Michael Gray Novels

by Henry Kuttner

  They looked at each other unhappily.

  “So will I,” Zucker said. “Take it easy, Mike. I’ll see you later on.”

  The day went by slowly. Only a part of Gray’s mind went with him through his routine work. On one level he sat through his fifty-minute hours with patients, made a clinic call or two, ate lunch, saw more patients. But on the lower level a welter of names and faces swirled through his mind. Tangled motives and secret crimes of the past and the present.

  Once, in his ten-minute break between patients, Gray got out of his desk the newspaper that Zucker had left with him five days ago. He turned to the pictured faces of Eddie Udall and the dead woman. Again he covered part of Ann Avery’s face with his hand and glanced from the boy’s features to the woman’s. The thing that had first struck him when he saw the two together seemed clearer than ever now.

  “They have the same cheekbone line, and their eyes are the same shape exactly,” Gray thought. “I don’t think it can be coincidence. Not with the same blood type and all the rest. I’ve got to be right about this. And the killer—is it Avery? Am I wrong there?”

  Time was what he needed. Time for the patient checking and rechecking that lies behind all such work as this. Time for the killer to make the fatal misstep that so often traps him if the police can only wait…

  Zucker came heavily into Gray’s office at six o’clock. Gray looked up expectantly.

  “Through for the day?” Zucker asked.

  “I was just going to leave,” Gray told him.

  Zucker shut the door behind him and sank into the chair across from Gray.

  “I can talk to you now about Avery and the narcotics racket,” he said, his usually harsh voice pitched low.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Gray said. “What’s up?”

  “Something big. First of all, though, I’d just like you to know you were right about that kid named Whitey. One reason I’ve gone along with you so far on the Avery theory is because of what Whitey told us. One of the narcotics squad in Oakland picked the kid up for us. He identified Avery in the line-up.”

  “Avery sent him up to my place,” Gray said.

  “That’s it.”

  “It was right after the newspaper item on how I was going to help get Eddie remanded to adult court,” Gray said. “Avery must have got scared right then. An adult-court trial means the Public Defender would be investigating for Eddie, and that must mean there’s some kind of evidence Avery’s afraid may turn up if we look hard enough.” His voice was full of excitement. “That’s it, Harry. Avery wanted Eddie remanded to juvenile so the case wouldn’t be investigated too far. I know there’s something to find if we look long enough. Otherwise—”

  “Calm down, Mike,” Zucker interrupted. “The thing’s out of our hands now. You were right about Whitey. He told us a man phoned him and offered him a fix if he’d rough you and your apartment up a little bit and wait for a phone call. I suppose Avery wanted to check on his being there. The phone call told Whitey where to go for his fix. When Whitey collected it, he was smart enough to get a glimpse of Avery’s face in the dark. He didn’t know him by name, of course, but he spotted him in the line-up.”

  Zucker glanced at his watch. “Well, we haven’t got all day. Things are about to break. Now listen and don’t interrupt. There isn’t much time.”

  Zucker sat back, fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and spoke rapidly.

  “We’ve known for some time there was a big narcotics syndicate here in the city. You know how it operates. The wholesaler can be just about anybody, maybe one of the big-money operators back East. He gets the stuff in from Mexico, the Orient, the Near East. It comes in to a port city like San Francisco, and the wholesaler passes it on to the distributors, who pass it on to the pushers. Avery’s a distributor. We’ve suspected it for some time.

  “But the Narcotics officers haven’t wanted to make a move until they could scoop up the whole lot. You know how tough the courts are about evidence in dope cases. You’ve got to prove possession or sale. The peddlers are very careful to cover themselves. Besides, of course, nabbing a few peddlers doesn’t mean a damn thing.

  “Narcotics likes to wait, maybe get an inside man into the organization, work with a few stoolies, find out just how the operation’s handled—and then make a city-wide raid, carefully timed. It’s got to be done just right. The top people are always ready to catch a plane out of town at the drop of a hat. And the small pushers and addicts are no good to us. We want the top boys. We’re ready to take them tonight.”

