The Disappearance (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “Have you any idea where Mr. Brown went after he left Tulare?”

  “Nope. Not an idea in the world.”

  “How would you describe Mr. Brown?”

  She looked at me blankly.

  “Was he medium height, would you say?”

  “Y—yes.”

  “Thin or fat?”

  “Thin, sort of.”

  “Bald?”

  “No. He had lots of hair. He was in his early fifties, but he still had—”

  “Any scars that you can recall?”

  Exasperated, she shifted herself in the rickety chair. “I didn’t talk to him but once or twice in my whole life, Lieutenant. Most of what I’m telling you is just—just—”

  “How about the son, Charles? You knew him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “How would you describe him?”

  “He was tall and kind of stoop-shouldered. I mean, he walked with a kind of a slouch like. His face was thin and seemed more lined that it should, considering he was so young. I mean—” She bit her lip, thinking. “I mean, he seemed—looked—like he was a lot older than he really was. Some kids are like that, you know. Born old.”

  “Do you think,” I said slowly, “that you could recognize Charles Kell—Charles Kirby if you were to see him now? Did you know him that well, would you say?”

  “Well, I dunno, Lieutenant. I—”

  “I’ll tell you what I’d like to do, Mrs. Touhy. I’d like to send a detective by for you in, say, fifteen minutes. He’ll take you shopping. He’ll drive you downtown, so you won’t have to worry about parking. Then he’ll bring you by our office for a half-hour or so afterward. There’s something I want you to do for me—something important.”

  “But—”

  I rose, snapping my notebook shut. “Fifteen minutes, Mrs. Touhy. And thanks very much. I’ll be waiting for you in our office.”

  I closed the paint-peeling door on her mumbling protests. Canelli had the car already started as I slid into the passenger’s seat.

  “She didn’t seem overly bright,” he said, pulling away. “Where to?”

  “The Hall.”

  “I’ll bet I know who you’re going to have her identify. Charles Keller. Right?”

  “Right,” I said quietly. “How’d you like to take a drive up to Bolinas?”

  “Sounds fine. Why?”

  “I want you to find a man called Peter Farwell. You’d better phone first. He might still be in San Francisco, as a matter of fact. Anyhow, I want you to get him for a showup. If he asks any questions, tell him it concerns the hobo we were talking about this morning. Understand?”

  Nodding, he repeated the instructions. As he swung the cruiser into the stream of traffic on Alemeny Boulevard, I settled back in the seat, closing my eyes.

  17

  “I DON’T KNOW WHAT makes you think,” Friedman was saying, “that you’ll ever get Keller into a lineup without an act of the state legislature. I distinctly told you this morning that he was getting a lawyer. So, unless you’re ready to book him, you’d better—”

  “All right, let’s plant the sister and Far well outside his house. It won’t be evidence, but it’ll tell us what we need to know.”

  “The last sidewalk showup I conducted, it took precisely eighteen hours for the subject to leave his house. And then my ace witness was snoozing. And by the time he—”

  “Come on, Pete, set it up for me. I’ve just been in with the captain. He’s not too pleased with the way things’re going.”

  “Okay, I’ll give it to Culligan. He’s a good stakeout man. He’s one of these—Hey, where’re you going?”

  “I’m going to make the circuit: Yellow Cab, Connoly, Phillips—the whole works. Then I’ll end up at Keller’s, just as soon as you tell me Farwell and Blanche Touhy are staked out. One way or the other, I’ll get Keller out of that house so they can take a look.” I clipped on my gun, tugging impatiently at the cuffs. “What about Tulare? Anything?”

  He stood up, walking with me to the office door. “Things move slowly in Tulare. And don’t worry about the captain. The reason he looks unhappy, his generator quit on the way back from Lake Tahoe, and it cost him sixty bucks. And, of course, the dog kept upsetting his water dish.” He clapped me lightly on the shoulder. “Take it easy, old son. I know what’s bugging you: you’ve got the idea that you’re close to cracking the case, and you’re getting impatient. However, you could be farther away than you think. By the way, what did this Stanley Wygle have to say?”

