The Scarlet Ruse (11 page)

"For what reason?"

"Do they need reasons?"

"How did they get in?"

"Awning window in Judy's room was open wide, screen pushed into the room. A small person could wiggle through and go open the back door or the front."

I looked at the floor, at thin shards of picture glass and at a triangular piece of the face of the long-dead Jerry Lawson, a piece containing one eye looking up at me. Next to it was a tape cartridge, multitrack, plastic cracked, tape dangling from it. The color picture on the plastic housing was of a young girl, smiling mouth agape, eyes half-closed in song. The press-apply label on the tape box read $7.79. The broken box and label looked fresh and neat.

I picked it up. I handed it to Goodbread. He threw it on the floor and said, "I know, I know. Damnit. What kids wouldn't rip off new tapes? Take the money in the purse. Leave perfume. Smash everything in the kitchen, including bourbon, one bottle, seal intact. What kind of kids, everybody puts on gloves in the summertime before they touch anything? Something else too."

He got up and went into the next room and came back with a nine-by-twelve manila envelope. He undid the clasp and looked through glossies and selected one and handed it to me, saying, "You never saw this."

I studied it. At first it made no sense, and then I saw what he meant. It was a picture taken with a wide lens and flash, looking down at the doorway where the body had been. There was a ghost outline of a woman lying on her side, head tilted back.

He bent over me, pointed with a thick finger. "Along here some kind of bag or box of some kind of cake mix or cookie mix hit the wall and exploded and came sifting through the air. Then along here, where the side of this leg was, are pieces of a blue and white vase, very small pieces. When the examiner started to roll her over, I saw the clean floor underneath her, so I had them lift her off it very careful."

I looked up at him. "So what kind of glove-wearing kids, who wouldn't rip off tapes, perfume, or booze, broke her neck and went right on trashing the house?"

He sat down. "If you take total freaks, if they did not give one damn about anything, where do the gloves fit the pattern?"

"Where are the dirty words?"

"The what?"

"With paint, catsup, lipstick, anything. On the walls. Where's the big pile? Don't they always think of putting all the clothes in the middle of the kitchen floor or in the bathtub and pouring everything liquid on top of the mess?"

"I never thought of that," he said. "It's kind of orderly. Wrong word, I guess. Break everything breakable. Tip all the furniture over. Dump all the drawers. Slash the clothes and bedding." He tapped his notebook again. "Mama came home and had another fight with this kid. It got physical, and mama got killed. So the kid trashed the house to make it look as if she didn't do it. She trashed her own stuff."

"Or someone was in here looking for something to steal when she came home, Sergeant. Lost his nerve. Tried to grab her when she ran. Broke her neck. Then tried to make it look like kids."

"Except where is the girl? Why doesn't she show?"

"But if it was your way, she would have to show up to make it work, wouldn't she? Running would spoil her idea."

He wiped the lower half of his face with a big slow hand. He looked tired. "I've got more to think about than I need. I want to decide whether or not I want to stay on this. I can get off in thirty seconds, risking nothing."

"I don't understand."

"The general doesn't want publicity. The press hasn't made him yet. I told him I want to keep it that way as long as I can because without him, this one is low priority. Three column inches on page thirty-one. An indoor mugging of a middle-aged widow. If whoever killed her keeps on thinking it's handled on a routine basis-which means only so many man hours, lab hours, leg work, and then into the open file-maybe that person won't do such a good job of covering as they would if they knew all the pressure there is behind it. I can get departmental priority, quietly, on the basis of who he is, and it improves my chances of a wrapup on it. But if I tip the press, if I made a private call, say, to Gene Miller on the Herald, then it moves from page thirty-one to maybe a big story on the first page of the second section. It hits a lot of sensitive areas. It gets political. The person or persons we're looking for are alerted, and so they go back and put a lot more braces and rivets on the alibi. And as I told the general, they will cover Judy Lawson's trouble with the law, because when something gets big, on the days when there's nothing new, they go back and dig up the old and print it, because if it isn't known, it's new. And official sources get into the act."

"What do you mean?"

"Official sources revealed today that the persons who murdered Jane Lawson may have in fact been looking for her younger daughter Judy, arrested seven months ago by vice-squad undercover agents-"

"Vice squad!"

