Joe bain, p.37
Joe Bain, page 37
Joe heaved a sigh, introduced himself, looked pointedly at Mrs. Benjamin, who looked back. Finally Joe said, “I’d like to talk to Alice alone, if I may.”
“I’d prefer to be present,” said Mrs. Benjamin.
“Maybe you would. But when I ask her a question, I don’t want her looking at you before she answers.”
“She can answer without looking at me. But I wish to be present.”
“Now look here, Mrs. Benjamin, let’s get something straight. This is a murder case. Either you want to cooperate or you don’t. If you don’t, I’ll have to stop being friendly.”
Mrs. Benjamin’s face took on a mulish set. She groped for words. Before she could speak, Joe asked, “You want her to tell me the truth, don’t you?”
“Of course, but —”
“Are you afraid she won’t tell me the truth?”
“No.”
“Then why do you want to stay?”
Grace Benjamin turned on her heel and left the room.
“Let’s go sit down over here,” said Joe. Alice wordlessly obliged. She was wearing a smoke-colored cotton frock with a white collar, and Joe thought she looked good enough to eat. But she seemed ill at ease, almost frightened.
“Relax,” said Joe. “I’m not as harsh as I sound. Your mother is the kind of woman that has to be dealt firmly with.”
Alice smiled wanly. “She’s pretty firm herself.”
“You can be glad you don’t take after her,” said Joe. “Well, then. I guess you know what I want to talk about?”
Alice shook her head, and Joe again sensed apprehension.
“The murders of Ken Mooney, Bill Whipple and Sally Wagner — all friends of yours.”
Alice nodded numbly.
“What do you think about these murders?”
“Just what everyone else thinks. They’re awful.”
“Have you any idea why they were killed?”
“No.”
“You’ve been in Europe all summer?”
“Yes,” said Alice hesitantly. Watching closely, Joe saw her shoulders droop.
“When did you get back?”
“A few days ago.”
“Maybe I better take a look at your passport.”
“Passport?”
“Yeah. The little blue book with your picture in it.”
“I don’t quite know where it is.”
“When did you get back — exactly?”
Alice’s face became doleful. She looked down at her hands, then looked across the room toward the door. Joe looked too, but Mrs. Benjamin was nowhere to be seen. Alice said in a husky voice, “I arrived in San Francisco about a month ago. On the first of August, to be exact. I’ll show you the passport if you like. It’s upstairs in my room.”
“August first.” A month and a half after Ken had been killed, something over a month after the deaths of Bill Whipple and Sally Wagner. “Where have you spent the last five weeks?”
Alice looked over her shoulder again, then shook her head miserably. “I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want anyone to know.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
“Does your mother know?”
Alice shook her head.
“What about Marsh?”
Alice shook her head decidedly. “Definitely not.”
“In other words — your mother knows.”
Alice licked her lips. “I hope not.”
“Well, you can tell me,” said Joe. “I’ll check up, and if there’s no connection with the murder, no one will know.”
Alice began to cry: quietly, with great restraint. Joe waited. Finally Alice said, “In a week I’m being married — to a very respectable young man. He’s about as respectable as my mother.”
Joe managed a crooked grin. “They’d make a good pair.”
Alice went on in a dismal voice. “I’m not respectable at all. Frankly — if you must know — I’m marrying Marsh for his money. My mother approves of the marriage. I do too. I don’t have anything against being secure. I don’t want to be poor.”
“What’s wrong with being poor?” argued Joe. “I’ve been poor all my life.”
“So have I,” said Alice. “Don’t judge us by the house.”
“Well — what of that missing month?”
“I don’t like to tell you.”
“You were with a boy friend?”
Alice nodded, and again peered over her shoulder toward the door.
Joe cleared his throat. “If you want some unsolicited advice: don’t marry the man. Marsh is as warm and enthusiastic as an oyster.”
“I know … But he’s — well, he’s kind enough. And he’s dependable.”
“Life might be pretty uninteresting. Dependability and money aren’t everything.”
A hint of suppressed fury came into Alice’s voice. “I’m doing it because I have to! We can’t live otherwise! We’re broke! Father isn’t coming back from India. He’s not sending any more money.”
“What? That seems strange. Are you sure?”
“My mother says so.”
“What of the baby — Beatrice? Doesn’t he care about his offspring? He’s responsible for child support.”
Alice paused, as if this were an entirely new facet to the case. “I don’t know about that.”
“Are your mother and father getting a divorce?”
“Heavens no! My mother’s a Catholic. She almost became a nun.”
“Your father knows you’re getting married?”
“I wrote him about it.”
“Have you had an answer?”
“Not recently.”
“How come you didn’t marry Bill Whipple? You seemed to like him well enough.”
Alice turned Joe a startled look. “What do you mean?”
“You went out to Halfway House with him.”
“How do you know about that?” asked Alice breathlessly. “Does Marsh know?”
“No.” Joe showed her the photograph. Alice stared at the picture as if it held the secret to her life. “That was so long ago … I felt so young then.”
“You’re young now.”
Alice gave a wistful grimace. “I told you I’m not respectable.”
