Murder Queen High (4 page)

Anglin froze. Then he hissed, uncertainly, “Who is it? Who’s there?”

Odell kept walking toward him. “You know who it is, Anglin. Just don’t make any funny moves and you’ll be all right for a while. The chief says no obituaries.”

“Odell!”

Anglin whirled, tottered and groped wildly for the door in the alley next to his hand. Odell dropped the bundled burnoose and jumped forward, pistol menacing. Inside, he was laughing again. The jerk was walking right into the Ship of the Desert. Walk into my parlor, said — wait a minute!

Was that the glint of moon on gun metal down at the alley’s end?

Before Anglin could find the handle, the door abruptly swung open, letting a damned-up flood of bluish-white light into the alley. It blinded the startled Odell, but he remembered not to pull the trigger.

Then he could see the groping figure outlined in the doorway. And beyond that squat silhouette, eyes wide and excited, was the amazed face of John Henry Conover.

John Henry thought the alley had exploded. He barely had time enough to recognize the prowler in the doorway when the man was driven violently against him, staggering him. Then he realized all the noise had been a gunshot.

Sin screamed and jumped forward to grab his coat. “Johnny, Johnny, are you all right? Johnny — ”

“Okay, honey.” Automatically, he held up the leather-jacketed body by its armpits. He couldn’t see anything in the gloom. Dying away in the distance, he could hear the sound of footsteps, running.

Barselou brushed past him into the alley. John Henry felt a shudder go through the figure in his arms. Sin was sucking in her breath noisily and staring cloudily at the man.

“Isn’t there something — he’s hurt — ”

Wetness had dyed a somber circle on the back of the leather jacket. The circle spread. The man twisted his head and sighted painfully up at him. He squinted his foggy eyes. They cleared momentarily and recognition showed there. A gasp was born in his throat. John Henry bent over him to catch the words.

“You already got it,” the man choked. “Don’t — ” Tears flooded in agony and then the head lolled helplessly. John Henry straightened, frowning. His wife was frantically clearing pots and pans off a low wooden table, preparatory to using it as a bed for the wounded man.

“Sin,” John Henry said quietly. “Never mind.”

Another heavy pot clanged to the floor. Sin fastened blank eyes on him and Conover shook his head gently.

“Oh, Johnny — ”

“Dead?” Barselou threw the brutal syllable from the doorway where he scanned the body narrowly.

“Think so — or close to it.” Together, the two men eased the flacid form to the linoleum under the fluorescent kitchen lights. John Henry suggested over his shoulder that Sin go out to the dining room, but she stood unmoving by the wooden table, hypnotized by the scene. Barselou’s big hand rested lightly on the man’s sunburned wrist. Then he got up, grunting. John Henry did the same and for the first time saw the silent spectators. The great kitchen was packed with white-shrouded cooks and helpers, robed waiters and, crowding through the swinging doors, was the orchestra, one or two members holding their instruments protectively.

The headwaiter was as white as his Foreign Legion trousers. Barselou lashed at him. “Phone Lieutenant Lay, down at the police station. Get your people out on the floor. We’re still open for business. Musicians, get that music going. Waiters, your place is with the customers. Come on, now — let’s move!”

Under his impact, the becalmed Ship of the Desert creaked, stirred and got under way again. The waiters and musicians faded away and the cooks bobbed their round hats over stoves and assembly tables, with only occasional surreptitious glances at the dead man.

John Henry, his comforting arm around Sin’s shoulders, had turned her away from the morbid view. “There, there, honey. Everything’s all right now.” Her eyes were less shocked but her tan face still picked up some of the green from her dress.

Barselou paced the narrow aisle between table and alley exit, his face uncivilized and angry. He pulled up by the Conovers and his voice was barely controlled thunder. “What do you know about this man?”

John Henry answered him slowly, trying to look surprised. “Nothing. I never saw him before in my life.” He canceled Sin’s astonished objections by squeezing her waist.

“He knew you.”

“I wouldn’t say that. He fell into my arms, that’s all. He didn’t know I was going to open the door.”

Barselou’s colorless eyes blazed at Conover’s innocent expression. He moved his lips a couple of times and then said softly, “All right — you don’t know him.”

“Maybe it was a holdup that went wrong,” John Henry suggested. “Too bad he didn’t get a chance to talk.”

Then Sin protested, “But, honey — he did say something to you!” and Conover’s warning squeeze came too late.

