Murder Breeds Murder a Dwight Berke Novelet Page 2

  “Looks like Jurka's death was mighty convenient for you, Mr. Hunter. You lost a competitor.”

  “Glad of it.” Hunter chose to ignore the sally.

  “You saw Jurka last night?”

  “Yeah. Jurka wanted me to fire Jon Graco because Jon was carrying on an affair with his wife. Jon ain't the first guy she ran around with. There was a scandal about her and Charley Sexton, when Sexton committed suicide.”

  “What did you tell Jurka?”

  “I told him where he could go. I told him if his wife didn't run around with Graco, she'd find another sucker.”

  “Then Jurka left?”

  “No. Ralf Leone was in here when Jurka busted in, and Leone hid behind the clothes rack. When Jurka started to leave, Leone popped out on him and put the bee on Jurka for five grand.”

  “Who's Leone? The jockey they ruled off the track?”

  “Yeah. A mite of a Frenchman, but a good guy. He claimed Jurka offered him five grand to bump his mount into the favorite in a race where one of Jurka's nags was running, twenty on the line. Leone did, and Jurka's nag won, but they ruled Leone off the track for a year.”

  “What happened when Leone faced Jurka?”

  “Jurka told him to go jump in the river. And Leone cursed him for two minutes and said, 'I'll kill you, rat, if it's the last thing I do on this earth!' ”

  Hunter spread his hands wide on the desk top and seemed to be studying the heavy flesh.

  “But Leone couldn't have killed Jurka with that wire noose, Berke. Leone didn't weigh a hundred pounds.”

  Berke grinned at Hunter. “You could. Got an alibi for last night?”

  “One that'll do. I didn't leave here till four o'clock this morning. The cashier can back me up in that.”

  “How about Leone?”

  “I don't know.”

  “You operate your own parking lot here at the High Hat? Who's the attendant?”

  “Bob Keating,” said Hunter. “A war veteran with a bad leg.” He scribbled an address on a slip of paper. “Here's his address, if you want to look him up. Now, scram out of here.”

  THEY drove to police headquarters to see if Morf had unearthed any leads. The inspector was all smiles when he saw Di and his chest swelled with importance.

  “What's cookin'?” Berke asked.

  Morf's button nose crinkled up.

  “We got some quick breaks. Ryan made a cast of the footprint we found near the car. We figure it might be Mrs. Jurka's, `cause when Ryan brought the car to headquarters we looked in the trunk and found this.”

  Berke glanced at the odd-shaped metal object.

  “A mute for a trumpet? With Graco's name on it.”

  “Right. It's Graco's all right. And we checked on his movements last night. At three o'clock this morning he boarded the bus at the Country Club on Route 40. That's only a hop, skip and jump from the spot where Jurka was killed.”

  “What's your theory, Inspector?”

  “Graco hid in the turtleback of Jurka's car while it was parked at the High Hat. When they reached the road to Hazelcrest, Graco got out and strangled Jurka with the wire noose. Then he took the bus back to town.”

  “What's Graco's alibi?”

  “We haven't located him yet. We got a net around his house. When he shows up, we'll nab him.”

  “What would be Graco's motive?”

  “The oldest one in the world. He bumped off Jurka so he could get his wife. Mrs. Jurka is a doll.” He whistled softly.

  “Maybe Graco's already got a wife. Then it wouldn't do him any good to bump off Jurka.” Di grinned as he watched Morf shake his round head, and then he told the inspector about the interview with Tod Hunter and the news about Ralf Leone.

  Morf snorted. “I know Leone. He ain't no bigger than a minute. He couldn't strangle a baby with a wire noose.”

  “He had a pretty good motive, Inspector. Jurka double-crossed him on a five grand deal.”

  “You can go nosing around all you like, but we'll pick up Graco. He's the killer.”

  Di and Gail left the inspector's office and walked down the hall toward the elevator. Ahead of them was a mere whisper of a man in a tight-fitting blue suit.

  “I wonder what he's doing here?” Di wondered aloud.

  The elevator doors opened and Di hailed the operator but he didn't wait and the little man in the blue suit vanished downward from their vision.

