Wife or Death (16 page)

“What do you suppose Mr. Trevor remembered?” Spile asked, frowning.

“I think he recalled a visitor. Someone he didn't actually see, just took Norm's word for.”

The chief looked puzzled. “You'll have to spell that out for me, Jim.”

Denton eagerly recreated his imaginary scene.

But the police chief was chuckling. “You missed your calling, Jim. Ought to been a writer for those wild TV crime shows.”

“Don't give me any of your corny sarcasm, Augie,” Denton said angrily. “What's wrong with my reconstruction?”

“A lot of things,” Chief Spile said, unruffled. “For instance: George drives up in his car, they either see his lights or hear the engine, and Wyatt goes out to see who it is before George can get out of the car. Trevor ain't got any curiosity. He don't even look out the door.”

“Why should he? It would be natural to figure that whoever it was would walk in with Wyatt any minute.”

“Okay, he don't look out. Wyatt sticks his head in the car window and George accuses him of killing your wife. So Wyatt hits him over the head. Maybe he was carrying a beer bottle. Maybe he picked up a rock. I'll give you a rock.”

“Generous of you!”

“Then Wyatt shoves George over, backs the car down to the foot of the lane, switches off the lights, goes back up to the lodge and walks in just as though nothing had happened. And all this time Trevor still ain't stuck his head out to see what's keeping Norm?”

“All what time?” Denton cried. “The whole thing wouldn't have taken more than three or four minutes!”

“Don't you think it's likely Wyatt and George had a little conversation before Wyatt banged him on the head? Suppose you'd been Norm. Wouldn't you want to know if George had told anybody what he knew? No sense killing a man if he'd already spread the word. For all Norm knew, you or me or the state boys might be right behind George. No, Norm's got to do some probing before he finally bops him. So it seems to me Wyatt would have to be away ten, fifteen minutes before he can come back into the lodge. Yet old man Trevor never once takes a look out to see what's keeping him.”

“All right, he looks out,” Denton argued. “What would he see? Norm leaning on a car window talking to somebody Trevor can't make out in the dark. So he goes back to the cribbage board, and when Norm finally returns and says it was some passing motorist asking directions, Trevor thinks nothing more about it. Why should he?”

“I'll tell you why,” the chief said. “Because if you can hear a car stopping, you can hear it going away, too. According to you, Norm didn't take George's car away till later that night.”

“I said Norm took the car down to the end of the lane. That would account for the sound of the car going away. And if Trevor wanted to know why Wyatt hadn't come back in the moment the car began to back down, Norm could always have said he walked down beside it to the road.”

“You argue like a Philadelphia lawyer,” Spile said with a grin. “Okay, Jim, Wyatt's got George stashed away, unconscious, and his father-in-law doesn't suspect a thing. Now he's got to dispose of him.”

“We know how that was done.”

“Let's go over it, anyway. After a while both Wyatt and Trevor go to bed. When the old man is asleep Wyatt gets up, dresses, sneaks down to George's car and drives it off. He runs it over to the curve on Rock Hill Road, props George under the wheel and lets the car drop over into the ravine.”

“Anything wrong with that?”

“That lodge is about five and a half miles from the town limits,” August Spile drawled. “It's six miles across town east to west. The place George cracked up is three miles beyond he western town limits. So now there's Norm Wyatt out on Rock Hill Road, afoot, nearly fifteen miles from the lodge. How'd he get
back
, Jim?”

“Denton had not thought of that. He said sullenly, Walked,” not believing it as he said it.

“In Norm's physical condition?” Augie Spile jeered. “He's been living so high on the hog, with all that rich food they eat and the booze and all, he'd have about as much chance walking fifteen miles without dropping dead as I would. I don't buy it, Jim.”

“Well, it's possible! Or he took a bicycle along. Or
something
.” When Spile shook his head sorrowfully, Denton said through his teeth, “All right, so it's a silly fantasy. But something happened up at that lodge that night, Augie, and Gerald Trevor figured out what it meant while I was talking to him. You'd better try to pry it out of him.”

“Sure, Jim. I'll talk to the lot of 'em tomorrow.”

