Murder Your Darlings

by J. J. Murphy

  “So who is?”

  “Didn’t you find out?” O’Rannigan sneered, cocking his little brown derby over his wide forehead. “Isn’t that what this whole hullabaloo is all about?”

  Church said, “Did anyone come forward?”

  “No,” she said. “Not yet.”

  Church turned to the two uniformed policemen. “Officers, block the exits. Make sure that no one leaves this building.”

  “Captain,” Frank Case interjected, “you can’t—”

  Church ignored him. He turned to O’Rannigan. “Detective, you know who to look for. Arrest him.”

  The crowd in the room grew uneasy, anxious, alarmed.

  It suddenly occurred to Dorothy that Billy Faulkner had been gone far too long.

  She turned to Benchley, trying to keep her voice calm. “Fred, would you please go check on Billy? Right now?”

  Benchley’s smile wavered only a moment. “I’m sure he’s fine. Probably just taking a nap on the bathroom floor, as usual.” He turned and strolled purposefully toward the lobby.

  Something else bothered her. Then she spotted the telegram on the table and snatched it up. It was the list of names in Sanderson’s army regiment.

  “I wondered when you’d get around to that,” Ross muttered.

  She searched in her purse for her horn-rimmed glasses. “Did you read it?”

  “Looked it over,” he said. “Nothing jumped out at me.”

  She put on her glasses and read the telegram.

  “What’s it say?” asked Sherwood.

  “It says, PER YOUR REQUEST, HERE ARE NAMES OF FIFTY-TWO MEN IN THIRD NEW YORK INFANTRY, FIFTY-FOURTH BRIGADE, TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION, BELLICOURT, FRANCE. Then it lists the first initial and last name of each soldier.”

  “Do you recognize any?”

  “Nope.” She read aloud. “G. Abbott . . . J. Albright . . . M. Andrews . . .”

  As she spoke, the telephone rang. Automatically, she picked it up. It was Mickey Finn.

  “You hang up on me like that once more, and you’ll be the next saint in heaven.”

  “Me in heaven? You called the wrong number.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you this isn’t a joke, Mrs. Parker? Now, I’m going to put your friend Dachshund on, and you tell him to admit—”

  “What makes you so sure that man is Dachshund?”

  She could hear Woollcott’s incessant, nasal voice in the background.

  “He’s Dachshund, all right. Shut up, you!” Woollcott’s voice quieted. “We hoisted him from your apartment, didn’t we? You’ve been lying to me, my dear lass. He’s been hiding out there all this time. But the nail in the coffin was that he had Sanderson’s gold tooth!”

  As she listened, she continued to silently read the list of names. N. Archer . . . T. Baker . . . C. Bartlett ...

  “You might as well let him go. That man isn’t Dachs—” She dropped the phone. “Holy shit!”

  The dog on her lap jumped to the floor. She leaped to her feet. She scanned the faces in the room. She didn’t see the face she was looking for.

  Benchley ran back in. “Billy’s gone.”

  “Shit!” She pointed to one of the names on the telegram. “It’s Battersby! It’s Battersby, damn it!”

  “Battersby?” Now Benchley looked around the room. “Where the devil is he?”

  “He’s gone,” she said. “And he took Billy!”

  Chapter 37

  Everyone in the room was now standing, shouting and hurling questions at one another.

  “Hold on,” O’Rannigan bellowed. “This is no time to panic.”

  “Are you kidding?” Dorothy cried, scooping up her dog. “This is precisely the time to panic!”

  She turned on Harold Ross, her voice sharp. “You read the names on that list. Why didn’t you tell us right away about Battersby?”

  Ross looked stunned. He grabbed the telegram. “It says M. Battersby, damn it, not B. Battersby.”

  “His first name is Merton. ‘Bud’ is just a nickname. Everyone knows that.”

  Ross shrugged, helpless.

  Kaufman spoke skeptically. “So Battersby was in France in the war? What does that prove?”

  She handed Kaufman the telegram. “Look at everyone whose last name starts with S.”

  He read the names. “K. Sanderson! The Sandman.”

