Severed Key (23 page)

“That’s not true!” Sandovar protested. “It was a business deal. Strictly business. You knew that. I tried to help you out because you were so young and vulnerable.”

“Please, Johnny, don’t. It has to all come out now. You see, Lieutenant, I had decided to come west to be with Arne. At first Johnny was angry and said I was foolish to do that when he could do so much for me in New York, and then, very suddenly, he changed his mind and said it was a good idea. He said he was coming to Los Angeles, too. In fact, he had a reservation for a flight a week ahead of my reservation. Then a business proposition came up in Las Vegas and he had to go early. He asked me to take his reservation instead of mine and deliver a suitcase to a driver who would meet me at the airport. He gave me one half of a key to use as identification and told me what I must do to be sure that I got this certain driver. The driver had the other half of the key. After I gave him my half of the key, he would drive me to the hotel where a room was reserved for me for the week I must spend before I could contact Arne. He said this was important because Arne might be jealous if he thought I was still accepting favours from another man. In addition, he gave me one thousand dollars in cash. He laughed about that and called it my dowry.”

“Did you know what was in the suitcase?” Simon asked.

“No. I never saw it. Johnny checked it aboard the plane before he made the flight to Las Vegas. I took only the hand luggage. The important thing, you see, was that I must not contact Arne Lundberg and let him know I was coming early. I wasn’t to call him until the night before he planned to meet my plane. I was to tell him then that I had got a last minute cancellation and couldn’t wait another day. He would never know anything about the suitcase I delivered to the driver.”

“This is preposterous!” Sandovar protested. “Lundberg’s death must have unbalanced the girl!”

Sigrid turned back to Sandovar and nodded. “Oh, yes, it did that,” she said. “But that was later. What happened, Johnny, was something neither of us expected. You went on to Las Vegas and I intended to go on that plane just the way you said. Last Saturday morning I took a taxi to the airport and checked in. I even sent my hand luggage aboard. And then one of my friends came down to the airport and insisted that I must return to the city just long enough to make a screen test at his studio. Some director had seen one of my commercials and was considering me for a part in a television series. It would take only an hour or two and then I could catch a later plane. It was the chance I had been waiting for, so I went back with him. I didn’t think it would matter. The luggage would be held at the Los Angeles airport and I could still deliver the suitcase to the driver.

“Well, you all know what happened. I made the test and my friend drove me back to Kennedy. I got the later plane. I knew nothing of the crash until I reached Los Angeles and then, of course, no one was looking for me because I was supposed to be dead. It is a shock to realize that you are dead. I was afraid to contact the driver at the rental agency because the suitcase was in the ocean. I was afraid to contact Arne because I needed a new story for him. I didn’t know where you were, Johnny, so I went to a hotel near the airport and waited to see what would happen. I was very nervous, so I took a lot of sleeping pills. I slept until Sunday afternoon and then tried to call my friend in New York—the one who had made the screen test—but he had gone off on the director’s yacht and left word that he wouldn’t be back for two weeks. So, you see, I was really dead. That night I saw the newspapers with the picture of Arne crying over my hand luggage and I decided that I would have to ring him and have it out. I saw Johnny’s picture in the paper, too, and I wanted somebody with me when I told him what had happened. Johnny has a very bad temper.”

“Were you afraid of Johnny Sands?” Simon asked.

Sigrid whispered her answer. “Yes. For a long time I was afraid. Oh, he could be kind. So very kind. And generous. The first time I told him about Arne—that was months ago—I mentioned that Arne was having a hard time in Hollywood. Johnny made a telephone call and Arne got a job right away. Not acting, but a job. But there was so much of Johnny’s life that I had no part of. Friends he had that I never saw. Business deals and trips that he never talked about. But there was one thing he talked about that worried me. Sometimes, when he had been drinking, he talked about his heritage—his honour. Something he must do. I couldn’t understand. He seemed to have all the money in the world but he wanted something more.”

“Did you phone Arne Lundberg?” Lieutenant Howard asked.

“I phoned him on Monday. I phoned three times but there was no answer. Perhaps he had the telephone off the hook. I decided that I would go to his apartment the next day but then I remembered Mr Keith and decided to see him first.”

