Black Is the Fashion for Dying (15 page)

“What … sort of things?”

“Three accounting ledgers, bound in a kind of heavy maroon cardboard.”

T. J. stared uncertainly. “Ledgers?”

“Yes. Containing something that could prove extremely embarrassing, even fatal, to both the studio and myself.”

For an instant T. J. struggled to rationalize this. Then a glimmer of understanding came. “A diary?”

“You might call it that.”

“I believe—I begin to see.”

Fabro watched the wild paper chase of suspicions and conjectures run its course back of the puzzled eyes, saw it come to a halt on the only possible solution: that within the ledgers was incontrovertible evidence of a messy, illicit, precarious affair between him and Caresse.

T. J.'s reaction to the solution, when it finally came, was characteristic. “Does Irene—?”

“No.”

“Thank goodness!” Another unsettling thought struck him. “Does anyone know?”

“Nobody knows what's in the ledgers, or even that they exist,” Fabro said slowly. “In fact, now Caresse is dead, to all intents and purposes they don't exist.”

“Then it should be easy.” Reflectively, T. J. tugged at an ear lobe. “Where are they now?”

“In her bedroom. In a big Chinese cabinet by one of the windows.”

“Could we buy the cabinet?”

“We aren't buying anything.”

“Then how …?”

Fabro closed his eyes, visualized one by one the necessary steps. “On the loggia side of the house are sliding glass doors. An ordinary kitchen knife will take care of them. Then the chest. It has a lock, but it's a flimsy one. Pliers, or maybe—”

“
Steal?
”

Eyes opening abruptly, Fabro saw that T. J. was making spasmodic motions with his hands, as though warding off a swarm of hornets. At the same time he was backing across the carpet.

“
Steal?
” he cried a second time. “You want me to
steal
the ledgers?”

“That's the general idea.”

“I couldn't!”

Staring incredulously at the palsy-stricken face, Fabro felt his throat artery begin an ominous tom-tom. This, by Jesus, he hadn't expected! This sudden addlepated morality.

“Damn it,” he said, anger turning his voice into a saw-toothed rasp. “You've done worse things right here in the studio.”

“I know.” T. J.'s hands began making pushing motions again. “But a dead woman!”

“So much the better.”

“To go into her house,” T. J. twittered idiotically. “Like robbing a grave.”

“Grave robbing, hell!” Waves of rising blood surged through Fabro's head. “You're afraid!”

“No, Karl.” T. J. managed a sort of forlorn, bedraggled dignity. “It's just that I have … well, scruples.”

The sea roar of blood was deafening now. Fabro gripped the desk fighting to keep from rising and smashing out at the face shimmering beyond the red haze that filled his eyes. Finally, by a supreme effort of the will, he relaxed the taut muscles, forced himself back in his chair.

It was the giant chess game, of course.

A week ago, even a day ago, he reflected grimly, he would never have let this happen, let this mewling nincompoop goad him into such a franzy. Actually, to the very brink of explosion. But the game had to be played out. There was no drawing back now; he had committed himself. For an instant he debated going after the ledgers himself. But it was risky. Too risky. Somehow he would have to make T. J. do it.

“Scruples,” he said aloud, musingly.

T. J. was watching him, his face frightened but still childishly stubborn. “I'm terribly sorry,” he said. “I'd like to help …”

Somewhere, Fabro knew, there had to be a lever. Obviously not in soft soap. Or loyalty. Or friendship. But it had to be somewhere.

T. J. was still dribbling words. “I'm not above stealing. I suppose no man is. under certain circumstances.” Evidently he was gripped by some sort of a compulsion to explain himself. “But I can't justify it, Karl. Not in this case. When the ledgers aren't anything, really, except evidence of a, well, an affair that is actually inconsequential.”

Fabro eyed him sharply. “What if the ledgers are something else?”

“What else could they be?”

Feeling an icy exhilaration, Fabro paused. He had the lever now. Dangerous. Maybe the most dangerous lever in the world. But it would work. Would work on either fear or scruples.

“Let me ask you this,” he said “Would you consider it unscrupulous to take away a pistol someone was threatening you with?”

