Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 01/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  Crivelli professed to believe that Ballard’s death was accidental and declined to name any candidates for the role of murderer.

  The ground floor at headquarters swarmed with reporters Auburn had never seen before. On his desk he found a heap of documents from Records, including background checks on the principals in the case. Besides standard law enforcement and credit agency probes, information for these reports had been gleaned from local newspaper files, Who’s Who in America, and the Internet.

  Vance Ballard, 38, had been born and raised locally but had moved to the West Coast fifteen years ago to play NFL football. Auburn already knew the rest of the story—marriage to a starlet, disabling athletic injuries, the move to Hollywood, a meteoric rise to fame, a decline in popularity as his hairline began to recede, a return to his hometown and a bid for a seat in Congress.

  Mandy Follette was the professional name of Mary Amanda O’Fallon, 33, whose springboard to stardom had been a television commercial for cat food. Her popularity with screen fans had risen steadily with each picture until the one she made with Ballard. Their history of conjugal feuding probably owed its most colorful details to the tabloid writers.

  Malcolm Garner had been born Melvin Gordiner forty-six years ago in Chicago. During a variegated career that had led him back and forth across the country several times, he’d sold household appliances, managed a nightclub, played walk-ons off Broadway and bit parts in TV sitcoms, and auditioned performers for a theatrical agency. His California driver’s license was currently under suspension for DUI, but otherwise his police record was clean.

  Don Studebaker, 57, had retired from the Navy with the rank of chief petty officer. As an electronics technician working with weapons control systems, he’d had a top-secret clearance. He and his wife sold commercial real estate. The Better Business Bureau had no complaints against them.

  Anthony Crivelli came from the same small midwestern town as Mandy Follette and they were exactly the same age. Crivelli had been so busy training as a skater for the Olympics that he’d flunked out of two universities in three years, and he hadn’t even won a bronze.

  Nothing was known to the prejudice of Patterson and Kempe, the TV camera crew who had idled away most of the afternoon at a tavern a block away from the theater, or of Reese and Stollard, the men who had installed the dunking machine. Reese, like Garner, was divorced, and he had filed for bankruptcy five years earlier when his appliance repair business failed. Stollard was a lay minister at his church.

  If Vance Ballard’s death was due to homicidal electrocution, the killer had had a relatively short period of time in which to make his lethal arrangements on or under the stage of Pierce Hall. At a little past two thirty P.M., the freshly installed dunking machine had functioned properly and those handling it had been unharmed. At a little past four thirty P.M., the machine had ostensibly given Ballard a fatal shock. During the interval, water that splashed from the tank during the test had soaked through the stage and trickled into the pit with the forgotten power cable.

  Don Studebaker had a background in electronics and had supplied the tarp with a slit in it through which the water had seeped. He’d been alone in the theater until four P.M., when he unlocked the lobby doors to admit the public to the fundraiser. He said he hadn’t heard anything unusual during that time but would probably have ignored any random noises around the stage. There was no known link between him and Ballard to suggest a motive for murder. And a few seconds after Ballard’s fatal shock, Studebaker had stuck his arms into the dunk tank up to the elbows.

  Reese, who had installed the dunking machine, had known Ballard in high school. Garner claimed he’d spent the interval at the hotel with Ballard, but Ballard was no longer available to confirm that. Mandy said she’d been wandering around downtown and had gotten lost, again without independent confirmation. Only Crivelli, an “old flame” of Mandy’s who had a quarrel about money with Ballard, appeared to have a solid alibi for the interval in question, which he’d spent traveling to the TV studio to do his live news brief at three P.M. and then back to the theater.

  Auburn hadn’t been so dazzled by Mandy Follette’s allure as to overlook the card accompanying the huge bouquet of roses in her room. The flowers had come from a florist on Sixth Street, just four blocks from headquarters and almost across the street from Pierce Hall. The card had contained some conventional expressions of admiration, but had been unsigned. He walked through bright spring sunshine to Connie’s Blooms, which occupied a deep, narrow storeroom sandwiched between a video rental and a coffee shop the vice squad had been watching lately. Connie interrupted work on a funeral arrangement to serve him at the counter.