  “And Battersby, being a newspaperman, certainly knew what kind of business the Sandman did,” Benchley said. “Battersby must have hired the Sandman to kill Mayflower.”

  “Never mind that now,” she said. “He took Billy. We have to stop him.”

  “Not to worry.” Captain Church spoke commandingly. “My men will have stopped him at the door of the hotel.”

  Marc Connelly scratched his bald head. “But what does Battersby want with Billy anyway?”

  “Dachshund is the only one who can place Sanderson here at the scene of the crime,” Church said. “Without Dachshund, we lose our link to Sanderson. And without Sanderson, we lose our link to Battersby. In his mind anyhow.”

  “But where are they?” she said.

  Church looked toward the entrance. “Wait here.” He hobbled away.

  The dog squirmed in her arms. She let it go. Woody barked at the telephone on the floor. She picked it up. Finn was still cursing on the other end.

  “Now, is that any way to talk to your ‘friends’?” she said.

  “What’s going on there? What did I tell you about hanging up on me? As soon as I get finished with Dachshund, I’m coming for you!”

  “Do what you like, but it’s not Dachshund you want. It’s Bud Battersby. Battersby killed your man Sanderson, after he ordered Sanderson to kill Mayflower.”

  “Battersby? The guy from the newspaper?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “So where the hell is he?”

  Church, O’Rannigan and the two officers returned. Church’s jaw was clenched. O’Rannigan’s face was redder than usual. Battersby—and Faulkner—were not with them.

  She looked at Church. “So where is he?”

  “Gone. He and Dachshund must have left immediately after we arrived, before I could post my men at the door.”

  “I heard that,” Finn roared on the phone. “Where did he go?”

  “Good question,” she said to Finn. “I have an idea. Hold the line.”

  “I won’t hold the line!” Finn’s voice shouted. “If you put down that phone, your life ain’t worth spit.”

  “Well, I never did live up to expectorations.” She put down the phone and turned to Church. “That telegram—the threatening one we received yesterday. Do you still have it?”

  “No, not here.”

  O’Rannigan explained. “It’s in the evidence locker, at the station.”

  Adams chuckled. “Don’t you read the paper? I printed it word for word in my column today, remember?” He tossed a copy of the World across the table.

  She snatched it up and ruffled through the pages. “Battersby undoubtedly sent us that telegram. He was trying to tell us something.” She found Adams’ column and read aloud, “‘Mayflower has been plucked. Sandman went to sleep. Round Table your time has come full circle. Prepare for trial by fire.’”

  “Trial by fire?” Benchley said, tugging at his bow tie. “I don’t like the sound of that. What does it mean?”

  “It’s not just a trite metaphor,” she said. “I think we can take it almost literally.”

  “But what kind of fire?”

  Suddenly she knew.

  “Oh, God,” she gasped, clutching his arm. “Remember those steam furnaces in the basement of the Knickerbocker plant?”

  Benchley’s jaw dropped. “You don’t think—”

  “I do think. Those furnaces could burn up anything to cinders and leave no trace behind. That’s where Battersby’s taking Billy.”

  Church turned to O’Rannigan. “You heard what she said. Get the cars.”

  She stood in front of Church, bloc
king his way. “We’re going with you.”

  He surprised her by not arguing. “Just you and Mr. Benchley. You might be of help.”

  Finn’s voice shouted from the phone. “I heard all that!”

  Church stopped and picked up the phone. “Do not interfere, Mr. Finnegan. This is your warning. And turn that Woollcott fellow loose.”

  They all heard Finn reply.

  “Like hell I will! And we’ll get there first, you damned peg-leg prick.”

  The line went dead.

  Everyone stared at the police captain.

  “What are you waiting for?” he thundered at Dorothy and Benchley. “Get in the car!”

  Chapter 38

  Dorothy scooped up Woodrow Wilson and shoved the dog into Sherwood’s arms. She and Benchley raced through the crowd toward the front door. Captain Church followed quickly behind them.

  Out on the street, an unmarked black Buick screeched to the curb. O’Rannigan jumped out. Immediately behind the sedan, a paddy wagon, manned by the two uniformed cops, pulled up.

