Untidy Murder Page 8

  “Good evening, counselor,” Bill said. He was polite to the little man, but he did not ask him to sit down. You never knew what the counselor brought with him, but you could always guess. “My wife has disappeared, counselor,” Bill said. “I’m afraid somebody’s holding her.”

  “You have my sympathy, lieutenant,” the counselor said, formally.

  “Well?” Bill said.

  “I don’t know,” the counselor said. “Whom would you suspect?”

  Bill shrugged.

  “Some of Lavery’s mob were very sore,” the counselor said. “His brother, particularly. You realized that, of course?” He nodded, gravely. As he nodded, he did not quite sway. “But of course you did, since a pick-up order is out,” he said.

  Bill Weigand looked at Stein. Stein shook his head.

  “Oh, nobody told me,” the counselor said. “Nobody here. But the word’s out.”

  “How long?” Bill said.

  The counselor said he had first heard it about an hour ago. He thought an hour. “I’m afraid my watch is inaccurate, lieutenant,” he said. Bill wondered how many years it had been since the counselor had had a watch. He didn’t ask.

  “Does the word say why we want them?” Bill asked.

  The counselor shook his head.

  “Anything about Mrs. Weigand?”

  The counselor shook his head again, but this time only after a moment’s pause. His red-rimmed eyes focused on Weigand’s face.

  “Well?” Bill said.

  “It isn’t very clear to me,” the counselor said. “Nobody’s talking much. But—yes, lieutenant, I think the boys have heard about it. Some of them.”

  “Does it tie in with the Lavery mob?” Bill asked.

  The counselor seemed doubtful.

  “I don’t figure it that way, lieutenant,” he said. “It could be, but I don’t think it figures to be. You know how those things are.”

  “You can find out,” Bill told him.

  The little man shrugged.

  “I might,” he said. He looked at Bill closely. “Frankly, lieutenant, I’d rather not,” he said. “She’s your wife. It ties me up pretty closely.”

  Bill did not say anything. He merely looked at the little man. The little man met Bill’s eye for a moment and he seemed to see something in them to make him uneasy. He even, almost imperceptibly, moved back from the desk.

  “I can try,” he said.

  “I would if I were you, counselor,” Bill said, with no expression in his voice. “I really would.”

  He nodded to Stein then, and Stein took the counselor out, not touching him. Then Stein came back.

  “It doesn’t sound good,” Stein said.

  Bill Weigand said it sounded damn bad. If it had got around in the circles on which the counselor could eavesdrop, it sounded very bad indeed. The men and women who moved in those circles were not amateurs.

  “But it’s not Lavery’s mob,” Mullins said. “You know how the counselor is, Loot. He meant it’s not the Lavery mob.”

  Bill nodded. He knew it meant that. In the counselor’s profession, it was not always advantageous to be explicit. Men fell out of the habit of being explicit, even when there was no advantage one way or the other. Bill looked at the little blue flower again. It seemed a long way from any of this. It told of a garden in the country, or in something like the country. And if the counselor was right, it was improbable that any of this extended far beyond the city’s pavements. The two things did not fit; they pointed in divergent directions.

  Dorian had been kidnaped for revenge, or as a hostage, by someone—or, more likely, some group—in the circles around which the counselor shuffled, passing information in and out, playing both ends against the middle, keeping himself alive in a fashion, and drunk in a fashion. It was not a thing which happened often; Bill could not actually remember when it had happened. But he could not think of any reason why it should not happen. If that was the way of it, there wasn’t much to do, except to round people up and shake information out of them—and hope, without much hope, that Dorian was not already lying somewhere, in an areaway perhaps, against a curb in some dark street, her body crumpled and no life in it. There would not be much point to anything then, but the police would find the men who had done it.

  That was one direction. The little blue flower pointed in another. If that way was right, Dorian had stumbled on something in amateur crime; she was in the hands of an amateur murderer. Why she should be, what in the long run such a murderer could hope to gain, was not apparent. Certainly, in any case, professionals were somehow involved, presumably as hired hands, so that the prospects were not much better. Bill Weigand’s face was blank and old again.

