Crime on My Hands

by George Sanders

  James was suddenly flushed with anger. “I’m getting damned tired,” he grated, “of learning important facts when it’s too late. You didn’t tell me about that film, and it was stolen. You didn’t tell me about the notebook, and it’s gone. There’s something fishy here, and I want to know what!”

  “You admitted the party was a good idea,” I reminded him. “Let’s get it started.”

  “All right!” he snapped. “But if anybody else goes haywire because you’re holding out, God help you. I’m not kidding, George. You’re not playing square. I think you’re acting this way because you think it’s best. Okay. I don’t think you’re a dope. But if this party don’t get us anywhere, you’re going to come clean, or I’ll charge you with obstructing justice and you’ll see what the state prison looks like from inside!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I claim no flair for philosophy that probes the hidden springs of human behavior. I am inclined to observe surface manifestations and deal with those. I have found this to be practical.

  So, even now, when Peggy, who was something of a friend, had been shot in the back, I did not run down my list of suspects in search of basic motivations. The motive was there on the surface, clear as a signpost. The murderer knew that she had seen something – an act, a gesture, any abnormal characteristic – and made a note of it. He had to kill her to prevent her tagging him.

  My plan to identify him was also a surface measure. The killer knew that he had committed murder. The very word murder must lie close to the surface of his consciousness. My purpose, then, was to jolt him into revealing that fact, and my plan to do so was simple. I had “invented” – the term isn’t strictly accurate, but suffices – a word game which had brought me many free drinks, and cost me a few, too. It began one day in the Derby bar where I ran into a highly literate lady who plays moronic roles on the screen and stage. I bet her a dollar I could give her three letters of a word, and she could not fit those letters into a word – mine or any other – within fifteen seconds.

  “C-x-q,” I said, and pushed the timer on my watch.

  She turned on that mournful expression that has brought belly laughs to millions, and said “quincunx” in a voice that said I was pumping her heart’s blood into the street.

  “There isn’t any such word,” I said.

  Heartbrokenly, she offered a wager of five dollars more that such a word existed, and the bartender offered to back her judgment with two dollars of his own. We adjourned to a near-by book shop, where she proved that “quincunx” concerned an arrangement of objects by fives, and I was eight dollars out of pocket. I didn’t play the game with her any more. I managed to recoup my losses from less erudite persons, and played the game occasionally off and on for two or three years.

  Now, on the heels of Peggy’s death, I wanted to get as many suspects as possible together and throw them letter combinations like d-m-u for murder, l-l-g for killing, m-h-c for homicide, and the like. It seemed to be a sound theory to me. Although it would prove nothing, it would concentrate my attention on the person who was self-conscious about coming up with any of those, or related, words, and we could investigate his alibi, motives, former associations with Severance Flynne, etc.

  I hadn’t speculated on Melva Lonigan’s reaction to my being in jail.

  She came rocketing in with Fred and a middle-aged stranger. She said, “They can’t do this to me. Where’s that half-witted sheriff?”

  “Can’t do what to you?” I asked.

  “Put you in jail. What else?”

  “I tried to tell her,” Fred broke in, “that this is swell publicity for you. I think we ought to leave you here.”

  Melva’s green eyes sparkled. “And does he make any money in jail? Not for me, he doesn’t. I’m going to get him out.”

  “Go away,” I said. “All of you.”

  Melva pushed a red lock off her forehead. “Now don’t get hysterical, George,” she said, as if to a three-year-old.

  My voice went up in spite of myself. “Hysterical? You two ghouls have already done irremediable damage. You flocked in on the heels of a bullet and prevented me from finding who fired it last night. As a result, poor Peggy Whittier is dead. And now, when I make a simple request, I’m hysterical! Now go away! I mean it.”

  “You just don’t know what’s good for you,” Melva said. “Your attorney will confirm that. Won’t you, Mr. McCracken?”

  The middle-aged man looked judicial. “The Constitution is being violated on three separate counts as long as you are incarcerated, Mr. Sanders. Surely, as good Americans, we cannot allow such sacrilege?”

