Эллери Куин - The Madman Theory

Collins returned at once to 982A Mulberry Street with a photographer and a fingerprint man. He inspected Ricks’ effects but found very little: a handful of photographs portraying Ricks in navy blues, Ricks playing guitar with a country band identified as Pete Silliman and His Arkansas Stampers, Ricks with his arm around a ferret-faced blond woman, and others of a similar nature. The photos showed him to have been a man of average height, overweight, with a cheerful face, a snub nose, and sandy hair combed in sweeps and waves. Collins estimated his age at thirty. There were several letters from a Mrs. Beulah Ricks in Bledsoe, Texas, apparently the man’s mother, containing nothing which seemed pertinent.

Of one thing Collins was certain: the deaths of Earl Genneman and Steve Ricks were connected. To believe otherwise would be to stretch coincidence. Both killings were characterized by savagery, a ruthless lack of squeamishness.

A thought startled Collins, and he cursed himself for the oversight — even Captain Bigelow would have seen it. A stroke of luck that he had remembered in time, rather than try to explain the lapse to Bigelow later! Steven Ricks’ shoes. Collins already had glanced through the scanty wardrobe: a cheap blue suit, a pair of tan slacks and a brown plaid sports jacket, five or six sports shirts, some neckties, some underwear and socks, two pairs of cowboy boots, a pair of pointed black dress shoes, a pair of tan suede loafers, and heavy work-boots. With care Collins wrapped the boots in newspaper and took them out to his car.

The Sunset Nursery was a sprawling emporium selling everything from potted orchids to garden tractors, firewood, flagstones and cement. Collins talked first to the owner, then to a man named Sam Delucci, the warehouse manager, and then to Ricks’ fellow-employees. He learned that Ricks was older than he had thought, nearer forty than thirty. His job had consisted of loading and unloading trucks, delivering orders of sand, fertilizer, rock, peat moss and the like to customers’ cars in the parking lot. He had worked cheerfully if without any great enthusiasm. His pay had been a dollar and ninety cents an hour. He had been a braggart, with a talented imagination. About a third of his talk had dealt with the big money he had won at Las Vegas or playing the horses, the remaining two thirds celebrated his triumphs on the bandstand and in the bedroom. He had often spoken of plans to organize an all-star band for the purpose of recording his songs, of which he claimed to have composed more than a hundred. Some of these, according to Ricks, had been pirated into smash hits by competitors. He had played on weekends at the Clover Club, on Morgan and J Streets, an establishment he undiscourageably urged his fellow-employees to patronize.

On the morning of Friday, June 12, Ricks had telephoned in to report himself sick with stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. “He laid it on thick,” Delucci, the warehouse manager, said. “Steve wouldn’t just say he was sick and hang up; he had to make like he had bubonic plague mixed with a broken leg and falling hair. He sang one pitiful song, that guy did. I even felt sorry for him. I told him to go to bed, take some aspirin, and come to work when he felt better. I should have known.”

About his background Ricks had never been explicit. He had seemed to be unmarried. His previous jobs and occupations were legion. According to him, he had sold cars, tended bar, worked in a service station, picked apricots, grapes and peaches, worked in packing sheds, dealt poker at gambling clubs, run the chuck-a-luck cage at a Las Vegas resort. As a bookmaker, he claimed to have lost nine thousand dollars on one race and won ten thousand on the next. By and large the verdict of his fellow-workers was favorable: Steve Ricks had been a blow-hard and no-good, but there were also tales of sharing his lunch with a nursing mother-cat. Collins heard nothing which might have served to link the life of Ricks with Earl Genneman’s.

Returning to headquarters, Collins took Ricks’ workboots to the laboratory, together with the samples of mud and dirt he had collected along the Copper Creek Trail. “What I want to know,” he told Otto Kalisher, the technician, “is this: did these boots walk through this dirt or step in this mud?”

Collins asked when he could have a report, but Kalisher would make no definite commitment. “I’m up to my ears. Likely tomorrow morning. Say ten o’clock.”

