Michael Gray Novels

by Henry Kuttner

  Gray said, “Don’t be too sure of that. And don’t be too sure this is evidence against Eddie.”

  Reiner said, “I don’t know. Of course, we’ll be disqualified as a foster home now. They won’t let us take any more kids in.” He sighed. “Well, we did our best. We did what we thought was right.”

  Gray said, “I don’t think it would do any harm if you said you’d decided to turn the letter over to the authorities and you’d phoned me at my office tonight and asked me to drop by—that you had something to show me.” He laid the letter on his knee. “That might help a bit.”

  “Yes,” Reiner said, “it might. Thanks.”

  Gray looked down at the quick, scrawling lines on the paper. He could almost see Ann Avery bending her dark, curly head over the desk by the Avery fireplace, her pen racing and scratching. All the tension and fear she had felt that last full day of her life seemed to breathe up at him out of the handwriting. If only she’d said more, he thought.

  Narcotics. “That and some other things.”

  He said, “This may be the most important element in the case so far.” Narcotics, he read again. “I’m thinking about the information Blanche Udall has, whatever it is. When the police find Blanche, this letter may be a way of finding out what she knows.”

  “How’s that?” Reiner asked.

  “I’m not sure yet. Just a hunch.” Gray hesitated. “May I use your phone?”

  “Go right ahead. In the hall there.”

  Gray dialed Headquarters. After he had finished his brief talk he laid the phone down and stood there perfectly still in the dark hall for nearly a minute. Then he went back to the living room and picked up his hat.

  Reiner looked at him keenly.

  “Something’s happened,” Reiner said. “You look—”

  “Yes,” Gray said. “The police have found Blanche Udall.”

  That was all he said. But suddenly the air smelled of death.

  14

  Water lapped softly against the piers. It spoke in a secret language under the crisp voices from the dock. A police car’s spotlight cut a white channel through the dark and showed the body that lay in a widening stain of sea water on the worn planks. The photographers had finished their work. The Assistant Medical Examiner had made a cursory examination. The rest would have to wait for the autopsy.

  Gray said, “What killed her?”

  Zucker looked up. “Oh, there you are,” he said sourly. “Well, look at her. What do you think?”

  Gray forced himself to take a direct look at the body. Then he said, “How do you know it’s Blanche Udall?”

  “Her purse was on the pier. We’ll check the prints, but there isn’t much doubt of it. I brought a mug shot down. You can tell something by the shape of the ears, even when the face is smashed up that way. Scars on her legs—she’d been skin-popping for years. And—could you identify the clothes?”

  Gray looked down at the sodden dress. The stain was still darker than the fabric across the stomach, where Blanche only a little while ago had tried in vain to rub away the withdrawal pains she would not have to suffer any more. He thought of the night, and her dread of it. Well, she was through with nighttime now.

  “Yes,” Gray said. “Those are the same clothes.”

  “A clubbing is what it was,” Zucker said, looking impassively at the body. “Like a sadist job, isn’t it?”

  Gray controlled the sickness he was struggling with and then knelt beside the body. He studied the battered face and head. With a glance upward at Zucker, who nodded, he pulled open the wet blouse. On the inert, too white shoulder and breast were abrasions and cuts washed clean of blood by sea water.

  Zucker said, “Just the head and shoulders. There don’t seem to be any marks of a beating anywhere else.”

  Gray stood up. “Rape?” he asked.

  “The lab will check on that. Here comes the wagon for her. I guess you’d better come downtown with me, Mike. About that letter you got from the Reiners—” He paused, scowling. “You called the turn on Blanche,” he admitted. “You got the letter out of the Reiners. I can’t deny it. I guess you’d better come along and sit in on this. But for God’s sake, Mike—no more publicity!”

  Gray had thought that when his head hit the pillow that night he would sleep the sleep of the dead. As deeply as Ann Avery slept, and Blanche Udall, too, now. But sleep didn’t come. He lay there looking at the reflections of a street light on the ceiling, and unanswerable questions moved in tangles through his mind.

