First Come, First Kill

by Frances Lockridge

  ‘I didn’t say this then,’ she said. ‘He’s dead, now. I thought there was somebody else. Somebody he had gone to join. I still think it was that. Some woman with whom he could start over. He didn’t need to do what he did. But—I think he wanted to start over with everything. Break with everything.’

  ‘You knew there was another woman? Knew who she was?’

  She shook her head again.

  ‘I was quite sure there was someone,’ she said. ‘No, I didn’t know who she was. He was away a good deal in the last few years. I assumed he was with her. It—I was sorry. It had been fine years before and I was sorry. But—well, I’m afraid it wasn’t terribly important any more.’ She paused again. ‘This can’t help now,’ she said.

  Forniss supposed not; he was sorry he had to rake it up.

  ‘If there was another woman,’ he said, ‘she must have gone out of the picture quite soon. He was living alone in Van Brunt. Rather oddly. As a recluse. Almost as—’

  ‘A tramp,’ she said. ‘It was in the paper. It’s—it’s hard to understand. He was always—fastidious. But—it’s true he liked to work outdoors. To putter, it always seemed to me. Around the place—it wasn’t this place, you know. A place with much more land; in the country, almost. He spent most of his leisure time in the garden. When—when what we had first began to go away, I told him he was leaving me for his garden. That I was a garden widow.’

  She looked away for a moment.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘I had almost forgotten.’

  ‘You hadn’t heard from him since he left?’ Forniss said. ‘Not at any time?’

  She said, ‘No,’ and shook her head.

  ‘Had no idea where he was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your daughter? She hadn’t heard anything either?’

  The question seemed to surprise Mrs Wade Thompson.

  ‘Enid? Why should she—’ She looked surprised. ‘I’m sure she never did,’ she said. ‘Quite sure. She—she wouldn’t have kept anything like that from me.’

  Forniss wondered if he might see Miss Enid Mitchell. He learned she did not live there; learned that—he knew how young people were these days—she wanted to be independent, wanted a place of her own. And that she had a place of her own. But Enid would know nothing that could help. ‘When he went away, she was hardly more than a child.’

  Enid had, according to the newspaper reports at the time, been a child of eighteen. But Forniss nodded his head in understanding. He did get the address of Enid’s apartment, her telephone number.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I suppose she’s pretty broken up about this?’

  ‘I’m sure—’ Mrs Thompson began, and caught herself. ‘Terribly,’ she said. ‘She was devoted to her father.’

  Forniss was more interested than his manner showed. His face showed nothing; it was never a showy face. Mrs Thompson was ‘sure.’ But here the word ‘sure’ implied uncertainty. Since the news of T. Lyman Mitchell had been spread, on the air, in newsprint, Mrs Thompson and her daughter had not got together to share what grief they felt. Forniss was quite sure of this; he was quite interested in this.

  He asked the routine questions and got the answers he expected. Mrs Thompson had known of no enemies her former husband might have had. She did not, this was repeated, believe for a moment he had been involved with racketeers. She had divorced him for desertion, filing in Nevada. She had remarried. She had not known Wade Thompson before her first husband disappeared. She was sorry that she was not helping; she wanted to help. To think of Lyman dying like that—of his having lived like that. It was so—needless.

  ‘Why yes,’ she said. ‘Of course he had money if he wanted it. He could—somehow he could have got hold of it, couldn’t he?’

  ‘If he wanted to stay hidden,’ Forniss told her, ‘it might have been difficult. Would have been, obviously. Unless he had a special—a separate—bank account in another name?’

  She knew nothing about that. She supposed it possible. She would have thought the police would have found out about anything like that.

  ‘All I really know,’ she said, ‘is that we didn’t have a joint account, as so many people have. I had my own account—a household account. The rest—it made things rather difficult. Until Wade and I were married, I mean.’

  Now that he was dead, did she have any idea as to the disposal of his estate?

  ‘Years ago,’ she said, ‘we both made wills, leaving everything to each other. If he made a later will—the lawyers we went to then say he didn’t, through them. I don’t know about things like that. I suppose now if there’s another will it will be—whoever has it will tell about it.’

  Forniss supposed the same.

