The Disappearance (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  The notes were sketchy, made less than an hour ago, hurriedly. As usual, Culligan had been anxious to get rid of me.

  I glanced at the first entry:

  knife, Allin. kitch.

  A uniformed man had found a bloody knife in the thick shrubbery of the Allingham back garden, approximately thirty feet from the unbolted rear door. A crew had canvassed the area for other evidence unsuccessfully. The knife had been identified as belonging in the Allingham kitchen and was now being examined at the crime lab.

  Maria, tramp?

  When she’d been only four, Maria’s father had died in a bordertown tavern brawl. Her family had moved to Los Angeles, where her mother had hired out as a domestic. At sixteen, Maria had been picked up for suspicion of soliciting—a B-girl rap. At nineteen, she’d done thirty days on a D and D charge, at which time she’d become a syphilis patient. At her death, she’d been twenty-four. She’d worked for the Allinghams almost exactly a year. She’d been indolent, often impolite. According to a neighbor, Mrs. Allingham had considered firing the girl. Mrs. Allingham, however, denied it.

  Raphael Coria, alibi?

  Maria’s boyfriend, the chauffeur, was a short-tempered Mexican boy of nineteen. He’d once spent the night at San Francisco Juvenile Hall for gang fighting, but otherwise his record was clean. He lived over his employer’s garage, three blocks away. He dated Maria “about twice a month,” usually going to the movies. On the night of the murder, he’d been watching TV in his room, but couldn’t prove it. Coria, at the moment, was our best suspect. The assistant D.A. was considering the issuance of a material witness warrant, but I’d suggested surveillance—more rope. The decision, of course, was the D.A.’s.

  Strang. first

  She’d died of asphyxia, but had apparently been stabbed soon afterward, repeatedly.

  Kid odd

  Darrell Allingham, the seventeen-year-old son, had seemed jumpy, apprehensive. Some of his answers to routine questions were inconsistent, and when the discrepancies were pointed out to him he seemed oddly indifferent. After a short interview, I’d decided that Darrell Allingham was a neurotic, insecure teenager, probably unpopular with his classmates, possibly a latent homosexual.

  Allin. jumpy

  The Allinghams, especially the mother, were plainly holding something back. Preliminary investigations indicated that Mr. and Mrs. Allingham had quarreled at the party they attended last night and may have—

  The door opened. I slipped the notebook into my outside pocket and rose to my feet. A tall, good-looking man of perhaps thirty-five entered the room. He wore an open white shirt, expensively cut slacks and beautifully burnished loafers. His cashmere sweater picked up the clear blue of his eyes. His wavy blond hair was carefully combed. The effect was studied—self-satisfied, a little smug. He didn’t bother to smile.

  “Lieutenant Hastings? I’m Victor Connoly.” He motioned to a sparkling cut-crystal whiskey service. “Drink?”

  “No, thanks.” I waited for him to sit behind his large, elaborate desk, then sank back into my leather chair.

  “I appreciate your coming.” He said it abruptly, frowning. “I’m sure something’s happened to Carol. Missing Persons didn’t do a thing, that I could see. Are you from the homicide detail?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are a lieutenant?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Connoly.”

  He nodded, as if my rank reassured him. Now he was tapping the desk with a long, elegant forefinger, petulantly studying the gesture, still frowning. “Is there any more word?” he asked finally. “Anything you’ve discovered?”

  “No, nothing.” I took out my notebook and ball-point pen. “Our jurisdiction doesn’t begin before seventy-two hours after a disappearance. Which is about now.”

  He nodded, sighed and recrossed his legs. Something in the impatient restlessness of his body suggested that he felt more annoyance than real grief. He didn’t meet my eye—hadn’t, in fact, since we’d first shaken hands.

  “I wonder,” I began, “whether you could tell me exactly what happened: how you discovered your wife was missing, where she was last seen, who saw her.”

  “Well, in the first place, I wasn’t even in town. I was in Los Angeles. I left Tuesday morning, on business.”

  “What business are you in, Mr. Connoly?”

  “The savings and loan business—Connoly Savings and Loan.”

  “A family business, then.”

