James Chase - Tell It to the Birds

There was some.delay before she answered and when she did, she sounded cross. The time was twenty minutes to nine and Anson guessed he had got her out of bed.

“I’m coming out this afternoon,” he said. “I have something I borrowed to return. Will you be in?”

“Oh, it’s you.” She still sounded cross. “You woke me up!”

With the vision of the cop falling like a felled tree still in his mind, Anson said impatiently, “Will you be in?”

“Yes… of course.”

“Then around three,” he hung up.

He left the hotel and went over to the Pru Town National bank. He paid in one thousand dollars in cash. The money, he told the teller, was to be credited immediately to his account at Brent. He then registered the letter to Duncan and posted it.

He had five calls to make. He sold a policy worth a thousand dollars to a fanner. Until lunch time he tried to convince two other prospects why they should insure with the National Fidelity but without success. He then returned to Pru Town for lunch.

He bought the lunch edition of the Pru Town Gazette and read Dout the robbery and the shooting at the Caltex Service Station. He learned the cop’s name was Tom Sanquist. He had been lot through the lungs and his condition was so critical his life and twelve-year-old son were at his bedside.

There was a picture of Harry Weber pointing to the toilet here the gunman had hidden. Lieutenant H. Jenson, Homicide spartment at Brent, had been called to the scene.

Anson put down the newspaper and ordered lunch. He was leased to find that he was hungry. The soreness of his stomach id faded and he was able to enjoy the rather heavy lunch the ;staurant provided.

The waiter who served him was full of the robbery and nson listened politely to what he had to say.

“They should never keep such sums in a place as isolated as at,” the waiter said as he gave Anson his check. “It is asking >r trouble.”

Anson agreed and left the restaurant. In the lobby, he ran to the two salesmen he had been drinking with the previous ght. They too had to discuss the robbery.

“Some thug passing through,” one of them said. “It’s my :t he wasn’t a local man. He’s miles away by now.”

Anson agreed and went on to where he had parked his car. e made another call to renew a car insurance policy. As time as moving on, he drove out to the Barlowe house.

As he drove along the highway, he went over in his mind the rents of the previous night. He could see no reason why the >lice could possibly get on to him. Weber’s description of the bber had been influenced by his shaken nerves. He said the an was heavily built and tall which Anson was not. He had :scribed the Swiss hat accurately but he had said the top-coat d been fawn coloured. Sanquist the dying cop, was too ill to i questioned.

On his way back to Pru Town after the robbery, Anson had }pped the car by a wooded thicket and had dumped the hat d topcoat. The robbery had netted him $3,670, more than he d hoped for.

He was still surprised that he was so calm about the whole affair: even the shooting of Sanquist left him unmoved.

As he drove onto the tarmac drive of the Barlowe houses, Meg came to the door.

He came towards her, smiling.

“Hello,” he said. “Here I am again.” She gave ground, standing aside. Although she returned his smile, her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She looked pale and tense.

As he took off his topcoat and as she shut the front door, she said, “It was on the radio just now. The patrol officer… the one who was shot… he’s - he’s dead.”

Anson walked into the sitting-room. He stood by the fire warming his cold hands. He watched her as she stood in the doorway, her cobalt blue eyes sick with fear.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” she demanded, her voice shrill. “He is dead.”

Anson peered at her. Again he was surprised how calm he felt. The fool had asked for it. He could have lived but he had asked for it. Now there was no reason to turn back… Barlowe would be next. The cop’s death sealed Barlowe’s fate.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“You shot him, didn’t you?”

He looked around the room. She really was a slut, he thought as he saw the used breakfast things on the table. One of them: Barlowe of course, had had eggs and bacon. The yoke encrusted plate, the smear of jam on the tablecloth, the used coffee cups by her typewriter disgusted him.

She stood watching him as he opened his briefcase and took out the gun. He wiped it carefully with his handkerchief and carrying it in his handkerchief, he put it in the wooden box he took from the drawer in the sideboard. He took five cartridges from his pocket, carefully wiped each one before putting them in the box.

“You’ve cleaned the gun?” she asked in a tight frightened voice.

“Of course.”

“But you took six cartridges.”

“Do you think he will miss one?” Anson asked, turning to ook at her.

She shuddered.

“So you did kill that man…”

He took hold of her wrist and jerked her roughly to him.

“This is the beginning,” he said, his hand sliding down the ength of her back. She stiffened and tried to pull away from urn, but he held her. “You said we would go ahead with this.” lis grip tightened. “Kiss me,” he said urgently. “You’re in this ness with me. You can’t escape from it now. Kiss me.”

She hesitated, then closing her eyes, she relaxed against him. ^.s his lips met hers, he felt her shudder. Roughly he moved her round the settee, pushed her down so she lay on her back, taring up at him.

She shook her head wildly.

“No… not now… John! No!”

Seeing his sudden change of expression, an expression that rightened her, she pressed the palms of her hands against her yes and shudderingly yielded to him.

“Tell me about yourself, Meg,” Anson said some twenty linutes later. He was now sitting before the fire in the big habby armchair while Meg still lay upon the settee. “You lustn’t mind if I seem curious. I want you to be careful how ou answer my questions. What I’m aiming to do is to make ure you don’t land up in the gas chamber.”

Meg moved uneasily.

“Why talk like that? You frighten me.”

“It’s better to be frightened by me than by Maddox,” Anson lid. “When eventually you put in the claim for the insurance loney, Maddox will turn a searchlight on you. Even if you ave a cast iron alibi, be’ll still be suspicious of you. Is there nything in your past he shouldn’t know about?”

She frowned, not looking at him.

“No… of course not!”

“You have no criminal record?”

She half sat up, her eyes angry.

“No!”

“You have never been in trouble with the police?”

She hesitated, then shrugging, she said, “Driving too fast… that’s all.”

“What did you do before you were married?”

“I was a receptionist at an hotel.”

“What hotel?”

“The Connaught Anns in Los Angeles.”

“Was it a respectable hotel? It wasn’t a room by the hour and no questions asked?”

“Of course not!”

“Before that?”

Again she hesitated before saying, “I was a night club hostess.”

Anson became alert.

“What did you do?”

“The usual thing; partnered men, persuaded them to buy drinks.”

“Now watch this, Meg. Did you go home with them? You know what I mean.”

“I didn’t.”

He studied her. Her eyes were now angry.

“Sure?”

“I tell you I didn’t!” She was now sitting bolt upright. “Is this man going to ask me these kind of questions before he’ll pay out?”

Anson shook his head.

“Oh, no. But if he doesn’t like the look of your claim, he’ll turn one of his smart investigators on to you. Without your knowing anything about it, he’ll dig up your whole history. He’ll then decide when he has your dossier in front of him if he’ll fight your claim or not. If your dossier is bad, he’ll fight you.”