  Zucker paused, breathing noisily.

  “Everything’s ready to go. The whole Narcotics setup, city, county, State, and Federal, is going to act as one unit. I’m on my way now to join them. Now you know.”

  Gray said, “And Avery will be scooped in with the rest. Held for trial and probably sent to prison.”

  “Right. As of say an hour from now, he’ll be in custody indefinitely. So any hope of trailing him around waiting for him to make any mistakes that give away his guilt is out. We can’t work it that way.”

  “I don’t know how we can work it,” Gray said. “No chance of talking Narcotics out of arresting him, I suppose?”

  Zucker shook his head. “He isn’t even a suspect in the murder cases, actually. We have no evidence at all to justify a request. Even if we did—” He made a helpless gesture. “You want to drop it?” he asked.

  Gray said slowly, “No. I’ve got an idea. Not a very good one, but at least—well, it’s a chance. Who will be in charge of Avery’s arrest?”

  “A guy named McKesson.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Okay, I guess. Why?”

  “What I mean is, would he be willing to stretch a point in our favor if I can present him with a plan that just might work? Would he co-operate?”

  “I think so. We could try, anyhow. What’s your idea?”

  Gray told him.

  Zucker said impatiently at the end of it, “I must be crazy to even listen to you. It won’t work. But—hell, what choice have we got? We’ll put it to McKesson, anyhow. The worst he can do is say no.” He got up. “Come along. We haven’t got much time.”

  McKesson had a bony, freckled face and lank hair. He listened to Zucker patiently.

  “I know how you feel,” he said. “I’ve been reading about this Udall case in the papers. It would be a pleasure to get the kid off just to prove how wrong that bastard Sinnott can be. I wish we’d known about this sooner.”

  Zucker shook his head in a melancholy way.

  “We can’t prove a thing. Maybe we’re dead wrong. One thing’s for sure—we can’t stand around waiting for Avery to make a mistake.”

  “How about the Udall woman’s murder?” McKesson said. “Could you tie him in with that anywhere?”

  “No evidence,” Zucker said. “Besides, it wouldn’t clear up the Ann Avery killing. If we could prove Avery did kill his wife, we could hook that on to the Udall death. But it won’t work the other way around.”

  Gray said, “The way Blanche Udall was killed fits Avery’s character—unless I’m wrong. I know it isn’t evidence, but the whole pattern fits. A sudden, uncontrollable rage, the violence of the blows, and then the desperate need to dissociate himself from the whole thing—”

  “How’s that?” McKesson asked.

  “Blanche Udall was thrown into the Bay alive,” Gray said. “The killer didn’t even take time to find out if she was dead. It would only have taken a moment. And it was vitally important, too. If she’d survived, she could have talked.”

  “Why didn’t he?” McKesson asked.

  “The whole picture I have of Avery,” Gray said, “is of a very rigid-thinking, self-righteous man. He’s a type. A man like that might very well have himself convinced that narcotics distribution is perfectly okay. He might feel no guilt at all. Avery keeps insisting that Eddie and Blanche were born bad. Nothing can change that. If you’re born bad, you’ll take dope or commit murder or—�
� He shrugged. “Maybe Avery feels he’s helping out God by supplying damnation for the people who deserve it. If he’s the kind of man I think, he probably regards himself as one of the saved. Whatever he does is right because he does it.”

  “Even murder?” Zucker said.

  “That’s my whole point,” Gray told him. “Avery’s always done things by long-distance. He supplies narcotics, but he isn’t directly involved. He’s a distributor, not a pusher. He keeps his hands clean. Even that theater of his—it’s second-hand experience he peddles. Ever notice how remote he seems?”

  “He’s a cold fish, all right,” Zucker agreed.

  “He stays distant from life. It’s safer that way. But there’s a hell of a lot of violence boiling around underneath. I believe it’s broken through twice. At least twice. When he killed Ann and when he killed Blanche. And I think he’s scared to death of that violence, because it means he gets directly involved with the—” Gray smiled wryly—“with the sin he thinks he’s against.