  O’Rannigan looked stunned to see the captain shepherding Dorothy and Benchley toward the sedan. They scrambled into the backseat. As Church climbed into the front passenger seat, O’Rannigan stared at them.

  “They’re coming along?”

  Church ignored the question. “Go back inside. Call the Fourteenth Precinct. It’s the closest one to the Knickerbocker plant. Get as many officers as possible on the scene.”

  “To intercept Battersby?”

  “And to stop Finnegan. He aims to beat us there. Have them waiting for him.”

  One of the officers got out of the paddy wagon. “Where are we headed?”

  “A printing plant near the West Village,” O’Rannigan said.

  “Where?”

  “A block north of Houston. You take Seventh straight down.At Clarkson, Seventh doglegs and becomes Varick. Take a right at Clarkson ’til it dead-ends. The printing plant is right there.”

  The officer put his hands on his hips. “Nah, if it’s on West Street, let’s go straight down Eleventh ’til—”

  The other officer leaned out the window. “You nuts? If you go down Eleventh, you gotta go all the way around the Gansevoort Meat Market—”

  Dorothy watched Church growing impatient listening to this argument.

  “So,” she said, “what were you doing parked across the street out here while we were inside?”

  Church turned around. “Waiting for you to spring your trap. We suspected Battersby all along, of course. That is why we let you cavort freely with Dachshund, instead of hauling Dachshund in. We were certain he was the linchpin to the whole works.”

  “So you were using us and Faulk—Dachshund as bait?”

  “If you choose to look at it that way.”

  On the sidewalk, O’Rannigan continued to argue with the other officers.

  She sighed. “I’m worried about Billy.”

  Benchley patted her hand. “Don’t worry. Billy’s not a weakling. Remember how he knocked down that Sandman fellow?”

  “Billy couldn’t knock down a sand castle right now.”

  Church, reaching the end of his patience, reached forward and turned the crank on the siren. O’Rannigan and the other two policemen jumped. O’Rannigan sprang toward the sedan, and the officers hopped back in the paddy wagon.

  Climbing behind the wheel, O’Rannigan looked sheepishly at the captain. “We’ll take Ninth. Straight down Ninth until it becomes Hudson, then—”

  “Just drive!”

  O’Rannigan gunned the engine, and the car leaped forward. Church cranked the siren again. The paddy wagon followed, its siren now wailing, too. Pedestrians, cars, trucks and horse-drawn wagons scattered in all directions to clear the way.

  O’Rannigan yanked the steering wheel. The sedan went up on two wheels as it banked sharply onto Fifth Avenue. Dorothy slid across the seat and slammed into Benchley, her hip pressed hard against his. He was pinned between her and the car door.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Benchley gasped. “This seat is taken.”

  The car turned again onto Forty-third and raced headlong, all too quickly approaching the clog of traffic in Times Square.

  Twenty feet ahead, a double-decker bus was slowly crossing Seventh, blocking their way through the busy intersection. Dorothy’s hands flew to her eyes. O’Rannigan jerked the wheel. The sedan swerved in front of the bus, passing its front end by inches.

  Once past the heavy traffic of Times Square, the police cars picked up even more speed. O’Rannigan pulled the wheel to the left, making a sharp turn onto Ninth. Benchley slid along the seat and collided into Dorothy, slamming her painfully against the side door.

  “Try that again, mister,” she said through gritted teeth, “and I’ll call the usher and have you thrown out of the theater.”

  Benchley looked grief stricken. “Beg your pardon, Dottie dear!”

  It was almost worth a pair of bruised shoulders and knees to hear him talk like that.

  The cars roared down Ninth, the paddy wagon now leading the way. Above them, at second-story level, the tracks and girders of the elevated railway cast the street below in a latticework of dark shadows.

  In the front seat, O’Rannigan hunched over the wheel. Beside him, Church continued to crank the wailing siren.

  “Captain,” Dorothy yelled over the siren’s scream, “how did you figure out it was Battersby?”

  Church turned slightly. “Good old-fashioned police work.”