  “That little squirt,” said Di, “was Ralf Leone, the jockey. Wonder what he was doing here in City Hall?”

  “Maybe paying his taxes,” Gail bubbled, “or getting a marriage license, or a dog tag.”

  Berke chucked her under the chin.

  “Don't make fun of the last two items, baby. They're both the same price.”

  They got Bob Keating out of bed at the address that Tod Hunter had given them. Keating was a paunchy young fellow with a leg deformed by a shrapnel burst on Okinawa. He was sleepy-eyed and slow to understand but eager to talk.

  “Esmond,” Keating said, “left the High Hat about 1: 30. I remember, `cause I had to move Jurka's yellow roadster out of the way. Jurka left about an hour later. There wasn't but two or three more cars left on the lot.”

  “Was Jurka alone?”

  “Sure thing. He tossed something in the turtleback before he got in the car. But when he left he had a stowaway.”

  “Stowaway?”

  “Yeah. Somebody run out from behind another car and slid into the turtleback just before Jurka drove out.”

  “Was it Jon Graco?”

  “It wasn't Graco. I'm sure of that. It was a little guy. And besides, Graco left earlier with Mrs. Jurka.”

  “Thanks,” sad Berke. “You've been a big help.”

  Gail smiled at Di as they left Keating. “The thing that Jurka tossed into the turtleback could have been the mute from Graco's trumpet. Graco didn't ride in the trunk and leave his mute behind, like Morf thinks.”

  Her husband nodded.

  “And the stowaway that climbed into the baggage compartment of Jurka's car could have been the jockey, Ralf Leone.”

  They drove back to the High Hat, and met Wilton Esmond coming out. Esmond was all smiles. He waved a slip of colored pasteboard in his hand.

  “A hundred on War Baby's nose in the third at Aqueduct. Fifteen on the line. The muts aren't in yet, but I'll soon clean up.”

  “Good going,” Di said.

  He moved through the big room into the bookie joint, crowded now with men and women studying the racing forms and the wall charts for five tracks. Di spoke to a ticket writer.

  “Where's Hunter?”

  “In his office.”

  They moved into Hunter's office. The gambler looked up, annoyance plain on his face.

  “Where does Graco live?” Berke asked.

  “1456 Douglas, I think.”

  “Thanks,” said Berke.

  MORF'S police car, with Chuck Ryan at the wheel, was standing in front of the apartment house where Graco lived. Inside, Morf was walking up and down the living room like a lion in a cage, firing questions at a nervous Graco, who was trying to light a cigarette from a box on the table.

  Morf didn't stop long enough to notice the reporters' entrance. He rasped at Graco.

  “It ain't gonna look pretty to your wife and kids back in Chicago when they see your name plastered in the paper, tied up with the Jurka dame.”

  Graco's dark eyes burned somberly, and he ran his fingers through his black, shiny hair.

  “You dumb cluck! I've told you a dozen times I had no reason to kill Colonel Jurka.”

  Di Berke butted in. “Graco, where's the shirt you wore last night? The one that Jurka doused with seltzer water?”

  Graco hesitated. Then he squared his shoulders.

  “If I tell you everything that happened, will you go easy in the paper?”

  “Sure, theJournal doesn't want to crucify anybody. But you'd better tell the truth. We'll check your story.”

  “I took Mrs. J
urka home in her car. When we got there, she offered me a dry shirt. The Colonel and I were about the same size. We went up to her bedroom. I went into the bathroom to change. I heard thunder and lightning and I was afraid the Colonel would show up to beat the rain home, and I knew I'd have to catch the last bus—”

  “You're nuts!” grunted Morf. “There wasn't no lightning and no thunder. It was clear as a bell all night.”

  I'm telling the truth,” Graco said, with heat. “When I came into the bedroom Mrs. Jurka was sitting on the bed in her negligee, ready to retire. But the lightning and thunder made me hurry to catch my bus. I said good night and left.”

  He stopped to light another cigarette and his hands were shaking with emotion.

  “I walked down the gravel toward the hard road. I saw Jurka's car parked by the road. At first I thought he was waiting to waylay me. Then I saw that he—was—dead.”

  “You saw that by the lightning flashes, I suppose?”

