Heaven Ran Last

Chapter X

I went up to my room and I thought about having some food sent up but I wasn’t hungry. I hadn’t eaten, but I still felt nervous and jittery. I took off my coat and tie and made a long drink, and then I sat down and tried to push the worry out of my mind.

I guess the drink helped. The cops thought Olsen was guilty, and he didn’t have anything to prove he wasn’t. If he stuck to his story Marshall was sure he’d be convicted.

That was the way I’d planned things and that’s the way it was working. There wasn’t anything to worry about.

About then the phone rang. The operator said, “There’s a man on his way up to see you, Mr. Ford.”

“Damn it,” I said. I said, “I don’t want to see every tie peddler that comes along. Why didn’t you see who he was and find out if I wanted to see him?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Ford,” she said, “but he was a detective. He showed me his badge and said he was going up and then he told me to tell you he was on his way. He said his name was Harrigan.”

“Okay,” I said and put the phone down slowly. I lit a cigarette and tried to think but my thoughts ran around in circles. Nothing came from those thoughts.

There was a knock on the door a little later and when I opened up he was standing there, his hat shoved back on his head.

“Sorry to bother you, Johnny,” he said.

He came into the room, a tall thin guy with a pale face, graying hair and quick restless eyes. He sat down and hooked a leg over the chair and took his hat off and put it beside the chair on the floor.

“Drink?” I said.

“Good idea. I’m off duty, you know.” He grinned at that.

I made two drinks, handed him one and then sat down myself.

“What is it?” I said.

“Routine stuff,” he said. “I just want to get an idea of what happened last night.”

“I thought you had all that,” I said. “I was supposed to drive him down to the station, but he doubled back and caught this guy with his wife. What else do you want?”

He started looking through his pockets for a cigarette and he was still grinning. “Let me just ask a few questions. I’m too much a copper to find out anything any other way. How long have you known this guy Olsen?”

“I thought you wanted to know about last night,” I said.

“This is background stuff. When did you meet him?”

“A couple of years ago. He used to drop in when I had the book out North.”

“Was he a good friend of yours?”

“Just so-so. Pretty good, I guess.”

“How long have you known his wife?”

“About as long,” I said. “She used to put down a bet herself, every now and then.”

“You mean they used to come into your place together?”

“No, I met her after he went overseas.”

He sipped at his drink and nodded. “Then you met her after he went in the army?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

He said, “I’m not splitting hairs, I hope, but let’s run over this again. You met him first. Then he went overseas, and you met her. Is that right?”

I nodded.

“Well, we’ve got that straightened out.” He smiled. “It doesn’t mean anything but I like to get all the background I can. You’ve seen her all the time he’s been gone?”

“Not all the time,” I said. “Maybe five or six times. We had a drink, things like that. I took her swimming once or twice I guess.”

“She’s an attractive woman, isn’t she? I don’t want to annoy you, but you were just friends, weren’t you? No funny business on the side?”

“What a hell of a question,” I said. I tried to sound half mad and half amused, but it was hard because I was winding up tight inside and I was afraid of this guy Harrigan.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Forget it. You saw him when he came home, didn’t you?”

“I met him at the station and drove him out to where she lives. I didn’t see him again until last night.”

That was a slip, but it was all right. I’d actually forgotten about that afternoon he’d come up to see me. So when I said, “No, wait a minute. I saw him one other time,” it sounded on the level. “He came up here one afternoon,” I went on. “He was worried about his wife. He was afraid she’d been playing around while he was gone and he wanted to find out if I knew anything about it.”

“You mean he suspected you?”

“Hell no. You cops think everybody in the world is crooked, don’t you?”

He smiled. “Let’s don’t get started on what heels coppers are. I could talk about that all night. How long was he back before he came to see you?”

“Just a couple of days. He was pretty worried by that time. Some guy had been calling his wife. He’d gotten two or three of the calls, but the guy hung up when Frank got on the line. On top of that his wife wasn’t acting too friendly.”

“Okay,” Harrigan said. “So much for that. Then Sunday night you went out there with the idea of driving them both down to the station. How was he acting about her not going?”

“They seemed kind of mad. I guess they’d been battling about it.”

“What kind of a story did she give him?”

“She just said she had some work that had to be done.”

“Then you and Frank left for the station. Let’s have the rest of it.”

“Okay,” I said. I was jumpy and nervous and I was trying to think of how my story was going to sound. “We started downtown,” I said. “I made a crack about it was too bad Alice had to work that night with this guy Lesser. That was the first he’d heard about that. He made me turn around and drive him back.”

Harrigan sat up a little in his chair and he didn’t look sleepy any more.

“Hold on,” he said. “I thought she told him about that.”

“She told him she had to do the work Monday morning.”

“Well, how did you know she was seeing Lesser Sunday night?”

