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CHAPTER THREE

Mrs. Cyrus Mahoney was an overly-plump, motherly individual who had been worried about Webber from the day he and Frank Milford rented an apartment from her. She thought he worked too hard, and too-long hours, and that his lack of height was somehow the result of an inadequate diet. At every opportunity she contrived to feed him something.

She had been equally fond of Frank, and there was stark tragedy in her face when she hurried forward to meet Webber. “There’s been a gentleman to see you,” she said. “He came back twice, so I let him wait.” She jerked her head toward her living room door.

“That was kind of you,” Webber said, turning toward it. “Thank you.”

“It was on the radio. About Frank.”

Webber clapped his hand to his forehead. Gloria would probably have heard, then. But perhaps it was better that way. He stepped through the doorway, and a man he’d never seen before rose to greet him.

“Mr. Webber?”

Webber nodded.

“I’m Jim Huss. City Engineer.” They touched hands perfunctorily. “Wonder if I can have a few words with you.”

“Of course.” Mrs. Mahoney had vanished silently, a very neat trick for one with her bulk. Webber saw no point in obliging the man to walk upstairs, so he waved him back to the chair he had been occupying, and seated himself on the sofa.

“I heard about—Frank Milford,” Huss said. “I was shocked. For several reasons.”

Webber nodded. Huss paused and looked away, seeming to find something fascinating about Mrs. Mahoney’s battered piano. His appearance was colorless, if not nondescript. His trousers were not baggy, but neither were they sharply pressed. His stooped shoulders and rimless bifocals suggested that he spent his days peering at blueprints. He was slender, but with an incongruous hint of a paunch. Webber noted the streaks of grey in his hair, and guessed his age as fifty-five.

And he was plainly uncertain of himself, if not embarrassed. His voice was soft, his words halting. “Shocked,” he said again.

Webber’s curiosity was almost overbalanced by the tasks ahead of him. He waited silently, his mind on funeral arrangements, and notifying relatives, and searching Frank’s papers for a will and insurance policies. It would complicate matters if Frank had a safe deposit box, but Webber couldn’t recall him ever mentioning one.

Huss turned back to Webber and looked away again. He said, almost apologetically, “You see, Frank Milford was working for me.”

“Really? What sort of work?”

“An investigation.”

“Strange he never mentioned it,” Webber said.

“I asked him not to mention it to anyone. It was strictly confidential.”

“I see.”

“Now I’m wondering—well, it seemed pretty certain, from what the police said, that he was run down deliberately. I’m wondering if it could have had anything to do with—well—”

“Your investigation?”

Huss nodded.

“Since I don’t know anything about your investigation, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’d suggest that you bring the matter to the attention of the police. Immediately.”

“I was also wondering if he’d left any notes, or records, of what he was working on.”

“I’ll have to go through his papers,” Webber said. “I can look. But wait—I’d have to have some idea of what to look for.”

“Yes.” Huss was studying the piano again. “I don’t suppose it would be possible for me to—well, look—”

“I don’t suppose so,” Webber said firmly. “I’m not familiar with the legal complications, but eventually there’ll be an executor, either court-appointed or named in a will, and if you think anything among Frank’s personal effects might be your property, you apply to him for it.”

“But you said you had to go through his papers.”

“Only to see if he left a will, and to see if there are any relatives who should be notified. That sort of thing.”

“I see.”

“So I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Can I rely on your discretion?”

“Within reason,” Webber said. “If I were to turn up anything relating to Frank’s death, I’d have to turn it over to the police.”

“Of course. I didn’t mean that kind of discretion. It’s just that there’s been too much loose talk already. There have been some nasty rumors about fraud in city construction contracts. I asked Frank Milford to investigate them—the rumors, not the fraud. We’ve investigated the possibility of fraud ourselves two years ago—investigated thoroughly. Mayor Kambas even hired a team of outside engineers to conduct an independent investigation. There’s no basis for the rumors, but they persist. Obviously they’re politically motivated. If we could find out where they’re coming from, we could put a stop to them.”

