The Case of the Lazy Lover (14 page)

After a while Fleetwood said, "Who's this Allred you've been talking about?"

"I thought you might recognize the name."

"It sounds sort of familiar. Tell me more about him."

"What do you want to know about him?"

"Who was he?"

"What makes you think he's dead?"

"I didn't say he was dead."

"You asked who he was."

"Well, I don't know."

"But why didn't you say, `Who is he?' "

"I don't know. Maybe you gave me the impression he was a dead relative or something."

"Do you think he's dead?"

"I don't know, I tell you! I don't know a thing in the world about him. Now shut up and stop cross-examining me!"

They drove for more than an hour, then Fleetwood, who had apparently decided on a course of action, said, "I don't want to go with you."

"Where do you want to go?"

"Home!"

"Where's your home?"

"I tell you I don't know, but I don't want to go with you. You are going to deliver me to this man you were talking about – what's his name – Dixon Keith? Yeah, I think that's it."

"You know Keith?"

"You mentioned his name. Where did you get all this about a doctor saying that I needed to be kept quiet?"

"That's the standard treatment of victims of amnesia," Mason said.

They had another long period of silence, Fleetwood thinking in scowling concentration.

They entered the city. Delta Street turned to look questioningly at Mason.

The lawyer nodded.

"Now the interesting part about amnesia," Mason went on, "is that when you do get your memory back and remember who you are, if you have had genuine amnesia, you won't be able to remember a thing that happened during the period you were suffering from amnesia. Remember that, Fleetwood."

"My name's not Fleetwood."

"Maybe it isn't," Mason admitted. "Anyway, remember one thing – when you get your memory back, and do know who you are,if you have had a genuine amnesia, you won't be able to recall anything that happened during the period when your mind was a blank. During your period of amnesia, you remember everything except who you are in your past life. Once the memory of your past life comes back to you, you can't recall anything about the interval of amnesia."

"Why are you giving me all that good advice?"

"Oh, I just want you to make a good job of all this," Mason said.

Della Street said over her shoulder, "How am I doing, Chief?"

"Keep crowding the signals," Mason said.

Della Street nodded.

From time to time she jockeyed the car through signals after the red light had flashed, but before oncoming traffic, which was not particularly heavy at that hour of the night, engulfed her.

The fourth time she did this there was the low wail of a siren, and a motorcycle officer said, "I guess you'd better pull in to the curb, Ma'am! What's your hurry?"

Mason rolled down the window on his side. "We're going to police headquarters, Officer," he said. "That's the hurry. If you'll escort us, we have a man to take there."

"No, you don't!" Fleetwood yelled. "You're not taking me any place. You… Let me out of here!"

The officer kicked the prop under his motorcycle as Della Street brought the car to a stop. Fleetwood struggled with the door, trying to get past Gertie.

The officer said, "Wait a minute, buddy. Let's take a look at this."

"No, you don't!" Fleetwood yelled. "You can't arrest me! I haven't done anything."

"What's this all about?" the officer asked.

"Police want this man," Mason said calmly, "for questioning in connection with the murder of Bertrand C. Allred."

Fleetwood jerked the door open.

"Hey, you!" the officer shouted. "Hold it!"

Fleetwood hesitated.

"Come on back here!" the officer said. "I don't mean maybe! Hold it What is this?"

Mason said, 'This man is Robert Gregg Fleetwood. He was the last man to see Bertrand Allred alive."

"Who are you?" the officer asked.

"I'm Perry Mason."

Fleetwood shouted, "You're Perry Mason!"

"'That's right"

"Why, you ditty shyster!" Fleetwood shouted. "You've tricked me. You're Lola Allred's lawyer. I know all about you."

"And how did you know I was a lawyer?" Mason asked. "And how did you know that Mrs. Allred's first name is Lola?"

Fleetwood paused for a moment, took long breaths, and suddenly clapped his hand to his forehead, "I've got it now!"

"Got what?" the officer asked.

