Cut Me In (Hard Case Crime)

by Ed McBain

  Which meant that Del may not have been killed for the original of the agreement.

  I wasn’t buying that. I still felt that the two were tangled, and the fact that Gunnison hadn’t been involved meant nothing. I couldn’t see any other reason, nor could I see a reason for the holes in Lydia, and it was really a good thing I wasn’t connected with the police department. That was Di Luca’s headache, and he was welcome to it.

  Me, I had a stat in my pocket, and a deal in that same pocket, and a girl waiting for me at the other end of the line. And what a girl!

  I pulled in between the twin white pillars, and sped up the gravel driveway. The place was very quiet, with only the sounds of the insects humming on the air.

  I drove to the garage and saw my Buick parked there. I stepped out of the Olds, checked my own car for damage, satisfied when the broken window and wet upholstery seemed to be the only casualties.

  I was wasting time.

  Cam was inside.

  I was sure as hell wasting time.

  I went to the front door and lifted the monogrammed knocker. I waited for a few moments, and then the door opened wide, and the undertaker stood there, only he wasn’t grinning this time. He looked very sad, which is befitting an undertaker, even when he’s really a butler.

  “Hi, kid,” I said. “Miss Stewart home?”

  He blinked at me, and his eyes were cavernous and sad, and I felt so damned happy that his sadness looked ten times as sad.

  “Hey,” I said, “snap out of it. Is Miss Stewart home?”

  He blinked once more, and then his voice came, deep and lonely, like the voice of a ghost in a vacuum.

  “Miss Stewart is dead, sir,” he said.

  12.

  I stood there with the insect sounds humming around me, and I looked at the sad-eyed, sad-faced butler, and somehow my undertaker metaphor wasn’t funny anymore.

  He’d made it come true, and I just stood there and looked at him with my mouth open and my eyes blinking. He nodded solemnly, still experiencing his own shock, and able to understand a little of mine.

  “I’ve called the police, sir,” he said. “They should be here soon.”

  I followed him into the house, and then into the long living room that ran across the rear wall. The drapes were drawn back, and I could see the swimming pool and the patio through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the room.

  Cam lay in front of one window. She wore a playsuit that was a sort of rompers affair—a high dog-collar neck, and bunched bloomers that hugged her tanned thighs. The front of the suit was a soggy mass of blood. It clung limply to her breast, and the blood ran onto the floor beneath her. A broken glass was on the floor, its amber liquid uniting with the blood, forming a muddy pool.

  The window behind her was a crooked mass of broken shards.

  “When…when did this happen?” I asked. I turned away from her because I couldn’t look anymore. Death had really hit hard this time; very hard. This time it was a personal loss, and I felt drained, empty.

  “I’d gone to the village, sir,” the butler told me. “Just to pick up a few things. When I returned…” He didn’t finish. He just shook his head, and I unconsciously shook mine with him. It was very quiet in the room.

  “Was anyone with her when you left?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Becker, sir.”

  “He was here? With Cam?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  David Becker. The little moon-faced producer, Could a little man like him do a big thing like this? I wondered, and I looked at Cam’s lifeless body again.

  “What time did he get here?” I asked.

  “Shortly after you left this morning, sir. At about twelve-thirty, I would say.”

  “And he stayed all afternoon?”

  “Yes, sir. They were discussing the details of the motion picture, I believe.”

  “Did they argue, or anything?”

  “No, sir.”

  A little of the shock was wearing off, and it was being replaced by a gnawing wonder. Why Cam? I mean, if the movie deal was all-important, why kill the author? If Del was killed to get the original agreement, and if Lydia was killed for Christ only knew what reason, where did Cam fit into the murder scheme? Was it that she was no longer necessary, now that the contracts had been inked? Would the publicity on her murder help the picture?

  Or had she changed her mind? Had she told Becker she suddenly remembered the agreement, and wanted me in on the deal? Was that it?

  I was confused. I was honestly baffled, and I wished Di Luca were there because I needed someone with a cold mind and a deadpan face.

  “Which police did you call?” I asked.

  “The local police, sir.”

  “Mind if I use the phone?”

  “Not at all, sir.”

  I called Di Luca, and he took the news very calmly. He told me it was out of his jurisdiction, but since it tied in with the earlier deaths—or possibly tied in with them—he’d be right over. He asked me to wait, and I thanked him and then hung up.

  When I heard a car outside, I thought it was the Connecticut police. I went outside in time to see a taxi stop in front of the house. The side door opened and Carlyle Rutherford got out, paying the driver, and then waving an arm at me.

  I waved back and watched him walk up to the house.

  “Hello, Blake,” he said.

  “Rutherford,” I acknowledged.

  He grinned broadly, and then looked over to the garage, where I’d parked the Olds behind my Buick.

  “I see you returned my car,” he said.

  “Your…” I stopped short and then said, “So it was your party last night.”

  Rutherford’s grin widened. “One smart-angle boy against another, Blake. The boys tell me you had quite a time.”

  “Quite a time.”

  An anxious look crossed his rugged features. “They didn’t harm you, did they?”