  There wouldn’t be a medical report on Blanche’s body until morning. There might be a report by then, too, on the crossed-out words in Ann’s letter. Again, briefly, Gray seemed to see between the ceiling and his eyes the second set of crossed-out words with ink of a bluer color obliterating them. He blinked wearily at the remembered page and could not make sense of what his tired mind was trying to tell him.

  He shut his eyes, but that didn’t help either. He kept seeing Zucker’s face now, harsh in the strong light of Zucker’s office, and he kept hearing over and over the weary round of their debate.

  Who had killed Blanche Udall? And why?

  “It might have been plain robbery,” Zucker had said. “No money in her purse. Of course she didn’t have any to start with, but the killer might not have known it.”

  “She talked a lot about how she could lay her hand on millions,” Gray had said. “Maybe somebody took her seriously. Or maybe she really got to the man with the money and tried her blackmail stunt.”

  “Who?” Zucker had asked.

  Gray shrugged hopelessly now, in bed, as he had shrugged in the bright-lit office.

  “Not Eddie, anyhow,” he had said.

  “No. But it doesn’t clear Eddie of the Avery killing. This probably has no connection at all. You realize that.” Zucker wasn’t admitting anything that might exonerate Eddie Udall. “The method of murder’s different. A knife and a club. A clean stab and a battering like this. Different killers.”

  Gray had nodded. “It’s a point. Still, the coincidence is pretty strong, Harry.”

  “I don’t see it. A woman in Blanche’s condition is asking for trouble. Udall killed Ann Avery with a knife. Naturally he didn’t kill his mother—”

  Gray said suddenly, “Wait a minute.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “There was something in the psychiatric report on Eddie. About his mother…what the hell was it?” Gray thought, then shook his head angrily. “I can’t get it. I’ll have to check over the report again. Listen, Harry, I want to talk to Eddie before he hears about his mother’s death. I want to tell him myself. Can you manage it?”

  “Well—I guess so. What for?”

  “I don’t know,” Gray said slowly. “It’s a hunch, that’s all. I’ve got to get through to him somehow. He’s blocking off something he won’t let himself think about. It might mean nothing, it might mean a lot. This may be a way to get to him.”

  “You think he knows who killed his mother?”

  “I doubt it. I’m thinking of the other killing now. Anybody could have done the job on Blanche. She was trying to get money from everyone she could think of. Eventually she worked around to the wrong person, that’s all.”

  “It didn’t have to be anybody involved in the Avery killing,” Zucker insisted. “This is a big city.”

  “Where was she killed?” Gray asked.

  “Probably right there on the pier where we found her purse. Clubbed and dumped in the Bay. A watchman there spotted her. Her clothes had snagged on one of the piers.”

  “Matt Witczak could have done it,” Gray said, half to himself. “If she tried to make trouble for Stella. Or Stella herself could have done it. She’s not too strong, but when an addict’s hopped up, he can hit hard. They don’t get any stronger—but they hit as hard as they can. The average person wouldn’t hit hard enough to dislocate his own shoulder. An addict doesn’t give a damn.” He glanced at Zucker. “You still won’t talk about Stell
a and her source of supply?” he said.

  Zucker shook his head angrily. “Just leave it to me, Mike. You’ve passed on the information. Okay. Now drop it.”

  Gray said, “Consider it dropped. Avery could have killed Blanche, you know. Maybe he was lying when he said she came to his office for money. Maybe he’s a dope distributor himself. A theater would be a good cover-up. Lots of people going and coming at all hours. Or maybe Reiner—no, he was with me around the time Blanche died. But Mrs. Reiner, now—” Gray looked at Zucker alertly.

  “She wasn’t in the house when you were there?”

  “Reiner said she was. I didn’t see or hear her. He’s covered up for Mrs. Reiner before. And she felt pretty strongly about Eddie and Blanche.”

  “Strong enough to kill Blanche? What for?”

