Chapter 13
Lois waited until the door shut, closing out the roar of the presses. Her teeth bit down over her full lower lip. So that was it; that was why Janey was downstairs at half past two in the morning. But why hadn't Gus said anything about it to Carlson? Why was he keeping it out of the paper? She lighted another cigarette, went over to the soot-stained window, and looked down through the coarse screen grating at the garbage cans in the area that belonged to the lunchroom next door, without being conscious of them for the first time in six months. Unless-Was it possible Gus didn't know anything about it? She shrugged the idea off at once. Janey would hardly miss the chance to be a heroine. Some things didn't make sense. In fact, she thought suddenly, nothing made sense. She saw the garbage cans then and smelled the stale grease and dishwater seeping in around the windowpane, or imagined she did, and went back to her desk. If she got the paper out by herself today, she'd have a talking-point with her father. She sat down and got to work, laughed suddenly. The idea of getting him to give her the paper to save himself income tax must have been developing quietly in her subconscious mind all night. She remembered how it had occurred to her at the party while she was waiting for Gus to come. She'd settled for Gus, then. Today she rather thought she'd have them both.
She wheeled her typewriter around and set to work feeding out her own copy until she came across a precis Gus had written for a box on the front page. It was headed with a large question mark. Under it was: Who murdered Doc Wernitz?
She read it intently.
The following are the known facts about Paul M. Wernitz.
He was sixty-one years old.
He was born in Czechoslovakia.
He came to the United States in 1909 at the age of twenty.
He was naturalized in Tacoma, Washington, in 1919.
He went to Carson City, Nevada, in 1921 and worked there in a gambling establishment, buying a controlling interest in it in 1926.
He came to Smith County in 1931, organized the Smith County Recreation Company Incorporated in 1936.
He bought the Chapman farm at Newton's Corner in 1935.
He lived alone in the main farmhouse.
At the time of his murder last night, the former kitchen wing of the farmhouse was being occupied by Ralph (Buzz) Rodriguez, Wernitz's assistant and service mechanic.
He employed five other assistants.
He kept the lights on in the house from sundown to sunup from a pathological fear of the dark.
He employed no household help.
He is reputed to be a wealthy man.
He was known, though not generally, to be closing his house and leaving Smith County.
Those are the known facts about Doc Wernitz. These are the known facts surrounding his murder as this paper got them from the Chief of the Smith County Constabulary, Henry L. (Swede) Carlson.
Doc Wernitz was expected to return to Newton's Corner yesterday at 5:30 P.M.
At 5:15 P.M. Buzz Rodriguez turned the lights on in the main house, except for the old farmhouse parlor, which Wernitz used as his office and kept locked.
Buzz Rodriguez, George Jeffers, Franklin Thomas, and James Mason, service mechanics, were in the downstairs office of the kitchen wing at 5:00 P.M. waiting as usual to go on service calls.
Buzz Rodriguez's story, as coherently as the police are able to make it out, is as follows:
He was not on duty until 8:00 P.M. but he was there at the house because a girl he expected to see had to work all day. Three calls for service came between 5:00 and 5:20. They were from widely separated parts of the county. A fourth call came at 5:24 from Heron Point. Buzz Rodriguez left a note under Wernitz's door and took the call. He returned to the house at 6:20. The lights were not on in Wernitz's office. He went in the house and saw the office door open. He tried the lights, found them out of order, and went down in the basement to replace the fuse. There he either fell or was struck on the head.
He is now in the General Hospital with severe concussion, under police guard until Chief Carlson can talk to him.
The three other service mechanics returned from their calls sometime after eight o'clock. Those calls were false alarms. The proprietors of the establishments denied they put such calls through. Four other calls were made after eight o'clock.
Buzz Rodriguez called the police at 10:02 P.M. and reported Wernitz's murder.
The police say he sounded excited and incoherent.