  “No, they were very genial.”

  “You’re not sore, are you?”

  “It was pretty dirty, Rutherford.”

  “No dirtier than a lot I’ve seen. You’d have done the same, Blake.”

  “Maybe. I doubt it.”

  “You’d have done the same,” he said firmly.

  “Maybe we’re just not in the same league, Rutherford. Maybe you’re carrying this fraternity-of-smart-angle-boys idea too far.”

  Rutherford shrugged. “I had to keep you away from the party.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore, Rutherford. I’ve got the agreement, and you can see it any time you want to.”

  Rutherford’s mouth fell open, and he let his big hands drop to his sides. I guess he really believed that no agreement had existed, because the shock on his face was plainly evident. I still hadn’t told him Cam was dead. If he knew, he was going to have a hell of a time looking surprised. And if he didn’t know, I wanted to see his reaction. In my own mind, I’d discounted him as the murderer the moment I’d learned the Olds was his. It’s a little hard for a man to move around freely when he hasn’t got a car. The fact that he’d arrived just now in a cab seemed to indicate he didn’t own a second car. Still, I wanted to see his face when he learned Cam was dead.

  “You’ve got it, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Sure.” I fished out the agreement, unfolded it, and held it where he could read it plainly. I did not let it out of my hands.

  Rutherford read it slowly and carefully, then shook his head sadly. “Mmm,” he said. Then: “That settles that, I guess.”

  “Except for a few details.”

  “Like what?”

  “Come on inside, Rutherford.”

  Rutherford shrugged. He was too good a businessman to let a little setback knock him for a loop. “Where’s Cam?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.

  “Inside,” I said. “Come on.”

  He followed me in, and I led him to the living
room. He was still peering over his shoulder, looking for Cam, believing—or trying to give the impression he believed—she was outside.

  She was not outside. She was still sprawled before the broken window, and Rutherford had not seen her. He gave one last look through the open door, and then, turning his head, said, at the same time, “Well, where is she?”

  “Right there,” I said.

  He turned his head sharply, and then he saw her.

  He was either a very good actor, or he was honestly surprised. I watched his face, and it was not a pleasant thing to see. He looked at the body, and somehow it didn’t register. He kept turning his head, and then snapped it back in a double-take that would have been comical were it not for the expression accompanying it.

  His crooked eyebrows shot up onto his forehead, and his thin lips popped open. His eyes were suddenly stabbed with pain, and then his face creased into a thousand anguished wrinkles, and he did a curious thing for a man as big as he was. He brought his heavy hands up close to his chest. The fingers interlocked, and he wrung them like an old woman watching a funeral procession. He kept wringing his hands, and he still hadn’t said a word, and then the tears sprang into his eyes—real tears that clouded the brown and then spilled over onto his cheeks.

  He walked to her slowly, and he stood looking down at her, still not saying a word, still wringing his big hands. When he turned to me, he was still crying soundlessly. He dropped his hands, and said softly, “That was dirty, Blake. That was dirtier than I’ve ever been.”

  I thought he was referring to the death, at first, and then I realized he meant the way I’d broken the news to him. Maybe it had been dirty, but I was in a dirty mood, and murder is as dirty as you can get.

  “The police are on their way,” I said.

  “Who did it?”

  “You tell me, Rutherford.”

  “You don’t think…Jesus Christ, you surely don’t think…”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  He was suddenly angry. He clenched those big hands, and his lips formed a tight line across his face. “If I find the sonovabitch…”

  “We may not have far to look,” I said. “Becker was here a little while ago.”

  “Becker? He wouldn’t…you’re crazy if you think he would…” He seemed unable to say the word, and finally it came out. “…kill Cam. He…”

  We heard the siren outside then, and we both shut up and went to greet the Connecticut police.

  * * *

  They asked a lot of questions, more questions than a man should be forced to answer in a lifetime. They were very thorough. They went through the place with a fine comb, taking pictures, lifting prints, marking the floor. And always the questions.

  I was glad when Di Luca finally showed up. He had a short talk with the local detective, explaining his connection with the case. They seemed to get along well, and I watched silently, with all the confusion of activity around me.

  Di Luca got his own men to work, and I admired the way they unobtrusively geared in with the work the Connecticut men were doing. Di Luca hovered over them for a while, making sure his orders were carried out, and then he walked over to where I was standing. There was no antagonism in his voice or his face now. He just looked very tired.

  “Another one, Blake,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “You knew her, huh?”

  “I knew her.”

  “A damn shame. A very pretty girl.”

  “Yes.”

  “Looks like a .45, from what I could tell.”

  I nodded.

  “We’ll know for sure later. Snap out of it, Blake,” he said suddenly.

  “I’m sorry. I…”

  “Sure, I know. It’s not nice, no matter how you slice it. It’s worse when it’s someone you know and like.”

  “Yes.”

  “You still think that agreement is causing all these deaths, Blake?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s not, believe me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The pattern. It comes absurd after a while. It doesn’t hang together. If the movie deal were the motivating factor, the killer wouldn’t murder this way.”

