The Good Old Stuff (26 page)

“Satisfied?” Taffy asked in a low tone.

“Please shut up.”

“What was she, twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? Think of the wasted years, Park. Having fun with your tossed salad?”

“I didn’t figure it this way, Taffy. Believe me.”

“Suppose you tell me how you figured it.”

“Not yet. Later. I have to think.”

“I’ve been thinking. The little gal was vain, you know. Careful of her looks. You know what seawater will do to a woman’s hair, don’t you?”

“Keep going.”

“I know she had a bathing cap. She didn’t wear it. So she drowned by accident on purpose. Suicide. That’s a woman’s logic speaking, Park.”

“I noticed the same thing, but I didn’t arrive at the same answer.”

“What … do … you … mean?” Taffy demanded, each word spaced.

“You wouldn’t know unless I told you the whole story. And I don’t want to do that yet.”

Branneck stood up and yawned. “Night, all. Don’t know if I can sleep with this burn, but I’m sure going to try.” The others murmured good night, and he went into the house.

O’Day said thickly but carefully, “I haven’t asked you, Falkner. Can I stay until … they take her?”

“Stay the night. That’ll be better. I’ve had a room fixed for you. Go up to the second floor. Second door on the left. Mick took your bag up out of your car before he left.”

“I don’t want to impose on—”

“Don’t talk rot. Go to bed. You’ll find a sleeping pill on the nightstand. Take it.”

Only Taffy, Townsend, and Park Falkner were left. After O’Day had gone, Townsend said dryly, “This is quite a production. Lights, camera, action.”

“Stick around for the floor show,” Taffy said, her tone bitter.

“I can hardly wait. Good night, folks,” Townsend said. He left the terrace.

Taffy stood up and walked over toward the railing. She wore a white Mexican off-the-shoulder blouse. Her slim midriff was bare, her hand-blocked skirt long and full. She was outlined against the meager moonlight, her silver hair falling an unfashionable length to her shoulder blades. In the night light she looked no more than twenty. In the hardest light she looked almost thirty.

Park went to her. “We’ve known each other a long time, Taff. Do you want to help me? It won’t be … pleasant.”

She shrugged. “When you ask me like that …”

“Go on up to your room and get one of your swimsuits. Meet me by the garages.”

She came toward him through the night. He took her wrist, and together they went into the icehouse. When the door was shut behind them, he turned on the powerful flashlight, directed it at the blanket-wrapped body on the table. Taffy shuddered.

“I want to show you something, Taff. Be a brave girl.”

He uncovered the head, held the flashlight close, and thumbed up an eyelid. “See?” he said. “A ring of small hemorrhages against the white of the eye. Something was pressed hard there.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“I found it right after they examined her. Both eyes are the same. Other than that, and the sea damage, there’s not a mark on her.”

“Wouldn’t contact lenses do that?” Taffy asked.

“They might, if they didn’t fit properly, or if they had been inserted clumsily. But I don’t think she wore them. She was grateful to me for having her come down here. She … attempted to show her gratitude. The offer was refused, but in the process of refusing it, I had a good close look at her eyes. I’d say no. I have another answer.”

“But what?”

He took the plastic cups out and held them in the flashlight glow.

Taffy gasped. “No, Park. Someone would have had to—”

“Exactly. Pressed them down quite hard on the eyes. No point in it unless the pressure also served some other purpose. Smothering her. Evidently she was smothered while in the sun, while on her back. Maybe she was sleeping. The smotherer dragged her into the sea, forgetting the cap or ignoring it.”

“Did he use a towel to do it?”

“I wouldn’t think so. A little air would get through. She’d struggle longer and the plastic cups would have slipped and made other marks. And I don’t think a pillow was used. Look.”

He curled back her upper lip. Up above the ridge of the gum was a fine dark line of damp sand.

“No,” Taffy said in a whisper. “No.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to do. Taffy, maybe I won’t ask you to do what I originally planned.”

She straightened up. “Try me.”

“I want that swimsuit. She’ll have to be dressed in yours. You go on along. Leave your suit here. I’ll change it.”

Taffy said tonelessly, “Go on outside, Park.” She pushed him gently.

