Nets to Catch the Wind

by Dolores Hitchens

  She went to the dresser where the purse lay. Her eyes were caught by something reflected in the mirror. For a long moment she looked at it, at the dim shimmer like a stretched web. You could almost imagine it a face, cut off by a hatbrim, except that there were no features, only two hollow shadows that might be eyes. Silk, she thought.

  It’s like a face made of silk.

  She turned to look at the window, where the image had seemed to shine in the midst of the dark—but there was nothing. It had been an illusion, of course, a stray beam distorted by the mirror.

  She took the page of notes and went into the living room.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AMY SPREAD the few sheets of paper beside her on the couch, then paused for long enough to light a cigarette.

  Pop Bronson had glowered, hearing her errand. He was a short, thick man with wire-wool hair gone gray and a massive head and neck that gave him the look of an ill-tempered buffalo. He had a voice to match, big hands, big feet, and a cynical habit of lowering one eyelid. Once he had been a power in Lomena, its chief of police and something more, a decent and uncorruptible leader who hated vice. The city council had voted some years ago to allow the bingo and poker parlors, and shortly thereafter Pop came up for retirement. Those who were in the know pretended to see more than coincidence in the matter. Since his retirement, however, Pop had kept a hand in, whether to the dislike of the city fathers or no. He had built himself a house on the fringe of town, out under the shadow of the Palos Verdes hills, where people constantly visited him and from which he followed events in his home town with shrewd calculations.

  “You’re a fool.” These were the first words he addressed to Amy after she told him what she wanted.

  “Perhaps. I’m not going to stop.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “And I need information. I’m too green about what happened before?”

  “What happened before isn’t very healthy territory.”

  “There you go too,” Amy complained. “Like the rest. Gangs. Gang fights and gang revenge. I don’t believe it.”

  “I haven’t said one damned word about a gang.” He’d trumpeted the words at her, a bull bellow, and she’d flinched at the quantity of sound.

  “What do you mean, then?”

  “Murder, my pet!”

  Amy tried to quiet things down by lowering her voice. It might work. She’d known Pop most of her life, since he’d been one of her father’s cronies in years past. “I wish you’d explain.”

  “It’s as plain as that pug nose on your face,” he leered—when Amy had been small he had prophesied that she’d grow up without any nose at all. “Everybody with the sense of a gnat guessed that Tzegeti didn’t murder Schneider, that he was just a fall guy, a sucker. The D.A. was in a hurry for a conviction. I can’t blame them. It was pretty neat, it looked good in spite of the smell. There Schneider was with thirty thousand dollars spread out across the desk—maybe more—and outside was Tzegeti, working at raking the parking lot in shoes that had holes in them. Everybody else was gone. Yeah, even poker clubs have to close sometime.”

  “What happened to the money?”

  Pop smirked and his eyelid drew down wisely. “They didn’t find it on Tzegeti.”

  “That should have been a point in his favor.”

  “Schneider was in the habit of stacking his dough, wrapping it with a strip of paper indicating the denominations and the amount, then snapping a rubber band over it—a nice blue rubber band. He bought the blue bands from a little stationery store, and that’s all they were used on, the dough. Well, some of the things turned up in Tzegeti’s pockets, as though he’d ditched the money and hadn’t thought—or hadn’t had time—to get rid of the wrappings.”

  “What did Tzegeti say about it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It doesn’t seem too conclusive as far as evidence goes.”

  “Oh, there were some other details,” Pop answered, “but the point I want you to keep in mind is this. A murder case can always be reopened. Even with Tzegeti convicted and dead, the D.A. can latch onto another guy at any time and send him along the same road for the same murder. He wouldn’t be a damned bit embarrassed or hampered by that first mistake. That’s why I want you to keep your fool meddling to yourself.”

  “The only people I’ve contacted are the Tzegetis and Mrs. Schneider.”

  Pop pounded the arm of his chair with his fist. “Just that! Just Mrs. Schneider! Don’t you know that if Tzegeti hadn’t been standing there waiting like a dead duck, the D.A. would’ve put that wench over the jumps?”