  He was tall, rather lean, very distinguished, with a touch of gray at his temples; the lower half of his face was a lighter shade than his tanned forehead, and he was a complete stranger to me.

  “My attorney?” I said. “I didn’t hire an attorney.”

  “Oh, yes,” Melva corrected. “I did it for you. We can’t let you rot in a louse-infested cell.”

  “Any lice in this cell,” I said pointedly, “came from outside, since I’ve been here. I don’t want an attorney. I have as much use for one as a second nose. I like it here.”

  “Atta boy, George,” Fred said. “We can hit the front pages with this one.”

  “As for you,” I said balefully, “you’re my ex-press agent. I told you I didn’t want any story about my working on this crime. I’m through with you.”

  “You can’t fire him!” Melva said stoutly. “I’ve got a contract with you, and he’s my fiance. I’ll admit he seems to have a head full of curdled milk at times, but what he did he did in your own interests.”

  “I can fire you, too!” I said. I’m afraid this approached a shout.

  “Ah?” she said sweetly. “I’ll sue you, my sweet, and wear a bathing suit in court. Do you think any jury would listen to you when I’m in a halter and shorts? And I’ll tell ’em you stole the rest of my clothes, and you’d have taken my bathing suit too if you’d known where you could sell a used one.” Her tone became soothing. “Let’s don’t fight, George. We like each other too well. This is for your own good, honestly.”

  “I refuse to argue,” I said. “I want you to go, and stay away. You’re unwelcome here tonight.”

  I turned my back on them, and looked stolidly at my bunk. Much to my surprise, Melva, Fred, and McCracken went silently away.

  I sat on the stool, and heaved a small sigh of relief. The party would take place after all. I would conjure up a chief suspect by clever manipulation of word hints, and persuade Lamar James to let me go back to my trailer with its built-in inner spring mattress. I could turn the case over to him and get a good night’s sleep.

  Concentrating on this, I didn’t hear Sheriff Callahan until he spoke with bovine heartiness in my ear.

  “Well, sure was a short stay,” he said, busily twisting a key in the lock. “Here’s the plans you told me about. You can finish ’em anywhere you want to now.”

  He gave me the folder, and left the door open. He beamed down at me.

  “Have you caught the killer, then?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said cheerfully. “But we will. And there’s no call to keep you any longer. Nobody thinks you done it.”

  “But I’m under protective arrest! My life is in danger.”

  “Shucks,” he said. “Nobody’s gonna bump you off.

  Even if they do, we’ll catch ’em. Lamar’s awful smart that way. So you got no call to worry.”

  ‘I’m not going out of here,” I said. ‘I’m staying.”

  “Now look, Mr. Sanders,” he cajoled. “You can’t stay. I can’t afford to get into no trouble with the federal men. They don’t like the Constitution to be ­ uh, flouted, I think. Your lawyer was very nice about it, and I see where we was hasty.”

  “That nitwit isn’t my lawyer, Sheriff. I tell you I have a plan to catch the murderer. All I want to do is have this party tonight, and I’ll turn him over to you.”

  “Party?” Call
ahan echoed in astonishment. “What party?”

  “Didn’t James tell you?”

  “Nope. He got a hot lead and went out on it.”

  I explained about the party. Sheriff Callahan was scandalized. “Not in this jail, you don’t! What would the voters say if they heard about a Hollywood wild party in my jail? Sam Jenkins – he’s the one who’ll run against me next election – would make my jail sound like Sodom and Gomorrah before the fire. Never heard of such a thing. You get out of here or I’ll run you in.” He scratched his head. “Can’t do that, though. You beat it now, Mr. Sanders. I don’t want no trouble.”

  “If I don’t go what’ll you do? I’m as big as you are. I don’t think you can put me out.”

  He laid a hand on his gun. “I reckon I can.”

  “You wouldn’t dare shoot me. Think of what the voters would say about that. Sheriff Callahan makes an arrest, then drives the prisoner away at the point of his gun. Would you vote for a man who couldn’t make up his mind? Would you?”