“Remembered?” Simon echoed. “You’ve been holding out on me, Jack.”

“Don’t jump your guns,” Keith said. “Let Sigrid finish her story.”

“I remembered Mr Keith before I left New York—right after Johnny told me what he wanted me to do to deliver that suitcase. It was a strange thing to ask, and paying me one thousand dollars made it seem even stranger. I wondered where he had got so much money and what I might be getting mixed up in if I went through with it. And then I remembered that he had got Arne his job and worried about that, too. I had met Mr Keith briefly when he arranged Wanda Call’s release from her kidnappers. I had a small part in Wanda’s play at the time. I knew he was a private detective and so I wrote him a letter on my late father’s stationery and gave it to one of my friends who flies for SAS. The letter was sent from Stockholm and asked Mr Keith to check on Arne Lundberg’s associates. I put some money in it. I knew Mr Keith would do a good job and if Arne was mixed up in anything crooked or dangerous he would find out about it.”

“The Stockholm letter,” Simon said.

Jack Keith took the letter from his coat pocket and placed it, open, before Lieutenant Howard. “My credentials,” he said. “I was working on the case the night Drake and I barged in on you at Lundberg’s apartment. That’s why I didn’t think it was suicide.”

“Suicide!” Sigrid scoffed. “When I read of Arne’s death I knew it couldn’t be suicide. You Americans think Swedish people kill themselves so easily! The highest suicide rate in the world. Rubbish! It isn’t true! Why do you say such things? He would have killed Johnny if he had known what was planned for me when I checked in to the room reserved for me—but I never went to the hotel.”

“A woman’s intuition,” Howard growled.

“A woman’s confusion,” Sigrid said. “I knew delivering the suitcase was important and I had failed. I didn’t want to go near any place where I was supposed to be. But I wasn’t afraid to go to Mr Keith’s apartment and that is what I did on Tuesday as soon as I read about Arne’s death. I telephoned first and no one answered so I took a cab. I found his name in the apartment registry and went to the elevators. The first elevator was up on the floor below Mr Keith’s. I waited for the next one and took it up to his floor. When I reached the floor the other elevator was waiting there, too. I found the apartment and was about to ring the bell when I noticed that the door was ajar. I pushed it open a few inches and looked inside. I could see past the kitchen and into the bedroom where two men were doing something with a woman on the bed. I opened the door wider and took a step or two into the room and I saw one of the men—a big man with very light hair—tie a cord or a belt about the woman’s neck and say: “This will keep that nosey detective busy for a while.” The other man laughed and I almost screamed because then I could see that the woman was dead. I ran out of the apartment and took the elevator down to the garage. Then I became afraid because I knew the men would leave the apartment and see where the other elevator had gone. I don’t know why it seemed so important. By that time I imagined that they must surely know I had seen them and would come after me. I took the elevator back up to the third floor and left it there, and then I took the stairway back down to the garage and hid myself in the back seat of an automobile. I was there for a long time, I think. I heard sirens in the street. Then, a little later, a big Cadillac drove in and parked near where I was hiding. The driver got out and started to move towards the elevator. I recognized Mr Keith and ran out to him.”

“She told me what she had seen in my apartment,” Keith interrupted. “I had picked up the call on my car radio. I knew a homicide had been reported at my building but I didn’t dream it was in my apartment. When Miss Thorsen told me who she was and what she had seen I pushed her into my car and we took off fast.”

“And you’ve been harbouring a material witness ever since!” Howard stormed. “Don’t you know anything about the law?”

“That’s Simon’s department,” Keith said. “I only know how to keep a lady from being killed. And don’t say that it’s preposterous, Sandovar, because I’ve had time these last few days to check her story. There’s a luggage salesman in New York City who will identify you as the man who bought a set of ladies’ blue aeroplane luggage two weeks ago. There’s a porter at Kennedy who will never forget the twenty-dollar tip you gave him for carrying that luggage into the airline counter and checking it on to a plane scheduled to leave one week later. The whole thing’s obvious, isn’t it, Lieutenant. Cash was needed to oil the machinery and Sandovar couldn’t carry it because he was under surveillance by a government agency. Cerva couldn’t delegate a muscle to carry it because he’s always being watched. Sigrid Thorsen was the perfect courier. Nobody knew her. Nobody watched her. All she had to do was follow orders and have a week’s vacation at Sandovar’s expense.”

