Jonathan Craig - The Case of the Petticoat Murder

“We have to follow a certain routine, Mrs. Campbell,” I said. “You realize that, of course.”

She nodded. “We! yes, I suppose you do. But what can I tell you about a silly thing like that telephone call?”

“Did you overhear the call, Mrs. Campbell?” I asked.

“Why, yes,” she said. “That is, I heard my husband's end of it. Why? What's so important about it?”

“How many times did she call back?”

“Now just a moment, Selby,” Campbell said. “I won't have you—”

“Clifford!” she said, her eyes widening. “What's happened?”

“Nothing for you to concern yourself about,” he said.

“But something must have,” she said. “Why are these men—”

“Nothing has happened, Susan,” he said. “It's just that I resent such a high-handed way of going about things.”

She took her arm from around Campbel's waist and stood looking at me quizzically. “Will you be good enough to tell me what this is all about, Mr. Selby?”

“I'd appreciate an answer to my question, Mrs. Campbell.” I said. “How many times did this girl call back?”

She bit at her lip for a moment. “Three or four,” she said tightly. “Three, I think.”

“You know a Nadine Ellison?” Stan asked,

She shook her head. “No.”

“How about Norma Edwards?” I said.

“No, I don't know any girl named Norma Edwards, either,” she said, her face flushing angrily. “Will you please tell me what's going on?”

“One more question, Doctor Campbell,” I said. “Where were you between two and six this morning?”

“Clifford, I want to know what they're talking about!” Mrs. Campbell demanded. “Why won't you tell me?”

“I was here,” Campbell said. “In our apartment at the rear of this office. My wife and I went to the theater, came straight home, and went to bed.”

“That right, Mrs. Campbell?” Stan asked.

The angry flush on her cheeks was dangerously high now and her blue eyes seemed almost black. “Of course it is!” she said, her voice beginning to rise. “Why do you—” She turned suddenly and reached up to put both hands on Campbell's shoulders. “Darling, something terrible has happened. I just know it!”

I caught Stan's eye again, then turned toward the door. “That's about all, I guess,” I said. “Thanks very much, Doctor Campbell.”

He wasn't looking at me; he was patting his wife's shoulder in exactly the same way a father might pat that of a very small daughter.

On our way through the outer office, I heard the click of the intercom key and looked back at the brunette receptionist. Her face was even more flushed than Mrs. Campbell's had been, and it occurred to me that she had very probably been eavesdropping on the entire conversation.

“Well,” Stan said as he followed me into the self-service elevator and pressed the button for the street floor, “what do you think?”

“I think they make a very handsome couple,” I said.

“You and I should be so lucky,” he said. “I could have looked at that Susan Campbell the rest of the night.”

“About eighteen, would you say?”

“If that. When they're all dressed up that way, it's hard to tell.”

“But no older?”

“Hell, no,” he said as we stepped out into the lobby. “But you still haven't told me what you thought.”

“I think Campbell is lying like a rug,” I said.

“Ditto,” Stan said. “Make that double.”

“He was expecting us, Stan. All that talk about pineal bodies with a couple of cops was just a stall.”

“I know,” Stan said. “The guy was sweating plenty.”

“The question is, what does he have to sweat about?”

“Like they say, it's a good question.” He shook his head. “You wouldn't think a guy with a wife like that Susan would bother bedding down with anybody else, would you?”

“Who is it that keeps saying people will do anything, Stan?”

“Knock it off. You think Campbell might have been renting bedroom time from Nadine?”

“He knew her,” I said. “Whether it was from renting her bed for quickies with some other woman is something else again.”

“With stuff like that at home, the guy would be nuts.”

“We'll find out,” I said, pausing in front of the phone booth just inside the street door. “And the sooner the better. I'm going to call BCI and ask them to put a couple of their men on him.”

“A tail?”

“Not necessarily. All I want is a rundown on everything that guy's done and thought in the last six months,”

“Man, will BCI love you for that.”

“It has to be done.”

“You're really hyped up on him, aren't you?”

“Not as hyped up as I'd be if Nadine didn't have a psycho husband loose somewhere. But I do have a feeling about him, Stan. I think the least he's done is pay rent on Nadine's mattress. If she'd been working in a little blackmail or something, he could be the one we're looking for.”

“If she was in the blackmail business, there's no telling how many candidates we've got. Only trouble is, we don't know who they are.”

“We know who Campbell is,” I said. “And we know Nadine threatened him.”

“I was kind of surprised when he admitted that,” Stan said. “My hopes went way down.”

“He thought he'd better admit what he realized we already knew, and hope we didn't know any more.”

I went into the phone booth, dialed BCI, and asked for the check through on Clifford Campbell. Then I decided to go all the way, and asked for one on his wife.

“Better call the squad room,” Stan said as I hung up. “Maybe there's been a little action.”

I'd run out of coins, so I borrowed one from Stan, called the squad room, and asked the detective who answered whether there were any messages for Stan or me.

“There's just one,” he said. “But it ought to make you mighty happy.”

“What is it?”

“Benny Bucket's back in town.”

Benny's last name was Buckner, but I'd never heard him called anything but Benny Bucket since the night, now almost ten years ago, when he had very nearly succeeded in braining a hotel porter with a fire bucket. He was a petty thief, a conscienceless, friendless, ferret-faced little man who had, in the past, been one of my most valued stools.

“You mighty happy, like I said?”

“Mighty happy.”

“That's what I figured.”

“I thought Benny was out in San Francisco,” I said. “Somebody told me he saw him hanging around the North Beach section somewhere.”

“Not any more, Pete. The guy wants you to call him. He says it's the biggest thing you'll ever hear.”

“Small doubt,” I said. “He leave a number?”

“He said you could reach him at the old one.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I'll give him a buzz.”

I hung up and glanced at Stan. “You got any more change?”

He fished in his pocket. “Here, for God's sake. Why don't you just give the operator your badge number, like everybody else?”

“Bad memory. Benny Bucket's back, Stan.”

“That who you're calling?” He shook his head. “Your pineal body must be acting up, Pete. That's the only answer.”

“Hello?” It was Benny's voice, soft and whispery from his having been struck on the windpipe by the same hotel porter whom Benny had flattened with the bucket

“Pete Selby, Benny,” I said.

“Pete! Lord, ain't it good to hear your voice again! I was saying to some of the boys just the other day. Boys, I said—”

“Never mind the grease,” I said. “You got something for me?”

“Have got something for you! Just wait'll you hear I” He paused, then went on guardedly. “You're not calling from the squad room, are you, Pete? All them phones are bugged.”