Murder Impossible

by Jack Adrian (ed)

  'No, no—don't misunderstand me. I was only dunking that Conners was well off financially. I visited his aunts and they would seem to be part of a monied family. And you've confirmed that Conners had a good income here. Of course if his wife divorced him she'd lose most of that.'

  'I can assure you Linda was happily married. I saw a great deal of them and they were very close.'

  'Were there any tensions among his fellow workers? Any clients he steered onto a bum stock?'

  Frank Bland sighed. 'I thought your Lieutenant Fletcher had been all over this matter. As I told him I can contribute nothing to the investigation.'

  'All right,' Leopold said. 'One more question and I'll be on my way. Did Vincent Conners ever mention his aunts to you? Or the hunting accident

  that took his father's life?'

  'Nothing was ever said about the accident. He may have mentioned his aunts in passing once or twice. I remember asking him one time if he couldn't bring them in as clients.'

  Leopold rose to leave. 'Thank you, Mr. Bland. I hope I don't have to trouble you again.'

  He got his car out of the parking lot across the street and went back to visit the aunts. On the way he thought about Bland's denial that Vincent had mentioned the hunting accident. Bland had seemed to know about it earlier, and that indicated he'd heard it from Linda.

  It was one of those sunny November days when it seemed as if summer was staging a comeback, and he found Aunt Gert trimming rosebushes in the side yard of the house. 'So it's you again,' she said by way of greeting.

  'It's me again. I don't mean to interrupt your work.'

  She straightened from her task, brushing some loose soil from the knees of her slacks. 'The garden takes a great deal of time. Aunt Flag used to help me with it when she was able to.'

  'I'll try not to take up too much of your time,' Leopold said. 'But we've come up against a dead end in trying to trace Vince's mother and notify her of his death. Do you have any idea at all where she might have moved out West?'

  Aunt Gert shook her head. 'We've lost all track of her. I know for a time they were in California, but then Vince told us once his mother had moved to New Mexico. He never said where, though. Doesn't Linda have an address?'

  'She claims not. We've asked the police to check the last known address in Los Angeles.'

  'It was too bad about Vince and his mother. But it was his stepfather's fault they drifted apart. He never took to the lad.'

  'I was wondering, Miss Conners—as long as I'm out here again, do you think I could have a look at that old car in your garage? I'm something of an antique car buff—'

  'You'd hardly call it an antique,' she said. 'It's a 1941 Packard, made just before the war.'

  'Could I see it anyway?'

  She hesitated a moment. 'I'll get the key to the garage.'

  When she opened the garage it gave off a musty odour even more overpowering than the one in the house. It was a cramped one car garage, separated from the house as all garages had been back in Leopold's youth. The car was a dull shade of green. Its tires had been removed at some time in the distant past and its axles rested on concrete blocks.

  'It seems in good condition,' Leopold observed. 'You could probably still drive it.'

  'Never had a licence. Never wanted one.'

  There was no overhead light, but the sunlight coming through the side window was strong enough for him to study the vehicle. He opened the rear door and looked at the back seat, where Vincent Conners' father had bled to death 30 years ago. There were two large bloodstains on the upholstery, about a foot apart. The one on the left was slightly larger.

  'You should have sold the car,' Leopold suggested. 'It does no good remembering.'

  'He was our brother. Some things have to be remembered.'

  'Did he really shoot himself, Miss Conners?'

  'She said so.'

  'What do you think?'

  She was silent for a long time, staring out the driveway at a playful dog across the quiet street. Finally Gert Conners said, very softly, as if it was the first time her tongue had dared give voice to the words, 'I think she killed him.'

  Leopold took a deep breath. The air in the garage seemed suddenly even closer. 'And Vincent? Your nephew?'

  She looked up at him puzzled. 'How could—?'

  There was a noise from the house, a tapping on the rear window. They could see Aunt Flag motioning. 'She wants me,' Aunt Gert said. 'I must go now.'

  He waited while she locked the garage door, then said goodbye and went back to his car.

