“Yeah, sure.” Krug laughed. “Little matter of—whatchamacallit—semantics, right?”
“And lifestyles.”
“Oh, yeah, lifestyles. Yes, indeedy. Remind me to be grateful I don’t have any daughters. There it is,” he added, pointing. “The building on the corner.”
Casey pulled into the curb. And when they climbed out of the Mustang, he saw that Krug had been sitting on his missing sunglasses. One mystery solved. Fortunately they hadn’t been expensive.
The front of the building was smoked glass, four stories high. They could make out a shadowy metal staircase inside, tropicals planted in huge pots, a small elevator like a wrought-iron cage. “Very fancy for little old Santa Monica,” Krug commented as they pushed through the Plexiglas doors. “You believe your average everyday secretary can live this good without pushing something besides her typewriter?”
They found the name on the building directory inside—Ms. A. Crewes in 404—and stepped into the elevator. Krug punched the floor button. “What’re you betting, sport—blonde or brunette?”
“Why limit myself? My money’s on redhead.”
“A bombshell, yeah.” Krug was beaming. “Like that pussycat in the picture. Lila. That guy Myrick was a real tomcat, for sure.”
Behind the brass-numeraled door, they heard a single chime when Krug punched the doorbell button. A card in the brass slot below the number read Adrian Crewes. Not a printed card; it was neatly hand-lettered. After a moment they heard a measured, muffled thumping inside. “Who is it?” a light female voice called.
Krug winked at Casey. Pussycat voice, sweet as sugar. “Police Department, Miss Crewes. We’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”
“Oh? What about, please?”
“Come on, honey, you want your neighbors to hear us? Open up, we won’t bite.”
They heard the lock click back, then the door opened. Unprepared by the voice and their expectations, Krug and Casey stared at her, speechless for a moment. No mistaking from honey’s expression that she knew she was a surprise.
FOUR
“What’s this all about? Has something happened to my car?”
“Nothing like that, just some routine questions, Miss Crewes.” Krug tucked away the leather folder containing his badge and ID card. “In connection with a case we’re investigating.”
“Oh, I see. Well, come in…”
She was just over thirty, Casey guessed, slender, dark-haired, distinctive-looking and very badly crippled. Watching her levering herself step by painful step balanced on two aluminum crutch canes, he could only imagine and admire the steely resources which had let her acknowledge, then ignore that she had been a shock to their expectations. My money’s on redhead. Pussycat. Chagrined by their petty male chauvinism, Casey followed Krug into a small, sparsely furnished apartment in which the only homey touch was the smell of freshly brewed coffee.
“I’ve never been questioned by detectives before,” Adrian Crewes was saying. The braces which encased her withered legs clicked rhythmically. “Not familiar with the rules, you see. But I suppose the usual amenities apply?” Poised, cool, she glanced from one to the other. A small, faintly derisive smile. “Please sit down. I’m taking you at your word that you don’t bite.”
Casey chose the black-and-white side chair opposite the one she sank into. Krug thumped down on the Naugahyde divan. “We’ll tell you what this’s about in a minute,” he began slowly. “A few questions first, Miss Crewes. For the record. We’d like you to tell us where you were last night.”
“If you mean evening, I was here, Sergeant. From seven o’clock on.”
“You live here alone?”
“With my cat, yes.”
One of her crutch canes knocked the arm of her chair as she moved slightly. Casey noticed that the arms of his own chair were badly nicked. He knew now who that austere little office behind the sliding door in Myrick’s house belonged to.
“Have any visitors last night?” Krug was asking.
“No, no one, Sergeant.”
“You’re sure about that.”
“Quite positive.” The derisive smile flickered again, illuminating her fine dark eyes, softening the remoteness and pride which made her appear unapproachable. “No visitations of any kind, I assure you. No incubi. None of those strangers which supposedly populate women’s dreams.”
“I meant friends, Miss Crewes, somebody like that.”
“I don’t have any friends out here, Sergeant. Now will you please tell me what this is all about?”
