1957 - The Guilty Are Afraid (2 page)

Except for a pair of swimming trunks, he was naked. In the hollow of his neck and right shoulder was a blue-red hole. The skin around the hole was badly bruised. There was a scared expression on his suntanned, dead face.

“That him?” Rankin asked quietly, his ice grey eyes watching me.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He looked at the thin man. “Nearly finished Doc?”

“All but. It’s a straightforward job. There’s a professional touch about it. I’d say a rattail icepick. Whoever did it knew where to strike. Got him just by the occipital bulge. Driven in with considerable force. Death would be instantaneous. I’d say he was killed within the hour.”

Rankin grunted.

“You can take him away when you’re ready.” He turned to me. “Let’s get out of here.” He went out into the hot sunshine, blinking a little in the fierce light. He waved to Candy, who came over. “I’m going back to Brandon’s hotel,” he said. “See what you can find here. Doc says it’s an icepick job. Hughson will be down with some more men. Get them looking for the pick. There’s a chance the killer threw it away, but I doubt it.” He looked at his gold strap watch he wore on the inside of his thin wrist. “See you in my office at fourteen-thirty hours.”

He crooked his finger at me, then set off across the sand, walking through the crowd as if it didn’t exist. The crowd gave way hurriedly, staring at me as I followed him. As we passed the parking lot, I said, “The convertible Buick belongs to Sheppey and me, Lieutenant. He had the use of it down here.”

Rankin paused, looked over at the Buick, then waved to one of his men.

“Tell Sergeant Candy the convertible over there is the car Sheppey came in. Get it checked for prints and give it a going over. When you’re through with it have someone take it to the Adelphi Hotel and leave it there.” He looked at me. “Okay?”

“Thanks.”

We went to a police car and got in the back. Rankin said to the driver, “Adelphi Hotel. Take the long way round and drive slow. I’ve got some talking to do.”

The driver touched his cap, engaged gear and moved the car into the traffic.

Rankin settled himself in the corner, took a cigar from his pocket, shook it out of its metal container, pierced it and put it between his small white teeth. He lit it, drew down a lungful of smoke, held it, then let it drift slowly down his pinched nostrils.

“Well, let’s have it,” he said. “Who are you and who is Sheppey and what is all this about? Don’t rush it. Take it slow, but give me the complete picture.”

I lit a cigarette, thought for a moment, then began to talk. I told him Sheppey and I had been running a successful inquiry agency in San Francisco for the past five years.

“I’ve been on a job in New York for three weeks while Sheppey has been looking after the office. While I was in New York I got a wire from him telling me to get to St. Raphael City as fast as I could. He said he had a big job on and there was money in it. I had more or less tied up my job, so I flew to Los Angeles and took the tram here, arriving this morning at eleven-thirty. I went to the hotel, found Sheppey had reserved a room for me and was told he had gone out. I was taking a shower when Sergeant Candy picked me up. That’s all I can tell you.”

“He didn’t say what the job was?” Rankin asked.

I shook my head.

“Jack isn’t much of a letter writer. I guess he decided it would be quicker and easier to tell me than to write.”

Rankin brooded for a moment, then said, “Have you got your licence on you?”

I gave him my billfold. He examined the contents quickly and expertly, then handed it back.

“You’ve no idea who employed him here or what the case was about?” he asked.

“No idea at all.”

He gave me a hard stare.

“You’d tell me if you did? “

“Possibly, but as I don’t know, the point doesn’t arise.”

He scratched the side of his face, screwing up his eyes.

“Do you think he kept notes on the case? Progress reports?”

“I doubt it. He wasn’t keen on any paper work. Usually we worked together and I did the reports.”

He rolled his cigar between his lips.

“How is it you go to New York when you’ve an office in Frisco?”

“This happened to be a client I had had dealings with before. He had moved to New York and particularly wanted me to handle the job.”

“Sheppey was off his beat, too, wasn’t he? Think he was working for an old client?”

“Could be, but I don’t know any of them who has moved out here.”

“Do you think he was killed because of something he turned up on this case?”

