Meet Me at the Morgue

chapter 23

I took him back to the desert house, driving slowly because I distrusted my nerves. The wrecked sports-car had blocked the road until I had it removed. I finally found a telephone at the ski lift where the road ended, and got in touch with a tow service in Palmdale, forty miles away. It took over two hours altogether. It was midmorning when I reached the Johnson place.

A black custom-built Ford was nosed under the carport I parked behind it. When I stepped out of the car, the weight of the sun was palpable on my head. The landscape shimmered slightly like a painted curtain concealing a still more desolate reality.

Forest was standing in the doorway with a tall glass of something in his left hand and a revolver in his right hand. He returned the gun to its shoulder holster. “Catch him?”

“He’s in the trunk of the car, wrapped in a blanket.”

His broad face was impassive. “You had to shoot him, eh?”

“No. He cracked up, trying to get away. Where’s Mrs. Johnson?”

“I sent her back home with the boy. She’s been singing your praises, incidentally.”

My knees softened, threatening to let me down onto the concrete terrace. I turned and braced my back against the stone wall. The shimmering plain divided like curtains blown by a wind, and I saw the more desolate reality behind them: the mask of a woman’s face reflected in murky green water.

Seeing that I was in trouble, Forest pushed through the screen door and lent me his shoulder. “Come in, Cross. You’ve had a rugged twenty-four hours. What you need is a rest and a nice cold drink. Mrs. Johnson made iced tea before she left.”

We descended into a room with a low, beamed ceiling and heavily curtained windows. After the outside dazzle, it seemed as dark as a cave. I sat in a creaking cowhide chair. Forest introduced me to a colleague whose name I didn’t hear. We agreed that it was hot outside, but comparatively cool inside on account of the thick walls and the cooling system. Forest busied himself in another room and came back with a drink for me. When I had drunk it, I was able to distinguish between the sound of the air-conditioner and the whirring sounds in my head.

Forest gave my shoulder a friendly tap. “Feeling better now?”

“Much better. Thanks.”

“This heat is hard on a man when you’re not used to it.”

“It’s cool enough in here,” his colleague insisted.

Forest turned to him. “That reminds me, Eddie, we better call Pacific Point and ask them to send a hearse. Cross has Miner’s body in the trunk of his car.”

“We means me, as usual?”

“What do you think? The telephone’s in the kitchen.”

Eddie went out. Forest sat down opposite me on a Navajo-blanketed couch. “Miner died without talking, I suppose?”

“He said a little. His head was injured and he may have been irrational. He seemed to think I wanted him for violating probation.”

Forest began to laugh, but stopped when I didn’t join in. “Is that all he said?”

“He claimed that he was protecting the boy.”

“That’s what he told the boy.” A trace of Forest’s derisive laughter persisted in his voice. “He told the youngster he brought him out here for safety’s sake. Is that what he said to you, that the whole thing was done on Mrs. Johnson’s orders?”

“Yes, and I got the impression that he was sincere. When a man is dying–”

“Nonsense. He didn’t know he was dying.”

“I believe he did.”

“Even so, I don’t attach any special sanctity to a deathbed statement. A liar is a liar, under any circumstances.”

“I don’t believe he was lying.”

“It’s his word against Mrs. Johnson’s. She denies that she gave him any such orders.”

“Naturally she denies it.”

Forest changed his position on the couch, regarding me with a hard and curious eye. “Correct me if I’m wrong. I had a peculiarly vivid impression that you were one of Mrs. Johnson’s admirers.”

“I am. I’m not sure yet what I admire her for.”

He jerked his head impatiently, and rose. “I don’t know what you have in mind, Cross. It’s just not plausible that any mother would connive at the kidnapping of her own son. You ought to see them together, man. She worships that little kid. She wouldn’t let him out of her sight.”

“She did yesterday.”

“So?”

“I don’t pretend to understand this thing. But I’m half inclined to think that Miner is innocent.”

“You’re crazy with the heat.” Forest walked the length of the room and kicked the dead log in the fireplace, violently. He came back, limping slightly, and sat down again: “Forgive the expression, Cross.”

“All right.”

“I simply meant to say, I think you’re dead wrong. Now you may have facts I don’t have. If there’s any evidence you know of, confirming the dead man’s allegation, it would be a good idea to lay it out in plain view.”

