The Listening Walls

9.

“This Gerda Lundquist,” Dodd said, rubbing his chin, “she’s reliable?”

Until the past twenty-four hours Gill Brandon had barely been aware of Gerda’s existence; he was not competent to answer the question. But because he wanted to believe her, he nodded vigorously. “Absolutely reliable. I’d trust her with my life.”

Dodd smiled the dry little smile that indicated disbelief in practically everybody. “There are a lot of people I’d trust with my life that I wouldn’t trust to give an accurate account of something they saw or experienced.”

“Miss Lundquist is not an imaginative type. Nor would she have any reason for trying to put my brother-in-law in a bad light.”

“Revenge for being fired?”

“She already has a better job,” Gill said stiffly.

“With you?”

“With us.”

“Why?”

“Why? We needed an extra servant, that’s why.”

That’s not why, Dodd thought. Now that he’s got the first shred of evidence against his brother-in-law he intends to keep it in a safe place. I’m glad I’m not in Kellogg’s shoes. This Brandon means business.

Gill said, “You understand, Gerda knows nothing about Amy’s disappearance. She thinks that Amy is simply on a vacation in New York.”

“And you think she isn’t?”

“I know she isn’t. I told you previously we have relatives in Queens and Westchester. I called both places last night after Gerda had come to us with her story. No one has seen or heard from Amy.”

“That proves nothing.”

“It would if you knew Amy. She’s always been very conscientious about keeping in touch with members of the family. If she were anywhere near New York she would have called Cousin Harris or Aunt Kate. Whether she wanted to or not, she would have contacted them out of duty.”

“How long is it since you’ve seen your sister?”

“She left for Mexico City on the third of September, a Wednesday. I said good-bye to her the previous day.”

“Was she acting normally?”

“Of course.”

“In good spirits?”

“Excellent. Very excited at the prospect of the trip, like a kid who’s never been any place on her own before.”

“Was Mrs. Wyatt with her at the time?”

“Yes. They’d been doing some last-minute shopping and called me from the St. Francis to come and have lunch with them.”

“What kind of woman was Mrs. Wyatt?” Dodd asked.

“Eccentric. Oh, some people found her very amusing, and I think Amy was rather fascinated by her, in the sense that she never knew what Wilma would do next.” He added grimly, “She does now.”

“Yes, I guess she does. What day was it that Mrs. Wyatt killed herself?”

“A little over three weeks ago, on a Sunday night, the seventh of September. I was informed the following day when Miss Burton, Rupert’s secretary, called me at my office. Rupert went down to Mexico City that same day, the seventh.”

Dodd wrote the dates in a notebook, more because he wanted something to do than because he thought he’d ever be referring to them again. Still a firm believer in wingdings, he was convinced that Amy would pop up one of these days with an unlikely everything-suddenly-went-black story.

“I heard nothing from him,” Gill continued, “until a week later. I was out that night, but he left a message with my son that I was to come to the house to discuss something important. When I got there he told me Amy had left and gave me her farewell letter, the one I first brought to you. You may recall its contents.”

“Yes.”

“She wrote that she’d been drinking the night of Wilma’s death.”

“And?”

“Rupert added something to that. He told me she’d been in the company of an American barroom hanger-on named O’Donnell. I think he was lying. My sister is cultured, well-bred. No well-bred woman would walk into a bar and pick up...”

“Wait a minute, Mr. Brandon,” Dodd said. “Let’s get something clear. If I’m to find your sister it’s more important to me to know her faults than her virtues. She may be kind and gentle and sweet and so on. That doesn’t tell me a thing. But if I know she has a weakness for barflies named O’Donnell, then I start looking up all the barflies named O’Donnell in my files.”

“Your humor isn’t very funny.”

“It wasn’t intended to be. I was making a point.”

“You may consider it made,” Gill said coldly. “It doesn’t alter the facts, however. My sister has no weaknesses of the kind you mean. Besides, Rupert has been proved a liar.”

“You’re referring to Gerda Lundquist’s account of his pretended telephone conversation with your wife?”

“Among other things, yes.”

“Why do you think he falsified that call?”

“It’s obvious. He wanted to prevent Gerda from making any attempt to get a job at our house.”

“Why?”

“He was afraid she would give us damaging information about him.”

“By ‘us’ do you mean you and your wife?”

“I mean myself only. Mrs. Brandon is inclined to believe the best of everyone. She’s a very trusting soul.”

“So is Rupert,” Dodd said, “or he would never have attempted the phone trick, knowing there was an extension in the bedroom.”

“Trusting? Perhaps. Perhaps only stupid.”

