And kill once more (15 page)

When we got back into Kate's big Cad I looked across at Sandy Engle.

Her eyes were faraway, her head tipped back against the gray leather, and in the half-light I saw the mixed emotions bubbling up from the depths.

"How can I tell you what I feel?" she asked softly. "I saw those other plates, Marty. I sat in a doctor's office and watched while he traced those shadows. But now—"

"You put that pin in the gown tonight," I said, easing the car out into the street. "With your own hands, Sandy. I didn't arrange it in the cloth; just gave the thing to you, and you saw it on the plate just the way you had it when he took the picture. There was no possible way I could have switched X-rays. Which means?"

"I know. The other time was the phoney, Marty. But how? I mean—"

"Some of it I can tell you, Sandy. Some we can guess, but the rest you'll have to throw in for me. As to the how, there's one way it could have been done, and quite easily. Engle couldn't get Cronk to turn this job. That would have put the doc in position to demand something from George. Hell, if Cronk had known that George was keeping you there—but he didn't. It was a reputable Hollywood physician who read the plate for you, Sandy, but he didn't take it. A local lab did that, and George brought it to the office. Now it's a fair guess that he switched to one he'd gotten from Cronk, but without telling Cronk his reason for wanting it. Simple?"

"Yes—Marty, it must have been like that. But what about the check films every three months? I've had—"

"Just down to Newhall and right back. You got the reports later, didn't you? You said so."

Sandy nodded her dark head slowly. "Yes. And from George."

"Sure. From George."

"George. The one who loved me best," she said in

a strained, mocking voice. "George, who was never afraid to swim with me, never afraid of getting—"

"Now take it easy, Sandy."

"Take it easy? Two years, Marty. Do you put someone in jail for two years, frighten her and then say it was all a mistake and to take it easy?"

I said sternly, "You're getting worked up unnecessarily. That little collection of flagstone and concrete you've got in the hills might be made of the same materials as a jail but it's arranged a hell of a lot differently. You'd best calm down a little, Sandy. I'll phone that second doctor. There's no use keeping the other appointment—if you're satisfied as to what's on the plates."

"Phone him, Marty. Phone him from a bar, because that's where you're taking me. Fast. Tonight's the night little Sandy climbs down off the wagon."

"Easy now," I said, smiling. "You could overdo it without too much trouble, you know. You—"

"I hope to shout in your ear I'll overdo it. And tonight. Two years on lemonade. 'You must conserve your energy, Sandy, dear,' and, 'You'll be better off not to drink anything with alcohol, baby,' and, 'You have to be careful, my love,' and—come on, Marty. Let's find that phone."

We cruised slowly along a side street and I tried to grasp the change in Sandy Engle. Before it had been hard to picture her as a running mate for Kate Weston; now it was easy. The shy, retiring, and almost torpid Sandy Engle I had known for just over one day had been that way for a brief two years, pressed into the mold by George Engle, urged to avoid any kind of close contact with others. No wonder Kate Weston had been puzzled. 'Sandy likes to get around,' Kate had said, and, 'Sandy's eyes haven't gotten the word, Marty. She wants to get away.' I could understand that now, could see that two years of pressure had built up in the pale and thin bru-

nette beside me. And it might not be a good idea to let her break the bonds tonight, but from where I stood there wasn't going to be a hell of a lot of choice. Engle had sold her a bill of goods, put her in a hothouse and kept her there until lack of exercise and interest had cut away her vitality by sheer inactivity. Now she was out to recapture two years of living in a single night. I didn't like the sound of it but I couldn't dredge up more than one logical line of reasoning to talk her out of it.

"Look, Sandy," I said earnestly. "I can see how you feel all right, and no one can possibly say you don't rate a night on the town. A lot of them, maybe, to make up for the time you've been in exile, but think how this is going to look."

"Let's talk about how it's going to taste, Marty, and the sooner the better."

I shook my head, hesitated, then smiled in spite of myself. Sandy could have been a hell of a lot of fun before George Engle put her under wraps. She might still be more fun than three drunken monkeys, I guessed, but it would have to be some other night.

