Show Red for Danger Page 12

  Crowley did not look much comforted.

  “You mean one of them carried this roll of paper out that way?” he said. “And—no. I counted them in, counted them out. Nobody carried anything. And they all went.” But then he lost confidence. “I suppose,” he said, “somebody could have carried it out and put it in the car when I was inside and gone back into the house. Only—well, it never entered my mind that anybody would want to steal anything, captain. And reporters don’t—”

  “All right,” Heimrich said. “I don’t blame you particularly. Although-”

  “I’m sorry as hell, captain,” Crowley said.

  “Now Ray,” Heimrich said. “Forget it. Anyway, I don’t think, either, that it was one of the reporters. Somebody who came back after you had gone. Been seen going. You didn’t pass a car on your way out? A car coming this way?”

  Crowley hadn’t. Which meant nothing; there were three roads, none of them direct, none to be chosen above another, from the Center to the house on the hilltop.

  “When you were walking around,” Heimrich said, “waiting for the press to show up, you didn’t happen to come across a path? A path leading down to the road?”

  Crowley brightened at that. He had; he showed Heimrich, while Susan waited on the front terrace. Heimrich came back and nodded.

  “Steep,” he said. “Goes straight down. Much quicker for a man on foot than the driveway. About half as long. And comes up on the far side of the house, where Crowley here wouldn’t have seen anyone from the pool terrace. How whoever came for the Buick came, probably. Perhaps the second time, too.”

  Heimrich told Crowley he could get back on patrol. He told him not to worry. And to lock up, first. All doors, this time.

  It shouldn’t, Heimrich said, as they rolled slowly down the driveway, leaving Crowley to his locking up, be difficult to find out who had picked up the wagon since two people had to have been involved, and unless one was willing to lie for the other. Nobody in his right mind would walk from the Center to Collins’s house on a day as hot as this. And nobody can come in one car, and drive two away. And there was not, so far as Heimrich could see, any reason for whoever it was to have come surreptitiously on the first visit. The second—

  “Only,” Susan said, “it doesn’t have to be the same man, really. The first one—the one who saw me—might have mentioned what he’d seen to somebody else. A sort of ‘Saw a funny thing up at the Collins house. Wonder what she was up to’ sort of thing.”

  Heimrich looked doubtful; he said that it was, of course, possible. He turned the car east in Sugar Creek Lane.

  “Of course,” Susan Faye said. “Young Mr. Latham is an actor. And the girl even more so, isn’t she? So I suppose they might think of that—re-enactment Or she might and he humor her. He’s very fond of her, of course. Might, I think, do almost anything she asked him to.”

  IX

  Susan had promised to take care of herself; had pointed out that there was always Colonel. Heimrich, looking at the large, sad dog, had said, to that, “Well—” in a voice of doubt. Colonel, while perhaps courageous in his fashion, was a dog obviously resigned to disaster; a fatalistic dog, unlikely to intervene in a cause he would assume already lost. “Anyway,” Susan said, “with the design gone, and probably ashes by now, it’s only my word. Not even that—only my critical judgment. Why would that worry anybody?”

  It wouldn’t, Heimrich told himself, driving toward the Center. The design itself had been the danger, not what anyone could describe of it. The design had been taken care of, no longer existed, even as a hint. Susan was not a danger to anyone, and so not in danger from anyone. Also she was an intelligent woman, not likely to take needless risk. Intelligent and observant, and to be trusted. She had, more quickly than he, realized how young George Latham felt about even younger Chris Waggoner. An attractive couple they made, as people said. Heimrich had, of course, to consider also whether they might not be a conspiratorial couple.

  It was obvious that the re-enactment—on the face of it slightly absurd—need not be the only purpose of their visit to the Collins house. It might have been a spur-of-the-moment tableau, arranged for the delection of whoever was audibly approaching in a laboring car on a steep driveway.

  It was not necessary to believe that Chris and Latham had gone to the house so that she could lie on a tile floor in a bathing suit, and in the posture of a murdered girl. They could have gone to get the fabric design because it threatened one of them, or both of them. They could have got it, put it in the Chevrolet convertible, driven unmolested away with it before its absence was discovered. And laughed lightheartedly up their sleeves. (Except, of course, that the girl wasn’t wearing sleeves.)

