Authors: Louis Trimble
I said truthfully, “I never heard the name Turk Thorne until you pulled it on me yesterday morning. What’s this all about anyway?”
“Turk’s body was found this morning across the river,” she said. “The police think he was killed in Lozano and taken out to where they found him. He was murdered.”
I tried to let her see by my expression that I was surprised. And then what she had said was beginning to sink in and make me mad.
I said, “I see. And those questions you just asked me—they sound as if you thought I might have killed him.”
She said, “If he doped your drink and messed up your office …”
I shook my head. “The answer is no. And why pick on me? What’s wrong with accusing the sniper who tried to shoot you last night.”
She said stiffly, “I thought of him. But no one except you and I knew where I was to meet you last night. And I didn’t say anything.”
I said, “Meaning you think I hired the guy? Why? To scare you into my bed or something?”
She flushed a deep pink. She said icily, “I don’t know why. Perhaps you’re working for Bonita now. You had quite a session with her last night.”
I said, “Sorry but the answer is still no. My guess is you were followed.”
“I was very careful to see that I wasn’t,” she said.
I didn’t say it to her but I had to agree. She couldn’t have been followed. The coupe with the sniper in it had arrived at the motel before she had. That gave me two possible answers—someone had overheard me set the time and place, or someone was just hanging around the motel where Turk had been killed.
I didn’t like either idea very much. The first one depended too much on luck; the second one even more so—if Toby Jessup was the target she claimed she had been earlier on her way home from Tucson.
I said, “I’m not working against you. If you don’t want to believe that, then go tell the cops who I am and we’ll dissolve our relationship.”
She looked down at her desk and thought that over. She lifted her gray eyes slowly to my face. She said, “I’m sorry. I’ve been frightened sick ever since the police arrived.”
I said, “I can see your point. But how many people know that you and Turk were on opposite sides?”
She pressed her fingertips on the desk top until the blood began to leave her untinted nails. She said reluctantly, “No one but you. But if the police do find out somehow, you can imagine what they’ll think.”
I said, “I can imagine but I can’t see where it gives you a motive for murder.”
“A lot of people think I dislike Bonita because she owns so much of the company and I own so little,” Toby said. “And that isn’t true! Uncle Thaddeus bought my father out quite legally. He was being more than kind when he left me ten per cent of the stock.”
I said, “Did the office manager’s job come along with the ten per cent?”
“No. Bonita offered me a job when I graduated from college. That was just after Uncle Thaddeus died. I wanted something to do and I took it. Then when I learned the routines, she made this position for me.”
I said, “Still, if you dislike her so much, why stay? It’s a lot of strain just to watch over your ten per cent.”
She said quickly, “It isn’t the money. It’s the company. It does carry my family name.” She paused and added reluctantly, “And it’s because of Uncle Chester. He loves the company. It’s his life. He would do anything to protect it.”
I said, “Including murder?”
Her eyes hated me. She said, “Don’t be absurd.”
“Then what is he doing that worries you?”
She said, “I don’t know that he’s doing anything. I simply meant that if he caught Bonita in an illegal act, he would try to cover up for her. To protect the firm.”
“What kind of illegal act?”
“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice was almost out of control, but she managed to keep it low. “I told you before that I don’t know. I’m positive she’s up to something but I can’t find out what it is.”
I started to press her a little more. Someone knocked on the door. Toby called irritably, “Come in.”
A dark-haired, round-faced girl opened the door and poked her head in. She said, “Mrs. Jessup would like to see Mr. Brogan as soon as possible.” Toby said, “All right, Amy.”
The head disappeared. The door closed. I stood up. I said, “Let’s stop fighting long enough to do each other some good. Do you have any ideas as to who killed Thorne? Besides me, I mean.”
She didn’t think that was funny. She said, “I’m sorry.”
I said, “What about Gorman? Isn’t he the jilted lover?”
She said, “While we’re guessing, what about the man I thought you were—Mr. Ditmer. You said last night that he was missing. He could have run away.”
She didn’t add “after killing Turk Thorne.” She didn’t have to.
