Shield for Murder

15

The man whose room had been broken into was about twenty-five, with thinning blond hair and a habit of smiling nervously as he talked.

Nolan glanced around the bedroom, then took out his notebook and asked a few questions. Fred Dawes worked as a short-order cook, and his money had been hidden away in the bottom of the bureau drawer.

“Okay, Fred,” Nolan said. “Where do you do your drinking?”

Fred Dawes smiled, rubbed his cheek. “I don’t do much of that, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, somebody knew about the money. This wasn’t a lucky hit. Somebody heard you talking about it, probably. If it wasn’t a taproom, how about at work?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I do stop by a taproom at Maple and Eleventh. A fellow by the name of Joe tends bar there. I play darts and have a few beers there payday.” Fred Dawes smiled as he talked, as if ready to say it was all a joke if anyone questioned his story.

“We’ll check Joe’s place then,” Nolan said.

Fred Dawes rubbed his cheek and smiled at the floor. “Well, I wouldn’t like you to tell the boys there about it, as a matter of fact. They’re a nice bunch, friends of mine, you see, and it’s about the only spot I’ve got to kill time in, if you know what I mean.” The smile widened. “You know how a guy gets attached to the place he hangs at, I suppose.”

“You’re afraid the boys at Joe’s won’t love you any more if you point out one of them as a thief, eh?”

“Well, no. Not exactly.”

“Damn it, do you want your money back or not?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Okay. Next time you get some, put it in a bank.”

Nolan glanced sourly at the ripped wood near the knob of the door, and then walked down the street toward the intersection of Crab Street and Ellens Lane.

August Sternmueller opened the door to his gentle knock.

“Ah, come in,” August said. “I hardly expected you so soon.”

“Well, this is a pretty serious matter.”

He glanced about the neat, comfortably furnished living room and tossed his hat into a chair. “Supposing you tell me all about it, now.”

“Certainly.” August’s manner was solemn. He knew he was doing his duty and that assurance gave him a solid dignity. “Come here, please. To the windows.”

Nolan walked across the room and August pulled aside the curtains and pointed into the street.

“You see? I had a perfect view of what really happened that night.”

“Yeah, a box seat,” Nolan said quietly.

He moved slowly to the windows and stared into Ellens Lane. He could see the spot where Dave Fiest had hit the ground, all right. Frowning, he let the curtain fall back in place. He had wanted to check this one point to make sure the old Kraut wasn’t imagining things. Obviously he wasn’t; and that more or less made up Nolan’s mind.

The other fact that helped him reach a decision was the arrangement of the rooming house. August’s front room opened on an enclosed stairway which led directly to the small foyer. A person could leave this apartment and go down to the street with little chance of being observed.

“I don’t know how the newspapers could have gotten their story so mixed up,” August said, looking solemnly at Nolan. “I saw what really happened so I know. Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think that murderer was no policeman at all. I think he impersonated a policeman to commit the murder.”

“That could be it,” Nolan said thoughtfully. “Tell me this: Could you identify the man who did the shooting?”

“No, I’m afraid I couldn’t,” August said, with an apologetic smile.

“Well, that doesn’t matter too much.”

August’s smile was in a more relaxed manner. He felt better now that he had done his duty and transferred his information to the capable hands of this detective.

“You got a nice place here,” Nolan said, glancing around.

“Thank you.”

“Do your own cooking?”

“Oh, yes, indeed. And my own marketing. I put in enough on Mondays to last me the whole week.” He chuckled. “You might be surprised at some of the things I make. Sauerbraten, Wiener Schnitzel and apple dumplings even. I take good care of my stomach.”

“Yeah?” Nolan smiled. “That’s a smart idea.”

He walked into the adjoining room which was lined with wooden filing cabinets. August was at his heels, a pleased little smile on his lips.

“This is where I keep my time-tables,” he said.

“Time-tables?”

“Yes, I collect them,” August said, somewhat defensively. So few people understood the pleasure he took in his hobby. “I have been collecting them for years. I have the schedules of every major line in the world, and from hundreds of tiny spur fines I dare say you’ve never heard of.”

“Well, well,” Nolan said.

“Would you like to look at some of my very early ones?” August said, eagerly.

“Some other time. The kitchen’s right through here, eh?”

“Yes.” August pushed open a swinging door and preceded Nolan into a small immaculate kitchen. Nolan glanced about, noting the gas stove and its capacious oven.

“A very nice set-up,” he said, taking the cigar from his mouth.

August faced him smilingly, pleased by the detective’s unexpected interest in his home. “Yes, I’ve worked hard all my life, and now I enjoy myself, eh? That is the way it should be. The old people should have their little comforts. It keeps them out of the way of the young,” he said, and laughed at his own humor.

“And that’s where you keep the pots and pans, eh?” Nolan said, looking over the old man’s shoulder.

