Obit Delayed (9 page)

“THE TROUBLE WITH YOU,” scolded The Duchess, leering at Mitch over her daily copy, “is that you’re a romanticist to the gills. Way down deep you believe in goodness and light and the old-fashioned happy ending, but just let anything go wrong and you plant your big feet on the desk and refuse to play any more!”

Mitch’s feet weren’t on his desk; they were under the desk where he was going, too, if The Duchess didn’t stop preaching. It was incredible. Everything he had told her about Frank Wales’s flight was just so much exciting adventure, but it didn’t seem to take at all.

“I’m not romantic,” Mitch muttered, “I’m just maladjusted. I keep thinking there must be a better way of life than beating my head on the sidewalk. Do you realize what a jackass I’ve made of myself? I should have known better than listen to you in the first place.”

“Oh, lord,” moaned The Duchess, “preserve me from prima donnas with crew cuts! Why don’t you just commit suicide? It’s much simpler than slow starvation.”

All of this was because of Peter Delafield’s being so happy. Peter had a free hand now (as if he hadn’t before!) and waking to find himself the sole correspondent on the scene of Frank Wales’s near capture was almost more than his eager heart could bear. Mitch had given him the details; he could go on from there. Where or how far he went no longer mattered, because he wouldn’t have taken Mitch’s suggestion anyway.

Mitch leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The rest of the town could go crazy in a frantic search for Frank Wales; as for himself, he’d had it. He’d run through the whole story a dozen times over, but the end was always the same. Frank Wales was guilty. That’s what it added up to, and no amount of nagging or wishful thinking was going to change anything. And it wasn’t all that evidence against Frank Wales that bothered The Duchess; it was the sad fact that her sleuthing days were over unless she could drum up enthusiasm for a lost cause.

“What about Rita, the missing corpse?” she insisted. “I suppose Wales killed her, too?”

“She committed suicide,” Mitch snapped.

“And then went for a walk?”

“All right, suppose you tell me!” Mitch opened his eyes and sat upright, both hands turning to fists on the desk top. “Maybe you know what happened to Rita. Maybe you know all the answers, but I don’t. I don’t know a damn thing except that I’ve been sticking my neck out so far it has knots in it—and if you think that I’m going to Ernie with that yarn about Rita now, you’ve got a well-ventilated skull! I never saw her body anyway.”

“Are you insinuating that I didn’t?”

Mitch sighed. “What you saw is for you to tell,” he said. “Do you want to talk to Ernie?”

It was wonderful to have a few moments of silence, even if they couldn’t last. “I suppose you’re right,” she admitted grudgingly, “but I’d still like to know what happened to Rita.”

She was being mean, inconsiderate, unfair, and un-American, inserting ideas like that in Mitch’s weary mind. Thinking of Rita Royale naturally brought to mind the sterling characters of Dave Singer, Vince Costro, or even Herbie Boyle—gentlemen to whom an occasional murder was a matter of business technique; but whose fingerprints weren’t on that gold-plated cudgel, and whose coats weren’t stained with Virginia’s blood.

But what if Wales hadn’t lied? That old imagination began working again, and Mitch could see himself getting that frantic appeal from a woman he’d once loved. He saw himself worrying over it through a tortured night, and then making that long journey to reach her—only to find her battered body on the bed. Wouldn’t he touch her? Wouldn’t he try to find some spark of life? He might even pick up that bloody weapon and drop it again as the horror of it all swept in. And then he’d run like hell!

Mitch glanced up and saw The Duchess’s eager eyes reading him every step of the way. “Can’t you find something better to do than sit there annoying me?” he snapped.

She smiled graciously. “As a matter of fact, yes,” she said. “As I told you last night, I have a little business at the bank.”

Valley City was showing off for company. By noon the temperature had hit 103° and old-timers were telling the out-of-town newsmen how chilly it was for this late in the spring. Frank Wales was big news now, and even the coastal cities were getting interested in the narrowing search. Ernie Talbot, swimming in his seersucker, parried questions and evaded statements, but all across town a well-ordered examination of every warehouse, garage, chicken coop, and empty shack was being made. The railroad yards were covered, the highways blocked, but the only development was the report of an irate housewife whose bed linen had been stolen off her line. Possibly Wales had taken it to bind up his wounds, or maybe he needed a shroud. Time would tell.

