42 Days for Murder
by Roger Torrey
CHAPTER ONE
LESTER came in my office with the sun hitting his glasses and making them shine like headlights. He said: “Joey Free and some other man are outside and want to see you.”
He stopped, took off his glasses and started to polish them. He can't see two feet in front of his nose without them, but he peered over toward where I was and added:
“Joey is drunk, I think. I think the other man is drunk, too.”
I said: “It's early in the day for that, even for Joey. But I wouldn't let it bother me.”
Lester's tone showed it bothered him plenty. He had the notion Joey Free built the world and then a neat little picket fence around it. And Lester's only nineteen and doesn't appreciate the solid joy a drinking man takes with his drink.
Then Joey and his friend followed Lester in.
Joey is big and stocky, with a body like a keg. He was supposed to have a lot of money and to be spending it on women and liquor far too fast. It wasn't gossip because I'd been to parties at Joey's place. The man with him was tall and slat-like and looked very solemn and serious. I had to take another look before I could see the look was put on for effect; that the man was just carrying his liquor carefully.
Joey is ordinarily careful about his clothes. But he was dressed in clothes that looked as though they'd been thrown at him. The coat and trousers didn't match, he wore no necktie, and his shirt was filthy dirty.
The other man looked no better; he couldn't well have looked worse.
Joey gave me his big toothy grin and said: “Hi, Shean! I brought you a customer. We just got in. This is Tod Wendel. Toddy, tell the man your troubles.”
I said I was glad to meet Mr. Wendel and Lester put his glasses back on and scurried around and got chairs. I introduced him to Wendel, saw the doubtful look Wendel gave him, and let Lester do the explaining, which he always does. Lester said:
“My great-uncle left me some money so I bought an interest in Mr. Connell's agency. I've always been interested in criminology. It's a fascinating subject.”
Lester's a lanky kid who looks sixteen and no older. I could see Wendel's estimation of the Connell agency take a drop but Joey helped things out with:
“Shean got himself a partner and five grand along with him. Shean will do anything for money and admits it.”
I said: “Where in hell did you get the rig? You look like a bum, Joey.”
“In Reno,” he said. “That's what Toddy wants to talk to you about. Toddy and I went to Yale together. I met him in Reno when he wired me.”
I said to Lester: “Ask Miss Gahagan to come in and make notes, kid,” and to Wendel:
“Suppose you tell me about it.”
Wendel told his story and it didn't seem to make much sense. According to him, he was in the money; most of it in two little steamships and a South American importing business. He'd married a girl named Ruth Carstairs three years before and they'd never had a cross word between them. He swore to that, with tears in his eyes. He'd gone to South America two months before, and just returned to New York.
And then he went home and found mama gone. Without a word or note left for him. Just a vacant apartment and empty closet space where her clothes had been.
He admitted he went a little goofy then. But he got himself together, found the apartment house manager, and discovered his wife and her maid had left for Reno, with the express purpose of divorcing him.
So he followed them to Reno.
Here Joey Free took up the tale. He said: “The first I knew about it was when I got a wire from Toddy. It just said 'Meet me Golden Eagle Reno at once.' Naturally I joined him there.”
“I probably wouldn't have wired Joey,” Wendel told me, “except that Joey was in New York just before I left for South America and we saw a bit of each other. I remembered he lived here and I thought he might be able to help me.”
I said: “I don't get the idea of you needing help. You must have walked on your wife's pet corn some way you don't remember. Why in hell don't you talk to her and get it straightened out?”
Wendel looked as though he was going to break down and sob. He said, with tears in his voice: “That's just it. She won't talk with me. I tried to see her and she had me thrown out of the house. It was then I wired Joey; I was desperate.”
“And then what happened?”
Joey grinned and said: “We both got thrown out. And boy, what I mean we got thrown out. I've been heaved out of a lot of places during my sinful life but they did a masterful job. See!”
He pointed to his eye and I could see where it had been blacked. I hadn't noticed this before because his face was so dirty. He went on with: “I argued with two of the tough babies she's got guarding her and that was the wrong thing to do. They weren't fooling. I thought I got a couple of broken ribs out of it, too, but they were just bruises.”
Wendel took up the tale of woe with: “And then we went to the police. I'd already been there but they'd said there was nothing they could do about it. That I had no right to talk with my own wife unless she was willing. But Joey knew a man who knew some of the police and we told him about it.”
“And got exactly nowhere,” Joey Free put in. “Ruth's living at her lawyer's house and the cops don't want any part of him. He's some big shot named Crandall; a pretty smart egg, I hear. So there was nothing else to do but go on a bat. Toddy was pretty low and my shiner and the bruises I've got to nigger with gave me an excuse. We put on a pip, Shean.”
“How come the tramp makeup?”
Joey had the grace to blush, which is something I never expected to see. “It was like this. We'd drink for a while and then buck the games for excitement. Someway we got to hell and gone out on Virginia Street and some thug held us up. And the dirty———...” He looked at Miss Gahagan, who was taking this all down in shorthand and said: “Excuse me!”
