Date for Murder

by Louis Trimble

  “He and this guy didn’t go it, huh?”

  “It will be obvious to you soon enough,” she said. “Chunk is in love with Idell, and I know she cares something for him. Chunk was jealous.” She said it without any hint that she expected them to take it as a motive against her cousin.

  “That guy,” the Chief said disgustedly. “He keeps coming up all the time. Maybe we better see him, huh?”

  Mark waited until Maybelle Farman had left the room. Then he said, “I don’t believe she told everything, Chief.” He grinned. “Old nose for news stuff, but I got the idea she was holding out.”

  “On Farman?”

  Mark said, “Yes.” He wondered if he were doing right. But then this affair, except where it concerned Idell intimately, had no personal flavor for him. It was simply professional curiosity—in a profession long dead.

  When Tony Farman came into the room, the Chief snorted. “Him?” he said in a low voice to Mark. “That scrawny guy? Hell, this Link weighed close to two hundred.”

  “Yeah,” Mark said. “So that leaves out everyone but Jeffers.”

  “If you figure it that way and figure the Manders kid was drunk.”

  “That’s the way you’re figuring it, isn’t it?” Mark asked. “And that he ate the poisoned dates in his room.”

  “Yeah, we got all them things to consider.”

  “Watch,” Mark said, with a grin. He waited until Farman sat down. He was in light tan gabardine trousers and a gabardine polo shirt, long-sleeved and open at the neck. His dark, straight hair was plastered to his head and the ends were curled from dampness. Obviously it had been wet and very lightly dried.

  Mark said, “What did you do in athletics at school?”

  Farman looked surlily from one to the other. His face was blotched from sleeplessness and anger clouded his dark eyes. “Look,” he said, “I suppose you know all about it by this time. Well, I didn’t kill him. Besides, since when did they make you a cop?”

  The Chief said, “We’ll ask the questions; you answer.”

  Farman shrugged. “All right. I played tennis. Why?”

  “We’ll do the asking,” the Chief said, in a tone that made Mark think he was as baffled by the question as Farman.

  Mark said, “Did Grant play tennis too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any other sports, either of you?”

  “Grant was number one on the golf team.”

  The Chief said, “What’d you do after this ruckus?”

  “I went to bed and went to sleep.”

  “And you woke up when?”

  “About a half hour before the policeman knocked on my door.” “Yeah? And stayed upstairs, huh?” “I got up, took a shower, did my exercises and dressed.” “Exercises, huh?”

  Farman smiled for the first time. “I’m old-fashioned. I use barbells every morning before I dress. It gives me an appetite, and I have a fond delusion it keeps me in trim. I still play tennis occasionally.”

  Mark thought: He’s that Farman. Seeded in tournaments regularly.

  “And that’s how you got your hair wet, huh?”

  Farman touched his black hair with his hand. “I suppose so.” He grimaced. “Think I got it from a swimming pool?”

  “I might,” the Chief said. “And you heard nothing from the time you went back to bed until you got up?”

  “Nothing. I went to sleep.”

  “Right away?”

  “I tossed a bit. I was pretty sore.” He sounded on the defensive.

  “You had a right to be,” the Chief conceded. “Okay for now.”

  Tony Farman left the room, and the Chief said pointedly, “The more I hear of that guy, the more I think—Say, what in hell’s this tennis got to do with it?”

  Mark grinned. “If you don’t think a tennis player has muscle, Chief, stand in front of a smash some day, or even a fast serve. He’s wiry as a harp.”

  “Yeah,” the Chief said. “I got him in mind.”

  “They’re a well-behaved bunch of suspects,” Mark said. “And the other two coming up won’t be any trouble. Frank Manders seemed like a nice, quiet, sensible guy last night.”

  “Yeah? Well, let’s have him in.”

  Frank Manders fooled Mark. He came into the room on his crutches, and his normally kindly face was craggy with anger. His hair seemed to stand on end from some sputtering disgust burning within him. He plunked himself heavily into the chair, bit the end off an expensive cigar and glared at the Chief.