  ‘When Wade gets back,’ she said. ‘He’ll—he’ll take charge of anything like that. He’s so very competent about things like that.’

  He was away?

  He was on a business trip. He had telephoned her the night before when he first heard. She expected him any time now. He had been in New York when he telephoned. Yes, a reporter had been around from the Republican. ‘I couldn’t tell him any more than I’ve told you. Not as much—not nearly as much. And that, I’m afraid, isn’t enough to help you.’

  It might help, Forniss told her. In any case, he appreciated her cooperation. He was sorry he had had to bother her.

  He did not telephone Enid Mitchell’s apartment until he had left the Thompson house. His call was not answered. He drove around and rang the apartment bell, and again was not answered.

  It was, he decided, about time to call the captain. Something might have broken in Van Brunt.

  He was somewhat disappointed as he drove back to his hotel to discover that the Volkswagen was no longer following. He was not, it appeared, stirring up any interesting animals.

  Susan Heimrich had left her despondent dog and hurried to the telephone. Perhaps a policeman was going to find it possible to take half a Saturday off. She was conscious of being somewhat breathless when she said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mrs Heimrich? This is Oliver Perrin. Is the dog all right?’

  ‘Why,’ she said. ‘Yes, he’s all right. I don’t—’

  ‘Thank heaven!’ Oliver Perrin said. ‘I was scared stiff I’d winged him. All at once he was there and all at once he took off. But he’s all right?’

  ‘Mournful,’ Susan said. ‘All right. What did he do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Perrin said. ‘It was what I damn near did. Target shooting, you know. Probably heard me at it.’

  ‘No,’ Susan said. ‘And Colonel?’

  ‘Somehow,’ Perrin said, ‘he wandered onto the range. All at once he was there, and I was pressing the trigger and couldn’t stop. Back of the target he was, but—well, I can’t claim I always hit the target. He yelped and took off.’

  ‘Just scared, apparently,’ Susan said. ‘He did come home looking sheepish. Not that he doesn’t look sheepish half the time. I thought he’d been in a flower bed and got chased.’

  ‘He’s a fine dog,’ Perrin said. ‘I’m glad he’s all right. Only—’

  ‘I know,’ Susan said. ‘I’m sorry he trespasses. But—he’s awfully big to tie up, Ollie. I’ll—we’ll try to think of something.’

  ‘Just as long as I didn’t wing him,’ Perrin said. ‘Well—’

  He hung up.

  It was, clearly, concern. It was also, clearly, a warning. They would have to think of something to do about Colonel, if he was going to wander into the line of fire. It was childish of Oliver Perrin to spend his time shooting at a target. He was supposed to be a grown man.

  But it was, after all, his target, and on his land. Also, he would soon leave to join his wife in Europe.

  ‘You ought to have more sense,’ Susan told the big dog.

  Colonel politely opened one eye. He sighed.

  Corporal Raymond Crowley, New York State Police, had the appearance of being in uniform even when, as now, he was wearing slacks and sports jacket. Type-
cast as a policeman, Heimrich sometimes thought young Crowley was. It made a difference sometimes. There was no reason it should make much on this assignment.

  ‘Try to get a description, of course,’ Heimrich told Crowley, who stood, rather as if at attention, in front of the desk. ‘It may not be our man at all. Probably isn’t. But, a stranger in our midst, Ray. No stone unturned.’

  ‘No sir,’ Raymond Crowley said.

  It was fine to be working with the captain again, even on an assignment which probably would lead nowhere. ‘No use bothering with Mrs Ingle,’

  Heimrich said. ‘I saw her myself. She wasn’t approached by Mr Peters. It’ll be interesting if nobody was, won’t it?’

  Crowley said, ‘Yes sir.’

  Heimrich looked at his ‘in’ basket, and sighed, and took the contents out. He was, this time, rather relieved when the telephone rang. Paper work is essential; it is seldom particularly stimulating.

  Heimrich said, ‘Yes, Charlie,’ and listened. He said, ‘She seems to have skipped. We’ve got it on the typer.’ He said, ‘You’re pretty sure it was trailing?’

  ‘I thought so,’ Charles Forniss said from Tonaganda. ‘He knew I was coming; had time to make arrangements before I got there. But it didn’t pick me up after I left Mrs Thompson’s, so I don’t know.’

