Epitaph For A Dead Beat

CHAPTER 28

She got to her feet. Her face had no more color than dispersing smoke. “Are you mad—?”

“Am I? Maybe I am, because I can’t conceive of any reason. Why, Fern—?”

I had taken a step forward. My shoe touched something and I glanced down. Go Home, Little Children. A Novel by Fern Hoerner. I stared at it like a man looking down from the rim of an abyss. By Fern Hoerner.

I saw it then, as clearly as fanatics see hell. I had to brace myself against the dressing table. “By Lucien Vaulking,’’ my mouth said.

“What—?”

“Your husband, the writer who supposedly didn’t write— that was his name, wasn’t it? It has to be. There’s no other answer, none—”

She didn’t speak. Her eyes were wide.

“The author who died without leaving the novel everyone expected him to leave. You didn’t write the book, did you, Fern? Lucien Vaulking did, and somehow you got hold of the manuscript. A manuscript you knew at a glance would sell to Hollywood for big money, since you were in the business. You—”

I had the rest of it. But I had to push the words up out of my throat like uncomprehending draftees out of a slit trench. “Josie and Audrey,” I said. “The same two girls Vaulking had been seeing before he died. They must have found out — recognized the book — and threatened to expose you. Which has to mean that Audrey Grant’s father was killed for no other reason than—”

“You are mad,” she hissed. She let herself drop to the bed. “You have to be — utterly.”

I groped for the cigarettes I didn’t have. “Someone is, Fern. Someone who could kill those two girls to cover a theft, and then take a third life for no other reason than to throw suspicion in a different direction. Someone absolutely wanton, ruthless—”

“I—” Her hand moved, and light flashed on the patch of adhesive on her wrist. I sank to the bench.

“Christ. Someone who could even pretend to such terrible anguish that she would deliberately mutilate herself with a burning cigarette. All the acting you’ve done, every minute, so that I thought you were the only normal human being in this whole crew of psychopaths. My God, how sick you must be—”

Something changed in her face. Her lips parted, and then, incredibly, every trace of shock was gone from her expression. She dropped back onto one elbow, as casually indulgent as if Td started to tell a joke she’d heard a dozen times before. “All this because I said three people were dead, which I shouldn’t have known. You will go on?”

The unreality of the pose struck me like a blow. I stared at her. I didn’t know whether I was physically ill or whether the whole thing had hit me too hard in a place I’d set myself up to be hurt, but I felt dazed. Three of them, over a manuscript, a novel. I had to force myself to realize how much money was involved. I was sweating from every pore.

“You would have been familiar with the background,” I managed. “Josie would not have told many people about her illegitimacy, but her roommate would have known. You would have heard about Grant’s wealth also, and you obviously knew about Ephraim’s marriage—”

“I can admit all of that. And I was married to Lucien — it was never any secret. None of this means a thing.”

I shook my head, thinking it out. “Blackmail,” I said. “Josie and Audrey. Everything I’ve heard about the pair of them indicates they were capable of it. Not ordinary Village kids, but call girls, both of them bitter, opportunistic. Sure. They must have had proof that the book was Vaulking’s. They told Oliver Constantine they were coming into money, and the logical assumption was that they meant Grant’s — except that finally it didn’t make any sense, not with the girls dead themselves. But they meant your money — from the movie sale, the book club. They couldn’t very well admit to Constantine that they were leaving one dirty racket because they’d found an easier one, going from one rotten way of life to another, so they made up an excuse about an inheritance — probably the first idea that came to mind. So a story they contrived in all innocence helped you lead the police in the wrong direction—”

She said nothing, watching me. “Not that you needed the help,” I went on, “since you’d already established a connection between Grant and his heirs by sending those clippings. Or no, you threw in that telegram also, didn’t you? Just in case Ephraim didn’t work out as a patsy, an investigation of Constantine would lead to Ivan Klobb. So he’d be the one the cops would have thought had been blackmailed—”

I let it trail off, feeling unsteady again. “Is this all?” she said.

I nodded. “Although some small items begin to fit now also. Like the twenty-two you said you got as a gift. Vaulking was a marksman. It isn’t important, but it’s a good bet he was the one who gave you the gun — which you planted at Ephraim’s when you were supposed to be at that revival of Casablanca. You didn’t go to the picture, Fern. After we made our statements that night, standing by the car — I said, ‘Play it again, Sam/ It’s ten years since I saw the film, and I don’t even know if Bogart uses the line more than once, but I still remember it. You didn’t react. At the time I chalked it up to your being upset. And sure, one other triviality. Tonight at the party — why was I there? You didn’t ask. You knew the minute you saw me — that Grant had contacted me because of my name being in the paper. I suppose you did have a minute of panic Tuesday when you found out the sucker you’d picked to hold your hand was a private cop. Jesus, I can just see it. If I hadn’t poked my face into that bedroom you would have found a pretense to look in yourself, of course, but what was next on the schedule? A coquettish little scream, a demure faint—?”

There was a minute. “I hope you’re going to notice just a few of the flaws in all this,” she said then. “Audrey and Josie were blackmailing me. And yet Audrey didn’t suspect me in the least when Josie was killed.”

“She did suspect you — tonight, when she saw that Ephraim was out. The gun in his apartment fooled her first, sure, like it fooled the cops. But she got scared the minute she spotted him at McGruder’s. She knew the police didn’t have anything on him. Then you knifed her about three minutes later—”

I had leaned against the table, and my ribs contracted sharply. “I suppose you would have killed her sooner,” I said, “if she hadn’t run off with Peters for the few days. But you were probably fairly sure they’d show up at the party. What weapon did you have for that one, Fern — I mean before you picked up the knife? The same gun you shot Grant with earlier?”

She ignored the question, toying with the top button of her jacket. I could have made more sense out of her reaction if she’d shaved her head and danced on a chandelier. “I killed Ulysses Grant to make Ephraim’s inheritance look like a motive,” she said. “But suppose Ephraim hadn’t gotten out of jail before tonight’s deaths — who would be the murderer then?”

“The cops thought of that. Thirteen million would buy a lot of partner — they would have worked like hell to bring Peters into it.”

She wet her lips. “And you’ve concluded all of this on the basis of something I said which I wasn’t supposed to know. Suppose Dana had made the same slip — could you have built a case against her the same way?”

I must have been staring at her stupidly. “Damn it, Fern, what kind of dumb irrelevancy is that? You made the slip, not Dana. It’s going to send you up for life at the least — can’t you comprehend the fact?”

“Is it? What a shame — just when we were beginning to get along with each other, too.” She came off the bed. I hadn’t believed she could do anything with her face which might distort its beauty, but her lips twisted into a snarl that was more than ugly. “So I couldn’t have known about the third killing,” she said.

I didn’t answer her, but only because the dizziness came back. I had to shut my eyes, fighting a sudden mounting nausea.

“I couldn’t have known,” she repeated. “Well, maybe you ought to ask Pete Peters if I couldn’t have, mister. Or wake Dana — she was here when we heard.”

My head was swimming. “Heard—?”

“Yes, heard. Pete called here, damn you, just a minute before you came down — after you’d dropped him off. He brought up the third killing — which you’d just told him about.”

I forced myself off the bench. The room was murky as a steambath, and I could hardly hear her. “My lover man. I think you better scram, Fannin, before I really do get sore—”

I reached toward her, but I grabbed only mist. I hit the open door with a shoulder, stumbling, before blackness swirled over me like a shroud.