Extra Kill

SIXTEEN

"Answers," he went on to Hackett dreamily, after they had gone.

"We're getting them in, finally. Va aclarando -it's clearing up. And very nice too. So now we know almost all that happened to dear Brooke that Friday. His unlucky day, all right. He was finished here, after that business with Pickering… It looks as if Marian's got herself a man, absolutamente… He'd have no chance at all to get anywhere in show business, and he was also finished taking an easy living out of the Kingmans, because Pickering knew his connection with the Temple: he'd promised to hound him and he would. Everything had turned sour on Brooke Twelvetrees. First of all, he had to get away from 267th Street, in case Pickering did come back to check after the twenty-four hours' grace… There he is, hacking away at the Tree of Heaven in his blind fury at the way everything's turned out. I can see him, when that thought takes shape in his mind, stalking back into the apartment, throwing down that trowel anywhere-he's forgotten he had it-and starting to pack. He-yes. Yes." Mendoza was sitting on the end of his spine, eyes shut, looking peaceful, hands clasped across his lean middle. " Eso es, of course. He got here with just that old brown leather suitcase, he's had no occasion for luggage since, and he's accumulated too much to go into it. So he leaves his packing, he gets out the Porsche and goes off to buy a couple of new suitcases."

"I follow you," said Hackett. "That's nice deducing, but is it very important?"

"It might be. I think on the way he started thinking a little more clear and shrewd, and his first idea would be, What can I salvage out of this? He could try to go on blackmailing the Kingmans from a distance, but that's always a little more difficult. And I think he must have been very tired of the Kingmans and their Temple. Also, I think he needed some cash right then-he was the kind who spent everything as it came in, maybe he hadn't even enough for those suitcases on him. So he thought of the Kingmans' safe-and then he thought of the Temple bank accounts… Cut his losses, sure, and take everything along he could lay hands on. Now we don't know how long he worked at his gardening, how long he spent starting to pack. But we've got a kind of terminus ad quem, because the bank shuts at three. This just came in this morning. If it hadn't been that particular bank, this would be a different story, because a lot of banks now stay open later on Fridays and don't open on Saturday at all. But that one sticks to the old rule. So we deduce that by the time it came to him how he could salvage something out of the wreck, it'd be too late to get into the bank when he got there-it'd be quite a drive, you know. De paso, it's maybe a little confirmation of how our friend Kingman could get into the dither he did, you know, apparently he didn't know that, wasn't familiar with the banking hours. Because if he'd known the bank was open from nine to twelve on Saturdays, he'd have been down there to lay his warning then, and all this would have started two days before it did. Are you with me?"

" Yo seguir, right behind. Twelvetrees figured to take the cash and let the credit go, clear out the bank account and vanish into the wild blue yonder, probably under the name of Eustace J. Humperdink. O.K. He took a little chance clearing out the safe in the Temple-being too greedy. That he should have left alone."

"I think it was more economy than pure greed. He'd gone to a little trouble to get hold of the combination, silly not to use it now. And it wasn't a long chance at all. Not when it was a matter of hours. He knew Kingman probably wouldn't open that safe until Saturday night. And he fully expected to be at the bank when its doors opened Saturday morning, primed with a glib story for the manager of sudden unexpected expenses that had to be paid in cash-I wonder what he'd have said. I wouldn't put it past him to have intended forging some notes of instructions from the other officers. Yes. Clear out of 267th, he'd think, and get settled for the night in some quiet hotel, and maybe he meant to sit up over those forged notes, to have them ready. He wouldn't have closed out the bank accounts, that'd call for more red tape-just stripped them down to a hundred or so. No, it wasn't too much of a chance… Well, he went to the Temple and took the month's receipts. He went and got his prescriptions refilled, and he bought those suitcases somewhere-probably a big cheap department store where the clerks are always in a rush, don't notice individual customers usually. And he had an early dinner, and he drove back to 267th Street-he'd get there about six-thirty, a quarter of seven, if he left that restaurant at five-thirty. It had started to rain, you remember, it was coming down steadily, that would slow him on the drive. And he started to finish his packing."

"Yes. And?"

Mendoza's long nose twitched. "I'm doing all the work. Can't you fill in a bit? Come on, think hard."

