The D.A. Calls It Murder

Chapter II

Douglas Selby had been in office just twenty-four hours. He surveyed the littered material on his desk, reached a decision and summoned his three deputies.

“Boys,” Selby said, “I’m tackling a job I don’t know much about. You boys have got to carry most of the load.

“You play ball with me and I’ll play ball with you. Gordon, it’s up to you to instruct these boys in the duties of the office. Among you, you’ve got to handle the routine.

“Here’s a bunch of stuff which has piled up on my desk. There’s everything here from a complaint about a neighbor’s dog scratching up a front lawn to a tip that someone is selling liquor without a license. You boys take this stuff into the law library and divide it up. Don’t write any more letters than you have to — telephone people, get them to come in, reason with them, straighten things out by diplomacy. Don’t fight unless you have to. When you once start to fight, never back down. Remember that The Clarion will give us a square deal and The Blade will be fighting us all the way. You’ll make mistakes, but don’t let the fear of making mistakes keep you from reaching decisions. Whatever happens, don’t let anyone bluff you. Whenever you...”

The telephone rang. Selby said. “Just a minute... Hello.”

Rex Brandon’s voice, sounding rather strained, said, “Doug, drop whatever you’re doing and come down to the Madison Hotel right away. They’ve found a dead man in one of the rooms.”

“What is it,” Selby asked, “murder, suicide or natural death?”

“They don’t know. They say it’s a minister... I have an idea it’s the same chap who rode down in the elevator with us yesterday.”

“Where are you now?” Selby asked.

“I’m at the City Hall, picking up the chief of police. We’ll get to the hotel a few minutes before you do. The room number is three twenty-one. Go right on up. We’ll meet there.”

Selby said, “Okay, Rex,” hung up the telephone receiver and turned to his deputies. “You boys go to it,” he instructed. “You’ll have to handle the routine business of the office.”

Grabbing his hat, Selby raced down the marble corridor of the courthouse, took the steps of the wide staircase two at a time, jumped into his car and drove to the Madison Hotel.

He noticed that Brandon was ahead of him. The sheriff’s car, equipped with red spotlight and siren, was parked in the red “no parking” zone in front of the hotel. Moreover, a portion of the street was closed off where a force of men were installing one of the new ornamental lighting fixtures the city had recently purchased. Selby found himself caught in a traffic jam and it took him nearly ten minutes to extricate himself, find a parking place for his car and return to the hotel.

George Cushing, owner of the hotel, and the one to whom Selby had been indebted for the room used as campaign headquarters, approached with smiling affability.

A man in his early fifties, Cushing tried to maintain an air of smart, urban sophistication. He wore a pin-striped blue serge suit, meticulously pressed, and cut for men twenty years his junior. His pale, filmed eyes had puffy circles beneath them. His skin looked as though it had never known the sting of a biting wind, nor the warm touch of outdoor sunlight. But those pale, filmed eyes could be coldly insistent, and ten years of hotel management had taught him not to be backward in his demands.

“Now, listen, Doug,” he said, “this is just a natural death, see? It isn’t a suicide. The man took a dose of sleeping medicine, but that didn’t have anything to do with his death.”

“What’s his name?” the district attorney asked.

“The Reverend Charles Brower. He came from Millbank, Nevada. I don’t want it to be suicide. That gets unpleasant newspaper notoriety for the hotel.”

Walking toward the elevator, Selby hoped that the man would at least have tact enough to refrain from referring to campaign obligations, but Cushing’s well-manicured, pudgy hand rested on the sleeve of Selby’s coat as the door of the elevator opened.

“You know,” Cushing said, “I did everything I could for you boys during the election, and I’d like to have you give me the breaks.”

Selby nodded.

Cushing said, “The number’s three twenty-one,” and waved to the elevator operator to close the door.

On the third floor, Selby found no difficulty in locating three twenty-one. He knocked on the panels, and Rex Brandon’s voice called, “Is that you, Doug?”

“Yes.”

“Go over to three twenty-three, Doug, and come in that way. That door’s unlocked.”

Selby walked to the adjoining room. It was a typical hotel bedroom. He saw that the connecting door into three twenty-one was ajar. A long sliver had been smashed from the side of the door jamb. Rex Brandon called, “Come on in, Doug.”

Selby entered the room.

The little minister seemed strangely wistful as he lay cold and motionless on the bed. The eyes were closed and the jaw had sagged, but the face seemed peaceful, more dignified in death than it had been in life. The door had been locked and a chair propped against it in such a way that the back of the chair was braced directly underneath the knob of the door.

