It's a Sin to Kill (10 page)

“Wouldn't you?” White asked. He looked at Coroner Gilmore. “Call in over the two-way for me, will you, John? Ask Cody to send out another car and four or five men.”

Gilmore lighted a cigarette. “Gladly.”

Ames and Mary Lou stood holding hands. She said, “This should prove something.”

“It should,” Ames agreed. “The way I see it, whoever drugged me and killed Mrs. Camden killed the maid.”

“Why? Why should they?”

“I don't know,” Ames admitted. “You're the sheriff. I'm just a charter boat captain.”

Sheriff White looked at Mary Lou. “Were you aboard the
Sally
between two-thirty and three o'clock?”

“I was.”

“Awake?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear a scream?”

Mary Lou shook her head. “No. At least, nothing I recognized as a scream.”

There was a creak of oar locks as Deputy Sheriff Ken Sayers rowed under the pier in a borrowed boat.

Ferris retied the belt of his robe. “If I may be so bold as to ask, what is Ames doing here? I thought he'd be in a cell in Sweetwater by now.”

The curious on the pier crowded a little closer.

“He will by nightfall,” White said. After a slight hesitation, White added, “You see, there's been another small development. A little over an hour ago, Mrs. Ames came into town with a very interestin' story about one of her cups bein' missin'. She says she dove overboard an' found hit on the bottom of the basin about twenty feet out from the
Sally
. She says she wrapped it in a towel and put it in a suitcase an' started to bring hit to me. But before she could git off the pier, someone struck her on the haid with a piece of pipe an' rolled her into the pass. She says she came to, jist in time to strike out for the hook.”

“The hook?” Ferris puzzled.

“A spit of land extendin' out apiece on the Gulf side of the bridge.”

“Oh.”

Camden ran his fingers through his too-long hair. “Make sense, Sheriff. It was her husband who killed Helene not Mrs. Ames. Why should anyone want to harm her?”

“Well, her story is that Charlie's coffee was drugged an' whoever drugged hit didn't have time to wash the cup so they threw hit overside.”

“Ridiculous,” Ferris said.

“It don't stack up too good,” White admitted.

“You found the cup?”

“No. All we found was the suitcase.”

Her borrowed bathing suit was too tight. The bound edges were cutting into her thighs and breasts. It was difficult for her to breathe. Mary Lou was uncomfortable. She was tired. She'd almost drowned and no one but Charlie believed her. “You,” she told Sheriff White hotly, “are a stupid old fool! There
was
a cup. I
was
struck on the head and rolled into the pass. And Charlie didn't kill Mrs. Camden. He
was
drugged and — ”

“I know, honey,” White interrupted her. “An' the last he remembers is drinkin' a cup o' coffee in the cockpit of the
Sally
.”

Mary Lou buried her wet face on Ames's chest. He stood helpless, unable even to pat her shoulder. “How's for letting Mary Lou change her clothes?” he asked White. “That suit's two sizes too small for her.”

“Any time she's a mind to,” White said. “There ain't no charge against her.” He leaned on the rail beside Keely. “Handle her as little as you can, Ken. Mebbe you might best tow her in.”

The deputy knelt in the boat. “That's what I figured on, but she's hung up on the rope somehow.” He rolled up his right shirt sleeve. Hanging onto the buoy rope with his other hand, he reached over and under the bobbing body.

“What's a holdin' her, Ken?” White asked.

The deputy straightened in the boat, blood and water dripping from his right hand. “Goddamn it to hell!” he swore. “No wonder. There was a knife in her back and the haft was hung up on the rope.”

The body slipped over the rope, revolved slowly and began to sink.

“Grab her!” Sheriff White shouted.

Sayers grabbed the maid by an ankle, then taking a short grip on the oar he began to scull toward shore with one hand.

“The knife still in her?” Keely asked.

Sayers shook his head. “No. It pulled loose when I freed her. I'll bring her in, then I'll come back and dive for it.”

