Lay Her Among The Lilies

A speed cop came after us, but he couldn’t make the grade. He stuck behind for two or

three miles, then dropped out of sight. I guessed he would phone our description through to

the next town, so I swung off the main road and went pelting along a dirt road that wasn’t

much wider than twenty feet. Kerman just sat with his eyes closed and prayed.

We arrived in Orchid City fifteen minutes under the hour, and that was driving. We had

done the sixty odd miles in forty-five minutes.

Paula had an apartment on Park Boulevard, a hundred yards or so from Park Hospital. We

roared up the broad boulevard and braked outside the apartment block with a squeal of tyres

like hog-day in a slaughter-house.

The elevator seemed to crawl to the third floor. It got there eventually, and we both raced

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down the passage to Paula’s apartment. I rammed my thumb in the bell-push and leaned my

weight on it. I could hear the bell ringing, but no one answered. Sweat was standing out on

my face as if I’d just come out of a shower.

I stood away.

“Together,” I said to Kerman.

We lunged at the door with our shoulders. It was a good door, but we were pretty good

men. The third lunge snapped the lock and carried us into the neat little hall.

We had our guns in our fists as we went through the living-room to Paula’s bedroom.

The bed was in disorder. The sheet and blanket lay on the floor.

We went into the bathroom and the spare bedroom: the apartment was empty: both Paula

and Anona had vanished.

I rushed to the telephone and got though to the office. Trixy said Paula hadn’t called. She

said a man who wouldn’t give his name had telephoned twice. I told her to give him Paula’s

number if he phoned again and hung up.

Kerman gave me a cigarette with a hand that shook slightly. I lit it without being conscious

of what I was doing and sat on the bed.

“We’d better get out to the Dream Ship,” Kerman said in a tight, hard voice. “And get out

there quick.”

I shook my head.

“Take it easy,” I said.

“What the hell!” Kerman exploded, and started for the door. “They’ve got Paula. Okay, we

go out there and talk to them. Come on!”

“Take it easy,” I said, not moving. “Sit down and don’t be obvious.”

Kerman came up to me.

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“You crazy or something?”

“Do you think you’d ever get near that ship in daylight?” I said, looking at him. “Use your

head. We’re going out there, but we’ll go when it’s dark.”

Kerman made an angry gesture.

“I’m going now. If we wait it may be too late.”

“Oh, shut up!” I said. “Get a drink. You’re staying right here.”

He hesitated, then went into the kitchen. After a while he came back with a bottle of

Scotch, two glasses and a jug of ice-water. He made drinks, gave me one and sat down.

“There’s not a damn thing we can do if they’ve decided to knock her on the head,” I said.

“Even if they haven’t done it now, they’d do it the moment they saw us coming. We’ll go out

there when it’s dark, and not before.”

Kerman didn’t say anything. He sat down, took a long pull at his drink and squeezed his

hands together.

We sat there, staring at the floor, not thinking, not moving: just waiting. We had four hours,

probably a little more before we could go into action.

At half-past six we were still sitting there. The Scotch bottle was about half full. Cigarette

butts mounted in the ashtrays. We were fit to walk up the wall.

Then the telephone rang: a shrill sound that sounded sinister in the silent little apartment.

“I’ll get it,” I said, and walked stiff legged across the room and picked up the receiver.

“Malloy?” A man’s voice.

“Yes.”

“This is Sherrill.”

I didn’t say anything, but waited, looking across at Kerman.

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“I have your girl on board, Malloy,” Sherrill said. His voice was gentle; it whispered in my

ear.

“I know,” I said.

“You better come out and fetch her,” Sherrill said. “Say around nine o’clock. Don’t come

before. I’ll have a boat at the pier to bring you out. Come alone, and keep this close. If you

bring the police or anyone with you, she’ll be rapped on the head and dropped overboard.

Understand?”

I said I understood.

“See you at nine o’clock then,” he said, and hung up.

IV

Lieutenant Bradley of the Missing People’s Bureau was a thickset, middle-aged,

disillusioned Police Officer who sat for long hours behind a shabby desk in a small office on

the fourth floor of Police Headquarters and tried to answer unanswerable questions. All day

long and part of the night people came to him or called him on the telephone to report

missing relatives, and expected him to find them.

Not an easy job when, in most cases, the man or woman who had disappeared had gone

away because they were sick of their homes or their wives or their husbands and were taking

good care not to be found again. A job I wouldn’t have had for twenty times the pay Bradley

got, and a job I couldn’t have handled anyway.

A light still burned behind the frosted panel of his office door when I knocked. His bland

voice, automatically cordial, invited me to come in.

There he was, sitting behind his desk, a pipe in his mouth, a weary expression in his deep-set, shrewd brown eyes. A big man: going bald, with a pouch and bags under his eyes. A man

who did a good job, had no credit nor publicity for it, and who didn’t want any.

The placid brow came down in a frown when he saw me.

“Go away,” he said without hope. “I’m busy. I don’t have the time to listen to your

troubles; I have troubles of my own.”

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I closed the door and leaned my back against it. I wasn’t in the mood for a Police

Lieutenant’s pleasantries and I was in a hurry.

“I want service, Bradley,” I said, “and I want it fast. Do I get it from you or do I go to

Brandon?”

The pale brown eyes looked startled.

“You don’t have to talk to me like that, Malloy,” he said. “What’s biting you?”

“Plenty, but I haven’t time to go into details.” I crossed the small space between the door

and his desk, put my fists on his blotter and stared at him. “I want all you’ve got on Anona

Freedlander. Remember her? She was one of Dr. Salzer’s nurses up at the Sanatorium on

Foothill Boulevard. She disappeared on May 15th, 1947.”

“I know,” Bradley said, and his bush eyebrows climbed an inch. “You’re the second

nuisance who’s asked to see her file in the past four hours. Funny how these things come in

pairs. I’ve noticed it before.”

“Who was it?”

Bradley dug his thumb into the bell-push on his desk.

“That’s not your business,” he said. “Sit down and don’t crowd me.”

As I pulled up a chair a police clerk came in and stood waiting.

“Let’s have Freedlander’s file again,” Bradley said to him. “Make it snappy. This gent’s in