He went back into the house and looked for the keys to the gray sedan. He looked everywhere. He found them just as he was beginning to become frantic. They were in an ash tray on a table near the living room door. He took a last look around, and was glad he did. He hooked up a hose from the shed to an outside faucet and rinsed off the flagstones where Danny’s head had been, rinsed off the blood and flecks of tissue and a single curved fragment of bone.
He drove the sedan up the gravel road, watching the ditch carefully. When he saw a deep enough place, he backed up, then ran the car violently into the ditch. It shook him up badly, and he bit the inside of his lower lip. He raced the motor in gear until the back wheels were buried deep. He left the keys in it, got into his own car, rocked it until it came up out of the shallow ditch.
Verney was in his office by eleven o’clock. He told his secretary he had driven out toward Kemp to look at some property that might come on the market soon. She gave him the phone messages and said a policeman named Spence had stopped in to see him at ten o’clock and said he’d be back later.
“Did he say what it was about?”
“No, sir.”
The man came back at quarter to twelve and introduced himself as Detective Spence of the Homicide Section. He was a spare man with scurfy hair and a long face so dry as to look dusty. Verney was relieved by his casual manner. Spence was pleased to accept a cigar.
“I want to ask some questions about a parole officer named Keefler who came to see you the other day about a visit you got from Danny Bronson.”
“Oh yes, of course.”
Verney told the story of Bronson’s visit, of his curiosity about the man and about the suspicious way he had acted. And he related his conversation with Keefler.
“We got Keefler locked up for murder.”
“Keefler! Indeed?”
“An oldie from way back. He got excited and spilled it to Sergeant Ben Wixler. We were talking to Keefler actually about the murder of Bronson’s sister-in-law last night.”
“Murder?”
“How could you miss it, Mr. Verney?”
“I’m afraid I did. I haven’t seen a paper yet and I haven’t heard the radio newscasts.”
Spence stood up. “It was about this same thing, we think. About the envelope, the same one he tried to leave with you. Wixler will get to the bottom of it. He nearly always does. Danny is about nineteen times as hot as he was yesterday.”
“This Sergeant Wexler thinks Bronson did it?”
“Not Wexler. Wixler. I don’t know exactly what he thinks, Mr. Verney. I know he wants to talk to Danny.”
“If you ever find out what was in that envelope, I would like very much to know, Mr. Spence.”
“We’ll find out. We always do. See you around,” Spence said, and drifted out.
Verney tried to compose himself after Spence had gone. There had been something peculiarly disquieting about the man. He had the air of utter casual confidence.
We always do.
He quieted himself with logical thought. Four people had known or could make a good guess at the contents of that envelope. Mrs. Lee Bronson, Drusilla Catton, Danny Bronson and himself. And he was certainly never going to share that knowledge with anybody.
In review he decided that he had moved quickly and deftly, and had improvised well. He had done something distasteful to him and yet necessary to his well-being. Three had died. A pretty, superficial, shallow young woman. A trashy older woman. A wanted man. There was no loss to society.
It would be well, he decided, to set up the date of his trip to South America.
Chapter Eleven
Ben Wixler
Inspector Wendell Matthews sat at his ease in Ben Wixler’s office, chair tilted back, chubby knee sharply bent, right heel caught on the edge of the chair, hands laced around his right ankle. It was ten o’clock on the morning of Thursday, October eighteenth.
Matthews was a round man who, twenty years before, had barely met minimum height requirements. He had thinning brown hair, ice gray eyes and a small petulant mouth. He had the reputation of being a fusspot, an old lady who looked for dust in the corners and under the rugs, who looked for incorrect entries in the files, who was death on coffee breaks. The few in the department who knew him better knew that only the surface of his mind was occupied with departmental trivia. Ben Wixler and a handful of others had a good deal of respect for the quiet logic underneath.
They had been discussing the available facts in the Bronson murder, and Matthews had gone over the already bulky file.
“This could hurt you,” Matthews said.
“What am I doing that I shouldn’t do? What haven’t I done that should be done, Wendy? We’ve gone through that neighborhood thoroughly. Danny Bronson is as hot as anybody can be. It looks like we have to wait until he’s found.”
“You know what I mean, Ben. You read the papers. Professor’s wife slain. Huge manhunt for paroled convict. Mystery money figures in Bronson case. She was a sexy looking item, and she loved having her picture taken. So all the wire services have picked it up. The deal of getting killed with the kitchen sink gives it that nice flavor of the macabre. Bucky Angelis, our fighting district attorney, wants in on the act.”
“I know. He was over. Offering all the manpower of his office and the Special Detail, or something. But what could I use them for?”
“Bad psychology, Ben. You should have accepted, and given them a make-work job.”
“Why?”
“Suppose Danny isn’t located? Then you’re up the creek. And it would be nice to be able to share the blame. Keep it to yourself, and you don’t have too much time left.”
“Before what?”
“Are you trying to needle me, Sergeant? You know damn well what I mean. Bucky will lean on the Commissioner of Public Safety. He sees a chance to get his picture in the paper. So he leans on the Police Commissioner, who leans on the Chief, who then has to fix this curious situation of having a sergeant in charge of the Homicide Section. And I will bet you a bun that fifteen minutes after you are relieved as acting head of section, Danny is picked up and the new guy unravels the deal like a home-made sweater. So then you wait another year or two because the Chief can’t safely sign a promotion for somebody he has relieved of duty, no matter what he thinks privately. If you haven’t gained any ground you are certain to be all washed up by Monday, and it could happen as soon as tomorrow.”
“You’re full of cheer, Wendy.”
Matthews thumped his chair down onto all four legs. “Let me check your thinking with mine on this thing. Do you think Danny Bronson killed her?”
“I’ll bet about ten to one against it. I think he got into bed with her, and I think he was using her as a drop for money and maybe something else important to him — a statement protecting him from somebody he was gouging. I’ve done some research on Danny Bronson. He is tough, greedy, and brutal. He’s also intelligent and remarkably unlucky. What he is doesn’t fit the crime.”
“Lee Bronson?”
“Not a chance. There is a nice guy.”
“That’s why you count him out?”
“Now who’s needling who? We’ve triple-checked the time he arrived at Haughton’s against the earliest possible time of death. If he could cross the city in ten seconds, he could have done it.”