Crimson Clue

by George Harmon Coxe

  ‘Yes, but you’re a little late.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Whatever you came here for.’ Murdock jerked a direction with his thumb. ‘Behind the desk.’

  Canning was already moving in his characteristic, stiff-gaited way but Elliott stood where he was, scowling darkly. Murdock turned to watch Canning, saw him stop opposite the desk, heard his throaty curse as he stooped quickly behind it.

  With that Elliott strode forward. He leaned stiff-armed across the desk. He said something to his uncle Murdock could not understand.

  ‘This man’s dead’, Canning said bleakly.

  ‘Yes’, Murdock said.

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Murdock eyed them steadily, recalling now the car that had pulled away from the kerb out front just as he drove up, and wondering just how much of the reaction he had just witnessed was surprise and how much was calculated. ‘He was that way when I found him.’

  ‘When?’ Canning said.

  ‘About ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Did you call the police?’

  Murdock nodded and then stepped to the window when he heard the squeal of tyres outside. When he pulled the shade aside he saw a small sedan parked double, a second car pulling up behind it. He glanced at his watch and it was just 9.32. That told him he’d been here approximately twelve minutes in all.

  Lieutenant Bacon’s long face was stormy and his jaw was tight when he finished his first quick inspection of Lew Klime’s body. By that time the precinct captain was there with one of his men, a photographer had begun to unpack his equipment, and two of Bacon’s men had started their inspection of the apartment. Bacon told the plain-clothes man with the captain to check the other apartments; then he was ready for Murdock.

  ‘All right’, he said flatly. ‘How’d you know about this?’

  ‘I didn’t until I walked in.’

  ‘How’d you get in?’

  ‘The door was on latch.’

  ‘What did you touch in here?’

  ‘The radio. It was playing. I turned it off … The telephone——’

  ‘All right’, Bacon said impatiently. ‘Start at the beginning and let’s have it.’

  Murdock, perched on the window seat next to his coat and equipment, told the story as it happened, omitting the details of his forced entrance and the mention of the envelope in his inside pocket.

  Bacon had been walking in a tight circle, hands clasped behind his buttocks and bunching his coat tails. Now he stopped in front of Murdock, his gaze narrowed and prying.

  ‘Okay’, he said. ‘Now what I want to know is, why did you come here at all?’

  ‘I thought Lew—I’ve already told you this once—was the one who developed the films for Damin and Klime. I wanted to be sure.’

  Bacon snorted aloud. ‘Why didn’t you ask? I had this place combed this morning. There are about a thousand negatives back in that darkroom and my men went through every one of them.’ He took a breath, glanced over at Canning and Elliott; then continued to Murdock.

  ‘Your idea was that Klime developed the films someone stole from you at Canning’s. You figured maybe Klime made copies of the picture, just in case he ever needed them later on.’

  ‘Knowing Klime’s reputation on the force, it was a possibility’, Murdock said, already wondering if he had made a mistake in withholding the envelope and negatives. ‘I wanted to be sure.’

  ‘You wanted to be sure’, Bacon parroted. ‘You’ve already said that … You were coming here,’ he added sarcastically, ‘and if Klime was home you were going to ask him to please let you look around, is that it? And if he wasn’t, break in and look for yourself.’

  Murdock would not let the lieutenant’s baiting bother him because he understood how it was. Bacon was annoyed that he, Murdock, had been on the scene before he was but that was incidental. There was nothing personal in it, or any real suspicion that Murdock was involved. The basis of Bacon’s ire and exasperation was cumulative. Already baffled by one murder about which he had many ideas and no proof, he was now faced with a second which promised to be as difficult as the first.

  Now Murdock made no reply to the other’s comments. He felt there was more to come but before Bacon could continue the officer who had been checking the apartments came in.

  ‘Nothing upstairs, Lieutenant’, he said. ‘People are out. Downstairs they didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘Didn’t hear anything?’ Bacon shouted. ‘They must have heard shots. If not the one up here then the ones on the street.’

