Part 6

But what about Freeman? Freeman was in love and he had already demonstrated his jealousy and his hate for Sam Adler the previous evening. Freeman had been brooding when he had seen him in the tavern in the late afternoon. Such jealousy and resentment could have exploded into violence and murder, not premeditated perhaps, but murder nonetheless. From his point of vantage in the motel Freeman could keep track of Adler. So where was he between eight and nine o’clock? If he had an alibi none had been mentioned. And Doris Lamar?

He remembered that he had not seen her when he had ordered the double brandy to steady his nerves. She might, he knew, have been in the kitchen during those brief minutes. But if not, where exactly was she and what had she been doing? Suppose she had sneaked over to the motel to see Adler, and Freeman had known this? There had been this momentary glimpse of some woman in the darkened courtyard. Until now he had considered her shadowy presence something of a possible threat to him, but he understood that it might be the other way round.

Such thoughts continued to plague him as the afternoon wore on, and by four o’clock he knew what he wanted to do. In his present frame of mind he was of no use to the company, and it seemed imperative that he talk to the woman and find out where she had been and how much she knew. It did not occur to him just how he could accomplish all this, but he was aware that she did not go to work until five. When he realized he had time to catch her at her cottage he made up his mind.

He had been there but once, on that rainy night when he offered her a ride, but he had seen the place before, a small three-room-and-bath cottage which stood back of a large, ornate, and run-down mansion that had long been for sale. It had been unoccupied for many months and he saw the signs of decay as he rolled along the driveway and took the fork at the end. He parked under the trees and saw the light in the cottage living room as he climbed two wooden steps to the tiny porch.

There may have been a moment as she opened the door when Doris Lamar’s green eyes showed surprise, but experience with men had taught her many things and the reaction was swiftly controlled. She was wearing a figured kimono and her face had a naked look without its make-up. But if she was disconcerted it did not show and her voice was casual and matter-of-fact.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Hayden.”

“Hello, Doris,” he said. “I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

“Well”--she hesitated, pursed her lips, and shrugged indifferently--“I was getting dressed. I have to be at work at five.”

“It’s important, Doris. It shouldn’t take too long.”

“All right.” She turned away and let him enter and close the door. “I can finish my fingernails while you’re talking. Take off your coat if you want to. Throw it over there on the couch.”

He slipped off his coat, put it on the couch, and placed his hat on top of it. When he sat down the springs sagged protestingly under his weight and a glance about the squarish room told him that Doris had probably rented it as it stood.

The furniture had neither style nor quality. The carpet had been worn down to the nap in places, the occasional tables needed refinishing, and the slipcovers on two of the chairs were threadbare at the arms; a third chair was a wicker affair with a padded seat. From where he sat he could look into the bedroom and he could also see a corner of the kitchen with its old-fashioned sink and a stove that stood high on spindly metal legs.

The light that he had seen from outside came from a wooden floor lamp with a parchment shade. A circular shelf, which clung to the pedestal like a doughnut, served as a table of sorts and on it was a bottle of nail-polish remover, some cotton, tissues, and a bottle of dark red polish. Doris had pulled her chair close and her head was bent now as she daintily decorated the nails of her left hand.

“When you knocked,” she said, “I was afraid it would be another cop or a reporter.”

“Did the police question you?”

“Hah!” she said. “For three hours last night. Then they practically got me out of bed this morning and we had another two-hour session.”

“Have you seen George Freeman?”

“They were bringing him into Lieutenant Garvey’s office at the State Police barracks when I left this morning.”

“You haven’t seen him since?”

“No.”

“What about last night?”

“I saw him when you did. When he had those dark glasses on and was sulking at the bar.”

“You didn’t see him after he left?”

“No ... Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“That’s part of it, Doris. Freeman was in love with you, wasn’t he?”

“I guess he thought he was.”

