The Rip-Off (15 page)

The mood was with me the next day, and when Mrs. Olmstead appeared in my office doorway and announced that she needed more money to go shopping, I flatly refused to give her any.

"You've had far too much already," I told her coldly. "You've constantly emptied that cash box in the telephone desk, and then come grumbling to me for more. You must have had over six hundred dollars in less than two weeks' time. The best thing you can do now is to pack up your belongings and clear out."

"That don't make me mad none!" She glared at me defiantly. "You just pay me my wages, an' I'll be out of here faster'n you can say scat!"

"I don't have to pay you," I said. "You've already paid yourself several times over."

If she had given me any kind of argument, I probably would have relented. But surprisingly she didn't argue at all. Oh, she did a little under-the-breath cursing on her way out of my office. In no more than ten minutes, however, she was packed and gone from the house.

Kay, who had been standing by during the proceedings, declared that I had done exactly the right thing. "You should have done it long ago, Britt. You were far too patient with that woman."

"I've been that way with a lot of people," I said. "But it's a fault I'm going to correct."

She dropped her eyes, toeing-in with one white-shod foot. A slow blush spreading up her cheeks to blend with the auburn of her hair. It was all beautifully calculated. I have never seen such control. She was saying, as clearly as if she had spoken, that she had been a naughty- naughty girl and she was truly sorry for it.

"Will you forgive your naughty girl, Britt?" She spoke in a cute-child's voice. "She's awfully sorry, and she promises never to be naughty again."

"It doesn't matter," I said. "Forget it."

"Why, of course, it matters. But I'll be good from now on, honey. I swear I'll-"

"I don't care whether you are or not," I said. "I can hang by my thumbs a few days if I have to. If it takes any longer than that to wrap things up here, and if I still need a cop-nurse, you won't be her."

She gave me no more argument than Mrs. Olmstead had. I was amazed at how easy it was to tell people off- without being very proud of it-although, admittedly, my experience was pretty limited.

I didn't feel much like working; the thought of Manny,
my Manny
, being married to another was too much on my mind. But I worked, anyway, and I was still at it when Claggett arrived in mid-afternoon.

Manny was back in the hospital, he informed me. The same reputable hospital she had been in before with the same reputable doctors in attendance.

And, as before, she was in absolute seclusion, and no information about her condition or the nature of her illness was being given out.

"Probably there isn't any," I said. "Nothing sinister, I mean. She told me yesterday that she wasn't feeling well. Possibly she got to feeling worse, and had to go to the hospital."

"Possibly. But why so secretive about it?"

"Well…"

"Tell you something," Claggett said. "Maybe I'm a little cynical, but I've never known anyone to pull a cover-up yet unless there was something to cover up."

"That's probably true. But this could hardly be called a cover-up, could it?"

"It's close enough. And the one thing I've found that's usually covered up with doctors is mental illness. It's my guess," said Claggett thoughtfully, "that Miss Aloe has had a nervous breakdown or something of the kind. The second one in less than a month. Either that or she's pretending to. So that leaves us with a couple of questions."

"Yes?" I said. "I mean, it does?"

"To take the last one first. If she's pretending, why is she? And, secondly, if she's actually had a nervous collapse, what brought it on?"

"I just hope she's all right," I said. "In any case, I don't see what her being in the hospital has to do with me."

"Well, it could be just a coincidence, but the last time she was hospitalized you had a pretty bad accident."

"It
was
a coincidence," I said, and wondered why I suddenly felt so uncomfortable and uneasy. "I'm positive that she's leveling with me, Jeff. I knew it when she wasn't, and I know it now that she is."

Claggett shrugged, and said that was good. He, himself, would never trust his own judgment where someone he loved was concerned. Because you could love someone who was completely no good and untrustworthy.

"But we'll see," he said, and stood up. "I have no basis for believing that she's not on the level with you, but we shouldn't be long in finding out."

I walked to the door with him, wondering whether I should tell him about Manny's impending marriage. But I had promised not to, and I could think of no reason why I should.

We shook hands, and he promised to keep me in touch. Then, just as he was leaving, he abruptly pulled me back from the door and moved back into the shadows himself.

