The Dishonest Murderer (19 page)

“Dad hasn't anything to do with this,” Curtis Grainger said. “You're crazy. You—”

“Sit down,” Bill Weigand said. “Sit down, Mr. Grainger.”

Grainger continued to stand for a moment. His anger seemed slowly to fade. “M-make anybody sore,” he said. But then he sat down. He looked at Freddie Haven. “S-sorry, Freddie,” he said. “Make anybody sore.” He looked at Weigand. “Well?” he said. “You asked me—told me—to come over here?”

“Right,” Weigand said. “Take it easy, Mr. Grainger. About these hints in the newspapers. Your father did oppose this project Senator Kirkhill favored? The Valley Authority?”

“You're damned right he did,” Grainger said. “So?”

“Please, Mr. Grainger,” Bill Weigand said. His voice was patient, obviously patient. “I realize you're upset. Realize your—loyalty. But just let me ask a few questions. Right?”

There was a kind of boyishness about Curtis Grainger. He fumed like a boy. But now he seemed to regain control.

“One thing first,” he said, and turned to Freddie. “Celia all right?” he said. She nodded. He turned back to Weigand. “Sh-shoot,” he said.

“It has been charged,” Weigand said, “that there was an effort to bribe Senator Kirkhill to abandon his advocacy of this hydro-electric project. That your father, or his associates, tried to bribe him—or succeeded in bribing him.”

Grainger started to speak.

“Wait,” Weigand said. “This charge was made in an anonymous letter. To Admiral Satterbee. Admiral Satterbee started an investigation. Hired private detectives.”

Grainger looked at the admiral. Anger crept back into his expression.

“So?” he said. “What lies did they—”

“Young man,” Briggs began. “I want you to know—”

“No,” Weigand said. He did not seem to raise his voice. But Briggs stopped speaking.

“This is Mr. Briggs, Mr. Grainger,” Weigand said. “He is connected with the firm the admiral employed. A man named Smiley was doing the actual work.” Again Grainger started to speak. “This afternoon,” Bill Weigand said, ignoring him, “Smiley was killed. Shot through the head.”

Weigand stopped them. He looked at Grainger and waited. Now Grainger did not speak.

“Well?” Weigand said.

“That's too bad,” Curtis Grainger said.

For the first time Freddie Haven saw Lieutenant Weigand appear irritated. He did not speak for a moment. Then he said, “How old are you, Mr. Grainger?” Grainger looked at him in surprise for a moment. Then he flushed. He said he was twenty-six. “Act it,” Weigand told him. Grainger swallowed, grew more flushed.

“If you mean this man found out something involving my father and got shot for it, it isn't true,” Grainger said. “Is that what you mean?”

Bill Weigand's irritation seemed to have passed. He said merely that it was something to be considered.

“No,” Curtis Grainger said. “We wouldn't—F-Father wouldn't—”

“According to a report Mr. Smiley made to Mr. Briggs here,” Weigand said, “he thought he had established that Senator Kirkhill was in contact with your office.” Weigand paused. He looked at Howard Phipps. “Indirectly,” he said. “Through you, Mr. Phipps.”

Freddie Haven heard her own breath drawn in. It made an odd, small, fluttering sound. She looked at Howard Phipps, saw his orderly face change, his eyes widen. Phipps leaned forward in his chair.

“That,” he said, “is a damned lie. Whoever said it. It's—” He broke off. “Also,” he said, “it's second hand. Smiley isn't here to—” He broke off again.

“Right,” Bill Weigand said. “Smiley isn't here.”

(The picture came back to Freddie Haven's mind; the horrid picture of teeth bared at death. Involuntarily, she put fingertips to her forehead, as if to push the picture away.)

“Winifred,” she heard her father say, and his voice came from far off. “Winifred. What is it?”

She shook her head. She lifted it and managed to smile at her father. “It's all right, Dad,” she said. Then she looked at the thin-faced detective, and found he was looking at her. There was a considering expression in his eyes.

“Third hand,” Pam North said. “Mr. Smiley to Mr. Briggs to Bill.” She paused. “To us,” she said. “Fourth hand.”

“Pam!” Jerry North said. “What—”

Pam North said she was sorry. She said it had just come out. She said it hadn't sounded like enough, before, and that she had counted up.

