He tipped his hat. “My pleasure, Miss Crabtree.”
Archer headed back to the hotel, where he ran straight into Detective Irving Shaw.
Chapter 20
IRVING SHAW WAS LEANING BACK on the front desk in the lobby, staring out toward the main entrance doors, his hat tipped back. His thumbs were tucked into the pockets of his vest. He had an unlit, short-barreled cigar dangling from a corner of his mouth while the rest of his face held a self-satisfied look.
He smiled broadly when he saw Archer walk in. “Just the man I want to see.”
Archer came toward him and looked for but did not see the clerk. “Is that right? You’re working late hours.”
“Hunting a killer ain’t a nine-to-five job. Now, I spoke with Miss Tuttle.”
“Good for you. And?”
“And she told me some things that I wanted to check out with you.”
“Okay. You want to ask me down here or up in my room?”
“Why don’t we do it in the room where Hank Pittleman was found dead?”
This surprised Archer, but he followed the man to the elevator. “I’ll take the stairs, if you don’t mind.”
Shaw chuckled. “Seen that before with ex-cons. Small, confined spaces don’t feel all that good, do they?”
“No, they don’t.”
“I’ll meet you upstairs. And Archer?”
“Yeah?”
Shaw opened his jacket to show a big-butted Smith & Wesson .45 with iron sights carried in a worn leather shoulder holster. It was a serious piece of ordnance meant for serious business of the killing kind.
“Don’t you go screwball and try to bug out on me, okay? I might ’a flown planes in the war, but I’m a damn good shot. Not going to miss anything near as big as you.”
“Why would I do that when we’re getting all friendly?”
Shaw chuckled again and pushed the elevator button as Archer headed to the fire door and the stairs beyond.
On the sixth floor Shaw used the key to open the door to Number 615. He and Archer went through and Shaw closed the door behind them. Pittleman’s body had long since been taken away, though the bed was still unmade and the cover and pillows bloody.
“Okay,” said Archer. “What’s on your mind?”
“Miss Tuttle said you carried Pittleman in here and put him down on the bed. Then you two left and went to your room.”
“Same as I told you.”
“You got a strong back then, because it took two deputies to carry the man out. And you said you never came back in here?”
“That’s right.”
“And Miss Tuttle said on the way out she opened the door and closed it securely after you both left and then locked it.”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, glad we got that straight, Archer.”
“Can I go now?”
“Hardly, son, we’re just getting started. Don’t be in such a rush.”
Next, Shaw pulled something from his pocket. It was a hip flask that Archer recognized.
“Who said you could frisk my place?” he demanded.
“I did.”
“You got no right to do that.”
“I got every right, son. A man’s been killed.”
“You mean you can just toss a man’s room without permission?”
“I mean exactly that. The law’s on my side.”
“I wish the law would sometimes be on my side.”
“Then try not breaking it,” Shaw retorted.
“That flask’s not even mine.”
“I know that. I’m not concerned with the flask per se.”
“What then?”
“I also recovered two glasses from your room. With the remains of drink in them.”
“Okay, I had a drink with Miss Tuttle, so what? I told you that already.”
“Well, the ‘so what’ is that’s a parole violation to be using alcohol, but again, I’m not concerned about that. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
“For investigating a man being killed, you don’t seem too concerned about much.”
“Oh, you’ll see that I’m concerned about a great deal. And right now, I’m concerned about you. Now, there were fingerprints on the flask and the two glasses. You know about fingerprints?”
Archer looked at his hand. “I know everybody’s got ’em.”
“Right, and you know everybody’s fingerprints are different?”
“If you say so.”
“I do. I had Miss Tuttle’s fingerprints taken today. I had them compared to the ones on the glasses and the flask.”
“She didn’t tell me that.”
“Well, I didn’t tell her why I wanted them.”
“Why’d you take her fingerprints?”
“Patience, son, I’m getting there.”
Shaw opened the door to the room and pointed at the doorknob. “See that white powder on there?”
“I see it, yeah.”
“I had it dusted for fingerprints. That’s what the white coating is. Fingerprint dust. Amazing things they can do with fingerprint dust.”
“Yeah, sounds exciting.”
“Now, there are three fresh sets of fingerprints on there, and only three.”
“Okay.”
“Miss Tuttle’s.”
“Well, sure. She opened the door and—”
“The maid who found the body,” interjected Shaw.
“Okay, but—”
Now Archer could clearly see the man’s line of reasoning, and he felt like he had just been dropped out of a plane and was free-falling to death. And what had Ernestine mentioned? Dan Bullock’s fingerprints on that knife had helped send him back to prison.
“And your fingerprints.” Shaw shut the door so hard, it caused a bang when the door met the doorjamb. “Which makes me wonder how they got on the doorknob, both coming and going? Since you’ve confirmed to me that you had never touched them to begin with, and that you had never been back to Mr. Pittleman’s room after you and Miss Tuttle left him here.”
