And kill once more (8 page)

"What the hell, Marty! You guys up there haven't been passing the punch bowl too often, have—" He broke off and I guessed he was finally all the way out of the fog. "Good Christ. What in hell happened?"

"It hasn't changed any since I just told you," I reminded him softly. "Engle—George Engle, the guy who pays the bill on this layout is no longer with us. Since midnight. And you haven't heard the half."

"I'll brace myself, kid. Turn it loose."

I did. Talking with my face halfway down in the mouthpiece, I gave him the scoop, and it took a while. I got it all the way down to the dollar and what happened to that. "So can they get prints off of money that's been in the water, Fred?" I wanted to know.

"If you were on that buck at all clearly and no one rubbed it off, you're still there, Marty."

"And Toland will know it."

"He will. As soon as he gets a report. And won't that be a pretty kettle of tuna. I'd better get in touch with Gregory. There's going to be a lovely smell when this one gets on the breeze. Him sending out an unlicensed operator and all. Cripes!"

"We might be able to hold that part in," I reminded him.

"For the love of God, try."

"For sure, Fred. But in the meantime, how about turning the wheels at your end. I'll give you the names of all five of the guests. With Sandy Engle, his wife, that makes it an even half dozen. And you'd better not waste any time because when Toland begins to put all the pieces in place he's going to star me in the lineup."

"It doesn't look good," Fred agreed.

"You can play that record over," I said. "Hell, if I was Toland I'd be sweeping out a cell for Bowman before breakfast."

Fred wrote down the names and said he'd see what

could be done. I hung up, poured my cold coffee down the sink, washed the cup, put it away, and started to leave. As I went through the door something caught my eye. A cigarette butt near the door jamb. I bent down to look. It had a faint pink color, just a hint of lipstick as though the woman had already wiped off her make-up in preparation for bed, but enough remained to make a slight stain. When I touched the flat brown end where someone's shoe had stamped the butt out, the tobacco was still warm.

Back in the darkness of my room I smoked and tried to decide who had been listening. At first it seemed that if Kate had come down she would have waited until I was through and maybe passed a few minutes. But I had given her name to Fred. She wouldn't particularly have enjoyed that part of our little conversation. And of course it could have been Sandy Engle, Mrs. P, or the babe with the smooth henna job. I puzzled over it for a few more drags, then ground out the ember and dropped off from the sheer weight of nervous exhaustion.

It seemed I'd no more than crawled across the bed when the knock came. I rubbed sleep out of my eyes with the backs of my hands and sat up, then swung my feet over the side and felt around for slippers.

The knock came again, strong and loud, and just a little official. "Yeah, be with you in a second," I called. I pulled on a pair of slacks and opened the door. Toiand's boy Widdle gave me a stern look, then stepped into the room.

"Mr. Toland wants to see you. Right away. In the living room, Mr. Bowman."

"Sure. I'll be with you as soon as I brush my teeth and comb my hair."

"I'll wait."

I turned back for a closer look, got a cool once-over from the second in command, and went toward the bath-

room. Cold water splashed into the bowl. I dunked both hands under the stream of water and brought its cooling freshness to my face and neck, then squeezed an inch of toothpaste onto the brush and polished the ivories.

"What's the occasion, Widdle?" I called through the open door.

"Sheriff will tell you. Let's hurry it up, please."

I rinsed away the toothpaste and grinned at the face in the mirror. If our boy Toland had ants in his pants already this morning I might not get another chance at the razor for quite a while. I voted myself time for a shave. Then I thought about the possibilities of my ending up in the bastille before this day was over and it seemed like a good idea to add a bath. I swung the glass door and flipped the shower handle.

"Come on, Bowman. Let's go," Widdle complained. "I could have been down there by now."

"It takes me longer," I said. "I wash." He came and stood at the bathroom door while I shucked out of pants, shorts and slippers and stepped under the spray. Ten minutes later I got into fresh clothes and followed Bob Widdle toward the living room. My coming made the turnout a hundred per cent. Toland got up when Widdle and I entered and motioned me into a chair.

"Just taking a little concensus here, Bowman," the sheriff said easily, "on this and that. For instance, this heart ailment of Engle's. Some seem to have known about it, others didn't. Did you?"

