You Can't Kill a Corpse (8 page)

Clane went out the back way, following Thorne's directions in cutting through a frost-browned flower garden and onto the next street. He paused by a hedge long enough to catch a glimpse of Thorne's latest guests as they came up the winding driveway. He recognized the drab-looking Driggs and Day, the red-faced cop who had sapped him. The others he didn't know, but he suspected the slim, rather wistful-appearing man in the lead was a detective.

When he was on the rear street Clane shifted his suitcase to his left hand and fumbled for his cigarettes with his right. He walked down the winding street at a brisk clip. The air was clear now and chilly. It picked up his spirits so that he nearly felt like humming by the time he reached the foot of the hill and a cab.

He clambered in. “Hotel Metropole,” he said, and wondered how long he could keep from tangling with Ed Thorne.

He went into the hotel as he had come out, through the alley and up the freight elevator to six, his floor. He found his room looking much the same as he had left it. Then he started unpacking his bag and he noticed the difference. Someone had been in and made a search. A good search, he had to admit. There were only one or two things out of place. His extra socks and undershirt had changed places in the drawers they occupied. Clane had formed the habit of noticing the little things, the way he placed his clothes in a drawer, for instance, and occasionally it paid off.

He went into the bathroom, and again he admired the technique of the searcher. Even the soap in his shaving bowl had been lifted out and replaced. He always carried both a tube of latherless shaving cream and a bowl, and now he took the tube from his suit case and put it back in the medicine chest over the washbowl. The next time they would probably squeeze that, he thought without humor. He wondered if the bowl wouldn't be a good place to hide something now.

The identity of the searcher did not trouble Clane. He presumed it to be the police or Ed Thorne or both. He did not much care. He rather expected the police to call on him before very long, and he felt that if he had been in Thorne's place he would have taken the same precautions against Clane.

He left it at that and went to the telephone. He ordered up a morning paper, coffee, and any messages that might have come in for him.

The bellhop who brought the paper and the coffee handed Clane a plain envelope. Clane tipped the boy and shut the door on him. He ripped open the envelope. It was a telephone message, asking him to call Main 6655. Clane thought, “This joint is efficient.” It pleased him, the putting of phone messages into envelopes. One of Thorne's ideas, he supposed.

He put the call through. He wasn't surprised when he heard, “Good morning. Super-Service station.”

Clane said hollowly, “Drop that body!”

“Jeez! Jim, where have you been?”

“What's the trouble, kid?” Clane demanded.

“It's Edith,” Bob Morgan said. “She's been trying to get you for the last six hours. She got me out of bed at four o'clock. It's got me worried.”

Clane began to see how closely knit the Morgan family was. It made him wonder again why Bob Morgan was working for his father's business rival. He said now, “Where do I meet her?”

“Take a cab to the Park,” Bob Morgan directed. “She'll come by in my heap and pick you up.” Clane could feel the strong relief in the boy's voice.

“Why the mystery?” Clane demanded. “What's she done—murder?”

“Don't joke, Jim,” Bob Morgan said earnestly.

“Give me an hour,” Clane said. He hung up and stared a moment at the telephone. So now Edith Morgan was calling on him. It was getting better and better. He picked up the paper to see if he could find a reason for her change of mind.

He read the banner announcing Wickett's death. It was a late edition, evidently an extra, since the story stated that Wickett had not been found until nearly eight a.m. Clane read on, amused at the repeated assurance of Mayor Pryor's surprise and innocence.

He read: “The mayor and Mr. Wickett were close friends…. The mayor is profoundly shocked and has gone into retirement for the day…. The police are working quickly to apprehend the murderer.”

Clane snorted and scanned the paper for the story on Blake Watson. He found it on page one, near the bottom. Watson, it appeared, had shot himself sometime between ten-thirty and eleven the previous night. A neighbor, hearing his radio blaring too loudly, had knocked at his door. Receiving no answer, the neighbor had pushed the door open and gone inside, finding Watson's body. The story made no mention of the missing gun, nor suggested any possibility other than suicide.

