Clues for Dr. Coffee, page 18
“Has Captain Buford confessed?” Dr. Coffee asked.
“Well, no. Matter of fact, he denies everything except he used to share May’s pillow from time to time. But, right now, it’s May’s word against the general’s.”
The general, Max explained, was Brigadier General Spencer H. Spence, chief of an Army mission that had set up headquarters in Northbank while exploring the countryside for a site for a new induction center, munitions dump, or similar classified project. The Spence mission was housed in a duplex suite which occupied the second and third floors of a downtown office building. May Marling was killed in a second-floor office.
“General Spence has his office at the head of the stairs on the third floor,” Max Ritter said. “When he hears the shot, he steps out and sees this Captain Buford busting out of a second-floor office and running down the stairs. He rushes down one flight and finds redheaded May in what he calls a characteristic pose’—horizontal. Only she’s dead. So, May being a civilian and the scene of the crime being civilian premises, the general calls Northbank police. The time is four fifty-five P.M.
“Eight minutes later I’m there. The dame is horizontal, all right. She’s laying on her back with her skirt sort of accordion-pleated crosswise halfway up her thighs. She’s still warm and her skin hasn’t started turning to gray wax yet, so the view ain’t too depressing. I also note that her sky-blue blouse is ripped down the front, popping three buttons.”
“Now, Max.” Dr. Coffee pursed his lips incredulously. “You’re not going to tell me you think this was a sex crime.”
“Confidentially, no, Doc,” said the detective. “According to the book, there’s hardly ever any rape in offices with open doors and traffic in the hall and stairway. And when there’s a history of probable previous intimacy—I talk like a lawyer, don’t I, Doc?—we don’t usually try to establish what the lawyers call stupration.”
“But the redhead, was killed in Captain Buford’s office?”
“Well, no. She was killed in Major Thissel’s office, right next to Buford’s. Funny thing, she’s killed with Major Thissel’s service revolver, too. I find it on the floor next to the body. But the general says Thissel always keeps the gun in an unlocked drawer of the desk, and he swears the major is out on a special errand; he won’t say what. The major’s mission in Northbank is classified, he says—so Thissel can’t establish an alibi.”
“What about the office on the other side of Major Thissel’s?”
“That’s Lieutenant Quail’s—First Lieutenant Frank Quail. He wasn’t in his office either, the general says.”
“Who is this bird Quail?”
“The general’s finance officer,” the detective replied. “I checked his alibi. He’s on the other side of the river at the exact time the general hears the shot that kills the ex-Wac. He’s clean, looks like.”
“Max,” said Dr. Coffee as the car started climbing the roads leading to Northbank’s fashionable Heights, “what was May Marling doing in Major Thissel’s office?”
“A very good question, Doc. I ask it myself. The answer is kind of complicated. Seems she is lured. Major Thissel says he can’t answer because it ain’t in the interests of national security, but Captain Buford says May hints she got a call to be in the major’s office at four o’clock—to make sure she ain’t in places where the U. S. Army is conducting an investigation. So we’re kind of handicapped till Buford comes to trial and we can subpoena these tongue-tied warriors.”
“Look, Max.” Dr. Coffee frowned. “This case has more holes than a wheel of Emmentaler cheese. You’re really not going to charge a man with murder on such flimsy evidence, are you?”
“General Spence has a litter of calico kittens if he hears you call his testimony flimsy. Right now we hold Captain Buford only on suspicion, but we got to charge him pretty soon. The general is pressuring the D.A.… Here we are, Doc. The domicile of the defunct doxy.”
The police car had stopped in front of a magnified replica of Westminster Abbey (twice natural size) guarded by two uniformed doormen wearing more gold than is in Fort Knox and more medals than a Russian astronaut.
“I’m here last night with the print boys,” Ritter said as they got out of the car, “but the place is pretty crowded. I don’t think they find anything, because, after all, the murder ain’t committed here. But I get an idea maybe you might find something in the kitchen or bathroom medicine chest the way you do in that Joe Dark murder. You don’t mind, Doc?”
“Mind? Max, you know that for years I’ve been madly in love—with the truth.”