"Well-I think he wrote that note to Mrs. Bragg, to have it ready. He didn't want any backchat, or delay in getting away either. And it's nice to know he had the gun-it was his… Can we say he had a visitor, then? Before he got away, when he was nearly finished packing

… " Hackett fingered his jaw, looking troubled. "I don't know-"

"There are a lot of little things I don't know, but I know who the visitor was. Thanks to you."

"Now look-she-"

" Eso basta, you stop right there. I'm tired of listening. I think, though there are jobs you could do, you'd better take the rest of the day off. I'm worried about you-you're going to pieces. I could take time and explain, but I think it'll be salutary for you not to be told-force you to do a little thinking of your own."

"Are you ordering me?-" began Hackett stiffly.

" Es mas listo de lo que parece," said Mendoza to himself with a sigh. "Smarter than he 1ooks-I hope. You go and have a nice quiet drink somewhere, Arturo, and maybe take in a movie. And don't worry, trust your uncle Luis, everything will be O.K. with a little luck."

"Oh," said Hackett, staring at him. "You don't think- And what are you going to be doing, if I'm allowed to ask?"

"I have dispatched minions-that's a nice word, no question but English has certain advantages-to discover, if possible, where the coat was purchased, by whom, and when. I think we'll get it, because it was only yesterday, you see, it'll be fresh in the salesclerk's mind. And for other reasons too. De veras, this love of melodrama

… I am presently going to call on a new witness, or at least one we haven't thought very important, and meanwhile I am going to sit here and do some serious thinking, along the same line the famous idiot boy took with the lost horse. Goodbye, Arturo. Shut the door when you leave."

Hackett looked at him, opened his mouth, thought better of that and shut it, and stalked out.

Oddly enough, he did more or less what Mendoza had told him to do, though without conscious plan. He went and had a drink, and then he walked up Main Street for a little way, thinking-not to much purpose-and dropped into a newsreel theater.

He didn't take in much of the news; when he came out he went back for his car and drove up to Fairfax Avenue in Hollywood. He located the doctor's office and the pharmacy, and drove slowly on from there, watching the right side of the street. He stopped and parked twice, to go into large shops where luggage was sold, and drew blank. It was at the third place he got somewhere, a big department store branch; one of the clerks thought he remembered a man who looked like Twelvetrees' picture coming in to buy some luggage: he couldn't say exactly when, a couple of weeks back he thought, and he couldn't remember exactly what the man had bought.

Still, it all helped a little. Though the suitcases didn't matter, weren't important. But at least it gave him an illusion of working at it.

It was nearly four o'clock, and he remembered he hadn't had any lunch. He had a sandwich in a drugstore, and started back downtown, aimlessly.

He was on North Broadway, stopped at a light and looking around idly, when he saw the sign. It was an old movie house, newly refurbished in the desperate hope of better business, and for the same reason running a new gimmick to compete with TV. Like the fad for foreign films, there was a little boom these days in silent movies; maybe it made the middle-aged feel young again, and the kids superior; a lot of people seemed to get a kick out of saying, Did we ever think that was good? This house featured them once a week, so the sign said, and the one running now was called The Girlhood of Laura Kent-the name leaped at him from below the title-with Mona Ferne.

He turned into the next parking lot and walked back. On the way he suddenly found himself thinking about that gun. It had been lying on top of the bureau, Kingman said; so Twelvetrees had taken it out of the drawer, where Pickering had seen it, to pack. His visitor presumably had not (was that a fair deduction?) come with the idea of killing him, or he or she would have been prepared with a weapon. It was surprising how tough the human body was: you couldn't be sure of killing someone with a bang on the head-when it happened like that it was usually the sudden violent impulse and the blow landing just right at random. But if a suddenly enraged visitor snatched up that gun, why in hell hadn't he or she used the other end of it? A much surer way. The noise, yes: but that was the last thing anyone in a sudden violent rage would remember… So, the gun hadn't been loaded.

Yes, it was, he thought the next second. Or the cartridges for it were there. Because a while later it was used on Bartlett.

He stopped under the theater marquee, and in absent surprise he thought, Well, well: so he had come round to Mendoza's viewpoint on that, Walsh's thing.

He went up to the ticket window, past the resurrected poster where Mona Ferne's young, insipidly pretty face smiled. "This Laura Kent thing, when does it go on?"

"You're lucky, just starting now."

