Dead on the Level Read online

  But now she was waiting, eyes bright and head cocked. “Well,” she queried, “what do you think of my story now?”

  “Give him time to search his soul,” Maggie advised dryly. “It can’t take long. And I’m sure you children will be very happy.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE MURDER OF DARIUS BRUNNER was front page until a small boy with a genius-rating I.Q. took an ax to one of his playmates and gave the public something more interesting to abhor. By this time, the entire city was so familiar with pictures of the missing heiress and descriptions of a “mystery man in gray” (thanks to color distortion of those Cloud Room lights) that they were all but forgotten. Meanwhile, Casey Morrow and his unpremeditated bride had set up housekeeping in a small walk-up on the near north side. It wasn’t much of an apartment, a cracker-box living-room, complete with an African Renaissance divan, a bedroom, kitchen, and a bathroom with anguished plumbing. But it was the best Maggie could find on such short notice.

  “You can’t stay here,” she had announced, the moment Casey stopped searching his soul. “In the first place, there’s no room; secondly, the kids from Papa Danikoff’s would be bound to spot Phyllis, and thirdly—” Maggie looked much too grim to be kidding, “I’ve no intention of spending my declining years behind bars!”

  And so Maggie had located the apartment—how, Casey would never know—and even managed a bit of shopping. Shirts and such for him, and something a little less conspicuous than mink for Phyllis. “You can keep an expense account,” Phyllis advised, as Casey shelled out the cash. “I’ll pay you back when everything’s cleared up.” And Casey, the reluctant bridegroom, replied, “Don’t think you won’t!”

  On the morning after this transition, just two days after the murder, Casey made faces at the breakfast coffee and snapped, “All right, Master Mind, now that we’ve kept out of jail this long, what’s the next move?”

  Casey wasn’t happy. He’d known, without being told, that the divan in the living-room was for him, but that wasn’t what upset him so. It was the way Phyllis looked. No woman had any right being beautiful so early in the morning, and none he’d known that well had been; but even in the cheap housecoat Maggie had purchased, even with her hair pinned up in a knot, she was still very special. She was also infuriatingly calm.

  “I told you back at Maggie’s,” she said. “Find out why Lance killed my father.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like whatever it takes! You said yourself that he wouldn’t kill off his meal ticket, so there has to be a reason.”

  She was so damned matter-of-fact about it that Casey almost forgot what he had just read in the morning paper.

  “Gorden says he was out at the country place the night your father was killed,” he repeated. “Claims he drove out for dinner and stayed on all night when word came of your father’s death. What’s more, your mother backs him up.”

  “Naturally,” Phyllis said. “If Lance told her that he needed an alibi, she’d lie for him.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Of course. I told you, he has her hypnotized.”

  Casey sighed and folded up the paper. “All right, I’ll stick my neck out and see what I can dig up about your boy friend. I’ll even believe he’s guilty if that’ll help matters along. But while I’m out snooping, you keep under cover. And don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

  “I know,” she said.

  At the doorway, Casey paused and looked back. She knew, all right. She’d picked the right clay pigeon and knew it. I must still be drunk, he told himself. Drunk or dreaming. And then he was walking down the stairs with a penciled address and a phone number in his pocket.

  “Mr. Gorden isn’t here. No, I don’t expect him for some time. He’s gone to Darius Brunner’s funeral.”

  The funeral. Casey had forgotten all about that. He replaced the phone and shoved back the door of the booth, still thinking of that disturbing reminder. He had told Phyllis to stay in; surely she wouldn’t try a fool stunt like trying to sneak in to her father’s funeral. For a moment he considered turning back just to make sure, and then he recalled that ordeal at Maggie’s, how she had sat there on the couch and told them the whole story without breaks and without tears. A thing like that didn’t mean that she had no feelings; merely that she had control. Control, he decided, was something Casey Morrow could use a little more of.

