“He’s…?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Dennis?”
“Yes, Dennis,” I said, “how long have you been home?”
“I… I don’t know. A few hours, I guess.”
“Think!”
“It was… I remember looking at my watch. We were… just turning the corner at Wilshire, I think. Yes, we…”
“What time?”
“12:30. No, 12:45.”
I looked at my watch. It was past four.
“Did Jim stay here?” I asked.
“For a while,” she said.
“How long?”
“Oh… twenty minutes.”
Then she was in my arms, crying. Her fingers held tightly to me.
“Davie, Davie, what’s the matter with everything?”
“All right,” I said, “I know you didn’t do it.”
She drew back as if she’d been struck.
“Me!” she said. “You thought I’d killed him!”
She pulled away from me.
“Get out of here,” she said. “Oh, get out of here!”
“Peggy, listen to me.”
“No, I won’t listen to you,” she said. “I’ve had enough of you. All you’ve done is act suspicious and hateful!”
She looked at me angrily, hands clenched.
“Listen, Peggy,” I said, “your pride is rather unimportant now. In the past week, two men have been murdered. That’s a little more important than vanity, isn’t it?”
She turned away. “I don’t know,” she said. “I know I’m tired of everything. I’m tired of it. I’ll never find any happiness.”
“I’ll leave you alone then,” I said. “You can go to sleep. But I advise you to call Jim. You’d better find out if he’s arranged an alibi for you.”
She looked at me but I left. I got in my car and drove back to the room. I was going to walk up to the gas station and call Jones.
I didn’t notice the big car as I parked and got out. I didn’t notice anything, I was so upset.
But there were two plainclothesmen waiting. And Jones said, “I’m glad you had the sense to come back.”
***
The body was gone. Jones and I were sitting in the room.
“And that’s your story,” he said.
“Easily checked,” I said. “Ask Peggy Lister. Ask Jim Vaughan. I was with them.”
“There’s a long time you weren’t with them.”
“I saw other people then.”
“We’ll find out about Vaughan first,” he said.
“Do you really think I’m lying?”
He shrugged. “The pick is from your drawer,” he said.
“Are you… do you actually think I did it?”
He shrugged again. “You’ll do for now,” he said.
“Are you serious?” I said. “For God’s sake, why should I come back here if I did it!”
“Come on.”
“I told you I was going to call you!”
“Are you coming?”
“Listen…”
“Let it go, boy,” he said. “Get some toilet articles and let’s get out of here.”
That’s how I spent my first night in jail. Lying on a cot in a cell. Staring at the walls. Listening to a drunk singing college songs.
In the morning I was taken to Jones’ office.
He sat there working on some papers while I waited nervously. I watched his lean, blue-veined hands shuffling through papers. I looked at his thin face, the dark eyes.
Finally the eyes were on me.
“So you were with Vaughan,” he said.
“That’s what I said. Have you spoken to him?”
“Yes,” he said, “we have.”
“Well…?”
He kept looking at me and not answering and all of a sudden the bottom started dropping out.
“Oh, no!” I said.
He looked at me without speaking. He nodded.
“This is crazy!” I said. “You mean that he actually said he wasn’t with me last night?”
“He actually said that.”
“Well, he’s lying! Damn it! Isn’t that obvious?”
He shook his head.
My hands started to shake. “Have you asked Peggy?” I said.
“Yes.”
It hit me right in the stomach. I felt as if I were going out of my mind.
“Let me get this,” I said. “Peggy said I wasn’t with them last night?”
“How long are you going to insist on that?” Jones asked.
“Have you heard of people lying?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of it,” he said, looking at me.
“Peggy,” I said, “Peggy. To lie about me. I just don’t get it. I just… don’t.”
“Tell me what happened last night,” he said.
“I told you.”
“Tell me again.”
I told him. When I finished, he looked at me studiedly.
“That’s it, huh?”
“Yes, that’s it. I have no reason to lie.”
“Except to save your life,” he said.
“Listen, Jones,” I said. “You’re falling right in with that redheaded bastard who’s trying to shove me around the way he’s been shoving people around all his life.”
He looked at me a long time until it made me nervous.
“I don’t know,” he finally said, “whether you’re telling the truth or not. I’m inclined to believe you. I don’t think you could make up as many verifiable lies on the spur of the moment and then duplicate yourself. But—unless either one of those two will change their story, there’s not much I can do. Your story could be a lie.”
“The concert program,” I said.
“In the paper,” he said, “a telephone call to the Bowl.”
“What about the waiters at Ciro’s? At the Mocambo? What about that cook in the diner?”
“What about the collie dog?” he said. “You have as much chance of him identifying you as anyone else.”
“Let me go,” I said, “I’ll kick it out of them.”
“Sure,” he said. “That’s a swell idea.”
I was taken back to my cell.
I spent the morning reading the paper. The story was on the front page. There was no picture of me, just one of the house, a front view. I knew the landlady wouldn’t exactly love me after this. Her house would have a reputation now.
