by J. T. Edson
‘Can I use your phone?’ asked Alice.
‘Feel free. Say, is he involved in—’
Before the man could frame the end of his question, Alice had taken up the telephone and started to dial the office’s number.
‘We’ve hit paydirt, I think,’ she said when the sheriff answered. ‘He fits the description and had a gun along. What’ll we do?’
‘Is he there still?’
‘Left sometime this afternoon.’
‘Stay on, I’ll have a lab crew sent over. Has the room been touched since he left?’
On raising Jack’s query, Alice discovered that the hotel’s cleaning staff came on at seven in the morning. When Alice relayed the information, Jack repeated his orders for the deputies to stay put and said he would send a lab crew to join them.
‘We’ll try not to disturb your other guests, Mr. Silverman,’ Alice promised in her most winning manner. ‘Would it be possible to check if Mr. Jackson had any visitors, or sent and received any phone calls during his stay?’
‘You could ask around the staff when they come on,’ the man replied. ‘They might remember. He had nobody to see him while I was on duty. We keep a record only of out-going calls, but again the switchboard girl might help you. She comes in at nine—when she’s not late.’
‘We’ll come around and see her,’ Alice told Brad and he nodded.
Half an hour later a trio of technicians of the Scientific Investigation Bureau arrived at the Newnes and were escorted to the room ‘Jackson’ had occupied. First the Latent Prints Detail’s representative went over the room, using his considerable knowledge in an attempt to find fingerprints left by the occupant. A significant point came from the check.
‘There’s not a print to be found,’ the expert told Alice and Brad. ‘And I know that nobody uses a room for three days without leaving a few. That room’s been gone, over with a rag the way my wife’s mother goes over the sitting-room.’
‘The cleaning staff didn’t do it,’ Alice breathed. ‘Let the lab crew have a look while I call in.’
‘We’ve hit paydirt, Alice,’ Jack told the girl when she reported the discovery. ‘Ian called from the Bestwick. Sloane fits the other guy, and his room had been cleaned—only he wasn’t as thorough as Jackson. They raised a full set from the inside of the wash-basin cabinet’s door.’
‘It could be—’ Alice said.
‘Sure, it could be,’ agreed Jack. ‘I’m having the prints rushed back here and flown up to I.C.R., they’ll Speedphoto them through to the F.B.I. and ask for a top priority make. You and Brad can come in, leave the lab crew to finish.’
One of the lab crew appeared at Alice’s side, bringing news that they had found no scientific evidence in the room, even the waste-paper basket and ashtrays had been emptied, the latter cleaned out of ash even. No innocent man would go to such lengths before leaving a hotel.
‘You know, Alice,’ Brad said as they drove back to the office. ‘One thing bugs me. The job was so well organized, the killers acted so careful. Yet they made a damned fool mistake like booking those flights then not showing to take them.’
‘They knew we’d be covering the airport as soon as we heard about Tom’s death,’ Alice pointed out.
‘Then why make the reservations in the first place?’ asked Brad, just as the same thought hit Alice.
Although neither of the deputies realized it, Brad had just asked a question the answer of which would solve the reason behind Tom’s killing.
Nine
‘It’s about time they gave us a room downstairs,’ Woman Deputy Joan Hilton remarked, watching Alice don a dark blue pencil line skirt after washing and making up her face in the women’s room on the fourth floor of Headquarters Building. ‘They could convert the waiting-room for us.’
‘And use the tax-payer’s money just so a few female deputies don’t need to walk to an elevator?’ Alice replied, drawing up the skirt’s zip. ‘I can’t see the County Commissioners buying that.’
‘Or me. I hope I brought you the right outfit from the apartment.’
‘Sure, thanks, Joan.’
The time was eight o’clock on Monday morning and Joan had just logged on day watch. Due to her place being redecorated, Joan was rooming with Alice and had fetched along a change of clothing for her friend. Deputies normally worked in plain clothes when investigating in town, so Joan selected Alice’s dark, stylish two-piece and a plain white blouse.
‘Did you get any sleep last night?’ Joan went on while Alice finished dressing.
‘Some. All the boys were so considerate. Brad fetched me a camp bed and blankets from the locker room and I bunked down in the squad room.’
