You Can't Kill a Corpse (16 page)

Clane let Marilyn out of the car a short distance before he reached the meeting place. She leaned across the seat and kissed him lightly. Her fingers touched his cheek for a fleeting instant.

“Go easy,” she said. Her voice was pitched low.

Clane said, “You still haven't told me why she might kill me.”

“She's afraid of you, Jim. You're too smart.”

“That's no reason,” he said. “And just in case we go into a clinch don't think she's strangling me.”

Marilyn's smile was barely visible. “In the line of business, of course.”

“Naturally,” Clane said.

“I'll have to take it,” she said. She shut the door softly. Clane put the car into gear and eased forward. The last glimpse he had of her was her steady striding through a thin, fine fall of snow. His tail-light glow caught her, held her redly a moment, and then she receded beyond range. He took his eyes off the rear-view mirror and began to watch the road.

He saw Edith Morgan's car parked where she had brought him before. He swung off the road and pulled alongside. He cut the switch and could hear the purr of the car motor. The car, Clane noticed, was the same one from which he had taken Bob Morgan a few hours before.

He opened the door and slipped into the seat. The heater was going and the interior of the car was pleasantly warm. There were no lights on but he could see her faintly. She was dressed in what appeared to be a semi-tailored suit. She wore a hat and gloves and a fur-collared coat thrown back over the car seat. Her face was white in the dim light.

Clane said, “Thanks for the warmth,” and turned and looked into the rear of the car. It was empty. Satisfied, he turned back, half facing her. He lit a cigarette. The silence was strong, broken only by their breathing. Clane felt a sensation along his spine and wondered just how nearly right Marilyn would be.

She said finally, “Father hasn't come home yet.”

Clane thought of the car they were sitting in. He said, “Oh?”

“I'm terribly worried,” she said.

“Any ideas?”

“No—yes.”

Clane let it go. “What did you want to see me about?”

“Bob,” she said. “What does it mean, their letting him go?”

“Mean to whom? Your father? You?”

“Or you,” she said. She turned under the wheel, putting her knees on the seat. Her skirt rode above them and she tugged at it. He could see her white face fully now and make out the taut line of her mouth.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing except that they'll be looking for another goat now.”

Her breath made a rasping sound as she sucked it in. “Who?”

Clane said indifferently, “When they find out your connection with Grando they'll probably toss a coin and pick one of you.”

She was, he remembered, a lousy actress. She hadn't improved any. She could not keep the surprise nor the undercurrent of fear from her voice as she said, “Who told you that? It's preposterous!”

“Shall I tell you why, or will you tell me?”

“I said it was …”

“Sure,” Clane said. “But this is four a.m. and too damned lousy a time of day to sit here and lie to each other. Do you tell me the truth or do I go to the cops with what I know? If I have my facts wrong, it may make things just that much tougher.”

“I'm sick of your threatening me.”

“I'll wait until you're feeling better,” he said cheerfully. He stretched his long legs deliberately and took a deep drag off his cigarette. He let the smoke out slowly, in a long, rich puff.

“Damn you!”

Clane didn't say anything. He did not turn when he heard her begin to cry. He made no move when she put her hand on his arm. He turned only when she said, “Jim, let's—let's stop this. Maybe I did lie. But only—only because I didn't want you to think badly of me.”

Her face was very near now. He could see the dampness around her eyes and the quiver of her mouth. She swayed closer so that he had but two choices. He could kiss her or he could insult her.

He put out his hand and held her by the shoulder so she could come no nearer. He gave out with a concise, meaningful, four-letter word. It was a short and complete insult. It did exactly what Clane expected and hoped.

She stiffened as if he had slapped her. She pushed herself from him so that was against the door on her side of the car. He could see the line of anger about her mouth. She said, “I'll stop asking for your help. I'd like to go now.”

“All right,” Clane said, “then I'll go to the cops. I'll ask them if they can locate your old man. I'll tell them you have the car he was driving when he disappeared. I'll ask them if they know about you and the slick Mr. Grando.”

She sucked in her breath again. “What are you trying to do to me?”

Clane said, “Let's cut the dramatics and the lying and get to business, Edith.”

“I could kill you,” she said hotly.

“How many would that make—four?”

“You don't think I …”

“Did Grando?”

“No! Of course not. He …”

“You know a lot more about him than anyone else, don't you?”

“Damn you!” she said again. “All right, I do know him. I cultivated him for a purpose. It's not a thing I would want known. It isn't something that would help Dad's campaign if it were told!”

