Horror on the ruby x, p.18
Horror on the Ruby X, page 18
At this point the sheriff handcuffed Tom Smith. Too bad for David, with Lauren and Gina not yet done in.
But the bloody coat was a break. Now the murders could be put on Alan. No use to put them on Joel, who had nothing, and even if Cousin Ada might have left a lot, David wanted it all. If Alan did murder, he would be forced to forfeit all of Cousin Ada’s money and ruin himself defending himself. If he went to the chair David would get what was left.
The ambulance came. Alan couldn’t face the mutilated corpse of Cousin Ada. David pretended he couldn’t. Alan went to the living room. Trask called on Patrick to help him and the ambulance men. I went to the “boys” wing to tell Patrick that Lauren had gone with Gina to her rooms, because he was continuously afraid for Lauren. I found the bloody coat and gloves. And David found me, made the fire to destroy me, which, along with the extra knife he had put in Alan’s desk, would be hard indeed for Alan to explain.
When I shoved the coat and gloves out the bathroom window, David was back watching from his room. He put on a pair of galoshes Alan kept in the kitchen closet, grabbed the coat and gloves while I was busy soaking the towels and fussing with the shower bath, and took them to the garage. The galoshes made footprints which would point to Alan. Outside the kitchen David took them off, went to Alan’s room with them—Ramon Martinez was always drunk or asleep—and left them there. He then reported the fire, thinking me done for by this time. Everybody ran to fight the fire. David hurried into his mother’s sitting room, conked Lauren with a poker, thought her dead, asked his mother to let him into her bedroom, which she did, and he strangled her, breaking her neck, set her bed on fire with her lighted cigarette, took the quick way through the hall past Ada Fraser’s room to help fight the other fire. Split-second timing, but it clicked.
At this time Tom Smith was freeing himself from the handcuffs. The deputy guarding him slept. Tom ran to Gina’s room, found the door open, found her dead, opened the west window, jumped out, and ran around the house in the snow, leaving telltale moccasin prints. A matter of seconds, passing by Alan’s bathroom when I was still trying to get out.
Whichever one was accused, Tom Smith or Alan, David thought himself above suspicion.
“If it hadn’t been for that sneaking Abbott!” he cried out, now. “What’s the use? I can’t win. I might as well have been born on the wrong side of the tracks. Both Gina and my father were.”
“You had every advantage, David,” Alan said. He was shocked and grieved. Lauren’s heart warmed to him now.
“Yeah? What about money?”
“You always said I was generous.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Well, let’s wind this up and go,” Trask said. He opened the curtains. The sun was rising and making the snow a rosy pink. With David handcuffed to both Mike Carreras and Ramon Martinez—Ramon in his state was as good as a ball and chain—the sheriff started for his old Buick.
“You’re not driving down that terrible hill?” David cried, in terror.
“Why sure,” Trask said. “No danger with chains on.”
Fernando and Perfecta had come into the house but nobody wanted to stay there now. Lauren offered her car for them to leave in when they could. Joel took Gloria away in his Jaguar after Alan agreed to have his pictures crated and sent after him. Alan paid Tom Smith his wages and added a bonus and Tom rode in the jeep with Alan and Lauren as far as his own car, refusing further aid, insisting that all he needed to do was to drive home to a medicine man. Trask had said maybe he ought to be held awhile as a material witness, but what was the use? He would only ball things up.
“That’s the last we’ll ever see of him,” he said. We knew it was true.
Last, Pat and I followed in our borrowed Chev, chains on its rear tires and steady as anything could be on wheels as we followed the trail made down the switchbacks by the old Buick and the jeep. Lauren was going to stay at the inn with us. Alan was to have her things packed and would bring them in later. He was going to close the house, raze it in the spring, and build another in a less lonely spot. Before we left Santa Maria, Lauren had fallen in love with Alan.
But on the way from the Ruby X to Santa Maria I asked Patrick what exactly was the message he had had from the detective captain in Houston.