  “How do I know what for? Maybe she’s the one who killed Ann Avery and Blanche knew it.”

  “So Blanche goes to the Reiners and says she wants a million dollars,” Zucker said with heavy irony.

  Gray smiled. “Okay, okay. Still, it’s a possibility. The Reiners could have more money than they pretend. Part of the cover-up of a narcotics distributor could be living at a lower scale than he has to. He’d almost have to, wouldn’t he? A big income with no visible means of earning it would be a dead giveaway.”

  “For people like the Reiners or Avery, yes,” Zucker said. “The real distributor, the top man we’d like to find, probably never even heard of any of these people. He probably has a legitimate cover-up like a night club or an income from investments. You’re reaching too far, Mike.”

  “Then there’s Quentin,” Gray went on stubbornly, paying no attention. “He feels very strongly about Ann Avery’s death. Too strongly, if she’s only an acquaintance. He talks a lot about the violence he has to contend with in his students. That can mean there’s violence in himself that scares him. It’s so easy to blame the next guy for the thing you hate worst in yourself.”

  Zucker said, “You’re coming in from the wrong end on this, Mike. You’re trying to force one of your pet suspects to fit into the pattern. We’ll probably find it was somebody you never heard of. Give us a few days. We’ll have to start checking back on Blanche.”

  “That income of hers,” Gray said suddenly. “The one that she lived on so long. It stopped a while back. Maybe there’s something in that. And if she really did know Ann Avery, there might be something in her belongings to show it. Why don’t we go over now and start looking?” He started to stand up. Then he groaned.

  “Not tonight,” he said. “I know when I’m licked. This has been a big day.”

  “Go on home,” Zucker said. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll have the word on Blanche’s autopsy and maybe something on those crossed-out lines in the letter. I’ll let you know.”

  Gray said, “All right, I’ll go. I could sleep for a week. I hope you’ve got a man watching my place tonight. I wouldn’t know if they broke the door down.”

  “My hunch,” Zucker told him, “is that you won’t hear again from your guy with the whisper. He wanted the Udall case in juvenile—God knows why. Now it’s out of your hands, he’s probably given up. What can he gain by hounding you now?”

  “I hope you’re right,” Gray said.

  15

  Gray was eating bacon and eggs at his kitchen table when the telephone rang. Zucker’s voice, brisk and cheerful, said, “Awake yet? Sit down, Mike, I’ve got a lot of things to tell you.”

  Gray said, “Wait till I get a cup of coffee. I thought maybe you were still mad at me, Harry.”

  “Go get your coffee,” was all Zucker said. But when Gray came back with the cup and an ash tray and made himself comfortable on the living-room sofa, Zucker said,

  “All set? Well, Mike, I was mad for a while. The top brass is still leaning on me, and if you get into the papers once more and they trace it back to me I’ll be pounding a beat again. I suppose you haven’t seen the paper this morning?”

  Gray said, “No. Am I missing anything?”

  Zucker whistled sadly. “Nothing new. Sinnott’s found some tie-in between Blanche’s murder and Eddie’s guilt, and slackness in the police department. They want a quick trial, and I think Sinnott would like Eddie blamed for his mother’s death, too. In a way that’s why I called you, Mike. I need fast action. I don’t care where I get it. Maybe even you can help.”

  “I’ll try,” Gray said. “Shoot.”

  “First about Blanche,” Zucker said. “Rape is out. The club she was beaten with was wood. Skull fractured, clavicle broken. But Mike—she died of drowning.”

  Gray was silent.

  Zucker said after a moment, “The killer threw her into the Bay while she was still alive. Whether he knew it or not, of course, we can’t say. Probably not. You make anything of that?”

  Gray said slowly, “Not now, anyhow. What else have you got?”

  Zucker said, “I’ll give it to you just as it came to us. And remember, Mike, I’m trusting you to use horse sense. Don’t get into any trouble. I’d just appreciate any ideas these facts happen to give you.”

  “Go ahead,” Gray said.

