Dead on the Level (6 page)

“If the whole town is talking, which is certainly news to me, then it’s talking sheer nonsense! I know the Brunner family intimately—”

“And you don’t know that they’ve separated?”

“Separated? Definitely not!”

Gorden was getting his poise back. He even flashed a brief smile. “It’s true that Mr. Brunner took an apartment here in the city a few months ago,” he added, “but he did so on the advice of his physician. The long drives to and from his country residence were taking quite a bit out of him. That’s what I meant when I said that Miss Brunner worried about her father.”

To anyone but Casey Morrow, Gorden’s words might have been convincing. But Casey possessed an indistinct memory of a proposal of marriage and a very distinct five thousand dollars that suggested considerably more than mere concern over the state of Darius Brunner’s health. “And when Miss Brunner did all this worrying,” he prodded, “did she always head for the nearest bar?”

“I told you that she was high-strung!”

“And lonesome?”

Gorden’s poise was short-lived. There was a peculiar whiteness about his mouth, and he had trouble getting his voice under control. “I’m not sure what filthy angle you’re working on,” he choked, “but it’s certainly not in good taste.”

“Neither is murder.”

“That’s just what I mean. If you’ve no consideration for my fiancée’s reputation, and apparently you have none, then you might at least give some thought to the feelings of her mother. This tragedy has upset Mrs. Brunner enough without having her daughter’s somewhat erratic conduct distorted for the reading pleasure of the moronic element you so obviously serve.”

“I sure hate to upset Mrs. Brunner,” Casey retorted, “but if her darling daughter bounced a poker off papa’s head, even the morons have a right to know.”

“Phyllis?” For a moment Gorden seemed to grow taller, and he didn’t need the growth. He stared at Casey in unbelief, then slumped down on the small secretarial chair and sat there with his downcast eyes glued to his own haggard reflection in the glass top of the desk. “My God!” he whispered hoarsely.

“You hadn’t thought of that?”

“No, of course not!”

“Maybe you should consult those morons you were complaining about. They probably had it figured out hours ago.”

“Phyllis adored her father!”

“But he’s dead, and she’s missing.”

Gorden’s head came up slowly, and he stared at Casey in a deliberate and calculating way. “Your work must keep you busy,” he remarked dryly. “What paper did you say you represented?”

“Godey’s Lady’s Book,” Casey said.

“Really?” Gorden was beginning to add things up now, and he seemed to be good at mathematics. “Why don’t you take your theories to the police?” he suggested. “They might be interested; in fact, they might have news for you. Would you care to know where I’ve been for the past hour?”

A warning bell sounded in Casey’s subconscious, and he began to back away from the desk. Gorden’s eyes were much too intense.

“I’ve been over in an alleyway near the river, identifying Miss Brunner’s car. Whoever abandoned it there tried to destroy the evidence by setting fire to the upholstery, but a passer-by saw the smoke and turned in an alarm. It’s peculiar about that upholstery. One side of the seat was bloodstained, but it wasn’t the driver’s side.”

An alleyway near the river. That could be any number of places, but to Casey it meant somewhere between the Cloud Room and an old studio building on Erie Street. He had to force himself to ask the question.

“And Miss Brunner?”

“Her handbag was found about half a block away. Nothing else—yet.”

Gorden was coming to his feet again, his left hand easing toward the desk telephone. “Now about that man she met at the hotel bar—”

He never completed either the sentence or the maneuver for the phone. He was practically leaning into the fist Casey shot forward. After it landed, he wasn’t a bit talkative.

And then Casey was running. He was getting down the hall, into the elevator, and out of the building fast, before the blonde came back from lunch and found her hero with his handsome face in her ash tray. He was running, too, from a horde of shadows with faces like a leering bellboy. If Phyllis Brunner was dead— He couldn’t allow his mind to think such things. She couldn’t be dead. Maggie had to be right!

It was easy, once he hit the street, to get lost in the fast-stepping crowd. He turned left automatically. A few blocks up the line, he grabbed a bus that was just turning to make the loop and then head north again. And all the way back to Erie Street he kept telling himself that Phyllis Brunner couldn’t be dead.

