Murder on Their Minds

by George Harmon Coxe

  “That’s all I can do here, Lieutenant,” he said, and reached for his coat. “One shot. Reasonably close, I’d say. I think you’ll find some powder tattooing on the shirt. At least that’s what it looks like now.”

  “Quick?” Bacon asked.

  “I’d say so.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Not long. As a guess, less than a half hour.”

  Bacon watched the fingerprint man slip a pencil through the trigger guard of the revolver and lift it to the desk. While the lights were being set up for the photographer he turned to Frank Kirby.

  “You found him, Frank? Tell us about it. How did you happen to come by?”

  Frank Kirby was in his middle thirties, a lean, competent-looking man with gray-green eyes that were bold, busy, and coldly observant. His hair was medium brown and wiry, the angular, hard-jawed conformation of his face giving him somehow a terrier’s look. By nature he was both cocky and aggressive, and if he was at times a little rough it was the result of twelve years on the police force, most of it spent collaring lawbreakers and delinquents less tough than himself. Now, as he looked up at Bacon, his voice was clipped and bitter.

  “We were working on a little thing that came up this afternoon. For Kelleher’s steak house,” he said, and related the story that Murdock had already heard from Tom Brady. “I knew Tom would be finished with his trick,” he said, “so I stopped by to see if he could fill me in with anything before I went down there at eleven.”

  “What time did you get here?”

  “Nine or a little after. I don’t know exactly.”

  “You must have wasted a little time,” Bacon said. “We got your call at 9:07.”

  “Yeah,” Kirby said. “I guess you could call it wasted.” He hesitated, his face pale and shiny in the reflected glare of the photographer’s lights. “When I saw the gun and finally realized what had happened I guess I was too mad to think straight.

  “We weren’t partners,” he said. “We just shared the office and expenses. We weren’t even very close. But you couldn’t sit across from Brady day after day and know the kind of a guy he was and the kind of cop he used to be without liking him. Then you walk in on a thing like this and you don’t believe it and then all you want to do is get your hands on the guy that did it.”

  “Yeah,” Bacon said. “A lot of us feel that way. So you walked in. Then what?”

  “I think I spotted that open file before I saw him,” Kirby said and nodded toward the table. “I knew he kept it locked but it was open and empty—or it looked that way from where I stood. I didn’t see the gun at first. I wasn’t even thinking like that. He was on the floor. So was his hat and coat. I thought maybe it was his heart.”

  “Was his coat open like that?”

  “Yes. I saw the bloodstain when I bent over him but it wasn’t very big then. I yelled at him and shook him, not knowing he was dead, and then I saw the gun.”

  “When did you decide he was dead?”

  Kirby blinked, as though the thought had not occurred to him. He said he didn’t know.

  “I couldn’t find any pulse but his skin was as warm as mine and I could see the bloodstain getting bigger. I knew it must have just happened and I guess I got the wild idea that maybe I could nail the guy that did it. I looked in the conference room and then ran into the hall. It doesn’t make much sense now but—”

  “That’s okay,” Bacon said when Kirby hesitated. “What did you do?”

  “There’s only one way out of this floor and that’s the front stairs. Suppose my coming up had trapped the guy? Maybe he was still around? That’s how it hit me then so I ran along the hall trying doors, hoping he’d ducked into some office. But they were all locked and so I ran up to the third floor but all the rooms were dark. Then I knew I’d only been kidding myself. If I had trapped the guy he would have had time to duck out the front way while I was with Brady. I came back and called in and took off my hat and coat and sat down to wait.”

  Bacon nodded and flexed his lips. “Have you got a gun, Frank?”

  “Two, but they’re home.”

  “Stand up.”

  Kirby’s eyes opened, incredulous at first then quickly flaring as his mouth flattened.

  “Don’t be so touchy,” Bacon said, evaluating the reaction. “You were a cop long enough to know the routine.”