  Neither probability offered a great deal of hope, he thought. Perhaps there was more if an amateur was involved, if Dorian’s disappearance grew out of Wilming’s murder. If it did, they might catch the murderer—in time. But it meant they would have to move in a circle, go the long way around. They would have to find the murderer and work back to Dorian, instead of finding Dorian and being led—incidentally, as far as Bill’s feelings were concerned—to the murderer.

  Bill’s fingers began to drum lightly on the desk top. Sergeant Mullins looked at Sergeant Stein and both of them nodded. The lieutenant was working on it.

  The primary search was already under way, and routine. Dorian’s description was out, and men in half a dozen states were looking for her. (Prematurely, in the more distant states, in all probability.) Railroad stations and ferry houses were being watched; so, as far as was possible, were the roads and tunnel entrances. But the last was chancy at best, and it was on the cards they had delayed too long. However everything they could do was being done, and they could do a lot. The counselor and others like him, some less degraded, some even farther toward whatever bottom you reached when the bottom fell out, were listening. Detectives were listening too, and asking questions. The Lavery boys might have gone under cover, but the cover would be pulled off them—in time. In time, Dorian—darling! Try to wait for us!

  About that routine, Bill himself could do little. Started, it went its own way. The way the little blue flower pointed had to be Bill Weigand’s way, because it pointed to the kind of job he was supposed to be good at. He shrugged and reached for the telephone.

  Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley, in charge of Manhattan detectives, was not at headquarters. But he was at his home in Flatbush. And after Bill’s first words, O’Malley listened and interrupted only to make angry sounds. The anger was not directed toward Bill Weigand. O’Malley swore once or twice as he listened.

  “So,” Bill said, “Flanagan will report it as a suspicious death. That brings us in. Right?”

  Bill listened, then.

  “I think it’s our best bet,” he said. “My best bet. We’ll cover the other.”

  “We’ll tear the town down,” O’Malley said. “We’ll tear it apart, Bill. I tell you—”

  He told Bill what they would do.

  “I know, inspector,” Bill said. “No, they won’t get away with it—in the end. Only—” he stopped. There was no use in saying it. He listened a moment longer to O’Malley’s hot, angry words of determination; his huskier words of sympathy. “Whatever you need, Bill,” O’Malley said. “Tear the town apart, if you have to.”

  That was fine, Bill thought, putting the telephone back in its cradle. That was swell; that was what he knew he’d get from O’Malley. But it did not tell him where to start tearing. And the little blue flower did not tell him. Perhaps the St. John girl could tell him.

  He looked at his watch. Unexpectedly, it was after ten. If the girl’s train was on time she ought, about now, to be stepping down from it—to be met by a State trooper. He ought to hear soon that that had happened; that a trooper and the girl were starting back by car. He looked at the telephone, expecting it to ring.

  But five minutes passed and it did not ring, and ten minutes. He drank the coffee a patrolman brought and did n
ot taste it. He took a bite from a sandwich and forgot to take another. Then the telephone rang. A call was coming through from one of the State Police headquarters near the Massachusetts line. The train hadn’t been late. He waited, listened and his face changed. He said, “Thanks, captain,” and hung up.

  Mullins knew the answer before Bill Weigand spoke. “Not on the train?” he said.

  “No,” Bill said. “Not on the train. She lied to Flanagan or—”

  “Or missed the train,” Mullins said, reasonably. “Or was upset and decided not to go after all, or to go tomorrow, when she felt more like it. You know that, Loot.”

  “Right,” Bill said. He smiled faintly. “You make sense, sergeant. She may be—where does she live?”

  Mullins had that. She lived in Brooklyn. Bill Weigand already had the telephone up.

