Which Way to Die? (13 page)

Another coincidence, he thought uneasily. It
was
a common paper, available at most stationers'.

The coincidences of the anonymous note's having been typed on the same kind of bond, and of Barber's owning a Royal portable, were too glaring to pass up. Corrigan ran a sheet into the machine and typed, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Then he depressed the shift lock and typed the same line in capitals.

“What are you doing?” Barber asked. He seemed merely curious.

“Taking a typing sample.” Corrigan pulled the sheet from the machine and folded it.

“Why?”

“I received an anonymous letter recently threatening to kill Alstrom and Grant. It was typed on a Royal portable and it was on the same bond you use. Just thought I'd check it out.”

The big man frowned. “You accusing me of writing anonymous letters?”

“Not really,” Corrigan said cheerfully. “But I'm a cop, Harry. We try not to miss any bets.”

“I'm not sure I like this, Captain!”

Corrigan hiked the brow over his good eye. “Want the sample back?”

“You didn't even ask my permission,” Barber said hotly. “That's an invasion of privacy! And I haven't seen any search warrant.”

Corrigan drilled him with the brown eye. “I only took the sample out of habit, Harry, not because I believe you wrote that letter. But you're making me wonder if I may not have been a little too much of a Cougar fan. You really want this sample back?”

The one eye and the two eyes clashed. It was the two eyes that looked away. “It must be the hour, Captain,” Barber said with an abashed grin. “I get loaded for bear when I lose my shut-eye. I'm sorry.”

“Forget it,” Corrigan said. Sleep, he thought. When had he slept last?

Barber went out with him. The football player obviously meant to return to the girl's apartment, because he snapped the light off before he shut the door.

“What would you have done if I had insisted on a search warrant?” he asked Corrigan suddenly.

“Phoned for one. Then dragged you and the typewriter down to headquarters for making me go to all that trouble.”

Barber grinned. “And I'd have deserved it. The sample won't match your anonymous note, though. It's a comforting thought.”

“I hope you're right, Harry. Good night.”

Outside, he told the waiting Stoyle that he could knock off and return to Homicide.

It was nearly five when Corrigan finally reached his bachelor pad at the Brookfield. Two and a half hours later his alarm clock went off. At eight thirty he logged in at the MOS, then headed for the lab.

He found Yoder absorbed in examining the Bell Rocket Belt.

Yoder glanced up, started to look back at the belt, then, looked up again.

“I've seen darker circles,” he said, “but only on a slab in the morgue. Hangover?”

“Overwork,” Corrigan groaned. “Get anything from that contraption?”

“No fingerprints. We've figured out how it works, if that's any help.”

“Not to me,” Corrigan said. “It's not my case. But I'll listen out of just plain nosiness.”

“These two outer tanks contain H
₂
O
₂
under pressure,” the technician said. “H
₂
O
₂
is hydrogen peroxide, in case you've forgotten your high school chemistry. These two pipes that look like handlebars are the controls. By twisting one handle grip, the operator controls flight direction. The other controls rocket thrust level.”

He tapped the middle tank. “This one's a gas generator. The way the thing works is that hydrogen peroxide is forced into the gas generator under pressure, where contact with a catalyst decomposes it into steam. The steam issues from these twin jets on the bottom, giving the thrust. The jets angle outward enough so that protective clothing is unnecessary. You could use it wearing a business suit.”

“How far could you fly with the thing?”

Yoder shrugged. “This seems to be an early model, so I can't say. I checked on the more recent belts, and operators have gone eighty feet up and several hundred yards in a single jump. With two full tanks, power is good for about twelve minutes' flying time. You could keep moving from jump to jump a long way, I'd say.”

Corrigan shook his head. “This thing could become a problem if it got into the wrong hands. Bank robbers coming out of a bank and flying six blocks to the getaway car—I can see it all now.”

“Let us pray,” said Yoder piously, “that the good guys will have them as well as the bad guys.”

