Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 3, Number 1, January, 1955

“Fine,” Paul said. “What is it?”

“Donnelly. Vince Donnelly. I remember distinctly.”

“Thanks very much, Mr. Schuyler,” Paul said. “That’s a real help.”

“Well, I certainly hope so. It was unforgivable of me not to have thought of it sooner.”

“It’s only natural, sir,” Paul said. “We appreciate your calling us.” He spoke a moment longer, and then hung up.

“We’ve got a package on a guy by that name, Paul,” I said.

“Yeah. I know. Want me to pull it?”

“Uh-huh. Seems to me he lives on Seventy-second Street, just the way Lucille did.”

Paul went to the next room, brought back the package on Vince Donnelly, and put it down on my desk. “You’re off again, Jim,” he said. “He lives on Seventy- third Street.”

“All right,” I said. “So fire me again.”

Vince Donnelly was twenty-three years old, had drawn a suspended sentence in 1950 on a grand larcency charge in connection with a stolen car, and had been convicted on a similar charge in 1951. He had done eighteen months. Since then he had been pulled in twice for questioning, but had not been booked. He lived less than two blocks from the address where Lucille Taylor had lived with her aunt and uncle.

“Maybe we’ve got ourselves a boy, Jim,” Paul said.

“Maybe. Let’s see what he’s got to say.”

We spent the better part of two hours looking for Vince Donnelly, and then gave up and went back to the station house. Donnelly had moved from the Seventy-third Street address some two weeks before, and we were unable to turn up anyone who knew his present whereabouts.

I called Headquarters, gave them Donnelly’s description, and asked that an alarm for him be sent out. In a few minutes the teletype machine in the squad room began to clack, and Paul and I walked over to it and watched the words form across the paper, just as they were doing in all the other squad rooms in New York.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

ALARM 4191 CODE SIG L-1 AUTH HBR SQD. 4:31 P.M. HOLD FOR INTERROGATION — VINCENT C. DONNELLY — M-W-23-5-9-165 — LIGHT BROWN HAIR — BROWN EYES — MUSCULAR BUILD — BIRTHMARK OVER RIGHT EAR — SLIGHT LIMP — CLOTHING UNKNOWN BUT HAS REPUTATION AS FLASHY DRESSER.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

“I haven’t eaten yet,” Paul said. “How about some chow?”

I nodded. “Good idea.”

“How about the Automat? I like those pecan rolls.”

“Okay. Sign us out, will you, while I put Donnelly’s package back in file?”

“Check.”

When we got back to the squad room there were two messages for us. One was from Lieutenant Mason, at the Twentieth Precinct, saying they’d picked up Vince Donnelly and were holding him for us. The other was a note to call a Miss Peggy Webb, who had phoned to say she had important information in connection with Lucille Taylor’s murder.

I called Miss Webb at the number she had given. She impressed me as intelligent and sincere, and very tense. She assured me she knew who had killed Lucille Taylor, but she said that she didn’t want to talk about it over the phone. When I asked her to come down to the station house, she refused. I arranged to meet her at the entrance of the Jacoby Camera Supply, on Sixth Avenue between Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth.

I told Paul about the call. “I guess we’ll have to split up,” I said. “You’d better get over to the Twentieth and start in on Donnelly. If this Webb girl has anything. I’ll call you there.”

“Sure,” Paul said darkly. “Naturally. Of course. I go tangle with a damned punk, and you go off to see the girl. I sit over there in a hot squad room with a thief, and you sit in a nice cool bar, making time with...” He broke off, sighing. “I think I’ll take it up with the commissioner.”

I grinned. “You’ve got the commissioner on the brain.”

“What brain? If I had a brain, I’d never have been a cop in the first place.” He reached for his jacket. “Well, I’ll get over there and see what gives with our friend Donnelly. Don’t get lost with that girl, Jim.”

“I’ll try not to,” I said.

Peggy Webb turned out to be a very thin, very plain girl of about thirty. She kept twisting her handbag in her hands and, except for the moment it took me to introduce and identify myself, she never met my eyes once.

“I read the story in the paper,” she said, staring out at the traffic on Sixth. “Right away I knew who did it.” She glanced at the doorway of the camera shop and then back at the traffic again. “I work here now. But I used to work for the Schuyler Studios, I worked there for four years — until Lucille came there.”

I leaned back against the plate glass front of the shop, studying her. “Who do you think killed her?”

“Schuyler killed her.”

“That’s a pretty serious accusation, Miss Webb.”

“I realize that.”

“How do you know he killed her?”

“It had to be him. I know it, just as well as I know I’m standing here. It caught up with him, that’s all.”

“You mind explaining?”

“That’s why I called you, isn’t it? Schuyler and Lucille were having an affair. I was his right hand around that place for four years, and then one day Lucille shows up. Right off he starts breaking her in on my job. And that’s not all. He started her in at more money than I made, after I’d been there four years. Oh, it made me sick to watch the two of them. They thought nobody knew what was up. But they were wrong. Here he was, more than twice her age, and she sitting there smiling so prissy and nice — it made me want to throw up.” There was a hard set to her features now.

“Still,” I said, “that’s hardly—”

“Have you talked to Schuyler?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you he was married?”

“Yes.”

“Did he also tell you that he was just a photographer’s assistant, till he met his wife? Did he tell you that she was a very wealthy woman, and that he married her for her money?... No? No, of course he didn’t.” Her voice grew tighter. “He isn’t dumb. Not that one. He wouldn’t have let go of his wife any sooner’n he would let go a gold mine.”

“I don’t quite follow you,” I said.

“Well, you’ll soon begin to.” She was staring at the knot in my tie now. “Why would a man buy a girl an engagement ring — if he was married to a gold mine, and meant to stay that way?”

“You mean he bought one for Lucille Taylor?”

“That’s right. He bought it at Lormer’s, on Fifth Avenue. They made a mistake somehow, and sent the bill to the office. I opened it, right along with all the other mail, and put it on his desk. About ten minutes later I overheard him giving Mr. Lormer hell. He said he’d specifically told the clerk there not to send a bill, either to his office or his home. He was so mad that he was almost shouting. And then, about two or three days later, Lucille shows up with a big diamond on her finger. When I asked her who the lucky man was, she just simpered like the silly fool she was, and acted coy. I thought I’d have to go to the window and be sick.”

“That’s interesting,” I said, “but it could have been a—”

“A coincidence? Oh, no — it was no coincidence. Schuyler bought that ring for Lucille, and she wore it. And if you were a woman, you’d know from the way she acted around there that she thought she and Schuyler were going to get married.”

I thought it over.

“That’s the whole thing, can’t you see?” she asked. “Schuyler was after something, but he couldn’t get it without promising to marry her. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. I mean he didn’t have any intention of giving up his wife’s money, but he wanted Lucille. So he told her he was going to divorce his wife and marry her. He was just sharp enough, and she was just dumb enough, and he pulled it.” Her eyes came up as far as my mouth, but no higher. “And that couldn’t go on forever, could it? When it came to a showdown, and Schuyler had to admit that he’d been playing her for all he could get—” she shrugged — “well?”