Drawn to Evil Read online

  Hilligan was having one of his men take it all down. Names, addresses, everything. I knew that the people she mentioned were all going to be visited. It was going to be polite, but it was going to be thorough.

  I had stopped listening to him. The vision of Liza Flynn was burned into my mind. My heart pounded. Here it was. In this room. Just what I had always been seeking. The big thrill. I was going to have her. I was going to find who killed her husband and the prize would be the loveliest woman I had ever seen. A woman who’d never been touched, really. I could look at her and sense that it was all there, waiting. The hellfire and the thrill and the excitement. It was going to be pure hell for the guy who really woke her up. And I was the guy that was going to do it.

  • • •

  While Hilligan was still firing questions at her a young guy came into the room. He looked like class, tailored sharkskin slacks and hand-tooled sport shoes. His blond hair was carefully mussed. It looked as if he’d mussed it himself with a comb. His blue eyes were still puffy with sleep. Just the same he was the most impossibly handsome young guy you ever saw. I knew he moved in the set I read about in the Tribune, but I had the damnedest feeling I had seen him somewhere before — and not at a Junior League prom, either.

  He breezed in from the stairs, hesitated for a moment, looking things over, and frowning because he didn’t like what he saw. He looked at Liza and went directly to her. I couldn’t blame him for that. But I didn’t have to like the way he put his arm about her, did I?

  “My nephew — George’s nephew, Jerry Marlowe,” Liza said. She looked at me across his shoulder, smiling.

  “What is this?” Marlowe said.

  Hilligan explained it. He took his time, going into detail about where George Flynn’s body had been found, the time, and how it had looked. Before he was through, Liza was shaking visibly.

  Jerry Marlowe glared with disgust at Hilligan. “What are you trying to do, kill her?” He stood up and shouted, “Tina! Tina!”

  Tina came running. She was used to jumping when young Marlowe yelled. You could see that right away. She was wearing a white smock and white lace in her blonde hair. She had a good figure, and anywhere else in the world she’d have been considered a pretty girl. But in this room with Liza Flynn she didn’t look like so much.

  Jerry took over the way I would have liked to have been able to. “Tina, get Mrs. Flynn’s bed ready for her, fix her a sedative, and call Dr. Ruysdel. At once!” Tina was nodding and hurrying out of the room without even looking at any of the rest of us.

  Marlowe looked at Hilligan again. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Hilligan. This torture session is over for this morning. Mrs. Flynn has had more than she can stand. If there is anything else, I’m afraid you’ll have to talk to me.”

  Hilligan spluttered. “There’s one thing. Where were you last night?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “It’s the damnedest thing, Lieutenant, but I can’t. You see I actually was sleeping. And when I’m going to sleep, I always go to bed alone.”

  He put his arm about Liza then and half carried her from the room. Hilligan just stood there with his mouth open and watched them go.

  At the door, Liza paused, looking over her shoulder. Her eyes brushed across mine. I was what she had been looking for and there was a message in those dark eyes. A message that told of deep fires that seared the very soul, and an awareness that bordered on impatience. I got it.

  • • •

  Hilligan had made all the assignments on the Flynn case and we were alone in his office.

  “What about me?” I said. “What’s in this thing for me?”

  He pushed back in his chair. “That’s what I’m trying to figure, Marty. What’s in it for you?”

  “What the hell does that crack mean?”

  “It ain’t so hard to understand. It took you a long time this morning, Marty, just driving Mrs. Flynn home. Where did you go?”

  “I stopped on the bayshore. She cracked up. She was hysterical. I let her get it out of her. She cried for a long time. After she got started, I thought she never was going to stop.”

  He nodded. “One thing I give you. You’re a good cop. You do your job. That’s the only reason I’m even thinking of letting you work on this case.”

