Traps Need Fresh Bait

Chapter 13

I drove directly to the office, parked the car, walked into Bertha’s office and said, “O.K. Bertha, we’re having a showdown!”

“How come?”

“Come on,” I told her; “we’re going to call on Katherine Elliott. We go to her apartment. She’s going to try to beat us to the punch. We can’t afford to have her do it.”

“So what do we do?”

“We search her apartment.”

“Without a warrant?”

“Without a warrant. She’s been searching my place. We’ll return the compliment.”

“And how do we get in?”

I said, “we’re going to have Frank Sellers with us. Call him on the phone.”

Bertha sighed. “Do you know what you’re doing Donald?”

“I know I’m doing the only thing possible under the circumstances.”

Bertha picked up the telephone, called police headquarters, asked for Frank Sellers, and got him on the phone.

“Frank,” she said, “this is Bertha Cool. Donald is having a brainstorm.”

There were squawks at the other end of the line.

“All right,” Bertha said, “I’ve got him with me. We want to meet with you.”

Bertha Cool held the phone turned to me and said, “You’ve been cutting corners. Sellers is going to take you into custody for interrogation.”

“Let him interrogate,” I said. “But tell him to meet us at the Steelbuilt Apartments. That’s his only chance of getting in touch with me. Tell him I’ll be watching the entrance to the apartments and, when he drives up I’ll contact him.”

Bertha relayed the message to Sellers.

Sellers made more squawking noises on the phone.

“Now hang up, Bertha,” I told her. “Act as if the connection had been broken; and when he calls back, have the office operator tell him that you and I have left the office.”

Bertha hesitated for a moment, then hung up the phone.

“You don’t do this to a cop!” she said.

“Maybe you don’t,” I said, “but I do. Come on, let’s go.”

“Just what are you going to do, Donald?”

“You and I together,” I said, “are going to pull a chestnut out of the fire for Sellers.”

“Will he like it?”

“He’ll love it!”

“Well, let’s hope so,” she said, “because he was as mad as a wet cat over the telephone. He says you’ve been cutting corners again; that he tried to stick up for us and told you to keep your nose clean, but that you weren’t content with that. You went trying to take short cuts. You’ve been ditching shadows.”

“We’ll talk on the way,” I told her.

I drove Bertha to the Steelbuilt Apartments in the rented car. We parked by a fire hydrant.

Sellers came up in a police car in about two minutes.

Sellers was mad.

“Bertha,” he said, “I’ve tried to protect you through all of this, but this time that little bastard has gone too far!”

“Perhaps not far enough,” I told him.

“Well,” he said, “if overshooting the mark is far enough, you’ve really done it.”

I said, “One of your men was shooting at a car last night.”

“Was he?”

“A car down by the Finchley residence.”

Sellers eyes narrowed. “Know anything about it?” he asked.

“Stick around here,” I said, “and you’ll find a car with two bullet holes in it driving up here in about the next ten minutes.”

Sellers surveyed me with blinking eyes; then he said thoughtfully, “If you’ve got a car with bullet holes in it, Pint Size, you’ve got something! Whose is it?”

“It’s the property of Katherine Elliott, who lives in apartment 14 B.”

Sellers was thoughtful. “If she has a car with two bullet holes in it,” he said, “I would be justified in getting a search warrant.”

“And what good would that do you?”

“I don’t know, but we could at least look.”

“And by that time, everything would be gone.”

“What makes you think it would be gone?”

“She knows the fat is in the fire.”

“How does she know it?”

“Because she’s got two bullet holes in her car.”

“Now, wait a minute — wait a minute,” Sellers said. “If this is some of your shenanigans, I want to know about it. I want to be able to evaluate the evidence... Well, if I’ve got to get a search warrant, I want to be acting in good faith.”

I said, “By the time you get a search warrant, Katherine will be gone and the evidence will be gone. If you’re going to do anything, you’ve got to get up to that apartment within ten seconds after Katherine Elliott gets there.”

“I can’t search without a warrant. Do you think she’d give me permission?”

“She wouldn’t give you the time of day,” I said. “But if you had reason, as a police officer, to go into the apartment and then you uncovered evidence...”

“What kind of evidence?”

“Wait and see.”

“But how would I have reason to go in there as a peace officer?”

“That,” I said, “is the nice part of the Supreme Court decisions. As a police officer, your wrists are handcuffed behind your back; you can’t do anything with a suspected criminal without giving him a warning, telling him he’s entitled to be represented by an attorney, warning that he doesn’t need to answer any questions. In other words if you kick your case out of the window, you can talk with the suspect; if you talk with the suspect without kicking your case out of the window, you don’t get anywhere.”

“You don’t need to tell me anything about the Supreme Court decisions!” Sellers said bitterly.