“I doubt it would have been a week,” Simon said dryly. “Hannah’s didn’t last more than a few hours. When a man’s determined to establish a new power base he can’t take chances. Sandovar—what are you doing?”

The light seemed to hurt Sandovar’s eyes. He had donned a pair of dark glasses some minutes earlier. Now he had taken a pill box from his pocket and was about to place something on his tongue. One of Howard’s men stepped forward and took it out of his hand. He tasted it and turned to the lieutenant with an expression of disgust.

“Aspirin!” he said.

SUNNY WALKED ON the beach alone. It was almost high tide and she had to keep close to the rocky shore in places where the strand was narrow. The sun-bathers and surfers were far behind her. She avoided them purposely because their gay banter seemed childish and without meaning now. She caressed her new wedding ring as she walked as if it were a religious medal or a rosary. She was lonely and she wished that Bob would come.

Suddenly there was a shout from above. She looked up and saw him loping along the cliff towards a break in the ledge where cement steps led down to a narrow cove. She waved and ran to meet him as he descended. They met and their bodies joined in a joyful embrace.

“Is it all right?” she cried. “Are you really free?”

“It’s all right,” Bob said. “I was really scared for a while but Mr Drake came into the DA’s office and started talking and everything just seemed to get clear. He had the old suitcase—the one you found in the seaweed—”

“Oh, I wish I never had! Travis would still be alive if I hadn’t!”

“I’m not so sure about that. He was too mixed up ever to find his head. Anyway, it’s not your fault what happened to him. Keeping the money we found when he opened the bag was all his idea. He wanted to be rich and live in Brazil. He scared me when he talked about it.”

“Didn’t you want to be rich?”

“I don’t know. I guess it would have been nice to be able to buy everything I wanted—but look what happened to Trav’ when he cut loose and started spending the money. I guess I really don’t want much that I haven’t got.”

“But what have you got, Bobby?”

“You. That’s one good thing that came out of it—us getting hitched. Unless you’re sorry.”

“Sorry? Oh, no!”

“Well that’s good because it looks like I’m going to be around for quite a while. Mr Drake said we might have to testify at the murder trial of those two hoods who killed the people in LA but he said not to worry about it because he’ll stand by us. And he told that DA how Travis John Wayned me when I tried to stop him from going off in that car and how I took him to where we had the rest of the money buried.”

“In the old garage.”

“You knew?”

Sunny smiled with a wisdom beyond her years. “I knew you two had found something valuable. I didn’t know what it was but I hoped it wouldn’t hurt us. It hasn’t hurt us has it, Bobby?”

“Maybe it’s helped us. Drake said he could fix me up with a full-time job, so we can get a decent pad and maybe I can go to night school later. I like that better than Brazil, don’t you?”

“Much better. What do you think you’ll study in night school?”

“I don’t know. Something so I can help people I think. Maybe law. Hey, how would you like that? Being the missus of a lawyer and answering the phone—This is Robert Henshaw’s office. Mr Henshaw is in conference now. Can I take a message?’”

“Oh, wow! Listen to the big shot!”

“Shut up! I’ll race you to the rocks.”

“Okay,” Sunny said, “but if I find any more seaweed—”

“We’ll split!” Bob said.

One week later Simon sat at a table in the Las Vegas club where Wanda was making the last performance of her engagement. Jack Keith was with him and so was Sigrid Thorsen who was taking the Keith cure for a broken romance. Wanda stepped into the spotlight and looked out over the sea of faces until she saw Simon. He grinned and gestured towards his wristwatch.

“How do you like that?” Keith said. “Married two hours and he’s already giving her directions for a speed up. Do you want to spoil the girl’s rhythm?”

“That,” Simon said, “is the last thing I want to do. I was just reminding her that we have a plane waiting.”

“Where are you going to honeymoon, Mr Drake?” Sigrid asked.

“That’s top secret. Somewhere private where we can’t be reached by anybody for any reason whatsoever.”