Can Ladies Kill?, page 3
“That sounds like sense to me,” says Brendy.
“It is sense, an’ it’s just what I ain’t goin’ to do,” I tell ’em. “I reckon that if these guys took all that trouble to let us know that Marella was dead then they done it because they wanted me to pack up on this job, an’ the reason they would want me to pack up is because I might find out from somewhere else just what she wanted to talk about, an’ that’s why I’m goin’ to stick around.”
“O.K.,” says Brendy, “an’ supposin’ for the sake of argument that that is right too, we still ain’t got any further with this ice business, hey Terry?”
Terry shakes his head. “Me—I just cannot understand about that,” he says.
I grin. “I reckon it’s simple,” I tell ’em. “Look, here’s how I figure it. This guy who has shot Marella Thorensen an’ had her chucked in the harbour has either called through himself or got some guy to call through to the Harbour Squad so’s they’ll find her an’ so’s we’ll know she’s dead, like I told you before.
“O.K. When all this business is over an’ the body has been sent down to the morgue, this guy suddenly gets a very funny idea. He remembers that the probability is that the bullet he shot this dame with is still in her head an’ he particularly don’t want the medical examiner to find that bullet. Now you guys know as well as I do just why he wouldn’t want that bullet found.”
They both look up. They’re gettin’ interested.
“Sure I know,” says Brendy. “He don’t want that bullet found because we can identify the gun that fired it from the bullet itself. That means to say that Marella was bumped by a guy who has already ironed out somebody around here, and whose gun has been identified once before by a bullet taken out of a corpse.”
“Swell, brother,” I tell him, “you’re gettin’ warm. That bein’ so what does he do? He knows durn well that if that bullet is found we’ll know who killed Marella an’ we’ll also know who it was who was so keen to get her outa the way so’s we shouldn’t find out about this letter she wrote.
“So he takes a chance. He loads some ice blocks on a truck, he gets down to the morgue, he gets Gluck downstairs on some pretence inta the corpse room an’ bumps him. Then he opens the back door an’ the other guys come in with the ice blocks. They drop one of ’em on Marella’s face an’ they get the bullet. They’re just finishin’ off when they hear the bell ring in the office upstairs. That’s me. I’ve just arrived. So one of ’em—a guy with a nerve—grabs off Gluck’s cap, takes off his coat an’ comes up an’ does that act with me.
“When he hears that I’m a Federal Officer who’s come around to have a look at the stiff that’s just been brought in, he gets a bit of a shock, but his nerve is still workin’ so he pulls that story on me about the freezin’ apparatus havin’ gone wring, an’ I fall for it.”
They look at each other.
“Lemmy, I reckon you’re right,” says Terry. “It looks like that’s the low-down.”
“Maybe,” I tell ’em, “an’ if it is we still got a clue. Maybe we can still find this guy an’ d’ya see how?”
“Sure I do,” says Brendy. “All we gotta do is to go through the Police records an’ make a list of every guy whose gun has been matched up by the ballistics department with a bullet that has been taken outa some stiff during the last year or so. Then I reckon the guy we’re lookin’ for is somewhere on that list.”
“O.K. Brendy,” I say. “Maybe you’ll do that for me. Another thing is this,” I say, “you guys have gotta realise that this Marella Thorensen killin’ is tied up like I said with a letter she wrote to the Director of the Bureau. O.K. We don’t wanta play these two killin’s separately. Let’s make this one job. I reckon we can all help each other. What do you say, Brendy?”
“That’s O.K. by me,” he says. “Lemmy, I don’t mind playin’ around with you. I’ll speak to the Chief in the mornin’ an’ get his O.K. on it. Where do we go from there?” he says.
I light myself a cigarette. “You tell me about Thorensen, Brendy,” I say. “What happened when you got him down to the morgue to-night?”
“He wasn’t lookin’ so good,” says Brendy. “He comes down an’ I tell him that maybe we’ve got a bit of bad news for him. I tell him that a Federal officer was trying to find his wife this afternoon an’ couldn’t, that a body has been found by the Harbour Squad, an’ we’d like him to have a look at it. I tell him that maybe he’d better prepare himself for a shock.
