The Price of Murder (16 page)

“What time did you leave here?”

“At about seven-thirty, maybe a couple of minutes earlier or later. It takes about a half hour to drive over there. I left him at just about eleven, maybe a couple of minutes before eleven.”

“Your wife was alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did she expect anybody?”

“She didn’t say anything about anybody coming here.”

Wixler had managed, imperceptibly, to move close enough to Bronson to be assured the man had not been drinking. There was something about Bronson that puzzled him—something he could not quite put his finger on. The man seemed authentically dazed by what had happened. It was a reaction almost impossible to fake. Wixler,
in all his investigations, placed considerable credence on his own hunches. He respected the acuity of the workings of the subconscious mind, and his own reactions had been refined by long experience. Until other factors could be added to the mixture, he was content to proceed on the basis that this was a decent man, troubled and hurt.

A man came part way up the steps and said, “How’s chance of a shot of the body, Benjamin?”

Wixler turned and looked at Billy Sullivan, at the young-old handsomeness and innocence of the choirboy face, at the unlikely dapperness of this enormously capable crime reporter for the
Hancock Ledger
, the largest of the city’s three morning papers.

“You know better than that, Billy,” Ben said sadly.

Al came back up the steps and said in an undertone to Ben, “Okay.” And Ben knew the car had backed up Bronson’s statement. The lab men brought their equipment up onto the porch. Ben looked warily at Sullivan and said to Tormey, “You and Mr. Bronson wait in the hall.”

Wixler, Spence, and Means walked into the house. Wixler moved slowly, hands in the slash pockets of his tweed topcoat. Spence and Means stayed a half step behind. Wixler judged the flavor of the living room. A rental, with rented furniture supplemented by Bronson belongings. Many more books than customary. Two good framed reproductions. Indifferent housekeeping, with dust coils under the couch, litter in the small fireplace. They walked on out into the kitchen. He looked at the spilled staples for a long time. He could see the shadow pattern of footprints where someone had stood as the items had spilled.

“Make that, Dan?” he asked.

“A man stood there, wouldn’t you say? Looking for something. Those were dumped on purpose.”

“No sign of any search in the living room,” Al said.

“So,” Ben said, “he either found it where he was looking, or he got scared and took off.”

“He’ll have flour and stuff on his shoes and his clothes,” Dan said.

They started to move toward the body. Ben pointed at
the flour on the floor and they stayed back. Ben sat on his heels, bent low to see as much as he could of her face. He grunted with distaste and stood up.

“She was a dish,” Al said reverently.

“Go get Catelli and his people. I want pictures, and I want to see if they can get any kind of molds of those footprints before the doctor gets near her.”

Wixler, Spence, and Means stood aside while Catelli, Roamer, and Duchesne worked. No mold could be taken. Detailed pictures of the footprints were taken, with a ruler laid beside them. The doctor from the Coroner’s Office arrived, a sallow young man who looked bored and overworked. After the position of the body had been chalked out, it was lifted gently at Ben’s direction to see if there was any flour under it. There was enough to help him in his reconstruction. The doctor studied the woman’s face, tested the armpit temperature, gently flexed the joints of elbow and wrist. Squatting, he looked up at Ben and said, “Roughly about four hours. Quarter after twelve now. So I’ll say between quarter of eight and quarter of nine. I don’t think we’ll pin it down much closer when we take a better look unless you can give me the exact time of the last intake of food. Cause of death I would say so far is due to repeated heavy blows in the facial area resulting in multiple skull fractures. I can see at least three that would have killed her.” He stood up.

“Could she have been slammed against the edge of the sink?”

The doctor looked at the sink. “Yes. The shape of the wounds would fit. There would be enough … inertia, so that it would have to be a pretty powerful man. After the first blow she would have been unconscious. Her weight would have had to be supported.”

“Can you work on her tonight?”

The doctor nodded. “It can be arranged.”

The body was strapped into the wire basket and taken away. Ben had given up any hope of being home by one. Dan Means was covering the house with Catelli’s people. Ben said to Spence, “For a start, how about this. She lets him in. He’s looking for something.”

“How about she comes back and finds him. She goes out and comes back and finds him?”

