Killing the Goose

by Frances

  “Central Park,” Weigand said. “Where you left Elliot. With a bullet in him.”

  Pierson said he didn’t know what Weigand was talking about. He said he thought Weigand had gone crazy.

  “Right,” Weigand said. “I’ll tell you about it, Pierson. Yesterday evening—about six, say—we thought you were in your apartment. But you weren’t. You went out the service elevator and met Elliot somewhere and he threatened to turn you in and you killed him. You still thought you could kill your way out of it.”

  “No,” Pierson said. He said it heavily and matter-of-factly, as he had been saying it all night. “I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t kill Ann or Miss McCalley or the Pennock woman or anybody.—Not Elliot, if he’s been killed.”

  “You killed Ann because you had been robbing her,” Weigand said patiently, as he had been saying, in one way or another, most of the night. “You tried to get her to marry you to cover it up and she laughed at you and said she was going to the police. So you blew up and killed her. With a poker. You hadn’t meant to when you went there.”

  “No,” Pierson said, still sulky. “I didn’t touch her. She was alive when I left.”

  “With your cigarette case,” Weigand said. “With that famous cigarette case you went back after.”

  “There wasn’t any cigarette case,” Pierson said. “I went back to—to talk to her. To explain that she misunderstood the whole thing.”

  “What thing?” Weigand said.

  “About the money,” Pierson said. “She thought the same way you do. But it wasn’t true.”

  “Hell,” Weigand said. “Quit lying, Pierson.”

  Pierson said nothing at all.

  “So,” Weigand said, “you killed Ann Lawrence. And then Frances McCalley found out about it and you had to kill her, too. I don’t know how she found out. Maybe she was there. She was supposed to be there, according to Martinelli.”

  “There wasn’t anybody there,” Pierson said. “I didn’t kill anybody. I talked to Ann for a few minutes—about fifteen minutes—and went out. I didn’t see this Martinelli. I didn’t see Miss McCalley.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Maybe it wasn’t that way. Maybe she wasn’t there—the McCalley girl. Maybe she just knew you had been stealing from Miss Lawrence. Or maybe you just thought she knew. And you thought she would tell the police after Ann was killed and that when they knew about the thefts they would find out about the murder. So you decided to kill her.”

  “No,” Pierson said. “No. She didn’t know about the—”

  He broke off.

  “About the money,” Weigand finished for him. “But there was something to know about the money. You admit that.”

  Again it wasn’t a question.

  “I don’t admit a damn thing,” Pierson said. “Not a damn thing. About the money or anything else.”

  Weigand said that, in Pierson’s place, he wouldn’t admit anything either. He said he would go on whistling in the dark. He said he’d make them prove it. He said Pierson’s attitude was very understandable. He said it wasn’t going to do Pierson a damned bit of good.

  “Because,” Weigand said, “we’ve got you, Pierson. You killed Ann and then the other girl. Mrs. Pennock knew you were at the house; she guessed you had killed Ann; she tried to get money out of you. So you killed her. While she was telephoning.”

  “Sure,” Pierson said, with more life in his voice. “I killed her while I was talking to her on the telephone.”

  Pierson, even after a night of it, had his wits about him. He saw the catch there.

  “I didn’t say she was telephoning to you,” Weigand said. “She could have been telephoning to—anybody. You followed her and killed her because she had already threatened you. That afternoon.”

  “She never threatened me,” Pierson said. “She didn’t have anything on me. You haven’t got anything on me. I didn’t kill anybody.” He looked up for the first time.

  “Hell,” he said, “even your way it doesn’t make sense. Suppose my handling of the Lawrence account could be twisted into something. I don’t admit it could, but suppose it could. I stood to go to jail. For a few years. And I had the money. Would I kill anybody to keep out of jail?”

  “You didn’t plan to kill, the first time,” Weigand said. “She laughed at you and you lost your head. After that, it wasn’t just going to jail for larceny. After that it was going up for murder.”

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” Pierson said. “I can keep on saying it as long as you can take it, Lieutenant. I didn’t kill anybody.”

  Weigand seemed not to have heard him.

