Murder on Their Minds

by George Harmon Coxe

  “You got nothing on us,” he said.

  “How about breaking and entering?” the detective said.

  “You can’t make it stick. We buzzed the buzzer and this guy let us in. We just wanted to talk to him.”

  “Assault, maybe?”

  “That’s a laugh. We never laid a hand on him. He’s the one that started the rumble. We’ll sign a complaint.”

  “I’ll bet.” The detective grinned and indicated the gun in his hand. “What about this? Got a permit?”

  That stopped the thin one for a moment. “I had one,” he said, not too convincingly. “Maybe it’s home.”

  “Then you’ll have a chance to produce it.… Come on,” he said, taking the other’s arm and giving it a twist. “Let’s meander. It’s getting late and I guess Mr. Murdock would like to go to bed.”

  He helped his companion nudge the two into the hall and before he closed the door, he said: “The Lieutenant says you’ll be around in the morning, right?”

  Murdock said yes and just then the thin man took up his protest. “You gotta book us or release us,” he said, as though he had learned the words by rote.

  “How about disorderly conduct?” The older detective gave a yank at his arm. “If you give me any more yap I’ll personally make it resisting an officer in the performance of his duties.” And with that, he winked and went out.

  Murdock still felt good as he replenished his drink and then came back to the door to snap on the night latch. He put a new bulb in the flash gun and reversed the film holder. He set the focus at twelve feet—the way he usually kept it—and the shutter at 1/400. He picked up his raincoat and when he went to hang it up he saw the dark smudge in the back between the shoulders. He stared at it a moment, muttering because he’d had it cleaned two weeks earlier. Then, remembering how he had tossed it on the shelf behind the back seat of his car and used it as a pillow on the printing room floor, he decided it was his own fault.

  Ten minutes later he was in bed, but it took him a while to get to sleep. He was unable to smother the workings of his mind, but no longer did his thoughts center exclusively on Tom Brady; instead he considered the copies he had made that afternoon. As he concentrated, forgotten details came back to him. There had been something about a woman named Ruth Colby and a man named Benjamin Danton, but the name that bothered him most was that of Jerry Alderson.

  Jerry Alderson, the extroverted and fun-loving bachelor of the Alderson clan, the one who explained his single state by saying that he couldn’t marry without his mother’s approval. It made a good joke, but although Murdock could not prove it, it seemed to him that a marriage license had been signed by a Jerry Alderson in San Francisco in 1951. The Jerry Alderson he knew? Or someone who had used his name?

  9

  KENT MURDOCK was toweling briskly after his shower at nine o’clock the following morning when he heard the buzzer. He stopped his toweling and stood naked and tousle-headed for a second or two, some annoyance mixed with the indecision in his dark gaze. When the sound was repeated with more persistence, he grabbed a pair of shorts, slipped into them, and reached for his robe. He had it belted by the time he opened the door to find Sally Fisher standing there.

  If she was at all embarrassed by his attire she did not show it. She wore a neat flannel suit, her chestnut hair was soft and shining, and her hazel eyes had a look of excitement in them.

  “I’m sorry if I was too early,” she said quickly, “but I had to ask you something before I went to the office.”

  Murdock closed the door and followed her into the room, conscious of his bare shanks but reassured when he saw that she was more interested in the apartment than she was in him.

  “This is nice,” she said. “I like it. I’ve never been here before, have I?… I know I haven’t.”

  Still a little puzzled by her appearance, Murdock watched her make a circuit of the room, her glance approving until she caught sight of herself in a wall mirror. Then, stopping abruptly, she leaned forward and made a face at herself.

  “My goodness,” she said, and came back to get the handbag she had deposited on the table near the door.

  “What?” said Murdock.

  “My mouth. It’s crooked.”

  By that time she had extracted her lipstick and returned to the mirror. Then, her lips twisting this way and that, working with lipstick and finger tip, she made repairs. When she finished she put the lipstick down, glanced at her finger, and came back to search for a tissue.

