Something blue (10 page)

"Bart, Jr., is O.K., you know." The lawyer drummed his fingers. "I wish Dick had stayed away."

"Why, sir?"

"I don't exactly know.''

"Where had he been?"

"After they kicked him out of college—some escapade, I forget what—why, he roamed around the country. In and out of the Navy. All kinds of jobs. He tried some white-collar job on a big liner. Never stuck to anything very long.

Turned up here about a year and a half ago. Made up to the old man. But the old man left him out of his will. Nathaniel's proper share went to tfie old lady."

"Was Dick disappointed?"

"He took it very well, as far as I know."

"Is he a partner or what?"

"He's a hired hand, as far as I know. If he had money, I'm sure Bart could use it. I understand the old man didn't keep the place up. Bart's got a lot of modernizing to do. But where would Dick get any capital?"

Johnny didn't explain where.

"Bart will pull it out in time. Knows his business."

"You don't think Dick had anything to do with Christy's death?"

"I doubt it," the lawyer said. "I think McCauIey's stuck with it. A jury convicted him. You \\on't overturn that in a hurry." His eyes were tired.

Johnny rose.

"Bart and Dick are coming in this morning. Papers to draw up.^

"Thanks and excuse me," said Johnny hastily.

No, he wouldn't overturn anything in a hurr\% but he was in a hurry, just the same.

CHAPTER 11

Out on the sidewalk of the dusty little town that strung out along the highway, Johnny stood in thought.

What could he do or find that would mean an>'thing? Doubt did not help. Doubt was seventeen years too late. Yet, it wasn't Johnny's immediate business to convince a jury, but to convince himself. Resolve his own doubt. He must go to see this Kate.

Then he saw the green convertible, a dark head in the driver's seat, a blonde head riding beside. Nan pulled up to

the curb; Dorothy said, "What are you up to, Johnny? Come on to Riverside with us. You can buy us lunch."

"I've got a httle chore . . ." he began.

''Oh, poohl You've got to eat your lunch." Dorothy very much wanted him to come along.

Nan said mildly, "We're going to the Mission Inn. It's supposed to be nice. Why don't you come along, Johnny? Move in, Dotty. Let Johnny sit on the outside."

Johnny looked at Dorothy. The blue eyes seemed to say, ''! need to talk to you."

"Why don't you two come with me? Take fifteen minutes? Then I'll treat you to a fancy lunch, sky's the limit. A deal?"

''Where are you going?" asked Dorothy.

"To see a woman. Talk a minute."

"About that old murder?" Nan pouted.

''Oh, come on," said Dorothy. "Fifteen minutes can't hurt. More fun lunching with a man."

"We were going shopping," Nan began. But Dorothy was out of the car.

Nan took the keys out of the ignition and slid along the seat. "I'll just tag along behind you two," Nan said, most transparently throwing them together.

Kate's place seemed to have a Mexican clientele. The bar was not doing a lot of business; two dark-skinned men leaned there. Dark eyes inspected the girls.

The place was not elegant. Poverty came here. Poverty felt at home here. Poverty wouldn't notice the holes in the plaster, the stained ceiling.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed man behind the bar, when asked for Miss Callahan, simply shouted where he stood. She peered through a pair of dirty pink curtains at the back. "Yeah?"

"Miss Callahan, may we talk to you?"

"Why not?" she said. "Come on back here, why don't you?"

So they went through the pink curtains and here was a small square back room, a round table, perhaps for cards, a gas-heater, calendar art on the walls. A nest for Kate herself in the comer, consisting of a shapeless easy chair, a basket of magazines, a radio, a manicure set.

"Sit do^vn," said Kate cordially. She was fat. She wore a

rusty black dress and a long string of bright green beads. Her hair was dyed, black as a raven's wing. Her aging face was laden with peach-colored make-up. Her lids were painted blue. But her mouth was a wide curly mouth, and it smiled as if it were used to smiling. The eyes imder the blue hds were placid and kind.

"I came to ask you questions about Clinton McCauley?"

"Yeah?"

Johnny gave their names. They all sat down aroimd the

table. Kate said, 'Will you take something? Go ahead. On

>» me.

The girls declined with, thanks. But Johnny said, ''A beer? Thank you."

"Sure thing. Hey, Jaime!''

Kate would have a beer to keep him company. She moved the glass on the table. "Clinton McCauley," she said. "That poor guy." Her voice was pleasing. Husky and yet kind. "He never did no murder, you know. He got it, though. He's up at Q."

