The Price of Murder (17 page)

Wixler looked at the picture of the table. A man would have to be in her bed or sitting on the edge of her bed to leave his prints in that position on the table.

“How old, Catelli?”

“Not as old as the ones on the flour can, Sarge. Not that old. But not real fresh. Don’t pin me down. I’ll put it this way. If her prints on the can are today, and his print
on the can is a week old, then this comes somewhere in the middle. Three days, five days. Hell, I can’t tell for sure.”

“But you would swear they weren’t made on the same day.”

Catelli looked at him with an expression of outrage. “I
know
they weren’t made on the same day. The oil was …”

“Okay, okay. How about the money Dan found?”

“Nothing. You expect anything?”

“Not really. Knobs and latches?”

“Still nothing. Not even any kind of little piece of a print on the inside knob of the back door. It turns hard, so it looks like he had gloves or else he wiped it.”

Ben went back up to the room where Bronson waited. Bronson looked at him with an odd expression.

“What’s the matter?”

“I just remembered the last thing I ever said to her. I leaned down and yelled in her face. I yelled ‘Shut up,’ and then I left.”

That memory made up Wixler’s mind for him. It would hurt Lee, but hurt him in a different way than he was punishing himself. In a dispassionate voice he told him what Catelli had found—the evidence of at least two visits, and the indicative place where the more recent prints were found.

“From three to five days ago?” Bronson said blankly. “In the bedroom?”

He stood up quickly and went to the window and looked out at the brick wall eight feet away, his back to the room. Wixler waited. Bronson stood there for at least two full minutes. Then he turned slowly and came back and sat down. “That is something Danny would do. But not without an invitation. And I don’t think he just happened to sit on the bed and watch her hide the money. Not Danny. I wonder just how many other God damn invitations she passed around, and how many acceptances she had.”

“Take it easy.”

“I feel like a fool. That’s something about her I should have been able to guess. When you get Danny I want to see him.”

“I may want to talk to you again tomorrow.”

“You’re not holding me?”

“I don’t see why we should. But I’ll tell you one thing. If you wore a size twelve and a half shoe instead of an eleven, we might have solved your housing problem. I’d rather you didn’t stay at home. I don’t imagine you want to, do you?”

“No.”

“I’ll have Detective Spence take you back there while you pick up what you’ll need. When you find a place to stay, phone in and let me know. By the way, Dr. Haughton is getting someone to take your classes. This is going to be a big thing in the newspapers.”

They walked downstairs together. Lee Bronson stuck out his hand. Wixler hesitated, and then took it. He said, “I think we’ll crack this as soon as we can get hold of your brother.”

“Thanks for being … so damn decent, Sergeant.”

Wixler watched him join Al Spence at the door and go out. He met Dan Means outside the door of the ready room.

“Got Keefler?”

“Fifteen minutes ago, Ben.”

“Sit in on this with me.”

“I never liked that guy, believe me.”

“You aren’t alone. Let’s take him upstairs. You bring him.”

Keefler came in with an air of arrogance. “I don’t know what you fellas think you’re doing, Wixler. I’m working and I get hauled in off the street like a bum or something.”

“Where was he?”

“Plato’s bar on Fifth Street.”

“I was looking for a guy,” Keefler said.

“Sit down and lower your voice, Keefler,” Wixler said. Keefler hesitated and then sat down, expression defiant. “Now I am going to point out a few things to you. You are no longer a member of the force.”

“Don’t you think I …”

“Shut up.”

“I got a license for a gun and your stooges took it off …”

“I told you to shut up. If you don’t, I swear to God you spend the night in the tank and I talk to you in the morning.”

Keefler looked at Wixler and then at Dan Means. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Okay, what am I supposed to have done?”

“You reported Danny Bronson as being in violation of parole.”

“Right.”

“Your responsibility ended there.”

“Not if I can find him, it don’t.”

“It ended there. If your case load isn’t heavy enough, ask for more. Bronson is a police responsibility.”

“Okay, so I look for him anyway. Show me a law. Show me why I can’t.”

“You threatened a private citizen. Mr. Lee Bronson.”

“He’s another punk like his lousy brother.”

Ben looked over at Dan Means. “I think I will put in an official complaint, Dan. I think this little viper ought to be in some new kind of work.”

