Take my face (8 page)

"Why no, I guess not. Where will you be if we need you?"

"In San Giorgio. You have my home address."

"Very well, Mr. Pendry. We'll call you if we need you."

When Carr arrived in San Giorgio the Herald-Republican had already headlined the news:

LOCAL GIRL FALLS VICTIM TO MUTILATION MURDERER

Carr's mother was in bed under sedatives; his father was dangerously taut. Carr told the whole story again. "You probably don't remember him. He never ran with our crowd."

"Struve," said Pendry, a thin man with silky gray-blond hair and a dapper mustache. "Robert Struve. I can't place him."

"He's the kid that wrecked my motor-scooter, remember?"

"Oh, yes . . ."

The Herald-Republican got news of the arrest before the Pendrys. Carr read the story with amazement. "They've taken her husband. They've arrested Bavonette!"

"Bavonette!" said his father. "But you said . . ."

"There's been a terrible mistake," Carr muttered. "I talked to George myself down at the night club."

Pelton Pendry frowned dubiously. "They wouldn't move unless they were pretty certain."

"I know those cops," said Carr viciously. "They grab whoever looks easiest and call it a case. They probably just don't know where to find Struve." Carr rose to his feet. "I'm going down there."

"Maybe I'd better come, too," said Pelton Pendry.

Lieutenant Spargill greeted them with courtesy. "There's no question about it," he told them. "Bavonette did the killing."

"But I saw him myself!" cried Carr. "I talked to him in the Kalmyra Club."

"Yes, but how long after you'd left your sister?"

"Oh—" Carr blinked and fell suddenly quiet.

"Well?"

"I guess it was a couple hours," said Carr. "Around eleven-thirty."

Spargill nodded. "There you are."

"But surely—when he's playing in a night club he can't get away without someone notic-ing!

"From nine forty-five till almost ten minutes after ten, the band took an intermission. He had all the time he needed."

"That still doesn't prove anything. Dean was afraid of this Robert Struve! He'd threatened her! He was—"

Lieutenant Spargill interrupted: "George Ba-vonette was known to be insanely jealous. Dean was known—well—begging your pardon—well, she was a pretty friendly girl. On more than one occasion they quarreled."

"Yes, but—"

"Then, there's evidence which we haven't released to the papers. In strict confidence—we've found the murder weapon and a pair of rubber gloves. They were in a paper bag in the garbage pail behind the Kalmyra Club."

"Couldn't it be a plant?" asked Carr in a subdued voice.

"We'll check every angle," said Spargill. "But I'm sure we've got our man. These things fall into a pattern."

A quiet funeral was held the next day, and Dean Pendry was laid to rest in the family plot.

There was a follow-up on the murder story in the Herald-Republican. George Bavonette had confessed to the killing.

Carr Pendry hurled the paper to the floor. "This thing is a frame-up!"

"He admits it, doesn't he?" his mother inquired. "He wouldn't say he did it if he hadn't done it." Her eyes were inflamed, but after five days she was able to speak without lapsing into tears.

"You don't know these cops," said Carr. "Ba-vonette is unstable. He'd confess anything if they kept after him long enough. I'm going down and talk to the guy myself."

He had no difficulty about seeing Bavonette, who came up to the netting with a face like a gaunt marble mask.

"Hello," said Carr, trying to keep his voice from shaking. After all, this might be the guilty man.

"You remember me?" asked Carr. "I'm Dean's brother."

"Yeah," said George. "I place you now."

Carr delivered the speech he had rehearsed. "I read in the newspaper that you had confessed."

George sat looking at Carr.

Carr said, "But we're not convinced you're the guilty man."

George said nothing.

"Well," Carr asked sharply, "did you do it?"

"So they say."

"Did they force a confession out of you?"

"I didn't sing out of joy."

"Do you have a lawyer?"

"What good's a lawyer? They got me cold."

Carr nodded. "You don't want to give up hope. Plead not guilty. Say they forced the confession out of you. I know who really did the killing."

George showed a flicker of interest. "You do, do you? What are you going to do about it?"

"All I can. But I'd like some help from you."

"I can't give you any help. They got me here in the clink. You can see that for yourself."

"I mean information."

"I don't know nothing."

Carr assured him his interests would be safeguarded, and departed. He telephoned Cathy, then drove to the Delta Rho Beta house.