“Amateur, anyway.”

“Amateur.” Gill nodded vigorous agreement. “That’s what he is. And that’s why he’ll be caught.”

Dodd folded his hands and closed his eyes, like a minister about to pray for some lost souls which he strongly suspected would remain lost. “Tell me, Mr. Brandon, has Gerda Lundquist given you any damaging information about your brother-in-law? For instance, did he have a bad temper? Did he quarrel frequently with his wife? Was he a lush or a chaser?”

“No, not to my knowledge.”

“What’s the worst Gerda had to say about him?”

“He was — moody.”

“And that’s all?”

“She also said that last spring he was frequently late coming home. He claimed he was working overtime.”

“At what period in the spring?”

“March, I believe she said.”

“March,” Dodd pointed out, “is income-tax time, and your brother-in-law is an accountant. He was lucky to get home at all.”

Gill flushed. “Just whose side are you on, anyway?”

“I never take sides until both teams are out in the field and I know what game they’re going to play.”

“This is no game, Mr. Dodd. My sister is missing. Find her.”

“I’m trying,” Dodd said. “Did you bring the pictures?”

“Yes.”

The pictures were in a manila envelope: two formal photographs and about a dozen large colored snapshots. In most of the snapshots Amy was smiling, but both the photographs showed her grave and self-conscious, as if she hadn’t wanted to be in front of a camera at all, knowing in advance the results wouldn’t satisfy anyone. Repressed, Dodd thought. Anxious to please. Too anxious.

One of the snapshots showed her sitting on a lawn with a small black dog on a leash beside her. Against the green grass the red and black plaid of the dog’s leash and collar stood out distinctly.

“That’s Mack?” Dodd said.

“Yes. He’s a pedigreed Scottish terrier. I gave him to Amy for her birthday five years ago. She’s devoted to him, too much so, in fact. He’s only a dog, after all, not a child, but she takes him everywhere she goes, downtown shopping and so on. She even wanted to take him with her to Mexico City but she was afraid of a possible quarantine at the border.”

“She kept him on leash?”

“Always. And always on this particular leash. You may not notice anything special about it, unless you’re an expert on tartans, but this tartan is not very commonly seen. It represents the Maclachlan clan. Mack was registered with the American Kennel Club under his official name, Maclachlan’s Merryheart, and Amy got the fanciful idea of having a collar, leash and sweater made up for him in the proper tartan. The set cost a hundred dollars, almost as much as the dog itself.”

Gill paused to light a cigarette. The pictures of Amy, spread over Dodd’s desk, smiled up at him mockingly: All this fuss over me and my little dog. We’re in New York, Gilly. We’re doing all the shows. Mack’s wearing the new hand-tooled leather leash I bought him in Mexico City...

“Wherever Amy is,” Gill said, “she didn’t take Mack with her. His leash is still hanging in the kitchen.”

“Rupert had an explanation for that. He told Gerda...”

“I know what he told Gerda, but it isn’t true.”

“I agree that it doesn’t seem likely,” Dodd said cautiously. “It’s possible, though.”

“If you knew Amy you wouldn’t think so. She’s childishly proud of Mack’s tartan.”

“Then where is the dog?”

“I’d give a great deal to know the answer to that.”

You may have to, Dodd thought. Finding people was tough enough. Finding a Scottie that looked like a thousand other Scotties seemed impossible. There wasn’t even any guarantee that the dog was still alive. He said, “Why should Kellogg have told you in the first place that Amy took the dog with her?”

“To convince me that Amy came home and went away again of her own accord.”

“Is there any evidence that she did come home?”

“Rupert’s word.”

“No one else saw her?”

“No one, to my knowledge.”

Dodd consulted his notes. “Let’s see, she came back from Mexico City, allegedly, on Sunday, September the fourteenth, and left again that same night without calling anyone to say good-bye and without being seen by anyone we know of except Rupert. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Have you any idea why?”

“Why she didn’t call me and wasn’t seen? Certainly I have an idea. She never came home. Perhaps she never even left Mexico City.”

“Let’s be frank, Mr. Brandon. Do you believe your sister is dead?”

Gill looked down at the smiling pictures on Dodd’s desk. Me, dead? Don’t be absurd, Gilly. I’m in New York. I’m having a ball. He said, through tight lips, “Yes. I believe he killed her.”

“And his motive?”

“Money.”

Dodd sighed, very faintly. If it wasn’t money, it was love. Perhaps they both boiled down to the same thing, security.

“He has her power of attorney,” Gill said. “He doesn’t even have to wait for proof of death so he can inherit her money.”

“Did your sister make a will?”

