the Hills Of Homicide (Ss) (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  "With more money," Keene said cheerfully. "With more money, young man. Let us grease the wheels of inflation, support the economy, all that."

  Angie was drinking coffee at their favorite place when Ragan walked in, and she looked up, smiling. "Have a hard day, Joe? You look so serious."

  "I'm worried about Mary. She's such a rand person, and they are going to make trouble for her.'

  "For Mary? How could they?"

  He explained, and her eyes darkened with anger. "Why, that's silly! You and Mary! Of all things!"

  "I know, but a district attorney could make it look bad. Where did Mary go when she left you, Angie? Where could she have been?"

  "We'll ask her. Let's go out there now."

  "All right." He got up. "Have you eaten?"

  "No, I came right here from home. I didn't stop anywhere."

  "Been waiting long?"

  "Long enough to have eaten if I'd thought of it. As it was, all I got was the coffee. That made the second lie. She had not been here for some time, and she had not come right here from home. He tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the visit to the Upshaw Building was so much a habit that she did not consider it. Still, it was out of her way in coming here.

  He wanted to believe her. Maybe that's why cops get cynical they are lied to so often.

  All the way out to Mary's, he mulled it over. Another idea kept coming into mind. He had to get into that office of Bradford's. He had to know what those letters contained. Yet what did he have to tie them to Ollie's death? No more than the fact that Ollie had loitered in the Upshaw Building and had an interest in the fourth floor. Louella Chasen, who came to that office, had volunteered information. She had stated that Mary Burns was asking about a divorce. It was a flimsy connection, but it was a beginning. He had no other clue to the case Ollie had been working on, unless he went back to the Towne suicide. Mark Stigler had mentioned that Ollie was interested in the Towne case, and it was at least a lead. The first thing tomorrow, he would investigate that aspect.

  He remembered Alice Towne. Ollie had known her through an arrest he'd made in the neighborhood. She had been a slender, sensitive girl with a shy, sweet face and large eyes. Her unexplained suicide had been a blow to Ollie, for he liked people and had considered her a friend. "You know, Joe," he had said once, "I've always thought that might have been my fault. She started to tell me something once, then got scared and shut up. I should have kept after her. Something was bothering her, and if I'd not been in so much of a hurry, she might have told me what it was."

  Mary opened the door for them. Joe sat down with his hat in his hand. "Funeral tomorrow?" he asked gently. Mary nodded. "Will you and Angie come together?" "I thought maybe you'd like to have Angie with you," he suggested. "I'll be working right up to the moment, anyhow."

  Mary turned to him. "Joe, you're working on this case, aren't you? Is there any way I can help?"

  Ragan hated it, but he had to ask. "Mary, where did you go when you left Angie the night Ollie was murdered?"

  Her face stiffened and she seemed to have trouble moving her lips. "You don't think I am guilty, Joe? You surely don't think I killed Ollie?"

  "Of course not! I know better, Mary, but they are asking that question, and they will demand an answer." "They've already asked," Mary said, "and I've refused to answer. I shall continue to refuse. It was private business, in a way, except that it did concern someone else. I can't tell you, Joe."

  Their eyes held for a full minute and then Joe got up. "Okay, Mary, if you won't tell, you've got a reason, but please remember: That reason may be a clue. Don't hold anything back. Now let me ask you did you ever think of divorce?"

  "No." Her eyes looked straight into Ragan's. "If people say that, they are lying. From what Mr. Stigler has said, I believe someone is saying that. It is simply not true." After Ragan left them, he thought about that. Knowing Mary, he would take her word for it, but would anybody else? In the face of two witnesses to the contrary and the fact that Ollie was shot with his own gun, Mary was in more trouble than she realized.

  Moreover, he was getting an uneasy feeling. Al Brooks was hungry for newspaper notices and for advancement. He liked getting around town and liked spending money. A step up in rank would suit him perfectly. If he could solve the murder of Ollie Burns and pin it on Mary, he would not hesitate. He was a shrewd, smart man with connections.

