by Anthony Rome
I went down on one knee and felt Turpin. His facial muscles were hard as stone. His arms and hands and torso were rigid. I took hold of the toe of his shoe and moved it back and forth. Rigor mortis hadn’t progressed all the way down the legs yet.
The weather was mild. Not hot, not cold. So complete rigor mortis would occur in a minimum of about ten hours. It hadn’t gotten to all of Turpin yet. But it was getting there.
It had been five P.M. when I’d left my office with Diana Pines. It was now a little after one A.M. Eight hours. Which, judging by the condition of Turpin’s corpse, was the minimum amount of time he’d been dead. Turpin must have come here and taken that bullet within minutes after I’d left.
Using my handkerchief, I picked up his .45 and examined it. One bullet had been fired from the clip.
I put down the gun and stood up, looked around. There was no bullet mark on the walls, floor, or ceiling. But I found something else on the floor of the corridor just outside the door to my reception room—a dried smear of blood.
I studied the far wall of the corridor. There was no bullet hole anywhere. I went slowly back along the corridor without finding any more blood. In the elevator I squatted over a dark stain the size of my hand on the floor. It was a bloodstain.
The killer had taken a bullet from Turpin’s gun. A .45 delivers a terrible impact at close quarters. If the slug had hit the killer in something like the fleshy part of an arm or leg, it would have torn clear through and out. It hadn’t. Wherever the killer was by now, he was in very bad shape.
I went back to my reception room, knelt beside Turpin, and went through his pockets without finding the daisy pin. Unlocking the inner door, I entered my office. Nothing there had been disturbed. I got the .38 Police Special in its clip-on holster from the middle drawer of my desk, fastened it to my belt under my jacket. Then I left the office, relocking the door.
I got Turpin’s keys from his pocket and switched off the reception room light, then went out to my car. The weather was still mild. But the back of my shirt was drenched.
I had to fight the urgency that nagged at me all the way to break the city speed laws. Parking a block from the Moonlite Hotel, I walked rapidly the rest of the way and entered the building via the service alley and the fire-escape door and got to the second-floor corridor without being seen.
It felt as if I’d spent an unwarranted amount of time fumbling with the keys before I found the one that unlocked Turpin’s door. Inside, I relocked the door before switching on the light. Someone had been there before me. The room had been searched as completely, and with as little regard for concealing the search job, as had my boat and office. The searcher hadn’t missed any of the likely hiding places. But I was willing to bet that he’d overlooked the right one. I had the advantage there. I knew about Turpin’s favorite concealment gimmick.
I found a beer-can opener in the medicine closet and used it to take the bathroom door off its hinges. Placing the door across the bed, I squatted down and found what I’d been expecting. Turpin had used a knife to gouge a cavity inside the bottom of the door. The hole was just big enough for the pin. But there was nothing in it.
There had been.
A tiny piece of Scotch tape still stuck to the rough wood inside the hole. I peeled it off. The way it peeled and the Way it looked told me it had been stuck in there fairly recently.
Getting the bathroom door back on its hinges, I used my handkerchief to wipe off all the smooth surfaces I’d touched. I was glancing around, making sure I hadn’t overlooked anything, when a loud double knock sounded against the door of the bedroom.
I froze, staring at the door.
“Turpin?” It was Welch, the night manager of the Moonlite. “Turpin!”
In the corridor Welch would be able to see the thread of light under the room door. If he had a key to the room and used it, I was sunk. The combination of Turpin’s corpse in my office and me in his searched room would finish me. I listened to the slow thudding of my heart.
Turpin! Welch shouted angrily. He pounded at the door.
I waited. For thirty seconds I worked at an ulcer. Then I moved to the door. Welch might be outside. Or he might have gone down to the lobby for the room key. I had to gamble.
I sucked in a deep breath, unlocked the door, yanked it open. Welch wasn’t there.