"'The whole thing," Fleetwood said. "It all comes back to me! For a minute my mind was going around in circles and now I suddenly know who I am. I'm Robert Gregg Fleetwood!"

"And where have you been?" Mason asked.

"I can't remember," Fleetwood said. "The last thing I can remember is a rainy night I was talking with Bertrand Allred and I started to go home to get dressed for dinner and something hit me. I can't remember a thing after that. My mind is a blank!"

Mason grinned at the officer, flashed him a broad wink, but his voice was sympathetic as he said, "Poor Fleetwood! He's subject to fits of amnesia. Now when we picked him up in the mountains, he didn't know who he was. He couldn't remember his name at all."

"It's come back to me now," Fleetwood said.

"And where have you been in the last two or three days?" Mason asked.

"I don't know," Fleetwood said. "I feel sick. I'm nauseated. My mind is a blank as far as the last few days are concerned."

Mason said to the officer, "You want to use the siren and clear the way to police headquarters? I think Lieutenant Tragg of the homicide squad wants to talk with this man."

The traffic officer said, "This is going to be a feather in my cap, Mason. I guess I owe you one for this. Come on, let's go! Can this girl follow the siren?"

"You get your siren going good and loud," Mason said "and don't look behind you. She'll have the radiator pushed right up against the rear wheel of your motorcycle."

"Let's go!" the officer said.

Gertie slammed the car door shut. Fleetwood settled back into sullen silence, between Mason and Gertie.

The officer kicked on his red spotlight and the siren. Della Street threw the car into second gear and then after the second block, slammed it into high.

They screamed their way through the frozen night traffic of the city, until, within a matter of minutes, the officer flagged them to a stop in from of police headquarters.

He walked back to the car, said to Fleetwood, "Okay, buddy, you come with me!"

Fleetwood opened the door of the car, crowded past Mason.

"Right this way," the officer said to Fleetwood.

Fleetwood gave Mason a venomous look, turned and followed the officer.

Chapter 13

Mason waited until the officer and Fleetwood had entered police headquarters, and then he, himself, entered the building and found a telephone booth, dialed the number of Paul Drake's office and said to Drake's night secretary, "Perry Mason talking. I have to get in touch with Paul immediately. Where can I locate him?"

"He's home, getting some shut-eye," she said.

"Okay. I'll call him there."

Mason hung up, dialed the number of Drake's apartment, and after a few moments heard Drake's voice, thick with sleep, on the wire.

"Wake up, Paul," Mason said. "We're in the middle of a mess!"

"Oh, Lord," Drake groaned. "I should have known it. You spend all day sleeping in Gertie's apartment, and then…"

"Sleeping, hell!" Mason interrupted. "Playing cards, trying to keep awake sitting in a chair, and dozing. A more unsatisfactory day's sleep I've never had!"

"All right, all right!" Drake said. "What's wrong now?"

"We got Fleetwood," Mason said. "I got him to police headquarters. He didn't know who I was. Then I suddenly sprung it on him in front of some witnesses. That trapped him. He started cussing me for being Mrs. Allred's lawyer, and then realized he'd trapped himself into a betrayal of the amnesia business. So he clapped his hand to his head and said his memory had come back with a rush."

"Good stuff!" Drake said.

"A lot depends on what happens in the next sixty minutes," Mason said. "Have you got someone you can use here at headquarters to…"

"That's easy," Drake said. "One of the men I use is accredited as a special correspondent and has the privileges of the pressroom. Unless there's quite a hush-hush…"

"Get him on the job quick," Mason said. "I'm going to need some co-operation. And get dressed and get up to your office, Paul. We're going to have to do something fast."

"How come?"

"I think this fellow, Fleetwood, may be half smart," Mason said, "and we may either win or lose this case, as far as my client is concerned, within the next sixty minutes."

"Okay," Drake said, "I'll get my man on the job and have him up there. Anything else?"

"That's all for now," Mason said. "Well, wait a minute! This rancher, Overbrook, looks like a big, good-natured, rugged individual, but I'd like to find out something about him."