  He nodded. “My father started it, built it up. My parents were killed eleven and a half years ago, in a private-plane crash. So I had to take over.”

  “Do you have a branch office in Los Angeles?”

  “Yes.” He said it with a curious hesitation, his eyes flicking briefly toward me, then quickly away.

  “All right. Now, tell me how your wife disappeared.”

  “Well, as I said, I left Tuesday morning, so it’s all hearsay as far as I’m concerned. But Dulcie, the housekeeper who let you in, said that Carol went through a routine day: hairdresser in the morning, lunch in the afternoon, then riding in the park for an hour after lunch. And then she—”

  “Did she ride alone, Mr. Connoly?”

  “As far as I know. We keep two horses, and she loved—loves—to ride. She got back home about three. Usually, if she can, she always manages to be home by three to meet James, coming home from school.”

  “James is your son.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did your wife do next?”

  “Nothing, apparently, until dinner. Dulcie thinks she stayed in her room reading. Whatever she was doing, she didn’t go out.”

  “What about James?”

  He seemed surprised at the question. Then, shrugging, he said, “He was playing, I suppose. He’s only eight, so he didn’t go anywhere. I mean—” Connoly waved an impatient hand. “I mean, he was probably in the neighborhood.”

  “I imagine so. Did your wife and son have dinner together?”

  “Yes. They finished about seven. Then Carol dressed and went out about eight o’clock.”

  “Where’d she go, Mr. Connoly?”

  “To a play rehearsal. But—” He frowned. “But I told all this to the other men, from Missing Persons.”

  “I realize that. But we like to start from scratch. I’m going to have personal charge of this case for the next few days, and I want to be sure I’ve got all the information I need.”

  “Hmm.” His manner suggested suspicion.

  “Did she drive to this play rehearsal?”

  “No, she took a cab. The playhouse isn’t in a very desirable part of town, and she didn’t like to park and walk any distance.”

  “She called a cab, then. By phone.”

  “I suppose so.” He said it indifferently, as if he were losing interest in the whole subject.

  “All right. What happened then?”

  He spread his hands, shaking his head. “Nothing happened. I mean, that’s the end of the trail. She took a cab to the rehearsal and apparently stayed about an hour and a half, according to your Missing Persons colleagues. Then she left. Period. Vanished.”

  “How did she leave? By taxi?”

  “I couldn’t tell you, Lieutenant.” He was absently eyeing the crystal liquor service. “Are you sure you won’t have a drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He shrugged, then rolled his chair to the sideboard, pouring three fingers of bourbon into a tumbler, adding ice and water. He jiggled the ice once, then began drinking.

  “I understand,” I said, “that the name of the theatrical group was The Dramatists. Is that right?”

  He nodded, still drinking.

  “How did you discover that she was missing, Mr. Connoly?”

  “I didn’t know about it until the following morning. Wednesday. It often happened, you see, that Carol wouldn’t get home from rehearsals until the wee hours. It depended on whether they were rehearsing her part, as I understand it. So, anyhow, Dulcie put James to bed about eigh
t, then watched TV until about eleven, when she went to bed herself. She expected Carol to come in later, you see.”

  “So your wife wasn’t discovered missing until Dulcie got up the next morning.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Dulcie go to Mrs. Connoly’s room?”

  “Well, yes. Of course. After she got James off to school.” He said it impatiently. Connoly’s manners, I was thinking, were beginning to slip. More and more, he was reminding me of a badly spoiled child, thirty years later.

  I nodded, deliberately pausing as I scribbled in my notebook, making it last at least a full two minutes. Unconsciously, I realized, I was “Sherlocking”—employing the disconcerting little mannerisms that hopefully kept the subject always a little off balance.

  Finally I said casually, “It wasn’t unusual, then, for your wife to be out late at night by herself.”

  “Well, no. I mean, not when I’m out of town. I don’t object, either, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Did it often happen that your wife stayed out all night?” Keeping my eyes steady on his, I made my voice perfectly noncommittal as I asked the question.

  His pale, too-handsome face slowly flushed. “It did not often happen, Lieutenant. And I don’t like—”

  “What did Dulcie do?”