  “Mrs. Pennock made three,” he said. “She had threatened you on the telephone the day Miss Lawrence’s body was found. You thought it over and decided to kill her, too. So yesterday you followed her and stabbed her in the telephone booth. That made three.”

  “Go ahead,” Pierson said, wearily. “Go ahead.”

  “Then you went back to your office,” Weigand said, “and found out that we had auditors in. You left early and had a drink on the way and went home. Then Elliot got in touch with you. By telephone, I suppose. You found out that he knew something too—probably, for one thing, he knew about the thefts. Probably Ann had told him. So you made an appointment to meet him somewhere—maybe at his apartment. And you killed him and took his body and left it in the Park and went back to your apartment. You went through the service entrance again and up on the service elevator and after half an hour or so you came out the front and went to dinner. You’d had quite a day. Were you hungry, Pierson?”

  Pierson looked at him.

  “As a matter of fact,” Weigand said, “you weren’t hungry. I’ll give you that, Pierson. You didn’t have much appetite, for a man your size. You had an omelet and ate about half of it. After three drinks.”

  “You know,” Pierson said, “I’ll bet you could prove that, Lieutenant. I’ll bet that’s one thing you can prove. I’ll bet you can prove what kind of cocktails I had.”

  “Manhattans,” Weigand said.

  “You’re marvelous, Lieutenant,” Pierson said. “The efficiency of the police. Wonderful. And I suppose you think you can hang me because I had three manhattans, don’t you?”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “I’m glad we amuse you, Pierson. We won’t for long.”

  Pierson looked at him, and when he spoke his voice was not so tired.

  “Want to bet on that, Lieutenant?” he said. “Want to bet you won’t look funny as hell if you try to hang any of this on me?”

  “You bet and I’ll bet,” Weigand said. “If you lose, I’ll see you in the chair.” His voice was tired and harsh. He motioned to Mullins, and Mullins turned Pierson over to the guards. Pierson went out looking tired, but he tried to square his shoulders as he went through the door. Mullins looked after him and said he was putting on a good bluff.

  “I hope so,” Weigand said. “I hope that’s it.”

  Mullins waited for further comment, got none, and finally said it looked all right to him. Weigand smiled faintly. He said that part of it was almost certainly all right.

  “After the start,” he said, “it’s fine. It fits Pierson fine—if he killed Ann Lawrence. It also fits, with a little trimming here and there, anybody else who killed Ann Lawrence.”

  “Well,” Mullins pointed out, “Pierson had a motive. He was there. He could have killed the others—it all fits pretty good, seems to me.”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “Motive, opportunity, means. It fits fine. It also fits Martinelli, Up to last night, around six o’clock, it fitted Elliot. It fits the Harper girl—what’s her name.”

  “Cleo,” Mullins said. “Cleo Harper.” He paused. “Listen,” he said. “Maybe Elliot did kill the others. And then shot himself.”

  “And then,” Weigand pointed out, “swallowed the gun he’d shot himself with.”

  “Well,” Mullins said, “maybe—”

  The telephone cut him off. Weigand listened, said “Right
” and looked at Mullins oddly after he had hung up.

  “Maybe, as you were about to say, the gun was around somewhere in the snow. And sure enough it was, Mullins. Sunk down in a pile they left when they cleaned the drive. Not too far for Elliot to have thrown it, convulsively, after he shot himself. And, to get it around there, he couldn’t have held it normally, so it’s an even chance it would have slipped out of his hand. There’s even a chance he lived long enough to throw it deliberately. Brain wounds are funny, sometimes.”

  Mullins thought it over.

  “Hell,” he said, “we don’t get anywhere unless we stick to Pierson. What you say we stick to Pierson, Loot?”

  “Right,” Weigand said. “If we can, Mullins. Pierson is fine with me—if we can stick to him.”

  Pamela North thought it over during the night and in the morning told Jerry she hadn’t closed her eyes.

  “Darling,” Jerry said. “Really, darling.”

  “Well,” Pam said, “not for more than a minute or two, or maybe an hour. Because the more I think of it the funnier it seems.”

