Time Off for Murder

by Zelda Popkin

  "What! What the hell kind of a screwball is that?"

  "That kind." Mary's voice was weary. "I know the police found no trace of a crime when they searched his place last fall. And six months is time enough to destroy any evidence. But if you had a psychiatrist explore all the hiding places of that man's mind - "

  "Aw gwan, we do all right without the doctors, Miss C. Leg work. Good eyes and ears. And smart heads to put it together. We can get the right answers out of anybody. You know darn well we can."

  "You'd sweat that old man?"

  "If I had to. If he killed the girl why's he any better'n anybody else? A murderer's just a murderer to us, no matter where he lives and who he is."

  Mary said: "Of course." And then she added, "I've been up to see Rorke. He's coming in to talk to you."

  "You did, did you? So that's where you went to. I'd ought to give you what-for for not minding your business. How'd he take it?"

  "Very hard. This seems to be a tough day for him. Someone called him on the phone while I was there - I didn't hear the conversation. He was upset about Phyllis - and with what he heard on the phone, he nearly had a stroke. I played nursie. It wasn't fun."

  "Tck. Tck." The Inspector looked sympathetic. "He's a high liver. He better watch himself." He shrugged. "Well, that's his worry. Not mine. I got enough without worrying over his health."

  Johnny Reese was waiting in the Inspector's office. "Whatcha got?" Inspector Heinsheimer asked him.

  "What you sent me for." Johnny Reese took out his notebook, wet his thumb, riffled the pages. "Here it is: Premises at fifty-seven, sold at foreclosure in nineteen thirty-five, by William Clatcko, of the Bronx, first mortgagee, to Wilbro Realty Corporation. The Wilbro owned sixty-one, too. Caught that in foreclosure from Mary Loomis of Brooklyn in nineteen thirty-four. I dropped around to see the Wilbro people. They said, yes, sure, it was their house. They had it vacant nearly three years, till they leased it last April, to a Mrs. Flo Gordon."

  "The D.A.'s pal?" the Inspector interrupted.

  "The same. Told them she was going to run a rooming house. Legitimate. Good bank references. They said how was they to know? The property stood vacant three years. Glad to get a tenant. And they said they sweated plenty when the place was raided. Figured they were lucky to get off without taking a rap under eleven forty-six.* (*Section 1146 of the Penal Law of the State of New York holds the owner, agent, or lessor of a building liable for prosecution when he permits his property to be used for illicit purpose - as in this instance, for a house of assignation. The offense is a misdemeanor, for which the defendant may receive one year in the penitentiary, a $500 fine or both. The Wilbro Realty might, however, have spared itself loss of sleep, since prosecutions are rare under this statute. Enforcement officers, charged with achieving public morality by law, consider their duty done when they arrest and incarcerate each year some three thousand bedraggled practitioners of the world's oldest profession.) It was them sold the place this March to the Seymour-Shirley Company. Said Missus Gordon's furniture was all moved out by her lawyer and put in storage in November….

  They inspected the premises then and found everything in good order. The electricity was shut off around November first.

  "Sixty-one was theirs too, but they ain't had a month's rent out of it since April, thirty-seven. It was a furnished room house for a while. Property's been stinko on the West side. Nobody wants them old houses except to tear 'em down. That's what the Seymour-Shirley people were figurin' on. Bought the two places, and went after fifty-nine to have an apartment house site. But the guy in the middle wouldn't sell. Not for their price he wouldn't. He kept talking telephone numbers to them. Had an idea his place was worth what his wife paid for it in twenty-six. A stubborn old guy they said it was. Name of - "He grinned at Mary Carner. "Name of, guess who? Nils Peterson."

  "That was Nils Peterson's house? Where Phyllis was murdered? The house of the man she befriended?"

  "Was his house? Ain't no more. Belongs to the Seymour-Shirley Realty. They picked it up at a bargain sale, run by the Empire City Bank. Mortgage foreclosure, nothing else. Our stubborn little pal who wouldn't sell his place for anything but a Herbert Hoover price, let it go for two hundred and fifty-four dollars and thirtytwo cents in unpaid taxes and two hundred and eighty dollars and sixty-one cents in overdue interest. Owed about five hundred dollars and didn't pay it, and his property's gone. Bank took over in January. Sold to the Seymour-Shirley for chicken feed - two thousand under mortgage of thirteen thousand. That's the way it goes."