  “What are you talking about? You’ve got to let me work on it — ”

  “I don’t know, Marty, if I have to or not. These are pretty respectable people that we’re going to be dealing with. You handle people pretty rough. I’m warning you now, no rough stuff on these people — ”

  “You’re nuts! So you think it was one of that rich crowd that beat Flynn to death?”

  “I don’t know! Don’t start yelling at me. All we know is that George Flynn left a party at Clayton Lyons’ place at midnight. So far as we know that was the last time he was seen alive. Why did he leave the party?”

  “His wife told you. They had a spat.”

  “Yes. But what about? Some other man? Somebody at that party? Maybe Flynn was jealous, maybe he met this other guy away from the party. They fought — and we got a corpse.”

  “That’s a good way to waste your time, all right. You know that George Flynn was the best lawyer that ever hit this town. He was a state senator who was trying to fight crime. When you fight crime in this town, Hilligan, you’re up against the syndicate, and that’s the big leagues.”

  “Since when did the syndicate start dealing out messy deaths like this, Carter? Clean, swift and clever. You know that. Some guy used a club on Flynn. Some big guy. Beat him to death.”

  “Why a big guy?”

  “It had to be. You saw his face. Pulpy.”

  “Two of them. One to hold him and the other one to beat him. That way the guy wouldn’t have to be too big or too strong. He could take his time. Kind of relax and let his hate do his work for him.”

  “Does that sound like the syndicate to you?”

  “Maybe not. But does it sound like a society killing? Dueling pistols and lifted pinky? Twenty paces at dawn and that sort of thing? No. Poison. But not a club.”

  “All right. Maybe it isn’t genteel. But it is messy. Amateurish. No syndicate job — ”

  “Maybe they didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “You saw his face.”

  Saw it? I could still see it. The sun on that red mask. Those bloody eyes watching me ride away with his wife. I nodded.

  “Whoever did it hated him and meant to kill him,” Hilligan said. “That’s why I’m not pulling you off the case altogether, Marty.”

  I stared at him. He knew better than to try to keep me off. I had taken plenty from him. But I’d get him for that if I had to lay for him in a dark alley. I breathed again.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re on it, Marty. But plenty limited. We don’t need your strong-arm stuff. This is a modern bureau. We got all the latest equipment. We got men trained by the FBI. We’ll find out who killed George Flynn. We may be a little slow for you, but we won’t use any rubber hoses. And I got news for you. You ain’t using any rubber hoses, either. You’re working on the case. But keep your dirty mitts in your pockets. Follow orders. That’s all.”

  I got up. I shrugged my coat up on my shoulders and went out of there. Carl Dill was sitting just outside Hilligan’s door. Sergeant Carl Dill. His face screwed into a smile. His honest face.

  Chapter 4

  TINA answered the door.

  “I’m sorry. Mrs. Flynn is in bed. She is not to see anyone today.”

  “Who said so?”

  “Mr. Marlowe’s order, sir.”

  I nodded. “And it was a good order, too, Tina. But I think you’ll find out it don’t apply to me. You run up and tell Mrs. Flynn that Sergeant Carter is here. Marty Carter. I think she’ll see me.”

  She smiled and bobbed her head. She let me come in and stand in the foyer with my hat in my hand. I got the funniest feeling that it was not Liza Flynn that Tina feared at all
. She was afraid of the young Greek god of beauty, Jerry Marlowe.

  So I waited and saw a goddess float down the stairs to me. You could feel the warmth of her when she came into a room. Her face was still pale. You could see the faint lines of my hand across the left side of her cheek. But you couldn’t mistake the heart of fire, glowing deep within her.

  My mouth must have dropped open just a little under the spell of her dark beauty, because her eyes lightened and she smiled. “You came back,” she said. “I’m so glad.”

  “Didn’t you know I would?”

  She was before me now. She gave me her hand. I didn’t release it and we walked like that into the living room where Hilligan had questioned her. “Sit down, Marty. Please have something to drink.”

