Mourn the Hangman (3 page)

Blake just stared at her. He dropped the cherry on the bar. The waitress tilted her left eyebrow slightly.

He looked beyond her shoulder. There was the telephone booth at the rear of the room. He slid off the stool and walked past the waitress to the telephone booth. He was aware that Paula and Nort Donaldson were watching him and he saw Paula lean over and speak quietly to Nort. Donaldson nodded, his eyes on Blake.

He waited until the door was closed behind him. He dropped in a coin, dialed long distance. The wires hummed. Blake stared at the telephone numbers penciled on the wall.

“Long distance,” the operator said.

“I’d like to call Manley Reeder. He lives in Hyde Park in Tampa.”

“One moment, please. Will you please have two quarters ready to deposit when I tell you?”

“All right,” Blake said. He felt in his trouser pocket and laid two quarters on the rack beside the telephone. He could hear the operator talking to the Tampa exchange.

“Go ahead,” the operator said. Blake deposited the quarters. He heard the telephone ringing and he thought: It’s ringing in Reeder’s big house. It’s screaming at him. It’s warning him that nothing can save him if he killed Stella.

He heard the click as the receiver was removed from the hook. He heard a man say, “Hello. Hello.”

Blake’s fingers tensed on the receiver. He put his parted lips close to the mouthpiece. “Is this Manley Reeder?” he said.

“Speaking.”

Slowly, Blake replaced the receiver on the hook. Before the connection was broken, he heard Manley Reeder’s voice rising as he shouted into the telephone. “Hello. Hello. Hello!”

You’ll get your chance to talk, Blake thought. Oh, you’ll get your chance to talk, Reeder.

He stepped out of the booth and started toward the front of
the Palm Club. He heard Nort Donaldson speak his name from the green booth
against the lavender wall, but he didn’t even turn his head. He kept
walking steadily as though he hadn’t heard Donaldson’s voice.

The brunette waitress caught his arm just as he reached the door. Impatiently, he turned and faced her.

“What you want?” he said.

She smiled.

“You didn’t pay for your last drink, mister,” she said. “I’d have paid for it for you, but I wanted to say I’m sorry I was fresh.”

He reached into his hip pocket for his wallet. It wasn’t there. Then he remembered he had laid it on the counter.

She was holding it out in her slender, tanned hand.

“Is this it?” she said.

He thanked her without smiling. He propped the wallet open with thumb and index finger. He fished out a five dollar bill. “For your trouble,” he said.

“It was no trouble,” she said. “Only you’re awfully careless with things.”

He tried to remember to be civil. “Don’t put that money in that beer mug,” he said.

She smiled. Her teeth were even and white. But one of the front ones had been chipped slightly by her continually opening bobby pins. “I won’t,” she promised. She rolled the bill, tucked it into her bra, in the hollow between her full, high breasts.

And then Blake pushed through the door to the street. The rain had let up now, but the night was chilled and wet. The music from the Palm Club juke box trailed after him. Love songs. Soft insinuating voices. Things like that, he thought, are for people who are still alive. Not for Blake. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to see Stella before him. There was no reality except the way she looked, sprawled on that divan.

He struck off along the sidewalk, taking giant strides in the darkness. He was on his way to see Manley Reeder. He had never hated him until now. Always before he had pitied him. Manley had loved Stella and had lost her. Blake had felt sorry for him. Blake had known what it would do to him ever to lose Stella. But now, all that was different. Blake had lost her now. There was no compassion in Blake any more. All he wanted to do was see Manley Reeder’s face, hear him talk, force him to talk, watch him spill his guts.

He told himself: Reeder will talk. And if he killed her, nothing can save him. And when I’m through with you, Reeder, the police can have you.

But not until then. As he strode into the bus station, he heard a siren wail in the night. Crying after the hurt and the dead. A lonely, empty sound.

MANLEY REEDER opened the door.

It was a big house just off the bayshore. You could smell the bay from up here and you could smell the honeysuckle, too. There was a sick-sweet wall of it at the end of the wide veranda. The vines twined about the white railing and the white column. There was a wide swing hemmed in by the honeysuckle and old-fashioned wicker rocking chairs. Blake had come up the flower-bordered walk thinking this was a house from another age. It had belonged to Manley Reeder’s grandparents and there weren’t many houses left like it any more. Not even here in the old part of Tampa. It was somber, brown, two story with attic and scrolls and paint-peeled gables. Reeder lived here alone with only a servant since his divorce from Stella. But to Blake, that wasn’t the wonder at all. He couldn’t picture in his mind Stella’s living four years of her life in this dark place.