“When you hired Frank, did you tell him that the job might be dangerous?”

Huss shook his head. “It never occurred to me. But as soon as I heard he’d been killed—deliberately—why then I thought if he’d turned up information exposing certain people—”

“You may be right,” Webber said slowly. “A car followed Frank all afternoon, waiting for an opportunity.” And by coincidence, the opportunity occurred when he stopped to telephone Hendricks. An ironic break for the murderers of Betty Parnet, whose murder might have gone undetected if Frank Milford had died sooner—or later.

“I’ll be on the lookout,” Webber said. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Thank you.”

Webber showed Huss to the door, thanked Mrs. Mahoney again and wearily climbed the stairs to the apartment he had shared with Frank Milford. The telephone was ringing when he opened the door. It was Bob Hendricks.

“None of them recognized her,” he said. “The doctors can say positively that the girl they examined wasn’t Betty Parnet, because they have their examination records. The real Betty Parnet has no operation scars. The girl they examined had an appendectomy. The real Betty Parnet is almost an inch taller. There are a couple more details like that. There’ll be the signature on the application to check, too. But there isn’t any doubt that someone has a shrewd scheme worked out. A girl who looks a little like our Betty, but not enough so that any of the three has the slightest doubt about it, applied for a whopping amount of insurance under the name of Betty Parnet, and got herself examined by two different doctors under the name of Betty Parnet. Frank Milford—what’s that again?”

“Know a man named Jim Huss?”

“City engineer. Sure.”

“He’s tossed a monkey wrench into your case,” Webber said, and told him about the conversation with Huss.

“I’ve heard the rumors,” Hendricks said, “or heard of them. How long has Frank been working on this special assignment?”

“I didn’t think to ask Huss.”

“If you turn up anything in his papers, I want to know about it. Until then, I’ll be satisfied with the way I have this one blocked out. Frank saw the Parnet accident, tried to tell me something about it, and got killed. Anything else?”

“No. I’ve a few other things—”

“You aren’t the only one who has reports to write,” Hendricks said and hung up.

Webber went to Frank Milford’s desk and punched the switch on the fluorescent desk lamp. He seated himself, and as the light came on he leaned forward to admire the rich, polished surface of a pipe that occupied a central place of honor among the dozen or so pipes that crowded the pipe rack. Poised on the edge of the bowl was a small angel, its thumb firmly in place against its nose in the time-honored gesture of disdain. It was Frank Milford’s favorite pipe, polished frequently with loving care and never smoked. It never had been smoked.

“Your halo looks rusty,” Webber said with a grin.

He remembered a heated argument with Milford over whether the little figure was really an angel with something impish in its disposition, or a devil masquerading as an angel. Webber had voted for the devil; Milford held out for the impish disposition.

“It’s perfectly obvious,” he had said. “It’s saying, ‘I’m in heaven, and to hell with you.’”

Now that Frank was dead, Webber felt ready to concede the angel. The little figure seemed a personification of Frank’s own character: pure in heart, but with a perplexing veneer of impishness.

“I think,” Webber said to the angel, “that I’m going to have to steal you. I’m entitled to some kind of a memento to remember Frank by.”

He wondered if, behind that expressive hand, the angel was sticking out its tongue. He returned it to the pipe rack, lit a cigarette, and wearily went to work on Frank Milford’s desk. In a bottom drawer, in a plump manila envelope, Webber found a last will and testament, a ten-thousand dollar life insurance policy, and a bulging package of government bonds. The insurance policy named one Maude Milford as beneficiary. The bonds named only Frank Milford.

Webber opened the insurance policy to the Photostat of the application, and found Maude Milford identified as Frank’s aunt, with a Chicago address. He glanced casually at the will and was surprised to find himself appointed as executor, with the request that he handle last expenses in an economical manner, dispose of personal property as he might see fit, and donate any cash remaining from bonds and savings account to a worthy charity. College football scholarships and homes for retired prostitutes were not to be considered as worthy charity.

Webber grinned at the angel. “So I won’t have to steal you.”

