You Can't Kill a Corpse (5 page)

Clane stared thoughtfully at the boy in the chair. He took Bob Morgan by the hand and pulled him to his feet. “Clear out of here, kid,” he said. “Hide outside. If someone comes, tip me off. I have work to do.”

“Get out this, Jim,” Bob Morgan pleaded. “This isn't your mess.”

“Move,” Clane ordered. He turned his back on the boy and went toward Wickett's desk. He heard the French doors open and shut. Then he went to work.

He turned the desk lamp so its light was thrown toward the front and downward. He began leafing through the papers on the desk top. Mostly business and household bills. He pushed them aside and started on the drawers. He found the first thing in plain sight, resting in the top drawer. It was a snapshot, about half the size of a postcar. He held it to the light and looked at it briefly before he put it in his pocket. It was of Natalie Thorne and she looked as if she had just completed a strip tease.

He thought, “I wonder how much Thorne had to pay for the negative?”

He went through the rest of the drawers. He was wondering if Wickett had been naturally untidy or if the disorder was the result of Edith Morgan's search. Nothing was filed, nothing in order. There were no more items of interest until he came to the bottom drawer. There, beneath a thick sheaf of newspaper copy paper, he found a small scrapbook. He flipped it open and looked at the dozen newspaper clippings pasted inside. He couldn't see much sense to them.

They were all local items and dated within the past five years. Each one was short and dealt with the same subject: J. B. Castle had been arrested for drunkenness. Clane tried to place the name. It eluded him until he read, “Castle, former newspaperman….” and then he had it. Castle had been the editor of Thorne's now defunct sheet.

Clane took the two pages on which the clippings were pasted and tore them from the book. He rolled them and put the roll in his inside coat pocket. He dropped the scrapbook back into the drawer.

Clane was disappointed. There were no secret drawers in the desk. Nor did any of the bookcases look suspicious. He walked around the room, admiring Wickett's taste in classical literature, but that helped him not at all. He went back to the bar and helped himself to another drink of Wickett's rye.

The French doors came open. Bob Morgan said, “Car coming up this way.”

Clane motioned with his head. “Get inside, Bob. How much do you weight?”

“One-sixty,” Bob Morgan said.

“All right, lug Wickett outside and dump him in the shadow of the hedge. Keep on the flagstones.”

“Look, Jim….”

Clane studied the revulsion on the boy's face. He said savagely, “Damn it, do you want your sister smeared all over headquarters?” The kid set his teeth together and followed Clane toward the desk.

Clane didn't care much for the job but he knew it was one of those things that had to be done. He hoisted Wickett's body out of the chair, grasping it beneath the armpits. Bob Morgan bent and Clane set the corpse over his shoulder in a version of the fireman's carry. Bob was breathing violently through his mouth.

Clane said, “When you get to the hedge drop him and stay there. Heave if it will make you feel any better.” He was sweating a little himself now.

He could hear the car. He stood by the French doors, the library light out, until he saw that the kid had made the hedge. At the same instant the car's motor slowed and stopped. Clane pulled the doors shut against the night chill. He shucked his topcoat and hat, tossing them on an easy chair near the side door. He went to the desk and turned on the light. With a few deft movements he put the papers on the desk top in a neat pile. He took a glass from the bar and poured himself a drink and set it on the desk. He took off his gloves and threw them on top of his overcoat. Then he settled himself in Wickett's chair and waited.

The doorbell rang within a minute. Clane stirred and went slowly into the hall. He turned on lights as he located the switches. He had three lights going by the time he reached the front door. He saw that the night chain was on. He slipped it free and opened the door a crack.

The quiet gray man standing on the porch eluded him for a moment. Then Clane recognized him. He said, “Hello, Driggs. You newspaper guys work long hours.”

“I came to see Mr. Wicket, Clane.” Driggs' voice was as gray and dull as his appearance.

Clane said, “So did I. But he isn't here. Come on in and help me wait.”

“You have a hell of a nerve,” Driggs remarked. He stepped inside. “How did you get in here?”

“I walked,” Clane said. “I walked into the library and had myself a drink. I'm still having it. Want one?”

