The Simple Art of Murder Page 4

  The lake was deep blue but very low. Two or three canoes drifted about on it and the chugging of an outboard motor sounded in the distance, around a bend. He went along between thick walls of undergrowth, walking on pine needles, turned around a stump and crossed a small rustic bridge to the Marr cabin.

  It was built of half-round logs and had a wide porch on the lake side. It looked very lonely and empty. The spring that ran under the bridge curved around beside the house and one end of the porch dropped down sheer to the big flat stones through which the water trickled. The stones would be covered when the water was high, in the spring.

  Delaguerra went up wooden steps and took the keys out of his pocket, unlocked the heavy front door, then stood on the porch a little while and lit a cigarette before he went in. It was very still, very pleasant, very cool and clear after the heat of the city. A mountain bluejay sat on a stump and pecked at its wings. Somebody far out on the lake fooled with a ukulele. He went into the cabin.

  He looked at some dusty antlers, a big rough table splattered with magazines, an old-fashioned battery-type radio, a box-shaped phonograph with a disheveled pile of records beside it. There were tall glasses that hadn’t been washed and a half-bottle of Scotch beside them, on a table near the big stone fireplace. A car went along the road up above and stopped somewhere not far off. Delaguerra frowned around, said: “Stall,” under his breath, with a defeated feeling. There wasn’t any sense in it. A man like Donegan Marr wouldn’t leave anything that mattered in a mountain cabin.

  He looked into a couple of bedrooms, one just a shake-down with a couple of cots, one better furnished, with a make-up bed, and a pair of women’s gaudy pajamas tossed across it. They didn’t look quite like Belle Marr’s.

  At the back there was a small kitchen with a gasoline stove and a wood stove. He opened the back door with another key and stepped out on a small porch flush with the ground, near a big pile of cordwood and a double-bitted axe on a chopping block.

  Then he saw the flies.

  A wooden walk went down the side of the house to a woodshed under it. A beam of sunlight had slipped through the trees and lay across the walk. In the sunlight there a clotted mass of flies festered on something brownish, sticky. The flies didn’t want to move. Delaguerra bent down, then put his hand down and touched the sticky place, sniffed at his finger. His face got shocked and stiff.

  There was another smaller patch of the brownish stuff farther on, in the shade, outside the door of the shed. He took the keys out of his pocket very quickly and found the one that unlocked the big padlock of the woodshed. He yanked the door open.

  There was a big loose pile of cordwood inside. Not split wood—cordwood. Not stacked, just thrown in anyhow. Delaguerra began to toss the big rough pieces to one side.

  After he had thrown a lot of it aside he was able to reach down and take hold of two cold stiff ankles in lisle socks and drag the dead man out into the light.

  He was a slender man, neither tall nor short, in a well-cut basket weave suit. His small neat shoes were polished, a little dust over the polish. He didn’t have any face, much. It was broken to pulp by a terrific smash. The top of his head was split open and brains and blood were mixed in the thin grayish-brown hair.

  Delaguerra straightened quickly and went back into the house to where the half-bottle of Scotch stood on the table in the living room. He uncorked it, drank from the neck, waited a moment, drank again.

  He said: “Phew!” out loud, and shivered as the whiskey whipped at his nerves.

  He went back to the woodshed, leaned down again as an automobile motor started up somewhere. He stiffened. The motor swelled in sound, then the sound faded and there was silence again. Delaguerra shrugged, went through the dead man’s pockets. They were empty. One of them, with cleaner’s marks on it probably, had been cut away. The tailor’s label had been cut from the inside pocket of the coat, leaving ragged stitches.

  The man was stiff. He might have been dead twenty-four hours, not more. The blood on his face had coagulated thickly but had not dried completely.

  Delaguerra squatted beside him for a little while, looking at the bright glitter of Puma Lake, the distant flash of a paddle from a canoe. Then he went back into the woodshed and pawed around for a heavy block of wood with a great deal of blood on it, didn’t find one. He went back into the house and out on the front porch, went to the end of the porch, stared down the drop, then at the big flat stones in the spring.

  “Yeah,” he said softly.

  There were flies clotted on two of the stones, a lot of flies. He hadn’t noticed them before. The drop was about thirty feet, enough to smash a man’s head open if he landed just right.