  Maybe going straight to Lance Gorden’s apartment wasn’t the smartest way to go about things; Casey wouldn’t know. All he knew was that he had to start somewhere, and that Gorden was out. Just who had answered the phone was another problem, and one he’d meet when he got there. Odds were in favor that he’d never seen Casey, and Casey had never seen him, and that seemed fair enough.

  It was a slight, heavy-browed chap with a bushy head of hair and tiny feet who answered Casey’s ring. Casey was particularly aware of the feet because of the way they were planted in the doorway, effectively blocking his entrance. Above the feet were black trousers, a white jacket, and a totally indifferent face.

  “I’m sure sorry to hear that Gorden isn’t around,” Casey was saying. “But I’m in no hurry. I’ll just come in and wait.”

  It was a good try, but it didn’t work.

  “Mr. Gorden has gone for the day,” the houseman insisted. “He may not be in until very late. He may not be in until tomorrow.”

  “Is that so?” Casey manufactured what he hoped would pass for a genuine grin. “Like old times,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “We were in college together. Even then old Gorden didn’t care much about coming home nights. Too bad he didn’t know I was coming so he could get a friend for me.”

  But he was still wasting his time. The indifferent face didn’t change, and the feet refused to budge from the doorway. Getting past this watchdog would have been hopeless even if he’d come equipped with a baby picture of Gorden and himself sharing the same teething-ring. If anything suspicious or incriminating was to be found in the highly polished, bleached-wood interior he could glimpse beyond the door, somebody with more ingenuity than Casey Morrow would have to find it. He backed away and returned to the elevator. Halfway down the hall he stopped and looked back, but the door had closed and it was only his nerves that made him feel as if those dark eyes were still watching him.

  It was only to be expected that Lance Gorden would take off his shoes in a very fashionable neighborhood, not Casimir Morokowski’s territory at all. The building was one of those sleek, self-satisfied places with a green velvet parkway in front and a private garage to the rear. Chiefly because he wasn’t sure of what to do next, Casey went around to the garage and tried to scrape up a conversation with the Negro who was polishing a nonexistent spot from the front half acre of a Cadillac hood.

  “They must keep you busy, the kind of weather we’ve been having,” he suggested.

  The man stopped polishing and gave Casey a quick once-over. “You from one of the newspapers?” he asked.

  I must have missed my calling, Casey reflected, or maybe my suit needs pressing. “Why?” he countered. “Have they been bothering you?”

  “Not me so much, but they’ve been around. Police been around, too.”

  “Lots of excitement, eh?”

  “No excitement. Just questions.”

  “Such as whether or not Lance Gorden went out the night Brunner was killed?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And he did, of course.”

  “Maybe. I don’t mess around in things that don’t concern me, mister.”

  The attendant resumed his polishing in a manner that indicated the conversation was at a close, but Casey didn’t feel that way. “That’s usually a pretty good idea,” he conceded, “but it’s too bad about the girl. Quite a looker, wasn’t she?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “You never saw her?”

  “Listen, mister, I told you I don’t mess around—”

  “I
know,” Casey said quickly, “and you don’t like questions, either. I have to make a living, don’t I?”

  “So do I, mister.”

  Casey was beginning to feel extremely depressed. He’d hoped to pick up a little gossip, perhaps, about Gorden and his habits, but apparently he’d chosen the wrong back fence. All right, if he wasn’t going to get anything juicy, he might as well stick to the facts.

  “Anybody on duty here nights?” he queried.

  “Supposed to be,” the attendant said.

  “Not you?”

  “You think I work all the time?”

  “I was only guessing. Then you wouldn’t know what time Mr. Gorden took his car out that night Brunner was killed?”

  “From what I hear, he didn’t take it out. It was out.”

  “All night?”

  “All I know is that he brought it in early next morning. I gave it a wash job before noon.”

  “It was dirty?”

  “Rain don’t make a car any cleaner, mister. Now, if there’s anything else you’d like to know—”

  Casey grinned. “There’s plenty I’d like to know,” he said, “but I sure hate to keep a man from his work.”

