In a Lonely Place (9 page)

He drove on, waiting for them to give the word to stop They weren’t talking, either of them; they were on the case now, a case that had them angry and bitter and worried. He kept quiet, it wasn’t the time for a conversation piece. He realized his fingers were tightened on the wheel and again he relaxed them. He didn’t know if the detectives would shout a sudden stop command or if they’d give warning or just how it would be done. He kept the speed down to twenty and he watched the road ahead, not the culverts with leaves like brown droppings in them. He didn’t recognize any of the road. That was the good part of it.

It was Lochner who said, “Here we are. Just pull up along here, Mr. Steele, if you will.”

This stretch of the road was no different from the others. There was nothing marking it as the place where a girl had been found.

The detectives got out, and he got out on the other side of the car. He walked beside them across the road. “He came this far, and then he turned around,” Brub said. “Or he may have been on his way back to town.”

“This is where you found her?” Dix wasn’t nervous. He was an author in search of material, a man along just for the ride.

Brub had stepped up into the rustling brown leaves. He said, “It’s a little heavier here. He could have known that. He could have figured she wouldn’t be found for a long time, with the leaves falling on her, covering her.”

Brub was scuffing through the rustle, as if he expected to find something under the sound. A clue. An inspiration.”Every day there’d be more leaves. Not many people look off at the side of the road when they’re driving. Not unless there’s something scenic there. Nothing scenic about this thicket.”

Lochner stood with his hands in his pockets, with the worry lines in his tired face. Stood beside Dix.

Dix could ask questions, he was supposed to ask questions. He said, “How was it she was found so quickly then?”

“Luck,” Brub said. He stood in the ditch, leaves to his ankles. “The milkman had a flat right at this point.”

Lochner said, “He picked this place on purpose.”

“The milkman?” Dix looked incredulous.

“The killer. Take a look at it. The way the road curves here—he can see any lights coming from behind, two loops below. And he can look up to the top of the hill, see the lights of a car approaching him when it makes the first of those two curves. He can sit with her in the car, looking like a spooner, until the other car goes by.” His eyes squinted up the road and back down again. “Not much chance of traffic here in the middle of the night. He was pretty safe.” His voice had no inflection. “He does it. He opens the door of the car and rolls her out and he’s away. No chance of being caught at it. Strangling’s the easiest way. And the safest.”

Brub had stooped and brushed aside the leaves.

Dix moved closer to the edge of the thicket, looked up at him. “Find something?” he asked with the proper cheerful curiosity.

Lochner monotoned, “The experts have been over every inch with a microscope. He won’t find anything. Only he wanted to come back up so I said I’d come along.” He put a cigarette in his mouth, cupped his hands about the match. “The only place we’ll find anything is in his car.”

A wind had come up, a small sharp wind. Lochner Wouldn’t have cupped the match if it hadn’t. It wasn’t imaginary. Dix said, with the proper regret, “And you’ve not been able to get a description of the car yet?”

“Not yet,” Lochner said. In that tired way, but there was a tang underneath the inflection. Not yet, but they would because they never closed the books. Because a murderer had to murder. Dix wanted to laugh. They knew so little with all their science and intuition; they were babes in toy-land.

“When you do, you mean you might find a hairpin or a lipstick or something?”

Brub did laugh. There in the brush it sounded hollow. “Good Lord, Dix. You’re old hat. Girls don’t wear hairpins. You ought to know that.”

“Dust,” Lochner said.

“Dust?” He was puzzled now.

Brub climbed down from the thicket, one big step down. He began brushing the crumpled brown leaves from his trouser legs.

“That’s dust,” Lochner said. He turned back to the car. “We’ve got dust from the drive-in. We’ve got the dust from her clothes and her shoes. There’ll be some of that same dust in his car.”

Dix held the mask over his face. He shook his head, his expression one of awe and admiration. “And even if it’s ten or twelve years, the dust will be the same?”

“Some of it will,” Lochner said.

They all got back in the car. Dix started the engine. He asked, “Is there a better place to turn than here?” They were supposed to know. The police cars had been all over this territory. They’d drawn circles around it and carried laboratory technicians into it. They’d done everything but dig it up and carry it to headquarters.

“Go on a bit,” Brub said. “There’s a side road a little further on.”

