The Silver Cobweb

by Ben Benson

  Ben Benson

  The Silver Cobweb

  A RALPH LINDSEY MYSTERY

  1

  IT WAS A TROOPER NAMED KEITH LUDWELL WHO WAS FIRST ON the murder scene. He had been on patrol a mile south of the town when he received the radio call rushing him in his cruiser to the Fedder house at 12 Montague Street, Dorset. He arrived there two minutes after the murderer drove away in his blue truck.

  Just minutes previously, the neighbors on Montague Street had seen pretty, twenty-one-year-old Mary Ann Fedder driving her little Nash at great speed to her house. Behind her was the blue panel truck. Mary Fedder had left her car, raced into her house and slammed the door shut.

  Moments later the sergeant at the State Police barracks in Topsfield had received Mary Ann’s urgent, hysterical call that somebody was trying to kill her. While she was on the telephone talking to the sergeant, the murderer had broken the door down and had fired four shots at her. The man ran out and drove away. The gathering neighbors had seen the murderer, the truck and the license plate. But because the man was armed with a pistol nobody had dared make a move to stop him.

  When Trooper Ludwell arrived the frantic people were out on the sidewalk in front of the house, pointing in the direction where the truck had disappeared, shouting the license number and yelling about the shots that had been fired.

  I know Keith Ludwell would have liked nothing better than to chase the murderer. He couldn’t, of course. His first job was to render all possible aid to the victim. So Ludwell, being a meticulous trooper, ignored the neighbors and ran into the house to Mary Ann Fedder. He saw her bullet-torn face, the wide-open staring eyes and knew she was dead and there was no help to be given. He had immediately phoned Sergeant Bart Neal at the barracks. Neal told him to stay there with the body.

  It was 2:04 on Tuesday afternoon in the fourth week of May and, at the time, I was on a routine patrol six miles west of Dorset near Dorset Pond. At 2:01, on my shortwave radio, I had heard the Signal 16 to Ludwell. But because the message wasn’t for me I hadn’t paid much attention to it.

  Now at 2:04 my radio box said tersely, “K2. Special attention Cruiser 27. Be on the lookout for a blue GMC panel truck, Mass. registration B0662. Occupant reported to have shot and killed Mary Ann Fedder in Dorset five minutes ago. Last seen heading west on Route 110 in the direction of Georgetown. Please acknowledge.”

  That was mine. I picked up the handphone, pressed the button and said, “Received okay. Twenty-seven, off.”

  I was on Pond Road at the time near the junction of Route 110. The car I was driving, Cruiser 27, was a souped-up interceptor and was capable of overtaking any commercial car or truck on the road. As I moved quickly out into the intersection to set up a roadblock a blue panel truck flashed by me. The hatless man bent over the wheel ignored my blasting horn. I caught a glimpse of the number plate as it rushed by—B0662.

  I picked up the handphone and said, “Cruiser 27 to K2. I just spotted that blue truck at the Dorset line and I’m chasing it west on 110.” Then I turned the cruiser after it, my roof blinker on, siren wailing. Over the radio speaker I heard the dispatcher calling our Andover Barracks to send cruisers to converge, and also messages to the local police in Georgetown, Haverhill and Lawrence.

  Route 110 had some bad curves, and the truck yawed and careened wildly from one side of the highway to the other. It wasn’t until we hit a stretch of straight road that I was able to pull alongside the truck and motion it over. By that time I had taken my service revolver out of the flap holster and had laid it on the seat beside me. The driver ignored my order to stop and tried to get more speed out of the truck. So, riding parallel to him, I reached down, picked up the revolver and aimed it at his head. He took a quick look at it and jammed on his brakes. The truck slowed to a stop. As it did, his door flew open and he ran out. He ducked around the truck and fled into the woods.

  I parked behind the truck, then ran across the shoulder of the road after him. The man was about twenty yards ahead. I shouted to him to stop. He paid no attention. I fired one shot into the air. He kept running, trying to zigzag a little. I closed in on him, raising my revolver again and cocking it.

