Silent Are the Dead

by George Harmon Coxe

  “What kind?”

  Ackerman thought it over. “Pointed. Slick. The other fellow was smaller. He had a mustache too, but little, clipped.”

  “That does it,” Casey said bitterly, and began to feel bad all over again. He knew what the score was now. Austin took the pictures and Harry Nye did most of the collecting and framing.

  “Does what?” Ackerman asked.

  “Tells me all I want to know. Tear that thing up and throw it away. Forget it.” He got up. “Sorry I bothered you, but it was worth the beating.”

  “Beating?” chuckled Ackerman. “You? Did you see my boys? Hell, you don’t look bad. You might’ve bumped into a couple of doors. Why don’t you have another slug of that brandy before you go?”

  Lieutenant Logan was slouched low in his chair, his heels on the desk. He was staring morosely at his shoes when Casey came in the office, and he shifted his gaze without changing its quality or moving his head.

  “Seen Harry Nye?” Casey asked.

  “No. But we will.”

  Something in the inflection of Logan’s voice interested Casey and he sat down, drawing up his chair. “Looking for him, are you?”

  “Plenty. What happened to your face?”

  “A bee stung me.”

  “Three times, huh?” Logan said. “Once on each side and once in the mouth.” He swung his feet down, his gaze more curious now than morose. “Well, it’s about time somebody gave you a working over— Who was it?”

  “You wouldn’t know him,” Casey said. “It was about a picture.”

  “Okay then, what’re you sore about?”

  “I got trouble.”

  “You’ve got trouble?”

  Casey watched Logan, saying nothing. Logan lit a cigarette, broke the match between thumb and finger. “What’d you want to see Nye about?”

  “Just wanted to see him.” Casey felt the bruises on his jaw and ran his tongue around the inside of his lips. It felt like an inner tube but he didn’t think it showed much from the outside. “This Endicott business has got you down, huh?”

  “And not only me, fella. This has really turned into something. Hot bonds, hell.” He grunted sourly. “There’s a cut-rate auto supply store down on Weber Street. Been there over a year. Advertised in the Express.” He smoked silently and Casey waited. After a while the rest of it came out. “It’s closed today. Cleaned out. There ain’t even an old tire in the place.”

  The silence came again. Logan nursed it awhile.

  “We found some records in Endicott’s office. That’s how we got wise. Nobody there—in the store, I mean. We located two clerks. They’re all right. Didn’t know a thing. The manager’s gone and nobody knows where. Some guy came along and said they were closing up, handed the two clerks a week’s pay, and told them to beat it.”

  “Today?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “It wasn’t Endicott. He was dead.”

  “You catch on quick,” Logan said. “Endicott is rubbed out. Somebody’s got to be in with him. Whoever it is knows the records will be found and then school will be out. Simple, huh?”

  “The store was full of hot tires and accessories.”

  “Keep figuring. You’re doing all right. That stuff was probably trucked in from every hijack job this side of the Mississippi. By now it’s off the road. It’s hot, again but it can be sold later.”

  “That’s all right, isn’t it?” Casey said. “No wonder Endicott was in the chips. Hot bonds, hot auto sup plies—”

  “In the chips. Hah!” Logan mashed out his cigarette. “We got an order to open his safe-deposit box. One of those big babies. It was full of cash. Guess how much?”

  “How much do I get if I’m right?”

  “Six hundred grand. Six hundred thousand dollars.”

  Casey leaned back and started to whistle. He stopped because it hurt his lip. He said, “That makes it sort of nice for Louise,”

  “You know it. Especially when you figure he had talked about divorcing her.”

  Casey’s brows came up. “Talked to whom?”

  “Somebody in his office.”

  Casey sat there a minute, trying to assimilate all this information, but mostly thinking about Perry Austin and Harry Nye and what a stink it would make if the news of that blackmailing got around. He put on his hat and started to get up.

  “Sit down,” Logan said. “What’s the matter? Am I boring you?”

  “A little.”

  “I got more. Listen. There’s wholesale jeweler in the Rand Building. Nice little guy. Of course he may wind up doing a couple of years the hard way, but a nice little guy.”