Dix ran the car up the hill. He saw the side road and he turned in. The side road wasn’t paved. If there were any suspicion, this could be a trap to check on his tires. Behind the brush, there could be the two cops, playing checkers, watching. Cops with plaster, ready to make casts. But they were wrong. He hadn’t turned here before. There was a better place further on. He maneuvered the car. Headed back towards town.

He could be talkative now. He was supposed to be impressed and curious. He said, “Did you find anything, Brub?”

Brub shook his head. “No. I didn’t expect to. It’s just— I get closer to him when I do what he did. What he might have done. I’ve got a picture of him but it’s—it’s clouded over. It’s like seeing a man in the fog. The kind of a fog that hangs in our canyon.”

Dix said cheerfully. “The kind you had when I was out at your place Friday night.”

“Yeah.” Brub said.

Lochner said. “He’s from the East.”

Dix’s nerves were in strict control. Not one nerve end twitched. Rather he was stimulated by the sharp and cold blade of danger. He said, “That’s a bit of information you’ve kept to yourselves, isn’t it? Did the waitress recognize an Eastern accent?”

“It isn’t information.” Brub answered. “He talked just like anybody else. No accent. No particular quality of voice. That’s Loch’s reconstruction.”

Lochner repeated, “He’s from the East. I know that.” He was deliberate. “He’s a mugger.”

“What’s a mugger?” Dix asked quickly.

“Certain gangs used to operate in New York,” Brub explained. He illustrated on himself with his right arm. One man would get the victim so. the others would rob him. Until they found out it could be a one-man job. You don’t need more than two fingers to strangle a man. Or woman.”

“He’s a mugger,” Lochner repeated. “He doesn’t use his fingers. There’s no finger marks. He uses his arm. He’s from the East.”

Dix said, “As a fellow Easterner, Mr. Lochner, you might admit that a Westerner could have learned the trick.”

Lochner repeated, “I’ve seen the way they did it in New York. He knows how. The same way.”

They came out of the shadowed canyon, out into the sunshine, into the city again. But the sun had faded. There were clouds graying the blueness of sky. And the winding road of Sunset to Beverly was heavy with shadows of the late afternoon. It was almost four o’clock when they reached the city hall.

Dix pulled up and Lochner got out. He intoned, “Thanks for the lift, Mr. Steele.”

Dix said, “Thank you for letting me go along.” He shook his head. “It’s pretty gruesome though. I don’t think I’d go for police work.”

Lochner walked away to the hall. Brub leaned against the car door. He was frowning. “It isn’t pleasant.” he said. “It’s damned unpleasant. But it’s there, you can’t just close your eyes and pretend it isn’t. There are killers and they’ve got to be caught, they’ve got to be stopped. I don’t like killing. I saw too much of it, same as you did. I hated it then, the callous way we’d sit around and map out our plans to kill people. People who didn’t want to die any more than we wanted to die. And we’d come back afterwards and talk it over, check over how many we’d got that night. As if we’d been killing ants, not men.” His eyes were intense. “I hate killers. I want the world to be a good place, a safe place. For me and my wife and my friends, and my kids when I have them. I guess that’s why I’m a policeman. To help make one little corner of the world a safer place.”

Dix said. “That’s like you. Brub.” He meant it. It didn’t matter how unpleasant a job was. Brub would take it on if in the end it meant the righting of something wrong.

Brub pushed back his hat. He laughed, a short laugh. “Junior G-man rides his white horse. I suppose in a couple of years I’ll be as stale as Loch. But right now it’s personal. I want to get that killer.” His laugh repeated. It was apology for his emotion. He said. “Hang around till I check in and I’ll buy you a drink.”

“Sorry.” Dix put his hands on the wheel. “I’m late now. We’ll do it again. And thanks for a valuable afternoon, Brub.”

“Okay, fellow. See you soon.” Brub’s hand lifted and he rolled off, like a sailor on the sea. Like a policeman tracking an unknown foe.

He rang Laurel as soon as he reached the apartment. Before he fixed a drink, before even lighting a cigarette. There was no answer to the call. He rang her every fifteen minutes after that, and at six, when the dusk was moving across the open windows, and when there was still no answer to his call, he stepped out into the courtyard where he could look up at her apartment. But there were no lights in it.

