Dead on the Level

by Nielsen, Helen

  Vanno was on his feet again but this time it was different; Casey held the gun. “Where’s Groot?” he demanded.

  “You go to hell!”

  “Think I’ll find him there?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You should know,” Casey said.

  A little bell was ringing in his head. Get out, it was saying. Get out fast. Phyllis was right. Groot is dead, and such a condition could become contagious. He didn’t need Vanno any more, anyway. Whatever he’d hoped to learn by this visit had been made wonderfully clear the moment he recognized those shoulders in the doorway. The pieces fit now. Now even Mrs. Brunner would have to be convinced, and Mrs. Brunner was the one person who could blast Gorden’s alibi.

  But Casey, much as he wanted to run, wasn’t turning his back on anybody. Across the room was a closet with a key in the lock, and with a gun in his hand Casey felt great.

  “I hate to see you two break up,” he said, indicating the way with the gun. “Sometimes these little spats iron themselves out when you’re alone together.”

  They weren’t liking the idea in pretty violent language when Casey turned the key and drew a deep breath. It was the first time the room had seemed big enough to breathe in.

  Outside the streets were almost dark, and that was good. Casey walked back to the parking-lot where he’d left the coupé and started for the northwest side as fast as traffic allowed, because now he wanted to keep that date with Mrs. Brunner. Now he really wanted to keep that date. On the way back to Big John’s he suddenly got scared. Suppose Vanno ran out? Suppose Gorden got wind of what was going on and sent him out of town? But now he was just being a foolish man talking to himself, because facts were facts and Gorden couldn’t wipe out the whole trail even if he had time. If Mrs. Brunner had kept her silence he didn’t have any time at all.

  When Casey got back to Big John’s all the lights were on and out in front, parked right under the street lamp, was a shiny black squad car. Casey had slowed almost to a stop before he spotted it. He shifted to second and went around the block again, but it was still there. He didn’t like it. Squad cars didn’t hang around Big John’s—it wasn’t that kind of a place. He drove past again and came up the alley, parking alongside the yellow brick garage. If he could just sneak in the back way and get Phyllis— But first he had to get rid of something. He pulled Vanno’s gun out of his pocket, looked about him, and then tossed it up on the flat roof of the garage. Some day somebody might drag a body out of the river, or the lake, or a park lagoon, and find a slug in it that had come from Vanno’s weapon. Casey wanted no part of that deal.

  He waited a few seconds until his breathing was easy again and then followed the gangway up to the back door. He let himself in quietly and moved across the kitchen toward the stairs.

  Then a man in a wrinkled gray raincoat moved out from behind the sandwich table.

  “Hi, Casimir,” Lieutenant Johnson said. “I had a hunch you might be coming in this way.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE LIEUTENANT looked so harmless, what with the piece of spiced ham in one hand and the slab of rye bread in the other, that Casey knew the pressure was on. He was a cop, wasn’t he? A man went on guard with a cop in his kitchen, especially when that man was Casimir Morokowski.

  “Getting cold,” Johnson said, putting the bread and meat together. “Gives a guy an appetite. Besides, I haven’t had supper yet.”

  “Working overtime?” Casey asked.

  Foolish question. Johnson merely looked at him and that was enough.

  “John tells me you just got in from California last Friday.”

  “Was it Friday? I don’t remember.”

  “Funny.” Johnson paused long enough to take a huge bite and chew it carefully. “Drive a gray coupé, don’t you?”

  “They have them,” Casey observed, “even in California.”

  “But not with Illinois plates.”

  Now Casey knew. Saturday night, the night of the party, it wasn’t just a casual call that Johnson had made. He had remembered, all right—remembered the man at that lake-front hotel. How he had picked up the trail was something else again, but Casey had no doubt but what he would hear about it soon enough. Down at the station, probably. That was the next move. He waited while the lieutenant went back for the coffee he’d left sitting on the sandwich table, and then something in the man’s eyes told him to look around. He did, and it was Ma who was standing on the stairway under the naked light bulb. Ma with an old blue shawl thrown about her shoulders and ragged felt slippers on her feet. “Casimir—” she said.