"Didn't you talk with him, Perry?"

"Sure, but I couldn't talk with him the way I wanted to because of Fleetwood being there and because I had to pretend Fleetwood was Gertie's husband."

"I see. Okay, I'll try and get everything I can lined up. I'll start working on the telephone from here, and then I'll be up at the office in fifteen minutes."

"That's fine," Mason said: "I'll be seeing you there."

Mason left the phone booth, walked to the office of the homicide squad, said to the officer who was at the switchboard, "How about Lieutenant Tragg? Is he in?"

"Fortunately, he is," the man said. "A big break in the Allred case found Tragg in his office."

"Tell him Perry Mason wants to see him."

"He won't see anyone for a while. He's interviewing a witness and…"

"You get the word to him that Perry Mason is out here and wants to see him for about two minutes. Tell him it may make a difference in the way he questions Fleetwood."

"Okay, I'll tell him," the officer said, got up from the switchboard, and walked down to Tragg's private office.

A minute later he came out and said, "Stick around for a few minutes, Mr. Mason. Tragg will come out just as soon as he gets a chance."

Mason nodded, took a cigarette and settled back in one of the uncushioned oak chairs.

The cigarette was half gone when the door was pushed open explosively, and Lieutenant Tragg came bustling out.

"Hello, Mason. What's on your mind?"

Mason walked over, took Tragg's arm, led him to one corner of the room, said, "You're always tell me I don't cooperate. This is one you can put on the credit side of the ledger."

"Damned if it isn't!" Tragg said "How did you find him?"

"I knew he was supposed to be suffering from amnesia."

"Okay. What's the rest of it?"

Mason said, "He didn't get his memory back until just before he entered headquarters." 'That's what the traffic officer was telling me."

Mason said, "As soon as he got his memory back, of course he forgot everything that had happened during the time he had amnesia. He remembers walking along a hedge in the Allred patio, and then something hit him, he went blooey, and he doesn't know a thing until he came to in front of headquarters."

"I'm wrestling with this amnesia business," Tragg said grimly, "and I think I'm going to cure it"

Mason said, "Perhaps I can help you on that. You see, we know pretty much what happened to him during the last two or three days."

"Okay, what was it?"

"There's a price for it."

"The hell there is!"

"That's right."

"What?"

"I want to see Mrs. Allred now."

"This is no time for visitors."

Mason said, "Phooey. In the first place, I'm her attorney, and in the second place, you haven't put her under formal arrest and charged her with anything. You've simply placed her where you can hold her."

Tragg said, "I should have known there was a catch in this thing somewhere."

"What the hell," Mason told him. "Do you want to look a gift horse in the mouth?"

"You're damn right, I do!" Tragg said. "Anytime you give me a horse, I'm going to look in his mouth."

"All right," Mason said "Go ahead and look in his mouth if you want to. All you'll find will be his teeth. He won't talk and tell you how old he is. Play it my way and the horse will do the talking."

"He might do the laughing," Tragg said suspiciously.

Mason shrugged his shoulders.

"What's going to happen after you see Mrs. Allred?"

"Then," Mason said, "she's going to make a statement to you. She's going to tell you her story, exactly what happened."

Tragg scribbled out a pass. "Okay, take this to the matron," he said.

"And you can phone her," Mason pointed out. 'That will facilitate matters. They'll have Mrs. Allred all dressed and…"

"Okay, okay," Tragg said, but then added, "she's going to have to talk, though. Remember that!"

"She'll talk," Mason said.

"When?"

"At eight o'clock in the morning."

"Not before?"

"Not before."

"Why the delay?"

"I want her to have her breakfast," Mason said. "It might give her ulcers to talk on an empty stomach."

"All right, how about your dope on Fleetwood?"

"I'll be back before you talk with Mrs. Allred, and I'll give you ammunition that'll crack his amnesia stall wide open."

"That's a promise?"

