Джеймс Чейз - You’re Lonely When You’re Dead

‘You mean Barclay would be evidence for a divorce, and she would lose the money, and that’s why Dana was shot?’

‘It’s plain enough, isn’t it?’

‘But Barclay has money.’

‘Not enough. You don’t know her like I do. She wouldn’t want to be dependent on Barclay: not if she could help it.’

‘It still doesn’t make sense.’ I was sure now I could hear someone breathing behind the curtained recess. I felt a creepy sensation run up my spine. ‘If she was so determined to have the money she would have come back here after the shooting. By going to Bannister she’s gypped herself out of it.’

‘She wouldn’t have gone to Bannister unless something had gone wrong: unless she had been seen.’

‘For someone who can’t get around, Miss Cerf, you seem to keep very well informed.’

‘Yes.’ She met my eyes calmly. ‘As I can’t get about I take precautions. I hope you will think over what I have told you. I want to go to sleep now. I’m tired.’ She switched on the tired, lonely look. ‘You should thank me. I’ve told you who murdered your friend. You should be able to do the rest.’ She waved her hand to the door. ‘Franklin will show you the way out. I don’t want to talk anymore.’

‘If you get any other ideas about Mrs. Cerf you might let me know. So far, you’re doing fine,’ I said.

‘I don’t want to talk anymore,’ she repeated firmly and closed her eyes, withdrawing her hands from above the sheet and hiding them from sight.

By now I had enough experience of her ways not to waste any more time on her. Anyway I was tired too. It had been a long day and a longer night. I crossed the room to the door. As I opened it I took a quick look at the window recess. I couldn’t see much because of the shadows, but I did catch a glimpse of something that glittered: something that could have been a shiny toe-cap of a knee-boot: the kind of boot Comrade Mills liked to wear. I wondered if Natalie knew he was there, and decided she probably did.

In the distance a car backfired, making me jump. The sound reminded me of gunfire, and I told myself irritably that if I was going to start jumping out of my skin every time a car backfired I’d better give up my job and become a dancing master at an academy for young ladies. And as soon as the idea dropped into my mind, I wondered if I wouldn’t be a lot better off.

I sat in the car, bumping over the uneven beach road that led to my cabin. I was in no hurry and drove slowly. There was a moon like a grapefruit hanging in the sky, no stars and no clouds. The heat from the sun still clung to the sandy road, but there was a faint breeze coming off the sea that kept the temperature pleasant. The headlights of my car made a big white glare that bounced on the sand and came back at me.

I had been doing a lot of heavy thinking while I drove from the Santa Rosa Estate, and I was beginning to get a few ideas: the first tangible ideas I had had since the murder. I thought it would be nice to get home, mix myself a long drink with plenty of ice in it and sit out on the verandah and sort these ideas over. I wasn’t tired anymore. I decided to see the dawn come up over the hills, think over my ideas and then go to bed. On the face of it it seemed a pretty good programme, and I speeded up the car and went jolting over the sandy road, past the other beach cabins that were in darkness, along the half-mile of vacant building plots that separated my cabin from the rest of them, up the sharp little hill where I had a clear view of my cabin in the moonlight.

A light streamed out from my open verandah doors.

When I had left the place with Miss Bolus I had turned off the lights and locked the doors. Now the lights were on and the doors open. It occurred to me as I pulled up outside the gate that if this sort of thing was going to continue I might just as well have a hotel sign hoisted on the roof. I thought maybe Jack Kerman had got back from Los Angeles or Paula was waiting to talk to me or even Benny had come back from Frisco with news. I didn’t think anything was wrong until I reached the steps to the verandah, then I came to an abrupt halt.

Grey smoke hung in the air, drifted out through the open doorway: smoke that smelt of gunpowder. I remembered the car that had backfired, and felt suddenly spooked.

I climbed the steps to the verandah like an old man with gout: tiptoed to the open door.

The smell of gunpowder was strong in the room. On the carpet by the open window was a .45 Colt automatic. That was the first tiring I saw. I looked from the Colt to the casting couch at the far end of the room and the hairs at the back of my neck bristled. Lying on the couch was a blonde woman in a white silk blouse and brick-red slacks. Blood flowed from a hole in her forehead and soaked into the big yellow cushion that had supported a number of female heads in its time. By tire looks of it now the cushion wasn’t likely to support any more heads.

I went slowly across the room and stood over her. She was dead of course. A .45 does a job of work. It is a little crude, a little too heavy and needs a strong wrist, but in the right hands it does do a job of work. Terror still lurked in her eyes. A face framed in blood isn’t pretty: not even Anita Cerf’s beauty could ride above the smashed forehead and the blood.

I was staring down at her when the shadow of a man appeared on the opposite wall: the shadow of a man in a slouch hat, his arm raised and a blunt something in his fist. It all happened very quickly. I saw the shadow and heard the swish of the descending sap simultaneously and I ducked; but much, much too late. Then the top of my head seemed to fly off, and I felt myself falling.

The sun crept around the edges of the blind and lay across the floor in two long, bright bands. In the hot, airless room there was a smell of whisky strong enough to get tight on, and it seemed to come from me: an overpowering smell as if I had fallen into a vat of the stuff and had taken a swim in it. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like myself. My head felt like hell. The bed on which I was lying was too soft and too hot. I kept thinking of a woman’s face framed in blood with a hole in her forehead through which you could stick your finger, and I didn’t like that either.

I looked at the two bright bands of sunlight on the floor. I wasn’t focusing well, but the carpet seemed familiar. There were holes in it burned by the cigarettes I had dropped on it. There was a ragged tear in it near the window where Benny’s spaniel pup had chewed it. It wasn’t much of a carpet, but it was a relief to see it, for it meant I was in my room and on my bed and the woman’s face framed in blood was probably a nightmare. Probably...

A man’s voice said, ‘He stinks like a distillery, and he’s as soused as a mackerel.’ A voice that sent a chill down my spine. Brandon’s voice. ‘Who’s the woman out there?’ the voice went on. ‘Ever seen her before?’

Mifflin said, ‘She’s a new one on me.’

I looked through my eyelashes. They were there all right. Brandon was sitting on a chair and Mifflin stood at the foot of the bed.

I kept still and sweated. The back of my head felt as if the bone had been removed. It felt pulpy and soft as if there was a hole there: a hole that let in the draught that suddenly played about my pillow.

Mifflin had opened a window by my bed. He had pulled the blind aside to get at the window and a lot of hot, bright sunshine fell on my face, sending shooting pains into my skull.

I thought of Anita Cerf lying out there on the casting couch and the bloodstained yellow cushion and the Colt automatic. A beautiful setup for Brandon to walk into. A red-handed, no alibi, God’s gift to a lazy cop setup. Even Brandon wouldn’t look far for the killer. I thought of the way he had looked at me when he was questioning me about Dana’s death.