I stared after him.
A coincidence?
First, Frank Latimer: now Mark Creeden. According to Wally, both these men’s wives had been stealing from the Welcome store.
I wondered if Creeden had just left Gordy. Had he paid blackmail money to buy a strip of damaging film?
I moved on. I had some trouble finding Gordy’s small two-storey house. It was well off the road. About two hundred yards from the rear of the house was the goods entrance to the Welcome store. The big store was in darkness, but there was a light showing through the yellow curtains of the lower room of Gordy’s house. The rest of the house was in darkness.
I walked up the path, lined by straggly rose bushes. I pressed the bell. Chimes sounded, then died away.
I was sweating slightly and my hands felt cold and clammy. My heart was beating with an uneven thump-thump-thump. I knew I was doing a crazy thing to come here and pay money to a blackmailer, but the alternative of going to the police, even though the article on Schultz had been shelved, was too dangerous for Linda: too dangerous for me too. This stupid, greedy thieving could leak back to Chandler, and then there would be a full stop to my career.
There was no answer to my ring, so I rang again. I looked down the short, dark path, uneasy that someone could be watching me.
When again there was no answer, I hesitated, then put my hand on the door handle, turned and gently pushed. The door swung open. I stood there, looking into a small lobby. The light coming from the living room — the door was ajar — showed me a coat rack on which hung a shabby dustcoat and a shabbier hat.
Anxious not to be seen by any passerby, I moved into the lobby and closed the front door.
I wondered if Gordy lived alone. I wondered if he had a wife and if she knew he was a blackmailer.
‘Gordy?’
I slightly raised my voice and waited.
I heard the sound of a refrigerator start up, but otherwise there was silence.
‘Gordy?’
I moved to the door, tapped, then pushed it wide open. How often have I read of this scene in books and seen it on television?
The shabby room with its fading, sun-bleached wallpaper, the ugly furniture, well used and much travelled, the cheap, well-worn rugs. There were two poor reproductions of Van Gogh’s landscapes on the wall and a few tattered paperbacks huddled together on a shelf. A TV set, a half-empty bottle of scotch and on the overmantel, a French doll with black fuzz glued to her crotch. The trappings of a home, but not much of a home.
But the centrepiece of this sad, sordid room, held me. Jesse Gordy sat facing me. His hands lay on the arms of the shabby chair. The front of his blue shirt and his shabby grey jacket were red with blood. At his feet was more blood: a small puddle in which one of his shoes rested.
His lips were drawn back, showing his yellow rat-like teeth in a snarl of hate and fear. His eyes glared at me: dead eyes, but still hating.
Paralysed with horror, I stared at him. Then the sound of the telephone bell made me stiffen. I looked around, my breathing quick and light. The telephone stood on a table by the dead man.
I stood there, listening to the bell until it finally stopped ringing.
Then in a panic, I started to leave. My immediate thought was to get away, but as I reached the front door, my shock began to recede and my mind began to function.
I paused.
Gordy had been murdered. Someone had either shot or stabbed him. Was that someone a man or a woman Gordy had been blackmailing? Was the film still in the house or had this someone taken it? If the police found the film, both Linda and I would have no future as we knew it now.
Shouldn’t I search the house and try to find the film? If the film was found, every wife, photographed stealing, would be investigated by the police. She and her husband would be checked to see if she or he could have murdered Gordy.
Standing there, my mind racing, I suddenly realised that I could be suspect Number one. If questioned, Creeden would say he had met me going towards Gordy’s house. I had the motive.
Creeden?
I thought of him as he had come down East Avenue, his spaniel at his heels. He could have killed Gordy. Yes, he fitted. He was big business and ruthless in spite of his ambassador’s smile. Rather than let his wife be prosecuted for theft he would have thought nothing of killing a creep like Gordy.
Dare I stay and search the house? Suppose someone came and caught me? The film could be anywhere: cunningly hidden. It could take me hours to search the house.
As I started for the front door, I again paused.
Gordy had been expecting me. Wouldn’t he have the snippet of film ready? Why should I care about the rest of the film? It was worth the risk to see if I could find the bit of film that involved Linda, but as I forced myself to turn back to the living room, I heard a car pull up outside the house.
I whirled around and dashed up the stairs, reaching the upper landing as the front door bell rang. I leaned against the banister rail, looking down into the half lit lobby, my heart hammering.
The bells chimed, then I hear the door push open.
‘Jesse?’ A woman’s voice.
I peered over the rail and caught a glimpse of a woman who moved so swiftly into the living room I only got an impression of her: small, dark, wearing something dark. I heard her catch her breath, then her scream set my teeth on edge.
‘Jesse!’
Slowly, silently, I began to descend the stairs.
‘God!’
I heard her dialling. She could only be calling the police.
I was now in the lobby.
‘It’s murder!’ Her voice was shrill and hysterical. ‘Send someone!’
I reached the door, moved silently into the warm darkness. I heard her screaming, ‘189, East Avenue! It’s murder!’
I was ready to run, but instinct warned me. I paused long enough to whip out my handkerchief and wipe the front door handle, the only thing I had touched in the house, then I moved down the path and once on the road, I began to run.
I reached my house, breathless. I had met no one. It was television peak time and everyone, unless throwing a party, was indoors.
With a shaky hand, I got out my front door key and sank it into the lock. It wouldn’t turn. I tried again, then pulling out the key, I turned the door handle and the door opened. It passed through my mind, as I entered the dark lobby, that I had forgotten to lock up.
As I closed the front door, I heard the sound of a police siren and saw the lights of a patrol car through the window, storming past and towards East Avenue.
4
In the familiar background of my big living room, I was able to think. I sat in an armchair and considered the situation.
Gordy had been murdered. A woman (who?) had alerted the police who were already on the scene. Before very long more police and the Homicide squad would arrive. They would search the house, hunt for fingerprints and ask around. If they found the blackmail film then Linda and I, Mark and Mabel Creeden, Frank and Sally Latimer and possibly others living on the estate would be on the hot seat. From the film the police would know our wives were thieves: a motive for murder. We all would be checked. If it was discovered that Creeden had been near Gordy’s house around the time of the killing he would be an immediate suspect and as he had seen me, I would also be a suspect... unless Creeden kept his mouth shut and I also kept my mouth shut.
It seemed to me my first move was to try to shut Creeden’s mouth.
Time was pressing. I went over to the telephone and called his number. His butler answered. I told him who I was and said I wanted to speak to Mr. Creeden. There was a delay, then Creeden came on the line.