Outside he lit a cigarette, cupped his hands around the glow. The luminous dial of his wristwatch told him that it was after eleven. The sea sighed as though with some vast, half forgotten regret. The stars were cool and withdrawn. He rubbed the cigarette out with his toe. She came out into the darkness and silently leaned her forehead against his shoulder. He held her for a moment, and then they walked back to the house together. He took the damp swimsuit from her. When the door shut he went up the stairs to his own room. He sat in the darkness and thought of Laura Hale, of the way the hard core of her showed beneath the blue of her eyes. Mick came back after driving Pamela home, and later he heard another car, heard Mick speak to a stranger. Soon the strange car drove back across the causeway, the motor noise lost in the sound of the sea.

Mick knocked and came in. “Sitting in the dark, hey? They took her off with ’em. I delivered Pamela. She thinks Carlos is coming back to see her after he fights.”

“He might. Go get Branneck. Don’t let him give you an argument or make any noise. Get him up here.”

The lights were on and Park was sitting cross-legged on his bed when Mick Rogers shoved Branneck through the door. Branneck’s pajamas were yellow and white vertical stripes. His eyes were puffy. He sputtered with indignation.

“I demand to know why—”

“Shut up,” said Park. He smiled amiably at Branneck. “Sit down.”

Branneck remained standing. “I want to know why your man—”

“Because seven years and three months ago, in a very beautiful and very complicated variation of the old badger game, a wealthy Chicago citizen named Myron C. Cauldfeldt was bled white to the tune of two hundred and twenty-five thousand
dollars. He was in no position to complain to the police until he was visited by the girl in the case. She explained to him that her partner, or one of her partners, had run out with the entire take. She was angry. She went with Cauldfeldt to the police and made a confession. In view of her age—twenty—she was given a suspended sentence and put on probation. The man who had run out with the take disappeared completely. Now am I making any sense?” He paused, waiting.

Branneck gave a blind man’s look toward the chair. He stumbled over and sat down. He breathed hard through his open mouth.

Park Falkner stood up. “Some day, Branneck,” he said lightly, “you ought to do some research into the lives of people who run out with large bundles of dough. They hide in shabby little rooms and slowly confidence comes back. A year passes. Two. They slowly come out of cover and take up the threads of a new life. Sometimes they are able to almost forget the source of their money.”

Branneck had slowly gained control. He said, “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Falkner. It wasn’t true, was it, what you said about wanting to buy some of my properties? That was just to get me to come down here.”

Mick leaned against the closed door, cleaning his fingernails with a broken match. He gave Branneck a look of disgust.

“Let’s review, Branneck. Or should I call you Roger Krindall?” Park said.

“My name is Branneck,” the man said huskily.

“Okay. Branneck, then. You are a respected citizen of Biloxi. You arrived there about six years ago and made yourself agreeable. You did some smart dealing in shore properties. My investigator estimates that you’re worth a few million. You belong to the proper clubs. Two years ago you married a widow of good social standing. Your stepdaughter is now sixteen. You are respected. A nice life, isn’t it?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“You came here thinking that I was a customer for the Coast Drive Motel that you just finished building. Selling it would be a nice stroke of business. I might be willing to buy it. I’ll give you ten thousand for it.”

Branneck jumped up, his face greenish pale under the fresh burn. “Ten thousand! Are you crazy? I’ve got two hundred thousand in it and a mortgage of three hundred and twenty thousand outstanding!”

“He won’t sell, Park,” Mick said.

“No imagination, I guess, Mick.”

Branneck stared hard at Park and then at Mick. “I see what you’re getting at. Very nice little scheme. Now I can figure how you got a layout like this. Well, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. If I was all chump you could have made it stick. But I’ll take my chances on what you can do to me. You’ve got me mixed up with somebody named Krindall. You can’t prove a damn thing. And if you start to spread one little rumor in Biloxi you’ll get slapped in the face with a slander suit so fast your head’ll swim. I’m going back to bed, and I’m pulling out of here first thing in the morning.”

He strode toward the door. Mick glanced at Park for instructions and then stepped aside. Branneck slammed the door.

