1954 - Safer Dead (4 page)

‘We’re doing all right,’ I said. ‘We already know more than the police did when they dropped the case, and that’s not bad going. We know Fay was in touch with this guy in the camel hair coat. The police didn’t manage to turn him up or if they did, they didn’t think he was of sufficient interest to mention him. I think he’s worth investigating. Anyone who wears dark glasses at night is my idea of a suspect. And another thing: who is this girl Joan Nichols? Where does she fit in? She called here three days after Fay had disappeared and asked for her. Then she promptly falls downstairs and breaks her neck. Farmer is the only guy who could have seen Fay leave the club and he gets himself conveniently run over. Looks to me that Joan Nichols and Farmer were got rid of because they knew too much.’

Bernie’s eyes popped.

‘Hey! Has it occurred to your master mind we also know something?’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Suppose someone starts trying to knock us off?’

‘Don’t drivel. Investigators never get knocked off. Don’t you read thrillers?’

‘I don’t like it. Maybe we’d better drop this case, Chet. I’m serious. I wouldn’t like anything to happen to you - nor to me, come to that.’

‘Skip it!’ I said. ‘This is going to be our best story. I’m going after Hesson. I want you to find this guy in the camel hair coat. The chances are he’s already left town, but it’s worthwhile calling on all the hotels here and seeing if anyone recognizes his description. His car might help you.’

Bernie nodded reluctantly.

‘Well, okay. I’ll do what I can. There can’t be many hotels in town - I hope!’

I pushed back my chair.

‘Well, come on. I’ll need the car. I should be back from Frisco tonight. See you here.’

Bernie got to his feet and we went into the lobby.

‘Hang on a moment,’ I said and stepped into the telephone booth. I called the Florian club and asked to be put through to the stage door office.

‘Is Spencer there?’ I asked.

‘This is Spencer talking. Is that Mr. Sladen?’

‘Yeah. Do you know if Miss Benson owned a charm bracelet? You know what that is, don’t you?’

‘Sure, Mr. Sladen. She did have one. It had a lot of charms on it. She showed it to me.’

‘Was there a gold apple among the charms?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Fine, and thanks,’ I said and hung up. I left the booth and joined Bernie. ‘I was right. The charm came off her bracelet, Spencer saw it. Hesson will have a job to explain how it got into his room.’

‘We’re not bad for amateurs, are we?’ Bernie said.

‘If we were amateurs we’d be good. See you tonight.’

It was four o’clock and growing dusk when I drove over the Oakland Bay bridge and stopped on Harrison Street to inquire the way to Lennox Street.

The cop told me to make for India Basin.

I left the Buick in a vacant plot and walked down the dirty street, at the end of which was Lennox Street. Tenement houses, faced with iron escapes, stood starkly against the darkening sky. Here and there lights showed in upper windows.

I paused outside No. 3. It was a narrow high building with a bunch of dirty, ragged kids sitting on the bottom step. They stared fixedly at me, nudging one another.

I said, ‘Sam Hardy live here?’

‘Yes, but he’s out,’ one of the boys said. He shifted a little to let me pass, and as I walked up the dirty, worn steps, the kids turned to stare after me. The front door was ajar and I pushed it open and entered a bare, dirty hall.

A thin negro was sitting on an upturned box with his back against the wall, reading a racing sheet. He looked up and stared at me, his eyes tired and bored.

‘Where do I find Jake Hesson?’ I asked and showed him a dollar bill.

His eyes lit up.

‘Third floor, boss. Room 10.’ He reached for the bill and I let him have it.

‘Is he in?’

‘Sure, boss. He hasn’t been out all day.’

I nodded and began to climb the stairs. I kept on until I reached the third floor. A radio was blaring from behind one of the doors. I went quickly along the passage to room 10, paused to listen with my ear against the panel, then hearing nothing, I rapped.

No one told me to go in.

I turned the door handle and gently pushed. The door swung inwards.

Jake Hesson lay across the bed. His dirty white shirt had a crimson patch just below where his heart was. Growing out of the patch was the handle of a knife. From the look of his waxen, yellowish face, he had been dead some hours.

CHAPTER THREE

I

L
ieutenant Marshall of the Homicide Squad, a big, red-faced man with a neat moustache and a jutting, aggressive chin, stuck a cigarette on his lower lip and set fire to it. He looked across at me as I leaned against the wall, keeping out of the way of the fingerprint men as they worked in the small room. All that now remained of Jake Hesson was a splash of blood on the dirty bed cover.

