by Held, Peter
"Wouldn't you like to know?" panted Lucia.
"I thought Joe took you home early."
"What I know I know. Now, get out of this house! I don't ever want to see you again!"
"It's not as easy at that, Lucia. You've been writing vicious threatening letters. I don't know whether it's a criminal offense or not—but we can ask your father."
Lucia sat down in a chair, tears forming in her eyes. They were tears of fury.
"I want to know what you mean," said Julie. " 'Cathy is quite dead. I know who quieted her. You may be quieted too.' "
Lucia's mouth twisted. "You think you're smart, don't you?"
"Who killed Cathy, Lucia? If you know, you ought to tell the police ... Is it someone we know?"
Lucia smiled. "Maybe."
"Is it Robert Struve?"
"Maybe."
"Well— do you know for sure?"
"Yes," said Lucia. "I would say so."
"How did you find out?"
"I used my common sense."
"And you think that whoever did it might do it again?"
Lucia shrugged. "I don't know." The two girls sat in silence. Lucia stared into the air as if listening to secret voices. She began to speak in a soft monotone, not addressing Julie, but speaking for Julie to hear.
"I'm twenty years old. I've never let a man touch me—and I've gained what? Not a thing. No one likes me or respects me; they think I'm cold . . . But I don't care any more. I'm going to do what I want to do—and I'm not going to give a damn."
"Lucia," said Julie breathlessly, "listen. I'm your friend ..."
"You're my friend? You're nobody's friend but stuck-up little Julie Hovard's."
"That's not true!" cried Julie, tears coming to her eyes. "Think, Lucia! Just think! Suppose you know who killed poor Cathy—and suppose whoever did it knows you know! Think what might happen!"
Lucia smiled. "I've taken care of that. I've made it clear. He'd just better be careful." She jumped to her feet. "And as for you, Julie Hovard — I hate you! I don't care what happens to you!"
"Okay," said Julie. "We know where we stand. But—if I wanted to find out who killed Cathy —where would I start?"
"It's in the paper. In Sunday's paper, the society section. Right in front of your nose. But you'll never see it, not in a million years. I could show it to you and you still wouldn't see it."
"All right," said Julie, "show it to me."
"Oh, get out of here," said Lucia. She flung herself on the bed.
Julie said irresolutely, "Lucia—if you've got something on your mind, maybe we could talk it over . . ."
Lucia turned her head, and they stared at each other.
"Cathy was killed!" cried Julie. "Don't you understand? She's dead!"
Lucia turned her head away. "I wish I had been there to watch."
Julie ran out the door, down the long dark steps. At the newel post she stopped, and looked into the library. Judge Small lay asleep in a tremendous black leather chair.
Julie drove slowly back to town. She found a parking place, went into the city hall, around the cool corridors to the sheriff's office.
Sheriff Hartmann was not in, the woman at the desk said.
"Do you know when he'll be back?"
"As soon as he gets a week's quota of wetbacks."
"Will you tell him Julie Hovard wants to see him?"
"All right, Miss Hovard. I'll leave the message."
Julie wanted company; someone to talk to, someone to soothe her.
Cathy was dead.
She thought, I'll take a run up to Mountain-view and see how things are coming along. As she passed the contractor's shack, she noticed one of the dump trucks standing idle. She parked, jumped out of the car and ran into the office.
"I want to see Joe Treddick; can you tell me where he is?"
A tall man in dusty suntans looked her over. "Search me. He quit this morning."
"Quit! What for?"
"That I don't know . . . He just up and quit."
Julie gunned the convertible back to town. She was very angry. Joe had no business to do a thing like that without consulting her. Well, he could go chase himself . . . Somehow the way home led past the Fair Oaks Guest House.
The old Plymouth sedan was nowhere in sight.
Julie parked, walked up to the screen door, rang the bell. A middle-aged woman with straggly gray hair appeared on the other side of the screen.
"I'm looking for Joe Treddick," said Julie.
"You've missed him by half an hour."
