The Murder Megapack

by Talmage Powell

  Regan lived alone in a small frame house at the north end of town when he was at home. It was the first place the two detectives had looked for him. They had found the house locked up and apparently deserted. Armed with a search warrant, they had entered the house with a pass-key and gone through it from one end to the other without finding the man they were after.

  They discovered that Regan’s flashy and expensive convertible was in the garage behind the house. It had been Ed Corey’s hunch that when and if Regan decided to leave town he would try to get away in the car, and do so under cover of darkness.

  That was why Corey and Stoll had spent two nights waiting there near the garage, and were doing it again tonight.

  “Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t just wasting our time here, Ed,” Stoll said, after a long silence. “Regan may be too smart ever to try and get the car. At least, until he feels the whole thing has blown over.”

  “Quiet,” Corey cautioned. “Somebody’s coming, Dan.”

  Corey aimed his automatic in the direction of the brush and trees to the right that were part of a vacant stretch of ground. A shadowy figure had appeared and stood looking toward the rear of the garage. The man was too far off and too much in the shadows for them to be sure it was Ben Regan.

  Suddenly he ducked down out of sight in the brush. An instant later a gun roared and Corey heard a bullet hum past his head.

  “Let him have it,” Corey grated.

  Corey fired at the spot where he thought the killer had disappeared, and then heard a thrashing sound in the brush that might have been made by a mortally wounded man.

  “Sounds like you got him,” Stoll said. “Let’s go see.”

  “Okay, but look out for trouble,” Corey warned. “It may be a trick.”

  The thrashing sound ceased abruptly. They zigzagged toward the spot, so that they wouldn’t present a good target if the man they were after should start shooting again.

  Corey drew his flashlight with his free hand and switched it on as they reached the bushes. He circled the light around and finally gleamed it on a still figure sprawled face downward in the weeds.

  “Got him, all right,” Stoll said. “Regan was too smart, this time.”

  “Maybe,” Corey said, staring at a head of thick gray hair revealed in the light. “If this is Ben Regan he sure aged in a hurry!” From back at the garage there was the roar of a motor starting and then a flashy convertible rolled out along the driveway. It was moving fast as it reached the street.

  “It’s Regan!” shouted Stoll. “He’s getting away in his car!”

  “Don’t shoot,” Corey said as Stoll raised his gun. “He’s too far away to stop him, and you might hit someone coming along the street.”

  The car disappeared around a corner. Corey dropped his automatic into a shoulder holster and Stoll put away his gun.

  “Hold the light,” Corey said, handing Stoll the flash. “Want to see who this guy is.

  He turned the gray-haired man over. He was dead from a bullet in his chest. Corey felt his aim had been much too good.

  “It’s Walter Henderson, the man who found the jeweler’s body!” Stoll gasped. “I’ve got a feeling that we are in trouble, Ed.”

  “So have I,” Corey said grimly. “There is going to be quite a stew about this.”

  “It was self-defense,” Stoll said. “He was firing at us.”

  “Was he?” Corey took the flashlight from Stoll and started searching around. “With what? I don’t see any sign of a gun.”

  In the distance came the wail of a police-car siren, the sound growing steadily louder. Obviously someone in the neighborhood had heard the shooting and called the police.

  “Who did the shooting, then?” Stoll asked. “We sure didn’t imagine it!”

  “Regan,” said Corey. “He must have been here somewhere close to Henderson, started shooting, and then got away after I let loose my shot.”

  A patrol car had stopped at the curb. Two uniformed officers were heading toward the brush and trees, attracted by the flashlight still burning in Ed Corey’s hand. They arrived with guns drawn.

  “It’s all right, Brady,” Corey said to one of them. “Ben Regan murdered this man and got away before we could stop him.”

  Stoll’s mouth opened and closed like a frog catching flies, but he said nothing. It was evident that he was amazed at Corey lying about what had happened.

  “We got a call to investigate the sound of gunfire in this vicinity,” Brady said. “Murphy and I got here as fast as we could. Then this is murder, eh?”

