Pale Betrayer (22 page)

“I know,” Mather said.

“But the thing I wanted to tell you—the reason I remembered him—it’s two or three months ago, you see—but the man that was with him, his partner?”

Mather said: “A tall handsome young man …”

Sally nodded. “I saw him with Jeffrey Osterman. I was kind of following after Jeffrey in the park. He sat down and I was going to walk by him, you know, casual? But that man came up and put his arm around Jeffrey so naturally I went the other way.”

M
ARKS CHECKED WITH THE
men staking out Mather’s apartment building on Perry Street. Not hide nor hair. A second day’s mail now crowded the box. He called the chairman of Mather’s department at Central University. The chairman himself was at that hour taking Mather’s class in the Victorian novel. He called Louise Steinberg. She had not heard from Mather.

“That morning when he broke down at the Bradleys’ and ran out—what caused it? What did he say to Janet, or she to him? You were there, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but they didn’t say anything. They just stood there and when Janet turned away, he broke down. But, Dave …”

“Yes?”

“Eric called her that same night.”

“The night before last,” Marks said. “What time?”

“It must have been close to midnight. I wasn’t going to call her to the phone, but she was still up …”

“Did you hear what was said by either of them?”

“No. Janet took the call in the bedroom and by the time I got back to the kitchen to hang up the phone they were already off the line.”

Suggesting one thing, Marks thought: a date to meet, and presumably a place. “Louise, I asked you yesterday morning …”

“I know, but you asked me if I’d seen him. And it was in the church. I couldn’t very well run after you when I thought of it.”

“I don’t always get across,” Marks said, as angry with himself as with Louise. “Where can I reach Mrs. Bradley now?”

“I can give you the flight number,” Louise said.

He was waiting at the ramp when Janet came off the plane. She was a moment recognizing him. “Lieutenant Marks,” he said.

“I remember now,” she said, and allowed him to take her suitcase. She had no other luggage. Her dark blue suit, the white blouse fluffy at her throat, became her as few widows could claim of their weeds.

“There are some questions I need to ask you. I can drive you home meanwhile.” Then, because she said nothing and he felt some commiseration, not too lugubrious, was indicated, he added: “You must be tired.”

“I’m … nothing,” Janet said, but smiled at him. A gracious lady, Marks thought, which was perhaps the most deceptive of feminine characteristics. He had known some mighty gracious bitches in his day.

He decided to tell her on the way into the city of Dr. Corrales, the fiasco he had seemed to make of the police case. He dwelt as little as possible on the weapon aspect. It could not be avoided altogether. The name was in no way familiar to Janet. “I’m reasonably sure Peter did not know him either. Peter was apolitical, you know. He had been in school when it was considerably less than fashionable. Too many of the scientists he admired got bogged down—and hurt.”

Which attitude, Marks thought, made Bradley the better instrument for the plotters. Marks opened the glove compartment of the car and took out Corrales’s picture. Janet looked at it carefully.

“I’ve never seen the man to my knowledge,” she said, and for him returned the framed photo to the compartment.

Marks said: “The picture in your book, Mrs. Bradley, the woman on the stoop looking down at the child?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a terrific picture.”

“Because the subject herself was,” Janet said. “She was a girl in trouble.”

“You talked with her?”

“Oh, yes. I gave her twenty dollars, supposedly for allowing me to use her picture. It made it easier for her to accept it.”

“Did she tell you the trouble she was in?”

“It was not hard to guess,” Janet said. “It was in her eyes, the way she looked—wanting the child.”

Marks thought for a moment. Then he asked: “How did you happen to be there?”

“I was following the child wherever he wandered—photographing him—with his mother’s permission. By that time he had become so accustomed to me, he no longer noticed.”

“Where did he live, Mrs. Bradley?”

“On Eighteenth Street near Second Avenue.”

“And he wandered all the way to Eleventh Street?” Marks said.

Janet looked at him, not understanding.

“Dr. Corrales’s clinic is on Eleventh Street.”

Janet shook her head. “I simply don’t get the connection. The picture I assume you’re talking about was taken on Eighteenth Street, no more than a half-block from the child’s home.”

