The Copper Frame

Chapter 19

There was a Thruway service area halfway between Buffalo and Iroquois, where you could gas up or dine without getting off the Thruway. Saxon stopped there for lunch. It was just 1:30 P.M. when he drove back into Iroquois.

Emily having worked until 7 A.M., he knew she would still be asleep. He drove over to Ben Foley’s house and found the former mayor home.

When they were settled with drinks in their hands, Saxon said, “I wouldn’t ask you to perjure yourself on the stand, Ben, but if there’s merely a police inquiry, would you furnish me an alibi for today?”

The plumb lawyer examined him quizzically. “Depends. Who’d you kill?”

“It would only be a forced entry and battery charge. I socked Larry Cutter on the jaw.”

Foley looked pleased. “Did he go down?”

“I knocked him colder than a carp. I suppose it was a childish thing to do, but I suddenly got fed up with him. I thought it was time he got pushed back for the way he’s been pushing me, then ran up against a rigged alibi if he tried to do anything about it.”

“Sounds like poetic justice,” Foley agreed. “I wouldn’t mind telling a white lie, so long as it’s not under oath. Just what happened?”

Saxon told him of the switch of tenants at the girls’ apartment and of the disappearance of Alton Zek from the Fenimore Hotel.

“All at once I saw red,” he concluded. “Here this strutting two-bit hood who doesn’t even know me first deliberately wrecks my career, then orders me killed. By instructing his hired hands in what lies to tell and bribing others to give false evidence, he arranges things so that if I even make a complaint, the police will think I’m having hallucinations. I found out where he lived and went over there. Farmer Benton, one of the goons who took me for a ride, answered the door. I disarmed him at gun-point and made him lead me to Cutter. Then I socked Cutter and left.”

Foley emitted a low whistle. “Forced entry, assault with a deadly weapon, and battery. I guess you do need an alibi.”

“I may not. He may not care to risk having me explain in court why I was mad at him. But just in case his resentment overcomes his judgment, I thought I’d better have one lined up.”

“You had Sunday dinner with Alice and me,” the lawyer said with a disarming grin. “You know, I lay awake half the night thinking about this thing, Ted. And it doesn’t quite make sense to me.”

Saxon raised his eyebrows. “I thought we had the whole plot pretty well figured out.”

“The reason for the rape frame, sure. But why did Cutter suddenly order you killed? From what you told Arn and me last night, I think we can reconstruct what happened something like this: the informer you talked to at the Fenimore Hotel contacted Sergeant Morrison and told him you were en route to see the Lowry woman. Morrison must in turn have got in touch with Larry Cutter. Cutter sent his two gunmen over to get the girls out of the apartment and to wait for you to walk in. Then, as you described it, there was a long wait for instructions. Your two captors didn’t even know what plans for you were until the messenger from Cutter arrived several hours later. Spider Wertz was the messenger’s name, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. From the desk clerk’s description, I think he was also the man who spirited Alton Zek away from the Fenimore.”

Ben Foley rose and began to pace up and down, as if addressing his remarks to a jury. “So we have a picture here of indecision. It looks as if when he first heard from Morrison, Larry Cutter couldn’t decide what action to take. As an expedient, he sent his minions to get the girls out of sight and latch onto you until he could make up his mind. The long delay before the decision to dispose of you permanently suggests he may have been discussing strategy with someone — probably Sergeant Morrison. But why did they finally decide you had to be killed?”

“You’ve got me,” Saxon said. “I suppose a man like this Cutter automatically thinks in terms of murder as the solution to problems.”

Ben Foley looked doubtful. “Cutter’s no dummy. He’s proved that by the beautiful way he planned your frame, and also by the way he managed to cover up for his hired hands’ bungling of your attempted murder. I don’t think he’d order an unnecessary murder. And just what danger were you to him? If he wanted to prevent your pumping Morrison’s girl friend for information, all he had to do was to have her drop out of sight.”

After considering this, Saxon said, “He knew I had linked Morrison to him, because I asked Alton Zek if he knew of any tie between Morrison and Cutter. That sort of gave it away that I knew Cutter was behind my frame. Maybe he was afraid that since I knew why I had been framed, and by whom, I would be able to find evidence to prove it.”