  “I thought of some things,” she said.

  Murdock’s reaction was still sluggish. “Did you?”

  “Like the lieutenant asked me to last night.”

  “Oh … Good.”

  “And I stopped to ask if you think I should tell him about them. Or should I tell you—or what?”

  “Tell Bacon,” Murdock said, “definitely.”

  “Will it be pretty awful down there at police headquarters? I mean, will there be a lot of men sitting around and—”

  Murdock laughed. He said it would not be awful. “You’ll sit in an office, or a room like any other room, and talk to Bacon or maybe a stenographer.”

  She was standing in front of him now, still not noticing his bare legs but smiling up at him, her young face sweetly attractive and her red mouth straight.

  “All right,” she said, “I’ll do it on my way to work. Where do I go? In the building, I mean.”

  “The easiest way is to stop at the information desk in the lobby and tell the man who you are and who you want to see.”

  “I will.” She tucked her bag under her arm and went to the door and now, for the first time, her carefree manner slipped away and her eyes grew serious. “I didn’t remember such an awful lot. I don’t know if it will help—”

  Murdock said all she had to do was tell what she could and let the police decide if it would help. He eased her into the hall, resisting the impulse to give her a small pat on the trim curve of her hip. He closed the door and blew out his breath, grinning a little as he went into the kitchen and turned the heat off under the coffee. When he had put a stale piece of bread in the toaster, he gulped his juice and hurried into the bedroom where he put on socks, trousers, shirt, and shoes before he heard the toaster pop.

  He had one cup of coffee with his toast and marmalade and brought a second cup back to the bedroom while he knotted a dark-blue tie, buttoned the collar points, and combed his hair. From his closet he selected a Shetland jacket and then went back to the kitchen to rinse his dishes.

  Twenty minutes later he walked into a bare and uninviting room furnished with some worn tables and chairs, two of which were occupied by a couple of detectives who were in conference about something. The third man was banging away at a typewriter and he looked up long enough to nod when Murdock gestured at the closed door of Bacon’s inner sanctum.

  As an office it was no more appealing than Murdock’s cubby, though there was room for two extra chairs. Bacon, who had been busy contemplating the grimy window, swiveled the desk chair and scowled at his caller, not with any animosity but simply as a matter of routine. He watched Murdock sit down and then reached into a drawer to take out a cigar, a thin and unprepossessing creation which he bought by the box for five cents apiece under the trade name of Little Wonder Panatelas.

  “Did Sally Fisher come in?” Murdock asked.

  “She’s spilling it to a policewoman.”

  “What about those two characters your men dragged in last night?”

  Bacon used a penknife to manicure the end of his cigar, giving it the same care he might have used on an imported fifty-center. Waiting until he had lighted it with the same loving care, he expelled smoke from his mouth and said:

  “Small-time hoods. A bouncer and a part-time bartender. Minor records—mostly assault. Nothing heavy.”

  “It’s too bad Sally didn’t see the two that jumped her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If it’s the same two, they didn’t think it up
themselves.”

  “No.”

  “That leaves two possibilities. One, they were told to get the films because whoever hired them didn’t get them from Brady; two, it was known the girl copied Brady’s reports.”

  “I can’t buy the film thing,” Bacon said.

  “Why?”

  “Because Brady didn’t ask her to pick them up from your desk in the first place. If he didn’t ask her it wasn’t in his mind, so how could anyone figure she did pick them up. Those punks could have come to you for films because a lot of people knew you were taking pictures. Not her.”

  Bacon’s reasoning was sound and Murdock admitted it. “All right, then say they went to Sally’s to get the reports.”

  “Whoever killed Brady took the reports,” Bacon said.

  “But could the killer know he had them all? Could he be sure there were no rough copies around? Who besides me knew she did that copying?”

  “Kirby.”

  “He doesn’t fit.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knew Brady always took the roughs from Sally along with the finished copies. He knew the roughs were destroyed, and if he wanted the reports he could have jimmied the file or had a key made. He could have taken them while he was waiting for the police.”

