Find a Victim

Chapter 13

I drove back down the pass road and turned toward the city. The glow of its lights was paler, as if the fires that consumed it were burning out. A few late trucks went by toward the south, their headlights long white fingers reaching for morning. None of them was a rig I had seen before. Bozey would be out of the county by this time, headed east or south. Kerrigan would be on his way to Mexico.

I was wrong about Kerrigan. His red convertible was standing on the gravel apron in front of his motor court. The engine was idling, and its blue-gray exhaust puffed and plumed on the air.

I parked on the shoulder of the highway and walked back to the convertible. It was empty. Switching off the ignition, I dropped the keys in my pocket and took my gun out. All but one of the cottages in the court were dark, but there was light in the main building. It leaked through a side window and glazed the green surface of the small oval swimming-pool. I walked around the pool to the rear of the building. The water looked deep and cold.

The light was in the office. Its back door was partly open, and I looked in. The room was newly furnished with a couple of chromium chairs, a metal desk with a black composition top, fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling. Kerrigan was prone between the desk and a small safe, which was open. The back of Kerrigan’s head was open too. In the blank efficient light, I could see the color of his brains.

The cork floor around his head was soaked with blood. I lifted his head by the short hair and saw where the bullet had entered, between the eyes. It looked like a medium-caliber hole, probably .38. The gray triangular eyes were fixed in eternal surprise. I turned them back to the floor and went through his pockets, quickly. A siren in the distance was whirling a thin loop of sound over the rooftops.

Kerrigan had no wallet, no money in any form. There was no trace of the package Bozey had handed him, either in his clothes or in the safe. I pulled out the contents of the safe: bills and canceled checks, the current ledger for the motor court. It had been losing money.

Somewhere on the other side of the court an engine turned over, coughed, and died. The starter whined again, insistently. I left the dead man and followed the broken thread of sound outside. It came from one of the doorless carports fronting on the alley behind the cottages.

The whining motor caught and turned over, roaring. I started to run toward the mouth of the alley, my leather soles clattering and sliding on the tiles around the pool. A small sports car with the top down backed out of the carport behind the lighted cottage, paused with a squeak of rubber, and shot toward the highway. Jo Summer’s face was darkly intent behind the windshield.

I raised my gun. “Stop. I’ll fire.”

Then something heavy and hard and grunting struck my legs from behind. I went down at the side of the alley. The little car swerved around me, flicking gravel into my face. A pair of knees hit the small of my back like piledrivers. An arm circled my neck in a stranglehold, and another arm reached for my gun.

I held onto the gun, and used it to hammer the elbow bent around my throat. The man on my back growled with pain. His grip relaxed. Using his arm as a lever, I got my shoulder under his weight. He must have weighed two hundred. My muscles creaked as I rose to my knees. I flipped him forward over my head and pinned him on his back, one arm under his neck, the other between his writhing legs.

The man’s legs were encased in black leather, and I didn’t like the color of his breeches. They seemed to be olive-drab in the chancy light. They looked like part of the uniform of the sheriff’s department. A choked voice said something about arrest into my armpit.

I let him go, but I picked up my gun and held it on him as he got to his feet. It was Deputy Braga, Tony Aquista’s cousin. His teeth were a bright gash in his Indian face, and his breath hissed out between them like escaping steam.

“Give me that gun.”

“I think it’s safer with me, Braga.”

His quick obsidian eyes went from the gun to my face and back again. “Hand it over. I saw you pull it on the girl.”

“I was trying to stop her. She’s one of the highjacking mob. That was a brilliant tactic of yours, letting her get away.”

“Listen, you smart-cracking L. A. bastard–”

He took a step toward me. I moved the gun, and it inhibited him.

“Listen to me. She’s Kerrigan’s girl, and Kerrigan is on the floor of his office with his brains blown out.”

“Is that the shot that was heard? Are you the one that reported it?”

“No.”

His brown face was wooden with thought. “There’s too damn many coincidences here. You make a habit of finding murder victims in pairs?”

“I was tailing Kerrigan. If you want to know why, ask the sheriff. I laid it out for him a few minutes ago.”

“The hell you did. He’s way up in the pass, manning a roadblock.”

“That’s where I talked to him. Speaking of coincidences, does Church make a habit of doing his own detail work?”

“I’ll ask the questions.” He took another step toward my gun, leaning on its menace like a man walking into a strong wind. “I’m telling you for the last time. Drop the gun.”

“Sorry, Braga. I need it. I’m going after the girl.”

“You’re staying here.”

He crouched and went for his hip. I had the choice of shooting him or letting him shoot me. Or swinging on him with everything I had left, on the chance of finding the point of his outthrust chin. I found it. He lay down on his side, very still, in fetal position.

I heard a click behind me. The door of the lighted cottage opened. A wispy-haired youth in red pajamas came toward me, walking like a sleepwalker. I stepped in front of Braga and went to meet him.

“Who are you?”

“Allister Gunnison. Junior.” He sounded like a butler announcing his own arrival at a funeral. “Are you the officer I called? I’m sure I heard a shot.”

“What time?”

“I believe it was about a quarter after one. I happened to look at my traveling clock when the noise awakened me. Then I heard running footsteps.”

“Coming in this direction, toward the alley?”

“No, I believe they went toward the highway, over on the other side of the court.”

“Man’s or woman’s?”

“I really couldn’t say. There was no one in sight by the time I got outside. After I called you on the public telephone, I came back to my cottage and took a luminol. I’m afraid I must have gone into shock or something – I just came out of it now. You see, I’m terribly high-strung, my nerves can’t endure excitement.”

“You’re not the only one. Does the sports car belong to you?”

“The MG? Yes, it does.”

“You shouldn’t leave the keys in it. It’s been stolen.”

“Oh, my,” he said, “how dreadful. Mother will be fearfully upset. And I have to face her in Pasadena tomorrow. You simply must get it back for me, officer.”

His myopic eyes focused on me for the first time, took in my face, the wreckage of my clothes. “You’re not – are you a policeman?” His hand went to his mouth.

“A special agent from Washington,” I said. “We’ve had our eye on you for wearing red pajamas. Watch it, Gunnison.”

I left him munching his knuckles in wild surmise. Braga was twitching when I passed him. I ran the rest of the way to my car. At least I went through the motions of running, and didn’t fall on my face.

Before I reached the city limits, I realized the hopelessness of the chase. Jo had a long head start, and she wouldn’t be going back to any of the places she’d been.

I went to see Mrs. Kerrigan instead.