Michael Gray Novels

by Henry Kuttner

  “About that knife,” Zucker said, carefully casual, “you can stop trying now. We found it.”

  “Where?” Gray’s voice was alert. Zucker was up to something. He knew that casual expression.

  “Behind some rubbish in the alley that runs back of the Reiner house.”

  “Sure it’s Eddie’s?”

  “His prints are on the blade.”

  “Well, that settles it,” Gray said. “He could have lost it there any time in the last several months, of course, but—”

  “With blood inside the haft?” Zucker asked, triumph spreading over his large face. “Type B blood?”

  “Type B’s pretty rare, isn’t it?” Gray said, a sinking feeling taking possession of him. “I suppose I don’t need to ask—”

  “You don’t. Ann Avery was Type B.”

  Gray sighed. Suddenly he felt much more tired than when he had walked in the door.

  Zucker rummaged in his desk drawer and tossed a closed switchblade knife on the papers in front of him. “The stupid little punk might at least have dropped it in the ocean,” he said. “But then if he were bright we wouldn’t have him in custody now. No, this isn’t the knife. But it’s one like this. You can see how hard it is to clean a switchblade.” He pressed the release on the haft, and the long, thin blade shot out with a click.

  “Does Eddie’s knife match the wound?” Gray asked, not very hopefully.

  “Close enough. A long, thin blade like this did the job.” He pressed again, and the knife leaped backward into its haft and vanished. “Suppose there’d been blood on it,” Zucker said. “Now it would be inside. Hard to clean out. Plenty hard.”

  “Had he tried?” Gray asked. “I mean, was the knife really clogged, or were there just traces?”

  “Traces, naturally,” Zucker said. “I suppose he did his best, thought it was clean, and then decided after all he’d better get rid of the murder weapon.”

  “Wait a minute,” Gray said. “Does Eddie know you’ve found it?”

  Zucker nodded.

  “What does he say?”

  “What would you expect him to say? Claims he cut himself on it the day he lost it. What else could he say?”

  “Any mark on him where he might have been cut?”

  Zucker nodded again, with some reluctance. “Well, yes. But—”

  Gray said with sudden sharp emphasis, “Harry, have you checked Eddie’s blood type?”

  Zucker blinked at him. “Now what?” he demanded.

  “Maybe he’s telling the truth.” Gray’s voice was urgent. “Harry, I—I have a crazy idea. Could you find out right away what blood type Eddie is? Right now?”

  Zucker groaned. “If the bloodstained knife isn’t evidence enough to convince you, Mike, then why—”

  “Just find out! As a personal favor. Please!”

  Zucker shrugged and reached for the telephone. He spoke into it briefly, waited, grunted a time or two, said, “Yeah, let me know as soon as you get it,” and hung up. Gray watched him with bright, expectant eyes.

  “Take some time,” Zucker said. “It may be on record at his school. Otherwise we’ll have to run a test. What’s on your mind, Mike?”

  Gray got up and paced the length of the office. At the end he stood with his back to Zucker, thinking. When he turned he seemed to have reached a decision.

  “Look, Harry. I don’t know why you’ve got Avery and Quentin out there, and I know you won’t tell me. But if I could ask each of them a question, separately, here in your office, I think I might really break down a block in this case.”

  Zucker scowled. “Haven’t you got any work of your own to do?” he asked. “I’m a busy man.”

  “It won’t take fifteen minutes. And I think it might be important.”

  “All right, all right,” Zucker said. “Anything to keep things peaceful. Do you mind if I sit in?” He added the last with heavy irony.

  “I wish you would. Harry, about Avery and Quentin—has either of them an alibi for the time of Blanche Udall’s killing?”

  “Nothing very good. Avery was in his office at the theater. He could have gone out without anyone seeing him. Naturally he says he didn’t. Quentin isn’t covered at all. I didn’t expect they’d be. It doesn’t mean much.”

  “No,” Gray said. “I guess not.” He thought a moment. “Could we have Quentin in first?”