Barselou hunched his wide shoulders forward and his face glowed. “So he said something to you!”

“Well,” said John Henry, “he tried to say something, but he couldn’t quite make it. Too bad, too — it might have cleared the whole thing up.”

“A pity,” agreed Barselou but none of the grim fervor left his expression. “It might have made things easier for everybody.”

“Dead all right,” Lieutenant Lay said and got up from beside the body. Barselou, the Conovers, the cooks behind their now-cool stoves and two tan-uniformed policemen waited for him to work a miracle.

The second in command of the Azure police department stood with his bowed legs apart and scowled at the wall. He was a lanky man in his middle thirties with a horse face and arms too long for his body. He needed a shave.

The scowl swung on John Henry, “Mr. Barselou seems to have the idea that you knew him.” Conover shook his head and kept silent. Sin still leaned against him, but she wasn’t about to be sick any more and her tilted eyes were sharply alive. “Doesn’t matter,” Lay rasped. “He’s not hard to identify. Name’s Anglin.” He kept watching John Henry.

When the scowl began to fade, the young man thought it was safe to ask, “Who was he?”

“Oh, he hung around town a lot. Did lots of jobs. Been lots of different things. Prospected some.” He glanced at the sand that had spilled on the immaculate floor from Anglin’s clothes. “Was a guide once in a while. Used to deal faro over in Las Vegas — or so I heard.”

“Lieutenant — ” Barselou interposed from where he was fiddling with a meat grinder. “Maybe that has something to do with the murder. A man like that is bound to make enemies.”

“Maybe. A grudge killing. Some bozo he’s double-crossed — or cheated at cards. Then again, Mr. Barselou — ” Lay gave a macabre grin “ — this killing’s right up your alley.”

Barselou didn’t smile.

Sin said in a small voice, “Whoever it was, he was pretty persistent.”

“I don’t get you, Mrs. Conover.”

“Well, he was shot in the shoulder too, wasn’t he?”

“Doesn’t mean anything. Most guys with guns can’t shoot worth beans, anyway.”

“What’s Mr. Anglin been doing recently?” John Henry asked.

“Glad to have the visitors take an interest in our crimes,” Lay muttered sarcastically. Then he considered. “Not sure that I know. I can’t keep track of everybody in town. Characters keep blowing back and forth, especially in a glorified tourist camp like this. We didn’t have any reason to keep tabs on Anglin — until now. He might have been prospecting. At least, he hasn’t been in town very often lately.” He knelt by the dead man again.

Barselou gave the meat grinder a whirl. “Just a suggestion, Lieutenant, but a careful search of his clothes — ”

Lay, already rummaging through the dead man’s pockets, didn’t bother to look up and Barselou let his voice trail off. He eased forward to stand near the body watchfully. The black automatic, familiar to the Conovers, came out first, to be placed on the shiny linoleum. A dirty handkerchief, a small compass and a notebook, pocket-size and with all the pages blank, joined the gun on the floor. After a thorough search, the pile also included a few coins, a half-empty pack of cigarettes, a box of pocket matches and wallet. The wallet contained a driver’s license made out to a Homer Anglin, nineteen dollars in currency, a Social Security card and nothing else.

Lay got up and rubbed his knees. Barselou bit his lip and tapped the police officer’s shoulder, drawing him to one side.

Sin sighed. “Do you think we can go now?”

“Shouldn’t be long now,” her husband said offhand. He was trying to read lips across the kitchen.

“Why don’t you ask the lieutenant if it’s okay? I need some fresh air pretty bad.”

Lieutenant Lay came ambling back. “Say, Conover, when you told me your story why didn’t you tell me that Anglin said something to you before he died?”

“He didn’t.”

“Barselou says — ”

John Henry’s temper flared. “Barselou’s got a lot of ideas. Why doesn’t he have one about that waiter of his that started us on the whole thing?”

The police ambulance clanged outside in the alley, its siren dying to a groan. John Henry guessed the expression on Lay’s ugly face was supposed to pass as a grin. At least, after the noise had died down, Lay said, “Oh, we all have ideas.” And he let that Conovers go.

As they walked down the alley, John Henry said, “Whew!”

Sin slid her hand under his arm and agreed. “Was that the adventure you wanted with your dinner?”

“No,” he admitted morosely. “I didn’t want to see anybody get hurt. It never seems that bad in stories. When people in stories stumble into a murder, they always come up with a clue.”

