Dead, She Was Beautiful Read online

Hagen turned back the sheet and surveyed the thin face, the iron-grey hair and the sunken cheeks of the man who yesterday had claimed to be Wayne Wishart. He was beyond pretence now. Hagen sighed. “End of the line,” he said. He jerked his head at Dworkin. “He didn’t happen to say anything that you remember before he died, did he?”

  Dworkin shook his head. “No, not that I … Wait a minute. In the ambulance he mumbled something about ‘wishing’. At least, that’s what it sounded like to me.”

  “Could it have been Wishart?”

  “It might have been. Would that help you any?”

  “ I don’t know,” said Hagen. If Doc had truly mumbled the name Wishart, he might have been recalling only his impersonation—or perhaps the person who had hired him. He studied the dead face on the slab. No help in that direction. Then an idea struck him, and he glanced covertly at the others. Dagne had turned away after her first quick glance of Doc and the young trainee was being very solicitous. Neither of them was watching Hagen.

  Using his back to shield his actions, Hagen ran his hands quickly through Doc’s pockets, blessing the fact that the corpse was still wearing his own clothes. He found nothing; if there had been any identification, the hospital had already removed it. But Hagen wasn’t disappointed. He had something else in mind. In Doc’s shirt pocket he tucked one of his own business cards. He needed the alibi badly and if Doc couldn’t help him one way, Hagen didn’t see anything wrong in getting Doc to help him in another.

  Dagne came up beside him. “Aren’t you through here? I’m getting a chill.”

  “Just a second.” Hagen turned to the trainee. “You’re sure about the cause of death? A lot depends on it.”

  “It was practically a textbook case,” said Dworkin stubbornly. “We’ll be doing a post this evening or in the morning, but there’s no question in my mind.”

  “Okay, thanks,” said Hagen and, sighing, took Dagne’s hand again. “I wish I could say the same.” He went upstairs to phone Troge the bad news.

  10

  TROGE came out in a fast squad car, complete with wailing siren. It was a good indication, Hagen thought, of the pressures that were working on the homicide chief. Troge ordinarily ranked with the calmest of men, but the Wishart murder was now nearly twenty-four hours old without an arrest and Troge was only human after all. Everybody from the mayor on down would be riding him, just because the dead woman had been named Wishart. Hagen hoped that this didn’t bode trouble for himself; he didn’t care to be sacrificed to the morning papers.

  There was no indication that his position had changed one way or another in Troge’s eyes. He listened to Hagen’s story impassively, heard the corroboration from Dr. Dworkin and stomped away to view Doc’s body, trailed by his henchmen.

  Hagen didn’t accompany him. Instead, he sat with Dagne on the hospital steps and watched the fog bank begin to creep in from the Pacific. The Santa Ana condition was gasping its last hot breath. The fog meant that it would be cooler tomorrow.

  “The heat will still be on as far as I’m concerned,” he replied to Dagne when she made the weather observation, “That is, unless I get lucky all of a sudden.”

  “Funny,” she mused.

  “I don’t think so. It’s my neck.”

  “No, I mean it’s funny how things turn out. This morning I was ready to shoot you. Even at noon I felt the same way. And now here I am sitting on the steps of the county hospital and letting you hold my hand.”

  He didn’t relinquish it. “I’m holding on for support, Dagne. If I let go, I may sink.”

  “Is it really that bad, Hagen?”

  “Maybe not.” He was thinking of the business card he had planted in Doc’s pocket. Troge had been down in the morgue a long time. Had he found it yet?”I’ll know better when I talk to Troge. But I do know that I haven’t exactly been playing in luck. Present company excepted, of course.”

  Seriously, Dagne asked, “Hagen—why didn’t you and Hilda make a go of it?”

  “I told you. She preferred another guy.”

  “That’s not a reason, that’s a symptom. Of course, it’s none of my business.” She smiled suddenly. “Have you ever noticed that whenever anyone says ‘Of course, it’s none of my business’, that’s a sure sign that they intend to make it their business? Like now—I have no right to ask but I’m asking anyway.”

