Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

I trudged back to the house, Hedrick dogging my heels. He pointed out the drawer and I went to work on the lock. Three minutes later I yanked open the drawer and took out an envelope. I opened the flap and counted five thousand good reasons why Hedrick had come sneaking back.

  THE phone rang. I beat the butler to it.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Petrie! I knew I’d find you there.” Reirdon was at the other end. “Didn’t I tell you to wait in Rogel’s apartment? Didn’t I warn you not to leave?”

  “Sure,” I murmured. “Only the party was dead and it got lonesome.”

  “Quit clowning,” he growled. “I want to know what you are doing on this case?”

  I figured I might as well tell him.

  “I was looking for Squire’s daughter,” I admitted. “Public Screwball Number One.”

  “Did you find her?”

  “A couple of times. Once alive in Chicago, and once dead in New York, although I’m not sure about the dead one.”

  I had to hold the receiver away from my ear. Reirdon’s magnified spluttering almost deafened me. He wanted to know what I was talking about and I gave him the story—as much of it as I had.

  “Rogel,” I explained, “thought he’d identified the headless corpse in the morgue as Justine Squire. So he called her father and told him about it—”

  “And the old man sneaked out last night and murdered Rogel,” Reirdon broke in excitedly. “He—”

  “What!” I yelled.

  “That’s right. The gun Squire used on himself was the one that killed Rogel. We checked with the bullet in Rogel’s skull. And we checked the serial number on the gun. It’s registered in Squire’s name. He had a permit for it.”

  I felt dizzy. I couldn’t make this thing out. I didn’t believe it, not one word of it. Because if Squire had meant to murder Rogel, why would he call me back from Chicago and tell me about Rogel’s message? That didn’t make sense.

  And what about the girl in Chicago?

  She couldn’t be in two places at once. And the two gorillas somebody had hired to knock me off? That couldn’t have been Squire’s work. If he hadn’t wanted me mixed up in the case, he wouldn’t have hired me in the first place.

  “Between you and me, Reirdon,” I said, “Squire was not a suicide. Somebody knocked him off.”

  “I want to see you, Petrie,” Reirdon said quietly.

  “Okay. One more question. Did they finally get an autopsy on the decapitated girl in the morgue?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she die from?”

  “Carbon monoxide. They found it in her lungs. The head was cut off after death.”

  “How long has she been dead?”

  “Near as they can tell, between four days and a week.”

  “All right, Reirdon,” I said. “I’m bringing you back a customer.”

  “Who?” he demanded eagerly.

  “Squire’s nephew—Ralph Hedrick.”

  Hedrick was watching me from under lowered brows. His mouth was twitching.

  “What are you trying to pull?” he asked angrily.

  I braced myself in front of him.

  “Your uncle was going to change his will today,” I said, and even looked accusing. “It would be a nice thing if you killed him first.”

  He swallowed. “You’ll never prove that!”

  I laughed harshly. “I’m going to try like the dickens.”

  HE MOVED fast. He grabbed up the onyx base of a pen and pencil set and heaved. I ducked, but felt the wind of it brush my hair. He stabbed at a long Spanish stiletto used for a letter opener, raised it high and, shouting imprecations, lunged at me.

  I caught up a chair by its back rest and lifted it the way animal trainers do. I jabbed the legs into his face as he lunged. That was all for the time being. Ralph Hedrick laid down on the carpet and didn’t say a word.

  I picked him up, lugged him to a closet, tossed him inside and locked the door. Then I went out to the tool shed at the side of the hothouse and found a spade.

  Carrying the spade at right shoulder arms I crossed the lawn to the tree under which I’d been standing when I’d watched the house a short while before. There was the same frantic activity at its base. Ants, myriads of them, were still scurrying about, climbing into their little holes and out again, running aimlessly about. At least I hoped it was aimlessly.

  I started digging. I got down one foot, then two, and still nothing. Suddenly the shovel struck something hard. I gulped. Wedging the spade under the impacted earth I pried till the hole gave forth what I was seeking.

