Isaac Asimov: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 59, No. 1. Whole No. 338, January 1972

Kearny lit another cigarette. Neither Heslip nor Ballard had cut this one’s sign, which meant he had to be damned smooth.

“The police found one of the girls,” Kearny said.

“Yeah. Ruth. I was over in Contra Costa County when she turned up. Just got back. Clearing in the woods up on Mount Diablo, beside the ashes of a little fire.” He paused. “Pretty odd, Stewart Carroll letting that car get right up to the deadline before assigning it out.”

“He probably figured old man Bannock would make the payments even though he wasn’t on the contract.” Then Kearny added, his square hard face watchful, “You have anything that says who you are?”

The stocky man grunted and dug out a business card. Kearny had never heard of the agency. There were a lot of them he’d never heard of, mostly one-man shops with impressive-sounding names like this one.

“Well, that’s interesting, Mr. Wright,” he said. He stood up. “But it is Christmas Eve and—”

“Or maybe Carroll had other things on his mind,” Wright cut in almost dreamily. “His wife, Irma, for instance. Big fancy house out in Presidio Terrace — even had a fireplace in the bedroom where she killed herself. Ashes in the grate, maybe like she’d burned some papers, pictures, something like that.”

Kearny sat down. “A fire like the one where Ruth died?”

The stocky detective gave a short appreciative laugh. “The girls got a pretty hefty allowance — so why were they three months’ delinquent on their car payment? And why, the day before they disappeared — last Thursday, a week ago today — did they try to hit the old man up for some very substantial extra loot? Since they didn’t get it—”

“You checked the pawnshops.” It was the obvious move.

“Yeah. Little joint down on Third and Mission, the guy says that Myra, the older sister, came in and hocked a bunch of jewelry on Friday morning. Same day she and her sister disappeared. She had a cute little blonde with her at the pawnshop.”

Kearny stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. The smoke filled the cramped office. Cute little blonde didn’t fit the dead Ruth at all.

“Irma Carroll,” he said. “You think her husband delayed assigning the Lincoln for repossession because she asked him to. Why?”

“So old man Bannock wouldn’t know his daughters had financial woes,” beamed the other detective. “We got a positive ident on Irma Carroll from the pawnbroker. Plus she was away from home Friday — the day the sisters disappeared.”

“And on Monday she killed herself. When did Ruth die?”

“Friday night, Saturday morning, close as the coroner can tell.”

“Mmmm.” Kearny smoked silently for a moment. James (Jimmy) Wright — according to the name on his card — had a good breadth of shoulder, good thickness of chest and arm. Physically competent, despite his owl-like appearance. With a damned subtle mind besides. “I wonder how many other local women in the past year—”

Wright held up three fingers. “I started out with a list like a small-town phone book — every female suicide and disappearance in San Francisco since January first. Three of them knew the Bannock girls and the Carroll woman, and all three needed money and burned something before they killed themselves. No telling how many more just burned whatever it was they were buying and then sat tight.”

Kearny squinted through his cigarette smoke. He had long since forgotten about spending Christmas Eve with Jeanie and the kids.

“I figure you’ve got more than just that. Another connection maybe between your three suicides and the Bannock girls and Irma Carroll—” He paused to taste his idea, and liked it. “Raymond Edwards?”

The stocky man beamed again.

“Edwards. Yeah. I’d like to get a look at that bird’s tax returns. Real-estate office on Montgomery Street — but no clients. Fancy apartment out in the Sunset and spends plenty of money — but doesn’t seem to make any. What put you on to him?”

“Two of the hippies at that Sutter Street commune gave us a make on a cat in a Ferrari who was a steady customer for psilocybin — the ‘sacred mushrooms’ of the Mex Indians. On their description I ran Edwards through DMV in Sacramento and found he holds the pink on a Ferrari. A lot of car for a man with no visible income not to owe any money on. And — no other car.”

“I don’t see any significance in that,” objected Wright.

“You don’t sell real estate out of a Ferrari.”

The other detective nodded. “Got you. And Edwards made it down to his office exactly twice this week — to pick up his mail. But every night he made it to a house up on Telegraph Hill — each time with a different well-to-do dame.”

“But none of them the Bannock girls,” said Kearny.

The phone interrupted. That would be Jeanie, he thought as he picked up. But after a moment he extended the receiver to Wright.

“Yeah… I see.” He nodded and his eyes glistened. “Are you sure it was Myra? In this fog… that close, huh?” He listened some more. “Through the cellar window? Good. Yes. No. Kearny and I’ll go in — what?” Another pause. “I don’t give a damn about that, we need someone outside to tail her if she comes out before we do.”

He hung up, turned to Kearny.

“Myra just went into the Telegraph Hill place through a cellar window. She’s still in there. You heavy?”

“Not for years.” You wore a gun, you sometimes used it. “And what makes you so sure I’ll go along with you?”

The stocky detective grinned. “Find Myra, we find the Lincoln, right? Before the cops. You get your car, I get somebody who ain’t shy to back my play. I’d have a hell of a time scraping up another of my own men on Christmas Eve.”

Kearny unlocked the filing cabinet and from its middle drawer took out a Luger and a full clip. A German officer had fired it at him outside Aumetz in 1944, when the 106th Panzer SS had broken through to 90th Division HQ.

He dropped it into his right-hand topcoat pocket, stuck Wright’s card in his left. He had another question but it could wait.

The fog was thick and wet outside, glistening on the streets and haloing the lights. They walked past Kearny’s Ford station wagon, their shoes rapping hollow against the concrete. He felt twenty years old again. From a Van Ness bus they transferred to the California cable, transferred again on Nob Hill where the thick fog made pale blobs of the bright Christmas decorations on the Mark and the Fairmont. A band of caroling youngsters drifted past them, voices fog-muted. Alcatraz bellowed desolately from the black bay like an injured sea beast.

They were the only ones left on the car at the turn-around in the 500 block of Greenwich. Fog shrouded the crowded houses slanting steeply down the hill. Christmas trees brightened many windows, their candles flickering warmly through the steamy glass. The detectives paused in the light from the tavern on Grant and Greenwich.

“Which way?” asked Kearny.

“Up the hill. Then we work around to the Filbert Street steps. My man’ll meet us somewhere below Montgomery.”

They toiled up the steep brushy side of Telegraph beyond the Greenwich dead end, their shoes slipping in the heavy yellowish loam. Kearny went to one knee and cursed. When they paused at the head of the wooden Filbert Street steps, both men were panting and sweat sheened their faces. The sea-wet wind off the bay swirled fog around them, danced the widely-scattered street lights below.

Just as they started down, the fog eddied to reveal, beyond the shadow of clearly etched foliage, the misty panorama of the bay. Off to the left was grimly lit Alcatraz, and ahead, to the right of dark Yerba Buena Island, the 11:00 o’clock ferry to Oakland, yellow pinpoints moving against the darkness. Then foliage closed in wetly on either side. The Luger was a heavy comfortable weight in Kearny’s pocket. He could see only about two yards ahead in the bone-chilling fog. When they crossed Montgomery the air carried the musty tang of fermenting grapes. The old Italians must make plenty of wine up here. There was another, more acrid scent; somewhere an animal bleated.