Obit Delayed (13 page)

Mrs. Degan didn’t offer Mitch a chair. He was in the house only because private conversations weren’t held on open doorsteps.

“I know what you’re after,” she said. “I heard you questioning Jimmy before I came out. Mickey did know Virginia Wales but I can’t see what difference it makes now. He can’t be blamed for her death, too.”

“Nobody’s trying to blame him,” Mitch said. “I was pumping Jimmy because I’m interested in learning anything and everything about Virginia. She was afraid of something, Mrs. Degan, that much I do know. Since she was a friend of Mickey’s, maybe you know something about it.”

Now the woman looked mystified. Everybody knew that the man who killed Virginia Wales was fighting for his life at the hospital—the radio gave hourly bulletins. Besides, she didn’t know Virginia. Virginia was Mickey’s friend, she explained, and Mickey didn’t bring his friends home. “When I heard who he was dating I told him to stop,” she said. “I thought Virginia Wales was too old for him and maybe a little fast.”

Fast for Mickey Degan? Mitch restrained a smile.

“I hadn’t met her then,” the woman added.

“Then you did meet her later?”

“After Mickey was dead.”

They weren’t easy words for a mother to speak. Mitch counted the clock ticks for a few moments, and became aware of the photograph on a side table. The
Independent
had run that photo the day Pfc Michael Degan’s widow had received his Silver Star. Alongside it was a likeness of Mickey, only this wasn’t a photograph. It was a sketch.

“She brought me that the day of the funeral,” Mrs. Degan remarked, noting his interest. “They’d been on a date somewhere and had it made. She thought I might like to have it.”

A date somewhere. Mitch moved closer and studied the drawing and that hen-track signature, and that somewhere became rather special.

“I could see Mickey didn’t mean anything to her,” Mrs. Degan added, “but she seemed, well, just sorry about everything. She even brought a doll for my little girl—she’s sleeping with it now. I don’t know if she was really fast or not, people always talk about a divorced woman. But if she was afraid of anything, as you say, Mr. Gorman, she never told me.”

Naturally not. A fear too private for Mamma Molina or the police wasn’t likely to be shared with a stranger. But the fear was real, all right, and now Mitch had an idea where it might have started. Too bad Ruiz didn’t date his masterpieces.

Mitch had a lot on his mind walking back to the coupé. He felt as if he’d put his last coin in a slot machine and hit the jackpot—only it was too soon to tell whether it was silver or slugs. It might be worth another trip south to test Ruiz’s memory, providing he could chase Jimmy and Duke off the front bumper. “Your mother wants you,” he reminded, and the kid wrinkled his nose. “I was just rememberin’,” he mused. “I think that collar in Virginia’s house has a leash on it.”

“And you’ll have one on you if you go near it.”

“Aw, Ma don’t know everything!”

That was something Mitch could believe without effort. And then he had a hunch that wouldn’t cost a cent to play. “Do you mean like Mickey dating Virginia after she told him not to?”

“Sure. How did you know?”

“You just told me. But I’ll bet you can’t tell me the last time he dated her.”

Just a kid with a wicked grin and everything hanging on his answer, because there had to be a reason for Virginia taking Mickey’s death so hard. And then the grin widened.

“That’s easy,” Jimmy chirped. “He gave me fifty cents to wash his car so he could take her to Mexicali. It was the night that lousy cop shot him.”

MAYBE THERE WAS some justice, after all. The wise used wisdom and the clever cunning, but a small boy with a gripe could confound them both with one word—Mexicali. Not that there was anything sinister about an ordinary date in Mexicali. People did it all the time. The music was loud, the beer warm, and the streets colorful and crowded the way tourists expected them to be; but when a lad like Mickey Degan journeyed across the border the event took on certain implications. And when he was shot shortly thereafter, and his companion of the evening later terrorized and murdered, the situation added up to something that made Mitch sympathize with Virginia’s request for new locks on her doors.

Had Mickey gone to Mexicali merely for a good time, or had he combined business with pleasure? And in the event he had brought back something other than a souvenir, where was it now? These were a few of the questions Mitch pondered on his way back to the office, because now he had work to do in the files—a lot of work. Four weeks was a long time to remember the details of the death of a punk like Mickey Degan.

One man had seen Mickey die, and he was going to hit the ceiling at the mention of the kid’s name. Mitch put it off as long as possible and then gave Lois a number to call, an assignment she fulfilled grudgingly, one eye on the clock that was rapidly approaching quitting-time. After that Mitch went back to his office to mull over the testimony recorded in a back number of the
Independent:
Kendall Hoyt’s testimony at the inquest into the death of Mickey Degan.

