Collection 1983 - The Hills Of Homicide (v5.0) (28 page)

The first thing was to see the inside of that office of Bradford’s. He believed Keene had been murdered elsewhere and brought here. He might have been killed trying to do just what Ragan was about to attempt.

Absolute silence hung over the building. Ragan put his ear to the wall, listening. There was no sound. Carefully he eased up the window. Four stories below, a car buzzed along the street, then there was silence. The windows facing him were all dark and empty. As he stepped out on the fire escape, a drop of rain touched his face. He glanced up at the lowering clouds. That would be good. If it rained, nobody would be inclined to glance up.

Flattened against the wall, he eased along to the next window. It was closed and there was no light from within. He tested the window, hoping it was unlocked. It was locked. He took the chewing gum from his mouth and plastered it against the glass near the lock, then tapped it with the muzzle of his gun. The glass broke but could not fall, as it stood against the lock itself. Easing a finger into the hole, he lifted the glass out very carefully, then unlocked the window and lifted it.

Slipping inside, he moved swiftly to the wall and waited, listening. Using utmost care, he began a minute examination.

For an hour he went through the office and found exactly nothing. Nothing? One thing only: a large, damp place where the floor had been wiped clean. Of blood? But blood can never be washed completely away in such a hurried job. Ragan knew what a lab test could prove.

The office was similar to any other, except that nothing seemed to have been used.

There was a typewriter, paper, carbons, extra ribbons, paperclips. The blotter on the desk was also new and unused. The filing cabinets contained varied references to mines and industries. Except for that damp place on the floor, all was as one might expect it to be.

Then he noticed something he had missed. A tiny, crumpled bit of paper lying on the floor under the desk, as though somebody had tossed it to the wastebasket and missed. Retrieving it, Ragan unfolded it carefully and flashed his light upon it.

Ollie Burns’s phone number!

Here was a definite lead, but to where? Ragan stood in the middle of the office, wondering where to turn next. Somewhere nearby was the clue he needed. Suddenly there returned to his mind one of the titles of the mining companies he had glimpsed in leafing through the files. Wheeling about, he took a quick step to the filing cabinets and drew out the drawer labeled
T
.

In a moment he had it.
Towne Mining & Exploration
. Under it was a list of code words, then a list of sums of money indicating that fifty dollars per month had been paid until the first of the year, when the payments had been stepped up to one hundred dollars a month. Four months later there was this entry:
Account closed, 20 April
.

His heart was pounding. The suicide of Alice Towne had been discovered on the nineteenth of April!

Towne Mining & Exploration—was there such a firm?

A quick survey showed that on several of the drawers the names of well-known firms were listed, but no payments on any of them. They must be used as a blind, probably for blackmail.

What had Ollie told Mary?
There were just two crimes worse than murder.
Dope peddling and blackmail.

Who else had come to this office? Louella Chasen. Ragan drew out the drawer with the
C
, thumbing through it to a folder marked
Chasen Shipping
. A quick check showed that payments had progressed from ten dollars a month to one hundred over a period of four years.

Louella Chasen was the one who said she had recommended a divorce lawyer to Mary Burns. Would she lie to protect herself? If blackmail could force continual payments, would she not also perjure herself?

Hazel Upton, secretary to Denby, the divorce lawyer. Her name, thinly disguised, was here also.

It was the merest sound, no more than a whisper, as of clothing brushing paper, that interrupted him. Frozen in place, Ragan listened. He heard it again. It came from the office of Jacob Keene, where the murdered attorney still lay.

Ragan’s hand went to his gun, a reassuring touch only. This was neither the time nor the place for a gun. The window stood open, and so did the window in the Keene office. If someone was there, he would see the open window, and if that someone leaned out, a glance would show this window to be open too. And if the man who was in the next room happened to be the murderer…

Even as he thought of that, Ragan realized there was something else in the files he must see: the file on Angie Faherty.

There was no time for that now, and the door to the hall was out of the question. The only exit from the office was the way he had come.

Like a wraith, he slipped from the filing cabinet to the deep shadow near the safe, then to the blackness of the corner near the window. Even as he reached it he heard the scrape of a shoe on the iron of the fire escape. The killer was coming in.