“… No clinic there, no doctor’s office?” Marks was trying now to dislodge his own fixed idea.

“I couldn’t say positively,” Janet said, “but I’m fairly certain. It was an ordinary tenement house like most of the buildings in that block.”

“I could have sworn I saw a sign in the background of your picture,” Marks said.

Janet, twisting round in the seat, getting on her knees, opened her suitcase on the back seat. “Louise had the quaint idea I’d want the book with me.”

A moment later she had it open to the page in question. Marks pulled off the road to look at it. A little square of reflected sky shone in the window behind the girl. Plainly it was not a sign: it had simply become one in his imagination.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Marks said after a bit, “if the fixed idea has ruined more people than it’s improved.”

Janet smiled. “That sounds almost un-American.”

Not until they drove up to her house did he put the important question. He asked it with no particular emphasis, but watched closely to see her reaction: “Have you heard from Eric Mather in the last day or so?”

Janet hesitated, then with a faint uplift of her head—pride? defiance?—she said: “I saw him in Chicago last night.”

“He should not have left New York,” Marks said quietly. “Do you know where I can reach him?” There was no urgency in his voice, and having met Janet at the ramp of the plane he knew she had not seen the New York papers.

“At his own apartment or the University. He returned by the first flight this morning.”

Or so he had told her he was doing, Marks thought. “Was he in Chicago—because of you?”

Janet tried to be as honest as she could. “I think that’s possible, Lieutenant, but I am not sure.”

Marks got out and opened the door for her, then got her suitcase from the back seat. Louise was waiting at a discreet distance, standing in the vestibule doorway.

Janet offered Marks her hand. The handshake was brief, its pressure light. She insisted on taking her own suitcase.

“You have my sympathy,” Marks said.

She looked at him sharply, startled. Then she turned to meet Louise who was running down the steps, her arms open. If the words, spoken rather late to have reference to her husband, might in any way forewarn her of further shock ahead, Marks was satisfied. That Mather had made the trip to confide, to confess himself to her, the detective could easily believe. But if that were so, he could not believe that Janet Bradley would now conceal it.

M
ATHER CLIMBED THE STAIRS
to the fourth floor, avoiding the use of the crowded elevators. He would take his chances now, but no more of them than necessary. He found the study hall crowded, some of his own students at the tables. He nodded at those who noticed him and ignored the whispering that sometimes followed in his wake. He laid a firm hand on Osterman’s shoulder, coming up unnoticed behind him. As the boy looked up, he said: “I want to talk with you. Come.”

Without protest the boy got up, leaving his open books, and followed him. Mather led the way to the English Department’s common room at the end of the hall. It was deserted as usual. Mather closed the door, and finding a key on the inside, turned it.

Osterman was at the age when his features changed, month to month. Mather had thought him a good-looking boy, rather virile, when he had had him in his classes. That no doubt accounted for the fury with which he had struck him when the boy had put his hand in his—and after which, except for the night in the Red Lantern, he had determinedly not thought of him at all. Now the boy’s face was soft and sallow, an effete corruption showing at his mouth that sickened Mather. He did not want to know more than his own instinct told him of Osterman’s relationship with the big blond partner to his own conspiracy. He wanted to know but one thing.

“How do I get in touch with Tom? Where can I reach him?”

“Tom?” The eyes were insolent.

Mather kept his hands at his side, but the boy saw the clenching of his fists and his own eyes strayed toward the door. Mather had left the key in it.

“I have a witness who will swear to your association with him.”

“Mr. Mather, why do you hate me so much? I’ve never harmed you. I’ve tried with all my might not to embarrass either one of us. I even tried at first to do what you said I should—to find a girl. Remember, after you hit me?” The boy was pouting, whining like a righteous child in its own defense.

“Or a psychiatrist, I think I said.”

“Do you know what I did, Mr. Mather? I walked straight across the park, into the building and asked the first girl I met to go out with me that night. And in spite of all the show
you
made over her in the Red Lantern, she was the most vulgar, horrid, pretentious hag. Besides which, she smelled.”