The story was clear, concise, and unrevealing. At approximately two a.m., after a normally unlawful Saturday night, Officer Hoyt had been cruising in a police car down Fremont Avenue. As he neared the intersection of B Street the night was pierced with the wail of a protesting burglar alarm. Hoyt slammed on the brakes, leaped from the car, and ran toward the sound which was coming from a liquor store on the corner. When a figure darted out of the shadowed doorway and sprinted for the car waiting at the curb, Hoyt shouted an unheeded warning and fired twice. That was the sworn record of how Mickey Degan died.

The verbal testimony didn’t do a thing for Mitch’s newly acquired theory, but there was an ambitious kid in town who possessed a good camera and a morbid sense of values. He free-lanced whatever he could to the
Independent
, and there in the files was a nice big glossy of the shooting scene that had everything including the pool of blood. The shot had been taken from behind Mickey and showed his sprawled body just as it had fallen when he raced toward the car at the curb. The right-hand door of the car gaped open tauntingly, and that’s where Mitch’s eyes came to rest for a while—on the right-hand door. He was still studying the photograph when someone big and hostile walked in and planted himself at his shoulder.

Strange the way time could slip away when the mind was busy. Mitch looked up to see the outer office deserted and the dusk beginning to crowd against the windows, but all of that was beyond Kendall Hoyt’s square shoulders. It was too late to shove the picture out of sight, and it really didn’t matter since there was no such thing as a tactful approach to the subject of Mickey’s death. Let Hoyt take a good look and warm up his curiosity.

“Is that what you ruined my nap for—just to look at a picture?”

The complaint seemed logical. Sleep was still lingering behind the anger in Hoyt’s eyes, and his slacks were wrinkled and his collar awry. Out of uniform he looked a little lost.

“What about the picture?” Mitch urged. “Is that just the way it was?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the car door, for instance. Was it open that way?”

Hoyt studied the print and scowled. “I guess it was. I sure as hell didn’t open it.”

Now, Mickey Degan hadn’t been a careful sort of boy. He lived fast and drove the same way, and it wasn’t likely that he’d have pulled a car up to the curb, slid under the wheel, and eased out of the right-hand door—particularly at an hour when the streets were devoid of traffic. That’s what Mitch had in mind, and that’s what he pointed out to Hoyt in words of few syllables. And the man listened in spite of himself, hostility giving way to curiosity and curiosity to interest.

“In short,” Mitch concluded, “I think that Mickey had someone with him in that car—someone who got out fast when the shooting started.”

“I didn’t see anybody,” Hoyt declared.

“Of course you didn’t. You were busy bending over Mickey to see who he was and how badly he’d been hit, and you didn’t hear anybody, either, because of that burglar alarm screaming from the liquor store. Just the same, there was someone in Mickey’s car.”

For a few moments Mitch had seemed to hold Hoyt spellbound, but now a slight smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Not Dave Singer again!” he chided.

“No,” Mitch said, “not Dave Singer, but you’re getting warm. It was Mickey’s date of the evening—Virginia Wales.”

Putting a thought into words had a peculiar cementing effect. For a couple of hours Mitch had played around with that idea and it was nothing but conjecture; but now that he’d had the courage to voice it, there was no doubt at all. Virginia Wales had sat in that car in front of the liquor store and watched Mickey Degan die, and then she’d run off into the night taking the seed of her own destruction with her. But what seed? If it was something she knew it had died with her, but if it was something she possessed—

“Whatever happened to Mickey’s car?” Mitch demanded.

Whether or not he followed, Hoyt at least looked alert. “It was taken over to headquarters and searched,” he answered. “What did you expect?”

“Searched for what?”

“Anything lost, strayed, or stolen.”

“Or smuggled?”

Now Hoyt was doing better than just following, he was quite a bit ahead. “I personally ripped the upholstery apart looking for marijuana,” he said. “The police aren’t as dumb as you might think, Mr. Gorman. We’d been watching Mickey Degan for weeks.”

“But there was nothing in his car?”

“Not a thing.”

“Despite the fact that he’d just come from Mexicali when you shot him.”

The trouble with trying to enlist the aid of Kendall Hoyt was that his patience ran out. Ernie Talbot had a murderer under guard at the general hospital and a nice cell waiting in the event he recovered, but here was Mitch Gorman trying to confuse things again. Hoyt wasn’t giving up without a struggle. “Say what you mean!” he challenged, shoving a rough hand through his pale hair. “If you think the Wales woman made off with Mickey’s shipment, say so!”

