15
IF KENDALL HOYT had found any takers for his bet he lost money, because Frank Wales was still alive when they found him. He shouldn’t have been. Any man who lost the blood now soaked into Virginia’s bed should have died long ago; but as long as a man breathed he was alive even if he didn’t know about it. There was a big business about moving him to the hospital. Three patrol cars were crowded into the narrow street by the time the ambulance arrived, and a sleepy-eyed crowd of spectators was milling about on the sidewalk. And off at a distance where he could watch without being seen, a small boy with enormous eyes beheld the furor he had unloosed.
After that came the ride to the hospital with sirens sounding; the hurried call at the El Rey, and finally Ernie Talbot, fatigue lining his flabby face, escorted a pale, frightened woman across the glaring foyer. It was the end of the three-day search for Frank Wales.
Through all the confusion and clamor Mitch slept like the dead. His aching body demanded sleep, and not all the sirens in hades could stop nature from doing her work. In the morning he was a new man and it was about time.
Somebody had to be a liar. That was Mitch’s waking thought. It could be Dave Singer or Costro; it could be Pinky or Frank Wales. Settling on Wales made things easy and didn’t put lumps on anybody’s head, but it left a lot of loose ends including one missing body and one completely unnecessary roughing up. Even if it made sense for Frank Wales to kill his ex-wife (and Mitch wasn’t conceding that much any more) it made no sense whatsoever for Rita to die unless she knew who should be doing Wales’s hiding for him. If Rita knew, Dave knew first. And that brought the argument right back to Pinky’s with Mitch being right in the first place. Somehow and in some manner he was going to prove that if it took the rest of his life! What was it Norma had said? “Can you think of anybody with a better reason for wanting Virginia dead?” That was the trick of it. First the why and then the who would follow.
This was the nature of Mitch’s contemplation as he shaved (carefully with that cut lip), dressed, and started for the office. It wasn’t until he switched on the car radio and picked up the news that his destination was changed.
Inside the general hospital a man was fighting for a life that probably wouldn’t be worth much even if he won. Outside on the steps and milling about the sidewalk, representatives of the press and public were waiting the outcome and maybe making a few bets on the side. Mitch had a pretty good idea of the kind of cold shoulder being served inside and went around to the ambulance entrance and up the ramp. It wasn’t difficult to find Frank Wales’s room with that armed guard on the door—Ernie wasn’t taking chances even of a half-dead man—but it wasn’t Wales Mitch had come to see. A passing nurse led the way to where Norma waited, having been previously informed that this was Mrs. Wales’s brother who had just flown in. If Norma Wales had a brother he would surely look as grim and weary as Mitch did after that encounter with Herbie Boyle’s pistol butt, and a brother at this moment was like a gift from heaven.
“I wanted to give your sister a sedative and have her sleep for a while,” the nurse explained. “But she wouldn’t hear of it. She’d be right in the room with Mr. Wales if the doctor allowed it.”
“How is Mr. Wales?” Mitch asked.
The pause preceding her reply told more than the words. “He’s holding his own. Of course, he’s still unconscious—” But now they had reached a door she was opening and Mitch had to interrupt. “Do you mind if I go in alone?” he asked. Under the circumstances it seemed highly advisable.
Yesterday’s parting had been far from cordial and Mitch wasn’t expecting a warm reception. And in spite of the nurse’s warning he wasn’t expecting so distraught, so haggard, a Norma Wales as was waiting for him in that room. She stood by the windows staring down at the gray morning street and she didn’t seem to hear or see him until he spoke.
“Mrs. Wales,” he said. “I just heard about your husband. Are you all right?”
The words didn’t make much sense. At the moment Mitch couldn’t think of any that did. But the silence was getting a little heavy when she finally turned to him with those distant eyes.
“The newspapermen are waiting outside,” she said.
“I’m not here as a newspaperman,” Mitch answered. “I’m here as a friend.”