I hesitated, remembering the reception clerk at the hotel had said Jack had gone out with a woman.

“I don’t know. The clerk at the hotel told me a woman picked him up and they went out together. He chased women: it was his big fault. He’d leave a job flat if he saw a woman who interested him. This may be one of those times and her husband objected. I’m guessing, but he’s been in an awful lot of messes through women in the past.”

Rankin grimaced.

“Did he run around with married women?”

“He didn’t care what they were so long as they had looks. Don’t think I’m knocking him. He was my best friend, but he certainly made me sore sometimes the way he lay down on the job because of some floosie.”

“It doesn’t often happen a husband shows his disapproval with an icepick: that was a professional job.”

“Maybe he was a professional husband. Have you got anyone on your records who uses an icepick?”

Rankin shook his head.

“I don’t know of anyone, but this is a very rich town. There are plenty of boys here on the make, and some of them are dangerous. No one’s ever been skewered by an icepick, but there’s always got to be a first time.” He tapped ash off his cigar. “Can you get a line on this case he’s working on? That’s our first move. I’ve got to be sure his death isn’t hooked up to it.”

“Unless he’s left a record in his room, there’s nothing I can do about it,” I said untruthfully.

I was going to satisfy myself first that Jack’s client was in the clear before I let Rankin know I might be able to get his name. It was a long shot, but it was just possible Ella, our typist, who looked after the office back in Frisco might have a line on him.

Rankin leaned forward and said to the driver, “Okay, step on it now.”

In less than five minutes we pulled up outside the Adelphi Hotel.

We crossed the lobby together to where the reception clerk was waiting, his fat chins wobbling and his eyes bulging with suppressed excitement.

The two old gentlemen in white flannels had been reinforced by their wives, who looked as if they had stepped out of the pages of a Victorian novel. They sat motionless, staring at us, their ears growing out of the sides of their heads.

“Let’s talk where these old crows can’t listen,” Rankin said, pitching his voice so they could hear him.

“Why certainly, Lieutenant,” the reception clerk said, his voice flustered. He took us behind the desk into a small office. “Is there anything wrong?”

“Not here, there isn’t,” Rankin said. “What’s your name?”

The reception clerk looked even more flustered.

“Edwin Brewer.”

“What time did Sheppey leave here?”

“It would be about half past ten.”

“There was a woman with him?”

“Yes. She came to the desk and asked for him. While she was speaking to me, Mr. Sheppey came from the elevator and joined her.”

“Did she give her name?”

“No. Mr. Sheppey appeared before I could ask for her name.”

“Did they seem friendly?”

Brewer licked his lips nervously.

“Well, yes. Mr. Sheppey was pretty familiar with her.”

“In what way?”

“Well, he walked up to her and said, ‘Hello, baby doll,’ put his hand behind her and pinched her.”

“How did she react?”

“She laughed it off, but I could see she didn’t like it. She wasn’t the type I’d care to take liberties with myself.”

“What type was she then?”

“She had a sort of dignity. It’s hard to explain. She just wasn’t the type to take liberties with.”

“And yet he did?”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “Jack had no respect for anyone. He’d pinch a bishop’s wife if he felt in the mood.”

Rankin frowned.

“Can you describe this woman?”

Brewer rubbed his hands together nervously.

“She was very attractive: dark with a good figure. She wore big sunglasses and a big hat. I couldn’t see much of her face. She had on navy slacks and a white shirt.”

“Age?”

“In the twenties, but I wouldn’t be sure: twenty-five perhaps.”

“Could you identify her if you saw her again?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure I could.”

Rankin stubbed out his cigar in the ashtray on Brewer’s desk.

“If she wasn’t wearing the big hat and sunglasses, but happened to be wearing no hat and a white dress, do you think you could still identify her?”

Brewer thought for a moment, then looked sheepish.

“Well, perhaps not.”

“You can identify the clothes, but not the woman?”

“Well, yes.”

“That’s not a lot of help, is it?” Rankin said. “Okay, never mind. After Sheppey had said hello, what happened?”