  Casey wasn’t feeling any happier as he walked slowly away from the apartment house; in fact, he was on the verge of talking to himself. “Find out why Lance killed my father,” Phyllis had said. Find out. As if it were no more than asking a stranger the time of day. What he had learned so far totaled exactly zero, and he was a long way from being flush on ideas of how to better that score. There were other addresses in his pocket, one of which wouldn’t be any good, probably, until after the funeral. But the other one was just right. He ducked his chin down into his coat collar and headed back into the wind. It wasn’t far. Considering the squeamish state of his interior, it wasn’t nearly far enough.

  Three days had elapsed since the discovery of Darius Brunner’s body, but Casey took his time about going up to the apartment. He took his time outside, making certain from across the street that nothing remotely like a policeman was near; he took his time inside, moving quietly, watching all directions. He might as well have saved his time. The only footsteps on the carpeted halls were his own, and nobody answered when he rang the bell. Cautiously, Casey unlocked the door with the key Phyllis had given him and went in.

  It was dark inside. The blinds were drawn and the murky light of an overcast day inched into the rooms in pale-gray slivers. The study was even darker, because of heavy drapes drawn across the windows, and Casey had to find the desk lamp and turn it on. The room was unfamiliar, and yet he knew exactly where to find the lamp, and where, too, to find the dark stains on the deep-piled rug. He tried to remember having been in the room before, but everything Phyllis had told of that night was still a blank. Yet, he knew how to find his way around. But staring at a bloodstain wasn’t reason enough to run the risk of coming to Brunner’s own apartment. Now that he was here, he wasn’t so sure what was worth that risk; but the desk seemed the logical place to start hunting.

  Darius Brunner had kept a tidy desk. A silver desk set and a silver-framed photograph of Phyllis occupied the space not taken by the lamp and a phone. No papers cluttered the top or peeked from under the edges of the blotter, and the desk had been recently dusted and the calendar brought up to date.

  The wide center drawer, which seemed the natural place to begin a search, yielded to Casey’s touch. Even the inside of the drawer was neat. Envelopes, writing-paper, stamp box all in place. Deeper within the drawer was something a bit more interesting—Brunner’s checkbook, and even from his first brief glance at the carefully kept stubs, Casey could see that Darius Brunner had been a busy man with the pen. The checkbook, although of commercial size, was obviously for his personal account. Most of the stubs were made out for bills, insurance companies, and such, with a few to Arvid Petersen who, Casey recalled, had been mentioned in the papers as his houseman. Quite a few stubs were to various foundations and were tabbed Charities, while those bearing Mrs. Brunner’s or Phyllis’s name bore the notation Personal. Casey went over each stub, but what he couldn’t find was anything made out to Lance Gorden. Either Gorden was on an annual retainer or was paid from Brunner’s business account.

  So much for the checkbook. Casey had reached the last two stubs before he found anything interesting. These checks, the last Darius Brunner had ever written, were both dated on the last day of his life. One, for the sum of five thousand dollars, was made out to Phyllis Brunner—personal. Casey had a crooked smile over that. Surely she hadn’t told her father what she intended to do with that money. Had she given some sad story about being down to her last year’s mink, or had Brunner been that soft a touch? Some day he’d have to ask her about that. He looked at the other stub. This one was for a peculiar sum, twelve hundred, eighty-seven dollars and forty cents, and had been paid to a certain Carter B. Groot, also personal.

  It was the Personal that caught Casey’s eye. An amount like that sounded very much like the payment of a specific bill, and yet all of the other bills in Brunner’s checkbook had been carefully designated. Why not this one? He ran over in his mind all the names he’d seen connected with Brunner in print, Petersen, Huntly, Gorden, but no Carter Groot. Maybe it was something, maybe it wasn’t, but at the moment Casey didn’t have time to dwell on it. Beyond the study door, he had caught the unmistakable sound of a key being inserted in the lock, and there was barely an instant to spare between the time he switched off the lamp and the opening of the outer door.

  CHAPTER NINE

  FROM A QUICKLY ATTAINED POSITION behind the study door, Casey listened to the voices. There were only two at first, then, moments later, another. The first voice was a man’s.