"She was fifteen then, working with two older boys. There was a rash of it at the time, kids working the parks and working over the tourists. The girl smiles and wags her little behind and tells the mark she'll give a ten-dollar treat over in the bushes or over in that camper or van. He goes for it, and the boys jump him and pick him clean. Maybe one mark in ten files a complaint. A lot of them are users. Maybe the others are behind in their car payments. They ran Judy through medical, and she wasn't using, and she wasn't dosed, and it was first time, so she got two years in the custody of her mother. The boys were already in the files and legally adults, so they didn't make out that well. Anyway, if it should break, they would take me off and give it to somebody with a lot more rank. The general has given me a deadline to come up with something promising, and if I don't, he's going to break it himself by coming up with such a reward for information it will clog the switchboards for a week."

"How much time?"

"Not enough."

"Where is he staying?"

"In a hotel."

"Thanks. Thanks very much."

"I’ve stopped being an information service. Where can I find you if I want you?" I told him, and he wrote it down.

"And if you think of anything, McGee, get in touch right away. Don't try to decide what is and what isn't worth telling me. Get in touch."

He stood up. I was dismissed. When I looked back, before closing the door, he was staring into space, big face slack, mouth sagging open, eyes sleepy and lifeless. It was a shtick I'd never seen before: Here is a cop so stupid you don't have to keep your guard quite so high. Here is a cop who needs help finding his way out of a phone booth. Somebody's dumb brother-in-law. Sure. I could see how that style would fit a lengthy interrogation. Long pauses. Simple questions. A lack of comprehension requiring endless repetition. "And what was it you said you did after that?" Then the eventual, inevitable, fatal contradiction, because the one thing successful lying requires is total recall of all the details of the structure of lies, and that is rare anywhere, even among men who face prison if they fumble just one critical question.

The same cold-eyed man was on the desk. I told him to tell Mr. Nucci that Mr. McGee wanted to check in. He once again muttered on the phone, hung up, spun the visitab index, turned, and picked a key out of the mail rack. He put a card in front of me and said, "Please." I hesitated and could think of no reason why I shouldn't be exactly who I was and so signed in. A bellhop took me on a long easterly walk to far elevators. We rode up to eighteen and walked further east, to the end of the corridor. He turned on all the lights. It took some time. He had to work his way around a big room. He finally left, with tip, and I was alone with my big beds on a circular platform, with my electric drapes, my stack of six big bath towels, my balcony overlooking the sea, my icemaker, my sunken tub, my coral carpeting six inches deep.

I phoned Meyer aboard the Keynes. I told him that I was in 1802 at the Contessa, and it seemed a convenient, temporary refuge. I asked him what he did when he knew he had heard something that meant something, and he should be able to remember what it was, and he couldn't. He said he usually walked back and forth and then went to sleep. I asked him if that did any good, and he said practically never.

I tried Mary Alice and hung up after the tenth unanswered ring. There was a tapping at my door. A waiter brought in a tray with a sealed bottle of Plymouth gin, a double old-fashion glass, a large golden lemon, and a tricky knife with which to cut slices of rind. Willy Nucci followed the waiter in and waved him back out and closed the door.

Willy came over and shook my hand. He smiled at me. "How do you like this room? All right?"

"Willy!"

"Want me to fix you one of your crazy gin on the rocks, or do you want to do it?"

"Willy!"

"What I can do, pal, I can send up this Barbara I've got doing some PR for the place, living here in the house, little bit of a thing, she learned massage in Tokyo, and it's the damnedest thing, she uses her feet. She walks on your back. You wouldn't believe. Let me send her up, you'll never regret it. Pretty little thing."

"Sit the hell down!" I roared.

He backed up and sat down and wiped his mouth. "I was only-"

"Willy, the room, the bottle, a girl walking on me… What in God's name has gotten into you?"

"Anything you want in this hotel is yours. It is only to ask. Okay?"

"What makes me so important all of a sudden?"

"You've always been important to me, McGee."

Then light dawned. I stared at him. I laughed. He didn't. I said, "Willy, your grapevine works too fast."

"I hear what I have to know."

"Like I'm working for Frank Sprenger?"

"Remember one thing. This is the first time his name has ever been mentioned between us."

"Why should you and I have ever talked about Sprenger?"

Some of the tension went out of him, and his shoulders came down about an inch. "I'm not asking you what you're doing for him, am I?"