  Two deaths, with 30 years between. Different, and yet somehow the same.

  That afternoon he told Fletcher to put a tail on Linda Conners. 'The funeral is tomorrow morning. For the next few days I want to know where she goes and whom she sees.'

  Oddly enough, Linda Conners phoned Leopold less than an hour after he'd issued his order. Her voice was firm and she seemed in good control of herself. 'Captain, I'm calling from the funeral parlour. I understand you've been trying to locate Vincent's mother.'

  'That's right, Mrs. Conners.'

  'I've found an address that may be her current one. I'll read it to you.'

  Leopold copied down a street address in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 'Do you want to try calling her, Mrs. Conners, or should we contact her about her son's death?'

  'I wish you would, Captain. I've only met the woman twice in my life.'

  'We'll take care of it. Thank you for the address, Mrs. Conners.'

  Connie was assigned the task of informing Vincent Conners' mother of her son's death. It was not until the following morning, at about the time of the funeral, that Connie managed to reach the woman. 'They certainly weren't close,' she reported back to Leopold. 'She expressed regrets, but that was all. I might have been reporting the death of a distant cousin instead of her only son.'

  'She has a new life for herself now,' Leopold said. 'She doesn't want to be reminded of Vincent Conners, or his father.' He was remembering the car in the garage, with its bloodstained back seat— the car that hadn't been driven for 30 years.

  'Fletcher says you've put a tail on Linda Conners.'

  'That's right. I want to know if she sees Frank Bland.'

  'What will that prove, if we still don't know how Vincent was killed?'

  'If we know who, we'll figure out how.'

  But the two cases—the old one and the new one—were still intertwined in Leopold's mind, and he couldn't help feeling that the answer somehow rested on that bloodstained back seat.

  Nothing happened for two days.

  Vincent Conners was buried, and Linda Conners cried. Frank Bland attended the funeral and put his arm around the shoulders of the grieving widow.

  But you can't arrest a man for doing that.

  Finally Leopold telephoned Vincent Conners' mother in Santa Fe. It was late on Friday, and the autumn sun had already set.

  Her name had changed from Jean Hemmings to Jean Conners to Jean Quinlan, but she still retained her British accent. After Leopold had identified himself, she asked. 'Is this more about my son's death?'

  'Not exactly, Mrs Quinlan. Actually, it's about your husband's death.'

  'That was thirty years ago!'

  'Yes.'

  'Well, what about it?'

  'I realize that the shooting was an accident, and we're not attempting to reopen the case, but I have to ask you one question. It'll help us a great deal with the investigation of your son's killing.'

  'What is it?'

  'Mrs. Quinlan, did you shoot your husband?'

  'Shoot him? Of course I didn't shoot him! My God, I loved him— he died in my arms!'

  'Yes,' Leopold said, 'that's exactly what I suspected.' And then he asked her one more question, although he already knew the answer to that one too.

  As he hung up the telephone, Fletcher hurried into the office. 'She's moving, Captain. She left the house by a back door and went through the yards to the next street. Someone picked her up there in a ca
r.'

  Leopold was on his feet. 'Damn! Vincent's hardly cold in his grave. Let's go!'

  The unmarked car that was following Linda Conners was put into contact with Leopold's vehicle. 'They're heading south on Grand Street, Captain—toward the Sound,' the radio crackled.

  'Finding them together won't convict anybody of murder,' Fletcher reminded Leopold.

  'No, but if we show up unexpectedly Bland might panic. If she's sneaking around to meet him, she's got something to hide.'

  The car had parked for a time on a dark street near the water, but neither of them emerged. And by the time the radio had directed Leopold to the spot they'd started up again.

  'We're close to them,' Fletcher said.

  'Don't let them spot the car. She might remember it.'

  The radio crackled into life again. 'They seem to be just driving around, Captain. Should I keep up with them?'

  'Keep with them. Where are you now?'

  'Just turning back onto Grand, at Maple.'

  'We're only four blocks away. Are they headed north again?'

  'Right.'

  'We'll join a few blocks up.'

