Michael Gray Novels

by Henry Kuttner

  He said to Quentin, lying with closed eyes on the table, “Quentin, are you going to press charges against the boy?”

  Quentin’s face darkened. He winced as a swab swept cold and stinging across the cut. “Damn right I am,” he said. “That Witczak boy—”

  Gray said, “Quentin—I can’t back you up on it.”

  Quentin rolled his head sidewise to stare. The doctor said, “Don’t move,” and glanced with irritation at Gray.

  Quentin said in bewilderment, his glance moving over Gray’s bruised face and torn clothing, “You can’t back me up? What are you talking about? They beat you up, too.”

  Gray said, “I’m sorry. If you press charges I’ll have to say what happened. You started the trouble, you know.”

  Quentin tried to sit up. The doctor pressed him down and gave Gray an angry look. “You’re okay, aren’t you?” he said. “Why don’t you go on home?”

  Quentin said, “I started the trouble? What—”

  Gray told him carefully, “I’ll have to say that you attacked Matt Witczak first.”

  Quentin had begun to shake with rage. The doctor said, “Why don’t you hold all this until I finish? You aren’t doing him any good.”

  Gray shot back, “I can’t wait. There isn’t time.”

  The doctor laid down his swab. “I’ve got to get some more tape,” he said. “I’ll give you one minute. Get it over fast or I’ll have you put out. Understand?”

  Gray nodded. The doctor went out briskly. Quentin got up on one elbow and stared at Gray in bewilderment.

  “I’m going down to headquarters now,” Gray told him. “I want to straighten this out if I can. But first I need to know what you’re going to do. I wish you’d let it drop.”

  “Like hell I will,” Quentin snapped.

  “You attacked Witczak,” Gray said. “He didn’t attack you. So you haven’t a leg to stand on there. But Witczak has. He could bring suit against you. Don’t forget he’s under-age. And you’re a teacher. Suppose the papers say you’re maltreating your students. You know how they could build it into something big.” He paused, rubbing the bump at the back of his head.

  “I know how you feel. You’re angry now. But there’s more at stake here than you may realize yet, Quentin. At least, wait until you’ve cooled off before you decide.”

  “That kid—could bring charges against me?” Quentin said in an unsteady voice. “Why, I’ll—”

  The doctor’s brisk footsteps came down the hall toward them. Gray said urgently, “Wait till I’ve had a talk with you, anyhow. Eddie Udall’s mixed up in this. All I want you to do is wait a little bit.”

  For some reason the mention of Eddie seemed to make Quentin hesitate. He looked at Gray searchingly, and then said, “I’ll do what I think ought to be done. There’s no use talking about it.”

  Gray had to be satisfied with that.

  Saturday morning was foggy and cool. Gray woke late, thankful for a day with no appointments until afternoon. He switched on the kitchen radio as he ate breakfast and heard that a rat pack last night had savagely beaten a high-school teacher and a psychiatrist seeking to exonerate murder suspect Edward Udall, accused of the killing of…

  Gray switched it off again. The angry face of Zucker flashed across his mind. He dreaded the sight of the morning newspapers. But no matter where the chips fell, he had to see Blanche Udall and the Reiners.

  He was just leaving the apartment when the telephone rang. Zucker? He went out quickly, closing the door. He could check from a phone booth later to make sure he wasn’t missing a patient’s call. He meant to complete his interviews today and then face Zucker for a show-down. Either he would have evidence enough to convince even the dogmatic Zucker, or he would give up and admit that the Public Defender could do a better job for Eddie Udall than Gray could.

  Meanwhile, as long as Zucker didn’t actually forbid him to go on, Gray told himself, he was still technically free to make the interviews he had warned Zucker he intended to make. The argument rang hollow even to Gray, but he drove doggedly toward the Reiners’ address.

  10

  The Reiners’ house was tall and old and shabby. Its clapboards hadn’t been painted in a long while, and the decayed elegance of its wooden gingerbread trim suggested the place had probably been built on the ashes of the fire that followed the quake of fifty years ago. Gray twisted the ancient brass bell-handle and heard a distant ringing far inside.

