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

by Carolyn Weston

  “No, just a routine inquiry. You happen to know any names of anybody who works there—like a waiter, maybe?”

  “You got to be—Hey, wait a minute. Come to think of it, one of the girls here…” His voice faded away and distantly Casey heard him calling to someone named Hetty or Letty. Then there was a long wait while they gabbled, their voices incomprehensible, mixed with the clack of typewriters, phones ringing, office racket. Startlingly loud, someone breathed in his ear, saying, softly, “Yeah. Okay, love-face, I’ll get back to you later. You still there, Santa Monica?”

  “Still here, love-face.”

  The deputy laughed. “You weren’t supposed to hear that. Okay, a clerk here in the office has this brother works there part time. You want to talk to him, I got the address and phone number…”

  Since they would be passing the waiter’s home on their way back to Santa Monica—the address was approximately two miles south of there—Casey didn’t bother calling first. Krug whistled appreciatively as they pulled up before what looked to be a modern and expensive condominium on the beach side of the highway ten minutes later. “Pretty fancy for a waiter. Hustling tables must be good these days.”

  A gray-haired, rather pretty woman wearing a wildly patterned muumuu answered the door. That they were policemen did not seem to bother her at all. “Charley’s having a swim,” she told them cheerfully. “But he won’t be long. Says the water freezes his you-know-whats. Just have a seat, and I’ll pour you—”

  “No, thanks, ma’am,” Krug refused hastily. “We’ll just leave a card. Your son can call us when he—”

  “Oh no you don’t,” she cried gaily. “You’re not getting away from here without telling me what this’s about. He won’t, that’s for sure!” The idea seemed to amuse her. “Now you just sit down over there and tell Mama everything.”

  “Ma’am, we’re short of time—”

  “Now, you stop that!” She waggled an admonishing finger under Krug’s nose. “You be nice or I’ll write one of my nasty letters, and then you’ll be sorry!”

  Greek meets Greek, Casey kept thinking as they chose chairs and she served them coffee after they refused beer. Krug’s wife was perhaps one of these steam-roller ladies? Part-extortionist, part-flirt; Circes, Cassandras, and sometimes, sadly, Medeas—

  “Well, no wonder you didn’t find anybody there,” she was saying in answer to Krug’s inquiry about the restaurant. “They’re probably running all over town trying to find a range.”

  “A range, ma’am?”

  “Stove. You know. Can’t cook on just anything at a restaurant. You’ve got to have professional equipment…”

  Someone she called Freddy had phoned early this afternoon, she told them, informing Charley, her son, that the stove had blown up; they’d be forced to close down the dining part of the restaurant this evening. Charley had been terribly disappointed, of course. He simply loved his work there. So many interesting people. And all so witty. Charley said it was Freddy who drew the crowd. A lot of show-business people—

  “That’s very interesting,” Casey interrupted—acting as safety valve, since Krug looked ready to explode. “But what we’re really inquiring about is a couple that had dinner there last night. A routine matter.” He stood up. “So if you’ll have your son call—”

  “Isn’t he nervous,” she said to Krug. “Something about your work, I suppose? Anyway,” she went on cozily, “about Freddy. He’s just been wonderful to my boy. So kind. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, either. Such a—well, you know how they can be. Snippy sometimes. Nasty. But not Freddy. I’ve got some pictures here—they’re in Charley’s room. He gave them to Charley a while ago. Simply gorgeous things! You wouldn’t guess in a million years it was a man. He used to perform in San Francisco. As a—what d’you call it when they dress up like women? Anyway, his wardrobe alone cost him thousands, he told Charley.”

  “Women,” Krug groaned when they had finally escaped. “A fag son with pinups of some drag queen in his room—and what’s her reaction? She drools over ’em, too!”

  “You think that restaurant’s a homosexual hangout, Al?”

  “Got to be.”

  Casey started the Mustang. “Why do you suppose Rees took her to a place like that?”

  “Maybe she took him.” Krug sucked in his breath as they gunned into the southbound coastal traffic which was fast-moving now. “Christ, I keep riding with you, for sure I’ll never live to collect my pension! What’s the big rush?”