  “The more I think of it the funnier it seems too,” Jerry said, finishing his coffee and holding out his cup. “An hour indeed.”

  “I don’t see,” Pam said, filling the cup, “how it is you always know how much I sleep. Do you stay awake and watch me, or what? Or do I snore?”

  “Well,” Jerry said, “you breathe differently. Everyone does. And usually I don’t go to sleep until I hear you.”

  Pam looked at him with interest and said, “Why?”

  “I don’t honestly know,” Jerry said. “It just seems—safer, I guess. And partly it’s because if I don’t go to sleep until after you do, you won’t wake me up by suddenly thinking of something. It just seems to work out better.”

  “Actually,” Pam said, “you usually go to sleep before I do. You go to sleep almost at once, really.”

  Jerry looked faintly indignant.

  “Almost never,” he said. “It usually takes me hours. Or half an hour, anyway. I never could just lie down and go to sleep. I know what you mean, but I can’t do it.”

  “I don’t mean anything,” Pam said. “Except that you do go to sleep almost right away. I think it’s lovely, really.”

  “You think it’s bovine,” Jerry told her.

  Pam denied this. And, anyway, it was more feline than bovine. Cats could, instantly, and nobody ever said cats were bovine. There was a tremendous difference.

  “I’ll say there is,” Jerry said. “Who ever said there wasn’t?”

  Pam finished her egg and then said she didn’t know how they got into this.

  “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I never know how we get into any of them, do you? I merely said I woke up now and then and wondered about Mr. Beck.”

  She hadn’t, Jerry pointed out, said anything of the kind. She said she had been awake all night and she had not mentioned Mr. Beck.

  “Didn’t I, dear?” she said. “I thought I did. Because I think he’s been stolen. I’m almost sure of it.”

  “Stolen?” Jerry North repeated, in a strange voice. “Stolen? Mr. Beck? Why—he was right there. Last night. What do you mean, stolen?”

  “Just stolen,” Mrs. North said. “Kidnapped, if you like it better. I think he’s been—” She broke off.

  “I’m going to call Bill right away,” she said, “because if he has been we ought to do something.”

  Jerry said he didn’t get it. Any of it.

  “And furthermore,” he said, “I don’t see why anything has to be done about it if he has been. I think it would be fine if Mr. Beck were stolen.”

  “Well,” Pam said, “you don’t really think that. And I really think he’s been stolen. That’s the difference. So I’m going to call Bill.”

  “I,” Jerry said, “am going to listen to the eight-thirty news. So if you want to telephone, you’d better go into the study.”

  Pam started and then decided she would listen to the news first. It was eleven-thirty on their dial and eight-thirty on their clock, and time for the latest up-to-the-minute news from the news room of the Daily News, New York’s picture newspaper.

  “They certainly get news into it,” Pam commented. Jerry said “shush!” and listened. He heard the war news and was about to turn the radio off when the announcer continued:

  “Meanwhile,” he said, making a looping connective, “right here in New York, the police finally found the long missing John Elliot, wanted for questioning in connection with the poker-murder of pretty Ann Lawrence in her private house in the exclusive Gramercy Park area. They found him under a hedge in Central Park, shot through the back of the head. The police believe it may have been suicide, but are at a loss to account for the nature of the wound and the absence of the death weapon. And that brings us to the oddity of the day. It seems that Mr. Leo Kennelworth, of the East New York Kennelworths, woke up this morning and—”

  The Norths did not discover the oddity which had befallen Mr. Kennelworth, or even how the announcer for the Daily News had been reminded of it by the fate of John Elliot. Jerry snapped the radio off automatically. The Norths sat a moment and looked at each other. Then Jerry spoke, and his voice was quiet.

  “If you have any theories, Pam,” he said. “Any theories at all, no matter how—odd—you’d better call Bill. You’d better call him now.”

  Pam picked up the telephone and nodded slowly instead of answering. She heard Bill Weigand’s tired voice after a moment and her own was as somber as her voice could easily become. She had meant to tell him her theory on the telephone, but when she heard his voice she had another idea. She said she had something to tell him—something important to tell him.

