The Shell Scott Sampler (20 page)

“At quarter to eight?”

“All the time. All day. All night.”

“Sure. Even last night.”

“Tonight. This afternoon. All the time.”

“Chop it, Moulder. You've been claiming you can't remember a damn thing for hours, not even driving the heap you stole. You remember driving the car now?”

“No, I—how could I remember? I was asleep.”

“You were passed out, yeah.”

“Passed out, asleep, what difference? I wasn't even in a car.”

“The fuzz found you in the car.”

“That's what you tell me. I don't remember it. Just the police car.”

“Yeah. You were with your wife since St. Valentine's Day. Where?”

“Motel.”

“A motel. With your wife. You can do better than that.”

“She met me at the airport. We went to a motel.”

“Why? Why not to your own home?”

“Georgina wanted it like a picnic. I mean, a vacation. Where nobody'd know we were there and bust in on us.”

“Sure. Tell me about it.”

“Well, that's it. I was with her. We drank a lot. And banged a lot. Drank and banged. I'd been inside for a year, no drinks, no bangs, hit me harder than I thought it would.”

“Uh-huh. So?”

“I fell asleep, that's all. There in the motel. I didn't kill anybody.”

“Of course not. You didn't threaten to kill Blaik when you fell from here, either.”

“So I threatened. What's threatened? That was just—he got my goat. He got me bugged up.”

“Looks like you got a lot more bugged up in stir, Moulder.”

“No, I let it go out of my mind. But the bastard sold me down the river. He didn't have to lose the case. Bastard wouldn't even put me on the stand. ‘Stead of buggin' me you ought to work him over, give him a lie test or something and it'll prove —”

“You conveniently forget a lot of things—like he's dead.”

He blinked slowly and moistened his fat dry lips. “That's right. I did forget. Well, it's a mess.”

“Yeah, a mess you made when you plugged him in his dinner.”

“It didn't happen.”

“Nothing happened. Nothing at all. You drank with your wife, had a couple too many, and now conveniently can't remember a thing. Everything went black. And while everything was black you of course did not drive around and kill Blaik and maybe let a few fly at me…”

I stopped. Nobody had been shooting at me. I'd gone over that part in my thoughts with some care.

So I continued, “Skip the shots at me. Make it shooting at Blaik—and Lynn.”

“Who?”

“Lynn Duncan.”

“Who's she?”

“You never heard of her?”

“Never heard of her.”

“Don't tell me the police haven't mentioned her name to you, Moulder.”

“I … yes. Think they did. Don't really remember. But I don't know who she is.”

“Where's this dandy motel you stayed in?”

“I, hell, I don't remember. Somewhere near Hollywood. I was a little drunk when we got there.”

“Forgot that, too, huh? You've got a damned good forgetter. Even forgot your wife was home all afternoon, waiting for you to show. Slinky and frilly, rouged and perfumed, in a brand-new negligee, waiting for hubby.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“She was with me. In the motel. Drank and banged, drank and banged.”

And that's the way it went.

Back in Samson's office he sat behind his desk and I straddled a wooden chair and leaned on its back. Sam said, “You did very well. Shell. You got almost as much out of the man as we did.”

He got out his stinking black cigar. And a match.

Well, I couldn't have that.

“Sam,” I said, making my voice as smugly patronizing as I could, “I hate to mention it, but I am beginning to fear you're just not cut out for this kind of work.”

“Izzatso?” he said, like a straight man.

“Yes, sad to say. Oh, you were probably all right in your time, years and years ago. But now you've become a slave to the book, to rules, to the nibbling of legal termites. You listened to what was
said,
rather than what was between the lines.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. By listening between the lines myself, I learned a great deal from my brilliant interrogation of Leslie Moulder.”

“How nice,” he said. “Like what?”

“Like he didn't do it.”

“Of course, you can prove it.”

“Well, ah, not this instant.” I paused. “But I'll tell you how we
can
prove it.”

