Never Bet Your Life

by George Harmon Coxe

  “And what did you say?”

  “I asked him what he meant. I didn’t understand him at first.”

  “And he told you,” Vaughn said, “that if he let the matter drop and said nothing, if this girl who might be dead was not identified, you’d have to wait nearly ten years for the balance of the estate.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, what did he want? What did he propose to do?”

  “He asked me if I would give him twenty per cent of what I got in case he could get the rest of the estate for me.”

  “He didn’t tell you that the way he was going to do that was to kill the girl the estate belonged to?”

  “Oh, God, no!” she cried in a voice so genuinely distressed that Dave was ready to believe her. “He said the girl was dead but he wanted to be paid for proving it. He said did I want my money now enough to give him a percentage or did I want to wait.”

  “You said you wanted it now?”

  “Well—yes. Naturally I—I mean, I thought it was worth it—”

  When she let the sentence hang Vaughn said: “Was there some agreement between you? Anything on paper?”

  “Yes. We went to Orlando yesterday after I came. He had the agreement notarized.”

  “You have a copy? … We’ll want to see it but for now just tell me what it said.”

  “It said that I agreed to give him twenty per cent of any money I collected from my husband’s estate provided I collected within one year.”

  Vaughn rubbed his hands and allowed himself a smile. He looked at Workman, still smiling but contempt in his eyes.

  “That,” he said, “makes a right smart motive…. Thank you,” he said to the woman. “We won’t bother you any more tonight.”

  She seemed not to understand and made no move to rise. “You mean I can go?”

  “For tonight, yes, Ma’am. In the morning you’ll come down to my office and put what you’ve told me in writing. I don’t think there’ll be any charges.”

  He stood up when she did, walked with her to the door and opened it for her. Then, when she had gone, he looked at Workman.

  “Twenty per cent, eh?” he said disgustedly. “Eighty thousand bucks. You want to tell us the rest of it?”

  Workman had been a policeman and he knew the value of silence. No man could legally be made to talk against his will and he intended to make the most of it. The exasperation on his hard-jawed face was sullen but challenging. He sat where he was and said nothing at all. Even when Vaughn told Steve to put the handcuffs on, Workman made no sound, nor did he move until he was told to stand up.

  “Take him down, Steve,” Vaughn said. “You know where to put him. Then come back here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WHEN THE SCREEN DOOR CLOSED and Captain Vaughn turned to look the room over, his glance stopped on Betty. For the past few minutes she had sat silently in her corner chair, looking small and alone and bewildered by what was going on about her. Dave, torn inside by her distress and wanting more than anything to do something to help her, had been forced to stay where he was. To say anything now, to indicate how he felt in front of the others would only embarrass her and he was grateful now when the captain spoke to her.

  “I know this has been a real shock to you, Miss Nelson—I guess you’re still Miss Nelson to me,” he said kindly. “But now that you know the truth wouldn’t you like to go back to your room and try to get some rest?”

  Betty did not hesitate. She shook her head. She looked at Dave and tried to smile, as though to prove she was all right. It seemed to him then that what she was afraid of was being alone but what she said was:

  “Oh, no. I—I’d rather not just yet.”

  Vaughn nodded and a small sigh escaped him. He seemed almost reluctant to get on with his investigation. He looked at Resnik sitting there impassively in his white jacket, at Liza Drake who sat beside him. Finally he got around to Dave.

  “Thanks for the assist,” he said frankly. “Narrows things down, I guess.”

  “It was the phone call,” Dave said. “The work my friend did on checking the will.”

  “You had to think to ask him first though.” Vaughn walked to the door and came back. “How does that tie in with the murder?”

  “I don’t know that it does. That’s what confused me. I was worried about Betty. She saw Sam outside here the night Gannon was killed—”

  “That’s still only her story,” Resnik said to break his long silence.

  Dave ignored the interruption and continued to Vaughn.

  “When I understood Workman’s possible motive for wanting”—he glanced at Betty but had to finish the thought—“Betty out of the way, I tried to find a motive for shooting Gannon. The only thing I could think of was that he might have killed Gannon, without motive, on the assumption that having no motive he would not be a suspect unless caught in the act. That way if anything happened to Betty you’d assume the same man did both jobs and Workman, having no motive on the first, would have none on the second.”

  Vaughn nodded. He said he could see what Dave meant. “But it’s not very good,” he added.

  “No,” Dave said, “it isn’t. I don’t think Workman had anything to do with Gannon’s death. Workman was an opportunist and when Gannon was killed I think he worked on the theory I’ve just outlined. He didn’t kill Gannon but he saw a chance to kill Betty—” He looked at her again, distressed by what he was saying.

  “Yeah,” Vaughn said. “If an accident happened to her so much the better. If it looked like murder we’d think the same one did it that killed Gannon.”

  “He’d been working on the job for ten months, on a bonus arrangement,” Dave said. “He finally found what he was looking for but he’d spent a lot of money on expenses and it occurred to him that it wasn’t enough. He was smart enough to figure out a way. Instead of winding up with a couple of thousand legitimately he saw a chance to collect about eighty thousand, probably more than he ever dreamed of.”