The late May Mailing’s apartment was something out of a dream world—a nightmare in which ambition and extravagance fought desperately with tastelessness and immature imitation. The sunken living room was furnished with shoddy imitation antiques and ankle-deep wall-to-wall carpeting. The walls were hung with heraldic fanions, regimental flags of U. S. units, and tattered insignia from enemy aircraft shot down by May’s friends. Sauntering through the apartment, Dr. Coffee blinked at the bedroom’s cascading pillows, patchwork slips made up of the shoulder patches worn in two world wars and a police action in Korea. The kaleidoscope of color inundated all the furniture, including an outsize Louis XV bed canopied in apricot satin.
Dr. Coffee invaded the bathroom to examine the medicine cabinet, so often indicative, but was overwhelmed at first by the squadrons of model fighters and bombers dangling from the ceiling, and by the gallery of helmeted airmen whose photos lined the walls shoulder to shoulder, staring down into the empty bathtub. Dr. Coffee had just begun to inventory the bottles and vials in the medicine chest when a loud and profane exclamation from Max Ritter recalled him to the next room.
“Doc, give a look!” the detective said. “Somebody’s been here since I left last night. Look at the drawers in the Looie Cans secretary. They been rifled. And the breakfront. And all those books that nobody ever read—pulled out of the bookcases.”
“Didn’t you post a guard here last night, Max?”
“What for? This ain’t the murder scene. And besides we find everything we re looking for.”
“Except the murderer, Max. But you’re probably right. I doubt if the murderer would have come back if you had one of your boys in blue standing at the portals.”
Ritter swallowed hard, and his magnificent Adam’s apple bobbed twice in his long throat. “Why would he come back here anyhow, Doc?”
“Why did he practically undress the corpse? Why did he rip open the girl’s blouse? Where does a woman hide things? And what would a man do who killed a woman to get something he expected to find secreted on her person—and found nothing?”
The detective nodded. “Maybe you got something there, Doc. What do you suppose this guy Buford is after?”
“That, Max, is a question for a cop, not a pathologist. But since I promised Doris I’d help get to the bottom of this, I’ll try to find your answer. First of all, I want to talk to Captain Buford. I also want to talk to the general, to Major Thissel, and to Lieutenant Quail. And I want to know everything you’ve found out about May Marling.”
“I’m ahead of you, Doc.” Ritter grinned and reached into his inside coat pocket. “I brought you carbons of my reports. You can read ’em tonight.”
Within 48 hours, Dr. Coffee thought he had a pretty fair grasp of the case of the wayward Wac. After reading Ritter’s reports, he had interviewed all the obvious principals. His interview with the victim was perforce one-sided, since it was conducted posthumously—the pathologist had easily persuaded the three-chinned, redfaced, pinochle-playing coroner to let him do the autopsy—yet it produced more pertinent information than did either the reluctant monosyllables which General Spence confided to the telephone or the cryptic remarks of Major Harry Thissel.
The life of the deceased, Dr. Coffee decided, had been blighted at birth when Mr. and Mrs. Flowers, her whimsical parents, had christened her “May.” Escape from the legal cognomen of Flowers must have been at least partial motivation for her marriage to Master Sergeant Bill Marling, a breach of regulations for which she had been tossed out of the Women’s Army Corps after a year’s service. Why else should a girl of her dazzling physical endowments have married a rather unprepossessing noncom—her subsequent behavior indicated no overwhelming love—instead of one of the many handsome young officers who had been pursuing her? Why, in fact, had she joined the WAC in the first place? She would have looked more at home in the spangled bikinis of a chorus line than in olive drab, although apparently she had been able to coax more tantalizing appeal from a Wac uniform than most girls could conjure from black-lace pretties.
At any rate, soon after the wedding, Master Sergeant Marling had gone off to Laos with the U. S. Military Mission and had promptly disappeared en route from Vientiane to Padang by air. “Missing and presumed dead,” the Defense Department had wired May.