"You mean he's—moved out?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Did he—leave an address?"
The woman peered sharply through the screen. "No, he didn't."
"Very well," said Julie wearily. "Thanks very much."
She drove home, feeling very low. Joe's car was in the driveway. Joe was just coming out of the house.
Julie tried hard to control her face. "Joe!"
He came over to the convertible. "Hello, Julie. I was afraid I was going to miss you."
"Joe—where are you going?" She took his hand.
"I've quit, Julie. I'm leaving San Giorgio."
"But why?"
He smiled. "I don't like what's happening around here."
Julie looked at the house. Very probably her mother was watching from one of the windows. "Get in, Joe. Let's go for a ride. I want to talk to you."
He got in; Julie drove around the circle, down to the highway, and away from San Giorgio.
"Tell me the truth, Joe."
He was slow in answering. "I should never
have come up here in the first place, Julie."
"Did you get another letter this morning?"
"Yes."
"What did it say?"
"I'd rather not go into that."
Tears were welling up behind Julie's eyes. "I got a letter, too. You can read mine." She pulled over to the side of the road, opened the glove compartment, gave him the letter.
He read it in silence.
Julie said, "I went over and saw Lucia. We— had a showdown. You were right. She's been writing the letters."
Joe nodded.
"I don't want you to go, Joe! Suppose Lucia was right—suppose somebody 'quieted' me."
"That's not too likely."
"Why not? Suppose Robert Struve is in San Giorgio? Suppose he is a maniac?"
"If he killed Cathy, and he's got any sense at all, he'll get the hell out of San Giorgio."
"Joe—would you desert a sinking ship?" And they both laughed.
"I've quit my job."
"We'll go up there right now and un-quit."
"But—Julie!"
"Suppose you read in the paper that my corpse had been found. Victim of a sex-mutilation murder. Would you ever forgive yourself?"
He was clenching and unclenching his hands. "I don't know whether I would or not."
She kissed his cheek. "Oh, Joe, the world's such a terrible place!" She looked up into his face. "Tell me you'll take care of me, Joe."
"Yes," said Joe. "I'll take care of you."
She closed her eyes. Joe hesitated a second, then kissed her. Julie put her arms up for another. They separated slowly.
"Right in broad daylight," said Julie. "Sometimes I wish I weren't so affectionate . . . Lucia's stored hers up. And now it's broken loose on her," Julie mused. "I just hope she doesn't get into trouble." She rapped the steering wheel with her knuckles. "That reminds me."
"What?"
"Well—" Julie hesitated. "She said I could find who killed Cathy by looking at Sunday's society page."
"Yeah?" Joe pondered a moment. "Let's go look."
They sat close together on the couch in the Hovard living room, heads bent over the Herald-Republican society section.
"She said I'd never see it—not in a million years," said Julie. "And I guess she's right, because we've been looking ten minutes and I don't see a thing."
Joe squinted up and down the
page. "Let's give it one more try. From the headline down."
EVENT OF THE SEASON MOUNTAINVIEW MASQUE.
"It was an event all right," said Joe.
Once more, they examined the photographs. There were eight of these, arranged around a central box of text describing the most noteworthy of the costumes and those who wore them.
Julie took the paper, bent over it. "There's Mother and Father in this picture"—she pointed —"and that thing there is my leg; I'm sitting right behind the woman in the snake-goddess hat . . . Here's you and Lucia at the bar."
Joe took the paper. He and Lucia were standing a little aside from the black and white throng. Lucia had her head tilted to the side; Joe, by a trick of reproduction, looked somber and heavy.
"Why are you so glum?" asked Julie.
Joe shrugged. "I was just taking her home . . . We were pushing over to the door."
"She looks a little silly," said Julie.
Joe nodded. "She was fairly tight—but not too tight."
Julie looked up in sudden speculation. "Not too tight—for what?"
Joe grinned. "Gentlemen never talk."
"Oh. So there's something to talk about."
