Dig That Crazy Grave (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I set off six — Whiz-Bang-Pows — in the — cemetery.

  I swallowed. It sounded a little crazy. Look, I wanted to pull everybody out of the place so I could check the records. And it worked, Truepenny and June — the blonde — hightailed it out. When I was leaving, Jake and Pot picked me up, took me out to Joe Cherry’s place.

  I had covered, briefly, the afternoon’s events at Cherry’s. Hell, Cherry has to be mixed up in this. It’s obviously a frame, and Cherry has to be behind the thing.

  How about your Cad? You admit it’s yours. We know it is, anyway.

  Sure. My mouth was dry. Look, I was up in the apartment for half an hour, at least. Say twelve to twelve-thirty. Somebody could have taken the Cad then, driven a couple of blocks, slammed into somebody, brought it back. Maybe it was the girl, and she got panicky. Maybe there were two hit-and-runs.

  None of them spoke. They just sat there and looked at me. It could have been set up, I went on. Or maybe they just banged up the front, hammered it in, smeared blood around while it was parked there.

  Samson spoke, and he sounded very tired. Here’s the report from SID. The blood, hair, all of it match. It was your car, Shell. The stuff on it matches the hair and blood type of the girl, skin, nature of wounds, all of it.

  I suddenly felt dizzy. And my head began throbbing. That throbbing in my skull had bothered me off and on since Jake and Pot had worked me over outside the Biscayne Apartments — about twenty-four hours ago now. Much of the time, I’d been able to ignore the ache and pounding inside my skull, but now it felt doubled, tripled in intensity. The ache had spread from my head down into the muscles of my neck.

  My voice sounded strange, dull, when I said, There’s something funny — wrong with it, Phil. If it was planned — and it had to be — they might have — whoever it was, I mean — might have stopped, got some of the hair and blood —

  I couldn’t think the thought through. For a confusing moment, I wondered if the pounding I’d been given, the blows of that leather-wrapped sap on my skull possibly could have — I pushed the thought from my mind. Men have often done odd things, ugly things, after head injuries. Even without losing consciousness, men have suffered concussions, developed amnesia or — or peculiarities. But I knew I’d been normal for these last twenty-four hours — except for a bad headache, I was normal.

  It had been quiet for a long time. When I looked around, all five pairs of eyes were fixed on me. I licked my dry lips.

  I’ve got a headache, is all, I said. I told you about Jake and Pot yesterday — Look, Sam, Bill — I glanced from one to the other. I know you’ve got to do this the — the SOP. Legal and all. That’s O.K., I don’t mind. But you know damned well I couldn’t pull anything like this. It’s pretty crazy, but I’ve told you all that happened. Everything I can remem — I mean, I gave it to you exactly the way it was.

  Something had been trying to force its way into my thoughts. I stopped talking, tried to pin it down. The effort seemed to swell the ache in my head, as if just thinking sent more blood into the vessels, distending them, pushing against the artery walls. Sam had said the girl’s hair and blood matched the hair and blood on my car. That was it.

  I said, Phil, you said a girl was run down. And the guy — you didn’t mention who he was, either.

  Shooting victim was a man named Tony Kovin. A pusher called Koko.

  Pusher? Dope?

  Yeah. The girl was a dancer at the Regal Theater. Name of —

  Ruthie! It hit me all at once, like a blow. Ruthie? Little Ruthie?

  Samson pulled his clamped jaws apart. Ruth Stanley. How’d you know her name?

  I talked to her last night. Oh, my God. Ruthie. I paused, remembering her as she’d been in her dressing room, tears spilling down her cheeks. She wanted to travel, I said stupidly. Cairo. Paris, far-off places, she said.

  What? What are you talking about? Samson asked.

  She wanted to travel. I — it’s what she said when I talked to her. I swallowed. Never mind. That wasn’t a hit-and-run, Phil. She was murdered.

  Somebody came in then. I hardly noticed who it was, but saw the paper he put on the desk before Samson. He read it, then stared at the paper for a while. Samson looked ill, and something like a gray blush spread over his usually pink face.

