You Can't Kill a Corpse

by Louis Trimble

  Thorne was blunt when Clane stopped his inspection and turned to his brandy. “What’s your business, Clane?”

  “I’m a salesman,” Clane said. “I sell hard-boiled eggs from rump-calloused hens.”

  “I asked it straight, Clane.”

  “I’m a salesman,” Clane repeated. “You want something sold. I’ll sell it.”

  “Morgan?”

  “Morgan,” Clane admitted. “You’re bucking a big outfit, Thorne. And with what?”

  “Nothing yet,” Thorne said. “Wickett and Pryor have us sewed up. We’re biding our time, building our own machine.”

  “With what?” Clane repeated. “For what?”

  “For better civic government,” Thorne said blandly. He sipped his brandy.

  “You’re no man to sit for four years,” Clane said. “Election is ten days off. I’ll put Morgan over for you.”

  “You started out on the right track,” Thorne said heavily.

  “I put Clane in the public eye,” Clane said. “I’ll put Morgan there—in a better light. I’ll put Pryor where I am.”

  “You have Wickett to deal with,” Thorne said. “The man who hit you in the mouth.”

  “I’ll deal with him,” Clane said quietly. “I’m remembering him.”

  “What do you get out of it?” Thorne demanded.

  “Ten thousand dollars cash,” Clane said. “Half in advance. The rest if I succeed.”

  “And then you leave town?”

  “No, then Morgan creates a job—assistant city manager. That’s Clane.”

  “Ten thousand dollars. A thousand a day for ten days. And a cut of the melon.”

  Clane said, “What kind of a man is Morgan?”

  “Honest,” Thorne said. He spread his hands. “A business man. He wants to run the city like a business.”

  “Then,” Clane said, “there won’t be much melon to cut. I’ll live on my salary after the election.”

  “Sure,” Thorne said. “Don’t forget to tell the voters.”

  “All right,” Clane agreed. “We’ll wait for election to argue that one. Before there’s any argument you have to get Morgan in. You have to put him in over a twenty-year, air-tight machine. Who runs it?”

  “Wickett and Paul Grando—he’s the Baron of Casey Street.”

  “And what are you the baron of, Thorne?”

  “I’m not asking personal questions, Clane.”

  “Mutual,” Clane said. “I’ll take the money in cash.”

  “Venchetti told me you had nerve,” Thorne said. “How do you work this—shoot Pryor?”

  “I work alone,” Clane said. “On my own time. I make no reports. If I get in a jam I’ll wriggle out of it this time, Thorne.”

  “What if we lose?” Thorne demanded. “You’re in five thousand.”

  “And you’re out five thousand,” Clane agreed. “Without me you can’t win. With me I’ll guarantee you even odds.” He watched Thorne’s heavy face. He saw the gambler in the man. He said again, “Even money, Thorne.”

  “How much do you need for expenses?”

  “It comes out of the five thousand,” Clane said.

  Thorne set down his brandy glass and heaved himself to his feet. He went to his desk and felt beneath it and a drawer leaped out at him. He put Clane.

  “There shouldn’t be much point in telling you that you can’t pocket this and leave town.” Clane caught the note of warning in the smooth voice.

  “I’m not selling you the Brooklyn Bridge,” Clane said flatly.

  Thorne smiled and brought a roll of bills from the desk drawer. He counted out five thousand dollars in fifties and hundreds. He handed them to Clane. “One thing.”

  “Strings already, Thorne?”

  “A rope,” Thorne said softly. “Keep my wife’s eyes off you.”

  FIVE

  It took Clane half an hour to find his way from Ed Thorne’s to Wickett’s house. Both places were on the Hill but Wickett’s mansion was in a newer section and the roads were even more winding and obscure than where Thorne lived.

  Wickett’s home was almost at the top of the knoll, and after parking his car Clane sat a moment, staring through the downpour at the lights of Dunlop bunched below. Main and First were brightly lighted, wet strings of glowing color forming a cross against the more subdued secondary streets. Looking down, Clane was surprised that Dunlop was so small. It had seemed a good deal larger while he was driving about, hunting for Thorne’s house. Outside of the central area it was quite dark, but by looking through the rear window of the car he could see a line of hard white light edging a strip of blackness. That would be Casey Street along the river. Paul Grando’s home base, he thought.