  “Nothing much new. But he confirmed everything that everyone else said. Which is something, I guess.”

  “What about his alleged Los Angeles affair with the victim?”

  I snorted. “Did you ever try getting a lawyer to incriminate himself—by long-distance phone?”

  “You were talking for almost an hour. Which made me think that Wygle isn’t much in demand as a lawyer.”

  “He had a court cancellation, he said. Anyhow, except for refusing to admit he used to sleep with Carol, he was very helpful.”

  “Did he give you a candidate for murderer?”

  “No.”

  “Did he admit taking kindly old Mr. Brown for his shirt and socks?”

  “He said that his client was ‘properly recompensed.’”

  “What’d he say about Charles Kirby-Keller?”

  “His description roughly matched Farwell’s and Blanche’s.”

  “Well, that’s something, I suppose.” Friedman walked with me to the door. “Incidentally, after Canelli delivers Farwell to Culligan and company, shall I tell him to go over to Yellow Cab?”

  “I suppose so. It’s beginning to look, though, like we’re going to have to cross-question twelve hundred cabbies before we find our man. It’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s a ridiculous business.” He clapped me lightly on the shoulder again. “Have you considered the possibility of applying for a spot as Little League backfield coach?”

  “The Little League is baseball, Lieutenant.” I opened the office door. “Don’t forget: let me know when that stakeout’s set up.”

  “Right.”

  18

  I PARKED AROUND THE corner from Fredericks Alley. I slipped a small flashlight into my pocket, shifting my revolver to a more comfortable position. As I slowly walked to the corner in the gathering dusk, I was thinking of the report we’d just received from Tulare. An aging sergeant had known Mr. Clarence Brown personally and had confirmed Blanche Touhy’s story in almost every detail. During the past several years, the sergeant said, Clarence Brown had wandered from town to town and job to job—a burnt-out case. By coincidence, just a year ago, the sergeant had seen Brown’s name on a routine vagrancy bulletin out of Bakersfield.

  The sergeant hadn’t been so helpful concerning Brown’s ex-wife and her son. However, he agreed to contact Tulare High School, trying for a picture of the boy. If the sergeant succeeded, he promised to have a man drive the two hundred miles to San Francisco with the picture, possibly tonight yet. I could send the picture by wire to Cleveland, hoping for a juvenile make on Charles Kirby.

  Culligan was slumped in the driver’s seat, morosely smoking. I paused at the corner, clearing my throat. After he’d seen me, I stepped back around the corner. He joined me promptly.

  “Well?” I asked. “What happened? Anything?”

  Culligan was frowning, yet also nodding, irked at the necessity for admitting easy success. “It worked,” he said briefly. “He came out about an hour ago—him and the girl. I had Farwell with me, and Carruthers had the Touhys. Keller and the girl got into that old heap and drove right by the both of us.”

  “And?”

  “Well, the Touhys were pretty sure Keller was Kirby.”

  “What about Farwell?”

  “He thought so. He was on the wrong side when they drove by us, so he had to look across the girl to see Keller. But, like I say, he thought so.”

  “Did you tail Keller and t
he girl?”

  “Well, certainly,” he answered, offended. “I tailed them myself. They went grocery shopping, then came back.” He jerked his head toward the alley. “They’re in there now. Got back about ten minutes ago.”

  “Good. How many men have you got here?”

  “Two. Besides me.”

  “All right, let’s us go talk to Keller and the girl.”

  Not replying, he followed behind as I strode into the alley, now almost completely darkened.

  Allowing the silence to lengthen, I looked deliberately from Keller to Angie, then back again, waiting for them to begin squirming. They sat side by side on the lumpy sofa. Keller was hunched forward. His long, wolfish face was defiant; his quick, malevolent eyes were unnaturally bright—strangely eager. Beside him, Angie Rayburn sat in sullen silence, avoiding my eyes. When we’d first entered the apartment, I’d caught her briefly staring at me, uncertainly, as if she’d wanted to tell me something but couldn’t.

