Anything But Saintly

Chapter 25

A lean, middle-aged man wearing denims, an undershirt and work shoes similar to Donald Tupper’s, came from a center hallway identical to the one in Doll’s apartment.

He said, “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Are you Eugene Snyder?” I inquired.

“Yes.”

“Your creep friend here just tried a little forced rape,” I told him. “I think maybe he tried the same thing yesterday.”

Snyder stared at his apartment-mate. “Forced rape?” he said in a shocked voice. Then he looked at me puzzledly. “When was this? We just walked in from work together a few minutes ago.”

“They got the wrong idea, Gene,” Tupper said aggrievedly. “I was just kidding around a little. Now this guy thinks I killed that girl yesterday. Tell him where I was all day.”

The man in the undershirt said, “Why, he was at work. We both work at Amhurst.”

“You sure he was at work all day? How do you know he didn’t sneak home for a while?”

“We work on machines right next to each other. We’re both on the seven A.M. to three trick. We leave together about six-twenty in the morning, drive to work in the same car, punch in and work side by side all day. We even have lunch together and eat out of the same lunch bucket. And when we punch out at three, we come home together.”

I said, “He wasn’t out of your sight all day yesterday?”

He shook his head. “Unless you count about five minutes during our half-hour lunch break, when he went to the John. It’s almost a half-hour drive from the plant to here, so he couldn’t of made it in that time.”

“You vouch for him being in your sight all the rest of the time? You weren’t away from your machine?”

He shook his head again. “Neither of us was away for a minute.”

I said, “The guy who killed the poor girl across the hall is a dangerous maniac. You wouldn’t cover for a guy like that just because he was a friend, would you?”

“I wouldn’t cover my own brother for a thing like that. But Don couldn’t possibly have done it. How come you’re asking all this, anyway? You a cop?”

With Doll standing in the doorway, I didn’t want to give a straight answer to that. I said, “You don’t have to be a cop to hate rapists.” I turned to Doll. “Want me to phone the cops and turn this creep in for attempted rape?”

She looked at Donald Tupper with distaste. “No. I don’t think he’ll bother me again, now that he’s met you. Will you, Casanova?”

Tupper avoided both her gaze and mine. “I didn’t mean nothing,” he muttered.

Eugene Snyder had sounded as though he were telling the truth, and I was pretty well convinced that Tupper could have had nothing to do with Kitty’s death. Nevertheless, under different circumstances I would have clamped handcuffs on the man and run him in for attempted rape, regardless of the girl’s desire. But I couldn’t very well do that without disclosing to Doll that I was a cop. The charge probably wouldn’t have held up anyway, since I hadn’t allowed him to get far enough to classify his assault as a rape attempt. His statement that he intended to lay her on the floor wasn’t sufficient evidence without actual physical aggression, and merely grabbing her around the waist wasn’t the type of aggression the courts classify as carnal assault. Since Doll had slapped him, he could justify grabbing her as self-defense against another expected slap.

I decided to settle for checking to see if he had a record and, if he didn’t, listing him in the sex-offender file so that he would be routinely picked up for questioning in future rape cases.

Walking over to him, I looked squarely into his red face. “Listen carefully, mister, so that you’ll understand the score. Don’t bother to bring Miss Fenner’s mail to her again. Don’t ever punch her doorbell again for any reason. If you meet her on the stairs, walk by without speaking or looking at her. If you ever so much as look at her sideways again, I’ll clean you like a fish. Got it?”

His gaze shifted to his shoes. “I got it,” he muttered.

Doing an about-face, I stalked to the door, took Doll’s elbow and steered her out. To add emphasis to my ultimatum, I let the door bang shut behind me.

Back in the other apartment Doll carefully closed and re-locked the door. “Wasn’t that something?” she said.

“Yeah. But I doubt that he bothers you again.”

“I’m sure he won’t. He’s so scared of you, he wouldn’t dare.” She studied me admiringly. “You can be pretty tough when you want to, can’t you?”

