The Blue Movie Murders (18 page)

“I was just—doing some shopping.”

“Oh Sunday afternoon?”

“You know—picking up the New York papers and a quart of milk.”

He took a wild shot in the dark. “You were heading for Ron Kozinski's cab stand.”

She flushed and looked away. “I have to get home somehow. My husband has the car.”

“I don't think you'll find Ron there.”

“Is that so? I think I see him now.”

McCall gaped. Ron Kozinski was sitting in his cab at the usual place, looking as if he didn't have a care in the world. When he spotted Elizabeth Mann heading in his direction, he hopped out and opened the cab door.

“I've been looking for you,” McCall told him. “I even phoned your brother.”

“I've been around.”

McCall's eyes took in the faded jacket he wore over his shirt, with a little pattern of moth holes up near one shoulder. “Suppose we talk,” he suggested.

“The lady's a customer. Sorry.”

But then suddenly something changed. Elizabeth Mann changed. “Get in, Mr. McCall,” she said very distinctly. “I believe the trip might interest you.” McCall slipped quickly in beside her, before she could change her mind.

At the wheel, Ron Kozinski turned in his seat, crimson-faced. “What in hell is this?”

“Mr. Kozinsky here is attempting to blackmail me,” Elizabeth Mann said, still speaking very distinctly. “Foolishly, I was about to pay him off, until you came along.” She opened her purse and brought out a thick envelope of money. McCall stared at it, wondering if the bills were the same ones with which Xavier Mann had tried to bribe him on Friday morning.

“Don't listen to her,” Kozinski growled. “She's nuts!”

“Why was he blackmailing you?” McCall asked her.

“Because of
The Wild Nymph
.”

“All right, Kozinski, how did you find out?”

“I don't know what she's talking about.”

“I think you do. Ben Sloane was paying you for information. And you were supplying it. I know he phoned you the night before he died, and the way I figured it you're one of only three people who could have killed him.”

“That's crazy!”

“Is it? The motel had him registered in the wrong room. Anyone coming to see him would have been sent to the wrong room. Since the killer found the right room, he must have been told the room number by Ben Sloane himself. And the motel records show he talked to just three people the night before he died—to Mann, Mayor Jordan—and you.”

“I didn't kill him.”

“You'll have to prove that to me.”

Ron Kozinski thought about that. Finally he said, “I can prove it. I can deliver the real murderer to you. How much is it worth to Governor Holland?”

“We don't make deals or pay bribes, Kozinski.”

“And I don't give information for free.”

“Then how's this for a bargain? Deliver Sloane's murderer to me and I won't have you arrested for trying to blackmail this lady.”

“Not good enough,” Kozinski decided. “She won't press charges anyway—will you, Mrs. Mann?”

Elizabeth Mann had reached the limit of her endurance. “I'm leaving here. The two of you can battle it out.” She opened the door on her side and got out.

“You just lost a customer,” McCall remarked.

“I lose them every day.”

“Now let's quit the sparring and get down to business. I want Sloane's murderer and I want him fast—or you're taking the rap for it, Kozinski.”

“I'm not taking the rap for anything, wise guy.”

McCall's eyes narrowed. “Not even the killing of George Watts?”

“Watts is alive!” But there was fear in his voice.

“You have an interesting pattern of holes in the shoulder of your jacket, Kozinski. They were either made by a team of precision moths or by the edge of the pattern fired by George Watts's shotgun in the living room of his home.”

“He's alive, I tell you!”

“Then take me to him.”

Kozinski pressed the accelerator and started off down May Street. “I'll do just that, wise guy!”

After they'd driven a few blocks McCall asked, “How did you know about Elizabeth Mann?”

“George Watts told me—the same as he told me the rest of it. My brother Jack heard he'd made that sex film and put me in touch with him. Watts always needs money, so he was willing to talk about it. Some months ago I read in the paper that Ben Sloane was searching for the director of
The Wild Nymph
and I contacted him. Watts had seen
The Wild Nymph
, once, while he was making his own film, and he knew the Mann plant could be seen briefly in one scene. I told Sloane about that, and he offered me money for more information. Finally he decided to come here himself.”

