“If properly motivated.”
“Bribed, you mean. What’s the tariff?”
“Another dinner?”
“In the immediate future.”
“Agreed. First thing in the morning. I’ve got connections at the hospital.”
“Call me at my office.”
“Just as soon as I know.”
She hung up, and so did I. I smoked three cigarettes and lay down again. I was wide awake, and it was three years till daylight. There was another phone call I wanted to make, but I decided I’d better wait. Brady Baldwin, waked in the night, would be even meaner than Hetty, and he was not, moreover, susceptible to bribes.
The next morning I was in my office with my feet up when the phone rang, and Hetty was back. True to her word, motivated by a steak, she had found my answer, and it was the answer I wanted. Luck, after running bad, was beginning to run good. It looked like the end of a long, dry spell.
I dialed police headquarters. After preliminaries with the switchboard, I got Brady Baldwin in Homicide.
“Hello, Percy,” he said. “No news.”
“I called to give, not to receive. It’s more blessed, supposedly. In brief, I’ve found her.”
The line hummed, and I listened to it hum. Brady was still there at the other end, but he wasn’t talking at the moment. I only hoped that I hadn’t talked too soon and too much.
“Excuse me, Percy. We must have a bad connection. I thought you said you’d found her.”
“I did, and I have.”
“Where?”
“Sitting in my lap.”
“Don’t be a cutie, Percy. Give it to me straight and quick.”
“Not now. Later.”
“Better not play games with your license. You might lose it.”
“No games, Brady. I could be wrong, and I have to be sure. Will you do me a favor?”
“Why should I?”
“You’ll be doing one for yourself, too.”
“That’s different. What favor?”
“Do you still have Benedict Coon’s car in custody?”
“We do, but we’re ready to release it.”
“What have you done to it?”
“The usual. We’ve taken photographs. We’ve lifted prints. We’ve vacuumed it and run tests. Nothing that’s got us much of anywhere.”
“Back seat, too?”
“Sure. We’re not dummies, Percy. Coon was shot in the back of the head. It could have been done by a third party hiding on the floor in the rear. It’s conceivable.”
“How about the trunk?”
“Why waste time? How could he have been shot from the trunk?”
“Run tests on the trunk, Brady. That’s the favor.”
“Maybe you’d better come clean with whatever’s in your mind.”
“I said later, Brady, and that’s when it’ll have to be. Goodbye, now.”
To avoid threats and recriminations and other forms of unpleasantry, I hung up, grabbed my hat, and got out of the office before he could call me back. I got in my clunker and headed east, and in due time I was rattling up the drive to the Cedarvale Country Club, which was not a place I ordinarily went or was welcome.
There were a dozen late vintage automobiles in the parking area. It was a clear day, chilly but still abnormally mild for the time of year, and I could see a few golf bugs scattered over the rolling course. In front of the clubhouse, using a pair of long-handled clippers on a juniper bush, was an angular specimen with an expression of contented idiocy on his face. He looked to me like the kind who might entertain himself by playing poker with license plates, so I wandered over and said that it was certainly a nice day, late in the year as it was, and he agreed. I said it was a good day for golf, and he didn’t deny it. I asked him if a lot of members were still playing, and he said there were quite a few.
“You a member?” he asked.
“No, I’m a cop.”
I didn’t bother to distinguish between cops private, and cops public, and he didn’t require me to make the distinction.
“There was a cop here the other day,” he said. “He was asking about Mrs. Coon and Mr. Farmer.”
“I know. You have to ask about things like that, just to keep the record straight. You know how it is with murder. It’s important to find out where everyone was at certain times.”
“Well, Mrs. Coon and Mr. Farmer were right here, and I said so.”
“Did you see them?”
“Not them. His car. It was parked up here, and I remember it because it had a full house. Highest hand in the lot at the time. I play poker with myself, sort of, with license plates.”
“So I’ve heard. Didn’t you see them when they left?”
“They didn’t leave. Not while I was here, I mean. Other people saw them, though. They came in off the course about four o’clock, something like that, and they hung around in the bar and had dinner before they left. I quit at five.”
“When did they arrive and park the car?”
“I wouldn’t exactly know. About eleven, I had to go down to the caretaker’s shed for a tool I needed, and the car was here when I got back.”
“How long did you stay at the caretaker’s shed?”
“Well, I got to talking with a fellow there, and it was quite awhile. Half an hour, at least. A lot of other cars had come in, and the lot was pretty well filled. There was a luncheon in the clubhouse that day.”
“I see. So the car was here soon after eleven, say. Mrs. Coon and Farmer came off the course about four. I’d call that a long game of golf.”
“They must have practiced before they started to play.”
“That,” I said, “is just what I’m thinking.”
I left him in his juniper patch and went away. I should have gone directly to police headquarters, but I didn’t, and the reason I didn’t had something to do with earning a fee, and something more to do with injured pride or vanity or what you will. I went, instead, to 15 Corning Place, and I was intercepted at the door by the same maid as before, who went, as before,
