Extra Kill - Dell Shannon (9 page)

"The only charitable thing, dear Mona. Now do
come and see me for a cozy little private chat, soon."

"Won't you come up to our quarters, Lieutenant?"
invited Kingman. "Quite a draft here, and we must think of my
wife's health, she takes cold so easily. Now I don't recall meeting
you before, do I? There was a very polite young man—er—Wilson,
Williams, Woods—that was it—”

"Yes, the case has been handed on to me."
Mona. That was nice to know, he thought.

"Oh, I—I—SEE. If you'll just step this way,
the elevator—"

Yes, money had been spent
here ....

* * *

"Dead?" exclaimed Kingman. "Dead—Brooke?"
He sounded incredulous; his rich voice trembled with all the proper
emotion. "And in such a way— But then, how we have maligned
him!" He sat back in his chair, whisked out a handkerchief, and
blew his nose loudly. "This is dreadful news, dreadful."

"My very thought, Martin," said Cara
Kingman mournfully. "We found it hard to believe," her pale
eyes turned on Mendoza, "that dear I Brooke would do anything
dishonest—and to steal from the Temple treasury, of all
dishonorable things. I said at once—you remember, Martin—there is
some other explanation, which will be revealed to us in time."

"And you were right, as you so often are. I fear
it was my more—um—worldly suspicion, Lieutenant Mendoza, which
prompted me to issue the charge. You understand, we had trusted
Brooke absolutely, but when he so unaccountably—um, absented
himself from the Sabbath service, and a check with the bank on Monday
informed us that he had not deposited the collection . . . Really, to
my mind it seemed foregone, incredible as it appeared. But now—"

"Ah, the money," said his wife. She shut
her large, light eyes with the effect of switching off headlights.
"The money—quite unimportant—we must only share the awful
responsibility, Martin, that it was because he had the money that he
was killed in this terrible way. Some violent, greedy person—a
young, young soul—knowing he had the money, breaking in, and dear
Brooke struggling with him to protect the Temple's property—"
She shuddered, delicately.

"Well, you know, we don't think it happened
quite like that,” said Mendoza. "A casual thief would scarcely
take the trouble of burying him."

She gave no sign that she heard, lying back on the
couch, robe trailing, graceful. A comfortable living indeed they took
out of this: it could almost be called a luxurious apartment, with
its wall-to-wall carpeting, furniture not from a bargain basement,
everything the latest and best. And entirely impersonal. Mendoza
deduced a decorator service from one of the better department stores,
and nothing added to the decorators' choice. He did not feel somehow
that, left to herself, Cara Kingman would choose to live with beige
tweed carpet, champagne-colored curtains, eighteenth-century
reproduction mahogany, and parchment lampshades.

"But how else could it have happened?"
wondered Kingman. "Ah, now I think, of course I see the
fallacy—you men trained to reason acutely about such things, I
daresay the notion of a thief never occurred to you, but I confess I
should have accepted that solution at once, my` self. How else? I
assure you, I find it inconceivable that anyone who knew the boy—"

"That's what we'll find out. I understand you
saw Mr. Twelvetrees for the last time at about four o'clock on the
afternoon of Friday the thirtieth?”

"Ah—that's correct," said Kingman. "I—we,
my wife and I, had just finished conducting the—um—afternoon
class for novitiates. We came out of the sanctuary—ah, that is what
you would call the chapel, where our services are held—we have a
very modest establishment here, you see, there is only a small robing
room besides on the ground floor— together, on our way to the
elevator, and met Brooke just leaving. He had been working on the
Temple accounts in the robing room, which also serves us as an
office."

"I see. What conversation did you have with
him?"

"Why, none—none at all, Lieutenant. It was
quite casual. I believe I said something like, ‘Finished for the
day, my boy?' and he replied that he was. He was—um—just going
out as my wife and I entered the elevator."

"If I had known," she said, opening her
eyes again, "that it would be the last time I should see him—on
this plane, of course! But my mind was still with our dear
novitiates, and I daresay that prevented any presentiment I may have
had."