Shaw leaned back against the wall, edged his homburg down a bit, folded his arms over his chest, and stared like a seasoned pointer on a bird at Archer. “So, I’m thinking what you told me before was a load ’a hooey, son. And somebody feeds me baloney, I don’t make a sandwich with it, I make an arrest.”
“You have a way with words, Mr. Shaw, I’ll give you that.”
“Now, I want you to start having your way with words, Archer, starting and ending with the truth. Anything less than that, the cuffs are going on you right now, son, just so we understand each other.”
Archer glanced at the doorknob as his mind processed all of this at a rapid pace. The only problem was, he could see no way around it other than the truth. But sometimes not only did the truth not set you free, it could send you right back to prison.
“Okay, I’ll level with you. When I passed by here this morning the door was open a crack. I thought Jackie—I mean Miss Tuttle—was maybe in the room. So, I walked in, that’s when I touched the doorknob.”
“Meaning you lied to me before?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Keep going, Archer, this is mighty fine stuff.”
“I saw the man sleeping in the bed. Well, I thought he was sleeping. Then I saw a towel on the floor. With stuff on it. I came closer to see what it was. Then I saw the knife next to the towel; they were both covered in blood. I went over to the bed to see about Mr. Pittleman. But it was too late. He was dead, his throat all butchered.”
“Then what did you do?”
Archer decided not to tell him about his debate on relieving some of the dead man’s cash because he could not see a way that would remotely benefit his case, which was now for shit anyway. Though he had taken the debt papers.
“Then I left. I opened the door and walked out.”
“Leaving your fingerprints behind?”
“Yes sir.”
“Did you remove anything from this room or the body?”
Archer didn’t hesitate, because he knew to a man like Shaw that would be the same as lying.
“No sir.”
“You see anybody? Hear anybody?”
“No. It was just me.” Archer paused. “Now, I know this doesn’t look good.”
Shaw unexpectedly chuckled. “Well, you’re right about that, son, but it don’t take a genius, does it?”
“What happens now?”
“I have more than enough to arrest you, you know that?”
“Look, what would be my reason to kill the man? I was working for him. Him dead, I don’t get squat.”
Shaw chewed on the butt of his stogie. “Miss Tuttle made the same argument to me earlier.”
“Well, she’s one smart gal. So?”
“A job and money’s not the only reason to kill a man.”
“I don’t see another, least in my case.”
“Sure you do, Archer, think about it.”
“Give me a clue.”
“How about a woman? Miss Tuttle? You wanted her and Pittleman had her. For all I know you went to his room, you both argued about the lady, and you did what you did.”
“You think I’d kill a man over a woman?”
Now Shaw laughed outright. “Hell, Archer, if I had a dollar for every man who’s killed another man over a woman, I’d be a damn Rockefeller.”
“Did you check the knife for my prints? ’Cause I can tell you for a fact they aren’t on it.”
“There were no prints on there because the killer wiped them off, probably on the towel. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have left it behind. He just was careless about the doorknob.” On this Shaw looked pointedly at Archer. “Meaning maybe you were.”
“But why not take the knife with him?”
“Then you got a weapon that killed a man to hide or dispose of. Not an easy thing to do.”
“You think I brought a knife with me from prison!”
“You took a long bus ride here. For all I know you bought or stole a knife from someone on that bus. Or you coulda done the same while you were here. Miss Tuttle told me Pittleman gave you an advance. Forty dollars cash. How much of that you got left?”
Archer took a quick breath but didn’t answer right away. So now Shaw knew about the money Archer owed to Pittleman. Which meant Archer now had a motive to kill the man.
“Well, I bought some stuff, clothes, and food and such.”
“Right, but you didn’t do your job, Archer. You didn’t get the car. So that means you owed Pittleman money. And I been asking around about the man. He is not somebody you want to owe money to. Did you get into an argument with him about that?”
“No, I was going to talk to him about it but never got the chance.”
“So you say. And the fact is, you didn’t have to bring a knife with you. Jackie Tuttle and two other witnesses have already identified the murder weapon as belonging to Mr. Pittleman himself.”
“I know that. He took it out in the—”
“—in the bar where you met him? Miss Tuttle told me about that, too. That’s another lie you told me. You’re ringing up quite a tally. So the fact is you could have used Pittleman’s own knife to slit his throat and presto, you don’t owe him a dime because he’s not around to demand it.”
“Lots of other men probably owed him money.”
“But lots of other men weren’t sleeping with his lady friend or staying in a room pretty much right down the hall or leaving their prints on a doorknob to the dead man’s room. You, and only you, on the other hand, hit the trifecta on that.”
Frustrated, Archer fell silent while Shaw’s gaze continued to bore into him.
“I’ve investigated a lot of crimes, Archer. And this isn’t my first murder, not by a long shot. Did it before the war and I’m doing it again. Now, it can take a while, but I’ve never failed to get my man in the end.”
“As a law-abiding citizen now, I’m right happy about that.”
“We’ll see how happy you are when I’m done. This is a hanging state, you know that?”
“Tell the truth, I hadn’t bothered to look into it.”
“That might change, as time goes on.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“Not right now, no.”