  He played absently with her hand, seeking an answer and finding it hard because he had never been quite sure himself. “I don’t know, Dagne, and that’s the truth. I used to think it was Hilda but now—I don’t know.”

  “Why now?” she asked quietly, watching him.

  “Because being with you brings back so much of the good stuff that it makes me wonder. Maybe it was a lot of things instead of just one big thing. You know, I asked an attorney once what are good grounds for divorce in California. What do you think he said? Marriage!” He grinned wryly. “You tell me.”

  She said slowly, “I think you’d be a hard man to live with, Hagen.”

  “Didn’t Hilda ever tell you?”

  “No. Actually, there was a time, right after you were divorced, that I didn’t see Hilda at all. About a year. I’m not even sure where she was.” Hagen felt the fingers he held slowly become rigid, form a claw. “And now she’s dead. Somebody is going to have to pay for that, Hagen.”

  “Pay day’s coming soon,” he said and rose. “And so is Troge. I hear the muffled pad of flat feet.”

  Hagen was right. Troge and his entourage came into view from the direction of the stairs. Hagen hailed him and Troge nodded. He spent a few minutes in low-voiced conversation with his aides and then they departed while the homicide chief came to join Hagen and Dagne on the steps. Hagen expected that Troge would tell him immediately of finding the business card on the dead man but Troge was more interested in Dagne. He listened intently to the story of the twins, finally commenting, “Well, it’s a strange one but not impossible, I guess. You understand, Miss Christy, that I’ll have to do some routine checking on What you’ve told me.”

  “I expected it. Of course, I don’t relish the publicity but …” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “I wouldn’t let that stand in the way of you catching Hilda’s murderer.”

  “That’s fine. Do you mind telling me where you were last evening?”

  “Home.” She gave the address, an apartment in the fashionable park area. “I was working on my business accounts. It’s almost the first of the month, you know.”

  Troge nodded and looked at Hagen. “Well, you’re still staying one jump ahead of me. This Doc character matches the description you gave this morning. Pretty lucky for you.”

  “If you’re going to bring luck into it, how about the killer? The only witness against him keels over from natural causes just as I’ve got him cornered. Doc could have cleared me.”

  “Uh-huh,” Troge said and Hagen waited for him to mention the business card. Instead, Troge added, “That is, you say he could have cleared you. Doc isn’t saying anything one way or another.” He rose. “I’ve got a team back-tracking on Doc. By morning we’ll know everything about him—maybe even including who hired him, if anybody did.”

  Hagen couldn’t wait any longer. He took the bit in his teeth. “Say, Troge, I was wondering. Did your men search the body? I hadn’t mentioned it before but I gave Doc one of my business cards out at Oakmar when he hired me. He might still have it on him. And if he did—”

  “He didn’t,” Troge said flatly. “I looked over his stuff myself. See you later, Miss Christy.” With a nod to Hagen, he left them, heading back into the hospital building.

  Bewildered, Hagen almost ran after the police captain with the foolish suggestion that perhaps they had missed it, that they had better look again. He fought down the impulse with an effort. He knew better than that; the police were thorough, to say the least.

  Dagne said, “Can we go now—or do you plan on staying the night?”

  “We can go,” he muttered absently and went in t
he direction of his car, leaving her to trail after him. He couldn’t understand it. He had put his card in Doc’s pocket, hadn’t he? For an instant Hagen wondered if his mind had begun to play tricks on him.

  “What’s the matter?” Dagne asked him irritably. “Have I got poison oak all of a sudden?”

  “What? Oh, I’m sorry. I was just kind of surprised at something Troge said, that’s all.” He started the car. “Where do you want to go, Dagne? Back to the gym?”

  “Salon,” she corrected him. “No. Take me home. I’m tired, Hagen.” She put her head back against the seat and stared moodily out the window.

  Hagen didn’t attempt to make conversation as he drove the girl across the city to her apartment. He kept going through the same silent dialogue time after time. He had put the card in Doc’s pocket, hadn’t he? Yes, he had. Troge hadn’t found it there, had he? No, he hadn’t. Well, then, his mind cried exasperatedly, what the hell happened to it? Hagen didn’t even know where to begin to look for the answer.