Turning off the light, I stepped into the empty corridor, shut and locked the door from the outside. I made a fast thing f getting out the way I’d come in.
Turpin was still waiting for me in my reception room, exactly the way I’d left him. Wiping off the keys, I slipped them back in his pocket. I used my handkerchief to dry my face, neck, and hands, filled a paper cup with water from the cooler and gulped it down, filled it again, and drank that one more slowly.
Then I made my phone call to the homicide bureau.
CHAPTER
9
ART SANTINI’S homicide office was one of six formed by subdividing what had been a wide outside corridor with gray metal partitions and doors. It was barely large enough to contain its desk, the three metal chairs, and the two tall filing cabinets which were the same gray as the walls and door. Its size and color, and the bars over the single window, gave the office the look of a jail cell.
“The papers probably have the story on the presses by now,” Santini mused unhappily. “It’ll be a beaut. Man’s shot to death right in the heart of downtown, and we don’t even find out about it till almost nine hours later. A beaut.”
His remark didn’t call for any comment from me. He was talking to himself and the walls as much as to me. Art Santini was a short, plump man with a wide, roundish face, a sharp nose, and a small, soft pink mouth. This face, and the expression of his dark, liquid eyes, gave him a look of gentle softness and puzzlement that was entirely misleading. We’d started on the force as rookies the same year. The name wedge on his desk had “Lieut. A. Santini” printed on it in black letters. I’d been the second man out of our group to make lieutenant; he’d been the first.
It was about five in the morning, and we’d been waiting an hour for a call from Captain Jones, Santini’s boss in Homicide. We were both bleary-eyed as we finished off the containers of black coffee and the limp sandwiches he’d had sent over from The Owl, an all-night diner a couple of blocks away.
“The pressure for an arrest on this one’s going to be something,” Santini said. “That could make it rough on somebody.”
“Meaning me?”
He sighed and nodded. “Could be, Tony.”
“The departmental really have to be reaching,” I said, “to tap me with this one.”
“You’ve got no alibi for the time he was shot,” Santini pointed out gently.
“No motive either. And no evidence. You knew Turpin, too. You liked him about as well as I did. How’s your alibi?”
“It wasn’t my office he was found dead in, Tony.”
The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up, said “Yeah?” into it, listened, said “Yeah” again, and hung up. He put both hands on the desk and stood up. “Okay, Tony, let’s go.” I got up as he opened his door. He looked at me and warned softly, “Watch your step with the captain.”
I nodded and led the way down the narrow corridor and around the corner. The uniformed police secretary at the desk beside the captain’s door told us to go in. The captain’s office was like Santini’s except that it was twice the size, and had more chairs and no bars on the windows. Captain Jones sat behind his desk, a tall, angular man in his fifties, with a lean, hard face and a long jaw. His mouth was tight and bitter, the eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses sensitive, and his gray hair was crew cut to show the good strong shape of his skull. Petrov, from the district attorney’s office, slumped in a chair beside the captain’s desk. He was a stocky man with a squarish face and hyperthyroid eyes. He’d been yanked out of a sound sleep for this, and he looked determined to stay irritated about it.
Captain Jones jerked a thumb at one of the cha
irs in front of his desk. I sat on it. Santini closed the door and leaned against it, staring at the opposite wall with the look of a man dissociating himself from the unpleasantness.
Captain Jones kept looking at me. The light from his desk lamp glinted against his glasses, hiding the expression of his eyes. He shuffled together the papers on his desk and planted his palm on the pile like he was driving the last nail in my coffin. “What was Turpin doing in your place?” he began softly.
“I don’t know. Lieutenant Santini had my statement typed up two hours ago. You’ve read it by now.”
“You don’t know,” he repeated softly. “Was Turpin in the habit of dropping in at your office?”
“No.”
“When was the last time he did?”
“It’s been quite a while.”
“Quite a while . . . Earlier the same day you visited Turpin in his room at the hotel. When was the last time you paid him any visits?”