Maggie hadn’t returned when Casey got there. He let himself in with the key she had given him, wondering how she had made out at the City Hall. Not that there was much to wonder about. If there had been anything at all to that hunch of hers, the odds were all against a local marriage. Phyllis Brunner wouldn’t have chanced a three-day wait even if she’d been able to get a license. Not with the Indiana line so near. Besides, it still seemed like a crazy dream.

It was almost dark in the studio. Dusk came early on rainy days, and the leaden twilight filtering down from overhead made only an eerie patch below. Casey closed the door behind him and waited for his eyes to get used to the darkness. Only an eerie patch, and the light was falling directly on the face in Maggie’s portrait of Phyllis Brunner. That was the way he remembered her, in a dim, blue-edged light with her eyes like purple smoke.

What’s happened to you, Casey Morrow? What kind of black magic could the girl possess to have blasted your life this way? Could it be only twenty-four hours since you first saw that face? It seems an age, a long, dark age
.

And then Casey stopped talking to himself. Even in that leaden light he could see that the portrait had moved and was coming toward him.

PHYLLIS BRUNNER WAS very much alive. She came forward hesitantly, uncertain of who had entered the studio, and then Casey snapped on the lights. It was the first time he could remember seeing her in a bright light. Her face was very pale, and the mink coat resembled a drowned rat, but she was still beautiful. She stopped about two feet away from him and waited for the words he couldn’t find.

“I—I was waiting for Maggie,” she began at last. “I used to live here.”

“I know,” Casey said.

“I still have a key. I guess the same key must fit all the doors.”

There was no logic in her standing there holding up an irrelevant door key in one hand—just as if it meant anything. Just as if this small talk meant anything at all. Casey wanted to grab her by the shoulders and give her a good shaking until she started making sense. But her eyes were strange and fearful, and he couldn’t seem to lift the weight of his own arms.

“I wanted to find you again,” she added.

“I’ll bet you did!”

“I did, really. I wanted to explain why I brought you here last night. Why else do you think I came back?”

“I don’t know,” Casey admitted, “and I’m afraid to guess. You might have another job for me.”

The last bit of color drained out of her face, and her hands formed small, tight fists. “What do you mean?” she demanded. “What are you insinuating?”

“What I’m insinuating is something you should know a lot more about than I do,” Casey replied quietly. “Frankly, my memory isn’t too good. All I know for certain is that you came up to my booth in the Cloud Room yesterday and started talking up some mysterious job you had for me. This morning your father’s found with his head bashed in, and I wake up with a bloody coat sleeve and five thousand dollars. What do you expect me to insinuate?”

That was giving it to her straight and it hurt. Either Phyllis Brunner was really as shocked as she looked, or she was the greatest actress in the world. She swayed a little, but Casey let her right herself without any help from him. She was an awful liar. Those were Maggie’s very words, and Casey wasn’t a trusting soul.

“Oh, no—” she finally gasped out. “It wasn’t what you’re thinking. I didn’t hire you to kill my father!”

He could almost believe her, but that could be because he wanted so badly to believe. “Who said you did?” he countered. “All you needed was a fall guy to take the blame when things got rough. How did you happen to lose your nerve? Why didn’t you go ahead and scream for the cops? Did you think anybody would doubt your sad story?”

Casey hauled the roll of bills out of his pocket and weighed it in his hands. “Motive and everything,” he added. “And a man without a memory can’t fight back.”

It was a desperate, defensive kind of cry she made. “You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?”

“I may have missed a few details.”

“You’ve got it all figured out!”

There was something proud about Phyllis Brunner, even in dripping mink. She didn’t seem to be the kind of girl who would cry easily, and she didn’t come right out with her tears now. She didn’t make a sound, but her shoulders were shaking as she turned aside.

“Of course,” Casey said, “if you have another version—”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!”

“For the love of God, what do you expect me to think?”