  “No. The storm had passed. The sky was clear.”

  “See anybody around the car or on the road'?”

  “No.”

  “Why didn't you call the cops, Graco?” Morf snarled. “You knew a murder had been committed.”

  “I didn't want my wife to know anything about me and Mrs. Jurka.”

  “I think the guy's telling the truth, Morf,” Di said.

  “If Graco didn't kill Jurka, then we're clear out of suspects.” Morf spread his hands wide and shrugged. “Tod Hunter was the logical one. He's big and strong and he hated Jurka. But he's got an alibi.”

  “There's still Esmond.”

  “His alibi's ironclad. We checked his story. He did everything just like he said, even to taking the ten gladiolus bulbs out to the Memorial Lawn Cemetery early this morning. Esmond's in the clear.”

  “How about Leone, the jockey? The parking attendant at the High Hat saw a little guy jump into the turtleback of Jurka's car last night.”

  Morf whistled softly. “Could be. Leone's a little squirt. He could have ridden in the turtleback, then squirmed out and put the wire noose around Jurka from behind.”

  “Only I don't think Leone would have the strength to strangle Jurka so efficiently.”

  “Things we know fit him,” Morf said. “The footprint we found by the car. We thought it was a woman's. But jockeys got tiny feet. It was Leone made that print, I'll bet a plugged nickel. Where does Leone live? We'll put the heat on him.”

  “Maybe we ought to do a little more snooping out at Jurka's estate,” Di suggested. “If Leone did make that footprint, he may have made others. If he rode in the turtleback to get out there, it's a cinch he had to get back to town some other way. He may have walked. We could check all the night service stations along the way. The more information we get before we try to put the finger on him, the better luck we'll have.”

  CHAPTER III. THE FINGER POINTS

  IT WAS only a few minutes before six when Morf and Di and Gail reached the spot where Jurka had met his death. In the footprint they had found, there were still traces of the plaster Ryan had used in making a cast later that morning.

  Berke looked through the grove of poplars and heavy foliage to the east, bathed in the soft light of the setting sun.

  “That's the only direction a man could take to get out of here, if he didn't take the regular road. Let's cut through and see what we find.”

  He set off through the line of poplars and heavy brush, the others tailing him closely. Presently they came to a barbed wire fence. Beyond the fence trampled grass showed where someone had walked around a parked automobile. The footprints in the grass were small.

  “Leone!” Morf said. “The prints are the same as the one by the car. He came here to a parked car and made his getaway through the gate of the Memorial Park Cemetery.”

  Berke shook his head. “I don't think so. Notice that the prints of shoes show between the parallel lines of the tire tracks. Leone got here eitherbefore the car got here or after it left. He couldn't have made those prints while the car was standing here.”

  “He had a confederate waiting for him, Berke, or someone picked him up later.” Morf grinned. “At least we got enough evidence to put the finger on Leone. We can make him talk. Let's get back to town.”

  “Wait, Inspector. As long as we're so close, I'd like to give the Jurka place the once- over, just for my own satisfaction. I'd like to check Graco's crazy story about the thunder storm last night. You wait for me here. I'll be back in twenty minutes.”

  When Berke rejoined them, he had strange news.

  “Mrs. Jurka has gone to town to see the funeral director. I palmed myself off as a dick and got upstairs to Mrs. Jurka's bedroom. I found out that Graco wasn't crazy when he said he heard thunder and saw lightning flashes last night.”

  “You're talking in riddles, Berke.”

  “The thunder that Graco heard came from a recording on a phonograph in Mrs. Jurka's closet. The lightning came from flash bulbs hidden in the drapes. And there was a camera with a synchronized control on Mrs. Jurka's bed. Remember, Graco said Mrs. Jurka was in her negligee sitting on the bed when he came out of the bathroom?”

  Morf's mouth dropped open. “The old blackmail racket?” His mind leaped to swift conclusions. “They dealt in compromising pictures! Colonel Jurka was in the racket with her!”

  “Right. I guess Tod Hunter knew what he was talking about when he said that Mrs. Jurka knew where the Colonel's money came from. She was just the come-on for Jurka's real racket—blackmail.”

