Whistle Past the Graveyard [= Give the Girl a Gun]

Chapter Eighteen

We had lunch in the dining room, Barney and I volunteering to set the table while Madeline made coffee. As we munched on chicken-salad sandwiches, Madeline repeated what Warren Day had already told me about the judge refusing to release Tom Henry on bond.

“I think we’ve finally got Homicide on our side,” I said. “He hasn’t exactly come right out and said it, but I believe Warren Day is as convinced as you are that Tom Henry was framed.”

When I told her about my visit to Jessup’s and the resulting pickup call that had gone out for the pseudo messenger, she almost went into ecstasies.

“Now they’ll have to let Tom out,” she said. “They haven’t a thing to hold him on.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t that simple,” I deflated her. “From the police point of view there’s still the possibility that it was Henry himself who stole the gun from Ford’s set and had it initialed. If you asked them, they’d probably admit they couldn’t think of any plausible reason for his doing such a thing, but I’m sure they won’t release him until they definitely establish who did have the engraving done.”

This subdued her jubilation, but she was too happy at the possibility of Tom being cleared to remain depressed very long. A moment later she was inquiring eagerly, “How long will it take to locate this messenger boy? Do you think they might find him today?”

“They have only a rather slim description,” I hedged. “And the kid may not live anywhere near Jessup’s. Whoever hired him to pose as a Pickup messenger may have brought him from clear across town, or even from out of town.”

“Oh,” she said, depressed again.

“Day wanted to run a box ad offering a reward to the boy for coming forward with information,” I said. “Probably the kid doesn’t realize he was involved in anything illegal and wouldn’t hesitate to report in if he saw the ad. But there’s always the possibility the murderer would see the ad too, and decide the kid was too dangerous to leave alive. We have to try to locate him quietly.”

“Do you think Ed Friday is behind this?” Barney asked abruptly.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Why do you ask?”

He looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, it was pretty obvious he was sore at Walt the other night for passing at Evelyn. And I think that boy Max of his would kill anyone Friday told him to. Then Madeline told me you asked her if she knew of any reason Friday wouldn’t want you to look into the case, which leads me to assume he must have approached you in an attempt to get you to drop it.”

Ignoring the implied question in his final sentence, I said, “I’ve been considering Friday as a possibility, but somehow I can’t see him risking murder over a woman. I’d be happier if I could discover some other motive for him to get rid of Ford. Of course there’s always the possibility Friday was one of Ford’s blackmail victims.”

“Blackmail?” Amhurst repeated, open-mouthed.

“Ford had a habit of snapping infrared photographs of women. He had a confederate whose job was to get the women into compromising positions. There isn’t any evidence that his blackmailing activities took any form other than that, but blackmailers aren’t very particular. I suspect Ford would have put the screws to anyone he had something on, and I understand he once worked for Friday. Possibly he was holding something out of the past over Friday’s head, and Friday got tired of paying off.”

“I don’t think so,” Madeline objected. “They always seemed friendly enough until Walt started paying too much attention to Evelyn. Mr. Friday always seemed to me to treat Walt with a touch of tolerant contempt, but I think he liked him all right. At least I never noticed anything in his manner to suggest he feared Walt.”

“Wasn’t it Ford who brought Friday into the Huntsafe Company?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Amhurst said. “That was part of my deal with Walt. I agreed to give him a share of the stock if he could get legislative action on the Gimmick and also produce a backer for manufacture.”

“I know,” I said. “A ten-per-cent share, according to Ford’s widow. That right?”

Barney flushed slightly. “That’s right. Ten per cent.”

I examined his flush curiously. “Wasn’t that kind of high payment for the services involved?”

Madeline said to Amhurst, “You ought to look embarrassed, Barney.” To me she said, “The only inventor I ever knew who had any business sense was my brother. He always had an ironbound contract for everything he did, and it was always in his own favor. But Barney hasn’t any more business sense than my Tom. He’d have given all the stock away if I hadn’t found out what he was doing and put a stop to it. He signed over twenty per cent to me to cover Lloyd’s interest in the invention, though he wasn’t legally required to give me anything, ten per cent to Walt Ford, and forty per cent to Ed Friday for putting up the money for manufacture. He’s only retained a thirty per-cent interest for himself. If I had known what he was doing in time, I would have stopped it. We didn’t need Mr. Friday’s money. I would have backed the company myself for another twenty per-cent interest, and Barney could have retained sixty per cent. And there was no necessity for giving Walt Ford any interest. He simply should have been on the payroll as an employee of the company.”