I tried to go over the whole thing in my mind but it didn’t add up to a thing. I couldn’t understand Peggy lying about me. What was she? How could she do that? And I tried to avoid the idea that kept growing bigger and bigger. Dennis was dead, so he wasn’t the killer. Mrs. Grady was obviously out of the picture because she had no place in Dennis’s life. That left Audrey or Jim or Steig or…
About noon, a cop opened my cell door and gestured with his head.
“Get your stuff,” he said.
I found Steig out in front. I was going to get irate first and refuse the bail. I decided otherwise.
As we started down the steps, Steig said, “Mr. Vaughan wants to see you.”
“I don’t want to see him,” I said.
“You go with me,” he said, assured.
I felt that rising heat again. You can just hold temper in so long.
“Listen, tough man,” I said, too burned up to be afraid, “I’m not going with you. If you want to try and make me, go ahead. I’d just as soon kick your groin in as look at you.”
“I have a gun in my pocket,” he said.
I looked down, saw the snub end of the barrel pointed at me.
Where I got the guts to do what I did, I don’t know. Maybe there’s a streak of insanity in the family.
“Then shoot me in the back,” I said, “right here in front of the police station. I’d like to see you get away with it.”
Then I turned on my heel and started away.
Luckily, Steig couldn’t imagine shooting me in front of the police station either.
/> I walked all the way to Wilshire with him trailing me in the car. But I stayed in crowded sections and he didn’t try to get me. Maybe he was a little off balance, too. I don’t suppose he’d been treated like that for some time.
I found Peggy in her living room. I went in without knocking. She jumped a little as I entered.
“All right,” I said, “let’s have it.”
She stood up and I grabbed her wrist.
“Well?”
“You’re hurting me!”
“You’re hurting me, too!” I snapped back. “Does it mean anything to you that I might be executed for murder?”
I’ve seen confused faces in my time. But the look on Peggy’s face had them all beaten.
“Who told you? Vaughan? Told you what? That they couldn’t pin anything on me?”
“Well, I’m the only suspect,” I said. “Who the hell do you think they’re going to suspect—Dracula?”
“I don’t understand, Davie…”
“Obviously,” I said. “Listen, Peggy, maybe you don’t realize what’s been going on. There have been two murders, two of them!”
“But you didn’t…”
“I know it and you know and Jim knows. But if neither of you tells the truth about it, who’s going to take my word?”
“I…” She ran a hand over her cheek.
“What did he tell you?” I asked. “Come on, let’s have it. Did he actually tell you I wouldn’t be involved?”
“Yes. He told me they… couldn’t prove a thing against you. So he said we shouldn’t get involved. I mean, I shouldn’t get involved.”
“A dead man in my room with an icepick from my kitchen drawer,” I said, “and I wouldn’t be suspected? Come on Peggy, what’s the matter with you? You’re so naive, it’s near criminal.”
“I know. But he…” She shook her head. “He said we shouldn’t!”
“And you just… took his word.”
“Well…”
“Peggy, when are you going to start using your head?”
She looked up defiantly a moment. Then her shoulders slumped. She lowered her eyes.
“What did he really tell you?” I asked.
Her voice was defeated.
“He said he’d re-open my old case. He said I’d be executed for it.”
“You can’t be tried twice for the same crime!”
“He said…”
“He said, he said! What is he—a Svengali? Haven’t you got a brain in your head?”
“He has my life in his hands,” she said.
The thought was sickening.
“He has not,” I said. “He has no control over you. Are you going to set his welfare above mine?”
“Davie…”
“What kind of love do you have for me anyway? Fair weather love? The kind that…”
“Please, Davie.”
“Listen,” I said incredulously, “this is serious business.”
“I was afraid…”
“Afraid,” I said. “I’m afraid too, Peggy. Jim said he’d get me one way or the other. Steig said he’d kill me. What am I supposed to do because of that—crawl into a hole and die?”
“Steig said that?” Something new to worry about.
“Yes. Yes, Peggy Ann. And I say that Steig killed Dennis on Jim’s orders.”
“But… they were with us last night.”
“We met him at Western,” I said. “It took us almost an hour to drive there. Then we had to drive all the way back to Hollywood. Was there any real sense in that?”
“He had a case over there and…”
I didn’t say anything. I looked at her somberly.
“He wouldn’t kill his own brother.”
“Jim would kill his own mother if it served his purpose.”
“No.”
“It serves his purpose to get me out of the way. And he’ll do it too, if you keep lying about me.”
She looked at me blankly, then nodded once.
“All right,” she said quietly. “This afternoon I’ll go to Lieutenant Jones and tell him you were with us.”
I took an easy breath. They were short and far between those days. I knew I should start worrying about what Jones would do when she changed her story in midstream. A girl who was proven to have murdered once and suspected of having done it again.
But sometimes I’m selfish, too. Or thoughtless.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll go now.”
