He continued munching on his food, but it tasted not quite as good as it had in the beginning. Mabel returned in a moment, her eyes red-rimmed, to refill his coffee cup, and he pushed the half-emptied plates away from him with a sigh. “I haven’t eaten as much of anything as good for years, Mabel. Tell your cook so, will you?”
“I sure will.” She smiled at him diffidently. “You never did tell me your name.”
“Rourke. Tim Rourke.”
“You staying here at the motel?”
“As long as I’m in town. Depends on what I find out down at the police station. In the meantime, you keep your ears open for any news, huh? I’ll be back.”
“I sure will, Mr. Rourke.”
“Tim… if you’re going to be Mabel,” he told her with a grin as he slid off his stool.
“Sure… Tim.” She walked down behind the counter to the cash register, totalling up his bill on her pad with a worried frown, and she handed it to him hesitantly, saying, “Prices sure are sky-high, but I got to charge what the boss says.”
Rourke grinned cheerfully when he saw that her total was less than a dollar and a half. He put two ones on top of it and told her, “The expense account will go that far, Mabel.” He turned toward the door and paused to ask with assumed disinterest, “There is a bar in town, isn’t there?”
“Right on Main Street just past City Hall. But it won’t be opened until twelve o’clock.”
“Naturally not,” said Rourke, trying to repress his bitterness. “And I bet it closes at ten o’clock at night, too.”
“It sure does. They say Sunray’s pretty much a ten o’clock town.” She laughed lightly. “How’d you guess?”
Rourke said, “It just feels like that sort of town, Mabel,” and went out the front door with a wave of his hand.
6
Chief of Police Ollie Jenson was a harassed and unhappy man. He had a stomach ulcer which he had lived with for going-on twenty years, and which he had learned to keep under pretty fair control by nipping gently throughout the day on a bottle of Indian River moonshine which he kept concealed in the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk at police headquarters. By trial and error he had determined many years ago that legal, bonded whiskey was no good for that medicinal purpose. He had his own private theory that the coloring matter added after distillation was an irritant that caused a man’s ulcer to act up. Besides, the moonshine cost him nothing; a prerogative of his official position.
Chief Jenson also had a sharp-tongued and nagging wife whom he had lived with for slightly more than twenty years. He couldn’t keep her under control by nipping at moonshine at home because she was rabidly Temperance and there hadn’t been a drink in their house since that memorable day nineteen years ago when she had mistakenly poured a cup of colorless fluid out of a Mason jar standing in plain sight on one of her kitchen shelves (the purloined letter technique) into a pot of shredded cabbage, thinking it was vinegar. The local pastor and his wife were guests at dinner that night, and the shredded cabbage did not get eaten. Neither did Ollie Jenson ever bring another innocent-looking Mason jar home with him.
Ollie also had a sprightly, teen-aged daughter named Mary Lou. She was not overly bright, but Nature had compensated for that lack by endowing her with a pair of superb physical appurtenances which had been widely admired and discussed by the male youth of Sunray since Mary Lou reached her fifteenth year. While vaguely aware of this situation, Chief Jenson had not been unduly worried by it until the past few months when Mary Lou had begun staying out too late and too often with the son of the local banker who owned a hot-rod flivver. Ollie was not an overly suspicious father, and he had an indulgent idea that kids would be kids no matter what a parent said or did about it, but he suspected (privately and unhappily) that neither his daughter nor the banker’s son had a thorough grounding in the theory and use of contraceptives, and he saw no way to provide them with such knowledge.
It was not a matter he could discuss with his wife.
On top of those harassments of more-or-less long-standing, this morning now, there was this murder dumped in his lap. It was the first murder that had ever occurred in Sunray Beach, and it was a real nasty kind of thing.
That nice Ellie Blake. Strangled in her own bed in the middle of the night, and not one single clue to the perpetrator of the foul deed that you could lay your hands on. It had to be some stranger, of course. Some hitchhiker or bum passing through town. It couldn’t be a local resident. Why, Ollie reckoned Ellie Blake was just about the most-respected and best-liked woman in town. And old Marv!