She had heard all of this before and it wasn’t going to be easy to sell it again. That’s why Mitch couldn’t afford unnecessary words. “I’ve come here for only one reason,” he said. “I want you to know that I don’t for one moment think your husband killed Virginia Wales.”
Norma wasn’t expecting that and neither was Mitch—not in so positive a voice. Her head came up slowly and the life crept back into her eyes. “You didn’t talk that way yesterday,” she reminded, but Mitch didn’t like to think about yesterday.
“I’ve had time to think things over,” he said. “I just can’t accept the idea that any man would travel all day—with plenty of time for consideration, mind you—just so he could savagely murder a woman he’d seen only once in three years. Yes, I’m remembering the letters. But rational people don’t commit murder over a family misunderstanding. There was no trouble between you and your husband and Virginia that couldn’t have been ironed out with a few words. That’s what you had in mind when you followed Frank here, isn’t it?”
Now she believed him. Now she could lose that forsaken feeling and know reason hadn’t left the world entirely. Mitch couldn’t offer her a solution but he could offer hope. “This may not be the time to ask favors,” he added. “But I need your help.”
“I don’t see—” she began.
“The letter. The letter your husband received from Virginia. When you saw him did he by any chance repeat what was written?”
Norma made an effort to remember and then shook her head.
“Then you don’t know the wording? You have no idea what it might have been that Virginia feared?”
It was obvious that she didn’t know, but Frank might. He might know without knowing that he knew, and that was one of the reasons Mitch had come—to make a proposition. She would be the first person to visit him when he regained consciousness. Would she ask him to try to recall the wording of the letter so she could pass the word to Mitch? “And he doesn’t have to make any statement without legal advice,” he reminded. “He doesn’t have to explain anything to anyone.”
“But what if Frank doesn’t—”
She couldn’t finish the statement but Mitch finished it for her. “If he doesn’t remember we’ll find the truth without it. There’s always a way if you keep plugging.”
At that moment Mitch couldn’t have defined that way to save his soul, but it was there. The answer was always there when you stopped doubting and took a stand. The letter was just an outside chance at best, but it gave Norma something to do with her mind and did quite a little for Mitch Gorman’s shattered ego. Now he could get on with the search for the hypothetical needle in the theoretical haystack.
It was only natural that the first thing Mitch saw when he reached the office was Peter Delafield, and that the first thing he heard was Peter’s excited voice. Peter hadn’t wasted his night sleeping. With a search going on he stayed close to headquarters and had been with the first group to reach Virginia’s house.
“How do you like that?” he was saying, as Mitch passed the counter gate. “Every cop in the city looking for Wales and all the time he’s holed in in that padlocked house! Ernie Talbot says he’s always heard of the criminal returning to the scene of the crime, but this is the first time he’s seen it happen!”
There was a simpler explanation, of course. Peter himself had come up with the information that Frank and Virginia had shared that house years before. Wales couldn’t have been in very good shape by the time he got that far, but instinct could have taken him there when strength and reason failed—just as a wounded animal crawls home to die. Mitch didn’t think Peter would appreciate the commentary so he kept it to himself.
> “The amazing thing is that he’s still alive! He stopped two bullets and either one could have killed him. They probably will yet.”
Peter seemed almost regretful. But when Wales died so would the story. “Let me read about it,” Mitch said, snatching the hot copy Peter had been grinding out. Reading Peter was much easier than listening to him. “And when Miss Atturbury comes in tell her I want to see her. And nobody else!”
When The Duchess entered Mitch’s office he was still studying Peter’s story.
“You wanted me?” she asked, and he nodded absently.
“Are you sure you remember who I am?”
Now Mitch looked up and grinned. With The Duchess on deck he might get some co-operation. Nobody else seemed to think in such wild patterns as his mind was exploring this morning.
“Tell me,” he asked brightly, “why did Frank Wales kill his ex-wife?”
The Duchess blinked. “Why ask me? I’m on the other team, remember?”
