Mink Is for a Minx [1st Annual Edition: The best from Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine]

The Marrow of Justice by Hal Ellson

The coffin was a plain one, finished in the shop of Carlos Martinez, without frills, stark naked wood of soft pine. Harsh sunlight splintered off it as the men carried it through the miserable street, treading its dust, stones, and the scattered fire of tangerine peels withering in the heat.

It was a day of flame but, in this land of perpetual sun, not unseasonable. No more than death. The poor in their shacks and crumbling adobes knew its ghastly visits all too frequently. Funerals were commonplace and all of a kind. A plain pine box for the deceased, four men to carry it and a small group of mourners following.

A vast crowd followed the coffin of Rosa Belmonte, the third young girl in the city to die by violation in a brief period of three months. Half-starved dogs with ribs showing, children, toddlers, and beggars amidst the crowd lent it a pseudo air of carnival that was diluted by the sombre faces of adults and a muffled silence under which anger awaited eruption.

The police felt it, a news photographer sighted it in his camera. Detective Fiala was aware of the same phenomenon, but unconcerned with the crowd as such. His eyes sought only one man — the murderer who, through guilt or morbid disposition, might be lurking here.

No face riveted his attention till Fiala noticed the limousine, with the crowd breaking round it and the Chief of Police, Jose Santiago. He was sitting beside his chauffeur, face bloated and dark, tinted glasses concealing incongruous blue eyes that resembled twin stones and reflected the basic nature of the man.

Without the uniform he might be the one I’m looking for, Fiala thought, turning away and moving on with the sullen crowd that refused to acknowledge the naked violence of the sun.

The funeral went off without incident, the police were relieved, Chief Santiago satisfied. His chauffeur returned him to the Municipal Building, the location of police headquarters.

As he entered his office with Captain Torres, the phone rang. He picked it up, listened, then dismissed Captain Torres with a wave of his hand. Frowning now, he spoke to his caller, Victor Quevedo, mayor of the city and the one who had “made” him. These two were friends of a sort, but the conversation that ensued between them now was strictly business.

The murder of Rosa Belmonte, with the killer not apprehended, as in both previous murders, had created grave criticism of the police that, in turn, reflected upon Quevedo, exposing him to the machinations of his political enemies. This was the gist of Quevedo’s complaint, along with his sharp demand that Santiago do something and do it fast.

“Do what?” said Santiago.

“Get the killer before midnight.”

Astounded, Santiago hesitated, stuttered inanely, and finally managed to say, “But Victor—”

Quevedo cut him off sharply. “I am being embarrassed politically and otherwise,” he snapped. “If you wish to continue as Chief of Police, find the killer. Don’t — and you’re finished.”

Sweating profusely, Santiago dropped the phone and sat back. Slowly with trembling hands he lit a cigarette and dispersed a cloud of smoke. His thoughts were in chaos, dark face swollen to bursting. Slowly the agitation within him receded. Behind his tinted glasses his cold eyes lit up as a face focused in his mind.

He crushed his cigarette, arose, opened the door, called Captain Torres into the office, and gave him his orders: “Pick up Manuel Domingo for the murder of Rosa Belmonte.”

Manuel Domingo’s criminal activities were long known to the police — but murder? Captain Torres raised his brows in surprise.

“Are you sure you have the right man?” he asked.

“Are you doubting me, or my source of information?” Santiago wanted to know, asserting both the authority of his office and intimating that the phone call he’d received was the “voice” of a reliable informer.

Captain Torres flushed and retreated to the door. From there he said, “I’ll pick up Manuel Domingo personally.”

At nine that evening, a black sky threatened the city and the lacy jacarandas stirred to a faint errant wind from the mountains where yellow lightning ignited the empty heavens. Behind the Municipal Building four bars faced the plaza, loud voices broke from each of them.

Saturday night was just beginning and musicians lolled on the plaza benches, barefoot boys shined shoes, hawked blood-red and dove-white roses on trays of cardboard, like every one else, forgetting Rosa Belmonte.

It was on this scene that Captain Torres arrived with three of his men after an intensive and fruitless search of all the usual haunts of the criminal Manuel Domingo.

Captain Torres was convinced that Domingo had fled the city when chance directed his eyes to a bench where two shoeshine boys vied for the privilege of doing the shoes of Detective Fiala.

Granting them each a shoe, Fiala, who was short and soft-fleshed, with the pallid complexion of a priest, looked up to see the strapping, youthful Captain Torres and his three men confronting him.

The latter were innocuous fellows, Captain Torres an arrogant whelp, but hardly that now. He needed help and Fiala, whom he despised and who despised him, might provide the information he needed so badly.

“I am looking for Manuel Domingo,” Torres announced. “Perhaps you happen to know his whereabouts?”

