Читать книгу Murder Applied For - Lloyd Biggle jr. - Страница 6

CHAPTER ONE

The patrol car swerved, came to a halt, and Ron Webber opened his eyes and looked about dazedly. He hadn’t thought to ask where they were going, and now he found himself blinking in surprise at the arrow and the flickering neon words: “Ambulance Entrance.”

He said, “Where are we?”

“Municipal Hospital,” the young officer said.

Webber nodded, opened a rear door, and climbed out. It had to be a hospital, he supposed. Either that, or a funeral parlor, because Carter City didn’t have a morgue. There was even a highly unfunny comic song about that:

“It has doctors by the dozens, it has chiropractors, too

And hospitals and pharmacies and nursing homes galore;

You can get your body sutured, any hour, day or night

But you can’t die, ’cause it hasn’t got a morgue.”

Webber took two steps, turned, and waited numbly. The two officers were talking in guarded tones, and their sudden laughter jolted him. He scowled resentfully, thrust his hands into his pockets, and rocked back and forth on his heels, shivering in the warm, humid night air.

The young officer got out, carelessly slammed both doors, and moved on ahead of him. He turned, holding the door open for Webber, and Webber set his feet in motion and entered the air conditioned corridor of the hospital.

The officer caught up with him, and their footsteps clicked in a confused pattern on the tiled floor. He touched Webber’s arm, opened a door, and a white-coated attendant stepped forward to meet them.

“Sure was a hot day,” the officer said. “It almost feels cold in here.”

Webber made no response. He wanted no casual conversation in that chill, sterile room. He wanted only to do his duty and depart. In the presence of the crushed body of a friend, the death-room was a suffocating place.

The ceremony was brief—a gesture, a mechanical gesture to the letter of the law. The sheet was raised, and Webber glanced and nodded. “It’s him. It’s Frank Milford.”

The officer shrugged. “Tough,” he said.

Webber thought bitterly, “It’s all in a day’s work for him.” And then, because he knew that was the way it had to be, he wondered why he was bitter.

The officer paused for a whispered conversation with an attendant, and Webber turned away. He needed some time to himself, some time to think. There would be relatives to notify, if Frank had any. He couldn’t recall. There would be funeral arrangements to make, and Frank’s personal effects to look after, and probably other things. And there was Gloria. Someone—anyone, so long as it was not Ron Webber—would have to tell Gloria.

He moved out into the corridor, walking quickly.

He heard a shuffle of footsteps as the officer hurried to catch up with him. Just then the outside door banged, and the second officer strode toward them. He muttered something into the ear of Webber’s escort. The escort nodded, and turned politely to Webber.

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Webber, we’d like to have you.…”

Back up the corridor they went and this time it was a girl. Webber looked quickly and turned away, carrying with him a grim impression of blonde hair and a small, serious face. The eyes would be blue, he thought, and she wouldn’t be beautiful, but she’d be nice-looking and probably have the kind of figure that gets spontaneous whistles on street corners. He wondered if some young man would be heart-broken about this.

“No,” he said. “I don’t recognize her.”

Again they walked way. The officer got in step with Webber, and their footsteps clicked rhythmically. Webber glanced sideways at him.

“Was it the same accident? Was she with Frank?”

“It was a different accident.”

His bland expression told Webber nothing. Webber shrugged, and kept to himself the moral outrage he felt at the calloused manner in which the police exhibited dead bodies.

They stepped through the door, and the faintly-stirring, warm night air instantly engulfed them. From the main thoroughfare at the end of the ambulance drive came sputtering traffic noises and the flash of neon signs. Webber shook his head confusedly. What had he been thinking about? Relatives, if any. And funeral arrangements. And he’d have to track down things like bank accounts and bonds and insurance policies. And someone would have to tell Gloria.

The officer opened the rear door for him.

“Many thanks,” Webber said. “But I can find my way home all right. I’d just as soon be alone, if you don’t mind.”