  “Heavy evening, Al. I’ve got to check out in an hour, or I’m in trouble.”

  “Better get on the phone, then,” Krug advised callously. “We got a lot of territory to cover yet.”

  Casey’s heart sank. Good old Uncle Al, mentor and tormentor. Knowing from experience that argument would be useless, he tried suggestion instead: “After we check Rees again, that’s it, isn’t it, Al? Nothing left to cover that night tour can’t handle.”

  But Krug only grunted. His mind was obviously elsewhere. “Before we hit Rees, let’s swing by and pick up his suitcases from the lab. Try it roundabout this time.” Now he was smiling, Casey noticed. Your friendly neighborhood bloodhound. “Even the smartest crook’s got to fumble it sooner or later—right, sport? They all do. So maybe this is the time for Rees, hah?”

  TWENTY

  In his shallow sleep, he heard the car pulling into the courtyard, and the dream he had dreamed almost continuously in prison started unreeling again: rain falling, and his headlights picking out quicksilver drops; Ellen beside him with the letter in her hand, smiling, pointing across the street at a mailbox. No, don’t bother to turn around, I’ll just run across—

  Car doors slammed, echoing the same sound in his dream, and he jerked awake, the cold sweat of apprehension like grease on his skin. I’ll just run across. He could still hear her footsteps. Then he realized these were real ones, scrape-scraping across the asphalt paving. Coming here? Rees looked for the time, saw he had slept away the afternoon. It was almost five.

  The knocking on his door was surprisingly quiet. Maybe not Krug after all? But no one else would be coming here—

  “Mr. Rees?”

  His heart clenched. “Just a minute.” The plastic bag containing pieces of the shoe-box lid was still sitting on the floor of his car.

  “About those suitcases,” Krug said by way of greeting. “Seems like your snoop didn’t leave any prints, Mr. Rees. Thought we’d check back, see if you had any ideas.”

  Rees looked from one to the other, trying to fathom their purpose. “You’ve impounded my bags?”

  “Nah, they’re in the car. You want to get ’em, Casey?”

  The younger one nodded. “Only take a second.” He headed for the Mustang, which was parked near Rees’s door.

  “You look hot,” Krug commented. “Been exercising, Mr. Rees?”

  “No, I was asleep.”

  “Bad dreams, hah?”

  “Is that an official question, Sergeant?”

  Krug’s eyes froze. “Don’t push it—”

  “Here we are. Excuse me, Mr. Rees.” Casey set the two bags just inside the door, resting the shaving kit on top of them. Then they both stepped in without invitation, and Krug closed the door—another question-and-answer session, Rees realized. Subject, the money again. Where had it really come from? Why was he carrying so much? According to their report from San Francisco—

  “For God’s sake,” he groaned, “I’m not a criminal! Don’t you know that by now? If you don’t, you should.”

  “Then you won’t mind telling us where you got it, right?”

  “Wrong, Sergeant, it’s none of your business.” Had the young one spotted the plastic bag in his car? Not enough time to inspect it, though. And if he didn’t antagonize them—“All right,” he said, “I won it gambling. In a—a poker game.” He slumped onto the foot of the bed. On one beefy haunch, Krug perched on the corner of a combination desk and dressing table with a mirror hanging over it. Ca
sey took the only chair, which sat in a corner. He had his notebook out. “Fresno, I think it was,” Rees elaborated, realizing as he spoke that he should have waited for them to ask. “I met some salesmen in a bar and we got together later.”

  “Like in a motel, maybe?”

  “Yes. But I can’t remember the name.” He swallowed cottony dryness, despising himself for his lies, his fear of them, the unmanning sense of being their victim. The motel was a newish place on the highway, he told them. No, he didn’t remember any names of the men he had played with, or mention of companies they had worked for—

  “Well, maybe you’ll think of them later,” Casey said soothingly. “Incidentally, we’ve run across a little discrepancy, Mr. Rees. Just a detail about how you said Miss Roche was dressed. Haven’t been able to locate that black hat—”

  “I don’t know anything,” Rees began violently, then stopped himself. “She picked it up at the party, that’s all I know. If you’ll check with the Godwins—”

  “Who?” Krug said.

