James Chase - The Guilty Are Afraid

“Captain Katchen is retiring at the end of the month,” he said. “Lieutenant Rankin is taking his place.”

“Congratulations,” I said.

Rankin moved restlessly, fingering his tie. He didn’t say anything.

“Lieutenant Rankin is in complete charge of this investigation,” Holding went on. “I am, of course, referring to these two murders at Bay Beach.”

I could see the trap in that.

If I were going to deny being in the cabin when the girl had died, now was the time to show surprise and ask what other murder had been committed? But I got one jump ahead of that thought fast. For all I knew they had found a fingerprint of mine in the cabin or someone had seen me and had offered to identify me, or they had spotted the Buick parked on the scene. I decided to take a chance and come clean.

“Now I know the Lieutenant is handling the case,” I said, “I’m ready to make a statement. I would have done so an hour ago, but Captain Katchen’s threats put me off. He warned me to keep out of this business and I didn’t keep out of it. When I found the girl I saw Katchen could pin the killing on me.”

Holding appeared to relax a little.

“So you were the man who was seen entering the cabin?”

“I don’t know about that, but I did enter the cabin and I found her dying.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No. She died within seconds of my finding her.”

Rankin said, “Suppose we go over it from the start?” He reached forward and took a notebook off the desk and opened it. “Why did you go down there?”

“I had no particular reason except I had nothing to do and I wanted to look the place over,” I said. “I know it sounds corny, but my partner was killed there, and your men were all over the place when I went there this morning. I just wanted to have a second look at it.”

He didn’t seem wildly enthusiastic about this explanation, but he let it go. He asked, “What time did you get there?”

I told him, and then went on to give him an exact description of what had happened. I told him how I had heard the police siren and how I had realized that if I were caught there, Katchen’s conclusion would be that I had killed her. I went on to describe how I had got away and what time I returned to the hotel.

Rankin looked over at Holding, then suddenly his hard, tight face crinkled into a smile and he looked quite human.

“Can’t say I blame you,” he said. “I guess I would have done the same thing. But it’s not the kind of thing I’d recommend you to try again.”

I said I wouldn’t try it again.

“You realize how lucky you have been?” he said. “You could have got yourself nailed for murder. But the doc says she was stabbed at least two hours before you entered the cabin. She took that time to die. He could tell by the blood on her and on the floor.”

“How did your men know she was there?”

“Some guy spotted you going into the cabin. He was taking a look at the scene of the crime, so he says; he spotted you and called headquarters.”

“What wouldn’t we do without the great American public?” I said. “No sign of the killer, of course?”

Rankin shook his head.

Then I asked the sixty-four dollar question.

“Any idea who she is?”

Rankin stubbed out his cigarette, then sat back while he and Holding exchanged glances.

Holding shrugged.

“It’s pretty obvious she’s the woman who called for Sheppey at his hotel this morning. What she has been doing from eleven o’clock this morning up to the time of her death defeats me. She was still wearing the swimsuit she had on when she left Sheppey.”

“Have you been able to identify her yet?”

“A girl named Thelma Cousins has been reported missing by her landlady. The landlady said she hadn’t been back since she left for work this morning. We got her to look at the body. She says the girl is Thelma Cousins. We’re getting a second check on her. The man she works for is on his way down now.”

“Who is he?”

Rankin supplied the information, which had me suddenly pointing like a gun dog.

“His name is Marcus Hahn,” he said. “He’s a phony who runs a pottery racket he calls the School of Ceramics out at Arrow point. The girl worked in his showroom.”

II

I had to decide whether to tell them about the folder of matches I had found in Sheppey’s luggage and the odd tie-up between the folder and this School of Ceramics or whether to say nothing.

I told myself that maybe this wasn’t the time for a complete exchange of confidences. I had to make sure first that Rankin was going to find Sheppey’s killer. Although he was in charge of the investigation that didn’t mean he had a free hand. He could still be blocked by Katchen on Creedy’s orders. I wasn’t going to hand him anything on a plate until I was sure he meant business.

Rankin said, “We want to find out what Sheppey and this girl were up to. It’s my bet she had a boyfriend and he fixed them both.”

I looked over at Holding. His face had gone blank and he had begun to fidget with the pen tray.

“It shouldn’t be difficult to find out if she had a boyfriend,” I said.

“Hahn may know something.” Rankin looked at his watch. “I guess I’d better go over to the morgue. He should be down any moment now.” He looked at Holding. “Okay?”

“Oh, sure,” Holding said.

I made a move to get up, but Holding lifted his hand.

“I’d like to run over your statement just once more, Mr. Brandon. You get off, Lieutenant.”

Rankin got to his feet, nodded to me, and went out.

There was a long pause after he had shut the door, then Holding pulled a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it. I took that as a signal that we were going to be chummy and I fetched out my pack of Luckies and lit one.

“You had a talk with Captain Katchen this morning?” Holding said, not looking at me.

“You might call it that. It was a little one sided, but I managed to sound off in the end. I collected a slap in the face for my trouble, but I’m not complaining.”

“Something was said about Lee Creedy,” Holding said, looking up.

“Something was said about Lee Creedy,” I said, watching him.

His small hard eyes searched my face.

“You mentioned his name to Katchen?”

“I did.”

“You are under the impression that Creedy hired Sheppey to do a job?”

“Yes.”

Holding lit his pipe, frowned, shifted in his chair and puffed smoke.

“You have no proof of that?”

“Sheppey wrote Creedy’s name on his blotter while he was talking on the telephone. I know the man he was talking to hired him to come down here. Sheppey had a habit of writing on his blotter. I can’t see why he should have written down Creedy’s name unless Creedy was the

man who hired him.”

“Unless someone wanted Sheppey to work on a job connected with Creedy. I mean Sheppey’s client could have asked him to get information about Creedy. Thought of that?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t quite fall into line.”

I went on to tell him how I had telephoned Creedy’s residence and had asked for an appointment, how I had been taken in to see Creedy over the heads of six businessmen, how I had been threatened and how Fulton and I had been attacked by Hertz.

Holding listened to all this, puffing away at his pipe, his face expressionless.

“It seems to me that Creedy hired Sheppey, and now Sheppey has been murdered, Creedy is falling over backwards to hush up the fact that he did hire him,” I concluded.

Holding brooded for a moment, then said, “I take it you’re pretty anxious to get Sheppey’s murder cleared up?”

I stared at him.

“Well, of course.”