Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018
- Автор: Ловси Питер, Зельцерман Дэйв
- Год: 2018
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018». Краткое содержание книги:
A thunderous commotion on the wooden stairs leading down from the kitchen announced the return of Matt Vandyke, the handyman who had discovered the break-in. A giant in bib overalls, he brought the scents of gasoline and freshly mowed grass to mingle with the other aromas in the basement.
Detective Lieutenant Cyrus Auburn unsheathed his pulsating cell phone, glanced at the screen, pushed Talk, and talked. “Kelly’s Pool Hall. What’s happening, Fritz?”
“Real quick, Lieutenant. Point of law.”
“Point of law? Where are you?”
“Lieutenant Kestrel and I are at the scene of a break-in and theft of copper pipe from an empty house. Which may also be the scene of a homicide.”
“May be? It sounds to me like you’re on a jelly-doughnut high. What’s this point of—”
“Real quick, Lieutenant. Plain-view doctrine, okay? We’re looking at a tubing cutter that the lieutenant thinks might have been used to cut the pipe that was stolen.”
“Well, if it’s in plain view—”
“It’s in plain view, all right, but it’s in a toolbox that belongs to the maintenance guy who reported the break-in. Kestrel thinks he’s the one that snatched the pipe, but—”
“Fritz, you know that piece of law as well as I do. If you’re investigating a break-in and theft, then you’re lawfully present at the scene. Did you or Kestrel open the toolbox to see what was in it?”
“No, of course not. The lieutenant was finished taking pictures of the window where they broke in, and dusting for prints, so this guy brought in some tools from his truck to pick the rest of the glass out of the frame and start—”
“If Kestrel thinks it’s incriminating, then you’ve got probable cause. Grab it. What’s this about a homicide?”
“Gotta run, Lieutenant. If he shuts that toolbox, the thing won’t be in plain view anymore.”
Vandyke, intent on scraping away traces of putty from the window frame before measuring for a replacement pane, didn’t notice Kestrel lifting the tubing cutter from the till of his tool chest, assessing its degree of misalignment, and fitting it to the stump of a pipe sticking down from the floor above.
Dollinger interrupted the handyman with a question. “Can you explain,” he asked, “why this tubing cutter we found in your toolbox matches the damage to the cut ends of the pipe down here?”
Vandyke mopped sweat from his face with a rolled-up sleeve. “Sure can. That cutter was lying right there on the floor when I came down here this morning and found all the pipe missing.”
“And you just took possession of it?”
Vandyke hung his head in mock remorse. “Guilty as charged.”
“Funny thing you didn’t mention that before, considering that it’s obviously something that could help us identify the thieves.”
“You think I stole the pipe?” He seemed utterly astonished by the suggestion. “I’d have to be crazy to pinch the copper out of a house I’ve got the keys to. I’d be number one on your list of suspects.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“And I wouldn’t have needed to kick in this window either.”
“Unless you wanted to get yourself off that list of suspects. We’d like to take a look at your truck.”
Vandyke’s mood shifted from surprise to indignation. “Don’t you need a warrant for that?”
“No, sir. As long as the truck is parked in front of the house, it’s part of the scene. And since it belongs to you, it’s as much in your interest as ours for us to examine it to confirm the presence, or absence, of evidence.”
“Well, you’re not going to find any pipe, if that’s what you’re looking for.” Vandyke fished the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Dollinger. They didn’t tell him that they were looking for evidence of a more serious crime than burglary.
Vandyke’s pickup truck, parked around the corner on Wells, contained a lawn mower whose engine and muffler were still hot, a fiberglass stepladder, and a miscellaneous assortment of building materials and rubbish. They didn’t find a single inch of copper pipe. But field testing of some dark brown smears on the floor of the cargo compartment proved positive for blood.
Dollinger and Cameron went to the basement, where Vandyke was tidying up, and confronted him with the facts.
“You have a key to this house,” said Dollinger. “You were in possession of the tool that probably was used to steal pipe from here. A man was found shot to death three blocks away. There are traces of blood down here and traces of blood in your truck. That’s a pretty tight web of red lines, and you seem to be right in the middle of it. Please don’t say anything until I inform you of your legal rights according to federal court decisions.”
Having done so, Dollinger proceeded to arrest Vandyke on a charge of stealing the pipe, as well as on suspicion of homicide. Although Kestrel outranked both Dollinger and Cameron, he had always been squeamish about tackling felons. While they made the pinch he was vainly searching the freshly mowed backyard for bloodstains and the alley for distinctive tire marks.
Within minutes after being booked at Second District headquarters, Vandyke retained the services of J. C. Pulfresh, Esq., a notorious local courtroom clown whose rubicund visage and beady eyes stared down from dozens of billboards around town and adorned the back covers of thousands of telephone directories.
Apprised of Pulfresh’s arrival at headquarters, Dollinger hastened to turn over the management of the case to Lieutenant Auburn. They spent a quarter of an hour reviewing the evidence, then met with Pulfresh in a grim and windowless interrogation room in the basement.
The defense attorney from Hades wasted no time on preliminaries.
“My client is prepared to swear that he has never discharged a firearm in his life,” he announced. “We demand that his hands be examined immediately to confirm the absence of primer residue and wipe this preposterous murder charge off the books.”
“Your client hasn’t been charged with homicide yet, pending processing of specimens at the lab. He’s being held on a charge of burglary—”
“Another preposterous charge, until you find the stolen goods in his possession. Which you never will. I want a polygraph test this afternoon, before you start grilling him and planting information in his head.”
“And... let me guess. You want to tell the technician what questions to ask, you want to be present at the session, and you claim the privilege of terminating it—”
“I’m glad we see eye to eye on all that.”
“Do we? You can cut all the deals you want with the prosecutor, and pull all the wires you want with the judge, but police procedure is a non-negotiable issue.”
“Lieutenant, I find your attitude decidedly hostile, not to mention unprofessional. In football, they call this roughing the kicker.”
“Interesting choice of terms.”
Late in the afternoon Vandyke was transferred to First District headquarters downtown, where chemical testing failed to detect powder residue on his hands. Kestrel’s comment that a negative test after an interval of six hours or more had little weight was given little weight. With charges of homicide on a back burner, Pulfresh had Vandyke out on $50,000 bail before nightfall.
Next day the sweltering and oppressive heat continued. Morning report dragged on and on, with cases of petty theft, drunk and disorderly, domestic violence, collisions with personal injury, and a stickup at a bagel shop.
The pipe theft didn’t make it into the papers, but the homicide did. Data on both crimes gradually accumulated at Second District during the course of the morning. At a six A.M.. autopsy, the forensic pathologist had recovered two .32-caliber lead slugs from Roveling’s chest, where they had done catastrophic damage to the heart and great vessels. Powder tattooing around the entrance wounds, and abrasion rings due to expanding gases, indicated that both shots had been fired at contact range. Results of a drug screen and other blood studies were not yet available.