  Actors, Heimrich thought morosely, turning down Van Brunt Avenue toward the Center, toward the Inn. It was to be anticipated that in any murder investigation one would encounter at least one liar, and might expect to come across several. But, in the usual course, they would be only layman liars. Here he was confronted with a handful of people who, it might be said, lied for a living. Perhaps the word was harsh; the fact was inescapable. An actor lives by pretending—with voice, with facial muscles, with the whole of the body—to be someone he is not. A director, a producer, lives by creating a semblance which is not a fact Heimrich felt rather put upon; he was conscious of kinship with Colonel.

  For all he knew, Latham had been acting—and had fooled them both—when he put an arm around Chris Waggoner, and she acting when she, momentarily, seemed to soften in his arm. And Dale acting when he denied any residual passion for Peggy Belford. And Chris again when her eyes widened in apparent uneasiness at something she had thought about Peggy’s possible knowledge of the whereabouts of bodies. And Marley. And Zersk. And, for all he knew, Burt Alder of publicity, who might have acquired acting ability by osmosis.

  It would, Heimrich thought—driving slowly down Van Brunt Avenue, through Sunday afternoon traffic—be much simpler to accept the semblance as the fact, and nobody would blame him if he did. The county district attorney would, certainly, be among those who would not blame him, since district attorneys much prefer not to be asked to make bricks without straw, and since Heimrich certainly had not, at the moment, straw to offer. Oh—one wisp. A fabric design which he could not produce, and a young woman’s opinion that a color in it was “wrong.” Considering this, Heimrich felt more than ever as he supposed Colonel habitually to feel, and thought that he probably now looked like Colonel. (Instead of like a hippopotamus.)

  And yet that straw was the major thing which Heimrich, being who he was, still had to clutch at; the only tangible (but no longer that) evidence that he was confronted not with the fact of murder and suicide but with contrivance. Well—since he had nothing more, he might as well see whether he could come up with an hypothesis which would explain the wrongness of the red in the design. Start with the simplest thing—red is for danger. Then Collins—assuming it was he who had daubed the red on the design—wanted to convey the fact of danger. Presumably, to himself. Possibly, to Peggy Belford.

  Heimrich shook this in his mind. It seemed a solid grain, if a small one. Then, why? Putting red paint on paper could not ward off danger. At any rate, Heimrich could not see how it could. And, most obviously, it had not. So—

  Red is a warning; it is also an admonition to stop. Then—to stop before accepting what appeared, before confusing semblance with fact? An obscure way of doing it, certainly; a subtlety likely to be overlooked altogether. Except—Collins had known Susan was coming; that a policeman probably would be with her. So he could count on Susan’s seeing that the color was wrong, passing the fact on to the policeman. If there were something for the policeman to concern himself with.

  Why the indirection? Because, presumably, the direct was impossible, would not be allowed. Now, Heimrich thought, I may be getting somewhere. He turned into the almost-filled parking lot of the Old Stone Inn, but did not at once leave the car. He shut the motor off and continued with hypothesis. W
hat he needed, clearly, was a series of events which included an opportunity to daub glaring red on paper but not to leave an explicit message; a series of events which did not, obviously include the murder of Peggy Belford by Collins and the murder of Collins by himself. Which, therefore, included at least one other person. A person who knew that Peggy was at the Collins house and that, for at least an hour, Collins himself was not. Which included, apparently, practically everyone. Except Roland Fielding?

  So— Peggy had gone to the house for a swim. Start with that, which was obvious. Collins had had a swim with her, which was probable, although not certain. Collins had left at about three-thirty to drive into the Center. He had returned about four-thirty and—found Peggy dead? And somebody standing over her with a gun? And had said, “I realize you’ve got to kill me too, but do you mind if I put a finishing touch on a design I’m doing before you do?” That was fairly absurd. Found Peggy still alive, but someone with a gun with her and—and what? Heimrich could not think; he closed his eyes and, after a time, shook his head.

