Kill Now, Pay Later (Hard Case Crime (Mass Market Paperback))

by Robert Terrall

  “How do you stand with him at the moment?”

  She drank before replying. “It can go either way. He’s finally broken his engagement to the Hardwick bitch, which is a giant step. I’d better be frank with you, because sometime before tomorrow morning I want to ask for some advice. I want to marry that boy. I don’t feel the same way about him that I did when I started with Leo, but once like that may be enough for one lifetime. I think I’d like him just as much even if he wasn’t so rich. Maybe not. It’s mixed together, and you wouldn’t believe it anyway. But I’d be good for him. I’ll just add one thing. Needless to say, I haven’t discussed this with his father, but I’m pretty sure I have his blessing.”

  “Who had the idea for the robbery? You?”

  “You’re so flattering. Yes, it was my idea. I had to do something in a hurry. Leo would never have done it just for Mrs. Pope’s jewels or just for the wedding presents. Both together he couldn’t resist. I knew him fairly well. He was a little shamefaced about the way he made his money because there was so little real danger. If it didn’t work sometimes, it just didn’t work—nobody ever wanted to take it to the police. The robbery would be dangerous, but not too dangerous. He insisted on wearing a gun to make it romantic, but what appealed to him most was the touch about drugging the detective who was watching the wedding presents.”

  “Everybody liked that touch but me,” I said. “How were you going to split?”

  “You don’t understand. I wasn’t going to take any money. Not that I have any objections to money, but I couldn’t risk it. The deal was that he’d go to Nevada and divorce me, getting that out of the way, and he promised to destroy the picture. I knew he wouldn’t, but if he ever tried to use it I could turn him in for robbing the wedding. I recorded one of our conversations at my apartment. The recording canceled the picture, you see? It was a stand-off. Can I make myself another drink?”

  “I’ll get it,” I said. “You disturb me too much when you walk around in that damn shirt. I’ve finally got my mind on this, and that’s where I want to keep it.— Don’t lean over,” I said as she reached for her glass. “Sit perfectly still.”

  I made her the new drink and brought it back. “How much did Leo expect to clear?”

  “A hundred thousand,” she said, taking the glass. “And I had to get a photostat of the insurance before he’d believe me. I confess I blew it up a little.”

  “Did he have an outlet lined up?”

  “I didn’t ask him. He knew all kinds of people.”

  “What I’m getting at—and I’d appreciate it if you’d fold your arms for a few minutes—is whether you told him there was money in the safe.”

  She did what I’d told her—she sat still.

  “There wasn’t, was there?”

  “Let’s do it the way they teach the rookies at the Police Academy. One of the rules is not to let the suspect ask you questions.”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “You’re suspect number one, and if you want to put on that raincoat now I’ll hand it to you.”

  “All the more reason not to put on a raincoat. What am I suspected of doing?”

  “Of stealing seventy-five thousand dollars. This isn’t academic with me—I get ten percent of anything I recover. I doubt if you could get Leo interested in jewelry. It’s hard to get rid of. Cash is something he understood.”

  She drank. “You’re right, Ben, and I wish I’d thought of it—it would have saved me a good deal of argument. But I didn’t. Who— Sorry. I almost asked a question.”

  “I’ll answer that one. Who told me about the money in the safe? Mr. Pope.”

  She gave a good impression of a girl who was thinking hard. “Do you think he could have been lying?”

  “It’s possible. Maybe he wanted to give me an incentive. He told me a couple of other things which turned out not to be true. Did you set up an alibi for the time Leo was in action?”

  “I couldn’t, Ben. He had to stay in the dressing room until Mrs. Pope unlocked the safe. We didn’t know when that would be. I tried to be in the kitchen as much as possible, but I didn’t think it was important.”

  “So you might have been walking guard outside the door while he tied her up. When he came out he might have given you some of his parcels to carry.”

