The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories
- Автор: Деминг Ричард
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press
- ISBN: 9781479423507
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
“In the kitchen.”
He led the way into a central hall where we met a tall, graying man just emerging from the kitchen. He was carrying a medical bag.
Coming to a halt, Harry said, “This is Dr. Lischer, Sod, the victim’s doctor. Mrs. Crowder called him instead of us when she discovered the body. After talking to her, he phoned the precinct before he came over.” To the doctor he said, “Sergeant Sod Harris of the Homicide Squad, Doc.”
Shifting his medical bag from his right hand to his left. Dr. Lischer shook hands with me. “Glad to know you, Sergeant. Terrible thing. She was only twenty-eight.”
“They’re all terrible,” I said. “Mind sticking around a few minutes until after I’ve had a look at the body?”
“No, of course not.”
He went on into the front room. Harry and I continued into the kitchen. Another uniformed cop was in there, leaning against the back door. He was in his mid-twenties and looked vaguely familiar.
There was also a corpse in the room. It belonged to a fairly attractive blonde, slim and pleasantly contoured. She was wearing a light cloth coat, unbuttoned and wide open, over a street dress, no hat and an expression of surprise. She lay flat on her back in the center of the kitchen with the handle of what appeared to be a butcher knife protruding from between her breasts. On the floor to the left of her body was an open purse from which a number of items had fallen when it dropped to the floor. To her right was an old-fashioned iron door key. It seemed apparent that she had been stabbed just after entering by the back door, apparently as she was in the act of replacing the key in her voluminous purse.
The young patrolman said, “Hi, Sarge.”
“Hi,” I said. “I know you, but I can’t place from where.”
“Carl Budd. You were on the first homicide call I ever answered, back when I was a rookie. The Thursday-night Strangler.”
“Oh yeah, the guy who sent happy birthday wires to his victims before he killed them.” Glancing around, I spotted on the wall over the stove a rack of knives with black wooden handles similar to that of the murder weapon. They were of assorted sizes, ranging from a small paring knife to a carving knife with an eight-inch blade. The only vacant space looked as though it might accommodate the butcher knife stuck into the corpse.
Seeing me looking at the rack, Harry said, “That’s what we figured, too. The killer grabbed it from there because it was handy.”
Grunting, I looked back down at the dead woman. “What was her name?”
“Joan Turnbell. Mrs. Joan Turnbell, although her husband don’t live here. According to Mrs. Crowder, they’ve been separated about four months, and the victim lived here alone. Mrs. Crowder also has pretty well pinpointed the time of death to within a minute or so of five-thirty.” Glancing at a wall clock, he said, “About an hour and five minutes ago.”
“How’d she pinpoint it?” I asked.
“She heard Mrs. Turnbell come home, then discovered the body only minutes later.”
Although that wasn’t awfully clear to me, I decided the details could wait until I talked to Mrs. Crowder. “She know who did it?” I asked.
Harry shook his head. “Seems to have been a prowler who panicked when she walked in on him. There’s some drawers dumped out in the other rooms. My guess is nobody saw him because he lammed out the back way. If you’ll look out back, you’ll see the yard is enclosed by a high wooden fence that would have kept him from being seen by neighbors if he headed for the alley. At any rate he wasn’t seen.”
“Oh, you’ve asked all those people out front?”
He flushed slightly. “Well, no, but no one has come forward to report seeing anything.”
That was why Harry Dodge was still a patrolman after twenty-five years. If he had been a rookie, I would have jolted him alive with some acid comments on how to make a preliminary investigation, but you can’t do that to a veteran of twenty-five years even if he deserves it.
I said, as pleasantly as I could manage, “Better go see if anyone saw anything before the crowd disperses. Maybe you’d better hit the nearby houses on both sides of the street too, just in case some of the neighbors have gone back inside.”
“Okay,” he said agreeably, and headed for the front of the house.
I went over to peer through the glass pane of the back door into the yard. In mid-March, sunset was about six p.m., and it was just now starting to get dark. It was still light enough, though, to see that the yard was enclosed by a seven-foot-high board fence. At the rear of the yard, some fifty feet away, was a garage that gave onto an alley. Next to it was a gate in the fence, also leading to the alley.
I tried the back door, found it unlocked and stepped out onto the back porch. From it I could see over the top of the fence onto the back porches on either side, which meant anyone on their back porches at the time the killer emerged from the house could have seen him too. I could also see the back porches of the houses whose rears faced this way from the other side of the alley.
I went down the porch steps and along a concrete walk to the garage. The door leading from the yard into the garage was unlocked. A red, two-seat sports car was parked inside. A car radiator will stay warm for a couple of hours after the car has been driven long enough to heat the engine thoroughly, and this one was still warm enough to indicate it had been standing for not much more than an hour. It seemed reasonable to assume that Joan Turnbell had arrived home in that car.
The garage door giving onto the alley was the overhead type. I swung it up, then back down again. It made considerable noise going both ways, the springs creaking loudly and the door settling into place with a subdued slam.
Returning to the kitchen, I told Carl Budd to go across the alley and inquire at each house if any neighbors had seen anyone enter or leave here by the back door an hour or so earlier.
When the young patrolman had left, I stooped to examine the victim’s shoes. They had those thick, ungraceful Italian heels that have become so popular, with metal cleats on them to retard wear.
Rising from my stooped position, I went into the front room. Dr. Lischer had taken a seat there, but when I came in he rose and picked up the medical bag alongside his chair. Apparently he was in more of a hurry than he had indicated.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Doctor,” I said. “May I have your report now?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you much except that she’s dead, Sergeant. I understand from Mrs. Crowder here that death occurred about five-thirty. That conforms to the physical condition of the body. Mrs. Crowder phoned me at twenty of six. I called the police, then came over as soon as I could. I had an emergency patient, so I wasn’t able to get here until about six-fifteen. By then the police were already here.”
“I see. I assume you didn’t move the body.”
“Oh, of course not. I also instructed Mrs. Crowder over the phone not to touch anything.”
I gave him an approving nod. “Was Mrs. Turnbell a regular patient of yours?”
“Yes. Mrs. Crowder also, which I assume is why she called me.”
“Any particular condition you were treating Mrs. Turnbell for?”
He shook his head. “When I say she was a regular patient, I merely mean I was her family physician. Aside from an occasional viral infection, she was in generally good health, you see.”
“Okay, Doctor. Thanks for your trouble.”
“You’re welcome, Sergeant. I’m happy to be of service.”
When he had left, I turned to the Crowders. “Just how close of neighbors are you people? Right next door?”
Both nodded. The leathery Henry Crowder pointed toward the dining room. “On that side.”