“I understand that jealousy makes a good motive for murder. If he thought Adler was cutting him out”--he hesitated and decided to guess--“if he thought you were going away with him, for instance, he could have gone to Adler’s room and--”

“I doubt it,” she said flatly. “I doubt if George would have guts enough to kill anyone.”

“How much guts does it take to stab a man in the back?”

She considered the question before she said: “I see what you mean. But I don’t believe it.”

Hayden rose and reached for a cigarette. He went over to offer the woman one and waited while she put the little brush back into the nail-polish bottle. She blew on the fingers of the hand she had just painted and took the cigarette with the other. When she leaned forward to accept a light he could see the dark roots in the blond hair. The front of the kimono had opened slightly and he saw that she had a slip on underneath but no stockings.

“It’s Adler that worries me,” he said and decided to demonstrate what he meant. He had no intention of telling her the truth but he needed all the help he could get and he was prepared to confide in her up to a point in order to see what sort of reaction he could get. “The police came to see us last night too.”

“You mean you and your wife? But why?”

“I thought you might know. Adler came into town a couple of days ago and asked a lot of questions about me. The police found it out and they wanted to know why he was so interested. I told them I never saw the man but I can’t seem to get the idea across.”

He had been moving idly about the room as he spoke, and now, stopping at the bedroom door, he glanced in and saw the two suitcases which stood against the wall beyond the double bed. For some reason they seemed strangely out of place, and because he found himself wondering if they had any particular significance he spoke of them now.

“Were you going somewhere, Doris?”

He was aware that she was looking at him. And she must have known what had prompted the question because there was no suggestion of reluctance in her reply.

“I may have been.”

“With Adler?”

“Does it make any difference?” she said, still watching him. “I’m not going now and that’s for sure.”

He came back and sat down on the couch. The green eyes were regarding him openly, but he could not tell whether the small gleam he saw in them came from speculation or amusement.

“Are you surprised?” she said. “I mean that Sam Adler could make a proposition I would accept? If you are, don’t be. Let me give you the case history of Doris Lamar in capsule form.”

She leaned back in her chair and crossed her knees. When she saw the exposed length of calf and thigh she flipped the kimono expertly to cover them. She sucked smoke into her lungs, blew it out, and watched it evaporate above her. Without make-up her face seemed younger somehow, but the lines of weariness remained at the corners of her mouth even though it twisted now into a half-smile.

“The name is really Doris Lasowitz and I grew up, if you could call it that, in a small town in West Virginia. Seven kids. A hard-working, worn-out mother, a father who never seemed able to earn quite enough money to take care of his own thirst and the food we needed. I was in my last year of high school when I got a chance to get out and I took it. I ran away with a boy who was three years older than I was. We got married.”

She made a small, throaty sound in deprecation of the mental picture she had drawn and her mouth twisted.

“Some marriage. It lasted a year. At seventeen I was a bride and at eighteen-and-a-half I was a pregnant widow. My husband was killed by a cop in Pennsylvania when he tried to hold up a liquor store, and I suppose I got a break in a way because I wasn’t with him. If I had been sitting in the car just then I probably would have done a few years in the penitentiary.”

She put out her cigarette and continued in the same sardonic tone. “I tried marriage again at twenty-three, this time to a musician of all people. This one lasted three years, and while I got the divorce, the reason we couldn’t work it out was probably more my fault than his. You see there were a lot of things wrong with Doris Lamar. I guess I never learned that in order to get anything worthwhile you have to give out. No one had bothered to teach me the fundamentals. I was lazy, selfish, greedy, and always looking for the easy way. When I discovered there wasn’t any easy way there was nothing to do but keep working. I didn’t have enough education to be much of a success in an office, so what was I? Waitress, barmaid, shill, hostess. You name it, Mr. Hayden.

