Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  She gasped, and her face got a tomato red. The old lady frowned at her, jet eyes snapping.

  “Will you kindly explain, Miss Kirk, why you were eavesdropping at my door?” she demanded, tight-lipped.

  “Please, Mrs. Dahlson! I didn’t mean to listen to you! I was—well, worried about you. Dr. Mason warned that you mustn’t get excited, you know. It’s so unusual for you to see strangers, and I just wanted to be sure everything was all right.”

  She made it sound good, and her expression of innocent distress was fair acting. The old lady didn’t buy it, though.

  “I assure you that everything is all right, Miss Kirk,” she said icily, “I shall want to talk to you about this incident after Mr. Riddle has finished his business with me. And I do desire that our conversation be private. Will you please leave now?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Dahlson! Certainly!” The blonde scooted out by the hallway door. I made sure both doors were shut tight this time before I dropped back into my chair.

  “Conscientious little party, your secretary,” I remarked. “You had her working for you long?”

  “Only for about three months. Eustis Wharton sent her to me when my former secretary resigned to be married.” The old lady sounded annoyed. “This girl is competent, but I have suspected her of snooping. I shall have to get rid of her.”

  “Does she know about those communications, and the phone call?” I asked.

  “They were brought to me unopened. I have told no one about them except you, Mr. Riddle. Miss Kirk was not present when I talked with the woman on the telephone.”

  “Maybe you’d better give me a little background on your family, Mrs. Dahlson. I mean, how it could be that you might have a grandson somewhere you didn’t know about,” I suggested. “And a peep at those communications you received.”

  She winced, and blinked her eyelids like maybe some tears burned behind them. She took a deep breath and sighed, and told me things that weren’t easy for her to talk about.

  IT SEEMED the Dahl sons had only one child, a son, named Eric after his father. They’d indulged him too much growing up, with plenty of money to spend all the time. In college he was always in trouble with wrecked cars, speedy girls and liquor. He got kicked out in the middle of his final term.

  He went to Miami in February, 1924, and gave the dog tracks and dice games a big play, drawing plenty drafts on the old man. Then the folks got word that he’d married a girl croupier from one of the gambling casinos down there. Eric, Sr., hopped to Miami and raised ned, making the usual play of trying to buy the girl off. No soap. She was nuts about Junior then and had an idea she could make something out of him. The old man blew his top and came home, and didn’t honor any more drafts.

  They didn’t hear anything from the bridal pair for four months, and then got a letter from the son postmarked Rio. He’d gone down there and wangled a job with the implement company’s sales branch. He wrote that the marriage had gone on the rocks and that the girl intended to divorce him.

  “My son was not the type to make any woman happy, or be faithful,” the old lady said huskily, winding up. “He came home after a year. The girl had divorced him, he said, but would never discuss his marriage. We never heard one word from her. She hated us, I think, and must have been bitterly disillusioned with our son.”

  I’d noticed she had kept her eyes on a framed photograph on the table a lot while she talked. It was a good shot of a handsome, rakish-looking chap, not young, in a uniform with wings on the blouse lapels and silver leaves on the shoulders.

  “My son never married again, Mr. Riddle. He lived a bitter, restless life. He learned to fly well, and held a commission in the air reserve. He went on active duty when war threatened, though he was forty then. I like to think that he redeemed himself in a measure. He died bravely.”

  I remembered reading about it. Lt. Col. Eric Dahlson had made records. His dad had died a month before the son made a flaming exit.

  I waited until the old lady had wiped her eyes and got a grip on herself again before I prodded gently.

  “I think I know how you felt when the communications came,” I said. “Could I see them now, Mrs. Dahlson?”

  She brought up a purse she’d had tucked beside her and opened it with stiff fingers. She fumbled out two long envelopes, selecting one and handing it over.

  “That one came first, six days ago,” she said firmly. “The contents was a shock, of course, but it awakened a wistful hope.”