"Let's go out where we can talk," he suggested.

"We can talk here," said Cathy. "I've got two books to read before tomorrow."

Carr said testily, "Sometimes I'd like to find you without twenty other things to do."

"Oh, calm down, Carr," said Cathy soothingly. "It doesn't make any difference, really."

"Oh, no?" She was wearing blue jeans and a yellow sweater. He ran his eyes up her body, and she moved uncomfortably.

"Oh, stop it, Carr." She settled into the corner

of a couch, one leg under her. "We all feel terrible about Dean."

Carr nodded with a kind of determined belligerence. "Whoever did it—he's not going to get away with it."

Cathy was surprised. " 'Whoever' did it? George did it!"

Carr shrugged. "I'm not so sure. I just saw him."

"What did he say? Does he say he didn't do it?"

"Well, not in so many words. But I saw Dean, you know—I guess it wasn't an hour before she was killed."

Julie came into the room. "Hello, Carr."

Cathy made room for her on the couch. "We're talking about Dean."

"Oh." Julie sat down. "What's new?"

"I'm not so sure that George did it," said Carr.

"Why?"

"Dean told me something, only about an hour before she—before it happened. Did you know that she was having a love affair?"

Julie shrugged. "Dean was always in love with four different men."

"Well, you'd never guess who her boy friend was."

"Who?"

"Robert Struve."

"You mean— our Robert Struve? From San Giorgio?"

"That's right."

"But—"

"She didn't recognize him—his face was fixed. Plastic surgery, I suppose. And he was going by a different name. She told me that he threatened her, said he had a compulsion."

"Compulsion to do what?"

"To do what he did do, I suppose."

Cathy said, "Did you tell the police?"

"Sure I told the police. Then they picked up George, and bulldozed him into a confession."

"And now he says he didn't do it?"

"He doesn't say much of anything."

Julie said dubiously, "They must be pretty sure, Carr. They wouldn't arrest George unless they know."

"My dear young woman," said Carr loftily, "cops are people!"

"That's what I mean," said Julie.

"All that aside," said Carr. "Just on the chance I'm right, and Struve is a madman—just watch your step."

Julie said, "He wouldn't have any reason to bother us."

"He didn't have any reason to bother Dean. And all he did was slice up her face till there wasn't any left!"

CHAPTER VIII

George Bavonette was tried for the murder of Dean Pendry Bavonette, and the issue was never in doubt. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury barely left the box before returning with the verdict: guilty as charged.

The judge sentenced George Bavonette to death in the gas chamber, and Bavonette listened with a drooping mouth, his fingers drumming an eccentric rhythm on the oak rail.

Carr Pendry had an angry interview with the lawyer. "That was no defense at all—'by reason of insanity'! You should have pleaded 'not guilty' and fought it right down the line!"

The lawyer shook his head with cool courtesy. "There wasn't a chance, Mr. Pendry. You're not reckoning with the weight of the evidence against Bavonette. The best we could hope for was insanity. It was clearly the work of an unbalanced mind."

"I agree," snapped Carr. "But why not pin it on the real murderer?"

"How can you be so sure Bavonette is innocent? There's not a whit of evidence that he didn't do it."

"I'm going by what my sister told me."

"That's proof of nothing."

Two weeks earlier, Joe Treddick had told Julie that next Saturday he was driving down to Monterey, and asked if she'd like to come.

"Sure," said Julie. "So long as I get back by six or seven. It's the Inter-fraternity Ball and I've got a date. What's going on in Monterey?"

"I've got to get a job for the summer. A friend of mine—an old shipmate—has a fishing boat. I might as well catch fish as anything else."

They were drinking coffee in Jack's Restaurant outside of Sather Gate. Julie, looking out the window, raised her hand to a tall dark-haired young man with an arrogant high-bridged nose, deep-set black eyes, walking south on Telegraph.

"That's Tex Hanna," said Julie. "Kappa Alpha. My date for the Inter-fraternity Ball." She watched Joe like a kitten gauging the reaction of a cricket it had just patted. Joe looked after Tex Hanna, then back at Julie.

"Nice-looking fellow."

Julie drank her coffee. Joe's reactions were

never predictable, though he was probably no older than Tex; certainly not as old as Carr.

