Part 18 (1/2)
”Down in the lobby.”
”When?”
”I don't know. I've been here just long enough to get a drink. Five minutes ago? She got off the elevator when I got on.”
She clamped her fingers around my wrist. ”Was she alone?”
”Yes.”
”My G.o.d, Travis, why didn't you stop her and bring her back up here?”
”Look, Biddy. She looked fine. She told me to go right on up and join the party. She said she had to get something out of the car. She said she'd be right back. Was I supposed to grab her and bring her back up here, kicking and screaming?”
”Oh, she's so sly! sly! Oh Oh d.a.m.n d.a.m.n her, anyway. Just when everything was going her, anyway. Just when everything was going so so well. Tom was dubious about bringing her. But she seemed so... kind of better organized. Excuse me. I'd better find Tom. I thought she was still with him.” She made a wry mouth. ”And he probably thinks she's with me. He'll be sick, absolutely sick.” well. Tom was dubious about bringing her. But she seemed so... kind of better organized. Excuse me. I'd better find Tom. I thought she was still with him.” She made a wry mouth. ”And he probably thinks she's with me. He'll be sick, absolutely sick.”
I found windows and oriented myself and went to a wide corridor that led past small offices to the big offices at the end. People were roaming up and down the corridor, being given the tour by some of the Development Unlimited staff. I turned a corner and went into an office and looked out and down and estimated I was not more than fifteen feet too close to the street side. I moved back toward the corner of the corridor and realized it had to be a room with a closed door. Almost all the others were open for inspection.
A pretty little redheaded woman came trotting along and stopped and stared up at me. She wore green and a pint of diamonds and a wide martini smile. ”Well, h.e.l.lo there, darling! Are you one of his his darling new engineers? Christ, you're a towering beast, aren't you? I'm Joanie Mace way down here.” darling new engineers? Christ, you're a towering beast, aren't you? I'm Joanie Mace way down here.”
”h.e.l.lo, Joanie Mace. I'm not an engineer. I'm a mysterious guest.”
”With a lousy empty gla.s.s? Horrors! Wait right here, mysterious guest. Don't move. Don't breathe. I'm a handmaiden.”
She trotted away. My side of the corridor was empty. I heard voices approaching. I opened the door and stepped into a small office, unlighted. As I closed the door I saw that it was stacked with cartons of office forms and supplies. I made my way to the windows and found that the center window was fixed gla.s.s but that the narrower ones on either side cranked inward. A sliding brace stopped them when they were open perhaps eighteen inches. They were five feet tall, and the sill was a foot from the floor. The one on the left was open. I leaned and looked down. It was the right one. I closed it, then pulled my jacket sleeve down across the heel of my hand and pressed the turn latch until it clicked into the fully latched position. As I turned, my toe came down on something soft. I could tell by the feel of it that it was a small leather evening bag. I shoved it into the front of my s.h.i.+rt and tightened my belt another notch.
I opened the door a careful fraction of an inch. A chattering group was approaching. When they had pa.s.sed, I took the chance and walked out, perhaps too exaggeratedly casual, but there was no one there to fault the performance. I leaned against the corridor wall. Mrs. Mace brought me my drink, scuttling, holding it high, proud of her accomplishment. It was an extraordinarily nasty martini. I gave extravagant thanks. She said I should come by Sunday and swim in her pool. She would round up a swinging group. We'd all drink gallons of black velvets. Delighted. Yes, indeed.
We drifted along behind a group and ended up in the big room. Biddy came quickly to me and drew me aside. She looked determined and angry.
”Trav, I haven't told Tom and I don't intend to. Sooner or later he's going to find out she's missing and that will be time enough. I'm just not going to let my sister spoil the best part of it for him. She's done enough spoiling already. Would you please do me a very special favor?”
”Sure.”
”Go down and start checking every bar you can find, and there are quite a few within three or four blocks of here. If you find her and if she isn't in bad shape yet, bring her back, please. But if she's had it, stay with her and put her in the station wagon down below. The tag ”I know the car.”
”Thanks so so much! Poor Trav. Always doing stupid favors for the dreary Pearson family. And look, dear, do much! Poor Trav. Always doing stupid favors for the dreary Pearson family. And look, dear, do not not ever let Tom know that I knew she was missing. He'd kill me. He would think I should have told him at once. But, darn it all... and... thanks again.” ever let Tom know that I knew she was missing. He'd kill me. He would think I should have told him at once. But, darn it all... and... thanks again.”
I started the slow journey through the crush of guests. I had to pa.s.s a group standing in respectful attention, listening to Tom Pike. He stood, tall, vital, dark, handsome, a little bit slouched, a little bit rustic and cowlicky and subtly aw-shucks about everything, his voice deep, rich, resonant as he said, ”... job-creating opportunities in urban core areas, that's the answer if we're going to continue to have a viable center-city economic base here in Fort Courtney. The companion piece to this fine building should be-if we all have the guts and the vision-an enclosed shopping mall taking up that short block on Princess Street. Urban renewal to help tear down the obsolete warehouses and get the city to vacate the street, and I don't see why we couldn't have...”
