The Venus Death

  Ben Benson

  The Venus Death

  A RALPH LINDSEY MYSTERY

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  MY many thanks to my friends and technical advisers at General Headquarters, Massachusetts State Police, Boston:

  Colonel Daniel I. Murphy, former Commissioner of Public Safety

  Lieutenant George F. Roche

  Lieutenant Joseph P. McEnaney

  S.O. Sergeant John F. Collins

  Also, for their warm hospitality, my thanks to the officers and men at Troop A Headquarters, Framingham, Mass., The State Police Training School and the Andover Barracks.

  CHAPTER 1

  I first met her at a bar in Danford, Massachusetts. Usually, on my night off, I would drive directly home to Cambridge to see my mother and father. But this was one of those nights after a long, hard patrol. I was tired, and I thought just this one time I would go into nearby Danford, have a few beers, possibly take in a movie, and go back to the barracks and get some sleep.

  The bar was on Berkshire Street, downtown in the city. There was nothing ornate or pretentious about it. It had the usual long counter, the mirror and array of bottles behind it. A half-dozen booths, a television set and a jukebox.

  I was there early, just after six. The counter was empty and there were only two people in the booths. I sat on a leather-topped stool, my elbows on the bar, twisting the second glass of beer in my hands. The bartender, a small, ferret-faced man, was paying no attention to me. I think he knew, with a bartender’s shrewd instinct, that I wasn’t a drinker or a spender, that I was only there to kill a little time. He was moving some bottles around in back of the counter when suddenly he stopped and turned toward the door. I couldn’t help but turn and look, too. A girl had come in.

  She was about twenty-one years old and five feet five in her high-heeled black pumps. Her head was bare, her hair golden-yellow, soft and wavy and not cut short, but falling almost to her shoulders. Her skin was smooth and creamy, and her mouth was full and delicate and softly alluring, and she had a small perky nose with just enough tilt to it to make it provocative. She had a well-curved, full-hipped body and perfect nylon-sheathed legs. She was wearing a tailored gray flannel suit that snugged over her hips and thighs. She carried a large black leather shoulder bag and black gloves. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

  I didn’t want to stare at her so I turned back to my beer. It was foolish for me to look at her, anyway. I had a girl back home in Cambridge named Ellen.

  I heard her heels click-click by me and an aura of tantalizing perfume wafted up and enveloped the sour smell of beer. Through the mirror I saw her sit down two stools away. She was looking at the price list on the wall. At the same time she was slowly peeling off her gloves. The bartender came and stood over her.

  “I don’t know,” she said to him. “I don’t know what I’ll have. Perhaps an Old Fashioned.”

  Her voice was soft and throaty, with a little huskiness to it. I fidgeted with the button on my sports jacket, thinking she didn’t belong in an obscure bar on Berkshire Street, but in a place more like the Onyx Room at the Hotel Danford Terrace. I lit a cigarette and I noticed my hand trembled a little. I knew I had no intention of picking her up, but she was beautiful and desirable, and her nearness sent my blood quickening. I kept looking at her in the bar mirror and I saw her drink come. She took a bill from her bag and paid for it.

  She picked up the short, stubby glass. She sipped at it. Then she coughed and reached quickly for a white lacy handkerchief. The bartender came over to her.

  “Anything wrong, ma’am?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I swallowed it the wrong way. May I have a glass of water, please?”

  The water came and she drank it. Then she fished in her bag again. Her head came up and turned toward me apologetically. She said, “I’m afraid I forgot to bring my cigarettes. Would you mind terribly?”

  “No,” I said. “Not at all.” My hands were all thumbs as I took out the pack. I fumbled with them, dropped them on the floor and picked them up again. I reached over and handed her one. Then I lit it for her. She took one puff, without inhaling. Then she put the cigarette down in an oversized glass ash tray.

  Suddenly she moved off her stool and sat down on the one next to me. “I hate to drink alone,” she said.