  She motioned toward a small bar. The slight movement caused the filmy negligee she wore to part tantalizingly. It wasn’t that I saw anything, but just knowing that that thing would part, and imagining what sheer beauty was under it made my heart do a nip-up. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She laughed a little and went over and poured drinks for us. She came back, the expensive underthings she wore hissing and whispering at me.

  I had to say something. “How are you feeling?” I said. Silly. As if I couldn’t see for myself.

  “I’m better…. Much better. Thanks to you, Marty.” A sultry smile worked through the grief in her eyes.

  “Did I really help you? Do you think I did?”

  “I know you did.”

  “That’s good. Because there is something I want you to do for me.”

  Her dark eyes widened and she looked at me a long time. “What can I do, Marty? Looking at you, I’d say you’re one man who needs nobody. You look self-sufficient. I’d always be jealous. I’d always feel you didn’t really need me. Not just me. Any woman would do as well.”

  “That’s where you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. I guess every guy knows just the kind of woman he wants. Most of them are like me. I guess I’ve always been looking for someone like you. I’m just sorry it had to be something like this that brought us together.”

  She sat on the divan half turned toward me with the highball glass in her hand. She didn’t move for a long time. Finally she bit her lip and looked up at me. “I’m desolate at George’s death,” she said. “I couldn’t lie to you about that.”

  “No. I was there. I saw you.”

  She reached out, touched my hand with the tips of her chilled fingers. It was funny. How could hands so cold burn at the touch? She smiled. “George was good. The kind of good that you hear about more than you see. He was good inside. He was gentle with me always — ” The way she said that made my heart lurch. She wasn’t bragging. It was as if she was admitting a loss. “But in his way, George was like you, Marty. He was self-sufficient. He didn’t really need me. He had his career. He had the whole world before him. Everybody said that. He was incorruptible. I know. Yet he had great understanding. He knew how to bend without breaking.”

  This wasn’t a woman talking about the man she loved. At least not my idea of love. With me, love is all tangled and mixed with sex, and her very tone was devoid of sex. Like she was describing a piece of furniture, instead of the man she loved.

  “A woman has got to be needed. She has got to feel that she is needed. I’m telling you this, Marty, so you’ll understand. I was devoted to George. I tried to be a good wife. The kind of good wife he wanted. Hostess. Sociable. But underneath, maybe I’ve always been like you. Looking for something I never really expected to find.”

  There it was, out in the open between us in that room. The air was tense and crackling, the way it might be in an electrical storm. Something had happened this morning beside that sea wall.

  “I’m going to help you,” I said. My voice was husky. I was trying to ignore the way her breath had quickened, the faster heave of her breasts, the way my own heart was slugging.

  Not now, I warned myself. Not here. Not in this room. I could feel those bloody eyes, watching me. George Flynn’s eyes. There would be another time. Another place. I would be back. We both knew that. I clenched my fists together.

  “I do need your help though,” I told her. “If I’m going to find who killed your husband, I’ve got to know about him. Who hated him? Who wanted to see him dead?”

  She shivered. “I don’t know. Believe me. All the people I knew loved him.”

  “Did he have any enemies?”

  “Only political opponents. You know politics.”

  “Sure. They shriek before elections but they always manage to get together afterwards no matter who wins. No, it ain’t politics. Was he fighting anybody, anybody in crime? Try to think. Did he ever mention any hoods or punks to you — someone who had threatened him?”

  “I want to help you, Marty. I really do. But he never mentioned anything like that in my hearing. He thought I was not interested in his work, in the things he was fighting. I don’t know of anyone at all, Marty.”

  “All right. I can find out. I know plenty ways to find out and you can bet I’ll use them all.”

  “I wish I could help.”

  “Maybe you can. In fact — ” I took a deep breath and plunged in “ — if I’m going to do anything for you, maybe you better. Who was your husband jealous of?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look outraged with me, Liza. Not if you really want help. Hilligan will be polite. But there is one thing you can bet. He’ll question everybody who was at that party last night. He’ll question all your friends. If you had an argument with your husband over some other man, you can bet Hilligan is going to find it out. You don’t have to tell Hilligan. But it would be a good idea to tell me.”