  Not found her there at all because—because she was dead, and her body hidden? Heimrich’s interest quickened somewhat. Found her murderer there and been told, by him, that Peggy had gone off somewhere and that he was waiting for her—and been lulled by this? And the murderer’s purpose? Instead of merely killing and going, leaving a cadaver for Collins to explain.

  Because, before he could do that, he had heard Collins’s car coming up the drive? Jeeps make a good deal of noise. Had had time only to hide the body? In a closet? Possibly only in the kitchen. Assuming that, his reason for not shooting Collins immediately? His reason for lulling him, getting him to wait, also, for the presumptive return of a girl who was already dead?

  Uh-huh, Heimrich said to himself. Collins could not be shot down out of hand. He had to be maneuvered into a position which would support the theory—create the semblance—of suicide. Until that had been done, Collins must not suspect.

  But—suppose Collins had? Perhaps only vaguely suspected, uneasily suspected. A bulge in the man’s pocket? Or, conceivably, the odor of powder still in the air? (The conditioning unit would, however, have taken it out quickly.) Skip that; outline now, fill in later, if possible. Suppose, further, that Collins had concealed his suspicion, his uneasiness. Said that, while they waited, he might as well finish off a thing he was doing in the studio. Hoping, probably, to get into the studio alone; perhaps even get his gun out of the table drawer.

  The murderer would not have let him go alone. That was obvious. So anything Collins might do to show danger, to say to someone, all else failing, that the way it looked was not the way it was, would have had to be done under watchful, hostile eyes. No chance, obviously, to write it plain—to write out, somewhere, “So and So has, I think, killed Peggy Belford. He is, unless I can prevent it, going to kill me. He will probably try to make it appear that I killed her and then myself.”

  The Manual of Procedure of the Police Department of the City of New York says that a good detective must have “the ability to draw upon the imagination.” Heimrich drew on his, played the scene in his mind.

  A man—say it was a man; keep it simple—sitting and watching, his manner easy, his hand on a gun in his pocket. “Want to touch up this color,” Collins said, in tie scene Heimrich’s imagination wrote for him. “A bit drab, don’t you think? Needs some life in it,” the while mixing colors until red glared in them, transferring red to drawing paper. “Looks better now, don’t you think?” Collins said, in Heimrich’s mind. “Much better,” the murderer said, in Heimrich’s mind—and in whose voice? Marley’s deep voice; Dale’s modulated voice; Zersk’s jagged voice? In George Latham’s agreeable baritone? Or—in one of the voices of Chris Waggoner? (There was nothing in this imagined sequence impossible to an active girl.)

  Heimrich’s imagination could not cast the part. Write the scene first, people it later.

  “Much better,” the voice without identity said. “Oh—I think I hear her in the living room. Better go back and see, hadn’t we?”

  Shift the scene, now. Shift it to the living room. The dialogue? “I could have sworn I heard her,” in the voice without identity. “Well, may as well sit down while we wait, hadn’t we? Hate to impose but I’ve got to get in touch with her as soon as possible.” Because there’s a message for her at the Inn? Because there’s a last-minute change in a scene and we have to go over it for tomorrow? Because the last shot didn’t come out the way we wanted and we’ve got to do it over right away? Because—there was no use worrying about that.

  And Collins, still wary, still pretending to suspect nothing—still playing for time, having only time to play for. No. Wait. Having a definite thing to play for—the arrival of Mrs. Susan Faye, accompanied by Captain M. L. Heimrich, New York State Police. If we had left half an horn: earlier, Heimrich thought; perhaps only fifteen minutes earlier. Which was wasting thought.

  Collins, wary, playing for time—but not wary enough, running out of time. In the last seconds, somehow tricked—caught in a moment of unwariness. Come at quickly before he could get out of a chair; a gun hard and for an instant cold against his temple and then—nothing. Or a horrible, unimaginable, roaring of pain? No use guessing about that. In one way or another, all sometime learn, and in no way can any report.