  “Everybody does,” I said. “It’s a universal complaint.”

  “I can say hello now. My name is Manette Venus.” Then she smiled, showing small, white teeth.

  “I’m Ralph Lindsey,” I said. “Manette is a pretty name.”

  “Thanks. Do you come here often?”

  “It’s my first.”

  “Mine, too,” she said. The cigarette burned in the ash tray and her drink remained untouched. “When a girl gets lonely, she doesn’t quite know what to do sometimes.”

  “You get lonely?”

  Her thin eyebrows arched up. “Why not?”

  “But anybody who looks like you—”

  “You’re sweet,” she said. “But I am lonely and I’ve been lonely for a month—ever since I came to Danford. It’s not a very cheery city.”

  “It’s a mill town. You can’t expect too much in a mill town.”

  “You live in Danford?”

  “Not exactly. About five miles outside. On the turnpike.”

  “Do you work in one of the mills?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re a college student. With those shoulders you must be on the football team.”

  “No, I’m a cop,” I said. “A state trooper.”

  “A what?” she asked.

  “A state trooper.”

  “Oh, how nice,” she said. Then her voice brightened as she told me she had noticed the state troopers on the road, and how she had admired the handsome two-toned blue uniforms, and how one had stopped her once for a traffic violation.

  “But he was very polite,” she said.

  “Thanks.” I grinned. “We usually get more gripes than compliments.”

  She smiled. “He was very young, and you’re very young, too.”

  “I’m twenty-three.”

  “And how long have you been a trooper?”

  “Three months. I’m what they call a ‘boot.’ Another name for recruit or rookie.”

  “Your face is sunburnt and your nose is peeling. But you’re very good-looking.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s the outdoor life.”

  “That makes you good-looking?”

  “No. I was talking about the sunburn.”

  Then she laughed and I grinned back at her and the air in the place seemed warmer and mellower and friendlier. She said, “I wonder if they serve food here.”

  “I wouldn’t try it,” I said. “But if you’re hungry—”

  “Oh, not really. I would like a lobster salad roll, though.”

  “You like lobster?”

  “Love it. I come from Cleveland. Lobster is expensive there.”

  “We could go to Howard Johnson’s. They have good lobster rolls.”

  She slid off her stool and picked up her bag and gloves. “If you’d like to take me,” she said, “I’m ready.”

  “You haven’t touched your drink,” I reminded her.

  “I don’t care for it,” she said hurriedly. Then, as the bartender stared at her, she touched my elbow.

  We went to the door. My car was outside. It was a 1946 Ford coupe. The fenders were battered but it had a good motor. We got in and I drove out the turnpike to the nearest Howard Johnson’s.

  It was as simple as that.

  The lobster salad rolls and coffee had come and gone. She refused a cigarette. I sat across from her in the booth, looking at her face in the glow of the table lamp. Her face was finel
y shaped, delicately boned, but inexpressive and immobile. Her eyes were heavily lidded and long-lashed, and their color was like the deep blue of the Gulf Stream. I don’t know what she was thinking. But I knew what I was thinking, and I had a twinge of conscience about it. It was of Ellen back home in Cambridge, to whom I was engaged. Also, I was thinking of fate, and how it was just plain luck the way I had met Manette Venus. You didn’t meet girls like her very often and it would never happen again. And unconsciously I must have said it out loud.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “Pure luck,” I said. “The way we met, I mean. My father always said life is ninety per cent luck, but people don’t recognize it. Only the smart ones do, and they take advantage of it.”

  “Is your father one of the smart ones?”

  “No,” I said. “Not that smart.” I didn’t tell her my father had no luck at all. He had been a state trooper who, in 1939, had been shot in the back and had been paralyzed from the waist down ever since. “Are you one of the smart ones?”

  She laughed. “Me neither. You see, I work in the mill.”

  “You? Which one?”