  Auburn showed identification. “I’d like to get some information about the flowers you had delivered to Mandy Follette this morning at Chalfont Hospital.”

  “Wasn’t that awful what happened yesterday? Can you imagine?”

  “Would it be possible for you to tell me who ordered those flowers?”

  Connie rolled her eyes as if he had asked her age. “Well, I don’t know about that ...”

  “They did come from here, didn’t they?”

  “Oh, yes, they came from here, all right. I took both orders myself. The first one was for four dozen long-stemmed roses, two red and two white, to go to the Docksider Restaurant, where they were having a banquet last night. Then, after what happened at the auditorium ...” She was so caught up in the drama of the thing and her own involvement in it that she couldn’t resist spilling the beans.

  “Were they ordered by phone?”

  “The second order came in by phone this morning—just a bouquet, to the hospital. But I took the first one right here across the counter just before closing time yesterday.”

  “What time would that have been?”

  “We close at four thirty on Thursday. She just got in under the wire.”

  “She?”

  Connie looked over her shoulder and threw discretion to the winds. “A little Irish lady, with a brogue you could cut with a knife. She had sunglasses on, and a plaid scarf around her head. You remember how windy it was.”

  “Do you have a record of her name?”

  “Well, I guess it’s no secret, since she used a credit card.” She leafed through the pages in an order book on the counter and turned up one bearing the name of Mary O’Fallon.

  He thanked her and went away, convinced that she’d never seen Charmed, I’m Sure, in which Mandy Follette played an Irish witch. Although it wasn’t his job to establish alibis for murder suspects, finding out that Mandy had been arranging a floral tribute for herself at the time when any electrical tampering at the theater must have taken place at least narrowed the list of suspects.

  As he walked back to the office, he asked himself if he wasn’t missing something. What conceivable motive could Garner or Studebaker have had for murdering Ballard at that particular time and place, in that particular way? Did Crivelli really have an unshakable alibi? Channel 4 had confirmed that he’d appeared live on TV at three P.M. How long would it have taken him to get from the parking zone behind the theater to the studio during the mid-afternoon traffic?

  Back at headquarters, he went to the dispatchers’ room and looked at the big colored map on the wall there. Crivelli could have used any number of routes, but they all led through the thick of downtown traffic. It was remarkable enough that he had managed to be on camera at the studio just twenty minutes or so after leaving the theater. But it would have taken a miracle for him to be able slip back into the theater after the others had seen him leave, set an electrical trap, and make it to the station on time.

  Auburn was getting in the dispatchers’ way. He went back to his office, found a city map, and unfolded it on his desk. Something was wrong here. Different, anyway. He looked at the date on the map. Then he went to the window and looked west along the river, counting the bridges.

  The railroads! They’d been there before most of the streets were laid out, and the stre
ets had to wind around them, over them, under them. Now the tracks through town had been torn up, and the old roadbeds converted to a system of bike paths and jogging trails. And one of those went, as straight as a die, over a viaduct from the corner of Second and DeWire to within fifty yards of the Channel 4 studios. A man on a bicycle could make the distance in half the time it would take him to drive it in the afternoon traffic. And Crivelli was ... a skater.

  Auburn had gotten up an hour earlier than usual and had skimped on breakfast. By ten thirty he was feeling hollow inside and weak in the knees. He fetched a granola bar from a stash in his desk and, while gnawing on it, read the riddles printed on the wrapper.