"Put it this way. You've been on the wagon for two years, Sandy, and a few more days won't hurt. Now George is dead and he was your husband. No matter how sore you are tonight or how much you feel you've been cheated and double-crossed, it still wouldn't look just—"

"Marty, boy, if what I feel for George tonight were put into print it would be banned in a lot of places besides Boston. He—oh, hell, stop being noble. On to the tavern and a new life."

"But we want to be fair, Sandy. You—"

"To George?" she gave me a scornful look.

"Well, no, but to yourself."

She reached over and patted my shoulder. "In the last two years, Marty, I've downed enough lemonade to keep

an average-sized orchard in business. Now I ask you, was that quite fair to the farmers who raise rye?" The hand on my shoulder slipped up to my cheek. "You were a hundred per cent right, Marty, lad. We want to be fair. Now can I have that drink?"

"Well, maybe," I hedged, and turned up toward the main street. "We'll try one for size."

"Thanks, Marty." Then her face lost its smile again and she stared into the bright cones of our headlights. "There's a lot of things you don't know about George Engle. Or maybe you do. You seem to have come right along in the time you've been on the grounds. I'd like to know how you figured some of it out, and as you said, I might be able to straighten out a few spots for you. I'd sure like to try."

"You've got yourself a deal, Sandy." I rolled along the main drag for two blocks, then parked the big Cad in front of a cocktail bar and went around to open the door for her. She had that look of eager anticipation in her eye and once again I began to wonder just how good an idea this was and how you shut a determined woman off with a single drink.

Fourteen

It was about what you usually find in a bar—dark red leatherette booths with a plastic-topped table big enough to hold four glasses, an ashtray, and the small tray for your change. I managed to stake a claim on one not too far from a neon that gave enough light to enable me to keep an eye on Sandy, something I certainly intended to do. The barhop was cute in a late thirtyish sort of way and walked with an interesting bounce in the right places.

She slid a tiny paper napkin in front of each of us, then placed a pair of coasters on the table and looked up expectantly.

"A whiskey highball, please," Sandy said. She was back in the groove all right; you'd never have pegged this for her first outing in a couple of years. I ordered a daiquiri and the waitress nodded, then went toward the three feet of bar roped off for exclusive use of the help. Sandy Engle put her purse on the seat beside her and leaned toward me.

"How did you know, Marty? You said we'd see if I hadn't maybe been okay for a while, but you didn't really mean that. You weren't surprised when the man said I never even had so much as scar tissue showing."

I gave her a quick wink. "It's a gift. Some have it and some haven't." Dropping one of Gregory's twenties on the change tray I stood up, flipped a thumb toward the phone booth and said, "Be right back."

The doc's line was busy. Standing in the booth, I glanced idly around the bar, my eye stopping on a washed-out blonde near the far side. She'd had just enough to loosen her tongue and so had her escort, a situation mildly humorous to the semicircle of grinning patrons lining the bar, but it wasn't humorous to Bowman. It gave him an idea. I got my call through to the M.D., apologized and said we wouldn't be able to make it after all, heard him thank me for letting him know, and then hung up. Toward the rear were two doors, each with a picture of a dog. One was a black-and-white pointer, the other an Irish setter. I lingered by the phone booth until I caught the bartender's eye, signaled him and went in with the pointers.

"Something wrong, Mac?" he asked as he came in.

"Yeah. With my tummy. Got an ulcer and she's kicking up a fuss but I hate to be a spoil-sport. You know how it is."

"Sure, Mac." He was grinning now.

"I'm ordering daiquiris. I think the one already on the table will be about all I can handle. Let's make the rest of them a weak limeade, shall we?" I fished out a five that had come back in change from one of Boreland Gregory's bigger bills and crossed the barkeep's palm with green.

"Limeades, it'll be, mate. A weak splice for the main-brace."

He folded the five and tucked it into a slit in his white jacket, gave me a half salute, and went out. Damn, I thought, these dry land sailors! He probably had all of sixteen months in the service and fifteen of them on some shore base, but from that day forward the walls were bulkheads, the floors were decks and he never spat to windward.

When I got back to the table Sandy had her white fingers around her drink and my daiquiri had worked up a nice dew on the glass.

"Health," I said, sliding in and lifting my drink.

