Call Me Killer (Prologue Crime)

by Harry Whittington

  Barney felt like a vulture circling in over a dead carrion as he moved toward the desk. This was what he lived for.

  “Who was it?” Barney asked. “Who was killed?”

  “Ross K. Lambart,” Milligan said.

  Manton felt a twitch, a distinct twist in his loins. Involuntarily, he touched the little black book in his coat pocket. Lambart. Ross. Karsley.

  It had been almost ten years now that Manton had been keeping book on Ross Karsley Lambart. His little black book was full of names more and slightly less prominent than that of Ross Karsley Lambart.

  Manton had his own personal reasons for keeping that book. He wasn’t always going to be a sergeant in homicide. Under Lieutenant Milligan who actually believed that hooey about being innocent until proved guilty. Manton knew where he was going. And it was most important that he know a great many important men and women. Even more important that he know a great deal of personal, intimate information about all of them.

  Still, not even Manton, who believed no good of any human being when there was any other angle, had expected Ross Lambart to die violently.

  “How did it happen?” he said.

  “Well, it was murder,” Milligan assured him. “Somebody emptied a small calibre automatic into his face, according to Jimson and Short.” He glanced over his shoulder, nodding toward the pair who’d answered the Citizens Trust call. “We’ve got the ninth floor closed off until eight o’clock. We’re on our way there now. The coroner, the first district constable and a couple of men from the Sheriff’s office are there now. I’ve made assignments. As soon as we’ve seen the body, I’ve a list of the names of people I want you to bring in. I’ll give you a couple of men to work with you.”

  Manton nodded curtly, and stepped back. Milligan turned again to the men who were grouped about him as though, Barney told himself, their next promotion hung on Milligan’s very words.

  • • •

  Manton passively watched as the F.B.I. trained men bumped into the stone walls of clues in suite 918. Their methods might be sure, but they were too slow for Manton. He looked about. This was the local office of a national charity organization. Ross Lambart was its resident chairman.

  Samples of Lambart’s blood were carefully taken and sent by messenger to the chemistry lab at headquarters. One of the young career sergeants found that someone had washed his hands in the lavatory, and samples of this watered blood were preserved.

  Photographers and fingerprint men went to work while Milligan questioned the two elevator men and the six scrubwomen who had been working in the building during the night. Manton listened disgustedly. Milligan never raised his quiet voice. He never even questioned the obvious lies that Manton felt were being given. They were in the smaller office off from the one in which Lambart’s body lay twisted on its side before a wide, orderly desk.

  The technical analyses were no part of the duties of Barney Manton. In the last few years they’d been made by the young men between the ages of twenty-five and thirty who took six months’ courses in F.B.I. classes. Manton lacked this training, and because of that, Milligan never recommended him for promotions. Police Commissioner Mitchell chose to continue to overlook him. Manton was a sergeant up from pounding the beat. As far as Commissioner Mitchell was concerned, Manton had gone as high as he could go. Manton stood now, his weight propped against doorjambs or wall space, noting the cute little things.

  At the moment, sitting on two legs of a straight chair, he listened to Milligan patiently questioning the tow-headed elevator operator named August Reamly.

  “I didn’t see nobody come from the ninth floor. It’s like Julius has already told you. I just came on duty. But just the same, nobody could have got on that floor without Julius or me seein’ him.”

  “Did anybody leave — after you came on duty?”

  “Well, I was inside my elevator. I had been talking with Julius when he got a buzz on floor two. I stepped inside my cage to punch out the signal since Julius was answering it My feet hurt, and it was chilly, so I sat on a chair in there to wait. That’s when I heard this fellow I told you about. Now it’s God’s truth, Mister Milligan, he could have come in off the street, or from the stairway. I think he came off the street. He acted like he was drunk. His hair was all messed up, and he wasn’t unsteady on his feet exactly, but you could tell he’d had a lot to drink. I thought at first he had come off Julius’ elevator, but then I see Julius ain’t back yet. So the fellow says his name is not on the book. So I figure he’s some lush come in out of the rain. So I figure what the hell.”