Manley Reeder was an extremely handsome man of about thirty-five. He snapped on an overhead porch light when he finally answered Blake’s ring. He opened the heavy old oakwood door and stared at Blake through the screen. His oil-glistening blond hair was parted on the left side and brushed in even waves across his narrow head. His forehead was high, his pale cheeks hollow, his cleft chin almost pointed. His pale blue eyes narrowed at the sight of Blake. Reeder’s mouth twisted. “To what do I owe the horror of this visit, shamus?”

Blake didn’t smile. He was aware of Reeder’s arrogant appraisal of his appearance. Reeder wasn’t missing the rain-splattered coat, the soggy trouser cuffs, the soaked shoes. “I want to talk to you,” Blake said.

Reeder smiled disdainfully. “Do. I’d like to have you come in. The meeting of our minds should be charming. The men who have loved Stella Reeder. We should start a club. I could be a charter member.”

The smile remained fixed on his handsome, long-nosed face. He let the sentence go unfinished, pretending to be busy admitting Blake to the musty-smelling corridor.

Blake stepped inside. Reeder closed the door behind them and motioned toward the dimly lighted library with a nod of his blonde head. Blake looked around, trying to find something that might prove that Stella could have lived in this austere house. She’d have hated the black hall tree with its oval mirror, Blake was sure. The dark hallway ran the depth of the house. Stella was afraid of the dark. There was a dim light in the upstairs corridor, he noted, but the house had the look of darkness, the feel of silence. The darkness and the silence. How had Stella stood it at all?

Reeder motioned Blake ahead of him into the book-lined library. Reeder went over to the hearth and stirred up the blaze with the fire tongs, then turned, the guttering light at his back.

“Have a drink.” He motioned toward the side table. Blake hesitated and then poured himself a stiff one. Holding the glass in his fist, he drank.

Reeder said stonily, “Very manly performance, Blake. Or didn’t you want to impress me with what a hell of a fellow you are?”

Blake looked at him. “I don’t give a damn what you think.”

“Don’t you? Haven’t you come because Stella is out somewhere and you don’t know where?”

“I know where she is.”

“You don’t have to be belligerent with me, Blake. I know what you’re going through. I learned to hate Stella because she put me through it — ”

“You can stop hating her,” Blake said.

Reeder laughed. “I won’t ever stop hating her. And neither will you, Blake, when you know her as I do.”

“She’s dead,” Blake said coldly.

Reeder went on smiling for a moment, opened his mouth to speak. Then he rocked on his heels as though he’d been struck in the chest. Blake could see the blood drain down from his pale face.

“You’re lying,” Reeder whispered.

“I’m not lying.”

Reeder took a step toward him. Face muscles rigid, he stared at Blake. “She’s not dead,” he said numbly. He turned his back to Blake, his shoulders sagging. He reached out to steady himself against the ornate library desk. He spoke over his shoulder. “What happened, Blake?”

“Somebody killed her.”

“How?”

“They — beat her to death with — a lamp from her vanity dresser.”

“When, Blake? When did it happen?”

“I don’t know. I came home. She was already dead.”

Reeder heeled around then. Blake watched his fingers tighten on the desk edge, turning white. He could feel Reader’s grief in the chilled room. Reeder will get over it, he thought, but I can’t get over it. There’ll never be anything for me but Stella and the way she died and the man who killed her — and my hands about his throat.

Reeder slumped into the chair behind his desk. His blue eyes were cold with hatred. “Is that why you came to see me?” Reeder said. “You think I did it?”

“I don’t know.”

Reeder’s lips pulled away from his teeth. “What did you want to ask me? Ask me and get out.”

Blake looked at him. The man was grief struck. The hell with his grief, Blake thought. There’s my grief. Somewhere there’s the man who killed Stella. Maybe there. Across that prissy desk. “I hope you won’t lie to me,” Blake said. “I’ll beat the truth out of you if you do.”

Reeder leaned forward, looking up at Blake across the desk. “I’m telling you again. Ask me what you want and get out. Make it fast, Blake.”

“Were you over there today? Were you in Gulf City today?”

Reeder looked up at him. He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“Did you see her? Did you see Stella?”

