Murder on Their Minds

by George Harmon Coxe

  “So where are they?” Murdock said, still afraid to hope.

  “Right where you left ’em.”

  “Hanging there drying?”

  “Yeah. I was going to take care of ’em when I dumped the new batch in the tank but I never got the chance.”

  What Carey said after that was lost to Murdock because he was too busy trying to recall each little detail of the night before, to remember just what he had done when he had found Carey unconscious. Only then was he certain that he had not once thought to look at the drying wires and see if the films were there. Assuming that Carey had already taken care of them hours earlier, he had not even gone back to the printing room after the doctor arrived. Now, coming to his feet, he could feel his pulse accelerating as new hope came to him.

  He told Carey to be a good boy and take care of himself. He said he would buy Carey a few drinks tomorrow to make up for the one he could not supply at the moment.

  “You got a customer,” Carey said. “I accept.”

  Then Murdock was in the hall, hurrying a little now as he walked to the elevator, and the impatience began to build inside him.

  14

  KENT MURDOCK was still hurrying when he came into the studio anteroom a little after nine. A glance at his office told him it was open but empty and when he saw that Estey was on hand at the long desk to take care of any calls, he went on into the printing room without slowing down. He was a little out of breath now, though this may have been due more to his inner excitement than to the physical effort he had expended, and without even bothering to look at the films then drying on the wires, he turned at once to the open-faced cabinet on his left.

  This was a homemade file a little higher than his head and perhaps three feet wide, the interior made up of boxlike compartments, each of which was numbered with a day of the month. It served as a perpetual one-month file of all the negatives that had been taken by the staff and it was the duty of the office boy to collect each day’s films, put them in the proper compartment, and remove the ones which had been put there a month earlier on that date. Anything older than that was considered to be of no value.

  Taking the handful of negatives that had been filed late last night or early that morning, Murdock began to examine them under the light and the second one he looked at told him that the routine of the department had functioned perfectly.

  For what he saw was a photograph of a birth certificate and he told himself that if one of the negatives he had made for Brady was here, they all were. Then, with the pressure lifting and his breathing more regular, he relaxed and took his time sorting out the remaining negatives, making two piles and then counting the ones that interested him. There were fourteen of these, just as he remembered, and he understood that coincidence in the form of a rush assignment for Walt Carey had perhaps preserved the evidence that Brady had worked so hard to accumulate.

  On the heels of this thought came another that sobered him. Here, if one knew how to put them together, were bits and pieces of information that might substitute for the reports that were stolen from Brady’s office. Brady, in his wish to preserve certain facts, had taken the precaution to have them photographed and it occurred to Murdock that it would be both ironic and just if his friend’s foresight could now serve to trap the one who had killed him.

  He still had the negatives in his hand as he came back to the anteroom and although he knew that he must make prints before he could tell just what he had, he was no longer in a hurry and he had already decided that it would be better to do the work in the privacy of his own apartment. As he moved toward his office to get an envelope, Estey looked up.

  “Oh, Kent,” he said. “I almost forgot. A fellow named Frank Kirby was looking for you. He said he’d be back.”

  Murdock said all right and turned on the light in his cubby. He put the films in an envelope and tucked it into an inside pocket. He glanced over the assignment book from sheer force of habit and saw that all current notations had been crossed off. He called the city room to see if everything was all right and the night city editor told him it looked like a quiet evening. It was when he lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair to rest and think a moment about his discovery that Frank Kirby appeared in the doorway.

  Kirby was chewing gum, his jaw muscles bulging with the effort. His gray-green eyes were busy as always as they scanned the room and returned to Murdock, and now he pushed back his light-gray hat and loosened the button on his double-breasted jacket.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

  “So Estey said.”

  “I began to wonder if you still worked here.”

  “I’m taking a couple of days off,” Murdock said. “I was over to see Walt Carey,” he added. “He got a look at the fellow who slugged him but he doesn’t remember seeing him before.”

  “Does it hook up with Brady?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Kirby nodded thoughtfully and let his jaws rest. “Where’re you going now?”

  “Home.”

  “I could use a ride,” Kirby said. “My car’s in the shop. If you’ve done any good for yourself you could come up and have a drink and tell me about it.”

  “Okay.” Murdock stood up and snapped off the light. When he had called to tell Estey he would not be back, he led the way from the room.

  Frank Kirby lived in an old four-story brick apartment just off Charles Street. Murdock had never been there before and when he parked he let Kirby lead the way through a ground-floor vestibule that had two rows of mailboxes on one wall and a collapsible baby carriage tucked in one corner. Kirby said they would have to climb a bit, and as Murdock went up the stairs he saw that there were four apartments to a floor, two on either side of a hall that ran from front to rear.

  “One more,” Kirby said as they started up the third flight and then he began to swear softly. “The damn light’s out again,” he said, and now Murdock realized the hall above lay in darkness except for the reflected light that came from above and below.

  Music from a radio or television set was blasting from a near-by door, but he could hear Kirby take out his keys, turning right into the shadowed corridor and angling toward the door across the hall. Murdock was perhaps two steps behind him, still closer to the wall on his right than the one Kirby approached, when it happened.

