Susannah Screaming (The Krug & Kellog Thriller Series Book 2)

by Carolyn Weston

  “Probably the same deal,” the younger agent said gloomily. “One huge shipment discounted to a syndicate. We’ll get hit with a blizzard of phony twenties some mob paid ten cents on the dollar for.”

  The Treasury agents left shortly afterward, followed by Lieutenant Timms. But Berger and Krug and Casey lingered on in the interrogation room, sipping coffee out of the vending machine which Krug, playing host, paid for. “From paperhanging to murder—that’s a pretty big jump, Harry.” Krug blew steam off his paper cup of sweetened brew. “And a hit like that, figures they got to be amateurs.”

  Berger nodded. “Panic time, like I said. Now all we got to look for is a nervous printer, right? Which means one out of about a million people. Every other block has a so-and-so press in the west district. I’m not even thinking beyond that. Christ, we’ll be till Doomsday checking ’em out!”

  “Don’t forget your pigeons’ve got fair warning, too,” Krug added. “Could be they’ll make a hurry-up deal.”

  “I know.” Berger looked despondent. “On the other hand, we could have a slight edge, too.” His sudden smile was ferocious. “After all, you’ve got that eyewitness. Some nice juicy bait. Maybe all we have to do is wait and see who comes pecking around him.”

  “But we can’t do that,” Casey protested. “If anything, we should provide Rees with protection.”

  Krug snorted. “You want to hear the biggest sob story in town, try that one on Timms.”

  He wasn’t wrong, Casey found when he did.

  “Sure, we can even hold him as a material witness,” the lieutenant agreed wearily. “So along comes his lawyer, screaming harassment of the innocents, and then what?” He was silent for a moment, studying the duty roster. “Can’t put a round-the-clock watch on him either. We’re strained to the limit as it is. Most we might do is a man at night. But even if anything happens, he’d have to watch out for himself daytimes.”

  “Then shouldn’t he be warned, sir?”

  “We risk losing him if we do.” Timms shook his head. “No, the best we can do for now is keep his name out of the papers. Keep track of him as best we can, see what happens. Chances are, if it doesn’t look too dangerous, they’ll lie low. The last thing they’ll fall for is any bait idea.”

  Krug grinned when Casey reported the conversation. “Better hope he’s right, hah?” He laughed at Casey’s expression. “Let’s get a query on Rees off to Frisco anyhow. The least we can do is find out who and what he is, now that Mr. Clean might be changing his name to Unlucky.”

  NINE

  The answer to their query to Washington Central Bureau was a disappointment—a terse statement attesting to the happy anonymity still enjoyed by citizens who manage to avoid entanglement with the law or subversive organizations. But their request for information regarding possible military service by the decedent was more rewarding. Gerald Hower Barrett had been inducted into the Army in 1968 from North Platte, Nebraska. As next of kin he had listed a mother, Mrs. Ada Taylor Barrett, also of North Platte, to whom he had assigned an allotment. No medals and one promotion signaled a mediocre soldier. Barrett had seen brief service in Vietnam. In 1972 he had received an honorable discharge.

  Timms put in a long-distance call to the chief of police of North Platte, talking only briefly. “Watch the teletype,” he said when he hung up. “Seems they pride themselves on fast cooperation with other forces.”

  Krug snorted. “Don’t hold your breath. I’ve waited for these prairie dudes to get out of their gopher holes before.”

  But North Platte answered in less than half an hour. “I don’t believe this,” Timms marveled. “It’s really the word! His mother’s an invalid. Hasn’t seen Barrett since he was shipped overseas. Looks like he’s kept in fairly close touch, though. Postcards, Christmas cards, an occasional letter.”

  “So what do we do,” Krug demanded, “about getting him identified?”

  “Don’t give up, Al. There’s a sister, it says here. They’re going to try to track her down right away. They’ll let us know how they make out in an hour or so.” Timms leaned back in his swivel chair, groaning softly, rubbing the nape of his neck. “So that’s that for now. Looks like all we’ve got in the way of a solid lead is that teenybopper. The one who was passing the phony twenties.”

