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

by Carolyn Weston

  “It was a joke,” Rees said. “Somebody kept yelling it at the party. ‘Ooo-wow-you-scare-me.’ So I suppose Susannah—” his voice trailed off. The reality of death nullified humor. “How long are you going to keep me sitting here? I’m not charged with anything, so you can’t—”

  “Keep your shirt on, Mr. Rees, we’re not finished yet.” Krug eyed him calmly. “The manager at the Pelican told us you’re carrying a wad of dough. Like maybe a couple, three thousand or more? Says you squawked yesterday about somebody in your room, but you wouldn’t let him keep it in the safe for you.”

  Trying to conceal his shock, Rees forced himself to keep looking at Krug. He had not guessed that they would talk to the motel manager, too. With a skidding sensation that he was headed for disaster, he said casually, “It isn’t that much money. But after I noticed that my luggage had been searched—”

  “You had the money on you?”

  Either way he answered, Rees realized, the question was a trap. For if they had discovered the shoe box yesterday, he dared not lie. And if they hadn’t, the truth that the money was winnings from gambling would inevitably lead to the next question, Where? Stateline, Nevada. “If you mean,” he began carefully, “was anything taken—”

  “That wasn’t the question, Mr. Rees,” Casey interrupted. “The point is, if your room was searched and the money was there, that could suggest something about the thief.”

  “If there was a thief.” Krug grinned at Rees. “Maybe you’ve changed your mind about your room getting tossed?”

  “I haven’t changed my mind about anything, Sergeant. All I meant was, if nothing was stolen—”

  “Uh-hunh. Okay, Mr. Rees.” Krug leaned back, looking up at the high fluorescent tubes which filled the interrogation room with cold, bright, shadowless light. “Seems funny, an ex-con with a lot of dough. Don’t it seem funny to you, Casey?”

  “Mr. Rees is one of the lucky ones, I guess.”

  “That’s for sure. Most guys get out, all they got is the clothes on their back and twenty-five bucks.”

  One of the lucky ones, Rees thought hopelessly, listening to them. Even as winner, he was a loser. The bitter realization was bitterer still when he remembered his elation at that Tahoe dice table, his sudden foolish conviction as he had bet and won, kept doubling and winning, that some corner had been turned, that he was finally out of the darkness that had shrouded his life. Aware that both detectives were looking at him—waiting, he guessed, for some explanation as to why he was carrying such a sum—he told them that he had sold his house in San Francisco, his furniture, too. Yes, a good deal of cash was involved because furnishings were chattel and didn’t go through escrow. As he talked his fever soared, he couldn’t stop himself talking. And he knew that if they checked more than superficially, they would soon see the flaw in his apparent truthfulness.

  “Looks like you don’t believe in banks,” Krug said finally. “Didn’t your PO squawk when you told him you were leaving town with all that cash on you?”

  “No, he—Well, actually I didn’t tell him. He knew I was solvent, so we never bothered discussing money matters.”

  “Okay, Mr. Rees.” Abruptly, Krug stood up. “We’ll get started on your statement now. While you’re waiting to sign it you might as well make an identification for us. Kill two birds with one stone that way. Maybe save you another trip back here later.”

  SIXTEEN

  Slowly, disoriented, he followed sidewalks, passing the Sears store he had seen yesterday, crossing Colorado, continuing on Second, which, in this part of Santa Monica, seemed to be a backwater of garages, small repair shops and real estate offices. Traffic on the street seemed ominously slow, every vehicle a surveillance car tracking his movements. And the people he looked at through store windows appeared shadowy, furtive, contaminated by the same evil which had taken root in his life. Ordinariness was a lie, Rees realized now, a shallow one-dimensional illusion concealing a vast landscape of violence and terror. And no matter how he might long to believe otherwise, once having seen behind the lie, there was no return to innocence.

  At the corner of Broadway he paused, blinking dizzily in the hazy sunlight. The thing he had seen in the morgue swam monstrously behind his eyes—a heap of bloody flesh and broken bones with no head, no face. An inhuman thing, and they said it was Susannah. Couldn’t be. But it had her hands. It had her feet. In the center of his mind, she leaned blindly out the window. Screamed all the way down, Krug had said. Play it for giggles. Out and down. Screaming into oblivion.

  Stumbling, he stepped off the curb, bumping a pedestrian coming the other way—a middle-aged man who muttered furiously, “Drunk. Cops ought to get you bums off the street.” A jowly, outraged fatcat face.

  Hatred stirred in Rees like a puff of smoke out of a heap of ashes. These are our judges and protectors. Then the flicker of fury blew out, leaving a familiar empty hopelessness. Even the freedom to move on, to forget, was denied him.

  “You got a date tomorrow, don’t forget,” Krug had reminded him. “I guess you know if you leave this area without reporting to the Parole Authority you’re in violation?” And as Rees nodded he had smiled, saying softly, “Yeah, sure you do. Okay, be seeing you, Mr. Rees.” A promise. A threat. His mean man’s grin was the last thing Rees had seen as he had walked out.

  Susannah, what happened?