  “A guy like him,” Vaughn said, “yes.”

  “The report you got on him said he was a tough, ambitious cop. He’d killed, or at least shot, two kids with a stolen car. He was a callous, greedy guy who was ready to do what he had to do without compunction. Eighty thousand was motive enough for Workman.”

  “Nicer guys than him have killed for less, a lot less,” Vaughn said. “He was a wrongie. Mean. He had the look.” He hesitated and brought his mind back to the subject at hand. “But he didn’t kill Gannon or Stinson.”

  “No,” Dave said, “he didn’t. He couldn’t have. He had an alibi with Gannon but I didn’t know about that until tonight.”

  Vaughn’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, yes,” he said slowly. “You mentioned something about knowing who did it.”

  “I can tell you who didn’t do it.”

  “Prove it, can you?”

  “Not with evidence that would stand up in court but I think I can prove it to you.”

  “Try.”

  Dave considered the things he had to say and tried to arrange them in the proper order in his mind. He felt sure he was right but the tension was working on him now, coming not from apprehension but from the strain that had been mounting within him. He was conscious of the hot stillness of the room as he hesitated, the stickiness of his clothes. He took a short breath and stepped over to the radio. He pointed to the dial. Vaughn stepped up to have a look.

  “This thing is set for station WTCX,” Dave said. “You can take my word for it or you can turn it on and wait for a station break.”

  “Go ahead,” Vaughn said. “What makes it important?”

  “John Gannon had funny radio habits. He wanted one wherever he was, for the news, and for racing results. He used to run some handbooks. He’s always been interested in horses and nearly every day he had a bet down somewhere.”

  “I remember the parlay slip we found in his pocket,” Vaughn nodded. “I checked it. The second horse ran out of the money.”

  “Sin
ce we were here,” Dave said, “he listened to two stations only. For all he cared you could have taken the rest of them off the air. At noon—when he was here—and at six o’clock always, he listened to the news on WTCX. Always at eleven fifteen he tuned in WCXM to get the racing results. He made a point of being here; he never missed since we arrived.”

  He swallowed and said: “Gannon listened to the WTCX news before dinner on the night he was killed. When I came in from the Club 80 and found him dead the radio was playing dance music. When I came back with Betty and Workman after chasing whoever it was that slugged me”—he looked at Resnik but decided not to accuse him then—“it was still playing. Is that right, Betty?” he said to the girl.

  “Yes,” she said. “I remember.”

  “I turned it off before I phoned the police. I didn’t notice the station then but before that I remembered a disc-jockey saying that this was station WTCX.”

  “I remember too.” Betty was sitting up now, interest stirring in her hazel eyes. “You turned it off before the man finished.”

  “The next noon I was here,” Dave continued. “I turned on the news like Gannon used to do. I didn’t have to tune a station in to get it. It was already on WTCX.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think anything about it. I didn’t think anything about it until tonight. At six o’clock I turned the radio on again. I hadn’t touched the dial since the murder. But I was doing some thinking by that time and all of a sudden it hit me.”

  Vaughn hadn’t quite caught up. He scowled. “What hit you?” he demanded.

  “The idea that we’d been figuring wrong about our times. Because if Gannon had been alive at eleven fifteen the radio would have been tuned to station WCXM for the racing results. If it had been, then turned off after that, and later turned back on by the killer to cover the shot, it would still have been on WCXM. The killer wouldn’t care a damn what station he had so long as there was noise. It certainly would not have been on WTCX unless it had already been set for that station. To me that proves that Gannon died before eleven fifteen.”

  He hesitated, perspiring freely now and a little out of breath. He watched Vaughn, seeing the unspoken agreement in the other’s weathered face.

  “You’ve got a timetable,” he said. “Most or what you have has been corroborated. You know where people were and when they got here.”

  “Resnik?” It was a question that Vaughn was asking.

  Dave shook his head. “Between a quarter of eleven and a quarter after Sam was at the club worrying about a drunk who came close to breaking the bank…. No. Check your list and you’ll find that only two people were here before eleven fifteen. George Stinson was one. He was here all evening.”

  “Well,” Vaughn said impatiently, “who was the other. Tyler?”

  Dave shook his head again. “The only other person who could have done it is the one who brought him here.” Then, not mentioning her name, he looked at Liza Drake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ONCE AGAIN the room was still. The heat seemed to settle like the silence, gathering tension as it fell. Liza Drake’s shawl had slipped from the bare shoulder to her lap. Her face was composed but oddly pale around the cheekbones and her red lips held a funny little smile.

  “That’s silly,” she said and her laugh, though not loud, had a harsh, artificial sound. “That’s not even funny.”

  “Wait a minute!”

  Resnik demanded attention but he did not get it from the woman.

  “Me shoot Mr. Gannon?” she said. “How crazy can you get?”

  Resnik tried again. His hooded eyes were bright and unpleasant and his little mustache seemed to flatten against his teeth.

  “This is nothing but a lousy frame,” he said. “You haven’t got a thing … What the hell does the radio prove?” he demanded, glaring at Dave. “You could have set it anywhere you wanted to. As evidence it isn’t worth fifteen cents and you know it.”