The room seemed filled with silence.

Otto Larkin, big, heavy-voiced chief of police, made haste to greet the district attorney.

“Everything’s just as we found it,” he assured. “He’d left a call for ten o’clock. The switchboard operator rang and rang and didn’t get any answer. A bellboy knocked and heard nothing. He tried a pass key and found the door was bolted from the inside. He climbed up and looked through the transom. He could see the man lying on the bed. He called to him two or three times and then reached inside and pushed down the transom. Then he saw that a chair had been propped under the doorknob. He notified Cushing. Cushing busted in through three twenty-three. That’s why the lock’s smashed. The connecting door has a double bolt, one on each side.

“Now, listen, Selby, I was pretty friendly with Sam Roper, and I supported him in the campaign. You know that. You can’t blame me for it — I’d worked with Sam for four years. But I want to work with you boys, now you’re in office. This is the first case we’ve had, so let’s not have any hard feelings that’ll keep us from working in harmony. I’d intended to come around and see both of you, but I just hadn’t had a chance. There’s a lot of things we should talk over.”

Selby said, “All right, we’ll talk them over at the proper time and in the proper place. What’s that paper in the typewriter? It isn’t a suicide note, is it?”

“No,” Brandon said, “it’s a letter to his wife, Doug. Read it, it’s sort of pathetic.”

Selby stepped over to the table. A portable typewriter held a large sheet of hotel stationery filled with writing.

Selby leaned over the machine and read:

There followed a word which had been crossed out by x’s.

On the table near the typewriter was an envelope addressed to: “Mrs. Chas. Brower, 613 Center Street, Millbank, Nevada.”

“Looks as though he took an overdose of the sleeping medicine,” Rex Brandon said. “We’ve checked up on the hotel register. He filled out a card when he checked in. He’s Charles Brower and he comes from Millbank, Nevada. He lives at 613 Center Street, the address on the envelope. So everything checks okay. The poor chap wanted to sleep... well, he’s sleeping all right.”

Selby nodded. “Why do you suppose he locked the door and then propped a chair against it?” he asked.

“You can search me,” Brandon answered.

The chief of police volunteered a theory. “He was a little guy,” he said, “and a minister. Some of those people get timid as rabbits, particularly when they’re traveling. Notice the way he talks about the hotels and things. I’ll bet he’s never done much traveling, and after Millbank this seemed like a big city to him.”

“Have you notified the coroner?” Selby asked.

“Yeah, sure. He’s out on a funeral right now. We expect him in any minute.”

“Look through his things?” Selby asked of Brandon.

“Not yet. We were sort of waiting for the coroner.”

“I’ve been on lots of cases with Harry Perkins, the coroner,” Larkin said. “He ain’t a bit fussy about red tape. If we want to save time by taking a look through things, it’ll be all right with Harry. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there’s anything to it. He probably had a bum ticker and taking a double dose of sleeping medicine put him out.”

“I was wondering,” Selby said, “if perhaps he had something very valuable he was trying to guard. I still can’t see why he should have gone to all that trouble to lock the door and then prop the chair against it.”

He approached the bed and gently raised the corner of the pillow to peer under it. He did this without disturbing the body. Finding nothing, he slid his hand in a fruitless search under the pillow. He turned back the bedclothes, saying, “We might just as well be certain about the cause of death.”

The body was attired in a thick flannel nightgown. Selby pulled the bedclothes back up and said, “No sign of any foul play. Well, I guess it’s just, a routine matter. We’ll notify his wife.”

“I told George Cushing to send the wife a wire,” Sheriff Brandon said. “I wanted her to be notified so she could decide what she wanted done about the body.”

The chief of police frowned slightly. “I’m sorry you did that, Sheriff. That’s one of the things the coroner likes to do. You know, he’s an undertaker, and he usually mentions in his telegrams that he can prepare the body for burial.”

The sheriff drawled, “Harry was out on a funeral and I wanted to get some action. He can send her a wire when he comes in, if he wants to.”

Selby looked around the room.

The dead man’s coat and vest were in the closet, carefully placed on a hanger. The trousers had been caught by the cuffs in the top of the bureau drawer, and hung down almost to the floor. A single suitcase was on the chair, open.

“That’s his only baggage?” Selby asked, “a suitcase and a portable typewriter?”

“There’s an overcoat and a brief case in the closet,” Brandon said.

“What’s in the brief case?” Selby asked.

“Just some newspaper clippings and some typewritten stuff — a sermon or a story or something — a lot of words slung together.”