  Ragan now had several lines of investigation. The Towne case was an outside and remote chance, but the Upshaw Building promised better results.

  What had Angie been doing there? What did the mysterious letters contain? Who was Bradford?

  Taking his car, Ragan drove across town to the Upshaw Building. He had his own ideas about what he would do now, and the law would not condone them. With the meager evidence he had, a search warrant was out of consideration, but he was going to get into the Bradford office or know the reason why.

  In Keene's office he had noticed the fire escape at his window extended to that of Bradford's office. The lock on the Bradford office door was a good one, and there was no easy way to open it in the time he would have.

  After parking his car a block away, he walked up the street to the Upshaw Building. The night elevator man was drowsing over a newspaper, so Ragan slipped by him and went up the stairs to the fourth floor. He paused at the head of the steps, listening. There was not a sound. He walked down the hall to Keene's office and tried the door. It opened under his hand. Surprised and suddenly wary, he stepped inside.

  The body of a man was slumped over Keene's desk.

  He sat in a swivel chair, face against the desk, arms dangling at his sides. All this Ragan saw in sporadic flashes from an electric sign across the street. He closed the door behind him, studying the shadows in the room.

  All was dark and still; the only light was that from the electric sign across the street. The corners were dark, and shadows lay deep along the walls and near the safe.

  Ragan's gun was in its shoulder holster, reassuring in its weight. Careful to touch nothing, he leaned forward and spoke gently.

  No reply, no movement. With a fountain pen flash he studied the situation.

  Jacob Keene was dead. There was a blotch of blood on his hack where the bullet had emerged. There was, Ragan noted as he squatted on his heels, blood on Keene's knees and on the floor under him, but not enough. Keene's body, he believed, had been moved. Flipping on the light switch, he glanced quickly around the office to ascertain that it was empty. Then he began a careful search of the room.

  Nothing was disturbed or upset. It was just as he had seen it that afternoon, with the exception that Keene was dead. Careful to touch nothing, he knelt on the floor to examine, as best he could, the wound. The bullet had evidently entered low in the abdomen and ranged upward at an odd angle. The gun, which he had missed seeing, lay on the floor under Keene's right hand.

  Suicide? That seemed to be the idea, but remembering the Keene of that afternoon, Ragan shook his head. Keene was neither in the mood for suicide nor the right man for it. No, this was murder. It was up to Ragan to call homicide, but he hesitated. There were other things to do first.

  The first thing was to see the inside of that office of Bradford's. He believed Keene had been murdered elsewhere and brought here. He might have been killed trying to do just what Ragan was about to attempt.

  Absolute silence hung over the building. Ragan put his ear to the wall, listening. There was no sound. Carefully he eased up the window. Four stories below, a car buzzed along the street, then there was silence. The windows facing him were all dark and empty. As he stepped out on the fire escape, a drop of rain touched his face. He glanced up at the lowering clouds. That would be good. If it rained, nobody would be inclined to glance up.

  Flattened against the wall, he eased along to the next window. It was closed and there was no light from within. He tested the window, hoping it was unlocked. It was locked. He took the chewing gum from his mouth and plastered it aga
inst the glass near the lock, then tapped it with the muzzle of his gun. The glass broke but could not fall, as it stood against the lock itself. Easing a finger into the hole, he lifted the glass out very carefully, then unlocked the window and lifted it.

  Slipping inside, he moved swiftly to the wall and waited, listening. Using utmost care, he began a minute examination.

  For an hour he went through the office and found exactly nothing. Nothing? One thing only: a large, damp place where the floor had been wiped clean. Of blood? But blood can never be washed completely away in such a hurried job. Ragan knew what a lab test could prove.

  The office was similar to any other, except that nothing seemed to have been used.

  There was a typewriter, paper, carbons, extra ribbons, paperclips. The blotter on the desk was also new and unused. The filing cabinets contained varied references to mines and industries. Except for that damp place on the floor, all was as one might expect it to be.

  Then he noticed something he had missed. A tiny, crumpled bit of paper lying on the floor under the desk, as though somebody had tossed it to the wastebasket and missed. Retrieving it, Ragan unfolded it carefully and flashed his light upon it.

