Deadly Image

by George Harmon Coxe

  “Anybody been upstairs?”

  “Only the law. They got here first. Captain Spitalney of the precinct is supposed to give us a statement if we want to wait.”

  They made way for the ambulance attendants with the stretcher and then the others—four reporters and two photographers—stood around smoking and talking about football and other mundane matters while Casey waited silently with his mind busy and his imagination flowering as he considered his call on Geiger, the visitors he had seen, and the story Don Farrington had told him that morning. He learned that Lieutenant Logan was the homicide man in charge, which was a help because Logan was a friend of his. He had an idea he might get upstairs if he sent word that he had questioned Geiger earlier, but he discarded the thought when he realized he would also have to explain why he had bothered to see the detective in the first place.

  So he waited until Captain Spitalney came downstairs with his driver. He listened to a routine statement that was more evasive than informative. He checked his camera and was ready when the two ambulance men and two uniformed officers came out of the doorway with the blanket-covered stretcher. He got a second shot while the stretcher was being loaded into the ambulance. Because there was no hurry in getting the films to the office, he spoke to Connolly, and now the others began moving to their cars, their job done for the moment, since Geiger was a small-time operator with neither distinction nor prominence and his murder, on the basis of the information on hand, did not warrant front-page treatment.

  Casey moved away with the others, but only as far as his car. He locked up his camera because he knew he would not be allowed to use it again. But the thought of Geiger and his possible involvement in Don Farrington’s trouble was disturbing and he wanted to find out if the police had any definite leads. For he could not forget that Louise Mayfield had also been a morning caller at this address, and so had Ralph Jackson …

  The officer at the sidewalk entrance demurred when Casey made his request, but Casey was persuasive. He said he was a friend of Logan’s. He had no camera, wanted no pictures.

  “I just want to talk to him a moment,” he said, edging past the man. “If he doesn’t want to talk, I come back downstairs. No sweat, no trouble. If he says anything to you, you can tell him I said I had some information for him.”

  He was moving up the stairs as he finished, and once out of reach he kept climbing. The door of Geiger’s office was ajar and when he stepped into the anteroom he found Logan talking to the deputy medical examiner, who seemed about ready to leave. Logan, in the middle of a sentence, stopped when he saw Casey. His dark gaze narrowed, as much in annoyance as surprise. He started to say something, stopped, and continued to the doctor.

  “Okay,” he said. “Tomorrow morning will do. If you change your mind about anything, give me a buzz so I won’t have to wait for a full report.” He watched the doctor leave before he gave Casey his attention, and his voice was flat and distant. “Who let you in?”

  “I told the man on the door I was a friend of yours.”

  “Sure. But I don’t play favorites and you know it.”

  Casey spread his hands to show they were empty. “I got my pictures downstairs. My camera is in the car.”

  “Where are the rest of your pals?”

  “On the way back to their offices, I guess.”

  “But you waited.”

  “I’ve got a curious mind.”

  “Yeah,” said Logan. “So?”

  “I had a few words with Geiger this morning. I stopped in here for a minute—”

  Casey let the sentence dangle and waited for Logan to show some interest. He glanced through the doorway into the inner office and found the police photographer packing his equipment. The fingerprint man was still busy, and Sergeant Manahan was going through the folders in the filing cabinet. By the time Casey had completed his inspection, Logan’s suspicion had been sufficiently aroused to ask a question.

  “All right. Why?”

  “Why what?” Casey said innocently.

  “Don’t tell me Geiger was a friend of yours.”

  “I won’t. I knew him. That’s as far as it went.”

  “Then you just stopped in to pass the time of day. What time was that?”

  “Late morning. Maybe eleven thirty. I’m not sure.”

  “Maybe you had a job for him,” Logan said with heavy irony.

  “I’ll tell you,” Casey said and made up the story as he went along. Later, if he had to, he could mention Louise Mayfield, pretending it was an afterthought. For now a bit of prevarication seemed in order.

  “They’re putting up a building down the street. They’ve got a big hole in the ground.”

  “I saw it.”

  “They had a crane working at the street level this morning. The operator got too close to the edge, I guess. Anyway, the crane toppled in. The operator got banged up, but not seriously—”

  “What the hell has this got to do with Gieger?” Logan said impatiently.

  “I’m telling you. The Express, being a very enterprising paper, got word of the accident, and me, being a very alert and enterprising guy myself, got down here in a hurry to get some pictures. I guess Geiger must have heard the noise and commotion because he was there taking a look. We walked down the street together because my car was parked about a block away. I remembered a phone call I had to make and I asked if I could use his. He said sure, so I came up and used it.”

  “And that’s all?” Logan said, still skeptical.

  “Just about. I happened to see him having a drink in the Melody Lounge last night when I stopped in, so I asked him if he was working on anything interesting and he said no. I asked him how business was. He said slow.”

  “All right, all right.” Logan spoke with some exasperation but he seemed to accept the story and now Casey decided that it would be all right to ask some questions of his own.

  “The report we got said that Geiger was shot. Once?”

  “There were two shots. One was wild and the other was close up. There were powder burns on the shirt.”