  Third Grade Detective Wilbur Fleming, working out of the 79th Precinct, went about routine as a matter of routine. He looked at his notebook, looked up at the number of the house, and went up the stairs, not hurrying. In the tiny lobby he leaned down to peer at the names above the bells. One said Hanlon-St. John. He pressed the bell under it, waited and pressed it again. Nothing happened. He pressed the bell marked Superintendent, waited again, and again pressed the bell. He got action this time. The door opened and a thin man looked at him.

  “You want?” the man said.

  Fleming told the man what he wanted. He showed the man a shield. He waited, on the third floor, while the man used a pass key to unlock a door. He let the man open the door.

  The man made a hoarse, throaty sound and stepped back, bumping into Fleming. The detective, who was taller, pushed him aside and went into the little living room on which the door opened. It did make you feel a little sick, he thought, as he knelt down on the floor.

  Strangled, that was the way it was. That was what made them look like that, made their faces like that. He didn’t blame the superintendent when he heard him being sick outside. He felt a little that way himself. The girl probably had been good-looking, although you certainly couldn’t tell now. It did make you a little sick, all right. It was a tough way to get it, and you could tell from looking at her, even now, that she had been good-looking. She’d had swell legs, too.

  There was a telephone in the hall on the first floor. Third Grade Detective Fleming used it, and went back to the little apartment. Three rooms it was—the small living room, two smaller bedrooms and a tiny bath. A bedroom for the St. John girl—he supposed the one lying out there was the St. John girl—a bedroom for the Hanlon girl, whoever she was, and wherever she was.

  Fleming was relieved when he heard the first siren. It was no fun being there alone with what was on the floor of the living room, just inside the door.

  It took a long time for her to understand where she was and what had happened. She did not know how long, because she did not know how long it was before she started to try to understand. At first she was conscious only of dull pain and a jouncing motion, and of darkness. Then she could not understand any of it, because she did not, during those first moments, remember anything of what had happened. Then she remembered that Farno had hit her, and her hand went up to her cheek, where the pain seemed to center. Her jaw was strange to her fingers; then she realized that that was because it was swollen. She had been hit and knocked out; now she was in a kind of jouncing darkness.

  She was lying on her side, doubled up, her knees almost against her chest. She tried to straighten her legs out, but after she had moved them only a little, her feet struck something which stopped them. She tried the other way, but cautiously this time, and her head came into contact with a hard surface. She reached out, then, with her free arm and felt as well as she could. It was not easy, because whatever she was in was bouncing her up and down, bouncing her bruisingly on a flat, hard surface. Now and then, too, there was a force which seemed to make her slip across the surface, now toward the side of this—this container—toward which her feet pointed, now the other way. The force which caused this lateral motion came only now and then.

  At first it was completely dark, so dark she was afraid that something had happened to her eyes. But she touched her eyes with her hand and there was no pain there, and nothing covered them. Then, after a little, it was not completely dark, although it was not light enough to see anything. A very little light was coming in from somewhere, and then she realized that air was coming in from somewhere too.

  She was not tied up, wherever she was. She could move her legs and one arm and, as her thoughts came more into order, she realized that she could not move the other arm because it was under her body. She wriggled a little, until she was partly on her back, and got the other arm free. The hand was numb; she worked her fingers and the muscles in her arm, and after a time there was a sharp, fiery pain which meant that the arm and hand had been “asleep” and were awakening.

  Her movements, by intention and by chance, gave her an increasing knowledge of the shape of the place she was in. It was small and low; what she was lying on was flat; there was not room to stretch her legs out, to lie straight, but there was enough room so that she could move a little; the top of the—again she thought of the word “container”—was very low. It seemed to be concave. She ran her hands over it as well as she could and then reached above her head as she lay, half on her back and half on her side. The wall there was concave, too, although the curve was not the same, did not run in the same direction. She had decided that when the force which made her move back and forth on the flat surface, now toward her head and now toward her feet, was suddenly much greater than it had been, so that she slid almost a foot and bumped her head against the metal. Then the up-and-down jouncing movement increased.

