Area of Suspicion

Chapter 11

As I walked through the hotel lobby, Joan Perrit got up from one of the lobby chairs and came toward me, earnest, pretty and worried.

“Mr. Dean, I’ve been waiting to—”

“You’re not in the office now, Perry.”

She flushed. “Gevan, then.”

“You look all wound up. Buy you a drink?”

She lowered her voice. “There’s someone who wants to talk to you, Gevan. I left her in the drugstore. If you’re free, I’ll bring her to your room in a few minutes. I tried to get you on the house phone and they said you were out.”

I told her that would be fine and she smiled nervously and hurried off. I went up to my small suite. A few minutes later there was a tapping on my door. I let them in. I knew I had seen the other girl before, and then I remembered that when I had gotten my pass from Captain Corning, she had been at a typist’s desk in the corner of his office.

She was a fluffy blonde in a cheap, bright outfit that emphasized her breasts and hips, She was the Hollywood ideal of the pretty starlet, her cheap, shallow beauty dependent upon the childishness of her features, the upturned nose, pouting mouth, bland forehead, staring blue eyes. Though at the moment she looked frightened and rebellious, she was predictable as being, in other moods, a giggler, a snuggler, full of kittenish mannerisms and teasings.

“Mr. Dean, this is Alma Brady. She works in Colonel Dolson’s office. She was hired by the Colonel as a clerk-bookkeeper. She has something to tell you.”

“I waited for you,” Alma said to Perry, “and I was about to go home. I was thinking about it. I guess I don’t want to tell him anything after all.” Her voice was thin and immature.

Perry took a step toward her, eyes hot. “You promised, Alma! You promised! You’ve got to tell him.”

“Hold it,” I said quickly. “Sit down, both of you. Behave.”

Alma hesitated and then crossed over to a chair with a sulky strut, sat down, crossed her legs, patted her skirt smooth, hunted in her bag for cigarettes. I gave her a light. “How did you gals meet?”

Perry answered, “Alma rents a room near my house and we wait at the same bus stop, so we got friendly that way. She prepares the vouchers that Colonel Dolson handles through Mr. Granby’s office as charges against the cost-plus contract.”

“I don’t want to get in any trouble,” Alma said in her childish voice.

“I file our copies of the vouchers,” Perry continued. “And I couldn’t help noticing that there were certainly an awful lot of them coming from his office as charges against the D4D contract. So a couple of months ago I asked Alma if he was about through buying stuff. I wanted to know because I was going to have to set up new file folders and re-index them to keep them in order.”

Alma had been staring stubbornly out the window. She turned sharply on Perry. “It wasn’t any of your business what he bought.”

“It wasn’t,” Perry said gently, “until we had that little chat today in the office. You made it my business, Alma.”

“There’s a lot of difference between telling you and telling him. I don’t want to get in any jam. I was just talking.”

She turned stubbornly away and looked out the window. She exhaled smoke through her nose and it made her look like a petulant little dragon. Perry looked at me and shrugged. I edged my chair closer to Alma and said, “The last thing I want to do is get you in trouble, Miss Brady. I’d like to have you trust me.”

“You say.”

“I have no official connection with the firm. When I was president, Miss Perrit was my secretary. I have every confidence in her judgment. If she thinks you should tell me, then it is probably a good idea for you to tell me.”

Alma looked at her cigarette and then obliquely at me. “She’ll tell you anyway.”

“She probably will. But I promise to keep you out of trouble if it’s humanly possible.”

The bland forehead wrinkled, and I could almost hear the wheels going around in her head. She sighed. “All right. Gee, I guess I’ve got to trust somebody in this thing. But the main thing is I want somebody to catch up with Curt Dolson and really clobber the hell out of him, but I don’t want him knowing I had anything to do with it.”