  He sat down in one of the big rockers and smoked for several minutes without moving. His face was still with thought, his black eyes withdrawn and remote. There was a tight, hard smile, ever so faintly sardonic, at the corners of his mouth.

  At the end of that he went silently back through the house and dragged the dead man into the woodshed again, covered him up loosely with the wood. He locked the woodshed, locked the house up, went back along the narrow, steep path to the road and to his car.

  It was past six o’clock, but the sun was still bright as he drove off.

  FIVE

  An old store counter served as bar in the roadside beerstube. Three low stools stood against it. Delaguerra sat on the end one near the door, looked at the foamy inside of an empty beer glass. The bartender was a dark kid in overalls, with shy eyes and lank hair. He stuttered. He said: “Sh-should I d-draw you another g-glass, mister?”

  Delaguerra shook his head, stood up off the stool. “Racket beer, sonny,” he said sadly. “Tasteless as a roadhouse blonde.”

  “P-portola B-brew, mister. Supposed to be the b-best.”

  “Uh-huh. The worst. You use it, or you don’t have a license. So long, sonny.”

  He went across to the screen door, looked out at the sunny highway on which the shadows were getting quite long. Beyond the concrete there was a graveled space edged by a white fence of four-by-fours. There were two cars parked there: Delaguerra’s old Cadillac and a dusty hard-bitten Ford. A tall, thin man in khaki whipcord stood beside the Cadillac, looking at it.

  Delaguerra got a bulldog pipe out, filled it half full from a zipper pouch, lit it with slow care and flicked the match into the corner. Then he stiffened a little, looking out through the screen.

  The tall, thin man was unsnapping the canvas that covered the back part of Delaguerra’s car. He rolled part of it back, stood peering down in the space underneath.

  Delaguerra opened the screen door softly and walked in long, loose strides across the concrete of the highway. His crêpe soles made sound on the gravel beyond, but the thin man didn’t turn. Delaguerra came up beside him.

  “Thought I noticed you behind me,” he said dully. “What’s the grift?”

  The man turned without any haste. He had a long, sour face, eyes the color of seaweed. His coat was open, pushed back by a hand on a left hip. That showed a gun worn butt to the front in a belt holster, cavalry style.

  He looked Delaguerra up and down with a faint crooked smile.

  “This your crate?”

  “What do you think?”

  The thin man pulled his coat back farther and showed a bronze badge on his pocket.

  “I think I’m a Toluca County game warden, mister. I think this ain’t deer-hunting time and it ain’t ever deer-hunting time for does.”

  Delaguerra lowered his eyes very slowly, looked into the back of his car, bending over to see past the canvas. The body of a young deer lay there on some junk, beside a rifle. The soft eyes of the dead animal, unglazed by death, seemed to look at him with a gentle reproach. There was dried blood on the doe’s slender neck.

  Delaguerra straightened, said gently: “That’s damn cute.”

  “Got a hunting license?”

  “I don’t hunt,” Delaguerra said.

  “Wouldn’t help mu
ch. I see you got a rifle.”

  “I’m a cop.”

  “Oh—cop, huh? Would you have a badge?”

  “I would.”

  Delaguerra reached into his breast pocket, got the badge out, rubbed it on his sleeve, held it in the palm of his hand. The thin game warden stared down at it, licking his lips.

  “Detective lieutenant, huh? City police.” His face got distant and lazy. “Okey, Lieutenant. We’ll ride about ten miles down-grade in your heap. I’ll thumb a ride back to mine.”

  Delaguerra put the badge away, knocked his pipe out carefully, stamped the embers into the gravel. He replaced the canvas loosely.

  “Pinched?” he asked gravely.

  “Pinched, Lieutenant.”

  “Let’s go.”

  He got in under the wheel of the Cadillac. The thin warden went around the other side, got in beside him. Delaguerra started the car, backed around and started off down the smooth concrete of the highway. The valley was a deep haze in the distance. Beyond the haze other peaks were enormous on the skyline. Delaguerra coasted the big car easily, without haste. The two men stared straight before them without speaking.

  After a long time Delaguerra said: “I didn’t know they had deer at Puma Lake. That’s as far as I’ve been.”