Clane yawned. The widow, he read, had not been notified. He turned the page, looking for some news about himself. He found nothing, but a small item on page seven caught his interest.

It stated: “J. B. Castle has been sentenced to thirty days in jail by Judge Lewes for public drunkenness and disturbing the peace. This is Castle's fourth arrest this year.”

Clane tossed the paper aside and picked up the telephone. He told the switchboard girl, “Get me a good bail bondsman.”

When he had his party, he said, “I want J. B. Castle sprung this afternoon. I'll be at your place in five minutes. Get started on it now but have him held until four o'clock.”

He gave his name and found it was well enough known. A heavily accented voice promised him action provided he made his appearance, and gave him the address. Clane cradled the telephone, swallowed his half cold coffee at a gulp, and picked up his hat and topcoat.

As he went past the desk Clane noticed the small sleek man who had stood there the previous night. Paul Grando. Grando was smoking a slim cigar, and Clane wondered what it would taste like.

He caught a cab by the front door and gave the address of the bail bondsman. After finishing his business there Clane ordered the driver to take him to the Park. The Park, he discovered, across town from the Hill, was a long, narrow island of green along the river. The city pressed against it from two sides. Factories came to its very edge on the side of the business district and slum houses were directly across the river from it. Clane told the driver to stop when he came to the swimming pool.

“They ain't swimming.”

“I want to see what it's made of with the water drained out,” Clane said. When the cab stopped Clane got out and paid off. The cab drove off and Clane looked around. He was in a concession section. Besides the now deserted and empty pool, he saw a few closed hamburger stands, a merry-go-round, and the usual assortment of wild rides and skill games. They were all shuttered tightly, nothing was open, and the only person Clane could see was an old man in a white uniform. The old man was going along with a sack and a paper picker. Now and then he would stab a piece of paper and drop it into the sack slung over his shoulder. The whole place was desolate and forlorn under the raw October sky and Clane set off quickly, feeling depressed.

He had chosen the pool because he guessed that all roads of the park would lead into the area. He walked idly down a paved pathway, following a sign toward the picnic grounds. He stepped onto the graveled road just as a car went by him. There was a squeal of brakes and gravel spattered from the car's wheels. Clane saw that it was Bob Morgan's hopped up Ford and he walked toward it. Edith Morgan was at the wheel, looking out of place in the racy car. She wore a green cloth coat with a fur collar and a hat to match. She looked more like afternoon cocktails than someone driving a heap like that.

Then Clane saw her face. She was whiter and more strained-looking than she had been the night before. Something was working inside her so he could see the fear naked in her eyes and around her vivid mouth. He opened the door and got in.

She jerked into gear and the little car took off. They drove in silence for five minutes. Clane turned from her to the scenery. He liked it. The park was wild there, the road rising away from the river and climbing a slight slope. The underbrush and trees had been left in their natural state and they were close to being a jungle. At a break in the trees she turned the car off the road and stopped.

She turned to him and spoke before he could adjust himself to the sudden quiet. “I'm sorry about last night—this morning,” she said. There was appeal in her eyes. She hesitated, waited.

Clane handed her a cigarette. “Get on with it,” he said brusquely.

She smoked a full minute bofore she spoke again. Then she said slowly, “I was scared last night. I still am but it's different now.” She was looking directly at him. She was very tense, he saw, almost rigid with the effort of trying to control herself. He let her take her time about continuing. It was obvious that she needed nerve to say whatever she had in mind. He made no effort to help her.

“I need your help,” she blurted out. She reached out one hand as if in appeal and then dropped it to her lap.

“So does your old man,” Clane said bluntly.

“I need it for him too,” she said. She took a breath and said, as if it were difficult, “Please!”

Clane decided on the tactics he would use with her. He would not be gentle; he had an idea she would take advantage of him if he tried to go easy. Besides, he wasn't feeling in that mood. He was half angry because she had spent a lot of precious hours making up her mind to cooperate. Clane was a careful man in his work but it never kept him from making a decision fast when he needed to.