  Leonard Reiner in a clean T-shirt, old denims, and felt slippers led Gray down the hall to the kitchen. Nora Reiner, in the act of sliding a pie into the oven, looked up and said, “Oh yes, I saw you at the hearing yesterday. You’re one of the police.” Her voice was hostile.

  “Now, Nora,” her husband said. “Sit down, Mr. Gray. Too early for a beer? We have some coffee hot if you’d rather have that.”

  Gray looked around the room with appreciation. They built kitchens big fifty years ago. Flower boxes outside all the windows underlined every outward view with pink geraniums. A fat elderly spaniel, flat on the worn linoleum, rolled its eyes up to inspect Gray, not otherwise stirring. A lissome kitten that reminded Gray of Julia in her salad days sat on the window sill. There was a cage of blue lovebirds on a rusty iron stand. Somewhere in the room a radio softly played just-audible music. Gray thought what a pleasant way of life the room seemed to typify, solid and warm and good.

  “Yes, I’d like some coffee,” he said. “And I’m not with the police, Mrs. Reiner.” He sat down in the chair Reiner pulled out for him. The coffee was hot and strong. Gray explained a little about himself and his work, sipping the coffee between times. “I’d like to know more about Eddie than I do so far,” he said. “It’s hard to talk to him the way he’s feeling now.”

  Mrs. Reiner scraped pie-dough scraps from her rolling pin. “You can’t blame the boy for that,” she said, her voice sharp. “Whatever he does say the police turn against him. They don’t believe a word he tells them. Why should he talk?”

  “Do you believe him, Mrs. Reiner?” Gray asked gently.

  She put down the rolling pin with a thump and turned to confront Gray, the frown of intent anxiety deep on her small face.

  “I won’t say Eddie never told a lie,” she said. “We’ve had him six months, and we’ve caught him in plenty of lies. He’s an unhappy, miserable kid, Mr. Gray. He’s led a miserable life. He tells lies about things because he’s scared. But he’s better than he was. And mostly—maybe you won’t believe this—he lies about little things. Not big ones.”

  “Like the beer,” Reiner put in. “He used to snitch it out of the refrigerator. When he found out we didn’t mind, he stopped.”

  “Would you expect him to confess to the murder if he’d done it?” Gray asked. “Or would he cover up and he?”

  The Reiners looked at each other. Reiner said honestly, “I’d lie.” Gray grinned at him. “So would I.”

  “It’s no joke!” Mrs. Reiner broke in passionately. “I know Eddie. He’s a good, straight boy under all that show-off. He could make a lot of himself if he had half a chance. He’s worth ten of that Avery woman they say he killed. Even if he did do it, he’s not to blame.”

  Reiner said, “Nora!” in a startled voice. She swung away from them and turned the cold-water faucet on full-strength, making a roaring waterfall in the sink. Over it she cried, “I don’t care! That Avery woman asked for everything she got.”

  Gray said loudly over the splashing, “What do you mean, Mrs. Reiner?”

  She shut the water off so suddenly the pipes thumped. “Because it’s true. They talk so much about juvenile delinquents. Why don’t they blame people like Ann Avery who lead kids astray the way she did Eddie? If he’s done anything he shouldn’t, it’s her fault, not his.”

  “In what way?” Gray asked in a mildly interested voice.

  “You know what I mean. She was after him. A woman her age, too. I can’t understand it. Chasing around after a boy like Eddie—”

  “Yo
u think she was in love with Eddie?” Gray asked.

  “Love! You could call it that. I know for a fact Eddie wasn’t the only one, either. Why, she—”

  Leonard Reiner said, “Nora!”

  She flashed him a glance, shut her lips tight, and said, “All right, Len. All right. I know what I know, that’s all.”

  Gray said, “Mrs. Reiner, if there’s something about Ann Avery you haven’t told the police, now’s the time to tell them. Eddie needs all the help he can get.”

  She gave a snort and swabbed the drainboard hard. “Help!” she said scornfully.

  “The Public Defender’s office will want to talk to you about the defense before Eddie’s trial,” Gray told her. “If you want the truth to be established about Eddie, you’d better tell his attorney everything there is to tell.”