I
WALKED DOWN
the hall toward Bonita Jessup’s office. I was thinking of Toby’s concern for her uncle and I glanced through Healy’s doorway as I passed.
The stack of ledgers was still piled on the desk, but Healy wasn’t behind them. I looked through the glass wall toward the main office. Only a few of the girls were there. None seemed to be paying any attention to me.
I went through the doorway and slid into Healy’s desk chair, putting myself out of sight of the main office. I glanced casually at the open ledgers. They meant nothing to me. I wished I had the redhead here. She was a whizz at the kind of figures you keep in a ledger.
I turned my attention to the right-hand desk drawers. One contained blank ledger sheets. Another contained paper with the company letterhead on it. The center drawer yielded pen nibs and rubberbands. I tried the left side of the desk. There was only one drawer but it was double depth, fitted to hold a suspension file.
But the drawer wasn’t doing its job. There was nothing inside but Healy’s squat, square bottle of old Scotch and his glass. I started to put the drawer shut. I was working too fast. The motion made the bottle tip over. I pulled the drawer out and reached into it to straighten the bottle.
I righted the bottle slowly. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. I started to push the drawer in again. Then I realized what was nagging at me. The Scotch bottle was a stubby one, less than nine inches high. Yet it came almost to the top of the desk drawer. Only the drawer was fitted for a suspension file. And that meant it should have been at least ten and a half inches deep.
I ran my fingers around the bottom of the drawer where it fit to the sides. I felt a small indentation, deep enough to hook a fingertip in. I hooked and pushed.
The bottom of the drawer began to slide away from me. I looked down into the compartment I had revealed. I could see a thick pile of filled ledger sheets and the corner of an envelope. I pulled the envelope into the open.
I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I crammed the envelope into my coat pocket. I slipped a few ledger sheets free from the pile and put them with the envelope. I slid the drawer bottom back and then shut the drawer. I eased out of the chair and moved crab-fashion to the rear of the office. I looked out through the window at a line of parked cars. I stared at a Caddy convertible, an Olds sedan, and a bright green MGA and listened to the footsteps come closer.
The footsteps went past toward Bonita’s office. I moved to the door in time to see Señor Lerdo go into Bonita’s outer office. I decided she wouldn’t miss me for a minute and I headed for the washroom.
I locked myself in a booth and took the envelope out of my pocket. It was addressed to
Mrs. Bonita Jessup, President, Jessup Trucking and Industrial Supply
. The printed return address was given as
Box
8,
Room
315 of a small Tucson office building.
The envelope contained a sheet of notepaper. There were only a few lines of typing on it. There was no salutation, no signature. I read:
As you must be aware, your present financial condition will not improve. Therefore
$125,000
is more than a fair offer for your interest in the company. You are advised to accept this offer without delay. As your financial position worsens, the offer will be reduced correspondingly
.
I put the letter away. I could see now where Healy had got the idea I might be a spy for an outfit wanting to buy up Jessup cheaply.
But cheaply was a poor word to describe this offer. A hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars for Bonita’s sixty per cent of a two billion dollar business was equivalent to ten cents on the dollar.
I decided that I needed a mind more trained than mine to handle this kind of financial hocus-pocus. I left the washroom to find a public phone.
The switchboard girl told me there was a pay booth at the far end of the loading dock. I found it and shut myself in. I called the redhead at her Tucson office.
She must have been waiting for a call. She answered on the first ring. When I was connected, I said, “Any news yet?”
“I called San Francisco,” she said. “I’m waiting to hear now.”
“What about the telephone service? Did you call them too?”
“I certainly did,” the redhead said, and she gave me a brisk rundown on what she had learned. Tuesday evening a woman claiming to be the redhead had called for Art or me. The girl had given her the only message she had—that I was due in at midnight.
“I said, “It wasn’t you?”
“Why would I call when I knew Art was in Ramiera and I thought you were in New Mexico for at least another four days?” she demanded.
I saw her point. She said, “Later a man called and asked for you. He said he was Art Ditmer.”