  “I have one copy of the agreement now,” I said dully. “The one that was stolen from me.”

  “Oh? Who stole it?”

  “Gunnison. The writer…”

  “Yeah. You should have told me this sooner, Blake.”

  “I only got the photostat just before I came up here.”

  “Is that why you came? To show the agreement to Miss Stewart?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the original?”

  “It’s still missing.”

  “I gave a lot of thought to your theory, you know. Before I threw it out of the window. It made some sense. A big deal was pending, and one of the leading parties to the deal is killed. And an agreement is missing from the safe. That makes sense. Not too much sense, but sense enough to consider. And then Lydia Rafney was killed, and I revised my thinking and dropped that agreement angle completely.”

  “Is that why you booked me?”

  “Yes. Yes, I began thinking along other lines. I figured maybe you were hot for Rafney, killed your partner because he was getting all the potatoes, and then killed her because she wouldn’t come across even after he was dead.”

  “Simple motives.”

  “Sure.”

  “Why’d you let me go?”

  “Hell, you heard the autopsy report. You couldn’t have killed her. Speculation is one thing, Blake. Facts are another. The smart cop combines the two.”

  “And what about this?” I gestured toward Cam’s shrouded body.

  “This may make things a little clearer. It may tie in with another line of thought I had.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Del Gilbert was a big bastard, right?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I checked around the field. I haven’t been sitting on my dead duff. I found enough people who hated him to form a club. A big club. That made it harder, Blake. When there’s so much hatred, there’s motivation everywhere. But hatred alone isn’t enough. Hatred can smolder and grow for a long time, but it will hardly ever force the average guy to kill, unless there’s a sudden push. Say Gilbert had been screwing up one editor constantly, getting him in dutch with the publisher. All right, the editor hates him, hates him viciously, but not enough to break the highest law of Man. Then let’s say Gilbert causes the guy to lose his job. There’s the push that’s needed. The editor is over the line now, and killing is a simple thing, motivated by an intense hatred.”

  “Del had a lot of guys fired,” I said.

  “I know, Blake. I checked on that, too. I discounted most of them as past the danger point. Once the spark comes, that’s the time to kill. That’s when any man can kill—any man. A butcher, or a baker, or a sexton. But the average man does not kill. He allows the spark to flash for a second, or an hour, or maybe a week. And then it burns itself out, dissipates itself. The time to kill is gone. He won’t kill if he hasn’t already.”

  “Then why all these murders? Assuming someone was pushed to the danger point by something that happened…why Lydia? And why Cam?”

  “Lydia may have been a further reaction of the first death. At least, that’s the way I figure it. The momentum of the first spark, if you will. Miss Stewart? It’s hard to say, and it baffles me a little. Something else must have happened, something to rekindle that spark. You see, the sequence of murder is important, Blake. Once that spark is kindled, it must have direction. There must be a murder object. The object is not chosen at random. For example, if I’d been building up a hatred for you, when that hatred reached the danger point, I wouldn’t go out and kill the neighborhood grocer. No, I’d kill you. First, anyway. So Del Gilbert was killed first.”

  “And then Lydia.”

  “Then Lydia. Maybe the hatred was not yet satisfied. Maybe the killer figure
d Gilbert wasn’t enough. So Lydia was the next victim.”

  “That doesn’t explain Cam.”

  “Maybe it does. That’s the loophole in my reasoning, Blake. If I can figure why Miss Stewart was killed…” Di Luca shrugged. “I’ll find it. I’ll find it, Blake. I don’t think there’ll be any more killing. I think the spark has gone out, and unless something happens to rekindle it, we’re all right. By that time, I’ll have my killer.”

  “Get him, Di Luca,” I said.

  “I’ve been trying to.” He smiled thinly, and then said, “I think you’d better go home. Get a little rest. This is what I get paid for.”

  I thanked him and then started out. Rutherford was outside the house, sitting in the center of a ring of reporters. His grief seemed to have passed very rapidly. I walked back to where Rutherford held court. I broke through the ring of reporters and said, “I’ll bill you for that smashed window, Rutherford.”

  I walked back to the car then, and drove away from Gunsmoke Acres.

  It was almost closing time when I got back to the office. I don’t know why I went there, except that I wanted something to do. Work is a good cure-all, and I still wasn’t over Cam’s death. I felt vastly reassured since my talk with Di Luca, and I was certain he’d find the killer. But finding the killer would not bring Cam back, and that was a difficult idea to get used to.

  There was no going back. The memory could be nothing more than a memory now.

  It was like hearing a song on the radio and not knowing the title of the tune. You wait for the disc jockey to repeat the title after the song has ended. But he goes into a commercial and then plays another record, and you never learn the title of the first song. You’re left with only a haunting melody, in your mind, and nothing more. You can’t go out to buy the record. You can’t hear it again, except by chance.

  Cam was that way. A song I’d heard. A lovely melody that had meant a lot. I hadn’t learned more about it. And soon the melody would fade, and perhaps I’d hear it again sometime, by chance, sometime.

  I guess my face showed what I was thinking. Jeanette looked up at me, and the smile dropped from her features.