The officer nodded. If an expressionless face could possibly be called sympathetic, his was. “The Old Man wants to talk to you,” he said.

“Sure. First thing in the morning, all right?”

The answer was polite, but unmistakably firm. “He’d like to talk with you now.”

* * * *

At the office of the Chief of Police Webber dismissed his escort with a nod, opened the door himself, and firmly closed it behind him. He moved boldly across the room, shattered the silence by kicking a chair into position in front of the desk, and sat down.

“Well?” he said.

There were two men in the office. The one behind the desk squared his shoulders, and rasped, “Took you long enough.” The booming voice seemed much too large for the small room.

“Those nursemaids you gave me were doing the driving,” Webber said. “They managed a nice reckless twenty. They’re almost as daring behind a wheel as you are.”

The Chief leaned forward, elbows on his desk, and glared. His cigar quivered at a jaunty angle. A scar line on his right cheek stood out sharply in the white glare of the overhead lamp. That, and the two missing fingers on his left hand were mementos of occasions when he’d saved Carter City the expense of a trial by presenting it with an outlaw duly certified guilty and dead.

Big, robust, tough-looking, he’d graduated from the school of hard knocks with honors of his own making. Only the touch of grey in his hair suggested that he was old enough to be Webber’s father—which he was.

He was Ronald Webber, Senior, and his fondest hope in life had been that his only son would choose a police career. But Webber had stopped growing at three inches below the minimum height of five feet eight for which the Old Man had never quite forgiven him. They’d had a parting of the ways when Webber finished college, and their rare meetings since then had been less than affectionate.

The other man in the room was Detective-Lieutenant Robert Hendricks, who specialized in homicide when Carter City had any. He occupied a chair at one end of the desk. He was slumped back with his long legs stretched out at an uncomfortable angle, and his gaunt face wore a look of indescribable weariness.

A briefcase lay on the desk in front of them. The gilt was gone from the lettering, but the name was still legible. Frank Milford.

Hendricks gave Webber a belated nod of recognition, and smiled faintly. The Old Man continued to glare. Webber waited for the best part of a minute before he edged forward impatiently.

“All right,” he said. “I’m not on the police force. I have to work tomorrow. What’s the problem?”

The Old Man’s face reddened slightly beneath his tan. He kept his teeth clamped on the cigar and his eyes on Webber. He muttered sideways to Hendricks, “You take it.”

Hendricks leaned forward and spoke softly. “Frank was an old friend of mine, Ron. Have you known him long?”

“Since I went to work for National Credit. Four years next month.”

“And you’ve shared an apartment with him—how long?”

Webber thought for a moment. “Seventeen months.”

“Did Frank have any enemies?”

Webber straightened up slowly. Hendricks had slumped back in his chair again, apparently relaxed, but his hands were tense, his fingers tapping soundlessly on the desk. His gaze was fixed on the opposite wall. The Old Man kept his eyes on Webber.

“I thought it was an accident,” Webber said.

“It’s on the books as a hit-and-run accident. Did he have any enemies?”

“Not that I know of.”

Hendricks got to his feet absently. Five halting steps took him to the wall. Five steps took him back. He turned, and said over his shoulder, “You do the same kind of work Frank did?”

“That’s right.”

“You do investigations for business firms and insurance companies?”

“We call them credit reports, or inspection reports,” Webber said. “More than half of National Credit’s business comes from life insurance companies.”

Hendricks sat down again, and opened the briefcase. He pulled out a clipboard, with a stack of papers neatly attached. “These would be the reports Frank was working on today?”

Webber nodded.

“What’s the next step?”

Webber answered mechanically. “The information is summarized in reports to the companies who ordered them. In the case of insurance companies, it provides a check on the facts the applicants furnish when they apply for insurance. And usually it gives the companies important supplemental information on the applicant’s character, health, and financial positions.”

“Is this some kind of personal shorthand that Frank used?”

“Yes. I use the same thing. Frank taught it to me. It’s a big help in getting down information in a hurry.”

