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

The dark man with the hooked nose stepped to the edge of the stage.

Wilkins said, “What is your name?”

“Manuel Flores,” the man said sullenly.

“Your age?”

“Forty.”

There is a standard set of questions asked all suspects at a show-up, designed more to let witnesses hear their voices than for gathering information. But now Lieutenant Wilkins departed from the usual routine.

He said, “Where do you work, Manuel?”

“The Frick Construction Company.”

“As what?”

“Just a laborer.”

“Are you married, Manuel?”

“Yes.”

“Any children?”

“Five.”

“Their ages?”’

“Maria is thirteen, Manuel Jr. is ten, Jose is nine, Miguel is six and Consuelo is two.”

“Have you ever been arrested before, Manuel?”

“No.”

“Ever been in any kind of trouble?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Lieutenant Wilkins said. “Step back. Number two step forward.”

He went through the same routine with the other four men, but I don’t think Fred Bruer was even listening. He kept staring at number one.

When the last of the five had performed, and all of them had been led off the stage, Fred Bruer and I left the show-up room and went down one flight to Homicide. He sank into a chair and stared up at me. I remained standing.

“Well?” I said.

The jeweler licked his lips. “I can understand why you picked up that first man, Sergeant. He certainly fits the description of the bandit. But he isn’t the man, I’m sorry to say.”

After gazing at him expressionlessly for a few moments, I gave my head a disbelieving shake. “Your friends along Franklin Avenue and your sister all warned me you were softhearted, Mr. Bruer, but don’t be softheaded, too. It’s beyond belief that two different men could have such similar appearances, even to that scar, the mole and the tattoo. On top of that, Manuel Flores is left-handed, just like your bandit.”

“But he’s not the man,” he said with a quaver in his voice. “It’s just an incredible coincidence.”

“Yeah,” I said. “So incredible, I don’t believe it. You’re letting his formerly clean record and his five kids throw you. He has no alibi for the time of the robbery. He told his wife he was going to work that day, but he never showed up. The day after the robbery he paid off a whole flock of bills.” I let my voice become sarcastic. “Claims he hit a long-shot horse.”

Fred Bruer’s voice raised in pitch.

“I tell you he really isn’t the man!”

“Oh, come off it,” I said grumpily. “Are you going to protect a killer just because he has five kids?”

The little jeweler slowly rose to his feet. Drawing himself to his full five feet six, he said with dignity, “Sergeant, I told you that is not the man who shot Andy. If you insist on bringing him to trial, I will swear on the stand that he is not the man.”

After studying him moodily, I shrugged. “I think we can make it stick anyway, Mr. Bruer. Once we net the actual culprit in a case like this, we usually manage to get a confession.”

He frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“Manuel Flores isn’t as influential a citizen as you are, Mr. Bruer. He’s just a poor, uneducated slob and not even a United States citizen yet. He’s a Mexican immigrant who only has his first papers. He doesn’t know any lawyers to call. We don’t have to handle him with kid gloves, like we did you.”

“You mean you intend to beat a confession out of him!” Bruer said, outraged.

“Now, who said anything about that?” I inquired. “We never use the third degree around here. We merely use scientific interrogation techniques.”

I took his elbow and steered him to the door. “If you decide to cooperate after all, you can let me know, Mr. Bruer. But I don’t think your testimony is essential. I would thank you for coming down, but under the circumstances, I don’t think you deserve it.”

I ushered him out into the hall, said, “See you around, Mr. Bruer,” and walked off and left him.

He was still staring after me when I mounted the stairs leading up from third to fourth.

I found lanky Sam Wiggens in the men’s room on fourth. He had removed the wig and false nose and was washing off his makeup, including the snake and heart tattoo.

Sam let out the stained water in the bowl and started to draw more. “How’d it go?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t think he suspected anything, but it’s too early to guess. We should find out just how softhearted he is when I increase the pressure tomorrow.”

I let Fred Bruer stew for twenty-four hours and phoned him about eleven the next morning.

“We’re not going to need your testimony after all, Mr. Bruer,” I said. “Manuel Flores has confessed.”

“He didn’t do it!” Bruer almost yelled. “You can’t do that to an innocent man with five kids!”

“Oh, stop being so softhearted,” I told him. “The man’s a killer.” I hung up on him.

Bruer came into the squad room twenty minutes later. His face was pale but his thin shoulders were proudly squared.

“I want to make a statement, Sergeant,” he said in a steady voice. “I wish to confess the murder of my brother-in-law.”

I pointed to a chair and he seated himself with his back stiffly erect. After phoning for a stenographer, I waited for the familiar glow of triumph I usually feel when a case is finally in the bag.

It didn’t come. Over the years, I have trapped suspects into confessions by playing on their greed, their fear, their vindictiveness and every other base emotion you can think of, but this was the first time I had trapped a murderer through his compassion for others. I could only wonder why I was in this business.

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine , Aug 1965.

The police never even questioned me, because I had no apparent motive. I think Evelyn suspects, but she can hardly bring the matter up without disclosing that she’s aware of the motive. We get along better by neither of us ever mentioning the matter, because bringing it all out in the open would inevitably involve confessions on both sides.

If it ever upsets her to speculate that my reaction might well have been to turn on her instead of doing what I did, she gives no indication of it. I guess she knows I love her, and is content to let sleeping dogs lie.

It all began the night I was initiated into the Elks.

In the ten years we had graduated from high school together, I hadn’t run into Tom Slider more than a dozen times, but I still regarded him as a friend. So when I discovered he was also an Elk, I was pleased.

We had been pretty close buddies in high school, even though Tom did a few things of which I couldn’t approve. He was always such an angle shooter.

Take the day the senior boys held a meeting in the school auditorium to vote on what to wear at graduation and where to buy it, for instance. The vote was for dark suits, all of the same cut and style, and it was decided to order them all from Boyd’s Clothing Store, downtown.

Tom slipped out of the auditorium as soon as the vote passed. Later I learned he had rushed down to Boyd’s and made a deal to receive a free suit if he could swing the Claremont High graduating class there.

He was always doing things such as that, never anything which might land him in jail, but just a shade unethical. Whenever I fussed at him about it, he would just laugh and tell me he wasn’t crooked; he was just opportunistic.

The night I was initiated into the Elks, as soon as the meeting adjourned, the members present all crowded over to where we new inductees were standing in a self-conscious row to shake our hands and congratulate us. Suddenly I felt a whack between the shoulder blades, turned around and found Tom Slider grinning at me.