"That," Mason said grimly, "is a promise. He was with a rancher named Overbrook. He walked in and said he had no idea who he was. I'm going to give you a chance to bust that story wide open. I'll give you the ammunition. You can shoot it."

"Okay, I'll telephone the matron. Go on over and see Mrs. Allred."

Mason took the pass Lieutenant Tragg scribbled, and went over to the detention ward. After a ten minute wait, he was taken in to see Mrs. Allred, who had quite evidently been aroused from a sound sleep and had had no opportunity to put on her make-up.

"We've found Fleetwood," Mason said.

"Where?"

"A rancher by the name of Overbrook – does that name mean anything to you?"

She shook her head.

"Within five miles of the place where the car went off the grade," he said. "'The story is that Fleetwood had walked up to Overbrook's house Monday night, suffering from amnesia. Any suggestions?"

She shook her head.

Mason said, "I want to give you one last chance to think over your story."

"What about it?"

"Is it the truth?"

"Yes."

Mason said. "Somehow, I think Fleetwood is going to try to hang one on you."

"How?"

"I don't know how," Mason said. "I do know that this amnesia business of his is just a gag. I trapped him into betraying himself just before I took him to police headquarters."

"Then he'll tell them everything?"

Mason shook his head "He'll tell them everything up to the time he received a blow on the head After that he doesn't know what happened. He can't remember."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course, I'm sure," Mason said. "He has to adopt that position because a victim of true amnesia can't remember anything that happened during his periods of amnesia."

"But does Fleetwood know that?"

"You're damn right he knows it," Mason said, and added with a grin, "I took particular pains to tell him."

"Oh, I see."

"Now then," Mason said, "here's the point. As long as we could have you keep quiet, Tragg didn't dare to go ahead and put a murder charge against you, or do too much talking for the newspapers – not on the evidence he had. He was afraid he might have to back up after he'd caught Fleetwood.

"Now then that situation is ended. I think Fleetwood's going to try to hang it on you. My strategy is to start hanging it on Fleetwood."

"What do you mean?"

Mason said with a grin, "I mean I'm going to pin it on him if I can."

"Why?"

"In order to save you."

"You mean you'd frame him for murder?"

Mason said, "I'll frame him until I get him in such a position that the heat proves too much for him, then he'll begin to start squirming. Understand, he's taken advantage of this amnesia business. He's hiding behind a wall of blank memory.

"That puts him in a particularly vulnerable position, because while he can't be questioned by the police about the things that happened after he was hit on the head, he naturally can't deny anything. Therefore, I can make even the wildest accusations against him, and he isn't in a position to deny them. He has to take them with a bowed head and the simple statement that he can't remember.

"I'm going to keep piling on the straws until I break the camel's back."

"But then suppose his story is – well, suppose by that time he's had a chance to think up a story that--"

"That's exactly it," Mason said. "I'm going to try and push him into something before he's had a chance to think up a story.

"Now, then, when he does crack, he's going to try to pin it on you. He'll swear to anything he has to. So far, there are just two people who could have killed your husband and put the body in your car. You are one and Fleetwood is the other.

"In a case of this sort, public sympathy is a big thing. If you refuse to make any statement after the police really and truly turn on the heat, that fact will be spread all over the pages of the newspapers and will be a suspicious circumstance that will alienate the sympathies of the newspaper readers.

"Tomorrow morning Tragg is going to interview you. You are going to talk with him freely and frankly. You're going to try and talk your way out of a murder rap. It isn't going to be easy. If you're telling the truth, you can do it. If you're not telling the truth, you'd better do a lot of revising…"

"I'm telling the truth, Mr. Mason."

"Then," Mason told her, "that's all there is to it."

"And I'm to talk to Lieutenant Tragg?"

"Sing like a skylark," Mason told her. "Bare your soul to him. Pose for pictures in the newspapers. Tell everybody everything. Have nothing to conceal. Only be sure that it's the truth, because if you try to lie, you'll get caught, and if they catch you in a lie it'll mean life imprisonment, perhaps the death penalty."