Driggs took off his hat but kept his topcoat on. By his somber, undistinguished face Clane could see that he was suspicious, and thinking things. He said, “Wickett told me he would be here.”

“That's what he told me,” Clane agreed. “Between ten and twelve.”

Driggs looked nervous. “I can't see Mr. Wickett inviting
you
here, Clane.”

“He did,” Clane said cheerfully. “But I'm getting tired of waiting!”

Driggs was silent until they were in the library. He stopped just inside the door and looked around. He saw Clane's drink on the desk. “You've got a hell of a nerve,” he said again.

“So has Wickett,” Clane said. “I told him I liked straight bourbon. He hasn't anything but rye. Have some?”

“No,” Driggs said. “I don't drink.”

“Cigarette? Or a cigar?” Clane remembered the cigar on Wickett's desk. He went that way and took it. It had gone out and was cold. “I found this one. I don't know where he keeps the rest. It's a pretty good smoke.”

“I don't smoke,” Driggs said. He added, looking at Clane, “Wickett doesn't like cigars. The smell makes him sick.”

Clane took that in his stride, while he was putting a match to the cigar. He blew out the match before he had the cigar lighted. He said, “Maybe it bothers you too. I wouldn't want to stink up the room.” He dropped the cigar into the pocket of his suit coat.

Driggs was still standing, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. Clane could see that he was trying to hide his nervousness. Driggs said, “What did Wickett want to see you about, Clane?”

Clane leaned negligently against the desk. “Private business.”

“Does Thorne know about it?”

Clane shrugged. “I don't give a damn if Mayor Pryor knows it. What did
you
want to see Wickett about?”

“A story,” Driggs said. “How to handle a story.” He looked lugubrious, but Clane could see that it took an effort.

“About Clane, perhaps?”

“No,” Driggs said. “It will be in the papers tomorrow. It's about Watson. I want to do a eulogy.”

Clane felt for his cigarettes. “Heart attack?” He had an idea it wasn't. He found the cigarettes and put one between his lips. He hunted for a match.

“No,” Driggs said. “Suicide.”

Clane struck the match on the underside of Wickett's desk. “The hell! When?”

“He visited his wife in the hospital before ten. I talked to him by phone after ten. It was after that.”

“Suicide,” Clane repeated. He lit the cigarette and blew out the match. He watched Driggs closely.

“Yes,” Driggs said emphatically. “He shot himself in the head. The police think it was a thirty-two.”

“They think it was,” Clane echoed. “Can't they tell the caliber of a gun by looking at it?”

“The gun is missing,” Driggs said. He looked at Clane without expression.

“Maybe,” Clane said, “that's where Wickett went—to make it look a suicide.”

“There was no bad feeling between them,” Driggs replied humorlessly.

That, Clane thought, is a hell of a reaction to what I said. And a funny way of expressing it. Aloud, he said, “You worry about Watson. I'm going to bed. I can't wait all night for Wickett. His rye is running low, anyway.”

Driggs moved as Clane started for the door. He blocked Clane's path. “What time did you get here?” he blurted.

“I don't know,” Clane said. “I lost my watch in a crap game.” He looked down at Driggs briefly, then pulled back his sleeve and studied his wrist watch. “It's time to go,” he decided. “Night.” He walked around Driggs and out through the French doors.

Driggs sputtered, “It doesn't pay to insult the press!” and followed Clane.

Clane walked slowly, knowing Driggs was watching him. A moon had shown itself now and it threw a chill light on the damp lawn. Clane walked steadily. He reached the hedge and he could see the dark blotches made by Bob Morgan and Wickett's corpse.

He said, “Stay where you are. I'll be back.” His voice hardly carried beyond his lips. He went on through the gate.

Clane walked quickly to his car and drove off the Hill. At the bottom, where Fourth Street began to slope up, he found an all-night drugstore. He went inside and straight back to the telephone booth. In the book he found the number he wanted. He put the call in. The phone had rung only twice when it was answered. It was a girl's voice, and Clane could hear the suppressed worry in it.

“Miss Morgan?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Clane. Driggs is at Wickett's. Call him and tell him his wife ran away with the butcher. Tell him anything but get hm out of there.”