  Fletcher was driving Leopold's car, and he turned onto Grand Avenue a block and a half behind the red tail lights of their quarry. 'Looks like they're heading back toward her neighbourhood,' Fletcher remarked.

  The car turned off Grand and before long Leopold could see that Fletcher was correct. He was taking her back home. If it had been a lovers' meeting it was a brief one.

  'He's stopping a block from the house,' Fletcher said. 'Must be letting her out.'

  The door on the passenger side opened and Linda Conners appeared. She bent down for a final goodbye and then slammed the door shut. Something gnawed at Leopold's memory as he watched.

  Then he had it.

  'That car, Fletcher! That car!'

  'What is it, Captain?'

  'Head him off! Don't let him get away!'

  Fletcher cut across the lawn of a corner house to beat the car around a corner, then slammed on the brakes to block the narrow street. The other car screeched to a halt as the driver hit his brakes. Then his door came open and he tumbled out, trying to run.

  Leopold and Fletcher were on him then, with guns drawn.

  It wasn't Frank Bland.

  It was the man who had found the body—Sam Prowdy.

  Leopold pulled the car up before the Conners homestead the following morning and tapped lightly on the horn. Aunt Gert looked up from her task of tying the bushes in burlap, recognized him, and walked over.

  'My, you're getting to be a regular visitor here!'

  Leopold smiled. 'Could you get in the car for a minute, Miss Conners? Then we can stay warm while we talk.'

  'I saw in the papers that you caught the man who killed Vincent,' she said, opening the door and sliding into the front seat next to him. 'But I still don't understand it all.'

  'His name is Sam Prowdy,' Leopold explained, 'and he's been Linda Conners' lover for some time. They killed her husband for a large insurance policy on his life. It's the oldest sort of crime, but at first we didn't recognize it for what it was. A bizarre chain of circumstances made it look like an impossible crime.

  'You see, Prowdy strangled Vincent with a cord in the Conners garage, and then put him behind the wheel of his car. He sat next to the dead man and drove over to Eastern Avenue with Linda following in his auto. Then they stopped for a minute while he tied the steering wheel of Vincent's car and got back into his own vehicle. Linda walked over a few blocks and caught a bus. Then Prowdy simply started pushing the car with Vincent's body in it down the straight road—pushing Vincent's car with his own car.'

  'And nobody noticed it?'

  'Well, it was getting dark. And that portion of Eastern Avenue is rarely travelled since the expressway opened parallel to it. Prowdy's plan was to pick up speed until he reached the point where Eastern Avenue curves to the left, then take the curve with his car while Vincent's went straight ahead and through the guard rail. They were hoping Vincent's car would burst into flames going down the hill, burning both the cord on the steering wheel and the one around your nephew's neck. Whether they could have covered up the signs of murder completely is doubtful, but they might have pulled it off. What they didn't expect, though, was the traffic jam.'

  'It was caused by an accident?'

  Leopold nodded. 'An expressway accident that shifted all the rush hour traffic over to Eastern Avenue. Sam Prowdy hadn't figured on that of course. The traffic was bumper to bumper, with no chance for him to pick up speed or push Vincent's car through the guard rail unobserved. It was easy for him to keep nudging the other car along on a straight road, but with the curve coming up he knew he had to do something else.

  'So he simply stopped pushing it, honked his horn, and got out in all innocence to see what the trouble was. When he opened the car door he had time to unknot the rope from the steering wheel and hide it under his coat in the near darkness, but we arrived before he could get the rope off the throat. He should have removed that after he killed Conners, of course, but murderers don't always think of everything.'

  'And you figured all this out?'

  Leopold smiled. 'I wish I could take credit for it. I never bought the newspaper theory of a back seat strangler, because late model cars have a headrest making it extremely difficult to strangle someone from behind and knot the cord around his neck. After I discounted a car thief as the killer I naturally shifted focus to Linda. We followed her when she met a man, but it wasn't till I finally recognized Prowdy's car that the whole method tumbled into place in my mind.'

