Buyer beware

8

Gaining access to the Star Lane house was no problem, involving only a phone call to Dale Carlon, who offered to meet me there the next day with the key.

In the morning, again using Carlon's influence,.1 phoned Dockard at the Layton police headquarters from my cabin at the Clover Inn and asked him what had been turned up on the Branly killing.

"To date, nothing much," Dockard said. "The ME tells us Branly died in his late twenties, perfectly healthy except for all those shotgun pellets. Nothing on the gun yet, either. Wiped clean of prints. You know how impossible it is to trace a shotgun. It's an Ithaca twelve-gauge semi-automatic with the stock and barrel sawed down. A fairly expensive gun, about seven years old, according to the company's check of the serial number."

"Making it all the harder to trace. Anything found in the house that might help?"

"We combed it fine; there's nothing there, but you're welcome to look for yourself if you want."

As long as Carlon's behind me, I thought. "What about Branly's fingerprints? You should be able to get some specific information about him through them."

Dockard's tone was tolerant. "His prints aren't on file. Apparently he was never in the service and hasn't got a record."

I thanked the lieutenant and hung up. The fact that Branly had no record was in itself interesting. It made the possibility of his having been killed in a gangland assassination all the more unlikely.

There was little comfort for me in that unlikelihood. The lone and unpredictable killer frightened me more than the underworld hit man. If I had to be murdered, I wanted it done by a professional. Anything to reduce the possibility of prolonged pain.

I shook my head and called myself a few derogatory but accurate names. After setting my watch by the clock on the nightstand, I left for my appointment with Carlon at the Star Lane house.

I was ten minutes early but Carlon was there, waiting in front of 355 Star Lane in his gray Mercedes. When he saw me drive up in the green compact, he got out of his car and came toward me. He was dressed in a tailor-made, very expensive navy-blue suit that was as out of place on Star Lane as was his Mercedes. I, on the other hand, fit right in.

Carlon nodded a hello to me, then handed me a house key. "You might as well keep it, Nudger."

"Okay," I said, "let's go see if it works."

I unlocked the front door and we stepped inside, onto the red shag carpet. The atmosphere was hot and stifling, and I had the same claustrophobic feeling that I'd experienced entering the house the first time, with Dockard and Avery. There was even an aftertaste of fear.

"My God!" Carlon said. "Don't they have any air conditioning?" He spotted a thermostat and went for it, pushing something that brought a click, a rattling hum and supposedly cool air.

I walked around the living room slowly, then went into the kitchen. The rotting remains of the carryout chicken dinner had been removed. The slugs had been dug from the wall, and presumably, the bullet in the cupboard had been located and removed. Everything else seemed unmoved, as if I were looking at a photograph for the second time. The chrome-legged chair still lay on its side on the linoleum, and I saw that the kitchen wastebasket still contained litter.

"The landlord's being compensated to keep hands off for a while," Carlon explained behind me.

I opened the green refrigerator, found a still-sealed quart of milk, a few condiment jars and some bologna going bad on the top shelf. The refrigerator clicked on to add its hum to the air conditioner's, and I closed the door.

"Do you really expect to find something here that the police missed?" Carlon asked.

"Not necessarily, but I might interpret something differently."

He faded back into the living room. After checking out the kitchen, looking inside cupboards and drawers, under shelf paper, behind the stove and then through the litter in the wastebasket, I joined him.

"Find anything?" he asked.

"Only what you'd expect after somebody moved out on a few hours' notice." I went to check the bedrooms.

The first bedroom must have been Melissa's. There were a few toys lying about, some brightly covered books and some threadbare dresses in the closet. The dresser drawers contained only the usual assortment of underclothes and some blankets. Decals of cartoon characters covered the wall behind the bed, and their happy, zany expressions seemed out of place in the otherwise drab room.

The other bedroom had been Branly and Joan's, a pale blue room furnished cheaply and sparsely. There was little sign of Joan there-a pink hairbrush on the dresser top with a few dark hairs caught in its bristles, an empty perfume bottle and a pair of high-heeled shoes with one of the heels broken. There were more of Branly's effects in the bedroom, but they were curiously impersonal. A suit and three shirts in the closet- pockets empty-and some socks and underwear in one of the dresser drawers. I could almost imagine Joan Clark removing anything,that might pertain to his identity before she left. Sadly enough, she seemed to have forgotten nothing.