  “More records?”

  “More records. We had a talk with him. He’s got a legitimate business—or did have. Small, but okay. A couple of years ago somebody sells him a bill of goods. It’s Endicott. He’s got a nice story about wanting an outlet for refugee jewelry. Old stuff but good. All remodeled—so you can’t tell where- the hell it came from. The guy falls for it and makes a perfectly legitimate market for hot rocks, a natural outlet. He sent stuff out on consignment, like most of them do.” Logan sat up, exasperation riding his words. “Why, damn it all! Yesterday, when a guy comes around and says he’s going to withdraw this stuff from the wholesaler, there’s a string of pearls over in Lyons & Son—the snootiest store in town. They had ’em in the window. The wholesaler calls the string back. He has to turn it over along with everything else that wasn’t his own.”

  “Well, anyway,” Casey said cheerfully, “you got the wholesaler. He didn’t skip on you.”

  “Oh, swell,” Logan groused. “Fine. He didn’t skip because he had the shop and stock of his own. And anyway he thought everything was on the level. That’s his story.” He got up and went to the window, continued without turning around. “Last week a $200,000 jewel break in Miami. A month ago a $140,000 stick-up on Long Island. And you know where the loots ends up? In Lyons & Son’s window.”

  “You got to admit it’s a nice setup.”

  “Sure I admit it.”

  “And big.”

  “Six hundred thousand dollars’ worth—and for a guy who probably only worked on commission. Hell, it’s probably been going on for years.”

  “And if it hadn’t been for this bond job—” Casey said, and then he thought of something else. “What about the guy that came around to close up the auto shop and paid off the clerks? The guy that told the wholesaler he wanted the stuff back?”

  Logan turned, his tone sarcastic. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it,” he said. “But you did. Yes, sir, you did it all by yourself.” He came over and tapped Casey’s knee. “That’s why we’re looking for Harry Nye. What do you think of that?”

  Casey looked at him. He didn’t answer until he had a cigarette. Then he said, “I think you’re nuts. Nye’s not big enough to be behind a thing like that.”

  “Bernie Dixon is.”

  “I’m talking about Nye.”

  “Two guys saw him, the two clerks and the wholesaler—he’s been contacting the wholesaler for a couple of months in place of Endicott—and the description they gave us fits Nye.”

  “He was only a runner then.”

  “So he’s only a runner. I want him. He worked for Endicott. He hung around Dixon’s Berkely. I think Dixon’s our boy, but I’ll take Nye for now.”

  “You think Dixon killed Endicott?”

  “Till I find someone I like better.”

  Casey looked at his cigarette, thinking of the thing Louise Endicott had told him the night before. “Mrs. Endicott told me something last night,” he said. “I didn’t tell you.”

  Logan’s face tightened and his eyes were narrow. “When did you ever tell me anything?”

  “I’m going to tell you now, if you’ll keep your yap shut long enough. What the hell is this, anyway?” Casey got up, his gaze sullen and hot. “Do I have to stay here and listen to all this crying?”

  “Okay.” Logan wasn’t sore any more. He hadn’t mean
t to be in tie first place. It was just that the breaks were piling up on him and his temper was frayed. “Take it easy. What did she tell you?”

  “She said Dixon was with her between eight and ten the night Endicott was murdered. While I was waiting up there with Garrison she told me. There’s only a cook and a houseboy. She sent the houseboy out and the cook went home.”

  Logan sighed and sat down. He kicked the edge of the desk gently, moved his shoulders wearily. After a while he said, “She could be lying.”

  “She could,” Casey said. “She said she might retract the statement later, anyway. I just thought I’d tell you.”

  “Thanks.” Logan kicked some more and sucked his lips. “It could have been one of those hoods. He could have hired them. I’ve been figuring he did. They know their stuff, damn ’em. They haven’t said ten words since we started to work on ’em.” He looked up. “It could have been one of them.”

  “Maybe,” said Casey, “but I think you’re reaching now.”

  “With my fingernails,” Logan said, and then the telephone rang. “Yeah, speaking.… What?” He sat up. “Where? Okay.… Yeah. Sure. Right away.”