  “I’ll turn on the light,” he said, as the hall door opened. “It’s terribly gloomy in here. Are you sure that you want to stay, Alicia? You could wait at my place just as well.”

  Casey tensed. The man behind those words was Lance Gorden, and running across an old sparring partner under such circumstances wasn’t on his schedule of activities for the day. He hadn’t counted on Brunner’s funeral being over so quickly.

  The answering voice was a woman’s. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t stay. I’m not a child, Lance.”

  “But you’ve been under such a strain.”

  “I’m quite all right. After all, things have to be faced; no matter how unpleasant. I might as well start facing them right now.”

  It was a voice Casey had never heard before, and there was strength in it; breeding, poise, and strength. He had its identity pretty well tagged when a third arrival came into the entry and confirmed his suspicions by saying, “Why, Mrs. Brunner, are you staying in?”

  “For a little while, Petersen.”

  “I—I want you to know how I feel about things.”

  “I understand, Petersen, and thank you. Your flowers were lovely.”

  There was an awkward silence, the kind that finally realizes there can be no adequate words for death, and then: “I’ll see about fixing some lunch,” Petersen said.

  “Thank you, but I’m not at all hungry.”

  “I know, Mrs. Brunner, but you have to eat. I’ll fix something, anyway.”

  “He’s right, Alicia,” Gorden said quickly. “I can’t stay myself—want to check with Lieutenant Johnson again, but do try to get some rest. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  From the sound of the outer door reopening and then closing again, this speech seemed to constitute Gorden’s farewell; and that was a relief. Casey heard the houseman shuffle off toward the kitchen, making noises like a man whose feet suffered from wearing new shoes to a funeral, and, by leaning flat against the wall and peering through the crack between the study door and the doorframe, he could catch a fleeting glimpse of the man’s retreating back and shoulders and a crest of silvered hair. After he was gone, nothing remained between Casey and the freedom of the outer hall except the faintly perfumed presence of Mrs. Darius Brunner.


  He waited for her to move, to go some place, any place except into the dark study, but his luck was running thin. Her shadow came first, then, through that narrow opening, Casey watched her come and stand in the doorway, staring silently in at the darkness. She was too close for him to get a full view, but the glow from the overhead light in the hall made a classic, proud profile of her face. Mrs. Brunner was a beautiful woman, a startlingly beautiful woman, but not at all like her daughter. Where Phyllis was gold and copper and sometimes fiery, her mother was black velvet and pearls. In fact, Casey realized, that’s what she was wearing now, black velvet and pearls, and an inscrutable expression that generations of self-restraint must have perfected. For the first time since this walking nightmare began, Casey was aware of tragedy. He had to fight the crazy impulse to step out of hiding and tell Mrs. Brunner that her daughter wasn’t dead, that she was safe and well. But what then? The question had a sobering effect. He waited, hardly daring to breathe.

  There was no reckoning time; seconds seemed like hours under such pressure, but at last the woman turned away. Without entering the room, and with God alone knew what thoughts, Mrs. Brunner turned and walked softly down the hall. Casey waited a little longer, still listening, until he felt it safe to chance an escape; and then stepped out from behind the door and crossed the bright hall as quickly as his shaking knees would allow. He didn’t really take a deep breath again until he had reached the street below.

  Leta Huntly lived in a one-room kitchenette on Diversey just off Sheridan Road. The apartment was on the third floor, rear, overlooking a narrow alleyway, none too clean, and a tiny flag of lawn that was sometimes green—but never in November. It was called a studio apartment because the bed made up to look like a divan, the table made up to look like a desk, and the kitchen closed up like a closet. It was neat, clean, and like Miss Huntly herself—who made up to look like a secretary—very efficient. All of these things merited Casey’s attention as he edged his way into the room, for they seemed highly relevant. If Gorden’s Miss Nardis had been correct in her none too subtle inference as to Leta Huntly’s relationship with Darius Brunner, then Brunner must have had very simple tastes and no visible evidence of generosity.