“It’s a good question, don’t you think?” Mitch turned back to the story again and this time he wasn’t reading, he was just frowning at a lot of words. “All right, then, I’ll ask you another. How’s Angelina getting along at Pinky’s?”
By this time The Duchess was prepared for any switch and took it in her stride. “She hasn’t come up with anything yet,” she answered, “but I don’t think she’s happy with her job. Waiting tables and washing dishes is too much like home, and the tips, she tells me, are terrible.”
“Which is a pretty fair gage of Pinky’s trade,” Mitch suggested. “Now about that note Pinky paid off—did you actually see it?”
“I overheard a conversation about it while I was hanging around the bank.”
“That’s not enough. See it! We’ve got to be sure of these things.”
By this time The Duchess was staring openmouthed. She couldn’t guess what circumstance had transformed Mitch’s attitude over night, but she wasn’t beyond admiring the view.
“You said something yesterday about finding the ‘thing’ that Virginia had,” he recalled suddenly. “What sort of thing did you have in mind?”
“Did I say that?”
“You certainly did!”
The Duchess frowned over the idea. “I’ve often suspected that I talk too much. What would she have—evidence?”
“Evidence of what?”
“Don’t ask me, this is your brainstorm. What’s got into you, anyway? You look different.”
But Mitch wasn’t answering questions this morning; he was asking them. And no matter if the question was wild and improbable. When the chips were down there was no time to hesitate and worry whether a thing was right or not. Or whether an action would do any good or not. You got an idea and hung onto it because it was all you had.
“Do you remember the night you went to see Mrs. Molina and she mentioned the ‘noises’ bothering Virginia? To her noises might mean visitations from the spirit world, but to Virginia it could mean somebody trying to break into her house.” Mitch paused and let the idea take root. “And we know that house could be broken into because a small boy did it last night. Now I seem to be a unique character around here, but when I read about a small boy’s breaking into a place like that in the middle of the night I want to know why. Murder houses aren’t the natural habitat for small boys unless they’re coming a lot more rugged than in my time! Peter!”
The partitions weren’t going to last any time at all if Mitch used that tone of voice often. Peter was inside the doorway before the echo died away.
“Is this all there is to this piece?” Mitch demanded. Peter was a little shaken by his experience but not enough to cower. “All? What’s the matter, isn’t it enough?” he asked.
“For me—no. Tell me, who was it found Frank Wales last night?”
“The police—no, that kid.”
“What kid?”
Peter was rapidly becoming unhappy. Mitch could tell by the color of his ears. “It’s all there before you!” he snapped. “A boy broke into Virginia’s house and ran out screaming. The noise roused the neighbors and somebody called the police. That’s it. That’s the whole story.”
“I don’t see the boy’s name,” Mitch said.
“Of course you don’t! He didn’t stick around long enough to leave his name. I asked a couple of people who he was but they said he was running too fast to be recognized, and I sure wasn’t going to hang around trying to spot him with Wales on his way to the hospital.”
The trouble with Peter was that he was logical. Logical and right. And Peter wasn’t worrying about why Virginia Wales died, or what it was Dave Singer had been searching for in Pinky’s kitchen. Peter didn’t get it, but The Duchess did.
“Maybe I could chase down there for a follow-up,” she suggested. “It might make a good human-interest story.”
“Sure, do your follow-up!” Peter insisted. “Maybe you can work up a yarn on that dog, too. I’m going back to the hospital and wait for the news the public wants to read!”
“What dog?” Mitch demanded.
“The dog that was in the house when the police arrived. The same dog that raised so much Cain to get in when Virginia was killed was inside howling to get out when they found Wales. Let Miss Atturbury figure that out!”
Peter stomped off in a cloud of righteous indignation just as the light broke through. Virginia’s dog! In a minute The Duchess would remember what Mitch was remembering—that reference to Mamma Molina and a boy claiming a dog—but she’d be much too late. This was one time when Mitch wanted to do the leg work himself.
