The Price of Murder

by John D. MacDonald

  “Captivated by television. The same old western. The one they show over and over again.”

  “Then there’s no use trying to say hello to them yet.” He hung his coat and hat in the hallway closet and went into the living room. By parental decree the television set had been relegated to the play room in the cellar. Sounds of six-shooters drifted up through the floor.

  “I must say,” Beth said, “I could get to like these banker’s hours.”

  “Don’t get too used to them. Things are too quiet. Everything will happen at once. I might as well enjoy it while I can.”

  “Are you in a good mood? A wonderful mood?”

  He scowled at her. “Bash a fender? No. We going out? No.” He looked around the living room. “Hmmm. Somebody’s coming. Oh, my God! That brother of yours!”

  Beth perched on the arm of the chair and ran her fingertips through his hair. It was very short black hair, stiff as wire, fitted like a dense black cap to the round hard skull. “Mmmm,” she said. “All scratchy.”

  “Don’t try to soothe me, woman.”

  “Hank is my brother.”

  “I grant that.”

  “Hank is a noisy oaf. Hank patronizes you. Hank asks you questions and doesn’t listen to the answer. His darling wife, Eleanor, has all the elfin charm of a coal chute. But, beloved, Hank is my brother.”

  “A highly implausible relationship. Hi ho. I can endure it. My face will grow stiff from wearing a horrid grin. I will applaud his triumphs in the lumber business. And I shall keep one pointed ear canted in the direction of the telephone.” He swiveled around to look up at her. “But I swear to God, honey, if he gets off again on that business about maybe I ought to grow up and stop playing cops and robbers and he has a nice opening for me, I’m going to run him right out into the street.”

  “I don’t think he’ll try that again. Not after the last time,” she said, and giggled. “Anyway, it isn’t for dinner this time. They’re coming about eight-thirty, and they’ll be gone by midnight. Three and a half hours. Now go make like a water buffalo, darling.”

  He went into the bedroom and undressed for a shower. He had treated Hank’s attitude lightly while talking to Beth, but he knew that she guessed how much it disturbed him. Hank’s attitude was far too symptomatic to be comfortable. To too many people the job of a cop was without honor, particularly in the city of Hancock where, over the years, too much publicity had been given to the corrupt police officer—and where the police force had had to make a continual compromise with a strong underworld organization.

  Hank would never know what it was like.

  Ben Wixler had left college in 1942 at the end of his junior year to enlist in the army. At the end of basic training he had almost inevitably been selected to go to O.C.S., and he had elected the infantry school. At twenty-one he had been much the same sort of man he was at thirty-five. Big, solid, impassive and reliable, a man who in ways unknown to himself could generate loyalty and respect. He could, when faced with incompetence or lethargy, became frighteningly cold and ominous, face expressionless, only the gray eyes alive, shining like broken metal. To those close to him he was able to show a wonderful warmth, an understanding generosity. He was often afraid, but he could control it. By ’44 he was a captain and had his own company. Company B was the one selected for the nasty jobs, such as the clearing of snipers from small shattered towns, the jobs requiring a high order of discipline, a professional regard for risk. Every man in B Company bitched heartily about the assignments given them, but had a high secret pride in the company and in the steady competence and unrelenting fairness of Wixler. Replacements quickly absorbed this special feeling, and the mortality rate of replacements was the lowest in the division.

  Ben Wixler turned down a chance to remain in the army after VJ day, and was discharged with appropriate medals and recognition and a separation promotion to Major. He went back to Hancock in November of 1945, intending to re-enter college for his final year at mid-semester. His father was an officer and director of the Hancock Bank and Trust Company, and it had been Ben’s previous plan to finish his Business Administration course, get his degree, and go into the bank. He had not been awfully enthused by that program, even before the war. The years of command and responsibility made the prospect quite tasteless. He was very restless during his terminal leave, moody, drinking too much, dissatisfied with himself, and wondering if he would have done better to stay in.