  Clane got out of the car, satisfied with his inspection of the city. By noting the position of the Metropole Hotel, taller than anything but Wickett’s Call-Clarion building, he had oriented himself. He was parked two blocks from Wickett’s home and now he walked along the wet sidewalk, finding occasional shelter beneath spreading locust and elm trees, their last leaves being beaten from the branches by the rain.

  The rain had stopped by the time he reached Wickett’s and the cold chill of late October was settling from an unevenly clouded sky. He hunched himself deeper into his overcoat, went through a picket gate set in a thick white brick wall, and began the crossing of a drenched lawn. The house ahead was white brick, cold and lifeless-looking with no lights showing. Clane walked warily, his hat pulled low.

  He was looking for a dog. Houses like these always had dogs. Clane had no use for any dog. He kept his fingers around the cold butt of the .25 he carried. It wasn’t much of a gun, but in Clane’s hand it was a sure weapon.

  There was no sound but his own breathing and his footsteps brushing the wet, clipped grass. He passed into a yard through a second white picket gate and now he could see a faint glow from the side windows. It was a small, wavering flicker of light and it took Clane a moment and ten feet of walking to realize it came from a fireplace log. Thorne and now Wickett. Clane wondered if all Dunlop was addicted to fireplaces.

  He stopped at French doors. They were separated from the flagstone path that bisected the lawn by a single concrete step. One door was fully covered with a dark drapery. The other drapery was only half pulled and it was through the glass that Clane could see the light from the fire. There was no other light in the room. He put out one gloved hand and turned the door latch. The door opened easily under pressure and he moved inside.

  He closed the door softly behind him and let his eyes adjust themselves to the dancing, uncertain light. A large log had almost died in the fireplace; only a few small flames were left. Clane turned and looked around the book-lined study, his eyes following the wall until they reached a wide, paper-littered desk at his extreme right. Anthony Wicket was seated there, his body relaxed in a chair, one hand on the desk top. A cigar was smoldering in an ashtray.

  Clane said, “All right, Wickett. It’s cold enough for a drink.”

  He took a few steps forward. Now he could see better. A warning chill started at the base of his spine and ran upward, prickling the hairs at the base of his neck. He felt a little foolish, talking that way to a dead man.

  He went around the desk until he stood over Wickett. He could see the bullet hole in the side of the man’s head. There was a look of sardonic amusement on Wickett’s face and he had died before it could fade. Clane noted again his relaxation and the natural way his hand rested on the desk top. Except for the hole in his head and the accentuated immobility of his features he could have been sleeping.

  Or resting, Clane thought. Or thinking up further ways to stop Clane. This was one way. A very good way unless Clane could think fast and act faster. He held no delusions. Particularly if he were caught there, with Wickett’s body, would the police jump to a natural conclusion.

  He glared at Wickett. The sardonic expression did not change. Evidently the bullet had come from a door inside the house, across the rom and at right ang
les to the front of the desk. It had caught Wickett by surprise. That the publisher could have held a gun to his temple and shot himself Clane did not believe. Wickett had not impressed him as a man faintly contemplating suicide.

  From the size of the hole Clane judge the gun to have been no larger than a thirty-two.

  Clane felt the stillness of the room creep over him and mingle with the scent of the cigar smoke. That cigar puzzled him. Tentatively he pushed a gloved finger at it. The ash was short and it fell from the cigar tip into the ashtray. The mouth end of the cigar was not quite dry. It had been lit only a few minutes before. And from the appearance of the wound Clane estimated Wickett had been dead close to half an hour.

  He let his mind linger on that. He had left Thorne’s place a little before ten. In the intervening hour he had driven to a drug store and looked up Wickett’s address and then had spent the remainder of the time cursing the short, curved streets of the Hill. That was a fine alibi for the cops, for a man like the belligerent Day.

