We spent the next two hours with loud-mouthed deputies. They were angry with the dead man for having the kind of past that attracted bullets. They were angry with Harry for being his brother. They were secretly angry with themselves for being inexperienced and incompetent. They didn’t even uncover the leopardskin coat.
Harry Nemo left the courthouse first. I waited for him to leave, and tailed him home, on foot.
Where a leaning palm tree reared its ragged head above the pavements, there was a court lined with jerry-built frame cottages. Harry turned up the walk between them and entered the first cottage. Light flashed on his face from inside. I heard a woman’s voice say something to him. Then light and sound were cut off by the closing door.
An old gabled house with boarded-up windows stood opposite the court. I crossed the street and settled down in the shadows of its veranda to watch Harry Nemo’s cottage. Three cigarettes later, a tall woman in a dark hat and a light coat came out of the cottage and walked briskly to the corner and out of sight. Two cigarettes after that, she reappeared at the corner on my side of the street, still walking briskly. I noticed that she had a large straw handbag under her arm. Her face was long and stony under the streetlight.
Leaving the street, she marched up the broken sidewalk to the veranda where I was leaning against the shadowed wall. The stairs groaned under her decisive footsteps. I put my hand on the gun in my pocket, and waited. With the rigid assurance of a WAC corporal marching at the head of her platoon, she crossed the veranda to me, a thin high-shouldered silhouette against the light from the corner. Her hand was in her straw bag, and the end of the bag was pointed at my stomach. Her shadowed face was a gleam of eyes, a glint of teeth.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” she said. “I have a gun here, and the safety is off, and I know how to shoot it, mister.”
“Congratulations.”
“I’m not joking.” Her deep contralto rose a notch. “Rapid fire used to be my specialty. So you better take your hands out of your pockets.”
I showed her my hands, empty. Moving very quickly, she relieved my pocket of the weight of my gun, and frisked me for other weapons.
“Who are you, mister?” she said as she stepped back. “You can’t be Arturo Castola, you’re not old enough.”
“Are you a policewoman?”
“I’ll ask the questions. What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for a friend.”
“You’re a liar. You’ve been watching my house for an hour and a half. I tabbed you through the window.”
“So you went and bought yourself a gun?”
“I did. You followed Harry home. I’m Mrs. Nemo, and I want to know why.”
“Harry’s the friend I’m waiting for.”
“You’re a double liar. Harry’s afraid of you. You’re no friend of his.”
“That depends on Harry. I’m a detective.”
She snorted. “Very likely. Where’s your buzzer?”
“I’m a private detective,” I said. “I have identification in my wallet.”
“Show me. And don’t try any tricks.”
I produced my photostat. She held it up to the light from the street, and handed it back to me. “So you’re a detective. You better do something about your tailing technique. It’s obvious,”
“I didn’t know I was dealing with a cop.”
“I was a cop,” she said. “Not any more.”
“Then give me back my .38. It cost me seventy dollars.”
“First tell me, what’s your interest in my husband? Who hired you?”
“Nick, your brother-in-law. He called me in Los Angeles today, said he needed a bodyguard for a week. Didn’t Harry tell you?”
She didn’t answer.
“By the time I got to Nick, he didn’t need a bodyguard, or anything. But I thought I’d stick around and see what I could find out about his death. He was a client, after all.”
“You should pick your clients more carefully.”
“What about picking brothers-in-law?”
She shook her head stiffly. The hair that escaped from under her hat was almost white. “I’m not responsible for Nick or anything about him. Harry is my responsibility. I met him in line of duty and I straightened him out, understand? I tore him loose from Detroit and the rackets, and I brought him out here. I couldn’t cut him off from his brother entirely. But he hasn’t been in trouble since I married him. Not once.”
“Until now.”
“Harry isn’t in trouble now.”
“Not yet. Not officially.”
“What do you mean?”
“Give me my gun, and put yours down. I can’t talk into iron.”
She hesitated, a grim and anxious woman under pressure. I wondered what quirk of fate or psychology had married her to a hood, and decided it must have been love. Only love would send a woman across a dark street to face down an unknown gunman. Mrs. Nemo was horsefaced and aging and not pretty, but she had courage.
She handed me my gun. Its butt was soothing to the palm of my hand. I dropped it into my pocket. A gang of Negro boys at loose ends went by in the street, hooting and whistling purposelessly.
She leaned towards me, almost as tall as I was. Her voice was a low sibilance forced between her teeth:
“Harry had nothing to do with his brother’s death. You’re crazy if you think so.”
“What makes you so sure, Mrs. Nemo?”
“Harry couldn’t, that’s all. I know Harry, I can read him like a book. Even if he had the guts, which he hasn’t, he wouldn’t dare to think of killing Nick. Nick was his older brother, understand, the successful one in the family.” Her voice rasped contemptuously. “In spite of everything I could do or say, Harry worshiped Nick right up to the end.”
“Those brotherly feelings sometimes cut two ways. And Harry had a lot to gain.”
“Not a cent. Nothing.”
“He’s Nick’s heir, isn’t he?”
“Not as long as he stays married to me. I wouldn’t let him touch a cent of Nick Nemo’s filthy money. Is that clear?”
“It’s clear to me. But is it clear to Harry?”
“I made it clear to him, many times. Anyway, this is ridiculous. Harry wouldn’t lay a finger on that precious brother of his.”
“Maybe he didn’t do it himself. He could have had it done for him. I know he’s covering for somebody.”
“Who?”
“A blond girl left the house after we arrived. She got away in a cherry-colored convertible. Harry recognized her.”
“A cherry-colored convertible?”
“Yes. Does that mean something to you?”
“No. Nothing in particular. She must have been one of Nick’s girls. He always had girls.”
“Why would Harry cover for her?”
“What do you mean, cover for her?”
“She left a leopardskin coat behind. Harry hid it, and paid me not to tell the police.”
“Harry did that?”
“Unless I’m having delusions.”
“Maybe you are at that. If you think that Harry paid that girl to shoot Nick, or had anything–”
“I know. Don’t say it. I’m crazy.”
Mrs. Nemo laid a thin hand on my arm. “Anyway, lay off Harry. Please. I have a hard enough time handling him as it is. He’s worse than my first husband. The first one was a drunk, believe it or not.” She glanced at the lighted cottage across the street, and I saw one half of her bitter smile. “I wonder what makes a woman go for the lame ducks the way I did.”
“I wouldn’t know, Mrs. Nemo. Okay, I lay off Harry.”
But I had no intention of laying off Harry. When she went back to her cottage, I walked around three-quarters of the block and took up a new position in the doorway of a dry-cleaning establishment. This time I didn’t smoke. I didn’t even move, except to look at my watch from time to time.