THIRTY-TWO
“Never mind all the other stuff you found,” Lieutenant Timms was saying impatiently, “we’ll be a month of Sundays sorting through that goddam trunk. Probably accounts for half the unsolved murders—Well never mind! What I want to know about is the red boot. It’s the Sampson kid’s all right, the parents just identified it at Malibu. But how the hell does a month-old kidnap-murder tie in with these other two?”
“The way we got it figured”—Krug settled back, fishing for a kitchen match and one of his small smelly cigars—“he grabbed the Sampson boy and killed him for kicks. But the other two, he had to kill to protect himself.”
“Wait a minute, let’s begin at the beginning.” Timms glanced at Casey. “You want to skip this till later?”
“No, I’m all right.” Casey yawned. “A few lumps, that’s all.”
“Likes to live dangerous, this guy.” Krug grinned. “My partner, the tiger.”
“Uh-hunh, and the youngest detective in Woodlawn Cemetery if he doesn’t watch it. Okay.” Timms began to tap his desk, emphasizing his points as he continued. “On August 30, Payley grabbed the Sampson boy near Webster School in Malibu. Sometime later—that same day probably—he killed the boy, loaded the body in his car, and dumped it down that gully where it was found. Incidentally, where the hell is Payley’s car?”
“In Venice, we think.” Krug sniffed his cigar. “If it’d been in his garage this morning, he’d still be sitting pretty. That’s how we nailed him, see. He flipped when I wanted to take a look at his car.”
“Lucky. Or was it?” Timms smiled. “Anyway, good work, Al.”
“All in a day’s work, Lieutenant. Anyhow,” Krug went on, “he grabbed Farr, grabbed his Jaguar, so it figures, don’t it, that sixty-eight Dodge is still parked somewhere in Venice? We got a pickup out on it, anyway. When we find it the lab boys’ll give it the works.” Clamping the cigar between his teeth, he snapped the head of the kitchen match with his thumbnail. But for once, no flame appeared, and Casey smiled to himself. It’s little things like this that really make life worthwhile. “Either by accident or some nutty kick it gave him,” Krug was saying as he fished for another match, “Payley left the kid’s boot in the back of his car. Several days, see.”
“Probably figured he was safe,” Timms muttered. “If that trunk you found is what we think it is, he’s been at this for years. By this time he probably figured he’d never get caught.” Bleakly he looked from one to the other, then sighed. “All right, go on, Al.”
“Okay, the boot’s still in the car. So on Friday, the second, he pulls in this gas station—the Synanon place—and one of the guys that works there gets a look at it.”
“The Berry kid.” Timms sucked his teeth. “How do you know he wasn’t in on the Sampson boy’s killing?”
“According to Farr’s statement, the kid told his sister he’d seen something in somebody’s car. And it fits.” Krug glanced at Casey, who looked blandly back. “Almost everything tied in with what he told us, it turns out. What we had to get straight was whether there was any connection with Payley or not—and there wasn’t.” Krug struck another match—successfully this time. The smoke of his cigar billowed around their heads, dissipating slowly into the air-conditioned upper air of the squad room. “Anyway, the Berry kid sees the boot, but it don’t mean anything to him naturally, till he hears about the Sampson boy’s body being found. This is the seventh. A lot of yak in the news about the missing boot and hat, remember. And this kid’s a hustler, so instead of turning Payley in, he gets the idea to put the bite on him.”
“How do you know this?” Timms challenged again.
“We don’t for sure,” Krug said, “but it’s a pretty good guess. See, we found out this friend of his drove him to the gas station on the seventh. That’s when he picked up the voucher with Payley’s name on it. Then he dropped out of sight so he could blackmail Payley without getting himself killed. And this is where Payley comes in again, playing the uncle from out of town. He went to Synanon first, found out the kid was gone, but he had a sister in town. No problem, we figure, finding out where she was—”
“So he put the bee on the sister, you think?”
Krug nodded. “It was the only way he could get at the brother. Payley probably killed her to show the kid he meant business.”
Timms nodded. “Makes sense. Lunatic sense!” and he sighed. “Well, it’s a great job you’ve done—but where does Farr come in?”
“You take it from here,” Krug said to Casey magnanimously. “No use me sitting here doing all the talking.”
Good old Uncle Al, friend and mentor. Casey swallowed a yawn, and as quickly as he could, recapitulated Farr’s story about the party, the weekend the girl spent with him, and his business card being sealed in plastic. “This is how Payley must have got onto him,” he explained. “Onto Farr. Evidently Payley tried to kill the girl on the twelfth—or scare her by running her off the road. Whatever it was, she ended up in the hospital—”
“And got herself busted for possession,” Krug added. “But Farr bailed her out and took her to a motel. Then, according to him, he went by her place to pick up some stuff for her.”
“We think Payley must have been keeping watch on her place,” Casey again took up the story. “He could have found out she’d been bailed out, so when he spotted Farr with her stuff, he trailed him back to the motel.”
