Эллери Куин: The Madman Theory

SERGEANT EASLEY — He couldn’t understand why he got the tough jobs while his boss did his sleuthing in night clubs at the taxpayers’ expense.

INSPECTOR OMAR COLLINS — All he wanted was to finish the case fast and get home to his bride. But the killer had other ideas.

ROY PHELPS — Why did people have to pick his park for a murder? Especially one like this, that wasn’t even wholesome and outdoorsey.

EARL GENNEMAN — An honest and successful businessman, devoted husband and indulgent father; who but a madman would hate him enough to want to blow his head off?

MYRON RETWIG — Genneman’s best friend. He looked like an old-time Prussian general, but his hobby was playing with toy trains.

BOB VEGA — The manager of one of Genneman’s subsidiary companies. He was too busy juggling wives, ex-wives and wives-to-be to have time to juggle the books.

BUCK JAMES — Genneman’s star salesman — the engaging, personable type who usually marries the boss’ daughter.

RED KERSHAW — Genneman’s shiftless brother-in-law — he dabbled in horses and women, but murder was too rich for his blood.

POLICE CAPT. BIGELOW — All his men loved him. He never interfered with their work — as long as he got the credit for it.

OPAL GENNEMAN — Genneman’s wife, the woman who had everything — but the one thing she didn’t need was a dead husband.

JEAN GENNERMAN — Genneman’s lovely stepdaughter, and closer to the murdered man than his own son.

EARL, JR. — Genneman’s son. He wasn’t even a shaving off the old block — just a teenage beatnik with a chip on his shoulder.

LORNA COLLINS — Inspector Collins’ curvaceous bride. Her fried chicken tasted like cardboard, but the rest of her attributes were top drawer.

STEVE RICKS — A cowboy musician in a cheap honky-tonk. He wound up riding the rails — with no hands.

J. K. MANSFIELD — His name was on the check that identified Ricks. But what were the “Services rendered?”

MRS. RAMON MENDEZ — She spotted Ricks’ missing car and noticed the driver resting before he disappeared. Too bad she didn’t know what strenuous activities he’d been engaged in.

MOLLY WILKERSON — Ricks’ girl friend. She was a broad with principles. She wouldn’t protect anyone she thought was crooked — unless the price was high enough.

BELVA DIDRICK — Steve’s married playmate. He told her about the practical joke he was playing, but even he couldn’t tell her the name of the fall guy.

At nine o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, June 16, three men arrived at the Fresno airport: Dr. Albert Koster, assistant to the Fresno County Coroner; and Sergeant Easley and Detective Inspector Collins of the Sheriff’s office. Koster, a small oval sort of man with a waxen scalp and hornrimmed glasses, carried a black case. Sergeant Easley was almost as bald, but he was rectangular, with the patient look of a butcher’s block. Inspector Omar Collins, the tallest of the three, was spare in the flanks, with coarse black hair, a broken nose, gloomy eyes, and a quality of unpredictability that made people shy away.

The three men walked out on the field to a waiting helicopter and climbed into the cab.

Collins spoke to the pilot with a studied politeness which suggested that his natural tendency was less social. “How much did they tell you?”

“I gather we’re flying into the back country to pick up a corpse.”

“Right. You’ve got gear for the job?”

“A tarp. Rope.”

“That should do it. We’ll stop at a place called Cedar Grove to pick up a ranger. He’ll take us into the mountains.”

“I know where Cedar Grove is. No problem there, we just follow Kings Canyon. What happened? Somebody fall off a cliff?”

“Somebody had his head blown off,” Sergeant Easley said. “The rangers think there’s a maniac loose.” Inspector Collins looked at him, and the sergeant grinned uneasily.

“That’s rough country behind Kings Canyon. I’ve been in there before.” The pilot looked over his shoulder. “Everybody tied down? Here we go.” He started the engine, set the blades whirling, and the airport fell away. The city of Fresno spread below, a thing of white and tawny blocks and slabs. It dissolved into the heat-haze. The Sierra Nevada was a blur along the eastern skyline, more felt than seen.

Orchards, vineyards, housing developments tailed off into alfalfa fields, which turned into dry pasture. The foothills began to swell and loom, until they became the spurs of the Sierra Nevada. Eucalyptus and live oak gave way to manzanita and pine, then to fir and redwood. Kings Canyon opened before them: a glacial trough a mile wide and a mile high, with the Kings River a silver trickle on its floor. The helicopter flew east, between granite crags.

Presently the pilot pointed to a sprinkle of flecks, just visible beneath the trees. “Cedar Grove.” He swung the helicopter in a semicircle and descended. The wheels touched ground. The motor died, leaving a throbbing silence.

A pair of park rangers hurried toward them. The older one, a man of forty with a ginger mustache, wearing a whipcord jacket over his Forest Service uniform, introduced himself. “You’re the police? I’m Roy Phelps, Park Superintendent. This is Head Ranger Joe Johnson. You arrived quicker than I expected.”

“Once in a while we stir ourselves,” said Inspector Collins. “Anything new since you called in?”

“Nothing. I’ve sent out an alert to fire lookouts and such, but I can’t imagine what good it will do. We have two or three thousand square miles of mountain back in there if anyone wants to hide.”

“No one saw the killer, I take it.”

Superintendent Phelps shook his head. “The shot seems to have been fired from ambush, from a distance of maybe fifty feet.”

“The rest of the party,” said Head Ranger Johnson with a dry smile, “did not exactly rush forward to capture the guy who fired the shot.”

“Where are they now?” asked Collins.

The park superintendent jerked his head toward a long cabin with walls of simulated brown logs. “They’re in the station, not saying much. Still in shock, I guess. They’ve had a rough time.”

Collins considered for a moment. “I’d better talk to them before we go in after the body.”

Phelps squinted up at the sun. “I suppose another few minutes won’t make much difference. Still, I’d like to get the dirty work over with as soon as possible.”

“The body won’t go off by itself,” said Collins. “And if I know what’s happened I’ll know better what to look for.”

Phelps acceded, a bit ungraciously, and led the march to the ranger station along a neat gravel path between white-washed rocks. They climbed three steps to a porch and entered a waiting room separated from an office by a counter.

Here sat four men. Inspector Collins looked them over, reflecting that this was hardly a typical group of outdoors men. He said, in the polite voice that so contradicted his broken nose and moody look, “I’m Omar Collins, from the Sheriff’s office. Sergeant Easley, Dr. Koster. We’re on our way in for the body, but before we go I’d like some idea of what happened.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then one of the four men straightened in his chair, sighed, and in a weary voice began to speak.

Myron Retwig was research director for Pacific Chemicals; Earl Genneman owned most of Genneman Laboratories, Incorporated. They were the oldest members of the party and the only two who professed a previous acquaintance with the sport of back-packing. Together they had conceived and planned the trip, which was to have taken them on a loop of approximately fifty miles through some of the wildest and most beautiful mountain scenery in California. The other three men involved were Bob Vega, manager of Westco Pharmaceutical Supply, a subsidiary of Genneman Laboratories; Buck James, a Westco salesman; and Red Kershaw, Earl Genneman’s brother-in-law. At noon on Saturday, June 13, the five had made rendezvous in the bar of the lodge at General Grant National Park, a few hundred yards from the General Grant redwood, the tallest tree in the world.