“You were going to do that today.”

“I forgot about the two funerals. Tomorrow for sure, Jim.”

And tomorrow, I suppose, Denton thought, something else will come up that somehow will crowd out Chief Spile's long-deferred talk with the Wyatts and Trevor. Denton rose.

“Well, I'll drop by your office in the afternoon, Augie, to see how you made out.”

“You do that,” Chief Spile said.

To cap his miserable day, Jim Denton suffered a final misfortune outside. His car refused to start.

He went back into the chief's house and phoned his garage. He had to wait thirty-five minutes for the tow-truck to show up. The mechanic diagnosed his trouble as a defective fuel pump.

“Can't touch it tonight, Mr. Denton. Have it for you tomorrow afternoon.” The man dropped Denton off at his home before towing the car into the garage.

It was after seven, and he was famished. Denton got a steak and a package of French fries from the freezer and made himself a feast. He left the dishes in the sink for Bridget White to do in the morning.

Stretched out on the sofa in his living room, sipping brandy and espresso coffee, Denton doggedly took stock.

Norman Wyatt was the man. He was sure of it.

Wyatt's motive would be strong. He had taken Angel away from Ralph Crosby, thinking himself merely the latest in her long line of casual lovers; but in his case Angel had had an original idea. Too late Norm Wyatt must have realized that he had walked into a trap. Angel had picked him as her next husband, not her next lover. And she had put the pressure on. Marriage to Angel would have wrecked his life. His wife had the money; and how long could he expect to remain executive vice-president of Trevor-United Studios when Gerald Trevor found out? Ardis was the tycoon's only child; he worshiped her … It must have been Norm, Denton thought, who planned the “elopement”—to keep Angel's mouth shut about him until he could get her off somewhere in the middle of the night and end his troubles with a shotgun.

Opportunity? Wyatt had been out that night until nearly seven o'clock in the morning. By his own admission, Ralph Crosby had been too drunk to know just when Wyatt had dumped him and left.

Means? The hunting lodge housed an arsenal of guns. To Denton's personal knowledge several were shotguns.

Motive, opportunity, means … every detective story Denton had ever read gave these as the basics. Norm Wyatt satisfied all three.

Evidence, however—that was another story. So far he had nothing to give Spile and the district attorney but reasonable guesswork from unsubstantiated theory. If only he could dig up proof that Wyatt had, in fact, been Angel's last lover.…

Denton sat up abruptly. Why hadn't he thought of it before? Just such evidence might be among Angel's effects!

He dashed into Angel's bedroom and began pulling open bureau drawers.

In one of the two top drawers he found a huge box of stationery half full of rich, monogrammed white paper edged in exquisite lavender, with envelopes lined to match the edging. Denton recalled having given her the box the previous Christmas, and he was surprised to see how much of it Angel had used. She had been a poor correspondent; even her letters to her mother had been spaced at six-month intervals.

There was nothing else of interest in the twin top drawers or in two of the three large drawers beneath them.

At the rear of the bottom drawer, however, under a pile of scented panties, he found a metal candy box, a five-pound size. He pried off the lid, and stared. He had uncovered a treasure house of memorabilia Angel had evidently hoarded in secrecy.

The topmost item was a legal-sized envelope fat with news clippings, some yellow with age. He glanced through them curiously.

The oldest, from a Pittsburgh paper, showed a bathing-suit photograph of a far younger Angel than he had ever known. The caption identified her as “17-year old Angel Varden, local waitress,” designated “Miss Apple Butter of Pittsburgh” in a beauty contest sponsored by a national food outfit.

Denton winced, recalling Angel's frequent nostalgic reminiscences of her teenage beauty-contest days. Miss Apple Butter! She had always claimed to have won a city-wide competition in the selection of Pittsburgh's candidate for Miss Pennsylvania in the Miss America contest, and to have come within a bobby pin of winning the state finals. With Angel the wish had always been mother to the memory.

The second clipping was a one-column ad from a Rochester night club, its floor show sporting a chorus of “twelve gorgeous girls.” On the margin, in Angel's handwriting, was the excited note: “My
first
job in show business!!!!”