  “Do you mind telling me what he looked like?”

  “No, sir. He was a young guy. In a sport coat. It was wet all down the front, I remember. But it would be if he’d been in the rain. His hair was thin, I think, or seemed to be maybe, because it was damp — I don’t know what color eyes he had. And he wasn’t real tall.”

  “Would you know him if you saw him again?”

  Manton looked down at his sport coat and smiled to himself. He pulled off his snap brim, revealing a sparse-haired head, large and tight-skinned across the wide forehead. He mussed his thinning hair and stepped away from the wall.

  “Am I the guy you saw?” he inquired.

  August grinned. “Why, sure. That’s him, Mister Milligan. It was him I saw. I knew somebody was just playing me for a sucker.”

  Milligan’s lips were white. “All right, Manton,” he said tiredly. “Cut it out. There are some names on that register downstairs. I want to see everybody who was in this building last night after eleven o’clock. Get warrants if you have to.”

  • • •

  When Manton came into the outer office at police headquarters, there were more than fifteen people representing almost as many gradings of society, waiting to be interviewed by Lieutenant Milligan.

  Inside Milligan’s office, the homicide chief, sitting on the small of his back in a swivel chair was listening to an old, gray-haired scrubwoman.

  “I clean all the floors and stairways, sir. That’s my job. If anybody had come down them stairs, I’d a seen ‘em. And I’d report them to you. On my word, Mister Milligan, I see nobody until the foreman came around just before quitting time.”

  “And that’s the only person you saw, Mrs. Kersh?”

  “You don’t see many people nights on the stairs, sir. I told the foreman I was almost through, sir, and that it seemed to take longer every night. People are awful messy where they don’t have to clean up after their selves, Mister Milligan.”

  Milligan nodded at her. “I suppose they are, Mrs. Kersh,” he agreed softly. “Thank you for coming down. I know you must be tired.”

  When the scrubwoman was gone, Milligan sighed and stared wall-eyed at the papers on the desk before him. Manton stood without speaking until the lieutenant looked up at him. Milligan attempted to smile. Manton was a good man. Just embittered because police work had by passed his strong-arm methods.

  “I saw the people you rounded up for me, Barney,” he said. “They don’t seem to be much help. They all own offices in the place, or were guests of building tenants. Did you get them all?”

  There was one name which had led Manton nowhere. But Milligan was so innately honest, he seldom doubted the honesty of anyone else without just cause. So knowing that Milligan was never going to check on him, Manton lied. “I got them all, sir. They were all glad to come in.”

  Milligan exhaled again, “It would be simple enough for a man to enter the building while the elevator operator was off the ground floor, enter the stairwell. But there are a lot of scrubwomen in that place, and none of them saw anyone — at any time.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t matter,” Manton said disdainfully. “Those doors are electrically locked in the Citizens Trust lobby at night. Anyone who wants to get in rings a bell, the elevator operator unlocks for them, logs them in, and logs them out.”

  Milligan flushed. You could try, but you couldn’t like Manton. The man wouldn’t let you lik
e him. It angered Milligan that he hadn’t been told about the Citizen Trust doors. But it infuriated him to have Barney Manton explain it to him in his superior way.

  Milligan ruffled a clipped set of papers before him. “I’ve some more leads I want you to follow, Barney. This Lambart was a leading citizen, but he was head of the draft board at one time during the war and he may have made some serious enemies.”

  “Are we going to arrest every man drafted between 1942 and 1944?” Manton inquired.

  Milligan looked at him over the papers in his clenched fist.

  “I don’t think you’ll ever do anything for me not absolutely required by regulations,” he said evenly. “So suppose you don’t worry about that. I’ll make a list of everything I want you to do, Manton. You’ll have that to do, and nothing else.”

  Manton’s lips tightened slightly, his nostrils distended. “Lambart also headed a charity group,” he stated. “He probably made more enemies on that than he did on the draft board, even.”