August turned around, nodding. “Yes, I built that cupboard myself.”

“Well, you’re damn smart,” Nolan said, and raised his arm.

Those were the last words August Sternmueller ever heard.

Nolan was back at the Division by seven-thirty. He walked around the counter and stopped at Odell’s desk. “This fellow Dawes hangs out at a place at Eleventh and Maple. My guess is he got drunk there and talked about his money and where it was stashed away. Supposing I check around over there and see what I can find out.”

Odell grunted without much interest. “Think it’ll do any good?”

“Hell, no,” Lindfors said, from across the room. He was sitting with his feet propped up on a desk. “In a case like that, it could have been fifty guys.”

Odell answered the phone, switched the call into the Lieutenant’s office. “You might take a look over there anyway,” he said to Nolan. “Although it probably won’t do any good. I know the guy who runs the place. His name is Joe Empiro. Tell him I don’t want his joint getting a bad name. He’s all right. He’ll work with you.”

“Okay,” Nolan said.

He sat down and took off his hat, feeling hot and sticky, but otherwise just fine. He was calm and relaxed. Now, he thought idly, almost lazily, I’m running the show. He wasn’t standing around on the outside waiting for a nod from someone, waiting for the break, waiting for something to fall into his lap. Irrelevantly, he thought of Petey Felickson, his old ward boss. Petey had yapped at him in those old days, treated him like a dog, a hungry dog. That was Dave Fiest’s pitch, too. Have a drink, Barny? Come on, have a shot. Go ahead, take a bone, you slob. They were all so damn smart.

Nolan leaned back in his chair. A wind was coming in through the windows now and the room was cooler. He lit a cigar and smiled slightly.

The door opened a while later and Mark Brewster walked in. He rested his elbows on the counter and nodded to Odell and Lindfors. “Anything doing?” he asked.

This was about the time for his regular check of the Division, Nolan knew, but nevertheless his presence struck him as suspicious.

“No, Mark, not a thing,” Odell said. He hesitated uncomfortably, glanced at Nolan, then at the reporter. “Come on in and sit down, Mark,” he said.

“Thanks, Sarge.”

Brewster sauntered around the counter and leaned against it, with his arms folded.

“Did you hear about Hymie Solstein and Laddy?” he asked.

Odell grinned. “Yeah, Gianfaldo told me about it.”

Nolan glanced up at the reporter. This was the first time he’d seen Brewster since the time he’d come out of Linda’s apartment, and he’d run him down with his car. Brewster was limping slightly, Nolan noticed; but other than that he seemed in good shape.

Something about the reporter made Nolan uneasy. He watched Brewster’s lean face as he chatted with Odell, wondering if he’d meant anything in particular with the crack about Hymie and Laddy. That was what he didn’t like about the reporter. He kept dropping comments that sounded significant at first, but when you pinned them down you found they didn’t mean anything after all. Or they didn’t seem to.

The phone on Odell’s desk buzzed. He picked it up, said, “Yeah, yeah,” and reached for a pencil. He listened a moment, writing occasionally. Then he said: “Okay, lady, we’ll send someone right over.”

“Lindy, take this one,” he said, putting the phone down. “Some guy stuck his head in the oven and turned on the gas. That was his landlady.”

“What’s the address?” Lindfors said.

“216 Crab Street. Fellow by the name of Sternmueller. Old guy, I guess.”

“Is he dead?” Nolan asked.

“The landlady smelled gas and went upstairs and found him in the oven,” Odell said, handing the slip of paper to Lindfors.

Nolan stood up suddenly, glaring at Odell. “I asked you if he was dead,” he said in a hard tight voice.

Odell looked at him with a frown. “Yeah, he’s dead. What the hell do you care?”

Nolan sat down, anger surging through him. “I don’t care,” he said.

Mark Brewster was watching him, he knew. He could feel the reporter’s eyes on him, sense his thoughts. Turning his head swiftly, he stared at Brewster, but the reporter wasn’t looking at him; he was gazing at the ceiling, a faint smile on his lips.

Lindfors walked over to Mark and said: “You want this one?”

“216 Crab Street. That’s at Ellens Lane, isn’t it?” Mark said.

“Yeah, that’s about where it comes in.”

“Well, it’s probably worth a paragraph,” Mark said.

“Come on then. I’ll run you over.”

“Okay.”

When Lindfors and the reporter left, Nolan strolled over to the window and stared into the street. He watched the traffic passing by under him, and the cluster of Negroes who were standing about in front of the cigar store opposite the station. They were waiting to get the day’s winning number from the first edition of the morning paper.

The number was determined by the arrangement of the win, place and show figures of the first race at a nearby track, and everyone at the cigar store was convinced that tonight his lucky number was going to hit.