  And then, as quickly and as clearly as if someone had told her, she knew where she was. It was entirely obvious. She was in the trunk compartment of a car. She was jounced as the car jounced, which was now a good deal; she was pushed one way and the other as the car went around curves. She was locked up in the trunk of a car and they were taking her somewhere. They had been on a smooth road. Now they were on one which was less smooth, and the jouncing bruised her. She twisted over on her back, with her knees doubled up, and held both hands up and pressed them against the inside of the trunk cover. She could brace herself, so, and reduce the jouncing a little. That was all that she could do. She did not suppose there was any use screaming, because she did not suppose that her voice, however high she raised it, would be audible outside this close-fitting steel prison.

  I certainly did it this time, Dorian Weigand thought; I certainly fixed things up fine! This certainly will make Bill proud of me! Oh Bill! Get me out of here, Bill! Get me out of here! I was simply wonderful, Dorian thought. It was so clever of me not to let the man know I was Mrs. Weigand, to lead him on so that I could find out what he was after. It was so helpful of me to do a little detecting on my own, so that Bill would remember he married a clever girl. Bill! Where are you? Get me out of here, darling. Please—oh, please, get me out of here! If he had known who I was, at the same time I knew who he wasn’t—knew he couldn’t be one of Bill’s men—if I had just said, “But I’m Mrs. Weigand,” and not tried to find out—Darling! I’ll never do it again, darling. Oh Bill, find me and get me out of here!

  The force which impelled her toward the side of the car was more sudden this time, but fortunately the turn was in the direction which threw her feet against metal, not her head. The car had made an almost right-angle turn, she thought, and made it suddenly, as if the driver had not realized until almost too late that the turn was necessary. The car straightened out, and now the road was much worse. First it was concrete, she thought; then it was a black road; now it is almost a dirt road. Or perhaps a drive, not well kept up. Perhaps—

  She was thrown to the side now, which meant that, as far as the car was concerned, she was thrown forward. The car was stopping. Now it had stopped and she relaxed, physically, because she no longer had to brace herself. But her m
ind tensed, and her throat was suddenly dry.

  The top of the trunk went up and there was a little more light, but not much because now it was night. It had been light—several hours before sunset—when Farno had got her in the foyer of the apartment house. Now the sun was gone and almost all of the afterglow had faded. In June that would make it almost ten o’clock. Yet (it took her a moment to realize this) there was still a little light. She could make out Farno and the little man, Piper, standing and looking in at her.

  “You O.K., lady?” Farno said. He did not say it sympathetically; he was merely curious. It was merely something to say.

  “Perfect,” she said. “Absolutely perfect.” She was surprised to hear herself say this; to realize that saying it was a form of fighting back.

  “The lady’s funny, ain’t she, Piper?” Farno said. “She thinks this is a hell of a joke, see?” He turned from Piper back to Dorian. “Get out!” he said. “Or do you want Piper should drag you out?”

  She wriggled and swung out. Her dress caught on something, and she could feel it pulled up her legs. Piper snickered. She was suddenly, violently furious. Her anger lent speed to her movements, and they had underestimated her fluid agility. So she was out and on her feet while Piper was still staring at her and snickering. And then, with all her strength, she swung her open hand against the snickering mouth. Piper staggered back and put his hand up to his mouth and was suddenly, in his surprise, entirely ludicrous. Farno began to laugh, and then stopped, because as she slapped Piper and saw him fall away, Dorian recognized that his movement gave her a chance. She ran, then. She was running in the semi-darkness, among trees, down a narrow road.

  Farno stopped laughing almost as if it were he who had been hit. She had taken only a few running strides when she heard his feet pounding after her. On the road she had no chance, and she started to turn from it, to run in among the trees. But there was a ditch she saw too late, so that she broke her stride, and in that instant Farno got a hand on her shoulder. His hand did not feel soft now. It hauled her back and she slipped, and staggered. He got both hands on her then, and forced her around.