The Zebra-Striped Hearse Part 29

"I guess so."

The three of us went up the beach to the zebra-striped hea.r.s.e. Ray found the dog-eared booklet, and Mona scanned it under the dashboard lights.

"It was May the nineteenth," she said positively. "It couldn't have been any other day."

I thanked her. I thanked them both, but she was the one with the brains. As I drove back toward Los Angeles, I wondered what Mona was doing on the beach. Perhaps if I met her father or her mother I could stop wondering.

chapter 24

THE B BLACKWELL HOUSE was dark. I pressed the bell push, and the chimes inside gave out a lonely tinkling. I waited and rang again and waited and rang and waited. was dark. I pressed the bell push, and the chimes inside gave out a lonely tinkling. I waited and rang again and waited and rang and waited.

Eventually I heard footsteps inside. The veranda light went on over my head, and the little maid looked out at me sleepily. She was out of uniform and out of sorts.

"What do you you want?" want?"

"Are the Blackwells in?"

"She is. He isn't."

"Tell her Mr. Archer would like to speak to her."

"I can't do that. She's in bed asleep. I was asleep myself." She yawned in my face, and hugged her rayon bathrobe more closely around her.

"You go to bed early, Letty."

"I had to get up up early this morning, so I thought I might as well catch up on my rest. Mrs. Blackwell took some sleeping pills and left strict orders not to be disturbed She went to bed right after dinner." early this morning, so I thought I might as well catch up on my rest. Mrs. Blackwell took some sleeping pills and left strict orders not to be disturbed She went to bed right after dinner."

"Is Mrs. Blackwell all right?"

"She said she had a blinding headache but she gets those from time to time."

"How many sleeping pills did she take?"

"A couple."

"What kind?"

"The red kind. Why?"

"Nothing. Where's the lord and master?"

"He left early this morning. He had a phone call, about Miss Harriet, and he made me get up and make breakfast for him. It isn't a regular part of my duties but the cook sleeps out-"

I cut in on her explanations: "Do you know where he is now?"

"He went up to Tahoe to help them search for her body. That's where the phone call was from."

"They haven't found her, then?"

"No. What do you think happened to her?"

"I think she's in the lake."

"That's what he said." She stepped outside, partly closing the door behind her. "He was in bad shape at breakfast. He couldn't eat he was so broken up. I didn't think he should go off there by himself. But he wouldn't let me wake up Mrs. Blackwell, and what could I do?"

She crossed the veranda and looked up at the stars. She sighed, and laid a hand on her round pink rayon bosom.

"How long have you been working for the Blackwells?"

"Two months. It seems like longer. I mean with all the trouble in the house."

"Trouble between Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell?"

"They've had their share. But it don't behoove me to talk about it."

"Don't they get along?"

"They get along as well as most, I guess. A-course they've only been married eight or nine months. It's the long pull that counts, my daddy says, and the Colonel must be twenty years older than her."

"Is that an issue between the Blackwells?"

"No, I don't mean that. Only it makes you wonder why she married him. Mrs. Blackwell may have her faults, but she's not the gold-digging type."

"I'm interested in what you think of her and her faults."

"I don't talk behind people's backs," she said with some spirit. "Mrs. Blackwell treats me good, and I try to treat her good back. She's a nice lady to work for. He isn't so bad either."

"Did they take you up to Tahoe in May?"

"That was before I started with them. Just my luck. They were talking about going up again in September, but it's probably all off now. They wouldn't want to stay in the lodge so soon after what happened there. I wouldn't want to myself."

"Were you fond of Harriet?"

"I wouldn't say that. I never saw much of her. But I felt kind of sorry for her, even before this happened. She was a real sad cookie, even with all that money. It's too bad she had to die before she had any happiness in life. She put on a pretty good front, but you ought to seen the crying tantrums she threw in the privacy of her own room. My mother is a practical nurse, and I tried to calm her down a couple of times."

"What was she crying about?"

