The Owlhoot

by J. T. Edson

  ‘I’ve asked P.R. to give all we have on the owlhoot to the news-media, Alice,’ Jack assured the girl. ‘I reckon they’ll play it up big.’

  ‘Which may scare him off,’ Brad warned.

  ‘I won’t lose any sleep if it does,’ the sheriff stated.

  ‘We’ve made an appointment to see Hoopler at Central Receiving at five,’ Alice remarked. ‘Do you want us to keep it?’

  ‘Think he can give you anything new?’ McCall inquired.

  ‘It’s a chance,’ Brad pointed out.

  ‘Do you reckon that the stick-ups were a cover for Monoghan having Hoopler worked over?’ Jack asked, for McCall had told him of the deputies’ suspicions.

  ‘It’s always possible,’ Alice pointed out. ‘Hit Mrs. Monoghan’s car first, pistol-whip Hoopler, then stick up two more cars so that we think robbery was the only motive.’

  ‘Keep it in mind,’ Jack told Alice and Brad. ‘Go to Central Receiving after you’ve checked the reports on your desk. Laurie Zingel gets home about six. I want you, or another team if you’re on to something red hot, out there when she shows.’

  ‘Yo!’ Alice gave the old cavalry response, coming to her feet. ‘We’ll be using triplex radios, I reckon?’

  Jack nodded. During the morning, the Communications Bureau had fitted three-way radio sets—Central Control to car, car to Central Control and car to car—into the vehicles to be used for the ‘psychological tailing’ and undercover work.

  ‘It’s all set up,’ the sheriff said. ‘We’ve got a tap on her telephone, its operator’s got a triplex. There’re two policewomen living along the hall from her. They’ll be on watch all night. If she leaves her pad, they’ll let you know. You and the undercover car’ll follow her. If she tries to lose you, let her.’

  ‘Huh huh!’ Alice replied, knowing the reason for the order. After losing the deputy car, Laurie Zingel would believe herself safe and, they hoped, fail to recognize the undercover vehicle for what it was.

  ‘Could be chancy though,’ Brad warned. ‘She might lose us and the U.C.’

  ‘Every night after dark, Lars or Tony’ll fix a magnetic transmitter bug to her car,’ Jack explained. ‘Communications’ tracking trucks will be able to find her. At first light, the bug’ll be taken away.’

  ‘We figure she’ll make her move after dark,’ McCall said and looked pointedly at the wall clock. ‘Tell Lars and Tony to come in when you go.’

  ‘Any questions?’ Jack inquired, grinning a little at his First Deputy’s not-too-subtle hint.

  ‘None,’ Alice answered.

  ‘Brad?’

  ‘You’ve thought of them all before I need ask them, sir,’ Brad replied and followed his partner across the office.

  Delivering McCall’s message to Deputies Larsen and Valenca in passing, Alice went to her team’s desk. She sat down, took the top sheet of paper from the ‘In’ tray and started to read it. Taking the second chair, Brad picked up the next report and followed Alice’s example.

  ‘Latent Prints have found a partial superimposed on Hoopler’s prints on the wallet,’ Alice told her partner. ‘They’ve taken Hoopler’s and Mrs. Monoghan’s for comparison. The partial’s not hers. They say it’s a left-hand middle or ring finger and good enough for a match when we bring in our man.’

  Brad showed no surprise at Latent Prints’ comments. While it would be possible to match the single fingerprint from the wallet with a similar one, checking it against all the thousands of prints in their files would consume too much time to be practicable. However, when—or if—the deputies arrested the owlhoot, that single print could be used as evidence and prove that he had handled Hoopler’s wallet on the night of the crime.

  ‘S.I.B.’s search crew haven’t even given us that much,’ the big blond drawled. ‘They managed to trail him from the Monoghan hit to his transport. It’s a trail bike of some sort, but they can’t give us more. Followed the bike to where he joined another turn-off and couldn’t go any further. They’d no way of knowing which way he turned along it. Same at the other two incidents. All they can say is that he knows the country real well. He goes in as near a straight line as possible, but steers clear of rough country or boggy ground where he might leave tracks.’

