Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

“Could the local politician be your Big John Gault?” Harry asked.

“Could be,” Murphy resumed reading.

In the very next column Harry encountered an item which sent his pulses pounding. It read: We used to disagree with the philosophy of the racketeer politician who runs things around here that every man has his price. Reluctantly we’ve come around to his point of view since discovering his money was able to buy a leak right in our own office. The firing of a hireling has plugged the leak, but it can’t bring back the evidence the racketeer bought from our files. The sensational expose promised yesterday is postponed for the time being .

Excited, Harry showed the item to Murphy. “He fired that Wentworth woman!” he exclaimed. “That’s how he happened to need a secretary just when Helen was looking for a job. Somehow, after he was dead and Helen disappeared, they got her to go back and pretend she’d been working for him all along.”

Murphy merely grunted.

The second-from-last column, that of the previous Thursday, contained the item which seemed to please Murphy most. It read: Wright City’s Mr. Big is going to be very angry with his city comptroller for being careless with a certain black ledger. But he’ll have a long time to cool off. About forty years. We’ll start printing excerpts from the ledger tomorrow .

The final column, that of the day before, was full of big name gossip, but made no mention of the black ledger.

“That does it,” Murphy said with a note of finality. He began stacking the papers back on their shelf.

“Does what?” Harry asked, moving to assist in the task.

“Gives me an excuse to start taking an official interest in your wife’s disappearance.”

The remark made no sense to Harry, but the detective apparently did not care to elaborate. When the papers were back on the shelf in proper order, he led the way out of the place.

A block from the library Sergeant Murphy parked his sedan in front of a drug store. When Harry followed him inside, the detective made for the phone booths at the rear. Turning to the “M” section of the phone book, he ran his finger along a page until he reached a whole quarter column of “Moodys”. Harry noted that only two Moodys had the initials M.D. behind the name.

“George and Henry Moody,” Murphy said. “We’ll try George first.”

Dropping a dime in the phone slot, the detective dialed a number. Through the open booth door Harry heard him ask if he were speaking to the Doctor Moody who was Dale Thompson’s physician. After a moment he grunted a thanks and hung up.

“Dr. George Moody is Dr. Henry Moody’s son,” he remarked to Harry. “He says the old man was Thompson’s doctor.”

This time, when he dropped his dime and dialed, he pulled the booth door shut so that Harry was unable to hear the conversation. His talk with Dr. Henry Moody was remarkably brief, however, for in less than a minute he was out of the booth.

“Let’s go visit my boss,” he said tersely.

Lieutenant George Blair, head of the Wright City Homicide Squad, proved to be a wiry man of fifty with gray hair, a gentle face and eyes as hard as emery.

After acknowledging Harry’s introduction, he inquired of Sergeant Murphy, “Busman’s holiday, Don?”

“Sort of, Lieutenant. This one looks too hot to wait. I guess you heard about Dale Thompson’s death.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Heart attack yesterday morning.”

“I make it out homicide.”

The lieutenant’s eyebrows raised. Settling himself in his chair, he clasped hands over his stomach and said mildly, “Shoot.”

“What started me on this was Harry Nolan here. Coming in to report his wife missing,” the sergeant explained. “The desk sent him to see Joe Murphree, but by accident he got to me instead and told his story before either of us realized he was talking to the wrong guy.” Briefly, Murphy recounted the facts of Helen’s disappearance, the negative results of the investigation made by Sergeant Joe Murphree, and the subsequent investigation he and Harry had made that day.

“We ended up by reading Dale Thompson’s column for the past two months,” he concluded. “Three weeks ago he hinted at an exposure in his column of a local political big shot being tied in with the dope racket. The next day he mentioned firing an employee for lifting what evidence he had and peddling it to the political big shot. Only this time he made it more definite by calling him the racketeer politician who runs Wright City.”

“Big John Gault,” Lieutenant Blair said thoughtfully.

“Exactly. Day before yesterday he announced he had gotten hold of a certain black ledger which would put Mr. Big Shot away for forty years, and the next day he would start printing excerpts from the ledger. But the next day he died, and when his final column appeared, it contained no mention of the ledger.”

Lieutenant Blair considered his sergeant thoughtfully. “So you think perhaps he was bumped to stop publication of whatever was in the ledger, and somebody substituted another column for the one he had ready to submit? Good enough motive, but pretty thin evidence of homicide in the face of a natural causes death certificate.”

“I’ve got more,” Murphy assured him, “Six weeks ago Thompson mentioned in his column having a physical examination and passing with flying colors. I just phoned his regular doc, who verified he had never detected any heart condition. And Thompson’s regular doctor was not called in the case. The first he knew, about it was where he read it in the papers. He doesn’t know who was called.”

“Hmm,” the lieutenant said.

“Add to that Thompson’s secretary disappearing so completely there isn’t even evidence she ever existed, and the secretary who presumably was fired three weeks ago reappearing and claiming she had never left the job, and at the very least you’ve got evidence of conspiracy. My opinion is Thompson was murdered and Mrs. Nolan disappeared because of the black ledger Thompson mentioned.”

For a few moments Lieutenant Blair said nothing, simply pursing his lips and frowning at one corner of the room. At last he looked up with a crooked smile.

“Big John has been pretty careful about tangling with this department, Don. I kind of doubt he’d take a chance on trying to cover up a murder.”

“To beat a forty-year rap I’d try murder myself, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah, I see your point. But you know this department is in a peculiar position. For ten years we’ve been in a state of armed truce with the rest of the city administration. Gault and his crew never try to fix a homicide case, and in return we keep our noses out of everything that isn’t homicide business. And for ten years we’ve all known the minute either side steps over the line, it’s all out war.”

Sergeant Murphy asked quietly, “You mean forget it, Lieutenant?”

The lieutenant’s face remained gentle, but his eyes could have chipped stone. “I mean if you make a mistake, the next head of the Homicide Squad will take orders from John Gault.” He glanced at his watch. “You go on duty in an hour. It’s your case. Move quietly and be sure there’s no leak at all until you have it airtight.”

“Yes, sir. Any other instructions?”

“Yeah. For your autopsy order stay away from Judge Bender and Judge Livingston. Bender blabs and Livingston is in Gault’s pocket. Contact either Judge Ward or Judge Centner.” He paused a moment, then added reflectively, “If the autopsy is negative, we’ll have to pull in our horns fast and I start thinking up alibis.”

“Sure—if it’s negative.”

When they were once again outside, the sergeant said to Harry, “Go on home and sit tight. There isn’t a thing we can do until we get an autopsy report, and that will take twenty-four hours. If anything comes up, I’ll phone you at Mrs. Weston’s. If you don’t hear from me, call me at home Monday morning and I’ll give you a briefing.”