Everybody liked Marvin Blake. He didn’t have an enemy in the world. Look at the way he ran his garage and automobile agency. Always gave a man a fair deal for his money, and leaned over backward to give a little bit more on a trade-in than the book allowed. Good, upright, church-going people, with money in the bank and a decent mortgage on a nice house that was getting paid off regular every year.
And that cute little girl of theirs. Apple of her daddy’s eye, Sissy was. Bright as they come, and pretty as a picture. And Ellie had been noted as a mighty fine mother, too. Keeping up with the latest stuff on child psychology, but with a goodly leavening of old-fashioned motherly love to keep things in balance and make Sissy into a normal, happy child.
Thinking about Sissy and that terrible scene in the upstairs bedroom of the Blake house early that morning, Chief Jenson sighed deeply and looked at his watch. Almost ten o’clock.
Most days he carefully waited until ten o’clock for his first nip of ulcer remedy, but this day was different. He shifted his solid bulk in the swivel chair behind his desk and leaned forward with a slight grunt to open the bottom right-hand drawer. He withdrew a flat, unmarked quart bottle that was a little more than half-full of shine, and worried the cork out with his teeth. Tomorrow morning was one of Jed’s three-a-week delivery days. He put the bottle to his mouth and swallowed two long, smooth gulps just as a brisk knock sounded on the door of his office.
He lowered the bottle deliberately and replaced the cork, deposited it carefully in the drawer and pushed the door shut with his foot. He wiped his mouth unhurriedly with the back of his hand, and only then did he lean forward to touch a button on the underside of his desk which electrically unlocked the outer door.
This gadget was practically the only bit of modern equipment belonging to the Sunray Beach police department and was one of Chief Jenson’s most prized possessions. He had seen it advertized at $9.98 in a mail order catalog ten years ago and had promptly ordered it and had it installed on his door to prevent anyone from walking in unannounced while the chief might be taking a nip of his ulcer remedy.
It was an ingenious device which caused the door to latch automatically each time it was closed, and to stay locked until Ollie pressed the button beneath his desk which activated the lock. Prior to its installation, the chief had had the choice of either leaving his door unlocked and risking the unannounced entrance of any one of the friendly citizens of Sunray at an embarrassing moment, or keeping the door locked at all times and being forced to get up from his desk and waddle around to unlatch it each time he had a visitor. Now, he could take his time about pressing the button, secure in the knowledge that no one could enter, yet be ready to greet them comfortably in his chair behind the desk, giving the impression that the door must have stuck, somehow, and that Ollie had no idea how it happened to come unstuck when it did.
All three members of his Force knew about the automatic locking device, of course, and waited patiently after knocking until they heard the click of the release catch. Other visitors were wont to twist and rattle the knob, and sometimes shout loudly to attract the chief’s attention, and thus he was able to foretell rather accurately whether one of his own men or some outsider would come through the door after he unlocked it.
This morning it was Ralph Harris who pushed the door open and stepped inside. He was nominally on night duty (from 12 to 8) but with the Blake murder and all, Chief Jenson
had issued orders that morning requiring the entire Force to remain on duty throughout the day. Harris had been assigned to remain at Headquarters to answer telephone calls and coordinate the search for the murderer; young Leroy Smith, technological expert, was currently on duty at the Blake house with his fingerprint kit and special vacuum cleaner gathering clues and collecting evidence; and Randy Perkins, grizzled veteran of the Force, was out driving Sunray’s only Police Cruiser up and down the highways and byways surrounding the town looking for some unknown transient who would be unable to provide an alibi for the preceding night and could be pulled in and charged with the crime.
Officer Harris closed the door behind him and reported, “There’s a newspaper reporter from Miami wants to see you, Chief. Name of Rourke. From the Miami News. I told him I’d see.”