Two things rose in my mind and dovetailed. Molly had spoken of a red-haired woman who fingered Kerry Snow for the federal men. Seifel claimed that Helen had given him Snow’s address in 1946. It would be Molly’s word against Helen’s, Seifel’s word against Helen’s, Miner’s word against Helen’s. Like an after-image of what I had seen on the terrace, I saw her face threatened by darting, barbed tongues.

Forest was watching me. “Well?”

“I have no evidence.”

“Then let’s forget it, at least until or unless something does turn up. I don’t know how you have this thing figured out. Here’s the picture that presents itself to me:

“Miner and Snow were buddies aboard ship. Perhaps they were mutually involved in a racket of some kind – I’ve never heard of a large Naval vessel that didn’t have its rackets. Miner was never caught. Snow was, after the two fell out. Do you know who gave us the information on Snow’s whereabouts, when we arrested him in 1946?”

“You told me last night. Larry Seifel.”

“He was just the errand-boy. I got it out of him this morning, before they left. Apparently he held back on me because he was afraid of damaging Mrs. Johnson.”

“She gave him the information?”

“She passed it on to him, yes, but it didn’t originate with her. I questioned her about it. It developed that Miner was her patient at that time, in the San Diego Naval Hospital. It was Miner who gave her Snow’s address in the first place. He asked her to turn Snow in without bringing his name into it. Naturally she went to Seifel about it. They were friends, and it was in his line.”

“So it all comes back to Miner?”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I am. But I’m more relieved.”

“It’s a rough deal when any man goes rotten,” Forest said sententiously. “But everything comes back to Miner, according to my picture. Snow sweated out his years in the pen, and came out looking for Miner. Miner saw him first. He ran Snow down, removed identification, converted himself from a murderer into a hit-run driver. Everybody was taken in except Snow’s pal, Arthur Lemp. Lemp may have witnessed the killing.”

“It’s possible. I thought of that.”

“But Lemp wasn’t the sort of man to go to the police. Not Lemp. We’ve filled out part of his record, on the basis of the material you dug up, and it goes back a long way. In fact it probably goes back further than we’ve been able to trace it. He turned up in San Francisco in the early twenties, aged about thirty or so, and got himself a job on the police force. I don’t have to tell you the city administration then was sour. Lemp rose to inspector in a very few years but when the city government was reformed – I think it was the third or fourth time it was reformed – Lemp went out. Since then he’s scrounged a living at half a dozen trades and petty rackets. He’s been arrested for pigeon drop, Mann Act violation, blackmail, and served a total of seven years in Folsom and San Quentin. Blackmail was his specialty, when he could find a victim soft enough–”

“I know enough about Lemp.”

“There’s more, plenty more.”

“I don’t doubt it. Go on with your reconstruction.”

“Well, he would have liked to blackmail Miner, but Miner lacked the wherewithal. The question for Lemp became: how could his knowledge of Miner’s crime be turned into cash? He tried to interest Seifel, without success, or perhaps he was simply trying to pump Seifel for information. In any case, we know the final answer he arrived at. He forced Miner to fall in with his kidnap plans: I maintain that that’s the only possible way these things could have happened.”

“It’s possible. It leaves out a primary fact, though. Who stabbed Lemp in the neck?”

“It has to be a third party,” Forest said. “I questioned the boy – he’s a smart boy – and he says they drove straight out of town yesterday morning, right after they met you.”

“So that lets Miner out.”

“Yes. It has to be somebody else, somebody who wanted that fifty thousand dollars. Any ideas?”

“Not one.”

“I thought perhaps you were going to suggest that Mrs. Johnson stole her own money back.” Forest showed his wide white teeth in a grin. “Anyway, we’ve got the weapon to work on.”

Eddie returned from the kitchen, complaining about the lousy telephone-service and the heat. We played three-handed bridge, Eddie winning consistently, until the hearse arrived from Pacific Point. Then Forest turned off the air-conditioner, locked the doors, and handed me the keys. “Are these symbolic?” I said.

“Maybe they are. Whenever I mention the lady, your eyes glaze, if that’s significant. You’re just fighting off the idea, old boy. But why fight it?”

His insight was disturbing. I turned away.

The Lincoln led the three-car cortege across the desert, over the snow-blotched pass, down into the green valley. I suppose I was driving it. I hardly remember.