  Casey consulted his notebook. “This morning you said the name was Jervis.”

  “It’s on their postbox. E and J Godwin. J for Jervis. I suppose,” he added lamely.

  There was a short silence then, terrifying to Rees because it was obvious they weren’t through with him yet. Casey finally asked how long he had stayed in Fresno, and he thought, God, back to that again. Just the one night, he answered, then it was Krug’s turn again. How many hours would Rees guess it had taken him to drive the distance from Frisco to Fresno? Recognizing a trick question, he realized they must know when he had left San Francisco, so he answered simply—the truth this time—he had not driven straight through. No, he couldn’t name exactly where he had stopped. Near Monterey one night. An inland town near the mountain another night—

  “You got a short memory,” Krug cut him off. “But maybe it’ll get better about the last couple of days?” Holding one knee, he rocked himself backward, banging the mirror slightly, and their images in it shimmered, distorting like water reflections. “This date you had last night, for instance. What’d you talk about, Mr. Rees? All those hours you must’ve rapped about something besides the weather. Like her career, maybe?” His tone made it a joke. “Or the story of your life? Or something like your impressions of the slammer? Or maybe what a lousy place this is compared to sophisticated San Francisco?”

  Rees gritted his teeth. Bastard. Bullyboy. “I’m afraid I don’t recall anything specific, Sergeant. As you said, it was a long evening.”

  “Yeah, but you had something in common. Stands to reason—”

  “If you mean the hit-and-run, Miss Roche didn’t want to discuss it.”

  “Yeah, I bet Miss Roche didn’t.” His smile was mean. “Too nasty to bring up while you’re having yourselves such a nice time, hah? She happened to mention how long she’d known Barrett?”

  Rees stared at him, speechless.

  “The guy on the motorcycle, remember? Gerald Hower Barrett. Turns out he was her boyfriend.”

  “You’re crazy—she no more knew him than I did!”

  “Well, that’s another question, isn’t it?” Krug was still smiling. “The sixty-four-dollar one, right, Mr. Rees? And you can bet your bottom dollar, we’ll have the answer—and soon.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  They kept asking questions, which he answered without calculation, sheathed now in shock, numbness, incomprehension. And when they walked out finally, leaving him slumped on the foot of the bed, Rees could not recall what else had been said. He listened to the Mustang start up and pull slowly out of the asphalt-paved motel courtyard. Petty worries kept surfacing in his consciousness: he must settle his room rent for the night; it was long past the posted checkout time. Sometime this evening he should investigate the complicated downtown Los Angeles freeway system because he had no idea how to reach the Parole Authority. His appointment was for nine sharp tomorrow morning.

  Krug’s grin seemed printed on the stale joyless dusk in his room. She tell you how long she’d known Barrett? He groaned aloud. Turns out he was her boyfriend. Nausea coiling like a serpent in him, he saw her clearly: Susannah laughing. Play it for giggles. Susannah giggling. Ooo-wow-you-scare-me. Susannah clamped to him like a fiery limpet. What you can’t see can only kill you.

  But the fact of her death was far away now.

  He showered quickly, shaved and dressed in fresh clothing. The evening air outside was cool, he found, smelling of the sea and sprinkled lawns in the park across the way. By the door of the motel office, three newspaper-vending machines were chained to the wall, and headlines inside one caught his eye: actress plunges to death. The newspaper was local—the Evening Outlook—and as he inserted a dime in the slot, opening the lid of the vendor, Rees saw a subheading in smaller caps which stated that the deceased had figured as a witness in another death.

  Her boyfriend’s.

  A spasm like laughter choking him, he pushed open the Plexiglas door of the motel office, and eyes watering, smiled stiffly at the woman standing behind the desk counter. “I’m in Number Eleven. Almost forgot to pay you for tonight.”

  “Oh, yes. Mr. Rees.” Her expression was faintly disapproving. “That trouble you had this morning all straightened out now?”

  The irony was unintentional, he knew, but the knowledge did not allay the bitterness seething in him.