  His voice was tired when he finished. He put the telephone down gently and his mouth curved in a grim smile. “Well, I knew we’d get a break,” he said. “That’s one thing about Logan. He always gets the breaks. I wanted him and I got him.”

  “Who?”

  “Harry Nye.”

  Casey rose, hesitated, his eyes puzzled as he watched Logan reach for his hat and coat. “Now you’re getting somewhere,” he said finally.

  “Sure am.” Logan put on his hat.

  “If you can only make him talk—”

  “Nobody can do that. You have to find them alive to make them talk.”

  “Alive?” Casey said.

  “He’s downtown,” Logan said. “In an alley. In his car. With a slug in his head. They tell me he’s been there quite a while. Come on,” he said, and opened the door and walked out.

  Chapter Seventeen: THE CANCELED CHECKS

  THE STREET WHERE HARRY NYE’S coupé was parked was little more than an alley, but it carried considerable truck traffic in the daytime by virtue of its use as a loading outlet for the stores which backed up to it on either side. By the time Casey and Logan arrived, the area around the coupé was roped off and after one look at the reporters and photographers gathered about, Casey knew he was not going to get any exclusive pictures or information at the moment. If he’d had any hopes, Logan destroyed them.

  “It’s outside the ropes for you this time,” he said, getting out of the car. “But stick around.”

  Casey knew what he meant. It was dangerous for the police to play favorites among members of the press—unless one of them had special information, which, in this case, Casey had not. He burrowed in among the others and spotted Tom Wade and Egan, a leg man from the Express.

  “What do we know?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Egan said. “Except he was shot once in the side of the head. The gun’s in the car. It’s been here all day, I heard some guy say.”

  Wade had his camera out. Casey produced his and opened it. He moved up against the rope and took a general shot of the immediate alley, the coupé, the dozen or so cops and plain-clothes men who milled about. The ambulance was already there and presently the body was carried out of the coupé. It wasn’t a pretty sight. They couldn’t straighten it out right and when they put it on the ground for a final inspection by the Examiner’s man, Casey glanced about, ducked into a near-by doorway, found some back stairs and climbed them to a hall window. He got this open after a struggle and leaned out. It made a good picture, shooting down like that, and he took a second one as the stretcher was loaded into the ambulance.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Wade asked as Casey came back.

  “You’ll learn.” He handed Wade the film holder. “Take this back when you go.”

  Wade looked at him with one eye. “What about you?”

  “I’m sticking around,” Casey said quietly. “By special dispensation. And don’t crab it for me.”

  They waited a few minutes and finally Logan and Danaher, the precinct captain, came over and made a statement for the press. They said apparently Harry Nye had been killed late last night or early this morning; he’d been shot once through the side of the head at close range. Yes, the gun had been found on the seat. Suicide? A possibility. Was there any connection between Nye’s death and the murder of Stanford Endicott? They could not say at this time.

  A uniformed husky threaded through the knot of newspapermen and tugged on Casey’s sleeve, giving him a wink and a jerk of the head as he did so. Casey edged away from the others. “The lieutenant says to meet him on the corner of Franklin.”

  “Okay,” Casey said. “Thanks.”

  He closed his camera, put it in the plate case and slung it over his shoulder. He moved out of the alley without being noticed by the others and ten minutes later Logan and Manahan picked him up in the police sedan.

  “Give,” Casey said.

  “Hah!” Logan’s voice was bitter. He was staring straight ahead, his mouth a thin grim line. “Give, huh? Don’t I wish I could. The only contact we have between the auto store and jewelry guy and Endicott—and somebody beats us to it.”

  “He got it last night?”

  “The doc can only guess until he does a p.m. He figures between twelve and two but may change that later. How do you like that?” he asked. “Five thousand-seven hundred and twenty-nine trucks have passed that coupé since morning and he’d’ve been there yet if a driver hadn’t tried to move the heap.”

  “What about the gun?”

  “On a hunch the same one killed Endicott.”

  “Numbers?”

  “Filed.”