  He was unhappily silent for a moment. Then, “Dang it,” he said slowly. “All I know is you got to go.” He was quiet for another long moment before his small eyes lighted happily. “You might as well go because, look, I won’t let none of them people in to your party. Maybe I can’t run you out, or throw you out, or drive you out, but I can sure as hell keep them out. So you’d just sit here by yourself.”

  I stood up. He had me there, all right. I walked out.

  “So long,” he called after me. “Maybe next time you can stay, huh?”

  Melva, Fred, and McCracken awaited me on the sidewalk. Melva laid a slim hand on my arm and rolled beseeching eyes at me. “George, for your poor mother’s sake at least, please go straight from now on.”

  I shook her hand away. “Perhaps somebody will explain this fourth-rate comic routine. Who is this oaf? I never heard of a lawyer named McCracken.”

  “He isn’t a lawyer,” Melva explained. “But he played one in Jackleg. Very good, too.”

  “I was only too glad,” McCracken said in a deep voice, “to sacrifice my hirsute decor in the interests of justice, Mr. Sanders.”

  “Don’t let him kid you,” Melva said. “He was glad to scuttle his beard after he knew he’d still get his twelve-fifty per diem.”

  “All right,” I sighed. “I give up. What are you talking about?”

  “Mac was a beard,” Melva said. “But I told him you’d pay his salary for the duration of the picture if he’d shave and get you out of jail.”

  I stared. I didn’t trust myself to speak. She’d got me out of a jail where I wanted to stay, and saddled me with an ex-extra’s salary.

  “Of course,” Melva added, “I get my ten per cent.

  Mac, you’ll net only eleven twenty-five.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “Let’s go eat,” Fred proposed. “You must be hungry, George, and anyway I want to talk over an idea. Look, say we give the papers the story that you’ll produce this murderer next Sunday–”

  “And invite everybody to tea?” I asked. “You people be off on your own affairs. I can’t afford to be seen with you, and I mean that literally.”

  A car with a county license plate slid in to the curb. Lamar James shut off the ignition and lights, and joined us on the walk. “What are you doing out?” he asked me.

  I told him, in short, smoking words. He grinned. “It doesn’t matter. I think I’ve got the killer. I’m going to pick her up in a few minutes.”

  “Her?” I said. “Who?”

  “Wanda Waite. This Peggy Whittier had a room at Mrs. Holman’s. This evening, right after dark, Mrs. Holman saw a female sneak into Whittier’s room. I went out there and didn’t find anybody, but I found Wanda Waite’s prints all over the room. It’s a little too coincidental to find ’em in Flynne’s and Whittier’s rooms both.”

  “Let me give you a friendly warning,” I said. “Wanda didn’t kill Flynne, and therefore had no reason to kill Peggy. Don’t climb out on a limb.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. ‘I’m picking her up for questioning. I’ve worked out a way to question effectively. As you may find out if I’m wrong on this.”

  He nodded pleasantly and went into the building.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “George, old boy,” I said to myself, “the best thing you can possibly do is to stay out of this, beginning now. You have tried three ruses to trap this killer. You have rued each ruse. You have concealed evidence, you have allowed yourself to be placed in a position that is untenable and dangerous. You have directed suspicion at your friends. You have lied to constituted officials. If your snide part in this investigation becomes known, some judge will heave the book at you. But if you go back to the luxurious loneliness of your trailer and go to bed, your part need never to be known – if you stay in bed. You can plead leprosy, or that you were taken suddenly drunk, or that you are tired of being an actor and have taken up hypochondria. Come now, act as if that skull stuffing isn’t frantic butterflies.”

  I waved vague dismissal at Melva, Fred, and McCracken, and followed Lamar James.

  Sheriff Callahan bristled a t me. “I thought I run you off, Mr. Sanders. Now, I don’t want no–”

  ‘I’m a visitor,” I said. “This is unofficial. Where’s James?”

  Callahan waved at a corridor. “He went back to his lab. He’s fussin’ with microphones and stuff.”