I started to ask what was the matter, and he gestured me to silence. So we stood there tensely in silence, waiting. And then there was the sound of footsteps mounting to the porch and crossing to the door.

My view was obscured by Jeff Claggett, and the heavy shadows of the porch. But I could see a little, see that a man was standing with his face pressed against the screen to peer inside.

Apparently he also was having a problem in seeing, for he reached down to the door handle, pulled it open and stepped uncertainly across the threshold.

Claggett grabbed him in a bone-crushing bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides. The man let out a startled gasp.

"W-what's going on here?"

"You tell me, you son-of-a-bitch!" rasped Claggett. "Let's see how fast you can talk."

"It's all right, Jeff," I said. "He's my father-in-law."

He was in the dining room now with Kay, stuffing himself with the impromptu meal she had prepared for him at my request. Rambling and rumbling on endlessly about my general worthlessness.

"… me an' daughter just couldn't support him any longer, so he comes back down here. An' he sent her a little money, but it was like pulling teeth to get it out of him. And this last month, more than a month, I guess, he didn't send nothing! No, sir, not one red cent! So I just up and decided-Pass me that coffee pot, will you, miss? Yes, and I believe I'll have some more of them beans an' potato salad, and a few of them…"

In the kitchen, Jeff Claggett unwrapped the strip of black tape from around the telephone cord, and held the two ends apart.

"A real sweet old lady," he laughed sourly. "Well, that takes care of any calls since she left today, if you had any since then. But I'm damned if I understand how she could head off the others."

I said it was easy, as easy as it was for her to see that I got no mail that would reveal what she was up to. "She kept the phone out in the kitchen when she was in the house, and when she was away she hid it where it couldn't be heard."

"And you never caught on?" Claggett frowned. "She pulls this for almost a month, and you never tipped?"

"Why should I?" I said. "If someone like you called, of course, she'd see that you got through to me. Anyone else would be inclined to take her at her word. She had a little luck, I'll admit. But it wasn't all that hard to pull off with someone who gets and makes as few calls as I do."

"Yeah, well, let's get on with the rest of it," Claggett sighed. "I hate to ask, but…?"

"The answer is yes to both questions," I said. "Mrs. Olmstead mailed the checks I sent to my wife-or rather she didn't mail them. And she made my bank deposits for me-or didn't make them."

Claggett asked me if I hadn't gotten deposit slips, and I said, no, but the amounts were noted in my bankbook. Claggett said he'd just bet they were, and he'd bet I hadn't written "for deposit only" on the back of the checks. I said I hadn't and couldn't.

"I needed some cash for household expenses," I explained, "and I'd run out of personal checks. I had some on order, but they never arrived."

"I wonder why." Claggett laughed shortly. "Well, I guess there's no way of knowing how much she's taken you for offhand, or how much if any we can recover-when and if we catch up with her. But Mr. Blabbermouth or Bannerman shapes up to me like a guy who means to get money out of you right now."

"I'm sure of it," I said. "I should have at least a few hundred left in the bank, but it wouldn't be enough to get him off my back."

"No," he said. "With a guy like him there's never enough. Well-" he drew a glass of water from the sink, drank it down thoughtfully. "Want me to handle him for you?"

"Well…" I hesitated. "How are you going to do it?"

"Yes or no, Britt."

I said, Yes. He said, All right, then.
He
would do it, and there was to be no interference from me.

We went to the dining room, and sat down across from Bannerman. He had stuffed his mouth so full that a slimy trickle streaked down from the corner of it. Claggett told him disgustedly to use his napkin, for God's sake. My father-in-law did so, but with a pious word of rebuke.

"Good men got good appetites, Mister Detective. Surest sign there is of a clean conscience. Like I was telling the young lady-"

"We heard what you told her," Claggett said coldly. "The kind of crap I'd expect from a peabrain loudmouth. No, stick around, Nolton"-he nodded to Kay, who resumed her chair. "I'd like to know what you think of this character."

"He already knows," Kay said. "I told him when he tried to give me a feel."

