Madball (16 page)

Dr. Magus's eyebrows raised. "He confessed that too?"

"Nope, won't admit it. But we found Irby's dough
-
two hundred and forty bucks, just about what we predicted. It was rolled up and stuffed in the bell of a co
rn
et in Quintana's trunk."

"Couldn't that be coincidence? I mean, couldn't it have been Quintana's own money hidden there, just happening to be about the right amount?"

"Nope, Doc. I'll tell you how we're positive. We didn't give this out before because we didn't want the murderer to know it, but I can tell you now. I made a trip to Glenrock, to the bank where he cashed that two-grand check and bought traveler's checks with eighteen hundred of it. And since it was only the day before and the amount had been pretty big
-
big enough so they telephoned the insurance company to make sure the check was okay
-
the teller remembered the deal. And he remembered he'd asked Irby how he'd wanted the two hundred cash and Irby said ten twenties would be okay. And the teller counted the ten twenties off a stack of new ones that had just come in, fresh off the press and with consecutive serial numbers, see? He couldn't tell us the exact serial numbers because they used others of them too, but they knew the series and approximately how the numbers would run."

"And those twenties were in Quintana's trunk?"

"All ten of them. Brand new, serial numbers consecutive and just about the serial numbers the teller said they'd be. The other forty bucks was in old bills, tens and fives; that's the money Irby had with him at the time of the accident less whatever he spent in the hospital."

"I'll be damned," Dr. Magus said.

And he meant it. He'd always figured Quintana, because of his psychopathic jealousy, as an accident going somewhere to happen. But he'd never figured him as a killer for money. Even now, he couldn't see Quintana in that role. If Quintana had killed Irby it seemed more likely that he suspected Irby of making a pass at Dolly and had killed him for that reason, taking
the
money to make it look like a robbery kill. Although two hundred forty bucks is worth taking along if it's in your victim's pocket, even though it isn't the reason why you killed him.

But if Quintana's motive had been jealousy, it would have to be from something that had happened more than seven weeks before the murder, some slight thing Quintana had brooded over and built bigger during Irby's absence. Certainly he hadn't had time to make a pass at Dolly Monday night.

Apparently Showalter had been thinking along the same lines, although with less information. He said thoughtfully, "It's funny, Doc. Anybody but Quintana, I'd figure it was Dolly who was with Irby Monday night. With Quintana's knowledge, to finger him for the robbery. The old game. But damn it, he was too crazy jealous of her for it to have been that. What's your guess, Doc? Could it have been Dolly with Irby and Quintana not jealous about it because he'd put her up to it?"

"Ummm," Dr. Magus said. He knew damned well Dolly hadn't been with Irby because it had been Maybelle. But that still wasn't any of the lieutenant's business. He said, "I don't think so. But how's this for a possibility? Leon wakes up and finds Dolly gone. To the doniker, as he learns later, but he doesn't know that. Goes out hunting for her. Tries Jesse's top because he knows how often it's used for assignations. Hadn't brought a knife so picks up a tent stake. Makes noise coming and Irby crawls out
-
or maybe was crawling out just then anyway for another purpose
-
and he kills Irby before bothering to make sure it's Dolly he's been with. Goes on in to kill Dolly
-
but it isn't Dolly."

Showalter looked doubtful. "I suppose it could have happened that way, but wouldn't the woman have told us? If she'd known Quintana killed the guy she was sleeping with would she still have kept her mouth shut?"

"Couple of possibilities. Scared of Quintana and thought it would be her word against his. Or more likely, she's somebody's wife
-
not Quintana's, but he's not the only jealous guy in the world
-
and couldn't give Quintana away without admitting she'd shacked up with Irby."

"I won't buy it. I think Quintana would have killed her too, to be sure she didn't talk. Nope, I think it must after all have
been a straight robbery kill."

Dr. Magus said, "I wonder why Quintana hasn't confessed to it, though. Three murders can't get him in worse trouble than two."

"The hell they can't. And that's another thing makes me think the Irby kill was for money. On the double murder it's just possible that a good mouthpiece might get him life instead of the chair, claiming heat of passion and non-premeditation. But if the Irby deal was a cold, planned kill for money and he confessed to it, he'd get the chair for sure."

The lieutenant lighted a cigarette and drew on it thoughtfully. "Besides, confessing to it wouldn't fit in with the insanity plea I figure he's going to make."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, for one thing he acts like he's trying to act crazy. For another, his story of how he found out Dolly was with Joe Linder. Says he heard a voice in his sleep telling him so."

"How do you suppose he did find out, Lieutenant?"

"Same like you suggested on the Irby deal, woke up and found her gone. And probably had some reason to suspect Joe Linder so he went looking in the right place."

He lighted a cigarette and took a deep drag. "Well, anyway, Doc, the carneys can quit panicking."

"Panicking? I hadn't seen any."

"Maybe I didn't mean it that strong. But plenty of them have been scared ever since the Irby kill. I been damn near living on the lot, and I could feel it. And listen, the postal savings window at the p.o. downtown has been doing a land office business since Monday. While there was a guy on the lot who'd kill for money, nobody wanted heavy sugar around. Some of the boys and gals here put in amounts that kind of surprised me."

"Most of us try to get enough ahead so we won't have to work during the winter, Lieutenant. I suppose you were in close touch with the p.o. because they were watching for those new twenties with consecutive serials."

"Yeah. Well, it's washed up now, Doc. Hope, though, that we can get Quintana to make it a really clean washup by confessing to the Irby kill."

