Blow Hot, Blow Cold

10

As a suspect, Lieutenant Masters liked Dr. Jack Richmond best. In the first place, the handsome doctor’s opportunity seemed — well, most opportune. In the second place, he was exactly the matinee-idol type that, psychically speaking, gave off the aroma of motive. In the third place, as a physician, he was in an ideal position to administer a fatal drug. Under the pretext of being concerned about his neighbor’s welfare, he could have gone to Larry Connor’s office, perhaps on his way to the hospital, and administered a “sedative” that Larry, upset by his conflict with Lila, would have taken without hesitation. Of course, a doctor would hardly prescribe chloral hydrate; on the other hand, a doctor bent on murder would use exactly the sort of drug that wouldn’t be expected of a doctor. At any rate, it would be interesting and possibly informative to check into Dr. Richmond’s purported hospital call; and Masters set out to do just that.

It was, of course, the wrong time. No one on duty in the hospital had been there in the early hours of the morning. All Masters could do was to check at the desk in Maternity to see if Dr. Richmond had reported in and out, which he had: in at 1:20 A.M., out at 3:30 A.M. A perfect alibi if it held up. Plenty of free time for a couple of murders if it didn’t. Or, more likely, one murder. He would not have pressed his luck, Masters reasoned. If his theory of the air-conditioners was in order, Richmond would have murdered Larry Connor first. Later, some time after 3:30, he would have got around to Lila. What Masters really wanted was the name and address of the nurse who had been on duty in the ward during the night-to-morning shift. Without committing himself excessively to the truth, he managed to get both from the desk. The nurse’s name was Agnes Morrow. Her address was a small apartment building a few blocks from the hospital.

Masters parked at the curb about fifty feet down the block from the apartment house. By his watch it was after one o’clock — past his lunch time, but Masters was not hungry; besides, he was as usual on a diet. Assuming that Nurse Morrow, off duty at 7:00 A.M., had sacked up by 8:00, she had been sleeping for over five hours. Five hours’ sleep was enough for Masters, who did not sleep well, but it probably wasn’t for Agnes Morrow, who probably did. He decided to take a chance nevertheless, and he got out of the car. In the lobby directory he located Agnes Morrow’s apartment number and went up and rang her bell.

He was in luck. Nurse Morrow was up, though not dressed. That is, she was in pajamas and a terry-cloth robe. Masters, however, was not stimulated by the proximity of this intimate attire. Agnes Morrow had maintained a single estate for over forty years and gave the depressing impression of having maintained her chastity through every day of them. Lean-and-going-gray-and-no-nonsense-about-her. She looked as if she would speak tersely and directly, just shy of barking; he was right.

“Yes?”

“Miss Agnes Morrow?”

“That’s right.”

“My name is Masters. Lieutenant. Police. I’d like to talk to you. Confidential matter.” The terseness and directness of his own speech was an automatic reaction to hers. Masters had the flexibility of a chameleon, or an actor; it was one of his assets in his work.

“Come in.”

Masters sat on the edge of a gray sofa while Miss Morrow claimed an uncomfortable high-backed armchair. She sat with her back parallel to, but not touching, the back of the chair; and she gripped the arms as if prepared to jump to her feet at the first threat to her virginity.

“I was told at the hospital,” Masters said, “that you’ve been working the eleven P.M. to seven A.M. shift.”

“I have.”

“You were on duty as usual on the night of Saturday-Sunday just past?”

“Of course. I haven’t missed a tour of duty for fifteen years.”

“You had, I believe, an obstetrics case during that night?”

“We had two OB’s.”

“I’m referring to the one in which Dr. Jack Richmond was the attending physician.”

“Oh, yes. Labor was slower than seemed indicated when Dr. Richmond was called. He had to wait around in the hospital about two hours.”

“He was there two hours and ten minutes, according to the desk.”

“I didn’t hold a watch on him.”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. Are you sure Dr. Richmond was there all the time?”

“Certainly.”

“Did you have him constantly under observation?”

“Of course not. I’m far too busy to watch anyone constantly.”

“But you said you were sure he was there all the time.”

“I said I was sure. I didn’t say I could prove it. When Dr. Richmond saw he had to wait for the birth, he asked if there was a bed available so he could lie down. There was an empty private room at the end of the hall, and I saw him go into it. He was there an hour or so later when I went to get him. There is absolutely no reason for me to think he left the room in the interim.”

“He went directly to the room when you told him it was available?”

“First he called his wife and told her he would be delayed at the hospital. Then he went to the room.”

“You say the private room is at the end of the hall. Is there a stairway at that end?”

“That is correct.”

“Does the stairway go down to an outside exit?”

“Yes. The door is locked at night, but it can be opened from inside.”

“Can the lock be set so the door will open from the outside?”

“Not without a key.”

But, thought Masters, it could be left ajar. A stick, a folded piece of paper — anything inserted between door and jamb — would do the trick.

“So Dr. Richmond wasn’t seen between the time he entered the room and the time you notified him his patient was ready?”

“I didn’t actually see him, no.”

“Did anyone else on duty?”

“I have no idea. See here,” snapped Nurse Morrow. “Why are you asking me all these questions about Dr. Richmond? I don’t make it a practice to discuss doctors.”

“Of course you don’t,” said Masters soothingly. “But this is a police matter, Miss Morrow—”

“What police matter? I have a right to know why I’m being questioned!”

“The evening paper should tell you all about it. Two deaths are involved, at least one of which is a murder, and it’s my job to check out people who knew the deceased. Dr. Richmond was one of their friends — there are no professional considerations involved at all.” Masters smiled. “All right, Miss Morrow?”