  “There’s no one.”

  I started to blow up. I almost yelled at her. But nobody yells at women as beautiful as Liza, not even to save them.

  “Marlowe?” I prompted. “How about Jerry Marlowe?”

  “Jerry? Of course not. He lives with us. He’s George’s nephew.”

  “That doesn’t add up to anything. But we’ll let it go for now. Remember. I’m not accusing you of anything. But the way to catch a murderer is to find out his motive. Would Jerry Marlowe have any other reason to kill your husband? Money? Property?”

  “Whatever George had would be left to me. I’m quite sure that Jerry would not profit by George’s death, not enough to make him murder him. But now you’re torturing me. Jerry wouldn’t kill George.”

  “Look. I’m not torturing you. This thing has just begun. If you tell me the truth, I can help you, I can keep Hilligan away from you by keeping him after someone else.”

  “Why should I want you to help me like that? I’ve nothing to hide.”

  “Listen! I’m not saying you do. If there was another man in your life — if George found out about it — tell me now. I’ll get to him first, and he’ll be equipped with a new motive, a motive that will leave you out of it, before Hilligan ever gets his hands on him. And you.”

  “There is no one.”

  I started toward the door. I turned and looked over my shoulder. My voice was heavy. “No matter what you think, I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m trying to think ahead of Hilligan, that’s all. I’m trying to help you.”

  “I know, Marty.”

  “Then, tell me one thing, can you prove you were at that party after George left it? People saw you, talked to you, somebody saw you home?”

  She nodded. Her voice was empty. “I’m quite sure, Marty.”

  I hesitated, looking at her. Even though right now I was all cop, I couldn’t stop thinking of her as a woman. A beautiful, gorgeous woman that it was torture just to be near. I had to hold a tight rein on my hands. They ached to touch her. To caress her, to — oh, what the hell! I nodded. “Then, okay.”

  • • •

  I met Jerry on the front step. The nephew. The young Greek god.

  He looked me over, frowning. He had just come in from somewhere and he was hurrying. “Aren’t you one of the cops t
hat was here this morning?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Still hounding her, aren’t you? I thought I told you fellows you’d have to talk to me.”

  I grinned. “I don’t think you’ve got the answers I want to hear, sonny.”

  He got so mad the blood rushed from his face, leaving it pale. “Don’t call me sonny!”

  I went on grinning. His hands shook.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Carter. Marty. Sergeant.”

  “All right, Sergeant. I’m telling you now. Don’t come around here any more unless I’m here.”

  “You talk big,” I said. “I might be coming around here for you.”

  “Tough talk doesn’t scare me. I’m warning you. I won’t have you hounding Mrs. Flynn.”

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing much you can do about it, sonny.”

  For a moment he glared at me. He was trying to make up his mind whether to throw a punch or not. He decided against it. He brushed past me without saying anything else. I glanced over my shoulder, watching him. I couldn’t say why but just looking at him made my teeth itch.

  Chapter 5

  I DROVE downtown and parked just off Franklin Street. George Flynn’s law offices were about half a block away. I went up the elevator and just reached his receptionist’s cubicle as she was closing up the place. She had typed out an announcement of State Senator Flynn’s death and had stuck it on the frosted-glass door with scotch tape.

  She turned around and saw me standing there watching her.

  “Could we go back inside, miss? For just a few minutes?”

  Her eyes were red-rimmed. “I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was husky. “Mr. Flynn’s nephew has ordered his office closed temporarily.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s Mr. Flynn’s death that I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “I don’t know what I could tell you.” But when I showed her my badge, told her my name, she “ohed” and opened the door, holding it for me.

  She sat down behind her desk with her hat and gloves in her hand. She was a pretty blonde and when she crossed her knees I could see the dimples.