  “Name, Maryanna Hawkins,” the Juvenile man, Abner Lilly, read off from his case file. “Called Yanna by her friends and family. She’s a student at Samohi. Pretty good grades, no trouble before. But that may change now,” he predicted moodily. “Nobody but Mommy and Daddy bought her story about finding the counterfeit money, but she stuck to it, so what could we do? Score one for her. We gave her the usual warning, and released her to her parents.”

  “Hope they tanned her butt for her.” Krug growled.

  “You’re kidding—in this age of the sacred child? They’re probably both at the nearest shrink right now, trying to find out how they failed their little darling.”

  “What’s her girlfriend’s name?” Casey inquired. “The one she went to the rock concert with?”

  “Elise Janoff.”

  “You talk to her at all?”

  “Not enough to get a real line on her,” Lilly admitted. “Shy type—or playing it that way. The Hawkins girl is obviously the dominant partner. But if you could scare the other one a little, work on her guilt, you might get something out of her.”

  “How about these Hawkinses,” Krug asked while Casey took down the addresses for both girls. “They nice-type people? Respectable citizens?”

  “Sure.” Lilly shrugged. “Only the kid’s got ’em buffaloed. You know the story. Sixteen years old, she knows all the answers, they got nothing to give her but the Establishment line.”

  “Another teenybopper philosopher.” Krug grunted. “Okay, we get ’em every day, Ab, no sweat.”

  “That’s what you think,” was Lilly’s parting shot. “After I got through with Yanna-baby, I felt like I’d been in a steambath!”

  The Hawkins house was in a quiet neighborhood not too far from where Casey lived. Two blocks away was Lincoln Junior High, but Santa Monica High School was miles to the south. She probably rode her bike there as he had, Casey guessed. Or caught a bus. Only the tenderer types were chauffeured by mothers made anxious by accident and crime statistics.

  “Nice hydrangeas,” Krug commented as they trudged up the walk, squinting in the late, low sun hanging over the distant invisible sea. “Mine’ve got some kind of infestation. Keep spraying ’em every week, but the damn bugs seem to like the stuff. Next thing I know they’ll be spitting it back at me.”

  Casey punched the doorbell and they listened to chimes inside.

  “Yes?” a voice called after a moment from somewhere. “I’m over here.” A pleasant-looking woman in her late thirties was peering around the corner of the building—a gardener, they saw; Yanna’s mother, she told them. “Oh, no,” she moaned when they identified themselves. “Not police again—”

  “No problem, Mrs. Hawkins,” Casey told her hastily. “We only want to talk to her for a minute.”

  “Well, she’s doing her homework now. At least, I hope she is. They’re so independent, aren’t they? I was never that independent Why, when my parents—Oh, never mind. This way.” She started down the driveway, pulling off her gardening gloves. “Excuse the back door, but the front’s locked. My husband always insists on it when he’s not home.”

  The kitchen was shiny-clean, Casey noticed as they followed her in, remodeled several years ago probably, color-schemed to match the bronzy appliances. Through an open door, he glimpsed a wide hall which had been made into a picture gallery. Prosperous, trendy, culture-hip, middle-class, the Hawkinses would be knowledgeable about wines, he guessed, music, the theater—everything, in fact, but their daughter.

  “Darling.” Mrs. Hawkins was tapping timidly on a door to what had been meant to serve as a maid’s quarters. From within came a squalling voice over pounding rock rhythm—the late Janis Joplin, Casey recog
nized. “Darling? Yanna?”

  “What is it?” a young voice called bitchily, and Krug glanced at Casey. Uh-hunh.

  “There’re some men here to see you, dear. Policemen.”

  Something banged inside. Then the music cut off. A second later, the door opened revealing a short girl with a huge mop of fuzzy golden hair.

  “Just a couple questions, Yanna,” Krug said, smoothly stepping around the mother. “Mind if we come in?” And once they were in, he smiled at Mrs. Hawkins, blocking her way in. “Only be a minute, ma’am.” He closed the door in her face.

  “So what’s the hassle?” Blue eyes shining, face pink, the girl glared at them. But it was halfway an act, Casey decided. Behind the sexpot stance—legs apart, hands on hips—something could be sensed that was still tender and capable of alarm.

