Carnival of Death (15 page)

“Yes. I see what you’re getting at,” Miss Lindler said thoughtfully. “You think there must have been some guilty connection between Tim and Davis and the blonde woman.”

“It seems likely,” DuBoise said.

Miss Lindler signaled to the waitress and ordered a chocolate éclair and more coffee. “As I said, I’m confused. But even granting that Kelly wasn’t all I thought he was, assuming he could have been involved in the robbery, it seems to me we come up against an insurmountable Chinese wall. Remember I worked with the man. I saw him five days a week. When his truck checked out. When his truck checked in. Frequently in here at lunch time and during coffee breaks. And I’m willing to go on the stand and testify, and I think anyone who knew him even casually would do the same, that Tim Kelly wouldn’t ever have committed suicide to create a diversion so someone else could steal one hundred and seventy-eight thousand dollars.”

“Score a point for your side,” Daly said. “That’s one of the things that bothers us. That and the actual mechanics of the theft.”

Miss Lindler attacked her chocolate éclair with the same fervor with which she’d eaten her salad. “Which brings us back to the Laredos and the paper cup of pink lemonade. So let’s try another idea for size. Suppose whoever killed Tim didn’t mean to kill him? What if he was just supposed to get sick?”

“You’ve lost me,” Daly admitted. “Amplify that, will you, please, Miss Lindler?”

“All right,” the cashier said. “I don’t know whether you gentlemen know it, but while I was in the police building Lieutenant Schaeffer had their expert run a polygraph test on Mr. Laredo. And while the expert admitted his findings were inconclusive as concerned the robbery, he said that Mr. Laredo’s reactions did indicate he hated Tim enough to want to kill him.”

Daly nodded. “That much we know. Schaeffer told us that over the phone.”

“But you don’t think Laredo is capable of murder?”

“I didn’t say that. My contention is that he wouldn’t kill for money.”

“But suppose he didn’t mean to kill Tim? Suppose all he meant to do was knock him out? As I understand it, that’s what chloral hydrate is usually used for. What if instead of Tim, it was the Laredos who were mixed up with Davis and the blonde woman?” Miss Lindler pursued the line of thought. “Yes. That’s how it could have been. Davis was to give Tim an antidote. But meanwhile they would have gotten Mike out of the truck and Quinlan away from the lot, creating a diversion that would have allowed Laredo’s gang, dressed as clowns, to steal the money. But when Mrs. Laredo put the poison into the lemonade she put in too much and it killed him.”

“No,” Daly said. “I can’t buy that.”

“Why not?”

“For a number of reasons.”

Miss Lindler continued to enjoy her éclair. “Name one.”

“I can name a dozen,” Daly said. “You’re just assuming Laredo knew Davis. We know that Kelly did and they were on friendly enough terms for Davis to let him use his boat on several occasions. Equally as important, last night when I asked Luisa where Paquita got the lemonade she served Tim, the child told me that the pink
limonada senora
filled the cup from the same glass tank from which she’d served the children.”

The cashier persisted. “But Mrs. Laredo could easily have dropped something into the cup without the child seeing it.”

“I doubt that,” DuBoise said. “Those sharp little eyes didn’t miss a thing. Besides, there’s the matter of the five thousand dollars that the police found in one of the horses on Laredo’s carousel. Not even a former aerialist crazy enough to fly through the air from one swinging trapeze to another and reckless enough to wade ashore at the Bay Of Pigs after the promised air cover failed to materialize, would be stupid enough to hide what amounts to marked money in one of the first places a moron might expect the police to look.”

Miss Lindler accepted a cigarette from Daly and allowed DuBoise to light it. “You’re right, of course,” she admitted. “I was thinking with my emotions. Even if we weren’t anything to each other, I don’t want to believe that Tim could have been involved in a nasty business like this. I’m still not convinced he was. But why did you fellows want to see me? Whether they’re innocent or guilty, I can’t help the Laredos.”

“Nevertheless,” Daly smiled, “that’s why we’re here.” He asked the questions he’d come to ask. “Did Kelly ever talk to you about the
La Femme?
”

“The boat on which that man was killed?”

“Yes.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Did he ever mention having a girl friend who had a mountain cabin near Big Bear City?”

“No.”

“Did he ever mention a Tommy or a Thelma Banks?”

Miss Lindler shook her head. “I come up blank there, too. Who are they?”