  ‘So he’s a local boy, that figures,’ Alice said and read the next report. ‘Ric Alvarez called the Berns-Martin Company at Elberton, Georgia. Asked if they’d sold any standard two-and-a-half-inch belts with floral pattern hand-carving and “Speed” holsters out this way. They promised to check their records and let us know. Didn’t waste any time doing it. Called us to say that they hadn’t sold any in Rockabye County, or nearer than El Paso.’

  ‘Who bought it there?’

  ‘A sergeant in the city police. Ric was in touch with him and he’s still got the rig. Berns-Martin are mailing us a list of all their customers in Texas.’

  ‘It may help,’ Brad said and opened the R. & I. folder. ‘Not much here.’

  Although the Records and Identification Bureau had combed through their files, they had been unable to offer a suspect of the owlhoot’s description who used a similar M.O. The best they could do was suggest three criminals who favored cowhand-style clothing. None of the three went in for lone-handed stick-ups, being respectively a con-man, a pickpocket and an expert safebreaker.

  ‘Ric’s already called the Division houses and asked for them to be checked out,’ Brad continued after telling Alice of the folder’s contents. ‘No replies so far. R. & I.’ve sent the information to I.C.R. [ix] and asked for a make.’

  ‘And that’s the lot,’ Alice sighed. ‘There’s nothing we can call a red-hot lead here. Let’s go and see Hoopler. I’ll change into uniform on the way back, if he can’t give us something to go on.’

  Six

  Laurie Zingel did not look like the kind of woman who could cause a previously law-abiding man to become involved in the commission of a robbery and brutal murder. Short, buxom, with blonde hair taken up neatly into a pile on top of her head, she had a pretty, vivacious face that horn-rimmed glasses did nothing to make less attractive. She looked as if she might be pleasant company and would be a good, popular wife, but lacked the type of beauty or intelligence that could drive a man to crime.

  Yet she had done just that. Under the merry face and plump, shapely body lay a core as hard, unscrupulous and tough as the most evil, designing temptress ever to lead the hero astray in a Hollywood movie.

  Always a lover of gracious living, she had looked for a means of satisfying her desires. Coming to Gusher City, she had taken a job as a secretary at the Euro-Tex Clothing Company while waiting for a chance to do better. Meeting Arnold Sandwich had offered her a way. After only a short time, she had discovered that he was a kindred spirit. Persuading him to rob the company had been easier than she had expected. Of course his financial troubles, caused by carrying on an apparently normal and unchanged married life while satisfying Laurie’s extravagant needs, had helped to make him more amenable to her suggestions.

  Completely infatuated by Laurie, Sandwich had needed only a little persuading that stealing the company’s payroll offered them their only hope of making a new life together. As Laurie had pointed out, Sandwich’s wife was a devout Catholic and would never give him a divorce. Which meant that their only hope was to leave Gusher City. Laurie had insisted that, before she would go, they must have sufficient money for a comfortable start to their new life together.

  Once he had accepted that the robbery was the only solution to their problems, Sandwich had surprised Laurie by his planning ability and forethought. Instead of committing the crime and fleeing together, he would take the money and go into hiding in the city. After the initial heat of the investigation had died down, Laurie would ask for a vacation ‘to visit her sick mother in California’ as an excuse for her absence from work. Then she would join Sandwich, cross the Rio Grande into Mexico and continue south to safety.

  Until that time came, she would not communicate with Sandwi
ch. Knowing the extent of his infatuation for her, she trusted him implicitly. If anything, the murder of the security guard had welded them even closer together.

  The sight of a black-and-white Sheriff’s Office deputy car parked opposite her apartment building’s entrance caused her no concern as she drove by in her convertible at the end of a day’s work. She and Sandwich had kept their association a secret from the other employees and she felt sure that there was nothing to connect her with him. While she lived in a comparatively high-rent district of Leander Division, always dressed to the height of fashion and wore expensive jewelry, she had fostered the legend of her ‘parents on the Coast’ giving her an allowance which raised her standard of living beyond that of a secretary dependent on her salary.

