Murder with a Past

18

After Smith’s departure Tully prowled about the house. A new thought had come to plague him, of having recently seen or heard something meaningful. A word, a key, a clue — an open-sesame that with one push would reveal the truth.

But what was it?

He holed up in the den, trying desperately to raise from the dead whatever-it-was. He sat stiff and strained until sweat slicked his forehead. Finally he muttered a curse on all darkness.

Tully heaved himself out of the chair and went to the phone. He dialed Information for the home telephone number of the city editor of the Times-Call, Jake Ballinger.

“Dave Tully?” Ballinger was yawning. “Something?”

“Well, for one thing I want to thank you for the way you’ve handled the Cox story, Jake,” Tully said. “I mean as regards my wife.”

“We’ve printed the facts. I left my tabloid techniques back in Chicago.” The rumble sounded interested. “What’s up, Dave?”

“I need a favor. Will you let me go through your files?”

Ballinger said immediately, “Meet me outside the shop.”

A jalopy was parked before the newspaper building when Tully drove up. The bulky newspaperman promptly hopped out. He looked as expectant as an old bird-dog.

“What’s the yarn, Dave? I expect quid for my quo.”

“I haven’t one — yet.”

Ballinger gave Tully a sharp look and led the way into the partly darkened building. The rumble of press machinery was giving the old floors the shakes. Upstairs, a crew of three was still on watch in the newsroom. Locally, the paper was published as the morning Times and the afternoon Call, with a Times-Call appearing on Sundays.

The old man plodded past the newsroom on his flat feet to a glass-partitioned office. He opened the door and snapped on a light. Tiers of laden shelves reached to the ceiling.

“We’re running cuts of your wife in the morning edition,” Ballinger said. “Headquarters request. I gather the gendarmes of our unfair city don’t think Mrs. T.’s so guilty any more. Why, Lieutenant Smith sayeth not. Any news?”

“She’s not guilty at all, Jake.”

Ballinger kept eyeing him. “This is our morgue. What are you after, Dave?”

“Kathleen Lavery.”

“Lavery...” Ballinger’s hard blue eyes turned inward. “Oh, yes. Why?”

“I’m not sure,” Tully said. “I think Cox had other reasons for returning.”

“Such as?”

Tully shrugged. “He staked his life on coming back here. He must have had a pretty solid expectation of loot — real loot — to take such a risk.”

“And you think it goes back to Kathleen Lavery?”

“I don’t know what to think, Jake. This is from desperation. Maybe your files have the answer.”

Ballinger rummaged through a card-index file, drew a card out, moved to the shelves. Consulting the card, he fished nearly a dozen small, flat cardboard boxes from the shelves. He opened them one by one and from each took out a round flat tin.

“Let’s take these over to the viewer, Dave.”

“Microfilm?”

The old newspaperman chuckled. “Unto even a one-horse town cometh technology.”

Tully trailed Ballinger to the microfilm viewer. Ballinger turned the projector on and slipped the top film into place. A front page of the Times sprang into being on the viewer’s frosted plate.

“Watch the heads, Dave. We click from page to page till we hit the story relating to our subject.”

For forty-five minutes David Tully watched a beautiful young girl grow up. The Laverys leaving for Europe. The Laverys returning from Europe. Young Miss Kathleen Lavery entertaining with a Christmas party at the country club, under the chaperonage of Mrs. Mercedes Lavery. At fourteen — taking a blue ribbon at the horse show — the budding teenager pictured sitting her sleek mount seemed to Tully a lonely little figure. Swimming on her school team in an intra-state competition. Entering a junior tennis tournament in England. Story after story...

And then her death.

“Hold that, Jake.”

Ballinger held it, looking curious. Tully skimmed through the story. “...vacationing in Switzerland with her mother. Miss Lavery was pronounced dead from accidental drowning after her boat capsized on Lake St. Cyr. Her body was washed up on the lake shore shortly after dawn yesterday morning, Swiss time. It was found by a group of early morning swimmers...”

Tully scanned the rest of the file. It concerned the girl’s funeral, and a final obit recounting her short history and family connections.

“That’s it.” Ballinger clicked off the viewer.

Tully mumbled: “No mention of Crandall Cox.”

“Why should there be?”

“He preyed on women most of his life, specializing in the upper crust. I thought he might have done a job on the Lavery girl. She was certainly the richest and most vulnerable target in this town.”

“He’d have had a pretty tough time,” the old newspaperman said dryly, “worming his way into her set, from what it used to be like in those days.”

Tully scowled, watching Ballinger stow away the films. “By the way,” he said suddenly. “How did Kathleen happen to drown? She was an expert swimmer, according to one of these stories. Or were you still in Chicago at that time, Jake?”

“No, I’d been here about six months when it happened. It was a big story. Anyone or anything connected with Mercedes has always been a big story here.” The old man shrugged. “There was a lot of back-of-the-hand talk, because the Swiss authorities didn’t come up with any clearcut explanation for the accident. There’d been a squall of sorts, and the girl had taken the boat out alone, presumably — they finally decided that when the boat upset she got a crack on the head, or a cramp. Or swam around in circles in the dark till she was exhausted.”

“It doesn’t sell me,” Tully said.

Jake Ballinger looked at him. “Are you suggesting that the bonnie Kathleen was murdered?”

“How the devil do I know what I’m suggesting?” Tully exploded.

He and Ballinger went down into the street.

“Thanks, Jake.”

“For what?” the old editor rumbled.

In spite of himself, David Tully grinned. “For nothing, I guess.”

Back at home Tully thought and thought, and finally he resorted to the telephone again. He hesitated only a moment. Had Sandra Jean already taken Andrew Gordon across a state line to get married? Although that would be pretty fast work even for Sandra Jean... He dialed the Cabbott number.

The butler answered.

Tully asked for Mr. Gordon.

Andy came on. “What do you want?” His voice was guarded.

“I’m relaying a message from Sandra Jean.”

“Not so loud!”

“She wants to meet you here — in my house — right away.” He used the most conspiratorial tone he could contrive.

“But I was supposed to meet her at the Blue Iris in a half hour!” The boy sounded in an agony of indecision.

“Look, Junior, I’m simply telling you what Sandra said. I don’t give a damn whether you meet her or not.”

Tully ended the conversation with a slam. He ran to the picture window and waited.

Twelve minutes later headlights swung into his driveway. Tully had the front door open before Andy could ring.

“Come in, fly,” Tully said.

“What?” the boy said blankly.

“I said come in.”

Andy Gordon came in. His eyes were bloodshot and his dark young face looked puffy and hung over.

“Where’s Sandra Jean?” He looked around suspiciously.

“She isn’t here,” Tully said.

“What d’ye mean she isn’t here?” Andy cried. “You said—”

“I wanted to talk to somebody about Kathleen Lavery,” Tully said.

The boy blinked and blinked. “What the hell is this?”

“I decided your stepfather George probably doesn’t know, and your mother would be too tough. That leaves you, Andy.”

The big muscular young body seemed to swell. “I’m not so tough, is that what you mean?”

“You’re not tough at all, Andy.”

The boy came at him like a blind bull. Tully sidestepped and hooked hard. Blood spurted from Andy’s nose. He hit the floor hard. He grabbed at his nose, looked at his blood-smeared hand with terror, and began to cry.

“That’s more like it, kid,” Tully said. “Because the next time you swing on me it’ll cost you a mouthful of teeth.”

“Damn you!” Andy Gordon wept. “I’ll kill you...”

“I haven’t got the time to let you. I want answers, Andy, and I want them straight and now.”

“Answers to what?” the boy said viciously.

“It’s about Kathleen.”