“You’ll learn to live with them,” I told him.

“I’m going to have to,” he said. “But I’m not going to like it.”

“But,” I told him, “the Supreme Court has left one beautiful loophole. If some private detective violates the rights of the prisoner all to hell and then you enter the picture and if the evidence of guilt is lying all around, the Supreme Court can’t tell you to close your eyes.”

“And how do we get a situation of that sort?” he asked.

I jerked my thumb toward Bertha.

Sellers said, “Dammit it, Donald, you and your schemes and...”

“Shut up!” I said. “Here she comes!”

I pushed Sellers back behind the automobile.

Katherine Elliott was too disturbed to pay any attention to anything. She slammed her car into a parking place, banged the bumper of the car behind her, shut off the motor, jerked the key out of the car, and ran into the entrance to the apartment house.

“Come on,” I told Sellers. “We haven’t got all day, you know.”

We headed across the street — Bertha waddling to keep up with us.

He paused long enough to study the bullet holes; then we headed for the apartment house entrance.

Bertha said, “What do you want me to do, Donald?”

“Do your stuff, Bertha,” I told her.

“Rough?” she asked.

“The rougher the better.”

“Can we get by with it?”

“Yes.”

“Donald,” she sighed, “you’re a brainy little bastard! I’ve played ball with you before and, so help me, I’ll do it again!”

We walked into the lobby of the apartment house. Sellers showed his ID card to the man at the desk, and we went up in the elevator.

I knocked on the door of 14 B.

For a moment there was no answer.

I knocked again and said, “Police officer checking your car, madam. You have bullet holes in it.”

The door opened a cautious crack. Katherine Elliott said, “I want to report that to the police. A private detective, Donald Lam, deliberately shot those holes in my car and...”

She broke off as Bertha Cool pushed the door open and said, “Mind if we come in, dearie?”

Bertha led the way into the apartment.

Katherine Elliott, said, “You’re damn right I mind.” And then, seeing me, she pointed a finger at me and said, “There’s the man that put the bullet holes in my car.”

Sellers looked at me, and I saw the idea crash home into his consciousness. Sellers knew she was telling the truth and he wanted out.

“You’ll make a complaint, madam?” he asked.

“I’ll make a complaint,” she said.

Sellers said, “You understand that’s a serious offense — or rather, a series of offenses. It involves malicious destruction of property, discharging a firearm within the city limits. If you make a complaint, I don’t want you to back out on me.”

“I’m making a complaint,” she said.

“Where did this happen?” I asked.

“You know where it happened. My car was parked in front of...”

“Yes, yes. Go on,” I said, as her voice trailed into silence.

“I don’t have to answer your questions,” she blazed, and then turned to Sellers. “Officer, I want action! I want this man taken into custody. He’s been trying to make trouble for me in every conceivable way. He’s been to the Better Business Bureau and complained about me. He’s tried to annoy and harass me, all because I have some information that he wants and won’t give it to him.”

Sellers said, “I told you you’d get into trouble one of these days, Pint Size. Did you put those bullet holes in that car?”

I looked at him and laughed.

“Be your age,” I said. “The police were chasing a car last night and fired a couple of shots. You find her car with a couple of bullet holes in it. Why don’t you ask her where she was last night and what she was doing out on Hemmet Avenue?”

Sellers looked back at her and, at what he saw in her face, did a sudden double-take. A lot of the assurance that he’d had began to evaporate.

I said, “Look around, Bertha.”

Bertha barged through the apartment.

“Don’t you dare search my apartment!” Katherine Elliott screamed. “Don’t you dare! I’ll... Officer, protect me!”

“You can’t search the apartment, Bertha,” Sellers warned.

Bertha paid no attention either to him or to Katherine Eliott but kept on toward the kitchenette. She pushed open a folding door, looked around, turned back. And Katherine Elliott was on her like a wildcat, clawing, screaming obscenities, and trying to get a handful of Bertha’s hair.

Bertha scooped an arm around the woman’s waist, picked her up off the floor and slammed her on the bed so hard the pictures rattled against the wall.

Sellers started to move toward Bertha, then thought better about it.

Bertha moved majestically toward a closed door, opened the door to disclose a bathroom.

A gurgling, inarticulate sound came from the room.

Bertha stepped inside.

“Fry me for an oyster,” she said.

I reached Bertha’s side in a few quick strides while Sellers was still standing rooted to the floor and Katherine Elliott was trying to get her breath back.

Daphne Creston had been wrapped in a bed sheet; then the bed sheet had been tied around her so it made a strait jacket. She had been gagged and put in the bath-tub. She was lying there helpless, only her panic-stricken eyes pleading for help.

Bertha took one look, then whirled away from the door.

“Take a look in here, Sergeant,” I said.

