Without comment she returned to her deck chair.
“I’ll try to have all three agreements drawn up by tomorrow,” I said. “Is it all right if I take them directly to Cushman for approval instead of bringing them here?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I’d like to get that part of it settled before I take off with the car. So I won’t be in quite so much of a jam in case I get picked up driving it. By the time I deliver the agreements to you, you relay them on to Cushman and I call to get them back again, it will already be Monday.”
After reflecting she said, “I suppose that will be all right. I’ll phone Harry to expect you sometime tomorrow.”
“I’ll pick up the car about eight thirty Monday night. Leave the garage unlocked and the keys in the car.”
“Hadn’t I better phone you first?” she asked. “Suppose Lawrence changed his mind at the last minute and didn’t go?”
“Yeah,” I said after a moment’s thought. “Maybe you better.” I gave her my home number.
5
My plan was to contact the injured John Lischer before I got in touch with either of the other two men, as there would be no point in trying to settle with the others at all if Lischer refused to co-operate. But before even doing that, I decided it would be smart to find out just how much of an interest the police were taking in the case.
In St. Louis the Homicide Squad investigates all hit-and-runs in which there’s personal injury, even if the injury isn’t serious. This procedure is based on the sound theory that if unexpected complications happen to develop and the accident victim dies, Homicide has been on the case from the beginning and doesn’t have to pick up a cold trail.
So I dropped in on Lieutenant Ben Simmons, head of the St. Louis Homicide Squad.
I found him alone in Room 405, morosely going over a stack of case records. Ben Simmons is a big man, nearly as big as I am, with an air of restrained energy about him. He hates desk work, which makes up a good part of his job, and usually’s glad of any excuse to postpone it. While we’re friendly enough, we’ve never been intimate pals, but because my arrival gave him an excuse to push his case records aside, he looked up at me almost with relief.
“Hi, Barney,” he said. “Pull up a cigarette and sit down. I was just getting ready to take a break.”
Sliding a chair over to one side of his desk, I produced a pack, offered him a cigarette and flipped another in my own mouth. He furnished the fire.
Simmons leaned back in his chair and blew an appreciative shaft of smoke across the desk. “If you came in to report a corpse, walk right out again. I’m up to my neck now.”
“Just killing time,” I said. “Thought maybe I could dig up a client from among your unsolved cases. I haven’t had a job in five weeks.”
The lieutenant laughed. Regular cops always seem to get a kick out of hearing a private cop isn’t doing so well.
“You should have stayed on the force,” he said. “Probably you’d have been a sergeant by now.”
“Probably I’d still be pounding a beat. Anything interesting stirring?”
“In unsolveds? A stickup killing and a hit-and-run is all. Unless you want to look up some of the old ones from years back.”
“What’s the hit-and-run?” I asked. “Any insurance companies involved?”
“Not for the dead guy. He didn’t have any insurance. There was a little property damage covered by insurance, but not enough to pay the insurance company to hire a private eye to track down the hit-and-runner.”
Apparently he was talking about a different case, I thought, since John Lischer hadn’t either been dead or in any immediate danger of dying when I’d last checked City Hospital at noon that day.
I said, “You’ve only got one unsolved hit-and-run?”
“At the moment. And this one I was hoping I could turn over. The thing happened about one A.M. Tuesday morning, and the guy’s condition was listed as fair up until one P.M. today. Then he suddenly conked out. I just got the call an hour ago.”
I felt my insides turn cold. Forcing my tone to remain only politely interested, I asked, “Who was he?”
“Old fellow named John Lischer. All he had was a fractured hip, but he was pushing eighty and I guess he couldn’t stand the shock. His heart gave out.”
I went on calmly puffing my cigarette, but my mind was racing. Up to this moment my actions in the case hadn’t been exactly ethical, but the most I’d been risking was my license. Once I had succeeded in arriving at settlements with the three injured parties, there wasn’t much likelihood I’d get into serious trouble for not reporting what I knew to the police, even if the whole story eventually came out.
But the unexpected death of John Lischer changed the whole picture. Suddenly, instead of merely being guilty of somewhat unethical practice, I was an accessory to homicide. For in Missouri hit-and-run driving resulting in death is manslaughter, and carries a penalty of from three months to ten years.
I asked casually, “Got any leads on the case?”
“A little green paint and a bumper guard. Enough to identify the car as a green Buick.”
That did it, I thought. So much for Mrs. Powers’s assurance that she’d left no clues at the scene of the crime. With the case now a homicide instead of merely a hit-and-run, there’d be a statewide alert for a damaged green Buick. Even Kansas City wouldn’t be safe.
Somehow I managed to get through another five minutes of idle conversation with Ben Simmons. Then I pushed myself erect with simulated laziness.
“I guess I won’t pick up any nickels here,” I said. “See you around.”
“Sure,” the lieutenant said. “Drop in any time.”
It was four o’clock when I left Headquarters. I debated returning to the Powers home at once, then decided it was too close to the time Mr. Powers would be getting home from the bank. Instead I phoned from a pay station.
The colored maid Alice answered the phone, but Mrs. Powers came on almost immediately.
“Barney Calhoun,” I said. “There’s been a development. I have to see both you and Cushman at once.”
“Now?” she asked. “I expect my husband home within an hour.”
“Arrange some excuse with Alice. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t urgent. Can you get in touch with Cushman?”
“I suppose.”
“Then both of you be at my place by a quarter of five. It’s on Twentieth between Locust and Olive. West side of the street, just right of the alley. Lower right fiat. Got it?”
“That isn’t a very nice neighborhood,” she said with a slight sniff.
“I’m not a very nice person,” I told her, and hung up.
6
Harry Cushman arrived first, coming in a taxi.
When I opened the door, he asked, “You’re Calhoun?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Come on in.”
He didn’t offer his hand. Following me into my small and not particularly well-furnished front room, he looked around superciliously, finally chose a straight-backed chair as the least likely piece of furniture to be contaminated.
“Helena said it was urgent,” he said. “I hope you can make it fast. I have a five-thirty cocktail date.”
It was the first time I had heard Mrs. Powers’s first name. Helena Powers. Somehow it seemed to suit her calm and expressionless beauty.
I said, “Depends on how fast Helena gets here. What I have to say won’t take long.”
The buzzer sounded at that moment and I went to let Helena Powers in. Glancing past her at the curb, I saw she had come in the station wagon.
Harry Cushman rose when she came into the room, crossed and bent to kiss her. She turned her cheek, then moved away from him and took my easy chair with the broken spring. She was wearing a bright sun dress which left her shoulders bare, open-toed pumps and no stockings. Her jet-black hair was tied back with a red ribbon and she looked about sixteen years old.