  She snorted again. “Public Defender! A lot of good he’ll do the poor kid.”

  Gray said, “The Public Defender does a very fine job. The poor people and the very rich are the ones who get the best legal service these days. Eddie will get better help from the Public Defender than he could hire for himself even if he had a good income.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Mrs. Reiner said briskly, swabbing. “They’re all in it together. Look at all the uproar in the papers if you don’t believe me. Think Eddie’s going to have a chance against that? You can’t fool me.”

  There was just enough truth in what she said to make Gray hesitate a little. While he hesitated Leonard Reiner spoke up hastily, as if he wanted to change the subject fast.

  “Blanche Udall’s been around more than once,” he said. “Trying to raise money for Eddie, she says.”

  Nora Reiner rose vigorously to the bait. “That woman! Money for Eddie, my foot. Money for Blanche is what she’s after.”

  Reiner goaded her on. “She made a lot of noise the last time,” he said. “Next time I’m going to call the police.”

  Nora Reiner said eagerly to Gray, “Yelling and screaming right out there on the front porch. Just because we wouldn’t let her get at Eddie. She never gave a whoop about him in her life unless there was something in it for her. She couldn’t even be bothered to get married so the poor kid would have a name. And now she comes around yelling her head off because the State pays us a few dollars a week for Eddie’s board.” She slapped the dishcloth on the drainboard.

  “As if we looked after him for money! As if the money covered what we spend on him. Not that we begrudge it. We wouldn’t have him here at all if we did it for money. We like having a boy around the house. We like Eddie. We—” Here her face suddenly crumpled and her eyes overflowed.

  Leonard Reiner moved quickly around the table, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. “Now, Nora, it’s going to be all right. Here, blow your nose. What you need is a good hot cup of coffee and you’ll feel better.”

  But Gray had an insistent feeling that Reiner was relieved at the turn the talk had taken. He had steered his wife quite deftly into another channel. What did these two know about Ann Avery that the police didn’t know?

  Over his wife’s bent head, Reiner said, “The last we heard of Blanche she was stomping off hollering she didn’t need Eddie’s measly money anyhow because whenever she wanted she could lay her hands on really big stuff. I’ve wondered since if she was drunk or crazy—or if she meant what she said.”

  Gray understood that he was being offered a diversion. He shook his head. No use pressing. You can’t hurry these things. The people would talk—if at all—only when they saw good reason to, or when they trusted him more than they did now.

  “I’ve been wondering,” he said, “if Eddie knew a boy named Whitey.” And again he described the figure he had seen unclearly in his apartment two nights before.

  The Reiners were no help. “Mostly he ran around with the Witczak gang,” Reiner volunteered. “He wasn’t supposed to, but Matt kept coming to the house…”

  Mrs. Reiner looked up to say, “We did our best to put a stop to it. Matt Witczak’s a hoodlum if there ever was one.” She paused to reflect. “Though I must say he was always polite enough when he was in our house. He even brought Stella once, and if there’s any good in that boy, Stella’s the one who might bring it out. I really think Stella means a lot to Matt.”

  Leonard Reiner said, “Stella. You know, Nora, we never did hear any more of that message Stella said she had for Eddie. I wonder—”

  Mrs. Reiner flapped her hand dismissingly. “Kid stuff. Gang stuff, more likely.”

  Gray felt a little flicker of interest.

  “What message was that?” he asked.

  Nora Reiner shuddered slightly. “It was that awful day when Eddie was first missing,” she said. “The police came for him, and nobody knew where he was. In the middle of all the uproar Matt came twice and said Stella wanted to talk to Eddie. I just didn’t pay much attention. I chased him out both times. And then afterward—well, I haven’t seen Stella or Matt since.”

  “Did you mention it to the police?” Gray asked.

  “No, I didn’t. It was just some gang business. What else could it be? And besides, the probation people would have an extra down on Eddie if they thought he was still seeing Matt.”

  Gray nodded. “It might be worth following up,” he said. He drained his coffee cup and rose.

  “You aren’t going?” Mrs. Reiner said. “The pie ought to be done pretty soon.” She seemed to have forgotten her first aversion to Gray as a policeman. He smiled at her.