“Dressed that way?”

“Oh! Sure. Okay. She lets him in.”

“He only looks in one place, in those cans. After that he kills her. Maybe she tried to get a knife out of that open drawer. The flour under her means he killed her after he looked. It was on his clothes and his shoes. It came off while he was banging her against the sink.”

They found Catelli in the bedroom taking prints. It was a requirement Catelli despised. In his fifteen years of lab work he had yet to lift a print that had anything to do with the solution of a crime.

“You get to Bronson?” Ben asked.

“Yeah. Frenchie vaccumed his clothes and his shoes. We got him another pair out of his closet and took his.”

Ben turned to Dan Means. “You stay on here and see what you can dig up. Al and I’ll take Bronson down. Seal it when you’re through.”

Lee Bronson was put in a small interview room on the second floor and left there. Wixler had made certain long ago that it was a very barren room. A bare room. No view from the window. Nothing on the walls. The only objects in the room were a small gilt radiator under the single window, a square oak table, three chairs and an ash tray made from a peanut can.

Wixler left Lee Bronson alone in that room for fifty minutes. At the end of that time he had the verification from Dr. Haughton, and he knew a great deal more about Lee Bronson. He knew his brother’s record, and he knew Lee’s record of a single arrest and dismissal. Five minutes before he went in to talk to Bronson, Dan Means came back with an envelope he had taken from the locked drawer of the living room desk. Catelli had gone over it for prints. Wixler was puzzled by the twenty fifty-dollar bills. It did not fit the picture of Bronson. He put the envelope in his pocket.

When he went in abruptly, Lee Bronson jumped.

“Didn’t mean to startle you, Mr. Bronson,” he said
politely. He shut the door, sat down opposite Bronson, lighted a cigarette.

“I can’t seem to believe it happened,” Bronson said. “I saw her, but I can’t believe it. I’ve got to let her folks know. My God, I hate to make that call.”

“Do you have any idea about who did it?”

When Bronson made no immediate answer, Wixler felt the old and familiar flicker of excitement deep inside him, an excitement that did not change the expression on his face. He had good success, a good record, with his method of interrogation. No notes, no threats, no bullying. Just quiet conversation, politeness, the kind of reassurance that kept the other man’s guard down.

“Did you talk to Dr. Haughton?”

“I didn’t. But we got a statement from him. He verified the time you spent with him. He kept trying to act as a character witness.”

“I’d like to have you talk to him. I want him to tell you what I told him tonight. I went to him for advice. He told me to go to the police. I was going to come here tomorrow. I had decided to do that. It will … sound better if you get it from him.”

Wixler looked at the smoke rising from his cigarette. “Is it about Danny?”

Bronson stared at him. “Yes! But how …”

“Pretend I’m Dr. Haughton, Lee. Forget what happened tonight. Tell me just what you told him. Tell me in the same way you told him.”

Bronson told the story of Keefler, of sensing that Lucille had lied, of the money she said Danny had left with her on September twenty-eighth. He told of Keefler’s threats and his own vulnerable position. Under questioning he told the complete story of his single arrest, the story that did not appear in the records. He also told of his relationship with Nick Bouchard, and his relationship with Danny, and the help they both had given him.

At that moment Al Spence, in accordance with standard procedure, opened the door and asked Ben if he’d like coffee. If Ben was not receiving co-operation he would say, “A little later.” If he was, he would say yes. Al
brought in the battered steaming pot, the heavy white mugs, sugar, and milk.

Wixler said in a tone that made Al glance at him in surprise, “I want Johnny Keefler. Get him and bring him in and hold him for me. Don’t tell him a damn thing. When I talk to him, I want him to be sweaty.”

When Al closed the door Wixler took the envelope out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. “Danny left this?”

Bronson examined it and gave Wixler a rueful look. “Good thing I brought it up, eh?”

“It helped. We’re both thinking of something, Lee. For you, it’s a hell of a thing to have to think about. But we better get it out in the open. Since the world began, a lot of people have been in the same spot. Your wife is dead, and you know who we’re thinking about.”

