Shell Scott's Seven Slaughters (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I became aware of quietness without at first realizing what it meant; and then dimly I heard a door slam out in the market, heard the murmur of voices. Footsteps thudded over the floor toward the refrigerator as my momentary paralysis ended and I whirled around.

  The door swung wide and Hecker loomed before me. He yelled aloud as he saw me, then leaped backward so quickly that I almost didn't follow after him in time. He started to swing the door shut before I understood what he meant to do, but I leaped forward, jarred into it a moment before it closed.

  I strained against it with all my strength, then suddenly the weight was gone from its other side. The door swung open and I saw Hecker running across the floor toward the meat block, saw him grab the massive cleaver in his right hand, whirl and run back toward me raising the cleaver above his head.

  On the far side of the room stood his wife; it was she I had heard come in and speak moments ago. I glanced around for something, anything I could use as a weapon, knowing Hecker could send that cleaver slashing through my skull and brain and neck in one blow of his thickly muscled arm. Hanging from iron rods behind and above me, stretching from wall to wall were several unused hooks, S-curved and double-pointed like those from which the beeves hung. I grabbed one of them, leaped out of the refrigerator room as Hecker slowed his rush, stopped and stared at me, the cleaver held on a level with his head.

  For a second he didn't move, then he walked toward me, not hurrying, just steadily coming closer, holding the cleaver tightly. I let him get six feet from me, then backed away toward the market's rear wall. I took my eyes off Hecker's face for one quick look at his wife, but she stood motionless near the meat case, eyes fixed on us.

  The wall, I knew, was close behind me. I stopped. Hecker didn't falter in his slow stride but he raised the cleaver higher, his face almost expressionless.

  I moved back and turned sideways until my left elbow brushed against the wall. Holding the hook in my right hand I crossed my arm in front of my body just as he jumped toward me swinging the cleaver down in a blurred arc at my head.

  With the wall for leverage I shoved hard, let my body drop toward the floor, slashing my right arm toward his face with all my strength. The cleaver hissed past my head and struck the wood behind me as I felt my hand jar against him, pain ripping through my palm as the second point of the hook dug into it. It ripped across my skin and the hook was jerked from my hand, but as my knees hit the floor I saw where that other point had gone. It had entered Hecker's throat, the curving metal hanging down upon his chest. But it hadn't killed him.

  He jerked the cleaver from the wood as I rolled a few feet across the floor and scrambled to my feet, then he jumped toward me, swinging the cleaver downward. I threw my left hand up, clamped my fingers around his huge wrist, but couldn't stop the blow. I slowed it, changed its direction, but felt the cleaver's edge bite into my chest muscles as I slammed my right hand up to grab that dangling hook, to jerk and twist it. His weight buried me to the floor and the cleaver thudded against the boards as I rolled away, pain burning in my chest. When I got to my feet I swung around, but Hecker was on his hands and knees, coughing horribly, his life draining from his throat.

  Then he rolled over and lay on his back, eyes staring upwards, and I saw that he was trying to talk. I went over and listened, and I was damn glad I did, because the thing be told me was the craziest fact in the whole crazy case. He managed only a single sentence before he died, but it was enough to make me realize that he wasn't The Butcher at all —

  It took quite a few hours for the medics to patch and bandage me up, and it was late afternoon before Samson, Louis, and I sat in room 42 again. Sam had just been talking on the phone, and he turned and said, “They've got Hecker's wife in a padded cell."

  “I'm not surprised,” I said.

  “Me, neither,” Sam said. “She's been raving for hours—drooling about the killings. Well, there's no doubt about your story any more, anyway—"

  I shook my head. “I'm getting old,” I said. “I should have been tipped the minute Norma told me Hecker'd been trying to date every dame in that neighborhood—I should have realized that a sex killer has got to have violence and attack, and wouldn't be trying to date women.” Sam pushed a bottle into my hand, and I took a deep slug of it. I coughed, and went on, “It just never occurred to me that Hecker's wife was the way she was, and Hecker was just looking for some normal, natural outlets. Who the hell would ever figure that Hecker's wife was The Butcher, that she was so dominant that Hecker was under her thumb and cutting up the bodies for her after she did the killings?"