“No.”

“Or threatening someone you knew?”

“No.”

“Good. Because the ledgers aren't evidence of any sort of an affair, inconsequential or otherwise.”

“What are they then?”

“A pistol.”

“I don't understand.”

“Pointed for five long years at my head.”

Eyes bulging, T. J. cried incredulously, “Caresse was blackmailing you?”

“Of course.” Fabro let his lips curl into a thin smile. “That's why I killed her.”

Richard Blake

On frosted glass, framed by the door's upper half, was stenciled
PRIVATE.
Sergeant Grimsby pushed open the door, motioned him inside. By one of the windows on the other side of the office was Captain Walsh. Hands clasped behind him, partly bent over, he was looking down at the city.

“I've got Blake here,” Sergeant Grimsby said.

Without turning, Captain Walsh said, “Fine.”

Sergeant Grimsby jerked a thumb at a chair in front of the olive-green desk, nodded and left the office. Blake sat down on the chair, carefully holding his fingerprint ink-stained hands away from his trousers. Light from an overhead lamp shone in his eyes.

After a while Captain Walsh abandoned window and city, crossed to the desk. There he took a ball of gum from his mouth, dropped it into a spittoon. He looked at the spittoon, then at Blake, his expression neither friendly nor unfriendly.

“Got anything to say?”

“Nothing I haven't already said.”

“Want a lawyer?”

Blake smiled wanly. “I guess what I need is a psychiatrist.”

“Could be you're right.”

“I was only trying—”

“I read your statement,” Walsh growled. “Fine help, getting yourself plunked in the cooler.” He circled the spittoon, sat down behind the desk. “What'd you figure we'd do, let you share a cell with her?”

The picture of Lisa behind bars somewhere, alone and frightened, churned Blake's stomach, brought a sick, hollow feeling. Weakly, he said, “I just thought …”

“I know what you thought.” Walsh slapped a palm on the desk. “Thought you could drop in at Orthman's for the evidence, like going to the corner saloon for a beer.” He hit the table again. “Thought you could make a horse's ass out of the Police Department!”

“I'm the horse's ass,” Blake said.

“Yeah.” Slightly mollified, Walsh eyed him. “That's what makes me so sore. The stupid way you went about it.” He paused, let his jaw ease back in place. “I'm not blaming you for trying. I know how you feel.” His straw-colored eyes grow unhappy. “I don't feel so good about her myself.”

“Why not?”

“Daughter about her age,” Walsh said. “Maureen.”

Suddenly Blake caught on. The old police routine. Soften the criminal up. Phony rage followed by phony sympathy. It made him a little angry that Walsh would try it on him.

“Where've you got her?” he asked. “San Quentin?”

Walsh smiled wryly. “Only men there.” He bent, still smiling, and took a box from the desk drawer. “Teaches school. Long Beach.” The box, Blake saw, was the one the Webley had been in. “Got me and three brothers.” Walsh looked at Blake over the box. “Yours got a family?”

“Some cousins in Galesburg, Illinois.”

“Yeah, that's what she said.” Frowning, Walsh removed the Webley from the box. “But kind of alone right now. And in big trouble.”

“You should know.”

“Not much choice.” Peering at the Webley, Walsh added, “Either her or the locked room.”

For a moment the words made no sense. Then Blake remembered what Walsh had said earlier, when they were in the tent. Something shaping up that would make children's riddles of the locked-room mysteries in books.

“Why does it have to be either one?” he asked

“I'll tell you,” Walsh said. “Partly because she looks like Maureen. Prettier, but like her. Partly because there's nobody but you to help her. But mostly because of a funny feeling I got.” He lifted the Webley, stared at it absently. “So, okay, the soft music has got you crying. Or else I got some trick in mind. You want to listen?”

“I am listening.”

“Yeah.” Walsh nodded to the Webley. “So let's go over it once more. With this pistol here. When the prop man …”

“Alf.”

“When Alf first takes it out of the drawer in the wardrobe cabinet he was using. The same pistol. You heard him say so.”

“Yes.”

“Next he and his pal load it with blanks while you watch. Right?”

“Right.”

