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Authors: Edward D. Hoch

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BOOK: The Shattered Raven
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“Yeah, tonight. I’m going to be on an all-night radio show, Skinny Simon’s show, with some of the other writers. Great chance for you to stay up late. Drink black coffee and listen to all us mystery writers kick around the Craigthorn murder case. How about it?”

“Well … would I be on the show?”

“I’ll get you a seat in the control booth. Nice padded chair next to the engineer.”

She was silent a moment Then, “All right, I’ll come. What time?”

“You know where Skinny’s station is?”

“I’ll find it.”

“Okay. Meet me there at eleven-thirty. I’ve got to round up some other people and make sure they know. Max Winters is probably off on a bender and heaven knows where the rest are. One of them is a friend of Craigthorn’s, and I haven’t even talked to him about it yet.”

He hung up and stared at the phone for a minute. He called the MWA number, but of course Betty was not there on Sunday. He finally reached her at her apartment and suggested she come to the studio that night for a while. “You can serve coffee and make notes and things, Betty, and if somebody doesn’t show up, maybe you can fill in.”

She was a bit hesitant. “I’m no good on the radio—not with my voice. And I’m sure not going to stay up all night listening to you guys talk.”

“Any idea where Max Winters is?”

“Probably at his hotel. Have you tried there?”

“Not yet. Look—how about these other people that are supposed to be on the show? Frank Jesset? Do you know how to reach him? And Dick McMullen?”

“Jesset?”

“That friend of Craigthorn’s. Max seemed to think he was going to be on.”

“I’ll try to reach him,” she said. “I gather Harry is all set. He seemed to know the details.”

He hung up and headed for Max’s hotel. He was in his room all right, but he wasn’t alone. Detective George, the big man in the rumpled suit from Friday night, was there with him.

“Well, well,” George said, getting to his feet. “It’s Mr. Hamet again. Nice to see you. Mr. Winters here was just telling me you’re going to be doing some investigating on the case.”

“Strictly off the record,” Barney hastened to inform him. “I used to be a private detective. They think I might be useful, more as a public relations expert than as a sleuth, though.”

George nodded. “I’ve been talking to Mr. Winters about his recollections of what happened.”

Max sat in his chair, smoking a cigarette and looking just a bit bored. “What’s there to say? I’ve gone over the story five times already. I didn’t know Craigthorn. I never even watched his television show. He was there and he got shot and now he’s dead, but my plane leaves for California tomorrow.”

George frowned at him. “They don’t have murders in California, Mr. Winters?”

“Sure, they have murders. And they have cops, too. I write about them all the time. But New York is still a different thing. You’re all in a hurry here. I think you’re in a hurry to die.”

“Not on the freeways, at least,” the detective said. “I think I’m about finished with you though. Do you have a few moments, Mr. Hamet? I wonder if I could take you downstairs and buy you a cup of coffee in the lobby.”

Barney saw no way out of it “Max, you’re all set for the radio show tonight?”

“Sure am.”

“Right. We’re supposed to be at the studio around eleven-thirty. I’ll see you there.”

He rode down on the elevator with Detective George, exchanging casual pleasantries about the weather, which was warm, but clouding over.

“Last Sunday in April. I always hope for good weather this time of the year,” George said.

“You live in the city?”

“Yeah. Got a wife and family. I generally have Sundays off, except when there’s a case like this. With Craigthorn getting killed, we’ve got an extra ten men working on the thing.”

In the coffee shop, Barney stirred some sugar into his coffee and waited for the detective’s questions.

“So you were a private eye, huh? I don’t think that I ever really met one. It’s a heck of an admission for a detective to make, but I never really got to know any of you fellas.”

“I like to think of myself as a writer now,” Barney said.

“Yeah. I read your last book. That was a pretty sexy cover.”

“I don’t do the cover art.”

“No, of course not.” He sipped his coffee. “What do you think about this thing? Who do you think killed Craigthorn?”

“I’m pretty sure it was not a member of MWA. This gimmick with the bullet being fired electrically from a pipe taped to a microphone—it’s too much like the sort of thing some clever murderer would imagine some equally clever author dreaming up. I think the whole gimmick was just a plot to kill Craigthorn and put the blame on our organisation.”