  “That’s right,” Corey said. He handed the flashlight to Stoll. “Hold the light while I check on something, Dan.”

  While Stoll held the light and the two policemen watched, Corey knelt down and examined the corpse.

  “Been dead at least four hours, maybe longer,” he said finally. “Rigor mortis has set in. Hard to be sure of the exact time on that, you know. It differs in individual cases.”

  “But he was alive not more than twenty minutes ago,” Stoll said. “We saw him.”

  “We saw him, all right,” Corey said. “But I’m not sure Henderson was alive then. I’ve got a hunch that Ben Regan was using a dead man as a decoy. But how did he work it?”

  “What you two are talking about is all Greek to me,” said Brady, as he and Murphy stood listening. “And I can’t even speak French.”

  Corey didn’t bother to answer. He was going through the dead man’s pockets. Center City’s police department had no homicide squad, so it was the job of the men who might be on the scene to investigate the murder. As the top-ranking detective present, Ed Corey was automatically in charge of this case.

  “Better phone in and report this, Brady,” he said. “The body can’t be moved from this spot until the coroner checks on it, of course.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Brady, and he hurried away.

  “Better have them put on a dragnet for Regan’s car,” Corey added, to Murphy. “Special-built light-blue-and-tan job, license number four-four-two-six-two. Take care of that, will you?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Murphy. He took out notebook and pencil and jotted down the description of the car. “I’ll phone in on it right away.”

  He hurried toward the street, leaving Corey and Stoll with the corpse. To their relief, no curious people had as yet come to see what was going on.

  “Not a thing in Henderson’s pockets,” Corey said. “What have we got on him, Dan?”

  “Walter Henderson, who lived in the neighborhood where Paul Cooper’s jewelry shop is located, walked into the store at seven-twenty,” Stoll said. “He found Cooper lying dead behind the counter—shot in the heart.”

  “I know all that,” Corey said. “The gas company was digging up the street in front of the shop to repair a leak. They were using a compressed-air drill that made plenty of noise, which is why no one heard the sound of the shot that killed Cooper. But what have we got on Henderson himself?”

  “He was a retired insurance salesman,” Stoll said. “A widower with no children, and lived alone in a small apartment. Evidently had enough money to keep going. All he did, most of the time, was to hang around the neighborhood. Claimed the old-fashioned pocket watch he had left to be repaired was among the stuff stolen from Cooper’s safe.”

  “Henderson was carrying a brown paper bag that was well filled and evidently contained groceries, for there was a box of cornflakes sticking out the top of it when we questioned him,” Corey said. “And were we dumb!”

  “What do you mean?” Stoll asked in surprise.

  Corey hesitated a moment before answering. “I’ve got a hunch that Henderson was the one who killed and robbed Cooper,” he said then. “The loot could have been in that paper bag—it was big enough—and so could the murder gun. We didn’t search the bag.”

  “That’s right,” said Stoll. “We were so convinced that Ben Regan was the killer, since he had been seen coming out of the jewelry store twenty minutes before He
nderson found the body, that we just let it go at that. And witnesses said that Regan wasn’t carrying anything in his hands. He was wearing no coat, just a sport shirt and slacks. He would have had a tough time hiding the loot on him.”

  “That’s it!” Corey said. “Suppose that Henderson killed and robbed Cooper. Then Regan learns that he is wanted as the murder suspect—he has friends who would tip him off. So he ducks out of sight, but he knows that he didn’t do the job. So he decides that Henderson is the one who really did it.”

  “Sounds possible,” said Stoll as Corey paused. “Go on, Ed.”

  “So Regan goes looking for Henderson,” Corey continued. “Regan probably figures that what Cooper had in his safe must be worth plenty or Henderson wouldn’t have killed the jeweler in order to get it. Since he is the one who is wanted for murder, Regan decides that he is going to get that loot.”

  “I’ll buy that,” Stoll said. “Maybe Regan phones Henderson and pulls a bluff. He says that Henderson is in danger, but Regan can’t talk over the phone and for Henderson to meet him here near the garage.”

