Recipe for Homicide, page 14
An overhead light blazed on, and Gilmore saw Lieutenant Max Ritter facing him with a police positive in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Beyond Ritter, Dr. Coffee stood with one hand on the light switch.
“What the hell are you doing here?” the detective demanded.
“You take the words out of my mouth,” Gilmore replied.
“You’ve been holding out on us,” Ritter said. “You did know where Bayliss lived.”
“I just found out five minutes ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell us he’s been working at Barzac?”
“I only found that out ten minutes ago,” Gilmore said. “Do you mind if I sit down? My knees are still a little overcome by your cordial reception.”
“Put up your gun, Max,” Dr. Coffee said. “I don’t think you’ll need it right now.”
“I know it’s none of my business, Ritter,” Gilmore went on, “but how did you find out that Bayliss lived here?”
“We weren’t sure until you give us the friendly greeting when you come in,” Ritter said.
“But you did dig up the address, and that’s smart work. Isn’t Bayliss using a phony name?”
“He is. What’s this guy look like, anyhow?”
“He’s about my height, only thinner,” Gilmore said. “He’s got black, bushy hair and small, intense eyes very close together. I never noticed what color his eyes are, except they’re dark like his jowls.”
“Is he a Commie?”
“Possibly. I used to think he was at least a fellow traveler. He’s the dark, thin, earnest type—a little like you, Ritter, only smaller—and he used to be always fighting for some idealistic cause or other. Of course, since the matter of foreign policy has become part of the picture—”
“Is this him?” Ritter interrupted. He drew a celluloid identification badge from his pocket. It was one of the standard badges that Barzac employes wore to get past the plant guards.
Gilmore looked at the photograph on the badge, and at the name “Baynard George” underneath the photo.
“That’s Bayliss,” he said.
“Don’t you folks over at Barzac have any better security check than that—hiring a guy under a phony name without digging around a little?” the detective asked.
Gilmore explained that while the Personnel Department at Barzac was like a minor-league Gestapo when it came to investigating applicants for permanent employment, the same thoroughness was impossible for the temporary workers during the tomato season. From mid-July to mid-September, Barzac took on nearly three thousand extra hands, which was a seventyfive per cent increase over its regular payroll. Two entire plants of the Barzac cannery operated only during the tomato season, but they ran day and night for two months to take care of the ripening harvest. Naturally, with such a heavy demand for transient labor, the personnel people couldn’t be too particular.…
“I’d still like to know,” Gilmore concluded, “how you spotted Bayliss, under an assumed name, among nearly three thousand people.”
“It was Doc Coffee’s idea,” Ritter said.
“Max is too modest,” the pathologist said. “He did the work. All I did was wonder a little about that phone call Peggy Bayliss got from her ex-husband the day before she died. Max says it was a local call, but Bayliss tried to make his ex-wife think he was calling from Chicago. Why? Well, it seemed to me that the most likely possibility was that he was up to some monkey business pretty close at hand, where Peggy might come across him, and he didn’t want her to know he was in Northbank. The closest place, of course, would be the Barzac plant itself, so I suggested to Max that he run over there and see if there was anything he could pick up in the list of people hired during the last week.”
“There was three hundred and nineteen new people put on the payroll during the past week, all of ’em in tomatoes,” Max Ritter said. “But only eighty-two is men, so that simplifies things a little. Then I remember that Bayliss didn’t show up at the funeral this morning, and that gives me an idea of how to chop things down still more. I drop around at the royal palace to have a few words with one of your kingpins, this guy Remington, and he sends me to Captain Kavlik of the Guard Force. Kavlik goes over the absentee list with me and we find this badge that this guy Baynard George is supposed to pick up yesterday, only he don’t come to work for two days. Funny thing, but when a guy takes a phony name he usually tries to hang on to part of his old one, like he’s afraid to lose part of his soul. Sometimes he keeps his old initials, sometimes he just changes syllables around. So George Bayliss could be Baynard George easy enough. George comes on the payroll just six days ago, and he don’t come to work for two days—since Peggy Bayliss dies. So it all fits. I take this guy George’s badge, which gives me a photo, and I get his address from Kavlick. Then I pick up Doc Coffee and we come on out here. Now tell me how You got here?”