* * *

Four of us walked down the hospital corridor, headed for room 411 in which lay abed Lynn Duncan, under sedation and with her head somewhat ravaged, but alive, recuperating, and even conscious. Conscious enough to talk if she wanted to—and we had the doctors' OK for a brief talk with her, if Lynn didn't object too strenuously. I didn't think she would.

The four of us were: Samson, Sergeant Kidd, Leslie Moulder, and me. Half an hour had passed since I'd told Sam what I wanted to try, whereupon he'd thought a while, put away his wooden match, clamped the cigar in his teeth, and started making arrangements.

Arrangements, including the timing, had now been completed.

I glanced at my watch. Eleven thirty p.m., on the tick. We could hear the girl's voice coming faint from inside 411 as we approached the door.

When we stopped outside it the words were clear: “I did it for Leslie!
I've told you and told you, I did it for
Leslie!
”

Sam opened the door and we went in. Me first, so I could turn and keep an eye on Moulder. Then Moulder with Kidd, followed by Samson.

Lynn Duncan sat propped up against pillows behind her on the bed, looking toward us as we entered. A uniformed officer, and a doctor, stood near her before a white folding hospital screen.

Moulder looked at Lynn. She looked at him. Moulder looked at me, Kidd, Samson, back at Lynn again.

The first one to speak was Lynn. She said quietly to me, “Hello, Shell.”

Big deal. Big nothing. That was fine.

“Hi, Lynn,” I said.

Sam threw a few fast questions at Moulder, a couple at Lynn. Only halfheartedly. I think he was just about convinced. Then he nodded at Kidd and the sergeant took Moulder away. Back to the cell block this time.

The policewoman—who'd been behind the screen crying “I did it for Leslie”—came out, spoke to Samson, and left.

The rest was my baby, so I sat down on a wooden chair by the bed, close to Lynn. “This won't take long,” I said to her. “Mostly you'll just have to listen, maybe answer a couple of questions. OK?”

“All right.” She looked scared. But she had plenty to be scared about.

I said, “Let's go back to when we met tonight, Lynn. At the Hideout. After Jazz and I joined you and Blaik, I was looking out the window and saw a car come up the road. But it didn't continue on to the entrance. The driver pulled into the lot. That was a little before seven forty-five. Just a little before the shooting. He just came up, parked, and waited there. Got it?”

“Yes.” Very soft.

“When we all went out, it was about quarter of eight—you didn't want to leave right then, remember? You made it very clear that you wanted to stay a little longer.”

She didn't say anything.

“Then, the shooting,” I went on. “Blaik was farthest from the club's steps and I was moving toward him. Jazz was behind me on my right. More important, you were to my left, about the same distance from the steps as Jazz was. So you were a long way from Blaik. A
long
way. Clear?”

She moistened her lips and swallowed. She moved one hand from her side and let it rest on her left breast. “I remember now.”

“Uh-huh. One final thing. The killer had plenty of time to aim his first shot. He was ready and waiting; he'd started the car's engine. So, first one shot, then a short pause—call it the time required for a man in a hurry to aim again in a hurry—and the second shot. Another brief pause, and then three or four shots all at once, the guy yanking, not squeezing the trigger for those last ones. But we know he aimed at least two, maybe three of those shots with some care.”

I paused. “I realize you haven't had much time to think about these things since it happened, Lynn. Maybe just during the last half hour or so. But if you hadn't already figured it out for yourself, are you starting to get the picture now?”

She didn't speak, but I saw her throat move as she swallowed again.

“Remember where you were? Put it this way: draw a line on the ground from that dark sedan to you, and I was standing just about on that line. A man shooting at me might miss and hit you by accident. Only that's not what happened. Instead, a man shooting at you—taking time to aim, wanting to be sure he killed you—came close to hitting me. The killer wasn't after Blaik and me. He was after Blaik and you. Want to tell us about it now, Lynn?”

“I don't know what you mean.”

I sighed. “OK, here's a little more of it. Some of us, for a while, thought those slugs were sprayed all over the landscape because the gunman was drunk. But the gunman wasn't drunk. He was cold sober. He shot and killed Blaik. And he intended to kill Blaik—not me—he was ready and waiting for him. So he had to know Blaik would be at the Hideout, and at least approximately what time he would be there.”

