The Case of the Petticoat Murder

Chapter Twenty-two

BY THE Stan and I were satisfied that we had done all we could and sat down for a breather on the sofa in Lonesome Liz's fifth-floor apartment, it was eight minutes of five.

“Who's going to make the call?” Stan said. “You or me?”

“Me,” I said. “He's never heard your voice, Stan. It might start him wondering.”

“It'd be just our luck if he wasn't home.”

“If he isn't, we'll keep calling back until he comes in.”

“You say he'd be a hard man to tangle with?”

“Plenty.”

“Well, what're we waiting for? Go ahead and bait the trap, Pete. I'm anxious to get a look at him,”

I picked up the handset and dialed the number of the pay phone in the hall at Marty Hutchins' rooming house on Bethune Street.

“I hope this works,” Stan said. “I must've lost twenty pounds on this squeal, already.”

“You never weighed twenty pounds to begin with,” I said.

“Well, at least I haven't got twenty pounds of fat between my ears — like you, for instance.”

“Quiet down,” I said. “It's ringing.”

Stan nodded, leaned back against the cushion, and took out his gun to see that all was as it should be.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Hutchins?”

“Yes. Who's this ”

“Detective Selby,” I said.

“For Christ's sake! What now?”

“I think we've got a line on the man that killed Nadine,” I said. “It looks pretty much as if it's a man named Albert Miller.”

“Yeah?” he said, his voice suddenly without its belligerency. “Albert Miller, huh?”

“You ever hear Nadine mention him, Mr. Hutchins?”

“It does sound kind of familiar, now that I hear you say it.”

“Can you tell us anything about him?”

“No. I'm not even sure she ever said anything about him. It's just that the name sounds kind of familiar, that's all.”

“Well, the thing is that he's given us the slip. We've come up with some evidence that sticks the finger right in his eye; but Miller himself is nowhere around.”

“Evidence, eh? What kind?”

“Well, actually it's more than just evidence, Mr. Hutchins. I rather not talk about it on the phone, but the Police Department would appreciate it if you could spare us a few minutes to take a look at it.”

“You really think is was this Albert Miller, eh?”

“I don't think there's any doubt about it,” I said. “We found some other things here in his apartment that… Well, as I said, it's not good policy to say too much on the phone. You understand how it is?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think you'll have time to give us a hand, Mr. Hutchins?”

“Hell yes. I'm just as damn anxious to see him get it as you are.”

“Could you make it right away? We'd appreciate it.”

“Sure,” he said. “Right away. Hell, I'll even take a cab.” He hung up.

Stan grinned, gave the cylinder of his revolver a final spin, and returned the gun to its holster.

“Take the bait, did he?” he asked.

“Sounded that way,” I said.

“What do you mean 'sounded'?”

“In this business, who's ever sure of anything?”

“Me,” Stan said. “If Marty Hutchins knocks on that door, Pete, he's our boy.”

The knock on the door came at five twenty-four. I glanced at Stan, then walked to the door and opened it

“Hello, Marty,” I said.

He came into the room smiling, his dark hair still damp from rapid combing and his eyes bright and alert, The spotless white polo shirt clung tightly to this massive chest and shoulders, and the biceps beneath the shirt's short sleeves were as big around as some men's thighs.

“Well, what do you know about that,” he said in his soft, pleasant voice. “So you've got him, have you?”

“We think so, Marty,” I said as I closed the door. “In fact, we're all but positive.” I gestured toward Stan. “My detective partner, Marty. Stan Rayder.”

Hutchins nodded to Stan, then turned back to me. “Well, where's this evidence you told me about? That's something I'd like to see.”

“It hasn't changed much,” Stan said.

Hutchins looked at him. “What?” he said.

“Sit down, Hutchins,” I said.

“Hey! There's something wrong here. What's with this skinny friend of yours?”

“You're under arrest, Hutchins,” I said.

“I'm what?” he said. “Me? What for?”

“We can start with extortion,” I said. “You and Nadine were blackmailing Dr. and Mrs. Campbell, Hutchins.”