I was by him, and a pack of ladies whooping at something that had just about tickled them to death drowned out the rest of the visionary address to the potential investors.
I rode down with a silent couple in the elevator. She stared with prim mouth and lofty eyebrows at the ceiling of the small machine. With clamped jaw and moody brow he stared at the blue carpeting underfoot. As we walked down into the parking area she did not realize I was as close behind them as I was. In a thin, deadly, indifferent tone she said, ”Sweetheart, why don't you let me drive home alone while you go right on back up there and stroke Gloria's vulgar little a.s.s all you want. She may be missing the attention.”
He did not reply. I walked to my car and unlocked it and got in and clenched the wheel so tightly my knuckles made crackling sounds. I shut my eyes so tightly I could see rockets and wheels of fire. Little improvements come along, because the luck can go either way, and when you play the longer odds you open up the chance of the good luck and the bad. Her reaction helped. I had not expected it. I had wanted her to tell him that McGee had seen Maureen leaving by a route other than the one he knew she had taken, and so that would target him in on me, bring him in close enough for me to see what he was. But it was better the way she was doing it. And I had to find Stanger, and find him fast.
I didn't get to Stanger until nine fifteen. I told him that it might save a lot of time and a lot of questions later if it went down on tape on the very first go-round.
”You look funny,” he said. ”You look spooked.”
”It's been one of those days, Al.”
”What's this all about?”
”When the tape is running.”
”All right, all right!”
So he left Nudenbarger on traffic cruise by himself and rode down to headquarters with me in my car. I said I'd like to do it in the car if possible. He came out with a battered old Uher with an adaptor for the cigarette lighter. I found a bright white drive-in on Route 30 and parked at the far edge with the rear against the fence. A listless girl made two long walks to take the order and bring out the two coffees and hook the tray onto the car. Stanger had checked the recorder. It had some hiss but not too much. The heads needed cleaning and demagnetizing.
He rewound and started it again on record and established his ident.i.ty, the date and time, and said he was taking a voluntary statement from one Travis McGee of such and such a place, said statement having some bearing, as yet unknown, on the murder by stab wound of Penny Woertz, and that said victim had been acquainted with said McGee. He sighed and handed me the mike.
As soon as I got into it, he stiffened and he boggled at me. As I kept on he wanted to interrupt so badly he began making little lunges and jumps, so I didn't give him an opening. At one point he bent over, hands cupping his eyes, and I could hear him grinding his teeth. I finished. I turned the remote switch on the mike and said, ”Want me to turn it back on for questions?”
”No. No. Not yet. Oh, good Jesus H. Jumpin' Sufferin' Christ on the rocks! Oh you lousy dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Oh, why did I ever think you had one brain cell to rub up against another. You silly b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I have got to take you in and shut the iron door on you. For G.o.d's sake, it is going to take me half the night just to write up the charges. And you have the gall, the nerve, the lousy... impertinence to ask me to sneak down there and grab that dead broad out of that crazy hidey hole and make like I found her in a ditch, and keep anybody from coming up with the ID and keep her the h.e.l.l on ice as a Jane Doe until G.o.d only knows how... No! Dammit, McGee. No!” It was an anguished cry.
”Why don't you ask me some questions. Maybe it'll calm you down, Stanger. You've got all night to go collect her.”
He nodded. I turned the mike on.
”Are you absolutely certain she was dead?”
”She fell a hundred and twenty feet onto concrete.”
”So all right! Did you realize when you touched the outside and inside k.n.o.b on that office door and messed with the window and picked up the pocketbook, you were removing evidence of a crime, if there was one?”
”He wouldn't leave anything useful. I moved the body too. Jumped, fell, or pushed, it would look just the same.”
”But what the h.e.l.l do you expect to accomplish?”
I turned off the microphone. ”Al, you won't play it my way?”
”I can't! It's such a way-out-”
”Who can make a decision to try try my way? Your chief?” my way? Your chief?”
”Old Sam Teppler? He's going to keel over in a dead faint if I try to tell him, even.”
”How about your state attorney for this judicial district. Gaffney?”
”Gaffner. Ben Gaffner.”
”Is there any chance he'd buy it? There's all kinds of prosecutors. What 'kind is he?”
Al Stanger got out of the car and slammed the door. He walked slowly around the car, scuffing his heels on the asphalt, hitching at his trousers, scratching the back of his neck. He came and looked down at me across the hook-on tray.
”Gaffner is on his fourth term. He gets a h.e.l.l of a lot of respect. But n.o.body gets very close to him. He likes to nail them. He drives hard. His record keeps him in. He isn't fancy. He builds his cases like they used to build stone walls in the old days. All I can say is... maybe. You'd have to sell him the whole thing. All the way down the line. He's straight and he's tough, and he likes being just what he is. But I'd even hate to try to explain to him why you're not behind iron right now, McGee.”