“He don’t say anything very much. He just says O.K. So I take him down to the corpse room and I show him Marella. He just looks at it like he was poleaxed, then he nods his head an’ he says ‘that’s her all right,’ an’ that’s that. Then he went back home, and,” Brendy goes on, gettin’ up, “I reckon I’m going home too. I can do with spot of sleep all right. I wish guys wouldn’t kill each other so much around here.”
“O.K. Brendy,” I say, “but tell me somethin’. Who’s the guy on duty at the Precinct Office? Is he an intelligent guy?”
Brendy looks at O’Halloran an’ grins.
“Terry’s on to-night,” he says. “I don’t know whether he’s intelligent or not.”
“I’ll chance it,” I tell him. “Look, Terry,” I say, “it’s a quarter to two now. I’m goin’ to buy myself a cab an’ I’m goin’ up to see Thorensen. I reckon he won’t expect to be seein’ anybody before to-morrow. I wanta talk to that guy.
“Well, let’s suppose that I’m with him until three o’clock. Here’s what I want you to do. At a quarter to three you ring up Lee Sam at his place an’ tell him that you’re sendin’ up a squad car to pick him an’ his daughter up; that you want ’em to come down pronto. You get ’em down to the Precinct Office an’ you keep ’em down there askin’ ’em a lotta phoney questions until about four o’clock. Then you can let ’em go an’ it’ll give me time to do what I wanta do.”
“An’ what are you going to do?” says Brendy.
“This,” I tell him. “Thorensen is livin’ at the Chase Apartments on Nob Hill. That’s about five minutes walk from Lee Sam’s house. You boys have told me that all the servants in the Lee Sam place are China boys an’ they ain’t particularly brainy. O.K. When I leave Thorensen I’m goin’ round to the Lee Sam dump. There won’t be anybody there because by that time Terry here will have got the old man and the girl down at the Precinct. I wanta give that dame’s apartments the once-over. I wanta take a look round. I think maybe I might find somethin’.”
They look at me again.
“What’s the idea?” says Brendy.
“Well, work it out for yourself. You guys tell me Berenice Lee Sam pulls in here this afternoon on the China Clipper. She goes straight off to see Marella Thorensen, because she says that Marella Thorensen wrote her askin’ her to come up urgent, but what she don’t know is that when she arrives I’m just leavin’ the place an’ Marella ain’t there.
“Berenice says Marella turned up soon afterwards. She also says that Lee Sam couldn’t get through to the house on the telephone because Marella left the receiver off the hook so’s they shouldn’t be disturbed, but when I went back to the Villa Rosalito for the second time, the receiver was on the hook all right.
“I got an idea that Marella Thorensen never went back to that place. I got an idea that she ain’t been to that place since she went out earlier in the day, because somebody knew that when Marella went home she was goin’ to see me an’ they’d made up their minds that she just wasn’t goin’ to do that thing.
“O.K. Well Berenice either knew that somebody was going to bump Marella or she didn’t. If she didn’t know an’ Marella didn’t come back what does she wanta tell me a bundle of lies for about the conversation she had with Marella; about telephones bein’ taken off receiver hooks?
“The second thing is, if she did know, what did she wanta go there at all for? Well there might be an answer to that. Maybe Marella had some evidence stuck away at the Villa—some documents or papers of some sort—an’ maybe that was what Berenice was after. It looks to me like there was some rough housin’ around at the Villa Rosalito this afternoon. Some guy had smashed the lock on the French window at the back anyway. There was a scarf lyin’ on the floor in the bedroom an’ the dressin’ table was disarranged.
“An’ there is another little thing: When I went over that dump the first time there was a note in the kitchen addressed to Nellie, saying that Marella would not be back until nine o’clock and tellin’ her not to worry about dinner. When I go back afterwards that note is gone. Now if Marella had written that note for Nellie to read when she come in she wouldn’t take it away, would she? But somebody snatched it, didn’t they? So don’t it look to you like that note was just a fake? Don’t it look like a signal for somebody who was comin’ to that house. Well, who was it went to the house? It was Berenice Lee Sam, wasn’t it?”
Brendy lights himself a cigar.
