George Harmon Coxe

by The Ring of Truth

  The deduction was a simple one, once he spotted the police sedan at the curb and recognized the driver. It had happened before, and he knew that the dispatcher at Headquarters had been trying to reach him and, failing in this, had sent the driver to wait for him. He stepped into the car resignedly, aware that his reading would have to be postponed and that he would not get to bed until the job was done—whenever that happened to be.

  “What is it this time?” he asked as the driver put the car in gear.

  “A shooting. Homicide, I guess.”

  They drove rapidly crosstown, coming presently to this block on the outer fringe of the downtown section, a neighborhood of small, discouraged-looking shops and low-rent apartment houses. The driver got as close as he could to the entrance of a three-story building, its original beige-brick façade now soot-stained and depressing in the darkness. Lights shone from most of the front windows, and heads were silhouetted there as the neighbors peered out to watch the activity on the sidewalk below. Two police cars were angled into the curb opposite die entrance, an ambulance was double-parked, and a uniformed officer kept traffic moving.

  Standish spoke to the ambulance driver, and the policeman at the street door saluted and said: “Third floor, Doc.” Television sounds came from behind closed doors as he climbed the narrow, rubber-treaded stairs to the third floor, where one of the two facing doors stood open. The living room he entered was hot, stuffy, and crowded, but only the police photographer, who was still busy, paid any attention to the still figure in the easy chair.

  The senior officer present was a hard-jawed, hairy-eared veteran named Captain Cavanaugh. An experienced and competent professional, he was the city’s Chief of Detectives and in line for the top job. Next to him stood Lieutenant Ballard of the Homicide Squad, a term which was something of a joke since the Homicide Squad consisted of Ballard, a sergeant named Cooney, and a clerk-stenographer, who could be called upon when needed. The investigation of homicide was Ballard’s province and he was head man, but in practice every detective in the department pitched in when needed.

  Cavanaugh had a dead cigar in one corner of his mouth, his hat pushed back. There was no animosity between him and Standish but the captain had made it plain that he did not entirely approve of the medical-examiner law, particularly the part which said that a body could not be moved until official permission was given. In addition there had been at least one case when Standish’s post-mortem findings had complicated what had originally seemed like a simple case of homicide. Now, his impatience showing, he said: “Where were you, Doc? We’ve been dragging our feet.” Standish glanced at Ballard, who gave him a small wink. He put down his bag and unbuttoned his topcoat. “Not long, I hope,” he said.

  The room, what he could see of it, was more expensively furnished than he had expected from the outward appearance of the building and the neighborhood. The divan on which he put his coat and hat was long and heavy, the color television set was a console model, and the plain-colored rug was soft underfoot. He did not stop to wonder about this at the moment. Nor was there any thought in his mind that the element of coincidence he had considered on Friday night at Hennessey’s was still at work.

  For the man in the chair, clad now in slacks, loafers, and a yellow sport shirt darkly stained in front, was Jess Flemming. Even though the head was tipped forward Standish had recognized him the instant he entered the room and now, approaching the chair, he could not help remembering the scene outside Hennessey’s and Ralph Estey’s threat. He could not obliterate the thought and he did not know what he was going to do about it. Because it was too disturbing to contemplate, he pushed it far back in his brain and gave his attention to the job at hand.

  “Who found him? How did you find out about it? Someone hear the shot?”

  “Not that we know of,” Ballard said. “We got a quick rundown on the other tenants—those that were home—and every damn one of them had the TV on. They say that’s all they heard.”

  “A phone call,” Cavanaugh added. “To Headquarters.” He grunted disgustedly. “The guy on the switchboard can’t say if it was a man, woman, or child, only that the voice was kind of husky. Said there had been some trouble in apartment 3-B at this address and we ought to send a cop.”

  Standish leaned over the body, which had slumped backward, one leg bent, the other outthrust. He took the head in his hands and turned it, testing the neck for rigor. He did the same with the hands and the wrists, the elbows, the knees. He opened the shirt, noting a small round hole just to the left of center. He slid one hand up under the armpit to get some idea of body heat, examined first one eye and then the other.

  “How long?” Cavanaugh asked.

  “I’d say not less than an hour—which you probably already know—and not more than two. I doubt if I can put it any closer after the p.m.”

  “Yeah.” Cavanaugh swiveled the dead cigar to the other comer of his mouth and readjusted his hat. “And for once we’re not too interested in your p.m.”

  “Oh?” Standish straightened and his dark-blue eyes had humorous glints.

  “Your job is to establish the cause of death, right? There can’t be much doubt about that, can there, Doc?”

  “I wouldn’t say so. But you left out half the sentence.”

  “What sentence?”

  “The one you quoted. ‘To establish the cause of death . . .’ You should have added: ‘and determine if anyone is culpable.’”

  “Culpable?” Cavanaugh snorted. “Hell yes, someone is culpable. Someone shot him in the heart, didn’t they?”

  “No gun?”

  “No.” Cavanaugh started to back toward the door and dismissed the subject. “We think the slug is just under the skin in his back. Must have clipped a bone.”

  “Did you move him?”