Ames was glad Mary Lou was facing the other way. He stood looking over her shoulder at the dead girl in the water. There was something indecent about death. It was
so impartially final. The dead lost all right to personal dignity. They were so much clay, to be handled as such. Being towed through the water as she was, the dead girl's black skirt and lace-edged white petticoat slipped up to her knees, then her thighs, permitting an exposure she would never have permitted had she been alive.

Ames compared her, mentally, with the body he'd seen on the floor of Rupert's Fish House. The dead maid was young and shapely. Her wet flesh was white and firm. Alive, she had been very pretty. He wondered what had happened to Coroner Gilmore's theory of a possible affair between Mr. Camden and Celeste.

The middle-aged fat woman scratched the seat of her tight shorts. “Shameful,” she said. “Shameful.”

Mary Lou continued to sob.

“You'd better go change into something more comfortable, honey,” Ames said.

“No,” Mary Lou sobbed. “I want to stay with you.”

Ames knew how she felt. The rising sun was making his head ache. The reflected glare hurt his eyes. His weariness returned in a sodden wave of heat. Coroner Gilmore's theory had sounded fine in the back room of the station. Between it and Sheriff White's resentment at being called a small-town sheriff, he had been almost hopeful. But that had been before this new angle had developed. If Camden and Celeste had been having an affair and Camden had killed Helene to keep his hold on the Camden money, it seemed ridiculous to assume the cosmetic executive had also murdered the girl for whom he had killed his wife.

The crowd on the pier moved shoreward, keeping pace with the deputy in the boat.

State's Attorney Keely pushed away from the rail.

“Okay. Let's go, Charlie,” White said.

Mary Lou and Ames moved back down the pier with the crowd. Mary Lou wiped her eyes on the skirt of her borrowed white terry cloth robe as she walked. “As soon as I change into a dress, I'll go into town and get a lawyer,” she said. “With the seven hundred in the bank in town, the nine hundred in the elephant bank and the fifteen hundred I got from Ben, we have around thirty-one hundred dollars. We ought to get a good lawyer for that.”

Sweat beaded on Ames's face and plastered his shirt to his body. A lot of fishing charters, a lot of songs, a lot of
work and self-denial had gone into the gathering of their small bank account. It was to have bought The Boat. Now even the boat they'd had was gone. He wanted to tell Mary Lou to skip hiring a lawyer, that she might need the money later on and his fear was a lump in his throat.

“You do that,” Ames said. “Go to Judge Barker. I've had him out on fishing trips. He likes me. He'll recommend a good lawyer.”

“Judge Barker,” Mary Lou repeated.

As he waited for Sayers to beach the boat and the body he was towing, Ames studied Camden's face. Camden was no more concerned, at least externally, with Celeste Montigny's death than he had been with the death of his wife. He didn't look either grief-stricken or worried. He looked like a man with a hangover. Mr. Ferris was much more concerned.

The lawyer waded out thigh deep to meet the boat and made the dead girl decent by straightening her skirt. “I have her, deputy,” he said. “You'd better get back and recover the knife if you can. It may be important.”

Sayers looked at White. White nodded. “But best strip to your shorts first Ken. No sense in wetting your uniform. You cut your hand bad?”

“Not bad,” the deputy said.

He took off his uniform shirt and undershirt and laid them on the pier. He laid his gun and gun belt and hat on top of them. He took off his boots and trousers. Then gripping the oar with both hands, he sculled back toward the buoy rope on which the dead girl had been balanced.

Ferris waded ashore with Celeste and laid the limp body on the dry sand.

“Poor kid,” the lawyer said. “She got a bang out of life. A shame this had to happen to her.”

C
ORONER
G
ILMORE
knelt beside the body and felt the wet flesh. “I'd say she's been dead for some hours. I haven't the least idea how many. I'll be glad when we have a Medical Examiner. Being a Justice of the Peace is enough of a job for one man.”

Sheriff White squatted beside him. “Could you estimate the time, John?”

“Oh, anyway, three or four hours.”

“Say between two and three o'clock this mornin'?”

“Yes. Somewhere along there.”

White located Phillips with his eyes. “What time did you say it was when you thought you heard a scream?”

“Between two-thirty and three o'clock, sir.”