"I know,'' said Johnny. "I work for a writer, Miss Callahan. I'm looking for material."

"Well," Kate said, "it's a long time. But I'll teU you what I know about it. I knew Clint pretty well. Family man. Wanted to take care of his family. That Christy, though, that he was married to, she don't want to leave a nice cozy spot. She don't mind sponging on the Bartees."

"How did they get into the Bartee house?" asked Dorothy. "I want to understand."

"Oh, Dot," Nan murmured.

"Well, he went to Spain. Fought in that war," Kate said. "Christy, she didn't hold out long after he was gone. She coulda stayed where he put her. Decent apartment, CUnt said, and enough money in the bank to last her, if she'd just go easy. But no, she spent it up and then she moves in wath her rich relatives."

"Did you know Christy?" Johnny asked.

"Nope, I never even saw her. I don't get out much." Kate touched her hair. It seemed obvious that she was an indoor plant. "Well," she continued, "after Clint got out of Spain-he's wounded and out—lessee—in 1938, would it be? Well, Clint comes in here a lot. I felt sorry for him. He'd drink a few too many. Listen, who could blame him?" Kate paused.

' 'Course what he ought to have done, he oughta have gone and taken a job and said the—said she could fly a kite. But he didn't. Easy to say what he oughta have done."

"Easy, now," Johnny agreed.

'liie was just a kid, practically." Kate was tolerant to the bottom of her heart. This was plain. "Well, I guess you want to hear about the night she got killed. He was here, all right, that night. Finally left about 20 of 12 so as he could catch the last bus, see? He woulda got out there around midnight. I don't think he had time to kill anybody. That's what I say. Nobody listens to me, though."

Johnny was struck with this. Time to kill? First, to quarrel and to be heard quarreling. Time to wake the old lady.

"You'd swear to the time he left here?"

'1 did swear," Kate said. "The bus driver wouldn't swear, I though. He left all kinds of leeway."

(All gone into, years go.)

''Anyhow, fat lot of good, me swearing." The wide mouth curled.

Dorothy was hstening hard. Nan sat round-eyed, listening in spite of herself.

(Johnny thought, This is good. Let her begin to get-'Ae idea McCauley didn't do.it. Her father.) ''Go on," he said aloud.

'Well, so the next day, all I know is what I hear. She gets hit with a big old candlestick, and they catch Clint standing over her body with the thing that hit her in his hand."

Dorothy gasped.

'TH[e says he found it lying on the red carpet in the hall," said Johnny.

"Yeah, I know. But they didn't beheve him," Kate sighed. 'Well, so they got Clint in jail. I don't go to see him. Didn't think they'd let me in. For all I knew then, he did do it. I felt bad, you know. But I couldn't help feeling this Christy brought it on herself."

(Johnny winced. Her mother, he thought.)

"Well," Kate continued, "pretty soon, Mr. Marshall, that's Clint's lawyer, he comes around. What about this pin they found in Clint's pocket? O.K. Now—" Kate beat upon the table top with the back of her open hand. "1 gave him that pin two weeks before. I didn't give it to him to keep, see? But he had it and it was mine. I'd had that pin a million

years. Nathaniel Bartee gave it to me. Of course nobody believed that, either."

Nan said with a fastidious mouth, "Nathaniel Bartee?''

"Who was he?" asked Dorothy brightly. Dorothy had her hands clasped under her chin, elbows on the table.

"Dick's father, I believe," said Nan distantly.

"I don't understand about the pin,"said Dorothy.

Nan folded her hands and looked cool and detached.

"There were two pins alike," said Johnny rapidly. "Old Mrs. Bartee gave Christy one. Nathaniel's wife, the other. Christy's was in the safe, that evening. The safe was found open, at midnight. Christy's pin was gone. But Nathaniel's pin was in McCauley's pocket."

Dorothy blinked. "You mean they thought this McCauley took the pin out of the safe? Is that it?"

"That's it," said Johnny. "Nobody believed that Miss Cal-lahn, here, ever had one."

"Why didn't they?" asked Dorothy.

"Because Nathaniel Bartee produced a second pin."

"I don't understand . . ."

"Do you?" Johnny asked Kate Callahan.

"I expect it was on the floor, in there," said Kate, "and the old lady or, either, Nathaniel, one of them picked it up."

"And lied?" gasped Dorothy. "But why would Miss Callahan say she had one, if that wasn't true?"

Kate's mouth curled. "For heaven's sakes, call me Kate, dear."

"But you told about it—the police and all?" Dorothy demanded.