  “We know better than that, Doctor,” he said, emphasizing the last word. “We just bent him a little at the waist to see if the slug was in the chair. There’s a small hard lump just under the skin. When you dig it out send it along, hunh?”

  He went through the doorway without waiting for a reply and Standish took a large notebook from his bag. Opening it, he began to make a sketch. When Ballard asked him if it was all right to move the body, he said to give him a couple more minutes.

  With the photographer out of the way, he penciled in a sketch of the room, noting the doors, windows, the chair, and the position of the body. He had no idea that this sketch, or the more detailed ones that would follow, would ever be used; it was simply part of a routine which had been taught him by old Doe Lathrop, who had given him a job as assistant in the days when he needed such fees, and had groomed the younger man to take his place as medical examiner before he retired. Ballard, a half smile on his face, waited patiently because he had seen the routine before. Not until Standish had turned toward the divan did he speak to Sergeant Cooney, his assistant, and the detective who had been standing by.

  They began at once to empty the dead man’s pockets, placing the contents on a nearby table while the sergeant listed each article in his own notebook. Standish, having closed his bag, watched the photographer pack his paraphernalia and spoke to Ballard.

  “Any ideas?”

  “Not many. Know him?”

  “Jess Flemming.”

  “And the odds finally caught up with him.”

  “I know what you mean. I understand he was a bad boy.”

  “He’d been leaning on people for years, scaring little guys, twisting their necks and sometimes breaking them.”

  “Did he have a record?”

  “As long as your arm. But only three convictions. Two for simple assault—he paid a fine—and one for felonious assault. That time we had a case but he had a good mouthpiece. Drew ninety days, suspended after thirty. That’s all we could ever tag him with around here.”

  Ballard grunted softly and continued in the same tone. “Three times we had him up on suspicion of murder. The first two times we didn’t have a hell of a lot t
o go on and the State’s Attorney couldn’t work up a case that would stick. The third time we thought we had him. He worked over this guy outside a bar. He shot him twice and we came up with two witnesses. We knew he was guilty. We still know it. The case is still on the books as an unsolved homicide.” He hesitated and Standish prodded him. “What happened?”

  “We were giving this one witness pretty good protection and the other one we held as a material witness. The judge set bail at five thousand and it wasn’t enough. Whoever was behind Flemming put it up and one fine day witness number one disappeared. Into thin air. He’s still missing.”

  He cursed under his breath and said: “The five grand was a cheap price to pay, and with the pressure all on the other witness he suddenly got tongue-tied. Or maybe he got a sudden but permanent touch of amnesia. He had a convenient failure of memory. He wasn’t sure any more. When the time came we couldn’t even get an indictment.”

  “Who was Flemming doing all this strong-arm stuff for?”

  “The loan sharks originally. The six-for-five boys. You know how that worked, don’t you?”

  Standish thought he did but he wanted to be sure. “You mean where some workingman needs five dollars on Monday to get through the week and when next Monday comes around he pays back six.”

  “Right. Or if he borrows fifty he pays back sixty. When he doesn’t pay—in the beginning they don’t care—the interest keeps adding up. Before long the poor guy is paying more in interest a week than the original loan.

  “And it wasn’t just the little guy you’re talking about. There were small-businessmen who got themselves in a temporary bind. They’d need, say, five hundred or a thousand for a week or so. Sometimes they couldn’t get it up when they thought they could. Before they knew it they’d be sweating just to keep up the interest. Maybe if it was a good little business the organization would wind up owning it.”

  “What organization?”

  The question stopped Ballard and he gave it some thought, a moderately tall man about the same height as Standish but more solidly built and three or four years older. He had sandy hair and quick gray eyes that were often curious, prying, and observant. He dressed conservatively and in good taste and his suits were well tailored. He had a degree from a small upstate college and his face bore no visible marks of his trade. He was as tough as he had to be when the situation demanded and, if not brilliant, he was intelligent and well trained. He had one other quality that Standish had long admired, a basic integrity that could not be compromised. Now, his thinking completed, he answered as honestly as he could.

  “I can’t give you an exact answer. You read the papers. You’ve heard about the Mafia and the Cosa Nostra and the Syndicate. If you’re wondering if such things exist, I think they do. On a nationwide basis, with territories—mostly in big cities—blocked off for the local big shots. Nowadays they have fronts that look respectable. They belong to clubs, and play golf, and own expensive boats. If you don’t look too close, and don’t know the background, you probably wouldn’t recognize one if you fell over him. I understand they’ve taken over a lot of legitimate businesses, even banks.

  “Well, this isn’t New York or Boston. This is just a branch operation but there is a connection and there are three or four men here in town that call the shots in all the rackets, some of them petty, some of them not. We put the six-for-five boys out of business and the new state law they passed last year helped. That law’s got teeth in it, so now they have a legitimate small-loan business with a charter. It’s still profitable and muscle isn’t used much any more. But we’ve got some unsolved murders on the books, obvious mob jobs. Boston has a raft of them. You got any idea how many?”

  “No.”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Twenty-two? In how long?”