Katherine Elliott came up off the bed like a trampoline performer clearing the net. She just doubled her back and raised her feet, used her hands for propulsion and shot off the bed, her skirts almost to her shoulders.

When she hit the floor, she was headed for the door.

Bertha was incredibly fast for a short, heavy woman who had to waddle. She was like an army tank crossing the room.

Katherine had a hand on the door and the door half open when Bertha grabbed the back of her hair.

“Oh, no, you don’t, dearie,” Bertha said, and jerked.

Katherine screamed.

Bertha looped an arm around Katherine’s waist, slammed her back on the bed.

I was bending over the bathtub fumbling with the knots.

The first one I untied was the one which held the gag in place. I pulled the bandage off her mouth, pulled the gag out of the mouth with my fingers.

Daphne made spitting noises, then said, “Donald — oh, Donald — I knew you’d come.”

Sellers said, “What the hell is this all about?”

I said to Bertha, “Watch her, Bertha.”

Bertha said, “I’m watching her. You stay there, dearie, or I’ll sit on your stomach and hold you in place.”

I tried my hand at the knots on the torn sheet.

Sellers said, “Let me cut it Donald. We may need those knots for evidence. Do you know what the hell this is all about?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you’d better tell me.”

I got the bonds cut and the sheet ripped off Daphne. Her skirts were pretty well up, and I started to pull them down.

“To hell with the legs,” Daphne said. “Get me out of this porcelain mausoleum.”

Sellers and I lifted her out.

Daphne tried to stand up. The circulation had pretty well gone in her legs. She stumbled and would have fallen if I hadn’t caught her. She lurched against me, her head on my shoulder.

“My legs are full of pins and needles,” she said.

“How long have you been there?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess an hour and a half anyway.”

“Did you get my Special Delivery letter?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Then what did you do?”

“I was independent, Donald. I couldn’t sponge on you any more. I didn’t want to leave the brief case in the apartment, so I put it in a safe place. It’s...”

“Never mind for the moment, Daphne,” I said. “It’s in a safe place. What did you do next?”

“I took the three hundred dollars and was careful to clean up the apartment. I was sure I didn’t leave any ring in the bathtub and had things so they would be nice for you. I was just leaving when Katherine Elliott drove up and said, ‘Mr. Harper has decided he wants you after all. I have the three hundred dollars for you in my office. If you’ll just come with me and sign the receipt, I’ll notify Mr. Harper.’

“I started to tell her that I already had the three hundred dollars; and then I knew what had happened — that you had dug down in your pocket and had put up three hundred dollars for me... Well, like a ninny I just came along with her. We went up to this apartment and Miss Elliott said that Harper was due here at any minute but we’d have a cup of coffee.

“I know now that she drugged that coffee. I drank it and began to feel dizzy. I told her I thought I was going to faint. She helped me into the bathroom and then everything started going around and around, and that’s the last I remember until I found myself all tied up and gagged the way you found me. I tried to scream and couldn’t. I tried to kick my heels against the bathtub but I couldn’t do any good. She’d taken my shoes off. I had a deathly fear that somehow somebody was going to turn on the water and I’d drown in there like a trapped rat. Donald, you’ve no idea what I’ve been through!”

Sellers said, “Will you kindly tell me what this is all about, Pint Size?”

I said, “Katherine Elliott is a girl who plays both ends against the middle. She’s been in trouble with the Better Business Bureau over things she’s done. She has a collection of hole-in-the-wall offices that she rents out by the hour, by the day, or by the week and gives an air of respectability and a telephone number to anyone who wants to pull a fly-by-night deal.

“Dale Finchley was a political lawyer. He also knew which side of the bread had the butter. He’d been playing ball with Lathrop, Lucas and Manly, subdivision contractors.

“It was a slick scheme. He’d let the contractors who had the inside track copy all of the bids and then sneak in their own bid at the last minute. They could be just a thousand or two under the lowest bid and be assured of getting the job.

“Naturally that cost money.

“This man Harper she talks about in reality is Walter Lucas.

“The night Finchley was murdered, Lucas was to go there and pick up all the bids, then rush them to a vacant house four blocks away where he had a whole set of duplicating machines set up. They would duplicate the bids, then restore the originals, telephone that they were making a bid of a couple of thousand dollars lower than the lowest bid but that they needed a few hours to get it in detail.

“They’d work all night pirating the specific information they wanted from the other bids and show up bright and early in the morning with a bona fide bid that would enable them to be sure they got the job.

“But a few days before the deal was to be pulled off, Katherine Elliott reported that there were suspicious circumstances, that someone had been questioning her in her office.

“Actually Katherine here was preparing to put the bite on everybody. She had been getting all the deadwood on Finchley, and she’d been working with Lucas.

