The receiver dangled on its cord, swaying just a little, the violence of the interrupted conversation leaving behind a pendulum that, in the several minutes after the cut-off call, had dissipated to a gentle swing. Like a hanged man after the impact of that sudden fall had worn off.
The phone booth was on the northern edge of the business district, and just around the corner, two blocks down, was the nicest house in town, the red-brick dwelling of the late Mayor Rudolph Holden. Two Sidon police cars with their red lights flashing were parked down there, and even at this distance I could see figures in blue moving in and out of the Holden home.
Velda had said His Honor had “just been killed.” Had she been at the murder scene? Maybe discovered the body? In any case, she had been one of the first to know and rushed to call me.
Had the murderer seen her at the scene, and followed her to that phone booth, and put a muffling hand over her mouth to haul her away to… what? Silence her? Nowhere around the booth was there an alley or doorway to lay down an unconscious body with even the most minimal concealment. I looked at every possibility half a block in either direction.
Why had she been taken? Who had taken her? Probably the mayor’s murderer, but… why? To kill her, assault her, use her as a hostage? What?
The night was even colder now and the wind picking up. I cut through it like a blade as I ran down to where those red lights flashed, holding my hat onto my head, my open suit coat flapping like wings and if I could have flown, I would. First the beachcomber, now Velda-why? Who?
The two cops who’d backed up Dekkert in that alley at the start were standing on the open, poured-cement porch-that former high school athlete and his skinny pal. They started to say something as they tried to bar the door but I shoved them aside with either hand, hard enough that the skinny one tumbled off in a pile.
Stairs yawned ahead, and off to the right was a living room where on a Victorian sofa an older female relative or maybe family friend sat holding onto one of the new widow’s hands with both of hers. Mrs. Holden was weeping into a hanky. Whatever that husband of hers had been, I understood her grief. It was what my rage would turn into if I couldn’t get Velda back.
Another cop yelled, “Hey! There’s no entry here!”
But I brushed by him into the study where the mayor and I had once eaten sugar cookies.
Chief Beales saw me enter as two cops caught up with me and took me by the arms and I was getting ready to do something about that when Beales said, “It’s all right! It’s all right. Let go of him. Let him go!”
They did, and moved off growling, not knowing how lucky they were, and I went over to Beales, who was hovering over the corpse slumped in its chair by the cold fireplace. The mayor was in a purple silk robe with pajamas and slippers, the picture of casual comfort but for the black hole behind his left ear. The hole at the right side of the top of his skull was larger, ragged and red, like an angry whore’s mouth.
This wasn’t the work of any Jack the Ripper maniac like the one Pat pictured for the kills of the coeds, the Wilson girl and Sharron Wesley. This was an execution, syndicate style. Professional killing hung in the air with the smell of cordite.
Chief Beales looked at me and for once that fat face wasn’t flushed, but pale as a blister. His eyes were terrified and his forehead was a bas relief map of pulsing veins.
“What do you think, Mr. Hammer?”
“I think he’s dead. What do you think? Who called this in?”
“Mrs. Holden. She and her husband were in bed, reading, and someone rang the doorbell, maybe twenty minutes ago. Her husband went down to answer it, and a few minutes later, she heard the gunshot and went down to check. The front door was open.”
So the mayor knew the killer. Invited him or her in to the study for a friendly chat that had prematurely concluded with a gunshot of considerable caliber.. 38 anyway, judging by that gaping exit wound.
I said tightly, “What are you going to do about this?”
He was shaking his head in wide-eyed confusion; he didn’t look much better than the mayor, who at least seemed to be resting.
“I don’t know, Mr. Hammer. I honestly don’t know. I may have to ask the state police for help. Things are really getting out of hand.”
“Where’s your deputy? Dekkert’s got real big-city police training. Why isn’t he here?”
“He doesn’t answer his phone at home and I can’t raise him on his radio.”
That was because the bastard was already on his way out to the Wesley mansion, if he wasn’t there already. Had Dekkert done this? A mob-style hit was something I wouldn’t put past him. Had he grabbed Poochie, because the little guy saw something? What? Had Dekkert strangled Sharron on the beach and Poochie witnessed it? Had that sadistic son of a bitch Dekkert thrill-killed all those girls, too? Had he grabbed Velda because she had put the puzzle pieces together before I could, or maybe he snatched her just to gain control over me!
“Hammer!” Beales said. “I’m talking to you. What do you think this killing means?”
“It means you better call Sergeant Price,” I said, recalling the name of the state cop Pat had vouched for. “And tell the state boys my secretary Velda is missing. And Stanley Cootz.”
“Your secretary? Is she the woman staying at the hotel with you?”
“Yes. She’s also a licensed private detective. She was doing some investigating here in Sidon while I was following up leads in the city.”
“What kind of investigating?”
“Well, she went out to the Hideaway tonight, and if you can spare one of your stalwart law enforcers to go out there and ask around, I’d be grateful.”
He nodded. “I’ll send two men out. There’s only so much for us to do here, goddamnit.” A jagged vein in his nose was throbbing. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find Velda.”
“Your secretary? How?”
I didn’t bother answering that, just blew out of there and ran through the increasingly chilly night back to the hotel parking lot, where I fired up the heap and headed out to the casino. Never had the champion engine in that loser of a jalopy ever served me better, hitting eighty in seconds with the body shaking as if it shared the fear and rage I felt. The front windows were down and cold air churned, bringing in ocean smells.
Ninety.
Clouds were gliding like ghosts over a full moon whose beauty seemed mocking as glimpsed through the eerily waving trees, leaves shimmering, trunks bending, terrible monstrous shapes doing a pagan sacrificial dance.
One hundred.
Then I eased off because the cutoff leading to the Wesley house was up ahead, and I didn’t want to overshoot. I took the curve at forty and the rubber whined and the buggy leaned, but then we were there.
The iron gate stood open and the plantation-like mansion loomed on its man-made hillock, catching the moon’s ivory rays and holding onto them, until shifting cloud cover turned it temporarily into a silhouette, before an almost phosphorescent glow returned. Again, I drove only halfway up the drive before pulling over to park in the bushes off to the right. Up the driveway, blocking the way, was a police car.
Unlike the two Sidon squads parked outside the mayor’s place, this cruiser did not have its red light flashing. This was Dekkert’s ride, and it was no surprise he’d brought a city vehicle out here, and not his personal car, because this way his presence at the mansion could be explained by his official status.
Only I knew damn well this was an unofficial visit.
I felt confident I knew where he was headed. No lights were on in the mansion, not even the shifting beam of a flashlight. No, Dekkert was not inside. I’d gone over that place stem to stern already, with no safe to be found.
Then I saw movement over by the house, and wondered if I’d misjudged. But at that moment the moon came out from behind clouds to drench the mansion in a pale glow that revealed the movement to be a few scrawny cats checking out empty, overturned garbage cans.