May Marling made a most attractive widow if not a very mournful one. Her gentlemen friends who rallied round nobly to console her were pleased to note that May, who had formerly been both subtly provocative and demure, was no longer subtle or demure once she had collected Sergeant Marling’s G.I. insurance and signed papers for a widow’s pension. She became a laughing, dashing, beguiling figure at the Wild Blue Yonder Bar and Grill, a sort of unofficial junior officers’ club near McAbrams Air Force Base across the river from Northbank. She also moved into the plush apartment on the Heights for which her widow’s pension could not have covered more than maid service, gas and light, and perhaps tips for the elegant doormen. Such incidentals as rent, food, drink, garage, furs, Dior originals, and payments on a Jaguar she had apparently left to Providence.
The identity of the agents of Providence was a mystery. Despite her many gentlemen friends, May apparently had never entertained (intimately, at least) any officer of field-grade rank or above, and she did not seem to be polyandrous. Although the normal rotation of officer personnel was obviously sufficient to furnish May with the spice of life, it hardly seemed capable of supplying the staples, let alone the luxuries, of the life to which the Widow Marling had become accustomed.
Studying May’s romantic roster as prepared by Max Ritter, Dr. Coffee noted a marked favoritism for the Air Force, although May had not been snobbish about it. In fact, since General Spence’s mission had set up shop in Northbank, May had gone out of her way to brighten the lonely nights of some of his younger officers, notably Captain Joe Buford. And Captain Buford had repaid her generous hospitality, according to General Spence, with death.
“No doubt about it, Coffee,” the general had insisted on the telephone. “Buford shot the girl. I heard the shot and I saw him with my own eyes when he came out of the office and ran down the stairs. No, Coffee; there’s no use of our meeting because there’s nothing I could tell you that I haven’t already told to that detective. I’ve already been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, and that’s enough. Good-bye.”
Dr. Coffee had wanted a look at the young captain so peremptorily condemned by General Spence, so Max Ritter had arranged an interview at the Northbank county jail. Buford spoke freely and apparently frankly. A handsome blue-eyed, fair-haired Southerner who had managed to lose his grits-and-drippin’s accent, Buford was a product of V.M.I. He had won his first lieutenancy in Germany, his captain’s bars in Japan, and manifold feminine hearts in most intervening longitudes. After the blonde buxomness of the Fäuleins and the dark, glossy, stylized ardor of Tokyo’s nightblooming beppin, the all-American, free-wheeling, hoyden approach of redheaded May Marling had been like a whiff of new-mown hay on the banks of the Wabash. So Captain Buford had made hay, and May had taken him into her heart and oversized bed.
The captain had not been in love with May; he had never been in love with anyone when he met May. He had accepted the favors of any woman as his just due. Although he thoroughly enjoyed the warmth, talents, and natural charms of the ex-Wac, he felt no obligation toward her other than his contribution of transient affection and an occasional minuscule financial gesture. When he fell in love with Ruth Andrews, he had no compunction about dropping May. He was sure May understood. Ruth was an unspoiled, honest-to-God girl-next-door type that any man might want to marry.
“Didn’t you ever promise to marry May Marling?” Dr. Coffee asked.
“Never.”
“Didn’t she tell you that she was in trouble and demand that you make an honest woman of her?”
“She never mentioned marriage. We never discussed it.”
“Didn’t she threaten to go to your fiancée with the whole story of your liaison?”
“What for?” Captain Buford asked. “Ruth knew all about May. I told her everything before I asked her to marry me. Ruth isn’t jealous of the past.”
“Even so, didn’t May Marling try to blackmail you? Didn’t she ask you for money?”
“Money?” The captain laughed. “May knew exactly how much a captain gets—$415 a month base pay, $85.50 quarters allowance, and $47.88 subsistence.” He laughed again. “We used to blow the whole subsistence money on one night out.”
“You of course had a key to Mrs. Marling’s apartment,” Dr. Coffee said.
“I gave it back two or three months ago. It had a gold-plated heart-shaped thumbpiece set with a ruby.”
“And who has his thumb on the ruby now?”
Buford shook his head. “I could guess,” he said, “but I’d rather not.”
“I got a list from the doorman,” Ritter volunteered. “Lieutenant Quail’s leading the field, looks like.”