Mitch was having difficulty concentrating on his work. It didn’t much matter what a visiting congressman had said at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, and so far as he was concerned Lois could write the daily editorial. The noon break was welcome—not because he was hungry (it was much too hot for food) but because it gave him a chance to go back to the El Rey and see how Norma was making out. The lobby was the focal point of the curious, and upstairs the hall was virtually closed to the nonresident public.

Stepping out of the elevator, he met Ernie Talbot waiting to go down. This time Mitch beat him to the “What’s news?” routine, and Ernie shrugged. “That guy must have nine lives,” he said. “Going in to see Mrs. Wales?”

“If she’ll see me,” Mitch answered.

“She’ll see you. It’s policemen she doesn’t like.”

Ernie stepped into the elevator, but he wasn’t quite through with Mitch. “If you really want to help that little lady,” he suggested, “you might try talking her into telling the truth. She won’t pay any attention to me.” Then he smiled, waved a hand, and let the doors slide shut. Ernie must have been thinking again.

“I had to tell him what I told you this morning. I couldn’t have him thinking that Frank is a maniac!”

Norma looked as desperate as she sounded, and not without reason. Surely she knew the story of Virginia’s fearful letter wouldn’t stand as evidence, particularly in view of what Mitch had learned since their last meeting. Ernie wouldn’t have told her, of course. Ernie liked to hoard such surprises and spring them all at once. But a terrible thing was happening to Norma Wales, and it made Mitch sick to see her clinging so frantically to a hope that was going to be dashed any hour, any moment. It was time she began to get acquainted with reality.

“I don’t suppose Captain Talbot mentioned the bloodstains on your husband’s coat,” he said.

The assumption was correct; he could tell by the way Norma stiffened behind the blow. “Bloodstains?” she echoed weakly.

“He left the coat behind with the station wagon. And then there’s a matter of fingerprints. His fingerprints are all over that murder weapon.”

This was giving it to her as straight as it came. She swayed a little, but took it standing up.

“You’ve got to face it, Mrs. Wales. With all that evidence—”

Mitch didn’t get any farther. “No!” she cried. “I won’t have you talking like that! Virginia was dead when Frank reached the house. Can’t you understand that? She was dead!”

“Then why didn’t he call the police? Why did he run off and hide in that shacktown instead of calling the police?”

That was what Mitch had been wondering all morning, and now Norma was going to think about it, too. She might not like it, but she was going to think about it. Strangely enough, she didn’t fight back.

“All right,” she said quietly, “I’ll tell you why he didn’t call the police. Frank made me promise that I wouldn’t, but promises aren’t very important, are they? Only the truth is important.

“When Frank came to Virginia’s house and found her dead he was frightened. Even you can’t blame him for that, Mr. Gorman. Maybe he did get blood on his coat, maybe he left fingerprints—I don’t know. I know that he was frightened because he told me. He ran out of the house and started driving back home, and then he got to worrying about something so he stopped at one of those service stations with an outside phone booth. He called home but I wasn’t there to answer. Now do you understand why he didn’t call the police?”

There was no mistaking what she meant, but it was the most fantastic thing Mitch had ever heard. He’d seen Virginia’s body. Brute strength had killed her; savagery and fury. These traits weren’t confined to the male of the species; but there were only about a hundred and five pounds of Norma Wales, and even with her dander up she didn’t look too formidable. She was trying, though. She was hating him with her eyes because he had turned traitor. He had gone over to the enemy.

“I think you’d better leave now,” she said.

“I was only trying to help—” Mitch began.

“I’m sure you were! Your motives are so pure! You’re not like the rest of the vultures in this town—just waiting for the signal to circle around the body!”

She was so close to hysteria that Mitch didn’t dare object. Not that he didn’t have grounds. Wasn’t this the woman who had chased her husband halfway across the state just because she didn’t approve of his mail? All this loyalty was a little late and a lot overdone, but nobody could argue with a woman in this state.

As Mitch was opening the door to leave she gave him a parting thought for the day. “How can you be so sure that Frank’s fear wasn’t justified?” she challenged. “Can you think of anybody with a better reason for wanting Virginia dead?”