"My wife," said Kingman, adjusting his
glasses with a precise gesture, "is a gifted psychic, you see."

"But one cannot control these things, and I
never pretend to do so. That is why I have given up such childish
efforts as the séance. It is all so false, so forced, One must only
accept, as it comes. Doubtless it was not intended that I should
receive warning, or I should naturally have told Brooke to be on his
guard against the forces of evil. Destiny . . ."

She lifted a hand, let it fall limply.

"As it was, you exchanged no words with him at
all, Mrs. Kingman?"

"None—none. I was tired, I went straight into
the elevator. But tell us, Lieutenant, what explanation can there be,
if it was not a thief? As my husband says, no one who knew Brooke
could have wished to harm him."

"It is," said Mendoza, who was rather
enjoying himself, "a little early in the investigation to make
any guesses."

"Ah, yes, one would want to be sure." She
sat up and widened her eyes fully on him. "Now do tell me,
Lieutenant Mendoza, what is your birth date?”

"Februa1y twenty-eighth."

"Ah, Pisces—of course," she murmured. "I
should have guessed it, I feel from you that nuance of understanding.
You have great sympathy for people, great insight—but you must
always guard against trusting your emotional judgment too much—don't
you find that? All you Pisceans, so prone to being sadly
misunderstood by those less acute of mind. And that fatal pride, so
apt only to add to others' misunderstanding of you—a sad 
handicap—however, undoubtedly you find your native Piscean
intuition for people most useful in your work."

"My dear, we must not take up the lieutenant's
time, when he is—um—occupied on this sad matter so near our
hearts. If you would tell us, sir, what else we might do to help
you—"

"I would like a list," said Mendoza, "of
your members here."

"Oh dear, oh dear," said Kingman, removing
his glasses and beginning to polish them vigorously, "surely you
cannot be thinking that any of these good people, our little flook—
But it's not my place to question, of course. I can easily supply you
with that, if you'll accompany me down to our office— No, no, my
dear, you must not stir, all this has tired you, you must rest."

"One must not give in," she said bravely.
"Anything we can do to help you at any time—please do not
hesitate to ask. But if you will forgive me now, I do feel quite
exhausted—"

"My wife," said
Kingman as they stepped into the elevator, "is a very sensitive
woman—very sensitive. She is an Aquarian herself, of course."

* * *

Mendoza let himself into his apartment at an early
hour by his usual routine. Bast, the russet-brown Abyssinian, and her
five-month-old daughter Nefertite who had taken after the Abyssinian
side of the family and was also russet-colored with black trimmings,
came to meet him with shrill welcome. He switched on all the lights
and began to look about automatically to see what mischief the
unpredictable El Señor had got into in his absence.

The magazine rack was still upright, but quite empty,
and all the magazines were spread out on the floor with the morning
paper neatly on top of them.

"Now how in the name of all devils does he
do
these things?" Mendoza wondered. He was beyond asking himself
why. He looked further, y and located El Senor gazing coldly down at
him from the top of the kitchen door. El Senor was also five months
old, but twice the size of his sister; he had inherited his father's
Siamese points in reverse, like the wrong side of a negative, and was
nearly black all over except for blond eyebrows, paws, nose, and
tail-tip. He had large almond-shaped green eyes. "Señor
Misterioso!" said Mendoza. “Do you grow hands when my back is
turned?" He began to pick up the magazines.

 
El Señor leaped gracefully down the narrow
mantel from the door, and abruptly became Señor Estupido; he lost
his balance, blundered into the electric clock and knocked it flat,
and began trying to climb the wall.

"I put up with you only for your mother's sake,"
Mendoza told him. He plucked him off the mantel and let all the cats
out, went to the kitchen and cut up fresh liver pending their return,
and made coffee. He carried a cup with him into the bedroom; with his
tie off and shirt half-buttoned he paused to study those snapshots in
Twelvetrees' wallet again.

That girl. What was it that made her familiar?