  Kirby rose, his mouth still tight. He straightened the jacket of his pin-striped gray suit, which was a little wide in the shoulders but of excellent material. Keogh, at a glance from Bacon, made a perfunctory inspection and stepped back.

  “Is that your desk?” Bacon said, indicating the one on the left. He nodded again to Keogh and the sergeant went over to examine the drawers.

  Kirby sat down. He was still sore but he made a suggestion. “It looks like Tom’s gun,” he said. “You could check it with his permit.”

  “Did he carry it much?”

  “No.”

  “Where’d he keep it?”

  “In his desk. In the drawer that’s been pulled out.”

  The photographer turned out his lights and Bacon asked the precinct lieutenant if he would empty Brady’s pockets. When this was done he asked Keogh to see if the ambulance men were ready. They came in a minute later and now Murdock, who had been staring straight ahead, took out a cigarette and deliberately fixed his glance at the window.

  In spite of his attempt to concentrate he could see the movement from the corner of one eye and when the stretcher began to move his throat was hard and there was a stinging at the back of his eyeballs. Only when the door had closed would he look at Bacon, listening again, speculating when he could, his deep-seated anger still seething.

  Bacon was looking through Brady’s wallet now and presently he asked the fingerprint man if he could read the number on the revolver without messing it up.

  “I never got a decent print from a gun yet,” the man said, “but you never can tell.”

  He bent over with a flashlight and poked at the revolver with the tip of a pencil. When he read off a number Bacon said:

  “It’s his, all right.” He glanced at Kirby. “So how does he get shot with his own gun?”

  “You just asking,” Kirby said, “or am I supposed to guess?”

  “Let’s all guess,” Bacon said.

  “Whoever it was must have had a gun of his own.”

  “If he pulled it,” Bacon said, “Brady might have sneaked that drawer open.”

  “He would have tried,” Kirby said. “He wasn’t the kind to sit still on a thing like that.”

  Bacon nodded thoughtfully in agreement. “He gets it out but the other guy spots it in time. Still covering Brady, he makes him put it on the desk. He picks it up and now Brady must think the guy’s going to use it. If there’s powder marks on his shirt it must mean he tried to lunge for the gun and didn’t quite make it.”

  He swore softly, a frustrated and bitter sound; then, checking himself, his manner became deliberately businesslike.

  “We’d better inventory the desk,” he said. “Especially that drawer that’s pulled out.… Is that a typewriter ribbon?” he asked, pointing at the overturned wastebasket. “Did he do his own typing?” he said to Kirby.

  “He typed his reports first and then had them copied.”

  Bacon studied the portable typewriter on the desk and told the fingerprint man to put it in its case and take it along.

  “If it’s a new ribbon,” he said, “maybe it’ll have some writing on it you can read.… Now what about that filing cabinet, Frank?”

  “He kept the carbons of his reports in it.”

  “How many? What I mean is, how full was the drawer? How much room did the carbons take up?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “Give me an idea.”

  “About like that,” Kirby said, and held his hands a foot or more apart.

  “Too much to carry in your pockets or in your arms?”

  “If they were tied up you could ca
rry them under your arm.” Kirby stood up and went over to the desk. “He had a briefcase,” he said, and after looking about went into the partitioned office. “Unless he had it at home that must be it,” he said finally.

  “He had it with him this afternoon,” Murdock said.

  Bacon turned, brows bunched over his gray eyes. “How do you know?”

  “He was at the studio.”

  “When?”

  Murdock told him and Bacon turned to Kirby. “Did you know that?”

  “Sure. I phoned him there to tell him about the Kelleher thing. He came back here and we talked it over and decided how to work on it.”

  “Did he have the briefcase then?”

  “Yes, now that I stop to think of it.”

  “What did he want with you?” Bacon said to Murdock.

  “He had some things he wanted photographed. He wanted me to make some negatives.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Well—some affidavits, copies of this and that, a couple of birth certificates.”