"No. I believe I explained that I was here as a friend of one of the guests. I didn't take his blood pressure."

"Keep your shirt on, Bowman." His look might have meant anything. "So far we've established that only the doctor here knew. You others haven't heard it mentioned. Not even casually, sort of. No one—not even you, Mrs. Engle?"

He looked around and no one said anything. Toland's

thick fingers scratched the side of his face as his eyes went from person to person.

"You keep forgetting the autopsy," I pointed out. "Won't a bad ticker show up?"

"They're working—" Toland broke off with a quick glance at Sandy Engle. "We'll have that report directly," he said, "but I thought I'd just see which of Engle's friends he'd confided in. Know why? Because I had my office girl get on the phone early this morning and contact the doctors in Newhall. Not too many, you see, and she finally ran down a doc who's given Engle about three exams in the last two years. Engle was a health addict, it seems. Dieting for his waistline and all—regular check-up every six months. A Dr. Crandy was his favorite. And you know something? That secret about Engle's heart ailment was pretty well kept. Doc Crandy wasn't in on it either."

Pilcher's jaw dropped open. "You mean—"

"Exactly, gentlemen. If your Mr. Engle had a bad pump it got past his present doctor. Which leaves us with a problem, Dr. Cronk. Maybe this would be a good time for a few words from you. They'd make right interesting listening."

Cronk cleared his throat. "Actually, Sheriff, it isn't ethical for me to discuss Dr. Crandy's qualifications—" He stood up and began to pace nervously across in front of the empty fireplace. "You see, I—"

"Yes?" Toland prompted softly.

"Well, there's more here than the heart ailment itself. That is—"

He broke off again, but this time it was a legitimate stall. The Philippino had appeared and now nodded toward the sheriff. "A phone call, sir. This way. please."

Toland scratched the side of his face again, then turned to follow the servant. At the door he stopped.

"While I'm gone, doctor, maybe you could boil your

discussion down a little and get it to where we can make some sense out of it. So far you haven't said a thing. Not a thing."

Toland left with a severe look all the way around. Cronk collapsed on an overstuffed and stared moodily toward the blackened bricks of the hearth. I went over to Kate who was holding down one end of the huge leather lounge and parked beside her.

"How'd you sleep, kitten?"

"Don't joke, Marty. This looks serious. I'm thinking about what you said last night—" She lowered her voice and added—"about Dr. Cronk. His really being a physician, I mean."

"And so?"

"He's hedging a little. I'm wondering if maybe you weren't right. He just doesn't sound competent."

I patted her hand and waited. When Toland came back he had definitely heard some kind of word on Engle and it could have been important. Toland's weathered face had the expression you find on a poker player who's filled up a full house and is overdoing the dead-pan act.

"And now, Dr. Cronk?"

"I have decided to give you the facts, Sheriff," Cronk said slowly. "There doesn't seem to be any good reason for holding back any longer. I have made a great effort to spare this little lady additional pain." Here Cronk nodded sadly toward Sandy Engle, let his eyes fall to the carpet, and went on. "It was almost midnight when I heard the shout from the direction of the pool. I—we hurried down there, all of us arriving at about the same time, you might say. This fellow Bowman was bent over Engle. Naturally, being a doctor, I was called upon to render assistance, but as soon as I felt for a pulse I knew that George was dead. Now—George Engle was a strong swimmer. One of the best, considering his age, and kneeling there with my hand on his wrist, I—well,

I felt that something was wrong—that it wasn't really an accidental drowning."

"Uh-huh," Toland said softly. He fingered his pencil and shot a quick look my way, then turned back to Cronk. I felt Kate's hand tighten on mine and guessed that she had figured out what was coming. Marty Bowman was about to get the shaft.

"You knew something was wrong," Toland prompted. "And then?"

"It seemed best not to excite anyone more than they already were," Cronk said slowly. "Mrs. Engle was beside George and one could hardly add to her distress by shouting that he had been murdered. You can see that, Sheriff."

"Go on, Doctor."

"So I fell back on the quickest thing which came to mind. The heart. I simply announced that Engle had either died of a heart ailment or suffered an attack while swimming and drowned. Any other way of handling the situation would have warned the guilty person, perhaps even given him time to escape."