“None, darling. That is, he said only that what they had was circumstantial, but even so he couldn’t release it except through official channels. I’m afraid I had to resort to a little guesswork, after all.”
“Oh. Well, Trask helped you, in a way. I mean, he was so set from the start on Tom Smith’s being guilty that he couldn’t see the woods for the trees. He was lucky to have you there, Pat.”
Patrick grinned.
“Oh, I don’t know. You can’t do better than an old-fashioned western sheriff. Look at that view!”
Under the deep white snow the whole world around us was glorious. This was the Navajo’s bright day.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Pat and Jean Abbott Mysteries
One
That summer the fog was the world’s worst. We had it day after day. We’d wake to pure sunshine, a sparkling blue Bay, a pink Alcatraz, turquoise waters sweeping in from or out to an indigo Pacific. The intense azure of the sky tricked gullible women into putting their furs away for the day and made men bold, so that they ventured off to business without their topcoats.
Then came the fog. It might rush in vastly on a howling wind, or it might start as a small undulant grayness under the splendid Golden Gate Bridge, rise, spread out grotesquely, and all San Francisco would be swallowed by a pall politely referred to as The Overcast. Yet a few miles north of the city people went about in practically nothing, sun-bathed, swam, boated, dined outdoors.
Weekends everything with wheels or wings rushed the fog-frantic populace to a place in the sun. Any place.
That week we left Friday evening in my car, a convertible, and started back early on Sunday afternoon because it was the day of the annual Art Fair in North Beach and we wanted to see the exhibits. Our kids were away in camps, for sunshine, and we had had two fine days of sun-soaking and were feeling great until, six or seven miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, we saw the fog ahead. It was pouring like an ocean over the Marin hills. Traffic was positively frantic. People had rushed out of the city to get away from the fog. They rushed back hoping to get ahead of a befogged traffic jam on the bridge.
I’d never seen it worse. On the bridge itself visibility was just about zero but nobody slowed down. The air was icy. The noise was outrageous. Car sounds added up to a sullen roar. Everywhere foghorns bellowed, screamed, boomed, squealed, howled. Unseen bells rang and the terrible off-sea wind played dirges in the bridge cables.
“This is horrible!” I yelled above the din. “Why didn’t you put the top up?”
“Soon be over,” Pat yelled back. “Be a nice night in the city, thanks to the wind. Fog will move on to Oakland.”
“Well, we should have put up the top,” I grumbled.
“Fine time to think of it, Jean.”
You’re forbidden to stop on the bridge. Even if you get a flat tire, you drive on a flat until you’re off the bridge.
The frenzy ended when we slid up to the tollgate. Patrick paid the twenty-five cents and drove out on a toll plaza that was practically free of fog. That’s how it is. Fog one place. No fog a short space away. He pulled off the pavement and stopped short. We had the dog. A dachshund is ill equipped for chilly weather. Ours had snuggled tight against my wool skirt. But as Pat jumped out and I followed and closed the car door the dog’s curiosity took over. He stood on his hind legs, looked and listened.
An old topless white-painted Model A Ford stood at the edge of the toll plaza. Two police cars, one from the city and one from the state, were parked near the Ford. Inspector Sam Bradish and Sergeant “Ching” Cohen were talking with a couple of Highway Patrol men. It obviously concerned the Ford. My heart gave a jump. I knew that Ford. So did Pat.
“Johnnies on the spot, huh?” Sam Bradish greeted us suspiciously. “What brings you here? The Spinners send you?”
“I think that is Katie Spinner’s Ford,” Pat said. Sam said, “Well, why not?” In California the owner’s name and registration are usually carried in a transparent cylinder on the steering post. There was Katie’s, as it should be. “What happened?” Pat asked.
“She apparently jumped,” the State Patrol lieutenant said, reluctantly.
“Katie Spinner would do no such thing,” I said.
“You know, I suppose?” Sam Bradish said, coldly.
He made introductions. The Highway Patrol lieutenant’s name was Morgan. His sergeant was named Baer.