Mitch smiled. “It sounds better when you say it,” he said.

“I didn’t say it—and I think you’re crazy! A woman in that car!” Hoyt stopped and stared at the photo again. “It would be a hellova time for Mickey to pull a job if he had a woman with him—not to mention narcotics.”

Hoyt had a point, and a good one, but he also had a troubled frown that made a liar of indifference. “Enough liquor could have made the kid feel like showing off for company,” Mitch suggested, “and I don’t recall that he was noted for his wisdom. Pinky had the right name for him yesterday—a punk. A young punk who peddled reefers to make a few bucks so the smart boys like Singer and Costro can cruise around in imported cars.

“My god, man, use your imagination! Mickey gets himself killed on the very night he’s made a trip across the border, but a police shakedown fails to turn up anything in his car. That must have been quite a surprise for somebody. I can picture a lot of buzzing going on until Mickey’s companion of the evening was identified, and then maybe a few weeks of searching and threats. Virginia was scared, remember. She wrote that letter to Frank Wales.”

“I haven’t seen the letter,” Hoyt objected stubbornly, “and neither have you.”

“All right, forget the letter. Go down and ask Virginia’s landlady about those new locks she wanted on her doors.”

Hoyt was definitely weakening. Mitch could almost hear the argument reflected in his eyes. Should he listen to this boy with the wild long shot or play along with Ernie and a sure thing? But the odds were low on a sure thing, and they wouldn’t put any cash in Kendall Hoyt’s pocket anyway.

“What are you telling me all this for?” he demanded. “I’m not in charge of the Wales investigation.”

“You’re the law,” Mitch reminded. “You can go places and make inquiries that I can’t.”

“For instance?”

Mitch hesitated. This time his angle had to be good, because this one could decide which way Kendall Hoyt threw his weight. Supposition was out; it was time for facts, and it was a little late in the game to be squeamish about taking chances.

“You might start by asking Dave what he did with Rita Royale’s body,” he said.

IF MITCH ACCOMPLISHED nothing else in his efforts to find a substitute for Frank Wales he could at least cherish the memory of a thoroughly disarmed Kendall Hoyt. Rita needed no introduction—she’d made too many trips to headquarters for that—but here she was, a brand new development in an already complex situation, and all fitted out with a shroud.

But Hoyt’s surprise wasn’t exclusive. He had closed the door behind him when he came into the office, but without at least two kicks and a grunt it was wasted effort. The moment of silence following Mitch’s disclosure only amplified the gasp from the other side of the panel, and the officer reacted by spinning about and yanking the doorknob. Like a linesman breaking from scrimmage, The Duchess plunged into the room.

Such an anticlimax could happen only to Mitch. “Miss Atturbury,” he murmured, letting her pick herself up from the floor, “our society editor. I don’t believe you two have met.”

Things seemed to be getting a bit too thick for Hoyt. He stared at The Duchess, rapidly regaining her composure, stared at Mitch, and then whirled back toward the door as if expecting another invasion momentarily. “What is all this?” he yelled. “What are you trying to pull, anyway?”

“Chestnuts out of the fire,” The Duchess snapped, “and he’s going to get his fingers burned if he’s not careful.”

“What was that about Rita Royale?”

Now it was Mitch’s turn to squirm because, as he’d once reminded The Duchess, he’d never actually seen the body in that bed, and the ultimatum in her eyes promised she would deny everything.

“I heard a rumor,” he muttered.

“From a confidential source, I suppose.”

“Strictly.”

“You should take such rumors to Ernie.”

“Any time,” Mitch agreed. “Any time he can tear himself away from Frank Wales’s bedside, I’ll be glad to set him straight on Virginia’s murder.”

Hoyt seemed to be debating whether to whip out a pair of handcuffs and let Mitch tell his story at headquarters, or to put in a call for the lads in the little white coats. But Mitch Gorman wasn’t just a man; he was a newspaper. It wasn’t smart to antagonize the press.

“I’ll give Ernie your message,” he said, moving toward the door. “I know he’ll be thrilled to hear it.”

When Hoyt slammed out, and he was slamming all the way to the street, Mitch started counting by tens, very slowly. “What,” he demanded, glaring at The Duchess, “were you doing outside that door?”

“Listening,” she glared back, “and it’s a good thing I was! What are you trying to do, get us fixed up with free rent for a few years? Do you know what happens to people who conspire to obstruct justice?”

“I may be conspiring, but not to
obstruct
justice.”

“Tell that to Ernie Talbot when Rita’s body turns up!”