Collins had to be content, although he itched with impatience. Had Ricks followed Genneman to Persimmon Lake and beyond? Then what? Had he shot Genneman? But they seemed to have inhabited different worlds. Or had Ricks been hired to shoot Genneman? Collins shook his head. What he knew of Ricks, of his easy life, his impudence, his braggadocio, make it hard to picture him as a paid assassin. But Collins had been wrong many times in his career and he seldom trusted his intuition. If Otto Kalisher declared that Ricks had stepped in the mud of Persimmon Lake, had scuffed his boots in the dirt of Lomax Meadow, then he must alter his thinking. But there was a too tempting simplicity to the theory that Ricks had been hired to kill Earl Genneman, and then had himself been killed, perhaps to forestall blackmail.

Returning to headquarters, Collins found Easley at his desk, receiver to his ear, checking out the last few license numbers of the list supplied by Superintendent Phelps. He finished his call and drew a line through one of the few uncanceled names on the list.

“No leads,” he told Collins. “We’re down now to about a dozen parties who seem to be off on vacations.”

“Give it a rest,” said Collins. “This Ricks business is the hottest thing we’ve got going.”

Easley stretched his heavy arms. “What do you have in mind?”

Collins took the yellow pad and pencil. “If Kalisher says Ricks was on the Copper Creek Trail, we’ve got something. Until then...” As he talked he scribbled notes. “First, the landlord. I’ve talked to him without much luck. A vague old bird. Maybe you can scratch up something he never thought to tell me.”

“Maybe so,” said Easley. “I’m a pretty vague bird myself.”

“Landlord and neighbors,” said Collins. “The usual drill: who were his friends, when they saw him last, the routine. Second, where is Ricks’ car? A ’54 Plymouth coupé license — you’ve got it somewhere. I’ll call the city police and put it on the hot list. In the meantime, we can check were he bought it. If he got credit, whom did he give for references? Third, where did he buy his gas? He used to work in a service station — he might have got chummy with the attendants. Fourth, we want some pictures of Ricks blown up from the photos hanging on his walls. Then Sullivan or Kerner or both can take them into Kings Canyon and circulate them around the campgrounds, the grocery store — everywhere Ricks might have shown himself. We want to know if he came in alone, talked to anyone, where he went when he left. Someone might have seen him start up the trail or come back down. Fifth: the Clover Club. Ever hear of it?”

“Sure. It’s a joint on Morgan Street. One of these Okie hangouts. It gets pretty wild on occasion.”

“Steven Ricks played in the orchestra there on weekends. If he went up into the mountains he must have told the band-leader something. Probably the same story he told Delucci at the Sunset Nursery. I’ll check that one out myself.”

“Something I’ve noticed,” complained Easley. “Whenever there’s overtime, sitting around a night club, with drinks on the taxpayers, it’s always the big shots that take over the investigation and never the sergeants. How come?”

Collins grinned and returned to the yellow pad. “Sixth, the check in Ricks’ shoe. Thirty-two dollars — for what? Who is J. K. Mansfield? Seventh, the murder weapon. A hammer? A hatchet? Eighth, just where did Ricks get put aboard the boxcar? Ninth, if Ricks went up the Copper Creek Trail, what did he use for camping equipment? Did he rent it, borrow it, buy it? If so, where? Tenth, Ricks’ relatives: who and where are they? Eleventh, does he have any bank accounts? Is he in debt? Is that hundred dollars mad-money that he always carried? If not, where did he get it? Twelfth, the shotgun. Thirteenth, do any of Genneman’s friends or relatives know Ricks? Fourteenth... That’s enough for today. I’ve got to get more men on the job. Let’s see now. You take care of the landlord, the neighbors, the gas station, and if you have any time left, telephone around the places that rent out camping equipment. Tonight I’ll look into the Clover Club. That still leaves a lot of work. Maybe I can get a couple more men. First, I better write out a report for Bigelow. He likes everything in black and white.”