  “What is the meaning of all this? We’ve been fingerprinted like common criminals. Herded into a room to sit at your beck and call.”

  “Mr. Manders,” the Chief said wisely, “your family ain’t exactly out of the public eye. The sooner we wind this up, the less the papers are going to say about it. The guys on the Indio Banner’ll hear about this soon and be coming up. Pretty quick, then, the wire services’ll get wind of it and every big-shot police reporter in L. A.’ll be down here. If we can bust it before they come, then you’re a lot better off.”

  Frank Manders subsided with a rumble. Mark realized the Chief was a lot smarter than some people gave him credit for.

  “All I want is a few answers,” the Chief said. “What time you go to bed last night?”

  “About three.”

  “Go to sleep right away?”

  “I did.”

  “Wake up at all? Hear anything?”

  “I take sleeping powders because my leg bothers me. I slept until the Queen woke me up this morning.”

  “The Queen, huh? When was that?”

  Frank Manders smiled. “Your policeman was thrust out of the way. I gathered from the Queen’s explosions when she woke me that he wasn’t doing it properly.”

  “Yeah? Okay. Now if you didn’t hear nothing, there ain’t much you can tell about this. But how about asking them all to come down here? What’s that for, huh?”

  Frank Manders hesitated. “Purely business administration connected with the estate.”

  “So you ask ‘em all, the Farman pair, an’ Link and this Jeffers and this Leona Taylor, too, huh?”

  “That’s right. Leona came as a friend of Grant’s. There was property owned jointly by Farman and Major Manders which was to be controlled by the other in the event one died. When both were deceased, then it was to be shared with the children. That is, Maybelle and Idell and Grant were each to get their third of seven-eighths of the estate. Tony was to get the remaining eighth. I can’t see what this has to do with Link’s death.”

  “What did Link have in this business, huh?”

  Frank Manders made a wry face. “Link was a creditor of Grant’s, payment contingent on his inheritance. We were going to straighten that out. Link seemed to need the money badly and wanted to know how much and when he would be paid.”

  Mark thought of hulking Link and his recollection of having seen him, and suddenly something clicked into place. He tucked the idea away to be acted on as soon as he could get free.

  “And Jeffers?”

  “Grant just brought Jeffers along,” the lawyer said.

  “Okay. Anything wrong with the financial set-up? Any chance of the dough being not as much as they figured?”

  “Both the Major’s personal estate and his joint property with Farman are solid,” Frank Manders said stiffly. “Everything is in good shape.”

  The Chief spit deliberately into the fireplace and then leaned forward. “Yeah?” he said quietly. “Then why’d Major Manders commit suicide, huh?”

  Mark was startled. Frank Mander’s face drained of all color and his hands bent over and bit into his knees. He seemed frozen with surprise, and then it faded to consternation, and finally his training came to him and his face lost all expression.

  “Who told you that?”

  “We’re asking the questions. Sorry.”

  “I don’t think that has any bearing on the case,” Frank Manders said. “You have no legal right to coerce me into a statement. Besides, his death
is recorded as a heart attack.”

  “Yeah, but nobody performed any autopsy,” the Chief said. “You might as well talk. We’re hanging the two together, and we’ll bust ‘em wide open if we have to.”

  Frank Manders regarded the tip of his cigar, as yet unlit, for a still, long moment. He raised his head, and Mark saw he was scowling angrily. “I don’t believe in this raising the muck of the past,” he said. “But you insist on it. My brother’s finances had nothing to do with his suicide. It was a woman.”

  Mark was stunned at Frank Mander’s answer. He had known the old Major well in a business way; since he had built his station close to their drive he had done all of their car greasing and general work. It seemed impossible to think of the stern-appearing but kindly Major with his thick head of grey hair and military moustache being so deeply entangled with a woman that he had killed himself.

  “What woman?” he blurted.

  Frank Mander’s voice was low. “I don’t know,” he said. Mark sensed he was lying.

  “Then,” the Chief asked, “how do you know it was a dame, huh?”

