Corpse on the Grill

Chapter Five Pedley Looks at Death

She didn’t move. “Listen, Mister Wise. You don’t want to make me go to Herb’s. What have I got to do with it?”

“You’re in it already, babe. Climb into your clothes and make it fast!”

She stared wildly at him, ran into the bedroom, slammed the door.

She came out in five minutes, pert and trim in black skirt and scarlet sport jacket. She didn’t seem to want to talk. They went downstairs, climbed into his car.

On the way over to Krass, she said, dully: “You can horse me around all you want to, but I wish you’d leave Jimmy alone. He hasn’t done anything!”

The Marshal grunted. “He wouldn’t be the guy who sliced a steak off your husband’s body and cooked it on that charcoal grill then.”

She whimpered as if Pedley had struck her; he’d wanted to jolt the truth out of her, at that. “I wouldn’t believe it,” she cried, “if I hadn’t told Herb about Gregory threatening to expose us — Herb and me — unless he got a wad of money.”

“What’d Krass say?”

“Herb said that if my husband tried blackmail,” she shuddered, “after abusing me for years, he’d carve Greg up and serve him to me... on toast.”

They pulled up in front of a half-timbered double house; Herbert R. Krass occupied one wing. He was home; he let them in. He was a tall, gaunt-framed man with iron-gray hair and steel-gray eyes; there was apprehension in those eyes.

He wasn’t surprised to see the Marshal, but Suzie’s presence startled Krass.

“I heard about it, Suz.”

“You did?”

“Yuh. Guy phoned here about five minutes ago. For you,” he scowled at Pedley. “From a hospital. Said his name was Jewett.” He handed the Marshal a slip with a ward number on it. The detective got on the phone, while Suzie and Krass whispered together in the living-room.

Jewett answered in a voice thick with pain and rage. There’d been an accident on the way to the hospital. That rat, Yalb, had started a fight in the cab; a window had been smashed back of the driver’s head and the glass had cut the taximan, making him run into a parked truck. In the confusion, Yalb had got clean away. The fireman had notified the police. He, himself, had a broken collar-bone. Biddonay had gone to the hospital with him; Jewett was ready to go up to the operating room to have the setting...

Pedley frowned; this whole case stank to Heaven. Things kept slipping out of his fingers: Donnelly dead; Jewett hurt; Yalb taking a powder! One thing was sure: the next lead Pedley got his hands on, he wouldn’t let go of!

He had hold of Krass, now. He put the fat man’s partner over the jumps. Krass had no alibi; he’d been in New York from the time he left the Ice-taurant until an hour ago. Where? In the lobby of one of the off-Broadway hotels. No, he hadn’t talked to anyone; he’d gone there to meet this Gorilla Greg. Why? Because the wrestler had phoned to him and said that unless he came through with some important dough, Mrs. Krass would know all about Suzie’s little apartment. Well, Mrs. Krass knew the whole thing now, anyway. He’d made a clean breast of it; his wife was a good trouper who understood that a man can step over the line once in a lifetime without having it break up his home.

Mrs. Krass was there to back him up. She was a good looking woman with henna-dyed hair and a figure that might once have done for the front line of the chorus, but was now too buxom. She appealed to the Marshal:

“You’ve got to believe Herb. If he’d wanted to put anything over on the law, he could have said he’d been home here with me, ever since leaving the restaurant, don’t you see?”

Pedley said: “He might not have dared to, Mrs. Krass. If he’d established a phoney alibi like that and then someone showed up on the witness stand who’d happened to spot him on Broadway, or say over at West Fifty-first, it would be a one-way ticket to Sing-Sing sure.”

“What,” asked Krass, “is all this malarkey about Fifty-first Street?”

“Your cashier got himself murdered tonight, too. Sometime after the fire broke out. So you see,” the Marshal reached for his handcuffs, “I’ll have to take you along.”

Mrs. Krass buried her face in her hands, rushed sobbing from the room.

Suzie got between them, held onto Pedley’s arms. “You’re making a mistake, mister. Don’t arrest Herb. You’ll only get all this in the papers...”

The Fire Department’s chief investigator shoved her aside, gently. “That’ll be the least of it,” he agreed. “And the less fuss you make about it now—”

There was a whish of motion behind the Marshal; he ducked, but not in time to avoid a crashing blow from a heavy iron griddle swung by a frantic woman. Pain rocketed through his brain; he made a lunge for Krass, got hold of him.

The part owner of the Ice-taurant struck at Pedley savagely; Mrs. Krass smashed him again on the back of the neck with that lethal kitchen utensil. Somebody tripped him.

He fell heavily, keeping his grip on Krass and sending home one bone-crushing blow to his prisoner’s jaw. There wasn’t time to get out his gun; the Marshal felt another terrific, nerve-numbing blow on top of his head — and that was all he felt.

It was dark and damp and cold. Pedley’s whole body ached so that it was torture to move. When he did attempt it, he found his movements were tightly restricted. His right arm was strapped to his side with surgeon’s tape; his mouth had been plastered up with the same adhesive and his feet bound together. His left wrist was locked in one half of his own handcuffs; the other half of the bracelets had been snapped around a two-inch water-pipe running from floor to ceiling.

There was a cement floor under his feet and a rock wall at his back; he knew he was in the basement garage of the Krass house, even before he distinguished the low purr of the motor.

So that was the idea: the locked, unventilated garage; the running motor... Easy, painless death! And there wasn’t anything to do about it, except take it. Krass’ wife had begun that attack on him because she must have suspected her husband was guilty. Once they’d started it, Pedley supposed they could think of no alternative course than to put him out of the way. And yet...

He strained at his bonds. It was hopeless. There was no way of telling how long it would take for the CO to take effect. He had heard that the only warning you got was a splitting headache; but he had that already. And he couldn’t guess how long he’d been down here.

A drop splashed down on his face. It felt cool, refreshing. He looked up. Dimly, he could make out a faucet in a T joint on the riser above his head. Water! If he could get that faucet open, there might still be the slimmest chance.

He slid his handcuffed hand up the pipe, stood on tiptoe. He could just touch the lower rim of the faucet wheel. It was rusted! It stuck! It took him an eternity to force it open enough to permit a slow trickle down on him.

Pedley shifted so the water would drip on the tape at his right side. He squirmed and wriggled with every ounce of effort he could command. At first he thought it would be useless, but gradually the adhesive began to give.