“Which is the first truth you've told me so far,” Clane said.

“I'll not be insulted….”

“You will be,” he said. “Now,
why Grando
?”

“I was trying to help Dad,” she said quickly. “Anthony made me spy for him; I was spying for Dad through Paul Grando.”

Clane remembered to be refined this time. “Nuts,” he said. “How long have you had a case on Grando? Write any letters? Has he got you over a barrel, too? How many men forced you into going with them?”

“I told you …”

Clane interrupted again. “Is this all platonic?”

“How could you think anything else?”

“I have a nasty mind,” he said. “Is it?”

“Yes,” she said stiffly.

For some reason he believed her. She had not shown any great warmth that he could see.

He said, “How well did you know Blake Watson?”

“Fairly well—through Anthony.”

“Only through Wickett?” Clane kept his voice low and insinuating. “Not well enough to know he was a picture hound?”

“He took pictures occasionally for the papers,” she said.

“Where is your father?” he demanded suddenly. “How did you get this car?”

“I want you to help me, not browbeat me, Jim. Please.”

“Help you—what?”

She faced him fully now, coming closer, but obviously only to emphasize her words. “Find Father,” she said. “He's with Paul Grando. He found out I was seeing Paul and went there to—to straighten things out.”

“How did he find out?”

“I had to tell him,” she said. “Thing are so terribly mixed up now, I had to tell him.”

“What kind of relationship did you have with Grando?”

“I told you I was spying. We were—companions.”

“Grando isn't that kind.” Clane remembered Grando's warning him to stay away from Edith Morgan. He understood it now.

“He's persistent,” she said. Clane swore he saw the lightest smile touch her lips.

“Why all this beating about the bush if that is what you want me to do?” he demanded.

I had hoped to keep a few secrets for myself,” she said. “I don't know how much of my private life you'll scatter to the public.”

“You really thing your father is in danger with Grando?”

“He hasn't been home for hours,” she said. “He came right away—after you took Bob. He had me drive him to Paul's place. He said he would take a cab home. But he still hadn't come when I left to come here. He told me not to tell anyone, so I said he was still missing. What's wrong with that? With protecting your own father?”

“Admirable,” Clane murmured. “How come Pappy came home with a sore jaw and a brain full of ideas about you and Grando?”

“When Bob was released—when Lieutenant Mullen called to tell Dad to come and get Bob—then I had to tell him. I couldn't know what Bob's release meant.”

“What were you afraid of?”

“I was afraid they would persecute Dad some more,” she said. Clane muttered to himself but said nothing aloud. He opened the car door. “I'll follow you,” he told her. He got into his car without another word.

Clane had an idea they would be going to the hotel. He let her go first and then he raced his motor until a curve in the road shielded him from her. He opened the door of his car then. Marilyn came quickly from the nearby bushes and clambered in. She was shivering, her teeth chattering. There was a fine dusting of snow on her coat.

“To see Grando,” he said. He jerked the car forward so he could catch up. Soon he saw that Edith Morgan was going away from town. He said, “What the hell?”

Marilyn said, “I suppose to the roadhouse. He has an office there. It's still open, upstairs.”

Clane glanced admiringly at her. “You know this town, don't you?”

“I've spent all my life in it,” she said.

Clane speeded up a little as Edith turned into the open road. Before long he could see the dark bulk of the roadhouse again. No light came from the upstairs windows, but he was sure that there was activity behind drawn blinds. The place lacked the feel of emptiness.

Clane said to Marilyn, “Duck. Relax, too. She hasn't shot at me yet.”

“You aren't rid of her—yet.”

Clane grinned and stepped into the powdery snow. He went to Edith Morgan's car. He said, “Hold the fort,” and went on.

At the closed door of the roadhouse he found a bell and pressed it. In a moment a voice said, “Side door, buddy.”

Clane went around the side. A door was open there, a small door. He went in. The door shut behind him. Then a light came on. Clane found himself looking into a thick and ugly face. The slightly scarred, battered face of a professional pug. The man stared at him from tiny eyes. He said nothing.

Clane said, “Tell Grando that Clane wants to see him.”

The man turned to wall phone, lifted the receiver, waited a moment, and then spoke. He hung up and turned back to Clane. “Follow me.”

He took Clane up a flight of stairs. They went down a narrow hallway, past a curtained arch. Behind it Clane could hear the unmistakable click of dice and the voice of a roulette croupier. At the end of the hallway the man ahead opened a door.