  Q. Why did the short guy ditch his tall girlfriend?

  A. He didn’t like her altitude.

  Q. Why did the schoolteacher go to the eye doctor?

  A. She couldn’t control her pupils.

  Q. What do you call a half-wit who directs a symphony orchestra?

  A. A semiconductor.

  Kestrel wasn’t in the forensic lab on the top floor. A call to his cell phone found him in the police garage around the corner on Gates Street. Auburn put another granola bar in his pocket and set off on the five minutes’ walk, by way of a tunnel leading out of the basement of headquarters, to the garage.

  This facility, which served for the maintenance and repair of Public Safety’s fleet of cruisers, vans, and unmarked cars, had a couple of bays set aside for the forensic examination of stolen vehicles and those that had been involved in fatal accidents or criminal activities. Late last evening the dunking machine had been delivered there for study.

  Kestrel and an assistant were disassembling it and taking photographs at each step. The vinyl tank liner, the lighting display, and the release mechanism for the stool lay in perfect order on a workbench the size of a ping-pong table.

  Kestrel showed Auburn the heavy three-pronged plug, which consisted of a single piece of molded rubber continuous with the power cord. “The grounding is apparently okay,” he said. “If there’s any doubt later on, we may have to cut the plug apart, after taking some X-rays.”

  An access panel had been removed from the back of the device, exposing a row of metal boxes connected by lengths of heavily insulated cable. The covers of some of the boxes had also been removed. “Anything wrong with the works?” asked Auburn.

  “I wouldn’t use the word wrong at this stage.” Kestrel’s reluctance to make categorical statements, especially on the witness stand, was legendary. “But apparently some of the wiring has been changed since the machine left the factory.” He went on with the task of dusting an interior metal surface for fingerprints, which Auburn’s arrival had interrupted.

  Auburn’s second granola bar was long gone before he headed back toward the canteen in quest of more substantial fare.

  At two thirty he met with Lieutenant Savage, who had retreated behind a locked door to escape reporters. Savage had just received a report from the power company on their inspection of the wiring at the theater. What began as a review of progress on the investigation of Ballard’s death quickly evolved into a planning session.

  Auburn laid out four file cards in a row on Savage’s desk and started making phone calls. Studebaker, whom he called first, agreed to meet him at the alley door of the theater at four o’clock. Miraculously, Auburn also succeeded in reaching the others and securing their promises to cooperate.

  Patrolman Jake Schottel drove him to the Skyliner Hotel in a cruiser and went with him to Malcolm Garner’s room. The newly unemployed Garner, unshaven and evidently in the process of digesting several ounces of distilled spirits, squinted at his watch. “Didn’t expect you for a few minutes yet,” he said. “What’s this all about?”

  “We’d like to look around your room if you don’t mind,” said Auburn. “We don’t have a search warrant, so you’re free to refuse.”

  Garner shrugged in bewilderment. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but go ahead.”

  “Thank you, sir. Just routine.”

  Besides the expected changes of clothing and toilet articles, they found a compact leather kit at the bottom of Garner’s suitcase containing screwdrivers, pliers, a pocket knife, a set of small wrenches, and other hand tools.

  “What’s this, sir?”

  Garner was meandering none too steadily around the room while shaving with an electric razor. “Emergency equipment. Never know when something’s going to come apart on you. Watch strap, umbrella handle ...” There was no umbrella in the room.

  They left the hotel by the back door and crossed the alley to Pierce Hall, Patrolman Schottel carrying Garner’s toolkit. Studebaker, in a suit and tie, was standing outside on the loading dock talking to Crivelli. Just as they arrived, the truck from Aardvark Amusements drove in and parked next to Kestrel, who was sitting in the evidence van working a crossword puzzle.

  Auburn shepherded them all into the theater and up onto the stage. Reese and Stollard, having brought in their toolbox as instructed, registered perplexity on seeing that the dunking machine was gone.

  “Your machine is still at headquarters,” Auburn told them.

  “Then what do we need our tools for?” asked Reese.