“You know, Lemmy,” he says, “you’re buildin’ up a sweet case against this Lee Sam girl.”
“Maybe I am an’ maybe I ain’t,” I tell him, “but there was somethin’ durn screwy goin’ on around that dump this afternoon. If the Lee Sam dame went to that place to find some papers or somethin’ that incriminated somebody maybe she hasn’t been able to get rid of ’em yet. Maybe they’re still in her apartment, an’ I’m goin’ to have a look. So you get her an’ the old man down at the Precinct like I told you.
“An’ listen, Terry,” I go on, “there is another thing you might do about this dame Nellie. Get on to the night duty man at Burlingame. Ask this guy if he knows who this Nellie is. I reckon everybody will know Mrs. Thorensen’s cook. Get him to send an officer round to wake this baby up an’ ask her just what arrangements was made with Mrs. Thorensen to-day about what time she was comin’ in an’ ask this guy to give you a call through an’ let you know what he’s found out. Maybe Nellie can tell us something.”
“O.K.” says Terry, “I’ll look after it an’ let you know, Lemmy. What time do you expect to be back here?”
“Me—I oughta be back here by four-thirty o’clock,” I say, “but you needn’t bother to ring me through then because when I come back I’m goin’ to bed. I wanta see this guy Thorensen to-night because I always like to talk to guys in the middle of the night—their brains ain’t workin’ so well.”
Brendy yawns. “O.K. babies,” he says. “Me, I’m goin’ home to read a detective story so’s to get my mind off all this stuff.”
“Oh yeah,” says Terry, “I know them stories. They’re the ones you haveta put paper covers on so’s you wife can’t see the pictures on the front. Is she still ridin’ you Brendy boy?”
“You shut your trap,” says Brendy. “My old woman’s swell. She says to me the other mornin’ when she wakes up that she has just dreamed that some guy blasted her down with a Tommy gun. Say do you guys believe dreams come true?” he says sorta hopeful.
“It’s practically certain,” says O’Halloran. “I usta buy meat pies at some eat-house in California, an’ every time I eat a couple these pies I usta dream about dames. They was swell dames too with plenty curves. It practically broke me up when they closed the dump down. Well, so long, Lemmy,” he goes on. “I’ll get the Berenice baby an’ her pa down at the Precinct like you said.”
“Yeah,” says Brendy, “an’ just keep the party clean, willya? You be careful with that dame an’ don’t get tellin’ her about what you usta do when you was poundin’ a beat. Maybe she don’t like that sorta story.”
“O.K.” says O’Halloran. “You’re the boss. Should I tell her about my operation?”
They scram.
I meet Thorensen in the hallway of the Chase Apartments. Outside I have seen that there is a big roadster waitin’ with plenty baggage on it. As I go in I see this guy comin’ towards the entrance along the passage. I grin to myself because it looks to me like I have caught this bozo in the act of takin’ a run out powder.
I go up to him. “Are you Thorensen?” I ask him, an’ when he says yes I tell him who I am an’ what I am. He don’t look very pleased to hear it.
He is a big guy. His body is sorta pear shaped—slidin’ shoulders that even tailor’s paddin’ won’t disguise—an’ a round belly that sticks out. His face is heavy an’ jowly an’ he looks plenty worried. His eyes are deep an’ far-seein’—clever eyes—an’ his skin is a funny lead colour. I don’t like him very much.
“Goin’ some place?” I ask him. “I s’pose you’re comin’ back for your wife’s funeral? I wanta have a little talk to you, Thorensen,” I go on. “There’s one or two little things I wanta ask you.”
“I haven’t a great deal of time,” he says, sorta surly. “This very unfortunate accident to my wife must not delay the plans for the transfer of my business to Los Angeles, which I had planned some time before this awful thing happened. But naturally I want to help in any way I can. I want to know how this accident occurred, but I must leave fairly soon, so perhaps you will make your interview as short as possible, Mr. Caution.”
“So you think that your wife’s death was an accident?” I ask him, while we are walkin’ along the corridor.
He stops an’ turns around to me while he is openin’ the door. As he pushes it open he says: “What else should it be? I imagine Marella fell into the dock, although what she was doing in the neighbourhood of the harbour is more than I can figure out.”