  “And you’re tired,” she said, “and maybe I shouldn’t tell it on the telephone anyway. Have you had breakfast?”

  “I don’t know,” Bill said. “I think—I had some coffee around four and some more, I think, a little while ago. I’ve been—busy, Pam.”

  “We just heard it,” Pam said. “About John Elliot. And I’ve got an idea. So why don’t you come over and have breakfast?”

  There was a pause while Bill thought of it, and then sudden decision.

  “I don’t know any reason,” he said. “We’re taking Pierson to magistrate’s court at ten and I’m going to be there. And after that, the D.A. wants to take it to the Grand Jury immediately. It’s—it’s that kind of a case. And I talked to Dorian about four and I think I persuaded her I was all right and that she should go back to sleep. So—”

  It took him only about ten minutes. Pam waited—and Jerry waited too, and then went to the study and told his office he would be late, and returned and waited again—while Weigand ate hungrily, but abstractedly. When he had finished, Pam thought he looked better, although still very tired.

  “Well, Pam?” he said. “What’s the theory?”

  Pam answered with a question. Was Weigand sure that Pierson was the man they wanted? He hesitated a moment. Then he nodded.

  “All things considered,” he said. “Yes. That is, I think he’s the man. I’ll admit it’s going to be hard to prove. Because, while he had motive and opportunity, we can’t prove he had them exclusively. The defense can—”

  “He didn’t,” Pam said. “Or, if he did, not because of the money. Or, if the money comes into it, not entirely because of the money. Unless he needed the money so badly, to make it good to the Lawrence estate, that he had to steal Mr. Beck.”

  Bill Weigand looked at Jerry and Jerry shook his head.

  “That’s what she keeps saying, Bill,” Jerry said. “She keeps talking about somebody’s having stolen Mr. Beck. I think she means kidnapped.”

  “I don’t care what word you use,” Pam said. “I say stolen because I can spell it. And I never know how many p’s in kidnapped.”

  Jerry looked at her and ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair. It was a little thing—but life was made of little things. Particularly as lived with Mrs. N
orth.

  “Listen, darling,” he said. “I don’t want to stop you. But you weren’t going to write it. I mean—you were just going to say it. And you can say kidnapped. You just did.”

  “Of course I can say it,” Pam said. “But when I can’t spell a word, or have to think about how it’s spelled, I just don’t use it when I’m talking. Not if there’s another word just as good, like ‘stolen.’ It’s just a—a feeling. I just feel that people ought to say words they can spell.”

  “But—” Jerry said, and stopped. He thought and tried again. “You mean it’s—pretentious, or something?” He said. “To say words you can’t spell?”

  “Well,” Pam said. “It’s sort of pretending you can spell them: Or it feels that way to me. Sometimes. Sometimes, of course, it doesn’t at all.”

  Jerry thought it over and said, “Oh.”

  “As far as I’m concerned,” Bill said, “I often feel the same way, for some reason. But I can spell kidnapped. Why do you think somebody has kidnapped Mr. Beck, Pam? Because obviously nobody has. He’s still on the radio.”

  “That’s just it,” Pam said. “How do you know?”

  “Because you can hear him,” Jerry said. “If you’re not careful. As we did last night, Pam. Don’t you remember?”

  Pam looked at him as if she thought he was not as bright as usual. She said of course she remembered.

  “That,” she repeated, “is it. How do you know it was Mr. Beck? Because I think it was somebody else pretending to be Mr. Beck.”

  They both looked at her. They looked at her with a kind of surprise and interest and wonderment. Then they looked at each other. Understanding ran between them and by consent Bill Weigand took it up from there. Jerry merely ran his hand rapidly through his hair.

  “Listen, Pam,” Bill said. “Let’s get this straight. You mean that somebody is impersonating Mr. Beck? That the real Beck has been sto—kidnapped, and that the man we hear on the radio is another man altogether pretending to be Dan Beck? Because that’s obviously impossible.”

  “Why?” said Pam. “I do think that. Why is it impossible?”

  “Because,” Bill began and was baffled momentarily by the multitude of reasons which presented themselves. “I’m tired, Jerry. You tell her.”