Murder on Their Minds

by George Harmon Coxe

  Frank Kirby, who had not opened his mouth since he had been introduced, looked at Murdock and shrugged. They went out of the room, Bacon leading the way, and as they came to the landing a telephone rang somewhere below them. By the time they had reached the foyer Henderson was holding a telephone towards Bacon.

  “Your office, I believe, sir,” he said, and then turned to get their coats and hats.

  Bacon said: “Yeah. Yeah.… Right.… We’ll get over there.”

  Murdock hung his coat over his arm and so did Kirby; Bacon put his on and centered his hat. They went out into the night that was clearing and warmer.

  “The Fisher girl,” Bacon said. “The one that did the copying for Brady.”

  “Sally Fisher,” Murdock said, the pressure of some quick alarm accenting his words. “What about her?”

  “A couple of guys jumped her as she came into her building. Grabbed her bag and knocked her down. It could be just a mugging by a couple of neighborhood punks but she’s all right now. There’s somebody with her, so we’ll stop at the Clay before we talk to her.”

  7

  WHILE Lieutenant Bacon signaled across the street to Sergeant Keogh, Murdock threw his coat on the shelf behind the back seat to get it out of the way and then slid in behind the wheel. With Bacon once more beside him, Kirby closed the door and Murdock pulled out into the one-way traffic, watching his rearview mirror to see that Keogh was following. When he could he turned left, made another left at Boylston, and five minutes later he was back in front of the Clay Hotel, an ancient structure whose walls had been sandblasted to give it some semblance of modernity and whose original charm had been scarred by attempts at remodeling to get a bigger bar and restaurant trade.

  This time Bacon indicated that Murdock and Kirby could accompany him and so they went into the lobby and started for the desk. Halfway there, Murdock glanced about and spotted Barry Denham reading a bulldog edition of the Courier, so he hurried ahead and took the lieutenant’s arm.

  “I think that’s Denham over in the corner,” he said, and pointed.

  “Good,” Bacon said. “You can introduce me.”

  Denham apparently saw them coming, for he put down the paper and then, recognizing Murdock, he smiled and stood up. “Hi, Murdock,” he said. “Want to see me?”

  “We were going to ask for you at the desk but I happened to see you sitting here. This is Lieutenant Bacon and Frank Kirby—Barry Denham.”

  They all said hello without attempting to shake hands and Denham, looking at Bacon, said: “Town cop?”

  “Homicide,” Bacon said.

  “Good,” Denham said, and grinned. “That puts me in the clear. What’s on your mind?”

  “Like to ask you some questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Mind telling us what you’ve been doing tonight?”

  “Since when?”

  “Oh—say five o’clock.”

  “I was at the track this afternoon,” Denham said. “I got here about six and tossed off a couple and had a shower and a nap. I didn’t go out until about nine o’clock.”

  “Was it raining then?”

  Denham hesitated and pursed his lips, a big man, well built but soft looking, with dark, wavy hair worn too long for Murdock’s taste, and a small trim mustache. His eyes were small and light blue, the color all the more noticeable when contrasted to his dark brows and skin. He had a certain superficial handsomeness in spite of the heavy face and small mouth, but seen close like this it came to Murdock that here was a man he would never entirely trust. He had an idea that Denham was the sort who could lie convincingly without giving the matter a second thought; he also had the impression that when crossed the man could be both truculent and mean. Now, tipping his head to one side, Denham said:

  “It was just starting.”

  “Then what?”

  “I went over to the Saville and had dinner.… So what’s the beef, Lieutenant? Who got killed?”

  Bacon told him and Denham said he’d never heard of Tom Brady. Bacon said Brady was working for the Aldersons, that he had just come from there.

  “Have you got some identification, Denham?” he said abruptly.

  Just as abruptly, Denham’s pale eyes narrowed and his mustache flattened with some movement of his mouth.

  “Why don’t you buzz off?” he said nastily. “I answered your questions about tonight. If they don’t check out, come back again.”

  Bacon didn’t raise his voice but the cadence changed. Murdock, watching him and knowing how he worked, found a certain satisfaction in the way he handled Denham’s bluff. With no variation in his expression he said:

  “Do you wear a coat, Denham?”

  “Yeah. Right there.” And he pointed to the raincoat that had been tossed across an adjoining chair.

  “Put it on,” Bacon said. “Or carry it if you like.… Let’s go down to Headquarters.”

  “What could you book me on if I did?”

  “From what I hear about you vagrancy would stick. Come on.”

  He reached for Denham and the big man pulled back and suddenly his defiance was gone. He made a half-hearted attempt to smile and his glance dropped as he pulled out his wallet.

  “Identification?” he said. “Sure. You don’t have to get tough about it. Here, help yourself.”

  “You take it out,” Bacon said. “Whatever you got there.”

  Denham extracted what looked to Murdock like a driver’s license and a social security card. Bacon looked them over, then returned them.

  “I hear you’re an actor,” he said. “Working yet?”

  “No, but I’ve got some lines out for the summer.”

  “You’re Rita Alderson’s half brother?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She been supporting you?”