  “All right,” Corey said. “They meet somewhere around here. Regan shoots and kills Henderson, probably because Henderson stubbornly refused to turn over the loot to him.”

  Corey started searching around with the flashlight. He finally found a heavy pole about four feet long.

  “Here it is,” he said. “This is how Regan worked it. Henderson’s body has been lying here for at least four hours without being discovered. During that time I’ll bet that Regan went to Henderson’s place looking for the stolen stuff and probably found it. He decides to get his car and get out of town.”

  “Then spots us and starts shooting,” said Stoll. “But what has the pole got to do with it?”

  “Regan sticks the pole up inside the back of Henderson’s coat and props up the corpse so that we think it is Regan,” said Corey. “I take a shot at it, after the corpse falls over. The thrashing around in the brush that we hear is Regan crawling away.”

  They broke off as they spied a uniformed figure running toward them from the street. It was Brady.

  “They picked up Ben Regan just north of town on the state highway,” Brady said as he reached them. “The arresting officers said that they had orders to watch for a car with Regan’s license number and bring it in. Had the orders ever since yesterday.”

  “I know,” said Corey. “I gave them the number just in case Regan did try to get away in his car. How did they happen to catch him—that car of his is fast.”

  “Yeah,” said Brady. “But he ran out of gas.”

  “I thought he would.” Corey looked at Stoll and grinned. “That’s why we drained most of the gas out of his tank and then jammed the gauge so it read ‘Full.’ We didn’t want Regan to get very far away.”

  “Funny thing,” said Brady. “They found a big paper bag in the car loaded with jewelry and stuff. It had a box of cornflakes in the top and looked like it contained groceries.”

  “Boy, when we guess ’em, we sure do it right!” Stoll said.

  “I wasn’t just guessing,” Corey said. “I was acting on a hunch, and my hunches have never been wrong yet!”

  PROXY, by Talmage Powell

  Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 1966.

  When I left her apartment, I skedaddled straight to Mr. Friedland’s estate. I left the car standing in the driveway and went in the big stone mansion like a coon with a pack on his trail.

  I asked the butler where Mr. Friedland was, and the butler said our boss was in the study. So I busted in the study and closed the heavy walnut door behind me quick.

  Mr. Friedland was at his desk. He looked up, bugged for a second by me coming in this way. But he didn’t bless me out. He got up quick and said, “What’s the matter, William?”

  I knuckled some sweat off my forehead, walked to the desk, and laid the envelope down. The envelope had a thousand smackers, cash, in it.

  Mr. Friedland picked up the money. He looked a little addle pated.

  “You did go to Marla Scanlon’s apartment, William?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “She was there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But she didn’t accept the money? William, I simply can’t believe it. ”

  I couldn’t think of an easy way to explain it to him. “She’s dead, Mr. Friedland.”

  He cut his keen eyes from the money to me. He was a lean, handsome man who looked about thirty-five years old in the face. It was just the pure white hair that hinted at his real age.

  “Dead?” he said. “How, William?”

  “Looked to me like somebody strangled her to death. I didn’t hang around to make sure. There’s bruises on her neck, and her tongue is stuck out and all swelled up like a hunk of bleached liver. She was a mighty fetching hunk of female,” I added with a sigh.

  “Yes,” Mr. Friedland said, “she was.”

  “But she don’t look so good now.”

  “Was she alone in the apartment?”

  “I reckon. I didn’t feel the urge to poke around. Just had a look at her there on her living-room floor and hightailed it here.”

  Mr. Friedland absently put the thousand bucks in his inside coat pocket. “She was alive three hours ago. She phoned me, just before I went out. I returned, gave you the envelope, and you went to her place and found her dead. Three hours. She was killed between two and five this afternoon.”

  “Could have been a lot of traffic in that much time, Mr. Friedland.”