Bannerman spluttered red-faced that he'd done nothing of the kind. He'd just been tryin' to show his appreciation for all the trouble she'd gone to for him. But Kay had taken her cue from Claggett-that here was a guy who should have his ears pinned back. And she was more than ready to do the job.

"Are you calling me a liar, buster?" She gave him a pugnacious glare. "Well, are you?"

He said, "N-no, ma'am, 'course not. I was just-"

"Aaah, shut up!" she said.

And Claggett said, Yes, shut up, Bannerman. "You've been talking ever since you stepped through the door today, and now it's time you did some listening. You want to, or do you want trouble?"

"He wants trouble," Kay said.

"I don't neither!" Bannerman waved his hands a little wildly. "Britt, make these people stop-"

"All right, listen and listen good," Claggett said. "Mr. Rainstar has already given your daughter a great deal of money. I imagine he'll probably provide her with a little more when he's able to, which he isn't at present. Meanwhile, you can pack up that rattletrap heap you drove down here in, and get the hell back where you came from."

Anger stained Luther Bannerman's face the color of eggplant. "I know what I can do all right!" he said hoarsely. "An' it's just what I'm gonna do! I'm gonna have Mr. Britton Rainstar in jail for the attempted murder of my daughter!"

"How are you going to do that?" Claggett asked. "You and your daughter are going to be in jail for the attempted murder of Mr. Rainstar."

"
W-what?"
Bannerman's mouth dropped open. "Why that's crazy!"

"You hated his guts," Claggett continued evenly. "You'd convinced yourselves that he was a very bad man. By being different than you were, by being poor instead of rich. So you tried to kill him, and here's how you went about it…"

He proceeded to explain, despite Bannerman's repeated attempts to interrupt. Increasingly fearful and frantic attempts. And his explanation was so cool and persuasive that it was as though he was reciting an actual chronicle of events.

The steering apparatus of my car had been tampered with; also, probably, the accelerator. Evidence of the tampering would be destroyed, of course, when my car went over the cliff. All that was necessary then was for me to be literally driven out of the house. So angered that I would jump into the car, and head for town.

But Connie had overdone the business of making me angry. She had pursued me to the kitchen door-and been knocked unconscious when I flung it open. And when I headed for town, she was in the car with me.."

"That's the way it was, wasn't it?" Claggett concluded. "You and your daughter tried to kill Mr. Rainstar, and your little plan backfired on you."

My father-in-law looked at Claggett helplessly. He looked at me, eyes welling piteously.

"Tell him, Britt. Tell him that Connie and me w-wouldn't, that we just ain't the kind of p-people to-to-"

He broke off, obviously-very obviously-overcome with emotion.

I wet my lips hesitantly. In spite of myself, I felt sorry for him. This man who had done so much to humiliate me, to make me feel small and worthless, now seemed very much that way himself. And I think I might have spoken up for him, despite a stern glance from Jeff Claggett. But my father-in-law compensated in blind doggedness for his considerable shortcomings in cerebral talents, and he was talking again before I had a chance to speak.

"I'll tell you what happened!" he said surlily. "That fella right there, that half-breed Injun, Britt Rainstar, tried to kill my daughter for her insurance! He stood to collect a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and that was just plenty of motive for a no-account loafer like him!"

Claggett appeared astonished. "You mean to tell me that Mr. Rainstar was your daughter's beneficiary?"

"Yes, he was! I'm in the insurance business, and I wrote the policy myself!"

"Well, I'll be damned!" Claggett said in a shocked voice. "Did you know about this, Britt?"

"I told you about it," I said, a little puzzled. "Don't you remember? Mr. Bannerman wrote up a similar policy on me with my wife as beneficiary, at the same time."

He nodded, and said, Oh, yes; it all came back to him now. "But the company rejected you, didn't they? They wouldn't approve of your policy."

"That's right. I don't know why exactly, but apparently I wasn't considered a very stable character or something of the kind."

"You were a danged poor risk, that's what!" Bannerman said grimly. "Just the kind of fella that would get himself in a fix with the law. Which is just what you went and done! Why, if I hadn't spoken up to the sheriff, after you tried to kill poor, little Connie-"

He chopped the sentence off suddenly. He gulped painfully, as though swallowing something which had turned out to be much larger than he had thought.