“I met Lesser Friday afternoon at a bar. He mentioned he was seeing her Sunday night. That’s how I come to know about it.”

“Friday afternoon, eh?”

“That’s right?”

“Did you think it was funny he’d tell you about it?”

“I didn’t think one way or the other about it. I already knew she was supposed to go to Wisconsin Sunday night. I figured he was mixed up.”

He was frowning. “You didn’t tell him she was supposed to go Wisconsin?”

“It wasn’t any of my business,” I said.

“All right,” he said. “Now what happened when you drove him back?”

“We parked out in front until Lesser showed. Then he asked me to drive him somewhere he could get a drink. At the tavern he called her up and she told him she was alone. That tore things. He went back to the apartment and caught them together.”

“And where did you go?” he asked.

“I got in my car and came back here.”

“Good enough,” he said. “Now let’s make out a timetable. You left for the train at eight. You drove halfway downtown turned around and came back. You waited for Lesser, then you went to this bar and he made a phone call. What time did you get out of the bar?”

“About eight-twenty.”

“You worked pretty fast to do all that in twenty minutes,” he said. He looked at his glass and then grinned suddenly. “Got another drink left?”

“That’s the first smart question you’ve asked,” I said.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, when I handed him the fresh drink. “Maybe I’m playing a cock-eyed angle. You see I don’t think this guy is guilty, Johnny.”

I was taking a drink when he said that and my hand started shaking. Some of the liquor went down my shirt front. I put the drink down and took out my breast handkerchief.

“Shame to waste it,” he said. He watched while I mopped at my shirt. Then he said: “Here’s what I mean. There weren’t any prints on the gun. That’s funny. When a guy commits an unpremeditated murder he’s generally too mad or scared to think about wiping off fingerprints. Second, when a husband shoots some guy who has been playing around with his wife he doesn’t run away. He’s generally the guy who calls the cops and he says, ‘I just shot a guy and he deserved it.’ That’s the way he feels. He’s not ashamed or afraid as a rule. He’s proud of what he’s done. But this guy Olsen insists he didn’t do it in spite of a hell of a good circumstantial case against him. That doesn’t sound right to me.”

He shook his glass for a while and watched the ice bounce around and there was a moody frown on his face.

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “I just don’t feel right about it. Take the way the drawers in the bedroom were messed around for instance. Who did that? Not Olsen. He lives there. He knows where things are. But supposing some stranger went in there looking for something. He might have to go through the drawers and closet to find it.”

“What would a stranger be looking for?” I said.

“Possibly the gun,” Harrigan said. “And here’s one more angle. The woman who lives below the Olsen apartment says someone rang her bell about eight-thirty. She rang the buzzer and went to the door but there wasn’t anyone there. At the time she thought it was some kids playing a prank.”

“It could have been,” I said.

“Sure it could,” he said. “But I don’t think so. It all ties into a theory I’m playing around with. Supposing, Johnny, this thing was a frame. Supposing someone wanted to get rid of Lesser. And they set things up so that Frank Olsen would catch him in a compromising position and shoot his brains out. Then the deal backfires. Olsen doesn’t shoot Lesser. He just bats him one and slaps his wife a couple of times and walks out. Now if this guy was watching from outside the building he’d know something had gone wrong. So he rings the bell of the first apartment and gets inside that way. Upstairs in her apartment he sees what’s happened. Now he might figure out right then that he could shoot Lesser and Olsen would get blamed. So, first of all, he needs a gun. He tears into the bedroom, rips open the drawers until he finds Olsen’s gun. Then he shoots Lesser and goes out the back of the building. No one sees him, so Olsen gets blamed.”

“Maybe you’ve got something,” I said. My voice sounded a little funny because my throat was dry. I took a swallow from my drink but it didn’t help the dryness any.

Harrigan had the whole thing doped out, except for one thing. He was figuring someone had tried to get rid of Lesser. Once he ran that down and got nowhere he might start looking at it from another angle.

“It’s worth checking,” he said. “Do you know anybody who might want Lesser out of the way?”

“I didn’t know him that well.”

“When did you have lunch with him?”

“Last Friday.”

“I see. Now what time did you get downtown Sunday night?”

That stopped me for a minute. I knew the answer to that, but I didn’t like the way he hopped around from one thing to another. There didn’t seem to be any sense in it, but I knew there was a reason.

“Around eight-thirty, I guess,” I said.

“You left him at eight-twenty at sixty hundred north. You made good time if you got here at eight-thirty,”

“I guess I drove pretty fast,” I said. I grinned. “Are you going to give me a ticket?”

“I might shake you down for a few bucks some time when I’m hard up,” he grinned. He kept grinning and said, “Have you got any way to prove you got down here at eight-thirty, Johnny?”

I kept my smile but my mouth felt stretched and tight.

“Are you kidding?” I said.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “I just want some way to check the time table.”