“He’s a hero, remember,” Dan said. “He shot an unarmed fourteen-year-old kid between the eyes after the kid blew his hand off.”

“I don’t believe Mr. Keefler should be permitted to carry a gun, and I don’t believe he should be permitted to attempt to intimidate private citizens. I think we’ll fix his hash in the morning.”

Keefler began to yell. Spittle sprayed the table top. He slapped the table top with his good hand. For a time he was entirely incoherent, Wixler watched him mildly and then with more interest as Keefler became understandable. “… know a frigging thing about police work! So where is Danny? He’ll be in when I bring him in. I got leads. What do you jokers know? I know he’s on a blackmail kick and he’s working solo or maybe with a woman and when I got pulled in I was on the track of a statement in an envelope he’s got planted with somebody for insurance.”

“Hold it!” Ben snapped.

“Sure. Now you listen. Now you sit up. Sure.”

“What envelope? How did you hear about an envelope?”

“I’m not a cop so it’s my private business.”

“Lock him up, Dan.”

“On what charge? What’s going on?”

“Suppressing evidence. It seems a crime was committed, Johnny. Somebody killed Lucille Bronson. They were looking for something in the Bronson house. So talk. Or get booked as a common criminal.”

“The envelope. You want to know about that. Okay, he was in town Thursday, Bronson was. Last Thursday, and no smart cop made him and picked him up. He went to a lawyer. He tried to get the lawyer—his name is Paul Verney—to hold a statement for him. Verney didn’t like the way he acted. So he checked later, after he turned him down, and yesterday he got hold of me, and Verney give me some leads, some first names, Fred and Tommy, guys Bronson said would hold it for him. I checked the first names through CR and I been checking the list. So all the time Bronson had it! I seen them Saturday. They lied to me. You got him in a cell? I want to talk to that guy.”

“Sit down. You’re not talking to anybody,”

Keefler sat down sullenly.

“Why did Verney contact you?”

“He found out I was Bronson’s parole officer.”

“Were you going to go see the Lee Bronsons again?”

“If the lead didn’t check out. I was going to rough ’em a little and see if they knew about any papers Danny could have left. Now that you guys know I’ve been doing some good, you can stop kidding me about getting me fired off this parole thing. I can do good in that job and I like it. How about letting me help on the killing?”

Ben Wixler looked at the long, loose-mouthed face with its stain of viciousness. He let the silence grow. Keefler, during his police career, had typified the kind of officer Wixler despised.

“Johnny, I wouldn’t let you put an overtime tag on a tricycle. I don’t think you should be permitted to be in legal contact with any paroled convict. I think it was a sad mistake to give you the job. And I’m going to make it my business to see that it’s taken away from you. Your
police pension will carry you. And if you are found meddling in police affairs in any way from now on, I can assure you that you will handled with the utmost severity. Don’t try to bring up your record because I know your record, and it stinks. Arid don’t hint about any influential friends, because I don’t think you have a friend in the city. Now you can go.”

Keefler did not move for perhaps ten seconds. Then he made his previous tirade sound, by comparison, mild and reasonable. Wixler watched the contortions, listened to the invective, and suddenly realized without great surprise, the man was insane. He glanced at Dan and Dan moved closer to Keefler. Keefler’s scene was shocking, disturbing. Wixler found himself following a tiny thread of coherence. There was something about somebody named Mose being knifed to death. And some names, and deaths told of with smacking satisfaction. Rillyer. Gennetti. Casey.

“… soft!” Keefler yelled. “Every damn one of you! Mush! Soup! You gotta go after the bastards. You got to get ’em one way or another. Get ’em off the streets. Any way you can. Got to get ’em like I got Kowalsik. Filth! They’re all filth! They killed Mose. They tried to kill me. You mushbellies don’t understand what it is to be a cop. You don’t …”

Ben Wixler let the words fade from his consciousness as he leafed through old files, old names. The open file on murder was much larger in Hancock than it should have been. He had been through the file many times. Many of the murders had been committed long before he had joined the force, but there was no statute of limitations on murder. He remembered the grimy label on the faded file folder, a folder of a type no longer in use. Kowalsik, Gilbert Peter. And a particularly unsavory glossy photograph of the body flashed into his mind. Tortured to death. Body found in the lake.

