Crime on My Hands (15 page)

“Psychology. Whoever killed her must have murder on his mind. We trap him into revealing it. Then we make the arrest.”

“You make it sound good,” Lamar James said bitterly. “How do you do it?”

“Wait until the party. I don't want you to know about the method. Then you'll be convinced when it happens.”

“I haven't said there's going to be a party. Listen, why don't you mind your own business? Why don't you let me run this killer to earth?”

“I'd be glad to,” I said. “Can you? What have you accomplished so far?”

“Damned little,” he admitted ruefully. “We know all about Flynne now, and so far as I can see nobody had a motive for killing him. He was just a nobody. He didn't have dough, he had no prospects of getting any. He wasn't running around with any particular woman. His friends weren't intimate with him, and vice versa. He didn't bother anybody, he has no criminal record. He's worked at little jobs all his life. Nobody could have wanted him dead, as far as we can determine.”

“Yet somebody did.”

“Well, we know it was one of about three hundred people.”

“You can narrow it to a dozen.”

“The hell!” he exclaimed. “How?”

I explained my theory that if Flynne's killer had been an actor or an extra, he or she wouldn't have dared being caught by the camera. “Therefore,” I said, “the only possible killers were those behind the camera. These include Paul, Sammy, Riegleman, Miss Nelson, Curtis, the nurse who bandaged my head, the boom crew, a couple of electricians, and a couple of people in the wardrobe department. You can eliminate some of those theoretically. The electricians and the boom crew were busy. Still, one of them could have stepped away for a few seconds and fired the shot, so we'd better include them as suspects.” I paused and added, “I'd be willing to wager that if we could find and develop that stolen reel of film, it would prove I'm right.”

“Now why didn't I think of that?” he asked in disgust. “Here I've been running over the whole personnel and going nuts. You can get your teeth into a few people, but a flock of 'em only get in your hair. That was nice work, George. I wish I could see that film.”

I didn't wish he could see it. He'd see the guns. Which brought up a point. “By the way,” I said casually, “how about prints on that gun we found in the wagon?”

“Clean,” he said. “Somebody wiped it. Not a print. But you were right. The bullet didn't come from that gun. I want to know how you knew.”

“If I trap the murderer,” I said, “he'll tell you. Let me have a try, like a sport.”

“It's okay with me, I guess,” he said slowly. “You're smarter'n I thought. Maybe you can get somewhere. I'll have to sell Jerry on the idea, though he's gonna be sore when he finds nothing in that desk.”

“He'll find a set of drawings, just as I told him.”

James's eyes widened. “You don't mean that was on the level, that criminal detector?”

“Why not? It's possible.”

“We could use one now, all right,” he said gloomily. “Nobody saw a thing. Everybody accounted for his movements at the time of the murder, and had at least one witness to back him up. Well, maybe this party will uncover something.”

“Will you deliver the invitations?” I asked. “And there is one other thing I'd like before the party gets under way. I'd like to see Peggy's notebook. It had every detail of what was going on. Maybe we can find what caused her to remember.”

He frowned. “Notebook?”

“Yes. You see, she recorded costume detail, location of this and that – anything and everything she saw. If a scene was interrupted, then, the director only needed to consult her to take up the scene again exactly as and where it was interrupted.”

“Do you mean a copy of the script?” James asked.

“No, it was a notebook. Black leather, loose leaf.”

“Then somebody took it,” James said. “Because she didn't have any notebook when I got there.”

This was a blow. A blow to my ego more than anything else. ‘I'm a half-wit,” I said in disgust. “Of course there wouldn't be any notebook. Whoever killed her took it, because it had a clue at least to his identity. All we needed to do was search everybody immediately and arrest whoever had it. I suppose it's been burned by now.”

James was suddenly flushed with anger. “I'm getting damned tired,” he grated, “of learning important facts when it's too late. You didn't tell me about that film, and it was stolen. You didn't tell me about the notebook, and it's gone. There's something fishy here, and I want to know what!”