  “Microphones? What does he do, record conversations?”

  “Naw,” Callahan said in disgust. “He’s lookin’ at bullets through ’em.”

  I went back to the laboratory, which was small, neat, and impressive. Lamar James had his eyes glued to a comparison microscope, eying two battered chunks of lead.

  He looked up, frowning. “They didn’t come from the same gun,” he said, “but they came from the same make. Probably a pair of Smith and Wesson thirty­eight Specials. Now, why didn’t he use the same gun?”

  I decided, in a flash of idiocy, to tell him what I knew, to “come clean,” as he had asked. This police laboratory, in a half-horse town, instilled amazement and respect. Among the apparatus I could identify were: a set of white arc lights, a large camera on a tripod, a Leica minicam, a single lens microscope, a binocular microscope, the comparison microscope he was using, a spotlight, a fingerprint outfit, Bunsen burners, crucibles, pipettes, graduated glasses, test tubes, a small electric motor with an emery wheel and buffer, two types of balance scales, a shelf of chemicals, and several micrometers. If Lamar James was capable of using all these materials, he was a good man, much better equipped than I for criminal detection. I didn’t know how to use half the stuff I saw.

  My native caution asserted itself almost immediately. There was no point in leading with my throat.

  “How do you know?” I asked. “About the guru, I mean.”

  He turned toward me and lighted a cigarette with lean, brown hands. “By the weight of the bullets, the number of lands, and the leed. The leed on both these bullets, in inches, is eighteen and three-quarters. This is a characteristic of Smith & Wesson thirty-eight Specials. The rifling twist is clockwise. The groove diameter is point-three-five-seven inches, and this is another characteristic of the S & W gun. The leed on three types of thirty-eights manufactured by Colt is sixteen inches, and the rifling twist is counter-clockwise. The groove diameter on Colts varies in the thirty-eights. The Special measures point-three-five-four, the automatic point-three-five-six, and the revolver point-three-five-four inches. So, you see we can say almost definitely that these slugs came from Smith and Wessons, and from two separate guns, as you can see if you’ll compare them under the microscope.”

  He showed me how to adjust the eyepiece, and to rotate the slugs separately or together. The infinitesimal markings, left by the barrels, differed on each slug. They were not from the same gun. I could have told him so, because the gun that killed Flynne was out on a sand dune.

  “This came out of Flynne’s head,” he said,
pointing to the bullet on the left. “It was traveling fast, and wasn’t deformed very much, because it went through a thin part of his skull at the temple. This one, from Whittier, must have hit a rib. But the characteristics are measurable.”

  I looked up. “What do you mean, lands and leed?”

  “The lands are the smooth surface between the rifling grooves, and the leed is an expression of how far a land must travel before completing a circle. It may also be expressed by the angle of leed, or the angle which the land forms with the longitudinal axis of the slug. But I don’t have that special measurement microscope, so I figure it in inches.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  He waved at a small shelf of books. “Tables. All that dope is in the Atlas of Arms, by Metzger, Heess, and Haslacher. Also Modern Criminal Investigation, by Soderman and O’Connell. I do a lot of studying.”

  “In anticipation of crime waves?”

  ‘I’m not going to stay in this place all my life,” he said quietly. “I’ve never had very much so far, but I intend to get what I want. I want to have a crime laboratory of my own, and I want to know as much about the subject as anybody in the business. I own a lot of this stuff, paid for by washing dishes and stuff.”

  “You amaze me. I came in here to tell you what I know, but decided I’d find out what kind of a guy you were first. You’ll treat what I have to say confidentially?”

  “If you haven’t committed any crime, George, you got nothing to fear.”

  “My first suggestion, then, is that you leave Wanda Waite out of the picture. She isn’t guilty. She didn’t kill Flynne.”

  “What was she doing in his room, then?”

  “I don’t know. I watched her through the closet door, and I thought she was wiping her fingerprints off things.”

  “You watched her?” he exclaimed. “What the hell were you doing there?”