The Missing and the Dead: A Bragg Thriller (6 page)

"Mr. Bragg, why don't we go out into the hall, where it's a little quieter."

"No, Thorpe, you wanted it in here, and in here is where it will be."

The voices of nearby guests dropped to a murmur.

"The story your friend Teddy tells could leave you open to some criminal charges."

"Such as?"

Our end of the room was dead silence now. "Falsely reporting a criminal felony to the police. Attempt to defraud the insurance company. There are a lot of ways to stub your toe when you report a crime out of spite, Mr. Thorpe."

"But how was I to know he didn't plan to keep it? It wasn't a false report to me. And I'm sorry I forgot to tell the insurance people that I had it back. It was an honest mistake."

"All right, Thorpe, so it was a mistake. But in the course of the time your car was gone, you probably were interviewed by an investigator from the insurance company."

"Yes, I was."

I showed him the mug shot of Jerry Lind. "This the man?"

"Yes. I don't recall his name."

"It's Jerry Lind. What did you talk about?"

"The car, naturally."

"Nothing else?"

"No."

"Okay. What did you tell him about the car?"

"That it was stolen from the street out front. I didn't tell him the story Teddy told you, if that's what you mean."

"That's what I mean. Then so far as Lind was concerned, the car was just gone when you woke up the next morning, and you didn't have any idea who took it."

Thorpe lowered his eyes. "Is this going to get me into trouble with the police? I didn't tell them any more than that, either."

"It won't so far as I'm concerned, so long as you're telling the truth now. How long a talk did you have with Lind?"

"Not long. Ten minutes at the most."

"Where did you talk?"

"In the downstairs landing. My mother was visiting that day. I didn't want to disturb her."

"Do you remember what day it was?"

"On Tuesday, following the theft."

"Theft, my eye," said Teddy from across the quiet room.

"Okay, Thorpe, so you had a brief talk about the car. Now this, I want a frank answer to. Jerry Lind is a young fellow. A pretty handsome young fellow. Did you make any sort of advance toward him—however vague?"

"I don't quite know what..."

"Yes you do, Mr. Thorpe. We both know what I mean."

Somebody in the crowd snickered. I turned toward it and a hush settled.

Thorpe made a gesture with one hand. "Oh, I don't know, I might have said something. But he didn't respond to it."

"You're sure about that?"

He raised his head and spoke in a firm voice. "Yes. Quite sure."

I turned to the others gathered around. "Gentlemen, maybe one of you can help me. I'm questioning Mr. Thorpe about a young man who is missing. I'm personally beginning to fear for his safety. He might already be dead."

A couple of them cleared their throats.

"Now, while I'm not a part of the gay community, my work has brought me into contact with people who are. I know it is not an easy life. I also know a man can be happily married to a woman and have children and still have urges in other directions. I hold no moral judgment on any of this.

"The man I'm looking for is Jerry Lind. He's an investigator for Coast West Insurance. I have a photo of him here that I'd like you all to look at. If any of you recognize him, I'd like to hear about it. Nothing I'm told will be passed along to his family or anyone else. I just need your help."

I made a slow circuit of the room, holding up the snapshot. The speech seemed to have worked. There was no longer any snide hostility. They were a group of concerned citizens. I hoped.
But nobody responded. There was a lot of shaking of heads and murmured no's. I worked my way back to the bar and showed the photo to the boy in the swimsuit. He shook his head.

"Okay, Mr. Thorpe, I'll tell the insurance company that it was just a mixup. That you've got your car back. Here's my card. If you remember anything else about Lind, I'd like to hear from you."

Thorpe nodded. "I'll do that. Let me see you to the door."

I followed him down the hallway. Just before I started down the stairs, Teddy hailed us.

"Just a moment, Mr. Bragg." He hurried up to us, glanced once at Thorpe and fidgeted with the glass in his hand. "I just wanted to say, Mr. Bragg, that what Jonathan told you is the truth. About the missing man, I mean. Jonathan told me about it when I got back. He mentioned—as you observed—that this Lind is a pleasant-looking chap. Jonathan told me he'd dropped his hanky a time or two in the course of their conversation, but that the young man ignored it. Jonathan might be an old goat, but—well, I just wanted you to know."

"All right, Teddy, thanks."

"Yes," said Thorpe. "Thank you, Teddy."

I left them at the top of the stairs looking at each other as if they were seeing a sunset together. Or maybe a sunrise. What the hell. It wasn't any of my business.

FIVE

I
drove back downtown and had dinner at Polo's, on Mason Street. I ordered their special, a platter of ground beef with an egg and some spinach stirred in, and washed it all down with a couple glasses of the house red. I also did some more thinking about the missing Jerry Lind. I still hadn't pinned him down. An Army veteran in his middle twenties, but from the sound of things he still was a half-formed personality, full of romantic notions about his job. He wasn't particularly good at his job, either. It wasn't just the way his co-worker, Wallace, had assessed him. The boy hadn't pursued the matter of Jonathan Thorpe's missing Mercedes with nearly the wit or energy he could have. Properly handled, he should have gotten the real story soon after his original interview with Thorpe. As for home life, he was married to a girl with a sensational body and questing mind who was crying for a bit of attention. Lind didn't seem to know what to do about it. Lind also seemed to be a loner, but his solitary nature didn't translate into a particularly thoughtful individual. Maybe he was a whiz of a painter. But I still didn't know what sort of things went on inside his head. I could only hope that Miss Benson might be able to give me an idea.