“It’s easy with a slob like that,” I said.

Stooping, I gathered up the mail strewn over the floor and handed it to her. Mechanically she began sorting through the envelopes.

“All for Kitty except one,” she said. “Ads and bills.”

She tossed everything but a plain, square white envelope on an end table and slit that open with a thumb nail. She drew out a card.

“Sympathy card,” she said, opening it. A bill fluttered to the floor.

Stooping, she picked it up and her eyes widened. “A five-hundred-dollar bill! I’ve never even seen one before.” She looked down at the card.

“Isn’t this odd?” she asked. “Listen to this. ‘Please apply this money to Kitty Desmond’s funeral expenses.’ It’s signed, ‘A friend of Kitty’s.’”

“Let me see that,” I said.

She handed me the card. It was a printed sympathy card such as you can buy in any drug store. The message was in ink, printed in even block letters.

I said, “Let me see that envelope.”

Doll gave it to me. It was postmarked four P.M. the day before and had been mailed in town.

“Do you suppose it came from one of Kitty’s Johns?” Doll asked.

I was frowning down at the card and envelope. “Why would a John want to help with her funeral expenses?”

“Who could it have come from, then?”

I said slowly, “You didn’t find her body until three P.M. This is postmarked at four, only an hour after its discovery, and long before the news was ever on the air.”

Doll stared at me.

I said, “It looks to me like conscience money. I think her killer sent it.”

Doll looked shocked. “Little Artie? Do you think he’d do that?”

“I don’t know. He might. I’m beginning to suspect he’s a little nuts. Mind if I keep this card?”

She shrugged. “If you want. But what for?”

“It’s evidence and I have a cop friend. I’ll turn it over to him.” I put the card back in its envelope and thrust the envelope into my inside breast pocket.

Doll smiled at me, then turned her back. “Shall we resume where we left off when we were interrupted? Untie me again.”

Before I could reach for the bow, the phone rang.

“Oh, hell,” she said in a harassed voice. “Is this going to go on all afternoon?”

Crossing to the corner where the phone sat on an end table, she picked it up and said, “Hello?”

Then she said, “Sergeant Rudd? You must have the wrong number.”

“That’s for me,” I said, moving to her and taking the phone from her hand. “Hello?” I said into the phone.

Carl Lincoln’s voice said, “You don’t seem to be very well-known around there.”

Doll said loudly, “What’s this sergeant stuff?”

“Hang on a minute,” I said into the phone. Putting my palm across the mouthpiece, I said, “National Guard business, honey.”

“Oh,” Doll said. “You’re a sergeant in the reserves?”

Giving her a noncommittal smile, I removed my hand from the mouthpiece. “Go ahead, Carl.”

“I thought you’d want to know this,” Lincoln said. “Some dope on Little Artie just came over the hot-shot speaker.”

“Yeah? What?”

“He showed back at his flat above the tavern. The place was staked out, of course, so the stakeout called in and got the place surrounded. Then they went in to arrest him, but he wasn’t having any. He put a slug in one cop’s leg and missed another by inches. He’s holed up in the flat shooting it out.”

“Wow!” I said. “He must have gone completely nuts.”

“Sure sounds like it.”

“I’m going over there,” I said.

“What for? The situation’s under control.”

“He’ll get himself shot, and I want him alive. If you need me, you can have communications contact me at the scene by radio. There’ll be plenty of radio cars there.”

“Okay,” Carl said. “You’re the boss.”

When I hung up, Doll was staring at me aggressively. “You’re no national guardsman,” she said. “You’re a cop.”

I smiled at her.

“How’d that guy get my number?” she demanded. “It’s unlisted.”

“We guardsmen have ways,” I told her.

“Sneaky ways,” she said. “And to think I was all ready to climb in bed with you!”

“You’ve changed your mind?”

She glared at me. “Just get out of my apartment, please, Mr. Policeman.”

“I’m going,” I said, and left.