  “I’ll explain that. It’s been established that Ballard died of a fatal electric shock. The source of the current was apparently an old forgotten power cable down below here. The electricians who inspected it during the night found that the tape covering the cut ends of the wires had recently been peeled off with some kind of tool, probably a pair of pliers. I think you’ll all agree that that suggests homicidal intent. Anyway it’s something Public Safety can’t ignore.

  “Since all of you were here in the theater yesterday, we’d appreciate it if you’d let us examine any pliers or other tools you have for traces of tape. Just as a routine way of ruling out your involvement. We could get a warrant easily enough, but we’re hoping you’ll help us expedite matters by complying voluntarily.”

  Chris Stollard, wiry and naturally taciturn, had something to say about that. “You talk about traces of tape. All our tools could have that. We use tape every day to splice power cords and patch things that are coming apart.”

  “Not this kind of tape. This isn’t vinyl, it’s antique stuff—what they used to call friction tape. Linen mesh impregnated with asphalt.”

  “I don’t think I belong in this game,” said Crivelli. “I haven’t even got a toothpick on me, let alone a pair of pliers.”

  “Did you drive from the studio?”

  “Yes, and I’m due back in one hour, tops.”

  “Officer Schottel will go to your car with you and bring back any tools he finds.”

  Kestrel had carried in a case of equipment and set up a field lab in a dressing room behind the stage. Auburn and Schottel, carefully keeping each man’s complement of tools separate from the others, delivered them to Kestrel one at a time for examination. Kestrel started with Garner’s and after he had finished with them he sealed them in a heavy pasteboard envelope, which all three Public Safety officers signed, before proceeding to the next batch.

  Crivelli’s car yielded only a standard set of basic tools supplied by the manufacturer. These were still sealed in the original plastic bag, which Kestrel slit open without hesitation and proceeded with his testing. Studebaker had inherited a whole shopful of tools, many of which were broken or worn out, from a long string of predecessors. Auburn and Kestrel went through the work area under the stage and chose about a dozen tools to take upstairs for examination.

  Reese volunteered the information that the truck in the alley contained a lot of tools besides the ones in the case that Stollard had brought in. Again Auburn and Kestrel selected some for examination, particularly a worn leather holster full of electricians’ tools, most of them marked “Reese” with a vibrating etcher.

  Whatever Kestrel was doing to all those tools in his improvised lab seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time. Reese and Stollard idled on the loadi
ng platform smoking and talking shop in undertones. Garner and Crivelli paced restlessly up and down different aisles in the dank and cavernous auditorium, which was illuminated only by the red exit lights above the doors. Studebaker, fully at his ease, sat on a tall padded stool in front of the lighting board in the wings reading a newspaper.

  Finally Kestrel called Auburn in to report his findings. Their conference was short because the information Kestrel had to impart was clear-cut, unequivocal, and subject to only one interpretation.

  Auburn had been drawn to a career in law enforcement by its positive aspects. He liked the idea of making the streets safer, quelling social unrest, upholding the Golden Rule. He viewed every crime that was committed as a failure of the system. That was why, even when he’d brought off a particularly astute piece of detection, he found making the arrest a tarnished pleasure, like kissing a smoker.

  He assembled the four suspects backstage. “I misled you about the kind of evidence Sergeant Kestrel was looking for,” he told them. “That cable under the stage is dead—has been for years. It had nothing to do with Ballard’s death. He got a shock when he completed a circuit between the dunking stool and the metal ladder in the water, because somebody had tampered with the wiring inside the machine. When we stripped it down at headquarters we found two relays in the main circuit box that didn’t belong there.

  “When a ball hit the target and the seat dropped, one of those relays sent opposite charges of two hundred twenty volts to the seat and the ladder. The other cut out the ground line leading from the outlet to the machine.”

  Studebaker folded up his newspaper with meticulous care. “Then why,” he asked, “didn’t these guys get a shock when they ran their test? And why didn’t I go up in a puff of steam when I climbed in there after Ballard?”

  “Because the relays hold for only about twelve or fifteen seconds. After that the circuitry goes back to normal.”