With a derisive smile, Fiala nodded toward a bar directly across the street. “Manuel Domingo is in there. You’re picking him up?”

“For the murder of Rosa Belmonte,” Captain Torres replied and turned on his heels.

Fiala sat where he was. A half minute later Manuel Domingo came through the door of the bar across the street accompanied by Captain Torres and his three men. All five passed through the plaza and entered police headquarters.

Fiala, who had gone off duty early that day, lit a cigarette and shook his head. No matter what, Manuel Domingo’s fate was sealed, the murder solved. Tomorrow the newspapers would be full of it.

In disgust, Fiala flicked his cigarette to the gutter and noticed the group of men who’d come from the bar across the street. Anger echoed in their voices; word spread quickly round the plaza: Manuel Domingo had been picked up for the murder of Rosa Belmonte. Manuel Domingo—

Under the black angry sky a crowd began to converge on police headquarters, but too late to give vent to its feelings, for the brief interrogation of Manuel Domingo was already completed. Guarded by police, he stepped to the sidewalk and was quickly ushered into a waiting car.

Into a second car stepped Chief of Police Santiago and Captain Torres. With an escort of ten motorcycle policemen, both cars roared off toward the scene of the crime, a spot in the desert several miles from the outskirts of the city.

The cavalcade soon reached it, the glaring lights of cars and motorcycles focused on a tall yucca beside the road. At its foot Luis Espina, a gatherer of fibre obtained from a small spiny desert plant, had discovered the body of Rosa Belmonte.

As Manuel Domingo stepped from the car, his face took on a ghastly hue, perhaps because of the lights, perhaps out of fear now that he was at the scene of the crime. Whatever he felt, he said nothing; he appeared dazed.

A sharp command from Captain Torres sent the policemen into a wide semi-circle, with guns drawn to prevent an attempted escape. That done, Captain Torres walked to the edge of the road with Santiago and Manuel Domingo. There, on orders, he took up position, while the prisoner and Santiago proceeded to the foot of the yucca.

Once there, Manuel Domingo stopped and stood like a soldier ordered to attention. Headlights impaled him in a glaring cross fire. A sheer wall of black enveloped this luminous area. Now the brief interrogation that Santiago had conducted at headquarters continued. He was seen to gesture; his voice in an unintelligible murmur carried only to Captain Torres.

Manuel Domingo turned, spoke for the first time since stepping into the car. He was frightened, the terrible black sky threatened, he did not trust Santiago.

“Get me out of this,” he said, “or else—”

“Quiet, you fool. This is routine. You’ve been accused.”

“Who accuses me? Name him.”

“Shut up and listen.”

Manuel Domingo came to attention again. His chest heaved, chin lifted, then suddenly he bolted in an attempt to escape. Calmly Santiago fired from the hip.

Domingo seemed to be running on air, the weight of his body carried him forward, then his legs buckled and he plunged forward to sprawl on the desert floor. Moments later Santiago stood over him and fired another shot as the others closed in.

The black night enveloped the desolate scene as the cavalcade roared off toward the city. Santiago glanced at the clock on the dashboard and settled back. It was still early, the issue settled. The mayor no longer had reason to be embarrassed.

As Santiago smiled to himself, Captain Torres turned and said, “Officially, we know now that Manuel Domingo was guilty of murdering Rosa Belmonte, but—”

“You don’t think he killed the girl?”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Then why did he run?”

“I told him we couldn’t protect him from the mob, that if he ran, I’d cover him and let him escape because I knew he was innocent.”

“But you shot him down.”

Santiago put a cigarette to his lips. “I had no alternative,” he answered, flicking his lighter, and the cavalcade moved on toward the lights of the city.

In the early morning the body of the murderer Manuel Domingo, naked but for a white sheet that covered the lower half of his body, lay on a long table beneath a tree in a small plaza near the center of the city for all to see and take warning. Flies came with the heat; the light brought crowds.

All through the day the people of the city filed past the dead man and at dusk he was taken away, mourned by none.

Here, the matter would have ended, interred along with Manuel Domingo, but for Detective Fiala who knew one thing beyond doubt: Domingo hadn’t killed the girl. With the murderer still at large, on his own time, Fiala conducted an investigation that quickly proved fruitful. That done, he appeared at the Municipal Building, asked to see Mayor Quevedo and was informed that he was at lunch, dining with several men of importance.

Obtaining the name of the restaurant, Fiala went there, seated himself at a table next to Quevedo’s party, bowed and, in a voice soft enough to elude the ears of the others, said, “If I may have a word. It’s a matter of grave importance which concerns you.”

Such was his manner that Quevedo quickly nodded. When he and his companions finished dining, he contrived an excuse for remaining behind and sat down at Fiala’s table.

“Now,” he said with some anxiety, “what is this matter of importance which concerns me?”

