Murder Comes First (7 page)

“The murderer?” Pam North said. “But what would be the point?”

Bill didn't know. He said so. Then he made up his mind and took the Norths back down to the living room below.

“Mr. Sandford,” he said, “Mr. and Mrs. North passed you as you were coming here. They think you were being followed.”

Barton Sandford looked at them blankly.

“Followed?” he repeated. “What the hell for?” He shook his head. “No reason to follow me,” he told them.

“Your wife,” Bill said, “might conceivably have hired private detectives. For obvious reasons.”

“That's impossible,” Sandford said, flatly. “Sally couldn't—do anything like that. I told you, it hadn't come to that, anyway. Not by miles.”

Bill asked him if he had anything else to suggest.

“Sure,” Sandford said. “Your friends here dreamed it. Somebody happened along after me, maybe. There are a lot of people in New York. Who'd follow me? What would be the point?”

“You can't think of any?”

“Look,” Sandford said. “I'm a biochemist. Nobody important. Sure, my wife's aunt has been murdered. And my wife's off somewhere making up her mind about something. What's in any of that to make some guy follow me?” He looked again at the Norths. “They dreamed it up,” he said.

“Right,” Bill said. “They dreamed it up. But, I never knew them to before.”

“We—” Pam began, with some firmness, but Bill moved fingers at her and she stopped.

“All right, Mr. Sandford,” Bill said. “That's all for now. You're going back to your place?”

He was going to eat, Sandford said. Then, probably, he would go back to his apartment.

“Damn it,” he said, “I'd like to help on this.”

He hesitated, uncertainly, as if half expecting to be asked to stay and help. But he was told only that, when there was a way he could help, he would be asked to. He left, then. A detective from the precinct, briefed by Mullins, drifted after him, keeping an eye out for any other drifter.

It was, Bill Weigand said, as good a time as any to get something to eat. When Mrs. Hickey showed up, she was to be asked to wait. With the Norths, Bill Weigand went to a restaurant they had recently discovered on Central Park South, where martinis were crisply cold and filet mignon was thinly sliced and tender beyond anything which seemed likely; where service was rapid, if you wanted it so.

When they had finished, stood outside in the dim, warm night, Bill hesitated, and the Norths waited.

“You may as well come back with me,” Bill said, then. “After all, Pam's aunt—”

It was as good a reason as came to mind, since policemen do not overtly solicit the aid of observant amateur eyes.

“And,” Bill said, “the inspector won't be there.”

“That's something,” Jerry said, and the three went back.

4

Monday, 12:05
P.M.
to 3:15
P.M.

Monday was warm again, and bright, but at a few minutes after noon Pamela North had thought of nothing to do about it. Mondays were unimportant days, and might as well be rainy. Jerry was always early at his office on Mondays, starting a new week with a new rush and a brisker than normal determination. It always interested Pam North to notice that by Fridays, and sometimes even by Thursdays, the need for prompt arrival, for going at things with a will, apparently had lessened. Possibly, she sometimes thought, authors boiled up on Mondays; just as possibly, only publishers did—or perhaps only Gerald North, who on Mondays was almost entirely North Books, Inc.

Pam sat in her living room, listening to the faint sound of Martha's progression through the rest of the apartment, and tried to read the
Herald Tribune
. She had read first the account of the murder of Mrs. Grace Logan, which seemed accurate except that the name Whitsett was spelled with two “t's” in the second paragraph and, compensatorily, with four “t's” in the fifth. From this, Pam had gone on to what seemed like the murder of the world and then, in the hope of consolation, to Walter Lippmann. This was one of the days, she noticed, on which he wrote as if he ought to be President. (He had his vice-presidential days and even, sometimes, his merely senatorial ones.)

“He ought to be President,” Pam told Martini, who was stretched up Pamela, a furry paw soft against Pamela's neck. “Either he or, come down to it, Jerry. Would you like to be a presidential cat? Live in the White House?”

Martini shook the end of her dark brown tail from side to side, and Pam said she probably was right. “Of course,” she added, “before they fixed it up, it ought to have been a good place for mice.” To this, Martini made no comment, beyond faintly purring. She was an introverted purrer, merely vibrating within. Gin purred for the world to hear. Pam, with the arm allowed her by the one they called Cat Major, tried to turn the
Herald Tribune
inside out to reach the editorial page, upon which she often read the letters to the editor, although rarely the editorial articles. But this caused Martini to move uneasily, and to quit purring and to open reproachful blue eyes, so Pam abandoned it. One should, Pam felt, try to preserve a sense of proportion. She managed, without moving too much, to reach a cigarette and get it lighted. She blew the smoke carefully over the top of Martini's head. She thought of murder.