“Probably got in easy enough,” Krug said. “Hit her, maybe, and drugged her.”
And took his time about it, Casey thought, remembering what the motel manager had said. Some guy raving his head off. The old story over and over—man can walk on the moon, but not across the street to help a stranger—
“Drugged her,” Timms was saying. “He a narcotics user himself, you think?”
“A nut like that?” Krug grunted. “He’s got his highs built in. But there was stuff in his house. We found a pretty good stash, a needle, the works.”
“You figure he kept her drugged, then.”
“All we can do on that one,” Casey muttered, “is hope he did.”
“I don’t get this.” Timms kept shaking his head. “How could he figure to frame a man he didn’t even know except for his name?”
“Easy.” Casey stifled a yawn. “He waited till he did know him. A whole week—from Tuesday the thirteenth till Tuesday the twentieth—he must have trailed Farr everywhere. Found out he had a boat. Found out about his karate class—”
“Setting up for his frame, you mean, before he finally killed her.” Timms blew out his breath. “God save us all from these lunatics!”
Amen, Casey thought, and as it would for months, a vision of Payley sprang into his mind, sending a chill of horror through him.
“The rest we know,” Krug was saying. “Payley got hold of Farr’s keys at the karate place. Only took him a minute, probably. He picks up a card from some real estate place, takes a camera, and tells ’em he’s a photographer for the broker. He’s already cased Farr’s boat, no problem there. So he loads the girl aboard, dumps her in the bay. All he’s got to do then is wait for the brother to surface, and he’s got it made.”
“Except for Farr,” Casey said. “If he hadn’t been ahead of us all along, Payley might’ve got away with it.”
“What’re you talking about?” Krug looked belligerent. “It was Payley’s mistake not searching the kid’s pockets—leaving that TV thing there that did the trick.”
“But if he’d had time—if he hadn’t been panicky—But with Farr in that phone booth, he was pushed to the limit.” Casey yawned so hard he shivered and his eyes teared. “What we don’t know yet is why Payley finally grabbed Farr. There’s some last act we don’t know about.”
“Christamighty.” Krug puffed like a locomotive, sending billows at the ceiling. “It’s as clear as day Farr was messing around, so Payley had to get rid of him!”
Casey shook his head. “No, he had a plan, I think. Otherwise, why did he take such a wil
d chance, grabbing Farr, grabbing his car? No, considering the way his mind seems to work—” He hesitated. “Well, what if we’d found Farr and his Jaguar piled up somewhere. A fatal accident. And in the car someplace—or in Farr’s apartment—there’s that red boot.”
“Jesus, you and your nutty imagination!”
But Timms was nodding. “Could be,” he murmured. Then his mouth twisted. “And you know something? If he’d played it smart, it might’ve worked. For all we know, he’s done it before and made it stick. Farr could’ve ended up on the record as one more random killer.”
The idea of randomness bothered Casey while he typed up his report and finally wandered out into the noontime brightness to his Mustang. Sleep obsessed him; he couldn’t stop yawning. But he knew he would not rest, not yet. Not until the last question was at least asked, even if never answered. And Santa Monica Hospital was on his way home…
Farr heard him coming down the corridor—squeak-squeaking of rubber soles on waxed cork tiles. And in his half-awake state, he forgot where he was. Panic tumbled in him. It wasn’t over. He was not saved. Then he wakened fully and saw the young detective standing in the doorway. Yes, he was saved. But it was not over yet.
“Hi—you feeling like Humpty Dumpty?”
“A bit, yes. You’re—?”
“Kellog.” He stepped in. “I’m not here officially—we’ll get your statement later. I just dropped by to compare bruises.”
Farr’s bed jiggled gently as Casey leaned against the foot, yawning. Watching him, Farr thought, No, not over yet. But in the detachment of his pain and the drugs they had given him, it didn’t seem to matter. He closed his eyes.
“I’ve been thinking,” he heard the detective’s quiet voice, “you must’ve jumped Payley. I heard the crash from below on the beach. That took a lot of guts in the shape you’re in.” He waited, but Farr did not speak or open his eyes. “Maybe if you hadn’t delayed him, neither one of us would be here now.” He stopped again. “Sorry, I said this wasn’t business, didn’t I?” and Farr heard a stifled yawn. “I’ve been thinking about Payley, too. Random killers like Payley. And I’ve been wondering—well, how much of their randomness is really dependent on empty space. On a vacuum many times instead of chance.”
Again Farr felt the bed shift slightly. Was he going to talk forever? Talk like a stranger’s touch out of the dark. Farr slitted his eyes, seeing the blurry medium-sized figure beyond his feet. Kellog. His arms were folded now across his chest, his head bent—the Kennedy stance. He seemed to radiate warmth. No, complacence, Farr corrected himself, and a slow anger began to stir in him.
“Take those kids, for instance,” the detective was saying. “The Berry twins. Both in a vacuum—you see what I mean? In an empty space, all alone. Like the top of a hill where lightning could find them.”
