The Wrong Murder

by Craig Rice

  Malone didn’t appear to have heard. He was staring fixedly at a dark-blue car that had stopped at the curb in front of them. “Huh?”

  She repeated her suggestion. He nodded, said, “No doubt,” in an absent-minded tone, and continued staring at the car.

  “Do you think he could be going into a trance?” Helene asked Jake anxiously.

  Several men had emerged from the car, a second, similar car had stopped in front of it. A brief conference appeared to be going on at the curb.

  “Malone, what the hell?”

  The little lawyer woke to sudden action. “We’re all going in together. Come on, and hurry up.”

  Malone grabbed her by one arm and Jake by the other, and led them across the sidewalk. For all his apparent haste, he crossed the walk in an unconcerned, almost leisurely manner. The instant they were inside the lobby he rushed them toward the self-service elevator, shoved them in, slammed the doors shut, and pressed the button that started the elevator moving upward.

  “But, Malone, the cops waiting for Jake—”

  “They aren’t waiting for Jake, if they’re still there at all,” the lawyer snapped. “No time to talk now. Do as I tell you, and don’t ask questions.”

  The elevator stopped. He opened the door and said, “Helene, stand here and hold the door open until I signal you to let it go.”

  Several suitcases were standing before the door of Lulamay Yandry’s apartment. The police had gone. As Malone hustled down the hall Lulamay herself stepped out, dressed for traveling.

  Downstairs, someone was making frantic efforts to bring down the elevator. Helene took a firmer hold on the door.

  Malone had stopped Lulamay and was speaking to her in a hurried whisper. From that distance Helene could catch only a few words. “Men—downstairs now—freight elevator—”

  Lulamay’s face turned very pale. Abandoning the suitcases and giving the lawyer a brief glance of gratitude and good-by, she turned and ran down the hall and around the corner. In another moment Helene heard the door of the freight elevator slam shut.

  Malone signaled to Jake to unlock the door of his apartment, and then waved to Helene to let the elevator door go and hurry down the hall. As she entered the apartment and reached for the door to slam it shut, she heard the elevator starting to go down.

  “Malone, who are those men downstairs?”

  “The popular name for them is G-Men,” Malone said grimly.

  “But what do they want?”

  “Lulamay. I knew her as soon as I saw her son’s picture on the mantel.” He scowled. “Maybe I shouldn’t have tipped her off, but after all, I’d drunk her liquor.”

  Helene started to ask another question; Jake laid a hand on her arm.

  “They’ll come in here to look for her,” Malone said, “and we may get messed up in this affair, and then someone may remember we were unduly interested in Gumbril’s death—”

  “Gumbril!” Helene gasped.

  Malone didn’t seem to have heard her. “If only we didn’t all look so damnably as if we hadn’t been to bed all night, they might not start asking questions, but—”

  “I’ll fix that,” Helene said quickly. “Jake, get in bed, clothes and all. Throw your overcoat and hat around and mess up the bedroom a little.”

  From across the hall they could hear sounds at the door of Lulamay’s apartment, loud and repeated knocking, at last the door being forced open. Helene ran into the bedroom, turned over the contents of a suitcase that was packed and ready to go to Bermuda, hauled a negligee from the resulting scramble, put it on over her dress, and began taking down her hair.

  “Malone, take off your shoes and lie down on the couch.”

  The little lawyer obeyed. She threw his overcoat over him, hurried into the kitchen and brought out glasses and empty bottles which she hastily distributed around the room.

  A loud knocking began at their door. She ignored it, took off her shoes and stockings, and began pulling down her hair. The knocking continued, and grew louder. Helene gave a last look around the room, saw that Jake appeared convincingly asleep, and that Malone was prepared to let go with what she hoped would be an extremely realistic snore.

  She mussed her hair a little more, pulled the negligee around her, opened the door, blinked, and said, sleepily, “Huh?”

  The two men at the door paid no attention to her. One of them pushed past her, walked to the bedroom, peered in, walked across the living room, and looked in the kitchenette.