  His father, a man of much perception, introduced him at that critical juncture to Hank Striker, the Chief of Police. Ben’s father was one of the few men of prominence in the city who understood the dimensions of Striker’s problem, and respected his approach to it. They were close friends. Striker was impressed by Ben Wixler. Striker felt that one day, somehow, the strength of the Bouchards and the Kennedys would be smashed in Hancock. One day they would be stripped of the political power that made it necessary for the police force to embrace expediency rather than efficiency. If that day were to be hastened, and if the force were to be able to handle it when it did arrive, it was necessary to attract to the force now those young men of high purpose and intelligence exemplified by Ben Wixler.

  Striker talked to Ben. He talked to him privately and at length and with utter frankness. He told him of the social disapproval he could expect, of the disappointments that would be his. And he lit a fire that did not go out. Wixler changed his major and finished in two years at North-western, and did clerical work at Hancock Police Headquarters during the summers. After graduation he was taken on as a rookie, received one citation during that period, and became a patrolman at the end of his probationary period. For the excellence of his work he was made detective after eleven months as a patrolman, and was reassigned to the Homicide Section, headed by Captain Roeber. He knew the extent of his good fortune in the assignment to Homicide. Of all the operating sections, that was the one least subject to outside influence. All other crimes and violations were subject to the fix. Not murder.

  In 1950, six months after the death of Striker, and one month before the birth of their first child, Ben Wixler made sergeant. Beth was exactly right for him. It was the best of marriages. He was twenty-nine when they married, and she was twenty-one, a small girl with dark auburn hair and the complexion of a brunette. Her father, a prosperous building supply merchant, deplored the marriage. In addition to their happiness, there was one other factor which, though Ben resented it slightly at first, he later came to realize was most fortunate. Beth, by the terms of her grandfather’s will, came into a small inheritance when she was twenty-one. It provided an income of just under eleven hundred dollars a year. Once he was adjusted to that, he told her there should be an unlimited supply of lovely redheads with eleven hundred a year. And they should be reserved for the cops. It provided just enough cushion to make the meager wage palatable.

  Soon the promotion to lieutenant would come along. It was inevitable that it should. At the time he had been assigned to Homicide, Captain Roeber had been tough, alert and competent, fully capable of running his section. But during the past two years there had been an unfortunate disintegration of the man, an early and progressive hardening of the arteries of the brain resulting in premature senility. Roeber had become erratic, confused, subject to curious emotional fixations and delusions of persecution.

  As that had progressed, the burden of the section had fallen more heavily on the shoulders of the assistant section head, Lieutenant Gabby Grey, and on Ben Wixler. Gabby Grey was a frail reed indeed. He was nearly sixty, a political appointee of forty years ago, nephew of a mayor dead a quarter of a century. When Roeber had been his competent self, there was no burden on Gabby Grey. But with Roeber incapacitated, Gabby could not handle the section. He fluttered, jittered, perspired, and passed the buck to Wixler on nearly every decision.

  The new chief was, fortunately, a man from the same mold as Striker. His name was James Purvis, a small, cold, brilliant, dictatorial man. When the confusion in the Homicide Sec
tion was pointed out to him, his investigation was quick and thorough. There were many ways it could have been handled, other men who could have been transferred in. But one of Purvis’s most valued possessions was the small private notebook kept by Striker, with his personal evaluation of all officers on the force. After checking the notebook, Purvis moved swiftly. He put Roeber on sick leave for the four months remaining before his retirement. He reassigned Gabby Grey to Central Records where it seemed that he could do the least harm. He made Ben Wixler acting head of the Homicide Section, and released Inspector Wendell Matthews from some of his other duties so that he could keep closer check on the performance of the section. All this had happened six months ago, and Ben had been assured that when his promotion came through he would be made head of the section. Until that time he had to move very gingerly insofar as personnel changes were concerned. He knew the ones he wanted to get rid of, and he also knew the young ones he wanted to bring in.