“Tommy worked for Laredo. We think that Thelma is the blonde woman who was seen at the scene of the robbery and who is known to have visited Davis aboard his boat.”

“I see,” Miss Lindler said quietly. “Identifying and locating them would be helpful to the investigation. But I’m afraid I can’t help you. As I’ve tried to explain, I didn’t know Tim Kelly socially. Not that I wouldn’t have liked to.” She lifted her head defiantly. “Let’s face it. I was crazy about the guy. All he would have had to do was smile and point me toward a bed. I’d have done anything he wanted me to do.” Her voice turned bleak. “But what would he have wanted of me? I’m some years older than he was. Besides, I saw Miss Madden on your program and the picture of those other girls in last night’s paper. And there isn’t one of them that isn’t built like a cow. Is that all you men care about? Do all of you have an Oedipus complex?”

Daly tried to think of something to say. Under the circumstances, anything he said would be wrong. He changed the subject. “What time is Kelly’s funeral being held, Miss Lindler?”

“Twelve-forty-five. At the chapel in Forest Lawn.”

“Do you know if Quinlan and Mike Kelly will be there?”

“Of course they will. At least I know Mike will be there.”

“Were he and Tim close?”

“Closer than most brothers.”

Daly said, “Then if you don’t mind, we’ll tag along. It’s possible that the dead man mentioned Tommy and Thelma Banks to his brother.”

Miss Lindler picked her purse and short white gloves from the table. “Be my guests. I’ll be with you as soon as I go to the powder room.”

DuBoise signaled to the waitress to bring him Miss Lindler’s check and laid a bill on it. “With your permission,” he smiled.

Both men had risen when she had. The gesture pleased the plain-faced cashier even more than DuBoise paying her check. “Why, thank you. You can drop around any noon. You’re nice guys, both of you. When I was still young and foolish, before I knew I was going to grow up to be an ugly duckling, I used to dream that a man like one of you would come riding into my life in a white Cadillac.” Her smile became slightly twisted. “But I warn you. I still hope I can figure this thing out before either of you or the police come up with the right answers. It would be worth a lot to me.”

“In what way?” DuBoise asked her.

The girl told him. “Cash on the barrelhead, Mr. DuBoise. This morning the firm posted a ten thousand dollar reward leading to the arrest and conviction of the party or parties who robbed the truck. Hoping, I presume, to tempt someone to turn in the Laredos’ accomplices. This plus ten percent of all monies recovered. And not counting what the police have recovered, that comes to twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred and eight dollars and ninety cents. Who knows? If I had that kind of money in the bank, I might find a man who would be willing to marry me. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me for a moment, I’ll go powder my nose.”

D
ALY HAD
no quarrel with the hereafter. He hoped there was one. The bone of his contention with funerals was the oil with which the average blast-off pad was fueled. No creed or ethnic group had a corner on sinners. They came in assorted sizes and sexes and faiths. For all of the good they’d done in the world, a large number of men and women about to meet their Maker could and should have been strangled when they were born. Still he’d yet to attend one funeral where the priest or rabbi or minister had said, “Look. This guy (or doll) was no good. He (or she) was a dirty so-and-so. So let’s not waste any time. Let’s plant him (or her) as quickly as we can and get out of here.”

That never happened. Because of ritual, or because they thought it was expected of them, the officiating clergy always found something good to say about the deceased, if it was only that not once in his or her life had he or she ever set fire to an orphanage, and once he or she had dropped a dollar into a Salvation Army lassie’s tambourine.

From where Daly and DuBoise stood watching the mourners enter the chapel, Tim Kelly’s funeral didn’t look as if it would be an exception. From what Daly knew of the man, the murdered guard had been a bully, a braggart and a self-centered Lothario. But now he was dead, the fix was in. The evil he’d done was about to be interred with his bones while a covey of misty-eyed young women, attractively dressed in black and wearing becoming half veils, were prepared to give tearful testimony about the personal good he’d done them.

Daly realized that the organ music had begun and that Miss Lindler was resting one of her small, white-gloved, hands on his forearm. “Yes, Miss Lindler?”

“Is there anything else I can tell you, Mr. Daly?”

“I can’t think of a thing,” Daly said. “But thanks.”