  The snore from Malone was a masterpiece of realism.

  Helene, by the door, began a sleepy and profane tirade, punctuated with indignant questions. One of the men interrupted her to ask about the neighbor across the hall. She shook her head blankly and went on sputtering.

  From the hall she caught the words “Freight elevator.” The two men wheeled around and were gone. Helene slammed the door after them, shoved back the bolt, and stood leaning wearily against the wall.

  Malone stopped in the middle of a snore, ran to the window, and looked out. Jake and Helene followed him.

  Half a block down the street a taxicab was moving south. One of the cars Malone had noticed drew away from the curb and followed. Suddenly a shot rang out, and then another, almost unbearably loud in the early-morning hush. The taxicab careened insanely across the street and stopped abruptly against the curb; its driver leaped out and ran like a rabbit for shelter.

  The first shot appeared to have come from the taxicab. It was followed by others. There was a sound of brakes screaming as the pursuing car stopped, and the sound of deeper, more roaring gunfire. The roar continued for a few deafening moments, punctuated by those lone, desperate shots from the barricaded taxicab.

  In the distance they could hear a siren, growing steadily louder. It was joined in an instant by another.

  Somewhere in a window a woman began screaming.

  Jake put his arms around Helene and held her tight. The wailing sirens were very close now.

  Suddenly the sound of gunfire ceased. The silence that followed was enormous, overwhelming.

  Jake drew Helene away from the window; Malone followed them. For a minute they stood silently in the center of the room.

  At last Malone closed his eyes for an instant, opened them again, and said very quietly, “Well, maybe she’ll have a chance now to settle accounts with Joshua Gumbril in hell.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Malone’s face had turned a strange, terrible gray.

  “If she hadn’t expected them, she might have surrendered peacefully, and saved her life, at least for the present.” He spoke as though it were extremely hard to form the words. “By warning her, I sent her to her death.”

  Before either Jake or Helene could speak, he had turned suddenly and walked into the kitchen. After a moment they could hear the sound of water running into a coffeepot.

  “Jake—”

  “Leave him alone.”

  She leaned against him, burying her face in his shoulder. “Jake, why? Who was she?”

  “Malone will tell us. Give him a little time.”

  He stroked her pale-gold hair very gently. They stood there for a long time, listening to the faint sounds of the coffee percolator, and to Malone’s footsteps as he paced up and down within the narrow confines of the kitchenette.

  At last the footsteps stopped. There was a faint rattling of china, then Malone’s voice raised in an angry roar.

  “Where the hell’s the cream?”

  Jake felt Helene suddenly relax in his arms. She drew a long, quivering breath.

  “There isn’t any cream. The coffee just happened to be there, left over from Papa’s party.”

  Malone muttered something unintelligible.

  Helene held Jake’s hand tight. “That party! Our wedding day! Jake, how long ago was it?”

  “We’re practically ready to plan a celebration for our golden-wedding anniversary. And I still haven’t seen you alone long enough to tell you—”


  “That you still love me,” she finished for him. She began singing, “Put on your old gray bonnet,” in a rather pleasant, slightly off-pitch voice as Malone emerged from the kitchenette with a tray on which reposed a coffeepot and three cups.

  The coffee was strong and black and hot. It revived them and warmed them a little. When it was gone, Helene disappeared to change her dress and repair the damage to her hair.

  At last she returned, exquisitely dressed and groomed, nothing about her to indicate that she had missed a night’s sleep, save perhaps the faint pallor under her fresh make-up. By that time the cold, gray light of early morning had changed to the equally cold, still grayish light of day. Malone, his hands in his pockets and a cigar in the corner of his mouth, stood staring out the window, watching occasional lonesome snowflakes that fluttered down on the wind.

  When the little lawyer did speak, his voice seemed normal again, with no trace of emotion, though he went on staring out the window.

  “I suppose you’re wondering what it was all about,” he said evenly.

