Collection 1983 - The Hills Of Homicide (v5.0) (27 page)

Opposite was an open door where a young man sat at a desk. He was a short, heavyset young man with shoulders like a wrestler. He looked up sharply and there was something so intent about his gaze that Ragan was puzzled by it. He went on down the hall and into the office of
JACOB KEENE, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
.

There was no receptionist in the outer office, but when he entered, she appeared. She was not a day over twenty, with a slim and lovely body in gray dress that left little to the imagination, but much to think about and more to remember.

“Yes?”

Ragan smiled. “Now that’s the way I like to hear a girl begin a conversation. It saves a lot of trouble. Usually they only say it at the end of the evening.”

“Oh, they do?” She looked him over coolly. “Yes, for you I imagine they would.” Her smile vanished. “Now may I ask your business, please?”

“To see Mr. Keene. Is he in?”

“Just a minute.” She turned, and her figure lost nothing by the move. “A gentleman to see you, Mr. Keene.”

“Send him in.” The voice was crabbed and brusque.

Joe Ragan stepped by the girl as she stood in the doorway, her gaze cool and unresponsive. Then she stepped out and drew the door shut.

Jacob Keene was a small man who gave the appearance of being a hunchback, but was not. His face was long and gray, his head almost bald, and he had the eyes of a weasel. He took Ragan in at a glance, motioning to a chair. “Can’t get girls these days that don’t spend half their time thinking about men,” he said testily. “Women aren’t like they were in my day.” He looked up at Joe, and suddenly the hatchet face broke into a lively smile and his eyes twinkled. “Damn the women of my day! What can I do for you?”

Ragan hesitated, then decided against any subterfuge. “Mr. Keene, I don’t think I’m going to fool you, so I am not going to try. I’m looking for information and I’m willing to pay for it.”

“Son”—Keene’s eyes twinkled with deviltry—“your last phrase touches upon a subject that is close to my heart. Pay! What a beautiful word! Money, they say, is the root of all evil. All right, let’s get to the root of things!”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t have much money, but what I want will cost you no effort. Shall we say”—Ragan drew ten dollars from his pocket—“a retainer?”

The long and greedy fingers palmed the ten. “And now? This information?”

“I want to know all you know about John Bradford and his business.”

Keene’s little eyes brightened. Their light was speculative. “Ah? Bradford? Well, well!”

“Also, I’d like to know something about the business across the hall from Bradford, and about the young man at the desk.”

Keene nodded. “Sit down, young man. We’ve much to talk about. Yes, yes, that young man! Notices everything, doesn’t he? Most odd, I’d say, unless he’s paid to notice. That could be, you know. Well, young man, you have paid me. A paltry sum, but significant, significant.

“Bradford is a man of fifty, I should say, although his walk seems to belie that age. He dresses well, conservative taste. He calls at his office about once a month. The cleaning man takes away the mail.”

“The cleaning man?” Ragan was incredulous.

“Exactly. An interesting fact, young man, that has engaged my fancy before this. Ah, yes, money. We all like money, and my guess would be that our friend down the hall has found a shortcut. People come to his door but they never knock or try to enter, they just slip envelopes through the mail slot.”

Keene glanced at his calendar. “Wednesday. Four should come today, but they will not arrive together. They never arrive together. Three are women, one a man.”

He drew a long cigar from a box in a drawer and bit off the end. “Nice place I have here, son. I see everyone and everything in that hallway. Two doors here, you see. The one you came in has my name on the door; the outside of this one is just marked ‘Private.’ If you noticed, there are mirrors on both sides of that door, and they allow me to see who is coming to my office before they arrive. If I don’t want to see them, I just press a buzzer and my girl tells them I am out.

“Not much business these days, young man. I tell people I am retired, but I handle a few accounts, longstanding. Keeps me busy, and seeing what goes on in the hallway helps to while the time away.”

Keene leaned forward suddenly. “Look, young man, here comes one of the women now.”

She was tall, attractive, and no longer young. Ragan’s guess was she was no longer fifty. She walked directly to the door of Bradford’s office and dropped an envelope into the slot. Turning then, she went quickly down the hall as if in a hurry to be away. He was tempted to follow her, but on second thought he decided to wait and see what would happen.

