“Go on.”
“It took her a long time. But last Saturday afternoon, late, she stopped by. She said she was pretty sure she had the full story, and it was murder, and she was going to face Brian with it that night. I asked her for details. She wouldn’t tell me anything because she didn’t think Brian was personally involved, and she was in duty bound to give him his chance to get clear of Justinian before she told.
“Then she was going to give the whole story to my Uncle Gilbert. She said he was big enough to fight Justinian.”
And he was, plenty big enough. If he had even reasonable proof that his nephew had been murdered, he could go right over the heads of the local law, to where the Emperor Justinian of Fordstown had no influence at all. He could smash him into little pieces.
Reason enough for Justinian to silence Marjorie. Reason enough.
But...
Sheila was still talking. “Marjorie did tell me one thing, Mr. Carver.”
“What?”
“If Brian still insisted on sticking with Justinian, she was going to leave him. She said, ‘I’ll go back to Greg, if he still wants me.’ ”
That turned me cold all over. “And she did. No, what am I saying? She didn’t come, somebody brought her. Somebody. Who? Why?”
“Surely you must have guessed that by now, Mr. Carver.”
“You tell me.”
“Who it was exactly, of course, I don’t know. But it was somebody who knows Marjorie’s suicide was a lie. It was somebody who liked her and wanted the truth known. Somebody who thought that if he brought her to you, you would understand and do something about it.”
Yes. I could see that.
“But why me? Why not lay her on Brian’s doorstep? He was her husband.”
“They probably felt that he would be too shocked and grieved to understand. Or perhaps they didn’t trust him to fight Justinian. You wouldn’t be involved either way. And you already have a grudge against Justinian.”
Oh yes, I had a grudge, all right. But who was this thoughtful someone? One of the killers? An accidental witness? And why did he have to pass the thing along to anyone? Why didn’t he just come out and tell the truth himself?
That last one was easy. He was afraid.
Well, so was I.
Sheila was waiting. She was looking at me, expectant, confident. She was a pretty girl. She seemed like a nice girl, a loyal friend, a loving sister. She had had her troubles. I hated to let her down.
I said, “No sale. Marjorie killed herself. Let’s just accept that and forget it.”
She stared at me with a slowly dawning astonishment. “After what I’ve just told you — you can still say that?”
“Yes,” I said. “I can. In the first place, how would Marjorie find it out even if your brother was really murdered? Eddie Sego plans those things, and Eddie is not the babbling type. Not to anybody, including the boss’s lawyer’s wife.”
“Eddie Sego had nothing to do with it. He was in the hospital then with a burst appendix. That’s one thing that made it harder for Marjorie, because she didn’t know where to start.” She added, with angry certainty, “She did find out, somehow.”
“Okay then. She found out. Maybe she found out even more. Maybe she discovered that Brian was so deeply involved that she couldn’t tell. Maybe she was in such a mess that there wasn’t any other way out of it but suicide. You don’t know what happened after she left you.” I got up and opened the door. “Go home, Miss Harding. Forget about it. Lead a long and happy life.”
She didn’t go. She continued to look at me. “I understand,” she said. “You’re scared.”
“Miss Harding,” I said, “have you ever been set upon by large men with brass knuckles? Have you ever spent weeks in a hospital getting your face put back together again?”
“No. But I imagine it wasn’t pleasant. I imagine they warned you that the next time it would be worse.”
“A society doll with brains,” I said. “You have the whole picture. Good night.”
“I don’t think you have the whole picture yet, Mr. Carver. If you could find the man who brought Marjorie’s body to you, you would have a witness who could break Justinian.”
“All right,” I said, “we’ll get right down to bedrock. I don’t like Justinian any better than you do, but it’s going to take somebody or something bigger than me to break him. I tried to once, and he did the breaking. As far as I’m concerned, that’s it.”
“I don’t suppose,” she said slowly, “that I have any right to call you a coward.”
“No. You haven’t.”
“Very well. I won’t.”
And this time she went.
I closed the door and turned off the lights. Then I went to the window and looked down at the street, three floors below. I saw her come out of the building and get into a black-and-white convertible parked at the curb. She drove away. Before she was out of sight a man got out of a car across the street and then the car went off after her. The man who had been left behind loitered along the street, where he could watch the front of the building and my window.
Somebody was keeping tabs on what I did and who came to see me.
Wade Hickey? Justinian? And why?
I began to think about Brian Ingraham, and wonder how deeply he might be involved. I began to think about Joe Justinian, and what might be done about him. The Marjorie-image came back into my mind, and it was smiling.
Then I thought of the brass knuckles and the taste of blood and oil on the old brick paving. I looked down at the loitering man. “The hell with it,” I said, and I went and lay down on my bed.
But I couldn’t sleep.
About midnight I quit trying. I smoked a couple of cigarettes, sitting by the window. I did not turn the lights on. I don’t remember that I came to any conscious and reasoned decision, either. After a certain length of time I just got up and went.
I didn’t go near my car. I knew they would be watching that, expecting me to use it. I slipped out the back entrance into the alley and across it to an areaway that ran alongside another apartment house to the next street. I was careful. I didn’t see anybody. I didn’t want anybody to see me. I still thought I could quit on this thing any time it got too risky.
At my age, and with my experience, I should have known better.
Chapter Four
There were still honest cops on the force, plenty of them. It wasn’t their fault if they were hamstrung. As things stood, they had two choices. They could resign and go to farming or selling shoes, or they could sweat it out, hoping for better days. One who was sweating it out was an old friend of mine, a detective named Carmen Prioletti.
His house was pitch-dark when I got to it, after a twenty-minute hike. I rang the bell, and pretty soon a light came on, and then Carmen, frowsy with sleep, stuck his head out the door and demanded to know what the hell.
“Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”
He let me in and we stood talking in low voices in the hall, so as not to wake the family.
“I want to borrow your car,” I said. “No questions asked, and back in an hour. Okay?”
He looked at me narrowly. Then he said, “Okay.” He got the keys and gave them to me.
“I’ll need a flashlight, too,” I said.
“There’s one in the car.” He added, “I’ll wait up.”
I drove through quiet streets to the northern edge of town, and beyond it, into the country, where the air was cool and the dark roads were overhung with trees, and the summer mist lay white and heavy in the bottoms. I drove fast until I came to Beaver Run Road, and then I went slower, looking for the logging cut. Beaver Run was a secondary road, unpaved, washboarded and full of potholes. Dust had coated the trees and brush on either side, so they showed up bleached and grayish.