«My God!» the girl breathed. «What’s this rotten city coming to?»
Delaguerra went on tonelessly: «It was like this — if you’re sure you want to know … yet.»
«I do, Sam. His eyes stare at me from the wall, wherever I look. Asking me to do something. He was pretty swell to me, Sam. We had our trouble, of course, but … they didn’t mean anything.»
Delaguerra said: «This Imlay is running for judge with the backing of the Masters-Aage group. He’s in and the gay forties and it seems he’s been playing house with a night-club number called Stella La Motte. Somehow, someway, photos were taken of them together, very drunk and undressed. Donny got the photos, Belle. They were found in his desk. According to his desk pad he had a date with Imlay at twelve-fifteen. We figure they had a row and Imlay beat him to the punch.»
«You found those photos, Sam?» the girl asked, very quietly.
He shook his head, smiled crookedly. «No. If I had, I guess I might have ditched them. Commissioner Drew found them — after I was pulled off the investigation.»
Her head jerked at him. Her vivid blue eyes got wide. «Pulled off the investigation? You — Donny’s friend?»
«Yeah. Don’t take it too big. I’m a cop, Belle. After all I take orders.»
She didn’t speak, didn’t look at him any more. After a little while he said: «I’d like to have the keys to your cabin at Puma Lake. I’m detailed to go up there and look around, see if there’s any evidence. Donny had conferences there.»
Something changed in the girl’s face. It got almost contemptuous. Her voice was empty. «I’ll get them. But you won’t find anything there. If you’re helping them to find dirt on Donny — so they can clear this Imlay person…»
He smiled a little, shook his head slowly. His eyes were very deep, very sad.
«That’s crazy talk, kid. I’d turn my badge in before I did that.»
«I see.» She walked past him to the door, went out of the room. He sat quite still while she was gone, looked at the wall with an empty stare. There was a hurt look on his face. He swore very softly, under his breath.
The girl came back, walked up to him and held her hand out. Something tinkled into his palm.
«The keys, copper.»
Delaguerra stood up, dropped the keys into a pocket. His face got wooden. Belle Marr went over to a table and her nails scratched harshly on a cloisonné box, getting a cigarette out of it. With her back turned she said: «I don’t think you’ll have any luck, as I said. It’s too bad you’ve only got blackmailing on him so far.»
Delaguerra breathed out slowly, stood a moment, then turned away. «Okey,» he said softly. His voice was quite offhand now, as if it was a nice day, as if nobody had been killed.
At the door he turned again. «I’ll see you when I get back, Belle. Maybe you’ll feel better.»
She didn’t answer, didn’t move. She held the unlighted cigarette rigidly in front of her mouth, close to it. After a moment Delaguerra went on: «You ought to know how I feel about it. Donny and I were like brothers once. I — I heard you were not getting on so well with him. I’m glad as all hell that was wrong. But don’t let yourself get too hard, Belle. There’s nothing to be hard about — with me.»
He waited a few seconds, staring at her back. When she still didn’t move or speak he went on out.
FOUR
A narrow rocky road dropped down from the highway and ran along the flank of the hill above the lake. The tops of cabins showed here and there among the pines. An open shed was cut into the side of the hill. Delaguerra put his dusty Cadillac under it and climbed down a narrow path towards the water.
The lake was deep blue but very low. Two or three canoes drifted about on it and the chugging of an outboard motor sounded in the distance, around a bend. He went along between thick walls of undergrowth, walking on pine needles, turned around a stump and crossed a small rustic bridge to the Marr cabin.
It was built of half-round logs and had a wide porch on the lake side. It looked very lonely and empty. The spring that ran under the bridge curved around beside the house and one end of the porch dropped down sheer to the big flat stones through which the water trickled. The stones would be covered when the water was high, in the spring.
Delaguerra went up wooden steps and took the keys out of his pocket, unlocked the heavy front door, then stood on the porch a little while and lit a cigarette before he went in. It was very still, very pleasant, very cool and clear after the heat of the city. A mountain bluejay sat on a stump and pecked at its wings. Somebody far out on the lake fooled with a ukulele. He went into the cabin.
He looked at some dusty antlers, a big rough table splattered with magazines, an old-fashioned battery-type radio, a box-shaped phonograph with a disheveled pile of records beside it. There were tall glasses that hadn’t been washed and a half-bottle of Scotch beside them, on a table near the big stone fireplace. A car went along the road up above and stopped somewhere not far off. Delaguerra frowned around, said: «Stall,» under his breath, with a defeated feeling. There wasn’t any sense in it. A man like Donegan Marr wouldn’t leave anything that mattered in a mountain cabin.
He looked into a couple of bedrooms, one just a shake-down with a couple of cots, one better furnished, with a make-up bed, and a pair of women’s gaudy pajamas tossed across it. They didn’t look quite like Belle Marr’s.
At the back there was a small kitchen with a gasoline stove and a wood stove. He opened the back door with another key and stepped out on a small porch flush with the ground, near a big pile of cordwood and a double-bitted axe on a chopping block.
Then he saw the flies.
A wooden walk went down the side of the house to a woodshed under it. A beam of sunlight had slipped through the trees and lay across the walk. In the sunlight there a clotted mass of flies festered on something brownish, sticky. The flies didn’t want to move. Delaguerra bent down, then put his hand down and touched the sticky place, sniffed at his finger. His face got shocked and stiff.
There was another smaller patch of the brownish stuff farther on, in the shade, outside the door of the shed. He took the keys out of his pocket very quickly and found the one that unlocked the big padlock of the woodshed. He yanked the door open.
There was a big loose pile of cordwood inside. Not split wood — cordwood. Not stacked, just thrown in anyhow. Delaguerra began to toss the big rough pieces to one side.
After he had thrown a lot of it aside he was able to reach down and take hold of two cold stiff ankles in lisle socks and drag the dead man out into the light.
He was a slender man, neither tall nor short, in a well-cut basket weave suit. His small neat shoes were polished, a little dust over the polish. He didn’t have any face, much. It was broken to pulp by a terrific smash. The top of his head was split open and brains and blood were mixed in the thin grayish-brown hair.
Delaguerra straightened quickly and went back into the house to where the half-bottle of Scotch stood on the table in the living room. He uncorked it, drank from the neck, waited a moment, drank again.
He said: «Phew!» out loud, and shivered as the whiskey whipped at his nerves.
He went back to the woodshed, leaned down again as an automobile motor started up somewhere. He stiffened. The motor swelled in sound, then the sound faded and there was silence again. Delaguerra shrugged, went through the dead man’s pockets. They were empty. One of them, with cleaner’s marks on it probably, had been cut away. The tailor’s label had been cut from the inside pocket of the coat, leaving ragged stitches.
The man was stiff. He might have been dead twenty-four hours, not more. The blood on his face had coagulated thickly but had not dried completely.