“Amen.” Corrigan took the typing sample from his pocket. “Here's what I really came by for, Yo. Will you run a comparison of this sample against that anonymous note I sent you?”

“The one addressed to you?” Yoder glanced at the sample. “Check back in an hour or so.”

“Were you able to turn up anything else from the deal last night?”

“Nothing great. The only fingerprints on that French door belonged to Frank Grant and the dead kid. The murder weapon had been ground down on an emery wheel from a stainless steel knife manufactured by the Black Cutlery Company of Buffalo. They turn out about a million of 'em a year. The tape around the handle was common electrician's tape.”

“You,” said Corrigan, “are a rat fink.” He left looking glum.

16.

When Corrigan got back to the MOS, Meisenheimer told him that Inspector Macelyn wanted to see him. Corrigan found the Inspector reading a newspaper.

Macelyn pointed his cigar to a chair, and scaled the paper over to him.

“Have you seen this, Tim?”

The news of young Alstrom's murder was there in gaudy detail, including the address of the penthouse. There was a photograph of the building, although none of, the penthouse itself. There were also pictures of the roof of the building where the rocket belt was found, and a drawing of a man flying between the two buildings along the course of the traditional dotted line.

There was nothing on the questioning of Marty Martello and his henchmen, although the article recapitulated the story of Audrey Martello's murder four years before and identified her as the racketeer's daughter. Harry Barber was mentioned as the dead girl's fiancé, but nothing was said about his being under suspicion in the Alstrom murder. According to the story, the police had no clues to the killer but were “working on leads.” The inference was obvious: either Martello or Barber might be implicated in young Alstrom's weird death.

A private bodyguard had been employed to protect the boys, the story noted, but he had been “in another room” when the killer struck. There was no mention of Corrigan's having been present. Apparently Dave Bender, who was quoted as the spokesman for the police, had decided to suppress that information.

Tossing the paper back, Corrigan said, “So much for secret hideouts. Now everybody and his Aunt Minnie know where the surviving killer is.”

“He's as safe there as he'd be in jail,” Inspector Macelyn grunted. “The Commissioner considered protective custody, then decided against it. Instead he's ordered the guard you installed to be maintained around the clock until they can sneak young Grant out of the country. Mrs. Grant says that will be in a few days now. He's to be taken under guard to an as yet undisclosed airport, then will be flown by chartered plane to a secret destination.”

Corrigan said, “You're telling me all this for a reason, Inspector. Have we been handed the case?”

“You guessed it, Tim. The Commissioner is concerned about possible adverse public reaction to the killing. The Department wasn't responsible for security, and so far no one has blamed us for letting young Alstrom get it, but if they learn that a cop was actually on the premises when the murder occurred, we may take some lumps.”

“I wasn't there officially,” Corrigan argued. “It was sheer accident, Inspector.”

Inspector Macelyn made an impatient gesture with his cigar. “You know the facts won't mean anything if some rag decides to use the incident as a springboard to sell more papers. The Commissioner wants the case cracked before the facts leak. So naturally we're elected. We always get the hot potatoes.”

Corrigan made a face. “Has Homicide been notified they're off the hook?”

“Yes. A messenger is bringing the case record over. It's probably on your desk.”

Corrigan rose. “I may as well get right on it.”

“Any ideas?” Macelyn asked. He did not sound hopeful.

“A vague one in the back of my head. Those footprints and Frank Grant's description of the killer pointed so straight to Harry Barber that Homicide and I were pretty sure he was our boy. But he turns out to have a strong alibi. Does that strike you the same way it does me, sir?”

Macelyn took a comtemplative puff on his cigar. “A deliberate frame?”

“Yes. Barber's shoe size has been printed in the sports sections for anybody to read. It's just the sort of nastiness Martello would pull to take us off his back.”

“Pinning it on an eel like Martello is going to take some doing, Tim.”

“As if I didn't know,” Corrigan said, and left.