  “I wonder if I could see Eddie’s room first?”

  “I’ll take you up,” Reiner said.

  Gray had known beforehand how the room would look. Shabby but clean. Comfortable. It was all of that. The bed was white iron, with a thin white spread. A table under the window had a hanging light over it and schoolbooks in a row, including a stack of bulletins from the state university and several other colleges. Magazine chppings were Scotch-taped to the wall. A high-school pennant, two college pennants, and Eddie’s grade-school diploma hung on the wall. There was an assortment of NO PARKING and KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs.

  Gray looked slowly around the room. “No photographs,” he said. “Even of his mother.”

  “He hasn’t any family,” Reiner reminded him. “Not even his mother.”

  Gray nodded. It wasn’t hard to reconstruct the Eddie of two weeks ago, before the murder. A troubled boy, balanced on the narrow line between two ways of life, ready to tip over either way. A boy who might have gone out of here one night with a switchblade in his pocket, to loot the home of a woman who had befriended him? Ready to kill rather than be caught?

  Gray sighed. “About that sapphire ring,” he said. “Eddie keeps claiming he had it several days before the murder. Do you know of anyone who actually saw him with it?”

  “I wish I could say yes,” Reiner told him.

  Downstairs, heavy footsteps thudded on the porch. The doorbell rang. Gray and Reiner looked at each other. Mrs. Reiner’s voice at the door said, “Oh, it’s you.”

  The familiar, heavy tones of Zucker were heard, harsh with suppressed anger.

  “That’s Mike Gray’s car at the curb,” he said. “I want to see him.”

  Gray closed the Reiners’ front door behind him. He stood listening for receding footsteps inside, not hearing them. The Reiners were waiting on the other side of the door, listening for what came next.

  Zucker’s voice was very cold. He spoke distinctly, spacing his words with harsh emphasis.

  “From now on you’re out of this case,” he said. “Out. Understand? That’s an official order.”

  Gray said quietly, “How did you know I was here, Harry?”

  “Just get in your car and get out of here,” Zucker told him. “And stay out. Understand?”

  Gray shook his head slowly. “Either you’re on the same track I am, and it brought you here, or you were looking for me in all the likely places. If it’s the first, then you know as well as I do that there’s still plenty to investigate.�
��

  Zucker stayed cold. “You’re through investigating. That’s what we get paid for. We know how to handle it without making headlines. I warned you about publicity, Mike. You don’t know the damage you could do. There’s some angles you don’t understand.”

  “Political angles?”

  Zucker scowled. “Not what you’re thinking about. Now lay off. This is final, definite, and official.”

  Gray said, “Did you know a girl named Stella Ingram was trying to reach Eddie the day after Ann Avery was killed?”

  Zucker said impatiently, “I said you were through. Just leave it at that and get out of here. We can handle our own work. The Public Defender can do his, too. If Udall didn’t kill Ann Avery, that’ll come out.”

  “That’s only a part of it,” Gray said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “There may not be a lot of time. We’ve got to be sure we can stop—” Gray paused, startled at his own words. He had spoken without conscious intent, voicing some thought that had flashed up from the depths of his mind, unsummoned. The rest of the sentence finished itself in his mind.

  “We’ve got to stop…the killer, before he kills again.”

  Aloud, Gray said urgently, “Harry, maybe Eddie did it and maybe he didn’t. But one thing’s certain—Ann Avery’s dead. If Eddie didn’t kill her, who did? Who is it walking around loose, free to kill again if he’s pushed? Who was it sent that boy Whitey up to my place with a loaded .38? Somebody involved in this case just doesn’t care what risks he takes with—”

  “We’re working on it, Mike.” Zucker’s face was hard. “Now you go down these steps and get in your car and get out of here. Go on back to your job and let us do ours. And there’d better not be a next time. That’s my last warning.”

  11

  A sign in the front window of the big, dingy house said ROOMS FOR RENT. Gray sat at the curb in his car, beating his fist lightly on the wheel, trying to make up his mind. Blanche Udall’s address hadn’t been very far out of his way. As long as he only sat here and looked, he wasn’t directly violating Zucker’s orders…