“Then Alf runs out on the set in front of everybody and shoves the pistol into the holster hanging from the tent pole. No chance for him to finagle anything. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Now, between the time it's put in the holster and Miss Carson fires it, the pistol gets itself loaded with two real bullets.”

“How do you know that?”

“Here's how.” Taking an envelope from the cardboard box on the desk, Walsh shook out two expended shells. “These are the ones we found in the tent.”

“I remember. But that still—”

“Listen.” Walsh unfolded a sheet of typewritten paper. “Ballistics report on expended shells found by body. Marks left on shells by firing pin, breech face and ejector mechanism identical to marks left on test rounds fired from .325 caliber Webley submitted as exhibit A.”

He opened the envelope, picked out two pieces of metal, put them beside the two exposed shells, and read again from the typewritten paper.

“Ballistics report on slugs removed from body—.325 caliber ammunition. Rifling lands, depth of grooves, gouges, emery marks, pitch of rifling identical to test rounds fired from Webley submitted as exhibit A.” He folded the report, dropped it, expended shells and slugs back in the box. “Boiling it down to plain English, the boys in the lab are saying that Miss Garnet was knocked off by two bullets fired from this pistol.”

Blake stared at the Webley unhappily, realizing that the reports made Lisa a killer, no matter how innocent her intentions were. If only she hadn't gotten carried away in the scene, hadn't pushed past Ashton Graves and fired point-blank at Caresse.

Walsh was speaking again. “Now let's see how we stand. Pistol loaded with blanks and two real bullets when fired. Pistol completely loaded with blanks when put in holster. And not more than five minutes in between.”

“Plenty of time for somebody to make a switch.”

“With sixty people watching?”

Blake couldn't think of anything to say to that.

“I don't like it either,” Walsh said. “But it seems to boil down to Miss Carson.”

“She wouldn't have had time.”

“Had anyway a minute before she ran over to the tent.” Walsh picked up the Webley. “Look.” He ejected the clip, plucked out two shells. “Blanks come out.” He put the shells back in the clip. “Real bullets go in.” He thrust the clip back in the automatic. “Ready to fire in less than thirty seconds.”

“But you just said sixty people were watching,” Blake protested. “Somebody would have seen her.”

“Right then everybody was watching Miss Garnet being carried out of the jungle.”

Blake felt a sudden sinking sensation. He remembered how he and the others had turned to look at Caresse. Of course Lisa hadn't loaded the pistol, but he could see now why the police were holding her.

“Well, there you have it,” Walsh said. “The locked room. Or the girl. Impossible for somebody else to have stuck a couple of bullets in the pistol.” His eyes, the color of taffy now, rested somberly on Blake's face. “But if somebody else didn't, then it's got to be her.”

“But you said yourself …”

“I said I had a funny feeling.”

“Well, I have more than that. Lisa didn't stick in any bullets.”

“Who did then?”

Blake shook his head.

“Always a big question. Who? Answer solves most cases.” Captain Walsh smiled grimly. “But here, if it isn't the girl, we got an even bigger question.”

“What's that?”

“
How?
”

T. J. Lorrance

“You? Kill?” the off-key voice babbled. “Kill Caresse?”

It was his voice, but he couldn't stop it.

“You didn't … couldn't kill.” The voice giggled crazily. “You're joking.”

“I killed her.”

“Oh, I can't—can't believe—”

“Will you stop that!”

Caught by the glowing eyes, Lorrance became silent. And with silence, mushrooming like same appalling nuclear blast seen on slow motion film, came belief. He felt his heart flutter wildly, felt a mad impulse to run, but instead, engulfed by a nauseous tide of horror, he swayed, would have fallen if he had not, somehow, caught hold of the desk. He clung there, wanting to vomit.

“Here.”

Karl was standing by him with a glass half filled with whiskey. He took the glass, trembling so badly he could barely hold it.

“Drink.”

The glass chattered against his teeth, but he managed to swallow. Smoky fire constricted his throat, burned his stomach. Gasping, he cried, “Are you sure …?”

“How many times do I have to tell you?”

“But you were here. In the office. I was with you.”