Эд Макбейн - Beauty and the Beast

I was deep in conversation with him — I had never met a dairy farmer, retired or otherwise, in my entire life — when another car pulled up to the main gate of the villa. I thought at first that more guests were arriving. But Carlos came down the steps into the living room, and held a hurried conversation in Spanish with Toni, and then Toni came to me and said under the sound of the trumpet playing an old Mexican favorite even I recognized, “Matthew, it’s a runner from the Garza Blanca. There’s been a telephone call for you!”

The runner was actually a driver. The vehicle he maneuvered down the curving hillside road was a Jeep not unlike the one Sam himself was renting, except that it was brand-new and painted white and decorated on its side panels with the hotel’s distinctive colophon. The runner did not speak a word of English. When we reached the bottom of the hill and he made the turn onto the highway, I could still hear above us the sound of the mariachi band playing another chorus of “Cielito Lindo.” He drove a bit more recklessly than Sam did; we were at the hotel in seven minutes. A young Mexican woman wearing a long gown slit up the leg to the thigh turned to look at me as I approached the main desk where she was standing talking to the room clerk. I interrupted their conversation (“The Ugly American,” I could hear her thinking) and told the clerk I was Matthew Hope.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Hope,” he said, “would you call this number, please? You can use the booth on the left there. It is better to make it collect or to use your credit card.”

The number he’d scrawled on a piece of hotel stationery was Morris Bloom’s at the Public Safety Building in Calusa.

“Morrie,” I said, “it’s Matthew.”

“Hello, Matthew,” he said, “I’m sorry to break in on your trip this way, but this is important.”

“What is it?”

“I called your partner at home, he gave me this number I could reach you at in an emergency. I hope it’s okay, my calling...”

“Yes,” I said, “it’s fine. What is it?”

“I hate to be the one giving you this news, but I thought I’d better get to you right away. Your man’s still loose out there, we haven’t been able to find him, and now it looks like he’s killed another person.”

“What?”

“Sally Owen’s been murdered.”

“What?”

“Lady who lives next door found her at... what time is it there, anyway? How many hours difference is there?”

“It’s eight-thirty,” I said.

“Only an hour behind us, huh?”

“Morrie, tell me what—”

“Lady who lives next door went over there about seven o’clock our time, to return a pie dish, nice lady, walked in on bloody murder. She was lying on the floor near the sink. Her head was crushed, Matthew. With a hammer.”

“How do you know it was a hammer?”

“Found it on the floor next to the body.”

“What makes you think Harper—”

“His initials are on the hammer, Matthew. Burned into the handle. G.N.H. for George N. Harper.”

“Anyone could have burned those initials into—”

“Well, I know that. But if it really is his hammer, the way we think it is, then this is another one, Matthew, this is the second one. And I was thinking if you could make some kind of personal appeal to him, talk to him personally, then maybe we could get him to come in before he hurts somebody else.” Bloom paused.

“Before he kills somebody else, Matthew.”

“How can I talk to him if I don’t know where he is?”

“I thought you could go on television or something.”

“How can I do that, Morrie?”

He didn’t answer me.

“Morrie, I’m here in Mexico,” I said. “How can I go on television when I’m here in Mexico?”

He still didn’t answer me.

“Morrie,” I said, “the answer is no.”

“I was hoping—”

“The answer is no.”

“Before he does it again, Matthew.”

This time, I didn’t answer.

“Well, think it over,” Bloom said. “How’s the weather down there?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Think it over,” he said, and hung up.

I did not arrive in Calusa — via Houston — until two o’clock the next day, Tuesday, December 1. I went directly to the office, talked briefly with my partner Frank (who told me the worst move I’d ever made in my life was to start any sort of relationship with Detective Morris Bloom), and then buzzed Cynthia and asked her if I could see Karl Jennings for a minute.

I had still not called Susan to tell her that Joanna had gone on to Mexico City alone with Dale; I wasn’t sure I planned to tell her at all. But Calusa was a small town, and if I ran into her in a restaurant or a supermarket, she’d surely want to know what I was doing back here and where the hell our daughter was, and I would only have to explain then how it had been my idea for Joanna and Dale to continue the vacation without me. Better to do it on the telephone. But not just yet.

Karl Jennings was ready to report.

“Not that it’s going to make much difference,” he said. “Now that he’s killed another person.”

“That’s only the police allegation,” I said.

“It’s also the line the papers and television stations are taking,” Karl said. “You should’ve seen this morning’s headlines. Made it sound like we’ve got our own Jack the Ripper down here. Anyway, I talked to this guy Harry Loomis yesterday, got there at the crack of dawn — are you aware that Frank doesn’t appreciate the way our firm is spending nonproductive time on—”

“Yes, I’m aware of it. What’d Loomis have to say?”

“He showed me this little room where they sell automobile accessories, you know? Windshield wipers, jacks, those little ashtrays with the beanbags under them, key rings with the emblem of your car on a little leather fob — and five-gallon gasoline cans. Half a dozen of them still on the shelf there, all of them exactly the same.”

“Like the one he sold Harper?”

“Identical to the one he sold Harper. The brand name is Reddi-Jiff, the can is manufactured by a company in Ohio. I have the name here if you need it.”

“Okay, go ahead. What happened on the morning Harper went in?”

“Loomis was filling Harper’s tank when Harper said, ‘Think I could use a gas can. You got any gas cans?’ or words to that effect. Loomis took him back to this little room, and said, ‘Pick one out, man,’ or words to that effect.”

“Pick one out.”

“Right.”

“Were those his exact words?”

“More or less. The point is he left Harper alone in there to make his own selection while he went out to get the reading on the pump.”

“Then it was Harper himself who took the can from the shelf, is that it?”

“That’s what Loomis says. Harper personally took the can from the shelf and carried it out to where Loomis was at the gas pump.”

“Then what?”

“Harper asked him to fill it for him.”

“And?”

“Loomis unscrewed the cap and—”

“Loomis did?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what?”

“He filled the can,” Karl said, and shrugged.

“Who screwed the cap back on?”

“Loomis.”

“Did he touch the handle?”

“No, just the cap.”

“Who picked up the can when it was full?”

“Harper, and put it in the back of the truck.”

“Which means Loomis’s prints were still on the cap.”

“No.”

“No? If he screwed the cap back on—”

“Yes, but his hands were greasy, he’d just been changing some spark plugs when Harper came in. He noticed he’d got the cap all greasy, and he wiped it off with a rag.”