Харлан Эллисон - Murder Plus - True Crime Stories From The Masters Of Detective Fiction

Eyes wide in growing horror, the young housewife approached the bed on which sprawled the limp form of her pretty maid, Pauline Sokolowska.

Even by the waning light of the March afternoon, she could see deadly, crimson stains that crept from beneath the girl’s dark, disheveled hair. One arm dangled loosely over the side of the bed. The fixed eyes stared in a look of astonishment. Her mouth was half-open as if death had stopped a scream.

Slowly, the woman pulled back a bloodstained quilt with trembling fingers. She saw that the girl’s dress was pulled up, exposing silk-stockinged thighs. But what her gaze fastened on was a scarlet ring darkening the garment over the right breast.

Scant seconds later, a telephone operator at Buffalo, N.Y., police headquarters heard the frightened plea:

“There’s been a murder! Please come quickly...”

It was 5:45 o’clock. Before 6 o’clock, a score of detectives and uniformed men led by Austin J. Roche, chief of detectives, had arrived at the two-family home on Sterling Avenue, Buffalo.

Hardly had we launched our search for clues when the first newspaper extras were shouting the news. A sex fiend had bludgeoned, then shot the attractive young girl, the headlines screamed.

Quickly, the girl’s employer told us what she could about her maid and the events of that afternoon. She had hired the East Side school girl just a week before, she said, to help with the housework and in caring for her four-year-old son.

When she arrived home that day from a downtown shopping trip, she found the youngster playing in the kitchen. He usually came home from kindergarten about 4 o’clock. There was no sign of the maid or any indication that dinner had been started.

A glance into the bedroom told her why.

The home was subjected to a minute examination. Flecks of blood were on the kitchen floor. A cabinet edge bore a few hairs and a bloodstain. The wash bowl in the bathroom was damp with crimsoned water globules. Someone with bloody hands had washed there, we decided. Probably the killer. Discarded in the tub was a blood-soaked wash cloth.

Medical examiner Earl G. Danser hurried in while detectives were examining the home. Sizing up the situation, he grunted as he observed the disarray of the victim’s dress.

“Sex case?” he asked.

“Looks like it,” admitted Chief Roche.

Dr. Danser pulled aside the garment, revealing a small dark wound an inch to the left and below the center of her right breast. He examined the head wound.

“Nasty rap. Offhand I’d say her skull was fractured,” he said. “But the bullet probably killed her. Find the gun?”

Roche shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Know who did it?” queried the doctor, looking up from the body.

Roche shook his head again.

“I’ll post the body immediately then. Call me in a couple of hours and I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Thanks,” Roche replied briefly.

Presently an undertaker’s hearse was bearing the body to the county morgue. Detectives resumed their examination of the house. Even the yard was subjected to close scrutiny but no weapon was found. Then the neighbors were questioned.

This line of investigation soon proved valuable. A woman across the street said she had seen Pauline working at a sewing machine a few minutes before 3 o’clock. A window from the neighbor’s home gave her a view into that part of the house.

Another neighbor provided a lead. About mid-afternoon, she said, she had looked from a window when she heard the screech of brakes. She was in time to see a truck bearing the name of a large downtown hardware company grind to a halt several doors up the street.

The truck, narrated the neighbor, backed up and halted in front of the house. The driver jumped out bearing a small package. He disappeared up the driveway. At this juncture the neighbor had left the window. She heard the truck pull away later, she said, but did not know just how many minutes had elapsed.

Another neighbor told substantially the same story. Detectives hurried back across the street to check this information with the family.

Had they ordered anything from the hardware store? They said no. Occupants of the upper flat, who had not been home at the time of the murder, also were interrogated in like vein. They, too, said they had bought nothing from the hardware company.

Why then had the truck driver gone into the home, we asked ourselves. Had he discovered the girl home alone, made advances and then slain her in murderous passion? It would bear checking.

The line of interrogation so far had seemed to establish one thing fairly definitely — that the murder probably had taken place between 3 and 4 o’clock that afternoon of March 29, 1926. Fanning out, detectives asked countless questions of excited neighbors. Another lead developed. A silk stocking salesman had made a house-to-house canvass in the neighborhood that afternoon.

The salesman had visited the house, we discovered. A card bearing his name and a notation to the effect he would return at a later date had been left at the side door. He lived on Crescent Avenue not more than a mile from the murder scene and was located at dinner.

Any suspicions we had that he might have been the man we sought were dispelled after a few minutes’ conversation. He told a straightforward story. Yes, he had called at every home in the vicinity of the murder. He had left his card at the murder house when he had been unable to get any reply to the buzzer. That was approximately at 3:30 o’clock.

It seemed certain then that Pauline had been dead at that time. Perhaps the killer had been in the house when the hosiery salesman rang the buzzer. At any rate our time was narrowed down to 30 fateful minutes. What had gone on in them?

Another thing the salesman told us seemed important. While he was walking at Tacoma and Sterling avenues, he said, he had seen a man hurrying along with blood dripping from his face.

“Dripping?” he was asked.

“Well,” he replied, “there were several good sized drops. He really did have bad scratches on the right cheek. Anybody would have noticed it.”

From neighbors we also gleaned another clue. It was of the fantastic variety but it had to be checked. A peculiar incident had taken place near the house about the time of the murder. Three men, apparently of foreign birth, had been observed walking down the street. Two were delivering handbills. A third followed, carrying on one hand several razor strops. He was talking excitedly in his native tongue and the three paused occasionally to engage in heated verbal tiffs. But had they any connection with the murder? We began looking for the handbills.

In the interim we were checking the hardware company driver. Armed with the address given us by his superiors, we went to a modest Elm Street home. He was not known there! Thinking that perhaps we had the wrong address, we doubled back to the store, checked its employees’ list and made certain we had the right address. That was peculiar. Did it mean the driver was our man?

We looked over our files of wanted persons. The driver’s name did not appear in them. We checked our arrest lists. So far as we knew he had never been picked up. But he was going to be, if we had our way. But we had no clue as to his whereabouts. That meant we would have to wait until morning and see if he reported for work. If he did not know he was being sought, perhaps he would report as usual. Time enough to worry if he didn’t. There was other work to be done.

We turned to the investigation of the man with the blood-smeared face, the handbill distributors, and their strop-carrying acquaintance. With regard to the former, hours of work brought no results. But a check of the handbills left at North Park homes showed they were advertising a sale. We sped to the store, checked the list of distributors and later came up with two frightened men.