"Just a second—" Widdle broke in, but Dr. Cronk held up his hand and smiled a knowing smile. Just the same, he was sweating a little.

"Your young assistant is about to point out that there has been ample time to give you the truth, Sheriff, since last night. True, and I regret that I didn't do exactly that. But may I go on please?"

"Go ahead," Toland said grimly.

"Very well. Now as I said, we were all standing there and I had just announced the probable cause of George Engle's death. I had mentioned that I would handle the death certificate, in order not to distress Mrs. Engle further, or to alarm the guilty person. I planned to slip to the phone later and call you quietly. In the meantime I tried to get Bowman to stop tampering with the body.

"But he refused. In the face of a physician's pronouncement that Engle was dead, Mr. Bowman insisted on pushing and pulling on Engle right up until the moment you arrived. It was quite obvious, Sheriff, that his ardent attempt at resuscitation had a reason."

"And the reason?" Toland asked.

Cronk talked on, his voice low and persuasive, and flavored with just the right touch of professional and impersonal recounting of a situation. I closed my eyes and listened to him tell Sheriff Toland that I worked over Engle a good forty minutes—actually to obliterate any possible clues connecting me to the killing.

"You couldn't persuade Bowman to stop, Doctor?"

"I tried, but he was adamant. It was that and one other thing Bowman did which made me more angry than a man should get. Bowman insisted on my calling you. It was sort of adding insult to injury, Sheriff. The man was so secure in his belief that no one would see through his little scheme that he actually wanted the sheriff's office to be notified. And it led me into a grave mistake, I fear. There is, in all of us, a rather strong urge to dabble in crime. Most of us think that, given an opportunity, we'd make pretty good detectives, and I must confess that for a few hours after Engle's death I was so infuriated by Bowman's cocksure attitude that I was determined to see what he would do next to incriminate himself further. I realize now it was a silly thing to do, and I certainly apologize to you if I've lost you time. But I was hoping to nail him for you myself."

"I'm flattered you've decided to trust us, Doctor." Toland grunted. "But maybe not quite sold. I'd like to see a few more sides to this piece before I decide on the shape of things."

And then the redhead got into the game on my side, and as far as I was concerned, she was welcome. "I should certainly hope so, Sheriff," she said firmly. "There

are six people who could have taken a hand in this— seven from your point of view, because while I know I'm not involved, you don't—and how can you make any kind of decision on the word of one of us?"

"How, indeed," I echoed, "and thanks, Elsa."

"One at a time," Toland said sharply. "What exactly is your point, young lady?"

"Simply that if the doctor wasn't sincere when he offered to handle things without calling the police, then he's missed his chance at a fortune. Hollywood can use men who read lines with the conviction Dr. Cronk put into his words last night."

Cronk bounced back with a genial, "A starlet who doubles as a talent scout? Easy, young lady. You can see what a mess I got into just by trying to do another man's job."

Elsa gave him a long level treatment with steady brown eyes, then turned back to the sheriff. "I'd like to hear Mr. Bowman's side of this," she said evenly.

"Sure." Toland grinned. "We'll hear everyone's side. Maybe more than once. How about it, young man?"

I wet my lips and tried to frame the words. Where did I start? My silver dollar might be one place to tee off, but Fred had said those prints would show only if I had left a nice clear set. I wasn't sure about that; I'd tossed the thing a time or two. It could be that Engle's fingers had rubbed the coin clear of any I may have left. And hitting back at Cronk seemed hardly worth while. He had made quite a case against me, but he'd kept it on an impersonal plane for the most part and bickering wouldn't help.

Or would it? I turned toward Cronk. "For one thing, Doctor, we might start with your brief diagnosis last night. Brief? It was practically non-existent. Mind telling us what kind of doctor you are?"

"My professional procedure isn't subject to your approval, Bowman." Cronk said stiffly. "I happen to be a radiologist."

"Then you're not really a doctor of medicine at all."

"A radiologist is like an eye specialist or an obstetrician or any other specialist. We all receive general training and despite my specialty, I'm an M.D. The sheriff can check if he likes."