  “I think I’m quite aware of all Lambart’s activities,” Milligan replied softly. “I know as well as you do, who he was, what he was, and what he did.” He extended a typewritten list and Manton studied it with a sardonic smile.

  “Do you?” he inquired. “Then, have you sent anyone to question Elsa Gowan?”

  Milligan tensed. He hadn’t the least idea who Elsa Gowan might be, but he felt his anger rising that Manton should dare, even here in Milligan’s office to display his contempt for Milligan and his methods.

  “We have not,” he said slowly. “But I assure you, Mister Manton, if we find that we need to talk to Elsa Gowan, we’ll have her brought in.”

  Their eyes met, the exasperation and tired dislike in Milligan’s blue ones slapping hard against the resentment and contempt in Manton’s hostile gray. Manton nodded, crumpled the list in his coat pocket, and turning on his heel, sauntered from the room.

  Milligan sat very still for a long minute after the door closed behind Manton. He leaned forward then and pressed a button on his desk. As he waited, he thumbed through a worn city directory.

  After a moment, the door opened and a plainclothesman entered. He smiled respectfully, waiting.

  “Alex, I want you to go out to this address, 1401 Wilkins Road, and bring in a woman named Elsa Gowan.”

  “Is there any charge, Chief?”

  “Oh, no. Just ask her to come in and talk to me sometime this morning. It’s about the Lambart killing. It may just be this woman will know something.”

  3

  SAM GOWAN rode almost twenty blocks in silence. He sat straight, his hands locked between his knees. He stared at the familiar streets sliding by as though he’d never seen them before. It was as if he had been away on some long journey and was returning home again.

  The silent driver put out his hand for a turn off into Wilkins Road from the through boulevard. Sam remembered the automatic in his coat pocket. He realized too that he was wearing a coat he wanted desperately to be rid of. In fact, he felt a shiver inside him that had nothing to do with the cold wracking his body. It was more than a desire to be free of this stained and hideous jacket: his very life might depend on how well he disposed of it.

  He punched the driver’s shoulder. “I’ll get out here,” he said. “At the corner.”

  He got out of the cab. Standing for a moment on the side walk, he stared longingly at the tiny patch of lawn before the two bedroom cottage where he and Elsa had lived for the past four years. He wanted to run toward it. He was certain that once he was inside that door, this nightmare would end, his troubles would all be over.

  He looked down at the coat. He preferred conservative clothing. This was gaudy. Even if it hadn’t been stained with blood, he wanted to be rid of it before he saw Elsa. Since he’d met Lambart in that bar this afternoon at four o’clock, he’d messed up their lives, been gone all night Elsa was going to be worried.

  On the corner of Boulevard and Wilkins Road was the Kinsey Arms apartment building. Beside it, a four foot easement separated it from the small store buildings next door.

  Sam started toward the easement. A very old model Chrysler, with a shot muffler, roared into the curb before the Kinsey Arms. Sam stopped on the walk and looked over his shoulder.

  The man at the wheel was a laborer of some kind — he’d put on the cap again this morning that he’d worn in some shop all day yesterday, and would wear again today. Despite the fact that it was barely daylight, and there were almost no tenants burning electricity at this hour, the car driver made no effort to be quiet.

  He let the motor roar, exhaust fumes heavy and gray in the slight rain. For a moment he sat staring at Sam who moved indecisively past the darkened alleyway. The driver pressed down hard on his horn. The silence-rending caterwauling went through Sam, and he felt his heart thud raggedly.

  A woman, wearing greasy overalls and grease stained cap to match the unquiet driver’s, came hurrying out of the apartment house. She had a cape across her arm, a large lunch box in her hand. She jumped into the car beside the man. They sat there arguing for a moment before they rode noisily away.

  Without looking either left or right now, Sam ran along the narrow, dark alleyway to the parking lot behind the apartment house. Across the lot there was a small, untended field where kids played in the afternoons. With a sense of longing, Sam Gowan remembered the way he’d stood sometimes against the fence in his back yard, watching the kids’ cowboy games before supper time.