Sin moved closer to him and nodded silently.

“Darn!” said John Henry.

“What’s the trouble, honey?”

“Tripped.”

He kicked some soft trash aside and they walked on. Behind them, they could hear a loaded stretcher scrape into the ambulance.

The soft trash was an Arab burnoose. Lieutenant Lay didn’t find it, either.

THEY TURNED into the palm-guarded cement walk that wound up to the hotel’s front entrance. A rainbow of floodlights, carefully concealed in the shrubbery, bathed the area in carnival hues and threw grotesque shadows across their path.

A lizard scuttled suddenly away from their footsteps. Sin suppressed a shriek, doing her best not to let their unexpected Saturday night get her down.

John Henry pursed his mouth. “If we only had some idea what that Barselou is up to — ”

“It’s nothing that concerns us, Johnny. We don’t know he’s up to anything. I mean, it wasn’t his fault that poor fellow got shot in his alley.”

“Look at it this way, Sin. We get that funny queen card in his restaurant and it’s delivered to us by a waiter in one of Barselou’s costumes. We go up to his office, which is probably just what he wanted. As soon as we’re there, you remark that we’re tired from our trip and Barselou says it’s a long drive from San Diego.”

“Oh,” said Sin softly.

“Right. How did he know we were from San Diego? We weren’t carrying avocados or anything.”

“Johnny, he’s been checking up on us!”

“Sure, and why? We’re just two more people.”

“He must think we’re somebody else.”

John Henry nodded emphatically. “That’s the connection. Barselou thinks we’re somebody else. Anglin thought we were somebody else. And Anglin gets murdered at Barselou’s back door. It ties up to me.”

They started up the front steps of the Las Dunas and he realized they were practically running. They slowed to a sedate, unworried pace and pushed through the glass doors.

The lobby was bright and quiet and deserted. There was a youth behind the registration desk who gave them an overdone smile and good evening as they hurried by.

“You have the key?” Sin asked.

John Henry felt its plastic arrowhead in his trousers pocket. “Uh-huh. Surprised?”

“After everything else, I sort of expected your pocket had been picked. Johnny, who
are
we?”

He could feel his wife relaxing and he grinned. “The Conovers, returning from a festive evening with the police.”

The sunken patio was drenched in soft amber light. Scattered guests lounged at the metal tables under gaily-striped umbrellas. White-jacketed waiters, carrying drinks on silver trays, scurried to and fro. The amber light made the drinks seem twice as potent.

A wide cement veranda ran down the north side of the patio. More of the umbrella tables were here, and broad doorways opened into the Oasis Room. The even percussion of a dance orchestra floated out into the garden, over a current of laughter, the hum of conversation and the clink of ice in glasses. The dancers were shadow people, dimly seen from the patio.

The pasteboard queen and the bloodstained leather jacket had no place in this holiday setting.

Their path curved gradually up the canyon of cottages. Darkness sneaked in on the two of them again. Most of the cottages were still unlighted. A few porch lamps beamed down coldly, reflecting from the white stucco. Somewhere up on the nearest hill, a coyote howled.

“I’m glad you left our porch light on,” Sin said suddenly.

“Always thinking ahead, that’s — ”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, honey.” John Henry could have sworn that he turned the porch light off last thing before they left. But there it was, clearly illuminating the black iron 15 on the white stucco. He glanced up and down the row of silent cottages. The canyon was devoid of life except for the Conovers and the crickets. Even the distant orchestra had taken an intermission. Then he laughed at his abrupt ideas of ambush and they stepped up onto the porch.

“What are you laughing at?”

He fumbled the key out of his pocket. “Nothing, Sin.”

“Johnny! What are you laughing at?”

John Henry punched the key into the lock. Then he withdrew it and said, “I’m not laughing.”

“Then why aren’t you? You were.”

He looked down at the lock. “I could swear I locked it when we …” He let his voice trail off as he tried the handle. It worked smoothly and the door swung away from them into the blackness of the cottage. “Guess I forgot that too,” he said sheepishly and patted around for the light switch on the inside wall. The front room came into brilliant being.

Sin’s scream was short and piercing. John Henry jumped and swore automatically. Sin was wrapped around his arm, pressing her body half behind him, her eyelashes fluttering in fright.

