Mark of Murder - Dell Shannon (7 page)

"His wife? Hell, I don't know," said Clay
doubtfully. "That's--well, I don't know, I never could read that
woman." That makes two of us, thought Hackett. He wanted to see
Andrea Nestor again. "You think a woman might have--Lord, what a
hell of a thing, old Frank getting murdered .... "

"Well, we'll see what turns up," said
Hackett. He thanked Clay and went out to his car. One of the new
Traffic Maids, on her three-wheeled cycle, was righteously making out
an overparking ticket for him. Without compunction Hackett pulled
rank on her and got the ticket torn up. No millionaire indeed, with
another one coming along he needed every dollar he earned.

What, he wondered again, had Nestor wanted with a
sterilizer? Chiropractors weren't allowed to give shots or do
anything they'd need surgical tools for, were they? Instruments that
would have to be sterilized. There was just the glimmer of an idea in
his mind about that, but resignedly he thought there'd be no way to
prove it--now. That Corliss woman. He could kick himself for such
stupid carelessness, leaving the place wide open .... He wanted to
see her again too. And he wanted another try at that desk clerk in
the Third Street hotel, the man who'd been on the desk when the
Slasher signed for a room. The man was hardly the world's greatest
brain but he must have noticed more about the Slasher than he claimed
to remember.

Hackett ruminated behind the wheel, uncertain where
to go from here. There were a lot more places to look, on the Nestor
thing, than there were on the Slasher. But that one was the one most
urgent to catch up to. God,
yes.

The prints in Nestor's office had been mostly his and
Margaret Corliss'. It would be largely wasted effort, probably, to
track down all his patients and get their prints to compare to the
unknown ones in the office; probably X had worn gloves or wiped off
anything he'd touched. If it had been the casual thief, why hadn't he
taken Nestor's star-sapphire ring and jade tie clasp, along with the
cash? Of course, it could have been juveniles after drugs; in the
dark they wouldn't notice from the sign that Nestor had been a
chiropractor and wouldn't have any drugs on the premises. But . . .

Margaret Corliss had said at first that she'd come to
call and put off the patients because--how had she put it?--it would
be awkward having them come in while the police were there. And then
later on she'd said that there never were any patients on Wednesdays.
Hackett got out his notebook, turned to the page where he'd written
down the facts of that odd little encounter with Miss Corliss, and
added that one.

That button. By the thread hanging from it, maybe
already loose; so when Nestor saw the gun, made a grab for it, he got
the button instead? Button from, probably, a man's jacket. Just an
ordinary dark gray button.

He couldn't sit here the rest of the afternoon. Where
now?

They had the bullet out of Nestor's skull, and not
too much damaged: a .22. When, as, and if they ever found a possible
gun, Ballistics could probably say whether it was the right one.

Well, all right. Go and see Ruth Elger, whose husband
had presumably given Nestor a black eye. Go and see everybody listed
in his address book. See Mrs. Nestor again ....

While the berserk killer roamed around loose. Hell.
Hackett started the engine. It was Friday afternoon, getting on to
five o'clock. He'd promised Angel he'd be home for dinner, but he
thought he'd go out again afterward. See that desk clerk: he was on
the night shift, wouldn't be on until nine o'clock. See Mrs. Nestor.
See--
 
 

FIVE

Hackett went back to headquarters to report in, see
if anything had turned up that looked interesting. Something had, and
how much was it worth?

"I happened to be in," said Palliser, "so
I talked to her.

A Mrs. Constance Brundage. About fifty, too fat, nice
motherly soul but not much in the way of brains. She made a
statement. Your guess is as good as mine whether it's worth anything.
She said she was waiting for a bus at the corner of Western and San
Marino, last night about eight o'clock, when a man came up to her.
She was alone on the corner. She said he looked ‘sinister' because
he had a hat pulled down over his eyes and his jacket collar turned
up, which looked funny on a warm night. Said he had a sinister voice
too, like a gangster, she said."

"Yes," said Hackett. "Naturally.
¿Qué
mas?
And how much of that is imagination?"

Palliser shrugged. "What with all this press
hysteria--Anyway, she said he came and stood ‘too close' to her,
and she got nervous, and then he said he needed bus fare and she
looked like a nice kind lady, would she give him a dollar? And she
said no, and backed away, and he followed her--and goodness knows,"
said Palliser in obvious quotation of Mrs. Brundage, "what would
have happened, except that the bus came just then and she got into it
in a hurry, and the sinister stranger didn't. But on thinking it
over, she was sure it must have been this terrible Slasher, and it
was just the Lord's mercy she hadn't been his fifth victim. And--”

"¡Basta!" said Hackett. "Description?"

"Very vague--it was dark. Just one little thing
made me think twice, and get a statement. She can't say anything
about his features, and says vaguely he was about medium-sized. But
she did say that his clothes didn't seem to fit, looked too big for
him. And Miguel Garcia--who's a much better witness--said the same
thing about the man Roberto stopped to talk to."

"So he did," said Hackett slowly. "Food
for thought. I'll be damned. On the other hand, John, a lot of bums
around town are wearing hand-me-down clothes that don't fit."

"True. I just mentioned it," said Palliser.

"And asking for money. Of course we don't know
the hell of a lot about him. It could be. Corner of Western and San
Marino--if so, out of the territory where he's been operating. Nice."

"You get anything new on Nestor?"

"This and that--maybe," said Hackett. "I
don't know. I've got a funny little idea, but how the hell to prove
anything? I want to see the wife again, and the people in his address
book. And Ruth Elger's husband. I also want to have a heart-to-heart
session with that desk clerk. He must have noticed something more
than we've dragged out of him."

"I don't know," said Palliser. "It's
not the kind of hotel where they give guests the eagle eye to see if
they're respectable. And it was about ten o'clock at night."