  By twenty minutes of twelve that evening Ben had stifled so many yawns his jaw ached. Hank was in the middle of telling, in excruciating detail, the big addition he had made to his yard for the do-it-yourself addicts when the phone rang. Ben reached the hallway phone in five long strides and caught it at the end of the second ring.

  “Wixler.”

  “Cullin, Ben. We got one. Housewife in Brookton. Means is on the way. He ought to be there in three, four minutes.”

  “Thanks, Shorty.”

  He went back into the living room. “Sorry, people. I’ve got to go to work.” Beth gave a familiar sigh of resignation.

  Eleanor said, “We should be going now anyway. I’m certainly grateful Hank keeps regular hours.”

  “It’s so nice for you, dear,” Beth said.

  Ben went to the bedroom, picked up gun and badge, then scooped coat and hat from the front hall closet, said good night, kissed Beth, and, as he went down the front steps, saw the sedan glide to a stop at the end of his walk. He ran the rest of the way, and the sedan started up again as he pulled the rear door shut. Detective Dan Means was in the back seat. Detective Al Spence was in the front beside the driver.

  There was no time wasted in greetings. “Ten twenty-four Arcadia. Mrs. Lee Bronson. The husband phoned it in. Car 18 checked and confirmed. Looks like she was beaten to death in the kitchen.”

  “Nice,” Ben said dryly. “How are we on schedule?”

  “Got the original call at eleven twenty-eight, confirmed at eleven thirty-four. We ought to hit there about the same time as the lab truck.”

  Ben leaned back in his seat. He knew the most probable pattern. Some heavy drinking, a family quarrel, a drunken blow that hit too hard. He hoped there weren’t any kids. That always made it worse. There would be a repentant slob, suddenly sober, too-late sober, tearing his hair and bellowing of his great sorrow, his terrible loss. How could he have done such a thing. And with luck Ben thought he could be in bed by one o’clock.

  “Party at your house?” Dan asked.

  “Just my brother-in-law.”

  “He offer you a job again?”

  “Not this time.”

  “Maybe you ought to take it, Ben.”

  Al Spence turned around, arm hooked over the back of the seat. “Ask him for one for me too, Sarge. Something interesting. Like counting boards or driving a lumber truck.”

  “Looks like it up there in the next block on the right,” Ben said. There were four vehicles parked in front of the house, two of them prowls. The porch lights were on. Curious neighbors had gathered, some of them in bath robes. A uniformed officer was moving them back, clearing the sidewalk in front of the house. Just as Ben got out, the lab truck, a converted panel delivery, pulled up. He waited to check the crew, and Catelli came up to him and he saw Roamer opening the back door of the truck. “Who else you got, Catelli?”

  “Frenchie’s coming in his own car. He ought to be here.”

  “Get your stuff up on the porch and hold it while I take a look.”

  More than half the front porch was screened. Ben recognized the short, wide officer standing beside a tall, fit, good-looking young man who wore a topcoat and carried a hat in his hand.

  “Hello, Tormey.”

  “Hi, Ben. This here is Bronson. It’s his wife. She’s in the kitchen.” Ben looked at Bronson. He looked sober and shocked.

  “My name is Wixler,” he said. “I’m in charge. You reported this?”

  “Yes, sir. I came home and came through the back way, and …”

  “Drive home?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How long ago?”

  Bronson looked at his watch. “I must have got here pretty close to eleven-thirty.”

  Ben nodded at Al Spence and Spence went around the side of the house. There was no need for a specific order. Spence would check the automobile, feel the heat of block, radiator, and tail pipe and make a very accurate estimate of the time of Bronson’s arrival.

  “Where were you?”

  “With the head of the English Department at Brookton Junior College. I’m an instructor there. I was with Dr. Haughton at his home.”

  “What time did you leave here?”

  “At about seven-thirty, maybe a couple of minutes earlier or later. It takes about a half hour to drive over there. I left him at just about eleven, maybe a couple of minutes before eleven.”

  “Your wife was alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she expect anybody?”