  “What about the gun?”

  “We didn’t find it. Geiger has a permit to carry one but there’s no gun here. We’ve got a couple of men at his apartment now. Maybe it’s there.”

  He moved to the doorway and stood watching the others work, a straight-standing, well-set-up man about Casey’s age, but an inch or two shorter and without Casey’s bulk. He had a neat and well-dressed manner, not because he spent more money on clothes than Casey but because he had more regard for the way he wore them. At the moment he was clad in a well-pressed dark-gray suit with a white shirt and a conservatively striped tie. His dark-brown hat was well brushed and his face had a thoughtful look as his eyes continued their inspection.

  Casey did not break the silence but considered the office again, noting the chalk marks on the floor that outlined the shape of a body a few feet in front of him and to one side of the desk. There was an open checkbook on the blotter pad, the kind that had three checks to each page. Most of the desk drawers had been pulled out and the floor was littered with papers. Nearby was a pile of personal effects, apparently the contents of Geiger’s pockets. Now, moving a step closer, Logan came out of his reverie to ask:

  “What’s your interest in this?”

  “Nothing special,” Casey said. “You talk to a guy in the morning, you find him shot to death at night. You wonder. How long ago did he get it?” he added, not wanting to dwell on the subject.

  “The doc made a guess for us,” Logan said. “He says probably between twelve thirty and two thirty this afternoon.”

  “You said two shots, and one missed.”

  Logan turned and pointed to the doorframe which led to the darkroom and closet Casey had noticed that morning. A hole had been gouged into the wood, apparently to recover the bullet that had been buried there. As he stepped closer and glanced into the closet, he realized it had been searched.

  “Did someone go over this, or was
it this way when you found it?” he asked.

  “What way?” Logan said.

  “I took a peek this morning,” Casey said. “It looked sort of neat then.”

  “I took what films there were,” said the police photographer, who was about ready to leave. “But from the looks of things someone had been over it before that.”

  “You know the kind of jobs Geiger got,” Logan said. “Tailing people for jealous husbands and wives, divorce work, probably framing the evidence when he had to. If we don’t come up with a good lead, we’ll have to check out the people in every case he handled in the last six months.” He pointed to the folders that Sergeant Manahan was still working on. “Hell, anybody could have come in here, with or without a gun. Maybe just to threaten him, maybe for some compromising pictures Geiger had taken.”

  “You said the shot that killed him was close up,” Casey said. “Do you think there was a struggle over the gun?”

  “That’s the way it looks. We think Geiger had just started to write a check when it happened.” He moved to the desk and pointed at the open checkbook. “We found the pen on the floor. He’s got the date written—today—and the amount in figures—two hundred and fifty dollars. That’s all. No payee, no signature.”

  He moved a quarter turn and began to go over the personal effects taken from Geiger’s pockets. He picked up what looked like another check, but when he did not glance at it Casey knew that he had examined it before.

  “You told me once you had a small brokerage account with Farrington and Coe. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” Casey said, a little startled by the question, and trying not to show it.

  “Farrington is a friend of yours.”

  “Well—yes. I knew him when he was playing football at college. The last couple of years, what little business I do I do with him. I see him now and then, yes.”

  “He’s got a sister, hasn’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s her first name?”

  “Louise,” Casey said, worried now by the line of questioning and not yet understanding what the lieutenant had in mind.

  “I’ve read about her in the paper. She’s been married two or three times, hasn’t she? I seem to remember that her present husband is a guy named Mayfield. I’ve read about him too. I see him around. Good family, but not much dough. Correct?”

  “You’re close enough,” Casey said.

  “So Farrington’s sister would be Louise Mayfield.” This was not a question but a statement, and now Logan examined the check he held in his hand. “We found this in Geiger’s wallet. It’s a check for a thousand bucks made out to him and signed by Louise Mayfield. You got any idea why she’d be giving a guy like Geiger that kind of money?”

  “Hell no,” Casey said, glad now that it had not been necessary for him to say that he had seen Louise Mayfield enter the building that morning. “Why should I know anything about that?”

  “There’s only one thing,” Logan said, ignoring Casey’s comment. “The check is postdated. Today’s Thursday. The check wouldn’t do Geiger any good until Monday.” He slipped it into his inside pocket, looked directly at Casey, and now his dark eyes had humorous lights in them. “You know, maybe I’m sort of glad you stuck your nose in here, after all.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think I’ll have a little talk with Mrs. Mayfield, and because you’ve got such a curious mind I’m going to let you come along. You can introduce me.”

  “But—” Casey protested, sputtering some. “I mean—I hardly know the woman. I’ve only met her a couple of times.”

  “That’s better than going in cold.” Logan turned to Sergeant Manahan and gave him some instructions. When he finished he gave a tug at his hatbrim and, a small smile still working on his mouth, took Casey by the arm. “Come on.”

  Casey, aware that he no longer had any choice in the matter, gave in. He said if Logan would go by the Express office so he could drop off his films he would accompany him to the Farrington house so long as Louise Mayfield knew that the call was Logan’s idea and not his.