“You admitted the party was a good idea,” I reminded him. “Let's get it started.”

“All right!” he snapped. “But if anybody else goes haywire because you're holding out, God help you. I'm not kidding, George. You're not playing square. I think you're acting this way because you think it's best. Okay. I don't think you're a dope. But if this party don't get us anywhere, you're going to come clean, or I'll charge you with obstructing justice and you'll see what the state prison looks like from inside!” 

I claim no flair for philosophy that probes the hidden springs of human behavior. I am inclined to observe surface manifestations and deal with those. I have found this to be practical.

So, even now, when Peggy, who was something of a friend, had been shot in the back, I did not run down my list of suspects in search of basic motivations. The motive was there on the surface, clear as a signpost. The murderer knew that she had seen something – an act, a gesture, any abnormal characteristic – and made a note of it. He had to kill her to prevent her tagging him.

My plan to identify him was also a surface measure. The killer knew that he had committed murder. The very word
murder
must lie close to the surface of his consciousness. My purpose, then, was to jolt him into revealing that fact, and my plan to do so was simple. I had “invented” – the term isn't strictly accurate, but suffices – a word game which had brought me many free drinks, and cost me a few, too. It began one day in the Derby bar where I ran into a highly literate lady who plays moronic roles on the screen and stage. I bet her a dollar I could give her three letters of a word, and she could not fit those letters into a word – mine or any other – within fifteen seconds.

“C-x-q,” I said, and pushed the timer on my watch.

She turned on that mournful expression that has brought belly laughs to millions, and said “quincunx” in a voice that said I was pumping her heart's blood into the street.

“There isn't any such word,” I said.

Heartbrokenly, she offered a wager of five dollars more that such a word existed, and the bartender offered to back her judgment with two dollars of his own. We adjourned to a near-by book shop, where she proved that “quincunx” concerned an arrangement of objects by fives, and I was eight dollars out of pocket. I didn't play the game with her any more. I managed to recoup my losses from less erudite persons, and played the game occasionally off and on for two or three years.

Now, on the heels of Peggy's death, I wanted to get as many suspects as possible together and throw them letter combinations like d-m-u for
murder
, l-l-g for
killing
, m-h-c for
homicide
, and the like. It seemed to be a sound theory to me. Although it would prove nothing, it would concentrate my attention on the person who was self-conscious about coming up with any of those, or related, words, and we could investigate his alibi, motives, former associations with Severance Flynne, etc.

I hadn't speculated on Melva Lonigan's reaction to my being in jail.

She came rocketing in with Fred and a middle-aged stranger. She said, “They can't do this to me. Where's that half-witted sheriff?”

“Can't do what to you?” I asked.

“Put you in jail. What else?”

“I tried to tell her,” Fred broke in, “that this is swell publicity for you. I think we ought to leave you here.”

Melva's green eyes sparkled. “And does he make any money in jail? Not for me, he doesn't. I'm going to get him out.”

“Go away,” I said. “All of you.”

Melva pushed a red lock off her forehead. “Now don't get hysterical, George,” she said, as if to a three-year-old.

My voice went up in spite of myself. “Hysterical? You two ghouls have already done irremediable damage. You flocked in on the heels of a bullet and prevented me from finding who fired it last night. As a result, poor Peggy Whittier is dead. And now, when I make a simple request, I'm hysterical! Now go away! I mean it.”

“You just don't know what's good for you,” Melva said. “Your attorney will confirm that. Won't you, Mr. McCracken?”

The middle-aged man looked judicial. “The Constitution is being violated on three separate counts as long as you are incarcerated, Mr. Sanders. Surely, as good Americans, we cannot allow such sacrilege?”

He was tall, rather lean, very distinguished, with a touch of gray at his temples; the lower half of his face was a lighter shade than his tanned forehead, and he was a complete stranger to me.

“My attorney?” I said. “I didn't hire an attorney.”

“Oh, yes,” Melva corrected. “I did it for you. We can't let you rot in a louse-infested cell.”

