?” Weigand prompted.

“All right,” the boy said, angrily. “I was going to—catch her as she went in. I wasn't going to let that Lawrence babe get her hands on her. The Lawrence talked too damn much—she kept telling Frances I wasn't any good.”

Weigand's questions came rapidly. Frances had not appeared; it developed that Martinelli had only deduced she was going to Ann's that evening, to stay overnight in preparation for leaving early the next day. It was, Weigand gathered, to have been a kind of treat for Frances—the gift of a holiday. Presumably she would have gone more or less as a companion.

Frances had not appeared, but Alfred Pierson had. Martinelli knew him; Frances had pointed him out one time, as her employer—as one of the bosses of the firm. He had gone up to the door and opened it and walked in. “Like he lived there.” Martinelli's identification was certain. He had seen Pierson's face as he passed a street light. He had stayed inside half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes. Then he had come out again. He had probably come out not later than two o'clock. Shortly after he left, Martinelli had decided Frances was not coming and had gone home. He had come around that evening to give Pierson a chance to explain.

“Hell,” he said, “I wouldn't turn a guy over to the cops until he had a chance. Not to the cops.”

It seemed to Weigand, watching him, that Pierson did not take this as hard as he might have. He did not interrupt and did not deny again. But when Martinelli finished he laughed shortly.

“Now I'll tell one,” he said. “I—”

But Weigand stopped him.

“Not yet,” he said. “I'm going to arrest you first, Pierson.”

Pierson was startled and outraged. Then he was suddenly shrewd and his eyes narrowed.

“I suppose you've got a warrant,” he said. He said it in a tone which made clear that he supposed Weigand didn't have. Weigand shook his head, blandly.

“A warrant?” he said. “I don't need a warrant. This is on suspicion of homicide, Pierson. What did you think?”

Pierson looked at him, steadily.

“When you came here,” he said, “you didn't know about this—kid's story. Why did you come?”

“Oh,” Weigand said, “you're worrying about that. Yes, we'd need a warrant for that—for grand larceny. Are you in an awful hurry about it, Pierson?”

Pierson said that Weigand couldn't prove a damn thing. He said it with a violence which sounded hollow.

“I had her order for everything I did,” he said.

“Well,” Weigand said. “That will be just fine. That will give us something else to talk about, as the night goes on, Mr. Pierson.”

Mullins asked about Martinelli as they were leaving. Weigand said they might as well take him along—too.

“As a material witness,” he said. “Don't you think, Mullins?”

“O.K., Loot,” Mullins said.

Pam and Jerry and Dorian listened to the radio when they went back to the Norths' apartment after dinner. They listened because Pamela wanted to hear the news. There was fifteen minutes of news, ten of it about the war and almost three of it about the Lawrence-McCalley murders, with emphasis on the killing of Mrs. Pennock, Ann Lawrence's faithful servant.

The commentator had a good deal to say about that, and almost as much to say about a mysterious young man—not named in that connection, but named a few seconds later so that only the law, in the remote contingency of a suit if things did not work out properly, would fail to note the implication—who had been missing since almost the beginning and continued to outwit the police. The commentator, who clearly fancied himself as a man of logic, summarized the whole case, with times, and seemed to have a clear theory which he chose only to hint at.

The Norths and Dorian listened very carefully, and Pamela, a little to the surprise of the others, made several notes. Then the news period ended and, before they got around to turning oft the radio, Dan Beck began. Jerry moved over quickly to stop him, but Pam shook her head and said they might as well listen. They heard Mr. Beck through.

Jerry turned the radio off then and they sat for a time digesting the news, and, of course, Mr. Beck. And then Pamela North spoke.

“You know,” she said, “there's something funny about it. The more I think about it, the funnier it seems.”

The others, of course, wanted to know what was funny, but Pam North shook her head. It was just a notion, she said, and she would have to think about it before she said anything. Probably it was crazy—completely crazy. But all the same it was funny. Even after Dorian got a telephone call from Bill, telling of Pierson's arrest and saying that he would be up the rest of the night with it, and went home. Pam would not tell Jerry what was so funny about “it.” She would not even say what “it” was, except of course that it had to do with the murders.