"And the bright lad who showed me I still have it," Sandy added. We sipped cool liquid, then looked across at each other.

"You were going to tell me how you knew, Marty. And let's be honest with each other; it was definitely more than a hunch."

"Call it an informed guess. An odd here and an end there—they made a pattern."

"Then let's talk about odds and ends."

I touched a finger to my glass and ran it all the way around the rim. "This could get pretty intimate, Sandy. Sex figures in the picture here and there, and the whole thing is a wee bit—delicate. Too delicate to discuss on a single daiquiri."

"If you're suggesting a vote on a second round, count me among those in favor," she said smiling. We looked

at each other through the bottoms. I stalled while we downed another, this time without the rum, and on the third I let her pin me down to facts.

"First we take George Engle. Smooth as a beach pebble but under it all very egotistical, as suggested by the diving tower that wouldn't be put up until he was an expert. Nobody was going to show George up at anything if he could help it. He had to be the top man. Which brings us to the guests he invited up to the estate. The red-headed babe has been with you several times but none of the males here impressed her very much. And the same with Kate Weston. She couldn't recall a single one very clearly. Which points to the fact that none of the guests were what we might call eligible men. No, the fat and bespectacled Cronk and his running mate Pilcher were a fair average sample of the male contingent around here. You get the idea that any handsome gents under forty that Engle might have had on the string were making their payments in his L.A. office, not up here where Mrs. Engle would see them. George was mighty sure that anyone he invited would add to the attractiveness of G.E. by direct comparison. Catch?"

Sandy nodded, smiled. "Sharp."

"Actually, no. It took me a while to catch on. Take this noble business of his of building your desert hideaway. The milk of human kindness has usually curdled in a man, I'd guess, before he can bring himself to blackmail someone, yet wholesale blackmail is certainly more than suggested. It made me wonder about his being the kind who would give his all for a wife—even one with lovely black hair—and many other attractions."

"Thank you kindly, sir. That last part is appreciated. But you needed three drinks to tell me this?"

"No. They were for the next part. Like the reason he drummed up to hold you here where attractive men

would be practically non-existent. You were supposed to take it real easy, he said. No violent exercise. No hikes in the hills or such. Tell me, Sandy. Were there any other —exercises—in which our boy George—well, suggested that you'd better cut down a little. I've got the odd notion that, at great personal sacrifice, he may have excused you from some of your wifely duties," I finished with a grin.

Sandy took a sip of her drink and leaned toward me again. For several seconds her eyes went back and forth across my face and then she nodded. "When Marty Bowman looks into the crystal ball he really gets the picture," she breathed softly. "I—can't imagine how you—I mean —" She let it trail off and I took over.

"I'm young and healthy—" I smiled—"and if I wanted to hibernate with a chick I'd scoot off to a tropical isle or find a mountain retreat or maybe even a layout like yours up there, but there's one thing I wouldn't do and that's dream up a dodge which would keep the better half from leading an active life.

"Not that this angle on George came out of thin air," I went on. "It didn't. The night he was—he died—I had been reading while I had a snack. There was a page missing from a physical culture magazine and I found that the other side had one of those rejuvenation ads. Or at least every other issue had that advertisement. The whole page had been neatly cut out and I thought then that someone visiting you people had felt the need of a little extraneous inspiration. Today, though, when Kate and I were sunning ourselves by the pool, I was watching Bob Widdle and he had one of those muscle magazines in his lap and all at once I began to think about that ad. Looked at in the light of George's death and his other odd behavior, I began to be more than a little sure of where that coupon went. George was a lot older than

you, but not that much older, so it wasn't too obvious, but it could fit. Maybe it wasn't the years but the way he lived 'em. At any rate it got around to looking like he'd had a little difficulty and found a smooth way out of it—put you on the shelf with little or no embarrassment to himself. Real cool—he even appeared noble in the doing."

Sandy let her eyes fasten on me again. "George. George Engle—that clever, clever rascal." She said it carefully, each word pronounced slowly. Too slowly, and it was the sign I had been looking for. I pushed my empty toward the center of the table, scooped the remaining bills and coins out of the silver tray, dropped a single for the tip and pointed to Sandy's glass.