The Venus Death

by Ben Benson

  “It doesn’t look that way to me, sir,” I said.

  “They don’t match,” Clyde said. The skin crinkled around his shrewd blue eyes. “The bullet that killed Manette Venus didn’t come from the gun in Ellen’s hand.” I just stood there. Unconsciously I began to grope for cigarettes in my pocket with my wounded arm. I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t care. “Then someone else killed Manette Venus,” I said inarticulately.

  “So it seems,” Clyde said. “The barrel lands on the copper show the murder gun was a six left. That means it was another .32-20 Colt or some Spanish imitation.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “The other gun was a .32-20 Colt. Manette Venus’ gun was a twin. She said there was a pair of them.”

  “So I remember you told me,” Newpole said. “And it’s one reason why I had this gun checked here. But Manette never told you where the other gun was.”

  “No,” I said. “I guess I never asked her, either. But can’t you see? There was a man in the closet. He had the other gun. While the girls were struggling, he opened the door, fired, and killed Manette. Then he struck Ellen on the head.”

  “I don’t think so,” Clyde said. “The pictures they sent me show a powder dispersion on Manette’s forehead. The bullet wasn’t fired more than six inches away. The way it could have happened was this. Maybe the girls fought for the gun. Ellen, at the time, was facing the window. The window was wide open, wasn’t it? No trees or anything around?”

  “The window was open,” Newpole said. “And there are no trees around the house.”

  “So the bullet missed Manette,” Clyde said. “It could have gone out the window. According to Ellen’s statement they kept struggling for a few seconds longer. They were near the closet. The man in the closet opened the door and hit Ellen on the head with the butt of his gun. Then he shot Manette with his own gun. That’s all. He took off quick.”

  “He was there with the intention of killing Manette,” I said.

  Clyde smiled. “We don’t know what his intentions were. We don’t even know who the person is. I figure it’s a man because Ellen heard a man’s voice on her way up the stairs. Anyway, the man was holding the twin Colt, if there is one. He could have hidden in the closet. When he heard the girls struggling and the gun go off, he poked his head out. He saw Manette was still alive and here was his chance to finish the job. So he did. I don’t know if he figured it then as a perfect crime or anything. But it pretty near turned out that way. Because the cops found Ellen with a .32-20 Colt in her hand, and she admitted firing the shot. The man could have been just plain lucky the way it happened. Seems to me it wasn’t a planned job at all. Nobody knew Ellen was coming to Danford.”

  “If it wasn’t for you, Lieutenant—” I started to say.

  “Nothing stupendous about it,” Clyde said. “Granger was able to bring the copper fragments here. And we were able to see if they matched a test bullet fired from the gun. They didn’t.”

  “I don’t know why I’m standing here like this,” I said happily. “I’ve got to get back to Danford and get Ellen out of jail.”

  Clyde started to laugh. Newpole grinned. He said, “And how are you going to do that, boy?”

  “Well, I’d go down and tell the D. A.—”

  “It’s a little more than that,” Newpole said. “It has to go through channels. Bob Clyde will notify Granger that the ballistics evidence on Ellen Levesque has gone out the window. If that’s all they have, they can no longer hold her on anything. Granger will go to the D. A. in Danford and explain it to him. Then the D. A. will most likely arrange for her immediate discharge.”

  Clyde nodded. “I’ll get on it right away. But first, Ralph, you ought to phone your father, don’t you think? Go ahead, use my phone.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  I went for the telephone on Clyde’s desk. Newpole took out his pipe and looked at it solemnly.

  “Well,” he said. “It’s back to Danford again. There’s still a murderer running around loose.”

  CHAPTER 18

  WE were driving back to Danford. Newpole was behind the wheel. We had passed the new Route 128 turnpike when Newpole looked over at me.

  “For a happy guy,” he said, “you’re kind of quiet. You haven’t said a word.”

  “I can smoke my pipe now,” I said. I took it out and stuffed tobacco into it. “I’ve been doing some thinking, Lieutenant. It seems I’ve got a clearer mind now.”