  “She called my office here in town and talked to my private secretary, Betty Samson. Betty immediately tried to get in touch with me in Los Angeles, but—” He hesitated, then sipped at the bourbon before saying, “But she couldn’t find me. At least, not right away.”

  “Why was that?”

  “What d’you mean?” Now annoyance was plain in his manner. I was probing close to some secret nerve.

  “I mean, why couldn’t your secretary locate you?”

  “Very simple, Lieutenant. I didn’t get to the office until about ten-thirty. Then, as soon as I heard about Carol, I made arrangements to leave for San Francisco. I got home at about two-thirty. As soon as I had a chance to talk to Dulcie, I notified the police.”

  “I see.” Again I acted out the scribbling charade, thinking about Connoly’s late arrival at his Los Angeles office. During interrogations, the childhood phrases “hot, hot” and “cold, cold” often flitted fugitive through my thoughts.

  “Let me get back to your schedule a minute,” I said slowly, watching him covertly. “Why was it that you were late getting to your office Wednesday morning?”

  He drew a long, slow breath, avoiding my eyes as he finished his drink. Finally he muttered, “I had a leisurely breakfast, then drove out to Beverly Hills to look at a loan prospect. It was a beautiful day, and I—I never push it too hard whenever I’m in Los Angeles. It—it’s one means of relaxation.”

  “A vacation with pay, eh?”

  His clear blue eyes rose with a quick, tentative expression of assessment, then slid uneasily away. “Exactly.”

  “Were you—relaxing the night before, too, Mr. Connoly?” As I asked the question, I watched the color again rising in his face.

  I half expected him to lose his temper pettishly. Instead he said in a steady voice, “This is beginning to sound like you’re as much interested in me as you are in Carol.”

  I decided not to answer. There was no indication of foul play, and therefore no need to ruffle him. Instead, shifting my ground, I asked, “Can you think of any reason, any reason at all, that your wife might’ve chosen to leave San Francisco, Mr. Connoly? Voluntarily, I mean.”

  “Absolutely not,” he answered with prompt decisiveness. “That’s why I’m so … concerned. I’m positive she wouldn’t’ve left of her own free will.”

  “Does she have any history of depression? Nervous disorder?”

  “Carol?” The question was incredulous. He snorted. “You must be joking, Lieutenant.”

  “No, I’m not joking,” I answered slowly. “Don’t forget, I don’t know your wife. As a matter of fact, I was going to ask you to take a minute and describe her for me: what kind of a person she is, what her background is, what she likes to do with her time. All that’s very helpful to us.” I took the Missing Persons sheet from my pocket and looked at the full-face picture of a strikingly good-looking blonde, early thirties, with regular features and thick, long hair. There was a hint of subtle laughter in the wide-set, knowing eyes. The lips were set in a slight, mocking smile. “I can see, for instance, that she’s exceptionally pretty.”

  “Yes,” he answered dryly, “she’s very pretty.” The thought seemed to give him little pleasure.

  “All right,” I prompted. “Go on. What else?”

  For a moment he ignored the question as he thoughtfully, deliberately refilled his glass. Then, seated behind his elaborate desk with the glass held suspended between his palms, slowly rotating, he began to talk. His voice had a strangely wooden quality—distant, almost dreamy.

  “Carol is a very complex person, in many ways. But her motivations are extremely simple. And more than anything else—” He paused, then raised his eyes to circle the richly appointed library as if he were assessing the furnishings, dollar by dollar. “More than anything else, she wanted all this—everything that money could buy. Or at least,” he added wryly, “at least, she wanted half of it—her half.”

  I let the silence settle for a moment, then said quietly, “Are you saying that she was contemplating divorce?”

  His eyes lingered a last moment on the room’s expensively stilted, leather-bound façade. Then, listlessly shrugging, he dropped his eyes again to his drink, staring at the amber fluid sparkling in the thick crystal glass. “Everyone I know contemplates divorce, Lieutenant. Just like everyone who plays the stock market contemplates selling out, when the price is right.”

  Again I said nothing, this time slipping the notebook into my side pocket. Then I asked him, “Is there any possibility that your wife has a … friend? A male friend?”