  Sam took the bottle out of my hand, and took a deep dip before he answered.

  “Nobody'd figure it,” he said. “Nobody'd figure it because it's the kind of fact that just never occurs to people—even people in jobs like ours. A cop's bound to go looking for a man when he's got some sex murders to solve. But it makes just as much sense the other way now that we know the whole story."

  He paused, and I guess we all looked a little sick. “Because naturally,” he went on, “it would also be women who were murdered if the sex killer was a female queer—"

  Babes, Bodies and Bullets

  It was a pleasant enough party, I suppose, if you like sherry in thin, brittle glasses, ancient babes without bustles who look like ancient babes with bustles, and stern-faced old ducks conversing gently about a coloratura soprano's ecstatic debut at La Scala—which I don't.

  No, I like parties with bourbon in water and in me, juicy tomatoes dancing can-cans, and conversations about tomatoes and can-cans, and no conversation at all. This would have been a grand party for centenarians dating octogenarians under a large oxygen tent, but it was not a grand party for me, not for Shell Scott. But, then, I wasn't really invited.

  The hostess, Mrs. Hamilton, had phoned me at my Hollywood apartment half an hour ago and asked me to hurry out there, indicating that her husband was in trouble and she was willing to pay extremely well for help. Her husband was a wealthy Beverly Hills attorney, but that was all I knew about him. Mrs. Hamilton had met me at the door a few minutes ago, when I'd arrived, and now we stood just inside the living room, conversing in low voices.

  She said, “I do appreciate your complying with my request in such an expeditious manner, Mr. Scott. But I feel that the matter is urgent."

  Her voice sounded like a voice that would say something like that. It was clipped, sort of Pasadena-British, and just a bit through the nose. I'd say she was about 50, though her makeup, which looked as if it had been applied by one of the Westmores, made her look younger. Her hair, probably dyed expertly, was a soft brown, and she looked smooth and glossy, if a bit brittle.

  She explained quickly that her husband had been acting in a most unusual manner. Ordinarily calm, pleasant, genial, he had become nervous, irritable and short-tempered. It had been a very sudden change and had started yesterday morning at breakfast.

  I said, “What happened at breakfast?"

  “Nothing. It was just like any other morning."

  “But he was all right before then?"

  “Perfectly normal.” She paused, then went on, “Something in the newspaper seemed to disturb him, though I have no idea what it could have been. I asked him what was the matter and he said it was nothing. You know how men are."

  We stepped into the next room for a minute and she showed me yesterday's newspaper. I had read the paper thoroughly on the previous day because I had been more than ordinarily interested in the headlines, which concerned one phase of my business: Sudden death. The bold type declared, “Wealthy Manufacturer Killed.” Smaller type above the two-column story stated that Erik Douglas, local carpet tycoon had been found dead in his study, a small revolver near his hand, an apparent suicide, but that police were investigating the possibility of foul play.

  Mrs. Hamilton said that her husband hadn't even read the paper, just stared at the front page for a while, looking ill, then left the house for his office. So if anything
in the news had upset him, it was something on the front page. But she had no idea what it could have been. She wanted me to find out what was troubling him and provide any help I could. But she didn't want her husband to know she'd hired me.

  I said, “Did he know Erik Douglas?"

  “The man who killed himself? Oh, it couldn't have been that"

  “Did he know him?"

  “I don't believe so. It's conceivable, of course. I don't know whom all of Al's clients are."

  She ushered me into the next room again, into that gathering of what looked like old family retainers waiting on each other. She pointed out her husband, then said, “I'll have to leave you and mingle for a minute, Mr. Scott."

  She walked away from me, speaking to a person here and there, and stopped by a man and woman across the room. I took another look at her husband. As I turned toward him he threw back his head and laughed loudly at something a man near him had said. The booming laughter seemed out of place. So did he, for that matter. He was somewhere around 50, tall and ramrod straight, with a loosely-waved thatch of gray hair, a large nose, tanned skin. He laughed again, but glanced toward me then, and there was no mirth in his face. He looked at me as if he were afraid of me, though I doubted that he'd ever seen me before.