I got to her house a little after ten and made my way down to her apartment. Her door had an upper pane of glass covered with some sort of graph paper. I squinted at it, light filtering through from inside. It was an old actuary graph showing at what age people in various occupations tended to die. It didn't carry a rating on law enforcement people. Of course cops started the
dying process inside, where the insurance statisticians couldn't see. I rang the bell, and after a moment a different-looking Miss Benson opened the door.

"Hi," she said, gesturing me inward with a swing of her head. Her hair wasn't in a bun any longer. It fell below her shoulders. She'd taken off her glasses and changed into a taut white sweater and low-belted pair of gray slacks that were made out of a material that gave a little, emphasizing the slight pouch of her stomach and her upswept buttocks.

"Can I fix you a drink?"

"Sure."

"What would you like?"

"Anything handy. Bourbon, Scotch..."

"Good. I have bourbon."

"If you have some water to go with it I'll be a happy man."

She crossed to a sink, stove and refrigerator beyond a small dining table to my right. The place was really just a large, one-room apartment. There was one other door next to the kitchen that probably led to the bathroom. The opposite side was mostly glass, looking out over a wooden deck and offering a view of the water below. The room was divided by a sofa and chair, and there was a queen-sized bed beyond that. When she carried a couple of drinks over to the sofa, she walked in a manner that indicated she was a little drunk.

"Have a good time with the old school chum?"

She groaned and settled on the sofa with a slope-mouthed face. Women who did that made me uncomfortable. I'd known two of them who used the expression regularly. They both were acute neurotics. Maybe Miss Benson only did it when she drank. I sat a ways down from her on the sofa.

"It went about the way I expected. He didn't want to buy me anything to eat down at the Trident, but suggested we pick up a couple of steaks and come up to my place, et cetera, et cetera.
So I just drank with him until almost nine, then told him I had to come home for a very important appointment. He wanted to come along anyway, so I told him about you. We argued in the parking lot for so long I barely had time to get home and shower before you got here."

"If you haven't eaten, why don't you fix yourself a sandwich or something? I can wait."

"No, that's okay." She had an open can of mixed nuts on a stand beside her that she dug into. "Want some?"

"No thanks."

"They're good." She was looking at me alternately with one eye then the other. Miss Benson, it seemed, was more than a little drunk.

"What's it like?" she asked.

"What's what like?"

"Being a detective. I have a whole shelf over there filled with detective stories." She waved her hand in the direction of a low bookcase. It was the hand holding her drink, and some of the amber liquid slopped down across her taut, white sweater. "Is it exciting, the way they write about it?"

"No. It's mostly a lot of very dull phoning and walking around talking to people and researching land deeds and going through court records. The only time it gets a little exciting is when somebody resents one of the questions you ask and takes a smack at you."

She leaned some in my direction. "Do you carry a gun?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you have one on you now?"

"Nope."

She leaned back with another twist of her mouth. "Is there much sex?"

"While working?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Oh." She took a drink from the glass. "Not ever?"

"Hardly ever. Look, Miss Benson..."

"Laurel."

"Okay, Laurel. Like a lot of other jobs it can be about what you want to make of it. If you're in a business where you come into contact with a lot of people of the opposite sex you're obviously going to meet a certain number who have whatever chemistry attracts the two of you to each other. Or else people who are lonely, oversexed, inebriated or any combination of those. If you're the sort of person who needs that all the time then you take advantage of it. If not, you go on about your job."

"What do you do?"

"Since I didn't just enter puberty the day before yesterday I usually go on about my job. But that isn't what I came up here to talk about." I was getting a dry throat from all that talking and had some of the bourbon.

"I guess you think I'm terribly nosy."

"I hope you are. You'll be able to tell me more about Jerry Lind that way."

"You might be a little disappointed. I don't know him all that well. He's a likeable boy. That's all."

"How was he at his job?"

"All right, I guess. He went out and came back and made his reports."

"Were his reports like all the other reports?"

"Pretty much. They weren't as terse as some of the others, but the boss seemed satisfied."

"That's something else. What sort of fellow is Stoval?"

"Easy to work for. A little stuck on himself, maybe. But then it's a pretty responsible job for somebody his age."

"I understand there used to be a fellow named Harry Sund who worked there."

She took a sip of her drink and stared at me. "I thought you wanted to talk about Jerry."

"We are talking about Jerry, and the people in his life. I understand Sund quit. There was some sort of scene. Can you tell me about it?"

She giggled. "I was home sick that day. The other girls said Harry threatened to punch out Mr. Stoval. Harry was ranting something about his wife. I could hardly believe it when they told me. I still can't, really."

"Why not?"

"I just don't think Mr. Stoval is that way. He's never made the slightest pass at any of the girls working there."

"Are you sure of that, Laurel? It could be important."

"Yes. I'm sure. We're a gossipy bunch. He really hasn't. That's why we feel Harry Sund must have made some sort of mistake. Maybe his wife told him a story. Because there are some girls in the office who are—let's say available, and they sort of let fellows know about it. In a nice way, of course."

"Sure."

"But Mr. Stoval never makes a move. So why would he try anything funny with the wife of somebody who works for him? Besides, he's got his hands full with his own wife. She's a beautiful girl. She does a lot of modeling in the city under the name Faye Ashton. I see her in Macy's ads all the time."

"Was it like Jerry to leave town on a job without telling you or somebody else at the office where he was going?"

"No, but he did a lot of outside work. If he decided over the weekend to go somewhere, he might just get an early start without coming in or phoning first."

"Did Jerry ever joke around with the available girls in the office?"

"I like the way you put that, joke around."

"Did he?"

"No. Jerry was sort of a pet. I mean he was a little clumsy and things. He's the sort of boy that arouses a girl's mother instinct. I think he did that everywhere he went."