His toe stubbed the evening paper as he returned to his apartment. He’d forgotten it. His impatience to reach her had made him forget the news. He lighted the lamps in the living room when he reentered. He’d had two drinks and he didn’t want another. He wanted her. He took the paper with him hack into the bedroom where he could lounge on the bed, where the phone was close to hand. He turned on the bed light and he looked through the paper until he found the story. It was on an inside page tonight. There was nothing new. The policy were still working on the case. That was true. They had valuable leads. That was a lot of eyewash. He read the sports page and the comics and he rang her again. And again to no avail.

He was beginning to be upset. If she hadn’t intended to come home this evening, she could have told him. She’d said she was going for a singing lesson. No singing lesson lasted until this time of night. She knew he was expecting her. She could have called him if she’d been delayed. He tried to look at it reasonably. Honestly tried. She had a lot of friends, of course she did. A girl with her body and hair and strange, lovely face would have more friends than she could handle. He was a newcomer, a nobody in her life. After all, she hadn’t met him until yesterday. She couldn’t be expected to drop everyone else and devote herself to him alone. She didn’t know yet how it was going to be between them. She didn’t know it was to be just these two. Two that were one. Until she understood as he did, he couldn’t be disturbed that she had other obligations. But she could have told him. She needn’t have left him here hanging on the phone, afraid to go out lest it ring. Lying around here without food, smoking too much, reading every line of the damn dull newspaper, waiting for the phone to ring. Wearing out his finger dialing.

The door buzzer sounded with an insolent suddenness while he was still lying there, trying to put down his anger, trying to see it reasonably. He jumped off the bed, and he almost ran to answer. He was angry, yes; he’d tell her plenty, but the heat of it was already dissipated in the eagerness to see her. In the joy of rushing to behold her. He opened the door, and his hand tightened over the knob as he held it wide. Sylvia Nicolai was on the threshold.

“Am I interrupting anything, Dix?” She stood there, tall and slim, at ease, her hands thrust into the deep pockets of Cashmere burberry, her gilt hair pulled smoothly away from her slender face.

He couldn’t believe it because it wasn’t she he expected. It was as if the fire of Laurel had faded, had become polite and cool and ladywise. He recovered himself quickly. He was hearty. “Come in. Sylvia.”

“You’re quite sure I’m not interrupting you?” She hesitated on the doorstep, looking beyond him into the room as if she expected Laurel there. He knew then, whatever the explanation would be, why Sylvia had come. To get a good look at Laurel.

“Not a bit. I’m not doing a darn thing. Sitting around thinking about dinner and too lazy to start out. I suppose you’ve eaten?”

She came in, still slightly hesitant. She looked at the room the way a woman looked at a room, sizing it, and approving this one. She loosed her coat with her hands in the pockets, remained standing there on her high-heeled pumps, politely, but easily. Like a family friend. Like Brub’s wife, who wouldn’t want to be an intrusion into a man’s privacy. “Oh, yes,” she said. “We ate early. We were just starting to Beverly to see a movie when Brub got a call.” A slight cloud fleeted over her eyes.

“Not another one?” he asked somberly. “Oh no.” She shook her head hard. As if she couldn’t bear to consider that. “Lochner wanted to see him, that was all.” She put a smile on her wide, pleasant mouth. “So Brub suggested I run in here and let you amuse me until he could get back. He said it wouldn’t take long.”

Fleetingly he wondered if it had been Brub’s suggestion or if it had been Sylvia’s. She had withdrawn from him previously, she didn’t now. She was forwarding herself, her smile at him wasn’t reluctant as it had been. It was free. He would have been interested day before yesterday. Now he only feigned it. “I’m delighted, Sylvia. Let me have your coat.” She allowed him to help her. She had on a brown sweater and a slim checkered skirt in browns. She was made long and lovely, like a birch tree. Laurel was made lush and warm, like a woman.

She sat down on the couch. “You have a nice place.”

“Yes, it is. I was lucky to get it. You’ll at least have a drink, won’t you?”

“I’ll have a coke. If you have one?”

“I’ll join you.” He passed her a cigarette, lit it, and left her to get the cokes. He wondered what Lochner wanted with Brub, important enough to interrupt his evening. He’d find out, for Brub would come here from Lochner. He’d want to talk about it. It was a break. If only they’d be out of here before Laurel returned.

He brought in the cokes. “Did Brub tell you he and Lochner let me go along today with them?”

“Yes. Thanks.” She took the coke. “How did you like Loch?”