“I’ll be thirty-one my next birthday. I have a twelve-year-old son who’s been living with foster parents in upstate New York for a long time. No charity, you understand. I’ve been sending a monthly check and that’s another reason why I never seem to get a stake. But this winter I did some thinking because, except for George, there wasn’t much else to do in a place like this. I started going to school in Bridgeport four mornings a week. English and typing. That was the extent of my ambition, and those bus trips were a real drag. I dropped out a month or so ago when I saw how George felt about me and guessed what he had in mind.”

“What about Adler?” He paused and watched the half-smile fade. “You weren’t in love with him, were you?”

“No.”

“Then there must have been some money involved.”

“There was.”

“How much?” he said, still probing.

“He said he had a deal on that would bring him a minimum of ten thousand dollars and probably twenty. When he collected he was going to take off for Florida and he wanted me to go with him.” She stopped, glanced at her wrist watch, and then jumped to her feet. “I’ve got to dress,” she said. “You can talk from the doorway if you want to.”

She went into the bedroom and he sat for a minute or two, seeing her toss the kimono onto the bed as she stepped out of sight. He could hear a closet door open and the clatter of metal coat hangers. When she reappeared again she had on a simple black dress, which was her costume at Jerry’s Tavern, and now she sat down on the edge of the bed and drew on her stockings. There was no hint of self-consciousness in the act and her movements were swift and practiced. When she stood again and shook her dress down he started toward the doorway. She was sitting on a bench and facing a rickety-looking vanity as he leaned against the doorframe. She began to work on her face and he said:

“Did Adler say where he was going to get this money?”

“No, but--I’m only guessing about this--I got the idea that maybe you had something to do with it.”

“You would have gone with him?”

“I think so. I’ve known a lot of men like Sam Adler. I could have handled him all right. Maybe to someone like you this doesn’t make much sense. Maybe you think I should have stayed here and married George Freeman, and maybe you’re right. The way things turned out I’m sure you’re right, but I saw this chance to get my hand on some money and maybe a new start in Florida. Adler didn’t talk me into anything; I talked myself into it. George is forty years old but he acts like a kid about a lot of things--”

“You could probably change that.”

She looked up at him then and the lipstick she had been working with remained poised in mid-air. “Do you really think so?”

Hayden said he did, then added: “Adler asked you a lot of questions about me, didn’t he?”

“Well, a few anyway.”

“He asked you if you knew me, and where I lived, and what I was doing, and how was I making out.”

“That’s right.”

“He gave you the idea that he expected to make some deal with me but he didn’t tell you what it was.”

“No.”

“Did he mention my wife?”

“I don’t think so.”

As he considered her reply he had an idea that he had learned all he was going to learn about this particular subject, so he mentioned the other thing that had been bothering him.

“You weren’t at Jerry’s when I went in there for a drink around a quarter of nine, were you?”

“No.”

“Where were you?”

“I’ve told the police a half a dozen times, so I might as well tell you,” she said dryly. “I had a splitting headache. I get them every so often and I have some prescription pills a doctor gave me. Last night I forgot them and I stood it as long as I could, and then I asked Jerry if I could come over here and get them. He said sure and I came. I was gone maybe twenty-five minutes or so.”

She stood up as she finished, collected the soiled tissues, and dropped them into the wastebasket. She examined herself in the mirror and gave a final pat to her blond hair and then, as though all this had been nothing more than a polite social conversation, she changed the subject.

“Could you give me a lift to the tavern, please? I’d rather be a few minutes early than walk.”

This told Hayden that he had gone about as far as he could. He said he would be glad to give her a ride, and not until they were in the car and he had started the motor did he make his final proposition. He did not believe he had heard all the truth. This was a woman who had learned a lot about life and was experienced in its ways. She had learned to be devious as a matter of self-protection, but she could not be expected to involve herself in unrewarding situations, particularly when they might involve her personally. On the other hand she had proved that she could be tempted by money, and it was with this thought in mind that he made his proposition.

“Sam Adler made you a proposition which you accepted because you thought it was going to pay off. Now I’ll make one. I think you know more about this murder than you’ll admit--”

“Now, wait a minute,” she said, resentment showing for the first time in her voice.