  There was a steep little gully ahead and a little brook running at the bottom of it. The man paused at the top of the gully, turned and pulled an automatic pistol from his pocket. As he brought it up, aiming it at me with both hands, he stumbled. Falling backwards, he rolled down the gully to the edge of the stream.

  I came down the gully and dived for him. He lost his grip on the pistol. As he scrabbled for it, I swung the revolver, hitting him with the barrel across the side of the head. Because I had my finger on the trigger, the jarring blow set the gun off. I had a bad, frightened moment then, thinking I had shot the man. But the bullet only grazed his hair.

  “Don’t shoot me,” he panted. “Don’t shoot. I quit.”

  By that time I had twisted him face down in the soft marshy earth and dead leaves. With one knee in his back I took my handcuffs out of the black leather case and locked his arms behind him. My hands patted his clothes for another weapon. Then I picked up the automatic pistol and tucked it into my gunbelt.

  “All right,” I said, yanking him to his feet. “Up.”

  He said, “Don’t shoot, trooper. I’m giving you no trouble.” I was breathing heavily and said nothing. He didn’t look like a murderer. He was a pudgy little man about thirty-five, his hair a silky brown. Part of his moonlike, round face had dirt and dead leaves clinging to it. His lips were small and full and his eyes were mild and an almost colorless brown. The blow from my gun had raised a large red welt along his left temple.

  I prodded him up the gully and to the cruiser. I pushed him into the back seat, then picked up the phone and reported to the barracks. Sergeant Neal told me to stand by. He would send two men to assist me.

  When I put the phone down the man said in a soft voice, “What’s your name, trooper?”

  “Lindsey,” I said. “Ralph Lindsey. What’s yours, mister?”

  “Arnold Johnson,” he said. “I guess there’s some mistake, sonny. You scared me, chasing after me and pointing that big revolver like I did something wrong. How about getting these handcuffs off? They’re hurting me.”

  “Save it, Johnson.”

  “No, I mean it,” he said. “There’s a mistake somewhere. Maybe I know what it is. You’re looking for a blue panel truck. Probably stolen. It passed me on the road going like a bat out of hell. A truck just like mine. You missed it, sonny.”

  “I didn’t miss that gun you were aiming at me, Johnson.”

  “Aiming?” He laughed apologetically. “You have it wrong, Lindsey. I wasn’t going to argue with you. I was holding the gun out to give to you.” He edged over on the seat, turned and pushed his wrists out. “Take them off, kid. You made a mistake and I’m willing to forget it. You’ve still got a chance of catching the other truck.”

  “You stay there,” I said, “or I’ll clout you again.”

  “So your name’s Lindsey,” he said gently. “I’m going to remember it real good, sonny.”

  Troopers Tony Pellegrini and Ed Doherty came a few minutes later. Doherty would stay with the truck until the technical men arrived to examine it. Pellegrini and I drove the murderer to the barracks.

  We kept the prisoner in the guardroom while Sergeant Neal was busy in the duty office with the radio, telephone and teletype. He had to call the lab men, ballistics and photography at GHQ in Boston. There were also calls to the troop commander in Framingham and the technical sergeant there. Then he had to contact the medical examiner, the district attorney and the State Police detective-lieutenants in Salem and Lawrence. Within an hour the barracks would be jammed with all sorts of police officials and wit
nesses. This was the quiet time and it wouldn’t last long.

  The murderer, handcuffed, sat at the long table, his face calm and placid and a little pale except for the mark where I had struck him. Neal, towering and burly, looked down at him.

  “What’s his name?” Neal asked me.

  “Arnold Johnson,” I said.

  “Johnson,” Neal said. “He looks familiar and his name isn’t Johnson.” He turned to the man and prodded him with a big finger. “What’s your real name?”

  “Arnold Johnson,” the man said expressionlessly. “There’s a big mistake, Sergeant.”

  “Let me have his wallet,” Neal said.

  I fished in Johnson’s pocket and brought out a black pin-seal wallet. Neal examined it.

  “Six hundred and twelve bucks,” Neal said. “A big roll. A Mass. driver’s license made out to Arnold Johnson of Hemingway Street, Boston. The name and description look altered. A receipt from an auto rental agency in Boston for the truck. Registration B0662. There’s no mistake there, Johnson.”