  Ollie Burns's phone number!

  Here was a definite lead, but to where? Ragan stood in the middle of the office, wondering where to turn next. Somewhere nearby was the clue he needed. Suddenly there returned to his mind one of the titles of the mining companies he had glimpsed in leafing through the files. Wheeling about, he took a quick step to the filing cabinets and drew out the drawer labeled T.

  In a moment he had it. Towne Mining & Exploration. Under it was a list of code words, then a list of sums of money indicating that fifty dollars per month had been paid until the first of the year, when the payments had been stepped up to one hundred dollars a month. Four months later there was this entry: Account closed, 20 April.

  His heart was pounding. The suicide of Alice Towne had been discovered on the nineteenth of April!

  Towne Mining & Exploration was there such a firm? A quick survey showed that on several of the drawers the names of well-known firms were listed, but no payments on any of them. They must be used as a blind, probably for blackmail.

  What had Ollie told Mary? There were just two crimes worse than murder. Dope peddling and blackmail.

  Who else had come to this office? Louella Chasen. Ragan drew out the drawer with the C, thumbing through it to a folder marked Chasen Shipping. A quick check showed that payments had progressed from ten dollars a month to one hundred over a period of four years.

  Louella Chasen was the one who said she had recommended a divorce lawyer to Mary Burns. Would she lie to protect herself? If blackmail could force continual payments, would she not also perjure herself?

  Hazel Upton, secretary to Denby, the divorce lawyer. Her name, thinly disguised, was here also.

  It was the merest sound, no more than a whisper, as of clothing brushing paper, that interrupted him. Frozen in place, Ragan listened. He heard it again. It came from the office of Jacob Keene, where the murdered attorney still lay.

  Ragan's hand went to his gun, a reassuring touch only. This was neither the time nor the place for a gun. The window stood open, and so did the window in the Keene office. If someone was there, he would see the open window, and if that someone leaned out, a glance would show this window to be open too. And if the man who was in the next room happened to be the murderer .. .

  Even as he thought of that, Ragan realized there was something else in the files he must see: the file on Angie Faherty.

  There was no time for that now, and the door to the hall was out of the question. The only exit from the office was the way he had come.

  Like a wraith, he slipped from the filing cabinet to the deep shadow near the safe, then to the blackness of the corner near the window. Even as he reached it he heard the scrape of a shoe on the iron of the fire escape. The killer was coming in.

  It was very still. Outside, a whisper of rain was falling and there was a sound of traffic on wet pavement. The flashing electric sign did not light this room, and Ragan waited, poised for action.

  A stillness of death hung over the building. The killer on the fire escape was waiting, too, and listening for some movement from Ragan.

  Did he know Ragan was there? And who he was? It was a good question.

  With a quick glance at the window, Ragan gauged the distance to the telephone. Moving as softly as possible, he glided to the phone. With his left hand he moved the phone to the chair, then lifted the receiver.

  Holding the phone, he waited. Tires whined on the pavement below and he spoke quickly. "Police department! Quick!"

  In a moment, a husky voice answered. Ragan spoke softly. "Get this the first time. There's a prowler on the fire escape of the Upshaw Building!"

  His voice was a low whisper, but the desk sergeant got it, all right. Ragan repeated it and then eased the receiver back on the cradle. From his new position he could see the dim outline of a figure on the fire escape, as whoever it was edged closer.

  The police would be here in a minute or two. If only the man on the fire escape wouldHe heard the wail of sirens far off, and almost smiled. It would be nip-and-tuck now. The siren whined closer and Ragan heard a muffled curse. Cars slid into the street below and he heard the clang of feet on the fire escape, running down.

  For a breath-catching instant he waited, then ducked out of one window and into the next, even as the police spotlight hit the wall. A moment before the glare reached him, he was safely inside. From below he heard a shout. "There he is!" They had spotlighted the other man.

