Skirts Bring Me Sorrow, page 4
His fist hit the desk like a sledgehammer. His brow was black, a vein throbbed at the side of his temple and his eyes were almost crazy. ‘I forbid it,’ he roared. Not even Sandra’s softly moving fingers could subdue him. ‘Get out,’ he roared. ‘Get out before I do you some harm.’
I got up quickly. He was an old guy with one leg in a cast. But he was wanting to start something. The smart thing was to get out of his way.
‘I forbid it,’ he roared, spluttering with fury. ‘I forbid you to ever print a word.’
I was around the other side of the desk now. I wanted him to see the way it was. ‘You can’t muzzle the press,’ I said. ‘The press has a right to …’
He was struggling to climb up out of his chair, anger-contorted face purpling with the effort. Sandra was soothing him, gently pulling him back into his chair. She gestured frantically to me to leave.
I got out the room. It was a honey of an idea. It would be a real cinch if Fletcher played ball. But not getting help from him was gonna make it a tough proposition.
I lit a cigarette, sauntered down the stairs towards the front door. When I reached the hall, Palmer appeared from another room, like he’d been listening for me. He gave me a wry kinda smile, as though to say ‘You scored off me there,’ and walked to the main door to open it up for me.
She called over the stair-rail in that same sweet, controlling voice: ‘Don’t bother, Palmer. I’ll see to it.’
He looked up at her, then looked at me. She was descending the stairs, didn’t see the expression in his eyes. I did. He wasn’t a dope. He understood the way things were, and his eyes told me that he understood. He disappeared, discreetly closed the door behind him loudly.
‘Gee, you sure got him mad,’ she breathed. Automatically her hand went out and lightly touched my elbow. I felt sensation rippling through my body from that single point of contact.
‘It won’t make any difference,’ I said. ‘We’ll print the story just the same. With his help it would have been much easier and …’
Her eyes were worried, her forehead puckered. ‘You can’t print it!’ she protested. ‘Not when he doesn’t want it.’
I shrugged. ‘That’s the newspaper business.’
Her eyes were soft and melting again. ‘Don’t do it,’ she pleaded. ‘For my sake. Don’t do it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said curtly. ‘I’d like to oblige you. But this isn’t my idea anyway. It’s the Chief’s idea.’
‘Think it over,’ she urged quickly. ‘Talk him out of it.’
The pleading and earnestness in her eyes and voice made me want to do anything she asked. ‘I’ll think it over,’ I compromised.
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled. ‘I know you’ll do what I want,’ she whispered. She leaned closer so her chest was resting on mine. ‘I’ll telephone. I’ll let you know when it’s okay. You’ll come won’t you? You promised.’
I detached myself gently. ‘Listen, lady,’ I said. ‘I had the wrong angle. I thought you were Fletcher’s daughter. I didn’t know you were his wife.’
Her eyes were surprised. ‘Does that make any difference?’
I looked at her steadily. ‘You figure it for yourself.’
Her eyes narrowed. She said sharply: ‘You figure it for yourself. He was so old when we married, the guests didn’t throw rice, they threw vitamin pills.’
‘You married him,’ I rasped. ‘He got what he wanted; you got what you wanted.’
‘I got only some of the things I wanted,’ she flared, and her chest nudged my arm, curiously thrilling and meaningful.
‘He’s given you a good home,’ I said. ‘Plenty of dames would be happy with that alone.’
She pouted, shrugged her shoulders. ‘Henry’s all right in his place, I guess.’ Then her lips parted, showing her white teeth clenched in an angry grimace. ‘But it isn’t dug yet!’
I looked her over. It was like viewing her from a different angle, seeing her all over again. She wasn’t merely soft, sexy, alluring and artful. She wasn’t just a dumb babe twisting guys around her little finger with skilful charm. She was hard, too. Hard as tempered steel, cunning and dangerous. The kinda dame who could figure ways to help an old guy go quickly.
‘Quit thinking along those lines,’ I warned her. ‘It can cause you grief.’
Her eyes narrowed to slits. ‘What d’you mean?’ she demanded. Her voice was low, breathless and slightly scared.
‘Figure it out.’