He hadn’t meant to cry out that way. He hadn’t meant to betray the fact that he could have any doubts at all, and he didn’t want any doubts. All day he had been telling himself what kind of a girl Phyllis Brunner was, and that’s how he wanted things to remain. But all the time, he knew that he was lying. He knew it even more now that she was turning toward him again, staring at him in a puzzled, searching sort of way. Her eyes seemed larger with tears in them, and she looked very small and very frightened.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been nearly frantic all day. I guess I just didn’t stop to consider what you must have been thinking. If you’ll only listen—”

Casey listened, but not just then. For the next few minutes he was too busy scooping Phyllis Brunner up from where she’d collapsed on the floor.

“She fainted,” Casey was saying. “She just stood there talking to me and fainted. She’s awfully cold and wet.”

“I can see that,” Maggie announced tersely. “Stop acting like a helpless male and go away somewhere while I get her out of these wet clothes. Go make some coffee—if you know how.”

Casey retreated to the kitchen and began to make a lot of noise with a coffeepot and a can. Seeing a girl cry was bad enough; seeing her collapse was worse. Nobody had ever been more welcome any place than Maggie had been when she burst into the studio with an amazed expression and a pair of hands that hadn’t turned to thumbs. At first she had glared at him accusingly, as if he’d knocked the girl down—or something worse—but that wasn’t what made Casey’s hands shake so as he measured out the coffee. What was behind that would take a lot of analyzing, and he was working on it when Maggie called him back from the kitchen.

“She’s alive,” Maggie said, “and talking.”

“Casey—”

That was the first he realized that Phyllis knew his name. She must know a lot of other things about him that he couldn’t remember having told, but they weren’t important now. He walked over to the couch where she sat adorned in an army blanket, and not much else, and sat down.

“All right,” he said. “I’m listening.”

“It wasn’t the way you said.”

“How was it?”

“It was—terrible!” She pulled the blanket higher about her shoulders, but it was more than the atmosphere that had set her trembling. “It was late when we reached my father’s apartment,” she went on. “I don’t know just how late, eleven or so. You were awfully drunk, but I managed to get you out of the car and up to the apartment—there’s an automatic elevator. I saw the light in Dad’s study and decided to take you in to meet him.”

“That’s a new angle,” Casey said. “Your father must have been broad-minded.”

Phyllis didn’t seem to hear him. Her face was very intense.

“We were clear into the room before I saw what had happened. I couldn’t cry out or even move for a minute, but you stumbled over the poker on the floor and picked it up. That’s how you got the blood on your coat.”

“Picked it up!” Casey repeated. “That really makes things fine! Now I’ve got my fingerprints all over that poker.”

“I guess so. I never thought to wipe it off.”

He glanced toward Maggie.
How do you know when she’s lying
, his eyes were asking.
How do you know what to believe?
But Maggie, if she had an opinion, was keeping it to herself.

“When I finally realized what had happened,” Phyllis continued, “I got scared. The building was terribly quiet and then I heard the elevator coming back up again. It didn’t stop at our floor, but the very sound of it was enough to make me want to run. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have stayed and called the police, but I was panic-stricken. I was especially afraid for you, Casey. I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Now that’s what I call being thoughtful,” Maggie said.

“I mean it!” Phyllis insisted. “It wasn’t easy, but I finally did get Casey downstairs and into my car. It had started to rain in the meantime, and I must have driven around in the rain for hours before I thought of taking him here. This was the only place I could think of.”

“And then where did you go?” Maggie asked.

“I started to go home—to Mother’s, but I couldn’t.”

“And why not?”

“I don’t know. I just couldn’t.”

“If she beats you,” Casey remarked, “she has my deepest admiration.”

The taffy-colored head came up quickly, and he caught a faceful of blazing eyes. “You don’t believe me!” she cried. “You don’t want to believe me! You’ve got your mind made up and that’s how it’s going to be no matter what I say. But why should I kill my father, or have you kill him? He was the only person I ever really loved!”

Phyllis Brunner brought her knees up against her chin and sat with her face buried in the folds of the blanket. She wasn’t crying again; she was just being very quiet for a few moments that neither Casey nor Maggie dared disturb. And then she raised her head and began to examine Casey’s face in the same calculating manner she had done an afternoon earlier in the Cloud Room.