A jailer approached with a jangle of keys. “Time’s up,” he said.
“One more question,” Dr. Coffee said. “Did I understand you to say you hadn’t seen May Marling in two or three months?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I’ve seen her since.”
“When was the last time?”
Captain Buford chuckled grimly. “The day she was shot.”
“Where?”
“In Major Thissel’s office.”
“Then General Spence is right when he says he saw you leave Major Thissel’s office and run down the stairs.”
“No, he’s not. I left the office a little after four o’clock. The general says he heard the shot and saw me run down the stairs nearly an hour later.”
“But you had an appointment to meet May Marling?”
“No. I just happened to see her in the major’s office as I passed. I stepped in to say hello. I was on my way to meet my fiancée.”
“What was Mrs. Marling doing in Major Thissel’s office?”
“She said the major had sent for her. She said she had something important to tell him, but she didn’t say what. It must have been pretty important if May waited all that time. She doesn’t—didn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“You sure you didn’t keep your fiancée waiting?” Max Ritter asked.
“Positive. I met her at four-thirty sharp. You can ask her.”
“I already did,” Ritter said. “Too bad your date wasn’t with somebody else, Captain. A fiancée’s alibi don’t go down too well with a jury.”
“That’s all, gents,” the jailer said. “Time’s up.”
When the pathologist returned to his laboratory, Doris Hudson questioned him with her eyes.
“It’s too early to tell, Doris,” Dr. Coffee said. “He has a nice, innocent smile, but the odds are against him. If our friend Ruth is a religious girl, tell her she better pray like hell.”
“Thanks for seeing him, Doctor,” Doris said. “There’s a Lieutenant Quail waiting in your office. He says you phoned him. He’s anxious to do anything he can to help your investigation, he says. I hope it was all right to let him wait inside.”
Dr. Coffee nodded absently and stepped into his office. A towheaded young officer jumped to attention.
“I’m Lieutenant Quail, sir. I told the police—”
“Yes, I know. You told the police you wanted to help hang the s.o.b. that shot your girl friend. Were you in love with May Marling?”
“Yes, sir. We were going to be married.”
“The police say they already have the murderer. Don’t you agree?”
“Well.…” Quail shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.
“Sit down, lieutenant,” said Dr. Coffee, slipping behind his desk. “Well, what? Do you think General Spence is lying?”
“Oh, no, sir. Nobody doubts General Spence. But…” Lieutenant Quail remained standing. “I know the general’s theory about Joe Buford’s motivation sounds logical, except I don’t think May would have—I mean, is it true that you did a post-mortem on poor May?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must know—I mean, was she—” He stopped, his lips parted on the last word. He flushed to the roots of his wheat-colored crew cut.
Dr. Coffee studied the young officer’s obvious perturbation, trying to analyze the cause. It was possible, of course, that Quail had actually been in love with the ex-Wac and was seriously stirred by a compulsion to avenge her death. However, there seemed to be no apparent element of grief in his reactions. If Max Ritter had not verified the lad’s alibi—Quail had said he was at the Wild Blue Yonder Bar at the time May Marling was shot, and the tavern keeper had confirmed the fact—Dr. Coffee might have laid the officer’s tenseness to another kind of involvement. He asked:
“Is that why you came to see me—to find out if May Marling was pregnant?” Mentally, Dr. Coffee amended the question: And to find out, if the answer is yes, whether it would be possible to tell by the stage of the embryo, which of the two officers was the father?
“Oh, no, sir.” Lieutenant Quail colored again. “I came to tell you about Major Thissel, in case you didn’t know. You’ve talked to Major Thissel, of course.”
Dr. Coffee nodded. He had talked to the major and Max Ritter had talked to the major, but the major had done very little talking to either of them. Major Thissel admitted having talked to May Marling on several occasions, but refused to discuss the subject of their conversation on the grounds that it was classified information affecting the national security. He admitted that the gun which had killed May was issued to him, but denied that he had been in the office at the time. He denied he had any idea of what May was doing in his office. He refused to say where he had been at the moment of the murder, also on security grounds. Perhaps he would be a little more talkative before the grand jury.
