Drake groaned. “I knew you’d leave me with one of those rush jobs that are such a headache.”
Mason grinned. “I try not to disappoint people. This will give you a preliminary warm up. A little later I expect to have a real job for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh huh. I want you to reconstruct Bernice Archer’s time from Saturday noon on. I want to know where she was every minute, what she was doing, and with whom she did it. Have you found out anything about Overbrook?”
“Just neighborhood reputation. He’s a good egg, slow spoken, honest and poor. He mortgaged his property a year or so ago when he made an unfortunate investment, but he’s a steady, hard worker and is getting the mortgage paid off. In the meantime, he won’t spend a nickel for anything except his dog. He will buy food for the dog. He’s tight as a shrunken collar. They say he hardly ever leaves the ranch and pinches every penny, even to the extent of buying stale bread.”
“Any chance he knew Fleetwood?”
“Not a chance in ten million, Perry.”
“Okay, Paul, keep plugging.”
“On Overbrook?”
“No. The picture on him seems complete. Start working on that phone call to Bernice Archer. I’m betting ten to one such a call was made.”
Drake opened his mouth in a great yawn. “I knew that sleep I had was just coincidental,” he said.
Chapter 15
It was shortly before six o’clock when the telephone in Mason’s apartment rang a strident summons.
The lawyer, who had been dozing in the big easy chair, with the telephone on the table beside him, picked up the receiver, said hurriedly, “What have you found out?”
Paul Drake’s voice came over the line.
“Well, we got another break, Perry.”
“What?”
“We’ve traced a telephone to Donnybrook 6981, Bernice Archer’s number. It was called on Monday night at about seven o’clock. The call was placed from a service station about five miles from Springfield. My men went out and interviewed the man who runs the station, a fellow by the name of Leighton, and he remembers the incident perfectly.”
“Go on,” Mason said excitedly. “What happened?”
“A car drove up and stopped at the gas pumps. A woman who answers the description of Mrs. Allred said she wanted the tank filled right up to the brim. There was a man in the car who answers Fleetwood’s description. He seemed sunk in a sort of a lethargy. The way Leighton describes him, he was a lazy bump on a log who sat still and let the woman bustle around. He thought the guy was drunk at first and then came to the conclusion that he was just plain lazy.
“Then the woman went into the rest room, and the minute she got out of sight, Fleetwood came to life. He rushed out of the car, dashed into the service station, grabbed the public telephone, dropped a nickel, yelled for long distance, and called this number.
“The service station man remembers it particularly, because he got such a kick out of it He thought that Mrs. Allred was the guy’s wife, and that this fellow was trying to make a surreptitious date with his girl friend, or else explain why he had to break a date. The service station man didn’t say anything, but kept on with the chores of filling the tank, checking the oil and water, washing off the windshield, scrubbing the windshield wings and all of that. It had been raining a little earlier in the afternoon and had settled down to a drizzle along in the evening.
“The man stood there waiting for his call to come through and watching the door of the women’s rest room. Before the call was completed, the woman came out and the man dropped the receiver like it was a hot potato, ambled back to the car and settled down in the cushions with a look of utter vacancy on his face.
“The phone began to ring while the woman was paying for the gasoline. The attendant glanced at the man in the automobile, and the man all but imperceptibly shook his head. After the car had driven away the attendant went over, picked up the receiver and answered the phone. The operator said that they were ready with Donnybrook 6981, that Miss Archer was on the line, and the service station man explained that the party who had placed the call had been unable to wait for it. There was some argument, the long distance operator claiming that the entire time consumed in getting the call had been less than four minutes. But the attendant said it didn’t make any difference whether it had only been ten seconds, that the person who had placed the call was gone and what were they going to do about it.”
“That was Monday night?” Mason asked.
“Monday night, a little after seven o’clock.”
Mason said, “Okay, thanks! Don’t go to bed yet, Paul; you may have work to do.”
“Of course I’ll have work to do,” Drake said. “I’ll have work to do tonight too. Have a heart, Perry. Give a guy a rest.”
“You can rest in between cases,” Mason said. “Stick around your office, Paul. I think I’m going to get some action.”
Mason hung up the phone, then called police headquarters and asked for Lieutenant Tragg.
Tragg’s voice sounded harsh and weary from loss of sleep. He answered Mason’s call and said, “It isn’t everyone I’d talk to at this hour. When do you give me that break you promised?”
“Right away. I’m coming up now. Wait for me.”
“Hell, I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Okay. You won’t have to wait over fifteen minutes longer. I’ll bust Fleetwood’s amnesia wide open for you.”
“Not that way,” Tragg said. “You give me the ammunition and I’ll do the shooting.”
“This won’t work that way,” Mason said. “But I promised you I’d crack him and I will. Only I have to be the one that does it. If you try it, it’ll be a bust.”
“Well, come on up,” Tragg said. “I’ll be in the office waiting.”
Mason said, “Okay, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Mason slipped on his coat and made time to police headquarters.
Tragg’s office was impressive, the walls being decorated with display cases in which were knives, guns and blackjacks; below each of the weapons was appended a history of the case in which it had been used.