  "Got Peterson's address?" the Inspector barked.

  "Sure. He lives out on Staten Island. Here it is. Eight twenty Greenlake Road. West New Brighton….In Siberia. I onct pounded a beat out there."

  Inspector Heinsheimer lifted his telephone receiver. "Get me Captain O'Neill," he told the switchboard. "Hello. Hello, O'Neill? Inspector Heinsheimer, Homicide Division, speaking. I'm fine. How're you? How's the missus? That's fine. You don't tell me! (His kid's got six teeth and walks already!) Only ten months. My, my. It's that fresh air you got in Staten Island does it. Listen, O'Neill, pick up for questioning Knight homicide, Nils Peterson. (What's the address, Reese?) Eight twenty Greenlake Road, West New Brighton. Nope, no charge. Questioning. Accessory before if you got to put him under arrest. Ask him where he was on the night of October nineteenth. Ask him about his property in Manhattan. Ask him his connection with Phyllis Knight - that's the lady lawyer. The one that disappeared last fall. We found her today. In a furnace. He owned the property. And send him in as soon as you get through with him. Here to Headquarters. Direct to me. Thanks. Sure, we'll try to come out some Sunday. Sure, my missus'll be glad to get out to see you. She asks about your wife all the time. So long. My best to the missus….

  "O.K., boys and girls, now let's get this thing together: We begin with Nils Peterson. It was his house. We know that Phyllis has a date to meet him there on the night she disappears. We get hold of Peterson and we find out what it's all about. What they went there for and were there any guys sitting down to eat and drink in the kitchen when they come in. We know she didn't die that night, because we got the letters from her. What was the date on them, Reese?…Y' remember?"

  "November third. Postmark Lambertville, New Jersey."

  "We'll get 'em up. In the meanwhiles we put a man on old man Knight and his housekeeper. But first we figure out why anybody'd want to kill her. The old man shows plain as the nose on your face that he hated her and wanted her dead."

  The Inspector wrote the name of "Lyman Knight" on his pad…and after it…"Father. Jealous hatred…." Then "Housekeeper. Agnes"…"Agnes what, anybody know? Ramsgate, eh?" "Agnes Ramsgate…. Motive . . Instructions of Lyman Knight…." "Now, how about Nardello? From what I hear, the Knight girl didn't figure too much in the D.A.'s investigation. And Rockey, the tough guy himself, was locked up in the Tombs in November. Near the end of his trial if I remember. Couldn't be Rockey - might be one of his trigger men, though. Might be at that." He wrote: "Nardello, racketeer. Revenge. D.A.'s witness." "Who else?"

  "Well," Mary Carner said thoughtfully, "we have Struthers, her secretary, who had a prison record…. He'd be worth questioning…. No motive that I can think of. Unless it might be over money. But put him down…. And Van Arsdale, the collar man. Jealousy possibly…. And Rorke…. No motive at all there…unless she just annoyed him."

  "Better ways of getting rid of a girl friend than a thirty-eight," Johnny Reese said. "Unless he figured to kill her quick and get her out of her misery. She was writing him poetry. Is writing poetry justifiable homicide, chief?"

  "Don't be so wise," the Inspector said. "Who else?"

  Mary wrinkled her brows…. "There's that Sophie, the girl with the Polish name who left her job. But I doubt she'd know anything."

  "You know better than that, Miss C.," the Inspector snapped. "Don't doubt anybody knows anything. Everybody knows something. And a little bit here, and a little bit there makes a piece." He sighed
heavily. "There's one thing I want to know. And I want to know it more'n I want anything else. Who were those four guys that sat down to supper in that house? I'd give my right arm and my right eye to know the name of a single one of them."

  The telephone rang at the Inspector's elbow. When he had lifted the receiver, had scribbled a name and place and time and fact upon his pad, he had learned one name of the four who had dined with death. But to the voice at the other end of the wire he said with heavy boredom, "Izzat so? Izzat so? I'll go up myself." And nothing had happened to his right arm and right eye.