Kay gave him a cold, narrow-eyed grin. There was a snap to Claggett's voice like a trap being sprung.

"So Mr. Rainstar was a pretty disreputable character, was he?
Was he, Bannerman?
"

"I-I-I didn't say that! I didn't say nothin' like that, at all, an' don't you-"

"Sure, you did. And you told everyone in town what a no-goodnik he was. A blabbermouth like you would be bound to tell 'em, and don't think I won't dig up the witnesses who'll swear that you did!"

"But I didn't mean nothin' by it. I was just talkin'," Bannerman whined. "You know how it is, Britt. You say you wish someone was dead, or you'd like to kill 'em, but-"

"No," I said. "I've never said anything like that in my life."

"You didn't trust your son-in-law, Bannerman," Claggett persisted. "And you sure as hell didn't like him. But you allowed the policy on your daughter to stand-a policy that made him her beneficiary? Why didn't you cancel it?"

"I-Never you mind!" Bannerman said peevishly. "None of your doggoned business, that's why!"

Claggett asked me if I had ever seen the policy, and I said I hadn't. He turned back to Bannerman, his eyes like blue ice.

"There isn't any policy, is there? There never was. It was just a gimmick to squeeze Mr. Rainstar. Something to threaten him with when he tried to get a divorce."

"That ain't so! There is too a policy!"

"All right. What's the name of the insurance company?"

"I-I disremember, offhand," Bannerman stammered, and then blurted out, "I don't have to tell you, anyway!"

"Now, look you!" Claggett leaned forward, jaw jutting. "Maybe you can throw your weight around with your friendly hometown sheriff. Maybe he thinks the sun rises and sets in your ass. But with me, you're just a pimple on the ass of progress. So you tell me: what's the name of the insurance company?"

"But I-I really don't-"

"All right." Claggett made motions of rising. "Don't tell me. I'll just check it out with the Underwriters' Bureau."

And, at that, Bannerman gave up.

He admitted weakly that there was no policy, and that there never had been. But he brazenly denied that he and Connie had done wrong by lying about it.

Ol' Britt was tryin' to get a divorce, and she had a right to keep him from it, any way she could. And never mind why she was so dead set against a divorce. A woman didn't have to explain a thing like that. The fact that she didn't want one was reason enough.

"Anyways, Connie hasn't been at all well since the accident. Taken all kinds of money to provide for her. If she hadn't had some way of scarin' money out o' Britt-"

"Apparently, she's able to take care of herself now," Claggett said. "Or do you have round-the-clock nurses? And just remember I'll check up on your story!"

"Well-" Bannerman hesitated. "Yeah, Connie's coming along pretty good right now. 'Course she's all jammed up inside, an' she's always gonna be an invalid-"

"What doctor told you that? What doctors? What hospital did her X-rays?"

"Well…" Bannerman said weakly. "Well…" And said no more.

"Jeff," I said. "Can't we wind this up? Just get this-this
thing
the hell out of here? If I have to look at him another minute, I'm going to throw up!"

Claggett said he felt the same way, and he jerked a thumb at Bannerman and told him to beat it. The latter said he'd like to, there was nothing he'd like to do more. But he just didn't see how he could do it.

"I used practically every cent I had comin' down here. And that ol' car of mine ain't gonna go much further, without some work bein' done on it. I
want
t'get back home, these here big cities ain't for me. But-"

"Save it," Claggett said curtly. "You've probably got half of the first nickel you ever made, but I'll give you a stake to get rid of you. Nolton"-he gestured to Kay-"get him in his car, and see that he stays in it till I come out."

"Yes, sir! Come on, you!"

She hustled my father-in-law out of the room, and the front door opened then closed behind them.

I gave Claggett my heartfelt thanks for the way he had handled things, and promised to pay back whatever money he gave my father- in-law.

"No problem"-he dismissed the matter. "But tell me, Britt. I was just bluffing, of course, trying to shake him up, but do you suppose he and your wife did try to kill you?"