  Feeling hollow, light-headed, Rees turned west toward the glare of the sea, passing pawnshops, beer joints, forlorn-looking beaneries with hand-lettered signs in the windows advertising breakfast and lunch specials. Two winos sat sleeping on the bus-stop bench with their heads lolling back as if they had been half-decapitated. Shaking, Rees slid by them, stopping at the corner across from the park which skirted the palisades. He was only a couple of blocks from the motel now. Five minutes away. But the idea of returning filled him with dread. Not yet, he thought. Not ever, he meant. There was a bar at the corner and he went in.

  SEVENTEEN

  In the sheaf of overnight reports they had missed seeing earlier, Krug discovered a citizen complaint from the old man who had rented his garage to the deceased Barrett. “Don’t believe this,” he muttered. “ ‘Subject demands return of impounded Mercedes’? This guy’s got to be dingy! Better call him,” he advised Casey. “Old bastard probably figures he can sue us for something.” He would meet Casey downstairs in ten or fifteen minutes…

  “You fellas are really costing me some money,” the old man squawked. “I phoned there last night, but the dumbhead I talked to couldn’t give me any satisfaction.”

  “What was it you wanted, sir?” Casey inquired politely. “The Mercedes was legally impounded.”

  “Who says it was! I got no receipt or nothing, and here’s his brother calling me—”

  “When was this, sir?”

  “Got me out of bed last night. Said he was from out of town. Say, what happened to Hower? Way his brother was talking, sounded to me like he’s gone or something. Anyhow, this fella said he’d send me the rent.”

  “Did he mention his name? Where he was calling from?”

  Dead silence at the other end, but Casey heard asthmatic breathing. “Come to think of it, he didn’t say. Just asked me if he could leave the car for a while till he made arrangements.”

  “Did you tell him it was impounded?”

  “Why sure, I told him. ‘Call the cops,’ I says. ‘And while you’re at it, ask ’em how come they taken that car without getting my permission’—”

  “Brother, my ass,” Krug growled. “He’s pretty cute, hah? Murdering bastard. Figured his kill car was safe in the hidey hole. All he had to do was sit tight, pay the rent every month, we’d never find it.” He kept sucking his teeth while Casey drove north from Colorado on Ocean Avenue. Thin sunlight burned through the overcast, and the hills overlooking Malibu in the distance were slowly emerging—a herd of monsters sliding into the sea. “Amateurs, sport. Strictly. And it’s panic time.” Krug blew out his breath. “We got our work
cut out for us, that’s for sure.”

  He kept talking, but the words became a meaningless drone to Casey as he mentally picked over the enigmatic pieces. Not even a puzzle yet, he decided. And it could be coincidence. A hit-and-run. Then a suicide? A word from the Academy casebooks rolled sonorously through his mind: defenestration. By exact definition, a throwing out of a person or thing through, or by way of, a window. A window without a screen. But no sign of a struggle.

  Unbidden then came the thought that Susannah Roche had been the same age as Joey, and before he could suppress the quick sting of intense response, Casey’s breath caught painfully. Don’t associate, he reminded himself of Rule Number One. Any policeman who begins to connect what happens to victims with what might happen to loved ones—

  “Hey, for Chrissake,” Krug protested, “you’re passing the building!”

  Loved ones. Man, you’re overreacting, Casey told himself as he made a U-turn, pulling into the wide drive south of the high rise. Even a girl-freak like you can’t make one hamburger lunch and some sexy pipe dreams into a deathless romance. He stopped the Mustang just short of the huge wet stain where the ambulance crew had mopped up.

  “Do yourself a favor and get married, lover,” Krug, the mind reader, was saying. “Keep your mind on your work, hah? And speaking of that,” he added sourly when they had climbed out of the Mustang, “you better hit the manager here again. By now maybe he’ll have some bright ideas about that window screen.”

  But the manager couldn’t think about anything, Casey discovered, except upset tenants, the possibility of vacancies resulting from all those cops snooping around. “After all,” he said over and over, “this is a luxury building. People paying this kind of rent—” A broken record.

  “Got zilch,” Casey reported half an hour later when he joined Krug in 1005. “Buttons will please use the service elevator, et cetera. But I found out they’ve got a security guard here nights. An ex-cop named Cooley. Claims he was patrolling the basement at five this morning—the garage and so forth. No traffic in or out he knows about.”

  “That’s a big help.”

  McGregor, the lab technician, didn’t have any helpful news either, it seemed. “Better pull some rabbits out of your hats if you figure on locking this one up as anything but a question mark,” he advised them acidly. “For prima facie evidence, we got nothing so far. And brace yourselves, it could stay that way.” The lock hadn’t been tampered with, he told them, and it was a dead-bolt type. Without a hacksaw, only a pro could get in without a key.

  “Or somebody who walked in with her,” Krug corrected him. “Or somebody she let in.”

  “Or somebody who already had a key.” McGregor shrugged. “I take it you got a suspect?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “The manager claims there hasn’t been a window washer around for over a month,” Casey said. “So that screen’s something to think about, too.”