She looked at Perry. “Now I’ve started talking, I better cover some ground I didn’t tell you today, Perry.” She looked down at her crossed legs and tugged her skirt a bit forward where it had started to slip above her knee. She kept looking down. “He hired me in Washington and it was with the idea I’d be willing to be transferred here. I got here and it was a strange place to me, and you know, you get lonesome, especially around Christmas time. I got here just before Christmas. He was nice to me. I knew he was getting ideas. I mean that fatherly act is one you see through pretty easy, but I didn’t brush him off because I was lonesome, and I figured if it ever came to an issue, I could handle it all right without making him sore. He got me a promotion right after Christmas and hinted about getting me another one. And he gave me a Christmas present and I thought that was sort of cute, you know. I guess he is a little smoother than I thought. He said we’d have our own private New Year’s party. I took on so much champagne I thought I could even come up to his room here in the hotel and still handle him. Like a challenge, I guess. I don’t know exactly how I ended up in bed with him, but I did. It wasn’t going to happen again, believe me, but he was sweet about it, and sorry and all, and gave me presents, and I figured, oh, hell, the damage is done and who cares, so it got to be a regular thing. Now he’s had enough. He’s after the little broad that sings here. Hildy something. He’s chasing her. He hasn’t got time for me. Yesterday I tried to talk to him and he asked me what I was kicking about. I got my promotion, didn’t I? That’s why I want to see him get it in the neck. He’s a stinker and I don’t want to see him get away with doing that to me or anybody.”

I said carefully, “It’s unethical for a man in his position to get into that sort of situation, Miss Brady. But there isn’t any basis there to — take any action against him.”

She looked directly at me and her blue eyes narrowed. “All that, my friend, was telling you the why of it. I haven’t gotten to the how yet.” I sensed I had underestimated her intelligence. Those blue eyes in that moment were very knowing.

“I brought her here on account of the other part,” Perry said.

“Mr. Dean, once it happened to me, I started thinking. I started wondering about something. When we were — going together, he was always in a sweat about money. He likes to live it up, you know. He borrowed money from Captain Corning a few times, near the end of the month. He had his pay and some income from that store of his. Then, while we were still — friendly, he started living better. That was back in late January and early February. He started carrying fat money around with him. And he gave me nicer things. This watch, for instance.

“It wasn’t until after he broke if off that I began thinking about how he suddenly had a better income. When I got here, Curt Dolson and Mr. Mottling weren’t getting along at all. He used to yammer about Mottling to me. Then, in late January they kissed and made up or something. That was about the time Curt started having money.

“Then I remembered Perry asking me about those vouchers, and I thought some more and I wondered if Curt was pulling something. I began checking our purchase order file against shipping instructions and inventories. Curt was ordering a lot of things chargeable to the cost-plus contract. A lot of it was coming to the plant and a lot of it wasn’t, even though the inventory reports checked against the total ordered. With Curt doing the ordering and also being responsible for inventories, he could order stuff and have it shipped someplace else. And I remembered that in January, about the time he and Mottling got friendly, he’d gotten permission to rent warehouse space in town because storage facilities at the plant weren’t adequate. I kept checking the files every time I had a chance, and finally I spotted one purchase order that looked like a duplicate. It was made out to something called Acme Supply. That’s right here in Arland, 56 River Street, and that’s close to the warehouse space the Colonel rented. Letters from Acme are signed by some man named LeFay. I’m positive, Mr. Dean, that Curt is placing legitimate orders, then having the incoming stuff diverted to Acme, and then placing a duplicate order with Acme.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Let me get this straight. Say Dolson had to order typewriters. He’d order, say, three and divert two of them to that rented warehouse space?”

“Yes. Then he’d order two from Acme. Acme would get those two out of the rented space and deliver them to the plant. Dolson would see that Acme got paid. The records would show five typewriters ordered, three in use and two in storage, and because the Colonel keeps the warehouse inventory records, there isn’t any way to check. Maybe he had the incoming stuff diverted to Acme somehow, so it never goes into storage, then places a duplicate order with Acme. That way, paying twice for the same stuff, he and this LaFay could split whatever they get for it.”

“Are the amounts involved large?”

“I’ve found one for forty thousand. And smaller ones running five and ten and twenty and so on. They’re for things that aren’t bulky. Small machine tool items. Office equipment, office machines, and cutters and things I don’t know anything about. Now you know as much as I do, and you can do anything with it you want to, just so you leave me out of it. I mean, I won’t testify or anything. As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t told you a thing.”