“You're sick in the head, mister. I don't even know anybody like that.”

“No more than you know anyone in Kirkman, Mississippi,” I said. “Josie Daniels, for instance.”

He raised his right hand. “I'm telling you the God's truth,” he said, shaking his head from side to side. “I—”

“We've got sworn statements from both Susan and her husband,” I said. “You can stop lying — or not; it really doesn't make much difference.”

“Blackmailing your own wife,” Stan said. “You get some pretty original ideas, don't you, Hutchins?”

Hutchins turned his head slowly to look at him. “Prove it,” he said.

Stan grinned. “We'll just do that, Hutchins. But that's the least of our worries — just like it's the least of yours.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Hutchins asked.

“Nadine Ellison,” Stan said. “You didn't pussyfoot around with any blackmail when it came to her, Hutchins. You killed her.”

“You're even crazier than Selby,” Hutchins said. “I don't know who you guys think you're trying to frame, but—”

“Shut up, Hutchins,” Stan said softly. “Don't say that again.”

“My partner and I worked pretty hard this afternoon,” I said. “Just about the only thing we didn't find out is why you wanted Nadine dead.”

He shook his head contemptuously. “Boy, if I was as sick as you are, I'd be sick!”

“You'll be sick enough,” Stan said. “Don't worry.”

“You guys know damn well I was shacked up with a girl all that night,” Hutchins said. “You talked to her yourself, Selby. You went over to the Leighton Hotel and pulled that little Elaine Walton out of bed and damn near scared her to death. What's the matter with you? She was telling the truth, and you know damn well she was telling the truth.”

“She thought she was telling the truth,” I said. “As far as she was concerned, she was telling the truth. But I talked to her again this afternoon, Hutchins. It was the first time she'd ever done any heavy drinking. She was passed out cold.”

“She told you I never left the room!”

“Wrong. She told me she never saw you leave the room. She couldn't have seen you. She was dead to the world.” I paused. “We also checked with every man and woman that works for that hotel, Hutchins. We have three employees to swear you left the Leighton at about one-thirty, and two other employees to swear you got back around five. Nadine, as you know more exactly than I do, was killed somewhere between two and six.”

“And that,” Stan said, “means you have no alibi at all. Not a shred.”

“It's a little ironic,” I said, “but if you hadn't tried to fancy things up so much, you might have got away with it. I don't mean the way you hung her up on that pipe to make us think it was suicide. I'm talking about the way you tried to frame Albert Miller.”

“I never even heard of him! Not till you called me up and said—”

“Keep quiet a while, Hutchins,” Stan said. “Don't you know better than to interrupt people before they've finished?”

“You knew Miller,” I said. “You knew Nadine had been blackmailing him, and you knew his real name was Maurice Thibault, and that he was wanted in France for killing his wife.” I paused. “You got together a translation of a French newspaper item with a cut of Miller, and one of Nadine's bank books, and enough other stuff to keep the translation and the bank book from being too obvious, and planted them in Miller's desk drawer. Then you sent an anonymous telegram to the police, telling us exactly where to find it.”

Hutchins shook his head. “Jesus, no,” he said.

“Every hall door in this apartment house is fitted with one of the most expensive small locks on the market,” I said. “It's probably the only pickproof lock of its size in the country. You had a key, Hutchins. Otherwise you'd have had to break the door down.” I thought I saw something in his eyes, but I couldn't be sure. “You knew Nadine used to live with Miller, and you knew she still had her key. Perhaps she kept it in her strongbox, perhaps not; it doesn't matter. The point is, you had access to it, and you used it to let yourself in Miller's apartment and plant everything you figured the police would need to make them suspect him,”

Hutchins shook his head, but he didn't say anything. He stood there without body movement of any kind, blinking at me, frowning a little; the way a near-sighted person will do when he's forgotten his glasses.

I kept thinking of the momentary change in his eyes when I had talked about the key. It was worth a try. “How do you carry your keys, Hutchins?” I said. “Ring or folder?”

