Death Trap (14 page)

“So you let her go.”

“Am I going to sit there with the guys and cry about it?”

“If that’s the way she was, why do you feel bad?”

He came up onto one elbow. “You don’t dig how things are. It isn’t black and white. She was mixed up. It was that old man of hers. Way underneath she was a good kid.”

“Way, way underneath.”

“You want to make trouble? I’ll give you trouble.”

“Settle down. I roughed Smith up and threw him in the bushes. That was what made him mad enough to kick her to death.”

He looked at me with new respect. “You’re lying.”

“Ask Quillan.”

“I wouldn’t go near Quillan.” Suddenly his face seemed to crumple and he turned abruptly away.

“What’s the matter?”

“I forget she’s dead, and then it comes back on me. Hard.”

“You knew her pretty well?”

“Sure. I wanted her to be different, I wanted her to be really steady. But it wasn’t in her. I could get it, but so could a lot of other guys and I didn’t like that.”

“Just like Jane Ann?”

“Same deal. Only her old man was worse. He was worse than Jerry Garson.”

“Jane Ann always had spending money.”

“And she wasn’t cheap with it, mister. She always treated. Ginny’s got—Ginny had the clothes Jane Ann bought. Jane Ann could handle Smith. She used to make him beg. She laughed at him. She was the only one he couldn’t scare. Wait until I get my hands on him. I’ll take me a knife and I’ll—”

“You’ll have a long, long wait.”

“I guess so.”

“Did you know Jane Ann pretty well?”

He looked at me with cool suspicion. “Well enough. What’s it to you?”

“Where’d she get her money?”

“Did she have any money? Did I say she had any money?”

“Come off it, Rook. This isn’t a game.”

“Then what is it? I don’t know anything. Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Ginny was trying to help me.”

“Help you what? Did you take a piece before you give it to Smith?”

“Stop making it worse for yourself, Rook. I didn’t touch her. She was a little girl going nowhere at all in a hell of a hurry, but she was willing to help me. She was willing to help me find out who killed Jane Ann.”

“Landy killed her. Are you nuts?”

“I don’t think so. If Ginny was willing to help, would you, for her sake, answer a question?”

He looked sulky. “I guess so.”

“Do you know if Jane Ann ever hung around Mackin Hardware? If she went in there a lot?”

“That sounds like a stupid question.”

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.”

“Let me think. Jane Ann got killed a long time ago. Lots of things happen. It isn’t easy to remember way back.”

“Take your time.”

He frowned, knuckling his chin, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I guess I remember.”

“What?”

“Just seeing her going in there and coming out a lot of times. So what?”

“What would she buy in there?”

“What does anybody buy in a hardware store? Maybe nuts and bolts for her old man. Anyhow, those people, the Mackins and the Paulsons are real good friends. Maybe she just was stopping to say hello or something. They got the same place up at the lake. I saw it a couple of times, not during the season, when Ginny and Jane Ann and—” He stopped and flushed and said, “That doesn’t matter.”

“That’s all you can remember?”

He stretched out again and looked at me, his face closed. “You’re in my hair, mister. Why don’t you go away? I don’t want to talk to anybody today.”

I knew I couldn’t get any more out of him. I didn’t see anybody when I left. I wanted to go and see Vicky, but I didn’t have enough to bring her. I didn’t have enough to go on. I had told her not to expect me, that I wouldn’t show up unless I had something concrete. And I didn’t have enough to warrant contacting John Tennant.

While I ate in a diner, my first meal since breakfast—Quillan had ruined any appetite I had for lunch—I thought over ways and means of getting to talk to Billy Mackin. I wanted to see him face to face. But I needed a good cover story.

After a lot of futile thought, I took my problem to Charlie Staubs. He was busy, but he was able to spare me a few minutes.

“So,” he said, “you won’t give me any reasons, but you want to talk to Billy.”

“What kind of a guy is he?”

“He’s all right. He’s a good joe. Everybody likes him. He’s having a bad time with Angela.”

“I know.”

“She was a damn fine-looking woman two and a half years ago.”

“You’d never know it now.”

“Hugh, are you going to get me in trouble?”

“I’m going to try not to.”