Hackett gave up his ticket stub to the door attendant and groped his way down the aisle. Even in the dark there was an empty feel to the house, and when his eyes were adjusted and he looked around, he saw that there were only about twenty people in the place. Wouldn't think it'd pay them to stay open…

As he watched the opening scenes of what could never have been a good picture (even allowing for changes in style) he thought of what Stanley Horwitz had said. Couldn't act-just took direction. Too true. And the kind of thing she had done: this was probably a fair sample. It must have been one of the earliest pictures she'd starred in, by the date: it was thirty-four years old. A year older than he was: but when his memory started, a few years later-well, it was hard to say, you remembered childhood backgrounds distorted, sometimes, but he'd have said that even then audiences would have been a trifle too sophisticated to go for this. But they must have: she'd done this kind of thing another nine or ten years and it had gone over pretty well.

It was supposed to be funny and what the posters still called heart-warming at the same time. The tired old plot of the tomboy who hates being a girl and goes swaggering about in jeans playing baseball (or riding broncs or driving racing cars or flying airplanes) until Love Enters Her Life and overnight she becomes a demure clinging vine

… Of course the photography wasn't so good, but it was interesting to see what she had been: he had an idea, now, of the goal she was aiming for with all the effort put out. This vapidly pretty girl with blond curls and spontaneous adolescent giggles.

The dramatic action was jerky, everything drearily spelled out. She waded in a stream, casting a line with what even Hackett could see was inept awkwardness. She rode in a horse show, smart and boyish in jodphurs. She went skeet-shooting with her distinguished sportsman father, in-

Suddenly he heard his own voice, loud and shocking in that place,

"My God!"-and found he was standing up. It couldn't be-but it was, he'd swear it was!

He sidestepped out to the aisle and ran up it. And as he ran, a few pieces fitted themselves together in his mind, and he thought, So that was it. The coat, the damned coat-but-

"Telephone?" he gasped to the doorman, who gaped at him and pointed out the public booth in the lobby. Hackett fumbled for a dime, slammed it into the slot… "Jimmy," he said when he got Sergeant Lake, "let me talk to him-I don't care if he's in conference with the Chief, I've got-"

"He isn't here, Art, you just missed him."

Hackett said a few things about that. "Know where he's gone?"

"If you'll let me get a word in edgewise. He was just back from somewhere, looking like the dealer'd handed him a royal flush first time round, when that Miss Weir called and out he goes again in a hurry."

"Oh, O.K., thanks." Hackett hung up. It was twenty past five. He seemed to remember that that school of hers closed at three-thirty, four, around there: she was probably at home. Try, anyway. He found another dime, looked up the number.

"Miss Weir? Art Hackett. Is Luis there?… Luis, listen, I've got something, something so-"

"Well, wel1," said Mendoza, "have you limped up to the finish post, chico? Congratulations. You'd better come round, we've got something here too."

At about the same time that Hackett was brooding over his drugstore sandwich, Alison was saying helplessly, "Now drink your tea while it's hot," and wondering why it was that in the American mind, apparently, tea was connected with trouble. Could it be still reverberations from the Stamp Tax? When someone was in trouble, a little under the weather, or having a crying spell, automatically you made them a nice hot cup of tea.

She had found the girl outside her apartment door when she came home, a forlorn stranger who told her numbly, like a child repeating a lesson, "Sergeant Hackett said to come and see you. I'm sorry, I didn't know where else to come. I didn't know what to do. But I had to get out of that house. I had to. I'm Angel C-Carstairs."

She was shaking and cold, and she'd had some kind of bad shock, Alison saw. Having heard a little about this case from Mendoza, she recognized the girl's name; she made her come in and sit down, she made the tea and gave her soothing talk, and then all this began to come out. Incoherent at first.

"I didn't know-I thought I'd never seen it before, but it must be hers, because-because she kept saying- Like, you know, if you keep on telling a person he's stupid, he will be. She did that with me, I know it, I know it in my mind but I c-can't seem to do anything about it-telling me I'm too big and clumsy. You know. It was like that, about this-as if she thought, if she said it to me enough I'd begin to believe it-the way everybody else would. And it's not true, it's silly. That I could ever-be in love-with somebody like that! Like Brooke! I didn't even think he was handsome, I mean he was too good-looking-you know-"

"Yes."

