Time Off for Murder (17 page)

  "Ten o'clock, eh? That's the time the call came in about the Knight woman, wasn't it?"

  "Yes, Inspector. Right after it, MacKinoy went home. Nobody'd been asking for him. Nobody wanted him. But the Sergeant thought it over and he told me to take a run up here and see what was doing. I arrived here," he consulted his book again, "at two-five. We're a little short-handed today - so many of the fellows up at that murder house. I had the janitor give me a pass key. I entered the apartment and found MacKinoy on the bed. The body was still warm, sir. But I couldn't detect any signs of life. I've put in a call for the doctor, sir. He ought to be here any minute."

  "Touched anything? Disturbed the position of the body?"

  "Oh, no, sir. Just used the telephone. Noticed a smell of burning paper in the place. That came from the kitchen, sir. Somebody burned up some paper in a bucket out there. In the sink."

  A buzzer sounded. The patrolman opened the door. An interne came into the bedroom, gave his name to the officers, went through the motions of putting stethoscope to blood matted chest, of examining eyes, ears, larynx, of flexing fingers, curling up eye-lids. Then he announced gravely, as though it were not obvious: "D.O.A.* (*Dead on arrival). Bullet wound in chest. No rigor yet. Time of death probably within an hour. No external signs of violence."

  "No violence, eh? Then what the hell do we make of this?" The Inspector designated the disordered clothing on the bed. "Y'aren't going to tell me that guy killed himself and then covered himself up. Even the babes in the woods couldn't do that."

  The interne shrugged. "Can't answer that. Bullet fired at close range. Hair's singed around the wound. Powder burns. Bullet probably still in the body or in the mattress. No blood anywhere except on the bed. Of course," he added, "there might be drugs. The autopsy'll have to tell you that."

  "O.K., doc, thanks…."

  "It isn't my business, but there's something in the man's pocket. Crackles. Want me to take it out?"

  "Give it here."

  The interne took two white envelopes from the dead man's pocket, handed them to Inspector Heinsheimer.

  The Inspector studied the envelopes. He read aloud: "Mrs. Sarah MacKinoy…. Must be the wife. To whom it may concern. That's us." He ripped the second envelope open. He read the brief scrawl. A double furrow settled over the bridge of his nose. He looked thoughtfully down on the sleeping face of the man who had been McCabe and MacKinoy. Profoundly puzzled, he shook his head.

  "Why, nobody said you did," he muttered. "Nobody thought anything of the kind."

  Then he picked up the telephone and called Police Headquarters.

  "Inspector Heinsheimer speaking. Connect me with Ballistics. Hello, Ballistics. Heinsheimer. Done anything yet with the bullet in the Knight case? Izzat so? Izzat so? Checks, eh? Very, very interesting. Hold it for me. I'll have another for you in an hour or so. They're poppin' off right and left. Get the board back for me. Operator, Heinsheimer again. Connect me with my office. Is Reese there? Reese, get up here right away…." He gave the address. "All right, bring the girl. Yeh, it's a live one. A dead man, but a live lead. Best in the world. We got the guy that killed Phyllis Knight. Sure, I know who he is. He's Lieutenant MacKinoy, Three Hundredth Precinct. You bet it's something…. Nope…. Not yet…. But we'll find out why. Take it from me, we'll know why…. Yep, it's breaking. It's cracking wide open. And fast. What's that? Peterson can't be located. O'Neill says his place is locked up, eh? Well, don't worry about it. We'll find him, too. How do I know where? In somebody else's furnace, maybe."

  He hung up the receiver. He crooked his finger through the bedroom door for his cameraman and stenographer. "Everybody else out," he ordered. "You too, super. Send the gun downtown right away. Go over all the furniture, good. Phone's been handled." He mopped his brow. "Two a day. We're earning our dough. Just let the taxpayers holler."

  He strode into the living room. "Sit down," he ordered the janitor. "On that couch. I'll talk to you later."

  Venetian blinds were pulled all the way down over the two windows of the living room, and sunlight filtering through the slats, dropped pale, thin bars on a bare floor and a large round mahogany table. Black cigarette burns and white alcohol rings scarred the rim of the table. In its middle, in a confusion as violent as that upon the bed, were red, white and blue poker chips, and playing cards red backs, blue backs, mottled backs - pinochle and poker decks. There was a box of notepaper, upside down, a bottle of ink, a pen, two telephones. Four squashy leather armchairs stood around the table and a day-bed against the wall. Between the windows was a large radio cabinet, and in the far corner, opposite the windows, a sideboard, with glasses stacked atop a cellarette. Next to the sideboard stood a small safe. Its iron door was open.