She turned back toward the window, her childish mouth hard and set, and her eyes still narrow. I could see how Dolson’s scheme could work. It would be a fast way to make money. But it could never be a safe way. It was a fool’s game. There would be a day of reckoning and disgrace and prison. I could assume the girl wasn’t lying. Her shrewdness enabled her to find out what was being done. But she did not have the creative intelligence to invent such a scheme just to embarrass Curt Dolson.

Perry said, “I spent an hour this afternoon checking our files. She’s telling the truth, Mr. Dean.”

Maybe it was the truth, but I mistrusted the way the girl tied it to Mottling. I decided it was coincidence that the two men should have started seeing eye to eye at the time Dolson devised his plan. I couldn’t see Mottling implicating himself in a plan that could only have been devised by a very foolish and greedy little man. I couldn’t see Mottling participating. His motivation was the hunger for power, not cash.

“Alma, thank you for telling me this,” I said. “It’s enormously important, and I’m grateful to you. Now suppose you run along and forget what you told us. Don’t mention it to anybody else. Do you think the Colonel has any idea you suspect what he’s doing?”

She stood up and said with dignity, “He wouldn’t give me credit for being bright enough.”

“Could you stay for a few minutes, Perry?” I asked her. She nodded. I let Alma out. I watched her walk toward the elevators, teetering along on too-high heels, her round hips swinging, her head high. I closed the door.

“What do you think, Gevan?” Perry asked.

“It sounds bad enough to be true, or true enough to be bad. I’m glad you brought her to me.”

“I should have told Mr. Granby. The company is in the clear. We haven’t the authority to disapprove any voucher presented by the Colonel in his capacity as contracting officer. Mr. Granby would know who to contact in Washington. But I knew she wouldn’t talk to Mr. Granby. I wanted someone to hear it from her as soon as possible. She didn’t tell me... about their relationship. It’s — terribly sad, isn’t it?”

“That’s one word for it.” She sat on the couch. Her wool suit was pale, of nubbly texture. I paced to the window.

“Perry, I think we’ve got to assume that at the least hint or suspicion, Dolson will try to cover himself. I think he’s in so deep he can’t cover himself completely, but he could make it a lot tougher to get the facts. You have a file of the dupes of al those vouchers?”

“Yes. I could dig out all the ones that went through for payment to Acme, and make a list of the items and the totals.”

“Good! Do it inconspicuously. I’ll see what I can find out about Acme. Then I know the next step. A phone call to Washington. On a thing like this they move fast. They’ll have a bunch of people in here before Dolson can say General Accounting Office. And if they do it fast, all we can hope for is for some relationship between Dolson and Mottling showing up.”

Perry’s gray eyes were thoughtful. “I’ve wondered about that. I just can’t see what Mr. Mottling would get out of any — relationship like that. It seems so — petty. And yet—”

“What are you thinking about?”

She shrugged. “I suppose it’s meaningless. But you know the sort of man Colonel Dolson is. Self-important, sort of. Something happened a month ago. The Colonel and Mr. Mottling came out of Mr. Granby’s office, through my office. Colonel Dolson was telling Mr. Mottling there were some drawings he’d have to have back immediately. Mr. Mottling said he’d send those drawings back to Dolson when he was damn well ready to release them and not before. Colonel Dolson took it without a murmur, and he knew I heard it, and he didn’t make any attempt to save face in front of me. It was as though Mr. Mottling had some special hold over him.”

“That isn’t much to go on.”

“I realize that.”

“Could you make a guess about the number of government checks that have cleared for Acme?”

“It doesn’t work that way. Acme gets Dean Products’ checks, out of the D4D account, and the government reimburses us. I’d guess, off-hand, Gevan, the total might be anywhere between one and two hundred thousand dollars.”

Though I knew what a small percentage that would be of the multimillion-dollar government contracts in the shop, it was a figure that merited a soft whistle of awe. I had an important question to ask, and perhaps I asked it in too casual a voice. “Do you think Ken could have found out about this?” I couldn’t see Dolson as a killer. But I didn’t know LeFay.