“And so you went back to the park for fresh air. And got picked up by Tom.”

“You make it sound so vulgar.”

“A pickup, man or woman, is vulgar,” Mather said.

“Oh, you Puritan! You’re a New England prude, if you don’t mind my saying it, Mr. Mather.”

“I don’t mind what you say—or to whom you say it, Osterman. I want one small piece of information from you. You took a notice from the bulletin board on Monday. What did you do with it?”

“I read it to Tom over the telephone. He’s been wanting to get a dog, one he wouldn’t have to pay much money for.”

Dear God, Mather thought. The boy could not be that simple. “But you took the notice down from the board!”

“I didn’t want them all to be gone before he could get there.”

“What did he say to you? And when? How did you know to watch the board?”

“He asked me to. He said a friend had told him when the litter was old enough he was going to advertise it there. And last week-end when I saw him, he reminded me to watch for it and call him right away.”

“What does Tom do for a living?” Mather asked. He had to know it all now. For the boy’s sake, not his own.

“He’s a construction engineer. He was working on the project south of the park. Now he’s gone to Florida. He’s promised to write to me.”

“Has he taken the puppy with him?” Mather asked, sick to his bones.

“I didn’t think to ask him. I shouldn’t think so, but I’d have been willing to keep it for him.”

Mather folded his arms. He was half-sitting on a desk. Someone rattled the door and then went away. “Jeffrey, just when did you meet him?”

“You want me to tell you that. All right. I met him when I needed him. When you struck me in the face. The next day—he’d seen it happen.”

“So I’d supposed. He asked you about me?”

“Not really. He wanted to know more about me … and the red-headed girl. Do you know, she’s had the nerve to keep going back to the Imagists? On her own!”

Mather realized that if he tried now to tell the boy what he knew of the man with whom he had taken up he would not believe him. “Don’t you have any parents, Jeffrey?”

“My mother’s in Boston … with a man.”

“I see. That accounts for your knowledgeableness about New England prudes. Did you ever meet a friend of Tom’s, a man he called Jerry?”

“No. We don’t mix with other people. Just ourselves. He has another life to lead.”

How true. “Did you see a police drawing of a man in this morning’s paper, a man wanted for questioning in Professor Bradley’s murder?”

“I don’t read newspapers. Bradley taught here at Central, didn’t he?”

“Tom and his other friend and
I
myself assisted in Bradley’s murder.” The moment he said the words, Mather recognized the irony: his first overt confession was to this sick boy. He was the more vehement when he added: “Unless I’m able to locate Tom today, I shall tell your story as well as my own to the police.”

The boy smiled a little, his round mouth unable to hold itself firm. He went deadly pale and Mather thought he was going to faint. He caught him by the arms and shook him. “You’ve been used, my boy, in more ways than one. Do you understand?”

“No! I’ll hear from him. I know I will.”

“What name did he give you? Tom what?”

“Jones. But I knew that was a joke.”

“Where did you call him? That notice about the puppies—where?”

“I’ll give you the number. I left the message for him.”

Mather let go of him. Osterman fumbled in his inside pocket and brought out an address book, his hands trembling so much that he could scarcely open the cover, on the back of which the number was written.

Mather waited, pencil and a match packet open in his hand. The boy held the book where he could see it for himself, a Spring telephone exchange, far downtown.

“It isn’t true what you said, is it?” Osterman whined. “You made it up to get Tom’s number out of me?”

Mather just looked at him. He picked up his valise, took it to his desk and, removing the notebook from it, he left the case on the chair under the desk.

The boy watched him, not moving from where he stood. “I wish I’d never met him!”

“So do I,” Mather said from the door.

Again he used the stairs, running down the four flights, passing only a workman with his toolbox on the way. Reaching the main floor he decided against the trafficked corridors and went on to the basement and outdoors by way of the loading entrance.

He was on the south side of the building where the traffic was almost entirely commercial. Nonetheless, he went on for several blocks angling east and south into the hatters’ district before he stepped into a public phone booth. He watched for a pause in the flow of buses and trucks, then deposited his dime and dialed.