"n.o.body loved her, she said. She said she was ugly. I told her she had a real nice figure and other attractive features, but she couldn't see it. This was in June, before she went to Mexico. It's easy to understand why she was such a pushover for that artist guy-the one with all the names that murdered her." She looked at the stars again, and coughed at their chilliness. "I think I'm catching cold. I better get back to bed. You never can tell when they'll get you up around here."

She went back into the dark house. I went down the hill and turned left on Sunset toward my office. I drove automatically in the light evening traffic. My mind was sifting the facts I'd sc.r.a.ped together, the facts and the semi-facts and the semi-demi-semi-facts. One of the semi-facts had become a certainty since I'd learned that the tweed coat had been found near the Blackwells' beach house: the Blackwell case and the Dolly Campion case and the Ralph Simpson case were parts of one another, Dolly and Ralph and probably Harriet had died by the same hand, and the coat could be used to identify the hand.

I spread it out on the desk in my office and looked at it under the light. The leather b.u.t.tons were identical with the one Mungan had shown me. Where the top one had been pulled off there were some strands of broken thread corresponding with the threads attached to Mungan's b.u.t.ton. I had no doubt that an identification man with a microscope could tie that b.u.t.ton and this coat together.

I turned the coat over, scattering sand across the desk and the floor. It had a Harris label on the right inside breast pocket, and under it the label of the retailers: Cruttworth, Ltd., Toronto. My impulse was to phone the Cruttworth firm right away. But it was the middle of the night in Toronto, and the best I could hope for was a chat with the night watchman.

I searched in vain for cleaners' marks. Perhaps the coat had never been cleaned. In spite of its rough usage on the beach, the cuffs and the collar showed no sign of wear.

I tried the thing on. It was small for me, tight across the chest. I wondered how it would fit Campion. It was a heavy coat, and a heavy thought, and I began to sweat, I struggled out of the coat. It hugged me like guilt.

I knew a man named Sam Garlick who specialized in identifying clothes and connecting them with their rightful owners in court. He was a Detective Sergeant in the L.A.P.D. His father and his grandfather had been tailors.

I called Sam's house in West Los Angeles. His mother-in-law informed me that the Garlicks were out celebrating their twenty-second wedding anniversary. She was looking after the three smaller children, and they were a handful, but she'd finally got them off to bed. Yes, Sam would be on duty in the morning.

While the receiver was in my hand, I dialed my answering service. Both Arnie Walters and Isobel Blackwell had called me earlier in the day. The most recent calls were from Sergeant Wesley Leonard and a woman named Mrs. Hatchen, who was staying at the Santa Monica Inn. Mrs. Hatchen. Harriet's mother. The long loops were intersecting, and I was at the point of intersection.

I put in a call to the Santa Monica Inn. The switchboard operator told me after repeated attempts that Mrs. Hatchen's room didn't answer. The desk clerk thought she'd gone out for a late drive. She had checked into a single late that afternoon.

I returned Leonard's call. He answered on the first ring.

"Sergeant Leonard here."

"Archer. You wanted to talk to me?"

"I thought you wanted to talk to me. The wife mentioned you were here this afternoon."

"I had some evidence that should interest you. I have more now than I had then."

"What is it?"

"The coat Ralph Simpson had with him when he left home. I'm hoping it will lead us to the killer."

"How?" he said, rather compet.i.tively.

"It's a little complicated for the phone. We should get together, Sergeant."

"I concur. I've got something hotter than the coat." He was a simple man, and simple pride swelled in his voice. "So hot I can't even tell you over the phone."

"Do you come here or do I go there?"

"You come to me. I have my reasons. You know where I live."

He was waiting for me on the lighted porch, looking younger and taller than I remembered him. There was a flush on his cheeks and a glitter in his eyes, as if the hotness of his evidence had raised his temperature.

I suspected that he was letting me in on it because he secretly doubted his competence to handle it. He had anxiety in him, too. He pumped my hand, and seemed to have a hard time letting go.