  “When his violent emotions break loose, he’s scared to death. He goes into a panic and has to get rid of the evidence fast. He got rid of Blanche Udall’s body, dead or alive, as soon as he realized what he’d done.”

  “Do you think he planned the Udall killing?” Zucker asked.

  “He didn’t plan violence. I’m pretty sure of that. Giving a hophead—one of the damned—an extra push toward hell might not bother him much. But I think if Avery really did kill, he feels strong guilt about it. And that’s where my idea comes in.” He looked expectantly at McKesson.

  “Let’s have it,” McKesson said.

  Gray smiled. “Remember the old story about a man who mailed out a lot of letters that said, ‘Get out of town at once—your secret is known’ ?”

  “And everybody left town?” McKesson said, grinning.

  “That’s it. Psychologically, a man will project his own attitudes into an incompletely structured situation. He’ll think you’re talking about the thing he feels strongest about Now, before she died, Ann Avery wrote a letter—”

  Gray told McKesson the story of the letter briefly. When he had finished, Zucker handed over the letter itself. McKesson read it through in silence.

  “Avery doesn’t know about the letter,” Gray said. “Neither does he know he’s even suspected as far as either murder or narcotics dealing goes. The whole thing will be a complete surprise to him. One thing as much as another—the letter, the killing, the narcotics. My theory is the thing he reacts to first is the thing he feels real guilt about”

  “All right,” McKesson said. “So far, so good. Go on.”

  “Suppose Harry and I come along with you tonight,” Gray said. “Suppose you arrest Avery, but don’t tell him right away what the charge is.”

  Zucker said, “Hell, that’s illegal.”

  “The charge is right on the warrant,” McKesson said, patting his pocket.

  “It’s only a matter of timing,” Gray said. “You can tell him what the charge is as soon as—”

  “What?” McKesson said.

  “As soon as we’ve shown him the letter.”

  McKesson looked at Gray, puzzled.

  “It’s a thin chance,” Gray admitted. “But it’s our only one. A man’s first reaction in a stress situation like that can be very revealing. I don’t think we’ll get a confession, of course. We may not even get any evidence. I may be entirely off base myself in thinking Avery’s guilty. But I think it’s worth trying. How about you?”

  McKesson thought about it. He looked at Zucker.

  “I’d like to see how Avery reacts,” Zucker said.

  McKesson hesitated a little. Then he nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll string along—but just so far.”

  21

  Avery looked up across his desk in the theater office and lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. Gray followed Zucker and McKesson quietly into the small room. He closed the door behind him, shutting out the distant sound of music and singing from the movie screen beyond the walls.

  Avery, seeing him, scowled coldly.

  “What’s the idea?” he demanded. “Who is this man?” He looked at McKesson, then back at Zucker and Gray. “You want to see me?”

  Gray stepped around the desk and stood with his back to the door that led downstairs, the door through which Blanche had gone two days ago, the last time he was here.

  Zucker said, “We want you to come downtown with us.”

  Avery said in an angry voice, “I’ve had enough of this. I’ve answered questions until I’m sick of it. You—”

  Zucker said in his flattest voice, “This is an arrest, Avery.”

  Avery’s jaw dropped. Zucker took a folded paper from his pocket and held it out to Avery.

  “What is it, a warrant?” Avery demanded. “I haven’t—you can’t arrest me! What—”

  Zucker said, “That’s no warrant. That’s the evidence that will convict you.” There was a light beading of sweat on his forehead. He obviously hated this unaccustomed feeling of uncertainty in the part he was playing.

  Avery snapped the paper open and scanned it quickly. The color sank out of his face when he saw what it was. The familiar tracery of his wife’s handwriting shook as his hand began to waver.

  In a strangely high, thin voice Avery said, “You must be crazy! You can’t arrest me—this letter doesn’t say—”

  “It’s damn good evidence,” Zucker snapped.

  Avery’s voice went so high it flatted.

