The Case of the Crime King

Chapter 18

7:14 p.m. We were still waiting for a report on the suspects.

Frank lit the fourth cigarette in an hour and said, “Kind of hard to decide which would be better.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“To have ’em spotted and picked up on the street, or hope they try to score.”

When I didn’t say anything, he went on, “Picking them up might save somebody from getting killed tonight.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“On the other hand, there’s nothing to charge them with. No crime to shake a cover. Particularly when you’re not supposed to know you’re being tailed.”

I grunted.

“Kind of hope they don’t get picked up,” Frank decided.

“Why?”

“Just postpone the fireworks to another time.”

8:32 p.m. The hot-shot speaker came to life as whoever was taking a call on the complaint board cut in the line to Robbery Division in order to let us hear the phone conversation.

The complaint-board officer’s voice said, “Now will you repeat that again, sir?”

An excited male voice said, “It’s a regular gun battle. I’ll bet there’s been ten shots. You’d better hurry.”

“Where is this?” came the calm voice of the man on the complaint desk.

“Right across the street. From inside Morton’s Self-Service Market. I’m phoning from a tavern.”

“What’s the address? Of the market, I mean.”

“The number? Gosh, I don’t know. Beverly Boulevard, a few yards west of Alvarado. That good enough?”

“Yeah,” the complaint man said. “What is it? A robbery?”

“Gosh, I don’t know. You can see people milling around in there. There’s a big glass window. I’m not going close enough to find out.”

“Let’s roll,” I said to Frank, and we headed for the door. Probably the unhurried voice of the complaint-board officer had given the man who phoned in the impression that his call wasn’t getting very fast action. But what he didn’t know was that while the complaint-board officer was recording the essential information on a complaint form, an officer on the dispatcher’s mike was also listening in. The instant he heard the location of the trouble, he would pass it on to the communications girl whose board covered that area. The girl would glance at the map board in front of her showing the location and status of every radio unit in her territory by means of colored lights. Each color had a specific meaning, letting her know at a glance which cars were out of service, which were on other investigations, and which were free. While the complaint-board officer was taking down the witness’s name and getting more detailed information about the incident, she would be putting the essential first data on the air and assigning units to investigate.

As Frank and I reached the hall, Sergeant Tom Anderson and Joe LaMonica hurried from the door of Homicide Division.

Andy gave us a surprised look and said, “You fellows stuck for the night watch now, too?”

Without slowing down, I said, “Just working overtime. Headed for Beverly Boulevard and Alvarado?”

Andy grunted an affirmative.

8:36 p.m. We shot out of the First Street exit from the parking lot with Andy and LaMonica right on our tail. It was a straight run to the supermarket after Frank swung right. First runs right into Beverly Boulevard, joining it at such a slight angle, you might think they were the same street if you weren’t familiar with the town and weren’t watching street signs.

I called in that we were answering the call and asked for additional information.

“No additional information as yet,” the communications girl’s voice said. “Shots fired, possible Two-eleven at Morton’s Supermarket, Beverly Boulevard and Alvarado. Units One-A-Fifty-one and One-A-Eighty-one have been dispatched to the scene— Wait a minute. One-A-Fifty-one is calling in now.” There were a few seconds of silence. We were crossing over the freeway when the girl’s voice said, “Control One to Nine-K-Two.”

Picking up the mike, I said, “Nine-K-Two. Go ahead.”

“I now have additional information on the incident at Morton’s Supermarket. Two-eleven and a shooting. Two suspects engaged in a gunfight with the store manager during an attempted robbery. One clerk killed, one wounded. Neither suspect believed hit. Suspects observed driving from scene in a blue 1956 Buick sedan, license not known. Headed east on Beverly Boulevard approximately three minutes ago. Descriptions: both WMA, twenty-five to thirty-five years old. Dressed in tan leather jackets, tan slacks, brown hats. One well over six feet, weighing two-twenty-five to two-fifty The other five-six or seven, weighing one-twenty to one-twenty-five. Both were disguised with false noses attached to glasses frames. Unit One-A-Eighty-one is in pursuit. One-A-Fifty-one is standing by at scene.”

“Roger,” I said, and hung up the mike.

Frank said, “Sure sounds like Big Julie and Harry Strite, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Hardly seems possible they’d be that crazy.”

I grunted.

“Well, it is a crazy stunt if it’s them,” Frank said. “They can’t possibly get away with it.”

“Strite did once before.”

“Well, with that fancy alibi, sure. But the way these descriptions match, what chance they got?”

“Make you a bet,” I said.

“On what?”

“Martin and Strite come up with even fancier alibis this time.”

8:46 p.m. We arrived at Morton’s Self-Service Market. As in the previous shooting at West Sixth and Bixel, the gunfire had drawn a crowd of onlookers. A half-dozen radio units were at the scene, and uniformed officers had herded the crowd to the opposite side of the street. An ambulance was just pulling away.

Andy and LaMonica parked their car behind ours, and we entered the market together. In addition to two uniformed policemen, the store manager and two male clerks were inside. Only one of the clerks was on his feet, though. The other, a young man somewhere in his mid-twenties, sprawled on his back in one of the aisles, his mouth open and his eyes staring sightlessly upward. The small hole over his left breast hadn’t bled very much, indicating he had died almost instantly.

