The Lenient Beast, page 9
“Wife refused to take a lie detector test; said she didn't believe in it and didn't trust it, which is what all of them say when they're afraid to take it. But she denied taking the stuff to him and we never did trace any dormison to her, so no charge was ever made. For which I'm just as glad; it would have been a hell of a thing to have to prosecute somebody for.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I see what you mean about the circumstances being different. Guy like that would need outside help but Stiffler — Say, Frank, I just thought of something.”
“You mean checking whether Kurt bought a gun since the auto accident?”
I said, “Or before, for that matter. He's been here only four months so if anyone sold him one in that length of time they ought to. remember his picture.”
Frank pulled out cigarettes, gave me one and stuck one in his mouth. I got my Zippo going and lighted them for us.
Frank said, “It's worth trying. Take us only a couple of hours to cover every place in town he could have bought one. We'll ask Cap, when we report, if we should put that on the agenda for tomorrow. If we find Kurt did buy a gun, a twenty-two, and especially since the accident, then well give a high order of probability to suicide and really start beating our brains out over what could have happened to the gun after he shot himself.”
“Right.” I said. “I think we can get Cap to go for it. Only I don't think he's going to buy that possibility of suicide, Frank. He hasn't got the imagination we have. Let's not tell him we want to check if Stiffler bought a rod. Let's talk him into it being a good idea to check on all recent sales of twenty-two revolvers.”
“Which is a good idea, Red. Maybe we'll find Medley bought one. But I doubt it; he's too slick an article for that.”
“You're still hipped on Medley as a killer? Hell, Frank, it doesn't make sense.”
“What does?” Frank asked. “Well, let's see if we can finish the neighborhood here today, huh? I've got a hunch we're going to get a large zero but we might as well get it over with.”
We got a large zero.
We covered both sides of the block he lived in and found about a dozen people who knew him “slightly” or “to speak to,” and found that most of the others knew him by sight and all of them knew who he was and something about him — but nothing that we didn't know already. The accident, the quadruple funeral and the court hearing at least had brought him local fame. Not to mention the murder story that had broken in this morning's paper. We found ourselves being asked more questions than we ourselves had a chance to ask.
But we found no one who remembered seeing Stiffler at any time Tuesday evening. Nor anyone who knew him at all well.
We found, but it didn't help, two women who had been neighborly with his wife, in Spanish. They'd been in the Stiffler flat and she'd been to their homes. But only by day while Stiffler had been at work. On the few occasions when the possibility of an evening family get-together had been mentioned, Carmelita Stiffler (that was the first time I'd heard her first name) had begged off, explaining that her husband was in poor health and had to spend his evenings resting and go to bed early. We got some details on the three Stiffler children; it seems they were quite bright, in good health and very well-behaved. But since they were all dead, that wasn't going to help us either.
We got in the car around four-thirty and drove down to report in. I asked Frank, “What the hell do you figure was wrong with the guy, not to have made any friends at all, either in his own neighborhood or at work? Sure, he was in bum health, but even at that, damn it, he ought to have had some friends.”
Frank said, “I think well find he made a few. Not many and not very close friends, in four months. Add up shyness, introversion, lack of stamina, and a wife and three kids to keep him busy, and it doesn't figure he'd have made a flock of friends. He wasn't a good-time Charlie in any language. But he was friendly enough to those people in Nogales to drive down to a wedding. My guess is that whatever friends he did make he met through the church. Well have to check with Father Trent on that And on the Nogales people. We were just thinking in terms of identification and general background when we talked to Trent yesterday; we didn't know what questions to ask.”
Cap Pettijohn looked unhappy when we reported the little we'd learned. “All right,” he said, frowning. “So he went home right from the bus, except for that grocery stop, and ate at home. But he left home again and you boys mean to tell me nobody saw him leave?”
“Nobody that we could find,” Frank said. Cap said, “I think you'd better try some more tomorrow. Everybody couldn't have been at home in that block.”