  Satisfied that she had helped commit the perfect crime, she swung the Plymouth convertible from Longley Street into the Temple House apartment building’s parking lot. Bringing the car to a halt in its usual place, she threw a quick glance at the man who came from the side entrance of the building. Then she looked again and with greater interest, for he possessed the kind of physique and features that rated a second, more thorough scrutiny.

  Striding over to the convertible, the handsome blond giant bent forward and opened its driver’s door. In doing so, the front of his expensive tweed sports jacket swung open. From her position in the car, Laurie looked at the center of her assistant’s chest. Before her eyes could move up to his face, they were attracted by something which held her full attention. Brown and black against the left side of the dark blue shirt was a long shoulder holster holding a big automatic pistol.

  Shock bit into Laurie, freezing her momentarily, as she realized the implications of what she saw. Only two kinds of people carried guns in such a manner, criminals and peace officers. Then she relaxed slightly, swinging her legs from the car. The big blond did not look like a crook, but he dressed a whole lot better than any of the detectives or deputies she had seen around the company’s buildings since the night of the crime.

  ‘Nice evening, ma’am,’ the blond drawled, straightening up and buttoning his jacket as she rose from the convertible.

  ‘Yes,’ Laurie answered, without meeting his eyes, and pushed the door closed.

  ‘Best lock it, ma’am,’ warned the blond as she turned towards the building. ‘We—the Sheriff’s Office—keep asking folks not to leave unlocked cars around.’

  Only by an effort did Laurie control her emotions. The word ‘we’ had been a slip of the tongue, rapidly corrected but still telling her that the big blond was not a crook. No matter how expensively he dressed, he belonged to the Sheriff’s Office—and had been visiting the Temple House, where she lived.

  Trying to act nonchalant, Laurie locked the car’s door and dropped the keys into her handbag. Nodding politely to her, the man strolled away. Still fighting to hold down perturbation which ate at her, she went to the side door. While entering the building, she turned her head. The big blond stood watching her, which might be expected, for she made an attractive picture in her short cloak-coat and mini-dress. On seeing her looking his way, the man swung abruptly on his heel and left the parking lot.

  Much to her annoyance, Laurie did not see the building’s superintendent as she walked along the passage. If she had, she could have stopped and talked to him, asking casually what the deputy had wanted. Her instincts warned against making a special visit to the super’s quarters and attempting to satisfy her curiosity. So she rode the elevator to the first floor and let herself into her apartment.

  Going across the sitting-room, she flattened herself against the wall by the window. Carefully easing aside the drapes, she looked across the street. What she saw confirmed her suspicions. The big blond stood by the deputy car, talking to the woman seated behind its steering wheel. From her position, Laurie could see the shield-shaped insignia on the sleeve of the woman’s jacket as she rested her arm on the edge of the open window. The woman wore a uniform. Not the dark blue of the G.C.P.D. but khaki, which meant that she belonged to the Sheriff’s Office, for that was the color of the male and female deputies’ uniforms.

  Letting the curtain fall back into place, Laurie walked slowly over to and slumped into a chair at the small dining table. For almost a minute she sat fiddling with her handbag and staring at the telephone on the side-piece. Then she half rose and sank down again. Whatever she did, she must not panic. There was no way that the law could connect her with Arnold Sandwich, they had been too careful for that. The big blond deputy’s visit to the Temple House must have been on some other business and their meeting no more than a coincidence. No peace officer would have opened a suspect’s car door like that. Probably if she went to the window, she would find that the black and white official car had gone.

  Almost five minutes dragged by before Laurie could make herself go to the window. Again she peered cautiously through the side of the drapes and let out a long sigh of relief. The Oldsmobile was no longer parked opposite the Temple House. Satisfied that her worries had been groundless, she moved to the center of the window and looked idly at the familiar buildings on the other side of the street. Slowly her gaze roamed from Harby’s Sports House to the barber shop, by Syston’s Drugstore and on to the Wymondhan Music Store, taking in their frontages and the alleys which separated them.