  “That’s the trouble with personal feelings,” Newpole said. “It throws your mind out of gear. A cop has to look at everything in a detached way. Otherwise he’s going to mistake sentiment for fact.”

  “I’ve been thinking of Al Yekiti,” I said. “He could have been the man in the closet.”

  “I might buy that, too,” Newpole said.

  “Yekiti knows the territory around Danford,” I said, putting a match to the bowl of my pipe. “He’s pulled stick-ups in the area and gotten away for a little while. He could have gone around the roadblocks.”

  “We have a fifteen-state alarm out for him,” Newpole mused. “He hasn’t shown anywhere. And Yekiti is an easy man to identify. It could be somebody is hiding him out.”

  “Something else has been bothering me,” I said. “It’s like a daisy chain. Yekiti was friendly with Helen Toledo. Helen was friendly with Manette Venus. And Manette Venus worked in the office of the Staley Woolen Company. She had been there a month.”

  “If you’re going to link chains, I can link myself to one of the kings of Ireland.”

  “I was thinking some more,” I said. “My Friday morning patrol is the Staley Wool area. Just before noon there’s a payroll delivery by armored car. The payroll is two hundred thousand dollars.”

  Newpole slowed the car. He stared over at me. “I didn’t know that,” he said softly. “I’ll be damned if I knew it. Why didn’t you mention it before, Ralph?”

  “Because I didn’t think of connecting it then,” I said. “Now I can.” But as I said it, the cockiness went out of me. I had been wrong in not remembering about the Friday patrol and I knew it. And if I had looked with smug tolerance at the plodding, painstaking methods of Newpole and Granger and Clyde, it was out of me now. Because they would have remembered, and they would have put the information in its proper niche.

  Newpole said, “Did Manette Venus know about your patrol?”

  “Yes.”

  “She knew the exact patrol route?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t tell her. Each week the route is changed. Lieutenant, there’s an old guard at the front gate. If a holdup was planned, the guard could be grabbed quick. Inside the gate is the office building. There the door is made of steel and it’s locked from the inside, and they have another guard stationed behind it. So they couldn’t use that way. But around the side there’s a fire escape leading to the second floor. It’s there where the money is counted and separated.”

  “Is the fire door kept locked?”

  “Yes, from the inside. Manette Venus worked in that office. She could unlock the door. Yekiti and his gang could come up the fire escape, in through the door, grab the payroll and go out the same way.”

  Newpole stared fixedly at the road ahead. “But you would be cruising around outside. They would have to get you out of the way.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I come from a different direction each time and I’m always near the gate when the armored truck comes out.”

  Newpole nodded his head. “Manette Venus was damn curious about your weapons and patrols, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes, sir. She asked me a lot of questions.”

  “It might fit,” Newpole said. “They could have done it in many ways. They could have put Manette on the road in a car. She’d have a flat tire or something. You’d come along. Naturally you’d stop. You’d talk. You might even help her with the tire. That would throw your schedule haywire. It would give Yekiti a chance to get away on another road. With good timing, the job could have been pul
led.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Never say sure,” Newpole said. “It makes a good story. But so far it’s only theory.”

  “A job like that takes planning,” I said. “Yekiti must have had maps and weapons. If we could find them—”

  “I say it’s worth a shot,” Newpole commented. “Let’s go into Danford and scratch around.”

  We were bunched together in a small group in front of Yekiti’s rooming house. Lieutenant Newpole and myself, Captain Angsman and two plain-clothes men from the Danford police.

  “I’ll try anything,” Angsman said skeptically. “If you want to go in and have another look, it’s okay with me. But I’ve had this place staked out ever since Yekiti took off.”

  We went inside. Newpole stood in the middle of Yekiti’s littered room, his hands on his hips. His eyes scanned the slitted, gouged, overstuffed furniture.

  “We searched all through this joint,” Angsman told him. “I don’t think we missed anything, Ed.”

  “Well, once more won’t do any harm,” Newpole said. He went into the closet and tapped the wall for false partitions. He came out and started for the bathroom.