  Quentin sat back in the chair across from Zucker’s and accepted a light for his cigarette. In the harsh morning brightness he looked haggard and old.

  “Do you know how much longer you’ll have to keep me here?” he asked Zucker. “I’ve got a job to hold down, you know. I—”

  “Not much longer,” Zucker said automatically. He glanced at Gray.

  “There’s one thing I’d like to ask you,” Gray said, “that I haven’t brought up before. I don’t think you’ll like it, Quentin. It’s a painful subject. But I have to ask.”

  Quentin’s thin face grew tense, like a man bracing himself for the dentist’s drill. “What is it?” he asked.

  “We have some reason to believe now,” Gray said, “that the relationship between Mrs. Avery and Eddie Udall was more intimate than it may have seemed to you. I’m wondering whether you realized this.”

  Quentin blinked at him. “Realized what?”

  “That Mrs. Avery’s interest in Eddie,” Gray said distinctly, “was entirely a sexual interest.”

  Shocked surprise flooded into Quentin’s narrow face. His jaw dropped a little, and his stare at Gray was blank with astonishment.

  Then anger flooded him. “That’s a God-damned lie!” he said. “Ann wouldn’t—” He stopped, evidently trying to think. He put an unsteady hand to his eyes for a moment. When he spoke again his voice shook a little, and the beginnings of doubt sounded in it.

  “She wouldn’t,” he said. “I know she wouldn’t have—” He looked up at Gray suddenly and said in a tone of violence, “The God-damned little bastard! You mean—all that time he was—” He cut the words off short, got up, and glared from Zucker to Gray.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said flatly. “I knew Ann. It isn’t true.”

  Gray was watching him intently. Quentin stooped toward Gray’s chair suddenly and said in a choked voice, “It isn’t true, is it? Ann wouldn’t have deceived me like that, would she? I can’t believe it.” His tone was almost pleading.

  Gray got to his feet. “I don’t know,” he said. “I may be mistaken. If you think it’s impossible, well, I believe you’d have known.”

  Quentin stared at him in bewilderment. “But I thought you said— Why did you tell me if you weren’t sure?”

  “I’m trying to find out the truth,” Gray said. “I’m sorry, Quentin. I think we’ll have an answer pretty quickly now. Will you wait outside, please?”

  Zucker watched the door close behind the teacher.

  “What the hell was the idea of that?” he demanded.

  “I’ll tell you as soon as I’ve seen Avery,” Gray said. “I want to ask him the same question. Well, almost the same…”

  Avery was more talkative than Quentin. He came in with questions already formed and ready to throw at Zucker. Eddie Udall and the death of Blanche seemed very much on his mind. He seemed to take it for granted he was being summoned for questioning about the second murder in the Udall case.

  “If there’s anything new, I want to hear it,” he said, sitting down. “Blanche Udall’s no loss to the world, but whoever killed her ought to be punished. A woman alone at night in that district is asking for trouble, but still—”

  Zucker said, “Mr. Avery, we—”

  “There’s a connection between the death of Blanche Udall and the death of my wife,” Avery said flatly. “But it’s not what it looks like. The only connection is in the Udall family. I feel heredity has a good deal to do with things like this. Blanche Udall was badly warped, and she passed it on to her son. People like that are bound to get into trouble sooner or later. It was our misfortune—An
n’s and mine—that we ever even met the Udalls. Is there any news yet about who killed Blanche?”

  Zucker said, “Nothing yet. It still looks like a robbery-killing. It may never get solved. Or some day we may pick up somebody on another charge, and he may confess to this one. It happens sometimes.” He cleared his throat. “I believe Mr. Gray has a question to ask you.”

  Avery gave Gray a cool look. “Yes?”

  Gray returned the look, thinking how little he really knew about Avery, at first hand. Most of his picture of the man had come from Quentin’s version, plus a remark or two from secondary sources. He wished he had time to know Avery better. But time was the commodity he had least to spare.

  “Mr. Avery, I have to ask you a rather difficult question,” he said. “Believe me, I have a reason for asking.”

  “What is it?” Avery’s voice was still cool.