“He said he had to be back in a couple of hours and they had better get going. They went out together and I saw them drive away in his car.”

“Did she leave her car here?”

“I didn’t see one. I think she must have walked.”

“Let me have the key to his room.”

“Shall I call Greaves? He’s our house detective.”

Rankin shook his head.

“No. I don’t want your house dick tramping around lousing up any clues.”

Brewer went out of the office and over to the key rack. We followed him out. The four old people were staring.

Brewer said, “He must have taken his key with him. I’ll give you a spare.”

He found a key and gave it to Rankin.

As Rankin took the key, Brewer asked, “Has anything happened to Mr. Sheppey?”

The old people leaned forward. This was something they were panting to know.

“He’s given birth to a baby,” Rankin said. “I believe it is the first time in history, but I’m not absolutely sure, so don’t quote me.”

He walked with me to the elevator. The old people stared after us, amazed expressions on their faces.

As Rankin pressed the button to take us to the second floor, he said, “I hate old people who live in hotels.”

“You’ll get old yourself,” I said. “They don’t live in hotels for fun.”

“A sentimental shamus,” he said, his mouth turning down at the corners. “I thought I had seen everything.”

“Did you get a line on the girl from the cabin attendant?” I asked as we crawled past the first floor.

“Yeah. The same description. There’re two changing rooms in the cabin. She used one and he the other. We found her slacks, shirt, hat and sunglasses there. His clothes were in the other room.”

“The girl left her clothes in the cabin?” I said sharply.

“That’s what I’m telling you. It could mean either of two things: she wanted to fade out of the picture and decided she could do it by leaving in her swimsuit. Everyone in this lousy town wears a swimsuit or else she took a swim and someone knocked her off after knocking Sheppey off. My boys are searching the beach now. I think she faded out of the picture myself.”

“No one saw her leave the cabin?” I asked as the elevator stopped at the second floor.

“No, but we’re still asking around.”

We walked down the corridor to room 247.

“That was a pretty good disguise she was wearing,” Rankin went on as he sank the key into the lock. “People in this town don’t look at faces, they look at shapes.” He turned the key and pushed the door open. We stood looking around the room. It was a little larger than mine, but not much and it was just as hot and airless.

“Sweet suffering Pete!” Rankin said under his breath.

The room looked as if it had been hit by a cyclone. All the drawers of the chest hung open. Jack’s belongings lay scattered on the floor. His briefcase had been ripped open and papers lay everywhere. The bed had been stripped and the mattress cut open, the stuffing dragged out. The pillows had also been ripped and feathers were heaped on the floor.

“Pretty quick work,” Rankin said. “If there was anything to find, we won’t find it now. I’ll get the boys up here. Maybe there’re some prints although I’m ready to bet there won’t be.”

He closed the door and locked it.

Chapter 2

I

I
lay on my bed and listened to the heavy tramping feet plodding around in the room next door, and to the murmur of the voices as Rankin’s men hunted for clues. I felt depressed and lonely. Although Jack had had his faults, he had been a good man to work with. We had met five years ago when I had been working as special investigator to the District Attorney’s office. Jack had been the crime reporter on the San Francisco Tribune. We had got friendly, and one night, over a bottle of Scotch, we both had decided we were tired of taking orders and being pushed around by two fat slugs who sat behind desks and who seemed to take pleasure in running us ragged.

Even though we were a little drunk, we were both uneasy about leaving the security of a regular salary for the risk of setting up on our own. We hadn’t much capital: I had five hundred more than Jack, but we had a lot of experience and we thought we could make a go of it.

There were a number of inquiry agencies in town. We knew most of them and they were no great shakes. After we had worked through half the bottle of Scotch we had decided to burn our boats and go into the business. We clicked lucky right from the start. After a year we were making a reasonable living, and we hadn’t looked back since.

I wondered what it was going to be like working without a partner. I wondered if I should look around for someone to team up with. There was enough money now in the bank to buy out Jack’s wife. She was a dumb redhead who had driven Jack nuts at times and I was pretty sure she would jump at the chance of getting the money back she had lent Jack to put in the business.