“I’d rather not reveal my source of information,” Gilmore said, “unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“It ain’t necessary,” Ritter grinned. “I can guess. But you better wash the lipstick off your cheek, anyhow. It makes a better impression when you’re trying to hide a lady’s name. It also might keep you from getting another black eye.”
“Max has finally decided to believe your booby-trap story,” Dr. Coffee said.
“Yeah,” the detective admitted. “Look what we found here.” He crossed the room and opened a closet door. The smell of camphor assailed Gilmore’s nostrils. Ritter shone his flashlight down on a small box on the closet floor. The box was packed with long, thin, yellow-brown cylinders. “Dynamite,” Ritter said. “There’s three more sticks in the dresser drawer, with fuses attached. There’s also some percussion caps in the drawer.”
“Does dynamite usually stink of camphor?” Gilmore asked.
“That’s something I got to find out,” Ritter said. “It’s a little off my beat.”
“I think the smell of camphor may prove to be a valuable piece of our puzzle,” Dr. Coffee said.
“Anyhow, the dynamite proves one thing. We find it in Bayliss’s closet and we find Froley’s prints on the car that Gilmore says had dynamite trimmings this morning: So the dynamite proves Bayliss and Froley know each other.”
“Are you sure Froley didn’t rent this room himself, just to store the dynamite?” Gilmore asked.
“The landlady recognizes the picture on Baynard George’s badge,” the detective replied. “She says he rents the room six days ago and pays two weeks in advance. She says she sees him come in today about noon with a package under his arm. He stays in his room all afternoon, beating on a portable typewriter he brings when he checks in. When the landlady goes out to do her shopping for supper, she hears the typewriter still going. When she comes back, it’s stopped. And I guess the bird has flown the coop for good, because when the Doc and I get here tonight, there’s no typewriter and no clothes. Just the Nobel candy-sticks in the closet, and the stuff in the dresser.”
“And Gilmore, coming to call at midnight.”
“And Gilmore,” Ritter echoed, “with lipstick on his cheek and a secret that wild horses can’t tear from his bosom. This Mrs. Froley must sure be in love with you to tip you off on her husband’s pal’s hideout.”
“I didn’t say Mrs. Froley gave me this address.”
“No, and I didn’t say I wasn’t going to book you as an accomplice after the fact.”
“What fact?” Gilmore asked sweetly.
Ritter nodded to Dr. Coffee. “The Doc is working on that,” he said. “I’ll let you know just what kind of homicide it is when we get around to it.”
“I was working on it before Dr. Coffee was,” Gilmore said. “Peggy Bayliss was all neatly signed out with a natural-causes death certificate. She would have been quietly buried if I hadn’t brought Dr. Coffee into the case.”
“I’ve pointed that out to Max,” the pathologist said.
“But I’m still working on you,” Ritter insisted.
“Why don’t you work on Froley?” Gilmore asked. “If you’re so sure that Bayliss and Froley are buddies and you’re looking for Bayliss, why don’t you put a tail on Froley?”
“I would,” Ritter said, “if I could spot him. Nobody sees him since the funeral. He don’t report for work today, and he ain’t home. I got a guy camped out in his yard since I find his prints on your car.”
“Ritter,” Gilmore said, “to spare your boys eye-strain and brain-fag, I’d better give you my itinerary for the next twelve hours—unless you’re going to put me in irons right now.”
“I guess I can put my hands on you when I want you,” Ritter said. Then he added, without smiling: “Unless somebody else lays hands on you first.”
XVIII
It was after midnight when Gilmore got back to Barbara Wall’s apartment house. He had thought of phoning from along the way, to make sure she was still up, but every drug store he passed was closed. Anyhow she had insisted he come back, no matter how late.
