Marilyn K - The House Next Door

by Lionel White

But what there was of it had never belonged to Battle, that redheaded anthropoid whose body I had taken out of the trunk of the Pontiac. No, the face wasn’t his and the long blood-soaked red hair wasn’t his and the slender, naked, bruised and beaten body wasn’t his.

  I was looking down at what was left of Marilyn K. after someone had beaten and flayed her until she had died—and then gone right on beating the corpse.

  I suddenly began to vomit.

  I knew then, even as I turned away, that the girl at the motel had been telling the truth a half-hour before. She had never seen me before. She couldn’t have. Because that girl was Suzy. Yes, Sister Suzy had finally arrived.

  Fleming must have been reading my mind.

  “Sweet, isn’t it, killer? A nice thing to leave on a bed for her sister to find. I’m surprised you didn’t start chewing on her after you got through. That's what some of them do, you know.’’

  I vomited again.

  A fist hit me in the back of the neck and then I was once more outside of the lab room. They had me back in the car now and it was a relief that no one said anything. I had no desire for small conversation. I didn’t want to think, but I had to think. And what I thought about was a man named Socks Leopold and two filthy sadists named Binge and Hymie. I had to think about Marilyn K. and how I had finally figured her wrong at the end. I had to think of the price that she herself had paid for being wrong. For guessing wrong. And in thinking about her, I forgot for a moment to worry about myself.

  Fleming brought me back to reality soon enough, however.

  They left me alone for a few minutes in the cell, after first stripping me to my short and socks. There was a bed in the cell and a small, straight-backed chair under which was an old-fashioned china pot. No water or sink. Nothing.

  I must have been there for about ten minutes with the single, wire-guarded bulb burning overhead, when they returned. This time there were four of them; the two troopers, Fleming and another man. The last one looked familiar somehow. I knew why right away.

  “This is the man,’’ Flemingsaid, pointing at me. “He and your brother had an argument this morning, or rather yesterday morning. You want to talk to him, Georgie.”

  “Yeah, I wanna talk to him.”

  The minute he spoke I knew why he seemed familiar. He had a voice which was a dead ringer for Battle’s voice. He had the same red hair, except it wasn’t crew-cut. He was a little cleaner, but he wasn’t any prettier. He was probably a few years older and he was also bigger. Maybe no taller, but even wider in the shoulders. He had a gut on him which could have held a half barrel of beer.

  “Well, as soon as we get his statement, you can have him,” Fleming said.

  “I want him now.”

  He had a key in his hand and he started to put it in the cell lock. It was the bigger of the troopers who stopped him.

  “Until this man is indicted,” hesaid, "he is, still in the technical custody of the state police. It is your privilege to question him, Mr. Fleming, but he is not to be touched until he is technically out of our hands. It that understood?”

  Battle's brother looked at him in disgust.

  “State police!” he snorted. “What will you guys do? Pin a rose on him and kiss him good night?”

  The trooper looked at him coldly.

  “After seeing that girl, ” he said, “I would personally like to kick his knockers off and then slowly take him apart. Except I wouldn’t dirty my hands. But that isn’t the point. We have found out that we get more convictions when we get a statement while the prisoner is still able to pass an examination by his own doctor. Mr. Fleming knows that.”

  Fleming nodded coldly.

  “I’ll have a statement while he is still in one piece,” he said. He turned to Battle's brother. “You’ll have your turn, Georgie,” hesaid. “Goonupandget a stenographer.”

  It was time I said something.

  “You won’t need a stenographer,” I said. “There isn’t going to be any statement.”

  “Why you—” Georgie began, but Fleming cut him short. “Just go upstairs and wait,” he said. “I’ll have a talk with the prisoner. There’ll be a statement, all right.”

  “Should I tell the stenographer to come down?”

  “I’ll tell you when.” He took the keys from Georgie. He started to unlock the door.

  The second trooper spoke for the first time.

  I think you shouldn’t go in there with him until maybe we soften him up

  a little first, Mr. Fleming,” he said.

  Fleming looked at him angrily.

  I wont need you men any more,” hesaid. “I can handle things from now on.”

  They both started to protest but Fleming insisted. After a minute the two turned and left.

  The door opened and Fleming came in and sat down on the straight-backed chair.

  There were only four cells in the room and the one we were in was the only one occupied. I had to give the little man credit. He had plenty of guts, considering what he was thinking about me.

  He sat on the edge of the chair, his trousers neatly pulled up so that they wouldn’t wrinkle. His small hands rested on his knees and he stared at me out of eves which were coal black and as chilly as twin icicles.

  He was an immaculate little man, a neat little man. And I suddenly understood that I had completely misunderstood him all along. He was a man with an angle.

  “You don’t care to make a statement, Mr. Russell,” he said in his high, precise voice, “so I will make a statement to you. The statement is this.

  “I have three bodies on my hands. There is Mr. Marcus, who was supposed to have been killed when his car went off the road. I think he was murdered.