“I don't see …”

“Hold it,” Clane said sharply. “Driggs doesn't know anything yet.”

“About what, Mr. Clane?”

“If you'd rather,” he said bluntly, “I'll talk to your father.”

“No,” she said quickly. She didn't hold out long, Clane thought. Her voice had been frightened. In his opinion she wasn't much of an actress.

“Call then,” he said. “Disguise your voice if you need to.” He took a breath. “It's after twelve. I'll be at my room in the Metropole by one-thirty. Meet me there.” He gave her his room number.

“Mr. Clane, I'll make this call, but I cannot see …”

“For God's sake,” he said, “don't tighten the noose around your father's neck.” He hung up.

He bought two packs of cigarettes from the druggist and as an afterthought a bag of potato chips and a chocolate bar. Bob would be sure to like one or the other.

He loafed the car going back up the hill. He parked in a darkened driveway so that he commanded a view of the street before the Wickett house. Inside of five minutes he saw Driggs come out, get into his car, and drive off. Clane sighed with relief and eased his own car into the street, stopping when he was at the nearest point to the gate in the hedge.

He left the motor idling and walked quickly to the gate. “Hurry it, kid.”

Bob Morgan stood up, giving a grunt as his muscles stretched form their cramped positions. “Jim, what'll we do with that?”

“We dump it,” Clane said shortly. “Help me get it in the car.”

Clane took the biggest part of the burden with Bob Morgan helping from the rear. They set the body on the floor. Clane said, “Get in,” and slid into the right hand-seat, “Drive.”

Bob Morgan started the car down the hill. Clane said, “Drive to the mayor's place.” He took a flashlight from the glove compartment in the dash and crawled over the seat, into the rear with the body.

He turned on the light and went to work. It was a grim business and it made him feel crummy. Wickett hadn't bled much, and for that Clane was thankful. It was the cold clamminess of the skin that he disliked and he avoided such contact as much as possible.

His total take from Wickett's clothing was a well filled wallet, a few letters, a comb, handkerchief, keys, and small change. He found a cigar case in the inside coat pocket. He kept the case and the wallet and put everything else back. He squatted on the floor, braced against the rear of the front seat, and went methodically through the contents of the wallet. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the card case and he turned to the money compartment. He counted five tens, five twenties, two fives, a few ones, and two fifties. He spread them all out, one by one, turning the flashlight on each. When he was through he returned everything but the fifties. These he tucked into the watch pocket of his suit.

“Jim? Jim, what you doing?”

“Robbing a corpse,” Clane said. “Does Pryor smoke cigars?”

“He doesn't smoke,” Bob Morgan said.

Clane crawled into the front seat. “Does your father?”

“Cigars and a pipe,” Bob Morgan said.

“Panatellas?”

“Look, Jim, we don't see eye to eye—Dad and I—but I know damned well …”

“I'm not trying to hang him,” Clane said.

“All right, he smokes panatellas.”

“Who else?”

“Lots of people,” Bob Morgan said. “Thorne does.”

“How about Paul Grando?”

“I suppose so. I've seen him with a cigar.”

Clane said, “How far now?”

Bob Morgan said, “Pryor's place is in the next block.”

They were in an old section of town, Clane, could tell by the antiquated street lights and the aging houses. “Hell of a place for the mayor to live.”

“He owns most of the property,” the boy answered. “Now what do I do?”

“Drive by slowly. If the place is dark stop at the curb.” Clane went back over the seat. He felt the car slow and then stop. He couldn't see out; he was down pulling at Wickett.

When they stopped Clane reached up and opened the side door. He turned, holding the body as he would hold a drunken man. It was dark and still. The mayors house sat back from the street with a good slope of green lawn separating it from the sidewalk. Clane spotted a low, neatly trimmed privet hedge running along the driveway. He shouldered the body and moved forward.

“That guy is doomed to hedges,” he told Bob Morgan when he was back in the car. “Maybe I'll send a small one to his funeral.”

“What was the idea?” Bob Morgan asked.

“Lots of reasons,” Clane said. “In the first place, it's a reminder to our dear mayor of the penalty for playing politics. Also, it might keep the police puzzled long enough to give me room to work in. And they could be just dumb enough not to figure out that he was killed in his own study. I doubt that,” he added sourly. “Now drive home, Bob.”