I got out cigarettes, looked at the doctor, who nodded. Then I lit a smoke and had a long drag before continuing.

“Blaik wasn't tailed to the Hideout. The killer didn't arrive until shortly before we all left, and you and Vince had finished dinner, must have been there for at least an hour then. If we wanted to grab at straws we could say maybe a waiter or guest at the restaurant called the gunman and said Blaik was there—but I think we can ignore that little beauty. So what's left?”

She stared at me silently, those moist, wide-set eyes, eyes the shade of bruised mint leaves, unwavering on my own. But now the hand resting on her breast rose and fell more rapidly, testimony to her accelerated breathing. Usually people under stress fail to realize it's happening and is visible to others—emotions spurring glands and organs into increased activity that eats up more and more of the blood's oxygen, and the lungs automatically labor faster to make up for the loss. So her hand rose and fell, rose and fell, on her sweet young breast.

I felt a little sorry for Lynn, just a little. She was so young and scared. And such a damned fool.

“There's only one thing left, Lynn. Blaik hadn't known where he was going for dinner, hadn't known in advance that he would take you to the Hideout. That, dear, was your idea. He told me, while you and Jazz were in the john, that you'd suggested the place. Which explains how the killer knew where Blaik would be and approximately when he'd be leaving. Because, Lynn, the killer asked you, or told you, to make sure Blaik took you to the Hideout.”

Her hand stopped moving as she held her breath. I counted the seconds. One, two, three, four—then the sudden movement again, even more rapid than before.

“We don't need to go into what you told Blaik to explain why you wanted to go to the Hideout. That's not important. We needn't even wonder right now about what Mr.—call him the killer—told you, or promised you, that made you willing to take a man to a secluded, carefully selected spot where he could be murdered.”

I paused. “Hell, Lynn, I'll give you this. There's a good chance you didn't think Blaik would be killed, maybe didn't even think he'd be hurt. But I know for damn sure you didn't guess you were supposed to be murdered right along with him.”

“That's crazy. It's all crazy. You don't make any sense, not any!”

“Come on. Why do you think we brought Moulder in here—and had a policewoman pretending to be you spilling your guts? Whoever tried to kill you must know by now that he only wounded you. So he's sweating, hoping you won't pull through, that you'll still die. Because he knows as long as you're alive you might start spilling. Moulder didn't react, and neither did you—hell, you're strangers, you were still living in Florida when he was sent up. We didn't expect any reaction, except a negative one.”

I got to my feet. “But you can take my word for it, you can count on it, Lynn, when the real killer walks through that door he'll be sweating blood. And so will you. And the harder you try to keep it from showing the more it'll show.”

“Stop it, you're crazy! What are you trying to do to me?” Lynn's eyes rolled from side to side. “My head. Oh, my head —”

“You're lucky your head's just banged up, baby. One more inch and your brain would have tried to explode inside your skull. When a .45 slug hits that soft jelly —”

“Stop it!”

I let the words come out faster. “Look, you know he tried to kill you. He was taking dead aim, as carefully as he could in the little time he had. You were clear the hell out of the line of fire—if Blaik was the only target. He couldn't leave you alive to tell us why you did it, who you did it for. You know he killed Blaik, baby. And you know he tried to kill you. He sure
meant
to kill you. So now it's your turn, Lynn. Tell us who it was.”

For a few moments I thought it had worked. It hadn't.

I knew she must have other reasons for not wanting to spill, but little Lynn certainly was also aware that telling us the tale would make her a part of it, make her, in the dry phrase, “accessory before the fact” of murder.

She did react, though.

She sat straight up in bed, flinging an arm out, fingers clawing the air. She waggled that one claw-fingered hand back and forth as if she were rattling a doorknob, while crying, “No! I can't stand it! No! No —”

And then she fainted.

Some faint. She must have seen Bette Davis in an old movie where the doctor says, “That's a bad cough, lady, no more smokes for you.” It was a far, far cry from the true, authentic, no-way-to-stop-it faint, the honest-to-goodness faint, of Mrs. Moulder.