Labyrinth

SEVEN

When Donleavy rang off I went into the kitchen, got out another bottle of beer, and sat brooding with it at the table. I had been so positive I was right about the day’s events in Brisbane-and I still thought so, damn it, at least where Martin Talbot’s actions and motivations were concerned. No way could I have been mistaken about the time element and the silence before the shot and the coagulating blood; I had been sharply conscious of time, I had been listening for sounds of any kind, I knew well enough when blood was coagulating and when it was fresh. So it added up the same way as before: Talbot had found Carding dead, picked up the gun, and fired a harmless shot-because he believed, just as I had believed, that Carding committed suicide, and because of a double-dose of guilt and a desire for punishment.

But then where the hell was the second bullet? It had to be in the garage; why hadn’t Osterman’s men found it?

The real surprise, though, was the fact that Carding was not a suicide but a murder victim. A man whose wife has just died in an automobile accident seems an unlikely candidate for homicide; you would think that old enemies, for instance, would consider the tragic loss of a loved one retribution enough. It could have been one of those random thrill killings-but that kind of psychopathic personality usually ties up his victims or slays them execution-style, and in addition almost never leaves his weapon behind. It could have been a burglar whom Carding surprised in the act-but as messy as the house was, it had not been searched for valuables; and burglars, like psychotics, seldom leave weapons behind. Anyway, what would a burglar be doing in the garage in the first place? It could have been a drinking companion of Carding’s, and the shooting a result of a drunken argument-but the body had not smelled of alcohol when I examined it, nor were there any whiskey bottles that I could remember seeing in the garage. So again, why would Carding have been shot there instead of inside the house?

Speculation was not going to get me anywhere, I decided. There were just too many things I did not know. About Victor Carding: What kind of man had he been? What kind of life had he led, who were his friends and his enemies? And also about the gun: Did it belong to Carding? If not, was it registered to anyone else? Or traceable in any other way?

Maybe the answers to one or more of those questions would point up the truth. Or maybe Donleavy and Osterman would get lucky and find a neighbor who had seen the killer leave and could identify him. Talbot and the cabbie and I would have seen him ourselves if we had arrived just a short time earlier; Carding could not have been dead more than a few minutes when I found him.

Well, in any case Donleavy was a first-rate cop and it was a good bet that he would get to the bottom of things sooner or later. Which was enough for me-but what about Laura Nichols? How was she taking it? Assuming she knew by now: I had neglected to ask Donleavy, in the wake of his revelations, if he had got in touch with her.

I stood and returned to the bedroom and redialed the Nichols number. This time, on the fourth ring, there was an answering click; Karen Nichols’ voice said a moment later, “Yes? Hello?”

“Is your mother there, Karen?” I asked when I had identified myself.

“No. She left hours ago.”

“Do you know what happened today?”

“Yes. Some friends and I were at Civic Center all afternoon; I just found out a few minutes ago. Mother left me a note to call her at the hospital. God, it’s just terrible. I still can’t believe it.”

“Your uncle didn’t kill Victor Carding,” I said.

“I know that. He couldn’t hurt anyone. But the police think he did, in spite of what mother says you told them. They have him under arrest at the hospital.”

“They’ll change their minds when they’ve had a chance to investigate further.”

“Are you really sure of that?”

“Pretty sure. Did your mother say when she’ll be home? I’d like to talk to her.”

“No, she didn’t. But she wants to talk to you, too. She said to give you a message if you called: You’re to see her tomorrow morning as early as possible.”

“At your home?”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you why, specifically?”

“Mother never tells me why she does anything,” Karen said, and there was undisguised bitterness in her voice. “Never. She just goes ahead and does it.”

I let a couple of seconds pass before I said, “I’ll come by around nine, then.”

“All right.”

“And try not to worry. Your uncle’s receiving the medical care he needs; things’ll work out okay in the long run.”

“Will they? I hope you’re right.”

We said goodbye and I put the receiver back into its cradle. I hoped I was right too-and I also hoped that Mrs. Nichols did not want to see me tomorrow morning so she could tell me face to face what a lousy detective she thought I was. She was not the most understanding and compassionate of women; the way she treated and alienated her daughter was proof of that. So she was probably capable of blaming me for not keeping her brother-and the family name-out of this mess; and of stopping payment on the retainer check she’d given me. Which would make a difficult situation even more difficult.

