Murder Most Ingenious

by Kip Chase

  The tired voice of Horowitz interrupted his train of thought. ‘They’re having the inquest on that girl this afternoon. Feel like going?’

  ‘No’, Carmichael said. ‘I’d like to see the report, though. And I’ll get Bagley to look over her room this afternoon, if possible. If that’s okay with you.’

  Horowitz shrugged indifferently. ‘Sure.’

  It was just past seven the next morning when Carmichael was awakened by the jingling of the phone in his front living-room. He heard the door to his daughter’s bedroom open, her heavy tread in the hallway, then her voice answering the phone. He reached over and opened his bedroom door so he could hear the conversation.

  ‘Yes. No, I’m sorry, Lieutenant. He isn’t up yet. No, I don’t think I should wake him up. He needs his rest, you know. Yes, certainly I’ll...’

  ‘Martha,’ Carmichael croaked irritably, ‘is that for me?’

  His daughter’s voice continued unperturbed. ‘Yes, I certainly will. Thank you, Lieutenant.’

  Carmichael thrashed around in the bed, pulled off his pyjama top, then screamed, ‘Martha, where did you put my clothes?’

  His daughter appeared in the doorway. ‘I didn’t lay them out last night,’ she announced calmly, ‘because I didn’t want you getting up at the crack of dawn and running off somewhere. You’ve been exerting yourself far too much lately. I want you to rest this morning. You know what Doctor Felton says.’

  ‘Damn Doctor Felton. He’s nothing but a quack.’

  Clad only in his pyjama bottoms Carmichael pulled himself into the wheel-chair beside his bed and wheeled into the living-room, almost running his daughter down in the process. With impatient, jerky movements he dialled Horowitz’s number.

  ‘Hello, Carl? What’s up? Yes, yes, it’s all right. What? Say that again. Is it genuine? I’ll be right down.’

  Within half an hour, Martha’s lamentations still ringing in his ears, Carmichael was racing down the Hollywood Freeway. The news he had received from Horowitz was startling indeed. The expert from the Los Angeles Police Department had found a piece of paper dropped behind the cardboard backing in the medicine cabinet in Jeanie’s bathroom. It was a suicide note written by Hubert Goodall. Horowitz had reported the signature looked genuine but was being verified by handwriting experts. Impossible, Carmichael muttered half aloud. No man can stab himself three times in the stomach. And the knife. What happened to the knife? If it had been a knife.

  As he wheeled himself into the sheriff’s building he noted there were no reporters around. The face of the duty sergeant who waved him in wore the standard expression of impersonalism glazed with boredom. I guess the word isn’t out, the old man thought to himself.

  Horowitz greeted him heartily. ‘Well,’ he said, a smile on his broad face, ‘we’ve got something all right. I’m not sure just what the hell it is, but it’s something.’

  He opened a desk drawer and extracted a large brown manila envelope which he handed to Carmichael. ‘The calligrapher says the signature is genuine. No doubt about it.’

  Carmichael opened the envelope thoughtfully. The note he withdrew was typed on a single sheet of Palos Verdes Gallery stationery. It read: ‘Forgive me, my dearest Geraldine. I cannot explain why this has to be.’ At the bottom of the page was scrawled the almost illegible signature of Hubert Goodall. Several fingerprints made visible by dusting with a white powder were on the sheet of paper.

  ‘Whose prints are these?’ Carmichael asked.

  ‘The ones at the top and side are the dead girl’s. The single thumb print on the bottom lefthand margin is Goodall’s.’

  Carmichael read the note over again, returned it to the envelope, and placed it carefully on Horowitz’s desk.

  ‘You haven’t released this yet, I take it?’ Carmichael said.

  ‘Nope. Not even within the Department.’

  ‘What’s your plan?’

  The detective looked discomfited. ‘To tell you the truth, Carmichael, I’m not too sure just what the hell to do. First thing I want is an opinion from the medical officer as to whether the fatal wounds could have been self-inflicted. I just talked to him a couple of minutes ago and he gave me his offhand opinion that it didn’t seem likely but might be possible. He’s gonna read over the autopsy reports, look at the pictures of the wounds, and call me back.’