  Frank Manders said, “There was a letter the Major sent me just before he died. I brought it with me.”

  “Handy so we can see it?”

  Frank Manders raised his eyes to the Chief. “It was stolen the day after I arrived, by Link.” He got to his feet cumbersomely and slipped his crutches beneath his arms. “This is all I can tell you, gentlemen; I hope it helps. That letter is the reason Link is in the morgue now.” And with as much dignity as Mark had ever seen, on crutches or not, he went to the door and through into the hallway.

  Chapter XI

  THE Chief spit into the fireplace. “I’ll be damned for a horned-toad,” he said. “These rich people are buggy as hell!”

  “You want to see Leona Taylor now?” Mark asked.

  “No, I want to go out in the garden,” the Chief said, “and pick daisies and string ‘em in my hair.” He got up and moved ponderously toward the door. “Maybe the gardener can tell us something about the cyanide. I want one thing definite at least.”

  They went through French doors into the side garden and followed the cement walk around back. Henderson was just coming from the rear of the pool.

  “You been at it long enough,” the Chief said when he came up to them. “What’d you do—find the maid out back or something?”

  The deputy grinned and shoved his broad-brimmed hat back on his sweaty forehead. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Her name is Catrina.”

  The Chief turned red and then purple. “Oh, God!” he said. “All right, what happened?”

  Henderson seemed to catch on then. “Aw, Chief,” he said, “you got me wrong. She was out there and we got to talking a little, is all. She told me plenty.”

  “Yeah,” the Chief said. “I’ll bet she did. I’ve seen her in town.”

  The policeman blushed. “Well, she did. Said she was up this morning at seven. She didn’t stay like the rest of them. The Queen sent her to bed along about eleven and did the serving herself.”

  The Chief was breathing through his nose heavily. “Seven! Yeah, go on.”

  “Well, Chief, she got up and took a bath and then started for the house.”

  “For the house?”

  “Yeah, she lives out back with her father. He’s the gardener. So she was coming up the way I was, toward the pool there, when she saw them French doors closing up there.” He turned and pointed to the wall above, to the balcony which came from Major Manders’ living quarters.

  “What else?”

  “That’s all,” the policeman said.

  “She didn’t see who it was, huh?”

  “All she saw was the closing of the doors. She thought it was funny, of course, because no one’s used that room since the old man died.”

  “Yeah, I see. Where in hell was she this morning at nine o’clock?”

  “I don’t know,” the policeman said. “I saw her about ten.”

  “That’s the time,” the Chief said, “when the Chink was serving up breakfast.” He looked glumly at the cop. “You better grab yourself something. See if the Chink’ll give you a bottle of beer, huh?”

  He and Mark went around the pool and north along the walk to the point where they could see the gardener’s cottage off to their left. It was a small adobe set in the palm groves, and there was a small lean-to shed beside it. It seemed lifeless, still, but as they approached a bent figure came from the lean-to.

  “Howdy,” the Chief said. “Busy, Curtis?”

  The old man wagged his shaggy head. “Nothing more’n usual, Chief. What’s on your mind?”

  “Murder,” the chief said. “Don’t tell me you ain’t heard.”

  “Oh, sure. Catrina came in all upset a little while ago. But I reckoned you was here to ask something.”

  “You reckoned right,” Mark said dryly. He lit his pipe and watched the old man lean against a palm trunk and chew a stem of dried oat.

  “You got any cyanide, Curtis?”

  The old man bobbed his head. “Lots of it. Use a spray sometimes. Want some?” He cackled as if it had been a good joke.

  The Chief said, “You keep this door locked all the time?”

  “Ain’t never locked. No one around here to steal nothing.”

  “Then any time a person could walk in and you wouldn’t know it, huh?”

  “Any time I was out in the groves,” the old man said. “That’s most of the day. Why, something gone?”

  “Some of the cyanide,” the chief said. “It was used in the murder.”

  “I thought he was drowned,” the old man said, unperturbed. “Reckon it could have been my cyanide, though.”

