Michael Gray Novels

by Henry Kuttner

  “Just answer the question, if you can, please,” Zucker said.

  She gave an exasperated sigh. “All right. It was about ten minutes after twelve. I’ve been trying to remember, and I’m pretty sure now. I was awfully sleepy when you asked me before.”

  “Just how sure are you?” Zucker demanded. “Sure enough to swear to it?”

  “Well—yes. Yes. I’d swear to it. But why should I? What difference does it make?”

  “Mrs. Quigley,” Zucker said quietly, “did you know Oliver Albano?”

  She was pouring coffee as he spoke. She carefully righted the pot and held it in mid-air as she stared at him, her eyes searching Zucker’s intently. The pot was so heavy her wrist began to tremble, but she didn’t seem to know it.

  After a moment she said in a thin voice, as if her throat had suddenly tightened, “Did I know Oliver? Why do you put it that way?”

  Zucker said nothing. He was watching Quigley. So was Gray. The good-looking, alert young face showed nothing but puzzled interest.

  Zucker said finally, “He was murdered tonight. A little after twelve-thirty. We haven’t arrested the killer yet, but we’ve got a pretty good idea who it is. And what the motive was.”

  Joyce set down the coffeepot with extreme care. She glanced once at her husband. His face still showed only surprise and distress, nothing more.

  “Well, who did it?” Quigley demanded, his voice sounding perfectly natural. “It’s a damned shame, but I can’t pretend I knew the guy well enough to break up over this.” His eyes shifted from Zucker to Gray. “Hey, what is this? Why are you all looking at me?”

  “We think you had the best motive for killing Albano,” Zucker said.

  “Motive?” Quigley jumped to his feet and stood staring at Zucker blankly. “I hardly knew the guy!”

  Zucker said, “Mrs. Quigley knew him.” He kept his voice level.

  Joyce Quigley made a little gesture of appeal with one hand, quickly pulled back. She said, “Captain—do you have to—”

  “I’m sorry,” Zucker told her. “This is a case of murder, Mrs. Quigley. I can’t spare anybody’s feelings.”

  “What do you mean, feelings?” Quigley shouted. “I don’t get this! Sure, Joyce knew Albano. So did I. So what of it? The guy was practically living with Karen Champion, wasn’t he? Why don’t you ask Dennis Champion where he was last night if you’re so hot to check up on people? What’s this got to do with us?”

  “It’s no use, Quigley,” Zucker said stolidly. “We know all about your wife and Albano.”

  “All about what?” Quigley stared at the police captain as if he thought Zucker must be out of his mind. “All about Joyce and Albano?” Suddenly he swung toward his wife. “Joyce, what—why—For God’s sake, Joyce, tell the man he’s crazy!”

  Joyce Quigley gripped one hand over the other and looked down at them as if she had never seen them before. Her face crumpled for an instant. Then she drew a deep breath and lifted her head. The cold, brittle poise returned to her voice and manner.

  “I’m sorry, Roger,” she said.

  He stared at her speechless, his jaw dropped. Gray from where he was standing could see how all the blood receded from Quigley’s face, leaving him a curious, ashy gray. There was dead silence in the room for a long moment. Then the blood came flooding up again and Quigley’s face and neck flushed an almost purplish red. He caught a deep breath and opened his mouth to shout.

  But he didn’t say a word. Instead he dug his hands deep into the pockets of his robe and swung away, his back to the rest of the room. Gray could hear him breathing, deep and fast.

  When he turned finally to face them again he was pretty well under control.

  “When?” he asked his wife grimly.

  “Not since—not for about six months now,” she said, her voice almost entirely steady.

  “That time you said you were going to Seattle—” Quigley began.

  “I was with him,” she finished the sentence for him quickly. “I—I’m sorry, Roger. It’s been over for—well, it seems like a long time now. It never happened before. I mean, I never even thought of another man until—” She checked herself. “I’ll do anything you say,” she told him. “If you want a divorce—”

  Quigley made an angry, violent gesture and she was quiet.