I–I don't have any,” he said. The look was there; I was certain of it.

“Everybody has at least one key,” I said. “Let's see them, Hutchins.”

“No,” he said. “I haven't got any.”

“All right,” I said, “then tell us why you didn't ask me where Miller's apartment was.”

“What?”

“I didn't tell you Miller's address when I asked you to come over,” I said. “I didn't tell you, and you didn't ask. You didn't have to ask, Hutchins. You already knew.”

“I looked it up in the phone book.”

“He looked it up in the phone book,” Stan said. “In the phone book, Pete. That's where he looked it up.”

Hutchins didn't even so much as glance at him.

“There are six Albert Millers in the Manhattan directory,” I said. “Not to mention four Al Millers.”

He wet his lips. “After I hung up I remembered Nadine did mention somebody named Miller once. That's what I was trying to think of when you asked me about him. I got to thinking, and I remembered she'd said something about a man that lived up on West Seventy-fourth Street, and I…”

“You're doing real great,” Stan said. “Don't stop now.”

“There's still another point that sort of puzzles me a bit,” I said. “After you agreed to come to Miller's apartment, why didn't you do it?”

His eyes flicked about the room, touched the small desk near the window, and stayed there. “I—” he began.

“You what?” I said. “Looked under the mailboxes downstairs for his apartment number?”

“Yes. Yes, that's what I did.”

“If you'd done that, Hutchins, you'd still be looking. We inked out the apartment number on Miller's card less than an hour ago.”

“And this building's a walkup, don't forget,” Stan said. “No desk clerk or elevator operator to ask for information.”

“This is Miller's apartment!” Hutchins blurted. “It has to be!”

“It was Miller's apartment,” I said. “But he moved down to the second floor, less than a week ago. The second floor, Hutchins. You came straight up to the fifth floor. And you didn't look in the phone book or under any mailboxes. You came straight here today just the same way you came straight here at the time you planted that evidence in what you thought was Miller's desk drawer. You knew you had Miller's key, and Miller's key was stamped with this apartment number, 'and so you knew you were in the right place. Only you weren't.”

Hutchins' eyes were abnormally bright and his lips were slowly turning a pale dead-gray.

“This apartment belongs to a woman named Elizabeth Emmert,” I said. “She has a police record, and when she found your evidence in her desk drawer, she thought one of her old enemies must be trying to frame her. She panicked and tried to get rid of it in a trash basket. She was caught at it; and after we'd added everything up, we knew. that you were the only one with the means and knowledge to—”

“Stop!” Hutchins shouted. “Stop it! You hear? Stop it, damn you!”

“Let's see your keys, Hutchins,” I said

“No!”

I took a step toward him. “Why wait till we take them off you at the station house?” I said. “Let's try them on that lock right now.”

“No,” he said, “Stay away from me!”

There was an almost insane look in his eyes now, and I could understand how he had been able to stare down a much larger man, like the one the bartender at the Hi-Lo had told me about.

I took another step forward.

“Stay away from me!” Hutchins said. “One of you bastards is gonna beat me up while his buddy holds a gun on me so I can't fight back.”

I glanced at Stan. Neither of us said anything.

“If it wasn't for your guns, I'd whip the both of you,” Hutchins said. “I'd kill the both of you, sure'n hell!”

“The point is,” Stan said, “we do have guns.”

“I can't stand pain,” Hutchins said. “I can't stand it!”

“What pain?” I said. “You look in pretty, good shape to me, Hutchins.”

“You'll beat my belly off!”

“Listen, Hutchins,” I said. “We—”

“Lying bastard' You'll lock me in the washroom at the police station and beat me to death!”

I took a deep breath. I had never beaten a prisoner since the day I joined the force. And neither had Stan.

“Hutchins,” I said quietly, “I think the time has come for you to tell us what happened.”

“You won't beat me?”

“We won't beat you.”

“You'll keep all the other cops from beating me?”

“No one will lay a finger on you, Hutchins,” I said. “Now how about it? Didn't things happen pretty much the way we said they did?”