  “She didn’t say anything about anybody coming here.”

  Wixler had managed, imperceptibly, to move close enough to Bronson to be assured the man had not been drinking. There was something about Bronson that puzzled him—something he could not quite put his finger on. The man seemed authentically dazed by what had happened. It was a reaction almost impossible to fake. Wixler, in all his investigations, placed considerable credence on his own hunches. He respected the acuity of the workings of the subconscious mind, and his own reactions had been refined by long experience. Until other factors could be added to the mixture, he was content to proceed on the basis that this was a decent man, troubled and hurt.

  A man came part way up the steps and said, “How’s chance of a shot of the body, Benjamin?”

  Wixler turned and looked at Billy Sullivan, at the young-old handsomeness and innocence of the choirboy face, at the unlikely dapperness of this enormously capable crime reporter for the Hancock Ledger, the largest of the city’s three morning papers.

  “You know better than that, Billy,” Ben said sadly.

  Al came back up the steps and said in an undertone to Ben, “Okay.” And Ben knew the car had backed up Bronson’s statement. The lab men brought their equipment up onto the porch. Ben looked warily at Sullivan and said to Tormey, “You and Mr. Bronson wait in the hall.”

  Wixler, Spence, and Means walked into the house. Wixler moved slowly, hands in the slash pockets of his tweed topcoat. Spence and Means stayed a half step behind. Wixler judged the flavor of the living room. A rental, with rented furniture supplemented by Bronson belongings. Many more books than customary. Two good framed reproductions. Indifferent housekeeping, with dust coils under the couch, litter in the small fireplace. They walked on out into the kitchen. He looked at the spilled staples for a long time. He could see the shadow pattern of footprints where someone had stood as the items had spilled.

  “Make that, Dan?” he asked.

  “A man stood there, wouldn’t you say? Looking for something. Those were dumped on purpose.”

  “No sign of any search in the living room,” Al said.

  “So,” Ben said, “he either found it where he was looking, or he got scared and took off.”

  “He’ll have flour and stuff on his shoes and his clothes,” Dan said.

  They started to move toward the body. Ben pointed at the flour on the floor and they stayed back. Ben sat on his heels, bent low to see as much as he could of her face. He grunted with distaste and stood up.

  “
She was a dish,” Al said reverently.

  “Go get Catelli and his people. I want pictures, and I want to see if they can get any kind of molds of those footprints before the doctor gets near her.”

  Wixler, Spence, and Means stood aside while Catelli, Roamer, and Duchesne worked. No mold could be taken. Detailed pictures of the footprints were taken, with a ruler laid beside them. The doctor from the Coroner’s Office arrived, a sallow young man who looked bored and overworked. After the position of the body had been chalked out, it was lifted gently at Ben’s direction to see if there was any flour under it. There was enough to help him in his reconstruction. The doctor studied the woman’s face, tested the armpit temperature, gently flexed the joints of elbow and wrist. Squatting, he looked up at Ben and said, “Roughly about four hours. Quarter after twelve now. So I’ll say between quarter of eight and quarter of nine. I don’t think we’ll pin it down much closer when we take a better look unless you can give me the exact time of the last intake of food. Cause of death I would say so far is due to repeated heavy blows in the facial area resulting in multiple skull fractures. I can see at least three that would have killed her.” He stood up.

  “Could she have been slammed against the edge of the sink?”

  The doctor looked at the sink. “Yes. The shape of the wounds would fit. There would be enough … inertia, so that it would have to be a pretty powerful man. After the first blow she would have been unconscious. Her weight would have had to be supported.”

  “Can you work on her tonight?”

  The doctor nodded. “It can be arranged.”

  The body was strapped into the wire basket and taken away. Ben had given up any hope of being home by one. Dan Means was covering the house with Catelli’s people. Ben said to Spence, “For a start, how about this. She lets him in. He’s looking for something.”

  “How about she comes back and finds him. She goes out and comes back and finds him?”