I got the door open and slammed it behind me, while she stood there, startled and afraid of what I’d guessed.
I’d sensed the ruthlessness inside her, realised this was a situation where murder might be her favourite daydream.
I climbed into my car, started the engine. As I got into gear, I caught sight of her framed in the doorway. She was staring with an inscrutable expression on her face. Somehow she seemed to have lost her colour, seemed frail, pale, tired and exhausted.
CHAPTER FOUR
Fletcher had to break down. Refusing an interview was one thing. But once I’d got inside, told him what was in my mind, he just couldn’t leave it at that.
It was Palmer who telephoned, amusement in his voice as he told me Fletcher would be prepared to grant me an interview.
‘I’ve had an interview,’ I pointed out.
‘This time you’re invited.’
I went over straight away. Palmer opened the door. I used my eyes and ears but was disappointed: Sandra wasn’t around.
Palmer showed me upstairs, and once again I took the chair facing Fletcher. This time it was different. Fletcher wasn’t angry any more. He was serious, deadly serious. He was worried too. He looked at me with slitted eyes, trying to analyse my innermost thoughts. I smiled back cheerfully, tried to look innocent. He was smart enough to know he’d have to bring it right out into the open.
‘Just why do you figure that my son being missing twenty years should interest the public?’
‘Human interest,’ I replied promptly. ‘Son goes missing while father is piling up a fortune. The son becomes a vagrant, never makes a claim on father.’ I paused significantly, added with meaningful emphasis: ‘Why?’
There was a long, long silence while he glared at me as though trying to stare me down. Finally he sighed sadly. ‘You know about it then?’
‘Sure,’ I agreed. ‘I had a coupla guys digging in the newspaper morgue all morning. They dug up the Balm Creek records. Only local newspaper stuff, but it’s hot news right now. Especially after half Chicago’s been involved in the biggest traffic jam for years.’
He moved uneasily, winced with the sudden pain of his leg, clasped gnarled brown hands tightly together. ‘What d’ya want?’ he demanded surlily.
‘Your co-operation.’
‘How much?’
‘All you can give.’
He scowled. ‘You know what I mean. How much dough to kill the story?’
I shook my head sadly. ‘You ain’t gonna kill that story, Fletcher. Nobody can kill it.’
‘You’re the only newspaper that’s got on to it.’
‘Maybe we are right now. But the cops will get around to it. It’ll be routine. Their files go back for fifty years.’
He looked haggard. ‘Isn’t there some way?’ he pleaded. ‘Can’t something be done?’
‘Listen, Fletcher,’ I rasped. ‘You’ve got dough. Plenty of dough. But dough ain’t everything. Dough can’t alter facts, and it’s facts you’ve gotta face up to. Twenty years ago your son, aged fourteen, committed a murder. He took a powder and they never caught up with him. But they knew who he was, and a jury found him guilty. If he’d been caught, he’d have gone to the chair, same as anyone else. You can’t alter facts. Now the law will catch up with him. It doesn’t matter that he’s dead. In the eyes of the law, he’s still a murderer. Nothing you wanna say can alter that.’
He was silent for a long while. He heaved a deep sigh. ‘So, it’s got to come out,’ he said dismally. ‘I was afraid of it. I was hoping …’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s tough. The kid’s dead and no good comes from raking it all up. But it’s got a human interest story, see? The public will wanna know what happened to him during the twenty years he was missing. Somebody’s gonna tell them. It might as well be the Chicago Chronicle as any other.’
‘What d’you want from me?’ he asked bleakly.
‘Give me a few facts. Something to work on. I’ve gotta follow a trail that’s twenty years old, find out what happened to a guy the police couldn’t find. I need everything you can give me.’
He couldn’t give me much. He didn’t know much. David Fletcher at the age of fourteen had been a well-built boy, almost a man. He was headstrong, with a will of his own. It was Henry Fletcher’s opinion that if his wife hadn’t died when David was very young, she might have had a favourable influence upon him. As it was, Fletcher and his son lived in a small lean-to just out of town, and while David Fletcher ploughed and planted the few acres they possessed, Henry Fletcher, in partnership with a man named Hambledon, ran the village hardware store.