A girl was sitting in the big chair that faced the door. Her round eyes were ponds of friendly curiosity. Under them, softly prominent cheekbones slanted into a tiptilted nose. She was young, with a lily-smooth face and black hair swept up over small ears and an ivory-tinted neck. Trim legs were doubled up under her and one porcelain fist rubbed back and forth against her round slight chin.

“What the hell,” said John Henry, “are you doing here?”

“Yes,” said Sin definitely.

The girl didn’t get up. She had a small sultry mouth that seemed about to laugh and squeal. “Ooh!” at the same time. It curved a little more and said, “You’re trying to scare me. Somebody told you I like to be scared.”

The Conovers looked at each other. Nobody was making faces or anything. John Henry said, “Well, that doesn’t answer much of my question, Miss — ”

The girl kept smiling, half-veiling the bright eyes. Her voice came caressingly from way down in her throat. “I’m so glad you came to call. I need building up.”

Sin said flatly, “We live here.”

The girl answered, “I live here.”

“That’s not true.”

The girl shook her sleek black head slowly.

“Now, look here,” John Henry began, then stopped. He pushed around Sin to the porch and looked at the cottage number. Yes, it was 15, all right. His lips clamped in determined lines and he marched back into the house, shutting the door firmly behind him. “Now, look here,” he began again.

“Tell her, Johnny.” Sin nudged him. “Tell her that we’re registered here.”

“That’s right. We’re registered here, Miss — ” The girl stopped rubbing her chin. With the ball of her thumb, she polished at one long fingernail, and her face saddened. “I’m sorry this is all a mistake. It started out like such fun. I was registered for this cottage less than an hour ago. Mr. Gayner was quite definite about the number.”

John Henry regarded her with grim disbelief. The brunette uncoiled her legs lazily and stretched, her open-toed sandals kicking playfully at the crease of his trousers. Sin whispered, “Johnny, don’t just stand there! “John Henry took recourse in reason.

“Yes, I guess a mistake has been made, all right. They’ve accidentally put you into the wrong cottage. We’ve been living here ever since early this evening, Miss — ” He rammed a fist into his palm. “I’ll show you!”

This could be proved easily. He strode into the bedroom. Their clothes, which he had unpacked himself, were in the closet. That should convince the girl that she was in the wrong place. The girl had unfolded her graceful body — she wore lounging pajamas of some dark fuzzy material — and followed him into the bedroom. Sin brought up the rear. “Now, take a look at this!” John Henry threw open the closet door.

“Do you think they suit me?” the girl asked him seriously.

Sin said, “Oh, honey …” John Henry got confused. The closet was stuffed with clothes, but they were the wrong clothes — slinky dresses, evening gowns, dressing gowns, everything feminine. Nothing was Sin’s, much less her husband’s.

The girl leaned near him, looking at the negligees, and he breathed in her musky perfume. She pulled out a hanger with a black robe which, except for collar and cuffs of jaguar fur, was completely transparent. She held it up and looked at John Henry through it with purple eyes frank enough to make him glance hastily at Sin. “I found this in Mexico City. Would you say it was too extreme? I can take awfully extreme things.”

Confounded, John Henry backed up and sat down abruptly on the bed. “I can’t understand it,” he said heavily. “This is our cottage. I know it is.”

“We were registered for this one. We dressed here. Johnny took a bath in that bathroom,” Sin stated, pointing the way with a dramatic forefinger.

“So did I.” John Henry wished the girl hadn’t said it just like that. Then she smiled demurely at his wife. “You must have mistaken the number this evening. It’s easy to do when you can’t see in the dark.”

Sin folded her arms. John Henry recognized the battle flags going up and he got off the bed. “I,” she announced, “am going to stay right here. This is our cottage.”

“Well, there’s no use being unreasonable about it — any of us,” John Henry interposed. “Obviously, somebody — ” he glanced at the girl, who was holding the robe to her shoulders “ — has made a big mistake. Suppose I get Mr. Gayner. He ought to be able to straighten the whole thing out in a jiffy.”

“And we can have our cottage to ourselves,” Sin added for her own satisfaction.

The girl put the jaguar-fur garment back in the closet. “Good. Bring Mr. Gayner down and we’ll talk till bed time.”

“Well,” John Henry said, “then I’ll go get Mr. Gayner.” He had to brush past the black-haired girl as he moved around he bed. The perfume was as heavy as before. “I’ll be right back, Sin.”

“Wait, Johnny!” Sin scampered after him into the living room. “I don’t want to be left alone here.”

“Okay.”

“And if you think I’m going by myself, you’re crazy.”