  Morf's sharp eyes glinted. “Maybe Graco knew what was going on, maybe he just acted dumb for our benefit. He had a real motive for killing Jurka if he suspected that the Colonel and Mrs. Jurka were in cahoots.”

  Berke shook his head. “I think that Graco has been telling the truth. I think Jurka's killer rode in the car with him.”

  “That brings us right back to Leone again.”

  “Could be,” said Berke. By this time they had reached the spot on the road where Jurka's death had been brought about. “Let me show you something, Inspector.” Di walked across the gravel and ran his hand up the trunk of a poplar.

  “See that spot where the bark has been rubbed shiny and pieces of it rubbed off?”

  “Yeah. What of it?”

  “Jurka was not killed by the wire noose that we found twisted around his neck. He was nearly decapitated by a wire stretched across the road between two poplar trees.”

  Morf jumped to conclusions like a grasshopper.

  “It fits! Leone is a Frenchman and the French underground—the Maquis— specialized in stretching wires across the road to decapitate Nazi motorcyclists. But why the noose around Jurka's neck?”

  “That was a red herring. The killer wanted it to look as though Jurka had been strangled by a tremendously strong man. After Jurka was dead, his killer cut the wire off the trees and made a loop to drop around Jurka's neck hoping to put us on the trail of a strong man instead of a weakling, and then he made his escape, taking the wire with him.”

  “That's enough,” said Morf. “Let's go to town and snap the cuffs on Leone. He's not as smart as he thought he was. They got to get up pretty early in the morning to fool me.”

  Gail nearly strangled with mirth.

  They drove to town rapidly and the street lights blinked on as they stopped the car in front of the shabby rooming house where Leone lived. Morf flashed his badge on the landlady and that frowsy individual led them to Leone's hall bedroom. Morf opened the door and flicked on the light.

  Ralf Leone, fully dressed, was lying on the floor beside the old-fashioned bed. He was face down, his arms outflung. A shiny stiletto was buried to the hilt in his back. He looked very dead.

  MORF cursed in despair. deader

  “There's the best suspect we had, than a mackerel.”

  “The last time I saw that stiletto,” said Berke, “Tod Hunter was opening his mail with it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. Ri
ght, Gail?”

  Gail nodded, “That's Hunter's, all right.”

  Morf picked up the phone and called police headquarters to report the murder and to notify the coroner. As he replaced the phone a tiny scrap of paper flickered off the table in the breeze from the open window. Morf glanced at the scrawled name and number.

  “Mary 6584,” he read. He spoke the number into the transmitter. After a moment's wait he asked the instrument, “Who is this speaking, please?”

  He hung up and looked at Berke. “I told you that Graco was mixed up in this thing somehow. The woman who answered the phone was Mary Graco—Mrs. John Graco.” He let his words sink in. “She's not out of town, like Graco said. What was Ralf Leone doing with her telephone number hidden under his telephone?”

  Di's brain buzzed with sudden inspiration.

  “This case is getting more muddled every minute, Inspector, but if you'll play ball with me, I think I can name the killer for you.”

  Morf didn't answer. He just stared at Berke.

  “Call everybody that's got any connection with the case and tell them to meet us at the High Hat at 8 o'clock.” Di said. “I'll meet you there at nine.”

  Morf was puzzled. “Why nine?”

  “If they meet you there at 8 and you hold them there till I come, I'll have a full hour to do some snooping around without any interference. Get it?”

  “O.K.” said Morf, “I'll play ball.”

  Hunter's office was crowded. Hunter sat behind his own desk, his feet raised to its glossy surface. Wilton Esmond sat beside the desk, in an arm chair. Graco, dark, sullen, sat with Mrs. Jurka on a leather settee by the wall. Chuck Ryan stood solidly by the door and Fleming Morf sat in a straight-backed chair near the window, his round eyes blinking at the group, as he looked them over, one by one.

  Di Berke rapped on the door panel promptly at nine, and Ryan admitted him and Gail to the room. Berke walked across to the desk and deposited a thin pasteboard box on Hunter's desk, a box about the size that would be needed to accommodate half a dozen phonograph records. Then Ryan provided chairs for the sports writer and his wife.