“I doubt if the other partners knew what was going on. I think it will turn out that Walter Lucas was the only really crooked one in the outfit, but Lucas had charge of the bids on this type of construction, and Lucas and Finchley were carrying on a slick scheme of double cross; then somebody found out about it and started blackmailing Lucas, and Lucas would have given his right arm to find out who the blackmailer was. All he knew for certain was that someone was putting the bite on him and he was being forced to leave money in various places, after receiving mysterious telephone calls disclosing information which he thought no one else had.

“It never occurred to him that it could be Katherine Elliott. He thought she was a rather dumb accomplice who was renting him offices from time to time under an assumed name.

“But with this big deal coming up, Lucas had a tip that someone was going to try to-make trouble. Lucas wanted copies of the papers, but he didn’t want trouble. He had everything all fixed up with Finchley. What he needed was a patsy who could act as the go-between, someone who severacity could be impeached, someone who would tell a story that was incredible on the face of it if picked up for questioning. If things went smoothly, Lucas would wind up with copies of all the bids and all the confidential engineering estimates. If things didn’t go right, Lucas would be in a position to call the patsy an unmitigated liar if the finger of suspicion ever pointed at him. So Lucas put an ad in the paper which would be designed to attract a patsy of the type he was looking for.

“The ad looked all right on the face of it, but what it really said was ‘WANTED: Someone who is down on his luck, who is willing to commit perjury for three hundred dollars.’”

“You can prove all this?” Sellers asked.

I grinned at him. “You can,” I said, “as soon as you get the lead out and start your investigation.”

“Who killed Finchley?” he asked.

“Use your judgment,” I said. “A woman was in there. Finchley accused her of being a traitor — a woman who wanted to make one last stake with blackmail and then get out of the country.”

“You lie! You lie!” Katherine Elliott screamed. “I was never near the place!”

“That sounds reasonable,” I said, “with two bullet holes in your car.”

“You put those bullet holes there!”

“Talk to the police about it,” I said. “They’re looking for a car with bullet holes in it.”

“What about this young woman?”

Sellers jerked his head toward Daphne Creston.

“This woman,” I said, “is Daphne Creston. They picked her as a patsy. She’s your star witness. She was in the house and heard Finchley accuse Katherine Elliott of double-crossing him and being a traitor. Katherine thought he’d be an easy mark for blackmail; but Finchley, after deciding to play ball, changed his mind. He told her she couldn’t get a nickel out of him. He started to call the police.

“Katherine was furious, and she couldn’t afford to be unmasked as the blackmailer who was putting the bite on Walter Lucas. She lost her head, shot Finchley, and dashed out the back door.

“She probably had her car parked in the alley. Anyhow, she managed to make a clean getaway. But she knew that Finchley had left plans in a brief case to be turned over to Walter Lucas, and she suspected there was another brief case with blackmail money in it.

“Katherine decided either I or Daphne probably had a brief case with a wad of dough in it. I’d given her the address of my dummy apartment when I’d answered the ad. She went there and found Daphne.

“Katherine Elliott lured Daphne out of the apartment, then went back with her keys — and you should see that apartment now. You’d think it had been in the eye of a cyclone.”

The thought of the wrecked apartment was devastating to Daphne’s pride as a housekeeper. “Oh, Donald,” she said. “I left it so neat!”

Sellers seemed halfway undecided. “Dammit, Donald,” he said, “you always get me into these things! Tell me one thing: did you put the bullet holes in that car?”

“You’re asking me?” I said.

“Yes.”

“You’re entirely out of order, Sergeant. The minute a crime passes the investigative phase and gets to the point where you’re accusing anyone of a crime, you have to go through a long rigmarole; and you can’t question a suspect except in the presence of a lawyer. You should know that.”

Sellers stood undecided, feet planted wide apart. Slowly, automatically he reached in his pocket, fished out a cigar and pushed it in his mouth. “It’s a hell of a story!” he said.

“The newspapers will love it,” I told him. “They’ll want some pictures of you.”

“How the hell can I prove all this?” Sellers asked.

I started looking around.

“The gun that fired the bullet that killed Finchley should be around here somewhere. Here’s the amateur’s favorite hiding place,” I said, and I noticed there were some little gritty grains on the kitchen floor.

I opened a cupboard door, picked out a big tin can marked “Sugar”. I upended the can over the sink.

Sugar cascaded out, and then a snub-nosed, blue-steel .38 Colt revolver.

“There’s your murder case, Sergeant,” I said.

Katherine Elliott screamed, “Walter Lucas is a crook. He’s going to turn against me and try to blame everything on me. He’s mixed in it deeper than I am.”

Sellers shifted the wet cigar in his mouth and said, “Come on, sister; you’re going to take a ride to headquarters. You’re entitled to a lawyer. You don’t have to say anything.”