  “What were they about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have some idea,” Bacon said with mounting impatience.

  Murdock replied in level tones, explaining Brady’s attitude and what he had said. “I didn’t read much and what I saw didn’t make much sense to me.”

  “Maybe you’ll remember some of them later,” Bacon said dryly.

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay. Start thinking.… What was he working on?” he said to Kirby.

  “He’s been out of town for a month,” Kirby said. “Just got back last night.” He went on to say that he had taken over Brady’s bread-and-butter accounts—a couple of weekly payroll jobs, occasional work for the Northeast Insurance Company checking job applicants, some security work for a food chain.

  “He was away a month?” Bacon said with some surprise. “On one job? It must have been important.”

  He paused, and when Kirby offered no comment he said: “Do you know who he was working for?”

  “I think it was the Alderson family.”

  “The Beacon Street Aldersons?” Bacon’s eyes opened and he whistled softly. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I wouldn’t think they’d let a detective in the door.” Then, as a new thought came to him, he turned back to Murdock. “What happened to the films?”

  Murdock explained what he had done and Bacon said: “Did Brady pick them up?”

  “He must have,” Murdock said. “They weren’t in my desk at eight o’clock.”

  “What did he do with the original stuff?”

  “He tucked it in a manila envelope and put it in his pocket.”

  Bacon looked around, speaking to his men but addressing no one. “No envelope?” he said. “No negatives?” He took a breath and swore again. “No reports either, not even the briefcase.” He might have said more if a detective had not opened the door to say that a Mr. Enders wanted to see him.

  “Enders?” Bacon said, frowning again. “Is that the lawyer—never mind, ask him to come in.”

  Arthur Enders was a graying, handsome man of forty-five or so with a lithe, muscular figure and the sort of face that is copied by advertisers who need someone with a sportsman’s look to endorse their products. He had a resonant voice and a gracious, assured manner that managed to suggest somehow that he had been born for the better things of life. Now, unbelting his trench coat and shaking the rain from his hat, he glanced about, nodded to Murdock and then concentrated on Bacon.

  “You wanted to see me, Mr. Enders?” the lieutenant said.

  “Not exactly,” Enders said. “I came to see Mr. Brady—”

  “Why?”

  “I had an appointment. Someone downstairs told me what had happened. They said you were in charge so I thought I’d better come up.”

  “Oh,” Bacon said. “Well, when did you see Brady last?”

  “About a month ago.”

  “Then you made this appointment by telephone?”

  “He called late this afternoon and said he’d like to talk to me for a few minutes. He asked if I could stop by around nine thirty”—he paused to glance at his wrist watch—“and I said I could. I see I’m a little late.”

  “He didn’t say why he wanted to see you?… You knew he was working for the Alderson family,” he said when Enders shook his head.

  “I knew that, yes, but I don’t know why or what he had been doing.”

  “Who hired him?”

  “Mrs. Alderson—that’s Mrs. Harriett Alderson.”

  “But she didn’t tell you why?”

  “No.”

  “You’re the family attorney. Yet you made no attempt—”

  Enders smiled faintly. “If you knew Mrs. Alderson you’d know that once she made up her mind—”

  “She didn’t confide in you?”

  “Not in this case.”

  “Just how did she go about hiring a detective anyway?”

  “She talked to me first, after she’d made up her mind. I tried to find out why she wanted one and when that was no good I tried to discourage her. When I saw I was wasting my time I suggested Mr. Brady because I knew his reputation. I think she checked with Murdock,” he said, and glanced round for confirmation.

  Murdock corroborated the statement and repeated what he had told Tom Brady that afternoon.

  “She didn’t tell you why she wanted a detective either?” Bacon chewed on the denial a moment, a look of aggravation in his eyes. Apparently realizing he was getting nowhere in his present line of questioning, he took another tack and looked at Kirby.