  "MacKinoy." He read the name aloud. "What do you know? Lieutenant MacKinoy of the Three-hundredth. He's shot himself. In a house on Seventy-first Street…. Mitch MacKinoy. What'd he want to do that for? He was getting along all right."

  Chapter IX

  In a second floor flat in a walk-up apartment house on West Seventy-first Street, near the Park, a big nosed, broad shouldered, fair haired man lay on the dingy sheets of a disordered bed, under a sticky blanket of his own blood and a pile of coats, pants, shirts and socks.

  The man was naked above the waist. Rivulets of blood had trickled down his ribs from a powder blackened wound in his left breast. His arms were spreadeagled, wrists limp.

  A police service revolver lay on the floor beside the bed. A telephone, a whiskey bottle and a glass stood on a night-table just beyond the inert fingers. The face of the man was peaceful. It seemed odd that he could sleep so serenely in the midst of such confusion.

  Closet and dresser drawers dangled open. The disorder of the clothing on the bed spoke plainly of frenzied haste.

  The acrid, autumnal reek of burned paper filled the apartment.

  A negro, gray as chocolate left too long in the refrigerator, wearing workstained dungarees, stood on the door-sill, his eye-balls rolling, jibbering to a young patrolman: "No suh, boss. Ah didn't hear nothin'. Ah didn't know nothin', till y'all ring mah bell an' ask me foh a key foh two C. Ah was down in the basement, eatin' mah lunch. Ef ah hear a shootin', ah don' pay it no min'. Trucks is always backfirin' on these yere streets. Ah got a-plen'y to do jus' givin' all these yere folks steam an' hot wahtuh an' tekkin' their garbage an' scrubbin' up the halls and shinin' up the brass. Yessuh, Ah got enough to do, mindin' mah own business thout watchin' whut the tenants is doin'."

  "This man wasn't a tenant here, was he?" The policeman was positive in his disbelief.

  The janitor rolled his eyes toward the bed. "Yessuh, boss, he was, too. Tha's Mist' McCabe, that is."

  "McCabe," the policeman set his chin belligerently. "Have I got to tell you again, he's no McCabe? That's Lieutenant MacKinoy."

  The colored man's face went blank. "Ah don't know nothin' about no Lootenant, Mist' boss," he whimpered. "Ah knows Mist' McCabe. Ah solid do. He done pay me the rent one whole year. McCabe. Yessuh. That's the name he done tol' me when he rent the place."

  "He rented the apartment? He lived here?"

  "Yessuh, boss, that's what I done try to tell you. Him and them two othuhs. He done move in las' yeah. He don' make me no trouble. No trouble at all. Pay he's rent right on time."

  "Two others, eh? Who are they? Where are they?"

  The janitor looked helplessly around. "Ah cain't tell yuh that, Mist' boss. Ah don' know. Don' see no hide, no hair of 'em, nohow. Might be they's out of town. Travelin' salesmen, ah hear they is. Yessuh, boss. That's whut Mist' McCabe, he done tole me they is. When he move in, he tell me: 'Me an' my friends ain't gonna be here mos' of the time. We's on the road.'"

  "Who's on the road?"

  The policeman and the janitor spun around on their heels. The policeman saluted. "Glad to see you, Inspector Heinsheimer. I'm Seiffert, Three Hundredth Precinct. There's something very queer here, sir."

  The janitor shivered. "Ah don' know nothin'," he protested again.

  "That the super?" Inspector Heinsheimer's tone was brusque.

  "Yes, sir. He's just made an identification of the body. Insists it's a man named McCabe. Traveling salesman. Lived here about a year, with two other men."

  Inspector Heinsheimer approached the bed. He stared at the head on the dingy pillows. "That's MacKinoy," he said. "I know him like I know my own brother. Super find the body?"

  "No, sir." The policeman shook his head. "I did, sir."

  "You did, hey? Who called you?"

  "He did." The patrolman indicated the dead man on the bed. "He did. MacKinoy himself."

  "He called you and told you he was dead? Are you crazy or am I?"