16
NOBODY BUT THE POSTMAN and those unlucky enough to live there ever came down to the yellow dust streets at the edge of Mexican town. These streets possessed no historic architecture or scenic glory, but let a crime catch the fancy of the public and strange things happen. They were happening when Mitch parked his car as close as he could get to Virginia Wales’s house and made his way up the cracked and wavy sidewalk. Culture had come to Valley City. A mobile television unit was parked in front of the house and Virginia’s last abode was being given the full treatment. She would have loved that. Mitch could picture her coming to the door, flashing a big smile at the camera, and inviting all the spectators to come in to see for themselves how Virginia Wales had lived and died. She’d probably stack a few records on the player and mix up some drinks, because Virginia was the kind of gal who loved company and dreaded loneliness.
But the grave is a very lonely place.
Mitch stood apart from the crowd thinking these strange thoughts and wondering where they came from. It was Monday morning all over again, the same melancholy, the same depression. Laughing blondes shouldn’t die with bloody faces; they made Mitch sad. But here he was back again and all because a prowling boy had nudged a fact into prominence. If Virginia had been killed because of something in her possession it must still be at large. Why else would Dave Singer be searching?
He walked around to the rear and looked at the sagging screen on the broken hinge. The house was a cracker box sitting on a grassless square of earth, surrounded by similar cracker boxes on other grassless squares of earth. Next door stood one building a bit different; not so much in structure, although a small porch had been tacked on the front, but different in that a few flowers were blooming in beds around the foundation and a tiny patch of green grass reflected constant care and a landlord’s water rights. Mitch didn’t care for a conducted tour, so he left Virginia’s house to the educational facilities of the networks and went to call on Mamma Molina.
Mamma was watering a wilted rose bush at the front walk while keeping a wary eye on the proceedings down the street. When Mitch came into view she kept a wary eye on him, too.
“Mrs. Molina?” he inquired. (This was just for effect; he’d have known her anywhere after that coroner’s inquest.) “I believe you own that house next door.”
Mamma reached down and turned off the water. It was quite an operation considering her g
irth, and she was puffing as she straightened up again. “I own it,” she acknowledged. “You want to rent?”
“Frankly, no.”
“I know.” Mamma sighed. “All day long people come. They want to look at the house, they want to take pictures; but nobody wants to rent. Not that house. It has the mark of death on it.”
The woman sounded as if she’d just come from a session with her Ouija board, in which case she might feel talkative. “Terrible thing,” Mitch said, shaking his head. “First Virginia Wales and now, in all probability, her ex-husband. Did you know him, Mrs. Molina?”
“Frank Wales?” Mamma dropped the hose and wiped her hands on her apron. “He lived in that very house with Virginia, when he was home anyways. That’s no kind of marriage when the man is away working all the time and the woman stays home alone. Especially if she’s a pretty woman like Virginia.”
“Who doesn’t stay home,” Mitch added. “I imagine they had some real rows whenever he was here.”
“Not him. Not Frank Wales. A quieter, nicer man I never saw. I told Virginia she would be sorry getting a divorce, but she wanted her freedom. Freedom!” Mamma snorted and threw up her hands. “A fancy word for being all alone. It’s fun for a while, maybe, but all this running around gets old.”
“Even for Virginia?” Mitch asked.
Mamma grew thoughtful, never forgetting to keep her eyes on that house next door. “I think so,” she said at last. “She was always laughing and joking all the time, but lately not so much. I know how it is. Forty-seven years married and now I’m alone. The same house, the same neighbors, but sometimes now I think I hear noises and I look after the locks on the doors. Virginia, too.” The woman smiled in remembrance. “New locks, she wanted, and always before she couldn’t be bothered with any locks at all. I know how it is.”
Mitch was beginning to know, too. Worrying about the locks could mean a lot more than loneliness. It could mean, for instance, that Virginia had been troubled with housebreakers, but when he suggested the idea Mamma Molina shrugged. “She didn’t say nothing about that,” she said, “and she didn’t call the police. If somebody breaks in you call the police.”
Obit Delayed Page 12
