Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

“All right, that will be fine.”

Coco Joe made no objection to the woman carrying him over to the elevator. He gave Officer Dewey a warning growl, though, when he went over to push the elevator signal button for the messenger, but made no attempt to attack the policeman. Coco only had conniption fits when men tried to enter the apartment.

When Josephine closed the door, Sergeant Cord asked, “How come your dog didn’t devour her?”

“He only attacks men,” Josephine told him. “He loves women. I think he regards them as sex objects.”

The sergeant murmured, “How could he tell in this case?” then looked as though he wished he hadn’t.

“She was a bit boyish, wasn’t she?” Josephine said with a grin, and went on into the kitchen for the cookies. From there she called, “Would you like some tea also, Sergeant? Or a glass of milk?”

After a short delay, during which the detective considered these two choices, he called back, “Milk would be fine, ma’am.”

When she returned with a plate of cookies, a glass of milk and a napkin, he had reseated himself. Josephine set everything on the end table next to his chair, took a single cookie from the plate and returned to the sofa.

“I seldom nibble between meals,” she explained. “So I’ll just taste one to see how they came out. But you have all you wish, Sergeant. There are plenty more.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He helped himself to a cookie and tasted it. “Umm, delicious. You bake like my mother used to.”

“Why, thank you, Sergeant.”

Both nibbled for a few minutes. Presently she said, “It would be helpful to have a picture of James Clayton, in case he tried coming around as a door-to-door salesman or something.”

“Sorry, but there are no mug shots, because he’s never been arrested. We do have what we believe is a pretty good description, though. He is thirty-two years old, but looks younger because he has a smooth complexion and a rather boyish face. He has blue eyes and straw-colored hair that he wore in a crewcut on his last bank job, but that was more than seven months ago, so it may be longer now. He is five-feet-six to five-feet-seven-inches tall, and weighs an estimated hundred and thirty-five pounds.”

“I am already familiar with his description,” Josephine said. “It was printed at the time of his threatening letter just after the trial. It always surprised me that such a violent man was so small.”

“They often are,” the sergeant said. “From Billy the Kid right up through James Clayton the most vicious killers in this country have generally been relatively small men. Psychologists say that’s one of the things that turns them vicious. They’re compensating for getting pushed around as kids.”

“I suppose there’s at least a germ of truth in that,” Josephine said reflectively. “Before I retired from school-teaching, I often wondered when I saw some bully picking on a smaller boy, how the victim would be affected later in life by his recollection of the unpleasant experience. Perhaps the bullies he encountered as a child are more responsible for James Clayton’s career in crime than anything basically evil in the man.”

“Don’t start feeling sorry for him,” the detective advised her. “He is known to have killed at least five people prior to Mrs. Sommerfield, and at least three of the killings were deliberate acts of viciousness which were entirely unnecessary. One was an old man, a customer at one of the banks he and Delores knocked over, who simply failed to move as fast as Clayton wanted him to. Turned out later he couldn’t, because he was arthritic.”

“I know he’s a terrible man,” Josephine conceded. “And I am hardly inclined to sympathize with anyone whose goal is to kill me. But I can still regret the traumatic experiences he must have had as a child to make him into such a monster.”

Sergeant Cord, obviously unconvinced that factors other than innate evilness turned people to crime, merely grunted. By now having consumed three cookies and his glass of milk, he rose to his feet.

“Well, I’ll be running along now, Miss Henry,” he said. “Thank you for the delicious cookies and for the milk.”

“You’re welcome, Sergeant.”

She accompanied him to the door. Standing in the open doorway, he beckoned to Officer Dewey, who was seated on a small wooden bench directly across from the elevator.

When the young policeman came over, Sergeant Cord said, “You’re to accompany Miss Henry if she decides to go our anywhere, Harry. But phone in where you’re going, and be sure to give the apartment a thorough check when you come back.”

“Sure, Sarge.”

“I’m sending over a policewoman named Gladys Phelps early this evening,” the sergeant said. “When do you go off duty?”

“Six p.m.”

“Well, you’ll be gone before she gets here, so tell your relief to expect her. She will spend the night in the apartment.” He turned to Josephine to append reassuringly, “The guard out here and the one out back will still be on duty around the clock, Miss Henry. A policewoman on the premises is merely extra precaution.”

“Yes, I understand, Sergeant.”

“What time do you actually have dinner?”

“About five-thirty.”

“Then if Officer Phelps got here at six-thirty, you should be all through?”

“Yes, but she can come for dinner, if she would like,” Josephine offered.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

“I know it isn’t necessary,” Josephine said. “But I often had Mrs. Murphy for dinner when she was guarding me six months ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I assure you she’s quite welcome.”

“Well, I’ll pass on your invitation and see what she says.”

“You would be equally welcome, Sergeant, if you want to come back when she does.”

“Why, thank you,” Sergeant Cord said in a slightly startled voice. “But unfortunately I have other plans. Thanks again for the cookies and milk.”

“Again you’re quite welcome, Sergeant.”

She and the young patrolman watched the detective cross to the elevator, press the call button and get on when the car came to the fourth floor.

As soon as the elevator door closed, Josephine said, “Would you like some cookies, Officer Dewey?”

The odor of the cookies had crept into the hallway through the open door. He said in a grateful tone, “Why that would be very kind of you, ma’am.”

“All right, come on in,” she said, stepping aside.

When he looked doubtful, she said, “You’ll hardly be deserting your post, young man. It seems to me you’ll be much better protection inside the apartment than out here in the hallway. Suppose this Clayton man got past your guard out back and picked the lock of my back door?”

“That makes sense, ma’am,” Harry Dewey said with a grin.

He went over to lift his visored cap from where he had laid it on the wooden bench where he had been seated, and followed her into the front room. He laid his cap on the end table nearest the door.

“You may sit right over there where the sergeant was,” Josephine said, pointing. “Would you like tea or milk with your cookies?”

It took the young patrolman as long to think over these choices as it had the sergeant. Eventually he opted for milk. There was still a dozen cookies on the plate, so Josephine didn’t bother to replenish it. But she carried the sergeant’s empty glass into the kitchen and returned with another filled with milk.

Harry Dewey gratified Josephine by eating eight of her cookies. When he finished the last one and had drained his milk glass, he stood up and said, “Thank you very much, ma’am. They were delicious. I guess I had better get back to my post.”

“Why?” she inquired. “You’re not in my way. I’m going to be in the kitchen for a time, preparing dinner, then I plan to nap while it’s baking in the oven. At my age I start yawning about seven if I don’t have an afternoon nap. You’re welcome to sit here and watch television, if you wish. As a matter of fact you’re welcome to stay for dinner.”