  Policeman Seiffert's neck crimsoned. "Oh no, sir. Neither of us, sir. It was this way. The desk sergeant got a call at . . ." He consulted his notebook. "At onefifteen, sir. The call came straight to the desk. The message was: 'This is MacKinoy.' I've got the exact words, Inspector. 'If they want me let them come and get me.' He gave this address. This apartment. There wasn't any doubt about the voice, sir. We know MacKinoy's voice. All of us do. Sergeant thought he was kidding. He answered: 'Nobody's asking for you, Lieutenant.' But when he got to thinking it over, he realized it was kind of funny. Not figuring anything much was wrong. But just peculiar. You see, MacKinoy was on duty this morning. And then he went home. About ten o'clock it was he went home."

  "Ten o'clock, eh? That's the time the call came in about the Knight woman, wasn't it?"

  "Yes, Inspector. Right after it, MacKinoy went home. Nobody'd been asking for him. Nobody wanted him. But the Sergeant thought it over and he told me to take a run up here and see what was doing. I arrived here," he consulted his book again, "at two-five. We're a little short-handed today - so many of the fellows up at that murder house. I had the janitor give me a pass key. I entered the apartment and found MacKinoy on the bed. The body was still warm, sir. But I couldn't detect any signs of life. I've put in a call for the doctor, sir. He ought to be here any minute."

  "Touched anything? Disturbed the position of the body?"

  "Oh, no, sir. Just used the telephone. Noticed a smell of burning paper in the place. That came from the kitchen, sir. Somebody burned up some paper in a bucket out there. In the sink."

  A buzzer sounded. The patrolman opened the door. An interne came into the bedroom, gave his name to the officers, went through the motions of putting stethoscope to blood matted chest, of examining eyes, ears, larynx, of flexing fingers, curling up eye-lids. Then he announced gravely, as though it were not obvious: "D.O.A.* (*Dead on arrival). Bullet wound in chest. No rigor yet. Time of death probably within an hour. No external signs of violence."

  "No violence, eh? Then what the hell do we make of this?" The Inspector designated the disordered clothing on the bed. "Y'aren't going to tell me that guy killed himself and then covered himself up. Even the babes in the woods couldn't do that."

  The interne shrugged. "Can't answer that. Bullet fired at close range. Hair's singed around the wound. Powder burns. Bullet probably still in the body or in the mattress. No blood anywhere except on the bed. Of course," he added, "there might be drugs. The autopsy'll have to tell you that."

  "O.K., doc, thanks…."

  "It isn't my business, but there's something in the man's pocket. Crackles. Want me to take it out?"

  "Give it here."

  The interne took two white envelopes from the dead man's pocket, handed them to Inspector Heinsheimer.

  The Inspector studied the envelopes. He read aloud: "Mrs. Sarah MacKinoy…. Must be the wife. To whom it may concern. That's us." He ripped the second envelope open. He read the brief scrawl. A double furrow settled over the bridge of his nose. He looked thoughtfully down on the sleeping face of the man who had been McCabe and MacKinoy. Profoundly puzzled, he shook his head.

  "Why, nobody said you did," he muttered. "Nobody thought anything of the kind."

  Then he picked up the telephone and called Police Headquarters.

  "Inspector Heinsheimer speaking. Connect me with Ballistics. Hello, Ballistics. Heinsheimer. Done anything yet with the bullet in the Knight case? Izzat so? Izzat so? Checks
, eh? Very, very interesting. Hold it for me. I'll have another for you in an hour or so. They're poppin' off right and left. Get the board back for me. Operator, Heinsheimer again. Connect me with my office. Is Reese there? Reese, get up here right away…." He gave the address. "All right, bring the girl. Yeh, it's a live one. A dead man, but a live lead. Best in the world. We got the guy that killed Phyllis Knight. Sure, I know who he is. He's Lieutenant MacKinoy, Three Hundredth Precinct. You bet it's something…. Nope…. Not yet…. But we'll find out why. Take it from me, we'll know why…. Yep, it's breaking. It's cracking wide open. And fast. What's that? Peterson can't be located. O'Neill says his place is locked up, eh? Well, don't worry about it. We'll find him, too. How do I know where? In somebody else's furnace, maybe."

  He hung up the receiver. He crooked his finger through the bedroom door for his cameraman and stenographer. "Everybody else out," he ordered. "You too, super. Send the gun downtown right away. Go over all the furniture, good. Phone's been handled." He mopped his brow. "Two a day. We're earning our dough. Just let the taxpayers holler."