The Line Is Dead | Page 9

being watched."
"I didn't mean there; you move in with Alma."
"Why?"
"So when the police come looking for you, you won't be here. Wanting to talk to you, and not finding you, will be a roadblock for them, which'll give me a chance to work."
"But Denny's innocent!"
Catching her by the arm, he whisked her to her feet. "Get dressed, before I turn a hand to dressing you myself!"
"Go ahead," Alma seconded. "We won't be too crowded at my place."
THE CHANCE that a police car would roll up to take Cornelia in for questioning kept Carver on edge until he had her well on the way downtown. And at Alma's door, he paused to say, "In the morning, I'll get Denny a lawyer; he'll need one, and with all the trimmings."
"We're both flat broke," Cornelia told him. "The first thing they want is a retainer."
"How about your husband's bank account? Even if you can't draw on it, it's enough yours now for a lawyer to see his way through."
"Bank account!" she echoed. "There was an ex-wife--one before me--he was paying off. And income tax installments due. And now there'll be an inheritance tax lien on the house. Lord alone knows how much he had borrowed on it. I never could keep track of things. Everything is in such a muddle that I don't see how any lawyer would gamble on collecting his fee till he looked into the prospects."
Her wide-eyed dismay and her quiet resignation to the inevitable had exactly the effect that Carver had anticipated; he knew he was playing true to form, the form of all of Cornelia's public, when he said, "The chap who handled his tax problems would have the answers. Interest paid is a deduction, and the person to whom it's paid is listed. Sometimes alimony is deductible, sometimes not, depending on whether it's dished out by the month, or paid in a lump sum settlement. And so on--to say nothing of getting some leads as to who Herb was having trouble with in a business way. Guys he hated, he'd gripe about. Apparently to anyone who'd listen, Alma, you know the man I mean?"
"Wait, I'll get his card; Herb gave it to me. Said it was frightfully inefficient working out one's own tax. That an expert saved you more than the fee he charged."
Carver, as he pocketed the card of Bradford Barstow, Salter Building, Camp Street, was thinking, But you still figure your own tax, so you can chew out the expert, in case his answers and yours don't jibe. That's the Herb Lowry Method. Nothing bucks a fellow up better than making a monkey of an expert. And once he had the immediate demands of the situation under control, he would go with Cornelia to Lowry's house and give it a thorough going over. But for her arrival with Denny Wayland, he might have got a good deal further with his study of Lowry's paper work.
The other angle was that Wayland could be guilty; that Cornelia had still held back the essence of the story. That is, she and Wayland might have been in a huddle the result of which had been that Wayland had resolved to go alone for a showdown, instead of fooling away time later hunting that spiteful letter. It was barely possible, yet, it was possible, that he could have killed Lowry without himself having been bespattered with blood.
Then, back to Cornelia, only a little down and off St. Charles Avenue, to tell her that Lowry had not been in. That would have made her insist upon going with him to make the search. And he could not well have refused.
Since Cornelia believed Wayland innocent, she would solemnly swear he had not left her, to see Lowry alone. And she must surely believe him innocent, otherwise, after having seen that revolting slaughterhouse, the mere shade of suspicion would have shaken her.
Murder in Carrollton, as Carver expected, hogged the headlines. Cornelia was named only as the widow, who had thus far made no statement. Wayland was not mentioned at all.
Apparently they had booked him on suspicion, and had their reasons for not charging him.
Where Carver had expected that Wayland would be so strongly spotlighted that working on the case would be easy, the law had gone into reverse.
He read on. Cash register receipts in Lowry's pockets had given a list of Vieux Carre bars he had visited before going home and to his death. A bartender with a camera eye had described Carver as the unidentified man who had been looking for Lowry.
Another had stated, "He said he'd help him with his income tax when he caught up with him."
TO SPEAK of catching up with a man who is a couple of bars ahead of you is the most innocent expression in the