  “There’s a reservation by there, Lieutenant,” the warden said calmly. He stared through the dusty windshield. “Part of the Toluca County Forest—or wouldn’t you know that?”

  Delaguerra said: “I guess I wouldn’t know it. I never shot a deer in my life. Police work hasn’t made me that tough.”

  The warden grinned, said nothing. The highway went through a saddle, then the drop was on the right side of the highway. Little canyons began to open out into the hills on the left. Some of them had rough roads in them, half overgrown, with wheel tracks.

  Delaguerra swung the big car hard and suddenly to the left, shot it into a cleared space of reddish earth and dry grass, slammed the brake on. The car skidded, swayed, ground to a lurching stop.

  The warden was flung violently to the right, then forward against the windshield. He cursed, jerked up straight and threw his right hand across his body at the holstered gun.

  Delaguerra took hold of a thin, hard wrist and twisted it sharply towards the man’s body. The warden’s face whitened behind the tan. His left hand fumbled at the holster, then relaxed. He spoke in a tight, hurt voice.

  “Makin’ it worse, copper. I got a phone tip at Salt Springs. Described your car, said where it was. Said there was a doe carcass in it. I—”

  Delaguerra loosed the wrist, snapped the belt holster open and jerked the Colt out of it. He tossed the gun from the car.

  “Get out, County! Thumb that ride you spoke of. What’s the matter—can’t you live on your salary any more? You planted it yourself, back at Puma Lake, you goddamn chiseler!”

  The warden got out slowly, stood on the ground with his face blank, his jaw loose and slack.

  “Tough guy,” he muttered. “You’ll be sorry for this, copper. I’ll swear a complaint.”

  Delaguerra slid across the seat, got out of the right-hand door. He stood close to the warden, said very slowly: “Maybe I’m wrong, mister. Maybe you did get a call. Maybe you did.”

  He swung the doe’s body out of the car, laid it down on the ground, watching the warden. The thin man didn’t move, didn’t try to get near his gun lying on the grass a dozen feet away. His seaweed eyes were dull, very cold.

  Delaguerra got back into the Cadillac, snapped the brake off, started the engine. He backed to the highway. The warden still didn’t make a move.

  The Cadillac leaped forward, shot down the grade, out of sight. When it was quite gone the warden picked his gun up and holstered it, dragged the doe behind some bushes, and started to walk back along the highway towards the crest of the grade.

  SIX

  The girl at the desk in the Kenworthy said: “This man called you three times, Lieutenant, but he wouldn’t give a number. A lady called twice. Wouldn’t leave name or number.”

  Delaguerra took three slips of paper from her, read the name “Joey Chill” on them and the various times. He picked up a couple of letters, touched his cap to the desk girl and got into the automatic elevator. He got off at four, walked down a narrow, quiet corridor, unlocked a door. Without switching on any lights he went across to a big french window, opened it wide, stood there looking at the thick dark sky, the flash of neon lights, the stabbing beams of headlamps on Ortega Boulevard, two blocks over.

  He lit a cigarette and smoked half of it without moving. His face in the dark was very long, very troubled. Finally he left the window and went into a small bedroom, switched on a table lamp and undressed to the skin. He got under the shower, toweled himself, put on clean linen and went into the kitchenette to mix a drink. He sipped that and smoked another cigarette while he finished dressing. The telephone in the living room rang as he was strapping on his holster.

  It was Belle Marr. Her voice was blurred and throaty, as if she had been crying for hours.

  “I’m so glad to get you, Sam. I—I didn’t mean the way I talked. I was shocked and confused, absolutely wild inside. You knew that, didn’t you, Sam?”

  “Sure, kid,” Delaguerra said. “Think nothing of it. Anyway you were right. I just got back from Puma Lake and I think I was just sent up there to get rid of me.”

  “You’re all I have now, Sam. You won’t let them hurt you, will you?”

  “Who?”

  “You know. I’m no fool, Sam. I know this was all a plot, a vile political plot to get rid of him.”

  Delaguerra held the phone very tight. His mouth felt stiff and hard. For a moment he couldn’t speak. Then he said: “It might be just what it looks like, Belle. A quarrel over those pictures. After all Donny had a right to tell a guy like that to get off the ticket. That wasn’t blackmail . . . And he had a gun in his hand, you know.”