He said, “I have to have the whole story. I can't work with a lot of missing pieces. I'm not playing ‘What's the clue' with you. A missing piece might mean a rope around someone's neck—even mine. Whatever you know I have to know. Agreed?”

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was almost inaudible. Clane could see the fear rising in her, making her breath come faster.

“Relax, Edith,” he said. “I didn't bring a drink, but relax.”

“I wish I could get drunk and forget it,” she said fiercely.

“We'll take that up later,” Clane said. “Now start in. Just keep talking. I might ask questions but don't let me throw you. Give me the works.”

She began without preamble, with only a second's hesitation. “Yesterday Dad went to see Anthony. He threatened Anthony if he didn't stop seeing me.” She elevated her jaw. “I'm old enough to take care of myself but Dad doesn't seem to think so.”

“When a man is in politics anything can be made into a stink,” Clane said.

“I realize that,” she told him. “Dad was talking to me last night. Anthony had told him it was my business—his and mine. Dad was trying to have me break off our relationsip. I couldn't. I was afraid to tell Dad why.”

“Afraid of what he might think?”

“Afraid what he might do,” she amended. “I just kept telling Dad that I was fond of Anthony. He didn't believe me, I know. I guess I'm not a good actress.”

Clane silently agreed with her. He said, “And you were fond of him?”

“Once, very,” she said. “Two years ago.” She tried a wan smile. “I wasn't as mature as I thought. In fact, I was an awful fool.”

Clane began to see the light. “The usual? Letter?”

“Letters and a tenderly inscribed photograph. Pressed flowers I saved from picnics we went on. I kept mementoes. I behaved like I was sixteen.”

“What use would Wickett have for stuff like that?”

She flushed deeply. Instead of answering him she said, “I stopped going with him shortly before Dad decided to run for mayor. Anthony was becoming impatient. He asked everything and offered nothing. And by then I had lost the crush I had on him. Anthony didn't seem to mind, but when Dad announced he would run against Mayor Pryor, Anthony called me and had me come and see him.”

“And he used your letters as a prod?” Clane asked.

“Yes,” she admitted. “He sat in his library and read some of them to me. Do you know how awful something like that can sound?”

“No,” Clane said, “I make love at close quarters only.”

“They sounded terrible. And I never realized how ambiguous certain phrases could be.”

“What was he trying to get out of you?”

She smiled quite genuinely this time. “It wasn't that melodramatic,” she assured him. She dropped the smile. “He wanted to know Dad's tactics and things like that. I'm helping with the campaign, you see, and Anthony wanted inside information. He could use it in his editorials—sort of black our moves.”

“Morgan must have been running ahead of Pryor then.”

“He was,” she said. “Dad had every chance. Until now.”

“And you let Wickett scare you into spying with a few two-year-old love letters?”

She colored under the hint of contempt in his voice. She said, “I told you I had sent him my photograph. And I gave him lots of pictures too. Snapshots we had taken at various places.” She picked up her purse. Clane watched her fingers shake as she undid the clasp. She took a thick, legal-sized envelope from the purse and handed it to him. “Anthony showed me this before,” she said. “I—I stole it last night.”

Clane took a look. He glanced inquiringly at her.

“It's a photocopy,” she said. “Whoever killed him took the original. Don't you see?” Clane sensed mounting hysteria in her voice and he put out a hand. She nodded jerkily at him and her mouth twisted. “He was dead when I went there last night. And the original wasn't there.” She was pleading with him now, straining forward as if to impart some of her urgency into him. “I have to find the original. I have …”

“Sure,” Clane said flatly. His deliberate coldness made her sag back against the seat of the car. He looked briefly at her white, drawn face and then turned to the envelope.

He drew out a photographic reproduction of a tabloid-sized newspaper page. It had not been printed but simply made up of clippings and photographs pasted to a sheet of paper. Clane read samples of what he supposed were excerpts of her letters to Wickett. He turned his attention to the photographs centering the page.