  Gray was watching him with intent interest. The man’s reaction of surprise looked genuine to him. Gray was trying to remember a trick he had heard some actors use, a way of producing a flush or pallor at will by pressure on the neck in some way. It was the only method he could think of by which a guilty man could change color so convincingly under the impact of shock, and Quigley’s hands hadn’t touched his neck.

  Joyce Quigley looked at Zucker, very pale but under firm control. “I don’t know if you’ll believe me now,” she said, “but Roger really was here at ten minutes after twelve.”

  “We’ll talk about it downtown,” Zucker said. “Get dressed, both of you.”

  13

  Wesley Turk sat down at the breakfast table and shook out the morning paper. Moving listlessly, Susan Turk set a glass and a plate before him. Her hair was still in curlers under a big bow of nylon net.

  “Are tomato juice and hot cinnamon rolls enough this morning?” she asked. “I don’t feel very good.”

  Turk was silent for a moment. Then he said in an awed voice, “Jesus Christ!”

  “Wes!” She sounded outraged. “I don’t feel bad on purpose! The least you could do—”

  “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean you. Look at this.”

  He spread the front page on the tablecloth and they bent over it together. Over a smudged picture of Karen and a fairly clear photograph of Albano, a two-column heading said “SKIP-TRACER BEATEN, SLAIN IN DIVORCEE’S APARTMENT.”

  “I knew it!” Turk breathed. “I knew Dennis would blow his top sooner or later. Oh, God, this is going to foul up everything but good. Now what’s going to happen?”

  Susan was peering in a puzzled way at the paper.

  “It can’t be right,” she was protesting. “I just can’t believe it. Besides, they’re mixed up. Karen isn’t divorced. And—what on earth’s a skip-tracer, Wes?”

  “I don’t know,” he said abstractedly. “A guy who collects from people who run out on their bills. My God, Susan, what’s this going to do to CQD?”

  Susan was reading the item with quick glances.

  “Where does it say Dennis Champion did it?” she demanded.

  “Well, I don’t know—it must say so—who else would beat Karen’s boy friend up?” Turk shouldered her aside to get a better look. “He must have hit him once too often, that’s all.”

  “It doesn’t say a thing about who killed the man,” Susan said. “Look, here it says they questioned Dennis Champion and the—the Quigleys? For heaven’s sake, Wes, why the Quigleys?”

  “How do I know?” Turk asked. “I’ve got to get moving on this. I hope to God this won’t affect the company, but—well, we’ll see. Pour me some coffee, will you?”

  “Wait a minute.” Susan Turk was still staring at the newspaper page. “This man. Here.” She put her finger on Albano’s face. “I’ve seen him somewhere. Just lately, having an argument Last night it was—oh!” She put a hand to her mouth.

  “Go on,” Turk said encouragingly. “What’s the matter?”

  It took him five minutes to worm the information out of her.

  “But it might get Dr. Brand in trouble!” Susan wailed. “And I know he had nothing to do with what happened to the man. He couldn’t have! I just know it, Wes!”

  “You’ll have to tell the police what you saw, and that’s final,” her husband told her. “I’ll find out where and when, and let you know. But be ready to go downtown when I call you. This isn’t anything to monkey with, Susan.”

  She felt much worse after Wes had left. Her head ached fiercely and little random pains seemed to come and go all through her chest. She took a double dose of a tonic Dr. Bran
d had recommended, but she still felt so miserable that it was very clear to her she needed Dr. Brand’s newest kind of treatment, however expensive it might turn out to be. Wes surely wouldn’t begrudge it to her if he only understood.

  She dressed quickly, got the safe-deposit box key out of Wes’s cash box in his closet, and left the house in a great hurry. There was still some money in the safe-deposit, and several of the bonds were left. It was awfully lucky they held everything in joint tenancy, she told herself, pulling on her gloves as she hurried down the steps.

  Zucker put his head in the open door of Gray’s inner office just as church bells somewhere far off were ringing noon over the city.

  “You tied up for lunch?” he demanded.

  Gray yawned. “No,” he said. “Something new?”

  “Maybe. Let’s grab a quick bite and you come over to headquarters with me. I think I’ve got something right up your alley.”