“Yes. Rupert inherits half her estate.”

“Who gets the other half?”

“I do.”

Dodd said nothing but his black, bushy eyebrows moved up and down his forehead. Very interesting, Mr. Brandon. I know — and you don’t know I know — that you’ve been living beyond your income for some time now, taking bites out of your capital to feed some pretty undernourished investments. “It would, then, if your sister is dead, be to your advantage to prove it as quickly as possible.”

“What do you mean?”

“As long as Mrs. Kellogg is simply missing, the power of attorney she gave her husband is in force. He has full control over her property, and how much will be left for you or anyone else to inherit depends entirely on his discretion. Let’s assume your sister is dead. From your point of view — that is, keeping her property intact and at full value — it would be an advantage to get proof of death immediately. From his point of view, the longer the delay, the better it will be for him.”

“I don’t like to — to think of these things.”

You’ve already thought of them, old boy; don’t kid me. “Come now, Mr. Brandon, it’s just a little game we’re playing. Your sister, by the way, must have trusted Rupert completely or she would never have given him a power of attorney.”

“Perhaps. But he might have applied some form of pressure to get it.”

“You said he has a small but successful business of his own?”

“Yes.”

“And he lives modestly?”

“There’s no guarantee he intends to continue living modestly,” Gill said. “That calm exterior of his might be hiding some pretty fancy and wild ideas.”

“Do you believe his dismissal of Gerda Lundquist was, as he claimed, a matter of economic necessity?”

“Not unless he’s been having some unusual expenses.”

“Such as gambling debts?”

“Such as another woman.”

“That’s pure speculation on your part, is it, Mr. Brandon? Or impure, as the case may be.”

“You may call it speculation. I call it simple arithmetic. Two and two add up to Miss Burton, his secretary.” Gill ground out his cigarette in an overflowing ash tray advertising Luigi’s Pizza House on Mason Street. “I have two secretaries, but I assure you that neither of them has a key to my back door, neither of them looks after my dog, neither of them drops in after church to clean up my house.”

“It will be easy enough to check up on Miss Burton.”

“Do it subtly. If she suspects anything she’ll tell Rupert immediately and he’ll find out I hired you. He mustn’t know a thing about any of this. Surprise must be the basis of our tactics.”

“My tactics, if you don’t mind, Mr. Brandon.”

“All right, yours. So long as he’s caught. And punished.”

Dodd leaned back in his swivel chair, interlacing his fingers. It seemed clear to him now that Brandon wanted Rupert punished more than he wanted his sister found. He shivered slightly. It was three o’clock on a sunny afternoon. It felt like midnight in the dead of winter.

He got up and shut the window, and almost immediately opened it again. He didn’t like the sensation of being in a closed room with Gill Brandon. “Tell me, have you talked to your brother-in-law since the morning he gave you the letter?”

“No.”

“You haven’t communicated any of your suspicions to him?”

“No.”

“It might clear the air if you did.”

“I’m not giving him any advantage by tipping my hand.”

“Are you sure you have a hand?”

“I’m sure. Nobody lies the way he’s lied unless he has something to hide.”

“All right,” Dodd said. “Let’s leave Rupert out of this for a minute. Where, to your knowledge, was your sister last seen?”

“At the hospital where she was taken after Wilma’s death sent her into shock. The American-British-Corday, I believe it’s called.”

“And what was the name of the hotel she and her friend were staying at?”

“It was their intention to stay at the Windsor. Whether they did or not, I’m not sure. Mrs. Wyatt was very changeable, and if some little thing didn’t suit her she would have gone someplace else. Wherever they stayed, you can bet that it was Mrs. Wyatt’s decision. My sister has never learned to stick up for her rights.”

Dodd wrote: Windsor Hotel? Sept. 3. A.B.C. Hospital, Sept. 7. Then he gathered up the pictures of Amy, put them back in the manila folder and marked it A. Kellogg. “I’m going to send a couple of these down to a friend of mine in Mexico City.”

“Why?”

“He might be willing, for a fee, to do some investigating. That’s where the trouble seems to have started. Let’s get an objective report, since you’re reluctant to believe anything your brother-in-law says.”

“Who is this friend?”

“A retired cop from L.A. called Fowler. He’s good. And expensive.”

“How expensive?”

“I can’t give you an exact figure.”

Gill took an unmarked envelope out of his pocket and put it on Dodd’s desk. “There’s five hundred in cash. Is that sufficient for the time being?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On how much bribe money my friend’s going to need.”

“Bribe money? Whom does he have to bribe?”

“In Mexico,” Dodd said dryly, “practically everyone.”