James Chase: The Guilty Are Afraid

“I don’t know who it was.”

She sat up abruptly.

“Of course it was Bridgette! She tried to shoot him this afternoon, didn’t she? If you hadn’t stopped her she would have killed him. You said so. Did you let her have the gun back?” She swung her legs off the window seat. “She went out there and killed him! She’s not going to get away with it this time!”

“What are you going to do then?”

“Tell my father, of course. He’ll get the truth out of her!”

“Suppose he does . . . what then?”

She turned her head. Although I couldn’t see her face in the darkness I knew she was staring at me.

“Why, he’ll throw her out! He’ll divorce her!”

“I thought you wanted to keep the police out of it?” I said quietly.

“The police? Why, of course. The police mustn’t know. Daddy wouldn’t call the police. He would throw her out and then divorce her.”

Through the window I saw the headlights of a car coming fast over the rough beach road and my eyes went to the red lamp on the hood.

“You may not be able to keep them out of it, Margot,” I said, getting to my feet. “They’re here now.”

Chapter 13

I

In the hard light of the moon I saw Lieutenant Rankin, followed by Sergeant Candy, climb out of the police car. The uniformed driver remained at the wheel.

I walked out on to the verandah to meet them as they came towards the verandah steps.

I stood squarely in Rankin’s path so that he had to stop on the second step from the top.

“I want to talk to you,” he said. “We’re coming in.”

“Look behind you, Lieutenant,” I said softly, so Candy couldn’t hear, “then change your mind.”

He turned his head and saw the convertible Cadillac. He looked more to his right and saw the Buick, then he turned and stared at me.

“Should that mean anything?”

“I’ll give you one guess who owns the Caddy,” I said. “You haven’t got your promotion yet, Lieutenant. You walk in there, and it’s a fair bet you won’t get it.”

He took off his hat, stared into it, ran his fingers impatiently through his hair, put on his hat and took three steps back.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ll talk in the car. We’re going out to Thrisby’s place.”

“You go, Lieutenant, I’m busy,” I said. “I’m not all that worked up about Thrisby. I have a Cadillac owner to take care of.”

“Are you coming the easy or the hard way?” he said, a sudden bite in his voice.

Candy moved forward, his hand sliding inside his coat.

“Okay, if you put it like that,” I said, and started down the steps. “What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?”

“Don’t give me that crap,” Rankin said, his voice savage. “You’ve just come from Thrisby’s place, haven’t you?”

“That might be difficult to prove,” I said, and got into the back seat of the police car. Rankin joined me and Candy got in beside the driver.

“Let’s go,” Rankin said.

The car moved off.

I looked back at the bungalow, wondering what Margot was thinking. I didn’t see any sign of her. In a few minutes she would be dressed and away from the bungalow.

I wished now I hadn’t gone up to the White Chateau.

“Give me your gun,” Rankin said abruptly.

“I haven’t got it on me.”

Rankin told the driver to stop. As the car pulled up, he said, “Where is it?”

“In the bungalow.”

“Go back,” Rankin said, an exasperated note in his voice.

The driver reversed the car and drove fast down the road until we reached the bungalow.

“Go with him,” Rankin said to Candy. “I want his gun.”

I got out of the car and, with Candy plodding at my heels, I walked up the steps, pushed open the door, turned on the light and crossed over to the hallstand. I tried to block Candy away from the drawer, but he shoved me aside, opened it and took out my .38.

“This it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

I was looking into the now-empty drawer, feeling a little prickle run up my spine: Bridgette’s gun had vanished!

Candy broke open my gun and looked down the barrel. Then he sniffed at it, grunted and dropped the gun into his pocket.

“Who owns the Caddy out there?”

“You’d better ask the Lieutenant,” I said.

He looked at me, grimaced and shrugged his shoulders.

“Let’s go.”

“What is all this?” I said, wondering if Margot were listening.

“Who do you imagine you’re kidding?” he said, disgust in his voice. “We saw you go into Thrisby’s place and we saw you come out.”

“You did? Then why didn’t you arrest me, Sergeant?”

“We had no orders to arrest you,” Candy said, “but we have now.”

“Whose orders?”

“The Captain’s.”

“Does Holding know?”

Candy shifted his gum around in his face.

“You can forget Holding. Situations change from hour to hour in this city. Come on, we don’t want to keep the Captain waiting.”

We went back to the car.

Rankin said as we got in, “Did you get it?”

“Yeah.” Candy slid my gun to Rankin. “It’s been recently fired.”

“I can explain that,” I said. “You’re not trying to make out I killed those two, are you?”

“I’m not trying to make out anything,” Rankin said in a tired, flat voice. “Just shut up, will you? I’ve been told to bring you in, and I’m bringing you in.”

“What’s this about Holding?”

“You’ll find out.” Rankin settled back in the corner of the car. “Just shut up.”

Nothing further was said during the fast run up to the Crest.

During the run, I did some thinking. Then I suddenly realized I might have the key to the whole case: I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but all of a sudden the bits of the jigsaw that had made no sense, suddenly meant something. It was one of those sudden flashes one gets when one mentally steps back and looks over all the bits and pieces and suddenly sees a connecting link which before hadn’t meant anything.

I hadn’t time to get excited about this discovery because we arrived at the White Chateau.

We got out.

Rankin said to Candy, “Take the car and go back to the bungalow. Take Jackson with you. Search the place. Bring anything you find back here. Get moving.”

Candy looked surprised, but he got back into the car and the driver slid under the driving wheel.

“Think she’ll be gone by now?” Rankin asked as the police car drove off.

“Yeah. What’s happened to Holding?”

“You’re way out on a limb, Brandon. Creedy’s done a fast deal with Judge Harrison. Holding is back with the Administration. There’s no opposition just now.”

That really set me back on my heels.

“Come on,” Rankin said. “We don’t want to keep the Captain waiting. Don’t let’s have any trouble. You were told not to push this thing so you can’t say you weren’t warned.”

“Holding told me to go ahead.”

“Couldn’t you see the kind of rat he is?” Rankin said impatiently. “Come on.”

We walked up the path, across the lawn to the house. All the lights were on. Three uniformed policemen were pacing up and down on the terrace.

We walked through the open french doors into the lounge. A squad of fingerprint men and photographers were at work. None of them bothered to look at me.

Rankin said to one of them, “Captain here?”

“Upstairs, Lieutenant,” the detective said as he peered at a fingerprint he had discovered on the edge of one of the cocktail tables.

We went out into the hall.

Two men in white coats were bringing down a stretcher on which lay a body covered with a sheet. From the size of the body I guessed it was the Filipino’s.