  “I doubt it. Not today. Today she was expecting a caller with a white envelope. William, you didn’t see anyone on your way out of the building?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Phone anyone? Speak to anyone?”

  “Not a soul, Mr. Friedland, until I got here and asked the butler where you was.”

  “Good. You’re always a good man, William.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “I try to be.” Which was no lie. I’m a hillbilly from near Comfort, North Carolina, which is back up in the mountains. It’s a mighty poorly place, believe me. Mr. Friedland came up there one summer for a week of fishing. I worked for him that week, and when the week was over he said as how would I like to keep working for him. He said I was intelligent and clean-cut and had respect for other people. He said he needed a chauffeur and a man to do errands and personal chores. He said I would have quarters on a nice estate and steady pay. So naturally I jumped at the chance. That was near five years ago, and I’m glad to say that Mr. Friedland has come to depend on me as few folks can depend on a personal worker. He trusts me and knows I can keep my mouth shut. And that means a lot to a big shot newspaper publisher and television station owner like Mr. Friedland.

  While I was simmering down and losing the shakes from my experience in Miss Marla Scanlon’s apartment, Mr. Friedland was busy on the phone. He called Judge Harrison Corday and Mr. Robert Grenick, who is the prosecuting attorney. They were both close friends of Mr. Friedland. He told them to drop everything, he had to see them right away. He said a thing of utmost importance had happened which couldn’t be talked about on the phone. He asked them to come to his study pronto, which they did.

  Judge Corday got there first. He was one of the youngest superior court judges in the state. He liked parties and booze, and it was beginning to show around the softening edges of his face. He was a big, reddish man. He’d been a famous football star in college.

  He said to Mr. Friedland, “What’s up, Arch? I’ve got a dinner engagement and…”

  “You may not want any dinner when you hear what I have to say,” Mr. Friedland said. “To save a lot of repetitions, we’ll wait until Bob Grenick arrives.”

  Judge Corday didn’t press Mr. Friedland, knowing it would do no good. He sat down and lighted a dollar cigar and tried to read Mr. Friedland’s lean, tight face.

  Mr. Grenick showed up almost before Judge Corday got his cigar going good. Bald, chubby, and middle-a
ged, Mr. Grenick had thick, heavy lips and thick, heavy eyes. Both his lips and eyes always looked slightly damp, like a lizard’s back that lives in a spring branch.

  As soon as Mr. Grenick was in the study and the door safely closed, Mr. Friedland said, “Tell them, William, what you just told me.”

  “Miss Marla Scanlon is dead,” I said.

  The judge took it without blinking an eye. The state’s attorney, Mr. Grenick, choked, put a hand to his neck, fumbled for a chair, and sat down.

  “How?” Judge Corday said, cool.

  “Murdered, I reckon,” I said.

  Mr. Grenick made noises like he was having a hard time getting air.

  “By what means?” the judge asked.

  “Choked to death, it looked like,” I said.

  “When?”

  “Sometime between two and five,” Mr. Friedland put in.

  “What makes you think I have any interest until the murderer is caught and I act in official capacity?” Mr. Grenick said raggedly. “I hardly knew Marla Scanlon.”

  “Oh, come off it, Bob,” Mr. Friedland said. “Marla Scanlon worked artfully and most skillfully. One by one she compromised the three of us. She didn’t stretch her luck. We three were enough. She had her gold mine. She was content. She didn’t intend to incur further risk by developing, in a manner of speaking, a source of silver.”

  Mr. Grenick got half out of his chair, gripping its arms. “I deny any…”

  “Please shut up,” Mr. Friedland said quietly. “None of us is on trial, not yet. But we’re the three who might have killed her. It’s reasonably certain that one of us did. She’s milked you the longest, Harrison. I was next. Bob, you’re her third and final golden goose. Between us, we’ve contributed, over a period of time, something like a total of sixty-thousand dollars.”

  “Too bad we never reported all that stashed cash to the income tax people,” Judge Corday said. “They might have taken her off our backs.”

  “And the hides from our backs right along with her,” Mr. Friedland said.