  “I’m on an allowance. A grand a week.”

  “How long you been in town?” Bacon said, ignoring the sarcasm.

  “About two months.”

  “Do you know the Aldersons?”

  “Slightly. I was there for dinner once.” Denham’s smile was easy again. “I don’t think the old girl liked me. I haven’t been back.”

  “All right, Denham,” Bacon said. “Stick around. We may want a statement tomorrow.”

  He turned then, and with a slight nod to Murdock, started for the door, his back straight, his hat centered, and the tails of his raincoat flapping at his calves.

  Sally Fisher lived in an old brownstone not far from Hemenway Street. Like many of its neighbors it had been converted to small apartments but the high steps were still there, as was the entryway that was seldom closed except in winter. A detective was waiting here when Bacon led the way up the steps and from what he said it was apparent that he had been sent by Bacon to make a search of Tom Brady’s apartment, which was on the second floor. From Bacon’s point of view the results had been negligible.

  “There was no gun,” the detective said. “No reports of any kind that I could find. There’s a fireplace that works and it had some paper ashes in it but that’s all.… Here’s a spare key I got from the landlord,” he said, “in case you want to look.”

  Bacon said all right. He dismissed the man, and they went inside and up the worn stairway, past the door on the second floor that Murdock had visited so often in recent years and now, as they climbed the last flight, he felt again the depression and the wrench of his emotions as he recalled the weekly game of pinochle and the beer and the conversation that had become something of a ritual for both of them. The thought stayed with him as Bacon knocked at the door of the top apartment and only when a detective opened it and he saw Sally Fisher was he able to put aside the memory.

  She sat on a studio couch which faced the door, a small and neatly rounded girl, with hazel eyes and chestnut hair cut in a short, close-fitting bob. She had a tilted nose and a cute mouth that could dissolve into a sparkling smile, and because she was so often smiling it shocked him to see the tear-stained cheeks and watch
the eyes fill again when she saw him.

  “Hey,” he said thickly, and went over to sit beside her, taking a soft, damp hand in his and squeezing it. “You’re all right, aren’t you?”

  She nodded and made a small hiccuping sound as she tried to swallow.

  “I’m not crying about that,” she said forlornly. “It—it’s about Mr. Brady.”

  “Yeah,” said Murdock, and now he could do nothing more to help her.

  “Why?” she asked in her distress. “How could anyone do a thing like that?… He was such a nice man,” she said, and now her face crumpled again and she was crying openly.

  Murdock held on to her hand but his face was hot. Angry glints showed in his dark eyes as he tried to concentrate on what the detective was saying to Bacon.

  He understood at once that this was a precinct man who had nothing to do with the murder but had been sent from the station house when Sally had telephoned to report what had happened to her. From what the detective said now it appeared that Sally had had an early dinner with a girl friend and then gone to an early movie. She had come home about nine thirty and it was when she stepped into the vestibule that the two men, asking only if her name was Sally Fisher, grabbed her, knocking her down when she struggled and taking her handbag. She had come upstairs to find the lock had been forced, but it was not until after she had called the police that she realized her apartment had already been searched.

  Now Bacon came over to stand in front of her, hat in hand and his voice surprisingly gentle.

  “I know this isn’t going to be easy, Miss Fisher,” he said. “I know how you feel about Tom Brady; we all feel the same way. But we’re going to need your help. Try to tell me again just what you told the detective.… That’s the girl,” he said, when she lifted her chin and wiped her eyes.

  No one interrupted as she spoke and it was not until she finished that Bacon asked if anything in the apartment was missing.

  “No,” she said. “That’s the funny part.”

  “Was there anything in your bag except personal things?”

  “Nothing. Not even much money.”

  Bacon paused reflectively and Murdock asked the question that was uppermost in his mind.

  “Did Tom call you this afternoon?” he asked. “Did he ask you to stop in the studio and get an envelope from my desk?”

  “Why, no,” she said, her eyes opening wide. “He didn’t.”

  “But you copied his reports,” Bacon said.

  “Evenings. There weren’t too many.”

  “You knew he’d come back from his trip?”

  “Yes. He stopped in to see me last night.”

  “Did he have a lot of things for you to copy?”

  “No.” She paused when she saw Bacon’s expression; then said: “Oh, I know what you mean. But you see what he did on his trip was to mail me these rough reports each week. He’d type them out and send them to me so I wouldn’t have so much to do all at once.”

  “Ahh,” said Bacon with some relief. “Now can you tell me what those reports were about?”

  “Well—not very well. I mean—”

  “But you read them when you typed them.”

  “In a way, yes. But you can copy things, once you get used to it, without hardly knowing what you’re copying. You can even be thinking about something else. It’s sort of—I don’t know—automatic, I guess. And besides, this was different.”

  “Oh?” said Bacon, still unconvinced. “How?”

  She thought a moment, head tilting and her brows bunched. “Well, maybe it sounds sort of silly now, but it was sort of like we were playing a game. I mean, when he first asked me if I would help him out he explained that as a private detective his work had to be confidential between him and his client. He said it was sort of privileged, like a lawyer and his client, or a doctor.”