  Despite the fact that I was steeled for almost anything, the sight of Justine Squire’s severed head, encrusted with soil, eyes eaten and picked clean out of their sockets—that sight, as I say, took hold of my stomach in a cold wet hand and squeezed it into a tight little ball.

  I shoveled the head back into the hole and threw the dirt over it again. I had to get away from there. I felt sick. I returned the shovel and headed back to the house.

  The butler was on the phone, talking excitedly.

  He looked at me as I came in, his jaw hanging loose, his eyes frightened.

  “It—it’s Miss Justine!” he croaked. “There’s been an accident. She—she’s dead!”

  I snatched the phone away from him.

  “This is State Police Headquarters near Tarrytown,” a voice said. “Is there a member of the Squire family at home?”

  “Yes,” I lied. “This is her cousin. What is it?”

  “There’s been a bad accident. Miss Justine Squire has been killed. Her car was hit by a train. She was crossing the tracks near a side road and did not heed the whistle.”

  My knuckles were white around the edge of the desk.

  “How did you identify her?”

  “By the car, her purse, driver’s license, letters, and so forth. Her face was pretty badly mangled by the crash. The local undertaker has her body. Will you please communicate with him? If there’s anything—”

  I hung up. I went to the closet where I’d locked Hedrick. He was conscious now. I picked him up, asked the butler to call a cab. While we were waiting, the sound of tires came to us along the driveway and a moment later the big limousine with Durell at its wheel rolled up to the front of the house.

  I WENT down the stairs, dragging Hedrick with me.

  “You just get up from the city?” I said to Durell.

  He nodded. “Yes. Terrible about Mr. Squire, isn’t it?”

  “How’d you find out?” I asked.

  He looked surprised. “Didn’t you know? The papers are already carrying the news.” He shook his head. “I can’t understand it. He was such a fine man.”

  “Long as you’re still working for Mr. Squire’s estate, I want you to drive me back to the city. I’ve got a delivery to make.”

  “Of course,” Durell readily agreed.

  I shoved Hedrick into the tonneau and climbed in beside him. Durell rolled the big car easily along the driveway and out to the road.

  We moved along the Bronx River Parkway in silence. Hedrick’s expression was tense, his fists tightly clenched. I was trying to figure who had the most to gain by Squire’s death. With Justine also out of the picture, Hedrick stood as sole survivor to all those millions.

  The news from State Police Headquarters about a girl being killed in a railroad collision was baffling. If that one was Justine, then whose head had I uncovered on the Squire estate? I tried prodding a little information out of Hedrick.

  “So you think you’re going to be a millionaire, eh?” I said.

  His mouth was a small square of hate and his voice was strained.

  “You can’t prove I killed Uncle Anton!” he defied. “Even if he didn’t change his will, the bulk of his estate goes to Justine.”

  I made a derisive noise.

  “That’s why you took good care Justine would not be alive to claim it.”

  He was suddenly rigid beside me, eyes glowing.

 
; “You—you mean Justine is dead?”

  I nodded. “She came back some time this morning, probably took the sleeper in from Chicago. She sneaked into the garage, took one of the cars and headed upstate. Somewhere along the road she got into an accident. She was killed.”

  The car lurched violently, came to a dead stop at the side of the road. Durell turned and faced me. His lips were pressed tightly together, his eyes haggard.

  “Justine—is—dead?” he said, in a strangled voice.

  I peered at him sharply. “Yes—in an auto accident.”

  Durell’s eyes flickered. He swallowed, then clapped his hands to his face, swung out of the car, and stumbled over to a tree. His shoulders heaved, his whole body seemed racked by anguish. I stared in total amazement at Hedrick. The pinch-faced youth stared back at me, not knowing what to make of it, either.

  Finally Durell turned, wiping his eyes. He walked back to the car and slid in behind the wheel. He drove a short distance in silence.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” he said then, quietly, “but it was a terrible shock. You see, we—we were married. Justine and I—in Greenwich. It was a secret—”

  You could hear Hedrick’s breathing over the sound of the motor. His face was a blazing mask of fury. A vein throbbed wildly in his forehead.