He must have set some sort of record for quick-change of moods tonight, he mused as he drove through the night-quiet streets. He’d been changing moods much as an imitator on the amateur hour changes hats. There had been three for Barbara alone, two for Frankie Froley (still subject to change), and then the surprise at finding Ritter and Dr. Coffee in Bayliss’s room. He managed to banish them all, like the smell of camphor that had long clung to his nostrils, as he savored the pleasant anticipation of his rendezvous with Barbara. It was a pity that the moment he had been longing for so long, consciously and subconsciously, should finally come in the midst of such a crowded night.
Barbara opened the door almost instantly. She was wearing a peacock-blue negligee that fit her like a bathing suit. A faint scent of musk shimmered in the doorway for a brief instant, then vanished, leaving an ominous chill. Her honey-gold hair hung down to her half-bare shoulders and the light behind her made a halo about her erect head. But if Barbara had let her hair down, she had her guard up. Her posture, as she stood with one hand on the doorknob, was rigid if not hostile. Her amber eyes were not unfriendly, but neither were they inviting. So Gilmore, instead of springing across the threshold with arms outstretched, stood motionless, his arms at his sides.
“Come in, Gil.” Her voice was impersonal, ice cold. “I’d almost given you up.”
She opened the door wider, and Gilmore understood why the temperature had dropped. Bart Remington was sitting at the other side of the room, a sweating glass in his hand. He had crossed his legs carefully so as not to spoil the knife creases in his expensive-looking dove-gray tropical worsted trousers, but somehow he did not seem quite his dapper self. His polka-dot bow tie was slightly askew, his sleek blond hair was not as sleek as usual, and he was generally ill at ease.
Gilmore came in and sat down.
“I’ve been phoning all over town tonight, Gilmore, trying to locate you,” Remington said. “I finally thought of calling Barbara. She told me you were coming by for a nightcap so I dropped in to intercept you. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Glad to see you,” Gilmore lied. “What’s up?”
“That police detective, Lieutenant Ritter, came to see me at dinnertime. He seems to think Peggy Bayliss’s ex-husband might be working at our plant. Sounds like a screwy idea, but I told him how he might go about tracing him.”
“Ritter told me he was trying to get a line on Bayliss,” Gilmore said. “Is that what you were trying to reach me about?”
Remington shook his head. “No, it’s something else. Have you been listening to the radio tonight?”
“Not to speak of,” Gilmore said.
“Gil’s been very busy,” Barbara added.
“Or have you by any chance spoken to Quirk tonight? Well, Quirk phoned me about you early this evening. I don’t know what you did to those reporters at the funeral this morning, but they’re after your scalp. At least the Tribune is. They’ve been trying to reach Evans, but the Old Man won’t accept any calls from anybody. He’s in a state.”
“You’ll have a drink, won’t you, Gil?” Barbara interrupted.
“The usual,” Gilmore said, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Why was he showing off in front of Remington, impressing him with the fact that Barbara would know his favorite tipple?
“Well, the Tribune man finally got hold of Quirk,” Remington continued. “He wanted to know if it was true that Bob Gilmore was married to a Moroccan dancer named Zina. Quirk said he didn’t know, but he’d check. So Quirk called me—”
“Why all this sudden interest in my matrimonial past?” Gilmore asked.
“Well, the story was on the radio tonight about this Moroccan girl, this dancer who goes by the professional name of Zina, and how she was to testify before this Senate committee—you know, Senator What’s-his-name’s investigation. Seems she was going to Washington with a lot of sensational dope on Commies in this country. She was going to bring along some French book that would be damning evidence. She was due in Washington yesterday, the radio said, only she didn’t show up. She disappeared from Chicago where she was, and the Senator says he suspects foul play.
“Well, when Quirk called me and said the Tribune claims that this Zina is really Mrs. Robert Gilmore, I thought I’d better try to tip you off so you can get a denial to the Tribune before the paper goes to press.”
Gilmore looked at Barbara who was bringing him a bourbon and water. Barbara returned his inquisitive stare with a completely blank expression. She handed him the glass.
“Thanks,” Gilmore said. “But I can’t very well give the Tribune a denial because the story’s true. Or at least it was true for a few weeks some years ago.”
Remington pursed his lips solemnly. He asked: “Do you know where the lady is now?”
