Richard Deming - The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™ - 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories

“You are observant,” I said, then gave Phil Ritter an inquiring glance.

“We put the description on the air soon as we got here,” Ritter said. “Mr. Bruer didn’t mention the tattoo or that the bandit was left-handed before, though.”

“Better go radio in a supplementary report,” I suggested. “Maybe this one will be easier than the run-of-the-mill. The guy certainly ought to be easy to identify.”

I was beginning to feel a lot more enthusiastic about this case than I had when the lieutenant sent me out on it. Generally you find almost nothing to work on, but here we had Fred Bruer’s excellent description of the bandit.

According to figures compiled by the FBI, eighty percent of the homicides in the United States are committed by relatives, friends or acquaintances of the victims, which gives you something to work on, but in a typical stickup kill, some trigger-happy punk puts a bullet in a store clerk or customer he never saw before in his life. Most times your only clue is a physical description, usually vague and, if there is more than one witness, maybe contradictory. Too, you can almost bank on it that the killer was smart enough to drop the gun off some bridge into deep water.

While Phil Ritter was outside radioing in the additions to the bandit’s description, I asked Bruer if he had noticed what kind of gun the robber used. He said it was a blue steel revolver, but he couldn’t judge what caliber because he wasn’t very familiar with guns.

I asked him if the bandit had touched anything which might have left fingerprints.

“The two cash registers,” Bruer said. “He punched the no-sale button on each.”

Ritter came back in, trailed by Art Ward of the crime lab, who was carrying his field kit and a camera.

“Morning, Sod,” Ward greeted me. “What sort of gruesome chore do you have for me this time?”

“Behind the rear counter,” I said, jerking a thumb that way. “Then dust the two cash registers for prints, with particular attention to the no-sale buttons.”

“Sure,” Art said.

He set down his field lab kit and carried his camera to the rear of the store. While he was taking pictures of the corpse from various angles, I checked the back room. It was a small workshop for watch and jewelry repairing. Beyond it was a bolted and locked rear door with a key in the inside lock. I unbolted it, unlocked it, pushed open the door and peered out into an alley lined with trash cans behind the various small businesses facing Franklin Avenue.

I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular. Over the years I had just gotten in the habit of being thoroughly nosy. I closed the door again and relocked and re-bolted it.

Back in the main room I asked Sergeant Ritter if he had turned up any other witnesses from among nearby merchants or clerks before I got there.

“The barber just west of here and the pawnbroker on the other side both think they heard the shot,” Ritter said. “As usual, they thought it was just a backfire, and didn’t even look outdoors. Nobody came to investigate until our squad car got here, but that brought out a curious crowd. Nobody we talked to but the two I mentioned heard or saw anything, but we didn’t go door-to-door. We just talked to people who gathered around.”

I said, “While I’m checking out this barber and pawnbroker, how about you hitting all the places on both sides of the street in this block to see if anyone spotted the bandit either arriving or leaving here?”

Ritter shrugged. “Sure, Sod.”

I called to Art Ward that I would be back shortly and walked out with Sergeant Ritter. Ritter paused to talk to his young partner for a moment, and I went to the pawnshop next door.

The proprietor, who was alone, was a benign looking man of about seventy named Max Jacobs. He couldn’t add anything to what he had already told Phil Ritter except that he placed the time he had heard what he took to be a truck backfire at exactly a minute after nine. He explained that his twenty-year-old nephew, who worked for him, hadn’t showed up for work, and the old man kept checking the clock to see how late he was. It was now nearly ten, and the boy still had neither appeared nor phoned in, and his home phone didn’t answer.

“What’s your nephew’s name?” I asked.

“Herman. Herman Jacobs. He’s my brother’s boy.”

“Mr. Bruer next door know him?”

Jacobs looked puzzled. “Of course. Herman’s worked for me ever since he got out of high school.”

That was a silly tack to take anyway, I realized. The jeweler had described the bandit as around forty, and Jacobs’ nephew was only half that age.

“Following the shot, you didn’t see or hear anything at all?” I asked. “Like somebody running past your front window, for instance?”

The elderly pawnbroker shook his head. “I wasn’t looking that way. When I wasn’t watching the clock, I was trying to phone Herman, that good-for-nothing bum.” There didn’t seem to be any more I could get out of him. I thanked him and headed for the door.

“How’s poor Fred taking it?” he asked to my back.

Pausing, I turned around. “Mr. Bruer, you mean? He’s still a bit shaken up.”

Jacobs sighed. “Such a nice man. Always doing good for people. Ask anybody in the neighborhood, nobody will tell you a thing against Fred Bruer. A man with a real heart.”

“That so?” I said.

“Only thing is, he’s such an easy touch. Gives credit to anybody. Now, Mr. Benjamin was another proposition entirely. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but there was a cold fish.”

It intrigued me that he was on a first-name basis with the surviving jewelry-store proprietor, but referred to the deceased younger partner as Mr. Benjamin . Perhaps he hadn’t known the younger man as long. I decided to ask. “Have you known Mr. Bruer longer than Mr. Benjamin?”

He looked surprised. “No, of course not. They opened for business together next door about ten years back. I met them both the same day.”

“But you were on friendlier terms with Mr. Bruer, was that it?”

“Now how did you know that?” he inquired with rather flattering admiration for my deductive ability. “Yes, as a matter of fact. But everybody’s a friend of Fred. Nobody liked Mr. Benjamin very much.”

“What was the matter with him?” I asked.

“He was a vindictive man. When he had a little spat with somebody, he was never satisfied just to forget it afterward. He had to have his revenge — like his trouble with Amelio Lapaglia, the barber on the other side of the jewelry shop. Last time haircut prices went up, Mr. Benjamin refused to pay, they had an argument and Amelio threatened to have him arrested. Mr. Benjamin finally paid, but he wasn’t content just to stop going there for haircuts after that. He did things like phoning the police that Amelio was over-parked, and the health department to complain that he had no lid on his garbage can out back. Actually I think Mr. Benjamin stole the lid, but Amelio got fined for violating the health laws.”

I made a face. “One of those. I’ve had that kind of neighbor.”

“I don’t think even Fred really liked him, although he was always making excuses for him. I doubt their partnership would have lasted so long if they hadn’t been brothers-in-law,” he added matter-of-factly.

I gave him a surprised look. “They were brothers-in-law?”

“Sure. Mr. Benjamin is — was married to Fred’s baby sister. She’s not a baby now, of course. She’s about forty, but she’s twenty-one years younger than Fred. She was just an infant when their parents died, and he raised her. She’s more like a daughter to him than a sister. He never married himself, so Paula and her two kids are all the family he has. He’s absolutely crazy about the baby.”