F. B. I. Showdown

by Gordon Landsborough

  The dark-haired, keen-eyed driver said, casually, “Hyar, sergeant.” Then showed identification.

  The sergeant, a jaundiced man who looked as though he played poker too long at nights, bit into a yawn and growled, “Feds, huh? We bin expecting you. You took some time coming.”

  The dark-haired G-man nodded. “We got on to the wrong road. This side-track took some picking up—it isn’t used much.”

  The sergeant wasn’t too pleasant. He said, with an abrupt laugh, “If you Feds can’t find a road—you can’t find the fellar that pinched the wagon!” The heat had got at him, he had been suffering during the long wait by the roadside. “Why’n hell we weren’t told just to take this car back to the station, I don’t know.” But he did know. He was just being bitchy.

  The black-haired Fed ignored the unpleasantness and said instead, “This is a stolen car with a North Carolina licence plate. You know that the moment a stolen car gets run across a state line it becomes an F.B.I. job.”

  The sergeant felt foolish and hung around trying to think of something else to bellyache about. His companion, a patrolman, wasn’t interested in anything at all right then, and just waited patiently to be told to get out of the stifling heat.

  The G-men were looking into the coupé now. The dark-haired G-man asked, “This been fingerprinted, sergeant?” The sergeant gave a surly nod, and wiped again at the gathering sweat on his brow.

  He still felt mean and disgruntled, and he said, “There are over two hundred thousand cars stolen in the United States every year. What’s the chances on finding the fellars that took this jalopy, huh?”

  There was a glint of humour in the big G-man’s eyes as he turned, but he tried to keep it hidden.

  He said, casually, “We know who borrowed this one, sergeant.”

  The sergeant paused in the act of putting on his cap. He repeated, “You bin here three minutes an’ you know who took this car out of America’s a hundred and fifty million people? And we bin standin’ there for two hours an’ we ain’t had a thought?”

  The G-man wiped the moisture off his hands. He said, still twinkling, “Two gentlemen named Schiller and Delcros rode in this car, sergeant. That’s my hunch, anyway, and I’m willing to back it.”

  The sergeant looked into the coupé to see if he had missed anything. There seemed nothing to see, so he said weakly, “You tell me, Ellery Queen.”

  He was a good-humoured fellow, the big, dark G-man, and the bony, awkward G-man who was his companion seemed no less behind him in good nature.

  “Pavlova and I were told that a couple of prisoners had escaped from the jail at Halifax, North Carolina, this morning. This car was reported stolen about ten or twelve miles from the prison. That’s something to start on, huh?”

  Now he pointed to the brake pedal in the coupé. “See those scratches? And on the clutch and accelerator? Boots with nails in the soles did that, and they’re not likely to have been caused by the owner of this bus, because drivers of sleek coupés don’t generally wear nail-studded footwear. In fact, not many people do, nowadays—but convicts wear ’em, don’t forget.”

  The sergeant wanted to argue, though he was already impressed. “The hell, though, in this district we get a dozen cars pinched every day. Convicts don’t pinch ’em all. And, look, around this farming district you’ll find a lot of fellars that wear nail-studded boots. How d’you know this coupé wasn’t picked up by some farm clod back in North Carolina?”

  The G-man said, cheerfully, “I don’t. You might be right, sergeant. But I’ll still bet on my hunch. You see, I’ve noticed something, over the past few years. Like to know what it is, sergeant?”

  The sergeant nodded dourly.

  The G-man said, “It’s a funny thing, but almost every man we pick up for stealing a car wears slick, pointed shoes. They look dainty, but they hurt like hell if you have to walk in ’em. So what? Suppose you don’t own a car but you own narrow, pinching shoes that give hell to your dogs. And all around you are cars, all nicely unattended. After a time you get to arguing, ‘What the hell, no one’ll ever know,’ and you get into a car and drive off. That’s behind most of America’s car thefts—the temptation to borrow a jalopy to save a walk.”