  Clane wondered who was in the house and if anyone had heard the shot. He began to feel impatient with the darkness and he reached out his hand, snapping on a desk study lamp. It was powerful and threw light against the polished desk top and back, pushing aside the flicker of firelight and filling one corner of the room. Clane blinked a little and then looked around. Behind him, within reach of the man at the desk, he saw an Ediphone machine. The cover was on it but was bunched and setting askew. As if, Clane thought, someone had jammed it there in a hurry. He removed the cover gingerly and glanced at the machine. There was no record in it. He shrugged and replaced the cover, not bothering to set it neatly.

  Outside of the machine, there was nothing near Wickett’s desk. It sat almost in a corner with a door behind it and one directly across the room. A large heavily curtained window was at one side and a little to the rear of the desk. Behind it and to the left of the door was the fireplace, taking up almost all of the rear wall. Clane turned so his back was to Wickett’s side and walked a direct line toward the door at the side of the room. His right arm was to the rear door and the fireplace now; on his left was the largest part of the study.

  He reached the door and put out one hand to open it. A small sound came from the other side, a noise as of someone vainly trying to move hurriedly and silently away. Clane jerked at the door.

  The hallway was dark but Clane made out the movements of someone running. Clane took two steps forward and turned, making a diving tackle. His arms closed around a pair of pumping knees. There was a hard, jarring sound. Over his own breathing Clane heard a sob. He cocked his fist.

  “Clane … Jim!”

  Clane rolled away. “You crazy kid!” he panted. He stood up and let Bob Morgan get to his feet. “Who else is here?”

  “The maid and her mother,” Bob Morgan said. “They’re asleep over the garages at the other end of the house.” His voice shook uncontrollably.

  Clane said, “Come on in the library.” When they were once more in the other room he shut the door. “Damn it, did you do this?” He shot the question abruptly, one hand grasping the boy’s upper arm in a tight, hard grip.

  Bob Morgan’s muscles were shaking as badly as his voice. He took a deep breath and said, “No,” flatly. Clane dropped his hand.

  “What were you doing here?” Clane was less savage now. Bob Morgan was scared sick; it was a natural reaction in the face of violent death. It could also be the reaction if the boy had caused that death, but Clane doubted that.

  “Mickey—my girl—works here,” Bob Morgan said. “She had to work tonight so I brought some stuff, ice cream and junk, and hung around.” He had himself controlled a little now. He kept his back to Wickett, his eyes fixed resolutely on Clane. His face was white, drained, but not shaking so badly.

  “What time did she go to bed?” Clane asked.

  “Ten,” Bob Morgan answered. He was positive.

  “It’s eleven-twenty now,” Clane said.

  “I wasn’t sleepy,” the boy said. “I stayed around.”

  “You talked to Wickett?”

  “No. He didn’t know I was here.”

  Clane said, “This isn’t the kind of information you can hold back, Bob. You can talk to the cops or to me. Maybe you’ll have to do both.”

  “We can both fade and keep our mouths shut,” Bob Morgan said. There was a short break in his voice and then he blurted, “Wickett was a louse I” He had begun to shake again.

  Clane took his arm and turned him so the light fell on his face. His eyes were hot and bright, his mouth trembling. It gave Clane something to think about. Bob Morgan was a pretty self-sufficient boy for eighteen. He had managed to hold himself in check once, but now he was going to pieces again. Only this time it looked more like anger than fright.

  Clane said, “It isn’t a good thing to start at your age, but you’ll take a drink.”

  “I’ve never used it.”

  Clane crossed the room. In a recess between the bookcases he found a portable bar. He opened it and took out a bottle. He saw that it was rye but he took a shot himself and then passed it to the boy.

  “Put your handkerchief around the bottle,” Clane directed.

  Bob Morgan took his handkerchief and wrapped it around the bottle and took a drink. He coughed and choked and some of the whiskey ran down his chin. He wiped at it and blinked watering eyes at Clane. Clane said, “Try again.” The second time it was easier. Clane took the bottle away from him and put it back.