  “You’re a liar!” he grated.

  Durell didn’t answer. He sat stiffly at the wheel. I raised myself so I could see his face in the rear vision mirror. His jaws were set, lips pulled inward, eyes expressionless. I looked at Hedrick, and never in my life have I seen a man under such an emotional strain. His face was dark with controlled fury, his teeth were actually grinding together.

  I held myself poised for a move. And I thought. I thought hard about the whole thing. And the tiny scrambled pieces of the puzzle slowly fell into place, making a logical, although almost incredible picture.

  CHAPTER V

  THE TWISTED PLOT

  WE PULLED up before Police Headquarters on Center Street. I turned to Hedrick.

  “This is the last stop for you, Ralph, my boy,” I said. “Hop out.”

  Hedrick hopped out. Fast. He started running, weaving in and out of traffic, his coat-tail flying.

  “Grab him!” I yelled to Durell, and the chauffeur was out of the car in a flash and racing after Hedrick.

  I was right behind him. Durell reached Hedrick, gave him a vicious rabbit punch at the base of his neck and the youth went sprawling over the sidewalk.

  Between us, we lugged him back across the street and up the stairs to Police Headquarters, through the old stone lobby, and up one flight to Reirdon’s office.

  The lieutenant was in a lather. His thin, hawklike features were tightly grim and harassed. The commissioner, I gathered, had been on his neck. When he saw the parade march into his office, his fists clenched so tight you could see the white of his knuckles. Storm signals were flashing in his keen gray eyes.

  “Petrie,” he said, between his teeth, “one of these days I’m going to pin a homicide conviction on you. I’ll go up to Sing Sing and strap you into the chair myself! I’ll get the governor to let me pull the switch! And when I see you frying I’ll start laughing. I’ll laugh so hard I’ll bust.”

  He slammed his fist against the surface of his desk and an ink bottle fell over and made a mess of a stack of papers to be filed.

  “Whoa!” I held up a hand. “What’s the trouble?”

  “You. Just you. That suggestion of yours turned out to be true. Anton Squire did not commit suicide. He was murdered. We gave his gun hand the nitrate test for powder stains and it came out negative. He never fired the shot that killed him. The gun was stuck into his hand afterwards.”

  “Precisely what I figured,” I told him complacently.

  “Then he didn’t murder Rogel,” the lieutenant said. “The same man must have killed them both. So because of one little suggestion from you we have two murders on our hands. Now, talk, Petrie, talk!”

  “In a minute,” I told him calmly. “How did the killer get into Squire’s office?”

  “It was easy. Squire had a private entrance so he could get out without being seen.”

  “So if somebody came up to kill him,” I said, “they’d use the stairs, not the elevator.”

  “Of course.”

  “And I suppose you took prints on the doorknob and the banister leading up to Squire’s office?”

  “We did.”

  I took out the Colt and pointed it at Durell. “Call in the lab men and let them give Durell here the nitrate test,” I said softly. “Get a sample of his prints. Somebody took a shot at me a short while ago. I dug the slug out of the wall in Squire’s study. Let’s see if it checks with Durell’s gun! And I think those prints you found in Rogel’s apartment will—”

  I WAS too sure of myself. I should I have expected Durell to make a desperate play. He had already killed three people and they would throw the book at him no matter what else he did. He was standing beside Reirdon, and with a sudden movement he sprang behind the lieutenant, dragging at his gun. Then he was pointing it at me.

  “Drop the gun, Petrie!” he snarled. “Drop it or I’ll drill you—and the lieutenant. I got nothing more to lose.”

  I let the big Colt clatter to the floor. Durell’s eyes were twin pools of sullen flame, wild, desperate.

  “I’m getting out of here,” he said. “I’ll shoot the first cop that gets in my way.”