She knew what I meant. “No, Gevan. Ever since Mr. Mottling came with the company, your brother stayed in his office. Nothing was routed to him, and he didn’t take any interest in what was going on. I don’t see how he could have found out.”

I gave up that line of thought with regret. It would be such a perfect motive, and explain the clever detail surrounding the murder. It was after eight. I knew from the way she was dressed she had gone home before coming to the hotel.

“Have you eaten yet, Perry?”

“No. When you weren’t here, I phoned Mother and told her I’d be home after dinner.”

“Dinner with me, then?”

“Yes, thank you, Gevan.” She smiled and I noticed a dimple in her right cheek. “It feels funny to call you Gevan out loud.”

We went down and had a pleasant dinner in the grill. At one point she said, “I’m too honest, Gevan. Now I have to correct a half-truth.”

“A half-truth is half a lie.”

“I told you I came to you because I didn’t think she’d talk to Mr. Granby. I had another reason, too. I’m trying to get you so involved in Dean Products you won’t be able to get loose.”

There was a candle on our table. She sat across from me, smiling, her face young and lovely in the flame’s light. Too young and fresh and sweet. I was too involved with Niki to ever get loose. I thought of Niki in my arms, and in contrast to the gray-eyed girl across the table, the memory of Niki was smeared and shameful — but exciting.

After dinner I asked her if she’d like to try the Copper Lounge and listen to Hildy’s show, but she said she should go home. I offered to get the car out and drive her back, but she said a cab would be fine. I walked her out to the sidewalk and hailed a taxi and watched her ride off, saw her turn and look through the back window of the cab at me.

I went to the Copper Lounge. Hildy Devereaux was standing at the bar, laughing and chattng with a young couple. She recognized me and gave me a quick smile. I gestured toward an empty table and raised one eyebrow in silent question. She nodded. I sat and ordered a drink and Hildy came over a few minutes later. I stood up and said, “Not purely social, Hildy, but I wish it was.”

I pushed her chair in for her. She smiled up at me, saying, “I’m glad you came in. I think my curtain line last time was faintly nasty.”

“Not noticeably.” I sat down in the chair facing hers. “You set me off in a certain direction so you get a progress report before I spring a question.”

“Progress?”

“In a negative way. I won’t go into my reasoning. I just want to tell you that I’m personally convinced that Ken wasn’t shot by Shennary. Shennary was cleverly framed. I don’t know why Ken was killed. Or by whom. But it wasn’t Shennary and that means there was a good reason, premeditation, a lot of damn careful planning.”

She thought it over. And shuddered. “The way it happened seemed too pat — but maybe I liked that answer better than the way this one makes me feel.”

“I know. It makes the world a larger, darker place. I don’t have to tell you not to repeat this, do I?”

“No. You don’t have to, Gevan.”

“Now this question may seem unrelated. It is — almost. The connection is tenuous. I want your reaction to Curt Dolson.”

She gave a little start and her eyes widened. “What do I think of him? My God, that’s a change of pace! He’s in my hair, but so are a lot of others. He’s just thicker-skinned than most. He’s got an ego like nothing I ever saw before. He can’t get it through his pointy head that I’m not on the verge of falling into his arms. He has propositions. Some of them include South-Sea cruises and emeralds. He gets pretty intent.”

“That one with the emeralds is a pretty good offer for a chicken colonel to make, isn’t it?”

“The boy is pretty well loaded. He owns a business that keeps him solvent enough. He’s so damn smug. And so vain, too. He keeps sticking his chin out so the second chin won’t show. He uses male perfume and goes around smelling like tweed and saddle leather and fire in the heather. Wears a corset, too, if I’m any judge. He’s just a boy at heart.”

“There’s no chance of his hitting the right proposition?”

“That better be a joke, and you better start laughing like hell, or you’re sitting here alone, Mr. D.”

“It was a joke.”

“There isn’t exactly any halo above these flaxen locks, brother, but at least I can say all favors thus far distributed have been gratis.”

“I said it was a joke.”

“Okay, I forgive. Let me give you a briefing.” She changed to an excellent imitation of Dolson’s hearty baritone. “ ‘You can do your singing just for me, my dear. This isn’t the life for you.’ I told him I loved this nasty life, and if I ever gave it up it wouldn’t be for him or anybody remotely like him. Did that stop him? For about a tenth of a second. It took him that long to find my knee under the table. And it took me another tenth of a second to get my cigarette against the back of his hand.”