“Miami News?” said Chief Ollie Jenson with a frown. “You know we don’t want no publicity, Ralph. Daytona and Jacksonville papers both telephoned up and I told ’em we had no comment.” He paused, blinking his eyelids fretfully and glancing over at an open copy of yesterday’s Miami News which lay on the desk. “Rourke, you say? Would that be Timothy Rourke?” He put his finger on a front-page by-lined story. “Big-shot city reporter, huh? This here’s an interview he had with the mayor of Miami.”
“I guess his name’s Timothy Rourke. You want to talk to him?”
Chief Jenson sighed unhappily. “Send him in. I guess there ain’t nothing new we got on the Blake case, is there?”
“Nothing I heard.” Harris backed out of the door and it clicked shut behind him. Ollie waited with his finger touching the release button, and pressed it when footsteps came down the hall and stopped outside. The knob turned and Timothy Rourke walked in briskly.
The chief pushed back his swivel chair and half stood, leaning forward with his left hand on the desk and his right extended toward his visitor. “Glad to meetcha, Mister Rourke. The Miami News is right on the job, huh?”
“I happened to be passing through and heard about your murder,” Rourke told him honestly, sniffing with pleasure as he shook the chief’s hand and caught the faint but unmistakable odor of sour-mash on his breath. He pulled a chair closer to the desk and relaxed in it, crossing one bony leg over the other. “What are the actual facts?”
“There just ain’t much to go on, Mr. Rourke. I got the call a little after six this morning. Minerva Wilsson phoned me. That’s Harry Wilsson’s wife. They’re the Blakes’ closest friends in town. The little girl had phoned Minerva… that’s Sissy, you know… soon’s she woke up and stuck her head into her mamma’s bedroom and seen her lying there in bed like that. She knew the Wilsson’s phone number and it was natural she’d call Minerva. She went right over and took one look and called me.
“Strangled to death in her bed, she was. Ellie. Mrs. Blake. Cold and already getting pretty stiff. Doc Higgens made a guess it happened around midnight. And that, by God and by Henry, is just about all, Mr. Rourke. Some damn hobo is my guess. Burglar, maybe. Doors were all locked, but there’s a front window in the living room unlatched and up an inch or two. Gravel path underneath it that won’t take tracks.”
“Any sign of a struggle in the bedroom?”
“Not so’s you’d notice. She was undressed and the bedcovers thrown back. Not even a nightgown, but… it was a warm night. Her clothes was kinda tossed on the floor by the bed.”
“Had she been sexually attacked?”
Chief Jenson blinked at him. “Raped, you mean?”
Rourke shrugged. “Maybe molested is a better word?”
“I don’t know how you’d go about telling… a married woman and all.” Ollie paused awkwardly. “No blood or like that.”
“There are medical tests,” Rourke told him. “An examination for seminal fluid in the vaginal passage.”
“Well, yeh, sure,” Ollie agreed uncomfortably. “Doc Higgens is making the autopsy. He’ll find out for sure I reckon. If it was that, you can bet that’s why she was murdered. Man couldn’t do nothing like that to Ellie with out he strangled her first, I’ll give you that. Mighty fine woman.”
“Anything missing from the house? Any signs of burglary?”
“That’s hard to say. Maybe Marvin can help us there when he gets back from Miami this afternoon. Going to be an almighty shock to him, I can tell you.” Jenson shook his head dolefully. “Plumb crazy about Ellie, he was. And her about him, too. Not a nicer couple in this whole town than Marvin and Ellie Blake.”
“What are you doing about finding the murderer?”
“Everything I know to do, I can tell you that. There’s word out that anybody seen a suspicious stranger hanging around yesterday is to report on it. I got the State Police alerted to watch out for hitch-hikers. My best man’s over to the house now, fingerprinting and working one of those special vacuum cleaners for any clues he can find. I got another man covering all the roads in and out of Sunray.
