The D.A. Calls It Murder

Chapter IX

Sylvia Martin was waiting in front of the locked door of Selby’s office.

“Thought you were playing possum on me,” she said. “I’ve been knocking on the door. I even tried a kick or two.” And she glanced ruefully down at the toes of her shoes.

“No,” Selby said, “I was out on what might be described as an emergency call.”

“Anything new?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Why is it,” she asked, “that a friendly paper doesn’t get any of the breaks while the opposition scores all the scoops?”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning,” she said, “that there’s something going on at the Madison Hotel.”

“What makes you think so?”

“A little bird told me.”

“I’d like to know more about your little bird.”

“If you must know, it’s someone who advised me that Carl Bittner, the crack reporter whom The Blade has imported to scoop you on a solution of the murder case, received a mysterious telephone call and then went rushing over to the hotel, carrying a camera.”

“Well?” he asked.

She said, “Let’s go in and sit down where we can talk.”

Selby unlocked the door. She followed him into his private office, perched on the edge of his desk, kicking one foot in a swinging circle.

“Come on,” she said, “what’s the low-down?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t tell you.”

“Have I got to wait until I read about it in The Blade tomorrow night?”

“The Blade won’t publish anything about it.”

“Don’t ever think they won’t. You’re acting like an ostrich, Doug, sticking your head in the sand and kidding yourself you’re hidden from view.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but there’s nothing I could tell you, Sylvia.”

“Why?”

“In the first place, what makes you think there’s something to tell?”

“Don’t kid me, Doug, I know there is. I suppose I can go over to the hotel and dig it out myself, if I have to, but it does seem to me that...”

She broke off the sentence but her foot swung more rapidly and in a wider arc until she seemed to be viciously kicking at the atmosphere.

Selby said, “I’d like to, Sylvia. I’d like to take you into my confidence, but you’ve got your job and I’ve got mine. You’re representing a newspaper. It’s your duty to gather publicity. Anything that you get will be spread on the front page of that paper. I have to take that into consideration.”

“We supported you during the election. Don’t we get anything in return for it?”

“Certainly you do. You get any of the breaks I can give you.”

“A lot that means,” she said bitterly. “The city editor put me on this murder case. I’ve known you for years. I’ve fought for you ever since you turned those damned twinkling blue eyes of yours on me and smiled. The newspaper I represent helped put you in office. What do we get in return for it? Not one damned thing!”

She blinked her eyes rapidly.

“Please don’t cry, Sylvia,” he begged. “You don’t appreciate my position.”

She jumped to her feet and said, “You make me so mad I could cry. Don’t you see the position you’re in? Don’t you see the position that I’m in? Don’t you see the position my paper’s in?”

“I think I do.”

“No, you don’t. I’ve been assigned to cover the activities of the district attorney’s office in connection with this murder case. I’m making a lamentable failure of it. The things I’ve found out could have been put in my city editor’s eye without making him so much as blink. The opposition newspaper has imported a crack reporter. That means I’m being pitted against a trained investigator from one of the big metropolitan dailies. It’s an opportunity for me to do something big. It’s also an opportunity for me to become the laughingstock of everyone in the newspaper business. I need every advantage I can get. And about the only advantage I’m supposed to have is your friendship.”

“Sylvia, I’m going to do everything I can for you, but...”

“That stuff makes me sick,” she declared. “You know as well as I do that you’re concealing something. You’re good enough to conceal it from me because I’m fair enough to trust you; but you’re not smart enough to conceal it from The Blade because they’re fighting you and are out on their own, getting their information independently.”

“What makes you think that they’re going to get any particularly startling information?” he asked.

“Will you swear to me that your business at the Madison Hotel wasn’t connected with some angle of this case?”

“No,” he said frankly, “it was.”

“And you saw someone there?”

“Naturally.”

“Whom did you see?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t.”

“Why?”

“It wouldn’t be fair.”

“To whom?”

He thought for a moment and then said lamely, “To the taxpayers, to the Prosecution’s side of the case.”

“Bosh!” she told him. “You’re protecting someone. Who?”

“Suppose I should tell you,” he said, “that some person had become involved in this case who was entirely innocent of any connection with it except one brought about through casual coincidence? Suppose I should further tell you that the newspaper-reading public wouldn’t believe that such was the case if it were given any publicity? Suppose, because of my official position, I’d been able to get a complete and frank statement of facts, given to me in a sacred confidence? Would you want me to betray that confidence to the first newspaper reporter who asked me?”

She shook her head impatiently and said, “Now I’ll do some supposing. Suppose there’s an angle to this case which is going to be given inevitable publicity? Suppose the story is going to be published in a hostile newspaper tomorrow night? Suppose we’re going to be scooped on the thing. Don’t you think it would be more fair for you to give me the news than to withhold it?”

“But you wouldn’t want me to violate a confidence, would you?”

“Wouldn’t it be better for the person who gave you that confidence to have the facts correctly reported in a newspaper which didn’t deliberately try to distort them in order to belittle you?”

Selby was thinking that over when the telephone on his desk rang. He picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

“Where the devil have you been?” Rex Brandon’s voice rasped over the wire. “I’ve been trying to call you at intervals for the last twenty minutes.”

“I took a quick run over to the Madison Hotel to investigate a development there.”

“Find anything?”

“Nothing that I can discuss with you now. It’s something we should talk over later. What have you got — anything?”

“Yes, I’ve got what may be a lead.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve been talking with that oculist in San Francisco on the telephone. He’s got a long list of names who have that same prescription, or correction, or whatever it is you call it. Among them are two ministers. One of them’s a Reverend Hillyard from some little church in San Francisco, and the other’s a Reverend William Larrabie from Riverbend, California.”

Selby’s voice betrayed his excitement, “Hold everything,” he said. “That last name is the one we want.”

“How do you know?”

“From some checking up I’ve been doing. I know that the man’s name has the syllable ‘Larry’ in it and that he comes from a town in California that has a ‘River’ in its name.”

“Okay,” Brandon said. “What do we do next?”

“I’ll tell you what we do,” Selby exclaimed. “You hold the fort here. I’ll rush to Los Angeles, charter a plane and go directly to this place. We won’t take the chance of making a mistake this time, and we won’t overlook any bets. I have a picture of the man with me.”

“You don’t think we should make the identification through that oculist?” the sheriff asked. “We could get a photograph up to him by plane within three or four hours.”

“No, it’s still a second-hand identification. Let’s go right to the real source of information. I’m satisfied this is a hot lead. Remember, we’ve got a double problem. We not only have to identify the body, but we’ve got to find out why the man was here, what possible enemies he had, and what possible motivation might have led to his murder.”

“All right,” the sheriff said, “go to it. I’ll keep running down leads here. Where can I reach you if I want to send you a wire?”

“Send the wire to John Smith at General Delivery, Riverbend,” Selby said. “In that way, if any of the clerks in the telegraph office should be inclined to indulge in any gossip, we’ll remove some of the temptation.”

“When are you leaving?” Brandon asked.

“Right now,” Selby said.

He hung up the telephone, turned to Sylvia Martin. “All right, sister,” he said, “you claim you don’t get any breaks. How would you like to go to Los Angeles with me and take a trip by airplane to identify this dead man? You’d be in time to wire an exclusive story to your paper.”

She danced toward him, flung her arms around him.

“Doug, you dear!” she exclaimed, and left a smear of lipstick on his cheek.

“Of course,” he said dubiously, dabbing at the lipstick with his handkerchief, “I don’t know when I’ll get back or just where we’ll be. After all, there’s the question of conventions...”

“The conventions,” she told him, “be damned! Let’s get started!”