  A film of gray dust lay over everything.

  The Inspector snapped on the overhead light. Then he knelt before the safe, swinging its door carefully open.

  "Somebody beat us to it," he announced. "Bare as the old lady's cupboard." He straightened, rubbed his chin contemplatively, cocked his head. "Hey, Clancey," he called to his fingerprint man. "Come here. Take a look at this."

  Clancey stared with him, down at the spaced fingers of a hand, plainly visible in the dust on top of the safe. Clancey sprinkled the print, squinted. He nodded at his chief.

  "A wise guy," he said. "Came to work in gloves. Smeared up everything inside. But not a print. It wasn't MacKinoy. This guy's hand's a smaller one than MacKinoy's. Even in gloves. Smaller, narrower."

  "O.K., O.K." Heinsheimer tapped his cheek bone, frowned, and then went on into the kitchen.

  The bare kitchen floor was a trough of dirt. Under the sink and the single wash-tub and atop the sink and the stove were empty bottles and beer cans. Pints, quarts, fifths, pinch bottles, square bottles, whiskey, gin, wine, brandy bottles. On the stove was a white coffee pot, spilled over grounds streaking its sides, and on the sink drain board, a moldy loaf of bread, still in its wax paper wrappings. An electric ice box stood tepid, disconnected.

  Inspector Heinsheimer leaned against the door lintel, sourly examining the tiny room. His eyes brightened. Down the center, plain in the muck of the floor, ran footprints. The prints made a double track. They went back and forth, from the living room door to the sink which held a bucket, a chromium vessel designed for ice cubes.

  A long and narrow foot had made the tracks. It had worn rubber heels. Its stride was short. Over the narrow footprints, for a scant half dozen steps, was a larger, heavier tread.

  Inspector Heinsheimer went carefully around the footprints, and looked into the bucket. It was half filled with sodden black ashes. Water dripped with a rhythmic ping from the tap into the bucket. He returned to the living room.

  "You," he called to Patrolman Seiffert. "Come here. Did you go into that kitchen?"

  The policeman looked worried. "Why, yes, sir. But I didn't touch anything. I smelled the smoke when I came into the place. I found it came from that bucket. But the fire was out, and the water was dripping, just a little bit, into the pail. I didn't touch it."

  "You messed up the footprints.

  The blue-coat looked guiltily at the kitchen floor. "I didn't notice them, sir. I didn't think about them. All I was thinking was there might be a fire."

  "All right, all right. The water was dripping in that bucket, you say?"

  "Yes, sir. Just the way it is now. Just about dampening the burned paper. There was still a little smoke coming from the bucket…."

  "Still smoking, eh? You didn't see anybody leaving the place, when you came up?"

  The policeman shifted from one foot to the other. "Why, no, sir, I don't believe so. There was a man and a woman coming out the front door when I got here. Tenants, they looked like. Carrying luggage. They put it in a car at the door, and they drove away."

  "A man and a woman?"

  "Yes, sir. Nice looking couple. Why, sure they must of been tenants. I was ringing the bell to two C and getting no answer. The door downstairs is locked, sir. It's a walk-up. And the man stuck his head out of the car and said: 'Anything wrong, officer?' I said: 'No. Nothing wrong.' And he said: 'The super's bell's over at the side.'"

  "How'd he know you needed the super?"

  "I wouldn't know that, sir. He drove away right then. In a small car. Light colored. Sports roadster."

  Disgust was smeared over the Inspector's face. "You didn't detain him? You didn't get his name? His license number? You let him drive away just like that? And you call yourself a policeman?"

  "But Inspector," Seiffert stuttered, "I didn't have any reason for detaining him. I didn't know anything was wrong, then, did I? The Commissioner don't require us to be mind-readers."

