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

“I know it was him,” she whispered, “because he said, ‘In a little while, she’ll be taking the orders from me.’ ” The noise of the band was receding again, and I wished whoever was fiddling with the radio would cut it out. “I didn’t know what he meant, and he smiled and said, ‘The bells are ringing, baby’ and I still didn’t know what he meant. But they were probably going to get married, Jon. And then...”

“Andy, who? And where are you? Baby, where...”

“I’m...”

And then there was a click on the line, and a silence as deep as the Atlantic Ocean.

“Andy!” I shouted.

I began jiggling the hook, and when the operator came on, I said, “Operator, can you trace that phone call, please?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she answered automatically. “We are not permitted...”

“Goddammit, this is a matter of life and death.”

“I’m sorry, sir. Regulations do not permit...”

“Oh, hell!” I shouted, and I slammed down the receiver. I picked it up again instantly, and dialed Homicide after what seemed like an eternity waiting for a dial tone. When Hilton came on, I said, “George, Andy just called me.”

“What? Where is she?”

“She didn’t say. Someone cut her off. Hey, what the hell is this?”

I had just become aware of the brasses and bass drums on the other end of the line. They kept getting louder until they filled the phone, and I shouted, “For Christ’s sake, turn down that radio.”

“I can’t,” Hilton said. “It’s not a radio.”

“What the hell is it then?”

“A band. Outside my window. A parade, Jon.”

“A par... George! That band was behind Andy when she called!”

“What? When was this?”

“Two, three minutes ago. Which way is the parade going?”

“Downtown. I want to get on this right away, Jon. I’ll get every damn radio car in the city.”

“Go ahead. She knows who it is, George. The guy who was going to marry Cynthia. She knows who.”

“What guy? What marriage? What are you talking about?”

“Go get Andy. I’m heading for the studio. I’ll call you in a half hour. George...”

“Yeah?”

“Find her. Please.”

“I will,” he promised, and then he hung up, and I visualized him tracing the parade’s progress back two or three minutes and knocking on every damned door in the vicinity. There was nothing I could do to help, and I couldn’t sit still anyway. I tied my tie and then left the apartment, catching a cab and heading for the studio.

The watchman let me in when he recognized me, and I took the iron steps up to the third floor. The studio was in darkness. I switched on one light, and then stood in the center of the concrete floor, wondering where to begin, wondering how I’d find what I was looking for.

The cameras stood around like silent robots. The overhead mikes dangled from the ceiling on thin wires. I walked onto the Martian set, the weird plants casting long irregular shadows on the concrete. My shoes padded silently on the Martian sands, and then I was walking past Earth Control Office, and back to the room where Stu Shaughnessy kept his props, and then over to the brick wall where the flats were stacked, and the concrete stretch of floor upon which I’d found Cynthia Finch.

There was still a brownish-red smear on the floor, where her head had rested.

I tried to picture it. I tried to visualize it happening, tried to reconstruct it. She’d gone to Stu’s prop room first, so I walked back past the flats, and into the prop room, turning on the overhead bulb. The props were arranged neatly on the table top. Oxygen masks, the death-ray guns, the space projector, the wind guide, all of them, all the phony accoutrements that went into Rocketeers. Alongside the props was a can of turpentine, and alongside that an open bucket of the stuff, with two paint brushes stuck into it.

I picked up one of the death-ray guns. It had a heavy plastic handle, probably loaded with lead to give the gun a proper balance. I squeezed the trigger. I heard the flint catch, and then the spark clicked in the open breach, and then the other sparks came from the nozzle of the gun, while the entire weapon glowed from the light generated by the batteries inside.

Cynthia Finch had been holding one of these guns when she died.

Dave Halliday had left her talking to Stu Shaughnessy. Stu had been showing her how the gun operated. I tried to picture the scene. How do you show someone how something operates?

There were two death-ray guns.

Could Stu Shaughnessy have been holding the second gun?

Could he have said something like, “You hold it this way, Cynthia, and then you squeeze the trigger?”

Could they have been standing near the prop table? Could there have been an open bucket of turps on it, just the way there was now?

And could Cynthia Finch have said, “I’m pregnant, Stu. And the baby’s not yours?”

I saw it clearly then, sharply, as if I were watching it on the monitor, the image sharply defined in blacks and whites.

She told him, and he probably flew into a rage. He reached for the open bucket of turps, threw it in her face, wanting to hurt her in some way, but not wanting to kill her, wanting only to strike at her the way she had struck at him, wanting only to... to soil her perhaps, to cover her with the filth of an open turps bucket.

He threw the turpentine at her, and she probably drew back, the death-ray gun in her hand. And then she did instinctively what anyone with a gun in his hand would do when threatened with violence.

She squeezed the trigger.

She squeezed the trigger, and the flint snapped in the breach, and the spark came, and the spark ignited the turps that had drenched her woolen dress and her face.

She probably turned to run, fleeing down the dark passageway where the flats were stacked, seeking help.

And Stu had run after her, the second gun in his hand. He’d swung the gun and caught her on the back of her head with the heavy plastic handle. He’d picked up her gun where she’d dropped it, and then brought both guns together with the oxygen masks out to the set, giving the guns to the actors, hopelessly smearing any prints on them.

Stu Shaughnessy.

The man with pride in his work. Stu Shaughnessy, whom Cynthia had utterly and irrevocably destroyed by telling him she was bearing another man’s child.

I hefted the death-ray gun on my palm.

Stu Shaughnessy. It fit. It fit it Andy corroborated it. It fit if he was the man Cynthia had promised to marry.

“What are you doing, Jon?” the voice asked.

I turned, lifting the gun unconsciously, instinctively, the way Cynthia must have done when the searing turps splashed into her face.

The gun that looked back at me was not made of plastic.

It did not shoot harmless little sparks.

It was big, and real, and it looked like a .45, and Stu Shaughnessy’s hand was clasped tightly around the walnut stock.

“Hello, Stu,” I said.

“What are you doing; Jon?” he repeated. The light from the overhead bulb cast a brilliant reflection on his black-rimmed glasses. He looked very intense and very serious, and he held the big, blue-black .45 steady. “You know I don’t like anyone in my prop room.”

“I was just looking around,” I said uneasily.

“For what?”

“Just looking.”

“What’d you find?”

“Nothing. What’s the gun for, Stu?”

“What’d you find, Jon?”

“Nothing, I said.”

“The turpentine, maybe?”

“What turpentine?”

“The turpentine, Jon. Don’t play dumb, Jon. I saw you holding hands with Hilton. Don’t tell me the police haven’t figured the turps angle yet.”