‘Tom Creed will want to take care of this,’ Marshall said. ‘If what you say is right, it starts from his end.’

‘Who’s he?’ I asked.

‘Captain of police, Welden. Last year he asked us to check the Swallow Club where this girl Benson was supposed to have worked, but we didn’t turn up anything.’ Marshall gave me a hard smile. ‘Looks like you’ve managed to make a monkey out of me this time.’

I had worked with him in the past and I had a certain respect for his intelligence and capabilities.

‘I should have said your father was more responsible for that than I am,’ I said gravely.

Marshall laughed. He turned to Sergeant Hamilton, his second in charge.

‘I’ll leave you to it, Dick. Me and the bright boy will go and talk to Creed. Drive over when you’re through. You can take me back.’

Hamilton nodded.

‘Okay, Lieutenant.’

‘Come on,’ Marshall said, taking my arm. ‘You can run me to Welden. Creed will be interested to hear your story. He was worked up about the girl’s disappearance, but as he didn’t find a body, he had to drop the case.’

‘Let me have a photograph of the remains,’ I said to Hamilton. ‘I’m staying at the Shad Hotel.’

Hamilton looked at Marshall for confirmation.

‘Let him have it,’ Marshall said. ‘I’m in the picture too. It’ll be good publicity.’

‘Don’t rely on it,’ I said. ‘Fayette may block you out. We have to be careful how much horror we print.’

‘Come on - you!’ Marshall said, and we went down the stairs together.

On the way to Welden, I went over my story again so Marshall could be sure he hadn’t missed a point.

‘Well, we seem to have a few new leads to work on now,’ he said when I was through. ‘I always thought there was something phoney the way Farmer died. Where does this Nichols girl fit in?’

‘I wish I knew,’ I said. I swerved past a truck, then went on, ‘What’s Creed like? Think he’ll let me work along with him?’

Marshall shrugged.

‘I guess so. There isn’t a cop on the coast who doesn’t want his picture in your rag. He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t like being kept out of things. You should have seen him before you went after Hesson.’

‘For the love of Mike!’ I exclaimed. ‘I only arrived yesterday. I was going to see him as soon as I had talked to Hesson.’

‘Just watch your step with him. By the way, you still working with that fat script writer from Hollywood?’

‘I wouldn’t call it working. He’s still drinking at the magazine’s expense.’

‘He’s a smart guy. You’d have thought he could have done something better than hack for Crime Facts.’

I laughed.

‘Everyone thinks that. It’s just the way his head’s shaped.’

It was around eight in the evening when I pulled up outside the Welden police headquarters.

‘I expect Creed will have gone home by now,’ Marshall said, getting out of the car. ‘Let’s see.’

But the desk sergeant said the captain was still in his office, and after he had put through a call, he told us to go on up. Police Captain Tom Creed was a tall, powerfully built man in his late fifties with a strong, hard face, piercing blue eyes and a shock of greying hair.

He shook hands with Marshall, and when Marshall introduced me, he smiled, seemingly pleased to meet me. ‘Your magazine does a fine job,’ he said. ‘You report from our angle, and that’s what I like.’

I grinned.

‘If we don’t keep in with the cops, we don’t eat. You want to hear what we think of you lot when we’re away from a typewriter.’

‘Don’t pay any attention to him,’ Marshall said. ‘He’s a great kidder. Captain, this guy has been doing our work for us. He’s turned up some new dope on the Fay Benson case.’

Creed sat down, motioned us to chairs and looked hard at me.

‘My editor thought it might be an idea if we did an article on the case,’ I explained. ‘I came down here to pick up the background and was lucky to stumble on something you haven’t got in the dossier. You probably know about it by now.’

‘Tell me,’ Creed said, and taking a pipe from his pocket, he began to fill it from a worn pouch.

I went over the story again.

Neither Creed nor Marshall interrupted, and when I had finished there was a long pause. I could see Creed didn’t like being scooped.

‘You should have reported this to me right away,’ he said. ‘I would have grabbed Hesson before he left town.’

‘I hadn’t anything on Hesson nor had you,’ I said. I took the gold apple out of my pocket and rolled it across the desk towards Creed. ‘By the time I found this, he was dead.’