“Looks like it,” Lieutenant Morgan said. “Car was abandoned in the middle of the bridge. The place they almost always pick. Lights were on, because of the fog. Keys in the ignition. Sometimes they take the keys, though. That bag was in the seat.”
It had not been touched except with gloves on, he said. Her driver’s license in her bag matched the registration on the steering post.
“Any note?” I asked. Morgan shook his head. “That proves it,” I said.
Sam Bradish eyed me grimly. He is very irritated when non-cops, specially women, make snap judgments which seemingly infringe on police business.
“Yeah?” he managed.
“Because she has too much sense,” I explained. “Katie is young, attractive, clever, good-looking and not in the least temperamental. Why would such a girl jump off the Golden Gate Bridge? It’s fatal. She’d be dead.”
Sam said, “If you will brief Lieutenant Morgan on just what types jump, he’ll round them all up and keep them off the bridge. Save a lot of headaches for all us policemen. Sometimes they jump inside city limits, too. Not always from one of the bridges. Lot of places to take the big jump in San Francisco.”
Lieutenant Morgan said, to us, “How well did you know this girl? I mean, could she have been one of those people who are so attracted to moving water they can’t resist jumping? Or go crazy from heights?”
Patrick said, “If the fog was as thick then on the bridge as it is now she couldn’t have seen the water.” The lieutenant said it had been. “And the height shouldn’t bother either, because in that kind of fog she wouldn’t have had any sensation of height. Was the tide moving in or out?”
“Out,” Morgan said. “Extremely strong ebb tide. Terrible. Nobody saw her jump which means that nobody could tip off the Coast Guard which means they couldn’t try for the body. It’s gone out to sea. Probably for good. Sometimes they wash back. Not often. No telling how many jump when the fog’s bad. Over they go. Be halfway to China before they’re even missed maybe. Damn hard on their people.”
“Of course,” I said, and Inspector Bradish squirmed. “Katie’s extremely considerate. Therefore she wouldn’t jump. Specially in a fog.”
“About what time did it happen, Lieutenant?” Pat asked.
“We were cruising north and came on the Model A at 4:44,” Morgan said, after checking his notes. “There was hardly any north-bound traffic at that time. The Model A had stopped in the lane next to the pedestrian lane. Jumpers’ cars always do. Hood was still warm. There was a silk scarf caught in the railing. It’s with the bag. I got in and pressed the starter. The Model A started right up. I drove on across the bridge and came back here. No trouble. Motor’s in fine shape. The sergeant there drove the squad car on over and I telephoned her folks. They ought to be getting here.”
Inspector Sam Bradish said, “It oughtn’t to be allowed.”
“What?” I asked.
“Girls and women ought not to be allowed to drive alone in open cars. If they have to drive the convertible kind of thing you’ve got there, Jean, the top should be up, the windows closed and the doors locked inside. Juvenile crime has got so bad in some sections that even men driving delivery vans lock themselves in. Yet fool girls like this Katie Spinner—how come you knew her?”
“Know,” I said. “We see her around. Her aunt, Elizabeth Spinner Brown, is a friend and also one of our neighbors.”
“She sent you here?”
Patrick was walking around the Model A. I said, “We’ve been out for the weekend and are just getting home. Our coming along at this time was pure chance.”
Pat said, “This Ford had a collision, Lieutenant.” The trooper nodded. “The left fender has buckled slightly. It hit a red car.”
“We noted that. Trouble is we don’t know if the fender was bent on the bridge or somewhere before it reached the bridge.”
A black Cadillac sedan arrived by way of the tunnel under the toll plaza. It stopped. The lieutenant hurried over to ask the driver to take it to a place where it wouldn’t interfere with traffic. The driver, Ira Spinner, was the kind who had to be told that. He was tall with a long face, a big nose, fiery dark eyes and white hair. He wore a black homburg and a light overcoat over a dark suit.
Ira Spinner was a man who showed fear or sorrow or frustration with anger, even rage.