  He turned to Rawlins. The bullets match, he said slowly. The gun was Scott’s. The words came out of his mouth like stones. Book him.

  I don’t remember standing, but suddenly I was on my feet. That’s crazy, I said. It’s crazy. They can’t match. Why, they can’t.

  Samson looked at me. Shell, you know the boys here. And in SID. They don’t play tricks. The bullet Rawlins fired from your Colt, the bullet we took from Tony Kovin’s chest, they’re from the same gun. Your gun.

  You’re crazy! You’re all out of your damned heads. It can’t be my gun. I tell you it was on me all the time! I was shouting. I lowered my voice and said, It wasn’t my gun.

  Samson slid a .38 revolver across his desk. I picked it up. The bullets had been removed from the chambers. It was my gun. I knew it like my reflection in a mirror. It was my gun.

  Samson said, Go on, Rawlins. Book him.

  Wait a minute. My voice was tight. It can’t be. Something’s wrong. It’s just not possible. I had the gun on me. I swear it. This guy — Kovin — he must have been shot — another time.

  I told you he was still bleeding when the first car got there. He was shot at ten-twenty-seven. Not more than a minute or two either way. Ten-twenty-seven.

  Rawlins put his hand on my elbow, started me toward the door.

  It’s a frame! I said. You know how many guys want me out of the way. It must have been Joe Cherry. He’s framed me somehow; it had to be Cherry.

  Rawlins stopped then, turned his head to look at me. How? he said.

  How? Well, I — how?

  Rawlins pulled gently on my arm. My head throbbed as if my skull were in a vise. They took me down to the Central Jail, booked me, emptied my pockets, took my picture, pressed my inked fingers onto the print card, put me in a cell.

  Then I was alone. The steel door closed and locked. Charged with hit-and-run. And with murder.

  Chapter Thirteen

  An hour later I still sat on the edge of my bunk. At least I wasn’t in a felony tank; I was in a separate cell.

  For an hour I’d tried to think, make sense from what had occurred; but I was more confused than when I began. It had all come at me so suddenly — and crazily, unbelievably. Samson and Rawlins had kept insisting things had happened which couldn’t possibly have happened.

  Not, at least, by any rules of sanity and logic — and because of that, for the past hour I kept pushing away one thought that kept slipping around corners in my mind: maybe, just maybe, I could be mistaken, could have blacked out briefly, forgotten an hour or more of this night.

  Memories floated toward me and were pushed aside: the effects of drugs, hypnosis, temporary insanity; stories of people who had performed ugly or shameful acts and then had forgotten, buried them in their brains — or even invented other acts to replace them, acts which had never occurred, except in their imaginations. I felt chilled, my skin was cold and moist with sweat.

  Finally, I looked at it squarely, examined the possibility that somewhere in my brain there might be a tiny clot, or pool of thick blood spreading, pressure on a complex of cells, nerve pathways twisted and torn, blanking out part of my memory.

  But everything seemed so clear, everything. I shook my head violently, and pain pulled at the side of my neck. My fingers felt a small rough spot on the skin. I knew what had caused it. A long red fingernail digging. June Corey’s long red fingernail. That, I remembered. Hell, I could remember all of it, from the beginning in my office Wednesday noon, with Evelyn Spring. From then to here and now. There weren’t any blanks.

  So I started at t
he beginning, went over every bit of it, every word and act I could recall. But, even then, I couldn’t figure it out. A man had been killed — with my gun; a woman had been killed — with my car; but I had been in my car all night, my Colt had been in my possession all night. I couldn’t explain the impossible.

  The desk sergeant had let me keep my cigarettes and lighter. I lit another cigarette from the butt of the one I was finishing, sucked smoke into my lungs. Presses were probably rolling now, getting the morning editions of local newspapers ready to hit the streets. They would carry the story, my story: Shell Scott arrested, held in jail — charged with murder, and with hit-and-run. That second charge was almost worse than the deliberate killing. It was the act of a weakling, a fraud, a coward.