There wasn’t much dough in the hardware business. It was during the depression of ’32, when folks were hard put for cash. The takings from the hardware store weren’t sufficient to make a living for both Fletcher and Hambledon. But Hambledon, a much older and richer man than Fletcher, clung grimly to his share of the partnership, again and again offered to buy out Fletcher at a price that was laughable.
The rows between Fletcher and Hambledon, who were both hot-blooded men, became frequent and explosive. On one or two occasions, antagonism became so sharp that Hambledon had journeyed out to Fletcher’s shack to angrily argue points of disagreement which he hadn’t remembered during the day.
That was how Hambledon came into conflict with David Fletcher. On two occasions Fletcher Senior was not at home when Hambledon called. Hambledon, red-faced with anger and determined not to be cheated of a chance to lose his bad temper, vented his anger on David, who at this time was just fourteen. David, who hadn’t the scruples of an older man, met harsh words with hard fists. Hambledon, although a wiry old man, was no match for the youth. He returned home with a battered and bleeding face as mute testimony to David’s youthful strength.
Small town gossip travels like a prairie fire. Within a week, there wasn’t anyone who didn’t know Hambledon had been soundly thrashed by a boy of fourteen. And with the perverseness of an old man, Hambledon nourished hatred against the Fletchers, trained secretly and chose his revenge carefully, waited until David Fletcher came into town and then, in full view of the townsfolk, tackled him and provoked him into yet another fight.
He should have known better. Youth is always strong, and although Hambledon inflicted damage on David, the outcome of the fight was never in doubt. It was Hambledon who was left bleeding and semi-conscious in the dusty roadway.
A week later, Henry Fletcher and a friend left a neighbour’s home where they’d been playing poker and discovered the body of Hambledon, lying across the porch of Fletcher’s shack. Hambledon’s chest was shattered by lead shot. Lying nearby was a shotgun.
There wasn’t any doubt about the identity of the murderer. The enmity between Hambledon and David was widely known. It was David’s shotgun that was found by the body of the murdered man and, as a final clincher, David disappeared without a trace that same day.
The law moved slowly in those days. It was two or three days before the search for David began in earnest. By then he must have covered plenty of ground. The police never got a smell of him. And a fortnight later, when a jury brought in a verdict of murder against David Fletcher, the cops had already given up hope and slacked off their efforts to find him.
That was the story in a nutshell. But it had its pleasant side too. Under their partnership agreement, Fletcher took over the hardware store in its entirety on the death of Hambledon. He worked hard, built it up, had good luck and displayed skilful buying ability during the war. From a small hardware store in an obscure town, he built up an influential business, buying and selling thousands of tons of precious iron and steel, amassing for himself at the same time a considerable fortune.
Getting the story out of him was like getting water out of a deep well with a broken-down pump. Slowly, little by little, I wormed out the facts and pieced them together. I’d just about pumped the well dry when there came a knock at the door and Palmer entered. His job seemed to be a cross between private secretary and aide-de-camp.
Fletcher scowled at him. ‘Well?’ he growled.
‘There’s a gentleman to see you,’ said Palmer meaningfully.
‘Who is he? What the devil does he want?’
‘Hm … m,’ coughed Palmer doubtfully, and looked at me. ‘I think you ought to see him,’ he advised.
Palmer musta rated pretty high in the Fletcher joint. Fletcher accepted his judgment. ‘Show him in then,’ he grated.
‘But …’ doubted Palmer, looked towards me again.
‘It’ll be all right,’ said Fletcher curtly.
I got up, tucked away my pencil and the envelope upon which I’d scribbled a few relevant facts. Fletcher cleared his throat, stared embarrassedly at his fingernails. ‘Tell me,’ he asked. ‘You’re commissioned to check up on David’s background. Huh?’
I nodded slowly. ‘And you’ve given me helpful leads.’
He had difficulty getting it out. He said in a kinda choked voice: ‘It’s this way, Janson. I’ve been wondering what my boy’s been up to these past twenty years. I was kinda hoping that maybe sometime he was gonna come in for a share of my dough.’
‘That wouldn’t have been possible,’ I said gently.