  The thing that attracted his interest in the place was not the field, but the grate-covered culvert in the parkway before it.

  He hurried across the trampled field. On his knees, he pulled up the grating. He had seen the kids hiding in this culvert on dry afternoons. Now it was filled with water. He looked about. He found a broken base ball bat, and with it he prodded out the trash that had stoppered the outlet.

  For a moment he watched the swirl of the water as it was sucked down into the hungry opening. Then he dropped the automatic down into it and peeled off the coat.

  It was almost daylight now. He was anxiously afraid someone would be coming along the street as he balled up the gaudy sport jacket and pushed it with the baseball bat into the outlet.

  He remained on his knees, watching the culvert fill and overflow with trashy water when it was clogged by the coat. Frightened, he gave it another hard thrust with the broken bat.

  In that instant it seemed he saw everything that had happened to him in this eerie night: the way he had seemed to come awake, or come out of a drunk without a trace of hangover, in the office at Citizens Trust. He couldn’t remember having ever been in that building before. The way he had stared down at the twisted body of Ross Lambart, his face bloody and blown away. The scrubwoman. The awful moment when the elevator operator’s very voice seemed to strike him in the small of his back like a crippling blow. And the beautiful, dark girl running after him on the rain-slick street. Why had she called him David? Who was she? Why was she so certain she knew him?

  He shivered and remained there on his knees, staring at the swirling water in the small culvert until a light was snapped on in an upstairs window of a house across the street.

  The light brought him to his feet, startled. He started to run across the vacant lot to the alleyway behind his cottage. His heart lurched. Elsa would be sleeping, he thought. He’d have to pound on the door to waken her. If he woke up the neighbors, they’d know something was wrong. He had to get that crazy, nagging sense of wrongness out of his mind. Elsa would be sick with worry, the way he’d been gone all night. He’d have to make it up to Elsa. He’d be all right, too, when he was with Elsa. Maybe he could think then. Maybe he could figure what it was troubling him that made the whole night so strange. Surely, God never made a more hard-boiled realist than Elsa. He grinned crookedly as he ran. There was no foolishness about her. For the first time in his married life, Sam thanked God for this.

  As he went over the board fence into the rear yar
d of his small home, he noted uneasily that there were lights glowing in the house. All the other houses along the street were Still dark in the murky, wet dawn. He frowned, seeing that there was not just one light, but that all the lights in his house were bright.

  There was something different about his back yard. A difference that affected him strangely, puzzling him. And it frightened him, too, so that he raked the back of his hand across his face.

  His heart thudding and his mind fretted by the brightly burning lights, Sam stopped in the yard and tried to tell himself what it was that was different here.

  He was suddenly aware that his teeth were chattering with cold. His purpled lips were numb. But for an instant longer, he attempted to find for himself the trouble, the difference inside his own back yard, a place he thought he knew most thoroughly.

  He could see nothing changed. There was only the inescapable feeling that there was a certain and definite difference. A difference he didn’t like at all, and didn’t trust.

  He ran up the two steps and pulled at the screen door. It was tightly locked. Elsa wasn’t afraid of the dark, or of anything else. Perhaps she’d grown nervous at being alone all night and had sealed herself in.

  He rapped sharply on the door frame and called Elsa quietly but insistently, feeling his chattering teeth clicking together as he spoke her name.

  At once he heard footsteps. Elsa’s sure, heavy tread! Elsa coming through the house toward him. Elsa! The horrible sight of Ross Lambart’s gory face faded, and with it all the puzzlement and terror of this awful night. Elsa was unlocking the kitchen door now. He could see her through the glass as she worked quickly with the key.

  She stepped across the small back stoop and threw the safety catch on the screen door, saying, “Well, it took you — ”

  As Sam stepped inside the door, something happened to Elsa’s face. Something happened to the very words in her mouth. From her cheeks, the color drained away as cream is skimmed down from milk, leaving it that thin and chalky white. Fie saw that her face was bruised and swollen under her right eye.