“What evidence was there to find? The supposed rape victim is dead. The only way you could possibly prove that it was a frame would be to get Morrison or Coombs to reverse their stories. But you weren’t attempting to see either of them. You were merely visiting a call girl to whom Morrison was in the habit of steering business.”

Saxon stared up at the lawyer for a long time before carefully setting down his still half-filled glass. He said slowly, “It does seem that they got awfully excited about my seeing that girl. Maybe that’s the answer.”

“You mean she may know the details of the frame? Perhaps Morrison confided in her?”

“I just dredged up an even hotter idea than that,” Saxon said, rising. “I have to run along, Ben. I want to check something.”

The lawyer looked surprised. “What?”

“It’s such a far-out idea, you’d think I was crazy if I told you. I want to check it out first. I’ll either drop back or give you a ring this evening.”

The plump lawyer followed him to the entry hall. “All right, if you want to be mysterious. Here, let me help you with your coat.”

Saxon took the Thruway to Erie, Pennsylvania, making the seventy-some miles in an hour and fifteen minutes. He got off at the State Street exit and drove straight to police headquarters.

A middle-aged sergeant was on the desk. Saxon asked if Detective Everett Cass was on duty.

“Try the Detective Bureau squad room,” the man said.

Saxon walked down the hall to the Detective Bureau. The door opened just before he reached it and a thin, stooped man with a narrow, long-chinned face stepped out into the hall.

“Detective Cass in there?” Saxon asked.

The man said, “I’m Cass.”

Saxon held out his hand. “My name’s Ted Saxon. I talked to you on the phone from Iroquois on New Year’s Day.”

The look of polite inquiry on Everett Cass’s face faded. Examining the outthrust hand with contempt, he made no move to grip it. “Yeah, we read about you in yesterday’s paper,” he said coldly.

Flushing, Saxon let his hand drop to his side. In an equally cold voice he said, “You a cop or a judge, Cass?”

The man stared at him.

“You’ve declared me guilty on the basis of what you read in the paper, have you? Who took you off the force and put you on the bench?”

The detective frowned. “What’s eating you, Saxon?”

“Your attitude. That rape charge was a frame, and the reason I’m here is to get evidence to prove the frame. What right have you to look at me as if I were some kind of dirt when you don’t know one damned thing about the case?”

After gazing at him for a while, Cass said, “Okay, you’ve made your point. What do you want?”

Saxon let himself simmer down. In a more normal tone he said, “I assume that when you picked up Grace Emmet here, she got the usual felony-suspect treatment, didn’t she? Prints and mug shots?”

The detective nodded. “Both. After she was killed in that auto accident, Buffalo called us for her prints to identify the body, and we sent them a set.”

“I know. I’d like to see her mugs.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Is there any rule against it?”

Everett Cass shrugged. “I guess not. Come along to Records.”

At the Records desk he asked for the mug shots of Grace Emmet. After a search, the clerk brought over a double photograph showing both front and profile views of the woman.

Saxon looked at it for a long time The blonde poodle cut was the same and there was a similar roundness to the face and a fullness of lips. But aside from that, the pictures bore no resemblance to the woman Sergeant Harry Morrison had left at the Iroquois jail for an hour.

Saxon had never before in his life seen the woman who was pictured.

“Can I get a copy of this?” he asked.

Detective Cass looked at him. “What for?”

“Because this isn’t the woman I’m accused of raping,” Saxon said. “The Buffalo sergeant who picked up Grace Emmet here rang in a substitute when he got to Iroquois. I told you it was a frame.”

Cass stared at the picture, then back at Saxon. “You mean the Buffalo cop passed off somebody else as Grace Emmet at your jail?”

“You’re beginning to get the picture. How about a copy of the mugs?”

“Sure,” Cass said, his attitude suddenly changing to one of puzzled friendliness. “Why’d he pull a thing like that?”

“To frame me out of my job,” Saxon said. “It’s too long a story to go into. If you’ll get me my copy of the mugs, I’ll get going back to Iroquois.”

They had to wait twenty minutes for a print to be run off from the negative. Saxon got started back toward Iroquois at 4 P.M.