The cashier smiled wanly. “I hope I helped a little. I want to see whoever killed Tim caught.” She added, “Oh, I know that to men like you and Mr. DuBoise, Tim didn’t amount to much. But, as I told you in the restaurant, I was crazy about the guy. All he would have had to do was whistle.” She took a clean handkerchief from her purse. “So now I guess I’ll go in and drop a few tears on his bier with the rest of his broads.”

DuBoise watched her enter the chapel. “It escapes me at the moment but there’s a moral there, somewhere. There goes a bitter young woman. Not because Kelly attempted to seduce her, because he didn’t.”

Lieutenant Schaeffer got out of the unmarked police car from which he’d been viewing the mourners and came over to where Daly and DuBoise were standing. “How about it, Tom?”

“How about what?” Daly asked him.

“You watched the young ladies go in?”

“How could I help seeing them?”

“So tell me. Could any of them have been the girl in that cabin up on the mountain? The same one, presumably, who was seen in a car on the parking lot and on the late Mr. Davis’ cruiser?”

“That’s right,” Daly nodded.

“What’s right?”

“It could have been any of them. At least, any of the blondes. Take your pick. Unfortunately, my contact with her was physical, not visual. And all Gene got was a glimpse of her as she did her Lady Godiva toward her Volkswagen.”

DuBoise used his hands to exaggerate the figure of the nude woman who’d fled the cottage.

“I know.” The homicide man’s tone was sour. “We have the description you gave the Big Bear City police. An expensive mink coat and a lot of girl under it. But are you certain she was blonde?”

“At the time, yes. But it could have been a bleach job.”

Schaeffer took his notebook from his pocket and made a notation in it. “You have a point. I’ll have one of my men check with the hairdressers of all of Kelly’s known girl friends to see if any of them has changed the color of her hair in the last few days.” He returned the book to his pocket. “But I doubt if we’ll come up with anything. We’ve run a preliminary check on them and while there are a couple of tramps in the group, the majority of them look and talk like nice girls. They all claim to have been in love with Kelly, enough in love to be intimate with him on numerous occasions. But they all say that Kelly promised to marry them and they believed him. And, if that was the case, why would one of them have rented that cabin so she could cheat on him with other men?”

DuBoise suggested, “Maybe she found out about the others. They tell me it’s a scorned woman’s favorite way of getting even. Combining pleasure with vengeance.”

“That could be,” Schaeffer admitted.

“Have you found any trace of the Volkswagen?” Daly asked.

“Not yet. We have the car on a three-state hot sheet but no one has seen any sign of it since it started down the mountain.”

“Maybe it’s still up there.”

“That’s possible,” Schaeffer said. “The boys from the sheriff’s office and the highway patrol are checking on that now. But it’s a big mountain and with as many cabins as there are in the area and the snow as deep as it is, the search could go on until spring.”

DuBoise asked, “How about the late model pink Cadillac she’s supposed to drive on occasion?”

Schaeffer shook his head. “We haven’t come up with anything on that either. But then the car could be licensed in some other state.” He bit the end from a cigar. “I still don’t get the mechanics of this thing, or how the blonde fits into the picture.”

Daly offered him his lighter. “Just how do you mean, Charlie?”

Schaeffer lighted his cigar and enjoyed it for a moment “All right. Let’s start with this Thelma Banks to whom the Volkswagen is registered. She seems to be somehow, we don’t know how, related to Tommy Banks, the kid who ran the miniature train for Laredo. The barman at the lodge told you, and the Big Bear City police, that she has been entertaining different men almost every weekend since she rented the cabin a year ago. You broke in on one of her parties and she was slut enough to give you a cheap thrill before she pistol-whipped you. We know or are fairly certain she deliberately fired the cabin to keep the local police and us from identifying her. But even accepting Mickey Laredo’s unsubstantiated statement that just before the old roustabout died he told Mickey he’d recognized the clown who shot him as Tommy Banks, we also know that Thelma couldn’t have killed Kelly.”

“We do?”

Schaeffer was impatient with Daly. “Look, Tom. I know you’re beating the drum for the Laredos. But it had to be Paquita Laredo who killed Kelly. According to the lab report, that chloral hydrate was administered orally. And even if Thelma was the blonde who furnished a getaway car for the phony Dr. Alveredo whose chief part in the affair seems to have been to get Quinlan off the lot, Thelma never got within fifty yards of Kelly before he keeled over and died. According to your own witness, she was
waiting
in the car.”