  “But this doesn’t prove I killed her!” he cried in that strange, thin tone.

  He stared from face to face around the little office. They looked back at him stonily. Nothing happened.

  Gray, intensely alive to the tension of feeling in the room, felt the slightest sensation of dropping tautness as the silence prolonged. Avery was getting his wits about him. In a moment he would demand the warrant, and after that it was all over.

  Gray thought, “It’s going to fail. It won’t work,” and his hope sank dully inside him. Then, oddly, without having in the least meant to speak, he heard his own voice saying almost casually,

  “Did you know we found the knife, Avery?”

  The man spun toward him, the letter fluttering from his hand. His eyes, round with shock, stared wildly into Gray’s. For some reason he seemed more shaken by this thought than by anything else that was happening.

  “The knife?” he said in a thin stammer. “The knife?” And then, very curiously, the confidence seemed to flow back into him as the significance of what Gray had said took shape in Avery’s mind. A look of strange contempt came over his colorless face. Very slightly, he shook his head. The shock was gone from his eyes, and for an instant Avery gazed at Gray with a bright, cold, contemptuous stare.

  And Gray knew he had lost the gamble. He didn’t know why or how yet, but he knew he had lost.

  Avery very deliberately closed his eyes for a moment, drew a deep breath. The moment of disorganized panic was over now. Avery was in command of himself again. When he spoke his voice was firm once more.

  “What charge are you arresting me on?” he demanded. “I suppose you have a warrant?”

  Silently McKesson produced the paper. Avery read it. He shot Gray one fierce, cold glance of hatred. Gray could see the quick, thoughtful look in his eyes as Avery went back mentally over the things he had said in his panic. A look of satisfaction followed it. Avery had said nothing incriminating, nothing that could be used as evidence against him.

  And yet…Gray wasn’t quite sure. Maybe he had.

  Avery said quietly, “May I call my lawyer from here?”

  Zucker glanced at Gray, who shrugged slightly. It was all over now as far as Gray was concerned. He had what he had. It wasn’t much—but it was something. The gamble had failed, as he had thought it might.

  And yet, in his own mind, what Avery had said was proof enough for Gray. “This doesn’t prove I killed her.” What would, then? And why, if the guilt o
f murder were not uppermost in the man’s mind, had he jumped to the conclusion that the killing of Ann was the charge they had come to make against him?

  And the knife…

  No, it proved nothing. Eddie Udall was still in desperate jeopardy. But a faint hope stirred in Gray’s mind. Maybe if he talked once more to Eddie, went over the scene of the murder in detail, something would swim up to the surface…

  Zucker’s voice said heavily, “All right, Avery. Get your hat. We’re going downtown.”

  Gray followed them out of the theater, walking slowly, thinking hard.

  Gray said, “Tell me again exactly what happened. From the time you reached the apartment.”

  Eddie moved uncomfortably on his bunk.

  “I been over this so often.”

  Gray tried to put reassurance in his smile.

  “It’s the way to find out the right answer,” he said. “It’s like an experiment in physics that comes out with the wrong result. You have to keep going over it, step by step, until you see what’s gone wrong.”

  Eddie nodded slowly.

  “Yeah, I guess that makes sense, all right. Well, let’s see.” He scowled in concentration. “I went upstairs—”

  “You didn’t see anybody on the street? Or inside?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Nobody,” he said. “I rang the bell, but there wasn’t any answer. So I took out the key and opened the door.”

  Gray said, “Was that the first time you’d ever used the key?”

  “No. A couple of times Ann had said if I got there early, to come on in and wait for her. So I did, a few times.”

  “I see. Go ahead, Eddie.”

  “I opened the door,” the boy said, and swallowed. “I went in through that little hall, right into the living room. And I saw her right there on the floor. She was…dead.”

  “How did you know?”

  “The blood,” Eddie said indistinctly. “There was so much blood. It was—” He put his hand to his side. “I could see it sort of…running down her dress, along the side. And her eyes…they were wide open.” He shuddered.