Frank said, “We've got a list of the places where nobody was home; there weren't many of them. But there were more cases where we could talk to a woman only, because her man was at work. We'll have to pick them up in the evening, or wait till the week end.”
Cap frowned again. “You boys worked late last night and I hate to ask you to do it again tonight, but we've got to get going on this thing. The Chief called me just half an hour ago and he wasn't happy with what I could tell him.”
I said, “Okay by me to work this evening, Cap.” I looked at Frank and he nodded but didn't look happy about it.
“Well,” Cap said, “here's what's been happening otherwise. The railroad boys picked up a seventeen-year-old kid with a twenty-two revolver on him. He's in jail now. We're putting a concealed weapons charge against him to hold him and we'll have the gun fired and a bullet compared with the one taken from Stiffler's head. If it matches, we've got something. But I don't have any high hopes for it. The kid says he was in El Paso Tuesday evening and can prove it, for one thing. Another thing, they pulled him off a freight that had just come in.”
“He could have boarded it at the edge of town,” I said. “Could have. But if he'd done a murder here, why'd he go the edge of town and then hop a freight back in? I think we can forget him, as far as Stiffler's concerned, unless the bullet does match.
“Another thing, I had Paul and Harry spend all day canvassing the Campbell Street neighborhood. Nobody out there recognized a picture of Stiffler and nobody had seen anything suspicious in the neighborhood Tuesday evening. I was out there myself, talked to John Medley. A very pleasant gentleman. Frank, I can't imagine where you get the wild idea he might be involved in the murder. Or do you still feel that way?”
Frank shrugged. “I still think he's a creep. I'll ride with him till something better comes along.”
Cap frowned at him. “That's crazy, Frank. He's mildly eccentric, something of a recluse, but that doesn't make him a murderer. The one thing about him that puzzled me is the fact that he does quite a bit of dealing in real estate and still doesn't have a telephone. But he explained that to me.”
Frank looked interested. “The explanation being?”
“He simply dislikes telephones and hates being interrupted by one. And he doesn't need one for business because he refuses to dicker on price. If he has a lot listed with an agent for five hundred dollars he doesn't want the agent bothering him to transmit an offer for four fifty. The agent is empowered to sell if he gets the price asked and the deal can be handled by mail.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “Anything else new, Cap?”
“Got a call from Father Trent. Funeral is set for Saturday morning at ten. Think you boys should go, but that's your day off. Like to work Saturday and take an extra day off next week instead? Or have you made plans for Saturday, either of you?”
Neither of us had, it turned out, and Cap said, “Good. And because of the evening work, don't report in here Saturday morning. Just get to the funeral at ten and report here after. Now about this evening. Think it'll take you long to finish up over there on Burke Street?”
Frank said, “Not over a couple of hours. Maybe less if we're lucky. Why? Anything else you want us to do?”
“Well, either one of two things. First, I think you boys ought to talk to Father Trent again. Get more leads on what friends he had, since you had bad luck finding any at work or in his own neighborhood.”
“We had that in mind,” Frank said. “What's the other thing.”
“One person out on Campbell. The daughter of that Armstrong widow who lives in the house next to John Medley. She and her mother went to a drive-in movie the evening of the murder, but she could have noticed something either before or after that her mother didn't notice. But I guess seeing Trent is more important, for this evening.”
Frank said, “St Matthew's is on my way home, right in easy walking distance from where I live. And it shouldn't take both of us to talk to Trent, at least this time. So is it okay if I drop in on my way home and see him alone?”
I said, “It's an idea, Cap. Trent knows Frank and might talk more freely if it was just the two of them. And if Frank does that I'll drive home by way of Campbell and look up the Armstrong gal. If it's okay by you.”
It was okay by Cap. Ordinarily on a murder case, we're supposed to work in pairs, just in case, but I guess he figured that neither Father Trent nor the Armstrong girl would turn out to be a desperate or dangerous character.