I checked empty drawers, the tops of closet shelves; I even peered under the bed. With no results. On the floor, near the bed, were a couple paperback books-a Gothic romance and a self-help book on salesmanship, both worn and dog-eared. I turned the books binding-up and thumbed through the pages in the hope of finding something wedged there, but nothing fell out. Maybe Branly had been a salesman, or maybe the books had been left in the house by a previous tenant. I walked back into the living room, disgusted with my lack of progress, my stomach churning just from being in the small and depressing house.

"It seems to me you're wasting valuable time here, Nudger," Carlon said, standing with his hands locked behind him as he stared out the front window.

"There was only one way to know for sure," I said, reaching for my roll of antacid tablets. I fumbled, trying to pry the top disk loose from the silver foil, and the roll of tablets squirted from my fingers and bounced across the carpet, not getting very far in the thick red shag. When I bent to pick up the roll, I saw something that made me forget my immediate need for a tablet.

The house had apparently been decorated just before Branly and Joan had moved in; the woodwork was freshly enameled. But near the kitchen doorway, where the telephone sat on a small table, I saw a set of numerals scratched on the underside of the flawlessly enameled molding that ran along the wall, four feet above the floor. I moved nearer and examined the phone number more closely.

"This number mean anything to you?" I asked Car-Ion, then read off the numerals.

But he hadn't heard me. He was staring, as if fascinated, at a newspaper on the sofa. I walked over and saw that the paper was folded to the story and photo of a man named Robert Manners, a Los Angeles business executive who had committed suicide due to the pressures of his job. He'd jumped from the high roof of his office building, and a photographer had caught his image on the way down, arms and legs outspread, tie trailing like an aviator's scarf, coattails of an expensive dark suit-one like Carlon's-standing straight out in the rushing wind. I wondered how much contentment Carlon's money had really bought him. Then I recited the phone number again and he gave a little start and focused his attention on me.

"I'm unfamiliar with the number," he said. "Where did you find it?"

"It was freshly scratched on the woodwork near the phone. There's a writing pad and pencil by the phone, so it could be that whoever scratched this number considered it very important. A piece of paper can get lost a lot easier than a piece of woodwork."

"That makes obvious sense, to a point," Carlon said. "How could the police have overlooked.it?" There was an edge to his voice, the voice of a man uncompromising toward incompetence.

"It wasn't meant to be found. I'd have missed it myself but for the good fortune of being clumsy." Why was I sticking up for Dockard?

"I don't see any reasonable excuse," Carlon said. "The number was in the house; it should have been found."

He was right, but it was a waste of time to quibble. I went to the phone, started to lift the receiver, then replaced it. A call might only serve to put someone on his guard. "The phone company should have a cross directory that will give us the address that corresponds with Why don't I give the number to Dockard and let him check it through them?" "The police overlooked, the number," Carlon said. "I see no reason to give it to them now."

I stood, dumbfounded, and stared at him. "You want your daughter found, don't you?"

"Of course! That's why I hired you. But perhaps we should take the incompetence of the Layton police as a measure of luck. As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Nudger, the police are involved in this case only because I have no choice."

I stood in the stale air of the living room, waiting for him to continue. The rattling air conditioner had made little headway, and a bead of perspiration sought its way like a drop of cold mercury down the contours of my ribs.

"What I don't want," Carlon said, "is for the police to be delving into my daughter's private life. There's more at stake here than just the solution to a murder, to which Joan happens to be merely coincidental. Ruthless as it may sound to you, I have my career to consider. And beyond that, certain political possibilities that might surprise you."

"And your daughter's behavior reflects on you, is that it?"

"Not only that. For her own sake I don't want Joan's reputation blackened by aspersions."

"Or facts?"

"Or facts, damn it!"

"We're not only talking about poor judgment here, Mr. Carlon. Withholding evidence in a murder case is illegal. Even a hint of it and I can have my investigator's license revoked and lose my livelihood."

"You'd have me behind you, Nudger. And how long would it take you to earn fifty thousand dollars?"