  The G-man called Pavlova came in then. He had a voice like a rusty gate that suited his straw hair and freckle-mottled face. He came in with, “Yeah, that’s right, sergeant. We find that men with big comfortable boots like your farm-workers don’t seem to need to borrow cars, but town boys with ritzy pointed shoes do it all the time.”

  “So that makes it conclusive that the boys you want are a couple of escapees, huh? But how d’you know the two are together?” The sergeant was still trying to upset the G-men’s theory.

  The dark-haired G-man pointed across from the driver’s position. “The pile’s scratched up on the carpet where someone else wearing heavy nailed boots shuffled around. Okay, that looks like two men snatched this car, and two men escaped from the prison farm. It’s still not conclusive, but when we compare fingerprints from this coupé, I’ll bet they tally with the convicts’. If there are any fingerprints, that is; convicts are wise guys.”

  The patrolman opened up his mouth to speak now. The others had turned to watch a flivver come shaking down the lane towards them.

  The patrolman said, “You got it wrong, Fed. We got a general broadcast half an hour ago about the break-out: there weren’t two prisoners got out—there were four.”

  The G-men stared. The dark-haired one said, “We heard two. They got away in a laundry truck. Maybe you got later information than we did?”

  And the sergeant said, “I never heard,” looking at the patrolman meanly.

  “Sure,” said that man laconically. “Sure you never heard. For why? You were sleepin’, I guess, back there by the tree.”

  The flivver came up, hesitated uncertainly, then stopped. The driver was dried lean by constant exposure to the hot Virginian sun. He was an old man, wearing jeans and a faded canvas jacket on top of a patched old shirt.

  He said, in a voice that crackled like dry twigs breaking. “I was just goin’ for a cop. I guess there’s need of one right bad.”

  He looked uncertainly at the bulky G-men. The sergeant said, “There ain’t nobody bin pinching your car, has there; old-timer?”

  The old-timer spat tobacco juice and looked surprised.

  “Why, no, it ain’t on account o’ that,” he crackled. “Nobody ain’t bin pinching my old car, I guess; nobody ain’t likely to. But I just went up to see Cal Turner ’bout the borry of a lead horse, an’ when I got there I could see there’d bin trouble, an’...!”

  He ruminated for suitable words, and the sergeant got impatient. “Well? Go on, get it out.”

  “Well, I guess I found Cal with his head smashed in, an’ just back of him was his wife, an’ she was dead, an’ I guess someone hadn’t bin nice to her afore she died.”

  The dark-haired G-man snapped into action. He wheeled on his companion. “Get the car started!” Then he said to the old man, “I’m Lief Sorensen, an F.B.I. operator down from our local field office about this stolen car here. My guess is that the thieves might be responsible for the crime you talk about, so I’m going up to see. You get down from your old can and come with us in our auto. And tell us your name.”

  He stood close up, watching the old man as he descended. His eyes took in the clothing for stains that might have been blood, but he didn’t see any. And there wasn’t any scratches or bruise marks on that scrawny old neck and face.

  The man said, “Me, I’m Joe Finney.” He was out of the car when he said that, and seemed surprised when he turned to find the big G-man right there waiting with his hand out, He didn’t see any reason for hand-shaking at the moment, but found he had to take Sorensen’s big fist.

  Sorensen said, “I’m right glad to meet you, Joe,” but he didn’t smile, and he didn’t pump the hand up and down in hearty Virginian fashion. Instead he looked at it and stared especially at t
he nails. It was all done so easily and so quickly that the old man didn’t notice anything. But the sergeant did. He saw it all. And for the first time, he stopped looking jaundiced.

  To himself he breathed, “Now, that was smart work. These Feds sure know what to do, I’ll hand it to them.” Suspecting everyone, they were slickly looking for clues right from the word “Go.” Not even excluding from their suspicions this old man who was reporting the crime. And the gangling, straw-haired G-man with the nickname of Pavlova took up the trail the moment the old man sat beside him. G-man Sorensen leaned over from the back and listened.

  They shot up the winding lane, the police car coming quickly after them, Pavlova said, casually, “You went to borrow a cart, you said?”