Clane went inside. It was an office. Grando sat behind an ornate and violently modernistic desk. Clane crossed a three-inch thick rug. Grando cocked an eye over his cigar and waited. Clane dropped, uninvited, into a leather-covered chrome chair. He said, “Where's Morgan?”

Grando's other eyebrow went up. “Why should he be here?”

Clane sighed. “Let's stop playing for marbles and bottle tops, Grando. He's here or he was here. His daughter sent him. Then she yelled for me to help her. She ratted on you, Grando.”

He let his voice drop a little to a confidential level. He said again, “She ratted on you.”

Grando set his cigar in an ashtray and picked a bit of leaf from the tip of his tongue. He examined it curiously. Then he looked at Clane. There was absolutely no expression on his thin, dark face.

He said, “Show the gentleman out, Al,” to the plug-ugly back of Clane.

Clane stood up. “Morgan?”

“He went home,” Grando said. “A long time ago.”

Clane got as far as the door. Grando called his name. “Clane!”

Clane turned quizzically. Grando said, “Tell Edith I don't play monkey to her cat. If she wants you shot she'll have to do it herself.”

Clane went through the door with Al in back of him now.

Al let him out downstairs and Clane went back to Edith Morgan's car. He said, “Your father is home.”

“You're sure? You're sure he isn't being held or—or?”

“No,” Clane said, “this isn't a movie set. It's real. He's at home. You certainly trust your playmates, Edith.”

He walked away, hearing her motor start as he reached his own car. He walked around and got in on Marilyn's side. “You drive,” he said wearily. “To the maison Morgan.”

She got behind the wheel and started the car. “How do you know I can drive?”

“You can do anything.”

She laughed softly. “That was nice. I think I'll like being married to you—if we ever stay home long enough to make it legal.”

Clane grinned. He lit a cigarette, passing it to her, and then lit one for himself. He laid his head back and drew the smoke deeply into his lungs. He told her idly of Grando's statements.

“That makes two of us,” Marilyn said. “What do we do now? Put the bee on Pappy?”

“Exactly. And get some coffee out of him if we have to do it a gun-point.” He looked at his watch. “It's after five. My God, what a town I Does no one ever sleep in this burg?”

“The ones with clear consciences do,” she said. “I don't know any of them.”

Clane said, “I hope the coffee is good.”

He was on his second cup before he could defrost Morgan sufficiently to get the older man to talk. Clane and Marilyn found him in pajamas and dressing gown. He had answered the door quickly enough. And he had let them in when Clane told him Edith was on her way and that they had been to Grando's. After getting in Clane had found getting coffee a simple matter. Edith had returned in time to make it.

The four were seated in the library now. Morgan, Senior, had built a fire in the small stone fireplace. Clane was enjoying the leap of light and shadow across Marilyn's features. She looked bright and rested. Edith Morgan in comparison seemed drawn, sitting silently on a settee, watching all three of them. Robert Morgan stared icily at Clane, waiting.

Clane said for the fifth time, “Don't you think it to your interest to stop being a jerk, Morgan?”

“I'll be the judge of that,” Morgan said coldly.

Clane turned to Marilyn. “I'm tired. You scare him for a while.”

Morgan looked sharply at Marilyn. “Aren't you a switchboard operator at the Metropole?”

“By day,” she said. “Confidentially, I'm Dr. Watson. I'm a female impersonator. Now, Mr. Morgan, let's all be democratic. You can speak frankly to a working girl.”

He said stiffly, “I see no reason why either of you should stay in my house any longer. You, Clane, come in here with threats about this gangster, Grando. As a matter of political expediency I brought you in to find what it was about. All you have done is make threats. I'll thank you to mind your own business.”

Clane said, “You remind me of your daughter, Morgan. Shall I go to the cops? Shall I tell them how she tried to put me on the spot and let Grando do the dirty work?” He looked at Edith Morgan. “Grando said to tell you to do your own killing. His precise expression referred to monkeys, cats, and, I presume, chestnuts.”

He turned again to Morgan. “Shall I tell them the cute story about the scandal sheet with your daughter's love letters draped all over page one, and her picture—sans adornment—in the center of the sheet?”

Morgan went white around the mouth. “I don't like your innuendoes, Clane.”

Clane stared at Edith Morgan. “Haven't you ‘fessed up to Poppa, dear?”

“I have heard the whole sordid story,” Morgan said in his chilled manner. “I didn't realize how rotten Wickett was until Edith told me everything.”

“After he was killed, huh?”