  ‘What if his opinion stands? If he says it could have been a suicide?’

  Horowitz ran a hand over the top of his closely-cropped hair. ‘Well, dammit, I just don’t know. What do you think?’

  ‘It’s interesting’, Carmichael said speaking slowly. ‘Now, let’s see. Let’s just say he wrote the note, then stabbed himself. Where does this leave us? Several big questions: what happened to the knife, if it was a knife? What happened to the note? And how did the waitress get the note? Say!’ Carmichael said suddenly, ‘didn’t Phipps go up to the house to make the phone call when the body was found?’

  ‘That’s right’, Horowitz said. ‘Just a minute, I’ll get his statement.’

  The detective spoke briefly into his desk intercom, then the two men waited in thoughtful silence. Moments later a tall, raw-boned deputy entered the room carrying a thick folder. He nodded respectfully to Carmichael, placed the folder on Horowitz’s desk, and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

  The folder contained the original statement signed by the guard, Phipps, describing his activities the night of the killing. Another sheaf of papers was a transcript of the various interrogations through which he had been. Also included was a report on Phipps’s background and general activities made by one of the Sheriff’s Department Special Investigators.

  Both men quickly scanned all the papers, then directed their attention to the description Phipps gave of finding the body and his subsequent actions. The story was quite clear and he had never deviated from it. He had checked in for work at five o’clock. Goodall had been in the office at his desk. There was no one else in the room. Goodall had said that he didn’t want to be disturbed. Phipps had gone back to his desk in the hall and had stayed there until his relief came on at one o’clock. He had left his desk only on one occasion, to make a tour of the building. He had not been gone more than five minutes. When the new guard arrived they both had gone to the back room because, despite Mr. Goodall’s request not to be disturbed, it was a standing order that the safe be checked at the beginning of each shift. They had found Goodall. It was quite apparent he was dead. The Sheriff’s Department had been called, then Phipps had gone up to the house to tell the family, leaving the other guard with the body. Phipps made no mention of any knife or note.

  Carmichael finished reading the report, leaned back in his wheel-chair, and looked thoughtful. ‘How about this other guard, Carl?’ he asked suddenly. ‘He must have been alone with the body for about fifteen minutes. Have you checked him?’

  Horowitz nodded. ‘Yes, but only on the surface really. I didn’t see that he figured in it.’

  ‘Maybe not. But what I’m thinking is this. If it was suicide and there was a note and there was a knife, Phipps might have missed seeing them when he first came in the room. The knife might have fallen from Goodall’s hand, as it probably would do, and he might have fallen on top of it. As for the note, it might have been on the desk or somewheres else where it wasn’t immediately seen. The other guard could have taken them while Phipps was gone.’

  ‘But for Chrissake, why?’

  Carmichael shrugged. ‘I don’t know. And I’m not saying that he did. I’m just trying to see all the possibilities.’

  ‘Well, it is a possibility, I suppose’, Horowitz admitted begrudgingly. ‘But it sounds like a pretty screwy thing to me.’

  ‘It’s a screwy case, Carl. Anyway, if I were you I’d get that other guard in here and put the screws on him a little bit. How long are you going to sit on the note, by the way?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Couple days maybe. I’ll just have to play it by ear.’

  The ne
xt development, when it came, was something of an anticlimax. Carmichael had spent the remainder of the morning poking around the sub-station, re-reading reports, sifting through the files on the people concerned with the case, and talking shop with the men on duty. When lunch-time came some of the boys sent out for a hamburger and milkshake for the old man. Neither of these foods were on Carmichael’s approved diet list, but during most of his life as a working policeman this had been his lunch and now he was back on a case it seemed the only natural thing to eat.

  At three o’clock Carmichael, sitting in the file room, had just returned the last of the reports to its folder and was contemplating heading home for a short nap, when a patrolman touched him respectfully on the arm.

  ‘Something just came in on the Goodall case over the teletype, sir’, he said. ‘Lieutenant Horowitz ain’t here so I thought maybe you’d better have a look at it.’