  O’Rannigan barked a laugh. “Ha, that’s exactly right.” He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “When we went to question Battersby the very first time, he showed us Mayflower’s big, fancy office. But we insisted on talking to Battersby in his own little dinky office. Then, when he stepped outside for something or other, some papers—you know—fell out of his desk, like.”

  “They fell out all by themselves?” she asked.

  Church shot O’Rannigan a stern look, but the detective didn’t see it.

  “They were Mayflower’s papers. Seems he was writing a kind of autobiographical exposé, and a big chunk of it was about what a great big dummy his boss, Battersby, is. You know, rich kid who doesn’t know nothing but thinks he can run the show? That was Mayflower’s take.”

  “So that’s why Mayflower went to Ramshackle. For libel insurance.”

  “Who?”

  “Wallace Ramshackle. Mayflower’s lawyer.”

  “Lawyer?” O’Rannigan turned and gave her a nasty look. “Why didn’t you tell us Mayflower had a lawyer?”

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were using us as bait to trap Battersby?”

  “Detective!” Church shouted. “Look out!”

  O’Rannigan turned to see a traffic cop directly in front of the sedan. The cop held up a white-gloved hand; he blew furiously on his whistle; his face was red and panicked. O’Rannigan twisted the wheel to the left, directly into the path of an oncoming truck. Swerving around the traffic cop, O’Rannigan jerked the wheel back to the right. The truck raced by within inches of the sedan.

  “Good heavens!” Benchley’s hand went to his forehead.

  “That was a close one, wasn’t it?” Dorothy said.

  “Not that,” Benchley said peevishly.

  “What?”

  “I mean, good heavens, Detective Orangutan figured it out right from the first! Remember what he said during our nightlong Spanish Inquisition?”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Something to the effect that Mayflower had annoyed Battersby. And then Battersby called in a favor from the Sandman or somehow paid him to kill Mayflower. That was it. O’Tannenbaum deduced it.”

  “The de-deuce you say!”

  “I told you,” Church said. “Detective O’Rannigan is very good at his job. You would be unwise to underestimate him.”

  “He is, is he?” she said. “Say, Detective, something’s been on my mind since we left the ’Gonk. Did you ever call the cops at the Fou
rteenth Precinct to intercept Battersby at the printing plant? Or were you too busy arguing over directions?”

  The smug smile disappeared from O’Rannigan’s face.

  “Detective?” Church said.

  “Well, I—” O’Rannigan began.

  Church’s voice was hard and cold. “Pull over now! A call box is right there, in front of the post office.”

  On the corner at Thirty-third was the colossal post office building, as solid and massive as a Greek temple. O’Rannigan slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel directly toward it. On the sidewalk, an organ grinder and his monkey barely jumped out of the way. O’Rannigan flung open the door and nearly leaped toward the police call box.

  “And make it quick!” Church shouted after him. He turned to Dorothy. “Why did you wait until now to remind the detective to make that call?”

  “I only thought of it now.”

  “At this rate, Finnegan will slaughter Battersby and Dachshund, then make his escape before we even arrive.”

  “Then, let’s go!” she cried, and jumped forward to crawl over the seat and get behind the wheel. But O’Rannigan, bursting into the car, pushed her back with one wide hand.

  “Get outta here,” he cried. “Do you even know how to drive?”

  She landed back in her seat. “No, do you?”

  All of a sudden, a long white limousine, followed by a white sedan, came hurtling around the corner, sped past the police sedan, and flew down Ninth. Dorothy thought she had seen Woollcott’s terrified face staring out the window of the limo.

  “Son of a gun!” O’Rannigan shouted, throwing the car into reverse. “It’s Mickey Finn and his gang.”

  Chapter 39

  The police car shot forward. In a moment, they had passed the paddy wagon, which struggled to catch up. But they couldn’t catch up to Mickey Finn’s limo and the car following it.

  Dorothy closed her eyes and clutched her stomach.

  “I never thought I’d get seasick in the middle of the island of Manhattan.”

  She couldn’t decide which was more terrifying—keeping her eyes open or keeping them closed. She decided to keep them closed for a while to find out. Then the car screeched and lurched forward. She opened her eyes to see gunfire blazing out of the window of the white sedan.