  “Let’s see, that’s fourteen-fifty. Out of twenty?”

  Boyfriend, he kept thinking while she handed him the change. Boyfriend. She said something about his car which he missed in his abstraction, and oblivious to her pleasant comment to have a nice evening, he walked out again, the rolled newspaper like a club in his hand.

  After leaving the Pelican Motel, they had dropped down off the palisades by way of a steep street locally called the California Incline. And on the Coast Highway shortly afterward, they had located the mailbox Rees had described: E & J Godwin. Casey parked as near as he was able in the congested area, and they walked back to the house—another waste of time, as they soon discovered, for the Godwins were either not at home or not answering.

  “Could be they’re out on the beach,” Krug said. “Let’s try the neighbors, maybe they can spot ’em for us.”

  There was no answer at the adjacent house north. But at the weathered shingle-sided bungalow to the south, a boy about ten wearing a Mickey Mouse beanie opened the door. A round ill-defined Jack o’ lantern face. Krug sighed audibly. No mistaking that the boy was retarded. “We’re looking for the people next door,” he said slowly and distinctly. “The Godwins? Thought maybe you might’ve seen ’em on the beach this evening.”

  The boy shook his head.

  “You know what they look like?” Casey asked, getting a grimace for reply. “Maybe your mother does,” he suggested. “You want to tell her—?”

  “Bobby, who is it?” A worn-looking homely woman wearing a terrycloth robe peered out at them. “Oh, police,” she sighed when Casey identified himself, repeating that they’d been trying to reach her neighbors—a routine matter, but they needed to talk to them. “Listen, the only thing I know is they’re a menace. I mean, people their age trying to be swingers, it’s ridiculous! And that house, you should see it inside. Like a regular freak show! And those parties, my God, they never—” She stopped abruptly. “Listen, if it’s about what goes on there, I don’t want to be involved. I mean, we moved here thinking it’d be good for Bobby to run on the beach. Never had any idea we’d be living next to—”

  “When was the last time you saw them?” Krug interrupted.

  “This morning. After their stupid party finally broke up.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Well, early.” She ran a nervous hand through her brittle-looking, badly bleached hair. “About seven, maybe. I was getting breakfast, and I could see her over there cleaning up the patio. Probably hadn’t even been to bed yet. Parading around in that orange caftan that makes her look like a pregnant cow. And they were
fighting. She kept yelling at him—”

  “But you didn’t see them leave?”

  “Listen, I’m not that interested! Anyway, we’ve been gone most of the day. Took Bobby to Disneyland—”

  They got her name, which was Killigrew. She spelled it carefully, then warned them again that she didn’t intend to be involved in any trouble. Anyway, she knew nothing about the Godwins. One look at that house had been enough to convince her that even ordinary neighborliness would be out of the question.

  “Love thy whatchamacallit,” Krug muttered when she had slammed the door. “Looks like Rees’s party story was kosher. So why was he so cute about the name this morning?” He blew out his breath. “Ah, the hell with it, let’s leave a note for the swingers. If that don’t work, we’ll get Smitty to keep calling ’em till he raises somebody.”

  Whatever the police knew they were keeping it to themselves. Rees wadded up the newsprint he had read and reread until he had almost memorized it, pitching it across the room. What you can’t see, her voice kept chanting in his mind. Her smile, shimmering like fox-fire, revealed shapeless shadows in the swamp of his memory: fleeting impressions which had a plaguing, frightening mysteriousness now. He had been used last night for some purpose unknown to him.

  If only he knew why, Rees thought wildly. Something about the hat? But perhaps checking how she was dressed was only police routine. So is hassling me. An ex-con, after all.

  Krug’s mean man’s grin burned behind his eyes. That’s another question, isn’t it? Feeling the ache of pressure mounting in him, Rees tried to relax, stretching, shuddering as he yawned and yawned like a nervous animal. Susannah and Barrett. What in God’s name was he involved in? Barrett and Susannah. The detectives would head now for the beach house. But people like the Godwins won’t welcome police.

  But they’ll talk to me, he thought as he left the motel. They have to now.