  ‘Could be,’ Heimrich said, ‘they just wanted to see which way you went.’

  ‘Yep,’ Forniss said. ‘And I didn’t go the right way, maybe. Only—the kill’s not the right m.o. for them, is it? And why let it lie for six years?’

  ‘Now Charlie,’ Heimrich said. ‘How would I know? Nothing in the files we didn’t know about?’

  There was one hell of a lot of detail in the files. There were reports of Patrolman Callahan and Detective (3rd grade) Walenski, and a dozen others; there were records of telephone calls from people who had seen Justice T. Lyman Mitchell in Bangor, Maine, and San Diego, California, and at a number of intermediate stops. There were letters announcing his sighting, and quite a few telegrams.

  ‘Nope,’ Charles Forniss said, answering the question.

  ‘Think you can turn up the other woman?’

  ‘Can try,’ Forniss said. ‘Know a man might have heard if anybody’d heard.’

  ‘I thought you might,’ Heimrich said. ‘Charlie, you think it’s there?’

  ‘Now captain,’ Charles Forniss said. ‘How’d I know? Could be, it’s in our own back yard.’

  ‘The back yard,’ Heimrich said, ‘has got some shadows in it. A man named Thompson, who could be a man named Peters.’ It was Heimrich’s turn to talk. He talked briefly.

  ‘Can the girl shoot?’ Forniss asked, going to the point.

  Heimrich didn’t know. He’d ask the girl when they caught her.

  ‘What’s in it for Thompson?’ Forniss said. ‘If the will holds?’

  There was apparently nothing in it for Thompson. If the holograph will held.

  ‘And mama’s married again,’ Forniss noted. ‘Knocks out dower rights, doesn’t it?’

  Heimrich thought it probably would. He thought it was a matter for lawyers. He said, ‘O.K., Charlie. Go see this man you know.’

  ‘’Long,’ Forniss said.

  Heimrich started on the contents of the ‘in’ basket. The first half dozen items had nothing to do with T. Lyman Mitchell, former justice of the State Supreme Court. It would be pleasant, Heimrich thought, once in a while to work on one case at a time. He read the seventh item twice, and put the typed sheet down and looked at the far wall.

  The records of the state of Nevada, which apparently were most efficiently kept, did not show any case of Mitchell vs. Mitchell, concluded or even filed. They did not show the marriage of one Wade Thompson to one Ruth Mitchell or to anybody else.

  Well, Heimrich thought. Well, well. He also wished he had had time to go through the ‘in’ basket before Forniss had called. Well, Forniss would call back.

  He could tell Forniss, now that he knew, that no lawyer would need to be consulted about Mrs Ruth Mitchell’s dower rights—her share of the estate, insured by New York law, not revocable. Unless, of course, Thompson had lied about the state in which he claimed divorce and marriage. Heimrich could see no reason why he should have lied about the state or how he had expected to get away with the lie about the marriage. It was, evidently, an old lie now and an irreversible one. It had been good enough until it was questioned, as many lies are. When it was first told, there had been no reason, Heimrich supposed, for anybody to question.

  Why, he wondered, was it a lie, not the truth? Mrs Mitchell had had ample cause, legal and otherwise, to divorce a long-missing husband. That she and Wade Thompson chose to live together was evident, since that was what they were doing. Why, then, not make it legal?

  Unless, Heimrich thought, they were very farsighted indeed, and that perhaps was it. Now they could say, in effect, ‘Oops, sorry,’ but Mrs Thompson is really Mrs Mitchell, relict. Now Mrs Ruth Mitchell could say, in effect, ‘Whatever you may think of my morals, a third of the money is mine, because there is nothing about morals in the law.’

  It is, Heimrich thought, simpler to kill a man than to have the courts presume him dead. Well. Well.

  Insurance, Heimrich thought. That must be checked into, along with other things. Checks for insurance premiums do not have to be signed by the insured. Susan signs the checks for mine. It is convenient to have a wife to sign checks for things. I wish to hell we had weekends together, as other people do. I wish—

  He put his mind, forcibly, back on the track, and propelled it on through the contents of the ‘in’ basket.