It was very still. Outside, a whisper of rain was falling and there was a sound of traffic on wet pavement. The flashing electric sign did not light this room, and Ragan waited, poised for action.

A stillness of death hung over the building. The killer on the fire escape was waiting, too, and listening for some movement from Ragan.

Did he know Ragan was there? And who he was? It was a good question.

With a quick glance at the window, Ragan gauged the distance to the telephone. Moving as softly as possible, he glided to the phone. With his left hand he moved the phone to the chair, then lifted the receiver.

Holding the phone, he waited. Tires whined on the pavement below and he spoke quickly. “Police department! Quick!”

In a moment, a husky voice answered. Ragan spoke softly. “Get this the first time. There’s a prowler on the fire escape of the Upshaw Building!”

His voice was a low whisper, but the desk sergeant got it, all right. Ragan repeated it and then eased the receiver back on the cradle. From his new position he could see the dim outline of a figure on the fire escape, as whoever it was edged closer.

The police would be here in a minute or two. If only the man on the fire escape would—

He heard the wail of sirens far off, and almost smiled. It would be nip-and-tuck now. The siren whined closer and Ragan heard a muffled curse. Cars slid into the street below and he heard the clang of feet on the fire escape, running down.

For a breath-catching instant he waited, then ducked out of one window and into the next, even as the police spotlight hit the wall. A moment before the glare reached him, he was safely inside. From below he heard a shout. “There he is!” They had spotlighted the other man.

Ragan ducked out the door and ran down the hall, taking the back stairs three steps at a time. When he reached the main floor he saw the watchman craning his neck at the front door, trying to see what was happening. On cat feet, Ragan slipped up behind him. “Did they get him?” he asked.

The watchman jumped as if he’d been shot. He turned, his face white, and Ragan flashed his badge. “Gosh, Officer, you scared the daylights out of me! What’s going on?”

“Prowler reported on the fire escape of this building. I’m looking for him.”

Sergeant Casey came hurrying to the door. When he saw Ragan he slowed down. Casey was one of Ragan’s buddies, for this was a burglary detail. “Hi, Ragan! I didn’t know you were here!”

“Did you get him?”

“We didn’t, but Brooks almost did.”

“Al Brooks?” Ragan’s scalp tightened. What had Brooks been doing here? Tailing him? Ragan hadn’t thought they might put a tail on him, but Brooks was just the man to do it.

“He was on the street and saw somebody on the fire escape. He started up after him just as we drove up. Fellow got away, I guess.”

“Ain’t been nobody here,” the watchman said. “Only Mr. Bradford, and he left earlier.”

“What time was he here?” Ragan asked.

“Maybe eight o’clock. No later than that.”

Eight? It was now almost one
A.M
., and Keene had not been dead long when Ragan found him. Certainly no more than an hour, at a rough guess. His body hadn’t even been cold.

Al Brooks came around the corner with two patrol-car officers. He stopped abruptly when he saw Ragan. He was suddenly very careful. Ragan could see the change. “How are you, Joe? I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“I get around.” Ragan shook out a cigarette.

Casey interrupted. “We’d better go through the building, Joe, now that we’re here. The man might be hiding upstairs.”

“Good idea,” Ragan said. “Let’s go!”

Everything was tight and shipshape all the way to Keene’s office. Ragan was letting Casey and a couple of his boys precede him. It was his idea to let them find the body. It was Casey who did.

“Hey!” he called. “Dead man here!”

Ragan and Brooks came on the run. “Looks like suicide,” Brooks commented. “I doubt if this had anything to do with the prowler.”

“Doesn’t look like he even got in here,” Casey said.

“But the window’s op—” Brooks stared. The window was closed. “You know,” he said, “when I started up the fire escape, I’d have sworn this window was open.”

He returned to the body at the desk. “Looks like suicide,” he repeated. “The gun’s right where he dropped it.”

“Except that it wasn’t suicide,” Ragan said quietly. “And, Al, you’d better leave this one for homicide.” He smiled. “The autopsy will tell us for sure, but this man seems to have been stabbed before he was shot.”