  Suddenly her body went rigid. She had subconsciously seen something and it triggered off a warning. Swinging her eyes back, she stared at the alley between the drug- and music-stores. The radiator and front of a black car showed from it. No. Only the hood was black. Its fenders were painted white. Not much of the car was exposed, but she could see sufficient to identify it as the Sheriff’s Office Oldsmobile she had seen earlier.

  Gnawing at her lower lip, Laurie returned to the table. She felt shaken and again her eyes went to the telephone. Then, with an almost visible effort, she regained some of her composure. No matter why the deputies parked opposite the Temple House, they could not be after her. That feller in Number Fourteen had always acted in a shifty, suspicious manner. Possibly they were after him. Or maybe the peace officers were making a check on all the company’s office personnel, hoping to frighten somebody with a guilty conscience into making a wrong move. Which raised the point of why they had picked on her. Nobody at the company had known about her and Sandwich. [x] Maybe they were watching everybody. If so, she would hear about it when she went to work the following morning. A comforting thought returned to her. If they were watching her, the big blond would never have come so close in the parking lot.

  ‘Take hold of yourself, Laurie,’ she counseled. ‘They don’t know. And the only way they can tie me in with Arnold is if I lead them to him.’

  ‘She bit, Alice,’ Brad Counter said, joining his partner after watching Laurie enter the building. ‘Give her one thing. She’d make a damned good poker player, for a woman, way she covered up after the surprise seeing my old cannon handed her.’

  ‘Huh huh,’ Alice answered, ignoring the comment on female poker-playing ability. ‘You’re sure she made you as a peace officer?’

  ‘I let it slip out accidental-like that I’m with the Sheriff’s Office,’ Brad replied. ‘If she asks the super, he’ll act just the way we want him to.’

  ‘He doesn’t know it’s her we’re after?’

  ‘Nope. I said it was the two policewomen. Made out that they’re part of a call-girl set-up we’re trying to break. He spluttered a mite about the good name of the building, but I persuaded him it was his civic duty to help the law. Which he could do by letting the girls stay there, where we can find them, instead of telling them to get out. Told him not to mention it to anybody, but I’ll bet he’ll not be able to keep it to himself if Miss Zingel asks about me being in there.’

  ‘That ought to do it,’ Alice smiled, watched the first floor windows of the Temple House. ‘Although I don’t know what the girls will do to you, blackening th—She’s looking us over, Brad. We’ll let her leave the window, then take up position
in the alley.’

  By the time Brad had walked around the car and slid in at Alice’s side, Laurie no longer watched them. Taking up the General Electric Voice Commander hand-held radio, he clicked it on.

  ‘Psycho One to Stake-out,’ Brad said.

  ‘Stake-out by,’ came the reply from one of the policewomen on that duty in the Temple House.

  ‘Suspect at home,’ Brad announced. ‘Guide us into the alley.’

  While Brad had been speaking, Alice started the Oldsmobile moving. From the window of her apartment, the policewoman watched it advance along the street and reverse into the alley between the drugstore and music shop.

  ‘Back a little,’ she directed via her triplex radio, trying to visualize what Laurie would see from further along the building. ‘Hold it. That ought to do it, Psycho One. Over and out.’

  ‘Psycho One yet!’ Alice sniffed, switching off the car’s engine. ‘I don’t know who picks the code-names, but he hit a pip this time.’

  With their vehicle parked so that it would look to Laurie like they were trying to avoid being seen, the deputies settled down and prepared for what might be a long, tedious, boring vigil. Taking the Voice Commander radio from Brad, Alice checked that communications with the other members of the operation functioned correctly. She took the opportunity to tell them of Brad’s cover story for visiting the superintendent and allowing Laurie to become aware of his presence. It brought chuckles from the listening ‘tail’ teams, but threats of revenge from the two policewomen on the stake-out duty.

  After paying a visit to Hoopler at the Central Receiving Hospital, without adding to their knowledge of the owlhoot, Alice and Brad had driven to Longley Street. They had parked their car where Laurie could not miss seeing it as she returned from work.