“You’re probably as respectable as most people. It seems to me you’re just reacting to an overdose of respectability.”
Alice heaved a sigh. “Probably so.”
“Was this the first time you went out with Bill?”
Alice gave her head a quick shake. “The second time.” She laughed. “He asked me to marry him … Poor Bill.”
“What did you say?”
“No. Bill didn’t really love me. He was mad about Starr. She wouldn’t look at him. He asked me out to spite her. And Marsh and all the Shortridges. That’s why he wanted to marry me — from spite.”
“Don’t talk yourself down.”
“It’s true enough. And as far as I was concerned — well, I wasn’t very happy. I really didn’t want to be engaged to Marsh. I don’t have very much will power … Not very much decency, I suppose.”
“Did your mother know about you and Bill?”
Alice winced. “She detested Bill. She thought he was vulgar and heathen.”
“Seems to me that your mother runs things around here.”
“Well, not altogether. As far as Bill was concerned, I didn’t want to marry him. I was being defiant toward my mother and Marsh. Bill was defying Starr.” Alice laughed — a forlorn sound. “Starr couldn’t care less what Bill or I did.”
Joe rubbed his chin. “Forget I’m sheriff. Pretend I’m an old friend.”
“That’s not hard.” Alice gave Joe a smile that made his head swim.
“You’re Catholic like your mother?”
“I’ve never had much choice. I guess — yes.”
“You don’t believe in divorce, things like that?”
“I — guess not.”
“Well, you better ditch Marsh now, before the knot is tied. Otherwise you’re stuck with him.”
Alice smiled wanly. “If I did, who’d support us? Myself and Mother and now there’s a little baby. None of us knows how to earn a living. It would kill Mother to give up the house.”
“Your father undoubtedly will furnish child support.”
Alice made a sudden gesture of fatigue. “I’m so sick of the entire business! I can understand how people sometimes want to kill themselves.”
“Here, here,” said Joe. “Things aren’t that bad. Heavens, for two cents I’d marry you myself. Except I’ve got a daughter not much younger than you. It would look silly. Howard Griselda would take me to task in an editorial.”
Alice laughed, and looked so charming that for a wild instant Joe thought that he might propose in earnest. Alice asked, rather archly, “Even after you know how wicked I’ve been?”
“We’d both be taking our chances.”
“You don’t know how bad I really am.”
“How bad is that?” asked Joe. “Does it extend to hitting Ken and Bill and Mrs. Wagner with a hammer?”
“Oh no. I could never hurt anyone. Physically …” Her voice drifted away. Then she said, “You can come to my wedding.”
“Not even second best,” said Joe. “Oh well, that’s neither here nor there. I probably couldn’t stand your mother. I sure as hell wouldn’t support her.”
Alice nodded as if this were precisely the point she had been trying to make. “Right now I feel a hundred years old. All I can think about is peace and quiet.”
“No more wild oats?”
“No. I’ve finished.”
“And who was the most recent boy friend? I’m asking now officially.”
“It was nothing serious. Please don’t ask me his name. Because I won’t tell you.”
Joe reflected. “Let me look at your passport. If you got back after Sally Wagner died, I suppose it doesn’t make any great difference.”
Alice wordlessly left the room, returned a moment later with her passport. Joe checked the stamp at the port of entry: SAN FRANCISCO, AUGUST 1. “How come your mother hasn’t seen this date?”
“She never looked. She disapproved of the European trip — pretended that it never existed.”
“I’ll bet you a dollar she knows everything that’s in that passport.”
Alice shrugged listlessly. “I don’t care. I’m just tired of everything. Worry, poverty, being dutiful.”
“Don’t say I never advised you,” said Joe.
2
Joe went out to his car, head buzzing with thoughts. Impossible to suspect Alice of homicide. She was too sad, too beautiful, too sweet-natured. What did she have to gain? Furthermore, she was six thousand miles away at the time of the murders.
Suppose, thought Joe, just suppose, that Starr Shortridge was really mad about Bill Whipple, that she had been dissembling her love all these years. Suppose then that she heard about the Christmas party at Halfway House — was it conceivable that the news would have driven her into a state of insane rage?
A theory even less convincing than most of his others. But for want of anything better Joe drove his car up the Shortridge driveway, parked, rang the doorbell. To his relief Starr herself answered the ring; Joe was not up to facing Miriam Shortridge’s cool stare.
“Hello, Sheriff,” said Starr. She came out on the terrace.
“Hello, Miss Shortridge,” said Joe. “Tell me, did you commit three murders out of unrequited love for Bill Whipple?”
“No.”
“I didn’t expect you had. Do you know who did?”
“Not really.”
“Naturally you know Alice is home from Europe.”
Starr nodded. “Marsh has had her here to dinner — twice. She’s a patient girl. I wouldn’t marry Marsh for all the money in the world.”
Marsh drove up in his white Ford hardtop, alighted, paused to look at Joe. Then, nodding curtly, he came forward. “What’s new, Sheriff?”
“I’ve just been talking to Miss Benjamin and your sister, hoping for some fresh ideas.”