“He seemed bored with it all. Is that his cover-up for being the best bloodhound on the force?”

She said, “He has a wonderful record.” Her mouth widened. “As a bloodhound, as you say. He’s head of Homicide.”

His eyes opened. “He’s the head man?” He smiled. “I would never have guessed it.”

“That’s what Brub says. He seems so different. I’ve never met him.”

“He’s worth meeting.” Dix relaxed comfortably in the arm chair. Head of Homicide. That worried old boy. “A character.” He felt easy. “I still can’t get used to Brub being a policeman.”

“It’s funny,” Sylvia said seriously. “He always wanted to be one. I suppose lots of little boys did when you and Brub were little boys. Nowadays they want to be jet-propelled pilots, from what I can gather. But Brub never gave up wanting it. And when he asked me if I’d mind, I said I’d be delighted.”

“So you’re responsible for it,” he said with mock solemnity.

“No,” she laughed. “But he asked me and I said I’d be delighted and I meant it. Anything he wanted, I’d be delighted. It isn’t much of a life. Like a doctor, twenty-four hours a day. And you never know when the phone will ring.”

“Like tonight.”

“Yes.” There hadn’t been that underlying fear in her until now. It was just a twinge; she’d recovered from the terror that had closed over her Saturday night and yesterday. She could put it away tonight. She could lose it in a bright change of subject. “We saw you last night.”

“So Brub told me.”

She was to the reason for her visit now. She was eager. “Who was she? The one you were telling us about?”

“Same one. She lives in this house.”

“How did you meet her?” She was asking for romance.

He said, “I picked her up.”

She made a little face at him.

“As I told Brub, it’s the Virginibus Arms’ good-neighbor policy,” he said. “And high time there was one. It’s bad as New York here. There you see your neighbors but don’t speak; here you don’t even see them.”

“You saw her.”

“And I picked her up,” he said impudently.

“What’s her name?”

“Laurel Gray.”

“Is she in the movies? She’s gorgeous enough to be, from what I saw of her.”

”She’s done some movies.” Again he was struck by how little he knew of her. “She doesn’t care much about it. Too early in the mornings for her.” He said it with deliberate meaning; she understood.

She said after a moment, “Will you bring her out some evening? We’d like to meet her.”

“We’ll fix up a date.” It was so easy to say, and so easy to avoid doing it. He was feeling better all the time. It had been right that Laurel was delayed. It was in order that she wouldn’t have to be inspected by Sylvia. Sylvia wouldn’t like Laurel; they weren’t cut out of the same goods. Even as he was sure of the rightness, the telephone rang. He excused himself and went to answer, certain it wouldn’t be she. It was time for Brub to check back in.

He was so certain it wouldn’t be she that he left the bedroom door open. And it was Laurel.

She said, “What are you doing, Dix?”

“Where have you been?” Irritation gnatted him again; she’d stayed out until—after nine o’clock now by the clock. And she turned up asking lightly what he was doing!

“At dinner.”

“I thought you were having dinner with me.”

“Really? I must have forgotten.”

Anger threatened him.

“Why don’t you come up?” she asked.

He couldn’t. Not now. He said, “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have company.” His anger lurched at Sylvia then for being here, at Brub for sending her here.

There was a sharpness came into her voice. “Who’s the girl?”

“What girl?”

“The one on your couch, sweetheart.”

She’d seen Sylvia. She must have come to the door and she’d seen Sylvia and gone away. That explained the insolence in her voice. She was annoyed about it. And again the anger went out of him in the upwelling of emotion; she didn’t like his having another woman here.

He couldn’t talk openly; the bedroom was too close to the living room. The door open. And Sylvia sitting there silently, listening. Trying not to listen because she was a lady but being unable to miss what he was saying. “An old friend.” he said.

“Business, I presume?” She was sharp.

“As a matter of fact, it is,” he agreed.

“In that case, I’ll come down.”

“No!” He didn’t want her to come here. Not until Sylvia and Brub had gone. She must understand. But he couldn’t speak out. He spoke as quietly as possible into the mouthpiece. “I’ll come up as soon as I’m free.”

“What’s the matter with my coming down?” she demanded. “Don’t you think I’m good enough for your friends?”