He stood up. "Well, we'll fry him on one count if not the other. And you'll try to find those witnesses and try to talk them into talking to me?"

"I'll try, Lieutenant. At least I'll keep my ears open. But I can't guarantee any results."

"Okay, I understand that. Thanks."

He left.

The rest of the coffee was cold but Dr. Magus decided he felt well enough to tackle the next step in recovery, a big hot breakfast. The thought of eating one was terrible but it was the only thing that would make him feel human before evening short of starting in to drink again, and that would only postpone the evil day. He took off the soaking bandana and his shirt, which was almost as wet. He found a towel and dried himself, combed his hair and beard and put on a clean shirt. It was easier to make the chow top this time. One more cup of hot coffee and then breakfast. Eating it was a fight, but he won.

Nothing worse than a dull headache as he walked back to the mitt camp, and that would go away soon.

Ten by ten feet square, the mitt camp. He paced one side of it, three paces one way and three paces back. Last night he'd had a brilliant idea in connection with finding the money. But what had the idea been?

He remembered a flash in the crystal. Unless it had been something in
hi
s own head, back of his eyeballs. It
h
ad been while he'd been concentrating on where the money might be hidden. He'd thought of the generator car and had decided it couldn't mean that. Nor a fuse box.

And he remembered trying to calculate how big a package forty-two grand would make and had decided on a minimum size, the size of a cigar box. Could be bigger of course, but he wouldn't have to worry about looking in smaller repositories. Two hundred forty dollars you could stuff into a co
rn
et, but not forty-two thousand. Not unless it was in the form of forty-two thousand-dollar bills and it wouldn't be.

What in
- Suddenly he remembered. He'd decided to go to Glenrock to see if he could get a lead at the hospital there.

For a moment he thought disgustedly, hell, if that's all the idea wa
s-

But then its possibilities began to come to him. With a good enough song and dance to use at the hospital, he might get a lead to the money even if it wasn't hidden with the carnival. He might find out whom Irby had communicated with while he was in the hospital. He might get a break by learning that Irby had been worried about a suitcase that had been checked somewhere and had sent a check or money order to cover storage charges so it would be held for him. He might have made a long distance phone call or sent a telegram.

It would take slick con work, a really good song and dance, to get details like that from people as professionally reticent as doctors and nurses, but it might be done.

It was worth trying.

He dug a railroad map out of his foot locker to check on how difficult it might be to get there. It wasn't difficult at all. Both Bloomfield and Glenrock were on the main trunk line of the B. & O. There ought to be several trains a day between them and the trip would be just long enough to let him get completely past his hangover.

Another day lost from work, more money spent, but what did that matter compared to a chance at a beautiful hunk of moolah like forty-two grand?

***

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Anyway, that was what Brutus had said. And Cassius answer? Then, with your will, go on.

Cassius, I am on my way.

Half an hour later, as dapper and at least outwardly as cheerful as he'd been yesterday, he ran into Lieutenant Showalter near the entrance gate.

Showalter grinned at him. "Doc, you sure look better than you did when I first saw you this morning. I wasn't sure you were going to live."

"Nor was I, Lieutenant."

He started on past but the lieutenant said, "Just a second, Doc. I just got some news. You can forget what I asked you to do about finding those witnesses."

"Oh?" Dr. Magus asked. He had already forgotten it. He had had no faint intention of ever trying.

"Quintana ain't going to change his mind about that confession. Just got word, he killed himself in his cell. The guy had guts, or else he really was crazy. Want to know what the son of a bitch did?"

Dr. Magus had a hunch that he didn't want to know.

"We thought we'd taken away anything he could use to kill himself with
-
but we didn't think to knock his teeth out. He bit open the vein in one of his wrists. And d'ya want to know what he did while he was bleeding to death?"

"No," said Dr. Magus firmly. "Please forgive me but I do not want to know."

He walked on rapidly, feeling a little sick.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE MURDERER FELT LOUSY. Nervous, jittery, keyed-up.

And worried that he should feel that way for no reason at all. All of his problems were solved. He was safe.

Everything had worked out better than he'd dared hope. The cops had even written off Mack Irby's murder. Now even if they got him for stealing the money
-
and he didn't see how they could ever do that anyway with the bills not marked or in consecutive numbers
-
they'd never suspect him of having murdered to get it. Why, he hadn't even stolen it; he'd found it accidentally and what was illegal about that? Of course if they could prove it was stolen property they could take it away from him, but how could they do more than that?

The way in which he'd got rid of the only witness against him, Dolly, had been a master stroke. A perfect crime, because he hadn't done it himself; he'd pulled strings like a puppeteer and Dolly and Joe and Leon had danced to his pulling. Why had he been worried that anything could go wrong? Last night for a few minutes he'd almost been panicky enough to run away before waiting to see how it worked out.

Hadn't had enough confidence in himself, that's all.

Oh, there'd been luck on his side too. Quintana's killing himself in jail this morning, for instance. But that just made things a little better; it hadn't been necessary. They had Quintana figured for Mack Irby's murder anyway
-
what a brilliant thought it had been to give that money to Dolly!
-
but now he couldn't keep on denying he'd killed Irby until maybe they began to doubt, however slightly, that he had.

And it had been lucky Quintana had told them he'd heard "a voice in his sleep" telling him Dolly was with Joe. Not important but a nice touch.

There wasn't a way on earth they could touch him now for murder. And there wasn't anybody besides himself who even suspected Charlie and Mack had robbed a bank.

Everything was perfect. Charlie and Mack dead. Dolly, Joe, Quintana dead.