  Then he looked quickly away. He took a white handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead with it. Somewhere in the house a phone rang stridently. Mr. Hamilton moistened his lips and looked at the wall for long seconds, then abruptly strode out of the room. He walked right past me, but he seemed already to have forgotten about me. Here was a frightened man. It showed in the lines of his face, in the gleam of perspiration on his skin. You could almost smell the fear in him.

  I followed him. A door at the end of a short hallway was just closing. I moved to it, pushed it gently open as I heard Hamilton say, “Hello.” I could see him seated at a wide desk in a book-lined study. He held a phone to his ear and listened, not speaking. Then he took the handkerchief from his pocket again and mopped his face. Finally he said, “Fine—yes. Right away. Yes, I'll bring it. Good-bye."

  He sat motionless for a few seconds, staring blankly, then walked across the room, moved a painting and opened a wall safe behind it. He took a folded paper from the safe, then went back to his desk and opened one of its drawers. For a while he hesitated, then he reached into the drawer and took out a small automatic. He put the gun into his trousers pocket, the folded paper into the inside pocket of his coat.

  I turned and walked rapidly down the hallway to the front door and outside. There wasn't even time to tell Mrs. Hamilton that I was leaving. My Cadillac was parked about 50 feet from the front door. I ran to it, started the engine and swung into the street with my lights out. One hundred yards farther I turned my headlights on and slowed, watching my rearview mirror. Another car came away from the house and down the road after me. I picked up speed, tailing him from in front for a few blocks, then slowed down and let him pass me.

  It was Hamilton, all right, driving a new Buick. He didn't even look at me as he passed.

  We hit Cordon Road, a narrow, unlighted road that wound toward the beaches, and I passed him, planning to tail him from in front again. I must have noticed the other car behind me, but it just didn't mean anything then. Something prickled the skin along my spine, though. I didn't know what it was, but I sat straighter, tightened my grip on the steering wheel and glanced into the rear-view mirror again.

  I had pulled far ahead of the Buick, but its lights were clearly visible in the mirror, and I saw the lights of the other car as it swerved out to pass Hamilton. Only it didn't pass him. When the driver got alongside Hamilton and probably a little ahead of him, he swung sharply in toward the Buick.

  I lost the reflection of the lights as I jammed on the brakes and my momentum pressed me forward as the car slowed suddenly, tires shrilling. I jerked the Cad around in a backwards arc until I was facing the way I'd come. As the car jumped forward again, I could see the two cars, perhaps 300 yards away, off the road on my left. The headlights of the car on the right—that would be Hamilton's Buick—were burning, lighting a path over a flat field off the road. When I was still 150 yards away or more, I saw him, saw Hamilton as he appeared running out of the blackness, appearing shrunken, small, like a puppet figure in a spotlight. He ran through the headlights’ beam, away from the two cars.

  I didn't hear the shots. But from the darkness outside the twin beams of light from Hamilton's Buick I saw the tiny spurt of flame, and then another—a third from a different spot in the darkness. Both Hamilton's arms whipped forward and up, bent at the elbows and jerking crazily, then they dropped as he stumbled and fell.

  He scrambled crablike forward, got halfway to his feet. The spurts of fire winked in the darkness again and he fell again, heavily. The Buick's lights were switched out. And then I was yanking the wheel over hard, sliding to a stop at the left side of the road. In the beam of my headlights in the moment before I snapped them out, a man's form was illuminated as he stood over the fallen man, and fired into his body. He spun around and sprinted toward a dark sedan alongside the Buick. As I jumped out of the car I dug under my coat, pulled my .38 Colt Special from its clamshell holster and sprinted after the running man.

  As he ran he extended his arm back toward me and fired wildly. This time I heard the gunshot, the bark of a big gun. That's not what stopped me, though. From the darkened car another gun boomed, not a revolver, but the heavy cough of a shotgun. And that stopped me, for sure.