  The last bit of action, Heimrich thought, was a little tricky, a little hard to visualize. How get that close to a suspicious man? Possibly, of course, by holding a gun on him. Merely that. Any man, his life threatened, will play for a second more of life, an instant more. Play to the end in the disbelief of the living that death has come; in the hope, however dim, that some instant’s action may hold death off.

  Heimrich shook the hypothesis in his mind. It more or less held together. As, he thought with some gloom, why shouldn’t it? Since I made it up, as a playwright might. Apparently he, also, was susceptible to osmosis. A tendency to be watched, he thought.

  To prove the hypothesis, to say nothing of casting what was, for him, the central role, he had to have more. (Or, of course, think better.) But he could not see that, as things stood, there was more to be found. It was, he decided, desirable that more be added. The theft of the design was, he trusted, a start in that direction. And the presence at the house of Chris Waggoner and her handsome young man—if her young man—was perhaps a start. It was, however, possible that this had been only a way chosen by youth to while away a peaceful Sunday afternoon. There is not a great deal to do in Van Brunt Center on a Sunday afternoon, for those in transit through it. (Residents play games; drink drinks; sometimes work in gardens.)

  It was, Heimrich decided, time to stir up the animals. He wished he knew which animals to stir.

  He got out of the car. He might as well see if the Buick station wagon had got safely home, assuming the Inn’s parking lot was home. And assuming he would know it if he saw it. Lucky it wasn’t a Ford, or a Chevy, he thought, beginning a leisurely tour of the parking lot. They were everywhere. Along with Volkswagens. And here a Jag and there a Jag and—

  And here a green Buick station wagon, with city license plates. Not, evidently, driven east from California. Bought here for Marley’s eastern occasions, which might indicate that Marley had more money than Anton Zersk had thought. Or that he was on an expense account of some proportions. Or that the car really belonged to Allied Pictures. Or, of course, that it was another station wagon entirely.

  Heimrich looked into the back of the station wagon and instantly felt slightly ridiculous. There was a motor scooter, very small and bright and neat, in the back of the wagon. So whoever had gone to get the wagon had not had to be driven by anybody. His identity was, therefore, his to reveal or hide. Unless they could turn up somebody who had seen somebody aboard a scooter bouncing along a country road. He might as well start with Paid Marley, he thought, and went in through the taproom, where reporters drank contentedly. They rose as one.

  “Nothing,” Heimrich told them and then hesitated.
“That is—nothing I can give you now.” Which made them flutter. Heimrich was firm. “Not now,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “Apparently,” the Daily Mirror told him, “it’s not as open and shut as you thought. Or, wanted us to think you thought.”

  “Well,” Heimrich said. “I don’t know that I want to go that far.” “Hint of new developments,” the Daily Mirror said. “Reason to believe the police are not entirely satisfied.”

  Heimrich could not remember having previously met a reporter who talked as it was to be presumed he wrote. It took, Heimrich thought, all kinds.

  “I can’t stop you,” Heimrich said. “There may be something later.” “Make it tomorrow,” the Journal American told him. “Give the afternoons a break, for a change.”

  “How about coming up to the house and pointing at something? For the mobile unit?”

  That was NBC. Or perhaps CBS.

  “Perhaps tomorrow,” Heimrich said, and left, and the press sought telephones. Which was what Heimrich had had in mind. Burt Alder followed him. He said, with asperity, that he supposed Heimrich knew what he’d done.

  “Now Mr. Alder,” Heimrich said. “M. G. will be fit to be tied, naturally.”

  Paul Marley was in The Suite, which he shared with Francis Dale. Dale was not. Marley was at a table in the living room, working on what Heimrich took to be a script. He took off heavy-rimmed eyeglasses and pushed back his blond hair and looked at Heimrich. “I see,” Heimrich said, “that you picked up the station wagon.” “Sure,” Marley said, in his amazingly deep voice. “You said it would be—”

  “I know,” Heimrich said. “Get it yourself, Mr. Marley?”

  “Sure,” Marley said. “Why not? Does it make a difference?”

  Since it was so readily admitted, it probably didn’t make any difference, Heimrich thought. Which was somewhat disappointing, although he had been prepared for it.