I put my fists on my hips, started to pace on the red shag. I didn't like what he was suggesting, not only because it was illegal but because it was dangerous. I'd counted on the police involvement to give me at least some protection if and when I crossed paths with Branly's killer, and there was a factor in this case that made that crossing of paths even more likely than Carlon thought. I wondered if he'd considered that the death trap that had killed Branly might have been meant for Joan Clark. After all, it was her car, and going to the Laundromat was still basically a woman's chore.

"I'm not suggesting that we automatically withhold from the police everything you turn up," Carlon said with a note of exasperation. "Whenever you learn something of importance, we can determine whether the police should share in the information. Remember-you're searching for Joan, they're searching for Branly's murderer."

"What about this phone number?"

Carlon smiled. "I'll have it checked for an address, confidentially. I'll phone you later today with the information." He walked over, rested his arm on my shoulder in a grand gesture of camaraderie. "After all, it might not be anything important. This might be the phone number of a dry cleaner or delicatessen…"

"Or Laundromat."

The smile stayed but the arm went. "That might be, Mr. Nudger. We'll just have to determine the facts."

We left 355 Star Lane together. I sat in my car for a minute, fixing into my key case the house key Carlon had given me. As I looked up, I saw Carlon lift a manicured hand from his steering wheel in a parting wave as he passed me in his Mercedes. He'd bought a lot for his fifty thousand. That "let the buyer beware" adage is backward.

But Carlon was good for his word on the phone number. He called me that afternoon at the Clover Inn and gave me a name and address on Dade Avenue, and he asked me to phone him as soon as I'd checked it out.

Daisy Rogers was the name. I was hoping the number wouldn't belong to a woman. What if Branly had been seeing Daisy Rogers on the sly? That would explain the concealed phone number, and whatever information it might lead to about Branly would be just what he'd chosen to let her know about himself. Probably very little.

I got directions to Dade Avenue from Eddie at the motel office and found that the street was only three blocks east of the motel, though the 2200 address I wanted was some distance south.

The 2200 block of Dade turned out to be a palm-lined street of inexpensive stucco houses set almost at the curb, as if the wide avenue had eroded the front lawns like the sea. The address Carlon had given me was on the corner, a small house painted a pale flamingo pink. A screened-in porch ran across the front of the house, and in the front yard was an old wheelbarrow, also painted pink, used as a planter and exploding with a colorful display of flowers. When I got near the porch, I saw that the screening was old and rusty, paint peeling about the framework.

After five rings of the bell the door was opened by a very old woman with lank gray hair hanging down onto her forehead. She was thin to the point of being emaciated, and age had bent her and humped her narrow back.

I caught myself staring at her. "Daisy Rogers?"

"That's me," she said brightly.

"The Branlys wanted me to let you know they'd be out of town for a few days." I knew I'd be safe in telling her that, since Carlon had kept David Branly's death out of the Lay ton papers.

She peered at me with lusterless eyes and cocked her head. "The who?"

"The Branlys-David Branly. He gave me your address and phone number. I was going to call you but was near here anyway on business, so I thought I'd relay the message personally."

Daisy Rogers shook her head slowly. She might have been seventy or ninety. "Don't know any Branlys."

I endeavored to look as puzzled as I felt. "Are you sure?… This is your address and phone number, isn't it?" I handed her a piece of paper with the information.

She placed an ancient pair of rimless spectacles, somebody's future heirloom, on the bridge of her nose, moved out closer to the sunlight and concentrated on the paper for almost a full minute. A musty scent wafted out of the house behind her. "Yep. You're at the right place. Maybe these Branlys know my boy Mark."

"Is he home?"

"Should be soon. Why don't you come in? Or you can sit there and wait on the shady end of the porch if you want. Cooler than inside."

I'd decided to wait on the wooden glider suspended on rusty chains from the porch ceiling when Daisy Rogers looked past me and white eyebrows raised on her speckled forehead.

"There's Mark now."

I turned to see a tall, stooped man, bald with a fringe of gray, shuffling toward the porch steps. He was carrying a paper bag, and he looked, if anything, older than his mother.

"Mark, this is Mister…"

"I came with a message from the Branlys," I told him.

"Damn young punk bastards!" he said, wobbling his head as if he hadn't heard.

"The Branlys?" I asked.