Studio agency. Twelvetrees had ambitions toward a
screen career. He had done work as an extra, he had met other such
people. This girl, maybe. Have I seen her in a film? wondered
Mendoza. But he never went to film theaters. He never watched TV.

He shook his head and went on undressing. He had a
bath, and all the while that vague familiarity teased at his mind. He
got into a robe and went back to the kitchen for more coffee. He let
the cats in and fed them.

Damn it. She stood there on an anonymous beach, in a
white bathing suit, shoulder-1ength dark hair tossed in the
wind-features too indistinct to identify individually, but something
indefinable in the stance, the frozen gesture . . .

He finished the coffee and washed the pot and cup.

It was like a hangnail, he thought, he couldn't leave
it alone. He—Hangnail. Hands. Manicure.

"
Por todos angeles negros
y demonios de Satamis!
" he exclaimed
aloud. Of course, of course. He must be getting old. Marian Marner .
. .
 
 

SIX

". . . a special kind of model,” he said to
Hackett the next morning, "it was only her hands they used. You
know, for soap advertisements, hand lotion, wedding rings, and so on.
But that was nearly twelve years ago, whether she's still in that job
is anybody's guess. I'1l have a look at the agencies. And the damn
funny thing is, I don't even remember where she lived—not that
she'd likely still be in the same place, of course. And I didn't, I
will say, know her very long. But it's odd how the mind operates
sometimes."

"I wouldn't say odd in your case that you
mislaid one little wild oat out of the field of them you've sown,"
said Hackett.

"True. You know the only other thing I remember
about her at all is that she had a funny-shaped appendix scar, with a
little hook at one end."

"Now that's real helpful," said Hackett.
"We'll just camp out on the beach until some day she comes by in
a Bikini and we can identify her. I think the agencies are a better
idea. I don't suppose she'll be much use when we find her."

“
Por que no?
"

"Oh, well, I was just thinking of the
snapshots—not what you'd call really good portraits, but the best
is that one of him with this blonde. If he was really much interested
in this Marner girl, he'd have provided himself with a better
picture, wouldn't he? This  thing"—Hackett 1 looked at it
again—"it might be any woman with dark hair."

"Something in that, sure. I'll have a look
around for her anyway, and we'll see. I wanted to go after this
blonde myself—"

"
Como no
—naturally,
naturally!" said Hackett.

"—But I also want to see Arnheim and get
whatever he may have on this Mystic Truth and the Kingmans, as well
as following up Marian Marner—and I think I'll let you handle the
blonde. You might see this Miss Webster too. The blonde"—Mendoza
consulted the list of members Kingman had given him—"is one
Mona Ferne, at least I deduce she's the one, the only Mona on the
list. Whether Miss or Mrs. it doesn't say. She lives out in West
Hollywood, here's the address."

"O.K." Hackett stared at it absently. "Mona
Ferne. That rings a faint bell in my mind—"

"Don't tell me this is one of your wild oats
intruding on the same case. Coincidence has a long arm, but—"

"My past is pure as a virgin's dreams—compared
to yours, anyway. No. It's— Mona Ferne, now what does it say to
me?—up in lights, sure, there was a star by that name a while back.
Quite a while back it'd be, I seem to remember I was just a kid when
. . . Wouldn't be the same, I shouldn't think, not young enough for
this one."

"Well, go and ind out."

"I'm going, I'm
going. Enjoy yourself with your old girl friend if you find her."

* * *

The address, when Hackett found it on one of the
older residential streets out west of La Brea, proved to be a single
house. This was a neighborhood of solid money,
twenty-thousand-a-year-and-up class: the houses were bigger than most
California houses, many of two storys. This was one of them. It tried
to look like the traditional Southern mansion: it was white, it had
pillars, but on a city lot there was space only for a strip of lawn,
and the enormous blue spruce in the front yard dwarfed it, towering
the height of the house again above the roof, and probably darkening
all the front rooms. The wrong tree, as it was the wrong house, for a
city lot.