  “Why would he give me seventy-five thousand dollars?” she cried. “Leo? Leo Moran didn’t hand people packages of money unless he had a very good reason. And I wasn’t outside Mrs. Pope’s bedroom. I didn’t know there was money in the safe. And if Leo took it,” she added, “what’s happened to it?”

  “Are you sure you don’t know?”

  “Damn sure.”

  “What we could do,” I suggested, “is play that recording you made of your talk with Leo. If the money wasn’t mentioned then, I’ll believe you.”

  “Yes, we could do that,” she said bitterly. “You know I erased it a couple of hours ago. That’s the first thing I did when I got home.”

  “Well, the theory was that if I could find Leo’s inside connection, I’d find the money. Maybe it’s not that simple. I’ll talk to my client about some of the untruths he’s been telling me, and see where we go from there.”

  “What will you tell him about—” She made a sweeping gesture.

  “I don’t see why I shouldn’t pass on most of it,” I said. “Of course if you want to change your mind about having the money, we might be able to fake up a story that would please everybody.”

  “Then I wish I had it. But I don’t, and seventy-five thousand dollars is more than I can raise.” She picked up her drink and gave me a brief look. “But we don’t have to decide anything right this minute. Let’s sleep on it.”

  I let that lie for a moment. Hilda, Shelley and Lorraine were all fine upstanding girls, but they didn’t compare with Anna. In addition, she was present while the others were scattered over two counties. In addition to that, she was more nearly my age.

  “Yes, it’s getting late,” I said. “I don’t suppose your clothes are dry?”

  “Oh, I don’t think I’d want to go all the way to White Plains. The trains get very gloomy this late at night. I could go to a hotel.”

  “In wet clothes? No, you’d better stay here, so long as you realize that there’s another thing they teach the rookies. You aren’t supposed to spend the night with a suspect. Sometimes you can’t help yourself, as the authorities realize, and if it happens you’re not supposed to let it influence you.”

  She finished the drink in one long swallow and came over to me, more and more luminous inside the shirt. “Then it’s settled?”

  She leaned down and kissed me. Before long she was in the chair with me; somehow we made room. While she kissed me she fooled with the back of my neck, the way girls do.

  She drew back and said seriously, “Do you think I didn’t mean it when I said I’m in love with Dick? I meant it.” She kissed me warmly. “He’s dumb and innocent and wild, and I don’t know what will happen to him if I don’t marry him. At the same time, you’re quite—well, quite—”

  I wanted to say that it was a shame I didn’t have a few million dollars to go with it, but she was kissing me again. When I had a chance I said, “Let’s do it the way they teach the rookies. Let’s move some place where we have room to maneuver. I haven’t had my clothes off for two days, which I can’t say for the people I’ve been associating with. Ten minutes. I’ll take a shower. I’ll shave.”

  She rubbed her fingers the wrong way across my jaw. “I like it like this.”

  “I’ll put on after-shaving lotion.”

  “You smell very nice as you are, Ben.” This was getting ridiculous. Finally she let me get up and go into the bedroom. I came back in a robe. I checked myself halfway to the bathroom and returned for the key to the filing cabinet.

  “Don’t you ever forget you’re a detective?” she said.

  “Give me time.”

  In the bathroom I took down the picture and slid her cloth
es along the pole so the shower curtain would close. I turned on the water. A moment after I got under the shower Anna opened the door and called, “How do you turn on the record player?”

  I told her. As soon as she left the bathroom I got out of the shower, dripping, and listened. One of my Gillespie records came down onto the turntable. Dizzy raised his horn and began to sound reveille, making enough racket so I wouldn’t hear anything else, such as the opening and shutting of the outside door. I gave it another minute, wrapped a towel around me, and went out. Anna was gone. So was my beat-up raincoat. So, I found on checking my pockets, were the keys to my Buick and the .25 automatic. That seemed to cover everything. She already had the lighter.

  The phone rang. I turned down the volume before I answered it.

  It was Elmer, asking permission to sleep at a motel. Dick Pope was put away for the night. Lights were beginning to go off in the Pope house.