  I turned to Keller. “It’s only fair to warn you,” I said slowly, “that we’re finally gathering together some loose ends in the Connoly case. And a lot of those loose ends seem to be pointing to you.”

  “That’s not really a very good figure of speech, Lieutenant. But I think I get your meaning.”

  “I’m not here to amuse you, Keller. I’m here to ask you questions. Which I expect you to answer.”

  “My lawyer probably wouldn’t go along with that, Lieutenant.”

  “You’re probably right. Lawyers like to see us book suspects first. It’s better for business—their business.”

  He laughed. “A neat point. Besides, I’m curious about all these ‘loose ends.’ Tell me about them, Lieutenant. I promise not to interrupt you with raucous laughter.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Keller. Somehow I don’t think you’ll be laughing long. And, in any case, all you really have to do is listen.”

  He leaned elaborately back, folding his arms and propping his feet against the coffee table. “I’m listening, Lieutenant. Avidly.”

  “Ever since I first talked to you, Keller,” I began, “I’ve felt there was a lot that you hadn’t told me about your relationship with Carol Connoly.” As I said it, I sensed that Angie Rayburn had stiffened. Carefully not looking at her, I deliberately continued: “But I couldn’t get at anything concrete. That is”—I paused—“not until I talked to Carol’s sister, Blanche. You remember Blanche, don’t you?”

  His guileless smile perfectly complemented the innocent puzzlement of his frown. He opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

  “Right now,” I said slowly, “we’re in the process of getting you made, as we say—identified. It’s a complicated process sometimes, but I think we’re making progress.”

  “I’m sure you are, Lieutenant.” His voice was derisively patronizing. Beside him, Angie seemed sunk in thought, her eyes far away.

  “We think,” I said, “that your real name is Kirby. Charles Kirby. We think your mother moved from Cleveland to Tulare, where she married a man named Clarence Brown. We think that while you were going to high school in Tulare you had an affair with Carol Connoly, then known as Carol Brady. We also think that during the time you lived in Los Angeles you saw something of Carol, or at least kept track of her. We’re not very clear about that part, actually. But we’re checking. Then, finally, we think that you followed Carol here, to San Francisco. We suspect that over the past several years you probably had a lot more than a casual affair going with your old high school girlfriend.”

  “And then what happened, Lieutenant?” His voice was very soft, his dark eyes unrevealing. “How’s the next chapter of your little scenario read?”

  “I haven’t started the next chapter yet, Keller. In this business, we take it one chapter at a time.” I paused, then decided to smile at him, matching his cool, sardonic detachment. “How’s it sound so far, though? For authenticity?”

  He sat perfectly still, impassively studying me with a quizzical stare that seemed a little forced. Then, half smiling, he said, “You seem to be rather miscast as a policeman, Lieutenant. You’re actually quite subtle—quite perceptive, too. I can see, listening to you, that you’re at least half educated. Which is to say that you’re considerably more civilized than most, policeman or not. You even exhibit certain traces of genuine understanding, probably resulting from some early wound of the psyche that you chose to internalize rather than surrender to the standard all-American pattern of aggressive—”

  “Never mind me, Keller. We were talking about you—and about my scenario, as you call it. You still haven’t told me how you like it.”

  Deliberately he shrugged. “For authenticity, it’s not bad—at least, not as far as you’ve gone,” he answered readily. “It’s the conclusion, though, that interests me.”

  I nodded. “That’s what interests us, too, Keller. Would you like to help us out?”

  He pretended to consider it, then finally shook his head, mockingly capricious. “I don’t think so, Lieutenant. Not until I talk to my lawyer, anyhow.”

  Again I nodded, then got to my feet. “By all means, Keller, talk to your lawyer. But I don’t want you to leave town. I don’t want you even to leave this house tonight. Do you understand? If you do, I’ll book you.”

