Jonathan Craig - The Case of the Petticoat Murder

“Her earrings?” Hutchins said. “Jeez, I don't remember.”

“When's the last time you did see them?”

“You got me,” he said. “I never paid much attention.”

“They may have been stolen.”

Hutchins' bloodshot eyes hardened a little. “Not by me, by God,” he said. “I never stole anything off anybody in my life.”

“You hear me accuse you of anything, Hutchins?”

“That's the way it sounds, by God. If you aren't hinting around that I did it, then what are you doing?”

“What I'm trying to do is get a few answers. Her earrings are missing. If she was wearing them as recently as yesterday morning, it would probably mean—”

“Hold on a minute! You mean somebody stole them off her after she was dead?”

“We think that's possible, yes.”

He stared at me with what I would have been willing to swear was genuine astonishment. “Jesus Christ,” he said softly.

“You spend much time in her apartment?” I asked.

“Tell me something straight out,” he said. “Do you think I'm the guy that killed her?”

“Answer the question,” I said. “You spend much time in her apartment, or didn't you?”

“Some,” he said. “Most of the time, she'd come over here.”

“She have an address book?”

“Sure. I guess everybody does, don't they?”

“We didn't find one.”

“You look in her fish-tackle box?” he said.

“Her what?”

“Fish-tackle box. She used it for — well, like a strongbox, It's got a big padlock on it.”

“Where'd she keep it?”

“In the bottom dresser drawer. You mean you didn't find it?”

“No.”

“Well, that's where she kept her address book, anyway.”

“Why would she have kept something like an address book in a strongbox?”

“Search me, fella. She just did, that's all.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw her haul it out enough times, for God's sake. She was always putting something in or taking something out.”

“She keep it locked?”

“She never missed.”

“What all did she keep in it, beside the address book?”

“Everything. Bills, letters, money, junk jewelry — everything.”

I could understand now why Stan Rayder's search of Nadine's apartment hadn't turned up even so much as a rent receipt. Whoever had taken the dead girl's earrings had obviously taken along her strongbox at the same time.

“How do you know the jewelry was junk?” I asked.

“I'm just going by what she said. She told me the only real jewelry she had was her earrings.” He shrugged. “As for me, I never much more than caught a fast glimpse of it.”

“What'd this box look like?” I asked.

“Like any other fish-tackle box.”

“How big was it?”

“About one by three — maybe even a little bigger.”

“Pretty big for a girl to be using as a strongbox. What color was it?”

“Gray crackle, I guess you'd call it.”

“She ever tell you there was anything of value in it?”

“No, she never did. I started to josh her a little about the size of it once, but I could tell she was getting kind of peed-off, so I changed the subject.”

“She tell you much about herself, Hutchins?”

“No. She said anything that had happened more than five minutes ago didn't count.” He paused. “Oh, of course she'd tell me one night about having done this particular thing, and the next night turn right around and tell me something else. Like maybe she'd been in South America digging around in some old ruins with a couple of scientists. Or maybe it would be that she'd been an airline hostess. It could have been anything, and the truth is that it was almost everything. She told them one right after another, right around the clock. Hell, once she even told me she used to be a stunt girl out in Hollywood.” He spread his hands. “You name it. To hear her talk, she'd done everything there is to do.”

“She ever indicate she was in fear of her life?”

“You mean, did she think somebody was after her?”

I nodded.

“No,” he said. “She never seemed to have a worry in the world.”

“You say you can prove where you were last night?” I said.

“I didn't say it, but I can.” He paused, looking at me levelly. “But I'm not going to unless I have to.”

“Why not?”

“Because there's a lady involved.”

“You're saying you spent the night with a woman?”

“That's right — but I'm not saying which woman.”

“Has this got something to do with gallantry, Hutchins?”

“You can call it anything you want.”

“This the same girl you met over on Waverly yesterday morning?”

“I'm not saying.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said. “It means I'll have to take you over to the station house and ask you all over again.”

“And get out the rubber hose, I suppose?”

I didn't say anything. There are times when a statement such as Hutchins' gets a rise out of me and times when it does not. This time it didn't.

“You going to arrest me?” he said.

“Better than that,” I said, bluffing. “I'll book you as a material witness.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means no bail, no lawyer, no anything.”

“For how long?”

“Until the case comes up for trial. Say about six months.”

“You couldn't do that.”

“I'll tell you what,” I said. “There's a wall phone in the hall downstairs. On our way out to the police car you can stop and look up the number of any lawyer you pick out of the directory. You can call him and ask him what it means to be booked as a material witness. It's a pretty nasty business, Hutchins; I hope you'll spare us both the trouble.”

He looked at me for a long moment, and then made a soft, contemptuous sound in his throat.

“You'd do it, too,” he said. “You haven't got any more respect for women than I've got for a dog.”

“Or for Nadine Ellison,” I said.

He reached down for the bottle again, muttering something about my ancestry.

“What did you say, Hutchins?” I asked.

“I said her name's Elaine Walton,” he told me. “She's got a room at the Leighton Hotel, over on West Fourth.”

“And you were with her all night?”

“Yes, damn it. All night.”

“Until how late?”

“About noon.”

“Fine,” I said. “But you'd better put a shirt on, Hutchins. Those hotels can be a little fussy.”

“You mean you're going to take me over there with you?”

“I don't know how else to keep you off the phone,” I said. “Hurry up with the shirt.”

“Listen, copper!”

“The shirt, Hutchins,” I said, getting to my feet. “And the name is Selby.”

FORTY MINUTES later I braked the Plymouth in front of Marty Hutchins' rooming house and let him out at the curb.

“I sure hope you're satisfied,” he said angrily as he slammed the door and bent down to peer in at me through the open window “You loused me up with that girl forever, I guess you know. From here on in my name will be crap.”

“Sorry, Hutchins,” I said as I put the car back in gear. “It was just something that had to be done.”

“Not that way, it didn't,” he said. “Hell, it was the first time she'd ever slept with anybody in her life! How do you think she felt?” He turned away from the car abruptly. “Cops!” he said, and spit on the sidewalk.

I eased the car out into the traffic, turned right at the next corner, and headed back toward the station house. I couldn't sympathize too much with Hutchins, but I did feel a little sorry for the young girl with whom he'd spent the night. She had been one of the few women I'd ever talked to who seemed completely incapable of sustaining more than one emotion at the same time. Elaine Walton had been terrified, and nothing else. She had been so terrified that she had found it all she could do to hang on to her reason, much less lie or dissemble, and for the first several minutes of our talk I'd thought I might have another hysterical woman on my hands. Once she had realized that she was in no danger of arrest, however, and that I had no intention of informing her family, she had been able to collect herself sufficiently to convince me that she and Hutchins had gone to bed together shortly before midnight and had stayed there until almost noon.