The Dishonest Murderer (24 page)

And then again it was the telephone, ringing loudly, clamoring at her. But she was not surprised; it was as if she had known that this would happen. She reached for the telephone by her bed.

“Yes?” she said and, almost breaking in on the single word, Howard Phipps said, “Thank heaven, Freddie! I was afraid you'd—” He did not finish that. He began again.

“Breese telephoned me again,” he said. “Just now. I just hung up. She's back at her apartment. And—there's something terribly wrong. With her, I mean. Can you—can you go there with me?”

“What is it?” Freddie said. “What do you mean? What did she say?”

“She—she was mumbling. Her voice was all fuzzy. I think she's—taken something.”

“No!” Freddie said. “Oh no!”

“She said ‘I've got to tell it'—something like that,” Howard Phipps said. His voice was tense, excited. “‘Tell someone before—' and then something I couldn't make out. I kept saying ‘Breese! Breese!' and then it seemed to get through to her. She said, ‘The letter didn't—' and then something else I couldn't make out. Then she said ‘Bring Freddie.' She stopped then and I kept talking to her, but it sounded as if she—she'd just dropped the telephone. Not hung up. Just—just put it down somewhere. Dropped it.”

“Did you—” Freddie began, but again he cut in.

“I called you first,” he said. “Not—not the police. Because—well, because of what she said about the letter. I thought we'd—you and I—if we could see her, hear whatever it is she wants to say. If she can still—”

It swirled in Freddie's mind. It brought fear swirling into her mind. The letter—the letter someone had written her father. That was what Breese had meant; it must be what she had meant. Howard knew it was what she had meant. But then—then—

“I'll come,” Freddie said. “I'll—I'll hurry. You'll be there?”

“As soon as I can,” Phipps said. “I'm—I'm afraid she wants to—to confess something. To us—you. About—about all of it.”

“I'll come,” Freddie said again. “I'll come. Don't—”

“No,” he said. “Not until we've seen her. But hurry.”

“Yes,” she said, and heard the click as he hung up. She was out of bed, moving swiftly, fear swirling in her mind.
The letter
—
her father—the letter
—

She dressed and started for the door. And then, almost as she was opening it, she stopped. She knew then another fear. And quickly then she went back to the telephone on the desk. She looked at a number she had written on the memo pad beside the telephone. She began to dial.

“Then why did you think we'd want to talk to you?” Bill Weigand said. He looked at the man sitting across the desk from him. The unshaded lights of the precinct squad room were harsh on the man's face. He looked like his brother, except that he was a little older than Bruce Kirkhill had been when he died, except that the muscles of his face were softer, sagged a little. He was a big man, too.

“I read the papers,” George Kirkhill said.

There was, Bill Weigand pointed out, nothing in the papers about him, about George Kirkhill.

“I'm not a fool,” Kirkhill said. “There will be. Anybody could guess that. Bruce was found downtown. I used to live down there.” He paused a moment. “Also,” he said, “I was fond of Bruce. He was my brother, after all.”

“Still?” Bill Weigand said.

“I used to live down—down that way,” George Kirkhill said. “In a flop house. When I was drinking. Somebody was going to add things up.”

“And you say they don't really add?” Bill asked him.

“To nothing,” George Kirkhill said. “It's been two years since—two years ago Bruce made me a loan. I wasn't in contact with him again.”

“Yes?” Bill said.

“I was drinking too much,” George Kirkhill said. He smiled suddenly, not happily. “Hell,” he said, “you've heard. I was a drunk. A Bowery bum. Well, I quit.”

“After this last money from your brother?”

The big man nodded.

“Just like that,” George Kirkhill said. “Just like that. I—well, I got bored with the other. That's it—just bored with it. No reform. No—moral compunctions. Just bored as hell. I got a place uptown, dried out, looked around for a job. Two years ago. And—I left Bruce alone. Figured he had it coming.”

“And since you've been living at this place uptown, working at this cigar store?” Bill said.

The man nodded.

“You didn't write your brother a letter a couple of weeks ago? Or any time within a year?”

“That's right.”

“And you were working Friday night? New Year's Eve? From six until two?”

“That's right,” George Kirkhill said. “Selling cigarettes to people. Cigars. Most of the people were drunk. A little drunk anyway.”