  “In the last seventeen months. The reason I know is that we just got a report on the last one. What the papers call another gangland slaying. Twenty-two,” he said, sounding a little impressed himself. “They grab some guy as an accessory and he gets out on bail and two days later they find him in the back of a car or in some swamp. Most of them are small-timers but they know something, or somebody thinks they do. It’s got to be gang stuff—somebody trying to cut in on somebody else—and the only reason I mention it is to give you the facts of life.”

  “So what about Flemming?”

  “I wish I knew. He was out of town for a while. He came back with a new car. Somebody walked in here with a gun—” He fixed his gaze on Standish. “He could have been shot standing up and collapsed in the chair. He could have been sitting there when he got it. You couldn’t tell, could you?”

  “No. I can tell you the course of the bullet later but that probably won’t help.” Standish thought again of Ralph Estey and detoured mentally. “Flemming was in another jam four months ago.”

  “Yeah? What was that?”

  “He ran over a man one Saturday night out in front of Hennessey’s. My testimony kept him from facing a charge of vehicular homicide. Flemming was sober. The other man was staggering drunk.”

  “Umm.” Ballard gave an unconscious nod of his head. “Sure. I remember now. The guy’s name was Tremaine, wasn’t it? A broker or a partner in some brokerage office as I recall it. His wife was with him and he came weaving out between two cars just as Flemming was starting up. Hit him and missed the wife, wasn’t that it?” He eyed Standish aslant. “You got a point, Doc, or were you just thinking out loud?”

  “Just thinking,” Standish said, and then, bringing his thoughts back for the moment, he noticed that the sergeant and the detective had finished their tabulation and were standing by. He nodded toward the body in the chair. “Have you finished with him?”

  Ballard said: “Yes. He’s all yours. I don’t think there’s any hurry on the p.m. Any time tomorrow will do.”

  Standish stepped into the hall to summon the ambulance men and then he went along a small inner hall looking for a place to wash his hands. The kitchen was on the immediate right and he turned in here when he found the light on.

  It was an oblong room, not large, and with one window. The refrigerator was an older model, its white enamel chipped. The electric stove was even older and not very clean. There were a few dishes and a cup on the drainboard and there was a rack for paper towels over the sink. A corroded soap dish was fastened above the faucets, and although he noticed that the smallish cake of soap was slightly damp when he picked it up, he did not think about it at the time.

  He soaped his hands slightly with the water running, rinsed them, and reached for the roll of paper towels. He pulled two segments down and yanked them free. He blotted his hands and wadded the damp towel, glancing about for some place to discard it until he saw the wastebasket under the counter. Either he was careless or his aim was bad, for the ball of paper hit the rim of the basket and bounced to the floor.

  A lifetime habit of personal neatness demanded that he retrieve the towel and put it where it belonged. It was this same characteristic neatness that took him one step more. For, having picked up the towel, he noticed a smaller folded piece of paper—apparently thrown there by someone else not quite so neat.

  He reached for it instinctively, aware that if he had not hunkered down to get the towel he would not have seen the other paper at all because it was almost behind the metal basket and apparently had gone unnoticed by the person who had discarded it. Only when he had it in his hands and examined its whiteness and odd folds did he check his movement and take a second look. In this he was prompted, not by suspicion, but by a vague curiosity that had as its basis no more than a familiarity with other folded bits of paper of similar size, shape, and smoothness.

  Curious now, still not suspicious, he opened the fold carefully. Holding the paper flat, he studied it a second or two and some trick of reflected light touched the residue of some powdery substance that had caught along the line of one fold. As he wondered about it he came erect, still holding the paper flat in one palm. He mov
ed under the overhead light to get a better look.

  He saw then that there were several grains of some colorless, crystalline substance and, automatically now, he brought the paper up under his nose and sniffed. He caught a faint odor which was not characteristic but aromatic. After another moment of silent contemplation, he isolated a grain. He touched it with the tip of his finger. When it stuck there he put it to his tongue. The slightly bitter taste that resulted was faint but unmistakable.

  Very slowly then, he moved back to the counter and placed the paper down, a slender, erect-standing man of thirty-one, with dark hair and dark-blue eyes that were well spaced and direct. Because of a slight wave in his dark hair that could not be erased, he wore it rather short. His jaw was well cut and his angular face was longer than some, not handsome by classic standards, but with a smile that often came slowly and held a natural friendliness and sincerity easy to believe. For all his slenderness, there was a look of muscular fitness about him that was wiry and well coordinated, the shoulders good, the hips narrow.

  For perhaps five seconds he stood immobile, his gaze somber and sightless as it fixed on some point above the sink. During that time he had no ears for the buzz of conversation or the restless movement in the adjoining room. When, finally, he brought his eyes to focus on the white paper in front of him, his thoughts moved on to consider Lieutenant Ballard. A moment later he knew it was time to call his friend’s attention to his discovery.

  4

  WHEN PAUL STANDISH returned to the living room, Sergeant Cooney and the detective who had been there earlier were gone. Ballard was talking to another detective, a youngish, well-set-up man with prominent black brows and a muscular jaw. Standish had met him before and remembered that his name was Flint. Ballard, glancing round as Standish approached, nodded toward the detective.