“Where do you get that idea?” Brooks demanded.

“Look.” Ragan indicated a narrow slit in the shirt, just above the wound. “My guess is he was killed by the stab wound, then shot to make the bullet follow the stab wound. I’ll bet the gun belongs to Keene.”

Brooks looked around. “How did you know his name?”

“It’s on the door. Jacob Keene, attorney-at-law. We don’t actually know this is Keene, of course, but I’m betting it is.”

Brooks shut up, but the man was disturbed and he was angry. Al Brooks had a short fuse, and it was burning.

Ragan was doing some wondering. What about that prowler? What had become of him? He was carrying on a swift preliminary examination of the office, without disturbing anything, when Mark Stigler arrived. He glanced from Ragan to Brooks. “Lots of talent around,” he said. “What is it, murder or suicide?”

The slit in the material of the shirt was barely visible, but Ragan indicated it. “A clumsy attempt to cover up a murder,” Ragan commented.

“Could be,” Stigler agreed. “Seems kind of farfetched, though. Who was this guy?”

“From his files, he was a sort of shyster, handling a good many minor cases in the past, but he changed here lately, or seemed to. He’s semiretired, handling only a few legal affairs for various people.”

Stigler’s crew went to work while Stigler chewed on a toothpick, listened to the talk, and studied the situation. Al Brooks shoved his hat back on his head and took over.

He had been down on the street when he looked up and saw a prowler outside a window on the third floor. Just as he started up, he heard sirens and the patrol cars appeared. “And just about that time I ran into Joe Ragan. He was already here.”

Stigler glanced at Ragan. “How are you coming on the Burns job?”

“Good enough. I’ll have it in the bag by the end of the week.”

Stigler eyed him thoughtfully. “We’ve got a strong case against his wife. Brooks thinks she did it. She or somebody close to her.”

That meant Ragan, of course.

“Brooks doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Mary loved her husband, loved him in a way Brooks couldn’t even understand.”

Brooks’s laugh was unpleasant. “For your sake, I hope you are right, but Mary Burns is in this up to her neck, and there
might
just be somebody else involved!”

Ragan walked over to him. “Listen, Al, you do your job and we’ll do ours, but just be sure that if you try to pin anything on any friends of mine, you can prove your case. If you’ve got the goods, all right, but you start a frame and I’ll bust you wide open!”

“Cut it out, Ragan!” Stigler said sharply. “Any more talk like that and you’ll draw a suspension. I won’t have fighting on any job of mine.”

“Anyhow,” Brooks said quietly, “I don’t think you could do it.”

Ragan just looked at him. Someday he would have to take Brooks, and he would take him good. Until then he could wait.

Ragan repeated what little he had to Stigler, saying nothing about his previous entry. However, he lingered after Brooks had gone to add a few words.

“I talked to Keene,” he said, “and he was a cagey old bird. He gave me the impression that something was going on here that wasn’t strictly kosher. He was suspicious of some of the activities on this floor.”

“Suspicious? How? Of what?”

“That I don’t know, except that the office next to him seems to have been used rarely, and then at night. Although people did come to the door and drop envelopes through the slot.”

“So? There’s a law says somebody has to use an office because he pays rent?”

Ragan turned away, but Stigler stopped him. “Stay away from Al Brooks, do you hear?” Then, in a rare bit of confidence, he added, “I don’t like him any better than you do, but he’s been making points with the Commissioners.”

Ragan walked back to his car, approaching with care. From now on he must walk cautiously indeed. He was learning things, and he had a feeling it was realized. What he wanted now was to be away where he could think, if he could only—An idea came to him that was insane, and yet…

Where had Al Brooks come from? What was he doing in this area, at this hour? His explanation was clear and logical enough, yet a prowler had been on the fire escape, and when the spotlight came on, it had picked up Al Brooks.

Ragan considered that and a few other things about Al Brooks. He dressed better than any man on the force, drove a good car, and lived well. Ragan shook his head. He must be careful and not be influenced by his dislike for Brooks or by Brooks’s obvious dislike for him. And the man did have a good record with the department.