  'I appreciate your coming out here to tell me about it,' Gert Conners said.

  'To be honest, that wasn't the only reason I came. It's been stuck in my mind all along that there was some connection between the deaths of Vincent Conners and his father.'

  'That was a long time ago,' she reminded him.

  'Of course. And obviously the same person couldn't have been responsible for both deaths.'

  'Responsible? Nobody was responsible for my brother's death. He shot himself.'

  'It's difficult to shoot yourself in the stomach with a shot gun, even when dropping it—though of course it could have happened that way. But then I looked at the car and saw those bloodstains, and they told a different story.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'There were two bloodstains, Miss Conners, on the back seat of that car. Next to each other, but separated by about a foot.'

  'There might have been a blanket under him.'

  Leopold shook his head. 'On the long trip back to town that much blood would have soaked through the blanket. He was lying on the back seat, so if the blood simply trickled down his sides from the wound the stains would have been at the front edge and the back of the seat, not side by side.'

  'Then how do you explain it?'

  'My first thought was that he was held in someone's arms during the car trip, that he bled to death in someone's lap. That would explain the twin stains—on either side of the seated person. I finally located his widow yesterday and spoke to her on the phone. She confirmed that George died in her arms.'

  'As I remember,' Aunt Gert said, 'that's the way it happened.'

  'But if they were out there alone, and he died in her arms on the way back into town, who was driving the car'

  She was silent.

  'They weren't alone, Miss Conners. They couldn't have been. And that means you lied about it when you said they were. If your brother really shot himself—or even if his wife shot him— there would be no reason to he.'

  'All right,' Gert Conners said very quiedy. 'I did it. I shot him. I was aiming at his wife, and I hit George instead.'

  In one of the trees overhead two squirrels were hard at work on a winter nest of leaves. Leopold watched them and wished he was in some other line of work. He turned to her and said, 'The lies never cease, do they? Thirty years of it and the lies never cease.'

  'What do
you mean?'

  'The other person out hunting that day, the one who shot your brother, was obviously the one who drove the car back to town while Jean Conners held her dying husband in the back seat. And you told me you never had a driver's licence.'

  'I-'

  'It was Aunt Flag who shot him, wasn't it? It was Aunt Flag you've been protecting for thirty years. It was her car, after all, and she was driving it that day. That was why she put it up on blocks and never drove it again. No use denying it—Jean told me on the phone that Flag was there, though she never knew exactly how the shooting happened.'

  Gert Conners was sobbing now. 'God, it's like a family curse! First George and now Vincent! I asked Flag what happened that day and she told me. It was Jean she was trying to kill, of course—Jean who even then was cheating on our brother by having a sordid little affair with that man she later married. Flag said she deserved to die. But somehow George stepped in front of the gun. Perhaps he knew what was in Flag's mind.'

  Leopold glanced toward the house. 'She's tapping on the window. You'd better go in.'

  'You won't take her away, will you? Lock her up?'

  'She needs someone to watch over her, to confine her and make certain she never hurts another person.'

  'She's already got that,' Gert Conners said. 'I've been doing it for thirty years.' She brushed away the tears.

  Leopold watched her get out of the car.

  'Yes,' he said, 'I suppose you have.'

  GEORGE LOCKE

  A Nineteenth Century Debacle

  George Locke is a bookseller of the old school. That is, he can read (and without moving his lips) and he actually knows about books—and one has the distinct impression these days that not a great many booksellers can or do.

  To be sure, some booksellers of the old school could be stubborn, purblind, curmudgeonly, downright rude, and prone to sudden acts of violence (one of your editors was virtually frog marched out of a shop in a town not unadjacent to the River Thames for the crime of spotting P. G. Wodehouse's The Swoop mistakenly marked at ten shillings, and a mutual friend was once felled to the floor by a volume of the DNB wielded by a bookseller for mildly querying a book's price), but in the main they had a feel for and cared about books. Most, however graceless and misanthropic, knew about such things as signatures, folios, collections, issue points. They were, in a word, bookmen.