Frank called home from the phone in the assembly room and then we ate and went back to Burke Street. We were through there a little before eight o'clock; we didn't get anything worth mentioning. We found one man who'd noticed Stiffler come out of the grocery store and go into the entrance that took him upstairs and home, but we already had figured he'd done that. We found another guy who thought he'd seen Stiffler come out of that same entrance about the middle of the evening and thought there was another man with him. But he'd seen it at a distance and couldn't give us a description, even a vague one, of whoever Stiffler had been with; he just hadn't noticed. And the more we questioned him the vaguer it got; he wasn't even sure it was Tuesday evening. We told him to think it over and try to remember more about it and that we'd look him up again.
We put the city car in the police garage and got my Buick off the parking lot and I dropped Frank off at St. Matthew's and then drove out to Campbell and to the Armstrong house. Medley's living room light was on and his phonograph was going, playing something long-haired that I didn't recognize. I could barely hear it here but if I could hear it at all, at the curb and two lots away, then it was plenty loud inside that living room. If he'd had it on like that Tuesday evening he definitely wouldn't have heard a twenty-two pop in his back yard. I made a mental note to tell Frank that, and then I went up the walk to the Armstrong house and rang the bell.
The girl who opened the door was three-alarm, a knockout. Hair just one shade redder than mine, wide-apart big blue eyes. Tallish, for a girl, and slender, but really stacked in the right places. Beautifully sun-tanned on all visible areas, and such areas added up to considerable, since she was wearing what women call a play suit, no doubt because that's what it makes men want to do. She was maybe twenty-five, give or take a year or so.
I guess I fumbled a little, out of sheer surprise, in introducing myself, but I got through it okay. She said, “Come in, Mr. Cahan. Mothers in the kitchen. I'll call-”
“We've talked to your mother,” I said. “But you weren't home then and there are a few questions we'd like to ask you. I mean that I'd like to ask you.”
She smiled. “Of course; please sit down. But I really should run and put on a dress. I wasn't expecting anyone this evening and—”
“Please don't,” I said. Not for my sake, I meant. “This will just take a minute or two.” Unless I could make it take longer. “All right, Mr. Cahan.” She sat down and I picked the chair that gave the best view.
“Your name? I know your last name's Armstrong, but—”
“Caroline.”
“Please tell me what you remember about Tuesday evening.”
“Well, I'm afraid I can't add anything to what Mother told you. We talked it over and I couldn't remember anything more than she did.”
“Please tell me anyway. Pretend we haven't talked to your mother.”
“All right. Let's see, I got home from work the usual time, around half past five, and—”
“In the car, or do you use the bus?”
“I drive to work. Mother refuses to learn to drive a car so she wouldn't use it while I'm away anyway.”
“Did you notice if Mr. Medley was home then, or if his car was in his carport?”
“I didn't notice about the car but it must have been there because he was, working in the front yard. I think he was trimming the hedge. Anyway, Mother and I had planned to go to a movie and neither of us was very hungry so we decided to wait a while and have a meal out for a change, on the way. We left about half past seven and—”
“Was Medley home then?”
“Mother says his car was there, but I don't remember one way or the other. Nor about his light, although I guess it wouldn't have been on anyway; it was still light out at that time. Anyway we ate and went to the Prince Drive-In, and we got home a little before ten o'clock because we didn't like the second feature on the bill and didn't stay for all of it. I'm sure and so is Mother that Mr. Medley was home then — that is, I mean that his light was on then. And that's all. I mean, we stayed up another hour, I guess, before we went to bed but we didn't see or hear anything.”
I asked, “What do you think of Mr. Medley? As a person, as a neighbor.”
“I like him. He's a little on the fuddy-duddy side, but he's nice. And he's a good neighbor all right.”
I took the picture of Stiffler out of my pocket, walked over and handed it to her. “Have you ever seen this man? Around the neighborhood — or anywhere else for that matter.”