The angel’s gesture clearly implied that it made no difference.

Webber went to the telephone, and after some sparring with Chicago information, learned that Mrs. Milford had no telephone listed. Another Milford did, at the given address. Webber took the number and got the call placed. While the distant telephone rang unanswered, he raised his sleeve to look at his watch. It was twenty minutes after ten. He blinked in surprise, closed his eyes tiredly. The longest night he could remember was still young.

Finally a man’s voice responded. The operator said briskly, “Person to person for Maude Milford.”

“My God!” he exclaimed, and muttered in a low aside, “It’s for mother.” There was a babbling uncertainty in the background. “Just a moment,” he said. “Carter City, you say? Maybe—I’ll see—”

Webber waited uncomfortably, watching his watch. A minute went by—two minutes. Suddenly there was a voice, old and tired. Immeasurably tired.

“Hello?”

“Maude Milford?” the operator asked.

“Yes.”

“Go ahead.”

Webber said “Hello.”

“Hello. Is this Frank?”

“I’m a friend of Frank’s, Mrs. Milford. I’m sorry I have to tell you this. Frank has been killed in an automobile accident.”

“Oh,” she said dully. “Oh dear.”

The receiver fell with a crash. Confusion welled up around the telephone, and the man’s voice returned. “Couldn’t you have told me? Did you have to call at this damned hour?”

“Sorry,” Webber said. “I had to notify somebody, and her name was the only one I found in Frank’s stuff.”

“I see. What was it you wanted?”

“Arrangements have to be made. I can look after them myself, but if Frank has any relatives who would prefer to do it—”

He left the sentence unfinished.

“I see. Frank didn’t have any relatives except our family—none that I know about, anyway. Mother took care of him after his own mother died. That was in Carter City. We haven’t seen him for years, but I guess he and mother wrote now and then.”

“Then you have no objection to my looking after things?”

“Gosh, no. Mother is an invalid. She couldn’t come down there, and she wouldn’t be any help if she did. I doubt if my wife or I could get away.”

“Are there any other relatives who should be notified?”

“My sisters, maybe. Both of them are in California.”

“Should I call them? Or send them telegrams?”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll let them know.”

“All right.” Webber said. “I’ll take care of things. The funeral will probably be the end of the week. I’ll send you a telegram as soon as I know.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary. But—all right. We probably won’t be able to get away. And say, did Frank have insurance, or enough money to handle things?”

“I don’t think there’ll be any problem there.”

“Well, good. Fine. Thanks for letting us know.”

“Please convey my sympathy to your mother,” Webber said dryly.

He hung up. Across the room, the angel was leering fiendishly.

Webber thought for a moment, dialed Police Headquarters, where genial Sergeant Pete Adams was on the desk. “Pete,” Webber said, “I need some fatherly advice.”

“So? Haven’t you got a father?”

“I have to look after the funeral arrangements for Frank Milford, and I lack experience. Can you recommend an undertaker in the medium low-price field? I want the thing respectable, but I don’t want someone who specializes in platinum caskets.”

“Mmm—know just what you mean. Clark Brothers, I think. They’re out on Lake Street. Just a moment—I’ll get the address.”

“I can look it up. Thanks loads, Pete.”

“Any old time. You got something you want buried just call me.”

Webber called Clark Brothers, and got a grumpy response that brightened wonderfully with the awareness that a customer was on the telephone.

“Tonight,” Webber said. “Right now. Immediately.” He didn’t want Frank Milford left in the sterile indifference of that hospital room a minute longer than necessary.

“Certainly, sir,” Clark Brothers said easily. “We’ll be at the hospital in twenty minutes.”

Webber hung up, and thumbed his nose at the angel. He took the copies of Milford’s reports to his own desk, and glanced through them.

Except for the Parnet case, they were all for small life insurance applications—several for ten thousand, the rest for less. Routine stuff. Webber shook his head in admiration as he looked them over. Milford had gone after every one of them as if a quarter of a million was at stake, and what an investigator he was! Good natured and friendly, with a sly sense of humor, he loved people and he loved talking to people. By the time he finished with a hostile housewife she was telling him things she wouldn’t tell her own husband.