I said, “Which he isn’t, since Art thought I was in New Mexico too. It was probably Turk. Bonita said he called and was told I was coming in on the plane. What’s the matter with that answering service? Don’t they know our voices yet?”
“The night-shift girl is new,” the redhead said. “And yesterday morning a woman called and left a message for Art to meet her in his office at ten.”
I said, “That would be Toby Jessup.”
The redhead said, “Wait a minute. There’s a call on the other line. Can you hold?”
I said I could hold. I smoked two cigarettes before she came back on the line. Then she said, “Nothing from San Francisco on Turk Thorne. But here’s the rundown on Gorman and Bonita Jessup. They worked for the same firm before she married Jessup. Her name was Barton then. She was secretary to the big boss and Gorman was an assistant traffic manager.”
I lit my third cigarette. The redhead said, “Gorman was fired about six months before Bonita met Thaddeus. Nobody could prove anything but he was suspected of selling inside information to a rival trucking company—how much his concern was going to bid for big jobs, what new routes they planned to open up, that sort of thing.”
I said, “How could an assistant traffic manager get that kind of information?”
“That’s the point,” the redhead said. “He had to get it from someone who had access to top-level information.”
I said, “Bonita—the boss’s secretary!”
“That’s the guess,” the redhead said. “But she was never tied to Gorman in those days.” She added dryly, “Maybe no one really wanted to tie her to him. She wasn’t paying all her own rent and her boss took her everywhere with him.”
I said, “So much for gossip. Did you get any facts?”
The redhead sounded a little miffed. “What do you want, documented proof? The only other item I have is that Bonita has made a number of trips to San Francisco during the past year. She dropped in to see former friends and said she came to shop the stores. But rumor has it she went to places that make q.t. loans—the kind with big interest and a lot of collateral.”
I said, “That’s the kind of ammunition I need. Here’s something else you can check out.” I gave her a rundown on what little I knew and read the letter I had taken from Healy’s desk drawer.
I said, “Check out that address in Tucson. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
I hung up and left the booth. I saw Gorman working in his cubbyhole of an office at the end of the loading dock. He glanced up as I passed. We traded poisonous looks. I went on, thinking that I would have to have a chat with Gorman before the day was out.
Bonita Jessup was going over a sheaf of papers when I was shown into her office. She let the secretary shut the door. Then she checked the switches on her intercom box. Finally she gave me the full power of her dark, sultry eyes.
She said calmly, “Did you kill Turk Thorne?”
I said, “Hell, yes. I don’t like people who put mickeys in my liquor bottle.”
She said, “I’m quite serious, Mr. Coyle.”
I sat down and admired the way her pale-pink suit caressed her curves. I said, “If you’re serious, how about giving me a motive?”
“Yesterday you hinted that you thought Turk and I had caused your partner’s disappearance, Mr. Coyle.”
I said, “I had it figured just the other way. You killed Turk because he wanted more money for helping you. You refused and he threatened to expose what you’re so busy trying to hide.”
She took time to light a cigarette. She said with soft amusement, “And what could I have to hide that would make me kill someone?”
I said, “What could you have to hide that would make you agree to a secret meeting with Art Ditmer?”
She drew deeply on her cigarette and then parted her moist, full lips just enough to let a thin haze of smoke slip out between them. Her eyes began to move over me, slowly, deliberately. It was a strange sensation: I had the feeling she was peeling off my clothes and examining me, muscle by muscle. I began to sweat a little.
She said in her throatiest voice, “I don’t think you’re in any position to ask questions, Mr. Coyle. I called you in here to tell you that the police found a very odd set of tire prints in the soft mud near where Turk’s body was found.”
My mouth went dry. I managed to work up enough moisture to say, “Oh?” It wasn’t a very convincing sound.
She said, “Mr. Lerdo, the company representative in Lozano, just told me the Mexican police have found the tires that made the prints.”
She paused just long enough to let me have the full impact of her words. She murmured softly, “The tires are on a microbus camper parked less than a hundred feet from the Mexican customs in Lozano. The camper is registered to you.”
