Third man out - Stevenson Richard - Страница 36

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"Thank you-Mrs. Murphy?"

"Why, yes."

"Have a nice day."

I dialed the number. "Good morning. Byrne Olds-Cadillac."

"Is Art Murphy over there today? Don't ring him-I want to drop by."

"Art's in the showroom. He'll be around, I'm pretty sure."

"Thanks."

I drove back over to Central and west toward Colonic Byrne Olds-Cadillac was one of the patriotic GM dealers that hadn't taken on a Japanese line to keep the customers coming, but had clung to a tattered domestic respectability untouched by Asia's peculiar ways and well-made economical vehicles. A gigantic American flag hung from a pole next to the entrance, and the place looked proud but not busy.

No one rushed out to pound my Mitsubishi with a sledgehammer as I pulled in; I parked on the far side of the lot where the other parked cars had no sales stickers and appeared to belong to employees. I found the shiny blue Olds in no time at all, checked the license plate, which matched the one Jay Gladu had given me for the mysterious Wednesday-night motel visitor's car, and then checked the mud flaps, front and rear. All were intact and none seemed newly replaced. I crawled around a second time and examined them. The two front flaps were identical, and appropriately worn, as were the two rear flaps.

So this was probably not the murder car. But its owner, I was confident, would know whose was.

I went into the showroom and approached a middle-aged man in a mint-green blazer with slicked-back gray hair.

"Art Murphy?"

"Yessir."

"I'm Don Strachey and I'd like to talk to you about a car. Somebody told me that you're the man to see."

"I'd like to think I know a little bit about cars. What would you be interested in, Mr.-Straker?"

"Strachey."

"Sorry about that."

"There's one particular car I'd like to discuss with you. The blue Olds out in the lot that belongs to you and that was driven out to the Fountain of Eden Motel every Wednesday night for nearly a year. Could we go somewhere private and talk about that car?"

We were standing alongside a Cadillac that didn't at all resemble the boatlike ostentatious vessels the name has always evoked and will always evoke for North Americans born before a certain year. But this Cadillac was big enough to hold Art Murphy up when he fell back as if he'd been struck and then leaned against it trying to catch his breath.

"What the fuck you trine-a do to me?"

"Do you have an office, Art? You look as if you need to sit down."

He hesitated, staring at me, then reddened and gestured for me to follow. We went into his glassed-in cubicle and he shut the door. He sat behind his desk and loosened his tie, still breathing with effort, and kept glancing around to see who might be watching. A man who looked like a younger Art was in a cubicle two doors down, busy with some papers, and he didn't seem to be aware of the distress bordering on panic that his colleague was suffering.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Don Strachey, a private investigator. I'm trying to find out, among other things, who killed John Rutka."

"Killed who? Who'd you say?" He was sweating and kept squirming and loosening things, but none of it seemed to help.

"Who used your car every Wednesday night? Or was that you out there boffing the Channel Eight weatherman in unit fifteen every week until the night the mirror fell? If it was you, Art, you sure look none the worse for wear. Except it wasn't you, was it?

You don't quite qualify as a mega-hypocrite."

"Who told you this horseshit?"

"And now whoever it is you're protecting, Art, has killed John Rutka, the man who had the goods on him and was planning on exposing his nauseating hypocrisy. Art, do you know what the penalty is in the State of New York for obstructing the investigation of a homicide?"

The sweat still flowed, but now he was getting a confused look. "Mister, I don't know what the hell you are talking about. Is John Rutka that gay kid on the news who was murdered?"

"I think we both know well enough who John Rutka was."

"You're nuts, that's what you are! I wouldn't know John Rutka from Adam. You are just plain nuts."

I sat there gazing at Murphy in his state of agitated confusion, and now I was starting to get a little confused myself. "Do you deny that your car was parked outside unit fifteen at the Fountain of Eden Motel every Wednesday night for most of the past year from seven P.M. to ten P.M.?"

He reddened again and said nothing for a long moment. Then: "What I do with my car and who drives it is none of your goddamn business. And what I do with my car has nothing to do with any goddamn murder, and I'd like to know how you think there's any connection. I dare you-I dare you to tell me how there is any connection between my car and who drives it and any damn murder!"

This was not going the way I had thought it would. "Art, I've got all the evidence I need to connect your car with the motel, and with the man who went there every Wednesday night to meet Ronnie Linkletter and to know him carnally. And while I am happy to acknowledge that such same-sex carnal knowledge is no longer a criminal act in the State of New York-unlike twenty-five other barbaric states-and while I share your opinion that what went on at the Fountain of Eden is none of my damned business

— or yours-still, there is this: Certain evidence connects the man who used your car to the abduction and murder of John Rutka last Wednesday night. You can tell me now what you know, or you can talk to the Handbag police an hour from now after I phone them. Take your pick."

"Now I know you're nuts. There couldn't be any connection between my car and a murder-when?"

"Wednesday, two nights ago."

"Im-possible. I don't know where you're getting your information, but you have been mis-in-formed. Nope, you're all wet, that's what you are, mister."

He glanced defiantly at his watch, then sat there eyeing me, his breathing evener now, but still wary and scared. Murphy hadn't denied that his car had been at the Fountain of Eden Motel every Wednesday night, or that its user had been hit by a falling mirror; he only denied that the man had-or even could have had-any connection with the kidnaping and murder of John Rutka.

It hit me with a cold thud deep inside that I might have been on the wrong trail all along, that Ronnie Linkletter's boyfriend who got clobbered with the mirror might not have been the Mega-Hypocrite whose file was missing (even though Ronnie himself had acted as if the man had been), or if he had-or even hadn't-the Mega-Hypocrite wasn't the murderer at all, and the missing file was part of an elaborate ploy meant to throw investigators off the track. But if so, whose ploy?

I had one last go at Art Murphy. I said, "Art, I can only present my evidence to the police, of course, but I think I've told you enough to convince you that you're in this not up to your neck but certainly up to your knees. Just tell me: Who borrowed your car every Wednesday night until mid-June, when the mirror fell? Tell me that, Art, and we might be able to keep the police out of this. I'm not promising anything, but I'll do my best to see that your employer and family don't have to hear about your involvement in this sordid affair."

He grimaced at that last cheap shot, but he also sensed my diminished confidence and the incompleteness of my chain of evidence. "I told you, who uses my car is none of your goddamn business, and I'll also tell you this: Anybody who might've borrowed my car anytime certainly did not have anything to do with a murder last Wednesday night, that's for goddamn sure."

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