  I wasn't hit, but the solid pellets whistled past me. I dived for the ground and rolled as the shotgun coughed again. I heard the slugs hit the dirt; one of them stung my back like a whip but didn't dig deeply into me. I kept rolling, came up fast onto my feet as light splashed me and I heard the whining roar of a car engine. The sedan's headlights moved toward me as the car lurched ahead.

  I jumped to my left, bent far forward, and sprinted away from the road. The lights left me and the sound of the car's engine grew fainter. I looked back as the car bounced over some rough spots then veered into Cordon Road. In seconds more it was nearly out of sight. I ran to my Cad, switched on the headlights. Their beam brushed the still figure lying in the dirt. I ran to him. But I could have taken my time. It wouldn't have made any difference to Hamilton. It was Alvin Hamilton, all right.

  His coat had been pulled down off one shoulder, the inside pocket turned out and torn. The paper I'd seen Hamilton remove from his safe was gone, as was the little gun. One slug had caught him in the back of his head and come out through his face, taking most of that side of his face with it At least two more bullets were in his body. And a load of heavy buckshot from that booming shotgun had caught him in the middle of his back. He lay awkwardly, as only the dead can lie. His gray hair was still loosely waved, hardly ruffled. He lay in what looked like mud. But it was his blood staining the earth. He had bled a lot.

  It was difficult to tell Mrs. Hamilton that she hadn't called me soon enough. A police car arrived while I was explaining. She took it hard, but managed to tell us that she had no idea who might have killed her husband; she knew little about his practice and knew of no enemies he might have had. She didn't know what all he'd kept in his safe and she had no idea where her husband might have been going. I stayed a couple of minutes after the police left. About all that Mrs. Hamilton said to me was that she wanted me to go on with the case; she wanted me to try to find out who the men were who had shot her husband.

  I had my own reason for wanting to find them. If the killers thought I might have recognized one of them, they almost surely would try again to kill me. If they'd gotten a good look at me. A little time would tell, I thought.

  A little time—it took 20 minutes.

  I live in the Spartan Apartment Hotel, opposite the green grounds of the Wilshire Country Club, on North Rossmore in Hollywood. Half the time I just park at the curb across from the Spartan, but this night was one of the nights when I drove into the garage in back. It'
s roomy enough, with spaces for 20 cars, and usually Tay, the fiftyish and very quiet attendant, has a word for me, or maybe just nods and says hello.

  This time he wasn't around. I got out of the car and walked toward the exit behind the hotel. Only one dim light was burning, and the interior of the garage was a big grayness filled with darker shadows. I was almost at the door when I saw them, two of them, two men. They moved toward me quickly, not speaking.

  They didn't have to say anything; there was enough menace in the swift, silent movement. I stopped in the dim light, facing them. Each of them held something in his right hand, but what it was I couldn't tell. The man on my left was tall, bony, his face in the dimness a pattern of bony protuberances and shadows like a death's head covered by tight-stretched skin. The other man was an inch or two shorter, heavier, flabby, with a doughy slug-like face.

  Coldness brushed over my skin. I started to reach for my gun—but something stopped me. I didn't hear anything behind me. Maybe it was the way the men simply walked toward me, without making any other movement of offense, as if they were waiting for something to happen. Maybe it was because I've been jumped before. Whatever it was, I turned half a second before it would have been too late.

  I didn't get a look at the third man's face, all I saw as I swung around was a blur of his twisted features—and the upraised right arm. Something dangled from his hand, and as he started to swing it down toward me I stepped closer to him, throwing my left arm over my head and starting to pivot toward him, right hand squeezed into a fist.

  The heavy object cracked against my hand, drove my arm back and sent sharp pain all the way up to the elbow. It felt as if he'd split my fist open and I heard the sharp coughing sound forced from my lips but I was turning fast, pivoting toward him, and I slammed my right fist into his gut with my shoulder driving in and my body following it.

  Whatever he'd swung at me bounced from my hand and wrist and on past my face, thudding against my shoulder hard, heavily, painfully. But he let out a high squeaking sound as the air burst from his lungs, and staggered back, the weight falling from his hand to clink on the cement floor of the garage.