“Pam,” Jerry said, and Lieutenant Weigand said, “All right, Jerry,” and looked at Pam North and smiled. “Very quick of you, Pam,” he said. He did not look displeased.

But it had been opportune, Freddie Haven thought. If Mrs. North had intended to break a building tension, to—she looked at Pam North. Pam North looked back at her. Her eyes were wide and interested, and friendly. Why, Freddie Haven thought, she did intend it.

Howard Phipps still leaned forward in his chair, his eyes still on Lieutenant Weigand, tenseness in his attitude.

“I had no contact with the Grainger office,” he said, speaking carefully, making each word heavy. “Curt can tell you that.”

“I c-can,” Curtis Grainger said. “This man was lying. Or—” He looked at Briggs.

“That is what he told me,” Briggs said. “As I told the lieutenant, he did not amplify. But that is what he told me.”

“You'll be wasting time, Lieutenant,” Phipps said. “This won't get you anywhere. Somebody strings the admiral along, makes it look good. Don't you see that?”

Of course it was that way, Freddie thought. Why can't he see it? And then she thought, Oh Dad.
Dad!

“We have to go into everything,” Lieutenant Weigand said, and his voice was mild. “Even statements which may be baseless. It's part of our job. We have to try to consider every possibility.”

“T-try Breese Burnley,” Grainger said. “Leave us out of it. S-she was in love with him.”

But that is wrong, Freddie thought. That may have been true, but it was long ago.

“Yes?” Weigand said.

“I t-took her home this morning,” Grainger said. “After we—after we heard. She broke down. She said things she didn't mean to say. She was in love with Bruce. Still in love with him.” He turned to Freddie. “She hated you,” he said. “Did you know that?”

Freddie shook her head. I didn't know that, she thought; I don't believe that. But at the same time she thought, I wouldn't have known. She's not like most people; she—she's so smooth that things don't show.

“No,” she said. “It was a long time ago. Whatever it was.”

“It was this morning,” Grainger said. “She was broken up.” He turned back to Lieutenant Weigand. “She would have tried to keep Bruce and Freddie from marrying,” he said. “She might have tried anything. This letter you talk about. Why couldn't Breese have written it? Hoping the admiral would do something to—to stop the marriage?”

He stopped speaking, but he did not seem to have finished. His eyes were narrowed, as if he were working something out.

“Yes?” Weigand said.

“You want a possibility,” Grainger said. “You want to consider everything. All right. Breese makes this thing up, writes this letter. How long ago did the letter come?” This last was to Admiral Satterbee. But Weigand answered. “Ten days,” he said. “Two weeks.”

“She writes the letter,” Grainger said. “And, she waits. And, so far as she knows, nothing happens. The letter's a dud. And so—” He spreads his hands, making the implication clear.

“You make quite a jump,” Bill Weigand told him.

“Think about it,” Grainger said, and Weigand nodded. He said, “Right.”

“Meanwhile,” he said, “tell me where you were this afternoon between two and four, Mr. Grainger.”

“The hell—” Curt Grainger began. Bill Weigand sighed. “Please, Mr. Grainger,” he said. His voice was weary.

Grainger flushed again, momentarily. His stammer was somewhat more apparent when he spoke. But he managed to speak quietly; to say he had been in his apartment, to agree he had been alone. “Trying to work things out,” he added. When he finished, Bill Weigand merely nodded. He was standing by the admiral's desk, the fingers of his right hand beat a tattoo on the desk. There was a considerable pause.

“Right,” he said. “I think that's all, for the time being. Unless someone else has remembered something?”

He gave them time to answer. It appeared that no one had remembered anything. Weigand did not seem surprised.

“It's terribly mixed up,” Pam North said, and took, in a perplexed way, a sip from her cocktail glass. “Everything cancels everything.”

They were at Charles bar, sitting around the corner. Jerry and Pam sat with their backs to the windows; Dorian Weigand and Bill were at right angles to them. There were not many people at the bar, and those who were looked rather tired, worn by the labor of dragging the New Year in.

“How many do you make?” Pam said, putting her glass down, and addressing Bill Weigand. “I make five, not counting the admiral and Mrs. Haven. Mrs. Burnley and Breese—why Breese, do you suppose?—the brother, if there is any, Mr. Phipps and the Graingers.”