  II

  THE envelope was plain, without a return address, postmarked at the central postoffice. The handwriting in the address was a woman’s. It was marked “Personal & Confidential,” underscored. I took out the enclosure, a plain, cheap sheet, folded twice. There was a yellowed newspaper clipping pasted on the sheet, and under it some handwriting.

  There was nothing to identify the paper the clipping had been cut from. It read:

  BIRTHS

  Methodist Hospital

  Born to Mrs. Celia Dahlson,

  November 12, 1924, a son.

  And then, in a fair handwriting:

  You probably knew about the divorce, but does this surprise you? In two days you will receive a picture of your grandson. Only he does not know that he is your grandson.

  There was no signature.

  “The second letter had the picture?” I asked the old lady, and she nodded, passing it over.

  The envelope was like the first one. A sheet of the same kind of paper inside, with a small snapshot pasted on it. A half-length close shot of a husky lad in a football helmet and jersey. Nice looking and smiling.

  I glanced at the framed picture on the table. There was a resemblance, all right. I read the penned message under the snapshot then.

  This is your grandson at 19. You were never to know about him, but if you are interested, you can learn more. Think it over, and I will telephone you one day soon.

  “Ummmm,” I grunted. “The party plotting this one is clever. You think it might be your son’s ex-wife?”

  She shook her head. “No. The voice I heard on the phone was too young. And I do not think she would stoop to anything as furtive as this. I have always thought she had character.”

  I thought she could be right. Somebody had stumbled on something and was trying to make a piece of dough out of it. But playing it careful, for some reason.

  I said, “You want me to sift this down and see if there is anything to it? Is that the job?”

  “Yes, Mr. Riddle! Go to see this woman and hear her story. If you are satisfied that it is not a cruel hoax, bring her to me. Assure her that I will pay her well. If there is a grandson, I want you to find him for me!”

  I shuffled things through my head, putting the sheets back into envelopes. “Better let me keep these a couple days. I might need them,” I said. “I’ll have a little talk with the party who sent ’em before six this evening.”

  “Of course, keep them as long as you need them.” She fumbled into her purse again. “You may need money for contingent expenses. I had my nephew bring some cash from the bank.” She smiled a grim little smile. “I think he was curious about my need for cash, but of course I did not explain.”

  I riffled through the packet of crisp, new lettuce she handed me, tallying eight century notes and ten twenties. I didn’t think it necessary to mention any fee. I had an idea the old lady would be generous about that. I stuffed the bills into my wallet and put the two envelopes in my inside coat pocket.

  I had a hunch Buford Dyess had been curious about why she wanted that one grand in cash. Maybe he had figured my coming had something to do with it, and was really itching by now.

  I stood up then. “I’ll account for what I spend,” I said. “I’ll be getting on the job now, and I’ll report just as soon as I turn up anything.”

  “Please do that. I shall leave instructions that you be admitted to see me, or connected with me on the telephone, at any hour. Good afternoon, Mr. Riddle! I shall try to be patient until
I hear from you.”

  She was staring at the framed picture when I let myself out into the hallway. I didn’t see anybody until I got downstairs, and then the blonde popped out of the drawing-room.

  Her makeup was all smooth again. She was a honey for looks; from any angle.

  “I’m so glad I caught you before you got away,” she said, making with the eyes. “I hope you didn’t get the wrong impression about that little incident upstairs, Mr. Riddle. I’m so hurt that Mrs. Dahlson thought I was eavesdropping, when I was only listening to make sure she wasn’t exciting herself.”

  I played up, curious to find out how big a chump she thought I was and how much she’d recorded at that door crack.

  “It was embarrassing for you, Miss Kirk,” I said. “Of course I realize that people here have to look out for the old lady. She is pretty frail.”

  “You’ve no idea how it is, Mr. Riddle! I’m supposed to be a secretary, but I have to be nurse and companion too, at times.” She gave me the baby eye then. “I couldn’t help but hear a teeny bit of your conversation with Mrs. Dahlson. There was something said about a grandson. She doesn’t really think she’s got a grandson somewhere, does she? Is she going to have you look up that woman at the hotel?”