‘Anything new?’ asked Joan, getting on to the case at last.
‘Not yet. We found one set of prints and got them off to I.C.R. Hey though, Mick and Tommy picked up Salvador Amarez on a 1391.’
‘How come?’ Joan inquired, knowing there must be more to the story than the arrest of a known criminal who had often been brought in and charged under Article 1391 of the Penal Code: burglary of a private residence.
‘They were prowling and remembered Uncle Tom put the arm on Amarez and sent him down for a three-stretch. Amarez made some threats at the time. So they went to his pad, this being around three in the morning. When they knocked, the light they'd seen under the door went out. So they broke in. From what they said, it must have been quite a sight. There was Amarez trying to get out of the window, wearing his street clothes. But his girlfriend, and from the way Tom described her, thinking I was sound asleep in my little bed, she made Jayne Mansfield look as slim as Leslie Caron, was standing in the middle of the room—wearing a mink wrap, and nothing else.’
‘What happened?’
‘It seems that Amarez hit a house in Upton Heights and the wrap was part of the take. The girl had never worn one, so he let her try it. The boys brought her in still wearing it.’
‘What?’ gasped Joan.
‘Oh, they let her dress first,’ smiled Alice. ‘The rest of the boys did look disappointed. Mick contacted the owner of the house Amarez hit and he didn’t even know his property had gone.’
‘Did Amarez make trouble?’
‘Would you with a couple of .41 Magnums pointed at your favorite navel?’
‘Do you think he was tied in with the hit on Tom?’ Joan asked, conceding Alice’s point.
‘Not if Brad’s theory about imported professionals is right. Amarez was just out of the Eastham Unit iv a week back and not holding much. He couldn’t have paid for a contract, those boys don’t work on time.’
‘He wouldn’t’ve pulled a job the same night if he had hired it done,’ Joan remarked. ‘Amarez might not be smart, but he’s smart enough to know we’d be looking for him.’
‘Just like Goole,’ agreed Alice, finishing snapping her suspender belt’s last strap to a stocking. ‘Let’s get to the elevators before they’re crowded.’
The fourth floor of the building belonged to the Scientific Investigation Bureau and on leaving the women’s room, Alice saw two S.I.B. men entering an elevator.
‘Hey!’ she called. ‘Down?’
‘Down,’ agreed the taller man and held open the doors. ‘Sorry to hear about Tom, Alice. Any leads?’
‘Nothing much,’ Alice admitted. ‘And what’s taking the pride of the Arson Detail out into the chill morning air?’
‘A fire,’ grinned the second man.
‘No!’ Joan gasped.
‘Garage on Jenner Street, down in the Bad-Bit. Call’s just come in.’
‘Maybe the Fire Chief wants two more for a game of bridge,’ Alice suggested.
‘He’d’ve called the sheriff’s office if he did,’ replied the taller man.
Before either deputy could think up an adequate answer the lift reached the third floor and its doors opened. Waving a hand to the two detectives, Alice led the way to the squad room. First Deputy Alvarez looked out of his office as the girls entered to sign t
he logbook at the right of the main doors.
‘The El Paso Police Department called,’ he said. ‘Greer’s at the hotel, been there since Friday. The hotel staff know him.’
‘Which leaves him in the clear,’ Alice commented and went to her desk. A sheet of paper lay on it and she read, ‘Latent Prints, no make on set found at the Bestwick. That figures. Hey, Ric, Brad and I’ll grab a bite at the Badge and start running down some leads.’
Then Alice fell silent and dropped her eyes to the desktop. One of the leads to follow entailed questioning her aunt. Knowing how Tom and Mavis Cord had loved each other, Alice hated the thought of the painful interview to come. Yet she had asked to be assigned to the case and must handle every aspect of it, no matter how painful the duty proved.
Brad entered the squad room. It appeared that he had risen earlier than his partner, and had been across town to his apartment, for he was clean shaven and wore a sports jacket, dark gray open necked shirt, black cravat and grey slacks. Instead of carrying his gun on the official belt, he now wore a Hardy-Cooper spring shoulder holster and it would have taken keen eyes to detect the bulge of the big automatic under his left arm.