  Gray said, getting out his coat, “Did you catch any sleep at all?”

  “About three hours,” Zucker told him. “Then I got a call from the office that a guy named Turk had something for us. How about you?”

  “I couldn’t stop lying there thinking,” Gray admitted. “What’s this about Turk? Champion has a business agent by that name.”

  “That’s the man. Come on. Turk will be waiting for us.”

  Over the lunch table they talked in subdued tones about Roger Quigley. “Just one hint of tangible evidence and I’d have held him for murder,” Zucker said, biting savagely into his sandwich. “I had an argument with the D.A.’s office this morning on the telephone and they said we couldn’t make a case stick—yet. He’s our man, though. All we’ve got to do is find the proof.”

  Gray said, “I think he was really almost floored when he found out about Albano and his wife. A man couldn’t change color like that on purpose.”

  Zucker grunted skeptically. “The whole story’s fishy. I think he made enough noise going to bed so he woke his wife up for a witness. In his place, I’d have turned back the clock first, waked her up, and turned it ahead again after she went back to sleep.”

  Gray frowned thoughtfully. “It doesn’t tie in with that attack on Karen Champion. That’s what bothers me. Do you think Quigley did that, too?”

  “Was there an attack?” Zucker raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I think so. I want to talk to Mrs. Champion again—today if I can fit it in and she’s up to it. There’s more here than meets the eye, Harry.”

  “We’ll see.” Zucker was stubborn. “About this guy Turk—seems there’s a Dr. Perry Brand had an argument with Albano last night. Albano threatened to break Brand’s neck. Turk’s wife overheard it. What do you know about Brand?”

  Gray told him briefly and profanely what he thought.

  Zucker laughed.

  Turk was waiting in Zucker’s office when Gray and Zucker came in. There was a call for Zucker on the wire as they entered, and Gray and Turk waited in the outer office while Zucker wound up some private matter.

  “This is a hell of a thing,” Turk said, nervously lighting a cigarette. “Have you seen Karen? Or Dennis? I don’t know how they’re taking it. I’m worried, Mr. Gray.”

  “I haven’t seen either of the Champions today,” Gray told him.

  “I hear the police let the Quigleys go.”

  “I heard that too.”

  Turk shook his head. “Roger couldn’t have had anything to do with this business. He just isn’t the type. Dennis, now—” He broke off and relighted a cigarette that didn’t need it. “I’m trying to be objective,” he said. “It isn’t easy. My real interest’s in the company. And for my money, in the last year the Quigleys have been the company.”

  “How’s that?” Gray asked noncommittally.

  “A business is only as good as its management. Dennis Champion used to be top man. He isn’t, now. He’s so damned afraid of making a mistake he has to keep checking production every minute. It’s not good. If he ran the business, all the deliveries would be late. If it weren’t for the Quigleys, well—” He shrugged. “They’re a team, Joyce and Roger. A good one.”

  “How do they divide the work?” Gray asked. “Which is better at what?”

  “Roger’s the go-getter, the live wire. Joyce handles the concrete stuff and the social angles. Together, they’re very fine—ambitious, hard workers, good brains. Either of them alone … I don’t know. That’s why I was so worried when I heard—” He broke off.

  “What did you hear?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. All I can say is, if one of the Quigleys is knocked out of the picture—for any reason—the company won’t be worth much. Dennis Champion wouldn’t work in harness with Joyce, for instance. It’s awkward.”

  “What if both Quigleys were out of the picture?” Gray asked thoughtfully.

  Turk shrugged. “Not a chance.”

  “But if it happened, then what? You think Champion’s lost all his know-how?”

  “Hell, no. Not for a minute.” Turk looked almost indignant. “He’s in a box, the way things stand. Most of the trouble’s in the management and policy fights. If Dennis had partners he could really get along with—” Turk’s enthusiasm kindled. “Electronics is a big thing now, getting bigger. The sky could be the limit. CQD’s small now, but it could be one of the biggest outfits on the coast.”

  “If it weren’t for the Quigleys.”

