Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

After work I drove to South St. Louis straight from the paper, getting to Martha’s place about five. Although it was only the end of March, we were having an early spring and it was pleasant enough for people to be out on their porches. Little Tod was riding his tricycle on the sidewalk while Martha sat on the porch watching him.

“Hi, Unkie Tod,” the little guy called. “Watch me!”

I stood and watched a few moments as his fat little legs pumped the pedals and the tricycle raced along at the desperate speed of perhaps two miles an hour. My applause made him grin with delight.

Climbing the steps, I held up the paper bag I was carrying for Martha to see. “Just in case I get called out on an assignment some night, I decided to take Lyle’s suggestion and install a couple of drawbolts after all. Where’s Lyle keep his tools?”

“In his workshop in the basement.”

Going inside, I shed my coat and necktie in the den, then went downstairs. One whole side of the basement had been partitioned off to serve as Lyle’s workshop. A long workbench had tools of every description hanging on the wall over it: everything from hammers to a set of bolt cutters. The dismantled innards of a television set stood on the bench, and two more sets were on the floor.

I selected a screwdriver of the size I would need, then began to open drawers in search of a drill. In a top drawer containing nothing but woodworking tools I found a hand brace and a set of bits. I could have used that, but I was sure that for his repair work Lyle would have an electric drill. I started searching the other drawers.

In one of the bottom drawers there was nothing but a small leather case and a tin box. When I found it was locked, I snapped open the leather case.

It contained five items. There was an extremely thin-nosed pair of pliers, a glass cutter, a small rubber suction cup with a metal ring attached to it large enough to fit over a man’s finger, a pair of black kid gloves and a long, thin implement that seemed to be made of spring steel.

I puzzled over the last item and the rubber suction cup. I figured out the spring-steel implement first. It was a picklock.

Then I realized the purpose of the suction cup. If you pressed it against the glass of a windowpane, then cut around it with a glass cutter, it would prevent the cut-out section from falling inside and perhaps shattering on the floor.

I like to think I’m at least as quick on the uptake as the average guy, but my initial reaction was merely puzzlement at why Lyle would possess what appeared to be a rather simple burglar’s kit. I suspect this was a quite normal reaction, though. On the basis of such a bare hint, it would be abnormal to jump to a monstrous conclusion about anyone as close to you as a brother-in-law. As a matter of fact the normal reaction would be not just to reject such a thought, but to refuse even to let it form.

Whether it was intuition, subconscious suspicion or merely my reportorial nosiness that made me try the picklock on the tin box, I don’t know. At any rate I did try it, and because it was a simple lock, I managed to get it open after only about five minutes of fumbling.

The box contained nothing but eight nylon stockings.

This being a little more than a bare hint, the monstrous thought did occur to me; but because I sincerely liked Lyle, I instantly began a mental search for some less monstrous explanation for this cache.

Almost immediately I was able to think of something that seemed to make it highly unlikely that he was the Stocking Killer. According to Martha, Lyle had repeatedly watched the blonde who lived behind them undress. She was as attractive as any of the Stocking Killer’s victims, and Lyle knew her husband worked nights. If Lyle were the killer, why hadn’t she been a victim?

The depressing answer to that hit me almost as quickly as the question. Insane people aren’t necessarily stupid. The blonde was simply too close to home to be worth the risk.

I turned back to trying to think of some alternate reason anyone would keep a secret cache of women’s stockings.

I couldn’t think of any, particularly after examining the stockings more closely. At least four of them had no mates. One was longer than all the others, another shorter, and two didn’t match any of the others in shade. The other four were the same shade and size, so might have been two pairs; but it was equally it possible that they were single stockings from four similar pairs.

I took some hope from the fact that there were eight stockings, while there had been only six murders. Then I thought of the one in Kansas City and the one in Chicago that the police assumed were merely apings of the Stocking Killer by a couple of other nuts who had read about him.

Lyle made periodic business trips to both cities. I decided to find out if he had been to either or both places when the murders occurred.

I had to play this very cool. I had to be absolutely sure before I went to the police, and I had to be equally sure that they would guarantee me anonymity as their informer. I didn’t want my sister living with a homicidal maniac, but I also didn’t want her thrusting me out of her life. Even if Lyle were guilty, I knew she would never forgive me for turning him in.

Fortunately there was time for some thorough checking. It was only Tuesday, and Lyle wasn’t due back from Chicago for six more days.

I put the nylons back in the tin box and managed to get it locked again with the picklock. Then I searched some more drawers until I found the electric drill, went upstairs and installed the two door bolts.

During dinner I casually remarked to Martha, “Lyle gets to Chicago quite often, doesn’t he?”

“Only about twice a year,” she said. “Last time he had to be there over Thanksgiving, remember?”

I did recall, now that she mentioned it, because she had invited me for Thanksgiving dinner, and Lyle had been away at the time. I tried to remember when the Chicago murder had occurred, but could place it in my memory only as sometime last winter. I could look it up at the paper tomorrow, though.

I said, “Yeah, I remember. His last trip to K.C. was over some holiday too, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, no. That was way last summer, around the middle of June.”

I let the conversation drop.

The next morning, as soon as I arrived at the paper, I went down to the news morgue in the basement.

The K.C. murder had been on Wednesday, June 16th, of the previous year. The Chicago murder had been on Friday, November 26th, the day after Thanksgiving.

I went up to the city room, sat at my desk and phoned Dr. Sam Carter at his home. I called there instead of to his office because it was only a few minutes after eight, and he didn’t reach his office until nine.

Sam was now a hundred-dollar-an-hour psychiatrist, but in our youth, when he was a pre-med student and I was studying journalism, we were fraternity brothers at Washington U. We still kept in touch and were still good friends.

When I got him on the phone, he at first said he couldn’t possibly see me until evening. When I told him it was urgent, he said he would cancel his first appointment and see me at his office at nine a.m.

I arrived exactly at nine and his receptionist sent me right into his private office. Sam was about my age, thirty-five, but a lot better-looking. He was tall and lean, with a strong-featured but amiable face and thick, slightly graying hair.

He pointed to an upholstered leather chair before his desk. “Have a seat, Tod. Or would you rather lie on the couch?”

Seating myself, I said, “It’s not a personal problem. I just want some information.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

I said, “Would it be possible for the Stocking Killer to be a happily married man, a good father and in love with his wife?”