  ‘Oh, they heard shots. Lots of shots. They had a wild west film on TV from nine to nine-thirty.’

  ‘Fine.’ Bacon bunched his lips. ‘Great.’ He glanced round as the plain-clothes man who had been looking over the desk stepped up and offered a small scratch-pad. Bacon examined it. He examined Canning and Elliott.

  ‘What’s your phone number at the house?’

  Elliott told him. Bacon held up the pad. ‘Thought so’, he said. ‘Found it on the desk.’

  ‘Anybody could have written it’, Elliott said.

  ‘Sure. Maybe even the day before yesterday.’

  Bacon handed it back to his man and told him to mark it and hold it for evidence. Clasping his hands behind him once again, he moved up to where Elliott and Canning stood against the wall.

  ‘I guess you just happened by this evening’, he said with misleading mildness.

  ‘Not exactly’, Elliott said.

  ‘What exactly?’

  Todd Canning pushed away from the wall. He was about as skinny as Bacon but not quite so tall, and his voice was just as mild.

  ‘I’ll tell you, Lieutenant’, he said. ‘Klime probably wrote that number down late this afternoon. At least it was about that time when he called the house.’

  ‘Oh, so he did call. Who talked to him?’

  ‘My brother.’

  ‘That would be Luther Canning. And what did he have to say? Klime, I mean?’

  ‘He told Luther he’d like to see him later on in the evening. He said it was important.’

  ‘Did you overhear the conversation? Did anyone?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Okay. So Luther told you. Klime wanted to see Luther but Luther didn’t come.… Or did he?’

  A muscle tightened along the hinge of Canning’s jaw. ‘I never saw Klime until he came to the house the other day’, he said. ‘I didn’t like his looks. I didn’t think he could be trusted and I said so. I don’t know what he wanted with Luther tonight or what could be so important, but it didn’t sound good so Jeff and I decided to come instead.’

  ‘So you could handle him.’

  ‘You could put it that way. Why? Are we under suspicion?’

  ‘You sure are, Mr. Canning. You sure are. It’s pretty clear that Klime was mixed up some way in the Garvin murder. So were you.’

  ‘That’s your opinion.’

  ‘It’ll do for now.’

  ‘Wait a minute’, Canning said, no longer mild. ‘Do you think if I had killed Klime I would come back?’

  ‘Why not? After you had a chance to dispose of the gun. How’d you get that limp?’

  ‘I fell off a horse and broke my knee.’

  ‘The man who shot at Murdock down on the street had a limp.’

  ‘Murdock said he thought he limped.’

  Bacon ignored the remark. He said it could be figured. ‘The two of you could have come here and held a gun on Klime. I don’t know why or what you were after; I don’t know that it matters. You could have told Elliott to go down and move the car so you could meet him later. You could have shot Klime and got trapped up here by Murdock and then——’

  Canning cut him off with an oath. He began to button his coat. He said he’d had enough of such nonsense. He nodded to his nephew.

  ‘If that’s the best you can do we’ll be going.’ He started to turn and then Bacon got in his way.

  ‘When I say so, Mr. Canni
ng.’ Bacon measured the other but did not raise his voice. ‘Yesterday down at the office things were a little different. You came voluntarily, and for an informal questioning. This is murder tonight, Mr. Canning. You walked in on it and that makes you a witness. We have some work to do here now, and when we finish we’ll all go down to the precinct house. There’ll probably be an assistant district attorney sitting in and we’ll take some statements and if things work out maybe you’ll be free to go home—maybe not.’ He paused to glance at the precinct captain and the husky who stood beside him near the door. The two men who had been going over the room moved up.

  Bacon gave Canning another level look and stepped back. ‘If you have any other ideas, Mr. Canning,’ he said, ‘I’d just forget them if I were you.’

  Canning tightened his thin lips as though silently counting the roll. He was saved from any direct reply by the entrance of an assistant medical examiner, who said hello to the room at large and proceeded to the desk where the photographer was setting up his camera and lights. A few seconds later Sergeant Keogh came in with Saul Damin.