The Duchess didn’t know it but she was being optimistic. If Rita’s body ever turned up it would surprise Mitch (she wouldn’t be the first of Costro’s liabilities to disappear like a politician’s promise), and if springing her death on Hoyt was risky, it was also for a purpose. If Mickey Degan had been smuggling something over the border the night he died, certain people knew about it. A man with a badge might find one who wasn’t tongue-tied. He explained all this to The Duchess but she wasn’t convinced.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “What if Virginia did make off with Mickey’s merchandise—is that fatal? After all, he was dead.”

“But it wasn’t Mickey’s merchandise,” Mitch corrected. “You don’t think the kid could have financed a trade himself, do you? All of which brings us back to Costro’s collection agent—Dave Singer.”

“And Pinky. Thirty-six hundred dollars, that’s the size of the note he’s paid off since October, and Angelina says business is so bad she can’t see where her salary’s coming from.” The Duchess stopped and reflected. Something still bothered her, and it didn’t take Mitch long to learn what it was. “But that crack about Singer taking Rita’s body,” she protested. “Wasn’t that going a little far out on the limb? I seem to remember a couple of your hunches that haven’t panned out so well.”

“That wasn’t a hunch,” Mitch said. “Do you remember when we found that scrap of chiffon caught on the railing of Rita’s back stair? And the flattened box on the driveway?”

“Don’t tell me you took the tire prints off the box!”

“I didn’t have to. That drive was built in the days when two in the front seat were a crowd in any car, and the creeping hedge has narrowed it even more. A standard-width car couldn’t get to Rita’s back door, but that little import of Dave’s—”

Mitch didn’t have to finish. He could see the bright light breaking over The Duchess’s face. “And that canvas cover!” she cried. “Do you remember the way it was zipped up when we parked alongside the little monster out at the club? Oh, God! She must have been under there all the time!”

It was easy to see those things now—when it was too late to do anything about Rita. It was easy to see the mistakes and the bungling; but all the mistakes couldn’t be on one side of the game. There had to be a break somewhere, a crack to drive a wedge in and split this thing wide open. And Mitch was going to find it if he had to wear out a set of tires. He was getting a pair of photos out of the files when The Duchess made a proposition.

“I could think a lot better with a little nourishment,” she said. “Why don’t you take the padlock off your wallet and buy me a dinner?”

That was all right with Mitch, providing she liked Mexican cooking.

Mitch was going hunting in Mexicali again, but for a different quarry. The object of this search didn’t drive an imported speedster or wear plaid dinner jackets; it had no shape, form, or substance—at least, not until and unless he learned what it was. But the search did have a starting-place, and that was back at the same night club with the same noisy band, indifferent waiters, and a fast sketch artist named Joe Ruiz.

The rest was easy. You grabbed a table, as conspicuous as possible, and then sat back and waited for the inevitable “Portrait of the lady, señor? In a few moments I can capture her beauty—” But the light was better at this table than it had been at the other one. Ruiz got one good look at The Duchess and stopped his pitch in the middle of the windup. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Gorman,” he said. “Slipping, aren’t you?”

“What’s the matter?” snapped The Duchess. “Don’t you ever make character studies?”

Mitch hated to break up this budding friendship, but before the conversation got too rough he had a couple of characters for Ruiz to study. Two photographs from the files—Virginia Wales and Mickey Degan. “What’s this?” Ruiz wanted to know, when he shoved them across the table.

“A couple of customers of yours. Remember them?”

Ruiz’s expression didn’t change, but caution crept into his voice. “Look, Mr. Gorman, I make a lot of sketches.”

“But these two are celebrities. They’ve been in the papers quite a bit lately. And this boy—” Mitch tapped Degan’s picture with one finger, “—is an old schoolmate of yours.”

“I never had anything to do with Mickey!”

“But you did draw his picture.”

Ruiz was beginning to look uncomfortable, but he couldn’t argue with the facts. “Sure I did,” he said. “I’m not temperamental. His money didn’t look any different than yours.”

“And the woman, did you make a sketch of her, too?”

“What do you think? She was with him.”

“When?”

By this time Ruiz seemed to know that these questions were just preliminaries, and that Mitch knew the answers already. “Several weeks ago,” he said. “I don’t remember the date, but it was the night Mickey was shot. I remember thinking about the sketch when I heard about his death the next day.”

So far Mitch had nothing but corroboration for what he already knew, but the big ones were coming up. One of two things had happened that night. Either Virginia had seen (or heard) something that made her susceptible to sudden death, or she’d given Mickey an assist with his transportation problems. That was the possibility that interested him now. Had she carried anything unusual? Any package or bundle or container? With growing curiosity Ruiz followed his questions and then shook his head.