  “Come out and see me when you can, Sam.” Her voice lingered with a spent emotion, a note of wistfulness.

  He drummed on the desk, hesitated again, said: “Sure . . . When was anybody at Puma Lake last, at the cabin?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been there in a year. He went . . . alone. Perhaps he met people there. I don’t know.”

  He said something vaguely, after a moment said goodbye and hung up. He stared at the wall over the writing desk. There was a fresh light in his eyes, a hard glint. His whole face was tight, not doubtful any more.

  He went back to the bedroom for his coat and straw hat. On the way out he picked up the three telephone slips with the name “Joey Chill” on them, tore them into small pieces and burned the pieces in an ash tray.

  SEVEN

  Pete Marcus, the big, sandy-haired dick, sat sidewise at a small littered desk in a bare office in which there were two such desks, faced to opposite walls. The other desk was neat and tidy, had a green blotter with an onyx pen set, a small brass calendar and an abalone shell for an ash tray.

  A round straw cushion that looked something like a target was propped on end in a straight chair by the window. Pete Marcus had a handful of bank pens in his left hand and he was flipping them at the cushion, like a Mexican knife thrower. He was doing it absently, without much skill.

  The door opened and Delaguerra came in. He shut the door and leaned against it, looking woodenly at Marcus. The sandy-haired man creaked his chair around and tilted it back against the desk, scratched his chin with a broad thumbnail.

  “Hi, Spanish. Nice trip? The Chief’s yappin’ for you.”

  Delaguerra grunted, stuck a cigarette between his smooth brown lips.

  “Were you in Marr’s office when those photos were found, Pete?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t find them. The Commish did. Why?”

  “Did you see him find them?”

  Marcus stared a moment, then said quietly, guardedly: “He found them all right, Sam. He didn’t plant them—if that’s what you mean.”

  De
laguerra nodded, shrugged. “Anything on the slugs?”

  “Yeah. Not thirty-twos—twenty-fives. A damn vest-pocket rod. Copper-nickel slugs. An automatic, though, and we didn’t find any shells.”

  “Imlay remembered those,” Delaguerra said evenly, “but he left without the photos he killed for.”

  Marcus lowered his feet to the floor and leaned forward, looking up past his tawny eyebrows.

  “That could be. They give him a motive, but with the gun in Marr’s hand they kind of knock a premeditation angle.”

  “Good headwork, Pete.” Delaguerra walked over to the small window, stood looking out of it. After a moment Marcus said dully: “You don’t see me doin’ any work, do you, Spanish?”

  Delaguerra turned slowly, went over and stood close to Marcus, looking down at him.

  “Don’t be sore, kid. You’re my partner, and I’m tagged as Marr’s line into Headquarters. You’re getting some of that. You’re sitting still and I was hiked up to Puma Lake for no good reason except to have a deer carcass planted in the back of my car and have a game warden nick me with it.”

  Marcus stood up very slowly, knotting his fists at his sides. His heavy gray eyes opened very wide. His big nose was white at the nostrils.

  “Nobody here’d go that far, Sam.”

  Delaguerra shook his head. “I don’t think so either. But they could take a hint to send me up there. And somebody outside the department could do the rest.”

  Pete Marcus sat down again. He picked up one of the pointed bank pens and flipped it viciously at the round straw cushion. The point stuck, quivered, broke, and the pen rattled to the floor.

  “Listen,” he said thickly, not looking up, “this is a job to me. That’s all it is. A living. I don’t have any ideals about this police work like you have. Say the word and I’ll heave the goddamn badge in the old boy’s puss.”

  Delaguerra bent down, punched him in the ribs. “Skip it, copper. I’ve got ideas. Go on home and get drunk.”

  He opened the door and went out quickly, walked along a marble-faced corridor to a place where it widened into an alcove with three doors. The middle one said: CHIEF OF DETECTIVES. ENTER. Delaguerra went into a small reception room with a plain railing across it. A police stenographer behind the railing looked up, then jerked his head at an inner door. Delaguerra opened a gate in the railing and knocked at the inner door, then went in.