  Just one word, but it was more. You’re home, the word said; you’re here and there’s a policeman waiting just like I feared all along. I knew there was some trouble.

  “Hello, Ma,” Casey answered, trying to make it sound light. “What’s up?”

  She gnawed her lower lip a moment. She was watching the lieutenant but he had his face in the coffee cup.

  “Your wife—”

  Phyllis! My God, he’d almost said it aloud; he’d almost said her name! He waited for Ma to finish, not daring to speak himself.

  “She wants—she wants to see you upstairs.”

  Lieutenant Johnson was giving the orders now. Casey took a step toward the stairway, then hesitated. “Go ahead,” Johnson said. “And ask her to come down with you when you come back. I’d like to meet the lady.”

  I’ll bet you would, Casey thought. I’ll just bet you would. He took the stairs as fast as he could with Ma shuffling on ahead. If only she hadn’t come down the way she did, bringing Phyllis into the conversation, he might have been able to make that trip to the station alone. But now it was too late. With everything so close to working out, too.

  Ma opened the door into the kitchen and he followed her in. She closed the door behind them and leaned back against it. “You lied,” she said in a dull, hollow voice. “You said there was no trouble. You lied.”

  “Never mind the lecture!” Casey snapped. “Where’s my wife?”

  “She’s gone.”

  For a moment he couldn’t believe her. He stared back with his jaw unhinged. “Gone? Gone where? When did she go?” All of this he wanted to know in one sudden burst of questions. Ma merely shook her head.

  “How should I know?” she cried. “Nobody tells me nothing. I had to go by the A & P so when I come back she’s gone. All afternoon she’s gone and now it’s getting dark already.”

  “She didn’t say anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Or leave a note?”

  There was no note. Like Ma said, nothing. Casey forgot about the man waiting downstairs in the kitchen; now, for a long, empty moment he could forget everything—Gorden, Vanno, everything—because the only important thing in the world was that Phyllis had gone away. She hadn’t said anything, just gone away.

  “What does that police lieutenant want?”

  Ma brought back the realities. She’d always been good at that. No hints, no subtlety for Ma. “He’s been here half an hour, maybe, asking for you. I knew there was trouble. My son don’t come home unless he’s in trouble.”

  But Ma’s eyes didn’t match her words. She was looking at him in a peculiar, disturbing way. Not accusingly, like her voice; not derisively, but almost—Casey’s throat tightened a little just at the thought of it—as if she might be afraid for him.

  “But you said that she wanted to see me,” he choked.

  “It was me that wanted to see you,” Ma said, “without that policeman.”

  He could hear the latch click on the lock behind her; then she listened. If Johnson had heard her lock the door he would come bounding up the stairs, but he hadn’t heard. Nobody was coming.

  “Is it bad trouble, Casimir?”

  “The police think I killed a man,” Casey said.

  “Did you?”

  “No!”

  If he hadn’t shouted she might have believed him. The way it was, it was all Casey could do to believe hims
elf. For an instant he wished that he hadn’t blurted out the trouble that way, but that was foolishness. Some things you didn’t have to tell Ma; she already knew. Now she stared at his face for what seemed a very long time and then, without looking behind her, unlocked the latch again.

  “Ma!”

  She hesitated.

  “I didn’t kill him, I swear to God! I could prove it if I had time. Just a little more time—”

  But Ma’s face didn’t show anything. She had her hand on the knob and was turning toward the door.

  “I got to see maybe the lieutenant wants more coffee,” she said. “He’s got plenty time. It takes a young girl like Paula a little while to get fixed to go downstairs—yah, Casimir?”

  Casey couldn’t say anything. All of a sudden he wanted to bawl; he wanted to put his head on Ma’s shoulder and bawl like a kid, but there wasn’t time. What she had said meant that he should hurry and that he should be quiet going down those outside stairs. He should keep his head down going past the kitchen window and, above all, he should make tracks as fast as anything.

  “You need money?” she asked.