“Well, I’m telling you I got here at eight-thirty. Isn’t that good enough?”

“Not for a murder case, Johnny.”

“That’s great,” I said. “If you think I’m lying why don’t you come right out and say so. I can prove what time I got here but you can go to hell.”

He gave me a puzzled look which was what I wanted. I wanted to bring in my alibi now but I wanted to do it my way. “That’s just fine,” I said. I got up and walked up and down the room a couple of times.

“I don’t know why you’re blowing your top,” he said. “I just want one thing. If you can prove you were here at eight-thirty you must have left him by eight-twenty. That’s all I want.”

“Won’t you take my word for it?”

“That’s no good, Johnny, and you know it.”

“So you’ll subpeona me and make me talk. Sure you will. You don’t care how it’s going to embarrass someone else if I talk.”

“Johnny, I never knew you got embarrassed so easy,” he said.

“I’m not talking about me,” I said. I went over and picked up the phone and called the restaurant. “You’ll get your proof,” I said.

When the manager answered I asked for the blonde. She got on the phone about a minute later.

“Honey, this is Johnny. Can you come up here for a minute?”

“What? Johnny, I’m working. I got three tables waiting for me.”

“It’s important.”

“Well... all right.”

I hung up and Harrigan was watching me with a puzzled look.

“I don’t get all this,” he said.

“Maybe you’ll see in a minute.”

He shrugged and lit a cigarette. We didn’t say anything. I tried to keep up the act but I was scared. She was pretty drunk that night and if she didn’t remember that telephone call and the business about the time it could cause trouble.

Finally there was a light knock on the door. I opened up and she was standing there with a coat on over the uniform and I noticed she was wearing the ring. That was good.

“What is it, Johnny?” she said. She looked nervous and a little scared.

“Come on in. I want you to talk to a guy here.”

She came in and I shut the door. Harrigan stood up and she looked at him uncertainly. I said, “Honey, this is a guy named Harrigan. He’s a copper. He wants to ask you a few questions. Take a seat. He won’t bite.” I looked at Harrigan. “This is Marie Walonski.”

He nodded at her and she sort of jerked her head in his direction and she sat down and began smoothing the skirt over her knees.

Harrigan sat down and picked up his glass again and said, “Marie, this isn’t official. There’s nothing to be worried about. I’m not sure myself why Johnny asked you to come here, but I gather you were with him Sunday night. Is that right?”

She looked quickly at me, but I kept my eyes down on my drink. She had to do this on her own or it wouldn’t mean a damn thing.

She looked back at him and nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s right.”

“What time?”

“I... I don’t know for sure.” She looked at me helplessly. “What time was it, Johnny?”

My throat felt choked and dry. I felt like hitting her. Stupid, drunken half-wit.

“How about a guess,” Harrigan said. “Was it after nine o’clock?”

She frowned and looked down at the floor. Harrigan was squinting at her through the smoke of his cigarette. I took a long slow breath and the room was very quiet.

Suddenly her face cleared and she looked at him with a relieved smile. “Wait a minute. I remember now. We had an argument about the time when he got back. I guess I was mad because he’d been gone so long. He called the switchboard and asked the girl the time. She said it was eight-thirty.”

“You heard her say that?”

“Yes.”

“I thought Johnny made the call.”

“He did, but he held the phone over so I could hear it, too.”

“I see,” Harrigan said. He was quiet a little while, looking at his drink, and then he sighed and pushed the hair back from his forehead. “That clears up a couple of angles.” He smiled at her. “That’s all I wanted to know, Marie. Thanks.”

She looked at me. “I got to get back to work, Johnny.”

I went to the door with her. “Thanks, honey. I’ll pick you up tonight about eight o’clock. I’ll explain all this to you then.”

“Okay, Johnny.”

She went out and I got busy fixing two more drinks. I felt fine. The tightness was gone.

Harrigan said, “What were you so excited about bringing her up here for, Johnny?”

I grinned. “Didn’t you notice that rock she was wearing?”

“Oh. That way, eh? She seems like a nice kid. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. She is a nice kid. I didn’t want her to think I was mixed up with the cops. And I didn’t like the idea of anybody knowing she was up here in my room at night.”

He grinned. “You have changed. But I still can’t see you as the pipe smoking husband. How long have you been engaged?”

“I got her the ring just a few days ago. But I’ve known her for a long time.”

He finished his drink in one long swallow and got to his feet. “Well, I hope it works out all right.” He went to the door, then turned back. “Johnny, you knew Olsen’s wife and you knew Lesser. She insists they were just friends. What do you think?”

I shrugged. “How would I know. They were grown people, just like you see walking around the streets every day. He was up in her apartment. They were having a couple of drinks. Do you think they were getting ready to play rummy?”

“I guess not. Well, take it easy, Johnny.”

He waved at me and went out the door.