  “Mrs. Schneider?” Into Amy’s mind flashed the image of the tall, cool, duchesslike woman with the silver hair. “Was there evidence against her?”

  “Not a scrap, and don’t think they didn’t look for it. The motive—that’s what stuck out a mile. Schneider had a hundred thousand dollars in insurance, plus a club which is due to extract that much or more over again, every year, from the suckers who go there to play poker. Nice for Mrs. Schneider, being the widow of a guy like that. Very nice.” He’d nodded the buffalo profile sagely. “She’s got her brother managing the place, a neat little deal, all in the family, with Schneider’s son frozen out not getting a cent.”

  Amy looked at Pop blankly. “I’ve never heard a word about a son.”

  “Well, that’s a story all to itself, chicken—it seems that when he was a young goat old Schneider lived in Mexico and married a young Mexican girl down there. They had a son. The kid lives in Ensenada now, not far below the border, and there was talk that Schneider had been seeing him. Schneider was getting along, in his fifties. He might have begun to think that that son was the only one he was likely to leave behind, and to want to do something for him.”

  “Yes, that sounds likely.” It seemed to Amy that the case was unfolding, spreading out, losing its original form. How could she keep track of all of these people? She remembered the man Mrs. Schneider had wanted her to see. “What about a lawyer named Cunninghan? Did he attract any attention?”

  Pop beetled at her from under his eyebrows. “You’ve met him?”

  “Mrs. Schneider wants me to see him.”

  “Don’t do it. He’s her errand boy. Anything she says, he says louder. He drew up the papers leaving Schneider’s stuff to her.”

  “I didn’t go, but I might tomorrow. He’s supposed to have some evidence they couldn’t give the papers.”

  Pop snorted. “Secrets, huh? Let me know what it is.”

  “By the way, do you have Schneider’s son’s address in Ensenada?”

  Pop regarded her as if she were crazy. “What’s eating you now? You going to drive down to Mexico?”

  “I don’t know. Let me have the address if you know it.”

  Pop went to his desk and dug through his papers until he found what he wanted. “Avenida del Toros,” he told her grudgingly, “and don’t go down there alone, do you hear? I’ll go with you if you can’t find anybody else.”

  “That’s sweet of you. I appreciate it.”

  “Don’t thank me. I liked your dad and I liked Bob Luttrell. Now I’m just trying, for their sakes, to keep you from getting hurt.”

  “Who did you think killed Schneider?”

  Pop fell back into his chair, handed over the memo on which was written: Raoul Schneider, 14 Avenida del Toros, Ensenada, Baja California. “My private pick was always the wife. Take my word for it, it’s always the one who gets the most out of it—that’s why murder is committed. For profit.” He saw her opening her mouth to protest, and hurried on, “Oh, sure, there are fiends and nuts, and jealous husbands—but I’m talking about Schneider’s killing, a clean job where everything was worked out intelligently. No loose ends, nothing to puzzle the cops, and the damnedest perfect fall guy ever to walk into the trap. Tzegeti.”

  “The thing I’ll never understand is why Tzegeti, if he were innocent, let himself be convicted.”

  Pop shrugged with a touch of cynicism
. Amy recalled the money which Schneider had supposedly had spread out on his desk. “Even that big a pay-off wouldn’t be enough for a lifetime,” she objected.

  “He had reasons. Good ones, for him.”

  “Danger?” she hazarded. “The thing that happened on the train?”

  “Could be.”

  “The police are supposed to have some kind of witness. Have you heard who it is, or any hint what the witness knows?”

  “Honey, they’re playing this close to the vest, as close as hell. No, I don’t know who they’ve got. Somebody on that train, obviously.”

  The scene faded from Amy’s mind. She found another taking its place, an image of the bedroom mirror, a reflection that appeared to float there against the dark, a cobwebby silk thing with vaguely the lines of a face. A trickery of light, of tired nerves, of eyes behind which tears stung and had stung all day, a phantom made of nothing.