  I grinned at her. I knew how much she’d soaked in at the listening post then.

  “Rita, honey, why don’t you just try being a good little secretary, and keep your pretty ears out of door cracks?” I said, fingering one of them. “You might get one pinched off some day playing cloak-and-dagger girl. Besides, it ain’t nice.”

  She jerked away from me, cheeks flaming and eyes hot. “You—you’re insulting!” she flared. “I ought to slap your nasty mouth!”

  “I’d rather have a smear of lipstick, like Dyess got,” I cracked. “I’ll be seeing you around—if you’re here next time I come. The old lady is wise to your snooping, Rita doll.”

  She flounced off down the wide hall, madder than a hornet. The butler came in the front door then, with a sad-looking poodle on a leash. He brought my hat and overcoat and his expression looked like he was glad to be rid of me.

  The Buick convertible was gone from the circle. Gouged-out places where the rear tires had dug in made it look as if Buford Dyess had pulled out in a hurry. Maybe frustrated curiosity had got him irritated.

  I made a stop at my office and stayed there long enough to sign some letters to go with some reports my part-time steno had left on my desk. There were no phone memos needing attention. It had just happened that I was fresh out of clients at the moment and the Dahlson business coming up fitted in pretty.

  I put on my shoulder harness before I started for the Majestic Hotel. I didn’t think I’d need a gun on this business, but when I’m working I like the feel of that .38 lump under my left armpit.

  THE Majestic Hotel was a small, second-rate place on South Main. I didn’t stop in the lobby and rode an elevator to the fourth floor. Number 416 was an inside room on a dim hall that smelled of insecticide. Nobody else was in the hall when I tapped on the door.

  When I didn’t get an answer after the second tapping, I tried the doorknob. When I pushed, the door swung in.

  It was a lowering afternoon outside and there wasn’t much daylight filtering in through the airshaft windows. I couldn’t see much, peering from the threshold. I shoved the door until it touched the wall. Once I’d crashed a room uninvited and a lug hiding behind it had conked me, but good.

  I reached for the light switch and flipped it on. Then I swore, stepped all the way into the room and shut and locked the door. I went over and yanked down shades to the windows. And then I had a long look at what had first caught my eye when the lights went on.

  The woman lying on her back on the rug hadn’t been dressed for company. She wasn’t wearing much but a slip and a thin robe. But she’d had a visitor before me, and whoever it had been had strong hands. The marks of fingers stood out lividly on her throat. Before long they would be bruises. But she would never care about that.

  I stood over the body, not touching anything. She had dyed red hair, and the open, staring eyes were more green than blue. I guessed she’d been twenty-five or six. Dolled up, she wouldn’t be too bad looking but just now she wasn’t a pretty corpse.

  I looked around then. Drawers to the dresser were open and empty. There was a dress and a cheap fur coat hanging in the closet, and a hat on the shelf there. The rest of her things had been dumped out of a suitcase and a hatbox onto the bed.

  I figured it she’d been packed and set to check out of the hotel that evening, after the hoped-for chat with Mrs. Dahlson.

  I spent five minutes, working fast and careful, on a job that somebody had already done once. There were no letters or papers in her clothes or pockets of the emptied luggage. Nor in the pile of stuff spilled from her purse on the dresser top. There were some identification cards, but addresses on them were all different and none of them with recent dates. The name on a social security card was Marta Trask. It was dated in ‘40 and her address then had been Chicago.

  I had an idea Marta Trask had worked in a lot of places since she’d first gotten that card in Chicago.

  One thing was fairly certain. If she’d been carrying any paper dope on the Dahlson grandson, the party ahead of me had gotten it. Probably she’s been scared into spilling all the information she’d had to sell, and then the visitor had paid her.

  I didn’t doubt for a moment but what it had been the Dahlson angle that had brought a killer down on her. Somebody hadn’t wanted Mrs. Christina Dahlson to learn anything more about a grandson. Desperately enough to do murder.

  That meant that there probably was a grandson, and if the killer had learned his whereabouts, the lad also might be on a spot, and soon. There were other ways to figure the play, but that seemed a reasonable try at it.

