Extra Kill - Dell Shannon (26 page)

Mendoza glanced at Hackett, who was looking at the
girl. Incredulities came at him from two directions, he thought. That
girl. And—

"You may indeed help us, if you will, Miss
Ferne—it is Miss Ferne, I take it?" He knew instinctively just
the sort of thing this one would like, would respond to: essentially
it was the small—town Main Street mind—a veneer of sophistication
very thin; and he smoothed his moustache thoughtfully in the approved
man-about-town manner, gave her a faintly sardonic smile nicely
blended of veiled admiration and cynicism. "Lieutenant Mendoza,
madam. I apologize for intruding at such an early hour."

"But not at all, Lieutenant! Anything I can do,
of course—" She gushed at him a little, and he let his eyelids
drop and put more cynicism in his expression, to conform to type. He
knew exactly the kind of girl she had been, all giggles, curls, and
inconsequence; the tiresome kind, not a thought beyond the
conventionalities; and the kind too who wouldn't grow out of it to
any extent. "Do sit down."

"Thanks very much. You can oblige me first of
all by telling me something I'd very much like to know. Who owns this
coat here?" He nodded at it, getting out a cigarette. It was the
first thing he'd noticed in the room. It was flung carelessly over
the back of the couch, a woman's long wool coat, full-cut and
voluminous: it was creamy beige and its sleeves had wide dark brown
velvet cuffs. Before the woman could answer the girl spoke. "It's
not mine," she said. "I never saw it before. I found it in
my—I thought she—it's not mine!"

"Darling, I don't understand you lately. How
absurd, you're not forgetful so young, are you?—of course it's your
coat, Angel, I've seen you in it a dozen times. One of the few
halfway smart things you have. But why should you be interested,
Lieutenant?" She wasn't much concerned with the coat or the
girl; she sank into a chair, carefully arranging the display just
right, and preened herself under his gaze.

"That's your coat, Miss Carstairs? Well, well."
He went over and picked it up. It was a costume coat, with a narrow
rolled shawl collar, no buttons: its only decoration the dark velvet
cuffs and a dark panel of velvet down each side of its front. "That's
very interesting," and he divided a smile between them.

"I never saw it before! I—I—I— What's it
got to do with you?"

Hackett came into the room, stood looking at the coat
as Mendoza turned it in his hands, examining it. "We're asking
the questions here, Miss Carstairs," he said harshly.

"Oh, now I don't see any reason to be mysterious
about it," said Mendoza gently. The coat bore a label inside the
collar with the name Jay-X, Fine Fashions. Not a name he was familiar
with, but any department store buyer could supply information, and he
had an idea what the information would be. Hardly a brand name you'd
find at Magnin's or Saks': third-rate-quality wool, inferior cut.
About thirty-nine-fifty retail, he judged. "We have reliable
evidence that a woman wearing a very similar coat to this one is
intimately concerned in the murder of Mr. Twelvetrees. Naturally I'm
interested in knowing”—he cocked his head at them—"whether
it was, in fact, this coat."

"In the murder!” exclaimed Mona Ferne. She sat
bolt upright, graceful, horrified. "What are you saying? That
Angel—? But that's ridiculous! Why, I expect there are hundreds of
coats like that—"

"Oh, I don't know," said Mendoza. He sat
down, with the coat over his lap, in the chair nearest hers, where he
could direct leers as broad as he could manage with more effect; he
noticed that she'd automatically chosen a seat which put her back to
the light. "It's not a fashionable line this year, is it, the
very full cut, and the velvet—more of a spring coat, too, by the
weight."

"I think she got it last spring," said Mona
Ferne vaguely. "I can see you're one to watch, Lieutenant
Mendoza!"—and she actually giggled at him, looking up under
her lashes coyly. "You know too much about feminine styles to
sound quite respectable!"

Caray
, but with this one
you could lay it on with a trowel, he thought. With a trowel.
Appropriate . . . What was this, what the hell was this? Motives. He
remembered saying to Alison, sometimes you have to find out about the
people first. "You're flattering me, lady," he said, and
let a little more interested admiration show in his eyes. She giggled
again and smoothed her hair, to show off long garnet-colored nails.