  “We checked there,” Angsman called to him. “I even had the plumbing trap opened. I had the flooring tapped for loose boards or new nails.”

  Newpole nodded absently. He dragged a chair to the windows. He stood on the seat, reached up and ran his fingers along the top molding. He came down and brushed his hands.

  “All right,” he said. “I guess there’s nothing here.” He looked at me pensively.

  “Yekiti worked at Reach Forwarding Company,” I said tentatively. “It’s worth a try there, isn’t it?”

  The Reach Forwarding Company was a large building. It was built of corrugated steel and had large casement windows. It stood on a railroad siding. At the loading platform, men were dollying crated furniture onto a freight car. I stood on the platform and watched them. Then I turned around because the superintendent was speaking to Ed Newpole.

  “I had a lot of patience with Yekiti,” the superintendent was saying. “He was one of these hard characters and no good at all. He was lazy and always late. And half the time he’d show up with a jag on. But we’re short of help. He had a strong back and I was able to get some work out of him.”

  “What shift did he work?” Newpole asked.

  “Mostly on the night shift.”

  “How many days a week would he work?”

  “Average, two or three. Depended on how much money he needed for liquor.”

  “Did he ever tangle with the other men here?”

  “Plenty at first. He was a troublemaker. Liked to push people around. But one night they ganged up on him and fought back. After that he kept to himself.”

  I moved in closer. “Where did he eat his lunch, sir?” I asked.

  The superintendent scratched his head. “He ate it here. He didn’t go out.”

  Newpole looked at me, then at the superintendent. “Where in here?”

  “Now I don’t know. Back in a corner somewhere.”

  “By himself?”

  “Yeah. Who was going to eat with him?”

  “Maybe he wanted to eat alone for a reason,” Newpole said. “Maybe he had something hidden in there. Can you find out where he ate?”

  “I’ll ask the men,” the superintendent said.

  He went away. Captain Angsman and a Danford detective joined us. The superintendent came back and motioned to us. We went into the cool dim interior of the building. We passed huge stacks of baled wool, cartons, crates of machinery. There was furniture wrapped in excelsior and brown kraft paper.

  The superintendent stopped. “Here,” he said. “This little bench in the corner. He’d sit here and eat his lunch.”

  I looked down and saw the small wooden bench. Behind the bench was a partition of boards. The boards came shoulder high. Above the boards, meshed chicken wire ran as high as the ceiling. There was an unpainted wooden door. It had a hasp and a brass padlock.

  Newpole saw it, too. He said, “What’s behind this door?”

  “Damaged goods,” the superintendent said. “Claim stuff. We store it there for the insurance adjusters.”

  “There’s no use asking if Yekiti had a key?” Newpole said.

  “Him?” the superintendent snorted. “No, sir. I’ve got the one key.”

  “It’s only a padlock,” Angsman said, examining it curiously. “It can be opened with a hairpin.”

  “Let’s take a look inside,” Newpole said.

  The superintendent took out a long key chain. He fitted a key to the padlock. The door opened and we went in. We found everything in a far corner of the room. There was an empty, upended plywood packing carton. Under it were two battered suitcases. Newpole opened the first one.

  Wrapped in oily, soiled canvas was a set of burglars’ tools. There were a sawed-off shotgun, two Belgian nine-millimeter automatic pistols, and extra clips of ammunition. There was a large brown paper bag. In it were three grotesque Hallowe’en masks.

  Newpole opened the other suitcase. There were six tall metal canisters. They were painted gray. The markings had been scraped off, showing slivers of shiny steel underneath. There was no .32-20 Colt revolver.

  Angsman picked up one of the canisters and sniffed at it. He hefted it. “They look like Navy smoke bombs,” he said.

  Newpole took the bomb from him and examined it. “What do you think, Charlie? You think they were planning a job at Staley Woolen?”

