That fall she hunted for a job again and obtained one with the Fizz-Rite Company in town and continued to live at home and at odds with her father until she was transferred to the newly-opened branch bottling plant. She bought a secondhand car and commuted the first few weeks, then sold the car and moved to Townsend, taking a furnished room in a boarding house, the name of which Mrs. Simpson couldn’t remember. It was a temporary arrangement, for she wasn’t happy with it and when she had the opportunity to move in with two other girls in a two-bedroom apartment, she took it.
“We didn’t see her often after she sold her car,” Mrs. Simpson said. “Where she lived wasn’t so far away, but it takes a long time by train. She had to catch the local into Stamford or take a bus and then get the train to Bridgeport. I guess it was hard for her, especially with her father so dead set against her. I thought maybe she might buy another car, but she wouldn’t because she wasn’t making as much money and her new boss wasn't generous, like Mr. Busso, and didn’t give her presents.”
The one thing Fellows noted that Mrs. Simpson had overlooked in her long and detailed recital, were men in Joan’s life. He asked about that. “Oh, she had dates,” Mrs. Simpson said. “When she was in school, she was very popular. The boys used to line up for her then. Of course, when she went to business college she didn’t have as much time for dates, but she had quite a few. After she got her job, though, it was different. I guess she didn’t meet so many single men. There were a few, of course. When she first went to work for Masters some of the men there took her out, but then they stopped for some reason or other. One by one they dropped out.” She said sadly, “I think perhaps Joan was hoping too much to marry Mr. Busso. I think maybe she discouraged those other boys from coming around. I think maybe she shouldn’t have. She should have known Mr. Busso was only interested in seeing her get ahead.”
CHAPTER XXI
Wednesday, 3:00-4:30
Wilks and Fellows compared notes over coffee in a Bridgeport diner in the middle of the afternoon. Fellows related the details of his interview with Mrs. Simpson and said, “The husband came back in before I left. They’re going to view the body and take care of the funeral business. And I stopped in at headquarters. Not a whisper on the Jean Sherman angle. No calls. He hasn’t been near the house. Not a sign.”
Wilks said, “You want my opinion? The guy is a ghost. He doesn’t really exist at all.”
“It’s a ghost we’d better find or maybe we won’t exist. You pick up anything at Fizz-Rite?”
“I learned that three guys there had dated her at one time or another. I talked to one of them. The other two were out on the road. They’re salesmen.”
“They got dark hair?”
“One has. Guy named Manners. I didn’t see him, but there isn’t going to be anything there. He and his family own a house in here, so he could hardly be making the trip to Stockford at the times we hear Campbell was there.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
“All right,” Wilks said in distaste. “We’ll put him on the list of suspects. That makes the list about one.”
“What about the other two?”
“The other salesman is a blond and the one I talked to is in between. His name is DeKeyser. He said he took Joan out about three times but then laid off because she had her hooks out. He said two dates and she started acting like she owned him. Three, and he could see the altar staring him in the face and that was enough. Same with the others, or so he told me. Manners started dating her shortly after she started working there, but after a few weeks he quit. Then DeKeyser took her out and had the same experience. He and Manners got talking about it after and that’s why he knew that story. Then it was the blond guy and he had the same trouble. He stopped seeing her, but it didn’t end there for either of them. She kept making plays for them long after they had crossed her off the list with the result that it got embarrassing. He didn’t come out and say so, but he led me to believe one of the reasons she was transferred to the new plant was to get her out of their hair.”
Fellows was silent for a few seconds before saying, “Maybe Campbell wasn’t as lucky as the others. I presume those men weren’t married.”
“Not when they were dating her. DeKeyser is now.”
“I guess she got in Campbell’s hair too, wanting to get married. I guess he must have rented that house to placate her and keep her quiet.”
“Meaning he had a wife she was threatening to go see?”