  ‘Hello, Saul’, Bacon said. ‘Glad to see you. Go over and take a look at your ex-partner and then come back and tell me what you know about it.’

  Work stopped with Bacon’s comment. Everyone was watching Damin and Damin returned their inspection, his hooded black eyes busy and nothing showing in his swart, angular face. He looked very neat and prosperous in his grey felt, blue coat, and navy-blue suit. His tie was a little loud and the topcoat was a little narrow in the waist, a little wide in the shoulders; other than that he looked very sharp indeed. When he was ready he walked over and looked behind the desk, the medical examiner making way for him.

  ‘Shot?’ he asked of no one in particular.

  ‘Once’, the doctor said. ‘Nicked the heart, I’d say. Internal hæmorrhage. Maybe lived a minute or two; no longer.’

  ‘How long would he be conscious?’ Bacon wanted to know.

  ‘Hard to say. Maybe not at all after the slug hit him. Maybe seconds.’ The doctor straightened and closed his bag. ‘I’d say he’d been shot within the hour.’ He glanced at the photographer. ‘He’s all yours, Andy.’

  ‘Show Saul the gun, Ed’, Bacon said.

  A compact, blunt-jawed man uncovered the short-barrelled revolver which now lay on the desk.

  ‘Recognize it?’ Bacon asked, moving up.

  ‘Lew had one like it. He also had a permit. You could check the number.’

  ‘We have’, Bacon said. ‘It’s Lew’s. Fired once. We think recently, but it’s hard to say whether it was fired within the last hour or so.’ He paused to give Damin a studied inspection that took him in from head to toe. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Who killed him.’

  ‘I wish I knew’, Damin said quietly.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve got an alibi.’

  ‘You want to hear it? It’s not too tight.’ Damin opened his coat and took out a silver case. He got a cigarette, lit it, inhaled. He sat down on a chair arm and looked up at Bacon. ‘I had dinner with a woman.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I can tell you when and if I have to.’

  ‘Okay to guess?… Mrs. Klime.’ Bacon hesitated, apparently expecting no answer. ‘Where?’

  Damin mentioned an address, and then decided to take off on his own.

  ‘We got there about seven and left about eight-thirty. My friend had a little too much to drink so I took her home. I drove back to my place and got there maybe around a quarter of nine or a little after. I was there when the sergeant came.’

  Bacon said: ‘Um-hunh’, and rocked up on his toes. ‘It could be better’, he added.

  ‘It could be a lot better’, Damin said.

  Bacon came back on his heels. He said this thing made it sort of convenient for Damin, didn’t it?

  Damin examined the end of his cigarette and tapped the ash on the floor. He glanced up again, his voice controlled.

  ‘You’re a little ahead of me, Lieutenant’, he said. ‘What makes it convenient?’

  ‘The Klimes were separated. I’ve heard that maybe you were the reason. Separated, but not divorced. Because Lew wasn’t ready to let you call the shots for him. Now you’re out in the open and all by yourself.’

  ‘That’s a motive for murder?’ Damin remained unimpressed.

  ‘You know it is. The records say so.’

  The door opened then and two white-jacketed ambulance attendants came in with a rolled-up stretcher. They did their work with proficiency and dispatch, now that the police photographer had finished, and when the door closed behind them Bacon turned back to Damin as though there had been no interruption.

  ‘Also,’ he said, ‘we’ve been asking some questions down at your office. The word is that you and Lew were splitting up but he was holding out for a bigger cut than you wanted to pay. Now you don’t have to worry about it, do you?’

  Damin’s swart face was set and shiny and Murdock watched him stand up and put out his cigarette before he answered Bacon. When he did he spoke in the same flat, indifferent tones.

  ‘There was a partnership agreement, Lieutenant. It’s all down in black and white. Lew had a percentage. The attorneys will do some figuring and when they get through I’ll have to pay off to Lew’s estate.’

  ‘That’s what I mean’, Bacon said. ‘I never heard that Lew had any living relatives—maybe you’d know about that—but if he hasn’t his wife’ll inherit. Then when you two get together you wind up with the business—for free.’