“Hear me out,” Hayden said. “If you’ve told all you know I can’t very well make a proposition, but if you can help me find out who killed Adler I’d be willing to pay you for your help.”

“You mean some kind of a deal just between you and me?”

“Yes.”

“Like a reward?”

“Something like that.”

“Have you got any special figure in mind?”

“I was thinking of something between one and five thousand dollars, depending on how much good your help does. You could keep it in mind.”

“I will. I can tell you now I don’t know who killed Sam, but if I think of anything that seems important I’ll let you know.”

Hayden wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to know who killed Adler. All she had to do was come up with something that would clear Marion and, if possible, himself. Since he could not put such thoughts into words he simply told her to keep thinking.

_10_

Driving home after dropping Doris Lamar at the tavern, John Hayden reviewed what had been said and what he had accomplished. The results, as he saw them, were discouraging.

The admission that Adler had come here to collect a large sum of money and that she might have been willing to leave town with him in the hope of getting some of that money only confirmed what he already knew. He did not think she was telling the whole truth and he had wanted to put more pressure on her, to speak of the woman he had seen in the darkened quadrangle and to accuse her of being that woman. Yet, even as the thought had come to him, he knew that he could not carry out the threat because to do so would be to admit that he had also been there at the time.

The thought continued to disturb him, and when he turned his car into the driveway and saw the three cars parked in front of the house he found a new source of concern. For the plain black sedan with its buggy-whip antenna told him this was probably an unmarked police car. The convertible, he knew, belonged to Roger Denham. The third car, a two-toned sedan, was not familiar and he wondered about it as he walked through the breezeway and kitchen to the living room.

His first impression was that the room was crowded, and his glance moved to his wife, who was sitting in her accustomed chair at one side of the fireplace. He saw at once that the high-cheekboned face was composed but the hazel eyes were veiled and he could not read them as he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. He was aware that the five men in the room had come to their feet, and when he understood that Marion did not seem unduly disturbed, he turned to face them, his resentment mounting. He was about to give voice to it when Roger Denham spoke up to interrupt him.

“John--this is Fred Erickson, the State’s Attorney.” He indicated the stocky, square-faced man in his middle forties who had a crew-cut and dark-rimmed glasses. “And Paul Simpson.” He nodded to a younger man who had been sitting off to one side, a slender, black-haired fellow who was casually clad in flannel slacks and a checked sport jacket that was a little on the loud side. “Mr. Simpson is with the Allied Insurance Company.”

Hayden made no attempt to shake hands nor did the others. He looked at Denham with his conservative but expensive-looking business suit, at the lean, competent figure of Lieutenant Garvey, at the round, impassive, and steady-eyed face of County Detective Ball.

“Well,” he said, with no trace of cordiality, “since you’re here you might as well sit down. I don’t know what you have in mind, but it seems to me that instead of coming here and ganging up on my wife you could have waited--”

Marion cut in before he could finish. “That’s not the way it happened, darling,” she said. “When I talked to you this noon you said you’d be home early. Roger called and said these men would like to talk to us and I told him it would be all right. I thought you’d be here before they came.”

“We thought it would be more convenient for both of you,” Erickson added, “to talk here instead of in my office.”

The simple explanation should have mollified Hayden but his initial annoyance remained and his voice was still curt.

“Okay, so what do you want from us?”

Before Erickson could reply, Simpson spoke up. “I’m here on my own, Mr. Hayden. If you don’t mind my waiting I’d like to talk to you a few minutes when these gentlemen have finished.”

Hayden made no reply. He was still watching the State’s Attorney, who studied him for a silent moment before he said: “We’ve had some information that leads us to believe that Mrs. Hayden’s first husband may still be alive.”

_So that’s how it is_, Hayden thought bitterly.