  “But good,” Manahan said, swinging the sedan into Washington and then up Bromfield. “He knew his stuff, whoever fixed it. Used a punch and hammered the metal down to destroy the molecule setup of the original numbers.”

  “Listen to him,” Logan said. “An expert.”

  “All right,” Manahan said, “but that’s what he did.”

  “What about the one that killed Austin?” Casey asked.

  “It was his own. Looks like the guy walked in with a gun. Austin tried to get his out, and the guy took it away from him and used it on him.”

  “You know when yet?”

  “Between twelve and twelve-thirty.”

  Casey fell silent, trying to think of what he had been doing during that time. Suddenly he realized that it was then that he had knocked on Austin’s door. And that girl, Nancy Jamison, had been there between 12:00 and 12:15. He was still sorting these things out in his mind when the car began to slow and he saw the entrance to the Club Berkely up ahead.

  “You gonna give Dixon the business?”

  “I’m going to try.” Logan got out, stopped at the door as Casey lingered on the sidewalk. “What’s the matter?” he said. “Don’t you want to come in and kibitz? It might hand you a laugh, watching him give us the run-around.”

  “I have to make a couple calls,” Casey said, watching Logan eye him narrowly. “I’ll wait out here. If I miss you, I’ll stop by your office.”

  Logan shrugged and pushed open the door. Casey waited, holding the door open and watching Logan speak to a man who was sweeping the foyer. When the two detectives continued across the main dining-room, Casey walked back to the street and flagged a cab.

  Within ten minutes he was cruising down a wide, tree-lined street flanked by four- and five-story apartment houses which were moderately new, nicely cared for and representing the maximum of respectability—in an upper middle-class way. He left the taxi at the corner, walked rapidly down the street, glancing at numbers, and turned in at the third house.

  In the vestibule he inspected the chromium-trimmed mailboxes, tried the inner door, found it unlocked and looked in the foyer, which proved to be an attractively appointed affair with two elev
ators and no desk clerk or telephone service. Then, turning back to the sidewalk, he hiked down the street until he came to a drugstore and a telephone booth.

  “Hello,” he said a minute later.

  “Yes, please,” replied a thin, high voice. “Mr. Dixon’s residence.”

  “Are you the houseboy? What’s your name?”

  “Emanuel, sir.”

  “Well, listen to me, Emanuel, and don’t make any mistakes.” Casey’s voice was hard and gruff. “This is Lieutenant Tasker at police headquarters. You alone?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, get your hat and coat and come down here. I want to see you right away.”

  “But—Mr. Dixon. I should call Mr. Dixon—”

  “Dixon is already down here, son. That’s why we want you. Now are you coming down like I tell you or do you want me to send the wagon?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I come. Emanuel come.”

  “And quick, like a goose, you hear?”

  Casey ran to the corner, turned it and slowed down, taking the opposite side of the street. He hadn’t gone 50 feet when a brown-skinned little man came running out of Dixon’s apartment house and started down the street, coattails flying.

  Casey said, “Nice going, Emanuel,” and ambled idly across the pavement.

  Bernie Dixon’s apartment was on the top floor. Casey studied the lock a moment and then, though he had two bunches of keys—Perry Austin’s and his own—he took out his pocket knife and slid the blade between the molding and the casing of the door. He pried gently, reached for a thin strip of celluloid he carried in his vest pocket, slid it along the crack until it came to the sloping surface of the bolt, pushing firmly until it slid back and the door popped open. He went in quickly, glanced up and down the hall, tapped the molding back although it did not really need it.

  He got a shock when he saw what Bernie Dixon had done to the apartment. It wasn’t so large—six rooms, and he went through them all because he wanted to know where the back door was in case he had to leave hurriedly—and probably did not rent for more than a $150 a month; but that was only for appearances. Inside there were Persian rugs and bits of sculpture done in teak and ebony, and at least 12 paintings that, even if you didn’t know a thing about art, could not fail to impress. Casey even forgot himself long enough to make sure that one of them was a Bellows, another by Degas, a third, which he thought stank, by Picasso. He stopped looking then, figuring that if three were originals, all were authentic. He wished he knew how many thousands of dollars they represented.