Murder on Their Minds

by George Harmon Coxe

  “A very special friend.”

  “How does it look now?”

  Murdock had it in mind to answer the question as briefly as possible, but once he began to talk he found it easy to continue. It was as though there was a certain therapeutic value in being able to unburden himself and Wyman was a good listener, nodding from time to time, not interrupting, putting aside the cigar when he found it had gone out.

  “Okay,” he said when Murdock finished. “You want to work with your friend Bacon down at homicide. It’s a good idea. You’ve done all right in the past that way. So what do you need time off for? You’ll be working, won’t you?”

  “But not for the Courier.”

  Wyman leaned forward, his broad face wrinkled. “Why won’t you?”

  “I don’t mean I won’t bring it in if anything breaks,” Murdock said stubbornly, “but for me this is a personal thing. The chances are I can’t do much anyway, but I know the people and if I can help out I’ll be doing it for myself, not the paper.”

  “What the hell,” Wyman said, and now he grinned. “It’s the same thing, ain’t it? You’re not working by the hour, are you? You don’t come under the union rules.”

  “The murder of a man like Brady isn’t worth more than a half column.”

  “With the Aldersons in it, it could be front page, and you know it.” Wyman’s chuckle was a warm and friendly sound. “If your conscience is bothering you for taking money for something you want to do for yourself, forget it.”

  He pushed back his chair and reached for the cigar. “Go on,” he said. “Beat it. Grab yourself three or four drinks and go home and get some sleep. I’ll put the word out that you won’t be in.”

  Murdock pulled his legs in and stood up, cheered somehow by Wyman’s manner and blunt words and already beginning to feel better. As he went to the door a feeling of new confidence began to stir inside him.

  8

  KENT MURDOCK had already transferred his camera and case and raincoat from the company car to his own before he had gone upstairs, and now he unlocked the door and climbed in. He wanted the drinks that Wyman had mentioned but since he had no desire to stand at a bar he decided to wait until he was home. As it turned out he had to wait a bit longer than he had anticipated because on the way home a new idea came to him and he took a detour that brought him back to the house where Tom Brady had lived.

  It was not nostalgia that took him there but a knowledge of one detail that was known, so far as he knew, only to Brady and himself. The police had searched the apartment and found nothing of interest, but since it was unlikely they could know of the existence of a secret compartment in Brady’s desk, there was still a chance that he might uncover something worth while.

  That is what he thought as he entered the darkened vestibule and pushed open the inner door. He had no key to Brady’s flat but he knew what kind of a lock it was and he had in his wallet an instrument given him a long time ago by another private detective named Jack Fenner.

  He took it out as he paused in the half-light of the second-floor landing, a thin steel blade, rounded at one end and perhaps a half inch wide. He tried the knob first and found the door locked; after that it was a matter of seconds to insert the light but flexible blade between the moulding and the casing so that it engaged the sloping surface of the bolt.

  When he felt it slide he turned the knob, and this time the latch clicked and the door was open. In no hurry now, he withdrew the blade and replaced it in his wallet. He opened the door and stepped silently inside and then, unaccountably, he froze there as the door swung behind him, the hand that started to reach for the electric switch checked in mid-air.

  Neither then nor later could Murdock ever be sure what it was that warned him. He had not been conscious of any sound nor did he hear one now until he reached behind him to close the door and cut off the crack of light that seeped in from the hall.

  Until then he’d had no premonition of danger and when, finally, it came he first repelled it by telling himself that it was nothing but imagination; that what he felt was due to nerves stretched too tight by the things that had happened that night.

  Then he was moving in spite of himself, stepping lightly to one side and hunkering down to make himself small, the odd fear persisting as though some radar system of the mind was collaborating with instinct to tell him that he was not alone. Obeying this intuitive alarm he remained motionless, mouth open and breath held, ears straining and his senses sharply tuned until, from somewhere on his left, there came a whisper of sound to tell him that instinct had been right.

  Because he knew this room almost as well as his own he located the sound at once, identifying it as the soft brushing of some weight across the nap of the rug. On his right two windows overlooked the street, the undefinable outlines indicating that the shades must have been pulled. On the left were two doorways, one leading to the bedroom and bath, the other to a dinette and kitchen. Beyond was another door which provided the only other way out of the apartment.

  He started moving that way now, his memory of the floor plan and the placement of the furniture guiding him. That he might turn on the light and try a frontal assault did not occur to him, possibly because the image of the intruder which had grown in his mind had become that of a killer who had come here as he had, illegally and in stealth, to look for something important to him.

  The one who had walked into Tom Brady’s office had carried a gun. That was the assumption, and if true, it meant the killer still had a gun. And while Murdock had no intention of standing still while the other escaped by the rear stairway, he was no fool.

  He moved with caution to the door of the dinette, hearing a metallic click in the darkness ahead, feeling now the stirring of air around his ankles. This told him the back door was open, and since he knew it had no patent closing device, he felt it would remain that way.