He was not yet prepared to grapple with the problem, and the top of his mind suggested an answer and he grabbed it. Aside from Adler only he, Marion, and Denham knew of Adler’s contention that Ted Corbin was still alive. He was positive that Marion would never speak of this knowledge to anyone. That left Denham, and in the momentary silence that followed the State’s Attorney’s remark, his sudden dislike for the lawyer was a corrosive force that influenced his thinking. Little things that had bothered him before, over the past year or so, came quickly to mind and he tabulated them swiftly.

Denham, it seemed, had never liked him. Denham, with his top social background and inherited money and his fine education. The bespectacled eyes that met his seemed calm and unconcerned, and he was reminded again of Denham’s ascetic looks and manner of living, his abstinence, the credo of physical fitness, with strenuous squash in the winter and even more strenuous tennis in the summer.

In fairness, he had to admit that Denham was no pantywaist. He had proved that in Korea when he was a member of a Ranger unit. He had been decorated for bravery because of something he had done while leading a night patrol, and this was something Hayden could not minimize even now. But Denham had been a suitor of sorts, an unsuccessful one where Marion was concerned. He had not liked Ted Corbin; he did not like John Hayden, and this was his way of paying them back and....

He heard the State’s Attorney clear his throat, and as he shifted his gaze and saw what the man had in his hand he could only stare while a feeling of shame came over him and he understood how unfair he had been in his thoughts of Denham. For he saw now that Erickson had a small photograph in his hand. Even from where he sat, and without moving closer, he seemed to understand that this was a copy of the one he now had in his pocket. Denham had not given the show away, but he still could not imagine how Erickson could have got such a picture, and he sat silently until the explanation came.

“Lieutenant Garvey got Adler’s address from a driving license,” he said. “He got in touch with the Mobile police--it was an Alabama license with a Mobile address--last night and they got right on it.”

He held the picture with extended fingers and Hayden understood that he was to take it. He did so; he looked at it. He glanced at Marion, but she was busy drawing an imaginary line on the arm of the chair with her index finger.

“Has my wife seen this?” he said, returning the picture.

“She says it’s a picture of her first husband.” Erickson slipped the photograph back into his pocket. “Adler was a small-time gambler and con man who followed the horses. He moved about a lot, but he kept this apartment in Mobile as his headquarters. The Mobile police had a file on him--nothing impressive--gambling, disorderly conduct, things like that. Naturally they searched his apartment and apparently they searched it well. They found this envelope. It had two negatives and two prints. They didn’t know what they meant but Garvey thought they might be important. The other photograph showed the fingerprints of a man’s right hand.”

He leaned back on the divan and said: “To save time the Mobile people put the two pictures in an envelope and gave it to a steward on a morning flight out of Mobile. They figured this would be quicker than using the mails. We sent a man down to Idlewild and he picked up the envelope. We don’t know about the fingerprints yet--they’re being checked in Washington and we’ll probably know by tomorrow--but it’s a reasonable assumption that those prints will belong to Mrs. Hayden’s first husband.”

“What did my wife say about the picture you just showed me?” Hayden asked evenly.

“She says she doesn’t know when it was taken. She implies that it might have been done several years ago.”

Hayden’s immediate reply was a grunt that was audible, disparaging, and slightly contemptuous.

“Ted Corbin was killed in a plane crash more than two years ago,” he said. “There was no doubt about his death at the time and I don’t think there’s any doubt now. The fact that Mr. Simpson’s company paid off the insurance claim should be proof enough.”

“I’m aware of that,” Erickson said calmly, “but stranger things than that have happened. You understand I’m making no accusation, nor am I asking for a definite statement from you at this time. But I’d like to draw you a hypothetical picture that seems to me to have some merit.”

“Before you do,” Hayden said, “tell me a little about George Freeman. Freeman had a very good motive for murder--you must know about that--and he also had the opportunity. I suppose you questioned him?”

“Until two o’clock last night,” Ball said.

“And for three hours again this morning,” Garvey added.

“Does he have an alibi?”