“The same thing. Quite a while.”
Jones nodded slowly. “What did you go to see him about?” I got out a package of Luckies and lit one, puffed at it with what I hoped was passing for nonchalance. “I’ve got a client who’s worried about his daughter’s goings-on. Couple of nights ago she stopped at the Moonlite. I went over there to ask Turpin if she’d had anybody with her. He said she was alone.”
Petrov hunched forward on his chair, his hyper thyroid eyes suspicious and eager. “This client got a name?”
“Rudolph Kosterman. Big businessman. Lives on The Island up in Mayport.”
“That’s out of our territory,” Petrov muttered, still suspicious. “But we could always check that through the cops up there.”
“You can check it easier than that. Try Captain Crown, right here. He recommended me to Kosterman for the job.” Petrov slumped back, disappointed.
Captain Jones said, “Tell me about your other clients.”
“Haven’t got any others at the moment.”
Jones eyed me quietly for a moment, then leaned back and said, “The medical examiner’s pegged the time of death between four thirty and five thirty P.M.”
“I didn’t leave my office till five,” I told him. “That narrows it to between five and five thirty.”
Petrov leaned forward again. “Unless,” he pointed out, “the death occurred just before you left your office.”
“Cut the comedy,” I snapped, letting some of my own irritation come through. “You know damn well I didn’t shoot Turpin.”
Captain Jones asked softly, innocently, “How do we know you didn’t?”
“Turpin shot whoever did it. You know that. I’m not tough enough to be walking around with a .45 slug in me and not show it. But I’ll be glad to strip for you if you want to look.”
“You could’ve had somebody else with you. This somebody else could be the one that took the bullet.”
“I could’ve been there when Turpin got it,” I agreed. “But I had no reason to want Turpin dead.”
“Him and you used to be partners in that agency of yours. The rumor is you bought him out because you caught him trying to blackmail a client. There was bad blood between you when you split up.”
“Sure. So I think it over for a whole year and then decide I’m mad enough at Turpin to kill him. I phone him and invite him over to my office. Of course I make sure I’ve got somebody else with me, to witness my murder. I shoot Turpin, and Turpin shoots my witness . . . By the way, how’d ballistics make out with the tests on my gun?”
“It didn’t fire the .38 slug they took out of Turpin’s head. But that doesn’t mean anything. You could’ve used another gun for the job.”
I blew some smoke across the desk at Captain Jones. “Turpin’s room’d been searched by somebody. Know why?” Captain Jones barked.
“No.”
He passed that by. “According to the day clerk at the Moonlite, you were there to see Turpin around two thirty yesterday afternoon. Shortly after you left, Turpin went out. He came back about two hours later. Went up to his room. Came storming back down a minute later, looking sore as a boil about something, and went out again. That was around twenty to five, as far as the day clerk can remember. Figuring the distance to your office, and the time he died, it looks like he went straight from the Moonlite to your place. Any idea why?”
“I told you before. No.” I told the lie straight faced. “Let’s try another one of my hilarious guesses,” Jones said flatly. “Turpin got back to his room and found it’d been searched. He had a reason for thinking you might’ve been the one did the searching. He stormed over to your place to have it out with you. How’s that sound?”
It sounded too close to what could actually have happened. I said, “I don’t know any more about it than you do, Captain.”
“Goddammit! He was killed in your office!” Petrov shouted. “I’ve got no idea why. Somebody could’ve followed him there and decided it was a good place to do the kill, with the rest of the building empty that time on Saturday.”
“Who?” the captain demanded.
“How would I know? He had a lot of enemies.”
“Name them.”
“There’s too many. I don’t know anybody that had anything to do with Turpin that liked him. He was that kind of guy. It’s been a year since I’ve known anything about what he was up to. He must’ve accumulated a lot more enemies in a year.”