"Oh, I don't know what I'm doing here-perfect stranger to you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I didn't know-I just had to get out of her house- You see, it was so funny, the way she kept insisting it was my coat, as if after a while I wouldn't be sure about that either, and say it was- and then after they'd g-gone, she got onto this, kept saying she understood how I'd loved him, felt jealous-and then I thought why it could be. I didn't believe it-I don't know if I believe it-but if she did-Oh, I've hated her, I've hated her so-you can't understand that, how anybody could-my own mother, but you don't know, you probably have a n-nice mother-"

"Drink your tea," said Alison. She was beginning to understand what this was all about, and automatically made quiet responses while she thought, I'd better call Luis. Persuade her to talk to him, if she will. "Actually I don't remember my mother at all, she died when I was two, and my father brought me up. Not much of a bringing-up, I expect, either, because he was an engineer and we lived in Mexico mostly, traveling around from one godforsaken spot to another-construction camps, you know. But people are just people, no better or worse for being mothers or fathers. And hating doesn't do any harm except to you-"

"I know, I don't want to, I-I don't think I do, any more. It's all over, all of a sudden, and I don't know what to do-but I shouldn't be here, I'm sorry. I've g-got money, and in the bank too, I mean I'm all right. I expect I'd better go to a hotel. It just hit me all of a sudden, the reason. And I don't know-now-how I do feel about her. Doing that. Not him-but trying to-wanting to-"

"Yes. I think the only way to feel is sorry for her, don't you? Not resentful. It's just a thing you have to face up to."

"I-I guess I'm not very good at that."

"Then now's the time to start," said Alison firmly. Angel had calmed down a little; perhaps the kitten had helped, curled up beside her purring. "I always wanted a c-cat. She never- But I could be different, couldn't I? I could learn better. To cope, sort of, you know. You know what I always wanted to do? It's silly, I guess, she said… But I liked it better than anything else at school, even than poetry. I-1ike to cook… She kept on at it, until I suddenly saw, that was all. And they think it was me, that's what she wanted them to- Not Sergeant Hackett, he's nice, but the other one. That I was in love with Brooke. But does she think I'm c-crazy, not to know how I felt-and didn't feel? Oh, I don't understand-and-"

"You'd better tell Lieutenant Mendoza about this." And then Alison spent ten minutes persuading her.

"I couldn't! Don't you see-even if-even if I don't feel anything-like that-for her, she is-! I couldn't-like t-telling tales-"

"Don't be childish," said Alison. "This is serious, you know it is. And I doubt very much if it'll come as a surprise to Luis, when-" even you know about it, she finished in her mind, but Angel was rushing on.

"And besides he's the one thinks I-! He looked at me when he left-I knew what he was thinking-"

“That I doubt too," said Alison. "If he looked at you one way, it probably meant the opposite. I'm told that's the secret of his success-experience at the poker table. Now you go and wash your face-you've been crying and it'll make you feel better-and you'd better take an aspirin too, and lie down on the bed and rest quiet until he gets here. You can trust Luis not to jump to any wrong conclusions, and it's much better in his hands."

Angel went meekly to do as she was bidden, and five minutes later Alison, looking in, found her sound asleep, curled up on the bed like the kitten.

She left her thoughtfully, shutting the door, and was sorry Mendoza arrived so soon. He listened to her rather incoherent account and said, "Awkward. I'm not quite ready to break this yet, I want a bit more information, and I hope her-mmh-precipitate flight doesn't scare Mona. No odds if it does, though, she'd only do something else damn silly. No finesse at all."

"But what an awful thing, Luis-her own mother-"

"Physical sense only. She's never had a thought in her head besides herself. In this case, anything expedient to get out from under. Now I wonder if that was why she took that laundry bag away? Just in case."

"Will Angel have to testify against her? She's just about at the end of her tether now-"

" Es poco probable, I don't think so. Not if we get a nice tight legal confession, which I'd like. She'll have a rough time for a little while, the publicity, but these things die down-something else'll come along to make gossip."