  While she had been sitting here, reading the notes she had made at Pop’s place, she had been on edge and listening. She realized now the weariness that had gathered in her mind—it seemed to rush forward like a flood. She had tried to think the puzzle through, the bygone puzzle of Schneider’s killing, the newer murders of her husband and Tzegeti. The result had been bafflement. It occurred to her now that the Schneider murder was too old, the case picked apart by the police, rebuilt at the trial in a way that would conceal any true clues. She would not get anywhere quizzing people like Mrs. Schneider and her brother. The evidence was scattered, stories had long been settled into a pattern, and any important facts not known to the police were buried by time.

  But the death of Robert Luttrell, the slaying of Fredric Tzegeti—these were new, raw, practically untouched. It would be a long while before the police would have their dossiers completed. She looked at the sheets of note paper in her hands, trying to pin down this fresh idea.

  She was in on the ground floor. So were the Tzegetis. What could be had from the people who knew anything was there for the taking, raw, bright, unsmeared by the passing of days and weeks, the failing of memories, the distortions of the newspapers.

  With a touch of excitement she shuffled the notes together and put them down, then started to rise. At that moment there was a step on the porch outside. Amy remained on the couch, waiting. She did not feel afraid. It had not occurred to her as yet, in spite of Pop’s warnings, that there was anything to be frightened of.

  A light touch seemed to drift over the door—there was a faint rattle of the lock, another whispering step, then silence. Amy waited a moment longer, expecting the doorbell. Then she got to her feet and opened the door. The porch was empty.

  She stood there, framed by light, looking out at the dark, listening to the crickets’ chirp and faraway traffic noises from the boulevard, thinned and made lonesome by distance. “Who is it? What do you want?”

  There was no answer. The wind rattled the weed stalks in the vacant block across the street. A few wisps of fog blew between her and the little crescent moon. A lot of lonely space seemed to wait, to watch, out there in the night. Amy started to shut the door. It was then that she saw the thing tied to the handle.

  It wavered in and out of the light, blown by the wind, a wisp of stuff, straw-colored, crinkled. She touched it and it drifted off the door pull and into her fingers. She rubbed it between her finger tips. Whatever she had expected, it hadn’t been this—a few weathered-looking fibers from a rope.

  She took the bit of frazzled hemp inside to puzzle over, and was still on the couch, the stuff in her hand, when she heard a car stop outside. It occurred to her then that she was about to have an explanation of the meaningless incident, that the trick, or whatever it was, would be exposed.

  Amy jumped to her feet as the doorbell rang. She tossed the frayed stuff to the table, hurried to the door to jerk it open. On the porch, Fogarty lifted his hat.

  “Hello, Mrs. Luttrell.”

  “Weren’t you just here?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Someone came up on the porch.”

  His face grew still, his eyes quite bright, the red hair gleaming like a fire. “Sorry. It wasn’t I.”

  She stepped back and he came into the room. He looked her over, and his manner somehow reminded her that he’d seen her previously in a nightgown and loose robe, that this was the first time he’d seen her in her clothes. A sensation of heat came over her face and scalp. “What do you want, Mr. Fogarty?”

  “Oh, just a word or two.” He lounged over toward the couch and sat down on one of the padded arms. “Did you go to visit old lady Tzegeti?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  He offered her a cigarette. She shook her head. “Did you ask her about Tzegeti’s diary?”

  “No.”

  “Did she act scared?”

  Amy walked over and sat down on the small straight chair, the one he’d used previously. She sat on the edge, erect, letting him know the interview was going to be a short one. “She seemed very much upset. I’m not sure if she was scared, or sick.” Inwardly, Amy’s mind corrected the lie: she’d known what ailed Mrs. Tzegeti. Terror. A throttling fear like that of an animal too afraid to run.

  He smoked for a few moments, letting his eyes rove, taking in the room as if he were curious about it. “This business about somebody being on your porch—what did that mean?”

  Amy shrugged. She had no intention of being in any more of Mr. Fogarty’s headlines. “I don’t know. I guess I imagined it.” Her eyes jumped over to the raveled hemp on the table, and Fogarty’s gaze followed—a stupid break. He leaned forward, picking up the raveled stuff and running it through his fingers.

  “Nothing you want me to know?”

  “No, Mr. Fogarty.”

  “How did you do at the Schneider place?”