“So, I can go?”
“For now. But, Archer, don’t try to make a run for it, you hear me?”
“You keep telling me that.”
“Because I want the message to sink in loud and clear, son.”
“I got nowhere to run, and no interest in running. That’s for a guilty man to do, which I’m not.”
“You’re a funny one.”
“Nothing funny about being wrongly hanged.”
“I’ll grant you that. Now get on out of here.”
Chapter 21
ARCHER WENT TO HIS ROOM, shed his new clothes down to his skivvies, opened the window because he felt claustrophobic and bitter about what was happening, and lay down on the bed in the dark and stared at a ceiling he couldn’t really see.
The four walls of his room seemed to be closing in on him. The feeling of claustrophobia was, in fact, far stronger than he had felt at Carderock after the mayor’s daughter had turned all his sincere help into a tale of vicious kidnapping. He had been simple and naive and just plain stupid to let that happen to him. The fact was he had also been trusting, because he had relied on his comrades-in-arms with his life during the war. It had never occurred to Archer that once he was home again in peacetime, his fellow citizens would turn against him.
Still, he was fortunate they hadn’t given him life in prison, but Archer would never get back the several years they had taken. He would never feel he had gotten the better end of some vague deal.
And here it was happening again.
An hour passed, and Archer never once stopped looking up at nothing.
Then he rose and put his clothes back on.
It took him twenty minutes to walk it. Then he was outside of Number 27 Eldorado Street. Despite the lateness of the hour, there was one light on in what he knew was Jackie’s bedroom. He wanted to know what else she had told Shaw.
He walked up to her door and knocked.
“Who is that?”
The voice came from the right of him. He stepped back and looked at the lit, open window.
“It’s me, Archer.”
“Archer?”
Her voice sounded funny.
“What do you want? I’m in bed.” There was nothing inviting in her tone.
“I need to talk. Shaw came by to see me again at the Derby.”
“Well, he came by to see me again, too. Woke me out of a dead sleep. He only left a bit ago.”
“Can I come in? It’s important.”
A long moment passed before she said, “Give me a sec.”
A minute later she opened the door and in the light from inside, he saw she was dressed in a thick light blue robe that went down to her ankles. Her face held a scowl.
She stepped back, and he passed through.
They sat in the living room. She stared at him and he stared down at his hat.
“Shaw is setting up to arrest me for Pittleman’s murder,” he finally said.
She nodded. “I could tell that by the questions he asked me.”
“It would have been nice if you had given me some warning. And he took your fingerprints, too. That would have been good to know,” he added accusingly.
As soon as he said this, Archer realized he had made an unforgivable mistake. The scowl turned to something else, something that unnerved Archer maybe as much as fighting the Germans had.
She stood and looked down at him. When she spoke her voice was low and calm and still managed to bristle with menace.
“Let me tell you what would have been ‘good to know.’” She paused, but only for a second. “When you came to see me before the cops showed up, you didn’t tell me that Hank was dead. But according to what Shaw told me just a bit ago you sure as hell knew he was dead. Now, th
at would have been good to know, Archer.” She bent down and slapped him hard across the face. The blow stung and reddened his skin and made his eyes water a bit. But Archer didn’t move, he didn’t say anything. When she raised her hand to strike him again, he assumed no defensive posture, did nothing to stop her.
She looked down at him in some confusion. Then, when it became apparent that Archer was not going to defend himself or fight back, this seemed to take all the energy from her. She dropped her hand and slumped down next to him.
“I should have told you, Jackie,” Archer said quietly. “I don’t know why I didn’t. No, maybe I do. I trusted a gal once and ended up in prison because of it. When I found Pittleman dead, I panicked. I figured the fewer people who knew, the better for me. It was just all about surviving, I guess. And not going back to prison.” He fell silent and Jackie said nothing for a few seconds.
“I don’t blame you for not trusting, Archer. It’s not like I trust easily or at all. And it’s not like I’ve been an open book with you.”
“So where do we go from here?” asked Archer.
“You could start with telling me about Hank. Shaw told me what you told him, but I’d prefer to hear it from you.”
Archer nodded, marshalled his thoughts, and said, “I woke up, got dressed, went out in the hall, passed by the door, and saw that it was open. I went inside.”
“Why?”
“I thought you might be in there with him. You had left my bed,” he added.
“Oh, good Lord, Archer, are all men as dense as you when it comes to that?”
“Probably. Anyway, I saw the man was dead. So, I hightailed it out of there.”
“And you never raised the alarm? Never went for help?” Her eyes flashed with suspicion.
“Help? For what? I’ve seen a lot of dead men in my time, Jackie. No way you were breathing life back into Hank Pittleman.”
“Still, you left him like that, Archer? And now Shaw thinks you killed him.”
“Did he say that directly?”
“He didn’t have to, I could tell from his questions.” She paused. “Did you kill him? Come on, tell me the truth.”
In his agitation Archer stood and paced. “What reason would I have for killing him?”
“Maybe because you didn’t like me being with him like you just suggested.”
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