They arrived at the house at 10:09 and found Buzz Rodriguez in the cellar with Wernitz's body.
The fuse controlling the lights in Wernitz's office had been unscrewed and was lying on the cellar floor.
The iron bar murderer used to crush Wernitz's skull was lying bloodstained beside him.
Buzz Rodriguez collapsed and was found injured, by Chief Carlson, at 12:42 while awaiting questioning under technical arrest.
Who killed Doc Wernitz? The Smithville Gazette will pay a reward of $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Doc Wernitz's murderer.
Lois Maynard read it through, turned back to the first half, and read it through again. She sat looking down at it. Gus didn't know anything about Doc Wernitz. He'd told her so on the way out to Newton's Corner. Nobody knew anything about him. Her father had told her that. He hadn't known Wernitz was a Czech, when he'd come to America, or anything about him at all. She was still wondering about it, slightly dazed, when her door opened.
"Hi, Lois. How about some lunch?"
She looked up, startled. "Oh, hello, Dorsey. How are you? I'd love it. Is it lunchtime?"
She looked at her watch, surprised, and then glanced through the door into Gus's office. He still wasn't back. She was still in a semi-bewildered fog. How and where had Gus got so much dope about Wernitz-and when? That was even more amazing.
"I wish banking was that fascinating," Dorsey Syms said, grinning at her. "Or maybe it's the food at our house. I always know damned well when it's pushing twelve."
"I usually do, too." Lois laughed. "But this really is fascinating. Look at it. Did you know this or any of it about Doc Wernitz?"
Dorsey propped himself on the edge of her desk and took the proof. "All I knew about him was he was a handsome customer at the Smithville Trust Company," he said. "Carlson was in this morning. Boy, do I wish I had the dough that old buzzard Wernitz had." He read the two columns of the box, and shook his head. "I didn't know any of this, except the Newton's Corner end of it. I always understood nobody knew where he came from. Or anything about him, till he got here." He tossed the sheet back on the desk. "Lunch?"
"Oh-" Lois remembered abruptly. "I was going to call Dad and ask him to take me down to the Sailing Club." Her yellow-green eyes smouldered as she thought of what Chief Carlson had really been saying to her.
Dorsey Syms grinned and shook his head. "He can't afford it, Lois. Not today he can't."
"What do you mean?"
She controlled herself sharply. She hadn't meant to sound alarmed, but she did.
"Hey, I didn't mean it! All I meant was that he's through being generous for the day." He laughed and got Lois's coat off the hanger behind the door. "I didn't know he was that fond of our Janey."
Lois pushed her chair back. "Will you tell me what you're talking about?"
"It's hush stuff, Lois. Confidential as hell. He covered Janey's overdraft for her this morning. Three hundred and twenty bucks' worth of nice new overdraft. You should have seen Fergie. He almost had tears in his eyes, his secretary told me."
He helped her on with her coat.
"I think it's swell. I just wonder why he did it, is all."
"Why shouldn't he?" She took her compact out of her bag and powdered her nose. Why on earth had he done that? What had happened? What earthly reason "Well, don't snap at me, Lois," Dorsey said equably. "It's none of my business. All I was wondering was what Carlson's going to think. Your father isn't a noted philanthropist. Or didn't you know that? Or am I wrong? Anyway, it's a bank secret. I guess I shouldn't have told you. For Pete's sake, don't tell him I told you. I've got trouble enough on my hands as it is."
"Why? What trouble have you got?" Not that she cared. She had trouble of her own she'd rather worry about just now.
"That's why I'm taking you to lunch, baby. I need an alibi!"
He grinned at her as she looked at him blankly. "You-you need an alibi?"
"That's what I said. Come on to lunch and I'll explain it."
Her pulse quickened as she snapped her bag shut and took her gloves out of her pocket.
"Fine," she said. "Come on."