"I'm not doing anything for him, Willy."

The shoulders went up again. "You took his money. That I know."

"I took his money."

"Some of the things you've done haven't been all the way bright, McGee, but if you are saying what you seem to be saying, then you are being a hundred and ten percent stupid. If you take Sprenger's money, you do something he wants done. If you don't do it, you don't get to give the money back. You don't jerk around with any Frank Sprenger."

"We're involved here in semantics, Willy."

"You said you're not doing anything for him."

"I'm not doing anything against him."

Shoulders went all the way back to normal. "Oh! Then that's what you're doing for him. Not doing anything to screw him up. Which means he thinks you can or will be able to."

"One small item and not much money."

He nodded. "Like that thing we-" He stopped himself. "Like if he was involved in some kind of investment and didn't get what he thought he was buying, and somebody wanted you to help with the real stuff."

"Are these rooms bugged without you knowing for sure?" I asked him.

"People are in and out all day. I do the best I can for the owners. And the owners would want me to tell you this, Travis. And you tell Frank Sprenger for me. Any friend of his, any time, the best we got is what he gets. I personally guarantee it."

"I'll tell him what a damned good job Willy Nucci does for the owners. But I'd wager he knows that already."

"I try my best. What do you want? Just ask."

"I might want something later. Maybe later we could take a little walk together by the ocean and talk."

"I'll tell the switchboard, when you phone me it goes through right away."

"Thanks, Willy."

At the door he paused and turned. "Even if the only part you want is the massage, I'd recommend her. You'll sleep like a baby." I declined. He shrugged and left.

I tried Mary Alice for ten more rings. I tried Hirsh Fedderman. The woman said, "This here is Mrs. Franck speaking, a neighbor, I am sitting with Mr. Fedderman who is now sleeping at last, thank God."

"Was Mary Alice McDermit there? Or is she still there?"

"Here there is only me, Mrs. Franck, and there is Mr. Fedderman, like I said already, sound asleep. Who did you ask?"

"Mrs. McDermit. She was there today. When did she leave?"

"How should I know if I don't know her? I didn't meet everybody that comes here. This dear old man, he is blessed with friends. All day long too many people coming to see him, tiring him out, bringing enough food, we could feed Cuba maybe."

"Mary Alice works for him. She's a young woman with long black hair, six feet tall."

"Ah! Oh! You should say so. That one. Yes. Such a size person they are growing these days. It is something in the food. What time is it now? Nearly nine? So she left at four o'clock, five hours ago. You missed her by a little. If she ever comes back, who shall I say is calling?"

"Thank you, never mind. How is Hirsh?"

"How do you think he is? That nice woman being killed in her own home by wicked children, fifteen years she worked for him, a faithful loyal person. His heart is broken in two. That's all that is wrong."

"I know it would be wrong to wake him up, and you wouldn't even if I asked you. So would you happen to know if a woman who used to work for him is still alive. I think her name is Moojah."

"Of course Miss Moojah is alive! Wasn't she here today, bringing a hot casserole? She's in the book. Why don't you look? How many Moojahs are there going to be? She lives in Harmony Towers, that has a three-year waiting list for senior singles. Miss Moojah will be alive when all of us have passed away, believe it."

After I hung up, I checked the directory. Yes indeed. A. A. Moojah. I wrote the number on the phone-side scratch pad, just as the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Oh, great! Just dandy!"

"I called you twice. No answer. How did you find me?"

"Meyer told me."

"Meyer phoned you?"

"I didn't say that, sweetie. Meyer is sitting smiling at me like some kind of an owl."

"An owl. You mean he's here in… Oh."

"Yes indeed. Here I am in all my pretties, making my poor dear little yellow car go seventy-five on the turnpike."

"It always seems to me like downhill from there to Miami."

"If and when I feel like it, I'll check that out."

"When do you expect to feel like it? I have some things I want to talk to you about."

"Meyer is a wonderful conversationalist. I'm going to have another delicious drink, and then we're going to go eat somewhere nice. So don't wait up for me."

I started to explain that so many things were happening, it was too inefficient to try to commute, but I realized I was talking to an empty line.