XII.
Thursday, 6:40 A.M. to 9:50 A.M.

It was no satisfaction to Bill Weigand to know that he had been right; that he had seen danger and warned of it. He stood with his back to the slanting rain, the collar of his raincoat turned up and his hat pulled low, and looked at what the pointing lights showed him. A semicircle of men, most of them in uniform, looked where Weigand was looking, impersonally and without emotion. One man crouched and his hands moved and then he stood up and rubbed his-hands as if he were dusting something off them. He looked at his hands and thrust them in the side pockets of his raincoat.

“Twelve hours,” he said. “More or less. At a guess.”

Weigand's voice was dull.

“Right,” he said. “O.K., Doc.”

There was nothing more to do there and Weigand turned away. Mullins walked after him and neither of them said anything. They got into the car and Mullins got behind the wheel and still neither said anything. Finally Mullins spoke.

“You told him, Loot,” he said. “The fool kid.”

“Sure,” Weigand said, bitterly. “I told him. That was damned bright of me, Sergeant. I told him to be careful and not get in any trouble and went back and finished dinner. I was very bright.”

“Well,” Mullins said, reasonably, “what could you do, Loot?” He left a moment for an answer and none came. “Anybody can hide out for a day or so,” he said. “Anybody. It's a big town.”

“All right,” Weigand said. “It's a big town. Anybody can stay out of sight for a day or so. The police can't perform miracles. We'd have caught him in the end—if he'd waited. And if the other guy had waited. All we needed was time, Sergeant.” Weigand stared out through the windshield at the rain; at the gray light which was just beginning to suggest day. “About a hundred years, Sergeant. Or a thousand. He'd have been dead anyway in a hundred years.”

“Well,” Mullins said, “you've got him now, Loot. That's something.”

“
If
I've got him now,” Weigand said. “I've still got him late. Four murders late. If I've got him now, he's done a lot of killing first. Killing his way out of it.”

Mullins said nothing. He waited.

“Well,” Weigand said, “what are we waiting for, Mullins? Do we think Elliot's going to get up and walk away if we wait long enough? He's not going to walk away.”

Mullins started the car and turned it and went the wrong way on the East Drive and cut out by the museum. The red lights flashed a warning through the rain. Behind them there was a siren after they had gone a few blocks. That was the noise they made when removing a man who had been murdered, so he wouldn't clutter up Central Park. A young man who, after being duly warned by the police—warned, in effect, that he would have to look out for himself since the police couldn't promise anything—had gone on his own way and tried to catch a murderer. And had been caught instead.

Weigand stared ahead at the wet street as they went downtown. He thought of Elliot, whom they couldn't catch, but whom somebody else had caught. He had been lying stretched out as if he were asleep, but no one would go to sleep in the slush of Tuesday's snow and the night's rain. He had lain on his side, facing away from the roadway, but not far from it. There had been no effort to hide the body. Presumably a car had stopped for a moment and the body had been rolled out—rolled out and pushed a little way toward the bushes along the road, but only far enough so that car lights would not pick it up. Not even far enough for that, because the lights of a radio car had picked it up a few minutes after six.

John Elliot had been shot once, at the base of the brain. The slug, from a small-caliber gun, had torn upward into the brain. He hadn't bled much; he had died quickly. About twelve hours before; about an hour, at a guess, after he had talked to Weigand on the telephone. The rain lashing the remaining snow—it was always surprising to find snow still in the park after it had gone everywhere else in the city—had reduced it to a cold slush, and if there had been any marks to tell a story of murder they had been washed into the slush some time after midnight, when the rain began. So now they had four—one, two, three, four. The trail of a man killing his way out of trouble, or trying to. And unless they had him, they were still a long way behind him. Or her.

Did they have him? They could hope so. Weigand thought it over and hoped so. They had got a little out of Alfred Pierson during the night.

It had been a long night and Weigand had slept two hours of it before they wakened him to report that the body of a man, first thought the victim of a mugging, quickly identified as Elliot, had been found in the sodden snow in Central Park. It had also been a long night for Alfred Pierson. Pierson, although nobody had laid a hand on him or threatened to, was not the good-looking, well-dressed, confident man of business he had been the evening before—and that he had remained for several hours. His eyes were red and bloodshot; his black hair fell over his forehead; his clothes looked as if he had been sleeping in them and there were cigarette ashes down the front. Now, presumably, he was still sleeping in them.

Ten minutes after they were back, Weigand ended that. Pierson was brought in again and sat down again and the two tired men faced each other, as they had so long the night before. Pierson didn't say anything; he merely sat and waited, his eyes dull.