One Night Stands And Lost Weekends Part 36

Jack Harris revealed nothing new, merely reinforced what I had managed to pick up elsewhere along the line. I talked to him for fifteen minutes or so. He left, and Joe Conn came into the room.

He wasn't happy. "They said you wanted to see me," he muttered. "We'll have to make it short, London. I've got a pile of work this afternoon and my nerves are jumping all over the place as it is."

The part about the nerves was something he didn't have to tell me. He didn't sit still, just paced back and forth like a lion in a cage before chow time.

I could play it slow and easy or fast and hard, looking to shock and jar. If he was the one who killed her, his nervousness now gave me an edge. I decided to press it.

I got up, walked over to Conn. A short stocky man, crew cut, no tie. "When did you start sleeping with Karen?" I snapped.

He spun around wide-eyed. "You're crazy!"

"Don't play games," I told him. "The whole office knows you were bedding her."

I watched him. His hands curled into fists at his sides. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared.

"What is this, London?"

"Your wife doesn't know about Karen, does she?"

"d.a.m.n you." He moved toward me. "How much, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d? A private detective." He snickered. "Sure you are. You're a d.a.m.n blackmailer, London. How much?"

"Just how much did Karen ask for?" I said. "Enough to make you kill her?"

He answered with a left hook that managed to find the point of my chin and send me cras.h.i.+ng back against the wall. There was a split second of blackness. Then he was coming at me again, fists ready, and I spun aside, ducked, and planted a fist of my own in his gut. He grunted and threw a right at me. I took it on the shoulder and tried his belly again. It was softer this time. He wheezed and folded up. I hit him in the face and just managed to pull the punch at the last minute. It didn't knock him out-only spilled him on the seat of his tweed pants.

"You've got a good punch, London."

"So do you," I said. My jaw still ached.

"You ever do any boxing?"

"No."

"I did," he said. "In the Navy. I still try to keep in shape. If I hadn't been so angry I'd have taken you."

"Maybe."

"But I got mad," he said. "Irish temper, I guess. Are you trying to shake me down?"

"No."

"You don't honestly think I killed Karen, do you?"

"Did you?"

"G.o.d, no."

I didn't say anything.

"You think I killed her," he said hollowly. "You must be insane. I'm no killer, London."

"Of course. You're a meek little man."

"You mean just now? I lost my temper."

"Sure."

"Oh, h.e.l.l," he said. "I never killed her. You got me mad. I don't like shakedowns and I don't like being called a murderer. That's all, d.a.m.n you."

I called Jerry Gunther from a pay phone in the lobby. "Two things," I told the lieutenant. "First, I think I've got a hotter prospect for you than Donahue. A man named Joe Conn, one of the boys at the stag. I tried shaking him up a little and he cracked wide open, tried to beat my brains in. He's got a good motive, too."

"Ed, listen-"

"That's the first thing," I said. "The other is that I've been trying to get in touch with my client for the past too-many hours and can't reach him. Did you have him picked up again?"

There was a long pause. All at once the air in the phone booth felt much too close. Something was wrong.

"I saw Donahue half an hour ago," Jerry said. "I'm afraid he killed that girl, Ed."

"He confessed?" I couldn't believe it.

"He confessed...in a way."

"I don't get it."

A short sigh. "It happened yesterday," Jerry said. "I can't give you the time until we get the medical examiner's report, but the guess is that it was just after we let him go. He sat down at his typewriter and dashed off a three-line confession. Then he stuck a gun in his mouth and made a mess. The lab boys are still there trying to sc.r.a.pe his brains off the ceiling. Ed?"

"What?"

"You didn't say anything...I didn't know if you were still on the line. Look, everybody guesses wrong some of the time."

"This was more than a guess. I was sure."

"Well, listen, I'm on my way to Donahue's place again. If you want to take a run over there you can have a look for yourself. I don't know what good it's going to do-"

"I'll meet you there," I said.

EIGHT.

The lab crew left shortly after we arrived. "Just a formality for the inquest," Jerry Gunther said. "That's all."

"You're sure it's a suicide, then?"

"Stop dreaming, Ed. What else?"

What else? All that was left in the world of Mark Donahue was sprawled in a chair at a desk. There was a typewriter in front of him and a gun on the floor beside him. The gun was just where it would have dropped after a suicide shot of that nature. There were no little inconsistencies.