“Sounds like it. Maybe she thought she could persuade him to divorce her. You notice she wouldn’t tell her roommates what her married name would be. If she was merely going to live with him for a while and call it quits, she wouldn’t have to act like that. She’d give them some name and never see them again. Her promising to write them all about it sounds as if she really expected to get married, as if she could come back and parade a wedding ring. She didn’t want them to know her as Mrs. Campbell, not if she could hitch onto his real name.”
Wilks shook his head. “Now that’s good theorizing, Fred, or at least I guess it is, but what’s the use of it? That doesn’t move us one inch closer to this guy.”
“Sometimes theories help, Sid. By theorizing, you can some times guess what a man’s going to do next and intercept him at it. You get a picture of the man and his habits even if you can’t put your finger on him.”
“You can have all the pictures you want. All I’m after is the real McCoy.”
Fellows reached in his pocket and put out a tip. “Well, let’s go talk to some of the guys at Masters Toy Company while we’re here and see what we can learn.”
“You aren’t going to find the real McCoy in some place she worked at eight years ago, are you?”
“I don’t expect so, but we’re going to look anyway. That’s what the detective business is all about.”
Mr. Busso of the Masters Toy Company was a stout man whose hair was almost gone, but advancing age, receding hair, and encroaching fat didn’t remove the air of the lecher he wore as a permanent badge of his bachelorhood. His secretary, a pretty young thing who had acquired an expensive wardrobe after only six months of work, showed the two policemen into his luxurious office and he welcomed them with a patronizing air. “It’s a shame about Joan,” he said with reference to their phone call. “Of course I’ll help any way I can, but I don’t know what I could tell you. I haven’t seen her since she left here.”
Mr. Busso was agreeable in manner, but his general statements as to his acquaintance with the deceased weren’t of assistance. She had been a capable secretary and a fine young woman. He had no complaints about her work and gave her a high recommendation when she left. On the subject that mattered, the men in her life, he denied any knowledge. “I don’t think she had many dates,” he said. “I certainly doubt whoever did her in ever worked for us.”
“She never dated anyone here?” Fellows asked.
“I’m sure she didn’t.”
“This is certain knowledge on your part?”
Busso backed off. “Now, of course, I can’t be certain. I didn’t run her social life.”
“We’ve had it from other sources that some of the people here did date her when she started work.”
Busso worked his Ups thoughtfully. “Well now, I guess that’s right. I guess she did have a few dates. I guess a couple of the men here took her out.”
“Which men?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know.”
“You mean it was a secret? The men didn’t want you to know?”
“Of course not. I don’t mean that at all.”
“Then if it wasn’t a secret and you knew she went out, you must have known who took her out.”
Busso hemmed and hawed a moment or two. “I know one,” he finally said. “Fellow by the name of Lawrence. Used to be in sales. He chased her quite a bit. He wasn’t with us long though.”
“Lawrence? Know where he lives?”
“I only know his name is John Lawrence. Personnel might
still have him listed. He was a Bridgeport man.”
“John, huh? Can you tell us what he was like? Describe him?”
“He was a young fellow, late twenties. About six feet tall, slender build, dark hair. I suppose you’d call him nice-looking.”
“Any others?”
Busso’s manner had lost a little of its geniality. His brows were darker and his eyes were thoughtful. He said abruptly, “I don’t know of any others.”
“This might help,” Fellows said, rising. “Where would I find personnel?”
“Third door on your right, down the hall.” Busso got up too. “I’d look into Lawrence. He might have carried on with her after he left here. He’s the type.”
Wilks grinned at Fellows as they got into the hall. “Somebody was beating his time, I guess.”
Fellows said, “There wasn’t any love lost there, that’s for sure.” The personnel manager, a Mr. Blake, was available, and they sat down with him in his office to tell him their story. He listened and looked sympathetic at news of Joan’s death, but grinned at the mention of Lawrence.