“And Elizabeth Mann?”

“Watts recognized her in the film. He didn't tell it to anyone but me, and I decided the information was worth money.”

“Did you tell Sloane?”

“No. I was saving that till he was here in Rockview and I could get more money out of him. As it turned out, he was killed before I had a chance.”

“So you tried blackmailing Mrs. Mann.”

“Hell, the information was worth money!”

“You didn't tell it to Sloane, but you did talk to him the night before his murder. What about?”

“He just called to tell me he'd arrived. He'd phoned Mann and Mayor Jordan too. Sloane had written to them, and also to the police chief and that state police guy, Major Hart. He wanted information about Sol Dahlman, but Mann and Jordan told him on the phone they didn't know a thing. He couldn't find the other two numbers in the phone book, so he called me.”

“He said Mann and Jordan had no information for him?”

“That's right.”

“Then there'd have been no reason for them to call at his motel in the early morning.”

“Right again, Troubleshooter.”

“Therefore, Sloane had no reason to give either of them his room number.”

Kozinski nodded, turning the taxi down a shaded side street. “You're still scoring.”

“Did he give you his room number, Kozinski?”

“Nope. Never mentioned it. He said he was at the Rockview Motel, that was all. Said he'd be in touch with me. I was saving Elizabeth Mann for when we met, for when I could see the colour of his dough. I figured he'd pay well to know of someone who actually starred in
The Wild Nymph
—who actually knew Sol Dahlman.”

“She thinks he died in the Korean War.”

“That so? Then all Sloane's searching was for nothing.”

“Maybe.”

A few tentative drops of water hit the windshield. Kozinski switched on his wipers. “Anyway, yesterday after I heard the strike was settled, and Tanner was going to be released, I went out to see Watts. He was sitting in his living room with a shotgun across his lap, edgy as the devil.

“I told him about Tanner and somehow he got the idea I was his enemy. I was just trying to get him out of that place, but he misunderstood. He took a shot at me and damn near blew my head off!”

“But he did leave,” McCall insisted. “I came by there later and found the gun and the holes in the wall.”

“Sure, he left! But I practically had to drag him out. I took him to my place overnight.”

“Why? Not just because you were afraid of Tanner.”

“I had my reasons,” Kozinski muttered.

“When Watts approached me that first day in the bar at the Rockview Motel, he had one of Sloane's letters with him. He got that from you, didn't he?”

“What if he did?”

“But Suzanne Walsh, who typed and mailed the letters, told me that only four were sent—to Mann, Jordan, Chief Burns, and Major Hart. If you had a letter to give Watts, it had to be one of those. Which one?”

Ron Kozinski snorted and shook his head. “McCall, for the Governor's top man you've got a lot to learn. Hell, I'm not even a detective and I can tell you who killed Sloane. If you don't see it by now, there's no hope for you!”

“Where are we going now?”

“To Watt's house. To meet a murderer.”

“Sloane's killer will be there?”

“That's the general idea. I couldn't get any money out of Mrs. Mann, but the day isn't going to be a total loss.”

“Blackmailing the star of a sex film is one thing. Blackmailing a murderer is something else.”

“I take my chances.” He grinned into the rear-view mirror. “That's why you're along, McCall. In case the party gets rough.”

“I'm not standing by while you blackmail anyone.”

“You don't have to. The asking price is ten grand. Pay it, and the killer of Ben Sloane is all yours.”

“I'll think about it,” McCall told him, playing for time.

They turned on to the familiar Camptown street and drove through widening puddles of rainwater to the little grey house with the low picket fence and the grassless front yard. Back once more to the home of George Watts, and somehow it seemed fitting. Somehow McCall had always known the case would end here.

“I'll go in first,” Kozinski said. “Wait in the car.”

“I don't carry a gun,” McCall said.

“There's no worry. Not with this one.” He got out of the car and ran quickly through the rain to the sagging front porch.

Motionless with indecision, McCall watched him go through the door. He waited a moment too long before acting. The sound of a single shot reached him from the house.