He knew what I meant. If Fletcher had died and David had come forward to claim the dough his father left, the cops would have had their hands on his shoulder two minutes later.
For a moment his eyes were piercing, probing into mine. Then he looked away, said quietly: ‘We can’t always get what we want.’ He clasped and unclasped his hands nervously, and I noticed his knuckles gleaming whitely. ‘It’s this way, Janson,’ he went on. ‘I wanna know what happened to him, every place he went, everything he did. If you’re gonna follow this through, do it properly. What’s more, I’ll pay you well for it.’
‘I’ll check with you,’ I told him.
I could understand the way he felt. Any father would feel that way. I moved over towards the door as it began to open, found myself face to face with Detective-Inspector Sharp of the Homicide Department. His presence explained Palmer’s reluctance to show him in while I was around.
Sharp’s hard blue eyes glared balefully. We weren’t friends. He was a dumb cop who tried too often to be too smart. We’d clashed many times. He tried to be smart now. He ignored Fletcher, sneered at me. ‘Snuffling around the corpse as usual, huh?’
I didn’t say anything. I looked at him meaningfully, switched my eyes to Fletcher, whose face had paled. ‘You’ll have to get used to this, Fletcher,’ I told him. ‘This guy’s a cop, the unpleasant type. If you don’t take it on the chin, he’ll cook up some rap or another to pin on you.’
Sharp looked at Fletcher, looked him up and down slowly. ‘I’m Detective-Inspector Sharp,’ he said bluntly. ‘You’re Mr Henry Fletcher?’
Fletcher nodded slowly. He guessed the same as I did why Sharp was there. It was routine police work, routine questioning.
I moved on through the door. Palmer held it open for me; closed it behind me. The last words I heard before the door clicked shut were in Sharp’s grating, mocking voice: ‘So you’re the father of that murderer?’
For the second time that day, I walked down those carpeted stairs while lighting a cigarette. Palmer stopped halfway down. ‘Can you see yourself out? There’s something I’ve got to do upstairs.’
‘Help yourself,’ I told him. ‘I can find my way around.’
I reached the hall, heard Sandra’s musical chuckle from the room on my left. I wasn’t eavesdropping. I wasn’t spying. I just couldn’t help seeing it.
She was just inside the room and she wasn’t alone. The guy with her, dressed in a sober suit of grey pin-stripe with a black bow-tie, was obviously well under the influence of those magical fingertips. It looked like he was trying to hold all of her at the same time and was nearly succeeding. She was giggling, acting up to him and wasn’t exactly ice-cold herself.
I intended to walk on swiftly, glide past them so they wouldn’t see me or know they had been seen. But the guy glanced up at the wrong moment. Seeing me startled him so badly he released her like she was red-hot. She coulda been at that!
She stared up at him in alarmed surprise, then followed the direction of his eyes. Of the three of us, I was probably the most embarrassed.
I worked up a weak grin, said: ‘Hiya.’
The guy gazed at me tongue-tied. Sandra’s eyes gleamed, and she surged towards me like quicksilver. ‘Why, Mr Janson!’
‘I’m … I’m … just leaving,’ I stammered.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she apologised. ‘I didn’t know you were back. What a pity I missed you.’
‘I guess you weren’t too lonely,’ I said drily, and gazed over her shoulder at the sleek-haired Romeo who was uneasily adjusting his black tie.
She turned around and stared at him as though seeing him for the first time. ‘I forgot,’ she said, perfectly composed. ‘You haven’t met each other, have you? John, I’d like you to meet Mr Janson. He’s a reporter.’
John was hot and flustered, his hand hot and clammy. ‘Pleased to meetcher,’ he mumbled, trying to look everywhere except at me while surreptitiously wiping lipstick from his neck.
‘John is Henry’s doctor,’ Sandra explained. Then, as he glared at her murderously, she added sweetly: ‘He’s been looking after Henry wonderfully.’
I looked at the doctor, I looked at Sandra. Knowing the speed at which Sandra worked, I figured the doctor had plenty on his mind. Henry Fletcher had been wearing that plaster cast long enough for the relationship between John and Sandra to have ripened and mellowed with age.