Morgan nodded briefly, his lips still a thin, cold line. “Yes. Now, Mr. Clane, I'll have to ask you and—and the young lady—to leave. I'm very tired.”

“Too tired to tell me what you and Grando have in common? What a stink that will raise in the papers.”

Morgan stood up. For the first time Clane saw human warmth and anger in the man. “I'm sick of this political filth. Take your threats away, Clane.”

Clane grinned feebly. “Okay, Morgan. You won't play, so I will. You went to see Grando because your charming daughter was mixed up with him, too. Oh, all for the cause, of course. She was getting data to help Poppa.” Clane took a deep breath, held it, and then expelled it noisily. He turned hard, dark eyes on Edith Morgan.

He went on, “What Edith did not tell you, Morgan, was that she had things a bit twisted. You knew Wickett. What kind of man was he?”

Morgan's forehead furrowed. “I can't see where this is leading.”

“Then don't play,” Clane said brusquely. “I'll tell you; Wickett was a business man. He may have been a heel and a lover of the ladies, but he was no fifth-rate bum. He had a position, he had prestige. My God, do you think he would lay himself open by concocting such a filthy mess as those pictures of your daughter? Those love letters? Do you, Morgan?”

“No, I …” Morgan stopped. Then he said, “Obviously, he did. The man had a mental quirk.”

“Nuts,” Clane said. He was looking at Edith again. “The brain wave behind those pictures came from Paul Grando—not Wickett.” He got to his feet, held out his hand to help Marilyn up. “Talk it over with Father, dear,” he said kindly. He and Marilyn walked quietly out.

Daylight was coming, dull and gray. The snow had stopped and had left a thin film of white everywhere. Clane looked and turned the collar of his coat up to his ears. He helped Marilyn into the car.

“Smart boy, Jim,” she said approvingly. “Where did you get the bright idea?”

“I deduced it,” he grunted. “Just after I deduced what kind of mind little Edith has. You were wrong, honey. She wouldn't kill me. But she would try to get some sucker to do it for her. Big tears, quivering lip, the works. Her old man is wise but also so scared of what she might do. Grando is too old a hand to be bullied into it. My guess is that Edith will try the cops next. She hasn't any use for me any more.”

Marilyn said slowly, “I couldn't believe Wickett was that much of a heel.”

“Heel enough,” Clane said. “Now give me some dope on Watson.” He turned the car in the direction of the Regent Arms. “And hurry it, sugar. I'm due to be chased in a few hours. My pal Thorne—with assistance from the cops.”

“Watson,” she said obediently, “was a hard-luck guy. I didn't know much about him except from gossip. He worked for Thorne and Castle before the paper folded, you know.”

“Big shot?”

“Top reporter,” she said. “Watson had a nose for news—really. He hit the skids when he went over to Wickett. He turned plug-horse. Earned his money and that's about all. He took to guzzling, too—heavily, for a while.”

“His wife?”

Marilyn said gently, “She was one of those nice women who can' take anything not in the family rut. She couldn't stand Watson's going to pieces and so she went to the hospital. Defense mechanism, I suppose.”

“When was this?” Clane demanded. “I thought she was in for an appendix or something.”

“No,” Marilyn said. “She's resting—mentally. It's been a year and a half. It's a sanitarium. Watson was crazy about her. It was sort of pitiful. He'd come into the hotel looking haunted and sick. It was nearly a year before he got over the drinking. Then he stopped all at once. Nothing but beer. And he got better. His clothes looked newer again; he had a little better car; he ate in better places. Everyone gossiped about the change.”

“Was he broke, too, with all this?”

“Broke,” she said. “Drank it up. Then the sanitarium cost a small fortune. He scraped it up some way. Nothing but the best for Jane Watson.”

Clane said thoughtfully, “What kind of salary did he make?”

“Like the others, I suppose,” she said. “About fifty a week.”

Clane said, “And he took pictures too.”

“He was good,” she said. “He sold a few to some magazine once. Trick shots.”

“Naturally,” Clane said. “Trick shots. A commendable self-sacrificing man, Watson. Didn't you ever wonder where he got the dough to keep his wife in a sanitarium and start dressing himself?”

“Vaguely. Watson wasn't our absorbing passion,” she answered.

Clane was silent until he turned and pulled up in front of the Regent Arms. He leaned over and kissed Marilyn. “Out you go, chicken,” he said. “I'm clicking now.”

“What do I do, sit and knit?”

“Stay home from work,” he said. “Tell them you broke a garter. I may need some help before the day is over, I'm thinking.”