"I never—" said the girl Angel. She came
to the middle of the room, looking from him to Hackett; she twisted
her hands together, tight and nervous. "You mean—whoever
killed him had—? I don't underst—I never saw that coat before in
my life! It's not—it's not—it's not—"

"Do control yourself, Angel, you sound quite
hysterical, dear. I'm sure the lieutenant doesn't mean he thinks an
innocent young girl like you had anything to do with such a horrible
thing." It was a vague murmur: most of her attention was on
Mendoza, a new man to gauge, to angle for, to play to.

The girl Angel stared at her; suddenly she raised her
clenched fists to her mouth. "No," she said against them.
"No, I didn't—-why would I—I didn't—him! I never—"

"No one's accused you of anything, Miss
Carstairs," said Hackett in a colorless tone. "We'd just
like to ask a few questions, if you don't mind. Do you have a car of
your own and what make is it?"

She nodded mutely at him; she whispered, "The
s-same as—hers—it's a '58 two—d-door Cad— I don't like it
m-much, I don't—I don't drive much, she made me— Listen to me,
please listen, I know by the way you look you think—but why, why,
why? No reason—him—He wasn't anything—and I tell you I never
saw—"

"Do you mind telling us where you were on the
evening of Friday the thirtieth?"

"I—was—here," she said dully. She was
looking at her mother again, not Hackett. "All that evening.
Like every night. Like always and forever and eternity. I was
here—and nobody else was."

"Really, Sergeant," said Mona Ferne, absent
and sweet, "you can't think Angel—" And now her eyes were
busy gauging Mendoza's suit, the Sulka tie, the custom-made shoes.
Gauging his prestige value as something in pants to be seen with. He
read them (fascinated, curious, passionately interested in this
woman, now) as he would read a page of print. Money, they said—more
than presentable, if not exactly handsome—charming—knows the
score.

"The maid—?" said Hackett.

"She isn't here—at night," said the girl.
"Nobody—I went to bed, I think, about—about midnight—I—”
But that was absently said too; she was still looking at her mother.
"The coat," and that came out in a whisper. “Somebody
with a coat like that—? D'you mean—the one did it, k-killed—"

Slowly she turned back to Hackett. Could be and was,
different things: she looked plain, dowdy, in a shapeless gray dress,
flat brown shoes; hair pinned back carelessly to fall lank and
lifeless, and no make-up. "Please," she said, "how can
you think—you do think so, I see you do, but I don't understand! I
didn't—he was nothing! The coat. The—I never saw it before, why
d'you think it's here, because I f-found it there in my wardrobe—just
a while ago, I thought- It's a hideous coat, I'd never have—I
brought it down to ask— It's not mine!

"When did you buy it, Miss Carstairs, how long
have you had it?” asked Hackett woodenly. I

"Oh, my God," she muttered. "No. I
don't—not—oh, my God!"

And she moved from her rigid stance; her eyes went
blank and she ran, as a child or an animal ran from inexplicable
wrath. They heard her on the stairs, stumbling.

"So clumsy, poor child,” murmured Mona Ferne,
and crossed her legs the opposite way, with nice attention to
arranging the skirt at just the proper place to show off the ankle
and not the ugly swell of the calf with its blue-mottled veins.

Mendoza nodded at Hackett to go after the girl. And
he knew: now he knew: and it was a psychic knowledge, the D.A.'s
office would laugh at it—so, look for solid tangible evidence to
back it up, sure. But the thing inside him, that was worried by
ragged edges, by the picture hanging crooked, by the answer to the
problem that he didn't know (and that offending his essential
egotism, too), settled back with a satisfied sigh and said, So,
that's the answer. He felt better; he felt good.

Much of the reason Mendoza had this little reputation
as one of the bright boys (maybe a head doctor would say) was that he
had to prove it, over and over again: anything he didn't know, it was
a kind of insult if to the essential Mendoza; he had to find out. So
finding out the answer, the truth—it affected him like a good stiff
drink, and he felt fine.

Now he knew. But he didn't know why, or exactly how.

He gave Hackett a glance and nod, to go after the
girl: and he gave Mona Ferne a look that was almost a leer and
hitched his chair a little closer to hers ....
 