Nolan thought about them as he puffed slowly on his cigar. They were the suckers who took down numbers from street car transfers, from grocery receipts, from combinations of their wives’ birthdays and their army serial numbers, hoping to find eventually the system to beat the numbers bankers.

They were the slobs, he thought with pleasure.

He had been in that class until this week. Waiting for the breaks, praying for some accidents, some lucky development that would make everything bright and rosy. But that break never came, he knew. All you got for standing around was a push in the face. You had to take life into your hands and make it give you the breaks, the way the big shots did. That was what he’d done. Dave Fiest, Espizito, that little slug, Sternmueller, they’d learned the hard way that Barny Nolan wasn’t a slob.

He wondered about Sternmueller. Pious, sneaky little bastard, collecting time-tables and peeking out his windows in the middle of the night. Probably hoping to catch some young kids necking. Nolan knew his type. Snooping do-gooder. Turning from the window he drew a deep breath, filling his lungs to the utmost. He felt then that he knew all about everybody in the world.

Suddenly he had to see Linda. She had done all this for him, he thought. Together, they were bigger than anything in the world.

“Sarge, I’ll run over and see Joe Empiro now,” he said. “Maybe I’ll grab a bite while I’m out.”

“Okay. Don’t forget to tell Joe I don’t want his place getting a bad name.”

“I’ll tell him.” He put on his hat and walked out.

Miss Elmira Taylor, age fifty-six, had never known such an evening in her fife. Finding poor Mr. Sternmueller like that was enough to make a body doubt the ways of Providence.

She stood in the middle of his living room, trembling with importance and excitement, and related the harrowing details to the two men from the Police Department.

“I had just come from church, you see, and was fixing a bite for my niece, Mary, and I said to her, ‘Well, Mary, summer brings all kinds of smells with it, don’t it?’ because I had noticed this funny smell in the hallway—”

“Yeah, then you came upstairs,” Lindfors said, interrupting her with finality. “Was his door open?”

“Yes, it was. I went in and right away I smelled the gas stronger. I tell you I nearly fainted. I ran into the kitchen and there was the poor soul lying there with his head in the oven.”

“Well, people do things like that,” Lindfors said, with a philosophical shake of his head. “Was he sick or anything?”

“No, no. Mr. Sternmueller was the most cheerful man I think I ever knew. He was such a sweet person.” She put a handkerchief to her red eyes. “Full of fun and little jokes all the day long.”

Mark put his notebook away and strolled to the front windows. He pulled the curtains aside, and glanced down into the street; and a tiny frown gathered over his eyes. These windows, he realized, overlooked the spot where Dave Fiest had been killed. That didn’t mean anything necessarily but he found the coincidence thought-provoking.

Lindfors had gone into the kitchen. Mark returned to the dining room and glanced at the cabinets that were built against the walls.

“He collected time-tables,” Miss Elmira said. “From all over the world. He had thousands of them right here in this room. It was all he cared about.”

Mark picked up a few letters from a desk and looked through them. They were from various parts of the world, England, Sweden, Africa, and related to time-tables received, dispatched, discovered or desired. Time-tables were a big thing, he decided.

He stepped into the kitchen where Lindfors was on his knees beside Sternmueller’s huddled body.

“This character was in the Division this afternoon,” Lindfors said. “I remember him now. He lost a blanket from his car.”

“That’s no reason to commit suicide,” Mark said.

The coincidences were piling up in a curious fashion, he was thinking.

“Did you take care of him?” he asked Lindfors.

“No, Nolan did.” Lindfors bent over the body, humming under his breath. “See, he must have rolled over and hit an edge of the stove when he passed out.” He pointed to a faint discoloration along the old man’s jawline.

“He didn’t tell you about the blanket, then,” Mark said. “Nolan told you that the old man had lost a blanket.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Lindfors said. He got to his feet and dusted off the knees of his trousers. “I’ve got enough. The landlady tells me he’s got no relatives that she knows about. You ready to go?”

“No, I’ll stick around and see if I can pick up some background.”

“Okay.” Lindfors walked through the dining room, evaded Miss Elmira’s attempts to repeat the details of what had happened, and went out the front door.

Mark lit a cigarette and strolled into the living room. He sat on the edge of an arm chair and pushed his hat back on his forehead.

“You can’t think of any reason he’d kill himself?” he said to Miss Elmira.

“Oh, no. He was always so happy.”

“I see. Where did he keep his car?”

“Car? He didn’t have a car.”

Somehow Mark wasn’t surprised. He was tired and faintly bitter, but he wasn’t surprised. Everything fell inevitably into place. It was like a Greek tragedy, awesome, powerful but predictable. The plot just wasn’t any good.

“He didn’t have a car, eh?” Mark said. “Do you know if he was a sound sleeper?”

“Well, now that you mention it, he wasn’t. He napped in the afternoon, of course, and he used to say that kept him from sleeping at night. But I always say old folks don’t need so much sleep as the young.”