“Any lice in this cell,” I said pointedly, “came from outside, since I've been here. I don't want an attorney. I have as much use for one as a second nose. I like it here.”

“Atta boy, George,” Fred said. “We can hit the front pages with this one.”

“As for you,” I said balefully, “you're my ex-press agent. I told you I didn't want any story about my working on this crime. I'm through with you.”

“You can't fire him!” Melva said stoutly. “I've got a contract with you, and he's my fiance. I'll admit he seems to have a head full of curdled milk at times, but what he did he did in your own interests.”

“I can fire you, too!” I said. I'm afraid this approached a shout.

“Ah?” she said sweetly. “I'll sue you, my sweet, and wear a bathing suit in court. Do you think any jury would listen to you when I'm in a halter and shorts? And I'll tell 'em you stole the rest of my clothes, and you'd have taken my bathing suit too if you'd known where you could sell a used one.” Her tone became soothing. “Let's don't fight, George. We like each other too well. This is for your own good, honestly.”

“I refuse to argue,” I said. “I want you to go, and stay away. You're unwelcome here tonight.”

I turned my back on them, and looked stolidly at my bunk. Much to my surprise, Melva, Fred, and McCracken went silently away.

I sat on the stool, and heaved a small sigh of relief. The party would take place after all. I would conjure up a chief suspect by clever manipulation of word hints, and persuade Lamar James to let me go back to my trailer with its built-in inner spring mattress. I could turn the case over to him and get a good night's sleep.

Concentrating on this, I didn't hear Sheriff Callahan until he spoke with bovine heartiness in my ear.

“Well, sure was a short stay,” he said, busily twisting a key in the lock. “Here's the plans you told me about. You can finish 'em anywhere you want to now.”

He gave me the folder, and left the door open. He beamed down at me.

“Have you caught the killer, then?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said cheerfully. “But we will. And there's no call to keep you any longer. Nobody thinks you done it.”

“But I'm under protective arrest! My life is in danger.”

“Shucks,” he said. “Nobody's gonna bump you off.

Even if they do, we'll catch 'em. Lamar's awful smart that way. So you got no call to worry.”

‘I'm not going out of here,” I said. ‘I'm staying.”

“Now look, Mr. Sanders,” he cajoled. “You can't stay. I can't afford to get into no trouble with the federal men. They don't like the Constitution to be ­ uh, flouted, I think. Your lawyer was very nice about it, and I see where we was hasty.”

“That nitwit isn't my lawyer, Sheriff. I tell you I have a plan to catch the murderer. All I want to do is have this party tonight, and I'll turn him over to you.”

“Party?” Callahan echoed in astonishment. “What party?”

“Didn't James tell you?”

“Nope. He got a hot lead and went out on it.”

I explained about the party. Sheriff Callahan was scandalized. “Not in this jail, you don't! What would the voters say if they heard about a Hollywood wild party in my jail? Sam Jenkins – he's the one who'll run against me next election – would make my jail sound like Sodom and Gomorrah before the fire. Never heard of such a thing. You get out of here or I'll run you in.” He scratched his head. “Can't do that, though. You beat it now, Mr. Sanders. I don't want no trouble.”

“If I don't go what'll you do? I'm as big as you are. I don't think you can put me out.”

He laid a hand on his gun. “I reckon I can.”

“You wouldn't dare shoot me. Think of what the voters would say about that. Sheriff Callahan makes an arrest, then drives the prisoner away at the point of his gun. Would you vote for a man who couldn't make up his mind? Would you?”

He was unhappily silent for a moment. Then, “Dang it,” he said slowly. “All I know is you got to go.” He was quiet for another long moment before his small eyes lighted happily. “You might as well go because, look, I won't let none of them people in to your party. Maybe I can't run you out, or throw you out, or drive you out, but I can sure as hell keep
them
out. So you'd just sit here by yourself.”

I stood up. He had me there, all right. I walked out.

“So long,” he called after me. “Maybe next time you can stay, huh?”