  “I guess you’re right. So who else knew about her?”

  “Arthur Enders could have known. He knew how Brady worked. As a lawyer he might know where to hire a couple of hoods.”

  “The trouble is we don’t know who else Brady talked to. Hell, he could have told a lot of people about a girl named Fisher who lived in his building and did his copying.”

  Murdock thought it over, wondering if he should tell what happened at Brady’s apartment the night before. Deciding it could do no good now, he let his thoughts move on until Bacon said:

  “Frank Kirby’s coming in a little later, so if you want to kick this around a little more, now’s the time.”

  “Kirby?” Murdock said with some surprise. “Are you figuring him for this?”

  “Kirby was there,” Bacon said, talking now between small, delicate puffs. “Kirby knew Tom was working for the Aldersons. He knew Tom had come to you to make copies of those documents or whatever they were.”

  He rolled the cigar between his lips and said: “Kirby was a pretty fair cop. He could have been a hell of a good one; he made some damn good pinches and he was only in trouble once. But he fought the regulations and the discipline. Every now and then he’d get hotheaded and pop off but he was smart and capable—” He broke off and said: “Tom ever talk to you about him?”

  “Not often,” Murdock said. “He had the same picture you’ve got, but he admitted that he and Kirby didn’t look at this private work the same way. Tom was older and all he wanted to do was keep busy and pick up some extra money. Kirby thought he could get some place and he was willing to try. He’d take divorce cases Tom wouldn’t touch. Tom said it wasn’t just the money with Kirby—though that was important—so much as the desire to get some place, to be important.”

  “Yeah,” said Bacon. “Well, for your information, there’s nothing on this one that ties Kirby in. We had a look at his place last night while he was out. He’s got two guns all right, but there were no reports or a briefcase or anything else that seemed out of line. I found out he’s got a little money in the bank and he’s got no charge accounts. Unless there was one hell of a lot of dough involved you can’t make Kirby fit; after all, he was a cop too.”

  “What about alibis?”

  “Hah!” said Bacon and puffed a little harder on his panatela. “The only one who’s clear is the old lady and I think that butler would probably lie for her.”

  “She needs a cane to walk.”

  “So what?” He made noises in his throat and said: “Take this Donald. He goes to the factory. The night watchman says he was there at eight thirty, but who pays the night watchman?”

  Murdock stretched out in his chair, dark eyes thoughtful but amused as he watched Bacon.

  “You don’t believe anybody, do you?”

  “Not when it’s murder, son. Not when it’s murder.… Rita, the blonde one, has got no alibi at all. She went for a walk.… Gloria, the other daughter-in-law, said she ate at the Ritz, and she did. But not alone.”

  “Oh?” Murdock waited, aware that Bacon was eyeing him narrowly. “Arthur Enders?”

  “Right. They left together sometime after eight thirty but we haven’t been able to pin point the time. I don’t know when she got back to the Alderson place, but if it was the wrong time the old lady would probably lie for her too.… We gave Enders’s apartment a fast frisk,” he said.

  “When?” said Murdock, his surprise showing but approval in his mind.

  “When we were all at Aldersons’, when do you think? That’s why it was fast.… No reports,” he added sourly. “No briefcase. We can’t tackle the office until we produce a warrant and how could you find anything in a law office anyway? They probably got files on four thousand different things.”

  “What about Jerry?”

  “All we know for sure about Jerry is that his story about the Club Saville checks. He was there at nine fifteen. We gave his place the same treatment we gave Enders’s and got the same result. Nothing.” He tipped ashes into the wastebasket and his voice grew blunt. “What I’d like to do is give that Alderson place a real going over.”

  Murdock had been paying attention and his mind had not been idle. Now, feeling his way, he said:

  “Suppose someone got those reports, maybe in the briefcase, and was afraid to take them home. It would be sort of stupid, wouldn’t it, if there was any chance your place would be searched?”