“That’s probably right,” Mark said. He glanced at the open windows, the curtains bellying slightly in the draft. “I’ll bet he sat over there where he could get a breath of air.”

“That’s right, so he did. He used to sit there and smoke his pipe at nights.”

“Thank you very much.”

“He was such a nice man,” Miss Elmira said, coming with him to the door. She began to weep. “He was such a nice little man.”

Mark patted her shoulder. “Yes, I’m sure he was,” he said quietly.

Sergeant Odell was alone when Mark came in ten minutes later.

“Is the Lieutenant in?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, sure. Did you get the suicide, all right?”

“Yes. Anything else doing?”

“No, everything’s quiet.”

“Fine.” Mark walked over and tapped on Ramussen’s door. Ramussen called out, “Come in.”

He was at his desk, glasses on, reading reports.

“Hello, Mark. What’s on your mind?”

Mark sat on the edge of his desk and said, “I’d like to talk about Nolan, Lieutenant.”

Something changed in Ramussen’s face. He removed his glasses and looked up at Mark with cold eyes. “I don’t want to hear about it, Mark. I was under the impression we understood each other on that subject.”

“Are you telling me you won’t listen?”

“I’m telling you that I’m running this Division and I don’t need your help.”

“Very well. Let me say just this much.” Mark lit a cigarette and tossed the match over his shoulder. “Reporters work pretty close to the Police Department here in Philly, and all over the country, I suppose. That’s okay on routine stuff, where it’s just a matter of taking names and addresses off forms. But occasionally something comes along where the private interests of the police and the reporter’s job of getting a story come into a conflict. Most reporters look the other way and play it the way the police want it played, because they’re liable to find themselves on the outside if they don’t.”

“So?” Ramussen said.

“So, this is to tell you I’m going after the story of Barny Nolan, with or without the Police Department. I’ve got a case against him, and if you don’t want it I’ll take it down to my managing editor. That’s not an attempt to scare you. I know you better than that. But neither is it a bluff. You know me better than that.”

Ramussen stared at him with cold bright eyes. Then, slowly, deliberately he put his glasses on and picked up a report.

“That’s it, eh?” Mark said.

“That’s it.”

“Okay.” Mark put his cigarette out in Ramussen’s ash-tray and walked to the door. He turned the knob and then glanced back at the Lieutenant.

Ramussen was watching him, frowning.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m a cop first. I’ll remember this a long time, but let’s have it. What’s your case against Nolan?”

Mark let the knob go and walked back to Ramussen’s desk. “First Nolan gave a friend of mine twenty-five thousand dollars to keep for him the day after he killed Dave Fiest. I’ve seen the money.”

Ramussen’s mouth was bitter. “Okay, Mark, who’s this friend?”

“A girl named Linda Wade. She’s a singer at the Simba and also a friend of Nolan’s.”

“I see. Nolan figured Espizito wouldn’t guess that he’d given the money to a dame.”

“She’s not a dame.”

“She’s anything I want to call her, get that?”

“Okay,” Mark said. “I don’t know what Nolan figured. I’m not a cop, so crooked angles don’t occur to me instinctively.”

Ramussen looked down at the blotter on his desk for a moment and then he shrugged. “You didn’t need to say that, Mark. Every citizen in town will be saying it when the story on Nolan breaks. They’ll say, ‘There’s a typical cop for you. A lousy thief.’ ”

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Mark said, and he was, genuinely sorry.

“Let’s get on with the case. What else have you got? The twenty-five thousand doesn’t prove anything but larceny.”

“You don’t think Nolan murdered Fiest for the money?”

“I believe evidence,” Ramussen said sharply. “If you’re so damn sure of yourself, why don’t you swear out a warrant and have him arrested.”

Mark lit another cigarette carefully. “You’re not mad at me, you’re mad at yourself, Lieutenant. Why don’t you forget for a second that sacred wall cops build around themselves? Let’s start with the amiable assumption that we’re all human and fallible, and work together from there. I think Nolan has committed two murders, attempted one other, and incidentally, beaten hell out of two of Espizito’s men. I can’t prove all of that yet, but with your help I can.”

Ramussen drummed his fingers on the top of the desk and looked away from Mark. “That sacred wall you talk about is pretty much a defensive measure. We’re considered the scum of the earth by a lot of law-abiding citizens, and we get sensitive about it.” He rubbed his forehead and said in a low bitter voice: “I knew what Nolan was up to. But I was waiting him out, hoping he’d hang himself. That’s my fault, I suppose. Uncritical loyalty. Well, let’s have it all. You said two murders and an attempt.”

“Okay, tonight a man named August Sternmueller apparently committed suicide. He lived at the intersection of Crab Street and Ellens Lane. Does that mean anything to you?”

“That’s where Dave Fiest was shot. Go on.”

“Okay, here’s the story.”