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Chapter Seventeen
“That’s fantastic,” Ellie said. “Just incredible. You actually solved the murder.”
“That’s what I did, all right.”
“It’s amazing.” She drew up her legs and tucked her feet underneath herself. She was wearing the outfit she’d had on the morning she knocked the plant over, the white painter’s pants and the Western-style denim shirt, and she looked as fetching as ever. “I don’t see how you figured it out, Bernie.”
“Well, I told you how it went. The main thing was realizing that the deadbolt had been locked originally. At the time I assumed that Flaxford had locked it on his way out, but of course he was in the bedroom then. Once I made the co
“Loren.”
“Loren. And if Loren killed him it was for money, and money was the one thing that wasn’t turning up. And there just had to be money in the case.”
“And you figured all this out while you were opening the door.”
“I had it pretty much figured out before then. I wanted it to look like it was coming to me while Ray was around so it would be easier for him to follow the reasoning.”
“And then you had the luck to find the hundred-dollar bill on the floor.”
I let that pass. It was luck, but I’d been prepared to make my own luck. There was a hundred-dollar bill in my wallet right now, one of the pair Darla and I had split, and there was a little blood on it for decoration, and it would have gone into the blue box if the genuine article hadn’t turned up behind the bed. I’d needed something to take Ray’s mind off what was originally in the box and a piece of bloody currency had looked to have the right sort of dramatic value, something Perry Mason might wave about in a courtroom. Maybe that was why I happened to notice the bill Loren had actually left behind. Well, this way I could keep my own bill, at least until I found something to spend it on.
Ellie got up and went to the kitchen for more coffee. I stretched out and put my feet up on the coffee table. I was bone-tired and tightly wired all at once. I wanted to lie down and sleep for six or seven days, but the way I felt I might have to stay awake about that long.
It was getting late now, almost one-thirty. Once Ray and Loren had gotten out of Darla’s apartment I called her at home as we’d arranged, ringing twice and hanging up. A few minutes later she rang me back and I reported that I’d found the box and had the tapes and pictures in hand. “You don’t have to worry about negatives,” I said. “They’re Polaroid shots. One thing, whoever took them had a nice sense of composition.”
“You looked at them.”
“I had to know what they were and I didn’t trust myself to identify them by touch.”
“Oh, I’m not complaining,” she said. “I just wondered if you found them interesting.”
“As a matter of fact, I did.”
“I thought you might. Have you listened to the tapes?”
“No. I’m not going to. I think there should be a certain amount of mystery in our relationship.”
“Oh, are we going to have a relationship?”
“I rather thought we might. Does your fireplace work or is it just for decoration?”
“It works. I’ve never had a relationship in a fireplace.”
“I had something else in mind for it. I’m going to burn the pictures and tapes before I leave. They’re half mine anyway. I spent all my case money getting them back and I want them out of the way as soon as possible.”
“They might make interesting souvenirs.”
“No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. It’s like keeping a loaded gun around the house. The possible benefit is infinitesimal and the downside risk is enormous. I want to destroy them tonight. You can trust me to do it, incidentally. I’m not a potential blackmailer, just in case you were wondering.”
“Oh, I trust you, Bernard.”
“I still have my cop suit. I thought I might leave it here. It would save dragging it back downtown.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“And I still have the handcuffs and the nightstick, strangely enough. The cop they belonged to had to leave in a hurry and he won’t have any further use for them. I’ll leave them here, too.”
“Lovely. If it weren’t so late already-”
“No, it’s too late. And I have some other things to do. But I’ll be in touch, Darla.”
“Oh, good,” she said. “That will be nice.”
I looked up the number of the Cumberland and called Wesley Brill to tell him that the whole thing was wrapped up and tied with a ribbon. “You’re completely out of it,” I said. “The case is solved, I’m in the clear, and neither you nor Mrs. S. ever got mentioned. In case you were worried.”
“I was,” he admitted. “How’d you pull it off?”
“I got lucky. Look, have you got a minute? Because I’ve got a couple of questions.”
I asked my questions and he answered them. We chatted for a minute or two, agreed we ought to meet for a drink one of these days, albeit at someplace other than Pandora’s, and that was that. I found Rodney Hart’s number in the book, dialed it, heard it ring upwards of fifteen times, then got a cooperative girl at the answering service. She told me where to reach Rod-he was still in St. Louis-but when I got through to his hotel there he hadn’t come in yet. I suppose the play was still on the boards.
I changed back into my own clothes and stowed my cop gear in Darla’s closet. She had some interesting gear of her own there, some of which I’d seen in the Polaroid shots, but I didn’t really have time to inspect it. In the living room I flipped through the photographs and piled all but one of them in the wood-burning fireplace, which I now transformed into a film-burning fireplace. I added the cassettes, which smoldered and stank a bit, stirred the ashes when ashes there were, put on the air conditioner and left.
I took a cab downtown to Bethune Street and had a lot of fun telling the driver how to find it. I looked up at the building. There were no lights on in the fourth-floor apartment. I stood in the vestibule and checked the buzzer at 4-F. No name beside the button. I poked the button and nothing happened, so I opened the downstairs door in my usual fashion and went up three flights.
The locks were easy to pick. I let myself in and didn’t have to spend too much time in there. After ten minutes or so I left, picked the locks shut behind me, and climbed another flight to Rod’s apartment where Ellie was waiting.
And we were both there now, sipping cups of coffee laced with Scotch and working everything out. “You’re completely in the clear,” she said. “Is that right? The cops don’t even want to talk to you?”
“They’ll probably want to talk to me sooner or later,” I said. “A lot depends on what Ray ultimately decides to do. He wants Loren out of that uniform for good and he wants him to do some time in prison, but at the same time he’d probably like to avoid a full-scale investigation and court battle. I figure they’ll probably work out some kind of compromise. Loren’ll plead guilty to some kind of manslaughter charge. If he’s inside for more than a year I’ll be surprised.”
“After he killed a man?”
“Well, it would be hard to prove all that in court, and it would be impossible to do without dragging in errant burglars and bribe-taking cops and corrupt district attorneys and other politicians, so you might say the system has a vested interest in putting a lid on this one. And Loren has fifty thousand silent arguments in his favor.”
“Fifty thousand-oh, the money. What happens to the money now?”
“That’s a good question. It belongs to Michael Debus, I think, but how is he going to come around and claim it? I can’t see anybody letting Loren keep it, and I don’t think Ray’ll be able to grab it all for himself. I wish there was a way I could cut myself in for a piece of it. Not out of greed but just so that I could wind up close to even. This whole business is costing me a fortune, you know. I got a thousand dollars in front and gave it to Ray. Then Debus’s men did a few thousand dollars’ damage to my apartment and its contents, and finally my five grand case money went to Ray so that I could clear myself. It all adds up to a hell of a depressing balance sheet.”