“In a minute, Miss Crewes.” Krug hesitated. “We heard you own a car. There a garage here in the building you use?”
“Yes, in the basement. We drive in through the alley in back.”
“Is there a garage attendant?” Casey asked.
She shook her head.
“Any guard?” Krug inquired. “Or a night watchman, maybe?”
“I suppose so now, but I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask—” she began, then stopped. “Sergeant, if you’re looking for someone who might have seen me last night, you’re wasting your time. I came home at seven, took a long bath, watched television for an hour, then went to sleep.”
“What happened to dinner, Miss Crewes?”
“I had a hamburger at one of those drive-in places before I came home.” She leaned forward. “Why are you asking all this? If it has anything to do with that purse snatcher…”
“What purse snatcher?” Casey smiled reassuringly. “Save a lot of time if you’ll just answer our questions, Miss Crewes.”
Several weeks before, she told them, someone had grabbed her handbag in the garage downstairs. She had been out late—to a drive-in movie, she added—and when she got out of her car after parking it, the attacker jumped out from behind the parked car next to hers. “I reported it right away, of course. But he wasn’t caught. The police told me they very seldom are. But they did find my bag the next morning. He’d taken the money, but nothing else, fortunately, so I suppose I should feel lucky.”
“Some junkie or wino, probably. Happens all the time.” Krug hesitated again. “We’d like to hear something about your work now. You’re a secretary, is that right?”
“Who in the world told you that?”
“Never mind, Miss Crewes, just tell us what you do.”
“Dr. Myrick and I are collaborating on a study of the application of hypnotherapy on drug addicts.”
Krug blinked. “Come again?”
“A book, Sergeant.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Do you use tape recorders in your work?” Casey inquired.
“Dr. Myrick does, yes.” Her eyes flickered from one to the other. “Has this something—”
But Krug didn’t let her finish. “You got a tape of last night’s meeting, Miss Crewes?”
“If you mean here, no. They’re all kept at Dr. Myrick’s.” She kept staring at him intently. “Is it the damage you’re here about?”
“Just answer the questions, please. How long have you worked with Dr. Myrick?”
“About six months now.”
“You get along with him all right?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“The way we hear it, you’ve been having some trouble lately.”
“Really?” Her voice was calm, but Casey noticed her fingers tightening in her lap. “And from whom did you hear this, Sergeant?” She leaned forward again, suddenly blazing. “Why are you interrogating me like this? You have no right to continue without telling me why.”
“In a case like this, we got no choice, Miss Crewes.” Then flatly Krug told her that Stephen Myrick had been killed the night before.
“No, that’s—Oh, no,” she protested softly, “you must be mistaken.” She kept shaking her head. “I’m sure you’re wrong. He must have lent someone his car. Look, I know it can’t be Steve because he called me at nine, and he was home then! Said he’d been listening to one of the tapes and—”
“We’r
e not talking about an accident.”
“The housekeeper found him this morning,” Casey explained. “He was murdered, Miss Crewes.”
Her mouth opened wide—a mimed shriek which sounded in Casey like a racial memory, a scream across time. But later, when he compared impressions with Krug, he realized how subjective police work must be, for Krug believed that her reaction was false. Now she leaned back, closing her eyes, and thinking she was faint, Casey asked if he might get her a glass of water. “No”—she shook her head—“I’m all right. Just give me a minute…”
But Krug didn’t wait. “We’ll have to ask for your cooperation, Miss Crewes. And we haven’t much time. If you’ll meet us at his house. Like in an hour, say.”
Her eyes flew open. “You can’t expect me to—to look at him!”
“Nothing like that,” Casey assured her hastily. “It’ll all be, uh, cleared away there.”
“Then what is it you want of me?”
“A list of his patients, for one thing,” Krug answered. “The group that met there last night. And his friends, too.” He kept staring at her. “Lady friends, in particular.”
“There’s only one I know of. Mrs. Allman. Mona Allman. He spends—spent almost every evening with her.”
“Except yesterday evening. Her name’s down for noon in his appointment book.”