  "All right, all right. But you got the idea now. Somebody was in this apartment after MacKinoy put in that call to the station house. When was it?…Quarter after one. You come around what time? Two-five. Fifty minutes. Somebody beat you to it, see. Somebody wearing gloves. Somebody darn smart. Throws the clothes on top of MacKinoy and cleans out the safe and maybe makes that fire in the bucket. Somebody moving a hell of a lot faster than you flat feet…. You got something here, buddy. You got something here in this apartment. And it ain't just a stiff and a stack of poker chips. Now, you get Clancey in here right away, to take those footprints. All those bottles. Clancey, make it snappy, will you? Get that water tap, that bucket. I can't be waiting all day to find out what's in that bucket."

  The fingerprint man had sent his first consignment of plates downtown, and the Medical Examiner, grumbling a little at double duty on a Saturday, had come and gone and the cadaver, tagged and ticketed, was waiting on the bed for the mortuary ambulance, by the time Mary Carner and Johnny Reese were let into the apartment.

  By that hour, too, morbid sightseers had filled the hall and steps outside the flat and swarming reporters begged for entrance from the immovable policeman, guarding the door.

  "The last round-up, kids." The Inspector greeted the two detectives. "We got the who. All we need now is the why. Mitchell MacKinoy, Police Lieutenant, Three Hundredth Precinct, murdered Phyllis Knight. No doubt about it. He's dead. Shot through the chest. Looks like suicide. I think it is suicide. Here's the payoff. The bullet that killed Phyllis Knight was fired from MacKinoy's gun. MacKinoy left two letters. One for us. One for his missus. Here." He had put the two letters in a glassine container, and now he drew one out and spread it on the living room table. "Get a load."

  Johnny Reese leaned over Mary's shoulder, while she read aloud the words which a nervous pen had scrawled on a sheet of white notepaper:
"To Whom It
May Concern."
She read slowly, giving each word an emphasis of incredulity.
"I
swear before God that I did not kill Phyllis Knight. Mitchell MacKinoy."

  "He says he didn't," the Inspector said grimly. "Ballistics says he did. A guy can lie, but a bullet can't. He knew the game was up when he heard that the corpse was found. He reported sick. He came up here. He wrote these letters. I ain't opened the wife's up yet. Wait."

  "Has she been notified?" Mary asked.

  The Inspector looked up from the sheet of notepaper. "How many guys you think I am? How many things can I do at once?" he grumbled. He motioned to Patrolman Seiffert. "Call up your desk," he ordered. "Have them shoot a man over to MacKinoy's house. Bring his missus here. No, you do it yourself, Seiffert. Break it easy. Listen to this, now:

  "Dear Sarah, I'm sorry to bring this trouble on you and the kids. I don't know what got into me. Once you get caught in these things there's no escape You got to see it through to the end. And this is the end, all right. Maybe the boys'll give you and the kids a break and save you the disgrace. I didn't kill Phyllis Knight. I swear it to you and God. But I'll never be able to prove I didn't. God knows I did plenty but not that. I never shed a drop of innocent blood. But I'm caught. One way or another, I'm done for.

  "You and the kids are taken care of. You'll find the bankbooks and the insurance policies in my bureau drawer home. It's a nice piece of change. Don't waste it on lawyers. I sweated for it. Believe me, I did. I don't know what you're going to tell the kids. Help them forget their father. It's best that way. If you can get away with it, tell them it was an accident. Gee, it's going to be tough on them. Do the best you can for them. You've always been a good mother.

  "I'm not afraid to die. The hell I've been through can't be any worse than the hell I'm going to. I must have been crazy to do it."

  "To do what?" Mary Carner asked. "If he didn't kill Phyllis as he swears he didn't, what did he do that he's so sorry about?"

  The Inspector grimaced: "I thought you were smart, Miss C. He says he didn't kill the girl. That's for home consumption. So his kids won't know papa's a murderer. He's dead now. No trial. Nothing to come out in public. And the boys on the force are good-hearted and they shut up."

  "That's fine," Mary answered. "Swell as far as it goes. But the D.A. won't close the case until you've found the motive as well as the murderer. Where's your motive?"

  "If 1'm not mistook," the Inspector said, "it's right here, in this apartment."

  "And what," said Mary slowly, "did he mean by 'One way, or another, I'm done for?'"

  The Inspector scowled. "That's the whole thing. MacKinoy's been mixed up in something phony. He rented this apartment under the name of McCabe. Had it for a year. Not for Sunday school, you can bet on that. Somebody else lived here with him and put in a few licks cleaning up before we got here. Hey, you, Super."