He wondered if she’d been drinking. Belligerence wasn’t like her. she was slow and sultry and she didn’t give a damn for him or anyone. That was in her last night. And tonight, brushing him off for something better or more amusing. Now she was deliberately possessive. There was a reason and he didn’t know the reason. He wanted to shake the hell out of her. She must have known he couldn’t talk openly.

“Well?” she demanded.

He said. “I’m busy. I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

She hung up: the crack smote his eardrum. He was infuriated; he’d wanted to hang up on her but he hadn’t. She’d done it. He went back into the living room scowling, forgetting that he shouldn’t scowl, that he wasn’t alone.

Sylvia was apologetic. “I am intruding.”

“No.” He said it flatly. Without explanation. “No.” He meant it, he had no objection now to her presence. All anger was transferred to Laurel. The ear she had smote stung sharply. When he saw Sylvia studying his anger, he smiled at her. The smile was hard to come, it pained when it cracked the hard mold of his face. He said, “As a matter of fact, I’m delighted you dropped in, Sylvia. It gives me a feeling of belonging. I think it calls for a celebration—or perhaps a plaque: On this night at this spot Dickson Steele was no more the stranger from the East. After long months, he was at home.” He was talking idly, to get that look, that seeking look out of Sylvia’s eyes. He wasn’t doing half bad.

Most of it was gone when she said, “You’ve been lonely.”

“I expected it.” She wasn’t trying so hard now. Pity had expelled calculation. He didn’t want the pity and he spoke lightly. “It takes time in a new place. I knew that before I came.”

“You could have called on us sooner.” It was all gone now, the look and the search.

“Now, would you?” he demanded. “You know how it is. There’s always the knowledge that you’re making a forced entry into the other fellow’s life. Sometimes friendship survives it. More often it only spoils a good memory.”

“It’s worth trying,” she said. “How else can—”

The doorbell rang. Brub, and it hadn’t taken long. The business with Loch couldn’t have been too important. He went to the door talking, breaking in on Sylvia’s words. Wanting Brub to see how ordinary this had been. “Sometimes the dissent isn’t mutual, Sylvia. The fellow who closes the door feels a hell of a lot worse than the eager beaver. I wouldn’t want to be—”

Laurel stood there. Because she had been angry, because she had hung up on him in anger, he was so amazed that his words didn’t dissipate; they became an utter void. He didn’t realize he was scowling at her until she mirrored it ludicrously. “And what did the big bad wolf say then to Little Red Riding Hood, darling?” Deliberately she stepped past him and went into the room while he stood there scowling and empty-mouthed.

They were together. Sylvia and Laurel. Each had come for that reason, to look upon the other. He didn’t know exactly why it mattered to either of them. He wasn’t a sweepstake. Sylvia didn’t care at all; Laurel cared little enough. They were eyeing each other in the faint patronizing manner of all women to women, no matter the stake, when he turned into the living room.

He’d had a slight apprehension over the phone that Laurel might have been drinking. She hadn’t been. Her scent was perfumed, not alcoholic; she had never looked more glowing. She was in white, all white but for her radiant hair and painted mouth and eyes. Before her Sylvia was colorless and yet before Sylvia, Laurel was too richly colored. Between them was the gulf of a circumstance of birth and a pattern of living.

He said, “Sylvia, this is Laurel.” And to Laurel, “This is Sylvia. My friend Brub Nicolai’s wife.”

They acknowledged the introduction in monotone, in the same manner of social courtesy, but it did not diminish the gulf. There was nothing could diminish the gulf. He said, “Let me take your coat, Laurel. Drink?”

“No, thanks. I’ve just had dinner.” Her eyes were strange amber flowers. She opened them full on him. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours. Where have you been?”

She was a dirty little liar. She was trying to tell Sylvia it hadn’t been she on the phone getting the brush-off. He looked at Sylvia and his mouth quirked. She wasn’t fooling Sylvia. You didn’t fool Sylvia. She burrowed under words, under the way of a face and a smile for the actuality. He was suddenly cold. For he knew, was certain of the fact, that Sylvia had been burrowing beneath his surface since the night he had come out of the fog into her existence. Irritation heated him. She had no business trying to find an under self in him; she should have taken him as he was taken, an average young fellow, pleasant company; beyond that, her husband’s old friend. It couldn’t have been Brub who set her on him. There could have been no suspicion when he came to Brub’s house that night. Nor was there; yet Sylvia had searched his face and the way he spoke—and she hadn’t liked him.