“I didn’t realize.” She seemed exhausted now. “Come to think of it, though, he was away all afternoon.”
“Which meant he’d probably be home last night, right?” Krug waited, but she did not respond. “Who’s Lila, Miss Crewes?”
“I have no idea.”
“You mean you’ve never seen that picture in his desk drawer?”
“How could I unless he showed it to me?”
“You saying you never went in his office?”
“Of course, but I never opened his desk drawers.”
“Not even to look for a pencil or an eraser?” Krug’s smile was disbelieving. “Okay, Miss Crewes, whatever you say.” He stood up abruptly. “We’ll send a patrol car around to pick you up in an hour, then.”
“That won’t be necessary, Sergeant, I can drive myself.” She gazed at him coolly. “Unless you meant I’m under arrest.”
“What for, Miss Crewes?” Leaving it hang there, Krug nodded his thanks and they walked out. “Incubi,” he muttered as they stepped into the elevator. “So what the hell is that?”
“Plural for ‘incubus,’ Al. An evil spirit that supposedly lies on people in their sleep.”
“You mean she was talking dirty and I didn’t even know it?” The idea seemed to bother Krug, and he brooded all the way back to the station house.
Next time, Casey thought, Miss Crewes had better watch it. She was a score for Krug to even up now.
FIVE
Done to death. Like a litany, the phrase kept repeating itself, and sitting very still with her eyes closed, Adrian Crewes waited to feel something. Killed. Someone murdered him. But without the detectives there, the words had no effect, the idea of murder was an abstraction. At the center of her mind was only a resounding emptiness where apprehension should be.
Feather-light, something brushed her hand, and Adrian started, sending the cat skittering away. “Marmalade. Come here, kitty.” Groaning, she leaned down, enticing the half-grown, yellow-striped kitten back, hugging him as he purred like a miniature motor. “He’s dead,” she whispered into the soft, thick velvet fur. A shiver rippled over her body, and suddenly all the tiny hairs on her skin stood up. Out of some hidden compartment of his secretive life had come violence. Murder, the unmasker.
When she had first heard of him, Myrick was not a person yet, only a possible project to Adrian—a California psychologist, her agent told her, who seemed to be working miracles in the field of drug therapy. “There was a squib about him in one of the news magazines a while ago. Maybe you saw it? Anyway, he’s been querying publishers—or vice versa—and one bit on the bait.”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess, they’re looking for a ghost writer. ‘How I Became an Instant Guru.’ No, thanks.”
“Don’t be so negative, Adie. The way I get it, what they’ve agreed on is a sharp, straight, no-nonsense case history sort of thing. Taking a group and following it through therapy from beginning to end. Right up your sociopsychological alley, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Got a call from Sullivan-Hall this morning, checking to see if you might consider it. How do you feel about a year in sunny California?”
“The same way I’d feel about a year in hell.”
“Insular New Yorker.” His sigh over the phone was a long hissing. “Adie, think of all the poor pale scriveners who’d jump at a chance like this. You will, too,” he predicted, “when you hear the advance money Sullivan-Hall’s talking about.”
But there was a complication, she discovered when she traveled uptown to the publishing house. The miracle worker in California objected to collaborating with a woman writer.
“Baloney,” said her agent when Adrian reported back. “You’re one of the best, and Sullivan-Hall knows it, or they wouldn’t have pitched you to him already. Give them a few days to lean on him, and we’ll see what happens.”
“But isn’t that a little unrealistic? If he doesn’t want me, and they shove me down his throat…”
“Ah, come on, Adie, where’s that old Women’s Lib spirit?”
Where indeed, she wondered ruefully as she boarded a westbound flight at Kennedy International two days later. In her handbag was the copy of Newsweek which contained the article about Myrick. Adrian had meant to look it up in the library, but there hadn’t been time. Her sister had picked up the magazine at a bookstore specializing in back issues of periodicals—parting gift, Ellen said, bon voyage and all that. Adrian thumbed through the pages as the jet motors shrieked and the plane began to move. Morbidly certain that she was not only risking her life flying but also wasting her time on this wild-goose chase, she stared at the handsome smiling photograph. Dr. Stephen Myrick, the caption read, so it couldn’t be a mistake. Mesmerizing cure-all?