She said: “I've heard worse than that in this office,” and grinned at him.
He grinned back at her and said: “I bet you never heard a worse thing than happened to us. He made us take off our pants, so we couldn't chase him. He took the pants, every damned bit of identification we had, what money the games had left us, and ran away. We were in a hell of a fix.”
Lester said, from the side: “I understand that taking the victim's trousers to prevent pursuit is fairly common practice among hold-up men. It must be very embarrassing.”
Both Joey Free and Wendel said that this was an understatement. Both the Gahagan wench and I were laughing. I said: “And what then?”
“We went to the police station again,” Joey said. “Of course we were both drunk and we didn't have any pants on. We got within a block of the place, hiding and ducking around to keep from being seen, but some damn fool woman saw us and called the police and said two maniacs with no clothes were running around her front yard. The police came, four of them, and they threw us in jail for the rest of the night. The next morning we left.”
I said: “It seems odd to me, Mr. Wendel, that you'd give up your attempt at seeing your wife so easily. After making the trip out from New York and all.”
“We didn't have any choice,” he told me. “We were practically forced to leave. That's what I want you to do; go up there and investigate this for me and find out what's the matter with Ruth..”
“Why didn't you talk with Crandall about it? That's the name of your wife's lawyer, isn't it?”
“Well, Joey did. I think that was the reason we were forced to leave. Crandall seems to have a lot of influence there.”
I wasn't understanding this talk about being forced to leave and I said so. And they'd left the pants story unfinished and I wa
nted to know about that. So Joey said:
“Oh the cops gave us some pants. They took up a collection. We were on a plane for here a half hour after leaving the jail.”
“Why the rush?”
Joey lost his grin, for the first time since he'd been there. He said, slowly and solemnly: “Well, it was a forced put. A big guy with a mean look and a gun put us on board, gave us tickets, and told us not to come back. He acted as though he meant what he said.”
“Why in God's name didn't you tell this to the cops there? There's always one around an airport.”
Wendel said: “That was just it. It was a cop that put us on board. I told you that man Crandall has influence.”
CHAPTER TWO
I TOLD Wendel I'd look into the thing for him and they left for Joey Free's apartment. They wanted a drink and needed one; they'd headed for my office directly from the airport. They wanted clothes, and needed them as badly as the drink. But before they left, I took Joey to one side and said:
“I'll do a little checking on the Nevada law today and see if I can work out an angle on this. But I'd like to talk it over with you, personally, before I leave.”
“Sure,” he said. Come up tonight. I'll probably be having a little celebration for old Toddy, but we can find a corner that'll be quiet enough to talk in.”
“It sounds dopy to me,” I told him. “A guy's wife don't usually start out after a divorce without saying anything. Usually she's said so damned much he's glad to see her leave.”
Joey nodded toward Lester. “Going to take the kid along?”
“Sure! That's what he paid his five grand in for, to be a detective. I've got to give him his money's worth, don't I?”
He nodded toward the Gahagan wench. She's red-headed, Irish, and an eyeful. He said: “When you come up, why not bring the gal? She'd appreciate it and I'd appreciate it.”
“To hell with you. I've seen your parties. She'd black-mail around the office here and I couldn't get her to do a thing. I have a hard enough time with her now, without making a pet of her.”
“I'd make a pet of her.”
“You dope! You would. About eight, I'll be there.”
“Fine, Shean!”
Everybody shook hands and, when they'd gone, Lester said: “I can see, Shean, that this is going to be a very odd case. Something that will tax your ability to the utmost.”
The Gahagan said: “Nuts! All Shean has to do is look around and find the gal's new boy friend. She wouldn't leave her old man without a reason and that'll be it.”
Lester looked wise and said: “Ah, yes! The sex motive that is back of so many crimes.”
“What d'ya mean crime?” I asked him. “Is it any crime for a gal to get tired of her old man and want to trade him in on a new model?”
He argued: “There's something funny about this, just the same. Or why would the police put Joey Free and Mr. Wendel on the plane, bodily. That's suspicious, Shean.”
I thought the same but didn't admit it.
The party was going nicely at eight o'clock. I could hear it through the door, and I had no doubt about Joey's neighbors hearing it through the walls. I rang the bell, and a little blonde opened the door and said: “Oh, it's tall and dark and handsome. Come in, mister tall and dark and handsome.”
She was holding a highball glass and she'd held too many of them. I could see she wasn't going to last the party out. I went in, saw Wendel sitting in a corner and looking gloomy, and Joey Free with about eight assorted women around him. There were also half a dozen men, but Joey was on the inside track. Joey saw me and called:
“Hi, Shean! You're just in time.”
I asked just in time for what and he said he was referring to a drink. I got him and the drink to one side and said:
“Now look, Joey! This is a dopy set-up. Don't take it wrong, but has this guy got the money to pay me if I go on it?”
“He's got plenty,” Joey said. “When his father died, the inheritance tax was between two and three hundred thousand. He was the only child. Figure it out.”
“Because it's going to cost plenty. I'm going to have to put out some money around that town and not put it on a report blank and expense account.”