We go inside. The apartment is swell. This guy knows how to look after himself. I look around to see if there is a picture of Marella Thorensen anywhere, but I can’t see one. I reckon that a guy who ain’t got a picture of his wife around ain’t very fond of her.
Thorensen motions me to a chair an’ points to a liquor stand that is near me. I shake my head, but he goes over an’ mixes himself a stiff one. His hand is tremblin’ a bit an’ he looks to me as if he has got the jitters.
“Looky, Thorensen,” I tell him, “you’re a lawyer an’ you don’t need any advice from me. But I reckon that the best thing you can do is to kick in with all you know, because that way it’s goin’ to be easier for you.”
I tell him about the letter that his wife wrote, an’ why I checked in at Burlingame to see her. He says he don’t know anything about it; that he didn’t know that she wrote the letter an’ that if he hadn’t known that she was a sensible woman he woulda thought that she had gone plain nuts.
“Listen, Caution,” he says. “I’m goin’ to tell you how things were and then you can draw your own conclusions. Marella knew that I was leaving San Francisco to-night. She knew that I was going to make Los Angeles my headquarters and that although I should be running a branch office here I should be living there.
“We didn’t hit it off very well. We’d been practically strangers to each other for some time. I used to go out to Burlingame at the week-end now and again merely for the sake of appearances. But the idea of a divorce didn’t appeal to her for some reason or other.
“When I told her about my idea of moving my head office over to Los Angeles she was only mildly interested. She said that it wouldn’t make any difference to her anyway and that she’d probably see about as much of me as she did now.
“But what happened out at the Villa Rosalito to-day; why she wrote that letter to the Bureau of Investigation, why after having written it she wasn’t there to see you, and why she came into San Francisco to-night, I don’t know, and that’s the whole truth. I can’t understand a thing about it.”
“O.K.” I say. “Well, if you don’t know anything, you can’t spill it, can you?”
I think I will give this guy his head an’ let him scram. We can always keep a tail on him if we want to.
“All right, Thorensen,” I say, “you can go. You might drop in at the Hall of Justice on your way an’ leave your Los Angeles address with the night precinct officer. If we want you we’ll let you know.”
I turn around to him quick. “So you’re closin’ down your connection with Lee Sam?” I say. “You’re walkin’ out on the guy who put you on your feet. Is that the clever thing?”
He smiles. “I have many other interests, many other clients, Mr. Caution,” he says, “and my office here is quite able to handle Mr. Lee Sam’s affairs.”
“O.K.” I tell him. “Good-night, Thorensen.”
“Good-night,” he says.
I scram. I leave him standin’ there in front of the fireplace, with the glass in his hand lookin’ worried. His big belly seems to be saggin’ more than it was before an’ his eyes are sorta tired.
I reckon this Thorensen is a lousy liar.
I decide to do a spot of housebreakin’. I figure that it won’t get me any place to go ringin’ the front door bell at Lee Sam’s dump, an’ that I might just as well be clever.
Away around the back of the house is an iron gate leading to a garage, an’ I get over this easy. I go along in the dark past the garage which is standin’ away from the house, an’ come up to the house the back way. I find a shoulder high window leadin’ to some pantry or somethin’ an’ I bust it open.
In three minutes I am inside the house standin’ in the hallway outside the room where I spoke to Lee Sam an’ Berenice earlier on.
I look at my wrist watch. It is five minutes to three, so I reckon I got plenty time to look around.
I go up the wide stairway an’ along a passage at the top. I want to find where Berenice has her rooms. I try two or three doors along the passage openin’ ’em nice an’ quiet so’s not to arouse anybody who might be inside, but they are all empty. When I go inta the end room I know it is hers.
There is a bit of moonlight an’ I can see lyin’ across the bed the black an’ gold suit she was wearin’ when I spoke to her. The room is a big one an’ after I have pulled the curtains over the big windows I switch on the light an’ look around.
It is certainly a swell dump. All the furniture is white an’ the rugs an’ trimmin’s about the place musta cost plenty. On the right hand side of the room is an openin’ inta another room. This openin’ is bigger than a door an’ has got a Chinese silk rope fringe hangin’ down.