“I went over there to see her.” He laughed harshly. “I may as well tell you I spent a great deal of money on Stella just before she divorced me. I felt she owed it to me. It wasn’t the money. It was the principle.”

Blake was breathing across his open mouth. “It was your hatred,” he muttered.

Reeder’s mouth moved into a contemptuous smile. “All right, it was my hatred. If she is going to be so happy with you, why should I pay for it?”

Blake stepped toward the desk. “Did you see her?”

“You might as well stand where you are, shamus. You can’t frighten me. What in God’s name could your fists do to me? Stella has done all the hurt that can ever be inflicted on me, Blake, and she did it a long time ago.”

“I want to know if you saw her?”

Reeder laughed at him. “You want to know if I killed her, don’t you? That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

“How long did you stay over in Gulf City?”

“There’s no use asking me any more. I’m not going to tell you. I don’t want you to find out who killed Stella. That’s the kind of revenge that pleases me. You and Stella. So damned happy. I hope you never find who killed her. Never know the truth about why she died.”

Blake stared at him. “Are you crazy? Why shouldn’t Stella and I have been happy? What did it have to do with you? You and Stella were divorced before I even met her.”

Reeder smiled thinly. “I lost Stella. I hated her. Now you’ve lost her. That’s good enough for me.” He clenched his pale fists. “You want the truth about her, Blake? I met her during the war. I was a lieutenant in the Air Corps. I was stationed in Alabama. She’d once won a beauty contest and half the men in the camp were in love with her. We became engaged. A week before we were to be married, she ran off with another officer on Saturday. She came back on Monday. She didn’t even ask if I wanted to break the engagement. She just sent the ring back. I stayed away until Wednesday. That doesn’t seem very long to you, does it, Blake? Well, every hour had sixty long minutes in it. I was sick and crazy. I went to her and begged her to marry me. She said she didn’t love me. I told her I knew it would be different after we were married. It was different, Blake. A hell of a lot different. It was worse. She began to drink. I suspected her of running around. I hired detectives. They could never prove it. But she wouldn’t stay home. I learned to hate her. I sent her to a hospital when her drinking got out of hand. They cured her of drinking, but she wouldn’t come back to me.” A savage smile of pleasure worked across Reeder’s lips. “I don’t leave you much, do I, Blake?” He nodded with grim satisfaction. “That’s the way I want it. That’s why I hope you never find the man who killed her. It matters to you. You’re a tough guy. And you want vengeance. Well, I hope you. never find him. This proves to me that Stella wasn’t happy with you — or faithful to you. I hope you live with that the rest of your life.”

“I’ll find him,” Blake said.

“You still want to find him? After what I’ve told you?”

“What you’ve told me proves you’re a creep. All I know is that Stella and I were in love. So Stella had dates before you were married. Is that unheard of? Other girls have done it. So she started drinking after you were married? Maybe living with a jerk like you did that to her. I know what she was to me. That’s all that matters. I’ll find him. God help him when I do. God help you if I find out you did it.”

Reeder stood up. “You can get out now.”

Blake motioned toward the telephone. “I’d like to call a cab.”

Reeder smiled. “Let me do it for you.” He dialed a number, gave his address, replaced the receiver. “They’ll be here for you in a few minutes. I’m sorry, you’ll have to wait for it outside. On the sidewalk.”

“That’s all right with me. You can go to hell, Reeder.”

“I’ve been there for a long time, Blake. If you’ll just close the front door on your way out, please.”

He went back to his desk. He was leaning over the telephone, dialing a number as Blake went out the front door. Blake shrugged. To hell with him.

Blake let the front door click shut after him. He crossed the front porch. The sick-sweet smell of honeysuckle was stifling. He hurried down the steps and out along the walk to escape it. The cloying fragrance trailed after him like something unwholesome. It was as though Reeder walked beside him in the chilled darkness. God! No wonder Stella hit the bottle. Living with that creep.

As Blake reached the walk, the front porch light was snapped off behind him. The rain had stopped. The wind was rising. The houses along the street were dark and silent. He began to walk up and down to keep warm. His hands began to shake from cold. He rammed them into his pockets and walked faster up and down before the dark old house. He began to shake, first in his chest, along his arms and then in his legs. The taxi came. Blake was trembling all over. His teeth were chattering. It took him two minutes to make the driver understand he wanted to be taken to the bus station.