Joe relaxed, watching her with an air of quiet appraisal that made Julie feel pleasantly self-conscious.

At eight o'clock Saturday morning Joe parked his weathered blue Plymouth sedan in front of the Delta Rho Beta house and Julie came running down the walk. She was wearing a dark blue pull-over, a faded-blue denim skirt.

"You're prompt," Julie told him as she got into the car.

"So are you."

"Oh, I've got all kinds of virtues."

They drove south with the sun phosphorescing through a high mist that swirled in across the bay from San Francisco. At San Jose the mist was gone and the sun was yellow. At Monterey a wind blew in off the Pacific from the direction of Hawaii, twisting the black cypress, flecking the face of the ocean with whitecaps.

Joe parked in front of Fisherman's Wharf; they got out, walked down the pier. Below them, the white and blue fishing boats heaved and moaned at the moorings. The air smelt of tar and fish; infinitesimal drops of salt water blew in their faces. Joe stopped halfway down the pier, frowned at a small dirty gray trawler. He pulled a letter from his pocket, checked the number of the berth.

"This is the right place, but the wrong boat," said Joe.

A curly-haired Italian came up out of the gray trawler with a bucket of bilge water.

"Hey," Joe called down. "Where's the Con-suelal"

"She's gone. Two weeks ago. I think San Diego."

"Thanks."

Joe and Julie walked back down the pier. Julie took his arm.

"That's too bad, Joe."

"It was just an offchance." He looked at his watch. "Eleven-thirty. How about some lunch?"

"I'm hungry."

They had clam chowder and fried fish in a restaurant at the head of the wharf. Joe seemed restless and tense. Julie was puzzled. It hardly seemed likely that missing the fishing boat would upset him.

After lunch they walked down along the waterfront, the sea gulls wheeling and crying overhead, the wind blowing in their faces, and stood looking out across the ocean.

Joe picked up a rock, tossed it out into the surf. He laughed. "I get restless around salt water."

"Oh," said Julie. "Is that why you're so moody!"

"I suppose so . . . Look." He pointed to a sailboat moored to a buoy. "A Tahiti ketch. We could go anywhere in the world in that."

" 'We'?" Julie tugged at his arm. "You haven't even proposed yet."

"Boats run into money. That ketch would come to five or six thousand dollars. Another thousand to fit it out. A couple thousand to live on . . ."

"We'll start saving," said Julie. "I spend all sorts of money on Cokes and lipstick."

"I could cut out eating," said Joe.

They started back to Berkeley, neither one saying much, and at four-thirty arrived at the Delta Rho Beta house. The afternoon was crisp and overcast; young men and women were hurrying along the street.

"I won't ask you in," said Julie. "The house'll be in an uproar."

"Have fun," said Joe.

Julie felt vaguely guilty. The Inter-fraternity Ball would be rich with glamour, glitter, smooth music. Julie wanted to ask Joe where he was going tonight, what he would be doing, but couldn't.

She squeezed his hand. "I had a lovely time, Joe, even though you didn't get a job."

"Who wants to work?" said Joe. "Well, so long."

" 'Bye, Joe."

She watched him drive down the street, then turned and went in the house.

The Inter-fraternity Ball was a great success, and so was Julie. She wore a new formal of gray and white striped cotton. Tex Hanna brought her a cluster of white orchids, which she wore in her hair. At one-thirty the orchestra played Goodnight Sweetheart; the musicians packed their instruments; the lights dimmed; the young men in tuxedos eddied out into the lobby with the girls in formals.

Tex Hanna and Julie met Cathy and her date, Tom Shaw, at Foster's for coffee and doughnuts; then they drove back across the bridge for the two-thirty lockout.

Tex came up to the porch with Julie, kissed her good night.

Julie said, "I had a wonderful time, Tex," which she had, and stepped inside.

She paused in the downstairs hall. She was excited, stimulated by the music and dancing and highballs, and by the idea that she'd had for the last two hours. She looked at the grandfather's clock. 2:12. Eighteen minutes to lock out. The idea just wouldn't keep. She opened the door. No one was in sight.

She ran down the walk to her car and drove to Barrington Hall. Here she paused uncertainly, looking up at the five-storied mass of concrete.

She couldn't very well go to the door. If she knew Joe's window, she might be able to throw gravel. One or two lights were glowing. One of them might be Joe's.