The rest of the day Mitch wasn’t fit for human company. He yelled at the pressman, yelled at Peter, even yelled at Lois, which was a terrible waste of time since she never listened anyway. Press time came with still no report on Frank Wales, and late in the afternoon The Duchess returned with an exuberance that seemed almost barbaric.

“Oh, no,” she groaned, taking one look at Mitch’s sullen face, “not that again! I thought we talked off that mood this morning.”

Mitch merely grunted.

“Maybe when you hear what I have to report—”

“Write me a letter,” Mitch snapped. “Right now I’m doing something I’ve been neglecting lately—minding my own business.”

It was going to take a much wetter blanket than that to smother The Duchess’s fire. With a nonchalance that would have been arrogance from anybody else, she perched on the corner of his desk, wrinkled her nose at him, and got on with it.

“To begin with,” she said, “that worm I was once married to wouldn’t even see me—the coward! But fortunately he’s not the only man in that bank. All in all, I had a very informative day. For instance, do you know who is the real up-and-coming young businessman in this town? The real go-getter?”

“I know who isn’t,” Mitch muttered.

“Well, it’s Oscar Kramer.”

The name didn’t mean a thing to Mitch until she continued. “Pinky to you. Pinky is a free man today. Six months ago he floated a three-year loan and opened that lunchroom, but he made the last payment a couple of weeks ago. I think that’s very interesting, don’t you?”

Yesterday such a revelation would have had Mitch’s blood pressure bouncing, but today it was just a day too late. “Not particularly,” he said.

“Then start thinking!” roared The Duchess. “You know that dive of his. Does it do that kind of business?”

“Maybe Pinky’s a lucky horse player, or maybe a rich uncle died.”

“And maybe it isn’t horses he plays, and we know who died! Don’t you remember whom I saw leaving his place after hours last night?”

Mitch remembered. He didn’t want to, but there was no way around it. “If you’re suggesting some sort of payoff I don’t get the drift,” he said. “Why the lunchroom? Doesn’t Pinky have a home?”

“Pinky—” the inevitable notebook was whipped out again as The Duchess adjusted her glasses, “lives in an apartment over the liquor store at the corner of B Street and Fremont. It’s probably a little public on hot nights. Anyway, I don’t think Singer was there to make a payoff. I’ve got a theory about that visit. As I see it, Dave Singer left town under the influence of Vince Costro and a lot of highballs. After he sobered up he got to thinking about Virginia and why she was killed, so when he came back to town, he broke into Pinky’s to look for it.”

“For what?” Mitch demanded.

The Duchess shrugged. “That’s all we have to find out in order to know who killed her. Ask Singer, he’ll know.”

Mitch buried his face in his hands and groaned. And on such a hot day, too! But The Duchess seemed unperturbed. “Getting back to Pinky’s bank account,” she said. “What do you make of it—seriously?”

Seriously, Mitch didn’t know. There was nothing wrong with a man’s paying his debts ahead of time if he had the money, and there were still a few hardy souls who claimed that money could be made legitimately. Pinky was a hard worker with no dependents, no evidence of extravagance, and no visible vices. In fact, Pinky was terribly dull. But there was no denying that everything seemed to come back to Pinky’s lunchroom. Virginia Wales had been around a good many years, but nothing happened to her until she worked at Pinky’s. And Rita Royale, there was a lady with plenty of mileage behind her; but she came to the end of the road in a hurry when Mitch started asking questions about Dave’s visits to Pinky’s. Finally, Dave himself worked into the picture. He was a boy who liked his music sweet and his meals expensive. It was odd enough to have him swinging a leg over those lopsided stools without coming back for a nocturnal visit. Yes, it all came back to Pinky’s, but why? Somebody must know the answer.

“How do I know what to think?” Mitch snapped. “Why don’t you ask Pinky?”

“That’s what I’m doing, in a manner of speaking,” The Duchess said. “You may not have noticed, but Pinky has a new waitress. Up until a few hours ago she was just the unemployed daughter of my gardener.”

“Angelina?” Mitch had gone to the water cooler for a little relief. Now he peered quizzically over the paper cup. The girl was devoted to The Duchess, but the object of planting a spy in Pinky’s domain was a little hard to see. If the man did have anything to hide he certainly wasn’t going to take a new girl into his confidence.