  8The Farrington place was a stately red-brick structure with a heavy wooden door, wide, white-painted pilasters, and an artistically designed fanlight. This showed some subdued illumination from inside, and a minute or two after Logan had pressed the bell the inside light grew brighter and the latch clicked back. The door opened for perhaps six inches, and instead of the butler Casey had expected, he saw Louise Mayfield’s thin patrician face framed in the opening.

  “Hello, Mrs. Mayfield,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember me. Jack Casey from the Express.”

  “Oh, yes,” the woman said, still not opening the door any wider. “Of course I remember you,” she said, making Casey wonder why she had not recognized him that morning. “But I’m afraid Donald is not here now. He went out with Shirley and Arthur—”

  “We didn’t come to see Don.”

  “Oh?” she said, her inflection rising.

  “We wanted to see you,” Casey said. “This is Lieutenant Logan—Mrs. Mayfield.”

  Logan said: “How do you do Mrs. Mayfield,” and she said: “Lieutenant? Army, Navy or Air Force?”

  “The police, Mrs. Mayfield,” Logan said. “This is not Casey’s idea. He said he had met you and I brought him along to introduce me. May we come in? I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  “Police?” She opened the door then. “And you want to talk to me? I can’t imagine why but—Certainly you can come in.”

  She stepped out of the way and Casey and Logan entered, hats in hands. Casey had been here once before with Donald Farrington and as she closed the door behind them he remembered the hallway and the wide, curving stairway to the living rooms on the second floor. A square projection beyond the doorway on the right housed a small elevator, and at the end of the hall he could see a dining room with a dark shining table and silver candelabra. The woman stepped in front of them as they waited, moved through the doorway on the right, and flicked a switch to light the small sitting room.

  She was wearing a tailored suit made from some soft, dark-blue material. Above the plain white blouse, her face seemed composed and at ease, but there was still that haughty lift to the chin, and the dark eyes had no hint of warmth in them. When she asked them to sit down she took a position in the middle of the old-fashioned plush settee with a curving back, folded her slender long-fingered hands on one knee, and glanced from one to the other.

  “Now tell me,” she said, “just what have I done that merits the attention of the police department? Something about our car? Has anything happened to Donald or Arthur or Shirley?”

  “Nothing like that, Mrs. Mayfield,” Logan said.

  “The lieutenant’s attached to Homicide,” Casey said.

  “Homicide?” The immaculate brows rose and the red mouth remained parted for a second before she added: “You mean someone has been killed? Someone I know?”

  “That’s what I want to find out,” Logan said. “Do you happen to know a man named Earl Geiger?”

  “Should I?” The brows remained high as she glanced at Casey.

  “He’s a private detective,” Casey said, marveling a little that she could appear so innocently surprised. “He has an office on Meridian Street.”

  “No.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Logan said.

  “I mean I don’t think I know him,” the woman said.

  Logan took a small breath, leaned forward slightly, and, not hurrying, took the check from his inside pocket. As though to heighten the suspense and make sure that Louise Mayfield knew exactly what he was doing, he spent a few seconds examining the face of the check before he let his dark gaze meet her waiting glance.

  “We found this check in Earl Geiger’s wallet,” he said, his enunciation deliberate. “It’s made out for a thousand dollars and it’s signed by Louise Mayfield.” He turned the check, holding it toward her so that she could see it. “This is your signat
ure, isn’t it?”

  Louise Mayfield leaned forward from the waist and peered at the check. “It looks like it.”

  “Your name is printed on the check. Those metallic numbers at the bottom can easily be identified by the bank if you don’t want to—”

  “That won’t be necessary. It’s my check.”

  “And your signature. Then you do know Earl Geiger?”

  She leaned back and folded her arms in front of her. She allowed herself a small smile that was more indulgent than humorous.

  “In a sense, Lieutenant.”

  “What sense is that?” Logan said, a touch of exasperation showing. “If you gave Geiger the check—”

  Again she interrupted and as she continued Casey sat there, gaping a little, hearing every word and wondering how she could lie so glibly and make it all sound so convincing.

  “I mailed him the check,” she said calmly.

  Logan eyed her suspiciously and seemed momentarily baffled before he said: “Why?”

  “I wanted some help on a personal and private matter that I couldn’t discuss with anyone in the family. Having no experience with private detectives, I simply looked in the yellow pages of the telephone book and picked a name.”

  Logan didn’t believe it. His expression said so when he glanced at Casey. But lie was used to evasion in one form or another, and he nodded politely.

  “I see. Then you never actually met Geiger?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You called him up and— When was that, Mrs. May-field?”

  “Yesterday. Or was it the day before?” She let her glance stray to the ceiling as she considered the question. “No, yesterday.”

  “You explained what you wanted over the telephone and Geiger agreed to represent you. You settled on a fee and then you mailed him this check for a thousand dollars.”

  “That’s substantially correct.”

  Again Logan nodded. “I know all the private detectives in town, Mrs. Mayfield, at least by reputation. Earl Geiger wouldn’t stand very high on my list.”

  “There was no way for me to know that.”

  “A thousand dollars would buy a lot of Geiger’s time.”