  “Yes, there is,” Johnson said.

  “Ralph,” Neal said to me, “he goes into a cell where we’ll search him.”

  I took Johnson to the cellblock. Pellegrini opened the grilled door. In the cellblock corridor, Neal motioned for my revolver. I handed it to him and he passed it to Pellegrini.

  Neal said, “Ralph, put him in the first cell and unlock the cuffs. You, Tony, stay outside the cellblock door. If this bum so much as blinks an eyelash, shoot him.”

  I took Johnson into the first cell and unlocked the handcuffs. From the corridor, Neal said, “Johnson, take off every stitch of clothes. I want to see you looking like a plucked chicken.”

  The man sat down on the hard wooden bench in the cell and rubbed his wrists for a moment. Then he began to unbutton his jacket.

  I stood over him and took each article of clothing as he removed it, passing it to Neal outside. Neal examined everything closely, probing sleeve linings, seams, cuffs and shoulder pads. On the cement floor of the corridor was a little pile of coins, a set of keys and a long, wicked-looking switchknife. Neal took the belt from the trousers and the lacings from the shoes. Then he threw the trousers and shoes back into the cell. He also threw in an undershirt.

  “Stay here,” Neal said to me. He motioned to Pellegrini to unlock the cellblock door, then went out. I watched Johnson shake his head pityingly as he slipped on the pants and undershirt.

  Neal came back. He was not wearing his pocket revolver now. In his hand was an FBI flyer with two holes punched along the top. He looked at the picture on it, front and side view. “Your name isn’t Johnson,” he said. “It’s Kurt ‘Whitey’ Swenke. Torpedo. New York and New Jersey. Wanted by the New York Police on three warrants of murder. A hired killer. What have you got to say now, Swenke?”

  Swenke looked down at his hands, smiled slightly and said nothing.

  Neal’s face turned red. He reached into the cell and grabbed Swenke by the undershirt. “All right, you came to a small town and killed a harmless young girl. Now suppose you tell us why, Whitey.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Swenke said.

  “Maybe you didn’t understand me,” Neal said. “This was no girl from the turf. This was an innocent kid. Where did you come into her life, Whitey?”

  Swenke turned his face up and his mild eyes were slightly watery. “You’re making a big mistake, Sergeant. I don’t know anything about it. And I might get a notion to sue you guys. You can’t do this to me on a little speeding charge. This truck passed me, a blue panel truck just like mine. He was going very fast—”

  Neal motioned with his head to me. I left the cell. Neal stepped back quickly and clanged the cell door shut. Swenke’s hands clasped the bars and he said, “I’m no trouble, Sergeant. I wouldn’t even bother you for a cigarette. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke. I live clean and I mind my own business. And I don’t know what you guys are trying to pull on me. I haven’t shot anybody.”

  Neal turned his back. We went out of the cellblock together. Neal said, “Ralph, tell the cook to get some pots of coffee going. Pretty soon we’ll be jammed to the rafters with brass.”

  “Right,” I said. I retrieved my revolver from Pellegrini and headed through the dining room to the kitchen. I was thinking of Mary Ann Fedder, who was dead now. I don’t know why—I had never met or seen her—but I pictured her as blonde, blue-eyed and petite. A small-town girl who had been murdered by a hired killer from New York. It made no sense to me. It made no sense to Bart Neal. But there it was. A murder. We had apprehended the killer and that part was over. It was not a question of who had committed the crime. The big question would be why.

  It would take time and a lot of trouble to find that out.

  2

  THAT NIGHT I WENT ON PATROL WITH KEITH LUDWELL, who was my roommate. I was still in my probationary period and Ludwell, being senior man, was driving the cruiser.

  “What color hair did Mary Fedder have?” I asked him.

  “Blonde. Why?”

  “I just had an idea it was blonde,” I said. “Blue-eyed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Small girl?”

  “Not too big.”

  “Funny,” I said. “That’s how I pictured her.”

