Vanishing Ladies

by Ed McBain

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  Vanishing Ladies

  Ed McBain writing as Richard Marsten

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  This is for Jim Bohan—

  who reads them all

  Q: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

  A: I do.

  Q: What is your name?

  A: Philip Colby.

  Q: How old are you, Mr. Colby?

  A: Twenty-four.

  Q: Do you live in this state?

  A: No, sir. I live in the adjoining state.

  Q: What first brought you to this state?

  A: I came on vacation, sir.

  Q: And when was that?

  A: My vacation started on Monday morning, June 3rd.

  Q: What sort of work do you do?

  A: I’m a detective.

  Q: A private detective?

  A: No, sir. I work for the city. Right across the river, sir. The 23rd Precinct.

  Q: But you were not at Sullivan’s Point on police work, is that right?

  A: That’s right. I went to Sullivan’s Point on vacation.

  Q: What made you choose it as your vacation spot?

  A: I didn’t choose it, sir. Ann did.

  Q: Ann?

  A: Ann Grafton. My fiancée.

  Q: I see. And when you chose Sullivan’s Point, had you any idea at the time that you would become involved in police work?

  A: That was the farthest thing from my mind, sir. I was looking forward to a vacation. The 23rd can … can become trying at times.

  Q: But you nonetheless did become involved in police work?

  A: Yes, sir, I did. That is … well, of a nonofficial nature.

  Q: And were there any other policemen involved in this work?

  A: Yes, sir. Detective Tony Mitchell. He works at the 23rd, too.

  Q: Would you please tell the court exactly what happened?

  A: Where do you want me to start, sir? It’s a pretty involved thing, and—

  Q: Start with the morning of June 3rd. Start with the day your vacation started.

  A: Well …

  1

  I picked Ann up at nine o’clock.

  Wait a minute, it must have been closer to nine-thirty. She lives with her father. Her mother is dead, you see. Her father was still home when I got there. He’s usually off to work by about eight-thirty, but I think he was worried about Ann going off alone on a vacation with me. Not that he doesn’t trust me or anything, but you know how it is when a girl has no mother, I guess a man worries about her.

  We had a cup of coffee together while Ann finished dressing. I think she held off dressing on purpose, so that I’d have a chance to talk to her father before we left. I’ve got no reason to belive that except that she’s usually pretty punctual, and she knew we were supposed to leave at nine. I guess Mr. Grafton got convinced over our coffee that I wasn’t going to sell Ann into white slavery or anything. Anyway, we began talking about the chances the baseball teams had, and in a little while Ann came out of her room.

  She’s a pretty tall girl, I mean not a giant, but wearing heels she’d give most fellows a little trouble. She was wearing a white sun dress with bare shoulders and she looked pretty, but I’m prejudiced, I’m going to marry her someday.

  Incidentally, I have to tell you what she looks like and what she was wearing because it’s pretty important to what happened later on. She’s got very black hair, you see, hair that’s really black—as if it’d been dipped in India ink. And she’s got wide brown eyes, and a good figure even though she’s tall. You meet a lot of tall girls who look like telephone poles. Ann’s not that way. Anyway, she was wearing a white cotton dress, and she carried a straw bag and she wore these straw pumps with lucite heels.

  She went over and kissed her father, and he put his arm around her shoulder and then turned to me and said, “Take care of her, Phil.”

  “I will,” I promised. We shook hands then, and all three of us went down to the car together, Mr. Grafton carrying one of Ann’s bags, and me carrying the other. The car we used for the vacation wasn’t my own. I’ve got a ’47 Plymouth. But one of the fellows on the squad, a detective named Burry O’Hare, drives a ’53 Chewy convertible, and he suggested I use that for the trip. As it turned out, the borrowed car wasn’t such a good idea, but Burry of course didn’t know what was going to happen and he was only trying to be nice.

  We got under way at about ten that morning, the top down, and a nice breeze rushing through the city. We couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful day to start our vacation if we’d tried. It was one of those days when even the city is comfortable even though the sun is shining to beat the band.

  When we pulled away from the curb, Ann said, “Did you reassure Dad?”

  “I told him I’m going to rape you as soon as we’re over the bridge,” I said.

  “I’ll bet you did.”

  “I did.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said it couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow.”

  “I agree with him.”

  “How do you like the car?”

  “I love it,” she said. “It was very nice of O’Hare.”

  “Sam Thompson offered me his car, too.”

  “Why didn’t you take it?”

  “Who wants a beat-up old ’57 Cadillac?”

  “Does he really drive a Caddy?”

  “On a cop’s salary?”

  “All cops take graft. I happen to know.”

  “How come you’re so smart?”

  “I’m in love with a cop.”

  “That’s the one thing I’m not going to like about this vacation.”

  “My being in love with a cop?”

  “No. All the graft I’ll miss while I’m gone.”

  I better explain here that we were kidding. I better explain, too, that Ann and I do a lot of kidding with each other, and I don’t know if you want to hear all the kidding or not but the only way I can tell you what happened is to tell it to you as it happened. Anyway, it’s that way in my mind, and it’s mixed up enough as it is without trying to cut corners.