There seemed, in connection with this one, either too little to go on or too much. A missing niece, who probably had nothing to do with it; a grief-stricken young man loosed tragically, almost surgically, from a safe dependence; a biochemist with wide-spaced eyes and open face and a tendency to flush readily; a man who was, for reasons not apparent, following the biochemist from place to place; a slim, decisive, pretty girl named Lynn and her mother, no longer slim and perhaps never decisive, yet in appearance oddly like her daughter. And, of course, Pamela's three aunts.

She wondered briefly whether to try to reach the aunts on the telephone, and decided not yet to disturb Martini.

“After all,” she told the cat, who now was asleep again, “after all, they've gone to Wanamaker's. It always takes ages.”

Then she smiled, remembering Aunt Thelma's remark when, at a few minutes after nine, just after Jerry's resolute departure, they had talked together on the telephone. Pam had suggested lunch.

“We're going to Wanamaker's,” Aunt Thelma had told her, firmly. “If we can't go to Florida until tomorrow, we can at least go to Wanamaker's.” She had then suggested that Pam might like to go along.

Pam had felt duty closing in a little inexorably, and wriggled free.

“It's because it's twins, I guess,” Pam said. “But I always get lost and never find anything.”

To this Aunt Thelma had said merely “Oh?” at first and then, in a puzzled tone, “I'm sorry, Pamela. The connection—”

“Twin buildings,” Pam said. “Siamese, really, because of the bridge. Anyway, I have to wait for the maid.”

Pam then suggested dinner and duty, having got her unexpectedly by the throat, chuckled evilly. Aunt Thelma had said that that would be nice, unless they were too tired. She had asked Pam to call later. Now, Pam decided, was not enough later.

She wondered what Bill was doing, and what he had made of Lynn Hickey and her mother, except for the obvious—that Lynn and Paul Logan were in love, the girl, under the strain of what had happened, rather irritable in her love. Probably, Pam thought, Lynn was often irritated with the boy—with his gentleness, with what was perhaps uncertainty and perhaps an inner lack of decision, with what clearly was, at least in obvious matters, a lack of self-confidence. Well, Pam thought, the girl is young; she'll have to learn about men, if she's going to marry one of them.

“Dear Jerry,” Pam said aloud to Martini. “All the same, I'm glad he's not, or not very, anyway. No more than the right amount.”

Martini, as far as Pam could determine, understood this aside perfectly. At least, she flicked the end of her tail in sleepy comradeship.

You had only to see Lynn and Paul Logan together to know how it was with them, Pam thought. They had been together in the room when Bill and the Norths returned and so conscious of each other that the most casual enterer of the room became conscious of their consciousness. But they had been apart, apparently because Mrs. Hickey was there—a plump woman, no taller than her five-foot daughter, gray-haired, obviously worried. And, in the end, adamant.

It was true, she had admitted, that she and Grace Logan had had a disagreement, as a result of which she had decided to leave the Logan house and move in with her daughter. But the disagreement had been, for all that, a trivial thing.

“It didn't basically change the way I felt about Grace,” Rose Hickey said. “Or, I think, the way she felt about me. And it was entirely personal, Lieutenant.”

And there she had stuck. It had had nothing to do with anything which concerned the police; nothing, remotely, to do with what had happened. Bill Weigand was patient with her; patient, afterward, with her daughter.

“I don't know what it was,” Lynn Hickey had said, her voice crisp. “If I knew, I'd tell you. She won't tell me.”

“Nothing,” Rose Hickey said. “A trivial thing. It would all—all have been straightened out if—if—” She stopped and her eyes filled with tears.

Beyond that there had been nothing. Rose Hickey had not known of anyone who had had, with Grace Logan, a disagreement not trivial—a disagreement vital enough to lead to cyanide. She, like any number of others, could have placed the poison in the medicine bottle. She had not. Lynn had been at the Logan house, to see her mother—and Mrs. Logan too—several times during the two previous weeks. For all she could remember, she might have been in the bathroom. She recorded denial of murder in a clear, quick voice.