It was twenty minutes before the second woman came. Joe Ragan sat up sharply, for this woman was Mary’s acquaintance, Louella Chasen: the woman who, according to Stigler, Mary had asked about a divorce lawyer. She, too, walked to the door of Bradford’s office and dropped an envelope through the slot.

Keene nodded, his small eyes bright and ferretlike. “See? What did I tell you? They never knock, just drop their envelopes and go away. An interesting business Mr. Bradford has, a very interesting business!”

Three women and a man, Keene had said, and that meant another woman and man were still to come. He would wait. Scowling thoughtfully, Ragan shook out a cigarette and lighted it. He rarely smoked anymore, and intended to quit, but once in a while…

“Look into the mirror now,” Keene suggested.

The big-shouldered young man had come into the hall and was looking around. He threw a sharp, speculative glance at Keene’s office, then returned to his own.

A few minutes later a tall young man, fair-haired and attractive, dropped his envelope into the slot and left. It was almost a half hour later, and Joe was growing sleepy, when he glanced up to see the last visitor of the day.

She was young and she carried herself well, and Ragan sat up sharply, unbelieving. There was something familiar…She turned her face toward Keene’s office. It was Angie Faherty, his own girl friend. She dropped a letter into the slot and walked briskly away.

“Well,” Keene said, “you’ve had ten dollars worth. Those are the four who come today. Three or four will come tomorrow, and so it is on each day. They bunch up, though, on Saturday and Monday. Can you guess why?”

“Saturday and Monday? Could be because they draw their pay on Saturday. They must be making regular investments.”

Keene chuckled. “Investments? Maybe. That last young lady has been coming longest of all. Over six months now.”

Ragan heaved himself from the chair. “See you later. If anything turns up, save the information for me. I’ll be around.”

“With more money,” Keene said cheerfully. “With more money, young man. Let us grease the wheels of inflation, support the economy, all that.”

Angie was drinking coffee at their favorite place when Ragan walked in, and she looked up, smiling. “Have a hard day, Joe? You look so serious.”

“I’m worried about Mary. She’s such a grand person, and they are going to make trouble for her.”

“For Mary? How could they?”

He explained, and her eyes darkened with anger. “Why, that’s silly! You and Mary! Of all things!”

“I know, but a district attorney could make it look bad. Where did Mary go when she left you, Angie? Where could she have been?”

“We’ll ask her. Let’s go out there now.”

“All right.” He got up. “Have you eaten?”

“No, I came right here from home. I didn’t stop anywhere.”

“Been waiting long?”

“Long enough to have eaten if I’d thought of it. As it was, all I got was the coffee.”

That made the second lie. She had not been here for some time, and she had not come right here from home. He tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the visit to the Upshaw Building was so much a habit that she did not consider it. Still, it was out of her way in coming here.

He wanted to believe her. Maybe that’s why cops get cynical—they are lied to so often.

All the way out to Mary’s, he mulled it over. Another idea kept coming into mind. He had to get into that office of Bradford’s. He had to know what those letters contained.

Yet what did he have to tie them to Ollie’s death? No more than the fact that Ollie had loitered in the Upshaw Building and had an interest in the fourth floor. Louella Chasen, who came to that office, had volunteered information. She had stated that Mary Burns was asking about a divorce. It was a flimsy connection, but it was a beginning.

He had no other clue to the case Ollie had been working on, unless he went back to the Towne suicide. Mark Stigler had mentioned that Ollie was interested in the Towne case, and it was at least a lead. The first thing tomorrow, he would investigate that aspect.

He remembered Alice Towne. Ollie had known her through an arrest he’d made in the neighborhood. She had been a slender, sensitive girl with a shy, sweet face and large eyes. Her unexplained suicide had been a blow to Ollie, for he liked people and had considered her a friend.

“You know, Joe,” he had said once, “I’ve always thought that might have been my fault. She started to tell me something once, then got scared and shut up. I should have kept after her. Something was bothering her, and if I’d not been in so much of a hurry, she might have told me what it was.”