  Dave made no attempt to answer the argument because he knew it was sound. Instead he continued to talk to Vaughn as though there had been no interruption, wanting to get across the things he had in his mind, the few that were facts, the others that he could not prove even though he knew them to be true.

  “She was the obvious one all along,” he said. “It was so simple we overlooked it entirely. At least I did,” he added in a voice that indicated how disgusted he was with himself.

  “She had the sleeping capsules. She knew, with Betty there, that I’d dance with her. She could be alone in that corner booth. She had all the time in the world to fix up my drink and when it worked I have an idea she called it to Gannon’s attention, knowing it might appeal to his sense of humor. It did. He fell for it and she offered to drive him home, with a gun in her bag.”

  “Nuts!” Resnik said, half shouting now.

  “She came in with him,” Dave said. “For some reason he opened the safe. Whether she intended to kill him anyway or whether he stalled her somehow and made a move to get the gun I don’t know.”

  “I’ll say you don’t,” Resnik said. “Guesses. Nothing but guesses, none of which you can prove…. Look, Captain,” he said, his voice steadying as he appealed for attention. “To kill a person you’ve got to have a motive. Even a lunatic must think he has a reason. I knew Gannon quite a while. If anybody had a motive, I did. Liza knew him about a week. She was never alone with him, hardly knew him. Why? Why should she want to kill him?”

  Vaughn opened his mouth as though about to speak and then closed it, his frown perplexed. When he had given the matter a second’s thought he answered.

  “This is Barnum’s idea,” he said to Resnik. “Suppose we let him tell it.” He looked at Dave. “You got an answer?”

  “I’ve got a motive. An obvious one if you’ll stop and think about it.”

  He hesitated, knowing he was right but not knowing exactly how to say so. It was a hard thing for him to attempt because he was young. It made him self-conscious when he tried to find the right words. He started by asking Vaughn a question.

  “In your experience what would you say was the best murder motive for a woman?”

  Vaughn had to think it over and it gave him a little trouble. “Wouldn’t know for sure. I’d say jealousy.”

  “Love,” Dave said.

  “What?”

  “Love, with its associated emotions like jealousy and hate.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s the motive,” Dave said, and then he was talking, remembering what he knew about Liza Drake, the impression she had made on him that other afternoon, the things she had said. He did not stop to think about the continuity or progression of his words, he simply spoke them as they came. He told of Liza’s background and the struggle she’d had to get anywhere as a singer. He repeated her own evaluation of her voice and her future.

  “All that time,” he said, “she knew what she wanted: the right man. She’d seen all kinds and had to deal with them, one way or another. It took her quite a while but she knew her subject matter and finally she found him.”

  “Sam,” Vaughn said.

  “Now wait a minute,” Resnik said again.

  “You keep still!” Vaughn said. “You asked the question; now listen to his answer. You’ll get your turn later.”

  “She’s wearing his ring,” Dave said. “From things she told me the other day my guess is that she would have married him on any terms. He didn’t want it that way because he happened to be just as much in love with her.” He looked at Resnik and said: “You told me that tonight and what you did about Tyler would seem to prove it. I can tell that if I have to.”

  This time Resnik was quiet. His naturally pale face had begun to tighten across the cheekbones and his narrowed gaze was intent.

  “Sam,” Dave continued to Vaughn, “was worried about the agreement with Gannon. He knew Gannon was thinking of selling to Willie Shear for a price Sam couldn’t meet.”

  Still talking steadily and not bothering with the effect he was creati
ng, he digressed to explain Willie Shear’s luck which took the twenty-two thousand from Resnik and ruined his chances of buying the club. He explained the terms of the agreement.

  “The way things stood,” he said, “Sam had worked three years to build up a profitable business and all he was going to get out of it was a few thousand dollars’ worth of furniture and gambling equipment he might not even be able to sell. That’s how it stood with Gannon alive. That way Sam was out in the street while Willie Shear took over. With Gannon dead Sam was, and is, in business.”

  “So what?” Resnik said, interrupting. “That’s my motive, not Liza’s.”

  “Sure,” Dave argued. “But you’re a gambler and you’ve had bad breaks before and learned to accept them. Gannon’s deal was legitimate and you had to take it. With Liza it was different. You’d planned to be married before Gannon decided to do business with Willie. Either you told her the marriage would have to wait until you had a stake again, or she assumed it. In you she had what she’d dreamed of having all her life. She didn’t intend to lose out.”

  He paused, his throat dry and the strain working on him again. He said: “She didn’t want any postponement, not after waiting that long. Maybe she was afraid a postponement would turn out to be no marriage at all. And one man was spoiling everything for her. Gannon. It was his fault and she knew you would do nothing about it. If anyone was to stop Gannon it would have to be her, and once she made up her mind she knew what she had to do. She did stop him. Maybe you didn’t know it before but you know it now.”

  He turned to Vaughn. “She did it. She stopped him in the only way she knew. She drove him home with a gun in her bag and she went inside with him and she shot him. Maybe she’ll tell us what went on in that room and maybe she won’t but that’s what happened. Then she walked out and ran into George Stinson … I can guess about that too if you want me to,” he said.