The suicide note in the typewriter was slightly incoherent. It read: It has to end now. I can't help what I did but there is no way out anymore. G.o.d forgive me and G.o.d help me. I am sorry. It has to end now. I can't help what I did but there is no way out anymore. G.o.d forgive me and G.o.d help me. I am sorry.

"You can go if you want, Ed. I'll stick around until they send a truck for the body. But-"

"Run over the timetable, will you?"

"From when to when?"

"From when you released him to when he died."

Jerry shrugged. "Why? You can't read it any way but suicide, can you?"

"I don't know. Give me a run-down."

"Let's see," he said. "You called around five, right?"

"Around then. Five or five-thirty."

"We let him go around three. There's your timetable, Ed. We let him out around three, he came back here, thought about things for a while, then wrote that note and killed himself. That checks with the rough estimate we've got of the time of death. You narrow it down-you did call him after I spoke to you, didn't you?"

"Yes. No answer."

"He must have been dead by that time; probably killed himself within an hour after he got here."

"How did he seem when you released him?"

"Happy to be out, I thought at the time. But he didn't show much emotion one way or the other. You know how it is with a person who's getting ready to knock himself off. All the problems and emotions are kept bottled up inside."

I went over to a window and looked out at Horatio Street. It was the most obvious suicide in the world, but I couldn't swallow it. Call it a hunch, a stubborn refusal to accept the fact that my client had managed to fool me. Whatever it was, I didn't believe the suicide theory. It just didn't sit right.

"I don't like it," I said. "I don't think he killed himself."

"You're wrong, Ed."

"Am I?" I went to Donahue's liquor cabinet and filled two gla.s.ses with cognac.

"I know nothing ever looked more like suicide," I admitted. "But the motives are still as messy as ever. Look at what we got here. We have a man who hired me to protect him from his former mistress-and as soon as he did, he only managed to call attention to the fact that he was involved with her. He received threatening phone calls from her. She didn't want him married. But her best friend swears that the Price girl didn't give a d.a.m.n about Donahue, that he was only another man in her collection."

"Look, Ed-"

"Let me finish. We can suppose for a minute that he was lying for reasons of his own that don't make much sense, that he had some crazy reason for calling me in on things before he knocked off the girl. Maybe he thought that would alibi him-"

"That's just what I was going to say," Jerry interjected.

"I thought of it. It doesn't make a h.e.l.l of a lot of sense, but it's possible, I guess. Still, where in h.e.l.l is his motive? Not blackmail. She wasn't the blackmailing type to begin with, as far as I can see. But there's more to it than that. Lynn Farwell wouldn't care who Mark slept with before they were married. Or after, for that matter. It wasn't a love match. She wanted a respectable husband and he wanted a rich wife, and they both figured to get what they wanted. Love wasn't part of it."

"Maybe he wasn't respectable," Jerry said. "Maybe Karen knew something he didn't want known. There's plenty of room here for a hidden motive, Ed."

"Maybe. Still, I wish you'd keep the case open, Jerry."

"You know I won't."

"You'll write it off as suicide and close the file?"

"But I have to. All the evidence points that way. Murder and then suicide, with Donahue tagged for killing the Price girl and then killing himself."

"I guess it makes your bookkeeping easier."

"You know better than that, Ed." He almost sounded hurt. "If I could see it any other way I'd keep on it. I can't. As far as we're concerned it's a closed book."

I walked over to the window again. "I'm going to stay with it," I said.

"Without a client?"

"Without a client."

A maid answered the phone in the Farwell home. I asked to speak to Lynn.

"Miss Farwell's not home," she said. "Who's calling, please?"

I gave her my name.

"Oh, yes, Mr. London. Miss Farwell left a message for you to call her at-" I took down a number with a Regency exchange, thanked her, and hung up.

I was tired, unhappy, and confused. I didn't want the role of bearer of evil tidings. I wished now that I had let Jerry tell her himself. I was in my apartment, it was a hot day for the time of year, and my air conditioner wasn't working right. I dialed the number the maid had given me. A girl answered, not Lynn. I asked to speak to Miss Farwell.

She came on the line almost immediately. "Ed?"

"Yes-I..."

"I wondered if you'd call. I hope I wasn't horrid last night. I was very drunk."

"You were all right."

"Just all right?" I didn't say anything. She giggled softly and whispered, "I had a good time, Ed. Thank you for a lovely evening."

"Lynn-"

"Is something the matter?"

I've never been good at breaking news. I took a deep breath and blurted out, "Mark is dead. I just came from his apartment. The police think he killed himself."

Silence.

"Can I meet you somewhere, Lynn? I'd like to talk to you."