“They had friends,” Farr said thickly.
“I know. And I suppose you could say the boy asked for what he got—”
But the girl didn’t. Farr closed his eyes. Holly didn’t. But around her lay that emptiness. The same vacuum which surrounded him. “What you came here to say is—I could have saved her.” Tears stung his eyelids, and his anger mounted, fed by weakness and that old bitter certainty that he would never do right. “For Christ sake,” he whispered, “don’t you think I know?”
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean you in particular. We’re none of us Samaritans is what I meant. And we’ll have to be, maybe, to survive this century.”
The silence seemed to hum. Farr opened his eyes, but the light stung. “I—I suppose,” he said unsteadily, “the newspapers’ll make hay about—what you were just saying.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. But if it’ll help any, I got this out of the way before anybody else saw it.” He flipped a crumpled card onto the bed near Farr’s hand. “Probably not ethical, but under the circumstances, it seemed only fair.”
Farr smoothed the small stiff white oblong. His business card. On the back he had scribbled what had seemed at the time the smoothest and most diplomatic sort of regrets that he could no longer be involved. Cold words left for Holly with a twenty-dollar bill. “Circumstances,” he whispered furiously. “Under the circumstances. What the hell are you talking about? I left her there! You can read, can’t you? Paid her off like a whore—”
“But you went back the next morning.”
“So that’s it.” With his eyes still closed, Farr smiled, something pinched and wintry about him now—as if, Casey thought, he dwelt in shadow. “Guilt, like virtue, has its own reward.” Farr’s eyes opened wide then. “If you don’t mind,” he said coldly, “we’ll leave it there. I don’t feel up to any more discussion.”
“Of course.” Casey hesitated. “Well, I’d better be—Look, is there anything I can do? Anybody I can call or anything?”
“No—nothing, thanks.” No one.
“Sure? Well, then—” Casey hesitated at the door, intensely aware of Farr’s loneliness, his pain and, perhaps, despair. But as never before in his busy and for the most part happy life, he realized how little he could do about it. But the nerve kept twitching: something should be done, some gesture made. But with a man like Farr…And as he thought this, he saw suddenly that the circle he’d begun with his talk about emptiness was completed. The world does not always create the vacuum, sometimes the man does. But only, he amended, sometimes.
Yawning furiously, Casey walked out of the hospital, feeling tired and lucky, happy and sad, all in the same breath. But mostly what he felt as he got into his car and drove slowly homeward was gratitude. He was grateful that he had always lived in the sun.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carolyn Weston grew up in Hollywood during the Depression. She played hooky from school in movie theaters and libraries, honing the craft that would make her books so remarkable. During World War II, she worked in an aircraft plant and then did odd jobs around the country before writing Poor Poor Ophelia, the first of her three Al Krug / Casey Kellog police procedurals, which became the hit TV series The Streets of San Francisco.
SUSANNAH SCREAMING
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2015 Brash Books LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 1941298508
ISBN 13: 9781941298503
Published by Brash Books, LLC
12120 State Line #253,
Leawood, Kansas 66209
www.brash-books.com
Also by Carolyn Weston
Poor, Poor, Ophelia
Rouse the Demon
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ONE
“This is KCOP,” announced the gentle disembodied FM voice. “Kay-cop, your Santa Monica station.” Bringing the best in music. And five minutes of news. Every hour on the hour.
What sounded like theme music floated from the hidden speakers. Yawning, leaning back against the pink-enameled Maytag which spun his meager wash, Rees tried to identify the melody, but he could not. The washer pulsed warmly against his buttocks. Felt good, he decided. My friend, the machine. Lovable laundromats for lonely hearts.
“Four o’clock,” the radio was telling him portentously. Weather would be fine in Southern California this Monday morning, but with low coastal fog night and morning. The news was the usual collection of catastrophes. Then the music continued, bland as Muzak, almost as comforting as sleep. Insomniacs’ delight, Rees thought. Anything was better than silence at four in the morning, even this mindless burble of electronic sound which probably ran night and day here, along with the gas dryers, the rows of washers, the water heaters hissing and humming like benign monsters behind a pink-painted partition.
His laundry had five minutes more on its cycle. Lighting a cigarette, he wandered down the long, narrow washing-machine-lined storefront and looked out the plate-glass display window at the dark street. Montana Avenue. He had noticed the name and this twenty-four-hour laundromat when he had passed by yesterday.
At this hour the street was dark and deserted, a ghost-town thoroughfare. Across the way was a garden and florist shop. On this side, across the alley beside the laundromat, was the liquor store and market where he had shopped yesterday for the scotch and soda, the cheese and crackers, which were his version of a spinster’s tea and toast.
On the dark pane, his own reflection peered back at him, dim and transparent, like a photo negative held up to bad light. No mistaking that image, he thought bleakly. The loner. Behind his eyes throbbed the slow ache of constant fatigue which had become chronic in the last eighteen months, for he had lost the habit of sleep. Even his bones were tired. Self-pity had become a fearful problem.
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