She laughed. “That old stallion? Don’t be a silly boy. He was my patient.”
“You used him then. You got the low-down on Joe’s dope-smuggling from him. I take it he was glad enough to spoil the game for the man who fingered him and stole his business. Perhaps Speed was using you, at that. After talking to both of you, I imagine it was his idea in the first place. He was the brains–”
“Speed?” I had touched a nerve. So it had been her idea.
“Anyway, you went to San Francisco with him when he got out of the hospital. You sent your mother a Christmas card from there, and that was your first mistake – mixing sentiment with business. After you’d worked out the plan, you let your mother sweat out the next two months without hearing from you, because you intended to use her. You came back to Pacific Point and married Joe: no doubt he’d asked you before and was waiting for your answer. Speed went to Reno to try and raise the necessary money. Unfortunately he succeeded. Which brings us down to last Friday night–”
“You,” she said, “not us. You lost me long ago. You’re all by yourself.”
“Maybe some of the details are wrong or missing: they’ll be straightened out in court. I don’t know, for example, what you put in Joe’s food or drink Friday night when he came home from his last boat-trip. Chloral hydrate, or something that leaves no trace? You know more about things like that than I do.”
“I thought you were omniscient.”
“Hardly. I don’t know whether Dalling pushed in on your project, or was invited. Or was it a combination of both? In any case, you needed the use of this house of his, and you needed help. Speed was busy holding up his end of a phony honeymoon. Dalling was the best you could get in the clutch. When Joe went to sleep, Dalling helped you carry him out through his apartment and down the back way to the car. At this end, you hoisted him into the freezer and let him smother. So far it had been simple. Joe was dead, and you had the heroin. Speed had the money and the contacts. But your biggest problem still faced you. You knew if Dowser caught on to you, you wouldn’t live to enjoy your money. Perhaps you heard what his gorillas did to Mario Friday night, just on the off chance that he knew something about it. You had to clear yourself with Dowser. That’s where I came in, and that’s where you made your big mistake.”
“Anything with you in it is a mistake. I only hope you repeat this fable in public, to the police. I’ll put you out of business.” But she couldn’t muster enough conviction to support her words. They sounded desperately thin.
“I’ll be in business when you’re in Tehachapi, or in the gas chamber. You thought you could call me in to take a fall, then turn me off like a tap, or kiss me off with a little casual sex. It was a tricky idea, a little too tricky to work. You and your radio actor persuaded your mother to hire me to look for you: you probably wrote the script. Then you arranged for me to find you and be convinced that Joe was alive and kicking. Dalling sneaked up on the porch behind me and sandbagged me. You even faked a warning that came too late, to demonstrate good faith. You removed my gun and filed it for future reference. I don’t know whether you were already planning to kill your partner. You must have seen that he was going to pieces. But you kept him alive as long as possible, because you still needed his help.
“Joe went back into the trunk of your car. In his condition, he must have made an awkward piece of luggage. You and Keith drove separately to Pacific Point. He got the body aboard the Aztec Queen, took it to sea, dumped it into the water, and swam ashore to your headlights. You took him back to the dock, where his car was, and the two of you drove to Los Angeles. That took care of the body, and more important, it took care of Dowser. It would be obvious, if and when the body was found, that Joe had drowned in a getaway attempt.
“That left just one fly in your ointment, your partner. He was useful for physical work that you couldn’t do, like rowing dead bodies around harbors and starting boat-engines, but he was a moral weakling. You knew he couldn’t stand the pressure that was coming. Besides, he’d be wanting his share of the cash. So you went up to his apartment with him and paid him off with a bullet. A bullet from my gun. Hid my gun where the cops would be sure to find it. Went home to bed and, if I know your type, slept like a baby.”
“Did I?”
“Why not? You’d killed two men and kept yourself in the clear. I have an idea that you like killing men. The real payoff for you wasn’t the thirty thousand. It was smothering Joe, and shooting Keith and Mario. The money was just a respectable excuse, like the fifty dollars to a call-girl who happens to be a nymphomaniac. You see, Galley, you’re a murderer. You’re different from ordinary people, you like different things. Ordinary people don’t throw slugs into a dead man’s back for the hell of it. They don’t arrange their lives so they have to spend a week-end with a corpse. Did it give you a thrill, cooking your meals in the same room with him?”
I had finally got to her. She leaned out of the chair towards me and spoke between bared teeth: “You’re a dirty liar! I couldn’t eat. I hated it. I had to get out of the house. By Sunday night I was going crazy with it – Joe crouched in there with frost on him–” A dry sob racked her. She covered her face with her hands.
Somewhere in the distance a siren whined.
“That’s right,” I said. “Sunday night Speed came to baby-sit for you. Later, when I talked to him, he covered for you. It will convict him along with you.”
She mastered her sobbing, and spoke behind her hands: “I should have saved a bullet for you.”
“I served your purpose, didn’t I? I couldn’t have done it better if you had briefed me. Of course you set it up for me rather nicely, phoning Dowser Tuesday morning to let him know you were available. You must have trusted me pretty far at that. I know three or four private operators who wouldn’t have followed you up to Dowser’s house. Ironic, isn’t it? I thought I was rescuing a maiden from a tower. Fall guys usually do, I guess. And the women who use them often make the mistake you did. They forget that even fall guys have minds of their own, until they fall for keeps.” I looked down at Mario, and her gaze followed mine. Her fingers were still spread across her face, as if she needed them to hold it together.
The siren rose nearer and higher, building a thin arch of sound across the desert.
“It’s sort of sad about you,” I said. “All that energy and ingenuity wasted, because you had to tie it in with murder. Now before the police get here, do you want to tell me where the money is? I need it for a client, and if I get it I’ll give you the best break I can.”
“Go to hell.” Her eyes burned furiously between her fingers. “They won’t be able to hold me, you know that? They can’t prove anything, not a thing. I’m innocent, do you hear me?”
I heard her.
The siren whooped like a wolf in the street. Headlights swept the window.
Chapter 36
After Galley was taken away, a deputy named Runceyvall and I spent an hour or so going over the house. Mario had left a trail of blood across the kitchen floor and out the back door to the attached garage. We followed it and found the place where the gun had been cached, behind a loose board in the wall between the garage and the house. It contained a box of .45 cartridges, but no money. We found only one other thing of any significance: a couple of black hairs stuck to the interior wall of the deep-freeze. I told Runceyvall to seal it shut, and explained why. Runceyvall thought the whole thing was delightful. Shortly after two I checked in at the Oasis Inn for the rest of the night. The clerk informed me that Mrs. Fellows was still registered. I asked to be called at eight.