  I was worried. The killer maybe knew where to look for the lad and I didn’t. It wasn’t going to be a cheerful report to make to old lady Dahlson.

  I fumbled out a cigarette and lipped it. My lighter wouldn’t work and I didn’t have a match. I remembered where I’d seen some and stepped over to the dresser. There was a carton of paper matches there, practically full. When I looked at the book I took out, I forgot to light up.

  It was one of those expensive souvenir jobs, with only about a dozen wide matches in it, printed up fancy in colors. The ad on the cover read, “The Pine Castle. Fine Foods, Dancing. On Highway 51, Thirty Minutes from Downtown Memphis.”

  People generally didn’t get a hold of full cartons of that type of giveaway matches unless they were employees snitching them, or good friends of the management. It wasn’t much of a lead, but the best I’d found. I shoved the carton into my overcoat pocket.

  Hanging around that room any longer might prove embarrassing. I unlocked the door and gandered the hall. It was deserted. I slipped out, closed the door and footed it down the inside fire stairs two floors before I caught an elevator. I sauntered out of the lobby with no show of hurry.

  From the phone booth in a drug store a block away I called the Majestic Hotel. I asked the operator who answered if they had a Mrs. Bertha Trask from Chicago registered.

  After five seconds she said, “We have a Miss Marta Trask, from Memphis. Would that be your party?”

  I said, “Just skip it. I guess she’s not my party,” and clicked off.

  I popped another nickel in and dialed police headquarters, asking for Inspector Sorrels, Homicide Department. I heard his growl pretty quick.

  Using a squeaky voice I said, “There’s a job for you in room 416, Majestic Hotel. Best of luck, pal!” and then I hung up and got away from the drug store fast.

  That was as much cooperation as I could give the cops just then and be of any service to my client.

  It was a little after four when I hopped into my car and headed for the Dahlson house. The five-minute newscasters would be getting word of the Majestic Hotel murder pretty quick now. I wanted to break it to the old lady befo
re she had a chance to get it on the air.

  This job that Eustic Wharton had figured was going to be a simple business, was showing signs of getting complicated. Already it was muddled up with murder!

  III

  THINGS shuffled through my head, wheeling out to Cypress Drive. Buford Dyess and cute little Rita Kirk danced through the pattern. I was pretty sure the blonde had been stooling for the flabby man. I wanted a brutally frank chat with little Rita, and a session with Dyess later.

  The blonde’s little play when I was leaving the house might have been a try to delay me getting down to the hotel while somebody else was busy there. I hadn’t been very long behind the killer.

  Eustic Wharton had said Buford Dress hung around Mrs. Dahlson a lot. He was a nephew, and maybe had hopes of heiring a nice cut of the old lady’s dough some day. A grandson turning up might make a difference in expectations. The flabby man hadn’t struck me as being the killer type, but when the stakes are big enough, people will risk murder to win.

  Thinking of the lawyer reminded me that he ought to know about the complications. He was the old lady’s adviser. Also he could likely tell me if Buford Dyess had been in line for heavy dough whenever the old lady kicked off.

  I braked down at a suburban Wahlgren’s and ducked into a phone booth. Eustic Wharton’s secretary remembered me when I mentioned my name, but she couldn’t put him on the wire for me. Something unexpected had come up and he had caught the 3:45 plane for Washington, and might be gone a couple of days.

  I got on my way, bothered by that news. It seemed I’d have to muddle through without benefit of Eustic Wharton’s learned council.

  Darden had gotten his orders. There was no argument over getting in this time. But he eyed me with disapproval when he took my things and said, “1 suppose you wish to see Mrs. Dahlson right away, Mr. Riddle?”

  “Pretty quick, Darden, but first I want a chat with Miss Kirk,” I said. “Get her down here.”

  His face got longer. “Miss Kirk is not here, sir. Mrs. Dahlson gave her the sack, shortly after your departure this afternoon. Miss Kirk left in a taxicab, not fifteen minutes ago.”