“You think anyone would really want to do that? Why, Mr. Hamet?”

“Not mainly to discredit the organisation—but just to throw attention away from the real killer. There were a lot of non-writers at the dinner Friday night. Even some friends of Craigthorn’s.”

“Yeah. You probably mean the secretary, Miss … ah …” He flipped through his notebook, then came up with the name. “Yeah, Miss Sweeney. She’s sort of a looker. You think he was sleeping with her?”

“I’m sure I’ve told you I didn’t know the man.”

“Somebody at MWA must have known him to choose him for the award.”

“I guess so,” Barney admitted. “Harry Fox, one of our associate members, gets around town, sees a lot of people. He probably suggested it to the board of directors.”

“What about this friend that came with him—Frank Jesset? He’s some sort of an editor, isn’t he?”

“True confessions magazine, from what I understand,” Barney said.

George grunted and tried to smooth down his wild hair. “So you’ve got no ideas about the thing? You were pretty sharp finding that electrical device in the podium.”

“I was standing right next to him when he was shot. It wasn’t too difficult to see where the bullet came from.”

“What about this statuette, the Raven award? Why did he pull it out of your hand?”

“He was obviously trying to tell me something—perhaps to name his murderer. I don’t know.”

“There was no
Raven
at the dinner. There was no bird of any sort. We checked the girls—
Robin
, you know, is sort of a nickname. But there weren’t any, Mr. Hamet.”

Barney lit a cigarette. “Have you considered the possibility that Craigthorn was not the intended victim? That this device misfired at the wrong moment?”

“Well, who was the intended victim then?” the detective wanted to know. “The awards were kept pretty confidential, as I understand it, all except the one to Craigthorn. I doubt if any outsider would even have known that Harry Fox was going to give his little talk. They certainly wouldn’t have known that people like Max Winters were going to win. You were the only one definitely scheduled to speak, outside of Craigthorn. Are you telling us the bullet was meant for you?”

Barney could not in all honesty tell him that “I don’t know who it was meant for. I suppose it was meant for Craigthorn. A killer as clever as this one wouldn’t have fired the thing at the wrong moment.”

“I hear you’re having a little all-night radio session tonight on KJON.”

Barney nodded. “Skinny Simon’s show. Listen in.”

“I can’t stay up all night listening to the radio. The wife would think I was some sort of a nut. You tell me if anything exciting happens.”

Barney nodded. “I’ll do that.”

“And if you get any tips on the case, pass them along to me. We’re always happy to have some extra help.”

“Right.”

Barney left him in the coffee shop and headed back to his own apartment. Maybe he could catch a few hours sleep before the appearance on Skinny’s show. At least he could try.

The studios of KJON were just south of Times Square, in one of those nondescript office buildings that was not tall enough or new enough or modern enough to attract more than a passing glance. Tourists sometimes mistook it for part of the garment district, though that was several blocks further to the south. This building held the usual assortment of offices—a bank on the ground floor, a few lawyers, and at the top, three floors given over to the studios of KJON radio.

In a city with as many radio stations as New York, it was theoretically possible for someone to spend most of his existence without ever happening upon the all-night talk shows of KJON, but for those who did, the experience was not one to be quickly forgotten. Skinny Simon’s voice, for one thing, came through on the radio in a deep, demanding tone, completely free from the body which lacked its authority. It was possible that Skinny was made for radio. He certainly was not made for television, where one look at his sagging frame and drooping eyelids gave many Friday night viewers the shudders. Though he was not as thin as he had been when he acquired his nickname back in college, he gave the impression of always being in motion, like a runner or a high-jumper, with arms sometimes actually waving as he talked.

During the MWA dinner he had been fairly well in control of himself, but now Barney saw him in full flight.

“Barney! Barney! Glad you could make it! What time is it?”

“Almost eleven-thirty.”

“Where are the rest of those guys?”

“Who’s here so far?”

“Just Harry Fox. I thought you were going to have five people here for me!”

“They’ll be here—don’t worry. You’ve got a half-hour till show time,” Barney reassured him, following along into a large drab studio with a control booth at one end. The engineer was there, but neither Susan Veldt nor Betty had made an appearance as yet.

“Some detective was here questioning me a while ago,” Skinny said.