“You realize we can check this?” Bill asked. “About where you were, I mean? Where you've been for the past two years?”

“Sure,” George Kirkhill said. “Want you to.”

“Actually,” Bill said, “that's why you came here, to the station house, isn't it?”

“Sure,” Kirkhill said. “Doesn't it make sense?”

“Yes,” Bill said. “It makes sense. And that's all you know?”

“I don't know anything.”

“Right,” Bill said. He hesitated. “You knew your brother, of course. Used to, anyway.”

“Sure.”

Bill Weigand hesitated, but only momentarily.

“There's been a suggestion,” he said. “A charge. That your brother was getting ready to sell out to the people who don't want this hydro-electric development he was interested in. What would you think of that? Between us?”

“I'd think it was a damned lie,” George Kirkhill said. “Bruce wouldn't sell out. Anyway—why should he? He's—he was filthy with it.”

Bill Weigand nodded.

“He'll leave you some of it,” he suggested.

Kirkhill shrugged. He said he could use it.

“But I doubt it,” he said. “Anyway—I don't give much of a damn now.” He looked at Weigand. “You know,” he said, “it's funny, but I don't. Can you believe that?”

Bill nodded. He said he could believe a lot of things. Even that. He stood up.

“Thanks for coming in,” he said. He read from his notes the address George Kirkhill had given, verified it, watched Kirkhill go. A detective at the door looked at him enquiringly, and Bill shook his head. George Kirkhill could go, without an appendage. George Kirkhill went. After a little, Bill Weigand went out into the cold night, got into his car—which was also cold—and drove downtown to the Homicide Squad office. He hoped things were going to work out from here on in. They'd better, he told himself. Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O'Malley would be very annoyed if they didn't. Bill thought of O'Malley, who was undoubtedly comfortably asleep, and thought it would be fine to go home and turn in. He thought of Dorian, waiting in their apartment. He sighed deeply, and drove on, in the wrong direction. He stopped in front of the building in West Twentieth street and climbed the stairs to his small office.

Sergeant Mullins was sitting at Weigand's desk. He got up and sat on it; Bill sat in the chair. Mullins looked interested.

“About what I thought,” Bill said. “Otherwise, why would he show up so conveniently? Why not make us find him?”

“That's right,” Mullins said. “The boys are checking up?”

“Right,” Bill said. “We've got to keep everybody honest. Even if they are.”

“You know what, Loot,” Mullins said, “sometimes you talk like Mrs. North. You know that?”

Mullins was advised not to let it get him down.

“Speaking of the Norths,” Mullins said, “where are they?”

“Safe at home,” Bill told him. “At least, Jerry may still be taking my wife home. Don't worry, Mullins.”

“Listen,” Mullins said. “I
like
them. Only—well, everything gets so screwy. You know that, Loot.”

Not this time, Bill told him, smiled and went to business. Yes, the alarm was out; the Missing Persons Bureau was on it.

“Although,” Mullins said, and Weigand, not waiting for him to finish, said “Right.”

“To keep everybody honest,” he said. “In case we're wrong.” He tapped his fingers on his desk top, beating out a rhythm. “Blake?” he said.

“Unless something got fouled up,” Mullins said, “he's there.”

Bill Weigand nodded. He continued with his tapping. He said, more to himself than to Mullins, that it was working out very neatly. Mullins made sounds; the Loot liked to have sounds made, at appropriate intervals, when he was talking to himself.

“Miss Burnley was in love with the senator,” Bill said, and counted it off with one finger. “She didn't want him to marry Mrs. Haven. She picked up—probably from the elder Grainger—something she thought would be useful. She wrote the letter to the admiral. Right?”

Mullins accepted the invitation.

“You figure he was selling out?” Mullins said. “Like she said? If she wrote the letter?”

“I figure she thought so,” Bill told him. “And that she got it, at least the start of it, from Grainger himself. Not the boy, the old man. I doubt if they'd let young Grainger in on anything so—so touchy. Anyway, say she wrote the letter. The admiral, instead of flying off in all directions, telling the senator to quit darkening his door, hires Briggs and Smiley.”

“The poor old guy,” Mullins said. “Jeeze.”