  Not touching anything, relying solely on his memory, he moved with silent tread into the kitchen and across the linoleum floor. An outstretched hand found the edge of the open door, and when he stopped here to hold his breath again and listen, he heard the faint creaking of a stair tread below him.

  Still keeping his distance he started down, his fingers touching the railing on his right. He reached a tiny landing where the stairs cut back to reach the second floor and now, starting down the last flight, he heard the door open and felt the quick rush of night air up the stair well.

  He moved more quickly then until he reached the ground floor. Stopping here as instinct cautioned him, he found the knob and turned it. He opened the door a two-inch crack and suddenly the night seemed brighter with the reflected glow of some street light. Not knowing what lay beyond he started to widen the crack. It was then that the shot came, the hammering sound of it simultaneous with the vibration of the door against his palm.

  Murdock stood where he was as the door clicked shut from the impact of the slug which had buried itself somewhere above him. He did not know what lay outside, but for the first time he counted the odds and found them bad. He seemed to understand that the shot had been a warning one to keep him from following, but when he realized what might have happened had he opened the door wide in his pursuit he felt the perspiration break out under his arms and there was a sudden weakness in his knees.

  He swore silently as he waited in the darkness. He called himself several kinds of fool, but even as he did so he wondered how else he could have acted. When he had counted off what seemed like a half minute he made another attempt to open the door, not because he expected to see anyone but just to know what was outside.

  This time he was successful and as he stepped out he found himself in a narrow alley that was blind at one end and open at the other. For another moment he stood there, the perspiration drying coldly on his spine, and then he retraced his steps, mounting in the stuffy darkness until he came to Brady’s kitchen.

  He did not turn on a light until he reached the living room and again the feeling of depression
and helplessness settled over him as he saw the familiar pieces: the worn davenport, the sagging leather chair, the tilt-top table they always used for pinochle, the ancient kneehole desk.

  It was this desk that had brought him here, and because he did not want to sit and brood, he went to it now, opening the bottom drawer on the right. At first glance this seemed like nothing more than a receptacle for old checkbooks and account books, but when he had removed them and the drawer seemed empty he reached far back, hooked the tip of his finger into a hole that had been cut across one corner, and lifted.

  The bottom, which was not the bottom but in reality only a shelf, tipped up to reveal an inch-deep recess which some unknown owner had fashioned many years ago. Brady had not discovered it himself until a year ago and he had shown it to Murdock one night, adding that this was where he kept his valuables.

  What Murdock found here now was a passbook on a local savings bank and three legal-size envelopes. There was nothing more, and when he had placed them on the desk he studied them a moment before he opened them.

  He had no feeling that he was prying into personal matters that were no concern of his. If he had thought about it at all he would have known it was a duty because there had once been an evening when Brady had told him that if anything ever happened to him, Murdock was to see that whatever was in the drawer was turned over to Alice, his daughter, or to his lawyer.

  Opening the bankbook first he saw that Brady had twenty-two hundred and some dollars in his account. He put it aside and picked up the first envelope, which was unsealed and contained three E-bonds with a face value of five hundred dollars each. The second envelope contained an insurance policy for ten thousand dollars made out to his daughter; the third was Brady’s will.

  Murdock’s hands were unsteady as he opened this and found it a simple one-page document drawn by a lawyer whose name was familiar. In effect it said that all personal property was to go to his daughter, that because of an insurance policy which had been made payable to her, the balance of his estate was to be held in trust for the education of his two grandchildren.

  Murdock swallowed hard as he put the will in its proper envelope, the addition that came to his mind unconscious but inescapable. There was, he knew, a checking account but he did not think it would amount to much. Which meant that now, with Brady gone, what was left in worldly goods after a lifetime of hard work would add up to ten thousand dollars for his daughter—before funeral expenses—and perhaps four thousand for her children.

  Murdock put the bankbook and the three envelopes back with care before he remembered that there was one more item that should be included: a bonus.

  If Brady had lived it would have been paid, and suddenly it seemed terribly important that Murdock find those reports and collect from Harriett Alderson this bonus that she had promised. He told himself there must be some way and yet, even as he sat there, certain now that there was nothing here that would help him discover who had killed his friend, an unreasoning anger welled up inside him and he slammed the drawer and kicked the chair back as he came to his feet.

  He snapped off the light and left the room, moving blindly down the stairs and out into the coolness of the night. He drove directly home because the need for the postponed drinks was very great now. He took out his camera and case and raincoat and locked the car; when he had let himself into his second-floor flat, he put his things aside and went directly to the kitchen.

  The Scotch-on-rocks he made was very dark indeed, and he had just taken his first big swallow when the buzzer sounded. Scowling at the door and somehow resenting the sound, he crossed the room, not knowing just what to expect and not particularly caring. He opened the door wide, stepping back as he did so, and the two men who stood there moved forward together.

  He knew at once that the two were strangers and as he moved aside to give them room he understood that they must have been waiting outside for his return. On the heels of this thought he recalled Sally Fisher’s experience with two unseen hoodlums. He did not know yet if there was any connection but he had one more impression that was clear cut and definite: these two looked like trouble. Instinct born of long experience with all sorts of people told him this much, and such was his mood that he found himself looking forward to a little trouble with an unaccustomed eagerness.