He found the case folder from Homicide on his desk. A note clipped to it, signed by Homicide's day-watch commander, said: “305th Air Nat. Guard hasn't been contacted yet. We dropped everything when we got word the case was transferred.”

Corrigan skimmed over the record. There was nothing in it he did not already know. Except that Rose O'Donlan and Frieda Kimmer had both been questioned and had verified the alibis of Al Jennings and Benny Grubb. And that had been predictable. When you dealt with customers like Grubb and the Acid Kid, you assumed the alibis were rigged, and a fat lot of good that did you.

Corrigan glanced over the morning teletype, then looked up the number of the 305th Air National Guard on Long Island. He called and asked for the commanding officer.

A crisp voice said, “Major Conners.”

“This is Captain Corrigan of the Main Office Squad, New York City police, Major. I'm calling in connection with the murder of Gerard Alstrom last night. Have you read about it in this morning's paper?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Then you know that the killer gained access to the penthouse by using a Bell Aerosystems Rocket Belt.”

“Yes. Quite an idea.”

“One item didn't appear in the paper, though, Major. Stenciled on the inside of the belt was ‘305th Air National Guard.'”

The major said in a startled voice, “My unit?”

“That's right.”

“But we don't have any belts.” Major Conners hesitated. “Wait a minute. We do. A pair of them. But they're early models and have been in storage for years. They go back to 1961. The Bell Aerosystems Company has been experimenting with it for a long time. I'll check with our supply officer and phone you back, Captain. If that belt should turn out to be one of those consigned to storage here, there will have to be an investigation. What's your number?”

Corrigan gave him both the numbers of police headquarters and his extension. He was about to hang up when it occurred to him that his last night's dismissal of the information that Benny Grubb had once belonged to the national guard unit now merited reconsideration. If the belts had been around since 1961, they had been available to Benny after all.

“One thing, Major,” Corrigan said. “Back in 1961 and 1962 a Benjamin Grubb was attached to your unit. Would you check his record and see if he could have had access to the belts?”

“Benjamin Grubb. I'll call you back, Captain, as soon as I have anything.”

Corrigan had just hung up when the phone rang. It was Yoder from the lab.

“I thought I'd better not wait,” the technician said. “Your typing sample matched the original note.”

“What!”

“Didn't you expect it to?”

“No. I was just covering a possible angle. I'll be damned!”

So much for intuition, Corrigan thought as he hung up. He had been so sure Harry Barber was incapable of writing a crank letter that he had felt sheepish about checking it out. This called for a complete turnabout in his thinking. If the football star was the kind who could write threat notes, he was capable of having manufactured an alibi. Although the girl …

He called the Communications Center on the top floor of the headquarters building and put out immediate pickup orders on Harry Barber and Pat Chase.

An hour later Communications called back. A prowl car had been sent to the apartment building where Barber and the Chase girl lived. When there was no answer from either apartment, the officers had summoned the super to let them into the apartments. Both betrayed evidence of hurried departure.

Snowed by a couple of amateurs! Corrigan thought. He had swallowed their act hook, line, and sinker.

He ordered all-points bulletins and locals on the pair and gave the girl at Communications their descriptions. He told her he would try to scare up photographs of both.

When he hung up, Corrigan looked out into the squad-room. He motioned to Detective Meisenheimer.

“Got a detail for you, Meis. I want photographs of Harry Barber and of a woman named Pat Chase. Barber's you can get from the morgue of any newspaper. The girl is a photographer's model. Hit the agencies.”

Meisenheimer took the meerschaum from his mouth. “What do I do with them?”

“Run them up to Communications for reproduction and distribution. There's already an APB and a local out.”

Major Conners had not phoned back by noon. Corrigan was getting ready to go for lunch when Meisenheimer stuck his head into the little office.

“Got photos of both,” the bushy-haired detective announced. “I've already delivered them to Communications.”

“That's fast work, Meis.”

“I'm a fast worker.”

“I wish,” Corrigan said gloomily, “I could say the same.”