I looked beyond her. “It seems you have been speaking of the devil.”

She rolled her eyes ceilingward. “No. Oh, no! Give me strength.”

Dolson came parade-grounding up, gave a Prussian bow from the waist, with a cool smile for me and a warm one for Hildy. “Evening, my dear. Hello, Mr. Dean.” He pulled a chair out. “Hope this isn’t taken.”

“It is now,” Hildy said glumly.

“Great little kidder,” Dolson said fondly. He sat with back straight, shoulders squared, eagles shining.

“We were discussing you, Colonel,” I said mildly.

It took him a moment to decide how to react. He showed us his white teeth and said, “Nothing good, I trust.”

“We were wondering why a man of your means happens to be on active duty.”

He shrugged his eagles. “Reserve, you know. Every man who has any training ought to put it at the service of his government. This is a critical era, Mr. Dean. We’re all needed.”

I sensed the criticism. He sat erect, smelling of Scotch and pine. His nails gleamed with some manicurist’s dedication. His face glowed pink and healthy. It was as though Dolson had erected a facade to conceal the man behind it. Unlike Lester of the shifting masks, Dolson had only one acquired character: the brusque, hearty military man, with faint overtones of king and empire and the playing fields of Eton.

I wondered if he had been active in politics in his home town. I wondered how much affability, how much snap and sirring it had cost him to get that Legion of Merit ribbon. I wondered how he looked when he was alone and sat worrying about the money he was making and how he was making it. Was the pink face pouched and old and frightened? Did the plump pink shoulders sag?

I chose the opening instinctively, the opening he had just given me. “Colonel, I’ve been thinking along those lines myself. Patriotic duty and all that. Getting my shoulders to the wheel.”

He beamed. “My boy, you’ll feel better for it, believe me.”

“Mr. Granby says he will withdraw in my favor, and Mr. Karch will back me. At the Monday meeting, I’ll vote my holdings for myself, and take over where Ken left off.” It took three long seconds for the toothy smile to fade away. He goggled at me. He slumped and the padded shoulders of the tunic rode up. He licked his lips. He was suddenly a very worried, very unmilitary, very nervous little man. He forced the smile back, but it had all the humor of a denture ad.

“Uh — commendable of course. I can understand any man wanting to do his bit.” The heartiness was strained. “But let’s not try to move too fast, Mr. Dean. That would be — uh — like my trying to take over an infantry division. A man should be — objective enough to know when a job is too big for him.”

“Too big, Colonel? I’m afraid I don’t understand, I’ve run the company before.”

“I’m afraid this is a different proposition. That was mostly civilian production.” He was getting over shock and warming to his argument. “Stanley Mottling has a national reputation and an astonishing record. It wouldn’t be any service to the company to take over the position he fills so well. And if you don’t mind my mentioning it, a four-year layoff doesn’t sharpen a man’s mind. Stanley Mottling’s last four years have been full of accomplishment.”

I pursed my lips and nodded. “Maybe there’s something in that.”

All the confidence was back. “Tell you what. Why don’t you talk to Stanley about going to work under him? There are places where you could be very valuable. That would ease the load on Stanley.”

“I guess I should reconsider, Colonel.”

“That’s using the old brain,” he said. “Objectivity.” He had brought his drink to the table and he lifted it and took a long drag with a shade too much relief.

“I agree I may be rusty,” I said. “So I’ll put my voting weight behind Walter Granby and let him take over.”

He plunked his glass down. He stared at me. “Granby! Good God!”

“I’d rather back him. I know the man. I’ve got confidence in him. I don’t agree with some of Mottling’s policies.”

“Good God!” he repeated in an empty voice.

I knew it was cruel to get him off balance with one idea and then slap him with the other one before he could get his feet planted. A cruel device — and effective when you need information that can only be given inadvertently.

He tried to use a tone of sweet reason. “Mr. Dean, you can’t look at the world through a peashooter. Granby is entirely unsuitable, old boy.”