“… try to lose me my job, a pansy cop like you, and I’ll go to every paper in town and I’ll …”

“Shut your mouth!” Ben roared. It startled Dan Means as much as it startled Keefler. Keefler sagged back in the chair.

“I want to hear just a little bit more about how you
got Gilbert Kowalsik, Johnny,” he said gently. “Tell me a little bit more.”

Keefler looked at Wixler. He snapped his head around and looked at Dan Means. His eyes were wide and staring and curiously blank. He looked like a man suddenly awakening from a sound sleep. His eyes narrowed. He looked down at his artificial hand. In far too casual a voice he said, “I didn’t say anything about Gil Kowalsik. I don’t know where you got an idea like that.”

Ben didn’t even have to glance at Dan Means to have him come in on cue. “We both heard you, Johnny. We want to know about it.”

“Tell us,” Ben said. “First you called him just Kowalsik. I called him Gilbert Kowalsik, but you called him Gil. I guess you knew him pretty well.”

“Gil? Oh! Oh, sure, I knew Gil. When I was a kid. I think he got killed. I remember something about it. A long time ago, I think.”

“But, Johnny. You didn’t say you fixed him. You didn’t use a word like that. You said you ‘got’ him. I think you were explaining how a
good
cop takes the law into his own hands. We both heard you, Johnny. We just want to know how you got Kowalsik.”

“You guys are nuts. I didn’t say anything about him. You didn’t hear me right.”

Ben leaned back. “You know something? We got all night, Johnny. All night long. Dan, suppose you go pull the Kowalsik file. Check the estimated time of death. Send somebody into dead records to pull Keefler’s duty reports for the estimated time of death. Bring the file back up here. And bring a fresh pot of coffee.”

“You guys are way off the beam,” Keefler mumbled.

“We’ve got all the time in the world, Johnny.”

The sedan pulled away and Ben walked up his front walk in the first pale gray of dawn. He managed to undress so quietly Beth didn’t stir. But when he eased himself into bed the sag of the bed aroused her.

“ ’Lo, honey,” she murmured. “Gosh, s’nearly morning.”

“Go to sleep, baby.”

She braced herself on one elbow and looked at him. “You got the grumps, haven’t you? Bad night?”

“I’ve got to be back at nine. We’ve got a hot one. But I guess it was a good night. We took an old one off the books. Got a confession. In detail. Seems a cop did it.”

“Oh, honey! How awful for you!”

“An ex-cop, but he was a cop when he did it, and I personally think he’s been crazy all his life, and he did it in a way that turned my stomach and I … The hell with it. Good night, baby.”

She kissed him. “Sleep fast because you haven’t got much sleeping time, darling.”

Verney awoke at six on Wednesday morning. During the first few moments of consciousness he wondered only why the alarm had been set so early, and then it all came roaring back into his mind. He remembered the curious things that had happened to him after he had grabbed the woman. It seemed that he had stood a little bit aside from himself and heard the hollow metallic sound as he kept slamming her head against the edge of the sink. It seemed to him that he had gotten back into himself with an effort. She had seemed utterly without weight. Only as he had regained control had he felt the slack heaviness of her and realized she was dead and had been dead for many long seconds.

He had let her slip from his hands and thud to the floor, and he had backed away from her. He remembered telling himself to look at the scene coldly and objectively and see if he had left any clue. Yet in the very next second, it seemed, he was walking down a dark street, walking too fast, breathing too hard, with absolutely no memory of having left the house. He had slowed and stopped, thinking that he should go back and empty drawers and make it look as though a thief had been in the house. Maybe he should take some small things of value and dispose of them.

And again, frighteningly without transition, he found himself trying to turn the door handle of his locked car three blocks from the Bronson house. As he hunted in his pockets for the car keys, he saw the telltale white on the front of his topcoat and on his shoes. He stamped his shoes hard, frantically dusted the white flour from the
front of his topcoat. He was still breathing very fast, very deeply, as though he had been running.

He got into the car and he started to think of how the fragile nape of the neck had felt in his right hand … and he was putting his key into the door of his room on the third floor of the Center Club. The hiatus frightened him. It was as though his brain kept cutting out, as though a wire to some essential terminal came loose.