“I remember the whole thing,” he said. “I ought to. Joan was one of Busso’s girls. He buys a new edition about every four years. They’re always bright, shiny, and eye-catching, but everyone around here knows you don’t touch the merchandise. This fellow Lawrence, though, he was working here when Busso brought in Joan Simpson. Lawrence was in sales, that’s right across the hall, so I knew him quite well. He was a character, that boy. No woman between six and sixty was safe around him.
“He hadn’t been in here long, though, and Joan was brought in a short time after to replace one of Busso’s older models. Old John knew he shouldn’t touch, of course, he was savvy enough to know the score, but she was right up his alley, real Lawrence bait, and then there was the challenge. That was partly it too, I guess. Anyway, he went after Joan himself, hot and heavy and, of course, alongside of Busso, this guy was prince charming. Joan knew the score too and she was playing both ends against the middle,, holding hands with Busso, so to speak, on top of the table and playing footsie with Lawrence underneath.
“But that Busso, say what you like, he was still no dummy and this kind of thing couldn’t go on long without him catching wise. When he did, out went Lawrence. The rest of us around here thought he’d can them both, but as I say, Busso isn’t a real dummy. Joan he liked, Lawrence he didn’t, so it was Lawrence who got the gate and that broke up the affair nice and clean. After that, Busso had no more trouble.”
Fellows said, “This lad Lawrence sounds like a guy who can’t stay away from the women no matter what the risk.”
Mr. Blake, who wasn’t too old a man himself, laughed. “I’d say he not only wouldn’t stay away no matter what the risk, he’d go looking no matter what the risk. You think he had anything to do with it?”
“The attitude fits. Know what happened to him? Know if he kept on seeing Joan?”
“I don’t think he did. He might have tried, but I think Busso would make it clear to Joan what her position was and she’d play safe. I don’t know about that. I did run into him on the street a couple of years later and we didn’t talk about Joan. He was the kind of guy who could forget a girl pretty fast. My guess is that trying to keep on with her when he wasn’t working there would be complicated. I think he’d look around where he was^ rather than waste effort on hard-to-get girls.”
“You don’t know where he is now?”
“That time I saw him on the street he said he was selling cars. Of course that was six years ago or longer. I don’t know where he’d be now.”
“Anything in your files on him?”
Blake had his secretary check through the records. She came back with nothing. “You’d probably find him in the phone book)” the personnel manager said.
Fellows said, “If we do, he’s probably not the man.” He and Wilks thanked him and went out.
CHAPTER XXII
Thursday, March 5
John Lawrence was not in the Bridgeport phone book nor was he listed in Townsend, Stockford, or any of the other neighboring towns that Fellows had included in his “area.” This fact awakened the chief’s interest, but didn’t have the same effect on the detective sergeant. “He could be anywhere,” Wilks said. “He lost his job and sold cars for a while and then got another job up in Maine or out in Podunk, Iowa. Just because—”
“I know all that,” Fellows told him. “I just want to find out.”
It was Thursday morning and the reports on the chief’s desk were mostly negative. A check of pawn shops had failed to produce the wrist watch Burchard claimed Joan was wearing; a check of motel registers had failed to turn up the name John Campbell; and Watly’s second trip to Hartford had been as fruitless as the first. In addition, there were reports from the State Police lab saying that while fingerprints had been found on some of the silver taken from the murder house, they were unidentified and presumably belonged to the dead girl. Dust from the house had been analyzed and found clueless. The only positive development in the case was a report from Dr. MacFarlane saying that Mr. and Mrs. Simpson had identified the body as being their daughter and had taken it home for burial.
Wilks gestured at the cluttered desk and said, “You’re getting desperate, Fred. You’re desperate so you’re going after an eight-year-old affair that has nothing to show it’s held over at all.”
“I’m going after everything everywhere,” Fellows admitted, “but it’s not because I’m desperate. I’m trying to be thorough.”