It came through in every line of his scribbled notes. This woman had a nervous breakdown five years ago. This man has a heart condition. Sees his doctor on the sly, and hasn’t told his family. X runs a roofing repair business in his spare time-–broke his leg in a fall two years ago. Y spends her leisure hours at home with a bottle. Little things that would loom large under the careful scrutiny of a life insurance underwriter.

And fortunately not common things. The overwhelming majority of life insurance applicants, Webber knew, were readily insurable and had nothing to hide. Among the minority, some were completely honest, and some held out on the general premise that what the insurance company didn’t know wouldn’t hurt it. The company knew perfectly well that what it didn’t know could hurt it badly. So there were investigations.

He looked carefully at every line for a misplaced clue, for anything that would tie in with the Parnet case, but there was nothing. Finally he pulled his typewriter toward him, and started typing.

The telephone rang. “Ron.” a voice said. “I want to see you.”

Bells, and singing, and a hint of perfume vibrating in every word.

“Gloria!” he exclaimed. “Have you—heard?”

“I heard. Ruth called. She heard it on the radio. I want to see you. Now.”

“Where?” Webber asked.

“Here.”

“No,” Webber said firmly.

“Perhaps you’re right, perhaps—do you know the Crow Bar?”

“By its reputation—which isn’t good.”

“I’ll meet you there. In half an hour.”

“All right.”

* * * *

It was a dive. A juke box pounded out a rhythmic blare, a slatternly waitress with a soiled white apron gave Webber a sly wink, and at least two of the arguments along the long bar threatened to end in violence. The hefty bartender was keeping an eye on both, but he managed to give Webber a long stare.

She was seated in a booth at the back of the room. He had dreaded this meeting as only a man can dread any kind of a reunion with the false partner of his first love affair. He was mildly surprised to find that he could face her with irritation, rather than regret; and with fatigue, rather than instant ardor.

She was wearing sun glasses, which seemed a ridiculous gesture. Her hair was as blond as he remembered it, which meant that she’d dyed it—again. The last time he’d seen her, from afar, she’d been a brunette. The lovely curve of her cheek, the tiny mole on her chin, the quaintly turned-up nose that gave her always the aspect of a whimsical little girl, the urgent thrust of her breasts—all that was hauntingly familiar. And yet she had changed. She had gained weight. Her eyebrows were painted at a more rakish angle. Her mouth—but surely that couldn’t have changed!

Gazing at her blankly, he realized the he was really seeing her for the first time. A vampire, Frank Milford had called her. “Drop her, Ron, while you still have some blood left.” And when Webber ignored him Milford cut him out with such deft ease that the humiliation still burned in spite of the close friendship they developed later.

And she was a vampire. Milford brought him her diary to read, which cured him effectively and permanently. Neither of them ever mentioned her again. Webber had not even been certain that Milford was still seeing her.

“What are you drinking?” he asked.

“Beer,” she said.

“Will you have another?”

She shook her head. He ordered beer for himself, and as the waitress flounced away she leaned forward and asked urgently, “Did you do it, Ron?”

He stared at her. “Do what?”

“Kill Frank?”

He was too flabbergasted to answer. They regarded each other silently until the waitress brought Webber’s beer.

“You can tell me,” she purred.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Why on earth would I want to kill Frank?”

“I understand perfectly. Why should you deny it?”

Webber took a deep breath. She actually thought he’d murdered Frank for her! “I haven’t any doubt that Frank was murdered,” he said. He’d accepted that she was a vampire, but that measure of colossal conceit was new to him. “But if there was a girl involved her name was Betty Parnet—not Gloria Lardie. And he was killed because of an insurance investigation, not a love affair. I spent a good part of this evening with the police.”

“Then they suspect you. It doesn’t surprise me.”

“It would surprise me if they suspected me. I was helping them. I’m an insurance investigator, too—or had you forgotten?”

“They turned you loose. I’m glad. But you can’t fool me!”

