Killing Cousins

Fourteen

At approximately ten o’clock, the morning of Wednesday, Lieutenant Elgin Necessary was sitting comfortably behind his desk at police headquarters with nothing to do that had to be done immediately. He was thinking of Willie Hogan at the time, which might have been considered a coincidence, in the light of what was about to happen, if he had not been thinking of Willie practically all the time, when he was thinking at all, ever since Monday afternoon. He had even dreamed of her once, and it had been a pleasant dream, although not a dream that one would be likely to tell before breakfast, or any other time.

Thinking his pleasant thoughts, creating, in fact, a little fantasy with a beginning and an end, he was so abstracted that he was not aware that he had company until Sergeant Ned Muller, who was half of it, cleared his throat to attract attention. Necessary, returning reluctantly to reality, saw that Muller had with him a rather large young woman, well proportioned, with an adequate face now frozen in lines of rather self-righteous determination. Necessary had seen such faces before, and his heart sank. Standing, he had a notion that he was about to acquire something to do that would need doing immediately.

Muller said: “Lieutenant, here’s a lady I think you’d better talk with. This is Lieutenant Necessary, Miss Haversack. Lieutenant, Miss Gertrude Haversack.”

Necessary extended his hand and said How do you do, and Miss Haversack took the hand briefly and nodded and said nothing. Necessary invited her to sit down in the chair beside his desk, and she said Thank you, and did, arranging her skirt over her knees. Sergeant Muller went away, wondering if he had performed the introduction properly. He was never quite certain afterward, and it distressed him.

“What can I do for you, Miss Haversack?” Necessary said.

“I’ve come to see you about a missing person,” Gertrude Haversack said.

“I see. What person is missing?”

“A friend of mine. His name is Howard Hogan. He’s been missing since Friday night, I understand.”

“That’s right. We’ve already looked into the matter, Miss Haversack. As a matter of fact, he’s been located. We know, at any rate, where he was at a certain time. He sent a letter from Dallas, Texas.”

“That’s what I want to talk about. I don’t believe he was ever in Dallas, Texas, because I don’t believe he ever left Quivera voluntarily at all.”

Necessary stared at her for a few moments sourly, his heart sinking deeper and deeper. Oh, Jesus, he thought. Oh, good Jesus.

“Why don’t you believe it?” he said.

She shifted her weight in the chair, arranging her skirt over her knees again in a sort of reflexive way that was rather significant, Necessary thought, when he remembered it later in association with what she had to say.

“It’s rather embarrassing,” she said. “It has been quite difficult for me to come here.”

“Is that why you’ve delayed so long in coming? As you said, Mr. Hogan left home, or disappeared, last Friday. Several days ago.”

“Yes, I suppose it is. That’s not the only reason, however. I kept thinking things might be satisfactorily explained in one way or another, but now I don’t think so.”

“Well, now that you are here, suppose you just tell me directly why you think Mr. Hogan did not voluntarily leave town.”

“Howard — Mr. Hogan — and I were good friends. Quite good friends. We had been seeing each other regularly for about a year. To be frank, we had finally planned definitely to go away together. We were going first to Mexico, where he planned to get a divorce. We intended to leave together last Saturday evening, and he had made all arrangements, including getting his finances in order.”

“I know. I checked that. He cleaned out his savings account and cashed some bonds.”

“I believe so. Whatever was necessary. He told me he had gotten together about twenty thousand dollars in cash.”

“That’s true. About twenty thousand.”

“And now I’m expected to believe that he simply changed his mind and went off without me in the end. It makes no sense at all, and I don’t believe it. Something has been done with him, and you must find out what it was.”

“Are you sure he didn’t simply go away alone? Did he give any indication of becoming tired of your... relationship?”

His pause before the final word was deliberate, prompted by an unreasonable animosity, and he had the sour pleasure of seeing her flush and bite her lower lip and fuss once more with the skirt, tucking it under her knees as if she were afraid he was suddenly going to lift it.

“Not at all. There was not the slightest sign of it. Quite the contrary. On Friday, after he had been to the bank, we saw each other and made our final plans. He was eager to go.”

“How do you account for the letter from Dallas?”

“It must have been sent by someone else. Someone who was already there could have been asked to mail it, or it may even have been possible for someone to go there for that purpose.”

“The letter was received on Monday, mailed on Sunday. There was time, I suppose, for someone to get down there by air, but it seems rather unlikely.”

“Have you compared the letter with samples of Howard’s handwriting?”

The question implied that he needed to be told his business, and he looked at her with his feeling of sour animosity growing stronger and stronger. The feeling was not alleviated in the least by the uneasy realization that he had, in fact, believed what he wanted to believe, and that her implied criticism was not wholly unjustified.

“There don’t seem to be any samples around,” he said. “The man apparently never wrote anything. Did he ever write to you?”

“No.”

“There it is. He had a thing about it.”

“Surely there are canceled checks, things like that. You could at least have found samples of his signature.”

“It wouldn’t have helped. The letter was typewritten.”

“Even his name at the finish?”

“That’s right.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as being very odd?”

Necessary admitted that it did, but he added waspishly that Mr. Hogan struck him as being rather odd in general. This made him feel slightly better, but he knew, just the same, that he had been damned negligent about a number of things in this business, not because he was lazy or stupid, but because he had not, in his heart, cared a hell of a lot about what had or had not happened to Howard Hogan, Junior. Although he was still convinced that Howard would turn up sooner or later in his own way and time, it was obvious now that he, Necessary, would have to take steps to make it sooner if possible. He would also have to investigate further the possibility of foul play, odious phrase, and this would be an interminable and sticky business replete with difficulties. He sighed, although he wished mightily to curse instead, and stood up.

“You can be sure we’ll continue our investigation until we are completely convinced one way or another, Miss Haversack. Thank you for coming in.”

Gertrude stood up, clutching the purse that had been lying in her lap. She may not have seen the hand that Necessary offered again in parting, but Necessary had the impression that she ignored it.

“Something has been done with Howard,” she said. “You’ll see.”

She went out, and Necessary sat down. Alone now, he did curse, as he had wished to curse before, softly and fluently.