  “I won’t be surprised if he has one more errand,” I said. “You know my Buick? He’ll be meeting a girl driving one like it. I’d like to know what they say to each other, but that’s probably too much to expect. After that never mind the Mercury. Stick to the Buick.”

  “O.K., Ben. How soon do you want to know?”

  “In the morning. We all want to be fresh. The girl has an apartment in White Plains. When you check her in there you can knock off.”

  I put the phone back and turned up the music. Gillespie was in the middle of another long, demented, driving solo. I finished my drink and went back to finish my shower.

  Chapter 14

  I dreamed that I was caught inside a burning building, and I woke up with my heart sounding the rapid shallow beat of panic. A siren was wailing. After a moment I remembered that this was New York, where if you want to hear a siren all you have to do is listen, and I got out of bed and put on the water for coffee.

  I was in the middle of my second cup when the phone rang. I took the coffee into the living room.

  “Ben?” Elmer’s voice said. “Good morning. I have some stuff for you.”

  I sat down, juggling the phone and the coffee cup. “Let’s have it.”

  “I went back to the Popes’ after I talked to you. Pretty soon a light went on upstairs. I had a good spot down the road, and I picked up the Mercury when it went by. He went to a tavern, the Three Deuces. There were only four or five cars there, and one of them was a Buick. Like your Buick, hell—it was your Buick. The boy had a package, and I took a couple of chances getting inside fast to see what it was, but it was just a pair of high-heeled shoes. A very nice-looking dish was waiting for him. Dark hair, glasses. She had a raincoat on that was too big for her, and she kept it on.”

  “No wonder,” I said. “It was my raincoat, and all she had on underneath was one of my drip-dry shirts.”

  “Now you tell me,” Elmer said. “They were in a corner booth. They did a lot of low talking, but the place was so empty I couldn’t get near them. I went to the john, and he was holding a paper napkin to his face. Was he crying? I don’t know, maybe. Then I thought I’d better get back outside, because this was out in the middle of nowhere, not much traffic. The girl left first. I picked her up O.K. She took a couple of screwy turns, and ended up in one of those roadside places, a turn-out with a couple of picnic tables. There was a car already there, a Pontiac, and it was the same Pontiac our boy’s Mercury conferred with earlier. Interesting?”

  “Did you see who was driving?”

  “No, I had to go past, and she was only there a minute. This was bad country for a one-car tail, and I almost lost her. But I put her to bed in White Plains, finally. Do you want the address?”

  “I’ve got it. Give me the Pontiac license.”

  “I’ve checked that, Ben. I know a guy in Motor Vehicles and he called it in for me. It’s registered to Joseph Minturn. M-i-n—”

  “Minturn!”

  “Yeah, does that fit? A Prosper address.”

  “It wasn’t a State Police car?”

  “Not unless it was disguised. A three-year-old Pontiac, a bad scrape on one side.”

  “These things are going to start meaning something pretty soon. How much sleep did you get?”

  “Less than usual. But I’m available.”

  “I’ll send Irving out. I can use you both. When’s the funeral?”

  “One of the troopers said eleven.”

  “I’ll tell Irving to bring you a dark suit. He’ll fill you in.”

  “I’ve been reading about it in the papers, Ben. Very educational. They didn’t have anything about a girl wearing nothing but Ben Gates’s raincoat.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t, too. I’ve had too much of that kind of publicity.”

  I found Davidson at home and gave him instructions. I called the St. Albans, but Miss Hardwick, they told me, had checked out. No one was answering the phone at her Central Park West apartment. I tried Anna DeLong in White Plains; there was no answer there either. After that I put in a personal call to Mr. Pope in Prosper.

  A maid tried to tell the operator he wasn’t taking any calls, but I broke in.

  “He’ll talk to me. This is Ben Gates in New York.”

  In a moment I heard my client. “Gates?”

  “Do you want to talk now or wait till later? You told me to report when I found out anything, and I’ve picked up a few things.”