  “Item One,” Zucker said. “We’ve got men out asking questions in the Avery neighborhood, and we turned up somebody who saw a couple of teen-agers leaving the Avery apartment building around the time of the killing of Ann. A short boy with curly black hair and a girl with a lot of make-up on, eyebrows arched up high, dark hair, slender build. Remind you of anybody?”

  Gray sighed. “Witczak and Stella,” he said.

  “That’s what we figured. I can probably get their pictures out of the school annual or somewhere for identification. The kids themselves have disappeared.”

  Gray said, “I know. I’d like to talk to Stella again. If Blanche really did know Ann Avery—”

  “We’ll find ’em, sooner or later,” Zucker said.

  “I hope so. What’s Item Two?”

  “How much do you know about this man Jim Quentin?” Zucker asked.

  “No more than I’ve told you. Why?”

  “Any idea where he might get his hands on some extra money?”

  “How extra?”

  “Several thousand, for a start. Maybe more.”

  Gray felt a quiver of excitement stir in his mind. “Not from a teacher’s pay,” he said. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Harry?”

  “He’s in a job where he sees hundreds of kids every day,” Zucker said. “If he wanted to distribute narcotics that way there’d be nothing to stop him. Understand, we haven’t got a thing on him. Not about dope, anyhow. One of our routine check-ups uncovered a big decorator’s bill he paid off by check lately. Had his apartment done over by one of the most expensive outfits in town. Any ideas on that, Mike?”

  “Lots of ideas,” Gray said slowly. “Nothing very clear yet. I’ll have to think it over.”

  “Here’s something else to think about, while you’re at it,” Zucker told him, his voice suddenly filled with suppressed excitement. “I saved the best till last. Word just came up from the crime lab about that letter Ann Avery wrote to Eddie.”

  He paused tantalizingly. Gray said, “Well, go on.”

  “We uncovered both scratched-out groups of words,” Zucker said. “The first sentence was I’ve been realizing more and more lately that I’ve fallen in love…There were three words crossed out after that. We know what they were now. What she really wrote was…with Jim Quentin.”

  Gray let his breath out with a long sigh.

  So that explained it. No wonder Quentin reacted with such strong emotion to the death of Ann Avery. No wonder that sense of violence held in check was so clear in him. Gray had a sudden memory of the lovely, sensuous, repressed face of Ann Avery as it must have looked to Quentin, if he loved her—did he love her? Was that what lay behind his violence? Or was it something else?

  In her letter she had spoken of the narcotics racket, too. She had found out something she was not supposed to know—about nar
cotics. And about Quentin? Had she found out too much, and had Quentin had to silence her? Had to, whether he loved her or not?

  Zucker said impatiently, “Well? How about it, Mike?”

  Gray said, “I’m thinking. It brings up a lot of questions, doesn’t it? One thing—it clears Eddie.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “The Reiners thought the letter put the finger on him,” Gray said. “They thought she was in love with the kid and pressuring him somehow. If they’d known what the inked out words were, they’d have handed the letter over long ago.”

  “No, they wouldn’t,” Zucker said heavily.

  “Why not?”

  “There was another sentence we uncovered,” Zucker reminded him. “The one somebody inked out with bluish ink, remember? The somebody wasn’t Ann.”

  Gray had a slight sinking feeling. “Who did?”

  “My bet is the Reiners. We’ll find out today if their ink matches. You want to hear the sentence? You won’t like it.”

  “Go ahead,” Gray said with resignation.

  “She wrote, What I’m praying is that after I’ve told you the truth you won’t hate me too much,” Zucker quoted. “Whoever crossed out the rest knew what he was doing. He didn’t trust you with that sentence even if you are on Eddie’s side. What Ann wrote to Eddie was, I wouldn’t blame you if you felt like killing me…”

  The guard nodded toward the little rectangle of glass in Eddie Udall’s door. In a low voice he said to Gray,

  “He’s been lying that way ever since I came on this morning. Wouldn’t eat breakfast. Won’t even talk.”