  “She was going to be married in a couple of weeks,” Ludwell said. “A June bride.”

  “That’s rough,” I said. “Who was the groom?”

  “A local kid named Russell Westlake.”

  “That’s rough,” I said again.

  “It is,” Ludwell said. Then he told me how he had stood guard over Mary Ann Fedder’s body, keeping the neighbors out of the house. A few minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Fedder, the parents of Mary Ann, had come bursting in. He had moved them gently but firmly into another room so they wouldn’t disturb anything. It seems there had been a wedding rehearsal at the church and they had been waiting for Mary Ann to come there when they heard the news of her murder. Mrs. Fedder had become so hysterical with grief that Ludwell had had to restrain her physically until a doctor came. The doctor had put her under sedation.

  “What could I do?” Ludwell said. “Sure, I felt sorry for Mrs. Fedder. But I had to preserve everything until the medical examiner and the detectives came. She kept fighting me, clawing at me, trying to get into the living room where her dead daughter was. I couldn’t let her, of course.”

  I nodded. That would be Keith Ludwell, I thought. Painstaking, methodical, very serious. Do everything according to the book and you’ll never go wrong. He was a stickler for the rules and regulations. I was only a few months out of the State Police Academy and only five days at the Topsfield Barracks. That was why they thought it best to assign me to a man like Ludwell for instruction during my probationary period.

  Ludwell drove slowly along Route 1 and the subject changed to Whitey Swenke. Neither of us had a logical answer as to his motive for killing the girl, or why he was in Dorset driving a rented truck.

  It was about 9:00 P.M. and we were still talking about Swenke when a red convertible passed us going about seventy miles an hour.

  We gave chase to it. By the time we caught up with the car it had passed the Topsfield Barracks and had gone a mile beyond. As we came alongside I motioned to the single occupant to pull over and stop. The driver of the car was a girl, and she stared at me with her crimson mouth startled and open. She looked at the two-tone blue cruiser and made a grimace. Slowing her car drastically, she turned it onto the shoulder of the road, the tires screeching and gouging into the gravel.

  “You take it,” Ludwell said to me.

  I knew in advance that it would be done strictly by the book and Ludwell would be watching me carefully. He parked directly behind the girl with our roof blinker on as a safety precaution against collisions. Our headlights would be focused on the car so that the occupant would be caught in the glare and would have to turn around to face us. That would rule out any element of surprise on her part.

  I go
t out. As I came by the rear license plate of the convertible I checked it in my mind with the stolen car list on our patrol card. The red convertible wasn’t listed.

  I went along the driver’s side of the car, taking a look inside, making sure nobody was crouched in back hiding. Then I moved to the driver’s window and asked the girl for her license and registration.

  She reached for the glove compartment, took out an envelope and handed it to me. Her papers were in order. Her name was Amy Bell. She was twenty-seven years old and her address was 52 Elm Street, Dorset, Mass.

  As I studied her papers in the beam of the cruiser’s headlights she laughed suddenly. I looked at her and she said, “Aren’t you taking a chance being out here all alone, honey child? What if I was a notorious criminal? I might have reached into that glove compartment and brought out a gun.”

  “You’d have had your head blown off, ma’am,” I said. “There’s another trooper standing at the back of your car and he’s there to watch what you do.”

  She turned her head quickly and saw Ludwell standing at the rear right fender of her car, where he had a good view of the inside.

  She smiled and nodded. “Clever, clever.”

  I took out my violation book. “You were going seventy miles an hour, ma’am. This is a forty-five-mile zone. Your speed was much too fast.” I began to write on the slip.

  She became angry. “I was late for work,” she said. “Dammit, there are hardly any cars on the road.”

  “There are a lot of intersections,” I said. “A car could come out of any one of them and not realize you were going so fast. At that speed somebody might have been killed and it could have been you. You watch the signs from now on, ma’am. The speed limits are posted.”

  She became angrier. I wrote “summons” at the bottom left-hand corner of the serially numbered slip, signed my name and gave her the white copy and her envelope. By this time Ludwell had checked the front of her car for her safety inspection sticker and had gone back to the cruiser to listen for radio calls.