  Item: Wade Thompson had checked out of the Hotel Statler at eight o’clock that morning, having checked into it Wednesday afternoon. Had he slept in his room Thursday night? The Statler is a big hotel; it does not concern itself with the habits of its guests, so long as their luggage remains present. Still—

  He called the New York City Police Department and asked cooperation. ‘For the love of God,’ the acting captain, Fourth Detective District, said. ‘Oh, all right. I’ll send somebody.’

  Item: The handwriting of the holograph will checked with that of the letter Enid Mitchell said she had received from her father. Mitchell’s fingerprints were on both.

  It appeared that Miss Enid Mitchell would get her share of the estate, with dower share subtracted, assuming she could be found. And assuming, of course, that she hadn’t killed her father.

  A policeman cannot, of course, play favorites. Heimrich rather hoped Enid Mitchell had not killed her father for his money, because he had thought her quite a nice girl. But many murderers seem nice enough people, in their more ordinary aspects. And it was unpleasantly true that children did sometimes kill their parents, for one reason and another.

  Item: A young woman generally answering the description of Enid Mitchell had stayed the night in a motel near Albany. She had registered as Evaline Muir. She had ‘not remembered’ the license number of her car, which was supposed to be put on the registration card. The boy who was supposed to have got the number and written it in had failed to do so. This was unfortunate; it could not be contended by the motel manager that it was unusual.

  Like most sub- and ‘ex’-urban areas in the vicinity of New York, that of which Van Brunt is the center is growing, more or less by leaps and bounds. There are numerous licensed real estate agents in the vicinity, anxious to leap and bound with it.

  The first two agents Corporal Crowley visited had never heard of a Mr William Peters. They had looked at Crowley brightly when he entered. One can never tell who might want to buy a house, Crowley was young, and so looked like a rather small house, but one could never tell. Right kind of sports jacket and—Brightness diminished when Crowley said he was merely trying to get in touch with a friend who, he’d heard, was looking for a house in the area.

  Mrs May-Belle Seeley had an office in her house, which was a good way up Van Brunt Avenue—was above the intersection of Brickhouse Roa
d. May-Belle Seeley was blond and somewhat frizzy and in her forties. Everything about her was soft and somehow confiding—everything except her eyes.

  ‘Why, yes,’ she said. ‘I showed a Mr Peters several houses a couple of days ago. You say he’s a friend of yours?’

  ‘Of the family’s, actually,’ Crowley said. ‘Fact of the matter is—’

  ‘You,’ May-Belle Seeley said, ‘look like a policeman to me, young man. This Peters been up to something?’

  ‘All right,’ Crowley said. ‘State Police, ma’am. No, he’s not done anything I know of. Seems he may have been a witness to what was maybe a hit and run. Could be another man entirely.’

  ‘Around forty,’ Mrs Seeley said. ‘Dark hair. Wears thick glasses. That the one?’

  ‘Sounds like him,’ Crowley said, realizing that that was all it did. Still, ‘Mr Peters’ was neither a dwarf nor a giant; he did not have red hair. So he could be Mr Wade Thompson.

  ‘When did you show him around?’ Crowley said. ‘Maybe we could still catch up with him. Or—is he going to call you back, or anything?’

  ‘Thursday,’ Mrs Seeley said. ‘Came around a little before noon. Wants to rent a house for the summer, he said. I told him it was late days for that and that I didn’t have a listing. Except the old Waltham place. Everybody’s got that one, and always will have, from the looks of things. He said that he might buy if he found what he was looking for, and that was different.’

  She had showed him four houses, the first a newish ranch on half an acre. He had rejected that—too small and he wanted ‘a lot more ground. Said he liked to garden.’

  She had taken him to another house—a pre-Revolutionary house. ‘Said it looked like termites, and I couldn’t say it didn’t.’ The next had twenty acres, which was more than Mr Peters felt he could handle, not only because of the cost—although he couldn’t deny that was a factor—but also because of the difficulty of keeping the grounds up.

  ‘Seemed almost like he was more interested in the grounds than in the houses,’ Mrs Seeley told Crowley. ‘I got to thinking maybe he planned to start a nursery, but he said not. Said he just liked a place that could be kept looking nice, without too much outside help. Seemed he was worried about getting the kind of help he wanted.’