I showed my ID to one of the policemen and asked, “What’s the score?”

“Attempted robbery, Lieutenant. They didn’t get anything. Mr. McQuary had a gun in his belt under his apron.”

He indicated the store manager, who gave me a cocksure smile suggesting that he was extremely proud of himself for shooting it out with a pair of bandits. He was a stocky, powerfully muscled man of about forty, with hair-matted forearms and a nearly totally bald head.

I tabled him for the moment to get the rest of the officer’s report. He quickly rattled off what he knew, most of it a recapitulation of what the store manager and remaining clerk had told him.

The bandits had departed from their usual MO by forcing their way into the store just as the manager started to lock it from inside, instead of waiting until he had left and catching him at his car. The smaller suspect had kept the three clerks covered while the larger one had herded the manager toward the office, which contained the safe.

Halfway to the office the manager had suddenly jumped behind a display counter, pulled his concealed gun, and started firing. Altogether he had gotten off five shots, breaking a few bottles, puncturing some cans, but hitting neither suspect. The return fire, estimated to have been ten or twelve shots, killed one of the clerks and wounded another in the leg. The latter had been in the ambulance that had pulled away as we drove up.

“The suspects ran out and jumped into a car parked out front,” the officer concluded. “The clerk who was wounded tabbed it as a blue fifty-six Buick sedan, but couldn’t catch the license.”

While the officer was talking, Andy kneeled over the man on the floor to check for some sign of life. He rose shaking his head.

“Use your phone?” he asked the store manager.

“Sure,” the stocky man said. “Back in the office.”

Andy said to me, “I’ll phone in for a photographer,” and walked back to the office.

I turned to the store manager. “Your name’s McQuary, sir?” I said.

He nodded. “Howard J. McQuary. You know, these punks who go around sticking guns in people’s faces aren’t so tough when they get a gun stuck back at them.” He stuck out his powerful chest and patted the slight bulge made by the gun under his apron.

I looked at him, then said, “Can you describe the suspects?”

His descriptions were the same as we had heard broadcast over the air. The false noses and glasses frames had prevented him from getting anything but the vaguest impression of their faces. And in all the excitement he hadn’t tried to notice such features as he could see. He had no idea, for instance, what their mouths or chins looked like. Questioned about their voices, he said there was nothing distinctive about them.

“Neither one said more than a few words,” he said. “Little fellow said, ‘Get over there,’ to my clerks. Big fellow just said to me, ‘Head for your office, mister.’ Shooting started before they could say anything else.”

“Notice the color of their hair or eyes?” LaMonica asked.

McQuary looked thoughtful, then shook his head. He glanced at his clerk, a youngster of about nineteen. The boy swallowed and said, “I was too scared to notice much.”

I asked, “What’s the name of the man who was killed?”

He said it was Emmet Doyle, that he had been twenty-five, and had lived with his mother in an apartment on Hoover. The clerk who had been taken to Central Receiving was an Edward Coles, age thirty-five, and with a wife and three kids. Both Frank and LaMonica wrote this information in their notebooks.

“Good thing it wasn’t Eddie who got it,” McQuary said, with a shake of his head. “Being a family man and all. Don’t think he was wounded bad. Shed a lot of blood, but he could still walk on his leg. Must have been just a flesh wound.”

Frank said, “You think it was better the kid there got it, huh?”

Nobody but someone who knew Frank as well as I did could have detected the sharpness in his question. His voice was as quiet as ever, but I could detect the edge to it. He was staring at Howard J. McQuary with no expression on his face at all.

McQuary didn’t catch Frank’s disapproval. Taking the question at face value, he said, “Too bad about that, too. Don’t know what his mother will do now. She’s not very well, and the kid was her sole support. Probably had some insurance, though.”

Frank’s face turned a little red. I shook my head at him, and he didn’t say whatever he had intended to. Andy came from the office at the rear of the store and said, “Photographer will be along.”

I nodded acknowledgment and returned to McQuary. “How’d you happen to be carrying a gun?”

He let his chest swell again. “Been ever since your bulletin came out. Figured if this bunch tried to knock me over, I’d give ’em something to think about.”

LaMonica said, “Got a permit, Mr. McQuary?”

“Sure,” he said. “Had one for years. I’m responsible for making the night deposits, see. Ordinarily only carry it on the way to the bank. But since your bulletin I’ve been carrying it all the time.”

I said, “Didn’t you read all of our bulletin?”

He gave me a puzzled frown. “Sure. Why?”

“Part of it was what to do in case of a stickup. Remember?”

“You mean that bull about not resisting? Just handing over the cash?”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

He emitted a disgusted snort. “That’s for the birds. More merchants did what I did, these punks would think twice before sticking anybody up. Punks don’t scare me. They got guns. Okay, I got one, too. And you notice I wasn’t afraid to use it.”

“We noticed,” I said, and glanced at the body on the floor.

He reddened a trifle. “How’d I know they’d shoot so wild? Or that Emmet wouldn’t have sense enough to fall flat? You can’t blame me for that.”

“I’m not,” I said. “But somebody else may.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“His mother.”