‘Let’s go eat,’ he suggested after glancing at the Latent Prints’ negative report and the pile of cards sent up by the Stats. Office. ‘We’ll start on them after we get back.’
‘Sure. We’ve a busy day ahead, Brad.’
The Badge Diner lay a block away from Headquarters Building, but it drew most of the sheriff’s office and police trade. Owned by an ex-cop, retired through a wound gained during the big clean up of the county, the Badge served good food and offered a handy place to eat while still being close to the House in case of emergency. Several off-watch policemen and women sat around the room as Alice and Brad entered. For a moment the laughter and chatter died, then rose again although with a slightly strained note added. Hank Seaborn, the owner, came across to the deputies’ table, only a slight limp showing that he had an artificial leg.
‘Sorry to hear about Tom,’ he said. ‘What’ll it be?’
‘Ham, eggs, coffee for two,’ Brad said. ‘That do, boss lady?’
‘Do fine,’ Alice confirmed.
They had finished their breakfasts and sat over a second cup of coffee when Seaborn called, ‘Telephone, Alice.’
Rising, the deputies crossed the room and Alice took the telephone receiver Seaborn offered her. She listened to the message and said, ‘We’ll be right over, Pete.’ Handing the receiver back to Seaborn, she turned to Brad and went on, ‘That was Pete Kajic of Arson. He wants us to go down to Jenner Street. As far as he can tell, there’s the remains of a repeating shotgun in a burned-out car that could be a Plymouth Fury. And they’ve found the body of a man by the car.’
‘We’ll get right over,’ Brad replied. ‘Who’s paying the check? Oh, all right, so pull rank. I’ll pay it, but I’ll write my congressman.’
Suddenly Brad realized he would have made exactly the same remark had he been sharing a meal with Tom Cord. His eyes went to Alice and she smiled, guessing his thoughts.
On returning to Headquarters, the deputies took car SO 12 and, with Alice at the wheel, drove out of the official vehicles parking lot. Brad called the dispatcher and notified her of where they intended to go, and Alice took the shortest route to Jenner Street.
Lying on the fringe of the Bad-Bit, Gusher City’s sprawling slum area, Jenner Street was a business section and the garage proved to be a single-storey building separated from its neighbors by an alley on either side. People crowded the sidewalk, controlled by patrolmen who had been rushed over from the Evans Park Station House. A Fire Department engine and trailer stood before the building, firemen coiling their hoses. Beyond the engine were a couple of R.P. cars, a D car and the Arson Detail’s truck. A couple of detectives stood questioning a big, buxom woman on the fringe of one of the sections of the crowd.
Bringing the Oldsmobile to a halt before the truck, Alice climbed out and joined Brad on the sidewalk. Each had their badge pinned on in plain sight and went down the alley to where they could see Pete Kajic, the taller of the two men Alice had met in the elevator. .
‘I thought you’d want to come down,’ Kajic remarked. He now wore smoke and grease-stained overalls and his face had a couple of smudges on it. ‘As near as we can tell, the car’s a Fury. You’d best stay out here, Alice.’
‘Is it as bad as that?’ she asked.
‘They always are,’ grunted Kajic.
‘Anyways,’ Brad went on. ‘What’s the use in bossing the team if you can’t let your underling do all the dirty work?’
Alice smiled and did not make a stand on female equality. Having worked on Traffic, mangled bodies no longer struck her as a novelty and she knew Brad would see everything she could. So she stood back and let her partner enter the side door of the building.
‘It’s a torch job,’ Kajic remarked as he and Brad entered the burned-out workshop. ‘Not a top-flight professional one though. I’d say they used a simple time fuse, say a candle burning down towards a bundle of petrol-soaked rags or paper. Everything in here, including the body, had been soaked in petrol. There was some paint-spraying equipment and the paint aided the blaze.’
‘Why don’t you reckon it’s a top professional job?’ asked Brad, not looking at the blackened, twisted shape on the floor after his first glance.
‘Instinct more than anything,’ Kajic admitted. ‘They only made one starting point. Good torch men would have made three or four flash points. The fire took hold pretty well before being seen, but not as good as the guy who set it hoped. The drapes caught fire, broke the windows and gave the alarm. Professionals would have made certain that that didn’t happen so quickly.’