  Helene reached for a cigarette and broke a match loose from a folder before she spoke. “Who was Lulamay Yandry, Malone?”

  “Head of a gang of criminals and bank robbers, at one time.”

  She dropped the cigarette in the act of lighting it. “That little gray-haired lady!”

  Mimicking her voice, he repeated, “That little gray-haired lady.”

  “You said ‘at one time,’” Jake said thoughtfully. “What did you mean by that, Malone?”

  “Because the gang is history now. One by one its members were wiped out—killed, sent to jail, or executed. There weren’t many crimes the gang wasn’t credited with; bank robbery was their specialty, but they also went in for a number of sidelines. Kidnaping, stealing cars, and assorted brands of just plain banditry. Lulamay was the brains and she outlasted all the others. A popular name for her was Mother of Criminals. As a matter of actual fact, she was only the mother of two. The oldest is in Alcatraz for life. The younger—Floyd—was Lulamay’s favorite.”

  “It was his picture you recognized over in her apartment night before last, wasn’t it?” Helene remembered.

  The lawyer nodded. “That was Floyd. Leaving his picture around where anybody could see it wasn’t the smartest thing in the world to do. But Lulamay had reached the point where she simply didn’t care any more.”

  He walked away from the window long enough to aim his cigar ash at the nearest tray, missing it by a good three inches. Then he resumed his staring at the sky, somehow managing not to look down at the street where a little crowd of curious bystanders had already gathered.

  “What happened to Floyd?” Helene asked at last.

  “He was executed by the state of Illinois,” Malone told her, “for the shooting of a bank guard in a holdup. That was about six months ago.”

  Jake said suddenly, “I admit that I was a backward child in school, but I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Joshua Gumbril.”

  “He supplied the information on which Lulamay’s boy was arrested, convicted, and executed,” Malone said quietly.

  “Knowing Gumbril,” said Jake, “I have a hunch that was the prize double-cross of the season.”

  “I gathered,” Malone said, “that Gumbril had found Floyd useful at one time, but later thought it wiser to have him out of the way. It probably was a difficulty over a division of money. Gumbril was able to turn Floyd in and keep comfortably in the clear. But he figured without Lulamay. If Mona had waited a day or so longer, Lulamay would have beaten her to it. That was the business that brought her to Chicago.”

  Helene was deep in thought for a few minutes. “Was that why they were after her this morning—Gumbril’s murder?”

  “No. Lulamay was wanted for—well, quite a number of things, such as a jailbreak she personally arranged for Floyd a few years ago. Several officers were shot, a deputy sheriff was kidnaped and carried across a state line in a stolen car. Another time—”

  The little lawyer drew a picture of Lulamay’s life. She had been a farm girl in Tennessee, always ambitious for the ownership of more and better things. Marriage to a moderately poor farmer hadn’t toned down her ambition in the least. By the time her two sons were going to the district school, she had transferred her ambitions to them.

  Her husband discovered that the making and selling of corn liquor added considerably to the income of the farm, and helped to satisfy Lulamay’s demands for continually better clothes and mail-order furniture. The two boys were entering their teens when Lulamay’s husband shot it out with revenue men, and lost.

  She, considerably more successful in avoiding trouble, carried on his business profitably. By the time repeal came the boys were full-grown, and their mother decided to branch out into other, more fertile fields. In 1936 she and her boys beat a strategic retreat when the Tennessee farm that was their base of operations was raided. Besides a quantity of arms and ammunition, the raiders found stacks of fashion magazines and a copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette. In 1937, at a time when FBI men were combing the nation for her, she took a leisurely tourist trip to Europe; the means by which she obtained a passport are still a mystery.

  The year her oldest boy ended up in Alcatraz—that was 1938—she took a large frame house on the edge of a small Indiana town and settled there, becoming immediately popular in the community. The neighborly, gray-haired widow joined the leading church society and the Federated Women’s Clubs, thereby making her commodious house an even safer hide-out for unfortunate lawbreakers who were taking it on the lam. Some ten months later citizens of the town were astonished to find their neighbor’s face on front pages from coast to coast, after the famous and spectacular jailbreak and delivery of Floyd.