  “Just take it easy, Yanna,” Krug was saying. “Nothing to be scared of.”

  “Who said I was scared, pig?”

  Ignoring her, Krug glanced around the room—a little study, apparently, with bookshelves, posters on the walls, a huge office desk taking up most of the floor space. “Nice,” he commented. “This your dad’s den?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing.” He smiled placidly. “How about if we sit down for a minute?”

  “I’ve got homework to do.”

  “Yeah, your mother told us. Time for finals, hah?” Krug twiddled with the dials on the small transistor radio sitting on the desk. “You always study with the music going?”

  “When I feel like it. Hey, man,” she protested as Krug seated himself at the desk, “I was sitting there!”

  Krug grinned, settling himself comfortably.

  “Shit,” she muttered. “Fuckin’ fuzz.” She dropped into a shabby armchair, curling her blue-jeaned legs under her—a sweet-sour dumpling, Casey thought as he chose a straight chair near the door.

  On the other side of the panel, he could hear the floor squeaking. Mrs. Hawkins was eavesdropping. The missing Mr. Hawkins was due for an earful.

  “Barrett,” Krug was saying. “Gerald Hower Barrett.” He hesitated, staring at the girl until she began to fidget. “You read about him in the Outlook this afternoon maybe? No? Sure?” He made a disapproving tch-tch sound. “Ought to read your local paper, keep up with what’s going on. Or maybe you didn’t even know your shack-up’s name?”

  The girl kept licking her lips—a nervous tic, Casey realized, but it looked enticing, lascivious. Her voice, when it came out at last, was too shrill, defensive: “What’re you talking about, pig? I don’t know anybody—”

  “He’s dead, Yanna. Somebody killed him.” Krug leaned toward the girl, his voice lowered clandestinely. “Let’s start at the beginning, okay? At that rock concert. And never mind what you told your folks, we want the truth, understand? Chapter and verse, Yanna. He picked you up at Santa Monica Civic—and then what?”

  TEN

  “If I had any kids,” he was fuming half an hour later, “I’d poison ’em, do the world a favor. Turn right here.”

  “It’s left, Al.” Casey made a screeching turn through the yellow warning signal, barely missing a car that had rushed the opposite traffic light.

  “Jesus!” Krug braked unconsciously in the passenger seat. One of these days, Casey knew, the floorboards would go through. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a menace on the road?”

  “Not in the last hour. Al, we’re not going to get anyplace trying to bully these kids.”

  “Bullshit. Pushing ’em is the only way we’ll nail ’em.” Raising his voice in a poor falsetto imitation of a girl’s, he said, “ ‘Man, we rapped with a lot of dudes. Practically everybody at Civic Saturday night!’ Who’s she think she’s kidding?”

  “Us, and so far she’s doing fine, I’d say.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that when we hit her girlfriend.”

  Glimpsing his partner’s angry, fiery face from the corner of his eye, Casey smiled to himself, recalling Abner Lilly’s comment that his session with Yanna had left him feeling like he’d been in a steambath. Krug looked as if he’d spent the week in one.

  “Don’t like witnesses who lie,” he was saying savagely. “And for damn sure I don’t like sassy little bitches making a fool out of me!”

  “I dig, Al. All I’m suggesting is we try another line.”

  “Like what, for instance?” Casey explained his idea, but Krug only grunted. But as they pulled up in front of the apartment building where Elise Janoff lived, he said grudgingly, “Okay, try it your way. But if it don’t work, I’m hauling both of ’em in. Maybe a night or two getting chased around by some baby dyke at Juvenile might straighten ’em out.”

  Elise would be back in perhaps ten minutes, the thin tiny old lady who opened the door of the Janoff apartment informed them. Would the gentlemen care to wait?

  Surprised at her lack of curiosity as to who they might be, Casey identified himself properly and said if she didn’t mind, yes, they’d like to wait. “This is my partner, Detective Sergeant Krug.”

  “So,” she murmured. “Policemen. Well, come in, please.” She showed them into a living room crammed with dark, heavy Old World furniture.

  “You’re a member of Elise’s family, ma’am?” Casey inquired.