  It turned out that he didn’t have to look at all. The answer was handed to him. He pulled into the kerb before the address Dagne had given him, a Spanish-style two-storey apartment building of white stucco and red tiling built around a verdant patio. He stopped the engine and sat there, still frowning, until she swivelled her head to look at him.

  “Don’t bother to get out,” she said, a trifle bitterly since it was obvious that he had no thought of doing so. “I can open the door for myself. What’s bothering you, Hagen?”

  “Oh, nothing. Nothing important.”

  “I thought it might be this.” She opened her hand and showed him the rectangle of stiff paper she held. It was his own business card, the one he thought he had left with the dead man. “Or am I mistaken?”

  Blankly he stared at it. “Where did that come from?”

  “From where you put it. I saw that sleight-of-hand act of yours back in the morgue, so while you weren’t looking I did a little of my own.” Her pink mouth quirked at his amazement. “You don’t suppose that I’d let you get away with it, do you?”

  He said slowly, “I’ll be switched! So it was you that fouled me up.”

  “You fouled yourself up when you tried to pull a stunt like that,” she told him scornfully. “I wasn’t going to stand by and let you hoodwink justice, not for a minute, Hagen.”

  “I wasn’t hoodwinking anything,” he retorted. “I was just trying to save my skin. And it was all true anyway, so what harm was it, will you tell me that?”

  “I’ll be glad to,” she flared, matching his angry tone. “Though I don’t know that you deserve it. For that matter, I don’t know why I didn’t tell the whole thing to Captain Troge and let him lock you up, where you probably belong.”

  “Thank you, Madame Defarge. Would it have put such a strain on your conscience to give me the benefit of the doubt? Maybe I did it because I can be more use to Hilda loose than behind Troge’s eight-ball.”

  “Just don’t ask me to be a party to your cheap tricks, that’s all.”

  “I thought that, after this afternoon, you wanted to help me,” said Hagen, stung by what he considered her betrayal. “It’s a cinch we’re after the same thing and I thought you might even be getting to like me.”

  “We travel different roads. Oh, I do like you—better, anyway,” Dagne admitted judiciously. “But I can’t stomach your greasy little methods. You’re not going to sign me up as your client, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

  “Hinting, hell! I thought it was practically settled!”

  “No thanks, laddie. I don’t want your tactics rubbing off on me.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty filthy, I am.”

  “Well, I believe in letting the chips fall where they may, Hagen.”

  “That’s easy to say from where you sit. You’re not getting hit by any.”

  They sat for a moment in a stormy silence. Hagen felt the blood pounding in his temples. The fiasco with his business card wasn’t so much in itself but it was the last straw, the culmination of a day of frustrations and unpleasant surprises. It was so damned unfair, he raged to himself. He hadn’t wanted to get mixed up in this mess in the first place, it was Hilda’s fault somehow, and now her living image was continuing to make his life miserable.

  Suddenly, almost without conscious intent, he reached over and took Dagne by her creamy throat. “I ought to strangle you,” he declared between his teeth.

  She didn’t flinch. Her eyes challenged him. “Why don’t you shoot an arrow instead?” she asked mockingly.

  Hagen said thickly, “I’ll show you how I rub off on people, baby.” He dropped his grip to her shoulders and pulled her roughly to him. His mouth sought to crush hers and pay back, in some obscure fashion, the hurt she had given him He wanted her to struggle and experience helplessness, as he had experienced it during the past day and night.

  But then he realized suddenly that Dagne was not struggling. Instead, she was returning his kiss as fiercely as it was given. Her fingernails were digging painfully into his back, holding him tightly. He was so surprised that he released her and drew back.

  She opened her eyes and gazed at him inscrutably, her eyelids heavy, her lips softly parted. Huskily, she murmured, “Hagen, that was very enjoyable. But I really should know better, shouldn’t I?” And without a change of expression, she slapped Hagen full across the mouth for the second time that day. Before he could recover, Dagne slipped out of the car. When he lunged for her, she nearly slammed the door on his fingers.