Charlie sighed and tugged at his underlip and looked mournfully at the floor. He sighed again. “This is a small town.”

“People keep telling me that.”

“The odds are that he knows your name and knows you’re doing some amateur investigating. Damn it. Say, I got an idea!” He hurried off. He came back in a few moments and handed me a business card. It said,
Walter L. Breckridge
—Retail Properties.

“What do I do with this?”

“Go over there and make like Breckridge. He stopped over here one night about a month ago. Comes from the West Coast. Billy won’t know you by face.”

“This could get me into trouble.”

“Aren’t you used to it?”

“What the hell do I say?”

“Ask him if he’s interested in putting his store on the market. Make up the patter as you go along. He’s not hard to talk to.”

“I’ll try it.”

“If you’ve got any funny ideas about Billy, you better give them up.”

The Mackin home was on the southwest corner of Venture and Oak, about a half block from the Paulson place. I judged that it would not be far from the back corner of the Mackin property to the back corner of Mrs. Hemsold’s house where Alister and Vicky had lived.

The yard was scraggly, leaves unraked, hedge unclipped. It was getting dark and I saw a light go on in the house as I parked. I had the impression the house needed a coat of paint.

I stood on the shallow cement porch and rang the bell Through the glass of the front door I could look down a narrow hallway to a kitchen at the end. A man got up and walked from the kitchen to the front door. He was silhouetted against the kitchen light. He was not a big man. The outside light clicked on. He opened the door.

“Mr. Mackin?”

“Yes?”

“Perhaps I should have phoned. I took a chance on finding you home. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes?”

“Can you give me some idea of what it’s about?”

“My name is Breckridge. Walter L. Breckridge. I deal in real estate. Here’s my card, Mr. Mackin.”

“I’m not interested in buying anything.”

“You’ll see by my card that I specialize in retail properties. I thought we might have a little talk about your store.”

He nodded twice, stepped back and said, “Come in, please.” His voice was amiable enough though colorless. “I’ll have to ask you to talk quietly, Mr. Breckridge. My wife isn’t well. I’ve just gotten her to bed. She had a bad spell a little while ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He turned on a floor lamp. “You sit here. I left coffee on the stove. Can I bring you a drink? A beer, perhaps?”

“Thanks, yes.”

When he came back and sat down opposite me, I had my first good look at him. He wore a blue dress shirt open at the throat, with the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. His hands and arms were heavy with black hair and they looked powerful. He had dark hair, a black Irish cast of feature, a blue beard-shadow on his jaws and throat. He moved trimly, confidently. His expression was alert and amiable, and the smile wrinkles in his face indicated that he smiled often and broadly. He looked somewhat tired. The room we were in was too full of overstuffed furniture, too cluttered with lamps, knick-knacks, figurines. There were gilt-framed mirrors on the walls, a copy of the “Blue Boy,” a copy of Stuart’s “Washington.” There were souvenir pillows on the couch.

“Have you taken a look at the store?”

“I was in there today.”

He frowned. “Temporary help is almost impossible to get. Angela said she felt able to take care of it today. I guess it was too much for her. I shouldn’t have let her do it. I had to go over to Warrentown on business. I told her not to try to clean up, and I know it needed it.”

“You don’t seem to have a great deal of stock, Mr. Mackin.”

“There’s more than it looks like. I guarantee that. I could give you the exact inventory figure, but the books are down there. Somewhere around twenty-one thousand. And I own that building. Syler’s, the other store in the building, leases from me. I’ve got a good, steady business there. A good, loyal trade. I don’t know as I would be very interested in selling.”

“Then I guess I’m wasting your time, Mr. Mackin.”

He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I don’t want to inflict my personal problems on you, Mr. Breckridge. I’ll be frank with you. My wife doesn’t know it, but she hasn’t long to live. And when she—has passed away, I don’t know if I’ll have the heart to continue here. We’ve had—eleven very happy years together.” His voice broke and he leaned back and covered his eyes with his hand.

“I’m terribly sorry.”

“I assure you that under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t think of selling out. It will just mean making a fresh start. But—the pleasure has gone out of it.”

He uncovered his eyes and looked at me quite appealingly.

“Do you have a client who is interested?” he asked.