  “Grandmother, yes.” Her heavy-lidded, weary eyes closed briefly. “Poor child, I am her only family. Imagine. So young and only an old foreigner to talk with. We are like creatures, I think, from two distant planets. But excuse me,” she went on briskly. “I have not said my name, or asked you to sit. I am Elisaveta Janoff. Her father’s mother. May he rest in peace.” She shook hands delicately, using her fingertips only, then gestured toward two massively carved thronelike chairs sitting by the large front window. “Please be comfortable. You will take refreshment?”

  “No thanks, ma’am,” Krug replied before Casey could. “We’ll just wait here if you’ve got something else to do.”

  The idea seemed to astonish Elisaveta Janoff, and she smiled uncertainly, obviously at a loss as to how to answer. “I bring tea,” she declared finally, and excusing herself, left the room.

  “ ‘Two distant planets,’ ” Krug muttered when an inner door had closed behind her. “She hit it on the button, all right. How d’you figure a kid like that other one fitting in here?”

  “Beyond me, Al.” Casey glanced around, savoring the atmosphere of another world. “Looks like a museum.”

  “Mausoleum, you mean.” Krug grinned at his own cleverness. “You want to change your mind about handling the questions and answers?”

  Casey was about to say no when the front door opened. They glimpsed a young female hand on the knob, heard a light clear voice crooning something, then a small dog like an animated ragheap trotted in and began barking shrilly.

  “Stop it—Oh!” Poised in the doorway, the small, dark, clever-looking girl stared in at them—surprised at first, Casey saw, then shocked, then frightened. But by the time she had closed the door, she had recovered herself.

  “You’re Elise Janoff, miss?” he inquired. “We’re police officers.” They both flashed their identifications. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  The dog kept growling at them, and she snatched it up, hugging it to her. “Stop it, Pupsi.” Casey saw her swallowing nervously. “I suppose—suppose you’ve been talking to my grandmother?”

  “Not yet,” said Krug, coming down hard on the last word. “And if you’re a smart girl, Elise, maybe we won’t have to.”

  Oh, great, Casey thought disgustedly. So after an opening punch like that I’m supposed to carry on with the friendly local fuzz bit? Trying to allay the girl’s nervousness, he began with a series of mild questions about her activities at Samohi, hobbies if any, friends both male and female in and out of high school. She didn’t make the mistake of leaving Yanna Hawkins off the list, and when Casey let the name go by without comment, she seemed encouraged enough to chatter a bit, mostly about her flute playing and the possibili
ty of a musical career later. Mozart was her favorite composer, she admitted.

  “Classical bag,” Casey commented to Krug. “No rock, no jive, no down home blues.”

  Elise giggled nervously, and they both looked at her, waiting. “We-ell,” she drawled, obviously imitating someone, “that’s a heavy scene, yeh, but it’s not all of it, man. There’s room for everybody.”

  “Like the Stones?” Casey suggested, and she nodded. Yes, the Rolling Stones were fine. “Like the Grateful Dead? Like—?” He kept naming rock groups, at last dropping the one that had played Saturday night at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. “Your friend Yanna likes them, too. She told us you stayed through four encores, and whooped it up for more till they finally had to turn out the lights.”

  “Yes, it was a good concert.” She was stiff now, abruptly reverting to Grandmother’s girl. “We enjoyed it very much.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Casey said gently. “And you’re a lousy liar, Elise. Better give up trying.”

  Her eyes darted toward the inner door her grandmother had gone through. “What—what do you mean?”

  “The man who picked up your girlfriend at the concert was murdered early this morning.”

  The girl’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.

  “His name was Gerald Barrett, and we’re sure his death has some connection with that money Yanna got from him.”

  “Don’t tell my grandmother,” she whispered. “Please don’t! She wouldn’t understand, you see. From the old country, and she—she—”

  Her voice broke suddenly and she began to cry in a quiet, hopeless, despairing way which tore at Casey. Despising himself, his rotten bullying job, he gritted his teeth. Without looking at Krug, he said, “Elise, we’re not here to torment you. Or Yanna either. But we’ve got to know the truth. You can’t protect her anymore, it’s gone beyond that now.”