  Murdock listened to Bacon’s reasoning with new respect. In the beginning he had thought the lieutenant was tossing things at Damin in the hope of getting some reaction that might be of help; now he saw that there was considerable logic in the suggested theory. There was no proof yet but given a little something to work with, Bacon had all the motives he would need.

  Murdock put on his hat and reached for his coat. He had an idea that the session here was about to adjourn in favour of a somewhat more official conference at the precinct house, and as he reconsidered the developments of the past hour it came to him that he knew very little more now than he knew at the beginning. He watched Bacon adjust his hat to the proper centre of his head, heard him say:

  ‘Let’s get going.’ He glanced at Canning and Elliott; then back at Damin. ‘You, too, Saul. You’re in it now, bub.’

  ‘You know I’m in it’, Damin said. ‘I’m staying in it. In my racket when one of your men gets knocked off and you don’t do something about it, it’s bad for business.’

  Bacon looked down his nose at the private detective. ‘That’s the right attitude, Saul’, he said dryly. ‘You work hard and wrap this up for us and I’ll see you get your name in the papers. Maybe Murdock’ll take your picture … But right now,’ he said when there was no reply, ‘we’ll take you for a ride down to the station house.’

  Damin’s lip curled and his little eyes were unpleasant but he said nothing. He moved slowly toward the door when Bacon told him he could ride with the captain.

  ‘You two gentlemen have your car?’ Bacon said to Canning and Elliott. ‘Then I’ll ride with you.’ He spoke some words of instruction to the plain-clothes men and one of them said he’d like a word with the lieutenant.

  ‘We found this on that top home recorder.’ He held up a strip of what looked to Murdock like paper tape that was a quarter of an inch thick and perhaps two feet long. In his other hand was a transparent plastic reel, about seven or eight inches in diameter.

  ‘This end of the tape,’ he said, ‘was threaded into the core of the reel. That’s how you set the tape up in the beginning, and it looks like somebody yanked off the full reel and the tape tore off close to the hub. We found some other reels in that cabinet’, he added.

  Bacon nodded. He said to hang on to everything. ‘You stay here,’ he said, ‘until we’re ready to seal the room. We’ll g
et Sergeant Unger to play that stuff.’ He looked over at Murdock. ‘You, too’, he said. ‘Down to the precinct. And I mean right down, not by way of the Courier.’

  He came over, his smile thin and humourless as he tapped the camera. ‘No use my asking if you got pictures’, he said. ‘Not when you were here alone with the body. But if you want to get them developed you’d better call from the precinct and have somebody pick up the films. You’re going to be busy with your statement for quite a while.’

  The uniformed captain opened the door as Bacon finished his valedictory remarks. Then the exodus began.

  Chapter 18

  KENT MURDOCK slept later than usual the next morning, not because he planned it that way but because the session at the precinct house was a lengthy one and he needed the extra sleep. In his moments of waking he found himself listening for kitchen noises and the smell of coffee, and then he realized he was alone again and that if there was to be coffee he would have to make it.

  He swung his feet to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed to yawn and scratch his head while he felt for his slippers. He put on his robe and padded into the kitchen to get some water heating, checked the refrigerator to see if there was any more frozen juice; then he crossed the living-room and opened the hall door to get the Courier which had been left there.

  His picture of Lew Klime was on page five, and the story which accompanied it offered nothing he did not already know. Aside from the facts of murder there was only a short biography of the dead man and the usual double talk issued by the police and the district attorney’s office; an arrest was expected momentarily but no names were mentioned and no concrete theory advanced.

  Murdock read the account again over his coffee, and when he finished he telephoned Police Headquarters to ask Lieutenant Bacon if anything new had developed.

  ‘No’, said Bacon bleakly.

  ‘What about the p.m.?’

  ‘Just what we thought. One slug. Clipped a rib and lodged under the skin in the back. A .32. We found the ejected shell. Ballistics has them both now but it looks like the job was done with the same gun that took the shot at your girl friend the other night.’