  “Did you ever have any occasion to think that your wife’s interest in Eddie Udall was a sexual interest?”

  Avery’s bleak features jumped a little in an involuntary grimace of distaste. Except for this he kept his feelings of reaction under firm control.

  “You like to dig into some pretty stinking things, don’t you?” he said harshly.

  “What do you think about this possibility?” Gray persisted, ignoring the question.

  Avery laughed, contempt clear in the sound.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he said, “but you’re entirely wrong. There was nothing like that. Nothing at all.”

  “You’re quite sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Contempt sounded in Avery’s voice. “It’s the damnedest nonsense I’ve ever heard. If that’s all you’ve got to talk about I’m wasting my time here.”

  “One more question,” Gray said casually. “Did you realize that Mrs. Avery had been sleeping with Quentin for some while?”

  Avery got to his feet with a harsh scraping of the chair he sat in. His face flooded with angry red, and the pulse at his temple pounded visibly. He opened and closed his mouth several times.

  “No,” he said in a choked voice. “No, it isn’t true. Why should I imagine a thing like that?” He tried to go on, but anger was so thick in his throat he could only mouth at Gray futilely.

  Gray nodded. “Thanks,” he said. “I’m sorry I had to suggest it. No doubt you’re right.” He stepped to the door and opened it politely. “We won’t need to keep you in here any longer,” he said.

  For a moment it was touch and go whether Avery would swing on him. Zucker lumbered to his feet behind the desk, saying, “Avery—”

  “All right,” Avery said, still in that choked voice. “I’m going. I’m going.”

  Gray shut the door behind him.

  Zucker whistled softly.

  “You’ll get your head knocked off one of these days,” he said. “What was that all about?”

  Gray said, “I think I’ve got it now, Harry. Give me a minute to get myself straight and I think I can—”

  The telephone rang sharply on Zucker’s desk.

  Zucker said, “Yeah?” into it, his eyes on Gray. Then a look of pleased surprise came over his heavy face, and he said, “Oh, he does, does he? Who?” He listened. Then he said, “Wait a minute,” into the phone. With his hand over the mouthpiece he said to Gray, “Look, Mike, I’ve got to see a guy about something. Can you wait about ten minutes?”

  Gray nodded. “I’ll get a cup of coffee.”

  “Don’t go far,” Zucker said. “I want to hear your story.”

  “I’ll be back,” Gray promised.

  19

  While his cup of scalding coffee cooled on the drugstore counter, Gray found an empty phone booth and called his message-taking service.

  “Any calls for Michael Gray?” he asked automatically.

  “Yes, Mr. Gray,” the girl at the other end of the line told him. “I have three.” She dictated two familiar names and numbers, patients of Gray’s who required a good deal of reassurance by telephone and in person. Gray noted them down dutifully.

  “There was one more,” the girl said. “This was an odd one. It sounded like a boy. He wouldn’t leave his name, and he said he might not be able to call back before evening, but he was sure you’d know who he was.” The girl sounded doubtful.

  Gray said, “Yes, I think I do. Did he leave a message?”

  “Well, yes, he did,” the girl told him. “He was very anxious to make sure I’d pass it on. He didn’t seem to think I would.”

  Gray tried to keep the eager impatience out of his voice. “What was the message?”

  “He said—I wrote it down here—he said, ‘Tell him I found Whitey. Tell him the cops picked Whitey up two o’clock this morning.’”

  Gray looked blankly at the telephone on the wall. The girl’s voice came plaintively in his ear.

  “Mr. Gray, did you get the message?”

  Gray said in a careful voice, “Yes, thanks. I got it. Thank you very much.”

  He went back to the counter and drank his coffee in measured sips, paying no attention at all to what he was doing.

  Zucker looked up from his desk and said, “All right, now let’s have your story. Sit down, Mike. I—”

  “You’ve been holding out on me, Harry,” Gray said.

  “Have I?” Zucker said. “How?”

  “Tell me one thing. Have you checked up on Blanche Udall’s story about her pension?”