She looked at it closely a moment and then handed it back. “No,” she said, “I haven't. Is that the man who was killed?”
I put the picture back in my pocket and nodded. And suddenly it occurred to me that I didn't have any more questions left. Then I thought of one.
“Do you like to square-dance?” I asked her.
She looked at me wide-eyed a second or two and then laughed. “I love to. But—”
“It's only half past eight and the dance is just starting,” I said. “Hurry up and put on a dress and let's get going.”
EIGHT
ALICE RAMOS
I woke and yawned and wondered what time it was, not that it mattered really because I was all of a sudden wide awake and no matter what time it was I wouldn't go back to sleep. It was early because Frank was still snoring. It isn't a loud snore but he does it all the time and sometimes when I can't sleep it drives me almost crazy. We should have twin beds but Frank doesn't want them and any time I mention getting them he reminds me how much in debt we are already, with that tone in his voice that means he's thinking it's because of money I spend on liquor that we're always behind the eight ball financially. But dear Lord, if I didn't drink once in a while, I really would go crazy. Life and everything is such an awful mess and there was so much I wanted and look at what I've got. And no chance of it getting better because there he is on that low-paying police job and it'll never get any better. On account of his race if for no other reason he'll never get a chance to be captain of detectives or chief of police or anything. He thinks he's lucky to have got off a beat, but if he was half as smart as he thinks he is he'd find something else to do that would make more money. Or have a future in it. Sometimes I even wish he was a crooked cop and took bribes, but I guess I don't, really; then there'd always be a chance of his getting caught and there'd be that to worry about on top of everything else. Or if he wasn't too damn proud to let me work as a waitress again, at least part of the time, we could get caught up and get some money ahead and maybe get out of this awful place, to New York or Florida or somewhere where there's something going on. But I guess he's right that he'd have a harder time making a living either of those places than here in Arizona. And that sticks us. If he only had some ambition to make something of himself, to do something beside read and listen to that classical music of his. They don't pay off on either of those things. He spends as much money on books and records as I do on drinking, but he denies it. And another thing bad about his job; he's always working late and always tired. He doesn't even like dancing any more, and he used to dance so wonderfully; I guess that's maybe why I fell for him. But look at us now.
I raised myself up on an elbow so I could see across Frank to the clock on the table on his side of the bed. It was ten minutes after eight and for a moment I thought Frank had forgotten to set the alarm and had overslept. Then I remembered it was Saturday, his day off. Except that this particular Saturday he had to be at a funeral at ten o'clock, the funeral of the man who was killed in the case he's working on, this Kurt Stiffler. Frank's full of that particular case right now, he's hipped on it like he gets hipped once in a while on a case and thinks about nothing else. He told me all about it last night, what a mess of tough breaks this Kurt had had, in a concentration camp and all, and a lot about a man named Medley that Frank thinks is a creep but from what he ,told me I don't see why he thinks so.
I gave Frank a little push that made him turn partway over and would stop him snoring for a few minutes and then I lay back down with my hands behind my head staring at the ceiling. The alarm, I remembered, was set for eight-thirty and I might as well relax here in bed till it went off. If I got up now ahead of Frank I'd have to make the coffee, and he thinks he makes better coffee than I do so let him make it.
I felt pretty good. No hang-over because I'd had no drinks yesterday and only a few the day before, Thursday, to taper off. Dear Lord, but I'd felt horrible Thursday morning, after that all-night quarrel with Frank Wednesday night. I guess it was mostly my fault, too. Poor Frank, having to go to work the next day after that. I went back to bed and slept till noon after he'd left. But in a way he brings it on himself, being willing to argue. Why doesn't he simply knock me out and put me to bed and go to sleep himself. He's afraid to because he thinks I'd leave him. Maybe I would; I wouldn't know unless it happens and I guess it isn't ever going to happen. He's too good for me, I guess.