Mrs. Hickey, when Bill shifted from the impasse, had known that Grace Logan was worried about her niece, Sally. But the worry had never been lengthily discussed; Rose Hickey denied knowing why Grace, although the girl wrote her regularly, still was worried about her.

“Of course,” she said, “she may merely have wanted to straighten things out. Not actually been worried. She—Grace hated misunderstandings, and she was fond of Barton too.”

Rose Hickey had not known that Mrs. Logan had sent her son to St. Louis. She had accepted the story that he was with friends in Maryland.

“You?” Bill had asked Lynn.

“I knew where he was,” Lynn had said, and then her mother had said, “Why Lynn!” in a tone which had seemed that of surprise.

And with that, unexpectedly, Bill had ended it for the evening—ended the part, at least, about which Pam knew. The Norths had gone out of the Logan house with Bill, leaving the Hickeys there with Paul, and the Norths had gone home. Bill, probably, had not. Pam wondered what he had done.

The telephone rang then and Pam jumped. So, indignantly, did Martini. The cat landed four feet away and her tail magically enlarged. Then she spoke nastily to Pam and went out of the room.

But Gin, who had been out of the room, now dashed into it, rushing to the telephone, talking with the quick emphasis of an aroused Siamese cat. Sherry loped after her sister, moving slightly sidewise; doing what Pam always thought of as overtaking herself. She sat down to observe Gin, who stood by the telephone and spoke to it angrily; turned to Pamela and spoke sharply.

“I don't think it's for you, Gin,” Pam told the animated little cat, and Gin said “Yow-AH!” in a tone apparently of disagreement. “Unless you were expecting a call,” Pam told the junior seal point, and herself picked up the receiver. Gin leaped to the table to help, rubbing against the receiver in Pam's hand, speaking into it. Over this, Pam North said “Hello?”

“Mrs. North?” a man's unknown voice said, and Pam admitted it. “This is Barton Sandford,” the voice said. “Mrs. Logan's nephew.”

Pam said, “Oh” and then, after a second, “Yes, Mr. Sandford?”

Sandford said that this was an imposition and Pam said, conventionally, “Not at all,” not knowing whether it was or not.

“It's about that man you saw following me,” Sandford said. “It's got me worried. I thought—I wondered if I could talk to you about it?”

“Well,” Pam said, “I don't know anything, Mr. Sandford. Nothing more than that a man was.”

“I know,” Sandford said. “I realize that. But—sometimes things come back to people. You know what I mean? I thought if we talked about it there might—well, there might be something that would help you remember more than you realize you do.” He paused. “Frankly,” he said, “it's got me worried.” He sounded worried.

Pam thought it would do no good. She said so.

“Maybe not,” Sandford said. “Still, I'd appreciate it. Could you possibly have lunch with me somewhere?” He paused. “I realize it's a good deal to ask,” he said.

“Oh, as for that,” Pam said. “Not at all. Only—”

“You will?”

Pam hesitated a moment, thought “Why not?”, her interest aroused. After all, she told herself, they are my aunts and realized she had spoken aloud only when Sandford said, “Sorry?”

“All right,” Pam said.

“Fine,” he said. “I know a little place in the East Fifties I think you'll like. Unless you've got—?”

“Of course,” Pam said. “Wherever you like, Mr. Sandford.”

He named the little place, and Pam had not heard the name; he gave the address and they agreed on one o'clock.

“Or a little after,” Pam said.

“Yah-OW!” Gin said, this time directly into the receiver.

“One of the cats,” Pam said. “Please, Gin!”

She was told it was good of her, and was appreciated; said “Oh, not at all,” which seemed the only thing to say. As a matter of fact, she added, replacing the receiver, absently scratching Gin behind the ears, it is good of me. Damn good of me. Then she called the aunts again. Wanamaker's apparently had engulfed them. Pam showered and dressed and called Jerry, who apparently had been engulfed by an author and was probably in the Little Bar at the Ritz. “Engulfing,” Pam thought, had her customary struggle at the apartment door with three cats, all of whom wanted to go too, reopened the door to tell Martha to be sure not to let them out when she went, herself lost Martini in the process, cornered her at the far end of the corridor, put her back in—almost losing Gin—and finally went down and found herself a cab.