“Right,” Bill said. “She doesn't know about this, thinks the letter was a dud, takes other methods. She, incidentally, would have been almost certain to know about the senator's weak heart. Somehow, she gets him to go downtown, dress up in old clothes, have a drink of chloral. He goes off and dies; so he doesn't marry Mrs. Haven.”

“Like Mr. Grainger suggested,” Mullins said. “The one who stutters.”

“Right,” Bill said. “As was suggested. But Smiley is following the senator, sees Miss Burnley with him, decides there's money in what he knows, tries to collect and—” Bill shrugged.

“Collects lead,” Mullins said.

“Right,” Bill Weigand said. “That's the picture, Sergeant. You like it?”

“Well,” Mullins said. “It's neat. And then she runs away?”

“Right,” Bill said. “Then she runs away.”

“Why?” Mullins said.

“Because, when the news comes that her plan's really worked, that Kirkhill's dead, she breaks down and lets out she was still in love with him. Lets it out to young Grainger. Remember, it's in the picture she really loved Kirkhill; probably she didn't quite believe, didn't really believe, she'd killed him. She waited all evening, keeping bright and chipper for the party, all sorts of things going on underneath—and then Blake walks in and tells her and the rest of them that the senator's dead. She doesn't have to wait for identification. She knows who it is, all right. She manages to hold in until she gets in the cab with Grainger, then she gives way. Later she gets to thinking about what she's said, realizes we'll follow up, decides to run. O.K., Mullins?”

“O.K., Loot,” Mullins said. “It's a picture.”

“A very nice picture,” Bill Weigand said. “Simple, tangible, possibly not covering everything, but it isn't necessary to cover everything. We know that. The extraneous always crops up. Brother George, the letter Mr. Phipps thinks the senator got from George, or about George, and destroyed. Phipps was just guessing, of course. He says so. It remains intangible. Presumably it was from, or about, somebody else named George.”

“And Mrs. Haven?”

“Innocent bystander,” Bill said. “As, essentially, her father is. And Celia. And Mr. Phipps, of course. It's neat enough, Mullins.”

“Who called to tell us Smiley'd got it?” Mullins asked.

“Who but Miss Burnley?” Bill asked. “Wanting, for some reason, to establish the time. Something we're to find out when we catch her.”

“If,” Mullins said.

Bill Weigand looked across the room at the wall, then. His face changed; the tattoo of his fingers grew more rapid. The ringing of the telephone interrupted him. He answered, listened, noted down numbers in two groups of three. He said, “Thanks,” hung up, and said to Mullins, “As we thought.”

“Smitty?” Mullins said. Bill Weigand nodded. He said, “Right, Sergeant.” He was silent for a long moment. “I hope Blake makes out all right,” he said, then. “We'll just have to wait.”

“He's a good man,” Sergeant Mullins said, generously.

Pamela North sat in a deep chair and three cats sat on Pamela North. They had needed resolution to find space on this favorite human, but they did not lack resolution. Martini had come first, speaking softly, but with command, and Pam, who had been curled in the chair, stretched out her legs. Martini flicked up from the floor, advanced up Pamela and approached a masked face to this, at intervals, adored belonging. Pam scratched behind the black-brown ears, rubbed the slender jaw, and made the appropriate remarks. Martini purred, reached out a dark paw and patted Pam's cheek and then, having had enough of sentimentality, turned around, went down Pam, and stretched on Pam's legs, facing out.

Sherry, after watching all this with interest, gave a small sound and jumped up behind her mother. She then advanced and sat on her mother's head. Martini made sounds of great disapproval and pretended to bite her blond daughter. Sherry ignored this. Martini wriggled out from under, backed up, and curled, leaving most of the original spot to Sherry.

Gin, the junior seal-point, trotted briskly around the room, letting out angular cries. This activity seemed to have no bearing on anything, and the remarks baffled translation. The other cats, from security, looked at her with mild interest. Martini then yawned, and put one forepaw over her eyes, apparently to shut out the sight. Gin stopped her circling, scratched behind her right ear without sitting down, which is a trick even for a cat, and then noticed, apparently for the first time, where her mother and sister had gone. She jumped behind Martini, making Pam say “Ouf!”, said, “Wah?” herself, and walked over the other two, licking each in passing. She found a tiny freehold on Pam's knees and made the most of it.