“A fellow named George?”

“I guess that was the name. What are they doing—going down the whole guest list?”

“I suppose so,” Barney said. “Did you know Craigthorn?”

“I never laid eyes on him, except at a few cocktail parties. You know—broadcasting affairs—things like that Maybe I said two words to him in my life. He wasn’t the friendly sort.”

Barney remembered Skinny’s attempt to speak with Ross at the dinner, but he decided not to press the point.

Skinny Simon’s chair was on one side of an oval table. The other five chairs were arranged facing him, each with its own microphone. Barney couldn’t help glancing down the lines of mikes for any extraneous wires or tubes, but there were none.

“Well, we go on the air in twenty-five minutes. I hope those guys show.” He went back out to the hall, and Barney walked into the control room, looking for Harry Fox.

He finally found him bent over a drinking fountain, taking a pill of some sort. “How are you Harry? How’s our expert tonight?”

“Not feeling very expert, Barney. Heartburn. I should be home in bed. If I hadn’t promised to do this thing, I probably would be.”

“Did you get a visit from a detective today?”

Harry shook his head. “No, not yet. Why? Are they checking everybody out.”

“Sounds like it.”

Harry dropped the little phial of pills into his pocket. “Well, here comes Max and his would-be agent. Let’s go meet them.”

Dick McMullen had his arm around Max’s shoulder, probably telling him about all the thousands of dollars he was going to make in the coming year. That was the way agents like McMullen worked. But Barney had to admit he wasn’t really a bad guy. Then he saw Susan Veldt getting off the elevator and coming toward the station reception desk. He walked over to meet her.

“Good evening. I didn’t know if you’d make it.”

“I made it,” she said. “How are you, Barney?”

“I had a good night’s sleep.”

“Glad to hear it.”

They walked back to the studio, and Barney got her seated in the control room, in a warm chair with the stuffing sticking out. “There, you can get a view of the whole thing, and make all the notes you want for your magazine.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“Fifteen minutes to air time!” Skinny said. “Who are we missing? Jesset? Is that the guy’s name? Who is he?”

“A confession editor, friend of Craigthorn’s. I guess somebody thought you might want to talk about the murder.”

“Yeah. I want to talk about the murder,” Skinny said. “Just wish he’d show up.”

Betty Rafferty came in then, bearing coffee for all assembled. She was efficient, even at midnight on a Sunday.

A few minutes later Frank Jesset arrived. Miss Sweeney, Craigthorn’s secretary, was with him. Someone dragged another chair out of an office so all three of the ladies could sit in the control room. But it was obvious that Skinny did not care for this much of an audience.

“What have you got? The whole cheering section out there, Barney?”

“You know how it is, Skinny. I doubt if any of them will stay past the first hour. They all look pretty sleepy now.”

“Yeah.” Skinny ran through a few preliminary instructions, telling them not to touch the microphone during the show, not to speak too closely into it, to be natural, to watch profanity, to watch for his hand signals. “It’s a long night till five in the morning, but we’ll take a break about three-thirty—get some food for you folks,” he said.

Jesset was looking progressively more disturbed as each minute passed. He was probably wishing he was home in bed, with Miss Sweeney.

The engineer cued Skinny, and at the stroke of twelve he started his pitch. “The Skinny Simon Show! Brought to you, each and every night at this time through the facilities of K-J-O-N in New-York-City!”

Barney listened to the rest of the spiel, familiar with it, because he had heard it maybe once a week for the last several years. Skinny shifted into high gear. “
Five
outstanding mystery writers, editors, agents, experts in all things mysterious! And we’re going to talk about a number of subjects tonight—not the least of which will be the tragic death of television news commentator, just two nights ago at the annual dinner of Mystery Writers of America.

“Now, introducing our guests, we have—Barney Hamet, executive vice-president of MWA; Max Winters, mystery novelist, and winner of this year’s Edgar award for the best novel of the year,
The Fox Hunt
; Harry Fox, who is not the fox being hunted, but is rather an expert on all things mysterious, including the early history of the whodunit; Dick McMullen, an author’s agent, one of the most successful in the business; and Frank Jesset, magazine editor, and close personal friend of Ross Craigthorn.

BOOK: The Shattered Raven
7.82Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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