  “No, Ma,” he choked. “I don’t need anything. If Paula comes back—”

  But now he was talking to the door because Ma had closed it behind her and was shuffling back down the stairs.

  He knew that he should go right away, but he had to make sure. He went back to his room and it was true, all right; Phyllis was gone. Her things were there, all except what she’d been wearing that morning, but there wasn’t a note anywhere. She’d simply walked away. But where? Last night she’d begged him to take her away and now she was gone, as if some great fear had grown too much for her to face any longer. Casey stared at nothing and tried to puzzle out the answer, but this was a job that would have to wait. Right now there was another business to handle. Right now there was that back stairway to negotiate.

  It’s a long ride from Big John’s to a farm outside Arlington Heights—especially on a raw, cold November night, but it couldn’t be long enough for Casey—not when he was coming empty-handed. Somewhere out on Milwaukee Avenue he stopped to phone Maggie, knowing it would do no good. No, she hadn’t seen Phyllis; what’s more, she didn’t care to see Phyllis or Casey Morrow, thank you. But all the time a little edge in her voice was worrying along with him and that was some help. It wasn’t quite so lonely that way.

  The rest of the way out he could think. Surely he had it straight now. It had to be Gorden—or Vanno, which was the same thing—who had killed Darius Brunner. Somehow Brunner must have tumbled to what kind of a man Gorden was and put Groot on his trail to get the evidence. Casey could understand that, too. It would take plenty of proof to convince a woman like Mrs. Brunner that Lance Gorden was not more to be pitied than censured. And Gorden, once he had realized what was going on, must have known that nothing short of murder could save his chance of marrying the Brunner fortune.

  It added up. All that was needed now was Mrs. Brunner’s admission that Gorden hadn’t been with her the night of the murder. That, together with what she had told him about the land deal, should convince even a hardheaded customer like Lieutenant Johnson, but now there was a hitch. Without Phyllis, without the promised delivery of her daughter, Mrs. Brunner wasn’t likely to be in a listening frame of mind.

  And then Casey was turning in at the driveway of the farm with the white rail fence, parking, walking slowly up the gravel path, and ringing the bell.

  The man Casey remembered in Levi’s and a red-plaid shirt was wearing a black suit; otherwise he hadn’t changed a bit. He opened the door, scowling still, and ushered Casey inside. He was expected, that much was obvious, but the welcome mat wasn’t out. Just before stepping into the library, to which he had been sullenly conducted, Casey sensed that something was wrong; but instinct was a poor preparation for the shock that awaited beyond that door.

  It was the same cheerful room he had visited before. A fire was snapping brightly on the hearth and the artful spacing of softly lighted lamps made everything seem warm and inviting and cozy. Very cozy. Mrs. Brunner rising from a chintz-covered chair to meet him, Lance Gorden slouched deep in one of the wide divans, and Phyllis, most of all Phyllis, curled snugly against Gorden’s outflung arm. Cozy and cute and like a kick in the head. No, instinct could never cope with this.

  There was no measuring the time that nobody said anything at all. It was Mrs. Brunner who finally dared to disturb the silence. (Casey had almost forgotten her presence. All he could see, all he could even begin to realize, was the way Phyllis rested like a contented kitten on Gorden’s arm. He could almost hear her purr.)

  “Come in, Mr. Morrow,” she said, “we’ve been expecting you. I don’t think you’ve met Mr. Gorden, my daughter’s fiancé.”

  There was swift recognition in Gorden’s face as he sprang to his feet. “So it’s you!” he snapped. “I thought as much—”

  “Lance!”

  Casey still hadn’t recovered enough to defend himself against Gorden’s lunge, but Mrs. Brunner’s command was effective. It might have been even more than Mrs. Brunner that stopped him in his tracks for suddenly, with great comprehension, Casey began to see light. All that he knew about Lance Gorden was right there in his eyes and Gorden, for just an instant, seemed a little smaller.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “This isn’t the place, of course, but after what he’s done—”

  “Mr. Morrow will answer for what he’s done in due time. I think Mr. Morrow will answer for a great many things.”