  Carmichael grunted and wheeled himself into the duty sergeant’s area where the teletype machine was located next to the switchboard. He read the blurred blue typing on the yellow sheet with interest. It was in answer to a general inquiry put out by the sheriff’s office concerning a list of people connected with the Goodall case. The teletype was from the Chief of Police in Riverside and concerned George Craig. According to Riverside police records, George had been booked two years before on charges of assault with a deadly weapon. The defendant had pleaded guilty and been released with a fine and a lecture. A photostat of the arrest report was being mailed to Horowitz. The weapon involved was a knife.

  Carmichael whistled softly. ‘My, my, my’, he said, half to himself, half aloud. He turned to the duty sergeant and asked sharply, ‘Do you know where Leiutenant Horowitz can be reached?’

  ‘He left a number. I’ll try it for you, sir, if you like.’

  Carmichael nodded briskly. ‘Please do.’

  Horowitz was located and the teletype read to him over the phone by Carmichael. His reaction was noncommital.

  ‘Humph. Well, it might bear some looking into.’

  ‘Any objection to my talking to Craig about this?’ Carmichael asked.

  Horowitz’s gruff voice, made even raspier by the phone connexion, sounded irritable. ‘No, I don’t see why not. But I don’t think we’d better mention the suicide note yet. Do you?’

  ‘You really think that’s your answer, don’t you, Carl?’ Carmichael chuckled.

  ‘Well, dammit, it’s as logical as anything else.’

  ‘You’ve got a point there. I’ll check with you later this afternoon.’

  Carmichael replaced the phone gently on its cradle, then thoughtfully wheeled himself in the direction of the parking lot.

  Once in the car he carefully threaded his way through the heavy afternoon traffic on Hawthorne Boulevard. He turned right at 174th Street, drove past mile after mile of depressingly symmetrical housing developments interspersed with shining new shopping centres dominated by cavernous supermarkets, finally turned off the main stream of traffic and minutes later pulled into George Craig’s driveway. He deftly manoeuvred himself out of the car and into the wheelchair.

  The front door opened and Pat Craig appeared. ‘Hi’, she called. ‘Come on around the back way.’

  Carmichael wheeled himself into the flagstone patio at the rear of the house and paused. It was a beautiful day. The pall of the Los Angeles smog was behind him, obscured by the rolling green hillocks. The ocean sparkled and danced below, meeting the blue sky in a barely-discernable line at the horizon. Two fishermen cast their lines into the surf on the beach, while a sailboat knifed smoothly through the waters a half-mile off shore. A soft warm breeze rustled the leaves of a bougainvillaea and tickled the old man’s cheek.

  Pat Craig reappeared, clad in her usual daytime costume of blouse, pants, and sandals. Carmichael eyed her trim figure appreciatively and noted with a pang of envy her fresh youthfulness and vitality. The girl smiled at him.

  ‘What can we do for you, Mr. Carmichael?’

  ‘I’d like to see your husband, Mrs. Craig. Is he home?’

  ‘Yes. He’s painting. Would you like to come in?’

  ‘I’d just as soon stay out here, if you don’t mind. It’s so pleasant. Sorry to disturb him, but it shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘Oh, that’s okay. He’s not the temperamental type.’

  Pat tripped off into the house, her sandals making soft slapping sounds against the flagstones.

  Carmichael inspected the patio curiously. The area was enclosed in cinder-brick built up to waist-height. There was a redwood picnic table, a couple of redwood chairs, and several modern-looking chairs consisting of a curved iron framework with canvas seats. Against the wall on the ocean side of the patio was a brick barbecue pit with George’s skin-diving wetsuit draped over its grill. Other skin-diving equipment lay stacked near the suit. Carmichael was in the act of examining the gear curiously when George stepped out of the house. He was wearing paint-splotched khaki pants and a bleached, well-worn sweatshirt.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr. Carmichael.’ He smiled, extending his hand.

  Carmichael shook hands gravely. ‘Sorry to bother you, Mr. Craig. Just a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.’