“Did it seem to come from the direction of the pier?”

“I really couldn't say, sir. As I said before, it was more of a sound than a scream.”

“A sound of distress?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Like how?”

“Well, like someone had started to call ‘Help' and hadn't time to finish the word.”

“Would you say it came from outside the house?”

“Definitely, sir,” Phillips said.

“How come you were up so late?”

The butler permitted himself a smug smile. “There was the inquest on Mrs. Camden, remember, sir? It was after one when we returned home. And by the time Celeste and I had set out sandwiches and whiskey for the gentlemen, it had reached the hour I mentioned.”

“Celeste helped you set out the night lunch, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You returned to the kitchen together?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you were the last one t' see her alive?”

The butler's smug smile grew smugger. “No, sir. Whoever killed her was the last to see her alive, sir. I do know this much. It was Celeste's custom to walk out on the pier for a last cigarette before she retired. She said the Florida moon reminded her of the south of France.”

“Did she walk out on the pier last night?”

“I presume so.”

“And a few minutes later you heard an unfinished call for help but you didn't bother to investigate.”

Phillips' smile faded.

Camden said testily, “For God's sake, stop picking on Phillips. He had no reason to kill Celeste.”

White turned his faded blue eyes on Camden. “Do you know anyone who did?”

“No.”

Gilmore finished his examination and washed his hands in the bay. “As far as I can tell without undressing her, she was stabbed only once. In the back. On the left side. About where her heart would be. But I'll get Doc Hendry to do a post.”

“You do that, John,” White said. He continued to squat on the sand beside the dead girl, looking like a gaunt and guileless Buddha with long white drooping mustaches. “Oh, by the way, Mr. Camden. A-speakin' of the inquest. Before I forget.”

“Yes — ?”

“Your wife was quite a wealthy woman, wasn't she?”

“Very.”

“In her own right?”

Camden picked at the stubble of beard on his unshaven jowls. “Yes.”

“The money come to you?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

White stood up. “Why not?”

“Because I was fool enough to sign a pre-marital agreement. All I get is twenty-five thousand cash, her jewelry and the Florida property.”

All
, Ames thought. He'd been watching Sayers dive for the knife. He turned and looked at the rambling beach house rising out of the palm tree studded lawn. It reminded him of a picture he'd once seen of Harry James' and Betty Grable's California ranch house. The house was worth at lease fifty thousand dollars. Camden claimed the ring imbedded in his dead wife's flesh was worth eighteen thousand. Plus the cash he'd mentioned, Camden hadn't done too badly. Even after taxes, ninety-three thousand dollars would buy a lot of Scotch and other things.

Mary Lou turned with him. “All.”

“A pity,” Sheriff White sympathized. “Who gits the rest of the money?”

Camden told him. “The stockholders.”

“The stockholders?”

“Of
helene camden, incorporated
.”

Ferris wrung water from the skirt of his robe. “You see,
helene camden
was her life. Helene started it on nothing and built it up to the multi-million dollar business that it is. And she confided in me many times that even after her
death she wanted the business to go on as a sort of monument to her.”

“I see.”

Ferris continued. “While Helene was very self-willed and at times impetuous and unconventional, she was a smart business woman. I know. I've been her personal lawyer for fifteen years. Even her insurance, some two hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth, goes to the corporation.”

State's Attorney Keely whistled. “There must be a lot of money in cosmetics.”

A wry smile tugged at Ferris' wisp of a mustache. “There is. You know the old bit of doggerel, Mr. State's Attorney. ‘Little pats of powder, little dabs of paint, make the homely girlies look like what they ain't.'”

White had been studying the girl on the sand. He looked from her to Camden. “You didn't happen to walk out on the pier last night, say between two an' three, did you, Mr. Camden?”

Camden's plump cheeks mottled with anger. The hands thrust into the pockets of his robe formed fists. “Oh, for God's sake!”

Ferris said, suavely, “I'll answer that question, Hal. I've been expecting this line of questioning to develop ever since the inquest last night, when I happened to notice Sheriff White comparing Celeste with Helene. I think I know what's in his mind.”