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:
I looked at his wife. “It was you who discovered the body, Mrs. Crowder?”
“Yes,” she said. “Henry wasn’t even home from work yet. He just came over to keep me company after the police got here.”
“I see. Then actually you have no direct knowledge of events, Mr. Crowder?”
“Just what Emma told me.”
Turning back to Mrs. Crowder, I said, “Just how did you happen to discover the body so quickly after it happened?”
“I was waiting for Joan to come home so I could show her a pattern I had bought. She always got home from work exactly at five-thirty. You could set your clock by it. She worked in a law office at Grand and Gravois as a legal secretary, you know. The lawyers all left at four-thirty, then she could close up when she wanted. She always left there exactly at five-fifteen, and it took fifteen minutes for her to drive home. So I was listening for her.”
“Listening?” I said. “Don’t you mean watching?”
She shook her head. “The fence is too high to watch. But I could always hear her come home because her garage door squeaks and bangs when it’s opened and closed, then I could also hear her heels click on the walk. Today when I heard her, I looked at my kitchen clock, and sure enough it was right at five-thirty. I gave her five minutes to get her coat off and get herself settled, then I came over.” She gave a little shiver. “He must have just barely left when I got here. If I hadn’t waited that five minutes, more than likely I’d be dead too.”
“Possibly,” I agreed. “How did you come over? I mean out your alley gate and in by this one, or out your front door to this front door?”
“Neither. Out the front way, down the walk between our houses, and in by the gate at the bottom of the back porch steps. Don’t ask me why I do that instead of going to Joan’s front door, which would be closer. I just always have. Maybe because we always ended up in the kitchen anyway for coffee.”
“I take it you were on quite friendly terms with Mrs. Turnbell, then.”
“Oh yes, we were close friends.”
I said, “When you came in by that gate, the killer must have just left by the gate into the alley. Did you hear that gate click shut, or anyone running down the alley, or anything at all?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I went up the porch steps, and was just raising my fist to knock on the back door when I saw through the glass pane in the top of the door that Joan was lying on her back on the kitchen floor. I didn’t notice the knife in her until after I opened the door and went in. Then I almost fainted.” After a moment, she added with a touch of pride, “I didn’t scream, though, like they always do in the movies.”
I didn’t deflate her ego by telling her that women in the movies scream at the sight of bodies because it’s written in the script, and in real life they’re more apt to go into silent shock. I just said, “What did you do?”
“As soon as I could bring myself to move, I ran into the hall to phone Dr. Lischer.” Her tone became apologetic. “I think I knew she was dead the minute I saw that knife in her, so in the back of my mind I knew a doctor wasn’t going to do her any good. But I was so upset, all I could think of was getting Dr. Lischer over here.”
“You did fine,” I assured her. “A doctor had to declare her dead anyway, so it saved bringing some intern all the way from City Hospital. You have any idea who killed her?”
She looked surprised. “How would I know who the burglar was?”
“You figure it was a burglar?”
“What else? I heard one of those policemen say some drawers were dumped out.”
“Yeah, he told me. I haven’t had a chance to check that out yet. I understand Mrs. Turnbell was separated from her husband.”
Mrs. Crowder nodded, then her eyes suddenly widened. “You don’t think...”
When she let it trail off, I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea. Who is he?”
“Addison Turnbell. He works for the Marks Carburetor Company.”
“As what?”
“He’s just a worker on the assembly line.” She sniffed. “He’s always been way below Joan intellectually. She was a trained legal secretary, while he just worked with his hands. I never could understand why she was so crazy about him that she didn’t want to let him go.” After a pause she added, “I never said that to her, of course.”
“Was it an amicable separation?” I asked.
Henry Crowder said laconically. “Hardly.”
Both of looked at him. When he said nothing more, I looked back at his wife.
Emma Crowder said argumentatively, “Joan wasn’t giving him a hard time, Henry. If there was any bad feeling, it was on his side.”
Henry said, “Maybe she wasn’t giving him a hard time, but she wasn’t turning him loose either.” To me he explained, “Ad has another girl he wants to marry, but Joan wouldn’t agree to a divorce. She wanted him back.”
Mrs. Crowder rendered her opinion of this desire by emitting another sniff.
After a short pause, her husband said, “Joan’s mother wanted to see it patched up, too. Last time I saw Ad, he told me she was bugging him with phone calls nearly every night.”
“He has Mrs. Phelps as snowed as he had Joan,” Emma Crowder said with disgust. “Even after the way he’s treated her daughter, she mothers him like he was her own son.”
“Well, Ad has always liked Stella too,” Henry said. “He told me he wished she would stop bugging him to go back to Joan, but otherwise he’s as fond of her as before the breakup.
“How did Mrs. Turnbell’s father feel about the separation?” I asked.
Mrs. Crowder said. “He’s been dead for years. Mrs. Phelps lives alone somewhere out in the west end.”
Taking out my notebook, I wrote the name Stella Phelps in it, then said, “I take it you don’t know her address?”
“No, but Joan kept an address-and-phone-number book on the telephone table in the hall. It should be in there.”
I wrote down the name Addison Turnbell and asked if either knew his address.
“That should be in her book too,” Emma Crowder said. “He’s only a few blocks from here, over on Bates. He moved in with a bachelor friend named Lionel Short, who works at Marks with him.”
I went to the phone table in the central hallway and found both addresses. After writing them in my notebook, I returned to the front room just as Harry Dodge came back in from outside.
“Nothing,” he reported. “No one saw or heard anything at all.”
A moment later Carl Budd came through the central hallway from the kitchen and made a similar report about the neighbors across the alley.
I thanked the Crowders for their help and told them they could go home. As they were leaving, Art Ward from the lab showed up. I took him to the kitchen, told him what I wanted, left him there, and made a tour of the rest of the house while he was doing it.
There were four rooms on the first floor, clustered around the central hall. At the back were a kitchen and a TV room, at the front the parlor and dining room. On one side of the hallway was a bathroom, on the other side were stairways to the basement and second floor.
In the dining room the bottom drawer of the sideboard, containing nothing but linens, had been pulled out and was upended on the floor. In the TV room there was a combination bookcase-desk with a small drawer underneath the desk for stationery and writing implements. This drawer had also been pulled out and upended on the floor.
Those two dumped drawers were the only evidence of disturbance on the first floor.
I climbed to the second floor. There were two bedrooms and a second bath up there. There was no sign of disturbance.
I went down to the basement and gave it a thorough looking-over. Nothing seemed to be out of place there.
Going back upstairs, I checked the other drawers of the dining-room sideboard. One contained a set of sterling silver. Another contained a piggy bank full of dimes.