The furniture in the office told its own story of drama. The massive oak tables were charred along the edges where burning cigarettes had been placed while someone answered the phone, only to spring into immediate action at word of some homicide or attempted homicide, leaving the cigarette unnoticed to burn a deep groove into the table. Here and there were scratches and nicks where someone had thrown a captured gun or knife onto the table, or where some prisoner in desperation had beaten his handcuffed wrists against the wood.
“Well,” Lieutenant Tragg said, “what’s the score?”
Mason said, “Fleetwood is holding out evidence.”
“You said that over the telephone.”
“I’ll prove it!”
“Go ahead.”
“Get Fleetwood in here.”
“He’s going to be a witness for the prosecution.”
“On what?”
“Well,” Tragg said, “he …”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “The man’s memory is blank. He can’t remember anything. Therefore he can’t be a witness.”
“He can be a witness to some preliminary matters.”
“Yeah,” Mason said sarcastically.
“Look here, Mason, if I get Fleetwood in here, and you start giving him the third-degree—well, suppose he gets on the witness stand later and you start throwing things up at him that he said at the time you were questioning him here, it’s going to look like hell.”
“For whom?”
“For me.”
“Why?”
“Because I let you question a witness.”
Mason said, “If your witness can’t answer questions when you’re here to see that I don’t bullyrag him or browbeat him, he isn’t going to make much of a witness when you put him on the stand and I have a chance to pour the questions at him when nobody can stop
me.”
Tragg thought that over, said, “Okay, Mason. I’ll get him in here, but I want one thing definitely understood.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m controlling the course of the examination. Any time I don’t like your questions, I’ll tell him not to answer them. Any time I think you’re getting off the reservation, I’ll have Fleetwood taken out, and I’ll send you about your business.”
Mason yawned, lit a cigarette, said, “What are we waiting for?”
Tragg picked up a phone on his desk and said, “Send that chap Fleetwood in here. I want to talk with him again.”
A moment later a uniformed officer opened the door and pushed Fleetwood into the room.
“Hello, Fleetwood,” Mason said.
Fleetwood looked at him. “You again!”
“Sit down,” Tragg said. “We want to ask you a few questions.”
“Who does?”
“Both of us.”
“I want to sleep,” Fleetwood said.
“So do all of us,” Tragg announced gloomily. “But it doesn’t look as though we’re going to have much chance for a while.”
Mason said to Fleetwood, “Bob, you got along all right with Bertrand Allred, didn’t you?”
“Why sure.”
“The thing that brought on your attack of amnesia was a blow on the head.”
“That’s right.”
“How did it happen?”
“How do I know how it happened? I was walking along the hedge and all of a sudden, blooey, I was out like a light. The next thing I remember, I was riding in an automobile and you were talking about taking me to police headquarters. I have a confused recollection of things happening in between, but I don’t know what they were. I haven’t the faintest idea. That part of my existence is just a blank to me.”
“You keep on saying it and you’ll get so glib when you recite that formula that you’ll sound like a needle stuck on a wax record.”
Fleetwood looked at Tragg and said, “How does he get in on this? Does he have any right to sit here and pull that stuff?”
Tragg started to say something to Mason, but Mason said to Fleetwood, “You couldn’t remember anything at all from the time that blow crashed down on your head until you recovered your memory here at the police station?”
“No!”
“Not a thing?”
“No, I tell you! How many times do I have to say that?”
“During that time you didn’t know who you were?”
“No. Of course not. I was suffering from amnesia. I know what people have told me about what I did and what happened.”
“Maybe you didn’t talk to the right people,” Mason said suavely. “Now there’s a man by the name of Leighton, who is running a service station about five miles out of Springfield. He says that when Mrs. Allred stopped the car and got some gasoline and went to the rest room, you darted over to the telephone and called Donnybrook 6981. In case you don’t remember, or are having another attack of amnesia, Bob, that number is the telephone of Bernice Archer.”
“Well, what’s wrong with calling her up? She’s my girl friend.”
“I know,” Mason said. “But how did you know she was your girl friend during the period that you were suffering from amnesia and didn’t know who you were?”
Fleetwood started to say something, then changed his mind.
“And,” Mason went on, “how did you know what her number was, if you couldn’t remember anything about your past existence? How did you remember what her name was, and how did it happen that you knew that you must put through that call during the minute or two you had while Mrs. Allred was in the rest room?”
Tragg’s chair squeaked as the lieutenant took his feet from the place where he had propped them on the edge of the waste-basket and sat suddenly upright in his chair. “What’s this guy’s name, Mason?”
“Leighton.”
“Where is he?”
“Running a service station out there. Fleetwood knows all about the place. Bob will tell you about it in a minute.”
“I tell you I didn’t know who I was and …”
“But you remembered your girl friend and remembered her telephone number!”
Fleetwood was silent, sullen under Mason’s questioning.
“Now then,” Mason said, “are you going to tell Lieutenant Tragg or am I going to bring Leighton in?”
“I didn’t talk on any call,” Fleetwood said to Tragg.