  He yelled after her but she was already marching away in the direction of her front door, her back as straight and proud as a cadet’s. She disappeared into her apartment without once more glancing in his direction.

  Hagen looked sheepishly up and down the quiet street, sure that every inhabitant had witnessed his embarrassment. But he encountered no amused stares, heard no raucous laughs. This made him feel a trifle better, but only a trifle. His face stung—Dagne hadn’t pulled her punch even a little—and his spirit was abused.

  “Women,” he muttered aloud like a swear word. When was he ever going to learn? Every time he got involved with one he ended up with a bad taste in his mouth, or worse. “If I had any sense at all, I’d re-enlist and see if the army wouldn’t send me back to Die-Hard Rock.” This was not the first time he had had that thought.

  You’re talking like you’ve got a choice, he mused. You’re not going anywhere, Hagen, not even back to the peace and quiet of Die-Hard Rock. Even the Army won’t take a man with a murder rap hanging over him. And let’s not kid ourselves, boy, that description fits you. Troge hasn’t come right out and said it yet but the way things are going, he’ll get around to it. He may even have one of his men waiting at the house for you now.

  In this, Hagen was too pessimistic. There was a man waiting for him but it was not one of Troge’s underlings. He sat on the steps of Hagen’s court bungalow with the patience of a bill collector or a process server. He didn’t even get up at Hagen’s approach.

  Hagen stopped in front of him. “Something I can do for you?”

  The man looked him up and down. “Maybe, if you’re Hagen.” He was a big fellow, a burly square block of flesh with a thick neck and a head that belonged on a pile-driver. “Are you Hagen?”

  “I’ve got a driver’s licence that says so.”

  “ Very slick,” observed the other man and rose slowly, like a mountain on the move. “Well, you can call me Jack. Let’s go inside out of the damp, Hagen. You and me got some business together.”

  11

  A NUMBER of impressions put Hagen on his guard. He didn’t like the looks of the man who had identified himself only as Jack, either his amoral stare or his bulk. Jack wasn’t hanging around his front porch for social reasons. He had the build and visage of a bruiser, a breed for which Hagen held no particular fondness, anyway. Whatever Jack wanted, it wouldn’t be for the benefit of Mort Hagen. Jack’s kind didn’t hand out anything free except punishmen
t. If he knew something of value, it would have to be taken away from him by force.

  Another intuition told Hagen he wasn’t man enough, not right now, which made him madder yet. He was tired and in no mood for company or trouble. It had been a hard day and he had just come from having his face slapped. He was aching to take it out on somebody and he sized Jack up with the cool inspection of a mortician.

  “Well?” said Jack, when he made no move to enter the house. “We just going to stand around out here?”

  “That depends. If you want to see me on business, I’ve got an office for that purpose. This is my home.”

  “I’ve been to your office. You aren’t in very much.” Jack had a deep guttural voice, possibly caused by his nose which had been mashed flat against his face. Hagen thought he was half-Mexican at least; his skin had that swarthy look as if it was just about to break into a sweat. “Look, Hagen—I’m doing you a favour.”

  “Do me another one. Get lost.”

  Jack smiled and his teeth were very regular and startlingly white, false, Hagen thought. Jack had taken a terrific beating at some time in the past, perhaps several times. He said, “You’re a real mean boy, aren’t you? Serve you right if I did leave.”

  “I’m not that lucky. What is it you want? A dime for a cup of coffee?”

  “You shouldn’t ought to ride your friends that way,” Jack told him. “I am your friend, Hagen, that’s why I’m here. It’s about the Wishart murder. You’re in bad trouble, boy.”

  “I didn’t need you to tell me that.”

  “I could get you out,” said Jack softly. “I’m the only one who can.”

  Hagen gave a mirthless chuckle. “Who are you—my good fairy? The only thing that’s going to get me out of the hole is a confession.”

  “Well, I might even do that.” Jack shrugged. “If there was enough money in it, I mean.”

  Hagen considered him thoughtfully for a long moment. Then he said, “Much as I hate to back up, I guess you’d better come in, after all. I think I ought to know you better, Jack.”