I had been mild up to that point. So mild, I knew he had forgotten our chat in Mottling’s office. So I discarded mildness and said, “It seems odd to me, Colonel, that you keep taking an interest in the internal affairs of the company. Didn’t we cover that ground once?”

He murmured something about irreparable damage, critical contracts.

I turned to Hildy and said, “How long are you going to work here?”

“As long as the gross stays healthy in the lounge, I guess. Joe says I can sing here until I look like Whistler’s mother, if the gross doesn’t fade.” She made her voice casual and winked meaningfully at me. I glanced at Dolson.

He seemed to have forgotten the two of us. He was staring down at the table top, motionless. Something about him made me think that perhaps this pseudo-hearty little man was not entirely ridiculous. Cornered creatures fight, and many have sharp teeth.

He looked at me, unsmiling, and said, “Just one thing. Is that your decision? Nothing can change it?”

It was not my decision. But it was so strong a hunch that I was able to state it too calmly for him to doubt it.

He smiled vaguely and got up. “It’s your stock, I suppose. Too bad. I’ll be back, Hildy.”

“I’ll try to conceal my impatience, Colonel.”

“Great little kidder,” he said, and patted her shoulder mechanically, taking no notice of her instinctive flinch. I watched him go. He went out the side door of the Copper Lounge, the one that opened onto the flight of wide stairs that led to the lobby.

Hildy ceremoniously offered her small hand. “You upset the Colonel. You made him very unhappy. It was very nice to watch. Does that make me a sadist?”

“I’ll tell you all about that later. Right now I think the Colonel is off to make a phone call. If he makes it from a booth, we’re sunk. But I think he may make it from his room. Are you chummy with the switchboard gals?”

“They love me,” she said, and got up and hurried off, looking back just long enough for a conspiratorial wink. Her quick mind needed no blueprint. The soft brown hair bounced against honeyed shoulders, and her skirt swung with the quickness of her stride.

It took her five long minutes. She came back and slipped into the chair opposite me. “From the room like you thought. Here.” She slid a slip of paper over to me, with a number written on it. Redwood 8-7171. It meant nothing to me.

“Now I sing again.”

“Thanks for this, Hildy.”

“Poo. Thank me by keeping me advised. Write it in invisible ink on the back of an old tennis player.”

“It might not mean anything.”

“Then come back when you know, Gev.”

I listened to one good song, then went up to a lobby booth, inserted a dime and dialed the number. The line was busy. I lit a cigarette, waited a minute, and tried again. It rang twice and was answered. “Hello?”

I replaced the receiver on the hook and stepped out of the booth. The voice had been unmistakable, fruity, unctuous. The resonant, noble voice of Lester Fitch. I checked the book and found that it was the number for his residence.

It was predictable. It was nothing that would be meaningful to Hildy. To me it meant a possible confirmation of Lester’s larcenous instincts. I realized I should have taken steps to find out if the Colonel made other calls. Too late for that now.

I had convinced Dolson, and he had passed on the information, and I had the feeling that I had set something in motion. I didn’t know what, or how big it was. But something had started to move.

I suddenly realized how very tired I was. The day had been full. It was incredible that this was only my third evening back in Arland.

The situation was becoming too complex. It was like one of those backlashes you sometimes get on a fishing reel. They look as if tugging one strand would free them. But you tug one strand and peel off some line and find another tangle farther down, and that one conceals two more.

I went to bed. I lay in darkness and watched a merry-go-round. All the gay horses with their noble wooden heads, surging up and down carrying the riders — carrying Mottling and Dolson and Fitch and Granby and Hildy and Perry and Niki and a faceless LeFay — with an empty saddle where Ken had ridden. They went around and around, and the music was a banjo jangle, but I didn’t know the tune.

On this same evening, at dusk, the tarpon were in the big hole near the channel off Boca Grande, and the charter boats would be drift-fishing the hole. They would hit and the reels would sing. It was simple savagery more easy to comprehend and combat than the civilized variety which hides the teeth behind a smile.

I fell asleep wondering how Perry would react to a hundred and forty pounds of tarpon glinting high in the moonlight and falling back.