With one exception, the other clippings were newspaper ads also, of night clubs and burlesque theaters in various parts of New York State and New Jersey. The first in which her name appeared gave her fourth billing among four “exotic dancers.” Subsequent ads moved her strip-tease career steadily upward until, at one New York City club Denton had never heard of, she was billed as the feature attraction. Then came a parade of obviously second- and third-rate hot spots in different cities which advertised her as the “star.”

The one non-advertisement had been clipped from a New York tabloid column which casually mentioned that “Stripper Angel Varden” had been seen at the Stork with an unnamed “famous producer.” This item was heavily underlined in red pencil. The only columnist's mention she had ever received, Denton thought; had there been others, she would certainly have clipped them.

So this had been her glamorous career in show business. Denton felt a little sick.

Rummaging through the candy box, he found a litter of small cards, apparently accompaniments to bouquets and corsages, addressed to her with routine endearments and signed with names like “Billy-boy,” “Jack—Remember?” and “John Smith Haha!” And there were menus and theater programs, some autographed with male first names.

And, at last, a bundle of letters tied with pink ribbon.

Love letters?

19

They were, most of them, love letters. Those that were not love letters were requests for assignations.

Riffling through the pile quickly, Denton decided that they were in chronological order. He set aside the ones that preceded the date of his marriage.

The first signature he recognized was on a short note:

Honey:

Last night at the club was wonderful.

About the Gay Twenties party there next Saturday. Meet me same place, same time. I can't wait!

Love,

Curt

It was Curt Oliver; the odd, backward-slanting handwriting was unmistakable. He had grown up with Curt Oliver, now a prosperous insurance broker. Gay Twenties party … The only Gay Twenties party Denton could recall at the country club had been held about six months after his marriage.

So she had begun to share the wealth with his friends while still a bride, he thought wryly. Too bad he hadn't known about Curt. Denton had bought a big life-insurance policy from Curt Oliver at the very time he must have been sleeping with Angel.

There followed half a dozen passionate notes either unsigned or signed with initials which he was unable to identify. Of this group there was only one from each man. Since it was unlikely that they had expressed their ardor a single time, Angel must have preserved a mere sample in each case as a record of her conquests. This made her conquests easy to count. Their number surprised even him. There had been over two dozen after Curt Oliver.

He identified another man when he came upon a homemade valentine. It was drawn in India ink on a folded sheet of professional drawing paper, cut into the shape of a heart. Above the hand-lettered words, “Be My Valentine,” the heads of a man and a woman were shown with their noses together at the fold and their pursed lips touching. The drawings were caricatures, but they were quite recognizable.

The woman was Angel, the man was Matthew Fallon.

Denton allowed himself another grin. Confirmation that he had made no mistake in naming Matt Fallon as a pallbearer.

With Arnold Long and Ralph Crosby, that made three out of the six.

He was unable to identify the senders of any of the other billets-doux, although one near the bottom of the pile, signed “A,” was undoubtedly from Arnold Long.

The last item was an empty matchbook. A brief message in pencil had been cautiously blocked out in capital letters on the blank inside: “SAT. 12 MID. MY CAR.” No salutation, no signature, not even an initial. Noncommittal, undated, untraceable. The legal mind. That was Ralph Crosby, he was positive. Head over heels he may have been, but a district attorney was sensitive about evidence.

He could find nothing identifiable as from Norman Wyatt. He went through everything once more to make sure.

The four he was reasonably sure of—the note signed “Curt,” the cartoon, the note signed “A” and the match-book—he pocketed. The others he put back in the box, and returned the box to the bottom drawer.

A search of Angel's closet and dressing table turned up nothing of interest. He glanced at his watch. 9:30.

Then he remembered that he would have no car in the morning. He phoned Mac's Taxi Service.

Tim MacPherson operated the only taxicab company in town. He provided 24-hour service; but, while his two cabs were generally busy all day and evening, there was not enough during-the-night business to warrant employing a night driver, consequently Mac himself handled such calls through a special line to his home.