  Murdock heard the key click in the lock and the knob turn, and then the hall seemed to explode with sound and from the far corner of his eye he saw the flash of light erupt and then erupt again.

  That Murdock moved at all was due to an involuntary muscular spasm over which he had no control. In the confines of the narrow hall the first shot sounded like a cannon and he jumped, feeling the wall at his back and then, realizing what must have happened, trying to flatten against it as the second shot crashed and reverberated along the hall.

  Only vaguely could he see Kirby at the door, but with the second shot—perhaps before that—he saw the detective go down. He heard him hit the floor and now, his heart in his throat and remembering the window at the rear of the floor below, he understood that they had been fired at from a similar window, though he could not yet locate it. All he knew was that he had not been hit, that he was just beginning to get scared as he waited unconsciously for another shot.

  When none came and he heard the rattle of some metallic sound beyond the open window, he seemed to know that the unseen gunman had fled; it was then that he started for the shadowy figure on the floor, breath held and his heart beginning to pound.

  “Kirby!” he yelled, his voice ragged. “Are you hit?”

  He knew an instant later that Kirby was all right. For Kirby had jumped to his feet and wheeled into the hall, cursing now in a soft vicious monotone as he started for the rear window.

  Murdock followed, still a bit shaken but feeling immeasurably better. He saw the window was open and he waited there while Kirby leaned far out. Beyond he could make out the spidery outline of a fire escape but he made no attem
pt to push Kirby aside. Seconds later the detective pulled his head back and lowered the window, his cursing dwindling to a persistent guttural muttering that was partly lost in the background of the television set that was still blasting. Then, up ahead, a door opened and fight spilled into the hall to reveal the silhouette of a man in pajamas and bathrobe.

  “Who’s that?” he demanded. “What’s the trouble out here?”

  “It’s Frank Kirby, Mr. Bronson,” Kirby said. “It’s okay now.”

  “I thought I heard somebody shooting.”

  “You did. Some prowler on the fire escape. I guess he was afraid we’d grab him, so he threw a couple of shots toward us to keep us away.”

  A woman in a quilted wrap and her hair in curlers appeared at her husband’s shoulder to say she did not know what the world was coming to.

  “A body’s not safe in his own home any more. You ought to call the police.”

  “I’m going to, Mrs. Bronson,” Kirby said. “You just stay there and lock the door and then you won’t get mixed up in it.”

  He turned away, moved inside his own apartment, and snapped on a light. Waiting until the Bransons’ door closed, he got a flashlight and began to examine the walls and casing.

  “Who was he shooting at?” Murdock said.

  “Not you, pal.”

  “I just froze there,” Murdock said. “When I heard you fall it scared hell out of me.”

  “I didn’t fall,” Kirby said. “I took a dive. I learned that much in the war. I heard the first slug hit and down I went.… Yeah,” he said, and focused the beam of the flashlight on the edge of the casing. “Right here.”

  He pointed to the small hole in the woodwork, a clean round hole that was barely noticeable because the bullet had gone straight in.

  “The other one must be down the hall somewhere,” he said. “But the hell with it. Come on.”

  He motioned Murdock into the room, closed the door, and went over to the telephone. He dialed a number and asked some questions and when he hung up he said:

  “Bacon’s not in. I could call the precinct but—” He let the sentence hang there and spoke of something else. “What’s the point?” he said. “That was no prowler. That guy had murder on his mind. He was planted on the fire escape and he probably unscrewed the light bulb. He was a pretty fair shot too. If I’d been alone—”

  He turned abruptly, went along an inner hall and into another room, turning on lights as he moved. When he came back he had a shoulder holster in one hand and a short-barreled revolver in the other. Placing the holster on a table, he flipped the cylinder from the gun with a practiced gesture, spun it to be sure it was loaded, and clicked it back into place.

  “From now on,” he said, “maybe I’d better pack this with me. How about the drink? You can get the ice.”

  He led the way into the kitchen and while Murdock pried ice from a tray, Kirby opened a cupboard and brought out Scotch, Bourbon, and a bottle of soda.

  “Pour your own,” he said. “Make it a good one. Soda or water?”

  They took their drinks into the living room and Murdock saw that it was comfortably furnished in an ordinary sort of way. The chairs and the davenport looked used but there was no sign of ostentation and the only thing lacking was something on the walls. There were no pictures or prints, but apparently Kirby had a blind spot in this respect and did not miss them.

  Now he took off his double-breasted jacket, draped it neatly on the back of a straight-backed chair. He dropped his gum in the wastebasket, took a long pull on his drink, and eased into a club chair, his legs extended. When he was ready he fixed his gray-green eyes on Murdock, the upward-slanting brows slightly bunched over his nose and his hard jaw set so that his lips did not move much when he spoke.

  “He wasn’t after you,” he said. “Not if it’s the same guy you ran into in Brady’s place last night. That time he could have dropped you. He didn’t. He just let one shot go when it looked like you were going to follow him into the alley. This was different.”