  We drove crosstown to the bridge. The traffic was pretty light at that time of the morning, and we were in no real hurry, half the fun is getting there, you know. So we took our time crossing the bridge, watching a big liner coming in, billowing smoke all over the place. I guess we didn’t really feel as if we were on our way until we hit your state after we crossed the bridge. With the river behind us, with the road stretching out ahead of us, with the sun beating down, and the wind streaming around the car, we really felt as if we were on our way. Ann reached over to turn on the radio, and then she squeezed my hand on the wheel and said, “Oh, Phil, I’m so happy.”

  “Before you get too happy,” I told her, “get the map out of the glove compartment and let’s see where we’re going.”

  She fished out the map, and began reading off road numbers to me. I have to confess that I’m unfamiliar with your state. I was here once for a wedding, but I was only thirteen then and my father did the driving. I almost came again when some fellows wanted to see a burlesque, but somehow I caught a cold and couldn’t make it.

  Ann knew the state like a native, though. She’d spent a lot of time in the mountains as a kid and had traveled the roads a lot with her father. Which is where she got the idea for Sullivan’s Point in the first place, I suppose.

  “We should be there sometime this afternoon,” she said. “Phil, you’ll love it. It’s the most beautiful spot in the world. These big pines, and this finger of land that juts out into t
he lake. I hope you swim.”

  “Does Buster Crabbe swim?” I asked.

  “Yes, but does Phil Colby?”

  “What kind of town is there?” I asked. “Or is there?”

  “Sullivan’s Corners,” she said. “A few miles from the Point. Small. Quaint.”

  “Any big cities nearby?”

  “Davistown,” she said.

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s big.”

  She told me all about Davistown, and all about Sullivan’s Corners and Sullivan’s Point and her travelogue took us right to lunch time. We pulled into a Howard Johnson’s, had a leisurely snack, and then hit the highway again. We drove steadily, and we talked, and we laughed, and it was beginning to feel like a vacation, if you know what I mean. Eventually we began picking up the Davistown signs, and then the Sullivan’s Corners signs; twenty miles to Sullivan’s Corners, ten miles, five miles, and then we passed a big sign saying “You are entering SULLIVAN’S CORNERS,” and about a half mile past that, we picked up the state trooper. It was Ann who first spotted him.

  “Darling,” she crooned, “I don’t want to upset you, but the minions of the law are on our trail.”

  I looked into the rearview mirror, just catching a glimpse of the blue uniform and the motorcycle. The trooper was riding some hundred yards behind us, away over on my right rear fender where he hoped my mirror wouldn’t pick him up. I glanced at the speedometer.

  “I’m only doing forty,” I said to Ann.

  The trooper pulled up and got off his bike. He was a tall, muscular fellow with a ruddy brown complexion. He wore sunglasses and when he got off the bike, he stretched and yawned and then casually strolled over to where I was sitting behind the wheel.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hello.”

  “In a hurry?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No? Maximum speed in this state is fifty miles per hour. You were tearing along at close to sixty-five.”

  For a moment, I couldn’t believe I’d heard him correctly. I looked at his smiling face and I tried to read the eyes behind the tinted glasses.

  “You’re kidding,” I said at last.

  “Am I?” and he reached for the pinch pad.

  “I’m a cop,” I told him. “Besides, I was only doing forty.”

  “You were doing sixty-five, and I don’t care if you’re a judge,” he said. “Let me have your license and registration.”

  “Look, officer.…”

  “Let me have your license and registration!” he repeated, more sharply this time.

  I dug into my wallet, making sure he saw the detective shield pinned to the inside leather, and then I handed him my license together with my acetate-encased police identification card and a card telling him I belonged to the Police Benevolent Association.

  “Never mind the rest of the garbage,” he told me. “I just want the license and registration.”

  “The rest of the garbage is part of the license,” I said. “Maybe you’d better look at it.”

  He glanced at it. “So you’re a Detective/3rd Grade,” he said. “So what? In this state, we don’t allow nobody to speed. Not even detectives from across the river.” He handed my cards back, unfolded my license and then said, “Where’s the registration?”

  Up until that point, I still had some hope of getting out of this with a small lecture about law-enforcement officers speeding—which I hadn’t been doing in the first place. When he mentioned the registration to me, though, it suddenly occurred to me that O’Hare and I had never even discussed it. Expecting the worst, I thumbed open the glove compartment.

  “I borrowed this car,” I said. “I hope the owner keeps his registration in the glove compartment.”

  “You borrowed it, huh?” the trooper said.

  “Yes. From another detective.”

  “The registration in there?”

  I was wading through the pile of junk O’Hare kept in the glove compartment. There was a flashlight, a map of New Hampshire, a booklet advising him to “See the U.S.A. in His Chevrolet,” several charge carbons from his gas station and—of all things—a .32.

  “What’s that?” the trooper said.

  “Huh?” I said, knowing very well he wasn’t referring to the map of New Hampshire.

  “You got a license for that pistol?”

  “I’m a peace officer,” I said. “You know damn well I don’t need a license to—”

  “Whose gun is that?”

  “Probably O’Hare’s. He’s the man I borrowed the car from.”