  Bacon grunted softly to show his disapproval of Brady’s opinion but he did not interrupt.

  “I knew what he meant and I guess I exaggerated things when I talked to him. He used to laugh, but I think it was fun for him too when I pretended that he was a very important detective and that each report was especially hush-hush or secretly dangerous. I really think he meant it at first when he said it would be best if I didn’t know what I was copying, but the way we played it he would bring a new report and I’d say, is this about the hydrogen bomb and he’d say no, it was the case history of a suspected spy—or something like that.

  “But I did read one or two at first,” she confessed, her glance dropping. “Until I found out they weren’t very exciting. Mostly there wasn’t anything but times and places that some man had been. They were really pretty dull when you didn’t know the people.”

  Murdock understood her explanation because he knew Brady. Talking to Sally like that, playing the game with her, was the sort of thing he would do. Bacon seemed to accept the story too, and though he sighed heavily he was not yet ready to admit defeat.

  “All right,” he said. “But what happened to the roughs he mailed in?”

  “Oh, he took everything last night. He always took his roughs. He said it was important to destroy them so they’d never be around to embarrass anyone.”

  Bacon massaged his chin and for a moment his gray eyes held a baffled look; then he swallowed and said: “You want to help, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, I do.”

  “Then maybe if you had some time, and tried real hard, you might remember something about those reports. Not what they meant so much as maybe some details, or names or places or certain statements Brady may have made. You don’t have to worry about whether they’re important or not, or even if they make sense. Just jot down anything that you can remember. Will you try?”

  She frowned but nodded. “Yes. Of course I will.”

  “Is there a back door?”

  “Through there,” she said, pointing.

  Bacon told the detective to see if the door was locked and the man said he had already looked and it was. Bacon went over to examine the chain lock on the hall door.

  “Just slip this on when we leave,” he said to the girl. “I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble tonight. If you’re sure you’re all right, we’ll go along.”

  “Yes,” she said, coming to her feet. “I’m quite all right now. And I will try to remember; I promise.”

  Bacon said that would be fine and then, nodding to the others, led the way from the room, stopping after the door had closed to wait until he heard the chain lock slip into place.

  Down on the sidewalk Bacon asked Murdock where he was going from here and Murdock said: “Back to the office.” Bacon told him to keep thinking and then asked Kirby if he could drop him anywhere. Kirby said yes, and as they started for the police car Murdock slid into the sedan and snapped on the two radios. When the tubes had warmed he called the office and said there was nothing new on the Brady case; he said he was bringing the car in.

  A light was burning in T. A. Wyman’s office when Murdock walked through the city room at twenty minutes of twelve, so he knocked once and opened the door far enough to stick his head inside.

  “Come in.” Wyman took the cigar from his mouth and pointed it at a chair. “Sit down.”

  Murdock accepted the invitation gratefully, his weariness making itself felt as he leaned back and stretched his legs out. For silent seconds he surveyed the wing tips of his Oxfords and noted the damage done by the rain. When he had made a mental reservation to get a shine the first thing in the morning he said, not looking up:

  “What do you hear about Walt Carey?”

  “The latest is that he’s going to be okay,” Wyman said. “No brain damage but it may be a while before anyone can talk to him.”

  He waited for some reply and when none came he eased back in the chair, puffed gently on his cigar, and let the silence build. It was not often that Murdock came to his office and when he did it was never just to pass the time of day. He was not sure what was bothering Murdock at the moment but he
was willing to wait, and as he did so it came to him again that he was lucky to have a man like Murdock on his staff.

  It was not just a matter of experience and training and intelligence; it was something more, a quality hard to define and made up of many things, but peculiarly Murdock’s. Not just his appearance, which was in his favor, not the casual way he wore his clothes—they were conservative, well tailored and in excellent taste—nor the way he carried himself.

  Part of his value to the paper could be attributed to his ability to get pictures often denied to others and his willingness, when necessary, to crash through a crowd with camera and equipment case. Perhaps a more important part was due to the fact that people liked him; for in people his taste was catholic and he could talk as easily to a truck driver or a circulation hustler as he could to the mother of the bride. His manner was easily adjustable to the circumstances and although he could be tough when he had to, it was a facet of his character that seldom showed; it was only when his own self-integrity or some question of principle was involved that the hard and uncompromising side of his nature became evident.

  Wyman had never told him any of this, because Wyman was a businessman and he had a budget to think of. Except for a couple of editors, and a columnist who was more popular than outstanding, Murdock got as much money as anyone in the shop and Wyman wanted to keep it that way. Now, not knowing what was bothering Murdock but certain that it would presently be told, he was willing to wait.

  The request, when it came, was both simple and surprising. Without changing his position, his dark gaze somber and morose as it came up to meet Wyman, Murdock said:

  “I’d like a couple of days off.”

  Wyman puffed a little harder and felt an odd thrust of relief. “Sure,” he said. “Why not? Delaney can take over your desk. Any special reason?”

  “It’s this Brady thing.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Wyman. “I understand he was a friend of yours.”