  Zucker nodded. “We found the bank she used yesterday afternoon. It was true. Up to six months ago she had a regular income. Then”—he snapped his fingers—“no more money.”

  “And you’ve checked the bank accounts of the people involved in the Udall case?” Gray asked.

  Zucker began to look uncomfortable. “Well—”

  “You’ve done it,” Gray persisted. “And you’ve found that one person we both know has a normal bank account that corresponds with his normal income, but he also has another account with a lot more money in it, under a phony name. Have you done that yet?”

  Zucker squirmed in his chair a little. “Well—”

  “If you haven’t, you ought to,” Gray said. “Maybe just making the rounds of all the banks within a certain radius, with a picture of the various people in the case, would get you the identification you want. Somebody in one of the banks would say, ‘Why, yes, we do have a regular depositor who looks like that picture, but the name isn’t the one you gave. The name is—’” Gray shrugged. “Some cover-up or other, I don’t know what. Harry, have you found out anything yet?”

  Zucker said, “Damn you, Mike, I wish you’d lay off. This isn’t any of your business.”

  “You’ve found it,” Gray said with satisfaction. “I thought so. And there are no withdrawals from that account to match up with Blanche’s pension. Am I right?”

  Zucker began to turn a little red. “You can’t know that,” he said sullenly. “Somebody told you. You got to somebody in the department, and—”

  Gray laughed. “Hold on. Let me go a little further. Last night you picked up my boy Whitey and you got him down here to identify somebody in a line-up as the man on my phone, the man who paid him off in H for throwing a scare into me. How about it—am I still right?”

  Zucker banged the desk. “Mike, I can’t talk about it! Will you just shut up and—”

  “No, I can’t stop now. You’re coming into this from your angle, I’m coming in from mine. We’re going to meet right in the middle in another few minutes. Just let me go on my way, will you? Whitey identified your man, didn’t he? That was the call you got ten minutes ago, when you sent me out?”

  Zucker gave him a reluctant nod. “Try it that way. See where it takes you. I can’t say yes or no.”

  “Every time I stumble over a narcotics angle in this case you try to pull me off it,” Gray said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay away from the narcotics. It’s a central part of the Eddie Udall problem. I keep coming back to it no matter where I start out. I think there’s a big man in
the local narcotics market involved with Eddie Udall and with the two women who lost their lives because of him. I think you got an identification on that man ten minutes ago.”

  Zucker pushed his chair back and said firmly, “Mike, stop it! Shut up!”

  “I don’t want to ask about your secrets,” Gray told him. “I think the man is either Avery or Quentin, but I’m not asking. I think the crowd in the outer office was a line-up for Whitey to pick his man out of. Incidentally, I notice they’ve all gone home now. You’ve turned your man loose again?”

  “We know what we’re doing,” Zucker said in a heavy rumble. He was obviously torn between a desire to shut Gray up and get rid of him fast, and an equal desire to know the story behind Gray’s curious interviews with Avery and Quentin.

  He compromised with himself. “If you want to stay in this office,” he said, “you won’t say another word about this narcotics deal. Understand?” He cleared his throat “You’ve still got a story to tell,” he reminded Gray.

  Gray looked at his watch.

  “I’ll try. Brace yourself, Harry. You aren’t going to believe me. This is a little story about the Averys, Eddie Udall, and Blanche. Part of it I’m guessing. Not much. Let’s see—we can start out with Ann and Blanche as school friends. We’ve got proof of that. Up to about the time of Eddie’s birth they were still pretty close. Eddie was born in 1940, around the time that last picture was taken of the two girls with the soldiers. Blanche wasn’t visibly pregnant at the time it was taken, but Eddie must have been born not many months before or after the time of the snapshot.

  “Something else happened not long after that, too. Ann met and married Tod Avery. And for some reason the two girls stopped seeing each other openly from then on. Now here’s where I start guessing. I think they saw each other fairly often for the next five or six years, while Eddie was growing up into childhood. I think there was a good reason why they saw each other, why they kept it secret, and why Ann stopped visiting them when Eddie was about six.”