  “There is Herman Battle, my deputy sheriff, who could have been killed by a hit- and - run driver. I think he was murdered. And there is a girl named Marilyn K. and there is no doubt about her. She was brutally and sadistically beaten to death. There is something else. There is a lot of money which we are positive Mr. Marcus had with him when he was killed. That money is missing.”

  He hesitated, still staring at me.

  “And there is you,” he said.

  “And there is me.”

  He smiled thinly.

  “Yes. There is you. Let me tell you what we know about you, so that you won’t have to bother to lie. We know who you are. We know almost everything you have done during the past twenty-four hours. We know that you were driving north on Route 301 early yesterday morning at the same time Mr. Marcus was driving on 301. We know that you stopped along the roadside, at just about the spot where his car was wrecked, before the police arrived on the scene. We know that you met Battle at the Cutter Cabins and fought with him.

  “We know that you checked into the hotel with the Kelley girl. We know that you spent the day and part of the evening with her. We know that Battle returned to Whispenng Willows and we are morally certain it was because he knew you were there. We know that Marcus had a lot of money with him and that the money was gone before the police arrived. Now would you like to take it from there? Just sort of informally?”

  This time I studied him for a long time before answering. I hadn’t figured I him out completely, but I knew that I had been wrong in thinking he might

  be a stupid, pompous little jerk.

  “All right,” I said at last. “I’ll take it from there. I’ll take it under just one condition. I’ll tell you exactly what I did and what I know. But you have to tell me one thing first. You have to tell me exactly what your own interest is. ”

  He looked at me slightly shocked, an expression I hadn’t thought him capable of showing.

  “My interest? Why I’m the assistant district attorney. And right now, while the boss is sick, I am in charge.”

  “I understand that, ” I said. “But I still want to know something. I want to know this. I want to know where you yourself are headed. Are you looking for the murderers of the three people you have mentioned, assuming they were al
l murdered? Or are you merely looking for convictions? And exactly what is your interest in the money? Assuming again that there was any money.”

  If I expected him to get mad, I was disappointed. “There was money,” he said thinly “I know that for sure. Battle knew it, too, and it cost him his life.”

  “You still haven’t answered me,” I said.

  “And if I do answer you?”

  “Then I will do as you want me to do. I’ll give you a statement.”

  Again he was silent for a long time. At last he looked up at me again and the look was no more friendly and no warmer than it had been before.

  “I want to find out who killed those three people and I want to see that whoever did is convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to die. I want to find that money because it will be vital evidence in obtaining a conviction.”

  This time I was the one who remained silent for a long time.

  He was a funny Ettle man, an odd, supercilious and slightly ridiculous figure. But for some strange reason, I suddenly realized that he was deadly serious. That he was being completely honest. That the one thing he reaUy wanted was to perform to perfection the job to which he had been appointed.

  “All right,” I said at last, “I’ll tell you my story. But no stenographer. Not yet. Not until you have heard me out.”

  He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and put one in his mouth and lighted it, and then he looked at me as he was putting the pack back. He hesitated and held the pack out. I took a cigarette but he didn’t hold the match for me. He handed me the pack.

  “Start talking,” he said.

  Chapter Nine

  So I told him my story. I started right from the beginning and I told him the way it happened. I told him almost everything and I only lied twice. I lied twice and I left out a few minor details, but I told it almost straight. He only interrupted me two or three times.

  I started when I had been driving up Route 301 and had seen Marilyn K. standing there beside the highway. I got us as far back as the Whispering Willows when the first interruption came.

  “And you had no idea of what might be in that suitcase?” he asked.

  “I had no idea,” I said, happy that I wasn’t taking a lie detector test.

  “Goon,” he said.

  “I found out who she was when I called my friend in New York,” I continued. “That was how I happened to be at the Cutter Cabins when I butted in on your deputy pal. I went there to call because I didn’t want to telephone from the room in front of the girl.”

  He looked annoyed when I mentioned Battle and the scene at the cabins. Again he interrupted.

  “Herman Battle was going to have to answer for that, ” he said.“ It was only because of his brother, Georgie, who is a good man and an honest officer, that we carried Battle as long as we did.”

  He didn’t have to apologize to me. Anyway, I went on talking.

  “So I returned to Whispering Willows, even after I found out who she was,

  I explained. “All I knew is that she was lovely and she was in trouble. Maybe it was a protective instinct or maybe it was pure lust. But I returned.”

  I went on from there. I didn’t give him a blow-by-blow description of that wonderful afternoon we had spent together. I didn’t think he would either appreciate it or even understand. I just said we sat around and made love and got half tight. I brought the story up to the point when Battle knocked on the door. I figured I had to mention it. It was more than likely someone had heard him asking about me.

  “The girl answered and he identified himself. I remembered his name,” I explained. “I didn’t want trouble. So I went into the shower and she let him in. I don’t know what she said or he said. I had the shower door closed and the bedroom door was shut and I could only hear them muttering to each other. Anyway, he stayed for about a half an hour. And then he left.

  “Why did he leave without seeing you if it was you he came to see?’ Fleming asked.

  “She said that she gave him something so that he would go away, I answered. I knew the answer would hold up. I was remembering the sheaf of bills I had stuffed in Battle’s pants pocket when I had left him.