Her tone surprised Joe; she seemed suddenly years older. "No . . . Nothing very much. I just got the notion she was willing."
"And so you parked?" Joe shook his head. Julie's voice was skeptical. "Lucia's nice when she isn't looking down her nose at something."
"I've seen worse."
Julie sniffed. "Oh, well. If you really admire Lucia . . ."
Joe tossed the newspaper to the table. "I don't really."
"But you parked with her on the way home."
"How could I park with Lucia and get back to the Masque in half an hour?"
"You left earlier."
"I didn't. But I'd have a hell of a time proving it.
Julie picked up the paper. "One last look."
"I think Lucia's more than a little nuts," said Joe.
"Maybe. But she was so darn triumphant! . . . Look, maybe this is it."
"What?"
Julie pointed. "This man." She pointed to a shape on the dance floor.
"What about him?"
"He's got his mask on. He danced with Cathy
several times. No one knew who he was. No one does yet."
"A man danced with Cathy. So what?"
"He might be Robert Struve."
Joe laughed. "You're letting Robert Struve hypnotize you."
"Somebody killed her. Nobody else had any reason to."
"But what reason could Struve have? That's something I've never got straight."
Julie sighed. "It's a long story. I only know what Cathy told me ... It all goes back to that awful Tri-Gamma initiation."
Joe waited.
"Cathy and Lucia and Dean went into the room. To kiss Robert. They thought he was passed out—drunk—and made some silly cracks. Nothing serious—but I suppose they were rather mean. Enough to make Robert hate them all."
"That was years ago. It sounds farfetched."
"Cathy and Dean both had their faces cut up. Just where Robert's face was so awful. And Carr heard him—heard what he said to Cathy."
Joe tossed the paper to the coffee table. "I've got an idea."
"What?"
"Lucia says she knows what's going on."
Julie regarded him quizzically. "And your idea is to take Lucia out for a ride, and park."
"It was just an idea," said Joe.
"You're full of ideas." Julie kicked at the newspaper. "She'd be lording it over me for years. Worse than she does now."
"She's just jealous."
"I'd rather have her jealous of me than me jealous of her."
"You've never been jealous of anyone in your life."
"Oh, yes I have . . . But I'd never tell you of whom."
Joe rose to his feet. "I think I'll be going."
"Okay," said Julie. "But before you do another thing, you go and get your job back."
"All right," said Joe. "If you say so."
"I say so. Now give me a kiss."
CHAPTER XII
Out at the Turrets, twilight had come. The sun was twenty minutes gone; the sky was a smear of orange into which the old gables cut notches of absorbent black. The trees around the house had collected a brood of shadows.
The house was quiet. Judge Small sat in the library with Chapman's Doctrines of Freehold on his lap. His head lolled back; he was dozing. The maid had set out a pre-bedtime collation and gone home.
Lucia was up in her room. She lay on the bed, leafing slowly through the pages of a large book in front of her. It was the San Giorgio High School yearbook, the year of her graduation. She turned the pages and the familiar faces appeared, passed, and were gone.
On one page she lingered, looking into Cathy McDermott's face. It smiled out, innocently confident. Lucia made a bitter sardonic sound in her throat, a comment on the unpredictability of
life, tinged faintly with satisfaction. On the opposite page was Dean Pendry, with head flung back to display the profile, the tempestuous hair.
She flicked the pages over—one after the other —to the S's. Lucia Small. And Lucia stared at the picture. Her hair—she had worn it drawn tightly back from her face. Her mouth was pressed into a prim little smile meaning nothing.
"I'm not like that!" said Lucia between her teeth. "I'm not like that!"
She turned pages quickly. The junior group pictures: Julie Hovard. Egotistical little smart-aleck, so gay and assured. Lucia thought of the Tri-Gamma initiation, nodded with a bitter smile. Lucia had never been under any illusions about that. And Julie passing it off so nonchalantly!
Lucia jumped to her feet, went to the full-length mirror on the inside of her closet door. She stood looking at herself.