“He knows Cauldfeldt is dead,” Park said. “And I think he knows that too much time has passed for the Chicago police to do anything to him, even if they could get hold of Laura Hale for a positive identification. I had him going for a minute, but he made a nice recovery.”

“So it blows up in our face?” Mick asked.

“I wouldn’t say so. He killed Laura Hale.”

The match slipped out of Mick’s fingers. He bent and picked it up. “Give me some warning next time, Park. That’s a jolt.”

Park began to pace back and forth. “Yes, he killed her, and he got his chance because I was stupid. And so was she. Neither of us figured him as having the nerve for that kind of violence. She was a tramp all the way through. She thought I had arranged it so we could bleed Branneck, alias Krindall, and split the proceeds. Finding out that I had other plans was going to be a shock to her—but he fixed it so that she was spared that particular shock. He took his chance, and he got away with it. Now I’m sorry I had to bring him in. He’s been warned. And he’ll fight. But we can’t let him leave in the morning. Got any ideas?”

Mick grinned. The flattened nose and Neanderthal brows
gave him the look of an amiable ape. “This won’t be good for his nerves, boss, but I could sort of arrange it so he could overhear that the coroner has suspicions and is waiting for somebody to make a run for it.”

“Good!” Park said. “Then he’ll have to make an excuse to stay and that’ll give me time to work out an idea.”

The roar of the amphibian taking off from the protected basin in the lee of the island awoke Park the next morning. Carlos was being carted away to his rendezvous with the black beast from La Punta. At three o’clock, when it was four in Monterrey, he would pick up, on short wave, the report of the corrida. Park pulled on his trunks and went out onto the terrace. The dawn sun behind the house sent the tall shadow of the structure an impossible distance out across the gray morning sea. He stood and was filled with a sudden and surprising revulsion against the shoddy affair of Branneck and Laura Hale. Better to give it all up. Better to give himself to the sea and the sun, music and Taffy. Let the easy life drift by.

But he knew and remembered the times he had tried the lethargic life. The restlessness had grown in him, shortening his temper, fraying the nerve ends—and then he would read over a report from one of the investigators. “A psychiatrist shot in his office here last year. Three suspects, but not enough on any of them to bring it to trial. Think you could get all three down there for a short course in suspicion.” And then the excitement would begin. Maybe Taffy was right. Playing God. Playing the part of fate and destiny. The cornered man is the dangerous man. The cornered woman has an unparalleled viciousness.

He saw a figure far up the beach, recognized Taffy’s hair color. She was a quarter mile from the house, an aqua robe belted around her, walking slowly, bending now and then to pick up something. Shells, probably. He saw her turn around and stare back toward the house. She could not see him in the heavy shadows. She slipped off the robe, dropped it on the sand, and went quickly down into the surf.

Park grinned. In spite of Taffy Angus’s modeling career, in spite of her very objective view of the world, she had more
than her share of modesty. She would be furious if she knew that he had watched her morning swim au naturel. He glanced at the sixteen-power scope mounted on the corner of the terrace railing and decided that it wouldn’t be cricket. The perfect gag, of course, would be a camera with a telescopic lens, with a few large glossy prints to …

He snapped his fingers. A very fine idea. One of the best.

At three o’clock in the afternoon, Mick was ten miles down the mainland beach. He was hot, sticky, and annoyed.

“Why do you have to be giving me arguments?” he demanded of the fat middle-aged tourist and the bronzed dark-haired girl.

The tourist looked angry. “Damn it! All I said was that if you stand so far away from us with that camera, you’re going to get a bunch of nothing. We’ll be a couple of dots on that negative.”

Mick said heavily, “Mister, I know what I’m doing. I don’t want your faces to show. This is an illustration for a story in a confession magazine.”

The girl adjusted the suit that had belonged to Laura Hale. “This doesn’t fit so good, Mr. Rogers,” she said.

Mick sighed. “This time I want to get the blanket in too. I’m going back up on that knoll. Now get it right. We got the marks in the sand across the beach where you dragged her. I want you, mister, to be hip deep in that surf and dragging her by the hair. Don’t look around. Girlie, you take yourself a deep breath and play dead.”

“We’re too far away from the camera,” the man said sullenly.

Mick gave him a long, hard look. The man grunted and turned away.