I broke the seal on the bottle and was pleased to find that my personal icemaker made those nice little cubes the size of professional dice. After one sip I got out the card which one of my two visitors had given me-either Harry Harris or Dave Davis. The unlisted phone number was written on the back in red ballpoint.

When the phone was answered, I could hear music and laughter in the background. The girl said, "Whatever you were looking for, we got it."

"What I am looking for is Frank."

"We got… oops. Wrong way to go. Whom is speaking?"

"McGee. T. McGee."

"Just stand there," she said. She did not cover the mouthpiece perfectly, and I heard her bawling over the background noise, "Frank, somebody name McGee. You wannit?"

She came back on and said, "He'll come onto an extension in just a sec."

"Hello?" he said. "Let me hear you hang up, Sissie."

She let us both hear it, like a good rap on the ear with a tack hammer. "Sorry about that," he said. It was a deep, easy voice. "And sorry I couldn't come to see you the other day. I got tied up. I told them not to give out a name. Just the number where you could get in touch with either of them."

"They didn't give out any name, Mr. Sprenger. If it was in connection with something I was involved in, concerning a Mr. Fedderman, then I could add two and two, but I wasn't sure, of course. Then something made me sure."

"Such as?"

"I was over on the beach, and I stopped at the Americana for a drink, and somebody I know came over and said she understood I'm working for you now."

Five seconds of silence. "I find that very interesting. You wouldn't want to give me the name?"

"No, I wouldn't. But she doesn't work for you, as far as I know. I didn't appreciate it."

"How am I supposed to take that?"

"I don't know how you want to take it, Mr. Sprenger. I just don't want any confusion in anybody's mind about whose problems I'm supposed to be taking care of."

"Why don't you come to my office tomorrow, say about ten o'clock, and we can discuss your investment problems?"

"I found your Lincoln Road address in the book. About eleven would be better, I think."

"I'll see you whenever you arrive. Right now you and I are even with the board. I consider it full value received. Okay?"

I said everything was just fine. I hung up, smiling. It was worth a thousand dollars to him either way. If I was trying to con him into thinking there was a leak in his administrative apparatus, it was worth it to know I was dull enough to try to con him. On the other hand, if there was a leak, he was tough and smart enough to find it. I knew there was a leak. And I knew that if it was a plant, my friend Willy Nucci was too shrewd to set himself up by letting the plant know where the information was going. One thing seemed reasonably certain. Frank Sprenger would have it sorted out by the time I met with him on Monday. And be duly grateful. I could guess how his mind would work. Absolute loyalty, absolute silence, these are required, are so critical, they are seldom even mentioned. Any violation of this credo is a form of voluntary suicide. The reason is that if the unreliable one talks to someone who intends no harm, and if someone who does mean harm can learn of the defection, then the threat of exposure is deadly enough to extract the same information for other uses. There are two reasons why they use the same sort of cell structure as do intelligence apparatuses. It limits the availability and dissemination of potentially damaging information. And it makes it a lot easier to track down any leak.

I stretched out on a chaise, drink at hand, scratch pad at hand, and began working my way through a tangle of phone lines toward Sergeant Goodbread. I finally persuaded a communications person to patch me through to Goodbread's vehicle.

"McGee, I can't make any kind of statement. You know that."

"This is sort of personal. When you can get to a phone, call me. The sooner the better."

It took him six minutes to get to a phone. "It better be good," he said. "I still haven't been home yet. I'm dead on my feet."

"I want to give you some information, but I don't want to give you all of it."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"What I want to do is get you all the way off that idea of the daughter being involved or kids being involved."

"We've got Judy. She came home this morning and saw a police car and thought her old lady had turned her in, so she and her friends drove right on by. Friday night she and her friends drove up to Orlando to go to Disneyworld. They looked so scruffy they couldn't get in. So they drove over to Rocket Beach and spent the day, six of them, in an old VW camper and tried to stay over night, but the law took them in to see if they were on any wanted lists, then rousted them south out of the county. It looks as if it will check out all the way, if we have to. After they drove by the house, they went to a friend's place, whose parents are off at some kind of convention. Anyway, at about six this evening, some other friend called up that house to ask the girl if she'd heard about Mrs. Lawson getting killed and the cops looking for Judy. So the kid got smart and phoned in, and I had her brought in. It really shook her up. It's violation of probation, and nobody in custody of her. What would happen, she would go to the state school."