If Dorsey Syms needed an alibi, she was thinking quickly, she'd be glad to help him. If her father needed one, then Dorsey's could crash. The minute the police knew-There were people Lois would rather have thrown to the wolves. Dorsey Syms was the only one begging for it. She smiled brightly at him as they went through the press rooms.
She stopped just before they got to the door to wave over to the dry old man in his shirt sleeves at the desk marked City Editor, in the corner by the front window. "Goodbye, Ed, I'm going out to lunch." Dorsey opened the long plate-glass door into the narrow vestibule. He stood aside, holding it open for someone coming in the storm door from the street.
"Cheese it, the cops!" He grinned back at Lois, and at the tall thin man who had stopped and was holding the storm door open for them to come on through. "Raiding the joint, Bill? You know my cousin Lois Maynard? This is Lieutenant Williams, Lois."
"Oh," Lois said. The smile faded from her eyes. "Of course." She recognized him now he'd taken off his green felt hat. "How are you? Is there anything I can do for you before I go out? Gus Blake isn't here."
Lieutenant Williams stepped back into the street.
"No, it was Gus I wanted to see," he said. "I've just been down to his place. About that entry he had last night. Where is he, do you know? I'd like to get in touch with him."
"I don't know where he is," Lois said.
She looked over at the empty space along the Reserved line in front of the Gazette building. "His car's gone. Maybe he's gone with Chief Carlson out to the Wernitz house. But I don't know, Lieutenant. He came in this morning and left right away. I assumed he'd gone home."
And if he hadn't, she was thinking, maybe he really didn't know about the entry, as Williams called it. Even Gus wouldn't be that casual about his possessions-she hoped. She turned to her cousin.
"You haven't seen him?"
"Not since he was in the bank. That was about ten-thirty. I didn't get a chance to talk to him."
The detective put his hat back on. "It's funny he wouldn't stick around," he said. "Around home, I mean." He seemed more puzzled than perturbed. "You were with him, I understand, Miss Maynard. When he got home last night. Didn't he seem to think there might be some connection between the entry and the Wernitz deal? I just told Swede Carlson. He hadn't heard about it. That's the trouble with this county-city setup. Your right hand don't know anything about your left one till the trail's stone cold. What did Gus say about it, Miss Maynard?"
"He didn't say a thing," Lois said. "Nothing at all. I don't think he knew anything about it. Mrs. Blake didn't mention it while I was there. And Gus certainly wouldn't have gone off and left her and the kid and taken me home if he'd known anything about it."
Lieutenant Williams looked at her.
"Yeah," he said slowly. "Carlson and I both thought it looked a little sort of-well, sort of-"
He let it hang there without saying sort of what, perhaps because he saw the large figure of the county chief coming up the street toward the Gazette office.
"Well, if you see him tell him Swede and I are looking for him, will you?"
He tipped his hat perfunctorily and walked off to meet Carlson.
Dorsey glanced at his cousin. Her cheeks were flushed a little. She went quickly across the sidewalk to her car and opened the door before he could reach it.
"Why don't you lay off Janey, Lois?" he inquired calmly as he stepped in after her and pulled the door shut.
"Why don't you mind your own business, Dorsey?"
She jammed her foot down on the starter. The engine roared. Dorsey saw Carlson and Williams look around at them, and go on talking again. Swede Carlson, his shoulder propped against the telephone pole on the curb, his overcoat open, both hands in his trouser pockets, leaned his head to one side and spat magnificently into the gutter. Dorsey saw that Lois was too annoyed to see that the chief of the county police was still looking at the shining green convertible, if Lieutenant Williams was not.
"I'd like to know just where the hell Gus has gone," she snapped as she pulled out and into the stream of market-day traffic. "And another thing I'd like to know is just where he got all that inside dope on Wernitz. And what he went to the bank for. He never goes to the bank."
Dorsey Syms reached in his pocket and got out a cigarette. He reached forward and pressed in the lighter on the dash.
"So I ought to mind my own business," he remarked equably.