“Okay.” He took her hand.

The girl came in from the bedroom, clicking off the light. She straightened her lounging pajamas and coiled gracefully into her chair again. “I hope you’ll all come back. And will you shut off the lights as you go?”

John Henry blinked. “Huh?”

“Shut off all the lights, please. Thanks.” A flick of the switch and the room was pitch black. John Henry, looking back, imagined he could see her round eyes shining affectionately at him. “And shut the door, please, too — I like to sit alone in the dark.”

“Sure,” said John Henry hollowly. “Sure.” He pulled the blue door shut after him and hurried Sin along the path toward the friendly brightness of the hotel.

“I wouldn’t have had it happen for the world.” Mr. Gayner was prostrated.

“Okay, I understand that,” John Henry said. He stood behind his wife’s chair, gripping the uprights. Sin sat there fidgeting angrily.

The assistant manager leaned his gaunt body back in his swivel chair and clasped his hands. He seemed about to suggest a choice of low-priced caskets. “Faye Jordan is,” he mourned, “a child of whim. Whim and wealth are an uncomfortable combination. Cottage 14 has been held open for a week, pending her arrival — she paid the rental all that time, of course. When she arrived this evening, I naturally moved her into Cottage 14 — which she had specified in her telegram. A short time ago we discovered a mistake had been made in her telegram. Instead, she desired Cottage 15.”

“Of all the silly things!” Sin exploded. “What difference does it make if it’s one cabin or another. They’re all the same, aren’t they?”

Gayner shrugged. “Exactly the same, Mrs. Conover. Believe me, I emphasized that to Miss Jordan, but nothing would do but that she have Cottage 15. To make a long story short — ”

“You moved our things out,” John Henry said.

“Just next door,” Gayner soothed. “You’re now in Cottage 14. I realize and regret the embarrassment which this whole business has caused. I had expected to be on the desk when you returned. That way I could have prevented this unfortunate episode.”

“Well, frankly,” said Sin, “this isn’t the sort of thing I’d expect at a hotel with the Las Dunas’ reputation.”

The hotel man sorrowfully scratched his long nose. “These things happen in any catering business, madam. We consider ourselves fortunate when one of the parties concerned is reasonable. I thank you for that. Of course, I did my best in your absence — I secured permission to move your baggage between the cottages.”

John Henry swallowed with difficulty. “Permission! Who gave you permission?”

“Your representative here. The tooth-paste fellow. Mr. Trim.”

John Henry stopped pacing around in Cottage 14 and plopped down on the bed beside Sin. “I know how you feel, honey.” She was lying across it, fully dressed, and he stroked her hair gently.

“I’d rather we planned our own evenings. When everything happens at once, I get confused. When I get confused, I get scared. What’s so special about Cottage 15, anyway?”

“Beats me.”

“That Jordan girl’s crazy.”

“Sure. Just don’t worry, cutie.” There were two light taps on the living-room door. “There’s our boy now.”

He was right. Mr. Trim stood blinking on the porch, brown eyes as limpid as ever. His small mouth and bald head reminded John Henry of an underfed Humpty Dumpty.

“Come in, Mr. Trim,” Conover greeted him. “My wife wanted to see you.”

The tooth-paste man sidled in apprehensively, turning his flat straw hat around and around with nervous fingers. He obeyed John Henry’s injunction to sit and revolved the hat until Sin padded in from the bedroom, stocking-footed, when he sprang up again. “I hope you’ll forgive this intrusion,” Trim rattled in his high precise voice.

“We called you,” clarified Sin. She folded her arms.

“I know,” the little fellow confessed miserably, “you haven’t been having a good time. That’s why the Company sent me here. And I’ve failed.” John Henry shifted his feet, hoping Mr. Trim wouldn’t break down. “First of all, I’m awfully sorry the misunderstanding arose — ”

“We are, too,” said Sin, unswerving.

“Oh.” This wasn’t the answer Trim had expected, but he recovered. “I tried high and low to find you when Mr. Gayner come to me earlier with the problem. But you had gone somewhere.”

“Thinking,” the hardening John Henry put in, “that our personal property would be safe while we were gone.”

“Mr. Gayner was so wrought up — I couldn’t refuse — ” The wizened representative scrutinized the inside of his hat as if he had notes there. “It’s my fault. I didn’t realize a different cottage would actually make any difference to you. It must have been quite a shock to find your clothes gone and — ”