  “Having to do with the money?”

  “Not exactly. You’ve got too many extensions on that phone, Mr. Pope. I’ll feel better if you can call me back from somewhere else.”

  “Is it important?”

  “I think so.”

  He agreed reluctantly, and I gave him my number. I poured another cup of coffee while I waited.

  The phone rang.

  “Ben?” Shelley Hardwick said. “You stood me up. I waited and waited, and finally I put on my pajamas and went to sleep.”

  “I got involved. Where are you? I tried the hotel.”

  “I came back to the apartment to change. The phone was ringing when I came in—was that you? I thought if you’re going to the funeral you might want to pick me up and we could go together.”

  “I may not get away that soon. Shelley, you’ve had all night to think about it. Have you any idea why Dick wanted to talk to you last night?”

  “I didn’t waste any time thinking about it. I gave up expecting any rational actions out of Dick long ago.”

  I told her I might see her later at the Popes’ and said goodbye. The ring came an instant after I put back the phone.

  “I’m in the gardener’s cottage,” Mr. Pope said. “It’s a private line. What did you want to tell me?”

  “Have you seen your secretary this morning?”

  “Yes. Apparently you were rough with her last night.”

  “That’s one of the things you’re paying me for. Did she have any ideas on how to keep me from going to the District Attorney?”

  “We don’t think you’ll do that so long as there’s a possibility of collecting a seventy-five-hundred-dollar fee.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “You know that she and Moran were married?”

  “That’s not entirely certain. In any case that issue died with Moran, and as far as I am concerned nothing is changed. I want to make my position clear. I understand that the weapon Moran used against her, to force her to do what she did, is now in your possession. I don’t wish to know what it is. I realize that only something extremely incriminating could have made her help with the robbery. In her judgment you are not offering it for sale. Is that correct?”

  “It’s a photograph, Mr. Pope. Even if I wanted to sell it, she couldn’t be sure she’d bought anything. I could make any number of prints before I turned it over.”

  “Which makes it difficult, doesn’t it? She puts forward this suggestion. She is willing to be charged with being Moran’s accomplice. Not his wife, his accomplice. The jewels have been recovered, the insurance company will have no reason to be vindictive. The judge, of course
, will be informed of my wishes, and I would expect the charges to be dismissed. Your fee, in the full amount we agreed on, will be forthcoming at once. Today, if you like.”

  “I’m glad to see you think it’s serious. Are you going to get a new secretary?”

  “I haven’t thought that through. I may have to.”

  “And will you make Anna pay you back the seventy-five thousand?”

  “Gates, I—” He stopped.

  “Or wasn’t the subject mentioned?”

  “I am liking your tone less and less. This would be between me and Miss DeLong. The police know nothing about it, so it wouldn’t have to come out in the public announcement.”

  “The only person who seems to know about it is me, and I’ve had moments when I didn’t think it was real. Isn’t there a part of Anna’s suggestion you haven’t told me about? I’ve got two men working on this. Wouldn’t I be expected to call them off and go out and get drunk?”

  “I will contribute a case of Scotch,” Pope said.

  “I don’t know, maybe it’s the best we can do. I’d like to talk to you about it first.”

  “That’s out of the question, I’m afraid. I’ve just had a rather sobering visit from my doctor. He has ordered a vacation, to start at once. I’m leaving for Maine directly after the funeral.”

  “Then I’d better come out right away.”

  “No, don’t. I’m interpreting my medical advice rather broadly. I’ve had enough worry, enough trouble, enough excitement, and I am putting too much effort into keeping my voice down right now. Let me put it simply. I regret having given you any status in this, but at the time I thought it was necessary. I am now withdrawing that status. You can co-operate along the lines of Miss DeLong’s suggestion, refurbishing your reputation and earning a rather high fee, or you can be foolish and come out of it with nothing at all. I will leave the check with Miss DeLong to handle as she sees fit. Before I leave I will give Lieutenant Minturn appropriate instructions. Is that clear?”