  Mirthlessly he laughed. “I suppose that’s one of your occupational hazards, Lieutenant: having to ask questions like that.”

  I didn’t reply.

  He gulped a noisy swallow of the highball, then said, “The answer to your question is that, yes, there’s a possibility that Carol has a ‘male friend,’ as you put it. But that wouldn’t change the fact that she’d never simply run off. And besides—” He hesitated. “Besides, there’s James. Carol wasn’t—isn’t—exactly the mother of the year. But—” He let it go unfinished.

  I rose to my feet, thinking about the two slips he’d made: “wasn’t” instead of “isn’t”; “loved” instead of “love,” earlier. Subconsciously, at least, he thought his wife was dead, or wished she was dead.

  “Thanks a lot, Mr. Connoly,” I said, turning toward the door. “I’ll be in touch with you. Are you planning to be in town for the next few days?”

  “Yes,” he answered, draining the last of his drink. He didn’t bother to rise. “Yes, I’ll be around.”

  “Good. I’ll be in touch with you. Thanks again.”

  Still sitting behind his expensive desk, he didn’t reply.

  5

  “THIS ACT ONLY HAS a few minutes to play,” the girl whispered. “Then Stanley can talk to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  I looked across the darkened rows of empty seats to see Stanley, the director, dolefully shaking his head. Now he raised his eyes to the ceiling, his teeth set, elaborately sighing. Stanley was a pale, frail young man of about thirty, with a scrawny neck and a long, sad nose. He wore a scraggly Ho Chi Minh beard; his sparse sandy hair fell in lank strands to the open collar of his blue work shirt.

  “Is it about Carol Connoly?” the girl asked.

  “Yes.” I twisted in my seat to look at her. “Did you know Mrs. Connoly?”

  “Not really. I just came to town a couple of weeks ago. I did summer stock in Provincetown. Professional summer stock.”

  “Is The Dramatists a professional group?”

  Her lip curled. She was a tall, thin, intense girl with uneven teeth, a bad complexion an
d small, close-set eyes.

  “The Dramatists is a hick group,” she answered curtly. “San Francisco is a laugh. It’s supposed to be a big cultural center, but it barely supports one professional theater. The rest—like this one—are lucky to make the rent and pay the printing bill. It’s all ego satisfaction. I just come down here for rehearsals because I don’t know anyone in town.”

  “It doesn’t sound like you’ll be staying long.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  Wondering whether she stayed anywhere very long, I turned my attention to the two actors on stage. Finally they gave their last lines, then blinked as the house lights came up. The dark, stark mood of the rehearsal had lulled me back into the past, and I remembered my small part in the senior high school play, recalling the warmth of the late spring evenings as I walked home from play practice with Shirley Clayton. She’d been given the lead in the play; I’d just been named all-state fullback. Often, walking together, we were comfortably conscious of others’ envy, aware even at seventeen that we were a good-looking couple. We were the beautiful people—secretly so tender and tremulous, outwardly so incredibly sure—already venturing in our thoughts far beyond that time and place. The war had already started, already shadowed our fantasies. For me, the war would be an extension of gridiron heroics, with the same calm, wide-shouldered feeling of—

  “—wanted to talk to me?” Stanley, the director, had slouched down into the chair beside me.

  “Yes, I did. You’re Stanley—?”

  “Stanley Baldwin, if you’re looking for a laugh. My parents didn’t know there’d ever been another Stanley Baldwin, believe it or not. If they’d named me Robert, I’d probably be a stockbroker.”

  “I’m Lieutenant Frank Hastings. I won’t take much of your time, but I—”

  “Don’t worry about my time.” He flapped a listless hand. “I’m not going anywhere. The rehearsal’s over, and everyone’ll soon be splitting. The homosexuals will leave with the homosexuals, and the other types will leave with the other types, heading for some narrow room where they’ll fondle each other all night. The society matrons will return to their chic, starched families. But I don’t have a thing to do until seven-thirty tomorrow, when I’ll get on a bus and go downtown and make doughnuts all day so I can support this vice.”