  “Let’s not be so timid,” Casey said, surprising himself with a voice. “Just what is it that I’m supposed to have done?”

  The question was for anybody, but his eyes were on Phyllis. For a moment, barely a moment, her gaze faltered, and somehow Casey knew that this one moment was all the victory he was going to have. She was Phyllis Brunner again; she was the girl of the Cloud Room, of the mink coat, of the sultry perfume. Yes, the perfume was there, along with a Parisian gown and a fancy hair-do, and the back bedroom at Big John’s was a universe away.

  Gorden stepped toward the doorway, but Mrs. Brunner yanked the leash again. “Where are you going?” she demanded.

  “To the telephone. This is a matter for the police.”

  “Wait. We’ll hear what Mr. Morrow has to say.”

  Smart boy, Gorden. He’d known very well that Mrs. Brunner would do that. It was the gesture that counted.

  “You’ve already heard what Mr. Morrow has to say,” Casey spoke up. “I told you the straight story Sunday morning.”

  Yes, I was here Sunday morning. That’s what you knew, isn’t it, Phyllis? That’s why you wanted to run away last night. But we didn’t. You did the running, straight back to Gorden. Why? There was no answer to the question in Casey’s eyes. Not so much as a hint.

  “My daughter tells quite a different story,” Mrs. Brunner said quietly. “Phyllis says that you have been holding her prisoner since the night of my husband’s death.”

  Casey’s mouth twisted into a grotesque smile. It was too late for surprises now; now he expected anything. “Is that all?” he asked.

  Gorden flushed. “Isn’t that enough? If not, maybe she can supply a little information about the murder, too.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Casey remarked dryly. “But what do you need with information, Gorden? Amnesia?”

  The room wasn’t cozy any more; even the fire seemed cold. Make noises, Casey Morrow, come back with the cracks and sound like a man who isn’t breaking apart inside because the boom is lowering, lowering fast. But all the time he knew how the game was going; now, when it was too late, he knew. The beautiful, beautiful double-cross. Or was it? That was where the hell came in, for, despite that fact that Phyllis was lying, how did anybody know for sure that Casey Morrow hadn’t killed Darius Brunner? He’d stopped thinking that way a long time ago, but now all the old doubt rushed in and Casey was scared. The only thing he knew to do with fear was to fight back.r />
  “You don’t have to give me the details,” he blurted. “I can imagine what kind of a tale you’ve been hearing. The same one she threatened me with if I didn’t string along and help her pin this murder on you, Gorden.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “Sure I’m lying. Everybody’s lying. Maybe there wasn’t any murder at all; maybe that’s a lie, too. Maybe this whole thing is just one of those ingenious yarns Phyllis loves to spring on people. What about it, honey, did you tell your mother the big news?”

  Phyllis seemed even smaller without Gorden’s shoulder behind her. She drew her legs up under her wide skirt and stared at Casey with some incomprehensible message in her eyes, but it was too late for messages now.

  “News?” Mrs. Brunner repeated. “What news?”

  “Then you didn’t tell. Really, sweetheart, I think Mother should know about us. Maybe she won’t approve of such a quick marriage. Maybe she won’t like that five-thousand-dollar dowry, either, but she’s entitled to know.”

  The words came out just the way he wanted them—let someone else’s mouth hang open for a change—but Phyllis’s stark white face kept telling him that it wasn’t going to work; when this was all out and over with things would be worse than before. And then she answered, and he was right.

  “Marriage?” she echoed. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Morrow, but I’m beginning to suspect that you’re mentally unbalanced.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EVERYBODY LOOKED at Casey. He could feel their stares, dark and questioning, but all he could actually see was the way Phyllis’s eyes had widened with every syllable of that incredible statement. He tried to remember what words were like—to make some protestation—and then, suddenly, it didn’t seem worth while. Phyllis Brunner knew what she was doing, all along she had known, and if he didn’t understand, well, that was just his tough luck. Now he was beginning to get the picture, the beautiful picture with the beautiful frame, and then Gorden was flexing his muscles again.