  Murdock nodded, his mind busy as he recalled Kirby’s reputation. “Who have you been getting tough with?”

  “I don’t know,” Kirby said, and sounded as if he meant it.

  “What about the two that came to my place last night? You were going to check on them.”

  “I know who they are. One’s a bouncer and the other’s a spare-time bartender in a joint on Columbus Avenue.”

  “Who owns it?”

  Kirby mentioned a name that meant nothing to Murdock. “But that guy’s only the owner of record,” he said. “Could be someone behind him who did the hiring.” His frown bit deeper. “But somehow they don’t figure on a caper like this. From what I know about them they’re too small time.”

  Murdock lit a cigarette and considered the statement. “But assuming this has something to do with Brady, who’ve you got? You can hardly figure a woman.”

  “Hardly,” Kirby said, “but you can’t rule it out.”

  “That leaves Enders and Jerry Alderson, his brother Donald, and Barry Denham. I’ve known Donald quite a while,” Murdock said. “He’s the sort you’d think would be afraid to pick up a gun.”

  “Okay,” Kirby said. “A lot of people have been killed by the same kind of guys. You figure they wouldn’t hurt a fly. Milquetoasts. Sunday-school characters. Until one fine day they blow their top. If Donald Alderson killed Brady—maybe not intending to when he went there—he’s already been initiated. He could kill again if he had to.”

  Such reasoning was sound and Murdock knew it. He had been on the Courier too long to rule out such possibilities and he realized now that he was letting personal considerations take the place of logic. Because he knew the Aldersons it was hard for him to imagine that they—or any of their friends—could be guilty of murder, and from a practical standpoint such reasoning was specious.

  “And anyway,” Kirby said, “they could hire somebody, couldn’t they? Especially Enders. He’s a lawyer; he knows people. If his own neck was in danger he could find someone to come up here with a gun, and you know it.… I’ve been doing some checking on Jerry,” he said, “but I don’t think he knows it.… And that Denham—he could be a bad one.

  “I called the coast,” he continued. “I know a couple of guys out there—agency guys—and they’re going to see what they can find out about Denham, if anything. But that’ll probably take a couple of days, so how do you figure it? Who’ve you been talking to?”

  Murdock told him what he had done that afternoon and when he finished, Kirby was scowling, not so much from annoyance, it seemed, but from his own nervous impatience.

  “I don’t get it,” he said finally. “If any one of them was guilty you don’t think they’d admit it, do you? What were you trying to prove?”

  “I’m trying to get the family set-up,” Murdock said, studying the end of his cigarette as he considered the films in his pocket and deciding to say nothing about them until he’d had a chance to know exactly what each one of them meant. “I noticed a couple of things when I made those photographs for Brady,” he said. “Not too much because I tried not to get too curious. But what little I did see opens up some motives.”

  He took a breath and said: “I’m not going to try to tell you all the details because some of them are probably unimportant, but I saw enough to get the idea that every one of those people might—and I mean might—stand a chance to lose important money if Harriett Alderson got her hands on Brady’s reports and she made up her mind to get tough with them. She holds most of the purse strings.”

  “She calls the shots,” Kirby said. “Have you told Bacon?”

  “No. Because what little I know isn’t enough. It’s not evidence and it could cause trouble for some innocent people.”

  “You’re getting sort of choosy,” Kirby said bluntly. “Brady was a friend of yours. I thought that was why—”

  “I’m not going to pop off until I know more than I do now,” Murdock said stubbornly. Then
because he did not want to argue, he said: “How about you? Did you do any good this afternoon?”

  “Maybe. Did Bacon tell you about the tenant who saw the dame in the lobby last night? The one that was looking for Brady’s office.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I think I saw her.”

  Murdock sat up slowly. He put his glass aside. “You mean, you know who she is?”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “I said I thought I saw her.… Last night.”

  “Maybe you forgot to mention it,” Murdock said.

  “I told you how it was with me this noon.” Kirby’s gaze remained steady but his mouth was crooked with an incipient grin. “If I can help the police you put my name in the paper. So I’m waiting until I see if I can do any good. You help me; I help you, but for now this is between the two of us, okay?”

  Murdock nodded, a picture growing in his mind of the girl Bacon had described that morning.

  “It was about nine,” Kirby said. “A little after because it had started to rain and that’s how I happened to see her. I’d just come around the corner when it started to pour and I ducked into a doorway. I lit a cigarette and waited, hoping it might slack up in a couple of minutes. I was still there when I saw her in the doorway. You couldn’t say I got a real good look at her because there’s not much light in the lobby and besides it was raining.

  “But from where I stood,” he said, “she looked taller than most dames—like Bacon’s tenant said. And the coat looked like it could be camel’s-hair and she was wearing a scarf. About the dark glasses I’m not sure even now. But one thing, she was in a hurry. She sort of stepped back when she saw it was raining and then she started out, half-running toward the corner across from me.… Also,” he said, “she was carrying a pretty good-sized bag. I noticed that much and I thought it was one of those shoulder bags you see. Now I’m thinking maybe it could have been a briefcase.”