  The old man chewed his gums, then said, “Nope. I went to borry a lead horse. I ain’t got a lead horse, so I have to borry from Cal when I want one.”

  Pavlova tried again. “And Cal, you say, had had his head beaten in with a stick?”

  Joe ruminated, then said, “Nope, Cal’s lyin’ there with the flies buzzin’ round him. His head’s smashed in, but I don’t reckon to know what with. I just ran into the house, saw Edie—that’s Cal’s wife—lyin’ there, so I went right back and got my car headed for the police.”

  Sorensen unobtrusively tapped the G-man driver on the shoulder. It meant, “Lay off. He doesn’t depart from his original story. Maybe he’s on the level.” But all people at all times are suspect to G-men when they are called in on a crime. Old Joe Finney would continue to be a suspect until the F.B.I. records called this case closed.

  Joe turned them into a farm track, and they bumped their way up and over a hill and then abruptly came into the farmyard.

  It was a typical small Virginia homestead, with a farmhouse that had started as a timber dwelling, but had had a brick section added to it. It was set back among some protective trees, through which came a glimpse of long, low-roofed farm buildings. On the open side were fields that looked to be well-tilled and tended. Right in front of the shapeless old farmhouse was a yard in which some derelict farm wagons lay rotting at one side, and a shed with an open door that probably served as a garage. Grass grew between the stones that had been hammered into the ground to serve as an approach to the front door of the farmstead, and some hens were scratching in dusty hollows close by the inevitable manure heap.

  “There,” said Joe, as the car pulled up. He pointed towards the hut with the open door. Someone was lying face downwards.

  The police car came in behind them, and all five walked across to look at the remains of Cal Turner. He was roughly dressed in much the manner of his neighbour, Joe Finney, though he was a bigger man, more powerfully made. There wasn’t much to be seen of his head for the congealed blood that was on it. They didn’t need to investigate further to see that he was most certainly dead.

  Lief Sorensen looked quickly at a mess of tyre tracks that covered the ground hereabouts, then strode off towards the house. Old Joe stayed outside this time. He said he didn’t want to see any more, and the old man looked suddenly sick.

  The other four went through the open door. They went into the farm living room—low-raftered, furnished with wheel-backed chairs, a rocker, an old horsehair couch with the stuffing showing at the worn end, and a plaín, white-scrubbed table. A roughly furnished room, such as you would expect in these parts.

  And on the floor was Edie Turner, wife of Cal Turner, deceased—and herself very much deceased.

  The floor was stone-paved. Sorensen held the others back a second while he looked down for scratch marks. He saw them—plenty. Then remembered the heavy farm boots on the corpse outside.

  They went across to the second victim. Her long dark hair was wild over her face, staring sightlessly upwards. Her head lay in a pool of dark blood, and they guessed she had been hit hard also. Over on the floor was a heavy poker that would normally have been in the fire grate.

  The G-man and the two police looked at the woman and understood what old Joe Finney had meant when he said: “...someone hadn’t bin nice to her afore she died.”

  Sorensen immediately went out to where old Joe Finney was standing with his battered hat held in his long, stringy hand. He said, “Joe, that hut looks like a garage to me, But I don’t see no car. Did Cal have one?”

  Joe said, “A sedan, an old one. He traded it last year fer a blamed ol’ thing that kept breakin’ down—”

  Sorensen said, “Sure, Joe, but do you remember the number?”

  Joe kept thinking for a long time then said, apologetically, “I seen that car almost every day, but I guess I never thought to remember the number.”

  Sorensen wasn’t put out. “Records’ll have it, sergeant. Get through on your radio and report this crime. Have records chase up the registration number of Cal Turner’s sedan, and have an all-roads watch put out for that car. Tell them the occupants will probably—but not certainly—be two escaped convicts from North Carolina, by name Ernst Schiller and Johnny Delcros. Schiller can be easily recognised—he hasn’t a hair on his head.”

  The patrolman, not the sergeant, went across to his car and started up the radio. The sergeant said, “What makes you so sure it’s Schiller and Delcros done this? To date you’ve only some scratch marks on a brake pedal to tell you things. Could be this was done by a lot of other people.”