  The Chief ducked his head and went into the lean-to shed. Mark followed, the old man close behind him. It was low in there, so low Mark’s head had to be kept bent so it wouldn’t hit the board ceiling. There were spades, mattocks, shovels, hoes and other assorted paraphernalia along the walls and strewn on the floor. Long date-picking ladders, wide at the bottom and almost pointed at the top, hung on pegs along the walls. Cans were stacked along one wall, and two pair of huge pruning shears with extension handles hung by the ladders. Gunny sacks half or dully filled with fertilizer gave the room a dead, decayed odor, and various sprays added a pungency that made Mark’s mouth taste brassy as if he hadn’t brushed his teeth after a drinking bout. Everything seemed in orderly disorderliness. Mark doubted if he could find anything quickly in there, and knew that the old man could put his fingers on any article at a moment’s notice.

  “The cyanide,” the Chief said. “Don’t touch it, though.”

  Old Curtis pointed to a can near the center of the wall, then bent down curiously. “Hell,” he objected, “that ain’t it. Damned if it ain’t been moved …” He crowed triumphantly. “There ‘tis, under the work table there.” He pointed to a work table filled with flats, most of them empty, a few containing tiny plants in their first stage of growth. “Danged if it was there last time I saw it,” he said. “Some ornery cuss has moved it on me.”

  “The murderer,” Mark said.

  “I reckon,” the old man admitted. He seemed more perturbed over the moving of the cyanide than over its more recent use.

  “When did you use it last?” Mark asked.

  “ ‘Bout a week ago.”

  “Remember to have me send the print man down here,” the Chief said. “Maybe he can catch something on that can. Don’t touch it, Curtis.”

  “Okay, but get through with it. It don’t belong under that bench,” the old man said querulously. “It belongs right with these others against this wall. Dang these messy people anyway.”

  The Chief grinned and ducked out into the stifling but fresher air. When they were all out, he asked, “What time did you get up this morning, Curtis?”

  “My usual time,” the old man said. “I don’t let none of the goin’s on in that house bother my work. I got up at six like always.”

  “What did you do
then?”

  “I went out to the back section an’ started irrigating,” he said. “Got it started and came back an’ made my breakfast. Then I went back out. Just got in here ‘bout ten minutes ago.”

  “You didn’t see anyone or anything, huh?”

  “Saw Catrina goin’ to the house,” the old man cackled. “Reckon she did it?”

  The Chief smiled. “Did she have reason?”

  The old man cackled again lewdly. “Couldn’t rightly say. Have to ask her.”

  “The Chief ducked his head. “Let’s go back to the house. I want to see the Queen.”

  Mark stifled a yawn. “I’m getting sleepy—and hungry.”

  The Chief looked at his watch. “Nearly twelve. Could do with some food myself. We’ll see the Queen and the maid and go grab a bite. By that time we should have some dope, and the guy handling the prints should be here.” He sighed gustily. “I suppose the county prosecutor’ll be on our necks along with them newspapermen before we get through.”

  They found the Queen engrossed in a lettuce and tomato salad and a stubbie of beer in the kitchen. The Chief pulled a chair across from her and sat down. Mark ranged on the other side of him.

  “Well,” she said testily, “I suppose you’re happpy, Tom Rourke.” She waved the fork at him. “Let me warn you, if you cause any trouble for those children, I’ll—”

  “Now, Queen,” he said, “take it easy. I’m here to solve a murder. All I want is a few answers, huh?”

  “Have some beer,” she said. She called out, “Catrina, bring two bottles of beer, will you, please?”

  Catrina appeared after a brief moment, set down two glasses and two full stubbies. She gave Mark a worried little smile. He grinned back at her. She was a cute redhead, he thought. Only built a little too chunky. Her hair was red and shingled so the ends hung over her ears and curled forward to little points. Her face was full and round, her lips pouting a little in a warm, hinting manner. Her breasts were full and high, straining against the light print dress she wore.

  “I want to talk to you in a minute, Catrina,” the Chief said.

  “About the—murder?” Her voice was high-pitched, almost squeaky.