"All of 'em! I don't mind their fashions and their alley cat morals, but I don't like to be cheated without 'em botherin' to try to fool me!"

I stood patiently and let him talk, knowing I hadn't made contact.

"Took this new shirt back"-he held up the wrinkled bag-" 'cause it ripped under the arms when I put it on. Young clerk said he couldn't take it back 'cause it was torn. Told him that was why I brung it back! He said he knew the material was weak; that's why the shirt was on sale. Turned his back on me!"

"Keep yourself calm, Mark," his mother put in.

"Did you ever!" he said.

"I ever," I told him. "Do you know Branly?"

He stared at me as if I'd dropped from the porch ceiling. "Don't know any Branlys, didn't I tell you?"

No, sir.

"Offer you a cold beer?"

I declined with thanks.

As I left, he was trying clumsily to light a pipe while discoursing on the advantages of wooden matches over the new paper ones.

In the sun-heated compact I sat for a minute and looked around at the other houses. I had come to the address Carlon had given me, and Daisy Rogers had confirmed the telephone number. It was possible I'd misread one of the numerals scratched in the woodwork by the Star Lane phone. I started the car and drove farther south on Dade Avenue, until it intersected Palm Road.

The air conditioner Carlon had turned on yesterday was still humming its rattling tune, and the air inside the Star Lane house was almost breathable. I shut the door behind me and went directly to the phone and examined the numbers scratched on the underside of the woodwork. They were as clearly legible as I remembered.

A phone directory rested on the crosspiece of the telephone table's wooden leg braces. I reached down for the directory, opened the front cover, then tossed the book onto the red shag carpet. Picking up the telephone by the hand-hold behind the receiver cradle, I brought it down with me as I settled onto the carpet, next to the directory, and leaned my back against the wall. I opened the directory and began going down the line, dialing long-distance area codes, then the number scratched into the woodwork.

As each distant telephone was answered, I would ask for David Branly, then Vic Branly, and I would try to gauge the reaction of whoever was on the other end of the line. What I most often got was a vague puzzlement, sometimes annoyance.

I was beginning to perspire, and my back was aching from leaning against the hardness of the wall. Then finally, after dialing area code 312 and the phone number that was now etched in my memory as deeply as it was in the woodwork, I got the sort of reaction I'd been seeking.

"Dave?…" came the puzzled voice after I'd spoken. "There is no David Branly here…" It was a man's voice, nasal and uncertain.

"What about Vic?" I asked.

"Who is this?"

"A friend of Dave's."

A click and a buzz greeted that statement.

I replaced the receiver in its cradle and waited, watching a fly crawl laboriously up the opposite wall. As if the altitude had become too much for it, the fly began to veer to the right as it neared the ceiling. Something was making a hissing sound in the quiet room-my breathing.

The telephone rang.

On the third ring I picked up the receiver and pressed it to my ear, said nothing.

"Hello, Dave?…" came the same voice that had been on the line a few minutes before. "Vic?…"

Gently I replaced the receiver, picked it up again for a dial tone. Dale Carlon's secretary followed her instructions and rushed through my call to him.

"How long would it take you to get me a name and address for the Daisy Rogers number with a 312 area code?" I asked Carlon. "Probably in Chicago."

"You mean it's not a local number?"

"Not for our purposes. A very old woman and her son live at the Dade address."

"What about the son?"

"He seems older than the mother and has rips in his shirt."

There was little time in Carlon's day for digression. His telephone voice was terse. "I should be able to have that corresponding name and address for you within an hour."

"I'll be waiting at the Star Lane phone," I told him and got off the line so he could get busy.

Sitting on the carpet with my arms crossed on my knees, I wondered if Carlon could do it, if his influence carried that far from Layton.

I got up, stretched, and walked around the cramped, oppressive living room to work the stiffness from my aging bones. The air seemed to get staler, the walls closer together.

An hour and ten minutes had passed when Carlon called back.

The phone number belonged to a man named Roger Horvell, 67 Sirilla Street, in Chicago. I thanked Car-Ion, then punched and freed the cradle button to get a dial tone. After talking to Eastern Airlines in Orlando, I drove to the Clover Inn to pack.

This time Lieutenant Dockard was waiting for me.