I was beginning to sense the end of our relationship. I couldn’t see how it could last through all this. Even if I loved her. Let’s face it. It isn’t enough when everything else is lacking.
I turned at the door.
“Don’t forget to tell Jones that it was Jim’s suggestion for you to say I wasn’t with you. Put the onus where it belongs.”
“I’ll… do what I can.”
I left. I told her I’d come back soon. And, in my mind I knew that I loved her but I didn’t understand her. If only there was a way to find out what she’d gone through, what had been her life before I came. If there were someone who she had known before. Maybe her father or her brother. If I could talk to them.
A thought. Why couldn’t I?
I was thinking about that when I found Steig waiting for me again.
“This time, you try to get away and I’ll break your neck,” he said viciously.
I tampered with the immediate instinct to take a flying kick at his groin before he could make a move. I decided against it. I wanted to see Jim anyway. At least that’s what I told myself to avoid a battle which I would, rather obviously, come out second best in. In this case that might be dead, too. Yeah, I wanted to see Jim.
This didn’t take long. He was sitting in the back seat of the car. He nodded once as I sat down beside him. He was dressed immaculately as usual. Grey, subdued sharkskin, homburg just right, tie just right. A man to excite admiration and respect. Until the shell was pierced anyway.
“So I wasn’t with you last night,” I said before he could talk. “I dreamed it all.”
“Don’t be a fool,” he said. “You must realize why I lied about it.”
“I’m not a fool,” I said. “You did it to incriminate me. When did Steig kill Dennis? Before you met us or after I left you?”
“You are a fool,” he said, “if you can’t see that I did the only thing possible.”
I was going to let him know that Peggy planned to spike his lie but I changed my mind. I didn’t want to have him trying to stop her before she had a chance to do it.
Instead I said, “Your brother must have meant a lot to you.”
He surveyed me icily.
“You really think I had my brother murdered, don’t you?” he said.
“I know it,” I said. “Real life murder isn’t as complex as one in a two-and-a-half dollar mystery. There aren’t so many suspects in this case that I have to read two hundred pages to know who killed Dennis.”
I knew that Steig was listening. I saw those big shoulders hunch back, then forward. As if he were flexing, readying himself. It made me a little nervous.
“You’re a blind idiot,” Jim said. “I’ll tell you why I lied about you. Because I knew there wouldn’t be any evidence against you that meant a thing.”
“Just a corpse in my room with my icepick in his head.”
“Do you think you’d be out on bail if Jones really suspected you?”
I didn’t know.
“I knew you’d be free,” he said. “But the real murderer wouldn’t be.”
“You,” I said, “Steig.”
“Peggy,” he said.
That skin crawling again. I’d tell myself, he’s lying, he’s lying, he’s lying. Three times, because once wasn’t enough. But every time I did, he said something more and I got sicker and weaker in conviction. He seemed so sure and I am chronically incapable of believing that intelligent people can keep lying. Even if they threaten to. And Peggy had stabbed her husband to death. That was authenticated
.
“You’re lying,” I said, but only to talk.
“You know I’m not,” he said. “You know that there’s every possibility in the world that Peggy went to your room last night and killed Dennis.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I… I know Peggy.”
“You don’t know Peggy.”
“She didn’t do it.”
“She killed Dennis.”
“Can you prove that?” I said.
“Prove it?” he said. “I’m trying to make it impossible to prove. I don’t want anyone to have a chance to prove it.”
I must have looked blank.
“I’m telling you,” he said, “Peggy killed my brother. And I’m trying to save her.”
“Why did she kill him in my room?” I asked, suspiciously, but weakening.
“He told her to come there. He threatened her.”
“With what?”
“With exposing her as Grady’s murderer.”
“Oh, you’re crazy,” I said.
He paid no attention. He seemed to sense me weakening. He went on.
“She’s insane,” he said. “You may not choose to believe that, but it doesn’t alter the fact. She’s killed three men now. God knows why.”
“But you still want her,” I said, searching vainly for confidence in Peggy.
“I guess you wouldn’t understand that,” he said. “You who live by the morals of a petty world.”
We sat in silence a moment.
“All right,” I said, looking for a peg to hang my mind on. “Where does that leave us?”
I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t concentrate. I was sick thinking that maybe everything Jim had ever told me was the truth. How long can blind love sustain you when someone keeps hacking away at it with a very tangible axe? And the thought that my relationship with Peggy had been an endless fabrication of lies made me ill.
“I’ve told you,” he said, “they can’t do anything about it. And as long as you don’t try to involve her, I’ll leave you alone.”
“I still don’t believe you,” I said. “I saw the shock on her face when…”
“One night Peggy and Dennis went out together,” he said. “At three o’clock in the morning, Dennis came in the house with his arm streaming blood. He had to have five stitches.”
“It’s…”
“And the next day Peggy came to see him and she cried and said she didn’t mean it.”