The nurse said slowly, “I see.”

“Then could I ask you to inquire around among the other personnel on duty that night — I mean about whether Dr. Richmond was seen leaving that private room at any time between his entering it and your summoning him to his patient?”

She was silent. Then she said, “All right, Lieutenant Masters.” She rose. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“Thanks. Let me know if you turn up anything.”

Masters left quickly. A tough cookie, he thought. Naturally close-mouthed about the affairs of the doctors she had to work with, but undoubtedly conscientious and with a rigid code that would cut, when necessary, across professional lines. He had no doubt that she would report to him if she discovered anything.

He drove over to headquarters, where he went to his desk. The coroner’s report, relayed from the coroner’s physician who had performed the autopsies, placed the time of Lila Connor’s death between, roughly, midnight Saturday and 3:00 A.M. Sunday. Larry Connor’s death was estimated to have occurred considerably later, between 5:00 and 8:00 A.M. Sunday. It gave a picture of a wife-killer having trouble making up his mind to take his own life, too. Had he actually, after stabbing Lila, sat alone in his office for so long, trying to nerve himself to committing suicide — regretting, perhaps, the shambles of his life? It was possible. A man about to kill himself is not necessarily in a hurry to get it done.

Masters wondered if he weren’t flogging a dead man. After all, it had seemed a virtual certainty from the beginning that Larry Connor had killed his wife and then himself. All the circumstantial evidence pointed to it; now it had strong support in the post-mortems. On the other hand, what did he, Masters, have to pit against it? The thinnest kind of theorizing, without a fact to bolster it. Two turned-off air-conditioners. A missing back-door key — that may have been lost or mislaid or could otherwise be accounted for. A cerebral leap in the dark made him wonder if someone might not have killed Larry Connor in his office and then slipped over to the Connor house with Larry’s key to kill Lila Connor.

Masters sat at his desk and sucked his thumb, staring into cerebral space.

For someone to have so manipulated conditions as to produce the medical finding that Larry Connor had died appreciably later than Lila Connor — when, according to Masters’s theory, he had actually died before — it would have been necessary, ideally, for the manipulator to do two things: He had secretly to speed up the process of organic decay in Lila’s corpse and slow it down in Larry’s. To accelerate decomposition in the wife’s body meant turning off the air-conditioning in the Connor house; to retard decomposition in the husband’s body meant turning the air-conditioning on in his office. But for the deception to be completely successful, the killer had to do two subsequent things: Return to the Connor house and turn the house air-conditioning back on, so that when Lila’s body was found it would be assumed that the air-conditioner had been on uninterruptedly from the moment of death; and return to Larry Connor’s office and turn the office air-conditioner off, so that when Connor’s body was found it would be assumed that the air-conditioning had been off uninterruptedly from the moment of death.

With such false assumptions the medical conclusions were bound to be false. The far more advanced decomposition of Lila’s body must produce the finding that Lila had been dead a longer time than was actually the case; the less advanced decomposition of Larry’s body must produce the finding that Larry had been dead a shorter time than was actually the case.

That is, thought Masters wryly, if I’m not pipe dreaming.

Even the pipe dream, he thought, had a serious hole in it. For the fact was, the killer had not returned to the Connor house, long after killing Lila, to turn the house air-conditioner back on, even though — assuming there was any validity to the theory at all — he had returned to the Connor office to turn the office air-conditioner off.

Did the failure to get back into the Connor house invalidate the theory? Not necessarily. The fact was, even with the house air-conditioner known to have been off since the time of Lila’s death, the medical finding placed her death first; in other words, as it turned out, the deception was successful merely through the manipulation of the office air-conditioner and its effect in retarding the decomposition of Larry’s body. It may well have been, Masters thought, that the killer found no opportunity to get back into the Connor house to turn the air-conditioner on. The houses were fairly well clustered together; the immediate neighbors were all friends; going back without being seen entering or leaving may simply have been too dangerous. The situation was different in the case of the Connor office; it was in the business district, the day was a Sunday when all offices and stores were closed, and entry to the Connor office could be gained through the entirely unobserved alley door at the rear.

Masters felt his head to steady it. How had he got himself into this thought-maze?

Another logical question: If the killer had to return to Larry Connor’s office to turn off the air-conditioner, why at the same time hadn’t he restored to Larry’s key-case the key to the back door of the Connor residence, which he had had to borrow at the time he killed Larry in order to get into the Connor house and kill Lila? The fact was, the killer had not restored the key to Larry’s key-case on his return visit to the office. Did this fact invalidate the whole theory?

Not necessarily again. Perhaps it had simply slipped the killer’s mind in the extreme tension of his murderous activities. Or it had not occurred to him that the local police, with their relative inexperience of murder cases, would notice that the key was missing — or, if they did notice, would attach any significance to it.

And also, maybe the country cop would be just observant and smart enough to make a horse’s patoot out of himself!

Masters sighed and shut his eyes and rocked back in his swivel-chair. To quit or go ahead, that was the question.

He began to review the case in his mind. In the chronological order of the review, he was standing again in Larry Connor’s office, having just entered it, and he was seeing Larry Connor stretched out on the sofa, right hand trailing on the floor. There for some reason the scene became fixed, like a stopped film. Masters continued to study it.

After a long time he reached for the report he had found on his desk early that morning. He read it again, carefully.

“Oh!” he said. “Oh, by God!”

From his desk drawer he took a telephone directory and frantically searched for a number.