  He finished the rest of his drink and put the glass aside. Then, while they looked him over, he weighed each man in turn, finding one of them about his own height but thirty pounds heavier, a husky, thick-bodied man with a crooked nose, scarred brows, and not much neck. The other one was slicker looking, on the thin side and not much more than a welterweight, with a smooth swart skin and shiny black hair.

  “Okay,” he said. “What do you want?”

  “A quick look,” the thin man said. “In your pockets first, pal.”

  “Where’s your gun?” Murdock said.

  “We got one.” The thin one tapped his pocket negligently. “But I don’t think we’ll need it. Eddie’ll take care of things.”

  “You talk tough.”

  “You’ll find out how tough if you get fancy.”

  Murdock’s dark eyes were busy now, but he grinned as he asked if they knew what they were looking for.

  “We’ll let you know. Just get your arms up and stand still.… Watch him, Eddie.”

  By this time Murdock was ready to admit that the two were probably tough and could be brutal. He also knew that they were intent on demonstrating their toughness and this took him back to the days when he had played a little football in college. He had been up against certain tough ones then and he had learned that very often that type of player was so busy proving he was tough that it was easy to take him out of a play if you clipped him properly.

  He remembered this now, his hands still hanging loosely, as Eddie stepped closer. When the thin lad moved round behind him, Murdock let his weight come forward, his eyes measuring the hard rock of Eddie’s chin and deciding it might prove to be a discouraging target. He felt the thin one pat his outer pockets, bumping him a little, still acting tough, and finally slipping one hand under his armpit to feel the inside pocket.

  That made it easier, especially for one who had learned a trick or two in the army.

  Without moving anything except his one arm in that first instant, Murdock clamped it to his side, pinioning the thin man’s arm above the elbow. Then, as Eddie awakened, Murdock turned and bent, still holding to the arm, finding the hand now and yanking it as he took the weight on his back.

  Still pulling the hand, he heaved hard, hearing the startled cry as the man’s heels went high and his body crashed downward.

  Eddie had to get out of the way or get hit and he reacted well for one who was not too bright. But he was slow. He had to set himself before he could throw his looping hook, and as his companion hit the floor on the back of his neck, Murdock stepped happily inside the loop of that swing. Concentrating on the second shirt button above the belt line, he drove his right into the bulging flesh with all his weight behind it.

  Eddie said: “Ooosh,” and doubled over, eyes bulging.

  Before he could drop to his knees, Murdock spun to meet the stunned but rising tough lad. A short smart blow with the edge of his hand that caught the back of the thin neck knocked the fellow flat again and then Murdock reached for the gun, ripping the pocket half off as he jerked the automatic free.

  There was no further trouble with Eddie.

  Eddie was still on his knees, but doubled over, with his head nearly touching the floor and his hands hugging his middle. He was still gagging as he fought to get his breath, and as Murdock turned toward his camera there was a spring in his stride and his grin was elated, not for what he had accomplished, since this had not been difficult, given a certain technique and a proper understanding of his foe, but because the physical effort was a tonic that had helped to lift his spirits.

  There was already a bulb in the flash gun and when he had checked the aperture and shutter speed he s
tepped back and focused on Eddie, who was sitting up now, glowering but still a little green. The thin one was also sitting up, cursing viciously as he rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Stay there!” Murdock said. “Stay put, both of you!”

  He took his picture, put the camera aside and inspected the gun. He did not think it had been fired recently but it held a full clip and there was a bullet in the chamber. He pointed it at the pair as he lifted the telephone and dialed a number.

  “Bacon,” he said when he had his connection, “when’re you going home?”

  “I’ve got my hat and coat on now.”

  “Then listen to this,” said Murdock and began to speak his piece, at the same time reminding the lieutenant of what had happened to Walt Carey. “There could be a connection,” he said, “but I doubt it. Whoever came to the studio got those films. I think this pair wanted the ones I took for Brady.”

  “It makes more sense that way,” Bacon said. “You don’t know who they are?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, I’ll send over for them. I’ll see they get a session tonight and in the morning I’ll have a go at ’em myself.…”

  The two men Bacon sent over made a contrasting pair, one of them being a blunt-nosed man of fifty or so and the other much younger, with curly dark hair and an expansive manner. He was the one who gave the two captives a routine search while Murdock handed the automatic to his companion and explained what had happened. This one seemed to know Murdock, though Murdock could not recall his name.

  “You took the two of ’em, hunh?” he said.

  “They were careless,” Murdock said. “They wanted to show me how tough they were.”

  “If they’re that tough,” the detective said in a voice that seemed sardonically amused, “maybe you’d better put the cuffs on, Harry.”

  Eddie submitted without a word as his right wrist was shackled to the left one of the thin lad. He had not opened his mouth since he entered, but his associate made up for the lack of conversation.