"All the more reason for him to notice, damn it.
Business'd be slow," said Hackett. "I want to talk to him
again, anyway."

"Wish you luck,"
said Palliser, shrugging again. It had been a hot day, and he was
tired. But he had a date with Roberta Silverman and was anxious to
get away, to a cool shower and a shave and a clean shirt, and
Roberta's dark eyes smiling at him across a table and a long cold
drink. He didn't know then that this was an important conversation,
that tomorrow he'd be racking his brains to remember just exactly
what Hackett had said to him. 'The night shift was coming on. He told
the night desk man where he'd be and went down to the lot for his
car.

* * *

That night, at ten minutes past ten, the man full of
hate took his pleasure in blood again. He had been with the old lush
Rosie, but it hadn't lessened the taut violence in him. He had taken
the half-empty bottle with him when he left, and on the street he
stopped to drink from it. The raw spirit didn't seem to get to him,
though he'd had four or five drinks before, with Rosie.

He walked on down the dark street, the vague hatred
churning inside him. At the corner he turned; he had taken a room at
a place on this street, just today. But he didn't feel like going
there, to sleep.

There was a full moon, a great silver circle of
serenity riding high above the city, casting clear silver light on
the streets. He walked under it, hating.

At a corner two blocks up, a young and pretty Negro
girl waited for her husband to pick her up. She had been visiting her
sister and her sister's new baby, just home from the hospital; and
her husband, Joe Lincoln, would pick her up here on his way home from
work as a clerk at a local supermart. She was smiling, thinking about
her new niece, for she was expecting her own first child in two
months.

It was a nice warm night, and there was a bench here;
Joe would be along in a few minutes. Besides the moon, there was a
street light at the corner, it wasn't dark.

The man full of hate came up behind the bench and
stopped to drink from the bottle again. She heard his steps and
turned her head, and saw him clearly. Small shock registered in her
eyes, and she turned quickly away. Another one, looking at him as
if-- And a nigger girl too. Everybody always--

His hand closed on the
knife in his pocket and he lurched toward the bench.

* * *

Most of the night shift were out on that one from
ten-twenty on. The husband found her there--not fve minutes after
she'd died, said the surgeon, in all probability, blood still
flowing. She'd really been cut up, it was quite a mess, and they
called every car in the vicinity to stop any and all pedestrians
within six blocks. But again they drew blank--the Slasher seemed to
have vanished into air. When they'd been that close, it was
irritating to say the least. They'd go on hunting, but the longer he
stayed loose the colder the trail.

Higgins came back off that at twelve forty-five,
talking bitterly to himself about it. Really a mess. By all rights
they should have picked him up as easy as-- He couldn't have been
more than a couple of blocks away when the husband found her. Of all
the Goddamned bad luck.

Sergeant Farrell, on the night desk, welcomed him in
and said he'd go off for a coffee break, then, somebody to mind the
desk. Higgins sat down at the desk dispiritedly and lit a cigarette.

He was still sitting there three minutes later when
the call came in.

He said, surprised, "Why, yes, Mrs. Hackett ....

What?" As he listened to the distrait, carefully
controlled voice, his hard-bitten face went grim. "I see. All
right, we'll get on it. No, he hasn't been in tonight so far as I
know .... Yes, I see. We'll find out. I'll be in touch."

As a realist, he didn't tell her not to worry.

He put the phone down. He thought something had
happened all right. Not like Art Hackett, not to call her if he was
held up this late somewhere.

Ten minutes to one.

Accident.

The first thing to think about. He called down to
Traffic. "Just check it out, will you? Put an Urgent on it ....

He'd have had identification on him, but just in
case--better take it down--yes. Arthur John Hackett, thirty-six, six
three and a half, two hundred and thirty, medium-brown hair, eyes
blue. He'd be driving a dark blue four-door Ford sedan, 1957 model
.... "

His voice was expressionless, relaying that also to
the Georgia Street Emergency Hospital and the General. All they
needed, he thought, Hackett out of action. If Hackett-- Well, don't
expect the worst. He looked up the license-plate number and relayed
that to Traffic. In that first ten minutes, Traffic hadn't any record
to tell him about. Farrell came back and went a little white, hearing
about this.

"Does anybody know where he was going tonight?"

Which was a question that
would be asked again.

* * *

"It's a heavenly beach," said Alison,
groping in the closet for her beach sandals. "And morning's the
best time really. Aren't you going to get up today at all?"

Mendoza was sitting up in bed smoking moodily.

"What the British call coffee is no inducement.
And I thought one point about taking a vacation is that you can sleep
late. It's only seven-thirty." As a matter of fact he hadn't
slept much. He'd lain awake worrying, coming a dozen times to the
conclusion that he really couldn't ask Alison to cut the vacation
short. And, damn it, they'd planned to stop off in Illinois and see
the Lockharts on the way home .... "Furthermore," he added,
"what's the point in my going to the beach with you? I can't
swim. Am I supposed to enjoy myself watching every other male present
ogling you? And if I wasn't the nice indulgent husband I am, I'd
absolutely forbid you to wear that outrageous bathing suit."

"It's not a bikini, I wouldn't dare--it's a
perfectly decent bathing suit," said Alison. "Well, at
least get up and get dressed while I'm gone. Don't just sit there
brooding."

She came up to the bed. "Luis,
amado
,
it's senseless. I know you feel you ought to be there, hunting down
the murderer. You're not the only competent officer on the force."

"I know, I know!" said Mendoza. "Don't
fuss,
amante
. Run
along for your swim."

"We can have a nice leisurely breakfast
afterward," said Alison, picking up her beach robe. And that was
when the knock fell on the door; she pulled the robe around her and
opened the door to a smartly uniformed boy who smiled at her.