Barney said defensively, “At the time I made the agreement, I didn’t have anything to offer but a share of the invention.”

They were still arguing the point amiably when we finished lunch. Madeline refused our offer to help with the dishes, saying she merely wanted to stack them, as she intended to run right over to the jail and tell Tom the good news and didn’t want to take the time to do dishes.

The rest of that afternoon I spent catching up on the sleep I had missed the night before. Late in the afternoon I phoned Warren Day to check if any progress had been made in tracking down Alberto Thomaso. The inspector told me the address shown on the youthful gunman’s driving license had been correct, but by the time the police checked it, the bird had flown.

Eighteen twelve Sixth Street was a rooming house, Day said, and according to the landlady Alberto had come home some time in the wee hours, packed and had taken off immediately. The landlady’s room was just below Thomaso’s and apparently she was a light sleeper, for she had heard him come in and leave again. She hadn’t turned on a light to see the time, but estimated this had occurred around four A.M.

“We found the Chrysler abandoned near Midland Park,” the inspector said. “The owner didn’t even know it was stolen until we gave him a ring. Seems he’s been on a toot the last few days and thought he just couldn’t remember where he parked it. We also ran down the owner of that river cottage.”

“Get anything from him?”

“Nothing important. He’s a guy named Robert Baxter. Thomaso rented the cottage from him last summer, but it hasn’t had a tenant this summer. Apparently Thomaso just decided to appropriate it for a couple of weeks, because Baxter claims he didn’t have authorization from him to use it.”

“Get anything on the Woodsman?”

Day’s voice turned pleased. “Yeah. Ballistics tied it to an unsolved gang killing of nearly a year ago. This kid is even dumber than most hoods. Imagine a guy dumb enough to hang onto a gun after he’s used it for murder.”

“I can’t,” I said. “Even Alberto isn’t that dumb. I hate to spoil your dreams, but I’ll bet my little playmate is clear of that one. Five gets you ten he bought it in a pawnshop subsequent to your year-old murder.”

“I suppose,” Day said glumly. “I thought of that too. If a ready-made solution to a killing ever fell in my lap, I wouldn’t believe it.”

“Making any progress in locating that kid messenger?”

“Naw. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Hannegan came up with a bright idea we’re going to try in the morning. On the off-chance that the kid may be enrolled in summer school, we’re asking all the high schools to question all male students fitting the description. Not one kid in ten goes to summer school, but it’s a chance.”

I told the inspector I’d check with him again the next day and rang off.

Since my date with Fausta was at nine and I wanted to see Bubbles Duval first, I showered and dressed before dinner. At seven I was at Bubbles’s apartment and was waiting in front of her door when she came in from work.

“Manny!” she squealed enthusiastically when she saw me. “We going out again tonight?”

“No,” I said. “I just want to talk with you a few minutes.”

Looking mildly disappointed, she handed me her key. As I slipped it into the lock, she managed to stand so close our shoulders brushed, making it difficult for me to manipulate the key.

When, after a bit of fumbling because of the crowded work quarters, I managed to get the door open, she squeezed past in such a manner that her breasts momentarily rubbed across my biceps. Inside she tossed her purse onto a chair, seated herself in the center of the sofa and patted the place next to her.

Shaking my head, I came to a stop directly before her and stood looking down at her.

“I’m going to show you something, Bubbles, and I’m afraid it’s going to upset you a little.”

Taking the photograph of Bubbles and the broad-shouldered man from my pocket, I held it in front of her.

Her eyes grew wide and slowly her face turned crimson. “Where did you get that?” she yelled, making a wild grab for it.

Jerking it out of her reach, I put the picture back in my pocket. “Sorry, Bubbles. If it was mine, I’d let you tear it up, but it’s police evidence and I have to return it.”

“What do you want?” she asked finally.

“I want to know about this picture.”

“Isn’t it self-evident? Walter Ford took it. You must know that. It’s one of the pictures you were talking about last night. Only this one was supposed to be destroyed. I watched Walter burn it myself.”

“You can make an unlimited number of prints from a negative,”

I said dryly. “How about telling me the whole story? I’ll guarantee there won’t be any publicity. The cops do everything possible to protect the reputations of blackmail victims. If you’re ever called to testify against this guy in the picture, you’ll appear in the public records as Jane Doe. And you may never even be called. The cops have a whole series of similar pictures involving other women which they may decide to use instead of yours.”

“They couldn’t use me,” Bubbles said. “I wasn’t a blackmail victim.”