  He raked his gun down over the lieutenant’s head and Reirdon sank to the floor. Durell whirled, raced out of the office and down the hall. I scooped up the Colt, shoved the trembling Hedrick out of my way, and took off after Durell.

  As I hit the stairs I saw Durell bowling out the front door. A couple of cops were watching him, and you can call me a liar if you like, but not one of them made a move to stop him. Who would think a fellow had brass enough to make a break from Police Headquarters itself? By the time they realized the fact that he was beating it, Durell was pounding down the outside steps, his feet going like pistons across the street.

  I aimed low, squeezed the trigger. The Colt boomed and jumped in my fist. One of Durell’s legs snapped from under him. He rolled over like an acrobat and came up in a sitting position, and his gun was trained directly on my chest.

  The instant I had seen him fall I had relaxed my gun hand and it was hanging at my side. I saw the black hole in the barrel of Durell’s weapon and my heart jumped. I tried to get a quick bead on him, but I knew it would be too late. Even then he was pressing the trigger with point-blank aim.

  I fired. Durell’s shot was quicker. One—two—three. The shots came in that order and instinctively I stiffened against the impact of speeding lead.

  It caught me along the thigh, ploughing out a neat furrow of flesh. I sat down hard on the pavement.

  Durell toppled over on his back, his gun skidding across the gutter. Across the street a woman shrieked and fainted. A taxi driver jumped out of his car and raced around the block. Three pedestrians ducked for cover in a store.

  But it was all over.

  “He get you bad, Petrie?” a voice shouted.

  I glanced up. Reirdon was at his office window on the second floor of Headquarters, blood running down his face, a Police Positive still in his fist, smoke purling up and away from the muzzle. So he had fired the first of the three shots, the one that deflected Durell’s aim.

  I managed a grin.

  “Shucks,” I remarked laconically, “he couldn’t hurt me with that popgun.”

  And to prove it I got up, took one step, and tumbled over on my face. . . .

  THE nurse was something pleasant to look at. The hospital room was nice and clean and quiet—something I hadn’t enjoyed for a full twenty-four hours.

  Reirdon was seated at the side of my bed.

  “Lucky for you I had a clear shot at that guy from the window,” he said.

  I moved a little and groaned. The nurse leaned over sympathetically. I grinned at her. She sm
iled back. She had a nice smile.

  “I’ve had experience with some ugly boys in my day,” I said, “but this Durell takes the honors.”

  “What made you suspect him in the first place?” Reirdon wanted to know.

  “Motive,” I said. “When he admitted he’d married Justine, all the crazy pieces jumped into a pattern I could understand. He had to tell us he’d married her in order to allay suspicion later.”

  “Yeah,” Reirdon explained. “We got that out of him. Justine used to drink like a fish. One day when she was loaded he drove her out of town and they got married. It was going to cost her plenty to get rid of him.”

  “Right,” I said. “And here’s the way I figured it. You found carbon monoxide in the lungs of the headless girl. That was the real Justine. She drove into the garage late one night and, being crocked, fell asleep without turning off the motor. When Durell, who lives above the garage, came down in the morning he found her dead.

  “That spoiled his plans. Nor could he inherit any money from her because her father was still alive. So he had to conceal the fact of her death, kill Squire, and then make it seem she had died after the old man. In that way she would automatically inherit from her father and he would automatically inherit through her.”

  Reirdon made a wry face. “Did he have to cut off her head?”

  I shrugged. “He wanted to be sure nobody’d be able to identify her. Remember, there were a couple of million bucks involved. Well, that night he planted the head on the estate and carted the body to Van Cortlandt Park. It was by accident that I saw ants working around where that grizzly head was buried, but when I learned that Rogel thought he’d recognized the headless body from a peculiar post-operative scar I got suspicious and investigated.”

  “How about the girl in Chicago?”

  “That,” I said, “was clever. Durell got an old girl friend of his to help him—one who resembled Justine. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was an actress and helped the resemblance along with clever make-up. This girl went to Chicago and registered in a hotel under the name of Justine Squire. That was to place Justine in Chicago at the time of her father’s death.”