"There's good stuff in her, I think-she'll take it, and maybe be the better for it. My Lord, how I long to get at her and fix her up-she could be a good-looking girl, you know. And what a time to think of that… "

"Any time's the time to think of a good-looking woman, chica. You do just that, and earn Art Hackett's gratitude. I'd heard the one about beauty being in the eye of the beholder, but I never believed it before. Another good man gone wrong… Yes, I'm afraid so, lo siento en al alma, to my deep regret. Many a man ruined for life by marriage, I only hope he'll have better luck."

Alison said, "Yes?" She watched him relax on the couch, stroking the kitten.

"Well, where is this girl? I've got other irons in the fire-”

"Count five and start pretending to be a human being," said Alison dryly. "I'll get her."

And he gave her his one-sided smile, caught her hand as she passed and kissed it. "Sorry, querida, it's routine to me, sometimes I forget it isn't to everybody. I'll be nice to her."

But she hadn't taken another step before the phone rang, and it was Hackett…

Angel looked a little better for the rest, with her face scrubbed, her hair combed. She sat erect on the edge of the couch like a child in school, with Alison beside her, and only gradually relaxed under their quiet voices, their reassuring phrases.

"It was," said Hackett, "a picture made before you were born, so you wouldn't know anything about it. But what startled me was that there's a scene of her shooting-target-shooting-and the way it was taken, I don't see how it could have been faked. She was doing it, not someone doubling for her-and she wasn't missing a shot. Quite a little exhibition."

"I don't know anything about the picture. But I can tell you a little about that, I guess-" She stopped, looked stricken again, and again Mendoza was patient.

"Miss Carstairs, I'm not lying when I say we'd get all this elsewhere if not from you. There's only a few little things I want to ask you right now. I knew about your mother this morning, when I looked at that coat and saw it was brand-new, and heard her trying to convince us all that it was yours, and that you'd had it for some time. You're not betraying her in any sense, believe me-you're only filling in a little for us that we could learn from others."

"I see that," she whispered. "I-I don't like it, but you'd only-find out anyway, and I don't suppose-this'll be as bad as-if there's a trial and so on." She stiffened her shoulders, took a deep breath. "Mr. Horwitz could probably tell you more about it. I know I was awfully surprised when he mentioned it once-it was the first I'd ever heard of it-it must have been that picture he meant. He said everybody had been surprised to-to find she was a second Annie Oakley. You see, she was brought up on a farm, or anyway a very small town, I'm not sure which, in South Dakota, and she used to go out hunting with her father. She got to be quite a good shot. Later on she-I think she felt it was unwomanly, you know-she never mentioned it or did it any more. My father-I've heard Mr. Horwitz say-was a sportsman, he liked to hunt, and I don't know but maybe she used to go with him then. But that'd be twenty-five years ago, and so far as I know since then she's never- But Brooke wasn't shot, was he?"

"Not Brooke," said Mendoza. He took the old Winchester revolver out of his pocket and laid it on the coffee table. "Have you ever seen this before, Miss Carstairs?"

She looked at it for a long moment. "I-why, yes, I think-I think that's the gun Brooke stole… She wasn't really angry about it, just a little put out. She never could have refused him anything, you know," and faint contempt was in her tone. "She was terribly silly about him. I knew-even I knew-he just fawned on her, flattered her, because she-gave him presents, and I think she used to pay too, when they went to some awfully expensive place. I-it was shameful. I wouldn't have liked him anyway but when he did that-"

"Yes. He stole this gun?"

"He called it borrowed. He was going to be in some play where they had to have a gun," she said dully. "I said my f-father liked to hunt, he had some guns, and two or three of them she never sold. This was one of them. It's not the kind you hunt with, of course-the others are rifles-but she kept this on account of burglars. She said. He saw it one day, it was in the den with the others in a case, and he took it. She said he should have asked, of course she'd have lent it to him. He never gave it back-I don't know if she asked, or maybe gave it to him to keep. I do know it was loaded when he took it, she always kept it loaded. In case she needed it in a hurry, she said, if someone broke in."

"Twenty-five years," said Hackett to Mendoza, meditatively.

"I don't know, it's a thing you don't lose entirely. If you've had a lot of practice. You'd get rusty, sure, but-in an emergency-you'd instinctively do what old experience told you."

"Probably. A great help, anyway-the old experience-in that particular target shot."

“ Claro estd. Miss Carstairs, I've got just two more questions to ask, and then we're going to see that you're settled in a hotel. Miss Weir'll go along and I expect lend you whatever you need, and we'll stop bothering you for a while. Can you tell me anything about Miss Janet Kent?"