“Danny,” Lee said in a small voice. He knotted his fist and hit it very lightly against the edge of the table, three times. His face was contorted, a white patch around his mouth.

“Let’s kick it around a little. He came to see her over two weeks ago when you were out and left the money. You took it. So he came tonight to get it back and lost his head when he couldn’t find it and killed her. Go for that?”

Lee shook his head slowly. “No. Danny isn’t that … violent. If he came after it, she’d tell him I had it. And she’d have a pretty good idea it was in that locked drawer of my desk. If he had to have it, he’d have broken the lock and taken it.”

“A wanted man can lose his nerve and his head.”

“Danny’s been wanted before.”

“But not for that long a time. And if he could be clipped for something else when he was picked up, it would be the fourth fall, the big one. Life as an habitual.”

“I still can’t see it that way, Sergeant. I can’t see him killing Seel. I know that you can think I’m being sentimental because he’s my brother, but I can’t see it. And I don’t know why he’d be opening those canisters and dumping the stuff out. That wasn’t where she hid the money. She hid it in a brown shoulder bag on a back hook in her closet.”

“Maybe something else was hidden in your house. Try that for size. She lied to you once about what he left. Maybe he left more money, a big amount.”

Wixler watched Bronson’s face, saw the faraway look of deep thought, saw the look of speculation and conviction. “She acted strange lately. It could be that. Danny is into something. He could be tied in with somebody. And they came after the money. If Danny knew where it was hidden, he wouldn’t have opened all three canisters, would he?”

“Unless there was something hidden in each.”

“Oh! I didn’t think of that. But if he hid it and then came after it, wouldn’t Seel have given it to him? She was hiding it for him.”

“What if it was too much money, and what if your wife decided to risk taking it and making a run for it? Pardon me, but I’ve gathered this wasn’t the happiest marriage in the world.”

“It wasn’t.” Bronson frowned. “You know, she was very … considerate today. She made a big production out of lunch. That wasn’t like her.”

“As if she was fixing the last lunch she’d fix for you?”

“It … it could have been that way.”

“And suppose Danny arrived at the wrong moment, as she was getting ready to take off?”

“Even so, Sergeant, he could have made her tell where she moved it to. He … he’s an expert. Nick and Kennedy used him for that kind of thing. He wouldn’t have to kill her.”

“Unless she could do some talking that would hurt him.”

“Then he wouldn’t have done it that way. It wouldn’t have been … so messy. He’s a professional.”

Wixler had the tired feeling that Bronson was probably right. The murder had that distinctive look of amateur passion and violence. It would be pleasantly easy to convince yourself Danny Bronson had done it. He wondered how far along Catelli was. He might be able to add something.

“Have some more coffee, Lee. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Catelli had nearly finished. The prints had just come from the dark room, and he was labeling them. He reported to Ben in his usual disorganized way.

“The guy got blood on his shoe, the left shoe, on the outside near the toe. Right about here. Two steps in the kitchen and then we don’t get the next couple, and then we get one on the bottom step of the back porch. The ground was soft but the son of a bitch stayed on that little walk, so we lost him there. Now these here are off the big can, the one that had the flour in it. These are hers. Two good ones and a fair one.”

“Recent?”

“From the oil, today or yesterday. Now we got this. An old one. Half the tip of the middle finger—not enough to go on except Dan Means tells me to check with prints on file from a Daniel Bronson. It matches perfect.”

“As fresh as hers?”

“No. Nowhere near. If I got to guess, I’d say over a week old. Pretty well dried out.”

“Will it stand up? Is there enough?”

“Stand up! Check it yourself, Sarge. Look at this here whorl, and see this scar right through it like a kinda thin cut? Anyhow, I got a better one even.”

“Where?”

“Dan Means tells me that figuring the way she was stacked I should give the bedroom the real business. You see that little table between the beds? It’s got a glass top on it. I wisht all the tables in the world got glass tops. The glass is lousy with her prints and her husband’s. But look at these here? First and second fingers of the right hand. Strangers! Here’s the picture of the table where I circled the place we lifted them. Daniel Bronson, clear as a damn bell. Honest to God, if these nail him, I’m going to start believing in this crap.”