Until a year before, she read, Myrick had specialized in obesity cases, then by accident he had discovered the effectiveness of his hypnotic techniques on pill addicts.
God, Adrian thought, what have I got myself into? A two-bit Svengali to a lot of fat Trilbys. But now he’s found himself a new gimmick.
Her blood pressure soaring, she read on. No mention of academic background, which probably meant he had a cow-college degree. No word, either, about wife or family. Misogynist, hell, she thought savagely, more likely this undereducated overambitious phony is a screaming homosexual.
Her fury only increased by the stewardess’s offer of a wheelchair at Los Angeles International, Adrian headed for the reservation desk as soon as she disembarked. There was one seat available on a return flight the next afternoon at two o’clock. She told the ticket agent to book her, hearing her own name over the loudspeaker—“Please come to the information desk. Will Miss Adrian Crewes please—”
It was Stephen Myrick, there to meet her.
SIX
Nailing down Lotte Haas’s alibi took less than half an hour, for two neighbors were at the Gorman house kaffee-klatsching, and both swore they had seen the sisters watching television the night before. It was hot, remember, they agreed triumphantly, and the windows were open on both sides of the house. No mistaking the evidence of neighborly eyes.
“Christ, women,” Krug snarled as they crossed the sidewalk to the Mustang. “All this shit about liberation. Who needs to be liberated is the poor bastards those cows are married to!” But he calmed down as soon as the car doors were closed. “Nice and neat,” he commented, checking his watch. “She comes in, signs a statement, and that’s that. Too much to hope for, I guess, his girlfriend’ll be that easy.”
Zero to forty in four seconds flat, Casey burned rubber down Fourteenth Street. The floorboards creaked as Krug kept braking unconsciously. But when they stoppe
d for the light at Colorado, he relaxed again. Wetting his thumb repulsively, he leafed through Casey’s notebook, muttering, “Allman. Allman. Christ, you write like—Here it is. Mona Allman. Mrs. Allman. Divorcee, maybe?”
“Didn’t look that way in the phone book, Al. A Robert Allman is listed for the same phone number at the same address.”
“Well, isn’t that just great? Something new, a triangle. What’ll these nasty sexy types think of next?”
The Allmans lived in a sea-front, high-rise apartment complex which towered over Ocean Park on the southern edge of Santa Monica. A top-floor apartment, they discovered, one of the largest in the building. Several bedrooms and perhaps a den, Casey guessed, a number of baths and a huge sun deck high over the beach. Expensive living, no mistake about it. The tall, elegant, black houseman who opened the door confirmed his guess.
“Yes”—he eyed them coldly—“what is it?” His nostrils twitched as if he smelled something bad when Krug, after identifying himself and Casey, asked to speak to Mrs. Mona Allman. “Couldn’t you have arranged to telephone before coming?”
“No,” said Krug rudely. “And our business is important, George, so just tell her we’re here, okay?”
“The name is Merriweather, and I’m afraid I can’t oblige.”
“You mean she isn’t home?”
“Oh, yes, she’s home, but I’m afraid disturbing her is quite out of the question. Mrs. Allman always meditates in the morning.”
“She always what?” Timms barked when they reported back to the house on Palisades Avenue less than fifteen minutes later. “You pulling a gag of some kind?”
Krug’s explanation produced a rare laugh from the lieutenant. He agreed they could catch the meditating lady later.
The body was gone, Casey saw. McGregor had left also. But through the archway he spied the technician still patiently dabbing for latent prints.
“The secretary just got here. Miss Crewes.” Timms indicated the closed sliding door. “Said you asked her to meet you. I put her in there, she says it’s her office.” He lowered his voice. “Not much of a suspect, is she?”
The Complete Krug & Kellog Page 39