I said, “Why haven’t you told Farley who I really am?”
She said, “Because I intend to use my knowledge to force you to co-operate with me.”
I said, “You play a fair game of chess, Mrs. Jessup. But I think I can match your move.”
She let smoke dribble from slightly parted lips. Her eyes were steady, questioning. I said, “With this, for instance.”
I laid the envelope on her desk. She didn’t touch it. She simply looked. She said finally, “Where did you get that?”
I said, “A better question would be, who wrote it?”
“I don’t know,” she answered with quick anger. “I was hoping your Mr. Ditmer would tell me that when we met.” She spoke as if she still held out a faint hope that the meeting could take place.
I said, “Who did you tell you were having a meeting with Art?”
She looked surprised. “Nobody, of course.”
“Not even Healy, or Turk Thorne?”
“I certainly wouldn’t have told Chester,” she said in a flat voice. “Turk …” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head. “No, I’m sure I didn’t tell him that.”
I said, “How could Toby Jessup have found out then?”
She sat quietly, studying the smoke curling from her cigarette. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I didn’t tell anyone. Perhaps Mr. Ditmer did.”
I thought that over and rejected it. Even if Art had been taken by someone and forced to talk, that didn’t explain how Toby Jessup had got the information. I found it a little hard to visualize her, pony tail bobbing, using the kind of pressure that would make Art Ditmer say anything he didn’t want to say.
But I couldn’t buy Toby’s story about her listening at Bonita’s door.
I said, “I doubt that Art would have said anything to anybody.”
Bonita Jessup said levelly, “I’ll find out tonight.” She rapped ash from her cigarette. “I think your worries about your friend are a little premature.”
“You mean you’ve heard from Art recently?” I demanded.
“I had a call just after Lerdo left,” she said. “It was to tell me that the meeting place had been changed.”
“You’re sure it was Art?”
She shrugged. “Of course I’m not
sure
. But it was the same voice that called me before. I have a very good ear, by the way.”
I said, “It could be a trap.”
“I thought of that,” she said. “That’s why I expect you to go with me.”
“Where is the meeting?”
She said, “Originally it was to be at a picnic ground about fifteen miles east of town and by the river. But now it’s to be in Lozano. At Número 13, Avenida Río Seco.”
She was watching me as if she expected some reaction. She began to, smile and then to laugh softly. “That happens to be the most famous address in this part of the country. It’s what the Spanish call a
casa de asignación.”
I said stupidly, “Art wants you to meet him in a high class whorehouse?”
She laughed throatily. “I suppose Carlotta—she runs the place—would furnish a girl, but it isn’t quite that. Carlotta usually provides rooms, food and wine. You bring your own partner.” Her laugh faded to a smile. “Ask Chester. He spends a great deal of time there, I’ve been told.”
I reminded myself to ask Chester. But right now I had other things to think about.
I said, “Shall we get down to business? Just what other kind of co-operation do you expect from me?”
She said promptly, “I want to know how much you’ve learned about me.”
I said, “I know that you’re in some kind of trouble. And that it’s bad enough that you’re trying to hide it, even from Healy.”
I smiled at her. “So don’t threaten me, Mrs. Jessup. If the police pick me up on suspicion, I’ll tell them all this. They’ll be interested in learning why you sent Turk to Tucson after the so-called Jessup file. And they’ll want to know what’s behind this letter.” I paused and added, “And they’ll be very interested in your relationship with Rod Gorman.”
She said coolly, “If you mean that Rod was my lover, I already told that story to Farley.”
I said, “I was thinking about five years ago, in San Francisco, when you and Gorman worked for the same trucking company and he was suspected of selling company secrets—that he couldn’t have gotten without help from someone in the executive offices.”
She said, “You’re very thorough, aren’t you?”
“I like to protect myself in the clinches,” I said.
She was thoughtful for a long moment. Then she said, “I understand you’re having lunch with Chester. You’ll eat at his house, of course. He likes to show off his ability as a chef.”
I said, “Thanks for the information. But it isn’t the kind I want right now.”