  Captain Angsman pushed back his natty hat. “I don’t know, Ed,” he said in a puzzled voice. “Yekiti never held up anything bigger than a grocery store or a gas station. He was a bum who could strong-arm a few small shopkeepers and that’s all. Where would he get an idea as big as this?”

  “Manette Venus could have fed it to him,” Newpole said. “Also, he’s been in and out of state prison. A man can pick up an education in there.”

  “Maybe,” Angsman said. “I guess it was an important enough job to him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have killed his own girl friend, Helen Toledo, to keep her from talking. Oh, he’s a nice boy, our Al.”

  “For two hundred grand,” the Danford detective said, “Yekiti would kill his own mother. If he ever had one.”

  “We’ll latch onto him,” Angsman said. “He has to show somewhere. A torpedo like him can’t hole up forever.”

  Newpole nodded his head. “Sure, he’ll show. Soon he’s going to need breathing room. In the meantime, we’ll send these weapons to Bob Clyde. Maybe they’ve been used on other jobs.”

  We came outside. Angsman and his man drove off. Newpole got into his sedan and waited for me to get in beside him. He grinned at me. “Well, maybe you hit it on the nose, son. I don’t know if it was good logic, instinct or plain luck. Or maybe all three. But I don’t argue with success.”

  He started up the car and we bumped over the railroad tracks. He said, “We’ll keep looking for Yekiti. Which means there’s not much else for you to do, Ralph. We’ll run a check on Fulton Reece and Dolly Pine. I’ve already sent to the Chicago cops for a tracer on the Fleers. And we’ve asked the New York cops to do a few chores.” He smiled wryly. “So I guess that winds it up for you.”

  “I’ve had an education,” I said.

  “I’m glad,” Newpole said. “You’ve got the makings of a good detective. In four years or so, you’ll be eligible to take the exams for detective-lieutenant, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I’ve got an idea I’ll be staying in the uniformed branch.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure. I kind of thought you’d keep it in the family.”

  CHAPTER 19

  THAT evening I was back in uniform. I had had my arm dressed and I was sitting in the barracks dining room having a cup of coffee with Captain Walsh.

  Ed Newpole, who had been in the communications room, came in and poured himself a cup from the percolator. He said, “I phoned Reece and asked him to come by th
e barracks and have a talk with us.”

  “Now?” Walsh asked.

  “Yes,” Newpole said. “Reece is in tough shape, I guess. He’s been acting so bad his attorney got him a continuance on the narcotics charge.”

  “I know it,” Walsh said. “The Danford cops have a man watching him.”

  “Why?” Newpole asked.

  “He might run,” Walsh said.

  “I’m afraid he’s got no place to go,” Newpole said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Walsh said.

  Ray Beaupré, the duty sergeant, came into the dining room. “Got a call from the Danford cops,” he said. “They lost Reece.”

  Walsh stood up. “Dammit,” he said. “How?”

  “They were tailing his car, Captain. They lost him in traffic. The last they saw he was heading west on the pike. Going fast.”

  Walsh said, “Get out a Signal Three to all cruisers in that sector. I want Reece picked up and brought in.”

  “Yes, sir,” Beaupré said, running for the communications room.

  Walsh turned to Newpole. “I thought you said Reece wouldn’t run?”

  “I’ve been wrong before, Fred.”

  “Here’s another thing,” Walsh said. “Reece was in debt. He needed money for drugs. Also, he was the one who installed the security setup at Staley Woolen, and he’d know how to break it down. There are a lot of questions we have to ask him about Manette Venus and Yekiti.”

  “Which is why I asked Reece to come in here,” Newpole said wearily.

  There was a silence in the dining room. Ten minutes went by. Walsh was picking up his coffee cup when suddenly he turned his head. From the communications room we could hear the short staccato bark of an incoming radio call. The communications man came running out of his room and into the duty sergeant’s office.

  We pushed our chairs back and hurried into the office.

  Ray Beaupré looked up from his night lamp. “A smash-up,” he said tersely. “Went off the highway ten miles west in Claxton. I’m putting in an ambulance and doctor call.”

  “What’s the license number?” Newpole said.