“We’re checking on that,” Captain Jones stated. “Rome, you do realize that your license depends on your co-operating with the police?”
“I realize it.”
“Just reminding you. Because if I find out you’re playing games with me on this case, I’ll see to it your license is suspended. Permanently. That’ll be the least of what happens to you.”
I crushed out my cigarette in his ashtray and stood up. “I take it that means I can go now?”
Captain Jones nodded. “Don’t make any trips for a while,” he said in the same soft, even voice he’d used throughout the session. “I’ll be wanting to talk to you again.”
“Any time.” I looked at Petrov. “Give my regards to the D.A.”
“Listen, you cocky bastard,” Petrov snapped, “don’t act flip with.me. You’ve been asking for it ever since you shot off your big mouth and got kicked off the force. I’ve got a hunch we’re going to tie the can to you sometime.”
“It’s been tried,” I told him. “By men who knew their jobs a lot better than you do.”
“Cut it out,” Captain Jones said. “Both of you. You can pick up your gun from die man outside, Rome.”
I looked at Santini. He opened the door and stood aside. I went out and got my .38 from the police secretary and headed for the elevators.
Santini caught up with me as I stepped into the elevator. He rode down with me, saying nothing. When we got off on the ground floor, he waited till we were alone in the entrance lobby.
“I’m sorry they braced you like that,” he told me sadly. “I know you didn’t have anything to do with killing Turpin.”
I said, “Thanks.”
“But they’re going to lean on you real hard, Tony. If you’re holding back anything, it might be a good idea to tell me about it. For your own protection. You know I’ll do my best to keep you out of trouble, whatever you tell me.”
“I’m surprised at you, Art. I was on the force too long for this old alternating hard-and-soft routine to work on me. Jones and Petrov pound me, and then you cuddle me. You know better.”
Santini actually blushed. “Okay. So I know better. But I know something else, too. I’m damn sure you weren’t being straight with the captain in there.”
“I’m not dumb enough to lie to him about a murder.”
“Not lie,” Santini said, eying me wisely. “But you could just leave out telling the captain some things you know. I think that’s what you did. Tony, they’ll really hang one on you if you interfere with us nailing Turpin’s killer.”
“I’m not likely to do that,” I told him
. “I’ve got my own reason for seeing to it Turpin’s killer doesn’t get away with it.”
“What reason are you talking about?”
“I’d’ve been dead three years ago if Turpin hadn’t squeezed a trigger at the right second. He didn’t do it to save my guts. He did it for the bonus we were getting from the Truckers’ Association for stopping the gang that’d been looting their sheds. And we didn’t like each other any better after he did it. But still, he did do it. And I owe him something for that.”
“Wherever Turpin is now, he couldn’t care less any more.”
“We both know where he is. And you couldn’t be more wrong. Turpin was always a guy to hold a grudge. He’d enjoy having the one who killed him sent down to join him.”
“Play your own game in this, Tony, and you could get into worse trouble than you’re in now.”
“Well,” I said, “Turpin would enjoy that, too.” I left him and went out to my car.
The sun was just rising over the white towers of the Miami Beach hotels across Biscayne Bay, tipping them with a rosy hue. The Sunday dawn spread across the water and flattened against the buildings of Miami City, turning them into a crazy patchwork of dark-shadowed sides and golden- glowing sides. Without people the buildings and streets took on the innocent, inorganic look of a mountain of various-sized blocks that had been kicked over by a bored kid and left scattered around in a haphazard jumble. It took people to give a city life. That morning it looked better to me without them.
At Dinner Key I unbuttoned my jacket and put a hand on the grip of my .38 before starting out on my pier.
But there was no one waiting for me on the Straight Pass except Tangerine. He was asleep in a tight ball on top of the fish box in the stem. I guess the smell of it gave him pleasant dreams. As I climbed down into the cockpit, he got up, arching his skinny back in a stretch that lengthened him by half. Then he followed me into the galley.