“It seems a little late for that now,” murmured Rourke.
“What else is there to do?” Chief Jenson spread out his hands and glared at the reporter from Miami. “Maybe we ain’t no big city police force, but you tell me what else the Miami police would be doing. First murder we ever had in Sunray Beach, I can tell you that. Mighty nice, quiet, friendly little town. We’ll get him, don’t you worry. Not so many strangers around this time of year that somebody won’t’ve noticed him. I figure he must have hung around some and cased the house, you see. Maybe saw Ellie go in and out and got ideas about her. You know. She had a figure a man would get ideas about.”
“The kind that wanted men to notice her?”
“Now don’t be getting no wrong ideas.” Chief Jenson frowned portentiously. “Maybe she did shake it a little bit, but that was just her way. A man didn’t know her, he might get the idea she’d be an easy lay, but he’d be Godalmighty wrong. And it’s my theory that’s maybe what did happen last night. He must of waited till after she and Sissy went to bed and then sneaked in and upstairs thinking she’d, well… welcome him, like, to bed. And then he had to shut her up from screaming, and… and…” The chief paused and dragged a handkerchief out from his hip pocket and mopped his perspiring face.
“How would a stranger in town have known she and her child were alone in the house last night?”
“He could of asked around easy, I guess. Everybody knew Marv was in Miami at that car dealers’ convention and wasn’t due home until today. House is off by itself pretty much.”
“Has the husband been notified? “ asked Rourke briskly.
“I didn’t see any need to. I always say, bad news travels fast enough without any help. What could Marvin do about it? Let the poor devil finish up his convention and be happy while he can. Time enough for him to find out when he gets back on the train.”
Timothy Rourke shrugged and looked at his watch. “Do you know what train he’s due in on?”
“Three-thirty this afternoon. It doesn’t leave Miami till noon. Last night was the big night of the convention for the boys to make whoopee, and they’ll all be nursing kingsized hangovers, I reckon. Including Marv. Not that he’s a drinking man, you understand,” Ollie went on hastily. “But being away from home to a convention with the rest of the boys and all… you know?”
Rourke nodded absently and muttered, “I should call in a story, and I could use a quote from the bereaved husband. Do you know the hotel Blake is staying at?”
“Convention headquarters was the Atlantic Palms. I know that much.”
“Use your telephone?” Rourke reached out a long arm for it and lifted the receiver.
“You going to try and call Marv from here? That’ll be long distance and mighty expensive. There’s a pay phone…”
“Long distance please,” Rourke interrupted him, speaking into the mouthpiece. “Charge it,” he muttered to the agitated chief of police, and into the phone he said, “A person to person call to Miami charged to credit card number…” He paused and screwed up his face and repeated a series o
f digits from memory.
“That’s right,” he told the operator. “I want to speak to Mr. Marvin Blake at the Atlantic Palms Hotel in Miami. I don’t know the phone number. Yes, I’ll hold on.”
While he waited, Chief Jenson sank back in his creaking swivel chair and regarded him wonderingly, “I sure envy you your job, Mister, but I’m just as glad you’re doing it instead of me this afternoon. I been racking my brains how in hell you break it to a man that his wife’s been murdered while he was out having fun at a convention, and I…” He broke off as Rourke spoke into the telephone, “What’s that, operator? Are you certain? Let me speak to the desk clerk at the Atlantic Palms instead of Mr. Blake.”
He put his hand over the receiver and frowned across the desk at Jenson. “They say that Marvin Blake checked out of the hotel yesterday afternoon.”
“Can’t be. I know the convention lasted through last night. It was the big banquet and shindig. Stands to reason…”
“Hello.” Rourke spoke into the telephone again. “This is a reporter from the News calling long distance from Sunray Beach. It’s extremely important that I contact Mr. Marvin Blake before he catches the noon train from Miami. He was at an automobile dealer’s convention which didn’t end until this morning.”
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