  More than anything else, that knowledge convinced me there was a sane answer somewhere — if I could find it. Because I might have shot. Kovin, peddler of narcotics, but the hit-and-run — that wasn’t me. That I wouldn’t have done, couldn’t have done. If there was a sane answer, I had to find it. At least somebody had to; I couldn’t accomplish much in a cell. This mess wasn’t just a goofy chain of events that involved me, it was an ugly double crime that could put me into prison. Or worse — into the gas chamber.

  The thought shook me, because it was true. The charges against me had already put me into a jail cell. And the police could make the charges stick in court. Hell, it was an open and shut case. A jury hearing the evidence would return a verdict of guilty without leaving the box. I’d vote guilty myself, if the same charges and evidence were against somebody else.

  My cigarette had burned down, unnoticed, until it warmed my fingers. I dropped the smoke, mashed it under my shoe. Somewhere, in the darkness of a nearby cell, a man was coughing softly, steadily. I could hear another prisoner snoring raggedly. Suddenly, I felt short of breath as if I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. I breathed deeply, ran a hand over my face, then stood up, walked the length of my cell, back and forth, lit another cigarette and sat on the bunk once more. I went over it all again, and again, until my brain felt like a squeezed sponge, the ache steady and dull now.

  Strangely, I felt the way I had last night, when Jake and Pot had stood above me, as if I were still on the grass, trying to push myself up.

  I lit another cigarette. Again, my thoughts came to a blank wall, so far and no farther. I couldn’t find the answers. None of them. I dropped the butt of my last smoke onto the floor, stared at its glowing end until it slowly died out.

  There were noises from the cells, men talking and shouting. I could hear sounds of life around me. It was morning. I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t come up with any answers.

  I’d smoked my last cigarette hours before, and butts were scattered on the floor. I bent over and picked one of them up, straightened it, stuck it between my lips. I took the lighter from my pocket, flipped it on, not thinking of anything except how good the smoke would taste in my mouth and throat.

  And then I got it. Then it hit me. All of it, the why, and who, and how — all of it.

  It came so suddenly and completely, it was like a blow, so surprisingly, that I dropped the lighter and heard it clink against the floor. For seconds, I didn’t move, holding my body completely still, as if that would help to hold my mind rigid, the thoughts precisely in place. But it was all there — the separate pieces had come together with the speed and beautiful precision of a zipper, all at once, the parts all interlocking.

  Smiling, I bent and picked up the lighter, snapped it on and lighted the short, stale, twisted butt. Never had a cigarette tasted better.

  Samson arrived shortly after eight o’clock. He came into the cell and the door was locked after him. He stood feet apart, fists planted on his hips, and looked at me.

  Jailer said you wanted to see me, Shell.

  Yep.

  You feel O.K.?

  I grinned at him. Great. Didn’t get any sleep — but you know how I like to carouse at night.

  He shook his head, his pink face clean-shaven as always, but lined and sober. Shell, dammit, can’t you be serious about anything? You’re in real trouble this time. Why in hell —

  Wait a minute, Phil. Something I want to tell you. But first, there’s one thing I want to ask you.

  Go ahead.

  The killing, hit-and-run, the whole thing. Do you think I did it?

  That’s a hell of a thing to ask.

  I know. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, Phil.

  He scowled, found a spot on the edge of the bunk, sat down, pulled one of his ghastly black cigars from his coat pocket and found a wooden match.

  Phil, I said seriously, don’t light it. Please don’t. Jail is punishment enough.

  A vein stood out on his forehead. You son-of-a-bitch, he said. Even if you didn’t do it, you ought to get the gas chamber. I should toss the pill in the soup myself. You don’t deserve to live. You ought to be screaming for lawyers, habeas corpus, the Supreme Court. But you sit here and wise-crack, like the damn fool you are. You halfwit —

  I let him get it out of his system. When he ran down I said quietly, Well, Phil?

  He stuck the cigar in his mouth, clamped his teeth savagely on it, rolled it left, right, back again. Then he looked at me, brown eyes sharp on my face. O.K. I’ve gone over the evidence all night. It’s conclusive. Clear. You did it. There’s nothing says you didn’t, everything says you did. He shook his head. But I’m damned if I can believe it.