“I’m afraid it’s much too important to discuss here.”

“In that case, we’ll go to my office.”

Fiala nodded and both of them arose and went out the door. A few minutes later they faced each other across Quevedo’s ornate hand-carved desk. Quevedo offered a cigarette. Fiala refused it and presented his case, bluntly informing him that the Chief of Police had murdered Rosa Belmonte.

“A very serious charge,” Quevedo said, turning pale. “But can you prove it?”

Fiala nodded and described how he’d gone to see Luis Espina, the fibre-gatherer who’d discovered the body of the dead girl. With a series of tactful questions he’d finally gotten the old man to admit that he’d actually witnessed the murder.

“If this is true,” Quevedo put in, “why didn’t Espina come forward and say so?”

“He couldn’t,” Fiala replied, “because at the time of the murder he didn’t recognize Santiago. All he knew was that the killer drove off in a blue and white Cadillac. That was significant. I continued to question him and he produced a vivid description of the driver, but not his identity. That came later when I pressed him.

“He then admitted that he’d watched the spectacle last night. The lights drew him from his house, and he saw Santiago gun down Manuel Domingo. That’s when he recognized him as the murderer of Rosa Belmonte.”

Quevedo nodded and said, “The word of a confused old man. His story won’t hold water. Besides Domingo admitted his guilt at the scene of the crime by attempting to escape.”

“Admitted his guilt?” Fiala smiled and shook his head. “That was the one fact I knew from the beginning, that he wasn’t guilty. You see, Manuel Domingo couldn’t have killed Rosa Belmonte, he wasn’t in the city that day. I know. I trailed him to San Rafael with the expectation of catching him in one of his activities, dealing in marijuana.

“He remained at a bar in San Rafael till evening, and his contact never appeared. Perhaps he knew I’d trailed him. At any rate, the deal didn’t come off. At nine he headed back to the city. By that time Rosa Belmonte was dead.”

At this point Quevedo was convinced of the truth of Fiala’s charge, but one thing was unclear. “Why did Santiago pick Domingo for a victim?” he wanted to know.

Fiala smiled again and clarified the point. “One,” he said, holding up a finger. “Domingo’s reputation was bad; the charge appeared to suit his character. Two: Santiago and Domingo were partners. Domingo controlled the red light district, with the help of Santiago. They quarreled over money. Santiago claimed that Domingo was holding out on him. He probably was, so Santiago found it doubly convenient to eliminate him.”

Quevedo nodded. It was all clear now, too clear. He frowned and his face paled. If revealed, Santiago’s terrible act would threaten his own position. Frightened, his eyes met Fiala’s.

The detective had read his thoughts, understood his predicament and said, “Of course, Santiago should be brought to justice, but to arrest him would prove most embarrassing to you.”

Badly shaken, Quevedo nodded, but he was still alert. Fiala’s statement implied more than it said.

“What do you suggest?” Quevedo asked.

Fiala moistened his lower lip with his tongue. “Speak to Santiago,” he answered. “Give him the facts.”

“And if he denies them?”

“If he does, tell him he’ll be placed under arrest. After what has taken place—” Here Fiala shrugged. “You can not guarantee his safety from the mob. I think he’ll understand.”

“Understand what?”

“Call him and see.”

Quevedo glanced at the phone and hesitated, giving Fiala the opportunity to rise from his chair. “I’m going for coffee. I’ll be back,” he said and left Quevedo to deliver his terrible message.

Ten minutes later he returned to the mayor’s office. Quevedo was still troubled. He said nothing. Fiala sat and reached for his cigarettes. At that moment the phone rang. Quevedo picked up the instrument, listened briefly, and placed it back on its cradle.

“Santiago just shot himself,” he announced.

Having foreseen this, Fiala merely shrugged and said, “But of course. He had no alternative.”

At this point, Quevedo saw Fiala in a new light. The fellow was devilishly clever and had saved him from his enemies. “I am in your debt,” he said.

“Not at all,” replied Fiala.

“Ah, but I am,” Quevedo insisted. “Besides, I have no Police Chief now. Would you consider the office?”

Fiala grinned and, to the consternation of Quevedo, shook his head.

“But why not?” said Quevedo. “I don’t understand. Think of what it means to be Chief of Police.”

“In this city,” Fiala replied, “it means to have much power, and power corrupts.”

“It would corrupt you?” Quevedo asked.

“I am of flesh and blood. Perhaps it might, but I doubt it.”

“Then why refuse?”

“Because the job doesn’t interest me. It’s as simple as that,” Fiala answered and rose from his chair to light a cigarette. With that, he walked to the door.

Still puzzled, Quevedo watched him, then said, “But you must want something. What do I owe you?”

His hand on the doorknob, Fiala turned. “Nothing,” he answered. “Just be more careful when you pick the new Chief of Police.”