I'm pretty! she thought defiantly. She put her hands to her waist, turned this way and that. I'm fine-boned, she thought. I have a patrician body, small breasts, lithe hips.
She slipped out of her clothes.
The doorway behind her opened. Slowly, an inch, two inches, three ... A man stood watching. Lucia picked up her skirt—and a quiver of
the air, a mental tremor disturbed her. She looked at the door.
The man stepped into the room. She opened her mouth, but managed no more than a hoarse croak.
"Take it easy, take it easy . . . You're lovely this way."
"What do you want!" Lucia gasped. "Get out of here!"
"But I just came." He looked her over. "You shouldn't have sent so many letters, Lucia."
"Maybe I shouldn't have." Lucia's voice was strangely free from panic. "I've written other letters, too. They'll be mailed if anything happens to me."
He came toward her. Lucia slid into his arms, pressed against his chest.
Downstairs, old Judge Small stirred, yawned. He lay quiet, his head back on the soft old black leather, his throat corrugated and rough. He reached out for his book, put on his glasses, resumed his reading. He turned a page, nodding now and then.
A sound from somewhere? Judge Small blinked, looked around the library. Nothing seemed amiss.
Upstairs, the man went softly to the door, looked out; no one in sight. He slipped along the
hall to the bathroom, locked himself in, washed with care.
Downstairs in the library, Judge Small levered himself to his feet, ambled into the dining room, inspected the buffet through the bifocal section of his spectacles. He served himself grated cabbage and carrot, a cold boiled egg, a handful of crackers. He seated himself, ate.
When he had finished, he yawned, rose heavily, stood a moment looking through the arch into the hall. It was the gleam of the library light on the waxed hardwood floor which apparently had caught his attention. He stared vacantly for ten seconds, twenty seconds, sucking a shred of cabbage from his teeth.
Still sucking, he went forward to his private elevator, settled himself, punched the button. The car rose up the shaft.
In L
ucia's room, the man felt the whir of the motor. He paused. The whir stopped, and a moment later the window of the north turret glowed yellow. The judge was secure in his study, until midnight or later.
The man, now wearing gloves, went to Lucia's escritoire. He turned the key, lowered the panel, explored the various nooks and pigeonholes. He found nothing to interest him.
He locked the desk, began a search of the
room. His leisure was almost insolent, as was his unconcern whether he found anything or not. Lucia might have sought to protect herself— perhaps a letter to be mailed to the authorities —but what of it? What could she prove? What could anyone prove?
In the drawer of the bedside table he found a clipping from the Herald-Republican society page. A photograph. He examined it, shrugged, folded and tucked it in his pocket.
He paused by the bed for a last look at Lucia.
He compressed his lips, shook his head. He backed away, paused at the door, glanced around the room like a gardener inspecting a plot. Then he switched off the light, left the room and departed the house.
The long dark night passed. The room was quiet. Dawn came, silver light entered the room; then yellow strands of sunlight penetrated the curtains.
At ten there were brisk footsteps in the hall. The door opened wide. When she was able, the maid called Sheriff Hartmann, bypassing deaf old Judge Small.
By nightfall, San Giorgio seethed with sensation. Two mutilation murders in the week, a maniac at large! Sheriff Hartmann felt blind, baffled, helpless. He had no suspects to question, no leads, no idea of where or how to be-
gin. A single course of inquiry presented itself, stemming from Carr Pendry's half-dazed identification of Robert Struve. It was a poor piece of evidence. But it was a lead, and he had no others.
About eleven o'clock, Carr Pendry appeared at the Hovards' with a stranger—a small thin man with a bank-clerk face, wearing incongruously sporty clothes: a chocolate-brown gabardine suit, a narrow dark-brown knit tie, yellow-brown shoes.
The maid answered the bell; Margaret Hovard came curiously to see who was calling. "Oh, it's you, Carr."
"Hello, Mrs. Hovard. This is Mr. Brevis. Mr. Brevis is a private detective."