Creed looked at Marshall.

‘What time did he die?’

‘Last night. He arrived at Hardy’s joint at one o’clock in the morning. He was knocked off between three and four.’

‘Any line on the killer?’

Marshall shook his head.

‘It’s a professional job. No fingerprints. No noise. No one saw anything. At four o’clock in the morning even the bums in Hardy’s place sleep.’

Creed picked up the miniature apple and studied it. Then he put it down and puffed smoke at it while he brooded.

‘Yes, it seems you’ve started something,’ he said, looking over at me. ‘Let’s go through the dossier again.’ He picked up the telephone and asked for the Benson dossier.

‘I’m sure Farmer was lying,’ he went on as we hung up. ‘I couldn’t see how the girl could have disappeared unless she had gone out past Farmer’s door. She had only eight minutes in which to do her disappearing act, and the stage door exit was the nearest to her room. That’s why we hammered away at Farmer, but we couldn’t move him from his story. It looks as if he and Hesson were working together.’

A tap came on the door and a policeman brought in a thick file which he gave to Creed.

‘Farmer and Hesson could have kidnapped the girl and have taken her to Hesson’s room. The charm under his bed points to it,’ Creed said as he opened the file. After turning some pages he read for a moment, then said, ‘She was wearing the charm bracelet when she disappeared.’

‘They wouldn’t have taken her to Hesson’s room,’ I said. ‘The only way up to the room is through the shop. They couldn’t have taken her there unless the owner of the shop was in it too, and I don’t think he was. He gave me Hesson’s address. It’s my guess. Farmer and Hesson were hired to kidnap the girl. Farmer got her into his office by telling her she was wanted on the telephone. She was expecting a call. He probably hit her on the head and bundled her into a waiting car. There must have been someone beside Farmer and Hesson in this to handle the car. Both Hesson and Farmer would have to stay in their jobs to alibi each other. Maybe the bracelet fell off Fay’s wrist when Farmer knocked her out. He might have given it to Hesson or he might

have gone to Hesson’s room later with it.’

Marshall nodded.

‘Yeah, it could have happened like that.’

‘We’ll start a hunt for the bracelet,’ Creed said. ‘It’s pretty hopeless after fourteen months, but we’ll have a try.’

‘Who’s this guy in the camel hair coat?’ Marshall asked. ‘We have a good description of him. We should be able to turn him up.’

‘Low’s looking for him right now,’ I said. ‘He may have already got on to him.’

Marshall grinned.

‘The two-man police force.’ He looked over at Creed. ‘I think this guy in the camel hair coat is important. We should get after him.’

Creed nodded.

‘Then there’s this Nichols girl,’ he said. ‘Where does she fit in?’

‘Anything on her death?’ I asked.

Creed reached for the telephone and called for the Nichols dossier.

‘I can’t remember what the coroner’s verdict was. We didn’t know she was connected with Fay Benson otherwise I’d have been a lot more interested.’

I picked up the miniature apple.

‘Who’s H.R.? Maybe he could tell us something about the girl. We don’t know a thing about her, do we? It seems to me she must have been hiding from someone.’

‘I thought so too,’ Creed said, leaning forward to take a file the policeman had brought in. He turned a page, glanced at it and put the file on his desk. ‘The coroner was satisfied Miss Nichols died accidentally. She apparently stepped on her dress while going downstairs, fell and broke her neck.’

‘Who was she?’

Creed looked at the file again.

‘She was in show business. She had just returned from a trip to Paris. She and nine other girls had gone out on a cabaret engagement, but the act flopped. She came back here broke, and was looking for work.’

‘Fay couldn’t have been one of the other nine girls, could she?’ I asked. ‘Might be worth checking.’

Creed nodded.

‘I’ll do that.’

‘I think Joan Nichols was murdered,’ I said. ‘I think Farmer was murdered too.’

Creed smiled grimly.

‘That’s because you write for Crime Facts. There’s not a shred of evidence either of them was murdered.’

‘When did Joan Nichols die?’

Creed glanced at the file again.

‘August 20th.’

‘She called at the Shad Hotel on the 20th inquiring after Fay. Then she goes home and falls downstairs. Come to that, wasn’t the 20th the night Farmer died?’

Creed looked sharply at me, consulted the Fay Benson dossier and then nodded.