  “They were bound to catch up with her sooner or later,” Malone said very slowly. “And deservedly. I wouldn’t have handled her defense for any money. But I’d been her guest, and drunk her liquor. Warning her was a matter of good manners, not morals—not such a delicate distinction in this case.”

  “Besides,” Jake added, “she was a nice old girl, regardless.”

  It was Lulamay’s only obituary.

  When Malone spoke again, his voice was slow, almost dreamy. “If I hadn’t warned her, they’d have taken her by surprise. There wouldn’t have been a chance for any gunplay.” He drew a long breath and repeated, “If I hadn’t warned her—”

  Helene interrupted him quickly. “She’d have been tried and convicted, Malone. Somehow I think if she’d had her choice, she’d have preferred to end it the way she did. It was quicker. Easier.”

  Malone’s silence was long and eloquent.

  “Thanks, Helene,” he said at last. He struggled into his coat, pulled on his hat. “There may be unexpected repercussions from this business. I’m off to make sure about that now.”

  “What do you mean?” Helene demanded.

  “I’m not just sure what I mean, that’s why I’m going to find out. Stay here till you hear from me, just to be on the safe side.”

  He was gone without any further explanation.

  Jake sighed, shook his head, gathered up the empty coffee cups and carried them into the kitchenette. From the kitchenette window he could see the morning sun doing its best to break through the clouds that still blanketed the sky. Fat chance, he told the sun morosely. Just as he had a fat chance of learning why Mona McClane—oh well, the hell with that. Right now—

  He walked back into the living room. Helene lay on the sofa, one arm curved around her head, her pale-gold hair loose on the pillow, her long lashes curved against her cheeks. She was very lovely. She was also fast asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After a long time spent watching Helene, Jake began to get tired of waiting for her to wake up. For a while he debated what to do. Perhaps she wanted him to waken her. On the other hand, she hadn’t been asleep all night. For that matter, he’d lost a night’s sleep himself.

  He dozed a little,
there in the easy chair. When he looked at Helene again, she hadn’t stirred. Maybe if he waited a little longer, she’d wake up of her own accord. But he had a horrible conviction that she’d sleep for hours more, if nothing disturbed her.

  Perhaps if she were wakened accidentally. He dropped a book on the floor experimentally. Nothing happened. He opened the window wide and banged it down loudly as he could. It didn’t work. At last he noticed a collection of glasses on the table nearest her, and swept them off with one magnificent gesture. She didn’t stir.

  Well, there was nothing to do but go ahead and wake her. He drew a long breath. After all—

  Before he could carry out his intention the telephone rang. He answered it automatically, watching Helene hopefully. The bell hadn’t disturbed her in the least.

  It was Ellen Ogletree. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Justus, but something’s happened. I must see you.”

  He scowled heavily at the telephone. “Where are you?”

  She was down in the lobby. He scowled again, told her he’d be right down, and banged the telephone on its hook. Oh well, perhaps when he returned, Helene would be awake. He took one last look at her as he went out.

  The door of what had been Lulamay’s apartment stood open, through it he could see two men going relentlessly through her pitifully scattered belongings. He told himself sternly that the sight didn’t unnerve him in the least. All that ailed him was a slight hangover and the loss of a night’s sleep. A glance in the elevator mirror confirmed this diagnosis. Everything from his badly mussed red hair to his muddy shoes seemed definitely the worse for wear. His eyes were a trifle swollen and faintly pink. He needed a shave.

  Ellen Ogletree and Leonard Marchmont rose from a davenport in the lobby as the elevator door opened. The Englishman looked at him sympathetically.

  “You look frightful, Mr. Justus! What’s happened to you?”

  “I was eaten by cannibals,” Jake told him briefly, “and I didn’t agree with them. Well, Miss Ogletree—?”