  “Possible.” McGregor nodded. “On the other hand, if you’re trying the crime-of-passion route, it don’t go so good with a guy who carefully gets the screen out of the way and hides it in the bedroom.”

  “Passion, for Chrissake,” Krug groaned.

  While they bickered amiably, Casey wandered into the kitchen, inspecting the dirty dishes in the sink—a coffee mug, the glass portion of a blender stained with a fruity-smelling concoction—yesterday’s diet breakfast, he guessed. Did Joey live like this? With an unconscious smile, Casey studied the lipstick stain on the rim of the mug, touching it lightly with one forefinger. Then shocked at himself—this girl was a corpse, after all—he replaced the mug in the sink. Keep your mind on your work.

  The refrigerator contained only some low-fat milk, a wedge of cheese, a bottle of apple juice guaranteed to be free of preservatives and pressed from the freshest organically grown fruit and a huge supply of drink mixers. On the tile drainboard lay a pair of heavy tinted spectacles with huge rims. Bug-eye shades, Casey thought. Essential equipment for your compleat mod. But when he tried them on idly, he had a visual shock, for the smoked lenses were prescription-ground and so strong that they literally blinded him. “Take a look at these, Al,” he called. No answer, and Casey peered around the kitchen door into the living room.

  “In there.” McGregor jerked a thumb toward the bedroom. “Getting his jollies with the undies, probably.”

  Krug had the louvered doors of a long shallow closet open, Casey discovered. “Get a load of this wardrobe. Spent her money on her back, that’s for sure.”

  The closet was filled with clothing, all neatly hung, winter things covered with plastic bags, shoes tidily racked, hats on stands lined up on the shelf overhead. But no black one trimmed with sequins, Casey noticed. Mentally circling it on the list in his mind, he poked among the hangers. “Wonder what happened to that raincoat she was wearing?”

  “John she was hoofing it home from probably came by and got it.”

  Casey showed him the sunglasses. “Remember Rees said she couldn’t see very well. If these were hers, we’ve got our answer why her description of the car was completely off.”

  But Krug wasn’t interested; he kept poking in bureau drawers. “Bound to be an address book here somewhere. All these classy hookers carry ’em. Take a look in the other room.”

  Casey found his way blocked by Harry Berger, who was lounging in the doorway, hands in his pockets, an I-told-you-so grin creasing his fattish face. “Nice kettle of gefülte fish, right? One witness down, one to go. I told you those pigeons might be headed for our pot.”

  “Listen to the guy.” Krug sighed. “Gets his exercise jumping to conclusions. Harry, we got nothing yet says this is homicide. Turns out she was halfway blind, maybe. Could be she was fooling with the window—”

  “You trying to tell me it’s coincidence?” Berger looked outraged. “Even a blind man could see the same pattern here,” he snarled. A trumped-up accident. Strictly amateur stuff. “You mamzer.” He kept glaring at Krug after they told him about the old man’s complaint last night. “For sure that was the killer! And his next stop was here. Should’ve kept her name out of the papers.” He puffed out an indignant breath. “This dreck case, how much wilder is it going to get? And time’s running out. They’ve had seven months—give or take a couple for setting up shop. According to the feds, that’s more than enough time to manufacture a truckload of those phony twenties.”

  “Your worry,” Krug grunted. “Not ours.”

  “You mean you hope it is. How about your other witness, Al? You got some protection out for him?”

  “For my dough, he’s our prime suspect. An ex-con carrying heavy sugar, and he spends last night romancing her?”

  Berger looked even more unhappy. “All I’m hoping is you’re wrong, and he’s innocent as the well-known newborn. Because if he is—well, you figure it. Sooner or later our paperhanging tigers’ll come hunting him, too.”

  “Lambs, tigers, some zoo,” Lieutenant Timms snorted when they reported in later. “He’s as bad as the feds. Set their mothers up probably, if it’d help ’em make a bust. On the other hand, he’s right. If Rees isn’t involved—Well, let’s check the money angle before we start worrying.” He reached for the phone on his desk. “Get me San Francisco Parole Authority,” he said into the receiver. “Person-to-person call to Jake Stevens.”

  While they waited to hear, Casey began typing a report in triplicate, an unwilling audience to Krug’s call home to continue what appeared to be a permanent and insoluble argument with his wife about painting their house. Quite obviously Mrs. K was as tough as her husband and equally stubborn. A case of the rock meeting the hard place, Casey thought. Amazing. Some truth perhaps in his mother’s old gag about marriages being made in heaven? “All right,” Timms’s parade-ground boom jolted him. “Got your money answer, you guys.”

  Krug hung up on his wife and Casey abandoned his typewriter. “Lay you ten to one it’s a bummer,” Krug muttered as they crossed the squad room to Timms�
��s corner desk. Good old Uncle Al, sniffs the air, divines answers.

  “According to Stevens, he’s solvent, all right,” Timms told them. “But his money’s still in San Francisco. Stevens checked while I was still on the line—he’s got a buddy in some bank there, so it was easy. Seems Rees only drew out five hundred bucks to travel on, so if he’s got any more than that in his possession, you’ll have to try to make him account for it.”