“Not when I saw her—at least not that I remember. After all, they were here for the dancing. Imagine winning a tango contest with an armload of packages!”

The kid had to have a big smile over that thought, but Mitch was riding up on the edge of his chair.

“A what contest?” he echoed.

“Tango. Ever since that picture came out about Valentino the tango’s been hot around here. They had a contest that night.”

“And Virginia Wales won it?”

“She and Mickey. Mickey was always pretty fancy with his feet.”

Of course he was! He’d have to be fancy with his feet to be dating Virginia. Mitch was almost afraid to ask the next question.

“I suppose they won a trophy,” he suggested.

“From this dive?” Ruiz began to gather up the equipment he wasn’t going to use anyway. He’d wasted enough time on this table. “They don’t hand out gold-plated cups around here,” he said. “That contest was just for glory and one of those costume dolls they sell for souvenirs across the street.”

Mitch had his heart set on a trophy—one of those tall, hollow castings with a false bottom. Maybe it was remembrance of that murder weapon that gave him trophies on the brain, because he sat there for all of thirty seconds before a burst of coarse laughter from another table brought him to his senses. Rita had laughed just that way the night she made that crack about Dave playing with dolls.

“A doll!” Mitch yelled. “My God, am I blind!”

He didn’t bother explaining anything to The Duchess. “Come on,” he ordered, and she came for the very good reason that he was dragging her by one arm. She was protesting vigorously about the dinner they hadn’t ordered by the time they hit the street, and she didn’t at all approve visiting a curio shop at such a time. It was food she needed; not a lot of hand-woven baskets, silver trinkets, or an empty-faced doll in a lace mantilla.

“What do I want with this thing?” she wailed, when Mitch emerged from the shop and shoved the doll into her unwilling arms. But Mitch looked very pleased with his purchase. Just a doll. A cheap, cloth doll with a composition head and a lot of ruffles to cover its hasty construction.

“There, you’ve just won a tango contest,” he said. “We can go home now.”

It was a lot easier to get into Mexicali than it was to get out. There was a little matter of border inspection—but who would look twice at a souvenir doll? They went across by the dozens every day. Of course, Mickey Degan would have looked a little foolish with a fancy doll, but not Virginia. It would have looked right at home propped up on the pillows of Virginia’s bed.

As soon as they were through inspection, Mitch pulled off the highway and parked under a street lamp. There was nothing indestructible about this piece of merchandise. The head came off at the first wrench.

“Would you mind telling me why you paid good money for a hollow head?” The Duchess demanded. “What’s wrong with the one you have?”

“You’ll eat those words if what I’m thinking is right,” Mitch muttered.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that I’ll be eating something!”

She could grumble and hint all she pleased, but there weren’t going to be any stops on the way back to Valley City. Mitch kept cautioning himself against excitement. He could be wrong as hell and have nothing to show for his evening but a hole in his bankroll; but all the way back he was watching the dashboard clock and hoping that Mrs. Degan didn’t turn in early. She’d just have to get out of bed again if she did.

But there was a light in that little box house when Mitch reached his destination, and he had the door open before the coupe stopped rolling.

“Give me the baby—I’ll be right back,” he said, and took the steps in pairs.

Inside Mrs. Degan’s living-room everything was the same—the photograph, the sketch, and the woman’s worried eyes. But Mitch hadn’t come to cause trouble; he’d come to talk about dolls. Was this doll with the broken head like the one Virginia had given to Mrs. Degan’s little girl? He had his answer and the answer was right. But would she trade dolls? A little glue would fix it up for the child.

Mrs. Degan listened, and then went back to the bedroom. In a few moments she returned with Virginia’s doll. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Mr. Gorman,” she said, “but if it’s anything that will make this town a better place for Jimmy to grow up in, I want to help.”

“Even if it involves Mickey?” Mitch asked.

She wasn’t kidding herself, this woman. She wasn’t pretending the truth would be kind. “Nothing can hurt Mickey now,” she answered. “Take the doll, but don’t tell me why. I don’t want to know unless I have to.”

Back in the car Mitch repeated the decapitation process with eager hands. Now The Duchess caught the spirit of the operation and held her tongue while he went to work on the stuffing. A little excelsior, a little shredded paper, and then a couple of small paper boxes with sealed ends. The contents of the first box told the story.

Mitch touched a few grains of the powder to his tongue. Mickey must have been getting ahead in his profession, because this stuff was a long way from a package of reefers.