Anthony Boucher - Ed McBain’s Mystery Book, No. 1, 1960

“I noticed that.”

“What else have you been noticing?”

“We won’t go into it now,” I said. “I don’t want to ruin a man unless and until I’m sure he’s got it coming.”

He sat on his stool with his head down. Thought moved murkily under his knitted brows. His glance fell on the money in his hands. He was counting tens.

“Listen, Mr. Archer. You’re working on this case on your own, aren’t you? For free?”

“So far.”

“So go to work for me. Nail Connor for me, and I’ll pay you whatever you ask.”

“Not so fast,” I said. “We don’t know that Connor is guilty. There are other possibilities.”

“Such as?”

“If I tell you, can I trust you not to go on a shooting spree?”

“Don’t worry,” he repeated. “I’ve had that.”

“Where’s your revolver?”

“I turned it in to Sheriff Pearsall. He asked for it.”

We were interrupted by a family group getting up from one of the booths. They gave Green their money and their sympathy. When they were out of hearing, I said: “You mentioned that your daughter worked here in the restaurant for a while. Was Al Brocco working here at the same time?”

“Yeah. He’s been my night cook for six-seven years. Al is a darned good cook. He trained as a chef on the Italian line.” His slow mind, punchy with grief, did a double-take. “You wouldn’t be saying that he messed around with Ginnie?”

“I’m asking you.”

“Shucks, Al is old enough to be her father. He’s all wrapped up in his own girls, Anita in particular. He worships the ground she walks on. She’s the mainspring of that family.”

“How did he get on with Ginnie?”

“Very well. They kidded back and forth. She was the only one who could ever make him smile. Al is a sad man, you know. He had a tragedy in his life.”

“His wife’s death?”

“It was worse than that,” Green said. “Al Brocco killed his wife with his own hand. He caught her with another man and put a knife in her.”

“And he’s walking around loose?”

“The other man was a Mex,” Green said in an explanatory way. “A wetback. He couldn’t even talk the English language. The town hardly blamed Al, the jury gave him manslaughter. But when he got out of the pen, the people at the Pink Flamingo wouldn’t give him his old job back — he used to be chef there. So I took him on. I felt sorry for his girls, I guess, and Al’s been a good worker. A man doesn’t do a thing like that twice, you know.”

He did another slow mental double-take. His mouth hung open. I could see the gold in its corners. “Let’s hope not.”

“Listen here,” he said. “You go to work for me, eh? You nail the guy, whoever he is. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you now. How much do you want?” I took a hundred dollars of his money and left him trying to comfort himself with the rest of it. The smell of grease stayed in my nostrils.

Connor’s house clung to the edge of a low bluff about halfway between the HP station and the mouth of the canyon where the thing had begun: a semi-cantilevered redwood cottage with a closed double garage fronting the highway. From the grape stake-fenced patio in the angle between the garage and the front door a flight of wooden steps climbed to the flat roof, which was railed as a sun deck. A second set of steps descended the fifteen or twenty feet to the beach.

I tripped on a pair of garden shears crossing the patio to the garage window. I peered into the interior twilight. Two things inside interested me: a dismasted flattie sitting on a trailer, and a car. The sailboat interested me because its cordage resembled the white rope that had strangled Ginnie. The car interested me because it was an imported model, a low-slung Triumph two-seater.

I was planning to have a closer look at it when a woman’s voice screeked overhead like a gull’s:

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Mrs. Connor was leaning over the railing on the roof. Her hair was in curlers. She looked like a blond Gorgon. I smiled up at her, the way that Greek whose name I don’t remember must have smiled.

“Your husband invited me for a drink, remember? I don’t know whether he gave me a rain check or not.”

“He did not! Go away! My husband is sleeping!”

“Shh. You’ll wake him up. You’ll wake up the people in Forest Lawn.”

She put her hand to her mouth. From the expression on her face she seemed to be biting her hand. She disappeared for a moment, and then came down the steps with a multicolored silk scarf over her curlers. The rest of her was sheathed in a white satin bathing suit. Against it her flesh looked like brown wood.

“You get out of here,” she said. “Or I shall call the police.”

“Fine. Call them. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Are you implying that we have?”

“We’ll see. Why did you leave your husband?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“I’m making it my business, Mrs. Connor. I’m a detective investigating the murder of Ginnie Green. Did you leave Frank on account of Ginnie Green?”

“No. No! I wasn’t even aware—” Her hand went to her mouth again. She chewed on it some more.

“You weren’t aware that Frank was having an affair with Ginnie Green?”

“He wasn’t.”

“So you say. Others say different.”

“What others? Anita Brocco? You can’t believe anything that woman says. Why, her own father is a murderer, everybody in town knows that.”

“Your own husband may be another, Mrs. Connor. You might as well come clean with me.”

“But I have nothing to tell you.”

“You can tell me why you left him.”

“That is a private matter, between Frank and me. It has nothing to do with anybody but us.” She was calming down, setting her moral forces in a stubborn, defensive posture.

“There’s usually only the one reason.”

“I had my reasons. I said they were none of your business. I chose for reasons of my own to spend a month with my parents in Long Beach.”

“When did you come back?”

“This morning.”

“Why this morning?”

“Frank called me. He said he needed me.” She touched her thin breast absently, pathetically, as if perhaps she hadn’t been much needed in the past.

“Needed you for what?”

“As his wife,” she said. “He said there might be tr—” Her hand went to her mouth again. She said around it: “Trouble.”

“Did he name the kind of trouble?”

“No.”

“What time did he call you?”

“Very early, around seven o’clock.”

“That was more than an hour before I found Ginnie’s body.”

“He knew she was missing. He spent the whole night looking for her.”

“Why would he do that, Mrs. Connor?”

“She was his student. He was fond of her. Besides, he was more or less responsible for her.”

“Responsible for her death?”

“How dare you say a thing like that?”

“If he dared to do it, I can dare to say it.”

“He didn’t!” she cried. “Frank is a good man. He may have his faults, but he wouldn’t kill anyone. I know him.”

“What are his faults?”

“We won’t discuss them.”

“Then may I have a look in your garage?”

“What for? What are you looking for?”

“I’ll know when I find it.” I turned toward the garage door.

“You mustn’t go in there,” she said intensely. “Not without Frank’s permission.”

“Wake him up and we’ll get his permission.”

“I will not. He got no sleep last night.”

“Then I’ll just have a look without his permission.”

“I’ll kill you if you go in there.” She picked up the garden shears and brandished them at me — a sick-looking lioness defending her overgrown cub. The cub himself opened the front door of the cottage. He slouched in the doorway groggily, naked except for white shorts. “What goes on, Stella?”