He sank down on the sofa very slowly. “Yes,” he said.

“Why did you kill Nadine Ellison?”

“She got too greedy,” he said. “She tried to horn in.”

“On the blackmail from Susan?”

“Yeah. And she tried to hit up Campbell, too. That's when I killed her When I found out she'd done that, I knew she had gone too damn far. Clipping Susan a little bit here and there was one thing; but trying to hit up a big man like Campbell was another.”

“How'd you go about it?' I said.

“Killing her, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“It just happened, that's all. I'd been shacked up with this girl at the hotel, and when I got over to Nadine's she started to lay down the law. She said she was starting to work on Campbell and that I wasn't going to get a dime out of it. She'd turned on me, see? Just like that. One night she'd have spent any amount of money on me, and the next night she was telling me to go to hell. She was crazy that way, anyhow. One time she'd be doing everything she could for somebody, and the next time she'd be doing everything she could to hurt them. Anyhow, when I heard she'd tackled Campbell already, I could see she'd knocked over the apple cart. I knew Campbell would never stand still for anything like that, and I knew he'd do something about it that would knock me out of even the little bit I was clipping off of Susan.”

I waited a moment or so. “Go on, Hutchins,” I said.

“I guess you probably figured out the rest,” he said “She'd started taking off her clothes while she was talking, and when she got to the part about Campbell she was standing there mother-naked with this petticoat in her hand, and all at once she kind of slapped at me with it and I slugged her in the belly.” He shrugged. “I guess it must've been that slap she took at me that did it. I was goddam mad about Campbell, and that slap just pushed me the rest of the way. Anyhow, she's down there, out cold, and I figure, what the hell, I might as well kill her.”

“Just like that, Hutchins?” I said.

“Yeah. I figured, why not, she's fouled me up plenty, and she'll only foul me up some more. So I took this petticoat she'd been holding and choked her with it a couple of minutes, and then I got the clothesline out of the bathroom and hung her up so it would look like suicide.”

“And then what, Hutchins?” Stan asked.

“From there on it was just like you guys said. I planted the stuff in Miller's desk, and hit back to the hotel and crawled back in bed with Elaine Walton. I knew damn well she was too drunk to know the difference.”

“Just one point, Hutchins,” I said. “What made Nadine think she could cut you out of your blackmail?”

“On that little bit I was chipping off of Susan?”

“Yes.”

“Nadine knew I wasn't married to Susan any more. She knew I'd got a divorce when I wanted to marry a rich widow woman, while I was down in Florida a couple years ago. Hell, I was bluffing Susan all the time.”

“In other words,” I said, “Susan hadn't committed bigamy at all. You just made her think she had.”

“That's right. I got my divorce from her a whole year before she married Campbell.” He shook his head. “The hell of it is, I got skunk-drunk one night and told Nadine.”

I glanced at Stan. “Give Barney Fells a ring and ask him to tell the Campbells they can stop worrying,” I said.

While Stan called the squad commander, Marty Hutchins and I stood and looked at each other. And slowly, very slowly, I saw the beginnings of comprehension in his eyes. He would understand any moment now that there were things far worse than a beating in some station house washroom.

“Barney was glad to hear the news,” Stan said as he put down the phone. “He had a little for us, too, Pete. It seems Nadine's husband Burt made another of those phone calls to Headquarters. But this time he stayed on the line long enough for the call to be traced. They got him in the Greyhound station on West Thirty-fourth.”

I looked at Hutchins a moment longer; then I opened the hall door and nodded to him. “All right, Marty,” I said.

Hutchins said nothing more until I had handcuffed him to the bar in the back seat of the Plymouth and Stan had started the motor. Then he turned slowly to look at me with eyes that at last understood. “Selby,” he said.

I didn't say anything.

“Selby,” he said again, reaching out hesitantly to touch my sleeve, “Selby, what'll happen to me?”

But he didn't really expect me to tell him.

He already knew.

Nothing else could have filled his eyes so full of fear.