“It’s time fresh ideas were coming from somewhere.”
“I keep learning things,” said Joe. “I have the curious feeling that something obvious is lurking just out of sight; that if I turned my head quick I’d see it … I take it you haven’t thought of anything which might have a bearing on the case?”
“Not a thing.”
“I guess you’re getting pretty excited, wedding so close and all.”
Marsh opened his mouth, then closed it. If he said yes, he subscribed to Joe’s arch whimsy. If he said no, he became a churl. “It’s something everyone has to bear up under,” he said stiffly.
“Out of curiosity, are you turning Catholic?”
Again Marsh struggled to find words. Starr looked off up Spanish Hill, face grave and impassive.
“I was brought up to Episcopalian doctrine,” said Marsh. “Alice’s church asked me to take instruction and I had no profound objection; essentially the teachings are similar.”
“The Catholics use more incense,” said Starr.
Marsh deigned no reply.
“Where does the wedding take place?” asked Joe. “I might even come.”
“It’s to be a private affair,” said Marsh. “It will take place here at the house.”
“Oh? Not in the Catholic church? I thought that was the accepted thing.”
“We’ve decided upon a civil ceremony,” said Marsh tersely.
Starr amplified the remark. “Marsh was married once before, to a musician. And divorced, of course. It won’t be bigamy.”
“What’s your opinion,” asked Joe, “on divorce and contraception and affairs like that?”
“I hold conservative views,” said Marsh. “I really don’t care to discuss the subject.”
“Sorry,” said Joe. “I understand that you and Bill Whipple had a big fight a week or so before his death.”
Marsh glared at Starr, who returned an expression of limpid innocence. Marsh looked away, mouth turned savagely down at the corners. “It wasn’t a week before,” he muttered. “It was two days before. He’d been bothering Starr. He thought to attack her through me and made some vile accusations.”
“Against whom?”
“That’s quite irrelevant.”
“In a murder case nothing is irrelevant.”
Marsh paid no heed. “There was no ‘big fight’, as you put it. I merely told him off. He’d always had a very strange attitude toward Starr and myself, some sort of emotional instability: ambivalence, I think it’s called.”
“That’s no reason to kill him.”
Marsh stuttered with indignation. “Are you suggesting that I killed him?”
“Somebody did.”
Marsh turned on his heel, strode into the house. Joe gave a rueful shake of his head and departed.
3
Back at headquarters, Joe immured himself in his office and tried to think.
If the motive for the killings derived from Mrs. Bazzarini’s money, then Caspar Hubman and/or Laura Hubman were the prime suspects. If the murders stemmed from the Christmas party at Halfway House, then the people most obviously, if remotely, motivated included Marsh, Alice’s parents and Helen Ferguson’s parents. The Fergusons, not resident on Madrone Way, could be dismissed. Grace Benjamin had been too pregnant to get into Ken’s uniform, let alone wheel Bill Whipple in a wheelbarrow, or climb the fence intervening between her house and Sally Wagner’s. Guy Benjamin was in India.
Joe sat up in his chair. He reached for his telephone, called the Benjamin house.
Mrs. Benjamin responded. In the background could be heard the whimpering of the baby.
“Sheriff Joe Bain here, Mrs. Benjamin. Whom does your husband work for?”
“An engineering company which is building a dam in India.”
“Which company?”
“The Amonette Construction Company, 29 King James Parade, Darjeeling, India.”
“Where is the home office of the company?”
“In San Francisco.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Benjamin.”
Joe telephoned the Amonette Construction Company in San Francisco and was connected to the personnel department. “This is Joe Bain, Sheriff of San Rodrigo County. I want some information regarding one of your employees.”
“Very sorry, sir. We don’t give out information regarding our people over the telephone.”
“All I want is his address.”
“Sorry, sir. You can write him in care of this office.”
“Confound it, I’m Sheriff of San Rodrigo County, a law-enforcement officer. Call me back if you don’t believe me.”
“It’s firm company policy, sir. I can’t do anything about it. If you’ll bring your credentials to the office or submit your question by registered mail on official stationery, we’ll help you as much as we can.”
Joe hung up, sat seething on the edge of his chair. A minute passed. He jumped to his feet, spoke briefly to Ace Wardell and Miss Curdy, then, cursing and muttering, started north for San Francisco.
4
The headquarters of the Amonette Construction Company occupied the eleventh floor of the Golden State Building on Montgomery Street. Joe walked along a corridor separated by glass panels from an enormous drafting room, entered through a door bearing the inscription PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT. A brisk young man in a white shirt and bow tie came to the counter. “Yes, sir?”
Joe opened his wallet, displayed his badge. “I want to talk with the head of the department.”
“Mr. Trask, sir. Just a minute.”
Joe was ushered into an office twice as large as his own, decorated by photographs of jobs and crews. Trask rose to his feet, a man a foot taller than Joe with a great gaunt face, the mildest of brown eyes, a few sparse strands of hair.
Joe once more displayed his badge, which Trask inspected with amiable interest. “And what’s your problem?”