“Have you looked through the pockets of his clothes?”

“No.”

“Let’s do it. You take the clothes and I’ll take a look through the suitcase. I can’t help thinking he must have had something valuable with him, or he wouldn’t have barricaded that door. His letter intimates as much.”

The suitcase, Selby found, was packed with scrupulous care. The garments were neatly folded. He noticed two clean shirts, some light underwear, several starched collars, a worn, leather-backed Bible, a pair of spectacles in a case bearing the imprint of a San Francisco oculist, and a half dozen pairs of plain black socks. He saw an oblong pasteboard medicine box with a label on which had been written in pen and ink, “For Restlessness.” There was also a leather case containing an expensive, foreign-made miniature camera.

“Hello,” Selby said, “this is a pretty good outfit for a small town minister to be sporting. They cost about a hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Lots of people like this guy was are camera fiends,” the chief of police pointed out. “A man has to have some hobby, you know. God knows, his clothes are shiny enough, and the overcoat’s badly worn at the elbows.”

“Where was his wallet?” Selby asked.

“In his coat pocket,” Brandon said.

“Any cards?”

“Yes, a few printed cards bearing the name, ‘Charles Brower, D.D., Millbank, Nevada,’ ninety-six dollars in cash, and about two dollars in small silver. There’s also a driving license.”

Selby looked once more at the still figure on the bed.

Somehow, a feeling of indecency gripped him. The man had been a human being, had had his hopes, fears, ambitions, disappointments, and now Selby was prying into his private life... Only the official obligation of discharging his duty prevented him from being a sublimated Peeping Tom.

He found himself wondering how physicians must feel when they are called upon to make intimate examinations of people who are utter strangers, yet must bare the innermost secrets of their lives. Of a sudden, he felt completely fed up.

“All right,” he said, “I guess there’s nothing to it. Have the coroner take charge. He’ll probably want an inquest. By the way, George Cushing would appreciate it if there was no publicity or talk of suicide. It’s just a natural death.”

He turned away toward the door of three twenty-one, noticed the splintered casing where the bolt had been forced, and said casually, “What’s the room on the other side, Rex?”

“I suppose the same as this,” the sheriff remarked.

“I think it has a bath,” the chief of police volunteered. “The way the hotel is laid out, there’s a bath in between rooms, and the room can be rented either with or without a bath. This room didn’t have the bath connected with it, so the bath’s probably connected with the other room. There’s a wash-stand with running water. He has his shaving things over there, see?”

Selby noticed the wash-stand, with a glass shelf above it, on which reposed a shaving brush, the bristles of which had been worn down from much use. In addition to the brush, the shelf held a safety razor, a tube of shaving cream, a tooth brush and a can of tooth powder.

Selby idly inspected the knurled knob on the door which led to the shut-off bathroom. He twisted the knob and said, “Let’s see if this door’s open on the other side.”

Suddenly he frowned, and said, “Wait a minute, this door wasn’t bolted. Did someone twist this knob?”

“I don’t think so,” Larkin said. “The bellboy reported to Cushing and Cushing told everyone nothing in the room was to be touched.”

“Then why didn’t Cushing get in through three nineteen? He could have unlocked the door from the other side and wouldn’t have had to force the other one open.”

“I think that room’s occupied,” Larkin said. “Cushing told me three twenty-three was vacant, but someone’s in three nineteen.”

Selby nodded and said, “Well, I’m going back to the office. I guess there’s nothing I can do here.”

A knock sounded on the door of three twenty-one. Brandon called out, “Who is it?”

“Harry Perkins, the coroner.”

“Go around to three twenty-three, Harry, and come in that way.” A moment later the tall figure of the bony-faced coroner came through the connecting door.

Larkin made explanations.

“We were just looking around a bit, Harry. You were out on a funeral and we wanted to make sure what it was. It’s just a combination of an overdose of sleeping medicine and a bum pump. There won’t be enough of an estate to bother with. He’s got about a hundred bucks, which should cover your costs of preparing the body for shipment. The sheriff wired his wife. Perhaps you’d better send her another wire and ask her if she wants you to take charge.”

The sheriff said, “I’m sorry, Harry, I didn’t know you liked to send those wires yourself.”

“That’s all right,” the coroner said. He walked over to the bed, looked down at the still form with a professional air and asked, “When do I move him?”

“Any time,” Larkin said. “Ain’t that right, Sheriff?”

Brandon looked questioningly at Selby, who nodded.

“I’m going back to the office,” Selby said.

“Got a car?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes, thanks. See you fellows later.”