Rex Stout: Not Quite Dead Enough

“Yeah, it’s all right for a reason. Have you got any proof? Any evidence? Did you see him around there?”

“See him? How could I? I wasn’t there. When I got home she was dead.” Her voice got shrill. “I am eighty-nine years old! I went home and found my granddaughter dead! Could I sit right down and think it out? After I was in bed I knew he had killed her! I want you to get him! I want to see him face to face!”

“You will,” Cramer assured her. “Take it easy, Mrs. Chack. Do you remember why he killed Cora Leeds?”

“Certainly I do. Because he didn’t want to give up his pigeon loft. She was going to have it torn down.”

“I thought she had built it for him,” I put in.

“She had. She spent thousands of dollars on it. But after she hurt her leg and couldn’t go to the Square any more, she hated him and she hated everybody. She sent word to me that I had to move out, had to leave that house where I had lived for over forty years. And she told Leon he had to get out and she wouldn’t pay him any more for killing hawks. She had paid him twenty dollars for every hawk he killed. And she told Roy Douglas she owned the pigeons, he didn’t, and she was going to tear the loft down and he had to go. And she told her own daughter she had to stop going to the Square, and when she found out her daughter was secretly giving money to Leon for killing hawks she wouldn’t let her have any money for anything. That’s the way she acted after she hurt her leg and couldn’t go to the Square. It was no wonder I thought it was the Hand of God, especially when it happened on December ninth. But God forgive me, it wasn’t. And I knew it wasn’t, I knew it was Roy Douglas, because Ann told me — God forgive me.”

Cramer cleared his throat and asked, “From what you said, Miss Leeds, I understand you don’t agree with Mrs. Chack?”

“I do not,” Miss Leeds declared emphatically. “She’s crazy. She did it herself.”

“Did what herself? Made that up?”

“No, she did it. She killed my mother and she killed her granddaughter. I doubt if she even knows she did it. Nobody in their right mind would have hurt Ann. She was a nice child and everybody liked her.”

“Excuse me,” I put in. “You told me Monday that nobody killed your mother. You said she died of old age. Now you say—”

“And you said,” she retorted crushingly, “that you came there just to see Ann, and here you are. Didn’t I tell you, Army or police, it’s all the same? Here you are together, and what do you do about anything? In sixty years you haven’t moved a finger to stop the hawks entering the city. What was the sense of my telling you that that crazy old woman killed my mother? What would you have done about it? How did I know she was going to kill Ann too? I only came with her because—”

“Madam!” Wolfe said in a tone that stopped her. “If you yourself are sane, you can answer a question. Did your mother tell Mrs. Chack to leave the house?”

“Yes. It was her house—”

“Did she stop paying Leon Furey for killing hawks and tell him to leave also?”

“Yes. After she got hurt—”

“Did she tell Roy Douglas she was going to tear down his pigeon loft?”

“Yes. She couldn’t bear—”

“Did she quit giving you money and forbid you to go to the Square?”

“Yes. But I didn’t—”

“Then, madam, your diagnosis is faulty. Mrs. Chack’s mind retains all those details with accuracy, which is a creditable performance at her age. I wouldn’t advise you—”

The phone buzzed and Cramer took it. He listened briefly, said to wait, and spoke to Wolfe, “I’m through if you are.” Wolfe nodded, and Cramer told the phone, “Come and escort the ladies out and then bring him in.”

Escorting the ladies out wasn’t so simple. They weren’t through, whether Wolfe and Cramer were or not. Finally Cramer had to leave his desk to get them herded through the door, and by the time he got back to his chair in came a city employee with another visitor.

Leon Furey wasn’t liking himself as well as he had been the last time I saw him. As he walked in, looked around at us, and dropped into a chair by invitation, he was not jaunty. It was doubtful if he had been in his pajamas until noon that day, because his clothes looked as if he had not taken them off at all. Sizing him up as he sat there, with lumps under his bloodshot eyes and a two-day growth of beard, I saw nothing inconsistent with the theory that he had tied that scarf around Ann Amory’s throat, except the alibi, and that didn’t show.

“You want to say something?” Cramer asked.

“Yes, I do.” Leon spoke too loud for a man out in the clear and really satisfied with the surroundings. “I want to know why you’ve got men following me. I’ve been absolutely straight on this and I’ve accounted for every minute of my time, and you’ve verified it. What right have you got to treat me like a criminal? Having me followed, checking up on my draft registration, investigating everywhere I’ve been and everything I’ve done for God knows how long. What’s the big idea?”

“Routine in a murder case,” Cramer said shortly. “We waste a lot of time that way. If you’re claiming injury, get a lawyer. Is it pinching you somewhere?”

“That’s not the question.” Leon’s voice stayed loud. “I’ve proved that I had nothing to do with any murder, you know damn well I have, and you’ve got no right to go on investigating me as if I might have had. And I’ve got a right to make a living the same as anybody. Doing it by killing hawks may or may not meet with your approval, but if Miss Leeds wants to pay me for it what business is it of yours or anybody else’s?”

Cramer grunted. “Oh, that’s it.”

“Yes, that’s it. Wasting the taxpayer’s money telephoning all over the state of New York. All right, so you find out that farmers have been shipping me hawks they shot and I’ve been paying them five dollars per hawk. So what? Is that a crime? If Miss Leeds is willing to cough up twenty dollars for a dead hawk, and that gives me a little profit for my trouble, does that make it a crime? It made her happy, didn’t it? Hawks are destructive. They kill chickens. My plan benefits the state, it benefits the farmers, it benefits Miss Leeds, it benefits me, and it hurts nobody.”

“Then what are you beefing about?”

“I’m beefing because I think you’re going to tell Miss Leeds about it, and that would put me out of business. If it so happens that she has got the impression that the hawks are killed right here in New York City, and that gives her pleasure, what’s that to you? Or to me either? What it amounts to, in its simplest terms, I’m doing her a favor. And I’m not hogging it. I keep it down to an average of three or four a week. I could make it twice or three times that if I—”

“Beat it.” Cramer growled in disgust. “Get the hell out of here. I don’t— Wait a minute. You organized this dead hawk business quite a while ago, didn’t you?”

“Why — no, I wouldn’t say—”

“How long ago?”

Leon hesitated. “I don’t remember exactly.”

“Say a year ago?”

“Why, yes, sure, at least a year ago.”

“What did old Mrs. Leeds pay you? Same as her daughter does? Twenty dollars per hawk?”

“That’s right. She set the figure, I didn’t.”

“And after she hurt her leg and had to stay in bed she refused to pay you any more? And wouldn’t let her daughter pay you? And ordered you to move out?”

“Oh, that.” Leon waved it away contemptuously.

“Was that because she found out that you weren’t killing the hawks, as you said you were, but were collecting them from farmers?”