“I haven’t seen her since two weeks after I married her—so she could be legally admitted to the United States as the wife of a citizen. It was a mistaken bit of chivalry, apparently, unless it’s going to pay off for the Senate investigation.”
Remington whistled softly. “The Old Man’s going to love that,” he said. “But that’s something you’ll have to sweat out yourself. That’s not really what I trailed you to Barbara’s for. After I got Quirk’s call, I thought I’d better relay the message personally. I don’t like to discuss matters like that over the phone. They’re tapping telephones like sugar maples these days, and you can never tell.”
“Do you think my line is tapped?” Gilmore asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” Remington answered. “But anyway, I drove over to your house to see if you were home. When I stopped at your curb, I saw a man sitting on your front steps. I thought it was you, so I spoke to him. He got up and started to run. I called after him, but he didn’t answer. He ran around to the back of your house and disappeared through the garden. I suppose I should have followed him, but I was so surprised, that I didn’t even get out of the car.”
“Who was it?” Gilmore asked.
“It was pretty dark, of course, and I couldn’t be sure. But I’d almost swear it was Chris Froley. Have you run into Froley anywhere tonight?”
“No,” Gilmore said.
“Gil’s much more interested in Mrs. Froley,” Barbara said tartly. “You did see her tonight, didn’t you, Gil?”
“I saw her. She’s scared to death of her husband. Or for her husband. I’m not sure which.”
“You ought to be scared.” Remington looked pointedly at the greenish purple blur under Gilmore’s left eye. “You’re a nervy guy, Gilmore. Mrs. F. is a dish, all right, but I don’t know that I’d recommend getting hot pants over the wife of a maniac. Is it true that he threatened to kill you?”
Gilmore flushed. “Damn it, Remington, it’s none of your business, but my interest in Frances Froley is not even faintly lecherous. The Carrot Queen stunt was purely for dear old Barzac, and so was my meeting with her tonight. My job is to keep the name of Barzac sweet and clean, and this business of the poisoned rations and Peggy Bayliss’s death has stunk up the shop, but good. I’m doing my damnedest to unstink it, and I resent your innuendoes. I saw Frances Froley tonight because I thought she might be useful. I thought she’d tell me things she wouldn’t tell the cops.”
“About Chris being a Commie, you mean?”
“So you do know that.”
Remington nodded. “That police lieutenant told me about it early this evening,” he said. “He told me the F.B.I. never got the letter Evans says he wrote about it. I can’t understand it. Why would Evans try to cover up a thing like that? I know the Old Man was tying himself in knots to keep from antagonizing the union, but he wouldn’t let the company in for something like this, with a war contract in the works. Do you think this poisoning is all a Communist plot?”
“Possibly,” Gilmore admitted.
“Then that makes Froley even more dangerous for you,” Remington said. “He was probably laying for you when I saw him at your house tonight. Have you got a gun, Gilmore?”
“I’ve got the usual liberated Luger in my dresser drawer, but I’ve got no reason to pack it around in a shoulder holster. Besides I don’t have a permit.”
“You’ve got plenty reason,” Remington said. “And when a screwball is out gunning for you, the hell with the permit.”
“Why should Froley be gunning for me?” Gilmore decided he wouldn’t tell Remington about the dynamite and Froley’s prints on his car. He wanted to hear the production manager’s own theories.
“You just told us why. You’ve been trying to pump Frances Froley and her husband doesn’t like any of it. He’s tried to warn you off the course, but you won’t warn. So he’s using sterner methods. He’s not going to take a chance of his wife being so drooly over you that she’ll tell where the body’s buried.”
“What body?” Gilmore asked.
“Let’s say Froley doesn’t know the word’s gone out that he’s a Red. Let’s say he thinks it’s still a secret and he wants to keep it that way.”
“Do you think Froley poisoned the rations?”
“Could be.” Remington took a long swig of his drink and put the glass down on the television console, three inches away from the copper coaster. Barbara got up and set the glass on the coaster. Remington didn’t notice her. He said: “It’s a little out of my line, though. I’d rather let the police figure that one.”