Mary opened the door for them. Joe sat down with his hat in his hand. “Funeral tomorrow?” he asked gently.

Mary nodded. “Will you and Angie come together?”

“I thought maybe you’d like to have Angie with you,” he suggested. “I’ll be working right up to the moment, anyhow.”

Mary turned to him. “Joe, you’re working on this case, aren’t you? Is there any way I can help?”

Ragan hated it, but he had to ask. “Mary, where did you go when you left Angie the night Ollie was murdered?”

Her face stiffened and she seemed to have trouble moving her lips. “You don’t think I am guilty, Joe? You surely don’t think I killed Ollie?”

“Of course not! I know better, Mary, but they are asking that question, and they will demand an answer.”

“They’ve already asked,” Mary said, “and I’ve refused to answer. I shall continue to refuse. It was private business, in a way, except that it did concern someone else. I can’t tell you, Joe.”

Their eyes held for a full minute and then Joe got up. “Okay, Mary, if you won’t tell, you’ve got a reason, but please remember: That reason may be a clue. Don’t hold anything back. Now let me ask you—did you ever think of divorce?”

“No.” Her eyes looked straight into Ragan’s. “If people say that, they are lying. From what Mr. Stigler has said, I believe someone is saying that. It is simply not true.”

After Ragan left them, he thought about that. Knowing Mary, he would take her word for it, but would anybody else? In the face of two witnesses to the contrary and the fact that Ollie was shot with his own gun, Mary was in more trouble than she realized.

Moreover, he was getting an uneasy feeling. Al Brooks was hungry for newspaper notices and for advancement. He liked getting around town and liked spending money. A step up in rank would suit him perfectly. If he could solve the murder of Ollie Burns and pin it on Mary, he would not hesitate. He was a shrewd, smart man with connections.

Ragan now had several lines of investigation. The Towne case was an outside and remote chance, but the Upshaw Building promised better results.

What had Angie been doing there? What did the mysterious letters contain? Who was Bradford?

Taking his car, Ragan drove across town to the Upshaw Building. He had his own ideas about what he would do now, and the law would not condone them. With the meager evidence he had, a search warrant was out of consideration, but he was going to get into the Bradford office or know the reason why.

In Keene’s office he had noticed the fire escape at his window extended to that of Bradford’s office. The lock on the Bradford office door was a good one, and there was no easy way to open it in the time he would have.

After parking his car a block away, he walked up the street to the Upshaw Building. The night elevator man was drowsing over a newspaper, so Ragan slipped by him and went up the stairs to the fourth floor. He paused at the head of the steps, listening. There was not a sound. He walked down the hall to Keene’s office and tried the door. It opened under his hand. Surprised and suddenly wary, he stepped inside.

The body of a man was slumped over Keene’s desk.

He sat in a swivel chair, face against the desk, arms dangling at his sides. All this Ragan saw in sporadic flashes from an electric sign across the street. He closed the door behind him, studying the shadows in the room.

All was dark and still; the only light was that from the electric sign across the street. The corners were dark, and shadows lay deep along the walls and near the safe.

Ragan’s gun was in its shoulder holster, reassuring in its weight. Careful to touch nothing, he leaned forward and spoke gently.

No reply, no movement. With a fountain pen flash he studied the situation.

Jacob Keene was dead. There was a blotch of blood on his back where the bullet had emerged. There was, Ragan noted as he squatted on his heels, blood on Keene’s knees and on the floor under him, but not enough. Keene’s body, he believed, had been moved. Flipping on the light switch, he glanced quickly around the office to ascertain that it was empty. Then he began a careful search of the room.

Nothing was disturbed or upset. It was just as he had seen it that afternoon, with the exception that Keene was dead. Careful to touch nothing, he knelt on the floor to examine, as best he could, the wound. The bullet had evidently entered low in the abdomen and ranged upward at an odd angle. The gun, which he had missed seeing, lay on the floor under Keene’s right hand.

Suicide? That seemed to be the idea, but remembering the Keene of that afternoon, Ragan shook his head. Keene was neither in the mood for suicide nor the right man for it. No, this was murder. It was up to Ragan to call homicide, but he hesitated. There were other things to do first.