He stared at her again. “This is a ridiculous waste of time for both of us,” he said. “But I’m glad I came. You can think anything you like—and I don’t care what it is. Its worth something to know that. When did you see Frank last?”

She did not answer. He was searching his own memory. He’d paid very little attention to Milford’s comings and goings, but when he thought about it, it seemed a long time since Frank had made an enigmatic telephone call—or had a late date.

“He’d dropped you, didn’t he?” he asked.

She lurched forward, upsetting her glass, and slapped his face resoundingly. He mopped the table with paper napkins, and did not even look up as she stalked away.

Almost before the sharp click of her spike heels had receded someone slid into the booth in her place. Webber glanced up in surprise, and met the saddest pair of eyes he had ever seen. It was a man, weirdly tall and slender, wearing a black suit with white shirt and black bow tie. He looked even more out of place in the Crow Bar than Webber felt.

He said softly, “Good evening, Mr. Webber.”

“Have we met before?” Webber asked.

“To my intense regret, no.”

“Then how’d you happen to know my name?”

He gave Webber a smile. “I make it my business to know things—and people. There’s really only one name that interests me tonight, and a short time ago you used it—Betty Parnet.”

“You were eavesdropping,” Webber said.

“That is a manifestly improper accusation. My hearing is excellent, and your syllabifications were clearly audible at least four booths away. Your young lady is, I fear, a pronounced schizophrenic with paranoid tendencies, and I prognosticate an unhappy future for her.”

“She isn’t so young anymore,” Webber said. “That may be part of her trouble.”

“Indubitably. But though I do not hesitate to frankly delineate a female’s mental condition, I rarely feel at ease in discussing her age. There is a difference between objective reasoning and sheer speculation. You mentioned Betty Parnet.”

“Did I?”

The man leaned forward, and his voice lost its lightness and became as cold and hard as burnished metal. “I have a compelling certitude, Master Webber that you know far more than I do about today’s tragic events. You may even know more than I’ll be able to find out. But I can see that this is the wrong time to ask for confidences, Master Webber. Do you wish to congratulate me on my patience?”

Webber shook his head. “I’m too busy being amazed at mine.”

A fleeting smile touched the gaunt face. “I’ll be seeing you, Master Webber!”

He walked away slowly, leaving Webber twiddling his thumbs in perplexity. He drained his glass and decided to have another beer, but before he could summon the waitress another man slid easily into the booth opposite him. That face, at least, was familiar—a detective Webber had known since he was a child.

“What’d Pronk want?” he asked softly.

“Who’s Pronk?” Webber asked

“He was.”

“Nick Falcone’s right-hand man?”

“Or his brains, or his number-one stooge. Have it any way you like it.”

“He sounded like a professor from a girls’ seminary.”

“That he is not,” the detective said fervently. “I love him for his own sake. He’s unique. He never got through high school, so he’s making up for it by memorizing the Encyclopedia Britannica. He knows everything there is to know through the letter M, but he only talks like a professor when he has time to think what he’s going to say. I can think of a thousand better things to do than tailing him, but orders are orders. Your dad won’t sleep nights until he’s rid the town of both him and Falcone—which must mean he’s had insomnia for twenty years, and as far as I can see it’s due to last for another twenty. We thought we had Pronk cold a week ago, but it was the old story of the disappearing numbers slips. What’d he want?”

Webber looked at him levelly. If Carter City’s vice lord and his henchman were interested in Betty Parnet, the case was developing angles far beyond the ken of an ordinary detective. Or an insurance investigator. It could mean that the insurance fraud was somehow tied in with a bigger racket.

“If you see Bob Hendricks,” he said, “tell him that Pronk is interested.”

“You mean that auto accident thing? Interested how?”

“Just—interested, Webber said. “He didn’t specify.”

“Thanks. I’ll tell him.”

“He won’t thank you,” Webber called after him.

He ordered his second beer, and drank it, and then he drove home. It was after midnight, and he had at least two hours of work ahead of him, typing Frank Milford’s reports and his own.