  Ragan ducked out the door and ran down the hall, taking the back stairs three steps at a time. When he reached the main floor he saw the watchman craning his neck at the front door, trying to see what was happening. On cat feet, Ragan slipped up behind him. "Did they get him?" he asked.

  The watchman jumped as if he'd been shot. He turned, his face white, and Ragan flashed his badge. "Gosh, Officer, you scared the daylights out of me! What's going on?"

  "Prowler reported on the fire escape of this building. I'm looking for him."

  Sergeant Casey came hurrying to the door. When he saw Ragan he slowed down. Casey was one of Ragan's buddies, for this was a burglary detail. "Hi, Ragan! I didn't know you were here!"

  "Did you get him?"

  "We didn't, but Brooks almost did."

  "Al Brooks?" Ragan's scalp tightened. What had Brooks been doing here? Tailing him? Ragan hadn't thought they might put a tail on him, but Brooks was just the man to do it.

  "He was on the street and saw somebody on the fire escape. He started up after him just as we drove up. Fellow got away, I guess."

  "Ain't been nobody here," the watchman said. "Only Mr. Bradford, and he left earlier."

  "What time was he here?" Ragan asked.

  "Maybe eight o'clock. No later than that."

  Eight? It was now almost one A. M., and Keene had not been dead long when Ragan found him. Certainly no more than an hour, at a rough guess. His body hadn't even been cold.

  Al Brooks came around the corner with two patrol-car officers. He stopped abruptly when he saw Ragan. He was suddenly very careful. Ragan could see the change. "How are you, Joe? I wasn't expecting to see you."

  "I get around." Ragan shook out a cigarette.

  Casey interrupted. "We'd better go through the building, Joe, now that we're here. The man might be hiding upstairs."

  "Good idea," Ragan said. "Let's go!"

  Everything was tight and shipshape all the way to Keene's office. Ragan was letting Casey and a couple of his boys precede him. It was his idea to let them find the body. It was Casey who did.

  "Hey!" he called. "Dead man here!"

  Ragan and Brooks came on the run. "Looks like suicide," Brooks commented. "I doubt if this had anything to do with the prowler."

  "Doesn't look like he even got in here," Casey said. "But the window's op " Brooks stared. The win
dow was closed. "You know," he said, "when I started up the fire escape, I'd have sworn this window was open."

  He returned to the body at the desk. "Looks like suicide," he repeated. "The gun's right where he dropped it." "Except that it wasn't suicide," Ragan said quietly. "And, Al, you'd better leave this one for homicide." He smiled. "The autopsy will tell us for sure, but this man seems to have been stabbed before he was shot."

  "Where do you get that idea?" Brooks demanded. "Look." Ragan indicated a narrow slit in the shirt, just above the wound. "My guess is he was killed by the stab wound, then shot to make the bullet follow the stab wound. I'll bet the gun belongs to Keene."

  Brooks looked around. "How did you know his name?" "It's on the door. Jacob Keene, attorney-at-law. We don't actually know this is Keene, of course, but I'm betting it is."

  Brooks shut up, but the man was disturbed and he was angry. Al Brooks had a short fuse, and it was burning. Ragan was doing some wondering. What about that prowler? What had become of him? He was carrying on a swift preliminary examination of the office, without disturbing anything, when Mark Stigler arrived. He glanced from Ragan to Brooks. "Lots of talent around," he said. "What is it, murder or suicide?"

  The slit in the material of the shirt was barely visible, but Ragan indicated it. "A clumsy attempt to cover up a murder," Ragan commented.

  "Could be," Stigler agreed. "Seems kind of farfetched, though. Who was this guy?"

  "From his files, he was a sort of shyster, handling a good many minor cases in the past, but he changed here lately, or seemed to. He's semiretired, handling only a few legal affairs for various people."

  Stigler's crew went to work while Stigler chewed on a toothpick, listened to the talk, and studied the situation. Al Brooks shoved his hat back on his head and took over. He had been down on the street when he looked up and saw a prowler outside a window on the third floor. Just as he started up, he heard sirens and the patrol cars appeared. "And just about that time I ran into Joe Ragan. He was already here."