Sidney Sheldon - The Naked Face

“Moody! Moody…”

A thick, heavy silence. Moody had to be here somewhere. If he weren’t, Judd knew what McGreavy would think. It would be the boy who cried wolf again.

Judd took another step forward and suddenly felt cold flesh lick against his face. He jerked away in panic, feeling the short hairs on his neck rise. He became aware of the strong smell of blood and death surrounding him. There was an evil in the darkness around him, waiting to close in on him. His scalp tingled with fear and his heart was beating so rap idly that it was difficult to breathe. With trembling fingers he fumbled for a book of matches in his overcoat, found one, and scraped a match against the cover. In its light he saw a huge dead eye loom up in front of his face, and it took a shocked second before he realized that he was looking at a slaughtered cow dangling from a meat hook. He had one brief glimpse of other animal carcasses hanging from hooks, and the outline of a door in the far corner, before the match went out. The door probably led to an office. Moody could be in there, waiting for him.

Judd moved farther into the interior of the inky black cav ern toward the door. He felt the cold brush of dead animal flesh again. He quickly stepped away and kept walking cau tiously toward the office door. “Moody!”

He wondered what was detaining Angeli and McGreavy. He moved past the slaughtered animals, feeling as though someone with a macabre sense of humor was playing a horrible, maniacal joke. But who and why were beyond his imagining. As he neared the door, he collided with another hanging carcass.

Judd stopped to get his bearings. He lit his last remaining match. In front of him, impaled on a meat hook and grin ning obscenely, was the body of Norman Z. Moody. The match went out.

Chapter Fourteen

THE CORONER’S MEN had finished their work and gone. Moody’s body had been taken away and everyone had de parted except Judd, McGreavy, and Angeli. They were sit ting in the manager’s small office, decorated with several im pressive calendar nudes, an old desk, a swivel chair, and two filing cabinets. The lights were on and an electric heater was going.

The manager of the plant, a Mr. Paul Moretti, had been tracked down and pulled away from a pre-Christmas party to answer some questions. He had explained that since it was a holiday weekend, he had let his employees off at noon. He had locked up at twelve-thirty, and to the best of his knowl edge, there had been no one on the premises at that time. Mr. Moretti was belligerently drunk, and when McGreavy saw that he was going to be no further help, he had him driven home. Judd was barely conscious of what was happen ing in the room. His thoughts were on Moody, how cheerful and how full of life he had been, and how cruelly he had died. And Judd blamed himself. If he had not involved Moody, the little detective would be alive today.

It was almost midnight. Judd had wearily reiterated the story of Moody’s phone call for the tenth time. McGreavy, hunched up in his overcoat, sat there watching him, chewing savagely on a cigar. Finally he spoke. “Do you read detective stories?”

Judd looked at him, surprised. “No. Why?”

“I’ll tell you why. I think you’re just too goddam good to be true, Dr. Stevens. From the very beginning I’ve thought that you were in this thing up to your neck. And I told you so. So what happens? Suddenly you turn into the target instead of the killer. First you claim a car ran you down and—”

“A car did run him down,” Angeli reminded him.

“A rookie could answer that one,” McGreavy snapped. “It could have been arranged by someone who’s in this with the doctor.” He turned back to Judd. “Next, you call Detective Angeli with a wild-eyed yarn about two men breaking into your office and trying to kill you.”

“They did break in,” said Judd.

“No, they didn’t,” snapped McGreavy. “They used a spe cial key.” His voice hardened. “You said there were only two of those keys to that office—yours and Carol Roberts’.”

“That’s right. I told you—they copied Carol’s key.”

“I know what you told me. I had a paraffin test run. Carol’s key was never copied, Doctor.” He paused to let it sink in. “And since I have her key—that leaves yours, doesn’t it?”

Judd looked at him, speechless.

“When I didn’t buy the loose maniac theory, you hire a detective out of the yellow pages, and he conveniently finds a bomb planted in your car. Only I can’t see it because it’s not there any more. Then you decide it’s time to throw me another body, so you go through that rigmarole with Angeli about a phone call to meet Moody, who knows this mysteri ous nut who’s out to kill you. But guess what? We get here and find him hanging on a meat hook.”

Judd flushed angrily. “I’m not responsible for what happened.”

McGreavy gave him a long, hard look. “Do you know the only reason you’re not under arrest? Because I haven’t found any motive to this Chinese puzzle yet. But I will, Doctor. That’s a promise.” He got to his feet.

Judd suddenly remembered. “Wait a minute!” he said. “What about Don Vinton?”

“What about him?”

“Moody said he was the man behind all this.”

“Do you know anyone named Don Vinton?”

“No,” Judd said. “I—I assumed he’d be known by the police.”

“I never heard of him.” McGreavy turned to Angeli. Angeli shook his head.

“OK. Send out a make on Don Vinton. FBI. Interpol. Po lice chiefs in all major American cities.” He looked at Judd. “Satisfied?”

Judd nodded. Whoever was behind all this must have some kind of criminal record. It should not be difficult to identify him.

He thought again of Moody, with his homely aphorisms and his quick mind. He must have been followed here. It was unlikely that he would have told anyone else about the rendezvous, because he had stressed the need for secrecy. At least they now knew the name of the man they were looking for.

Praemonitus, praemunitas.

Forewarned, forearmed.

The murder of Norman Z. Moody was splashed all over the front pages of the newspapers the next morning. Judd picked up a paper on his way to the office. He was briefly mentioned as being a witness who had come across the body with the police, but McGreavy had managed to keep the full story out of the papers. McGreavy was playing his cards close to his chest. Judd wondered what Anne would think.

This was Saturday, when Judd made his morning rounds at the clinic. He had arranged for someone else to fill in for him there. He went to his office, traveling alone in the elevator and making sure that no one was lurking in the cor ridor. He wondered, even as he did so, how long anyone could live like this, expecting an assassin to strike at any moment.

Half a dozen times during the morning he started to pick up the phone and call Detective Angeli to ask about Don Vinton, but each time he controlled his impatience. Angeli would surely call him as soon as he knew something. Judd puzzled over what Don Vinton’s motivation could be. He could have been a patient whom Judd had treated years ago, perhaps when he was an intern. Someone who felt that Judd had slighted him or injured him in some way. But he could remember no patient named Vinton.

At noon he heard someone try to open the corridor door to the reception room. It was Angeli. Judd could tell nothing from his expression except that he looked even more drawn and haggard. His nose was red, and he was sniffling. He walked into the inner office and wearily flopped into a chair.

“Have you gotten any answers yet on Don Vinton?” Judd asked eagerly.

Angeli nodded. “We got back teletypes from the FBI, the police chiefs of every big city in the United States, and Inter pol.” Judd waited, afraid to breathe. “None of them ever heard of Don Vinton.”