  “Staley Woolen. Out in Staleyville. I’m in the office. Clerical work.”

  “It’s a big mill. I go by there in a cruiser every Friday. It’s on one of my patrols.”

  “I’ve never seen you.”

  “I go by before noon. I guess everybody’s inside then.”

  “Are you alone in the car?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never noticed you,” she said. “Lots of times I look out the window.”

  “I’ll slow down the next time,” I said. Then I told her how she couldn’t miss the cruiser. It was pale blue. The state seals were on the doors and there were big white letters on the rear deck that said Massachusetts State Police. And on top of the roof there was a red light and a siren.

  “I’ll surely watch for it Friday,” she said. “I’ll wave to you from the window.” Then she smiled. “But Friday’s a long way off, and the evening is still young. Of course, if you’ve made other arrangements—”

  “No,” I said. “What would you like to do?”

  “Anything you say. I don’t care.”

  “We could take in a movie. There’s a drive-in about a mile down the pike.”

  “I’d love to see a movie,” she said.

  We left Howard Johnson’s. It had grown dark. I was crossing the parking lot with her when suddenly she stopped. She said, “Do you always carry a gun, Ralph?”

  I turned to her. “What difference would that make?”

  “I’m just curious,” she said with a short, nervous laugh. “It isn’t a secret or anything, is it?”

  “No. Cops have to carry a gun at all times. I’ve got a little .38 Smith and Wesson Special here on my belt.”

  “Where?”

  “At my right hip pocket.” I opened my jacket and showed her the tiny leather open holster and the butt of the S&W.

  She said, “No one would ever know. It doesn’t show one bit, Ralph.”

  “That’s supposed to be the general idea,” I said.

  We went to the drive-in theater. Now I like the movies. But if you asked me, I couldn’t even tell you what the picture was that October night. I was looking at her as she sat beside me. Her face was tilted up toward the screen, her hands clasped primly in her lap, her profile finely etched. She was a strange girl. Before there had been a forced brashness in her, now she seemed shy and timid. She didn’t seem to be too relaxed either, because every once in a while her foot would begin to tap on the rubber floor mat.

  The picture ended and the lights went up. I started the car and we left the drive-in theater. I said, “How about a drink somewhere? A nightcap.”

  “I’m not much for drinking, Ralph. Thanks, but I think it’s time to go home.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “I don’t want to trouble you. You can let me off downtown.”

  “It’s no trouble,” I said.

  “I live on Glen Road. I have a room with a private family. You go down the turnpike, past the Blue Grotto, to the first set of lights. Turn left.”

  “You don’t live with your folks?”

  “No, I’m all alone in Danford.”

  I came to the lights and turned off. I drove along until I saw the sign Glen Road. On either side were curving streets with new houses. The houses began to thin out. I slowed down and looked at her.

  “It’s a little way ahead,” she said.

  There was a wooded area for half a mile with no houses at all. Then a light gleamed through the trees.

  “There,” she said.

  I pulled over and stopped in front of it. The house stood alone. Two stories and a high gabled attic. The house was old Victorian, with rotting shingles and a tangled unkempt high hedge. It had diamond-patterned windows. On the lawn was an old-fashioned post lantern. It cast a weak yellow light.

  “You’re a long way from the bus,” I said.

  “Oh, no. The bus goes right by here to Staleyville. And the driver always stops at the house.” She picked up her bag. She put it down again. Her hand reached for the door handle. She turned to me nervously.

  “Well,” she said. “I really have to go in.”

  “I hope to see you again some time.”

  She moved over in the seat, closer to me. “Don’t you like me?” she asked suddenly.

  “Why, sure, I like you,” I said, startled. “I—”

  She put her arms around my neck. I could feel the soft resiliency of her body, the cool, scented cheek and a tendril of blond hair. I felt her warm breath on my face.