  “Now,” he said, “give. I’m not kidding about the cops. They’re sure to know you were here at ten—they’ll be on your tail sooner or later.”

  “Give me a cigarette, Jim.”

  Clane lit one and put it in the boys’ mouth. His hands were shaking so that he nearly dropped the cigarette when he tried to take it from his lips to talk. He walked away from Clane, into the darkened end of the room, swung around and paced back. He was getting control of himself again and after a few moments the color started back into his face and he looked almost normal.

  “I saw Edith,” he said abruptly. He faced Clane squarely. “I’ve got to trust someone, Jim.”

  “Sure,” Clane said. “I don’t love the cops. But you can’t hide everything, Bob.” He added, “Your sister was here—alone?”

  “Yes,” Bob Morgan said. “I saw her come in. She didn’t see me. I don’t know what she wanted but she went through Wickett’s desk.”

  “He was dead then?”

  Bob Morgan ran his tongue over his lips. He looked miserable, but his voice was steady. “He was dead. He was sitting like that.”

  “She could have shot him?” Clane asked.

  “She came in the same way you did. But she could have been inside and gone out and circled around the house. I suppose she could have killed him.” He took a step backward, turned and found a chair and dropped heavily into it. “She or Dad—he was here too.”

  SIX

  Clane stared thoughtfully at the boy in the chair. He took Bob Morgan by the hand and pulled him to his feet. “Clear out of here, kid,” he said. “Hide outside. If someone comes, tip me off. I have work to do.”

  “Get out this, Jim,” Bob Morgan pleaded. “This isn’t your mess.”

  “Move,” Clane ordered. He turned his back on the boy and went toward Wickett’s desk. He heard the French doors open and shut. Then he went to work.

  He turned the desk lamp so its light was thrown toward the front and downward. He began leafing through the papers on the desk top. Mostly business and household bills. He pushed them aside and started on the drawers. He found the first thing in plain sight, resting in the top drawer. It was a snapshot, about half the size of a postcar. He held it to the light and looked at it briefly before he put it in his pocket. It was of Natalie Thorne and she looked as if she had just completed a strip tease.

  He thought, “I wonder how much Thorne had to pay for the negative?”

  He went through the rest of the drawers. He was
wondering if Wickett had been naturally untidy or if the disorder was the result of Edith Morgan’s search. Nothing was filed, nothing in order. There were no more items of interest until he came to the bottom drawer. There, beneath a thick sheaf of newspaper copy paper, he found a small scrapbook. He flipped it open and looked at the dozen newspaper clippings pasted inside. He couldn’t see much sense to them.

  They were all local items and dated within the past five years. Each one was short and dealt with the same subject: J. B. Castle had been arrested for drunkenness. Clane tried to place the name. It eluded him until he read, “Castle, former newspaperman….” and then he had it. Castle had been the editor of Thorne’s now defunct sheet.

  Clane took the two pages on which the clippings were pasted and tore them from the book. He rolled them and put the roll in his inside coat pocket. He dropped the scrapbook back into the drawer.

  Clane was disappointed. There were no secret drawers in the desk. Nor did any of the bookcases look suspicious. He walked around the room, admiring Wickett’s taste in classical literature, but that helped him not at all. He went back to the bar and helped himself to another drink of Wickett’s rye.

  The French doors came open. Bob Morgan said, “Car coming up this way.”

  Clane motioned with his head. “Get inside, Bob. How much do you weight?”

  “One-sixty,” Bob Morgan said.

  “All right, lug Wickett outside and dump him in the shadow of the hedge. Keep on the flagstones.”

  “Look, Jim….”

  Clane studied the revulsion on the boy’s face. He said savagely, “Damn it, do you want your sister smeared all over headquarters?” The kid set his teeth together and followed Clane toward the desk.

  Clane didn’t care much for the job but he knew it was one of those things that had to be done. He hoisted Wickett’s body out of the chair, grasping it beneath the armpits. Bob Morgan bent and Clane set the corpse over his shoulder in a version of the fireman’s carry. Bob was breathing violently through his mouth.