"Sure, I told. Got on the witness chair or whatever they call it. Told the truth." Kate's fat shoulders moved as it to say that truth had no chance in this seamy world. "Them Bartees hed."

Nan said, "Please, Johnny . . ." She looked distressed.

"A minute. Why did they lie, Kate? Were they trying to hurt McCauley?"

"I don't think so," the fat woman said, "I think it was just because the old man would have kicked Nathaniel out of the house for ever being near me." She spoke without resentment. "See, Nathaniel, he was afraid. You take a man who's afraid—" Kate looked sad, paint and all.

"What was he afraid of?"

'TH[is old man. The old lady. The world/'

"I thought the old lady-"

"Oh, she stuck up for him. But she bossed him/' Kate said. "That was the price of it. Nathaniel shoulda had a woman who'd let him be the boss. If he hadn't wanted to be the boss, Nathaniel would have got along a lot better."

'Tou are talking about Dick's father?" said Nan in a tight voice.

"That's right/' Kate nodded. "I didn't know him long. It was one time the old man went away for about six weeks and Nathaniel was worse oflF than ever. See, he was left in charge. He had his chance. He found out he just didn't have the guts to be the boss—or the nerve, or what it takes. He wasn't up to it. This hit him. Well, I was younger then That must be 1930 or '31—a million years ago.

"People come in here. Well, I'm friendly. They like to talk, you know. I guess it helps if you find a place where you say what's on your mind. Anyhow, he gave me that pin, last time I saw him, I think it was. He didn't say it was real jewels. I didn't think anything of it. He wanted to do something nice. There was no harm in that. But when it comes to the trial Nathaniel gets up and lies about it. Well, probably he had to." Kate understood, forgave.

"Why should he he?" said Dorothy fiercely.

"I told you. The old man would have kicked him out."

'WelI, then, he should have got out—"

"It would have been rough on him," Kate said. -

"Or good for him," said Dorothy angrily.

"Maybe so, dear. But things don't always happen the way they should, I guess." (Almost never, Kate's tone implied.) "When I couldn't help poor Chnton McCauley out of that mess, beheve me, I felt bad. Still, I think now he would have been miserable, anyhow. With Christy gone. He was too crazy about her. Well, I dunno . . ." Kate seemed to be accepting, digesting, almost bringing herself around to the point of agreeing with an old evil. Then she said, "One person I felt real sorry for, and that's the little baby. Poor little thing. Her mama killed, her papa sent up, and not true either."

"You think," said Johnny quickly, "that Chnton McCauley did not do itr

"I said so, didn't I? I know this much. He never took

any pin out of that safe, see? The one he had in his pocket was mine. That's what I know. And if they'd believed me, I don't think they could have put him away."

Dorothy said, with vigor, "If Clinton McCauley didn't kill her, who could have done it?"

Johnny, paralyzed, couldn't speak, couldn't stop an answer. Wasn't sure whether he ought . . .

"Who did kill Christy McCauley?" said Kate. "WeU, dear, I got an awful good guess. The crazy kid did it. You know, Nathaniel's kid. Richardson Bartee?"

Chair legs scraped. Nan rose. Her face was white. "You horrible woman!" she said. She got around the table.

Johnny was up and took her shoulders. Nan said furiously, "Let me go." Her eyes were hard and bright. "Now, I see what you're trying to do! Behind Dick's back! I despise you!" She shook away from his touch.

Johrmy felt sad. A great empty pit yawned open in the dark of his mind.

Dorothy was up, too. "I'll go with her," Dorothy said, catching his arm as if to hold him back. Johnny, who had not moved, looked down at her. "They had their blood tests made yesterday," she told him. Then Dorothy began to run after Nan.

Johnny followed to the door. Nan was down the block. He saw Dorothy catch up. He stood stiU. Blood tests! Yesterday!

Kate's voice said behind him, "Say, who are they?"

"That's Dick Bartee's fiancee," he told her painfully.

yeah? Who's the httle dark one?"

"His fiancee," Johnny repeated impatiently.

"The little one? WeU! I'd have thought he'd go for the snazzy blonde."

Johnny hardly heard. He didn't know whether to go after Nan or not. He decided not. Turning, took Kate's fat forearm in his fingers. "Isn't there anybody who could swear you ever had that pin?" he demanded. "Anybody?"

"A milhon years ago," she said sadly. "Nobody. See, I put it away. It didn't look like much. I never wore it. Wasn't my type of—" Kate grinned, "junk. But it was mine. And I never got it back either," she added. "What are you trying to do, anyhow? You're no writer, my friend."