FIFTEEN

Hackett caught up with the girl at the top of the
stairs. She was leaning on the bannister there, crouched and shaking,
silent. The maid stood in an open bedroom door nearby, staring
curiously.

"What's the matter with her now?"

The girl straightened abruptly. "Oh, go away!"
she said wildly to both of them. And then, "No—wait—Winter,
please, you can say, you , can tell them! That coat I brought down,
just now—you've never seen me in it, have you?"

The maid sniffed. "I dunno, couldn't say. I
don't take no notice what you wear much. It ain't Miss Ferne's, that
I do know."

Angel shut her eyes, leaned on the bannister again.
"You wouldn't say—if you could. I know. People never—1ike
me, want to help—and no wonder. No wonder . . ."

Hackett said angrily to the maid, "Go away, for
God's sake! Go downstairs or somewhere. I'm—questioning Miss
Carstairs officially and that means privately."

A spark of interest showed in the maid's eyes.
"Questioning? About the murder? Did she do it? For the Lord's
sake—all right, all right, I'm going . . ." But she lingered
on the way, looking back avidly.

"I didn't," said Angel. "Really I
didn't."

Hackett surprised himself by saying, "I know you
didn't. And damn it, it isn't any wonder you haven't any friends and
stay around alone, when you look like this, when you don't go to meet
people halfway! Why the hell don't you cut your hair and comb it once
in a while?—put on some make-up—get some decent clothes—my God,
you've got the money! Make a little effort at it, for God's sake. It
doesn't mean you're acting like her, going to turn into one like
that, you know. There's a—a middle course to these things, after
all! You can't expect anything out of life if you don't put something
in—hanging around here feeling sorry for yourself like a spoiled
kid—"

She looked up at him through a straggling lock of
hair that had come unpinned, fallen across her cheek; she brushed it
back, and her mountain-pool eyes were blurred by tears. "Oh,
God, I know," she said. "I know. How did you know? I—I
got off on the wrong track, it was her, but I—but it's too late, I
don't know how, I don't know anything, how to do—how to—be nice,
make people—I want to, I want to, but I don't know where to start,
or how. She—"

"You listen, you just listen," said
Hackett. He was mad; he didn't know exactly what he was going to say
or how they'd got onto this, but at the same time he thought this was
about the oddest examining of a witness he'd ever done. He made her
sit down on the top step and sat down beside her—like a pair of
kids, he thought. "Listen, you've got to get out of this house,
this damned haunted house. That tree—my God, it's like living in a
cave. Don't be silly, it's never too late to do something. Only
you've got to put a little effort into it."

She blew her nose and looked at him solemnly over the
wadded handkerchief. "I j-just hate my name," she said.
"It's such a silly name. She—thought it was cute. A baby named
Angel. Only I g-grew up, and it's silly. A great big lummox like
me—she said that. D'you think I could change it?"

"You can do anything you want to, damn it. It
doesn't matter what your name is, it's what you are yourself! Listen,
you know what you ought to do? You ought to go to one of these charm
schools. Sure it sounds silly but they'd teach you all those things,
see? You could be a pretty girl, Angel, just take a little trouble."

"C-could I?"

"Well, sure. I know someone runs one of those
places too, she'd help you a 1ot—Miss Alison Weir, she's in the
phone book. You remember that, now, and do something about it."

She mopped at her eyes again. "Is she your
g-girl friend or something?”

"No," said Hackett. "Not mine, she
doesn't—belong to me." Suddenly (this was the strangest little
interval he ever remembered experiencing) he was filled with
inexpressible sadness for all the lonely, cheated, needing people.
Because, once or twice, he'd seen Alison Weir looking at Mendoza when
she didn't know anyone was watching her. At cynical, marriage—shy,
self-sufficient Mendoza, who ranked women along with poker as
off-hours recreation and that was all .... "Listen, stop crying,
can't you?"

"I'm n-not really. I'm—it was just—yes,"
she said with a little gasp, "I've got to get out of this house.
Her house. I knew she hated me—I've always known that—ever since
I stopped being a baby and began to grow. To let people know she was
getting older too. And to be a—a person, not just like a—pet she
had, other people taking care of it. But I didn't think—it was so
much that she wouldn't mind if I was arrested—for—"