“Why not? Why can't you put it down?”
“When you're bribing cops you don't keep a record. Not unless you're a chump.”
He said slowly: “I wouldn't say you're exactly a chump, Shean. But there's this. That gal had more than an excuse to leave old Toddy. This is the first time he's busted loose since he was married. It was all work and no play for him and it's a little discouraging for a girl to have to listen about so and so taking up his option and whether such and such will stand by his lease or not. Toddy's a good egg, but he's business through and through. It's my idea that the gal just got fed up with him.”
“What does she look like?”
He went someplace and came back with a picture of a good-looking dark girl. He said: “I got this when I went East, just before Toddy made the South American trip. Keep it, if you like.”
I said: “I like.”
The blonde girl came over and acted as though she wanted to sit in my lap. Only I was standing up and didn't have one, I fended her away and Joey tried to get something on the radio they could dance to, but didn't do so well. He came back in a minute, which gave me a break with the blonde, and said:
“Hey, Shean! Some of this mob want to dance, or what is supposed to pass for it. Stick around and play a little piano for us, hey?”
“I've quit that business,” I told him. “I haven't played a job for two years and more. There's no money in it, and that's all I'll work for.”
He pointed over to the piano and said: “The hell there isn't. There's a hundred dollars in it, if you'll stick it out until the neighbors and the manager make you stop.”
I said: “Just make the check out to Shean Connell,” and headed for the piano.
The manager didn't threaten to call the police until after three. But after all, a hundred dollars is a lot of money, even if you say it slow and easy. And I'd been in Reno before and know I could never pad up an expense account enough to break even there; there's too many ways of spending money in the place.
CHAPTER THREE
LESTER and I drove up from the city and we didn't get in town until after five. So we checked in at the Golden Eagle and got cleaned up and fed before anything else. Then I said to Lester:
“Okey, kid. You stay here and hold the fort and I'll go and talk with the Chief.”
Lester said: “Can't I go with you?”
“Stay here and read a good book. I don't know this Chief, except by reputation.”
Lester put on his criminologist look. “Are you sure it's a wise step, Shean? After all, the police forced Joey and Mr. Wendel aboard the plane. It's very possible they will be antagonistic toward us and our mission.”
I said: “Now look! They may be. But an outside cop has to co-operate with the law every time. They're not only antagonistic but rabid if you don't. Do you understand?”
“In my opinion, it would be wiser to look the situation over first.”
I wanted to laugh but I tried to look stern instead. “Now, Lester, we agreed I was to decide anything that came up and that my decision would be final. Isn't that right?”
He said it was. I said: “All right, then. I've decided to talk with Chief Kirby, before doing anything else. Now that's final. Understand?”
He said he did, and looked very sad while he said it. All the matter with him was that he wanted to go along with me; didn't want to miss anything. But I couldn't see walking into the Chief of Police's office with Lester in tow; Wendel and Joey Free had already put me under a handicap by whatever fool stunt they'd done to get themselves chased out of town. I blamed them for that, knowing Joey Free and some of the dizzy stunts he'd pulled in the city. And I knew of Chief Kirby by reputation. He was supposed to be a damn good man and he had a tough job to hold with Reno as open as it was. Lester would
have been no help.
Chief of Police Kirby was a medium-sized, medium-aged man. No particular coloring or feature that stood out at all. And very quiet. He listened, while I told him all that Wendel and Joey Free had told me and then said:
“You understand, of course, that Mr. Wendel had no legal right to see his wife if she objected? You've got that point straight, haven't you?”
I said I realized that, but that Wendel seemed sincerely in love with his wife and only wanted to talk with her and find out what he'd done to cause her action. Kirby didn't answer this but just stood up and said:
“Come on and take a ride with me.”
We climbed in a police car and he drove to where a sign said: HILLARD MORTUARY. Kirby explained:
“We use this; the city hasn't modern conveniences,” and I had a notion of what he was going to show me.
But not who.
A short, smiling little man met us, acting as though we were doing him a favor by calling, and the three of us went in a side room.
The girl was there. The woman, rather. She had been around thirty apparently—fair-looking, too, except that her nose was too big and beaked. Black hair and rather dark-skinned. There was a blue puckered slit a bit to the side in her neck, and Kirby pointed this out to me and said:
“Knife wound. Hit the big artery.”
I said: “Nasty thing, a shiv is. Who is she?”
He said, as though reading from a police report: “Francine Debreaux. French nationality. In this country four years and her passport and papers in order. Mrs. Todhunter Wendel's personal maid for the last year. Had fair references. New York is checking these for me now.”
“Where'd you find her? Where'd she get the shiv in her neck?”
The undertaker, who it seemed was also the local Coroner, said: “She was in an alley, back of the MIDNIGHT CLUB. The knife wound didn't kill her at once; she probably took two or three minutes to bleed out.”
Kirby said: “Whoever did it held something over her mouth. Her lips are slightly bruised, if you'll notice. There was a cook and dishwasher in the club, within fifteen feet of where this happened, and they never heard a sound.”
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