Jerry had counted with his fingers. He said that it made six, not five.

“Oh,” Pam said, “I count the Graingers as just one. Like father, like son. The sixth would be just a coincidence.”

They all looked at her.

“Stray Bowery bum,” she said. “An accident. A coincidence.” She took another sip. “Although really,” she said, “it's all so confused that there's nothing for it to be coincidental with.” She considered. “Coincidental to,” she said.

Bill Weigand and Jerry North, simultaneously, raised their glasses and drank. They put them down and regarded Pam North, who looked thoughtful.

“Why,” Dorian said, “don't you count this admiral and Mrs. Haven? From what Bill says—” She stopped and looked at her husband.

“Well,” Pam said, “for one thing, it makes too many. It would be simply ridiculous. You might as well count Mr. Briggs. Or the senator's daughter. By the way, Bill, is there really a brother?”

Bill Weigand appeared tired; there were lines in his face. He nodded; he said there was a brother; he corrected himself. He said there had, at any rate, been a brother. He had been, apparently, much as Phipps described him. They had been able to find no one who knew him.

“From the outside,” Dorian said, “where I seem to be, I'd vote for the brother. He sounds like a man who might be on the Bowery. Probably he inherits something, perhaps a lot.” She paused. “You'll all have to admit it's neat,” she said. “Tidy.”

Bill Weigand looked at his empty cocktail glass. His regard was reproachful. Gus moved near and paused, briefly, politely, in front of the four empty glasses. “Please,” Pam said. Gus made more martinis. “Bill,” Pam said, “where are you getting?”

“We haven't found anyone downtown who remembers seeing the senator last night,” he said. “Phipps checked in at the Waldorf early Friday morning, as he said he did. Smiley was shot with a thirty-eight at three o'clock Saturday, give or take fifteen minutes either way. Breese Burnley was still seeing a good deal of the senator as recently as six months ago. Nobody we've been able to get in touch with at the Grainger office remembers seeing Phipps there, or will admit it if he did. Breese saw something of Grainger—the father, not the son—from a little after Thanksgiving until he went back west about a week ago. Mrs. Haven left the apartment this afternoon at eighteen minutes of three. The admiral left three or four minutes before she did. She was perfectly calm when she called and asked for her father a little after three, according to Watkins, who would stand on his head twenty-four hours for either the admiral or his daughter, and may very well be lying. Phipps was in the public library as he says he was most of Friday, consulting reference books on hydro-electric projects—and irrigation projects since Babylon. That is—he was if we believe the times on the withdrawal slips, if we forget he could have been in and out a dozen times without being noticed. Senator Kirkhill telephoned his daughter a little before nine yesterday morning and said he was taking the next train from Washington. He took the nine o'clock, which put him into Penn Station at one in the afternoon. Most of what we're getting from most of these people is only half the truth, if that.”

“Goodness,” Pam North said. “How thorough!”

Bill Weigand grinned at her. Even his grin was tired. He told her to think nothing of it; he said he had merely scratched the surface.

“That's true enough,” Pam said. “But I meant Mr. Phipps, not the police. Why Babylon?”

Bill Weigand shrugged.

“The touch of erudition which adds the
je ne sais quoi
,” Jerry North said. “Pass the peanuts, will you, Bill?”

“You'd think,” Pam said, “that he'd have Babylon at his fingertips by now. Because Senator Kirkhill had been talking about dams for years. Did Phipps write the speeches, do you suppose?”

Bill Weigand said that Phipps talked about rough drafts. Dorian said, abstractedly, that she would bet. Pam said it certainly was mixed up. Jerry North ate peanuts with a crunching sound.

“What I don't see,” Pam said, “is how nobody knew the senator had a weak heart. Take Jerry, now.” She paused. Jerry stopped crunching.

“There's nothing the matter with my heart,” Jerry said. He sounded aggrieved. “Barring that touch of neuritis in—”

“That's what I mean,” Pam North said. “It isn't human not to talk about ailments. Particularly if it's a man. Jerry's got this touch of neuritis and everybody knows about it. Once I was waiting in his office late and the cleaning woman came around and asked about it. The cleaning woman for the whole floor. And the senator was a man, of course.”