  He’d recognized her, then. “Her theories don’t agree with yours. She believes that Tzegeti was supposed to be sprung, that the gang wanted him released for other jobs.”

  Fogarty went on smoking and thinking. “The tone of your voice gives me the idea that you don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t believe in a gang, no.”

  “You think Lomena’s too nice and clean for gangster stuff?”

  She met his eyes levelly. “It has nothing to do with the kind of town this is. It’s just a feeling, a sense of falseness. I can’t explain.”

  “Did you read what I wrote about you?”

  “Mrs. Schneider showed me the article.”

  Fogarty nodded. “Yes, she showed it to me too.” He looked to see if Amy were surprised to discover that he’d been admitted to that inner sanctum where Mrs. Schneider sat on a yellow satin lounge, her hair gleaming silver, cool as a duchess in a manor hall. “There’s something funny about that woman. She seems as hard as nails under that polite surface. But I wouldn’t be surprised——” He checked this remark. “She managed to make me feel like dirt, without actually doing or saying anything that wasn’t strictly Emily Post.”

  “She is patronizing. It might be all that money.”

  “Schneider’s money.”

  “It’s still quite legal for widows to inherit, Mr. Fogarty.”

  For some reason she got the impression she’d made him mad. “Yeah, so it is.” He was examining the room again.

  “I’m not getting any pay-off because of my husband’s murder, Mr. Fogarty. I’m in debt because this furniture isn’t paid for, but I’ll be all right. I can work. I was a secretary before I married.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about you,” Fogarty flung out.

  “You were wondering what my setup was. I know. It could be pretty nice for me if there’d been a deal, and a gang, and the gang wanted me to keep my mouth shut.”

  “They don’t always pay off in cash.” Fogarty was running the hemp through his fingers, his eyes tight and angry. “But getting back to Schneider’s dough, there could have been an argument; he had a son.”

  Amy didn’t say anything; she wondered where Fogarty�
��s remarks were leading and what he hoped to get out of her.

  “Schneider and this second wife hadn’t been married too long, a couple of years, perhaps. After my interview with her today, I tried out of revenge to dig up something about her. But it was no soap. Apparently Mrs. Schneider was born practically yesterday. I was wondering——” He took time to light a new cigarette. Fogarty was nervous, a chain-smoker. Amy realized suddenly that he had an intense interest in the Tzegeti affair; he tried to cover it with a newspaperman’s know-all attitude, but it was there. “I was wondering if you’d like to play a bit of poker tonight. At the Picardy Club, with me.”

  She shook her head and stood up. “No, I would not.”

  He didn’t argue. He shrugged his shoulders, tossed his hat on his head, and walked over to the door. “Not interested?”

  “I don’t feel up to it tonight. And besides, I’m a lousy gambler.”

  “We might see Vernon Wyse out there. I got an impression he rather liked you. He seemed pretty absent-minded after you’d gone, and when he was showing me out to the gate he looked to see if your car might still be there.”

  Her tone surprised him, its bitter flatness, its reproach. “Good night, Mr. Fogarty.”

  Fogarty opened the door. “Good night.” He looked back from the edge of the porch. “Do you have a phone?”

  She tightened her hand on the knob to hide its trembling. “Why should you want to know?”

  “Use it, if anyone else comes slipping around with a hank of rope.”

  He was gone then—an unmannerly lout, Amy thought, I certainly haven’t any use for him. She shut the door, locked it. She was surprised that the house seemed suddenly so empty, so lonely. There was utter quiet. The only movement was a faint trail of smoke rising from a cigarette Fogarty had left on the edge of the ash tray.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IN THE gray dawn she surveyed the kitchen. It still had its gloss of newness, like an appliance display. The cabinets shone and the curtains she’d made for the windows were stiff and bright, red-checkered things with lots of organdy ruffles, the kind you want when you have plenty of time to stay home and do them up, and of no use at all to a working woman. She let her eyes stray to the outside, the back yard. The new grass was coming up spottily, thinly. She’d have to have the nurseryman back. The ground probably needed fertilizer and a lot of water. She was aware with a kind of shock of her own indifference to these things. Overnight she’d changed. She was a widow—with vengeance on her mind.