  I grinned. It’s because, like me, Phil, you are out of your skull.

  I must be. He scowled. There’s nothing I can do, Shell. You know that. If I had one thing to work on, one little thing —

  Don’t worry about that.

  He started to speak, then squinted at me. Don’t tell me you’ve got something.

  I’ve got it all, Phil. But I can’t prove it in here. So if I convince you this is a frame — really convince you — what are my chances of getting sprung?

  He thought about it for a while, scowling. It better be good.

  O.K. You know what I’ve been working on — Dan Spring, Frank Eiverson, the rest of it. Including the fact that Jake and Pot worked me over night before last. At the time, I wondered why they hadn’t finished the job, gone ahead and finished me. The could have, but they didn’t. Why? What if they had killed me then — from your point of view, I mean, Phil.

  You know what.

  Sure. A lot of heat. You’d check into every move Spring and Eiverson made for the last thirty years, dig into everything I’ve been checking and a lot more besides. Right?

  Right.

  O.K., obviously the idea was to stop my investigation, get my nose out of their — and somebody else’s — business. That’s why the warning, the beating. And that’s why they did not kill me.

  Samson, frowning, said, I see what you’re getting at. But —

  No buts, Phil. Every punk and hoodlum in Southern California, and points beyond, knows Shell Scott’s great and good friend is one Phil Samson. And Phil Samson happens to be — revolting development — the Captain of L.A. Homicide. So killing me would sure end my investigation, but it wouldn’t end the investigation. It would have the opposite effect, in fact: more heat, more investigating, even more digging than I could have accomplished myself. That’s why I’m alive today — if you can call this living. I grinned. The guy who wanted me dead couldn’t afford to kill me; he couldn’t stand the heat it would turn on him.

  Sam nodded slowly. Yeah. If you went up for this, that would be the end of it. O.K. He sighed. I’d buy it — if you were framed.

  I was. By an expert. Let’s start with that shooting last night.

  Samson pulled a wooden match from his pocket and lit his big black cigar, scowling at me, as if daring me to protest. He puffed on the cigar. Shell, we know the lethal bullet was fired from your Colt, no chance of a mistake there. You even adm
it the Colt was in your possession all night. So don’t try to tell me you suddenly remembered you left the gun in some dame’s apartment, or you blacked out —

  Nothing like that, Phil. Look, we’ve been assuming all along that my gun was used. Even I assumed that. But, actually, we don’t know it was my gun, Phil — only that it was a bullet from my gun.

  He took the cigar from his mouth, leaving his mouth open. He frowned. Then the frown slowly faded. Maybe — but how —

  One step at a time. If somebody had a bullet fired from my Colt, and that slug were found in a dead man, wouldn’t the natural assumption be that I shot the man?

  Samson was already shaking his head. Sorry, Shell. I went over that ballistics report, and talked to the men in SID, until I was blue in the face. Your bullet killed Kovin. Entrance wound was pretty big — as you know they often are — but the passage was clean, slug lodged smack at the end of it. If you’re going to tell me he was shot with another gun, and then somebody fished in and dug out the slug, pushed your pill down into —

  Nothing quite so crude for Joe Cherry, Phil — and I say it was Cherry. Let’s get back to that nice clean slug of mine. Couldn’t it be reloaded into another cartridge case and fired into a man? Couldn’t that slug kill him, be identified as coming from my Colt — which in fact it would be — and point to me as the killer?

  Wait a second. Maybe a guy could get the bullet — like we got one last night by firing your Colt into the SID tank — complete with striations. But those impressions would sure as hell be destroyed, or at least changed, when the reloaded bullet was fired from another gun. And that would show up under the microscope.

  Sure, if it was fired from another .38 Colt Special, or similar gun with lands and grooves in the barrel. But how about a larger-bore gun, a big smooth-bore maybe? The .38 slug from my Colt could even be reloaded, with wadding or some kind of gasket, into a .45-caliber cartridge, say. That would give it any extra muzzle velocity needed to overcome leakage in the larger barrel — so it would be certain to penetrate the victim’s flesh, do the killing job.