Angel's eyes hardened a little. "Yes, I can," she said steadily. "She was a-a sort of nurse-supervisor for me for about ten years, from the time I was five. I don't think she meant to be-unkind, but she was awfully-oh, strict and old-fashioned, and crotchety. She was old then, and looking back now, I can see she used to-to fawn on her and pretend to admire her so much, because she was afraid of losing her job, not being able to get another. But-she-swallowed it all whole, you never can give her too much flattery, she never sees through it. And when I got too old for Miss Kent, she gave her a sort of pension, just because it makes her feel magnanimous to have someone dependent on her that way. I-I feel sorry for Miss Kent now-once in a while she'd get me to go with her there, you know, and it's just sickening-to me anyway-the way Miss Kent kowtows to her, you almost expect her to say ‘my lady' and curtsey-oh, you know what I mean-like a whipped dog-because she's old, nearly eighty, and she hasn't got anyone or any money, and if she ever stopped giving her this little bit to live on, Miss Kent'd have to go on the county. She just revels in it, of course, the funny thing is she thinks Miss Kent really means it-"

"Yes. Now I want you to take your time and think about this one," said Mendoza. "You know, of course, that your mother has made a very inept effort to cast suspicion on you. She didn't choose you deliberately, but when we found the body, you see-which hadn't been intended-and began finding out a few things close to home, she got nervous. She had a few things she hadn't got rid of, to link her with it, and now she was afraid to try to dispose of them, that we might see her doing that. So it had to be someone in the same house, in case of a search warrant. And that meant you. You know about the coat. There's something else. Something about two feet long or a bit more. Fairly heavy, but partly flexible. Is there anywhere in that house where she could put such a thing, where it would be definitely connected with you and still you wouldn't come across it right away‘?"

She didn't think twenty seconds; she said simply, instantly, "Why, of course. My old trunk. That is, it's-it was my father's, there were some old family pictures in it and odds and ends. She was going to throw it away once when I was about seven, and I begged to have it. I-I never knew anybody in either of their families, you see, my grandparents or aunts and uncles-and it made it seem I had more of a family somehow, those old pictures. I used to t-tell myself stories about them… I keep it way at the back of my closet, it's locked, and there are things in it I expect it's silly to keep, but the kind of things you don't throw away. My high school graduation dress, and the school yearbooks-and a c-couple of letters-things like that. I don't open it once in six months, now."

"Locked," said Mendoza. "Where do you keep the key?"

"In the top drawer of my dresser."

"And where were you from six o'clock on last evening? At home?"

"Why, no-for once I wasn't," she said without bitterness. "I felt I had to get out-away-I went to a movie by myself… No, of course I haven't looked in the trunk since."

"Thank you very much," said Mendoza smiling. "That's all for now."

And as they waited for Alison to pack an overnight bag for the girl, over Angel's protests, Mendoza suddenly asked, "You didn't pick up a traffic ticket on your perambulations today, by any chance?"

"A- No, why?"

"Neither did I. Oh, I don't know-round out the case," said Mendoza vaguely. "Traffic tickets, they've had quite a lot to do with this i case, one way and another. If Frank Walsh hadn't given me that ticket and subsequently found I'm a tolerably reasonable individual to talk to, he'd probably have done nothing about his doubts on Bartlett. Let Slaney convince him he was just being overconscientious. And if Madame Cara hadn't got a ticket that night at-as we now know-the corner of Avalon and DuPont at seven minutes past eleven, I might easily have decided to use that warrant and charge them with the murder. And in the first instance, if Walsh and Bartlett hadn't stopped to hand out a traffic ticket right there, she wouldn't have had such a good chance to spot the squad-car number she was looking for, and take those shots at the driver-the wrong man. Funny how things work out sometimes. If she hadn't done that extra kill, nobody might ever have known a thing about it. Twelvetrees-Trask quietly moldering away there with his suitcases. Woods would have gone on looking, and finally filed it under Pending, and that would have been that… It was the extra kill-and the traffic tickets-that tripped her up in the end."

And Hackett asked, "But why? What possible motive-"

" Eso tiene gracia,” said Mendoza, "that's the funny thing. I don't know. I've got a little idea, but I don't know. Maybe she'll tell us."