  “And I’ll sue you for false arrest.”

  I smiled. “Talk to your lawyer first. You’re assuming that I’ll book you for murder. But there’re other charges that’ll do just as well, Keller. So don’t forget it.” I turned to the girl. Speaking harshly, so as to give Keller the impression she was under equal suspicion, I said, “The same applies to you, Miss Rayburn. Don’t leave town. Don’t leave the house.”

  She raised her eyes, stared at me inscrutably and then said in a low, tight voice, “I’m supposed to work tonight. I’m supposed to be there at ten o’clock.”

  I hesitated, then said, “What club do you work for?”

  “The Vortex.”

  “All right, go to work, then come right back. Understood?”

  “Understood,” she repeated, looking away.

  19

  I TOSSED THE HIGH SCHOOL picture across the desk. Friedman picked it up, studied it and then nodded.

  “That’s him, sure as hell. He was a good-looking teenager, too. Just like Blanche told you.” He pursed his lips. “It seems to me,” he said slowly, “that first thing tomorrow you should talk to the D.A. about booking both Keller and Angie Rayburn as material witnesses. We’re going to look pretty silly if they take off.”

  “I don’t know whether we should book Angie, though. She seems to be cooperating. It’d be a dirty trick.”

  “My first week on the beat, some eighteen years ago, I figured out that this was a dirty business. And I’ve never seen anything to change my mind.” He aimed a thick forefinger at me. “If you think Kreiger was distressed over his fuel-pump difficulties, consider how he’d feel if you let your finer feelings screw us out of evidence.”

  “Speaking of evidence, though, I’m not sure we’ve got a case that the D.A. would—”

  Friedman’s phone rang. He listened briefly, snorted in puzzled surprise and finally said, “All right. Tell Sigler that Lieutenant Hastings will be there shortly.” He nodded into the phone, listened for a moment and then hung up without further comment. “Well,” he said dryly, swiveling to face me across the desk, “I have a surprise for you.”

  “What is it?” Automatically, I glanced at my watch. It was 10:20 P.M. At 10:30, I’d planned to go off duty.

  “One of your material witnesses has just been shot.”

  I was aware of a hollow, sinking feeling as I said, “Angie, you mean?”

  He nodded.

  “Where?”

  “Columbus and Pacific, in an alleyway leading from Pacific to the back entrance of the Vortex.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “Yes. But Sigler isn’t giving her much time.”

  I opened the door. “You’d
better see what Culligan says about Keller’s whereabouts. And get cars already rolling to check on Connoly, Phillips and Maureen Phillips. I’ll phone you from the Vortex as soon as I can.”

  “Right. Good luck.”

  As I watched them draw the blanket up over her face, I felt suddenly drained—tired, discouraged and vaguely sad. I leaned against the fender of the cruiser, folded my arms and took a long, lonely moment to survey the scene.

  The dark, narrow alleyway served the back entrance of two restaurants, one cheap hotel and the Vortex. The alley was less than sixty feet long, blind at the far end. I raised my head to scan the windows commanding the murder scene. With the exception of the hotel’s ten dingy, curtain-billowing windows, the remaining three were darkened, barred storeroom windows. In a few minutes, with a dozen men canvassing the vicinity, I’d know whether anyone in the hotel had heard or seen anything. From experience, though, I’d learned that single witnesses, concealed from view, seldom volunteered information.

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught the furtive, furry scurrying of a rat, darting behind a row of overflowing garbage cans. To myself, I ruefully smiled. I was back where a homicide cop earns his pay: in a dark alley, picking through refuse, searching with infinite care for a weapon or a trail of blood or a bit of abandoned booty. The Connoly case might have started in ornate drawing rooms, exchanging polite conversation. But it was ending where most murderers and their victims finally find each other: in a dark, smelly, dangerous alleyway, where rats dart across broken, rivulet-streaked pavement and scabrous brick rises mute and unrevealing, like the dripping walls of a medieval crypt.