Hendricks shoved the clipboard across the desk. “I’d like to have you look through these reports, and tell me if there’s anything important there.”

Webber leafed through the pages slowly. He glanced up once, saw the Old Man and Hendricks watching him intently, and grinned. They were after something, and it wouldn’t occur to them that he might be better able to help them if they frankly told him what they wanted. Being police officers, they had to make a confounded mystery out of it.

“Frank always carried a big work-load,” he said. He loosed the clip, and extracted one page. “I don’t know if ‘important’ is the proper word, but this one is unusual. The rest are routine.”

Hendricks took the paper. “Why is this unusual?”

“It’s an application by a Miss Betty Parnet, you see, to the Star Mutual Life Insurance Company, for thirty-five thousand dollars’ worth of life insurance. Even on the surface it looks unusual. It bothered Frank. We talked about it before we left the office this morning, and again at lunch. We usually eat—ate—a late lunch together, between one and one-thirty.”

Hendricks said impatiently, “You didn’t answer the question. Just what is there about it that’s unusual?”

“It’s a big hunk of insurance for a young, unmarried office worker. It might cost half of her salary. At first I thought it was a typing error. I had a case myself, a couple of months ago, where a young fellow had applied for five thousand. The typist made it fifty thousand.”

Hendricks shifted his gaze to the ceiling, and his fingers resumed their silent tapping. The Old Man turned slowly in his chair, and sat looking out of the window at the darkened parking lot.

“You say at first you thought it was a typing error,” Hendricks said. “What changed your mind?”

“I did after I talked with Frank at lunch. He’d checked with the Star Mutual Office. The amount was correct. But when he began his investigation—here, I’ll read it.” He read from Frank Milford’s scribbled notes, filling out sentences to put it into presentable English. “Called at applicant’s employers, Ronson and Wilcox. Receptionist stated applicant worked previous Saturday and had day off. Receptionist uncooperative. Called on applicant. She shares apartment with a Marilyn Andrews at address noted. Applicant Betty Parnet claimed to know nothing about a life insurance application. Stated flatly she had not applied for insurance. At one point slammed door. Acknowledged named beneficiary her uncle, stated she did not know him, wouldn’t name him beneficiary if she did buy insurance. Application data confirmed. Identification positive.”

Hendricks transferred his gaze from the ceiling to the floor. “What does he mean, ‘Identification positive’?”

“He means he was satisfied that the person he talked with is the person described in the life insurance application—in other words, that he talked with Betty Parnet.”

“All right. Would you mind reading that off again, for a Dictaphone?”

Webber read the notes a second time. The Old Man played it back when he’d finished, and Hendricks made scribbles in his notebook. “Will that do?” he asked.

“It’ll do,” the Old Man said.

Hendricks took a slip of paper from his pocket. “Does this mean anything to you?”

“Frank’s writing,” Webber said. “It looks like a license number, but I don’t recognize it.”

“He didn’t say anything about it when you had lunch with him?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you anything about this Parnet business that he doesn’t have written down here?”

Webber shook his head. “No. We talked about it, and about what he ought to do. He thought he should talk it over with the boss, and have the boss check with the insurance company, before he went any further.”

“Would you say Frank was a good investigator?”

“He was the best in our office. By far.”

Hendricks took the report form, and carefully attached it to the clipboard. He sat back, his hands folded on the desk, his face thoughtful, as if he were phrasing and rephrasing a question in his head. “Just how do you interpret Frank’s notes?” he asked finally.

Webber jerked erect. “The girl at the hospital!”

The Old Man got noisily to his feet. “He’s real bright—a real credit to his family. If you dangle it in front of him carefully enough, and give him time enough, and finally hit him over the head with it, he’s bound to get it. Real bright.”

He strode toward the door.

Webber felt bruised and short of breath, as though he’d just received an unexpected kick in the stomach. He was still fighting to control himself when the Old Man growled, “I’ll be home if anything turns up,” reached for his hat, and left without a backward glance. He did not close the door gently.