“A man who might be interested. I can’t divulge his name at this time. He’s not a local man, of course.”

“Of course.”

“We investigate very carefully before we contact the owner.”

“You do?” He looked slightly distressed.

“I understand your volume of business has fallen off. The shopping center on the Warrentown road has apparently hurt your trade.”

He smiled sadly. “It’s my own neglect that’s hurt it. You can understand how I have—let things slip. But it would take a very short time to get back to the gross I was doing before.”

“I don’t want to offend you, but we have been led to believe that you are in personal financial difficulties.”

“Completely wrong!” he said sharply, and then lowered his voice. “I own that building, as I told you. And I own this house. I can tell you, though it’s none of your business, that I have practically no cash reserve. Illness is expensive, Mr. Breckridge.”

“There is another property in this town my client is interested in.”

Mackin looked alarmed. “There is?”

“Paulson’s Market.”

He leaned back and grinned at me. It was a very charming grin, impudent and conspiratorial. “Dick will never sell.”

“You know him that well?”

“He’s been like a brother to me. An older brother. I know him like this.” He twined first and second finger. “Do you know, when I came to this town, I rented a room in his home. That was thirteen years ago. His girls were tiny then. He helped me get started in business. Why, we own a camp together, at Morgan’s Lake. It’s like we all belonged to the same family. Myra has been like a mother to Angela. And I can assure you that Dick will never sell out. That store is his life. If he had been willing to sell, he would have sold at the time of the tragedy.”

“Tragedy?” He stared at me so sharply I saw that I had made a mistake. “Oh, of course. That was stupid of me. It was his daughter, wasn’t it, who—”

“Jane Ann Paulson was raped and murdered by a pervert, a college student named Landy. It was in every paper in the country. It isn’t the sort of thing you forget. She was a lovely girl in every respect.”

“Of course. I had a temporary lapse of memory.”

“They electrocute the fiend next Monday.”

“There seems to be a lot of violence in this town. My client—”

“You mean that business last night. Hardly typical. It won’t happen again in twenty years. Let’s get back to business. You say you’ve investigated? What tentative valuation have you put on the business? Remember, the stock I have is quality stock. It moves fast.”

“We’d prefer to have you name a figure.”

“If I were to sell, and I’m not certain I will, I think I would have to have around a hundred and ten thousand. That includes land, building, stock and good will.”

“What is your equity in the building?”

“That isn’t pertinent, is it?”

“It might be. How about the Syler lease?”

“It has nine years to run at a hundred a month. There’s better than ten thousand right there.”

“Less upkeep, repairs, taxes, water, light and—”

“They pay their own utilities.”

I sipped my beer. He was willing to wait me out. He sat, apparently relaxed, but I sensed tension in him.

“Would you say Mr. Paulson would be easy to talk to?”

“Hardly. I’m probably one of the few people he can relax with. He’s a very proud man, and a very stern man. He has very fixed ideas of right and wrong. He wouldn’t like it if he knew you were asking about him.”

“But he took you into his home.”

“I’ll be grateful to him all my life. He knows that. I even met Angela through them.”

“Do they know how ill she is?”

“Is that just idle curiosity?”

“I’m sorry. I’m wondering if he’d be hurt should you sell out and move away.”

“I said nothing about moving away. I believe I’d stay here.”

“What would you do?”

“Work for someone for a time. Maybe even Dick. Give up all responsibilities. Try to forget. I was eighteen when he took me in. I’m thirty-one now. Did you see Angela when you went to the store?” I nodded. “She’s only twenty-nine. That seems incredible, doesn’t it?”

“It certainly does.”

“I blame myself. I should have been more careful of her. Her mother died of the same thing. We waited too long. She doesn’t know it, of course. She thinks she’s getting better.”

He covered his eyes with his right hand again. This time it had a more phony flavor than before. He was a very plausible man. He was a very controlled man. And, to make Paulson like him and relax with him, he had to be a very clever man. With his eyes covered, I could see only the lower half of his face in the slant of the lamplight. His mouth was heavy and sensuous. The left hand, resting on the chair arm, was as heavily haired as the paw of an animal. It seemed a mistake for him to cover those plausible eyes with the grin wrinkles around them.