  Turk nodded and shrugged. “But they’re in. They’ll never let go. So that’s the way things stand.”

  Gray, wondering what would happen now to the team of Quigley and Quigley, after last night’s revelations, turned the subject a little.

  “I’ve been wondering about Dennis Champion,” he said. “You mentioned you’d known him a long time. Would you say he’s changed greatly in the last few years?”

  “He’s started to feel old,” Turk said promptly. “That’s the main thing, I think. He used to blow off like a volcano. I’ve heard him yell so you could hear him all over the plant. Nowadays he just gets quieter and more stubborn.” He shook his head again. “I don’t know—Karen hasn’t done Dennis any real good, that’s for sure.”

  He looked thoughtfully at Gray. “You’re a psychoanalyst What’s wrong with Karen?”

  Gray said, “I can’t read minds. Diagnosis takes a long time.”

  “With Karen it’s lying,” Turk said. “With my wife—with Susan it’s—hypochondria, I guess you’d call it. Mr. Gray, why does a woman keep going from one doctor to another until she’s used up the whole A.M.A. when there isn’t a damn thing the matter with her?”

  “Oh, there’s probably something wrong with anyone who does that,” Gray said.

  “The doctors can’t find a thing wrong with Susan.”

  “Nothing physically wrong. I’d say with any hypochondriac the patient either has to believe in the reality of his symptoms or else face up to the real problems that are causing them—emotional problems of one kind or another. We all have emotional problems—it’s no disgrace. But one way to bypass them is to keep going from one doctor to another until we find one who’s willing to pretend there’s a physical ailment present. A man like that’s usually a quack, and all quacks are dangerous.”

  Turk nodded. “And expensive. I’m beginning to wonder about this man Perry Brand that Susan’s been seeing. Maybe you could give me a lead on how to start checking up on him.”

  “I’d be glad to,” Gray told him.

  An officer at this point opened the door to Zucker’s office and said, “Can you come in now, please?”

  Gray said to Turk, “Call me up later on and I’ll give you all the references you need.” They went into Zucker’s office and sat down.

  Turk told them the brief story of what Susan admitted overhearing at Perry Brand’s.

  “She was positive she recognized Albano,” he finished. “What he said was, ‘Call off your dog or I’ll break your God-damned neck for you.’” Turk paused, shaking his head. “Only it was Alb
ano who got it, not Brand,” he said.

  Zucker said, “Would your wife be at home, Mr. Turk? I’d like to hear her tell the story.”

  “Yes, I just talked to her on the phone,” Turk said. “If it’s possible, Captain, maybe you could send somebody out to interview her. She isn’t feeling very well—” Here he caught Gray’s eye and shrugged a little. “She thinks she isn’t feeling well, anyhow,” he amended.

  “I’ll go myself,” Zucker decided abruptly. “Mike, I wish you’d come along if you can. I want to have a talk with Perry Brand too, and that’s your field.”

  Gray said austerely, “Brand and I follow very different schools of thought. But I’d like to come. I’m free until four today.”

  Zucker heaved to his feet. “Okay, let’s go.”

  14

  On Perry Brand’s front door a small, neat sign said:

  DR. PERRY BRAND

  DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY

  Zucker glanced at Gray. “What does that mean?” he asked.

  Gray shrugged. “Anything he wants it to mean. You know as well as I do anybody can call himself a psychologist in most states. Including this one.”

  A sedate, gray-haired woman in a nurse’s uniform opened the door. She seemed only mildly surprised when Zucker identified himself and asked to see Brand.

  “The doctor’s with a patient just now,” she said. “If you could wait a few minutes I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  She showed them into a waiting room full of comfortable, rather shabby chairs, and went out briskly. Gray looked around with considerable interest On the walls an array of framed certificates showed that Brand was entitled to call himself a doctor. But a closer look at the institutions that had granted him the degrees showed also that he was entirely without medical or psychological training. He had an Sc.D. from a College of Electronic Metaphysics, a D.D. from a school that rather loosely labeled itself College of Meta-Psychological Research, and an M.D.D. which appeared to mean Doctor of Diencephalonic Manipulation.