He was out of the car then and running, slipping on the wet pavement, regaining his balance, and reaching the porch almost before the echo of the shot had died away on the rainy street. Then he was through the door, into the dim living room of George Watts's house once more.

It took a moment for his eyes to become accustomed to the semi-darkness, and he tensed there in the doorway, ready to spring aside at the slightest sound. Gradually, as his vision improved, he saw Ron Kozinski's body sprawled in the centre of the room, face down. Seated in his usual chair, but without the shotgun this time, was George Watts.

“Are you all right?” McCall spoke to him.

Watts turned his head slowly and looked up. “Get out of here,” he said, very quietly. It was more a warning than a threat.

But McCall moved into the room, kneeling for an instant to feel Kozinski's pulse. Then he sensed a movement behind the fringed drapes that separated the living room from the room beyond.

He stood up and said, quite clearly, “You might as well come out, Suzanne. I know it's you.”

The drapes parted and Suzanne Walsh stepped into the room. She no longer looked like the perfect secretary. There was a tiny automatic in her hand and an expression of something like madness in her pale eyes.

EIGHTEEN

Sunday, May 16

McCall had looked down the barrels of guns more times than he liked to remember, and he felt no special fear of the tiny weapon in Suzanne Walsh's hand. It was the madness in her eyes that frightened him more, and as he stood facing her he tried to speak softly.

“You don't really need that, Suzanne. Not with me. I didn't come to blackmail you.”

“Only to arrest me, is that it?”

Her voice was firm and unwavering, and McCall took that as a hopeful sign. Perhaps he could reason with her. He glanced sideways at the chair where George Watts still sat motionless and then said, “Suzanne, you can't go around killing people without expecting to be arrested.”

She blinked her pale eyes. “I shot him in self-defence. He was trying to attack me.”

“What about Ben Sloane? Did you shoot him in self-defence, too?”

She gestured with the gun. “Did Kozinski say I killed him?”

“He didn't have to. I knew.”

“Well, it's a lie!”

“I imagine that's the very gun that did it, too. You wouldn't be likely to have two of them.”

“You're guessing now.”

“Am I? There are a half-dozen reasons why you have to be Sloane's killer, Suzanne. Want to hear all six?”

“Keep talking.”

“First, and most obvious, you've just killed Ron Kozinski who was coming here to blackmail Sloane's murderer. That's pretty conclusive in itself, but I have plenty to back it up. Cynthia Rhodes went to see Sloane on the night before he was killed. The motel had a mixup in the room numbers, as you've already explained to me. They thought Sloane was in 234, but that was the room you took. When Cynthia called Sloane, she was connected with your room, and actually spoke to you to learn Sloane's correct room number.”

“So?”

“So my second point: you told me you knew of no calls or visitors he'd received. You lied about that, for a reason I'll get to in a moment.”

“Either I lied or Cynthia Rhodes lied.”

“It had to be you, because Cynthia did visit Sloane's room. If she lied about getting his correct room number from you, then how could she have got it? Not from the motel desk—it had the wrong number. No, Cynthia had to be telling the truth, and therefore you were lying.”

The eyes flickered. “You'd have me convicted of murder on the basis of one lie?”

“Oh, there's more. Point three: Cynthia couldn't have killed Sloane, since she was back in the capital at the time of the crime. Therefore we're faced with the same problem—how did the killer know which was Sloane's room? How did he get to Sloane instead of you? I've puzzled about this for days, and found myself going around in circles. It came down to this: Sloane phoned three people that night. He had no other contacts we know about. Granting that robbery was not a motive—his money wasn't touched—we're left with the conclusion that the killer came looking for Sloane, found the man he wanted, and killed him.

“Now, the desk clerk didn't know his room number; Cynthia knew it but couldn't have killed him; and his only other contacts were with Mann, Jordan, and Kozinski—the three he called. All three deny that he told them his room number, or that they came to see him that morning. Since it's doubtful he would have mentioned the room number to one and not the others, we have to believe that he told none of them. After all, why should he?