The Case of the Courteous Killer

Chapter XXI

Two nights later, Friday, November 29th, Frank and I were sitting in the squad room discussing the previous day’s Thanksgiving dinner at his house. It was just past midnight. It had been a slow night. We had had one call about a telephone threat, and had gone out on one battery case. Otherwise we had just sat around the squad room.

“You were right about those bones,” Frank said. “According to that dotted-line diagram, the knife should have cut right down to a joint each time. Guess every bird is built different inside, though.”

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Seems I was always a quarter inch from the joint, one way or the other, when I got down to the bone. No way to tell which way, either, without an X-ray machine.”

I said, “I thought you did pretty good.”

“Well, at least I kept it on the platter. Had an awful time sawing through those bones, though. And Armand didn’t help any, sitting there with that condescending grin on his face.”

“Next time why don’t you let Armand carve?” I suggested.

“Wanted to last year,” Frank said. “But Fay says it’s the host’s place. Says every man ought to know how to carve. It’s one of the marks of social grace.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Tell me something, Joe.”

“What?” I asked.

“You think I lack social grace?”

I looked at him. “Why do you ask that?”

“Well, when Fay told me knowing how to carve was one of the marks of social grace, she didn’t exactly say I didn’t have any. But she knows I’m not very good at carving. So in a way she implied I didn’t have any social grace, didn’t she?”

I said, “Listen, Frank. I want to tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever Fay’s opinion of your social grace, I know one thing she thinks.”

“Huh?”

“She thinks you’re the top guy in the world.”

Frank thought this over for a moment and then looked pleased. “You know something, Joe?”

“What?”

“Maybe this sounds conceited, but I think she does, too.”

A young man of about twenty came hesitantly into the squad room and looked from me to Frank. He was a stockily built youngster with a pug nose and flaming-red hair worn in a brush cut.

“They told me downstairs to come here,” he said. “This Robbery Division?”

Frank said, “Right across the hall, son. Room Three-twenty-seven.”

“Oh,” the young man said. “What’s this place?”

“Homicide.”

“I see.” He started out again, then stopped in the doorway. “I should think you fellows would be interested, too. It was just a robbery tonight, but after all, he’s killed a lot of people.”

“Huh?” Frank said.

“The guy who stuck up me and my girl. I recognized him from his pictures in the paper. Good thing I did, too. Looked so easy to take, think I’d have jumped him if I hadn’t known who he was.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“The Courteous Killer. He just stuck me up and took forty-seven dollars out of my wallet.”

He turned and was halfway across the hall, heading for Robbery Division, before Frank and I yelled together, “Hey!” The young man halted and looked back. I reached the door first and crooked an index finger at him. “This is the place you want, son. Come on back and have a seat.”

Shrugging, he returned. I led him over to a table, pointed to a chair, and said, “Sit down, son. My name’s Friday. This is my partner, Frank Smith.”

Formally shaking hands with both of us, he said, “Arnold Reiter is my name. I’m a senior out at U.C.L.A.” He took the proffered chair and looked at me expectantly. “Okay. Go ahead.”

“Go ahead what?” I asked.

“Cross-examine me. Isn’t that the way you do it?”

I smiled at him. “Be better if you just told us about it. We’ll ask questions later.”

“All right,” he said agreeably. “To start off, I can’t tell you the name of the girl I was with.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“She’s in nurses’ training. Wasn’t supposed to be out tonight. Sneaked out the shower-room window. They all do it, you know. Rules are much too strict for this day and age. Can’t expect to keep a girl penned up like she’s a criminal.”

I said, “Uh-huh.”

“Give the girls a little freedom, and they wouldn’t sneak out that way.”

“We understand.”

“They’d bounce Georgia right out of school if they knew she was out tonight, you see. So after the robbery, I drove her back to student nurses’ quarters before coming here. Boosted her back through the shower-room window. You can see that she couldn’t afford to have it appear in the paper that she was with me when we were held up.”

I said, “We won’t put her name in the paper. Afraid we’ll have to talk to her, though.”

He looked dubious. “Be just as bad if you went to see her. Old Battle-Ax would want to know why she was being questioned by police.”

“Who?”

“Old Battle-Ax. The nursing supervisor.”

I said, “Let’s table your girlfriend for a while. Where and when did this robbery take place?”

“Mulholland Drive, up near the Outpost Estates. About a quarter to eleven.”

“I see. What happened?”

“We were sitting in the car sort of talking. Didn’t even hear this character come up. We were — well, kind of preoccupied at the time.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he said quickly. “Georgia’s a nice girl. A really nice one. We’re kind of engaged. She wouldn’t do anything wrong.”

“We understand,” I said.

“All we were doing was a little cuddling. She doesn’t even let me — well, you know. Nothing except kiss her. She’s a nice girl.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Well, all of a sudden we heard this voice say, ‘Sorry to disturb you.’ And there stood this guy on the left-hand side of the car pointing a gun at us. Funniest-looking gun you ever saw.”

“How do you mean?”

“Kind of a snub-nosed rifle. Barrel wasn’t much longer than a pistol’s. About twelve inches, I’d say. But it had a regular rifle stock.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Asked us real politely to get out of the car. Didn’t order us out. Just asked us. Course, the gun made it a pretty definite invitation.”

“Yeah.”

“Backed off a step to let us get out. Soon as we were outside, and I got a good look at him, I realized who he was.”

“You’re sure it was the Courteous Killer?” I asked.

“Absolutely. Wasn’t wearing glasses, and his hair wasn’t gray, but it was him all right.”

“His hair wasn’t gray?” I said.

“Black as the ace of spades. There’s a bright moon tonight, and we could see him good. Guess he must have dyed it.”

I grunted. The suspect was again practicing the same art of simple disguise he’d bragged about to me. With his average looks, even a minor change in appearance would be an effective disguise.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“He had me hand over my wallet, and took the money out of it. Gave the wallet back to me and told Georgia to give him her bag. She only had a dollar and a half in it. He took that.”

“Go on.”

“Then he said he’d shoot us if we made a sound or motion before he got out of sight. Walked up the road and disappeared around a bend. We thought we heard a car pull away after a minute, but neither of us was sure. May have been imagination.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We climbed back in the car, I made a U-turn, and we got out of there. I drove Georgia to student nurses’ quarters and then came here.”

We continued to question Arnold Reiter. Eventually, on our assurance that we would make every effort to keep from getting his girlfriend in trouble, he told us that the name of his companion at the time of the robbery was Georgia Fen. He also gave us the name of the hospital where she was in nurses’ training. He said he would arrange for her to come down to the Police Building the following afternoon, as she got off duty at noon on Saturdays.

We took the victim across to Robbery Division and briefed Marty Wynn and Vance Brasher on his story. Then we drove him out to the place on Mulholland Drive where the robbery had taken place and had him point out the exact spot. The ground was too dry for footprints to show, and we were unable to find any physical evidence of any sort.

Back at the office again, we got out a supplemental bulletin describing the change in George Whiteman’s hair color.

Meantime, while we were taking young Reiter to Mulholland Drive, Lieutenant Newton had phoned Captain Hertel at home to tell him the Courteous Killer actually was back in Los Angeles and had resumed operations. Chief Brown had left instructions to be informed the moment we had definite evidence that Whiteman was in the area, no matter what time of day or night we learned of it.

Lieutenant Newton left the duty of phoning the chief at that time of night to Captain Hertel.