  “Did you find the registration?”

  “No,” I said dully.

  “You’d better come along with me,” the trooper said.

  “Why?”

  “How do I know this isn’t a stolen car? How do I know those credentials you showed me aren’t phony?”

  “I showed you my tin,” I said. “I sure as hell didn’t buy that badge in the five and ten.”

  “You might have stolen that, too,” the trooper said. “Follow me.”

  “Listen.…”

  “I hate to hurl clichés,” the trooper said, smiling, “but you can tell it to the judge.” Then he stalked back to his bike as if he were ready to enter an International Motorcycle Competition.

  “Damn idiot,” I said.

  “You were doing forty,” Ann said. “I’m your witness.”

  “Sure, but whose word is the judge going to take? Mine or a cop’s?”

  “But darling,” Ann said, “you are a cop.”

  “And why the hell didn’t O’Hare leave the registration with me? Of all the stupid …”

  “Our friend is taking off,” Ann said.

  2

  The justice of the peace was a man named Handy. He was a tall man in his early fifties with a magnificent mane of snow-white hair. He had pale blue eyes and a Cupid’s bow mouth, and he held court in a log cabin about two hundred yards off the main highway. He undoubtedly lived in the cabin, and when we arrived he acted as if he’d invited us to his home for a cup of afternoon tea.

  “Come in, come in,” he said, and then to the trooper, “Afternoon, Fred.”

  Fred pulled off his gloves and his sunglasses and then followed us into the cabin. There was an old fireplace at one end of the room, around which George Washington and his troops had undoubtedly heated rum toddies. The j.p.’s credentials hung over the fireplace together with a Civil War saber that immediately put the Washington fantasy to rout. There was a long sofa and several easy chairs and an upright piano and a Grant Wood painting. A cut-glass cigarette box and ash tray rested on a coffee table before the sofa.

  “Justice Handy,” Fred said, “got an interesting one this time.”

  “Sit down,” Handy said. “You and your wife make yourselves at home.”

  “We’re not married,” Ann said, and all at once all the precinct jokes about the Mann Act came into very vivid focus.

  “Oh?” Fred said. Without the sunglasses covering them, his eyes were a frigid gray.

  “What’s the charge?” Handy asked, and somehow his voice had grown sterner now that he knew Ann and I were not married.

  “Speeding,” Fred said. “Driving a vehicle without a registration. Impersonating a police officer. Violation of the Mann—”

  “Now just hold it a minute,” I said heatedly. “Let’s just hold it a goddamn minute!”

  “Is something wrong, son?” Handy said.

  “Just about everything is,” I said. “You’d better inform your motorcycle champ about the consequences of false arrest.”

  Handy chuckled a little. “No need to get sore at Fred,” he said. “He only does his job.” Handy scratched his head. “Speeding, huh?”

  “I was doing forty miles an hour,” I said.

  “In a posted twenty-five-mile-per-hour zone,” Fred put in.

  “The highway speed limit is—”

  “Not going through Sullivan’s Corners. There’s a sign just as you enter the
town. Twenty-five miles per.”

  “By your own admission,” Handy said, “you were speeding. “That’s ten dollars. What about the rest of this?”

  “I borrowed the car from a friend of mine. He’s a detective, too. Call him at the 23rd Precinct and he’ll clear this up right away.”

  “You a detective?” Handy asked, his brows raising.

  “He claims to be one,” Fred said. “There’s a .32 in the glove compartment of that car outside.”

  “There’s also a .38 in my hip pocket,” I said. “Look, call Detective-Lieutenant Frank DeMorra at my squad.” I dug into my wallet and came up with a card. “Here’s the number. Tell him you picked up Phil Colby, one of his detectives, on a speeding charge. Ask him if I’m impersonating an officer, and ask him if I didn’t borrow the car from Detective Burry O’Hare!”

  “The Mann Act—” Fred started.

  “The Mann Act doesn’t mean beans unless you can prove immorality,” I said. “Why don’t you put your sunglasses back on? They hide your dirty mind.”

  “Listen …” Fred started, and Handy turned to him with an outstretched palm.

  “I reckon we ought to make that phone call, Fred,” he said. He took the card from me, went to a dial phone near the fireplace, and then exchanged a few pleasantries with the operator before he got down to business. While he waited for someone at the 23rd to answer, he looked at me and said, “I’ve reversed the charges.”

  I nodded and said nothing.

  In a few moments Handy said, “Hello. Let me talk to Lieutenant DeMorra, please.” He paused, listening. “He’s not in? When do you expect him?” Handy listened again, then said, “This is Justice Handy of Sullivan’s Corners. We have a man here who claims he’s a cop working out of your precinct. Name’s Phil Colby. What’s that? Oh, sure, sure.” He covered the mouthpiece and turned to me. “He’s connecting me with the Detective Division.”

  I let out a deep breath and waited. Ann sighed patiently.

  “Hello?” Handy said. “This is Justice Oliver Handy, Sullivan’s Corners. To whom am I speaking? Oh, how do you do, Detective Thompson?”

  “That’s Sam Thompson,” I said. “Let me talk to him.”