“Know her!” Her laugh was short and sharp. “I was up there for treatment. Why do you think—” And she stopped. She stared at me. “Never mind,” she said. “I’m no stool pigeon, whatever else I’ve been.”
I said: “How would you like to take a drive with me out to a poet’s house?”
“Is he interesting?” she asked. “Is he handsome?”
“He’s handsome,” I said. “I think he might prove interesting.”
We drove out in the Chrysler, slowly, over the wet streets, the wipers working diligently to sweep the torrents of water flooding the windshield.
There was a riot car parked in front of the cottage. There was the meat wagon, and a department coupe, and a cop standing up on the porch, out of the wet. The Chrysler braked to a halt, and I got out. I told Judy: “I’m going in there. If I’m not out in three minutes, you’d better take off. That’ll mean I’m right in the middle of it.”
She looked at me wonderingly.
“Something,” I said, “must have happened to the poet.”
I closed the car door, and ran.
The man in uniform, on the small porch, stopped me. I told him who I was, and that I wanted to see officer in charge.
I got in, finally. Harvey was there, but not Devine. Adams was there and an assistant M.E. Rodney Carlton was there.
There was a small but bloody hole in the side of his neck.
The assistant M.E. thought it had nicked the jugular, and he had died within a very few minutes.
Harvey nodded. “He was alive when I got here.” Then he saw me. “Well,” he said. “You’re in this, too, aren’t you?”
“I was going by,” I lied. “I saw the wagon out front.”
“You’re a liar,” he said. He was glaring at me. “This guy talked to me, before he died. Most of it I couldn’t understand, but your name was clear enough.”
“All right,” I said, “I’m a liar. You want to run me in?”
Some of his quick anger was melting, and he looked uncomfortable. “Just hang around,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
I walked leisurely over to the window, and saw Devine step from a department car. I saw Judy ride off in the Chrysler. Devine looked wet and miserable as he came scurrying up the walk, his head down.
He didn’t look any happier when he saw me. But he ignored me, at first, while he got the story from Glen. I listened.
Somewhere, Devine had got a lead on this Carlton, and he had sent Glen over. Glen had got here in time to hear a shot, a sharp little spat like a .22 makes. He had opened the door, when he heard that, and found Rodney Carlton on the floor, the hole in his neck.
Devine said: “Nobody in the house? Just him?”
“That’s all.”
“Somebody must have been here,” Devine said. “Somebody shot him.”
My eyes measured the distance from Carlton’s body to the kitchen arch. I saw the line of blood-drops leading from there. At least, it looked like blood, though it wasn’t very noticeable on that rug.
I went out into the kitchen. There was blood, a mess of it, on the floor near the door in here. I called them out.
“How’s this?” I suggested. “Somebody rings the doorbell in the rear. He goes to the door, and—”
I looked from Devine to Harvey.
“Let’s see what it looks like out there,” De-vine said.
There were a pair of trellises flanking the doorway, back here, effectively screening the view of the door from the neighbors. There was a small back yard, which was bordered by an open alley.
Devine looked at Glen Harvey. “Whoever it was,” he said quietly, “he could be in Hoboken, by now. He could be in Paducah.”
“Sure,” Glen said. “I called the Doc, after I got the guy’s story. He was still alive. I wasn’t chasing out, while he was still alive.”
“And what’d he tell you? Did he give you the murderer’s phone number, too, so we won’t have to go and get him, so we can just call him and have him drop down to the station? You’re armed, aren’t you? You got any reason for not going out that back door?”
Devine’s face was red, and getting redder. He would probably work himself into a frenzy, the way he was going. I said mildly: “He did tell Glen something. He mentioned my name, for one thing.”
Devine looked over at me, in his nasty way, and then looked at Glen. “That right? Jones in this one, too?”
Glen said evenly: “Carlton mentioned his name. He said something about putting her on a train. I don’t know who he meant by her. He said I should tell Jones that. And tell him she never came back from up there. The way it sounded, he thought, at first, that Jones was working for Every. That’s why Carlton told him he hadn’t seen her for a month.” Glen was looking at me, though he was talking to Devine.
“All right,” I said, “here’s something for you. This Carlton was engaged, at one time, to the girl Val Every’s looking for. Every’s number one torpedo carries a little Bankers’ Special, a Colt twenty-two. That could be a twenty-two hole in his neck. And Lundgren was killed with a twenty-two. What more do you need?”
“Just your part in it,” Devine said. “What about the train? And not coming back from up there. What’s that mean?”
“Nothing to me,” I lied. “The man was probably in a delirium.”
“And you’re not working for Every?” Devine said.
“That’s right.”
“Who are you working for, then? Now would be the time to open up, Jones. With two murders in two days, you could start playing it smart about now.”
I looked at him, and away. I said: “Grab Every. Keep him on an open charge. I think I got something.”
Devine said: “We’ll take care of the law, in this town. If you’ve got something on this, I want it.”
“What about Every?” I asked. “You’ve looked up all the files on him, haven’t you? What’s his big number, now?”
“Dope,” Devine said.
That tied it up. It was beginning to make sense. I said: “Grab him. Somebody’ll talk. Hold him. And I’ll want four men, maybe more. More would be wise. Two of them can ride in the back of the Dusy, under cover. The rest, I’ll place.”
“You?” Devine asked. “You giving orders, Jones?”
“Not if you don’t want me to,” I said. “You can take it from here, if you want.”
They were taking out the body of Rodney Carlton. Devine looked at Glen, started to say something, and then changed his mind. He looked at me quietly.
Finally, he said: “We’ll talk this over down at the station.”
I agreed to that, and I rode down there with him in the department car. We had no dialogue, on the way down.
While he went in to see the Chief, I phoned Judy Meredith. I hoped she had gone right home.
She had. I asked her: “Would you mind answering just one question, one very important question?”
“Try me,” she said, “and see.”
“Did you ever take dope?”
It was a hell of a question, and put very bluntly. But I think she understood there was no malice in my asking it. I heard no sound excepting the rumble of thunder, outside, and the clack of a typewriter from somewhere inside.
And then she said: “Not for long. I found out, in time.”
Only that, and the click of the phone on her end as she hung up.
I phoned Miss Townsbury. “Something’s come up,” I told her. “I must see you, right away.”
She would be at home all day, she informed me.
Devine was still in with the Chief. I told Harvey: “I’m going across the street and get a sandwich. I’ll be back.”
I was still there, in the counter lunchroom, when Devine came in. He said: “The Old Man said O.K. Who do you want?”