  Pavlova’s straw hair came up. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes said to Sorensen, “The hell, these cops don’t always have to act so jealous of the F.B.I., do they?”

  Sorensen was thinking of other things, and was inclined to be abrupt now. “You should look into the fireplace. It’s a hot day, yet someone’s had a fire. And in the grate is a pile of charred matter, which I’ll guess is the remains of prison issue clothing. Go get samples for the Bureau backroom boys, Pav.”

  He hunted around for clues for a time, then said, “I don’t think we can do much more here, sergeant. You stay until the Criminal Investigation people arrive to fingerprint things. We’re going back to H.Q. so’s to be on hand when any further news comes through. Come on, Pav.”

  The sergeant said one more thing. “I ain’t never heard of a man called Pavlova before.”

  Big Sorensen lifted one eyebrow and looked at his gangling companion. “There’s a story behind that,” he said. “You should ask him for it someday.” They all looked at the G-man known as Pavlova, who went uncomfortable and seemed ashamed about something.

  Then Sorensen got into the car, taking the wheel, and his companion hunched beside him and said, sourly, “You didn’t ought to make a fool of me like that, Lief.”

  And then he sat and grumbled until Sorensen interrupted, “You know how I see it?”

  Pavlova said, “They needed clothes and food and money. They picked on this farmhouse because it was off the main road and lonely. They found the wife alone.” He paused. “They’re a low type, and they’ve been kept from women for a few years.”

  He was no fool, the G-man with the freckles. Sorensen turned on to the better road and opened out. He ended the story for his companion.

  “Yeah, and maybe the husband wasn’t so far away and heard her screaming. He came back and they saw him coming and went out and hit him until he dropped. These boys are pretty desperate. Then they went back—and finished the wife because they reckoned she’d be too dangerous a witness to leave alive. Then they got whatever clothes they could find, burned their own, took food and any money they could see, and went off in Cal Turner’s sedan.”

  Pavlova found a cigarette and lit it. Sorensen didn’t smoke. Pavlova said, “It’s nearly always the same. When there’s a jailbreak, they hop from place to place in one stolen car after another. At some place they meet resistance and they get tough and kill someone. Then we or the police are called in to clean up the mess, find the birds, and get them back in the pen.”

  Sorensen said, “These birds won’t live long in the pen once we get them there.”

  They got back to the F.B.I. field offi
ce. News was chattering in on the teleprinter. Someone said, “This is for you, Lief,” and he bent over the glass top to see what was coming up.

  It said, “Cal Turner’s car reported in accident at Rime End, North Carolina. Occupants got out, held up another car, and forced the driver to drive them away.” More details followed.

  Lief looked at the big wall map and said, “Now, what in hell.... They come all this way out of North Carolina, and now they’re doubling right back on their tracks. Can you think of a reason, Pav?”

  Pavlova thought and said, “I could think of a million.”

  He didn’t know he was exactly right.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WARREN BRIDGE—23 MILES

  Johnny got into the sedan with that lifeless body only a few yards away, and at once headed south, back the way they had just come. Their plans were made, and they didn’t need to talk about them.

  They had driven north—and Petersburg, Washington, and that paradise and hiding place of criminals, New York, were all north of North Carolina—in an attempt to lead a blind trail. The idea now was to run along the border until they reached Kentucky and then strike north for the big industrial city of Cincinnati.

  Somewhere en route they would stop and burn this old sedan so as to it render identification difficult, if not impossible. Other ‘borrowed’ vehicles would get them to Cincinnati. And in that city was a girlfriend of Johnny’s, a girl who would be willing to hide them until the heat went off.

  But their plans didn’t run quite so smoothly.

  There were times when the border road crossed into North Carolina territory, and they were in one such place when they crashed into another car. It was just after they’d stopped at an isolated filling station.

  Johnny was speculating on the possible connection of their escape with the couple of stiffs back at the farm. Thick-eared, heavy-browed Johnny liked to speculate, but it just annoyed the more silent, sombre Egghead.