Fellows’s thoroughness in this matter consisted of sending a team of three men to Bridgeport to make inquiries of all automobile franchises and another team to cover the motels again, this time to a hunt for John Lawrences. And when Hilders of the Bridgeport Courier came in, Fellows, after telling him a lot of nothings, said suddenly, “How long have you lived in Bridgeport, Mr. Hilders?”
“Me? All my life.”
“Ever know or hear of a man named John Lawrence?”
It was a shot in the dark, like most of Fellows’s shots these days and like most of the others, it didn’t hit anything. Hilders blinked and said, “No. Why?”
“Skip it. It doesn’t matter.”
“Skip it?” Hilders laughed. “Are you kidding? You think Lawrence is Campbell’s real name, don’t you?”
“Off the record, we think it might be, but remember, Mr. Hilders. That is off the record. I don’t want that name mentioned in any of your articles.”
Hilders grumbled that his paper wanted news of the case, that he was supposed to collect stories, but anything that happened was kept a dark secret. Fellows reminded him that he had scooped the other papers on the identity of the victim. “Don’t forget, Hilders, I called you last night before I called the wire services. I gave you a break, so you play ball.”
“You called me, but too late for the last edition. It came out this morning and it was in all the other papers too.”
“Well, if you’re after exclusives, why don’t you check on funeral arrangements instead of hanging around here?”
He got rid of Hilders that way, but the reporter’s visit didn’t help the chief’s mood. He spent the rest of the morning poring over the reports and drinking coffee, sitting sullenly silent at his desk trying to find new avenues to test, new leads to follow.
At eleven, Harris called from Bridgeport. A careful check of all auto dealers, used and new, past and present, had failed to reveal anyone named John Lawrence in that field over the last ten years. It looked as if once again the chief had drawn a blank.
Half an hour later, however, he got a piece of news that reversed his views. Wilson, one of the men assigned to the motel detail called in. “John Lawrence, Chief. This time you got it! A John Lawrence checked in at the Cozy Cove motel south of Townsend on December nineteenth. ‘Mr. and Mrs. John Lawrence,’ the card says.”
The chief smiled for the first time that day. “Any home address?”
“Yes, a phoney I check
ed it.”
Fellows liked that. His smile broke into a grin. “Bring in that card. I want his handwriting.”
By the time Wilson returned with the motel registration card, three other reports had come in. A John Lawrence was found to have registered on December second at the Bide-a-Bit motel south of Danbury, at the Cozy Rest, east of Townsend on November eighteenth, and at the Post motel on route one east of Stamford on January fifteenth. The same false address was listed each time.
When Wilks returned at three-thirty that afternoon, Fellows was walking on wires. “Campbell is Lawrence,” the chief said, relating the day’s events. “I know it as sure as I’m born.” He clapped Wilks on the shoulder. “And you couldn’t see why we should investigate the toy company.”
Wilks was less inclined to enthusiasm, especially since he was shown up as wrong. “So what’s that prove?”
“What do you mean what’s it prove? It proves plenty.”
Wilks sat down in the chief’s chair and tilted it back. “The trouble with you, Fred, is you haven’t been eating enough and it’s making you dizzy. John Lawrence is just as phoney as his addresses. We don’t know who John Lawrence is any more than we know who John Campbell is, so what’s finding out another alias do for us?”
Fellows hooked a leg over the comer of his table and grinned. “I’ll tell you what it does. It tells us Joan Simpson used to know the man she rented the house with. Busso broke it up and they didn’t see each other after that for nearly eight years and then they met again——”
“Now wait a minute!”
“Sure. Joan didn’t have any dates and no boy friends and suddenly she takes up with a guy. Obviously they hadn’t been seeing each other and somehow happened to meet. Now, where’s a calendar?” Fellows made a half-hearted effort to find one in his pile of papers, gave up, and said, “Never mind. But I checked those motel dates. One is a Friday, two are Tuesdays, and one’s a Thursday. This Campbell or Lawrence or whatever his real name is is free any night in the week. Therefore, if he's married, it’s certain he has some evening job.”
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