  He nodded, but I couldn’t tell whether he believed me or not.

  ‘‘And then she saw the three men,” I said.

  “The three men?”

  "Three mobsters from New York. A man named Socks Leopold and two hoods called Binge and Hymie. They were in the cocktail lounge. They had arrived in a black Chrysler Imperial. They were associates of the dead man, Marcus.”

  “Noone named Leopold checked into Whispering Willows last night,” he said.

  “I can’t help that. They were there. In the cocktail lounge. She saw them and later, when I left, I talked to one of them outside by the car. A big, beefy, ugly man with a broken nose. ”

  “And they saw her?”

  “No. Not then at least. Or so she said. But she did say that she was frightened to death of them and that they were there looking for her.”

  “So you left her then, is that it?” he asked, his voice sarcastic. “What happened to that protective instinct?”

  I could see that I had lost him.

  “Yes, I left her. I left because she insisted I leave. She told me she had telephoned her sister to come down and meet her. She said once her sister arrived she wouldn’t be afraid any more. She didn’t want me to be there when her sister showed up.”

  “Then you waited for the sister to arrive and left?”

  I shook my head.

  “I left soon after Battle left. Maybe I am a coward and certainly I am a fool, but you want the truth and I am giving it to you. She told me she was afraid of Socks Leopold and his hoodlums, but she also said that she could handle any situation which might come up. She asked me to leave; she insisted I leave. So I did. I packed my bag and left.”

  “But you didn’t check out?”

  “No. I just went out the back door to the carport and got in my car and left. ”

  “With both suitcases? Hers and your own?”

  “With only my own. ”

  “Hers was gone when her sister came in and found her dead.”

  "Listen,” I said, “I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill her and I didn’t take that suitcase. I don’t even know what was in it. Whether it was full of money, as you seem to think it was, or not.”

  I don’t really know why I lied about it. I wanted to tell him the truth. I felt that my only hope lay in telling the truth. But I did lie. Somehow or other, in the back of my mind was the thought that as long as the money was missing and as long as I was the sole living person who knew where it was, I still had something left to bargain with. The idea wasn’t completely stupid, either. I had Leopold pegged as her murderer and Leopold wanted only one thing. He wanted that money. And so, sooner or later, the money was going to be the means of my contacting him. He was a man I very much wanted to see.

  In short, I lied.

  “All right,” he said, “go on with the rest of it.”

  And that is where he had me. Up to this point I had been doing fine. Even with an occasional omission and an occasional perversion of the facts. But now it was different. I had three hours to account for. He may not have known when I left the motel, but he did know when I checked into Cutter’s Cabins. And I didn’t want to keep myself in that motel one second longer than I had actually stayed there.

  Someone had killed Marilyn K. at the Whispering Willows, sometime during the period when I was driving to Baltimore airport and back and it was essential that I establish an alibi. But I just didn’t have an alibi. Not unless I wanted to tell him about the money and I wasn’t ready to play my trump card yet.

  “I drove to Baltimore,” I said. “And then I drove back to Cutter’s Cabins and checked in.”

  “You drove to Baltimore? Why?”

  "I can’t tell you that.”

  "Did you see anyone in Baltimore? Talk to anyone who could identify you?”
/>
  “I talked to a couple of people. I had never seen them before but I feel sure that they could identify me. When and if it is necessary.”

  “It is going to be very necessary. Who were they?”

  “I can’t tell you that, either. Not just yet.”

  “You mean you won’t. And you won’t tell me why you drove to Baltimore?”

  Hell, I wanted to tell him. I knew that sooner or later I would probably have to tell him. But if I told him now, told him about going to the airport, he’d quickly enough put two and two together. And I still needed that money for bait. I just had to take a chance on his getting mad. Although his getting mad was a sort of silly anticlimax to worry about at this stage of the game.

  He got up from his chair and still stared at me.

  “You are either the world’s biggest liar or the world’s God damndest fool,” he said. "Probably both.”

  He didn't know how heartily I agreed with him.

  He was opening the cell door when the man in the uniform of a county patrolman poked his head down the stairwell. He beckoned and Fleming went out and the two of them whispered for several moments, looking over at me in the meantime. Fleming came back and the other one disappeared.

  He had a nasty expression on his face when he spoke.

  "Your lawyer is upstairs,” hesaid. “He has come to see you. And I have de

  cided I was right. You are both a fool and a liar.”

  He swung on his heel and left.

  I was surprised that they let him see me. But I guess even in Maryland a lawyer can see his client.

  He was a thin, scrawny man in a rumpled suit and a pair of nose glasses which he wore on a ribbon. He had gray hair, what there was of it, a tall narrow forehead and a pair of the most guileless eyes I had ever seen. His nose and his mouth were large and there was no chin at all. He looked local.

  The turnkey opened the cell door and he came in but didn’t sit down. He waited until we were alone before he spoke.

  “Hardies the name,” he said. "From down on the Eastern Shore. I handle work for Moore and Moore, New York attorneys, when they have something down this way.”

  “Do they have something?”