Mrs. Leonard had made lemonade and egg-salad sandwiches, and laid them out on a coffee table in the small over-furnished living room. She poured two gla.s.ses of lemonade from a pitcher clinking with ice. Then she retreated into the kitchen, shutting the door with crisp tact. I had forgotten to eat, and I wolfed several sandwiches while Leonard talked.

"I've found the murder weapon," he announced. "I didn't find it personally, but it was my own personal idea that led to its disclosure. Ever since we uncovered Simpson's body, I've had a crew of county prisoners out there mornings picking over the scene of the crime. This morning one of them came across the icepick and turned it in."

"Let me see it."

"It's down at the courthouse, locked up. I'll show it to you later."

"What makes you certain it's the weapon?"

"I took it into the L.A. crime lab today. They gave it a test for blood traces, and got a positive reaction. Also, it fits the puncture in Simpson's body."

"Any icepick would."

"But this is it. This is the one." He leaned toward me urgently across the plate of sandwiches. "I had to be sure, and I made sure."

"Fingerprints?"

"No. The only prints were the ones from the prisoner that found it. It was probably wiped clean before the murderer stuck it in the dirt. I've got something better than fingerprints. And worse, in a way."

"You're talking in riddles, Sergeant."

"It's a riddle for sure." He glanced at the closed door to the kitchen, and lowered his voice. "The icepick was part of a little silver bar set which was sold right here in town last October. I had no trouble tracking down the store because there's only the one good hardware store here in town. That's Drake Hardware, and Mr. Drake identified the icepick personally tonight. He just had the one set like it in stock, and he remembered who he sold it to. She's a local citizen-a woman my wife has known for years."

"Who is she?"

Leonard raised his hand as if he was back on traffic point duty. "Not so fast. I don't know that I'm justified telling you her name. It wouldn't mean anything to you, anyway. She's a Citrus Junction woman, lived here all her life. Always had a clean record, till now. But it looks dark for her, or maybe her husband. There's more than the icepick tying them into the murder. They live directly across the road from the site where we found the icepick and and the body." the body."

"Are we talking about Mr. and Mrs. Stone?"

He looked at me in surprise. "You know Jack and Liz Stone?"

"I interviewed her this afternoon. He wasn't there."

"What were you doing-questioning her about the Simpson killing?"

"We discussed it, but I didn't consider her a suspect. We talked mostly about her daughter Dolly-and what happened to her."

Leonard made a lugubrious face. "That was a bad blow to the Stone couple. The way I figure it, psychologically speaking, the murder of their girl could of drove them over the edge. Maybe Simpson had something to do with that murder, and they killed him in revenge."

"It's a possible motive, all right Simpson was definitely involved with Dolly and her husband. Have you questioned the Stones?"

"Not yet I just got Mr. Drake's identification of the icepick tonight. I talked it over with the Sheriff and he says I should wait until the D.A. gets back from Sacramento. He's due back tomorrow. We wouldn't want to make a serious mistake, the Sheriff says." Clear sweat, like distilled anxiety, burst out on his forehead. "The Stones aren't moneyed folks but they've always had a good reputation and plenty of friends in town. Liz Stone is active in the Eastern Star." He took a long gulp of lemonade.

"Somebody ought to ask her about the icepick."

"That's my opinion, too. Unfortunately my hands are tied until the D.A. gets back."

"Mine aren't."

He regarded me appraisingly. Clearly he was asking himself how far he could trust me. He tossed down the rest of his lemonade and got up.

"Okay. You want to take a look at it first?"

We rode in my car to the courthouse. The icepick was in Leonard's second-floor office, where a map of Citrus County took up one whole wall. He got the thing out of a locker and set it on the table under a magnifying gla.s.s on a flexible arm.

A tag bearing Leonard's initials was wired to the handle, and the wire sealed with lead. The square-cut silver handle felt cold to my fingers. The point of the icepick was sharp and dirty, like a bad death.