  “This is what I meant,” she whispered. Her lips came to mine, hot and moist, clinging. She broke away, picked up her bag and pushed on the door handle.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, catching my breath. But she was out of the car. I slid across the seat and came out on the road beside her. I took her by the shoulders and turned her around. “I want to see you again, Manette.”

  “That’s better,” she said. “When?”

  “Sunday,” I said. “My first Sunday off since I was assigned to the troop.”

  “What time?”

  “In the morning. I have the whole day.”

  “In the afternoon,” she said.

  “We’ll have dinner together,” I said. “Maybe I’d better phone you to make sure.”

  “You don’t have to. But the number is Danford 6-1530. Do you have a pencil?”

  “I don’t need any. 6-1530. I’ll remember it like my own badge number.”

  I went up the crumbling flagstone walk with her. The house windows were dark. She took a key from her bag and put it in the door lock.

  “Until Sunday then,” she said. “Good night, Ralph.”

  “Good night, Manette,” I said.

  She opened the door and stepped inside. The door closed. I stood there for a moment. Then I went back down the walk and got into my car. I looked at the house. A light had gone on upstairs. I saw her come to the window and draw the shade. I started up the car and drove back to the turnpike.

  I drove steadily, not fast. She had left a perfumed scent in the car. I was staring at the road, but I was thinking of the strangeness of her actions. She was like no other girl I had ever known. She had told me nothing of herself. And the more I thought of it, the pickup at the bar didn’t seem like plain luck. It was almost as if she had expected me. And while I was trying to figure things out I missed the blue neon sign that said State Police. I had to go along the turnpike to the next cutoff.

  I drove back, crossed over, went around the arched driveway and into the rear parking area. I put the car away, went in through the garage and up to the first floor.

  It was quiet in the barracks. I crossed the asphalt-tiled, antiseptic-smelling corridor. The guardroom was empty and the television screen was dark. The cellblock and its four cells stood open and vacant. In the communications room I saw the civilian dispatcher. The s
hortwave radio was mute, but I could hear the rhythmical clacking of the teletype machines.

  I went into the office. The duty sergeant was Stan Maleski. He looked up at me from behind his desk. He wore the pale blue worsted uniform shirt with the dark blue sergeant stripes on the sleeves. The sleeves were sharply creased and at the right shoulder yoke was the State Police patch. His necktie was black silk and fastened to his shirt with the silver tie clip that carried the state shield on it.

  “What are you doing in?” Maleski asked. “Didn’t you go home?”

  “No,” I said, signing in. “I went to Danford and hung around.”

  Maleski stood up and went to the bulletin board. He put up a notice on the clip stand. He was carrying a short-barreled S&W revolver in a hip holster. His trousers were the dark blue uniform slacks with a broad stripe down the side.

  I went over and looked at the bulletin board. “Quiet tonight?” I asked.

  “Pretty quiet,” he said. “There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want it, Ralph.”

  “I’m restless enough as it is,” I said. “Coffee would only make it worse, Stan.”

  He looked at me with puzzled eyes, his square jaw pushed to one side. Then the telephone on his desk rang. He went over and picked it up.

  “State Police,” he said. “Troop E Headquarters. Sergeant Maleski. Yes, sir…”

  I left him and went upstairs to my room. It was a bare room. It contained two narrow steel beds, a chest of drawers and a mirror and nothing else. I switched on the light. The bed near the window was mine. It was covered with a squared, taut, dark blue blanket, a white pillow and a six-inch border of the top sheet showing. In the other bed, next to the locked closet, was the huddled, blanketed form of Patrolman Philip Kerrigan. I went over and shook him. “Wake up,” I said.

  He groaned, twisted under the blanket and covered his head. Then his head poked out. He blinked his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Eleven o’clock,” I said.

  “Dammit,” he said. “I just got in from a patrol and I’ve got another one at six A.M.” He buried his head again.

  I shook him once more. “I met a girl tonight, Phil.”

  “I thought you had a girl named Ellen,” he mumbled.