Эд Макбейн - The April Robin Murders

Bingo looked closely. It wasn’t what he’d expected to see, or even wanted to see.

“It isn’t a very good picture of her,” Handsome said apologetically, “because of the light, and because it was through a pane of glass, but, Bingo, that’s Pearl Durzy.”

Bingo said, “Well, I wonder what she was doing there!” He realized immediately it wasn’t the brightest remark of a lifetime, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

“Well,” Handsome said, “maybe she had some business with Mrs. Mariposa DeLee.”

“And left this house, for the first time in years, to go see Mrs. Mariposa DeLee, just after we’d come here and bought this house, I mean, practically bought this house, and then she came back here and somebody murdered her.” Bingo paused. “Maybe we’d better call up Perroni.”

Handsome said, “If you think so, Bingo.” He said it a little limply.

The partners exchanged a long and thoughtful look.

“On second thought,” Bingo said, “maybe we ought to talk to Mrs. DeLee ourselves. After all, we have an excuse to visit. To deliver those pictures we made for a present for her.” Suddenly he stood up straight. “Excuse, nothing!” he said indignantly. “A lady who later got murdered in our house, for some reason was in her house, motel I mean, shortly before she got murdered, and she should consider herself lucky it’s just us, her friends, asking questions!”

Handsome said meekly, “I’ll put the prints in an envelope. The ones we made for presents.”

Suddenly everything seemed all wrong, unpleasantly and terribly wrong. There could be no possible link between Pearl Durzy, the April Robin mansion and Skylight Motel. There couldn’t be. And yet, there was the picture, and Pearl Durzy looking through the window.

Perhaps everything could suddenly be all right. Perhaps the questions about Pearl Durzy could be answered in a hurry.

He wasn’t reassuring himself one bit. He told himself there was no reason to be frightened. Then he told himself that maybe it would be better to call Perroni after all. Then he told himself that they didn’t want to get any more involved with the police than they were already. Then he told himself that it might be a good idea to get a good night’s sleep and worry about all this in the morning. Then he just wished, again, that he were back in New York.

But there was still the April Robin mansion. He turned his head to look at it as Handsome drove down the driveway. And at least for the time being, it was as good as theirs.

Going down Sunset he said suddenly, “Slow down, Handsome.” He spotted the map stand and said, “Stop a minute.”

Why hadn’t it occurred to him before? Florence, who had the map stand, who’d been established there for so many years, who was an old friend of Courtney Budlong! She’d have the answer to who Courtney Budlong was, and where.

He dodged traffic across the street, put on his most engaging smile and said, “Florence, where can I find Mr. Budlong? Your friend, Mr. Courtney Budlong?”

She gave him a cold glare and said, “I don’t know any Mr. Budlong, and my name isn’t Florence. D’ya want to buy a map?”

Bingo said, “We bought one, yesterday. Remember? Mr. Budlong was here talking to you. He brought it over to us. He said he was an old friend of yours.”

She went on looking at him coldly. He went on desperately, describing Mr. Courtney Budlong. She not only looked cold, she looked blank. “He said he’d known you for years,” Bingo said. “He told us you knew everything about Hollywood and everybody in Hollywood—”

The woman said, “My name’s Lillian. I’m from Kansas. I’ve been here six months and I don’t know anybody, and I run this stand on a concession. Yesterday there was a gent stopped by to pass the time of day. I never saw him before. He just walked up here and started to gab. You guys stopped and bought a map and he handed it to you and gave me the money. And if anything was wrong with that map, don’t blame me, blame the printer.”

“There was nothing wrong with the map,” Bingo said. “And thank you very much.”

He was grateful that Handsome didn’t ask any questions on the rest of the way to the Skylight Motel.

Mariposa DeLee was deeply engaged in a fan magazine in the front office. She had on turquoise-blue ranch pants, a ruffled lemon-yellow blouse, and there was a turquoise-blue ribbon on her curled pony tail. She didn’t look a day over fifty. She put down the magazine when they came in, smoothed back her hair a little, smiled and said, “Well! Didn’t you boys like your house?”

“Sure,” Bingo said. “We’re crazy about it. We’re crazy about you, too. So we brought you the pictures we made for you. The presents.”

She reached for the envelope and looked happy.

“There’s an enlargement in there,” Bingo said. He hoped his voice didn’t sound hoarse. “We made it special. Take a real, good close look at it.”

She said, “Oh, I know I’ll like it!” and then her voice stopped suddenly. She was silent for a moment, and motionless. Then she looked at them.

“Okay,” she said, and her voice was hard as nails, “did you take this on purpose?”

“Believe me, lady,” Handsome said earnestly, “we didn’t know there was anybody there. We were just trying to take a nice picture of you by your swimming pool.”

There was another brief silence. Then she shrugged her shoulders. “All right, you got a picture of somebody looking out the window. I suppose you could retouch that out.”

“That somebody has already been retouched out,” Bingo said. “Or don’t you read the newspapers?”

Mariposa DeLee laid the picture down and said, “Yes. I read about it. And that’s all I know. What I read in the papers.”

“She was here,” Bingo said. “She’d never left the house where she was caretaker, not in years. Yesterday she came here. And then she went back to the house, which we had just bought, and somebody murdered her.”

Handsome said gently, “We didn’t think we ought to tell the police about this picture. Because you’re a friend of ours.”

“So if maybe you’ll tell us why she was here,” Bingo said, “and looking out the window—”

“She was here to see you,” Mariposa DeLee said, suddenly, wearily. “She saw you going around the house, talking about buying it. She knew you were going to get gypped, because she knew the house wasn’t for sale. She heard you say something about staying here, at the Skylight Motel, and she came here to warn you, that’s all.”

“Then,” Bingo said, “why didn’t she come right out and talk to us, instead of hiding behind a window?”

“Because—” Her voice stopped again.

“The police would really be fascinated with this picture,” Bingo said. “But since we are old friends—”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Mariposa DeLee suddenly seemed to look much older, and much smaller. “All right, boys,” she said, “come inside and have some coffee.” She led the way into the apartment behind the office, nodded to the aged woman who sat with her crocheting, said, “Okay, Maude, you can beat it,” and switched on an electric percolator.

She smiled wanly at Bingo and Handsome as the old woman trotted dutifully away, and said, “I know what you’re thinking, that’s no way to talk to your poor old mother. But if we’re going to be frank, we might as well be good and frank. She’s not my mother, and she’s not as old as she looks.” She reached for coffee cups. “Owning and running a place like this, with the kind of customers that show up from time to time, a girl needs a certain kind of window dressing, if you catch on. I got Maude from Central Casting, and she’s very happy with her job.”