‘Any damage at the rear?’ Brad inquired, holding off from the unpleasant business of studying the body.
‘Not much. The bed’s been slept on, not in. I’ve sent for an S.I.B. crew. Look inside the car.’
Brad obeyed, and saw the remains of a gun, its woodwork badly burned, the breech and tube magazine shattered by the exploding of heated shells.
‘Can I?’ he asked, reaching inside and taking out the remains. ‘Rifle sights, but it’s a shotgun, the bore’s too large for a rifle. Twenty inch barrel, built for ball and buckshot.’
‘Sure. Want to take a look at the stiff?’
‘Nope—but I have to.’
Only by an effort did Brad hold down an exclamation of revulsion as he looked at the body. Contracted by the heat, the body’s muscles caused the arms and legs to bend into an attitude as though it had been fighting for its life when struck down by the flames. It looked like a grotesque caricature of a human being.
‘How tall do you reckon he was in life?’ Brad asked, turning away.
‘Five seven, eight at most, stocky build,’ Kajic answered. ‘May be the owner, he’s not around this morning. I can’t say whether the flames got him or how he died. The M.E.’ll have to give you that.’
‘Brad!’ Alice called from the passage door. ‘Have you finished?’
‘Sure,’ Brad replied and walked to her side. He did not look unhappy at leaving the room.
‘The local fuzz found a woman who might be able to help us.’
‘And she’ll talk?’ asked Brad. ‘I thought folks in the Bad-Bit were born deaf, dumb and with built-in seeing-eye dogs.’
‘Don’t be bitter,’ Alice warned. ‘There’re nice folks everywhere.’
The big, buxom woman, clearly of Mexican descent, stood waiting on the street, a detective at her side.
‘This’s Mrs. Mendoza,’ the detective introduced. ‘Tell these folks what you-all told me, Rosa.’
‘Say, are you a cop?’ asked the woman, looking Alice over and speaking with no trace of an accent.
‘Deputy sheriff,’ Alice confirmed. ‘Did you know the owner of the garage, Mrs. Mendoza?’
‘Frankie Thurlow? Sure, I know him. I’ve got a fruit and vegetable store across the street. He comes to b
uy my stuff, I give him all my repair work like good neighbors. I tell you, Frankie can re-paint a truck faster than any guy in town.’
‘He did respray work then?’ asked Alice.
‘Sure, plenty of it.’
‘About how tall is Mr. Thurlow?’ Brad inquired.
‘About five nine. Say, is he in there?’
‘There’s a body inside, but it’s unidentifiable. Can you tell us anything about his background?’
‘Not much. He bought the place two years back, reckoned he’d been in the Quartermaster Corps in Korea.’
‘Was he doing all right?’ Alice put in. ‘Financially, I mean.’
‘Sure, I reckon he was. He always had plenty of work. Say, do you reckon that feller I saw knows anything about the fire?’
‘Which man?’ asked Alice, dropping the subject of the spray-job. The G.C.P.D. could handle that aspect of the business.
‘He came down the alley there at about half past seven,’ Mrs. Mendoza replied. ‘I was just opening the store, you know, I catch folks going to work, do a good bit of trade that way. Anyway, I saw him come out of the alley, thought he might have come through from North Jenner.’
‘What did he look like?’ Brad asked.
‘Biggish, heavy build, tanned, not—’
‘How did he dress?’ Alice interrupted.
‘Dark suit, fedora, carrying a suitcase.'
Alice and Brad exchanged glances. Then the girl turned to Mrs. Mendoza. ‘Can you come down to Headquarters, please?’ she asked.
‘Is it important?’
‘It may be. We’d like you to look at some photographs, and try to build up a picture of the man. One of our artists will work with you.’
‘Did he kill Frankie and fire the garage?’ growled Mrs. Mendoza.
‘We don’t know,’ Alice admitted. ‘But it’s possible.’
‘Then I’ll do it!’ the woman stated. ‘Hell, Frankie was a good neighbor. I’ll tell my man to tend to the store.’