  George leaned casually against the redwood table, pulled out a cigarette, lit it with steady hands, and said, ‘Sure. What’s on your mind?’

  Without answering, Carmichael pulled out the teletype message from his pocket and handed it over. George read the teletype quickly, then gave it back. His voice was cool.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, Mr. Craig,’ Carmichael began conversationally, ‘by itself this doesn’t mean anything, of course. But your relationship with Mr. Goodall and the fact that he was killed with a knife puts a little different light on the situation. What happened in Riverside?’

  ‘You’ve read the police report, haven’t you?’ George’s voice was brusque and harsh.

  ‘No, I haven’t. The Riverside Police are mailing us a photostat of that but it hasn’t got here yet. We just got the teletype this morning.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you what it says. There was a fight outside this bar. I pulled a knife. Someone called the police. And that’s it.’

  ‘That’s it, eh?’

  George nodded. ‘I don’t want to seem unco-operative, but there’s nothing more to tell.’

  ‘What were you doing in Riverside, Mr. Craig?’

  George hesitated briefly. ‘I was on my way to Vegas. Pat had a two-week engagement there. She flew over and I was bringing the car over.’

  ‘You were by yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you happen to stop at this bar?’

  George shrugged. ‘I just stopped. It was a hot day, I went in to get a beer.’

  ‘And then?’ Carmichael prompted.

  ‘Look, Mr. Carmichael, would you mind telling me what the point is in all this?’

  Carmichael did not answer immediately. He turned his wheel-chair in a half-circle so that he was facing the ocean. A capricious gust of the warm offshore breeze ruffled a lock of his shaggy, iron-grey hair. Absently he smoothed it back with a gnarled hand.

  ‘Well, George,’ he finally said, ‘let me tell you a little something about a murder investigation. We’ll begin at the classic beginning. Somebody finds a body, or at least usually that’s the way it begins. Sometimes there isn’t any body, of course. Anyway, one way or another the police discover they have a murder on their hands. I’ve been on a lot of murder cases, George. More than I’d care to think about. And I can tell you that nine times out of ten it’s just like every other job – a standard pattern of investigation and procedure is followed which results in the killer being behind bars, usually within twenty-four hours. That’s because it isn’t often there’s much question about who did it. Now from reading the newspapers you might think that every murder is a mystery of some sort. But those stories get in the papers only because they are unusual. Out of all the killings we have in Los Angeles ever
y year – my last year on the force it was over a hundred and fifty – the vast majority are strictly routine. And this, in most cases, means they’re not premeditated. It seems a terrible thing, but the simple truth is most killings are the result of somebody just losing his temper – a jealous husband knifes his wife, somebody gets clobbered with a beer bottle in a bar, things like that. The other big factor in a homicide department is professional, and I don’t mean specifically a professional killer but the professional small-time criminal. The guy who holds up gas stations, liquor stores, supermarkets, places like that. He uses a gun to do his dirty work, to threaten people. Sometimes they aren’t frightened and he gets panicky and fires. It usually takes a little longer to catch up with him, but not too much longer. Chances are very good he’s got a record and one way or another, maybe by a witness or an informer, or any one of a dozen other ways, we get him. Now we come down to that very small minority of killings – the premeditated murder by a non-professional. Sometimes these are pretty tough. Sometimes they’re not so tough. It just depends on how many mistakes the killer made. If he really botched it, we get him in a hurry. If he’s intelligent in his approach it will take us a little longer. And that’s what we’ve got in this Goodall case. So, getting back to your question. In a case of this sort, if you fail to turn up anything during the standard investigation – this includes questioning of suspects, establishing opportunity and motive, lab analysis, and all that – if, after you go through that routine, you still haven’t got anything, then the real work begins. This means detailed careful investigation of every possible angle. Anything at all that looks like it has the remotest possibility of being tied in with the killing has to be run down, whether it concerns information either about the murdered man himself or someone he knew, or maybe it’s a physical clue, something found at the scene of the crime, the murder weapon, whatever. And if in the course of this investigation we find that one of the people connected with the victim has a police record, we check it. That’s what I’m doing now.’