  “Tom typed his own reports,” he said, “and someone copied them.”

  “That’s right,” Kirby said. “His typing was pretty rough.”

  “Who did the copying?”

  “A girl by the name of Sally Fisher. She works at the Courier.”

  “She’s on the society staff,” Murdock said. “She lives in the same building as Tom. She used to copy his stuff—he didn’t have too much—at night.”

  “What’s the address?”

  Murdock gave it and Sergeant Keogh wrote it down. “Maybe she can help us,” Bacon said, “but first I think we’d better have a talk with Mrs. Alderson.” He nodded at Keogh and the two moved to the doorway where Bacon gave some low-voiced instructions before Keogh went out. Now coming back to Enders, he said:

  “Do you want to call her and tell her we’re coming?”

  “Not particularly.”

  Bacon reddened slightly but ignored the remark. “Brady’s been working a month for Mrs. Alderson,” he said grimly. “That suggests that she was willing to spend quite a lot of money. Someone walked in here tonight and killed him, apparently before he’d had a chance to hand in his reports. They’re gone. So are the affidavits and material he spent a month getting, plus some films he had made this afternoon.”

  He took a breath and said, still grim: “Tom Brady was a cop who had the liking and respect of anyone who ever knew or worked with him. In my book, he’s still a cop, and that means all of us in the department are going to give this investigation a little extra something, Mr. Enders. We’re going to nail this killer and if it happens to be someone named Alderson it’ll be just too bad.”

  He continued quickly as Enders seemed about to protest. “You’re the family lawyer,” he said. “Okay, we’ll take you along with us and you can protect their rights. So suppose you telephone Mrs. Alderson and tell her what happened. You can say that I suggest that she have the other members of the family on hand if she can locate them. And tell her this, Mr. Enders. Tell her that if she doesn’t want to talk to me tonight, I’ll have the whole crowd subpoena’d and they can come down to the D.A.’s office in the morning and we’ll make it official.”

  That was quite a speech for Bacon, and to Murdock there was no bluff in what he had to say. He meant every word and Arthur Enders apparently got the same impression. He sighed audibly, shrugged, and went over to the telephone. As h
e dialed, Bacon went into a huddle with the precinct lieutenant and the other detectives.

  Murdock paid no attention to what Enders said but stood up to get his coat. He put Kirby’s hat aside and now Kirby came over and put it on. He took the folded coat that Murdock gave him and hung it over his arm and by the time Murdock had slipped into his own dampened coat Enders had finished his phone call.

  “Did she give you an argument?” Bacon asked.

  “I told her what you said,” Enders said dryly. “Maybe that convinced her.”

  Bacon nodded and came over to Murdock. “Where’re you going?”

  Until that moment Murdock had not thought about it. He had been thinking about Tom Brady and worrying about his own helplessness and mentally abusing himself for not reading the documents he had photographed when he had the chance. For it seemed to him now that Bacon was on the right track, that somehow the things that Brady had learned were responsible for his death.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I’ll go with you.”

  “That’s what I had in mind,” Bacon said. “You’re a friend of the family; you can front for me.… You too, Kirby,” he said. “We’ll ride together and Murdock can keep thinking about those documents he photographed.… You can follow along in your car, Mr. Enders,” he said. “And Sergeant Keogh can follow you.”

  6

  AS IT turned out, the company car had been left for Murdock and so he put his camera and case in the back and the three of them sat in front, Bacon in the middle. The rain had moderated to a drizzle now but Murdock took it easy and presently Kirby cleared his throat.

  “I’ve been thinking, Lieutenant,” he said. “Maybe I’ve got something that will help. It’s about Enders.”

  “Ahh—what about him?”

  “I got a long distance call from Tom about a week or so after he left. From San Francisco. He said he had a couple of jobs I might be able to handle for him. He said I’d be working for him and he’d pay me but that he would get it from Aldersons in the end. He wanted me to check on Enders.”