The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries
- Автор: Пауэлл Тэлмидж
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press LLC
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries». Краткое содержание книги:
The room reflected a lonely life. There were no photos, no letters. Nothing of a personal nature except the clothing and a few magazines on a bedside table.
“How long she lived with you?” Martin asked.
“A little over two months,” Mrs. Carraway said in her cautious, impersonal voice.
“When did you see her last?”
“A week ago Thursday when she paid a month’s rent.”
“She have any callers?”
“Callers?”
“Boy friend, perhaps.”
“Not that I know of.” Mrs. Carraway pursed her lips. “I’m not a nosy landlady. She seemed like a quiet, nice girl. So long as they pay their rent and don’t raise a disturbance — that’s all I’m concerned with.”
“Know where she came from?”
“No. She came and looked at the room and said she’d take it. She said she was employed. I checked, to make sure.”
“Where was that?”
“At the Cloverleaf Restaurant. She’s a waitress.”
Martin thanked her, and we started from the room.
Mrs. Carraway said, “Is she in serious trouble?”
“Pretty much,” Martin said. “I’m sure she won’t be coming back.”
“What’ll I do with her things?”
“We’ll let you know.”
Mrs. Carraway followed us to the front door. “I’ve told you everything I know. I’m not an unkind person. But whatever she’s done is none of my business. You’d just be wasting my time to be calling me in as a witness.”
“We’ll trouble you no more than we have to,” Martin said.
We returned to the unmarked police car parked in the middle of the block. Martin got behind the wheel and drove in silence.
“Any doubt of her identity?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. We’ll check fingerprints in the room against the Jane Doe to be sure. But the landlady showed no hesitation when she saw the picture. She was Mary Smith, right enough.”
Hello, Mary Smith, I thought. Hello, stranger. Who were you?
A man named Blakeslee was the owner of the Cloverleaf, a large drive-in on the south side of town. He was a slender, dark, harried-looking fellow, about forty.
He was checking the cash register when we arrived. We showed him our credentials, and with a gesture of annoyance he led us to a small office off the kitchen.
“Well,” he said, closing the door, “what’s this all about?”
“Got a Mary Smith on your payroll?” Martin asked.
“I did have. She quit without notice. A lot of them do. You’ve no idea what it is to keep help nowadays.”
“What were the circumstances?”
“Circumstances?” He shrugged. “She didn’t show up for a couple of days, so I put another girl on. There weren’t any circumstances, as you put it.”
“Did you wonder if maybe she was sick?”
“I figured she’d have called in. She’s not the first to quit like that. I haven’t time to be running around checking on them. What’s your interest in her?”
“She’s dead.”
“What’s that?” After his initial start, Blakeslee raised his hand and stroked his chin. “Why, that’s too bad,” he said in a tone without real meaning.
“The papers carried a story,” Martin said. “Unidentified girl murdered.”
“I don’t recall seeing it. Probably wouldn’t have connected it with Mary Smith anyway. How did it happen?”
“She was apparently on her way home. We think she was knocked down for whatever of value she was carrying.”
“It couldn’t have been much.”
“Can you tell us anything about her?”
“Only that she came to work here. She seemed nice enough, always on time. Too quiet to make many friends.”
“Where did she work formerly?”
“She came here from Cross-more.” Blakeslee spread his hands. “I wish I could help. But after all, what was she to me?”
Martin and I took the expressway out of town. The drive to Crossmore, a small town in the next county, required only forty minutes.
I wondered how many restaurants there were in Crossmore. Very few, I guessed. We had at least that much in our favor.
However, Martin drove right on through the village.
“I’m playing a hunch,” he said.
Just beyond Crossmore, overlooking the busy highway, were the rolling hills and meadows and buildings of the country-supported orphanage.
Martin turned into a winding driveway which was shaded by tall pines. He stopped before an old colonial-type home that had been converted into an administration building. More recent structures of frame and brick housed dorms and classrooms. Beyond there were barns and workshops.
A few minutes later we were in the office of Dr. Spreckles, the superintendent. A wiry, sandy man, Spreckles struck me as being a pleasant individual who nevertheless knew how to run things.
He looked at the picture of Mary Smith that the lab boys had made.
“Yes,” he said. “She was one of our girls.” His lips tightened slightly. “We hope she has done nothing to reflect on the training she received here.”
“She hasn’t,” Martin assured him. “Who were her people?”
Spreckles went behind his desk and sat down. “She had none. She was born out of wedlock in the county hospital to a woman who gave her name only as Mary Smith. As soon as she was able to get about, the mother abandoned the child.”
“The girl grew up here?”
“Yes.”
“Never adopted?”
“No,” Spreckles said slowly, resting his elbows on his desk and steepling his fingers. “As a child, she was quite awkward, too quiet, too shy. She lived here until she was eighteen.”
“Who were her friends?”
“Strangely enough,” Spreckles frowned, “I can’t say. I don’t think she had any really close ones. She was a face in a crowd, you might say. Never precocious. Not at the bottom of her classes, you understand, but not at the top. I do wish you’d tell me what difficulty she’s in.”
“She’s dead,” Martin said. “A mugger killed her during a robbery attempt.”
“How terrible!” Spreckles made an honest attempt to muster genuine grief, but he simply didn’t have it. He was shocked and upset by the passing forever of an impersonal image, but that was all...
As we drove back through Crossmore, Martin broke his silence — with a single utterance. It was softly spoken but the most vicious oath I’d ever heard. It was so unlike Martin that I stared at him out of the corner of my eyes.
But I let the silence return and stay that way. Right then, he had the look about him of a heavy-chested, steel-gray tomcat whose wounds have been rubbed with turpentine and salt.
We returned to grinding routine. The pawnshops. Still no watch. The vicinity of Hibernia Park — questioning all the people, one by one, who lived in the area. No one had glimpsed a man coming from the park about the time she was killed.
At night I was too tired to sleep. I wondered what this was getting us, if we’d ever catch the man. Yet there wasn’t the slightest letdown in Martin’s determination. I only wished I shared it...
Martin and I returned to the squad room late Wednesday afternoon. A few minutes afterward, a uniformed policeman walked in and handed Martin an inexpensive woman’s watch.
My scalp pulled tight. I crossed to Martin’s desk as he opened a drawer. He shook the golden clasp from a small manila envelope. The clasp matched the broken band of the watch perfectly.
Martin stood up. His nostrils were flaring. “Where’d this come from?”
“The personal effects of a guy named Biddix,” the man in uniform said. “He was in a poker game we just broke up in an old loft. The desk sergeant said you’d want to see the watch.”