Mason grinned and said, “I thought all that part of your life was blank to you, Bob. Remember, that was during the time you were suffering from amnesia. How do you know you didn’t talk on the call?”
“You go to hell!” Fleetwood shouted, jumping out of the chair. He swung his fist back for a haymaker.
Tragg’s long arm shot across the desk, grabbed Fleetwood’s shirt collar, slammed him back into the chair.
Mason had not even moved during the time that Fleetwood lunged at him and Tragg had pulled the prisoner back into the chair.
Now Mason calmly lit a cigarette with a steady hand, blew smoke at the ceiling, said, “There you are, Tragg. There’s your murderer.”
“What do you mean?” Fleetwood shouted. “You can’t frame this on me. You’re trying to protect your client, Lola Allred.”
“Sure, I am,” Mason said. “I’m trying to protect her by uncovering the real murderer. Here he is, Lieutenant. Here’s a man who has consistently lied all the way through. He was the last man to see Bert Allred alive. Despite the fact that he tells you he got along all right with Bert Allred, he didn’t. They’d had a big battle just before Fleetwood was knocked out. It wasn’t any automobile that hit Fleetwood. He knows it and I know it! Now, then, you’ve caught him in a whole series of lies. First he says he didn’t know anything at all about who he was, and he was lying. Now he says he doesn’t remember anything about that.”
Fleetwood glanced appealingly at Lieutenant Tragg. What he saw in Tragg’s face was not reassuring.
“All right,” Fleetwood blurted suddenly. “I’ll tell you the truth, and the whole truth. Then you can see the spot I was in. Allred had a partner in some mining deals, a man named Jerome. Jerome was a pretty tough citizen. In working back over some of the books, I found where Allred had been gyp-ping Jerome. Jerome wasn’t the sort of a man you could gyp without having to face a lot of disagreeable consequences.
“I made the mistake of letting Allred find out what I had discovered. First he tried to bribe me to silence. Then he tried to threaten me to silence. Then, all of a sudden, he became very nice and suave and started telling me it was all a mistake and that he’d explain it to me by producing some additional evidence, but that that could wait until tomorrow, that I could have dinner with them and that we’d forget about business for an evening.
“I pretended to fall for it like a ton of bricks, because I knew the man was desperate, and I was unarmed. All of a sudden I was afraid of what might happen. I just wanted to get out of there, so I told him I was going to change my clothes, and that I’d be back for dinner. I had managed to get George Jerome on the telephone earlier and told him who was talking, but Allred suddenly became suspicious and started back for the room where the phone was, and I had to hang up in a hurry and pretend I was rummaging around in the files. He finally came to the conclusion I hadn’t phoned, but he was suspicious, and very edgy.
“Well, as I said, I started to get out of there, saying that I was going home to change my clothes, and he was all cordiality, patting me on the back and calling me his boy. It was a nasty, dark, rainy night. We’d been working until pretty late. I guess it was about half past seven or so. The Allreds have dinner at eight-fifteen every night. I left the wing of the house where Allred has his offices and started to walk across the patio, walking along the edge of that hedge. And believe me, I kept looking behind me. I was plenty jittery.
“I’d got to the point where the driveway comes in and had reached the end of the hedge when all
of a sudden it felt as though fireworks had started going off inside my brain. Of course, I may have been hit by an automobile driven by Patricia Allred, but my own hunch is that Allred smacked me on the head with the blackjack, and probably hit me a couple of times more for luck while I was down.
“I know now what happened. Patricia was coming home in a hurry. Her mother was with her. They saw Allred’s car parked so that the rear bumper was almost on the edge of the driveway and did the natural thing. They turned their car suddenly and a little too sharp. The fender on Pat’s car went through the edge of the hedge. That was all Allred wanted. He thought he had committed the perfect crime. The only thing was, he hadn’t taken note of the thickness of my skull.
“Later on he pretended to be very much concerned about Pat hitting me with the car. Patricia was half crazy with remorse. The minute I started regaining consciousness, I realized I was in a spot. At the time, to tell you the truth, I didn’t know very much about Mrs. Allred. I didn’t know how much she knew or whether she was in on what had been happening. I just knew that I was sick and hardly able to crawl and in the hands of people who wanted to kill me.
“So I got a bright idea. I pretended that I’d just regained consciousness. I had to. Allred was getting ready to load me in a car and take me to a hospital. I knew what that meant. So I opened my eyes. Then I put on the amnesia act.
“I think, at that, I fooled Allred. He wasn’t entirely fooled but it would have been a beautiful way out for him. If I only had had real amnesia and couldn’t remember who I was or anything about my associates, I wouldn’t be in a position to tell Jerome anything. I wouldn’t even remember what I had discovered about Allred’s double crossing. And Allred would have a chance to get a deal with Jerome all closed up and be sitting pretty.
“Allred would have killed me if he’d had to, but he didn’t want to unless he did have to. He told his wife that the thing to do was to take me some place where I could be quiet. She was to pretend she was my older sister and all that line of hooey.”
Fleetwood turned to Mason suddenly and said, “Give me a cigarette.”
The Case of the Lazy Lover Page 15