  “Go ahead,” Bacon said. “I’m tuned in.”

  “You grab the reports and you need a safe place to hide them in, maybe only for a day or so.” He half closed one eye as he hesitated. “From Brady’s office to the Back Bay station is only a block and a half. A man could duck over there fast and use one of those parcel lockers—”

  He let the thought remain unfinished because of the changing expression on Bacon’s face. The mouth twitched once and the gray eyes narrowed slightly, their expression amused and, it seemed, approving.

  “Well?” he said, with mild defiance.

  “Yeah,” said Bacon, his grin expanding. “You know when you put your mind to it you think real good.… We went there,” he said. “Last night. My man routed out the guy with the keys and opened every damn locker.” He grunted and put his cigar back in his mouth.

  “Came up with four briefcases,” he said. “One had somebody’s lunch in it, one was full of samples, one had some dirty laundry in it; the last one must have belonged to an insurance salesman because it was full of forms and rate books, things like that.”

  Murdock shrugged, reminded once again of the lieutenant’s thoroughness. He started to rise and Bacon waved him back.

  “We got just one good lead,” he said. “Came across it when we checked the tenants in the building. One of ’em is a guy with a one-man accounting office at the third floor front. He was working late and as he came downstairs he saw a woman looking at the office directory tacked to the wall.”

  “When was that?”

  “About nine o’clock, and that checks because he says it started to pour right after he went out.… Well, anyway, he gave this dame a second look and knew she didn’t belong in the building so he stopped to ask if he could help her. He asked if she was looking for someone—she wore dark glasses and he wasn’t sure she could read the directory—and she said she was looking for Mr. Brady’s office. He told her where it was.”

  Bacon leaned back, puffing contentedly while he contemplated the cracked calcimine above his desk. His attitude suggested he would say no more until pressed but before he did so Murdock voiced an objection.

  “A woman coming there with murder in her mind wouldn’t be telling a tenant who she was looking for.”

  “Who says anybody went there wi
th murder in his mind? Does it have to be that way?” Bacon demanded. “For all we know the killer went there hoping to make a deal and found he couldn’t sell the idea to Brady.”

  “Okay, who was the woman?”

  “I wish I knew.” Bacon sighed aloud. “Sort of tall, according to the accountant, and wore a camel’s-hair coat. Young. He’s pretty sure of that. The trouble is, it’s a relative term. How young is young? Don’t know if she was blonde or brunette because she wore a scarf. Add the dark glasses, the fact that the light in the hall was bad, and that she never once looked at him, and what’ve we got?”

  Murdock stood up and Bacon said: “If we could get those Aldersons to come clean we might get somewhere. You know the tribe. Why don’t you dig around and give me a hand on this? Brady was a friend of yours, too.”

  He took the cigar from his mouth and then, as though the name had uncovered some forgotten facet of his mind, his gaze grew remote and his voice was reflective.

  “A hell of a guy, Brady,” he said. “Solid. Not only as a person but as a cop. If we had a whole department like him this would be a better town. It wasn’t just that he was honest in everything he did—it was the way he felt about his job. He liked being a detective. That’s all he wanted. I don’t think he used a gun more than two or three times in his life, but when he had to be was a very handy guy with his fists. Hated crooks but was always ready to help a decent guy who just happened to make a mistake. Even the guys he collared liked him.”

  That was a lot of talk for Bacon. Considering the source this was a very great tribute and it suddenly occurred to Murdock that such praise applied to Bacon as well. Bacon perhaps lacked some of Brady’s warmth, but he had the same basic integrity, the same attitude toward his work. Murdock would never dare say so, but that was what he was thinking when someone knocked at the door and brought his thoughts back to the moment.

  The detective who stuck his head in said Frank Kirby was outside. Bacon said: “Okay,” and Murdock moved out. As he met Kirby coming in the detective put a hand on his arm.

  “I phoned your office and they said you weren’t in,” he said. “Where’ll you be in—say an hour?”