“My car is back at Wickett's,” Bob Morgan said. “Hidden around the corner and up a street.”

“Your father calls on him, why not you?”

“I didn't want to start a fuss,” he said. “Wickett didn't know I was calling on Mickey.” He sucked in his breath. “Give me a cigarette, Jim. Jeez! What a mess.”

Clane said that Bob was standing up fine under it. “Have some potato chips?” he asked. He opened the sack. “Chocolate bar?”

Bob Morgan gagged. “No—no thanks.”

Clane said amiably, “Say so if you change your mind.” He ate the chocolate and then the potato chips. He was beginning to feel good again. Things were looking better. Of course it all depended on what Driggs and Edith Morgan had to say.

They stopped by Bob's dilapidated Ford. Clane said, “I'll be at the station tomorrow. Go get some sleep.”

He could see a crooked grin on Bob Morgan's white face. “I wish I had your guts, Jim.”

Clane said, “I'm all gall bladder. Don't stew about it.”

He drove off, leaving Bob Morgan standing motionless by his car. Clane headed straight for the Metropole. It was one-fifteen by his watch. He wondered if Edith Morgan would be in his room. And he wondered what she had been doing since leaving Wickett's. For that matter, how had Natalie and Thorne spent the time since he had left their house? Evidently neither of them had been at Wickett's, at least not long enough to remove Natalie's picture from the desk.

Clane patted his pockets in satisfaction. For what they were worth, he had a few things to show for the night. The cigar case, the picture of Natalie, the clippings on J. B. Castle, and most important, he suspected, the two fifty-dollar bills. He had taken them because of the peculiar markings. They weren't new bills, nor too old. But on both he had noticed that the zeros in the serial numbers had been blacked out. Much as a person would doodle and fill in the o's in a sentence. A nice way to mark money if the man taking it weren't too quick.

Wickett, he thought, was too quick to take it, so he must have been waiting to give it to someone. Clane himself, maybe. But would a man like Wickett consider a hundred dollars enough money to tempt Clane? He would be shrewder than that, it seemed to Clane. He let it ride for the time being and swung the car into the hotel's basement garage. He went past a sleepy attendant and up a flight of stairs into the lobby.

He went to the desk and asked for the key to his room. He said, “Any messages?”

“No, sir.” The clerk handed Clane the key.

Clane was watching the clerk's face. It was still, compressed. Clane stood a moment, fingering the key. “Send it up,” he said softly. He turned and walked away. He brushed against a slim, dark man coming toward the desk. He said, “Sorry.”

He had a glimpse of black hair shot with gray and combed tightly to a small head, a graying moustache, and two unwinking black eyes that met his own and passed on by. Involuntarily Clane shivered. He had met such eyes before; once he had come off with six stitches in his scalp, another time with a knife wound in his back.

When Clane was in the elevator, he said, “Who is that good-looking little guy by the desk?”

“Paul Grando,” the elevator boy said. “He's big stuff.”

“Sure,” Clane said. “Does he live here?”

“Part of the time.”

Clane rode the rest of the way in silence. As the car stopped at the sixth floor, he said, “What do I do if I get so drunk I'm ashamed to come through the lobby?”

The boy grinned. Clane passed him a five-dollar bill. The boy said, “Come in from the alley. There's a service elevator right off it. But it'll save squawks if you phone the desk and tell them to charge double rates for the night. Then they don't give a damn what you bring in.”

“Thanks,” Clane said dryly, and stepped into the hall. “Maybe I'll have a harem before long.” He walked toward his room.

There was no light coming under his door and he hesitated before putting his key in the lock. He opened the door finally and put his hand inside the room. He found the switch with his fingers and flicked on the lights. He stepped in, shut the door and turned his back on it.

Edith Morgan was seated in the easy chair across the room. She was rigid and pale, her lips set tightly in her drawn face. She didn't look angry as she had in Clane's cell; she looked frightened, almost sick with it.

There was a gun in her hand. He held it tightly, pointed at Clane. Her arm trembled.

Clane said, “That's a .32, isn't it?”