His sister, Elizabeth Brown, Liz to her friends, was temperamentally his opposite. She was also tall, green-eyed, carelessly chic, with one of those warm amusing faces rarer and more alluring than conventional beauty. She wore a gray suit, a sable scarf, and no hat. Her tawny hair was short and straight and becoming.
Her eyes lit up when she saw us. She came over and said, “What luck you’re here! Please stick around.”
Ira Spinner glared at the Model A, at the police, at us. He knew us, so the look was in its way a greeting.
“Who’s handling this?” he demanded.
“We are. State Patrol. I’m Lieutenant Morgan. Sergeant Baer there.”
“Why are these others here?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Abbott happened to drive past. We radioed the city police. Routine. The Model A has San Francisco plates, sir. Inspector Bradish and Sergeant Cohen were cruising nearby in the Marina. They picked up our message and came on here.”
“All right. All right.” Ira Spinner gave us all another furious glare. “Just what are you doing about this, officer?”
“All we can, Mr. Spinner. I drove your daughter’s car off the bridge. Brought it back here because there was heavy fog over on Vista Point, which is the parking place at the other end of the bridge …”
Ira Spinner snapped, “I know where Vista Point is. For God’s sake, get on with it.”
“Yes, sir. The technical men will come here soon to take pictures and prints. I needed to talk to the tolltakers as soon as possible. Those yonder on the north-bound side, sir. The tollgates are all at the city end of the bridge. If the car had merely stalled on the bridge the driver would have walked back this way.”
“Why?”
“Because it would have been the quickest way to get help. There’s nothing short of Sausalito on the Marin side and that’s a couple of miles and more from the bridge. The driver would have used the pedestrian walk and come back past the tollgates on the outbound side. She would have to pay pedestrian toll at that time to the tolltaker furthest on the right yonder. There have been no pedestrians going or coming in either direction for hours according to the collectors. Too foggy.”
“Perhaps my daughter walked the other way?”
“That’s not likely, if she knew the bridge. But we checked. Sergeant Baer drove the squad car on down to Sausalito. No sign of any girl walking. She might have stopped in somewhere. He notified the Sausalito police. Asked them to broadcast a radio local. If she hears or has heard it she will phone in.”
“The thing stalled, did it,” Ira stated, rather than asked. “I’ve been telling her it would. What the hell she wants to traipse around in that old crate for …”
“I heartily agree, sir,” said Inspector Sam Bradish.
“Don’t blame me for that Ford, officer.”
“I don’t, Mr. Spinner.”
“There ought to be a law!” Sam thought Ira Spinner meant against open cars and nodded in perfect agreement until Ira said, “The State of California is responsible. I’ll sue. There ought to be a law making those bridge railings high enough so that people can’t climb over and jump. I’ll sue.”
Ira Spinner shook his fist at the swirling gray-white fog on the bridge. Cars were ejected through the tollgates with the speed of bullets from a machine gun. What mad traffic! Sort of wonderful, though.
Sam now said that in agreeing there ought to be a law he didn’t refer to the bridge but to cars with tops down, new or old, and Lieutenant Morgan drew himself up and said, proudly, “The Golden Gate Bridge is a miracle of engineering and the masterpiece of a great genius, Mr. Spinner. It’s delicate, too. Wonderfully balanced. Even the least more superstructure and, come one of the big winds, it might collapse, killing countless people. Such a tragedy compared to a few jumpers—oh, I’m sorry, sir.”
“The Model A did stall?” Ira Spinner asked, quickly and a little huskily.
“If so, only briefly. The motor is excellent,” Morgan said.
“Should be, considering the amount of money my daughter wasted on the thing.”
“I drove it off myself, sir. I told you that. And I myself talked to the tolltakers. The two furthest to the right both recalled two white cars driven by two girls, arriving side by side. From the city. There was the Model A, without a top, and a little foreign car with the top down. The Model A took the gate furthest to the right. I said that, didn’t I? The foreign car took the second gate. The girls spoke to each other. The girl in the foreign job called, ‘Race You.’ The girl in the Model A answered, ‘Fat Chance.’”