But then, maybe she had something else on her mind. Unpredictable was another adjective you could use to describe her.

In the living room I sat down again with the issue of Popular Detective and tried to read. No good; I was too restless now to concentrate on the exploits of pulp detectives. I put the magazine aside and wondered when Eberhardt was going to show up.

Two seconds later, in the crazy coincidental way things happen sometimes, the downstairs door buzzer went off. I crossed to the speaker unit mounted beside the door, pushed the Talk button, and asked who it was. Sure enough, Eberhardt’s voice said, “It’s me, hot shot. Buzz me in.”

I buzzed him in. And then opened the door and waited for him to come clomping up the stairs and along the hall. When he reached me he nodded and grunted something unintelligible. Moved past me to stand looking around at my sloppy housekeeping, his head wagging in a mildy disgusted way, as I shut the door.

“You ever clean up this pigsty?”

“Only when I’m entertaining a lady.”

“Not getting much, then, are you?”

“Not getting much,” I agreed. “Sit down. You want some coffee? A beer?”

“Make it a beer.”

I went to the kitchen, got a couple of bottles of Schlitz out of the refrigerator. When I came back Eberhardt had cleared some of the crap off the sofa and was sitting with his legs splayed out in front of him. He looked tired, irritable, and even more sour-faced than usual.

He said as I handed him a beer, “Seems you had a pretty busy day for yourself.”

“You heard about what happened in Brisbane?”

“I heard about it, all right. Makes two murders in two days you’re mixed up in.”

“Eb, I’m not mixed up in the Christine Webster shooting.”

“No, huh?” he said mildly.

“No.” I sat down. “Any leads yet on who killed her?”

“Nothing definite. We haven’t been able to trace her movements past seven P.M. on Tuesday. Her roommate, Lainey Madden, had a date that night; and just before she left at seven, Christine told her she was planning to spend a quiet evening at home.”

“How about a lead on why she had my card in her purse?”

“That we’ve got,” Eberhardt said.

“You do? What is it?”

“She’d been getting anonymous letters and telephone calls,” he said. “The threatening kind. Lainey Madden says she was considering going to a private detective about them.”

“Were they death threats?”

“Not in so many words. Veiled stuff.”

“How long had she been getting them?”

“About two weeks.”

“She have any idea who was responsible? Or why?”

“Not according to the Madden girl. Neither of them could imagine why anyone would have it in for Christine.”

“Could it be a sex thing?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no.” Eberhardt took some of his beer. “Christine kept the letters and the roommate turned them over to us; nothing sexual or obscene in any of them. Or in any of the calls either, apparently. There is a sex angle, though. Which you already know about if you read today’s papers.”

“I didn’t read them; I guess I should have. What is it?”

“She was pregnant,” he said.

“Ah-Jesus.”

“Yeah. Four months along.”

“You get a line on the father?”

“Damned good line. She was engaged to a kid she met at S.F. State last semester. Only man in her life the past six months, Lainey Madden says.”

“What did the kid have to say when you talked to him?”

“We didn’t talk to him. He’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Missing since last Sunday night. From up at Bodega Bay.”

Bodega Bay was on the coast about sixty-five miles north of San Francisco. I asked, “What was he doing up there?”

“Working in the commercial fishing business,” Eberhardt said. “He decided to skip school this semester, the way we heard it, because he was running low on money. Nobody’s seen or heard from him since around nine P.M. on Sunday.”

“Well, I guess that makes him your number one suspect.”

“Sure. But it’s not as simple as it might look. Not by a damn sight, it isn’t.”

“You mean because of the threats? Maybe the kid made them himself.”

“Maybe. Thing is, there’re complications now-a whole new can of worms.”

“What can of worms?”

“One you seem to be smack in the middle of.”

“Me?”

“You. And the missing kid.”

“Eb, what the hell are you getting at?”

“The kid’s name is Jerry Carding,” Eberhardt said sourly. “He’s Victor Carding’s son.”