Go home, stranger - By Charles Williams Page 0,4
an impression I heard somebody say something that sounded like ‘counsel,’ but it could be just imagination, because Mac was an attorney.”
“But nothing else?”.
“No. Not a thing. If I even heard that.”
Reno was silent for a moment. He was scared, and trying not to show it. There wasn’t anything here to go on except the thin lead of that girl, and the police hadn’t come up with her after ten days. He reached out and put a big, sunburned hand over one of hers, and as he did so he remembered the detective. He turned, and the man was watching them unwaveringly.
“What about those attorneys Carstairs arranged for you when he came down?” he asked. “Durand and Gage, isn’t it? What are they doing?”
“Being obscenely cheerful, most of the time, just like doctors. Pete, thank God you woolly-eared construction stiffs don’t have to take a course in Bubbling Optimism when you’re going to school.”
“We’ll find out who did it; Vick.”
“Is this your bedside manner?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s a hunch. There’s something about this Conway thing that smells. If I can’t tout the police onto him, I’m going to buy a piece of him myself. I want to have a nice, long talk with Mr. Conway.”
She gestured hopelessly. “But, Pete, Mac used to be in the FBI. And if he couldn’t find him—”
“Uh-uh,” Reno said. “I think that’s where everybody’s missed the boat.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mac did: But he got in front of him.”
Two
It had sounded brave and convincing enough there at the jail while he was trying to give her something to cling to, but where did he go from here? Suppose it was Conway? And suppose Mac had found him? Everything he had learned was gone now, into the grave with Mac himself.
He had come back to the hotel, knowing he had to get some sleep before long or collapse, but it hadn’t been any good. Every time his eyes closed he started seeing black headlines that screamed, “Actress Found Guilty in Slaying.” He stopped his pacing up and down the room and wearily ground another cigarette into the tray.
He reached for the telephone again. Two previous attempts had been fruitless. Carstairs was in court, the girl had said.
He jiggled the hook. “Operator, will you try that call to San Francisco again? Person-to-person to Carstairs of Carstairs and McHugh. . . . Oh. Good. Yes, I’ll hold on.”
This time his luck was better. In a moment he heard the familiar voice on the other end. He and Carstairs and Mac had all gone to college together. “Hello, Dick?” he said. “This is Pete Reno, in Waynesport.”
’Oh, Pete. I was just about to call you,” Carstairs replied. “Has anything new turned up?” Carstairs had flown to Waynesport when it happened. He had arranged for attorneys for Vickie and had taken Mac’s body back to San Francisco for burial after the inquest.
“No,” Reno said. “Maybe they figure they’ve got it made. They’ve got her.”
“Pete, we’ve known each other too long for me to try to kid you. They’ve got a case. A hell of a case. A D.A.’s dream.”
“Except that she didn’t do it.”
“Check. But that’s because we know her. They don’t. All they’ve got is the only thing they’re supposed to pay any attention to, and that’s the evidence. Motive, for one thing. And she was there in the room with him, and can’t prove anybody else was.
“I know they’ve got a case. If they didn’t, I’d get some sleep. But I called about something else.”
“What?”
“Conway. We find him, we’ve got the guy who killed Mac.”
“You’ve been going to movies.”
“No,” Reno said. “Listen. Conway didn’t need looking for because he didn’t know the way home. Any filling station would give him a road map. So maybe he didn’t want to be found. And suppose Mac was getting too warm.”
“But, dammit, Pete, Conway wasn’t a gangster.”
“Well, what was he?”
“Frankly, you’ve got me there. I never met him. But I know his wife, and she’s no gun moll. Very wealthy, in a quiet sort of way, cultured, old California family—that sort of thing.”
“I’m not talking about Conway’s wife. Maybe she was Joan of Arc, or Little Bo Peep. I’m talking about Conway himself. What do you know about him?”
“Well,” Carstairs said hesitantly, “not too much. They’d been married only a few months, I understand. He was her second husband.”
“All right. But just why was Mac looking for him?”
“Because she was paying us.”
“I thought you guys were running a law office.