Jonathan Craig - The Case of the Petticoat Murder

BCI told me they were still working on the check I'd requested on Dr. Clifford Campbell and that, so far, they had turned up nothing of interest. Campbell's personal life was, apparently, exemplary in every way, and he was obviously as highly regarded by his neighbors in Scarsdale as he was by the members of his profession. As for his acquisition of a teen-age wife, it seemed to have made for a fairly awkward social life; nothing more.

BCI's call had, however, been primarily in connection with Dr. Campbell's wife, whose check they had just completed, and about whom they had turned up no derogatory information whatever. Aside from my strong suspicion that she had falsified the application for her wedding license by giving her age as eighteen, her personal life — at least to a detective — was as uninteresting as her husband's.

Susan Campbell, nee Susan Leeds, had married Campbell in Scarsdale eleven months ago. The report on her went back some three years and showed a steady attendance at a variety of evening courses, including one in typing, and an even greater variety of short-term and part-time jobs. The picture BCI had put together was that of a girl determined to improve herself in as many areas as she could, and her life, for such a pretty girl, seemed to have been an exceptionally spartan one. There was every indication that she had been both high-minded and single-minded, and that she had had few girl friends and even fewer boy friends. She had met Clifford Campbell when an employment agency sent her to relieve Campbell's regular receptionist during the latter's two week vacation. Later, the receptionist had resigned, and Susan had once again been sent as a temporary replacement.

The replacement had been fairly temporary, at that: two months after going back to Campbell's office, she had married him. Whereupon Susan had, in turn, been replaced by a Miss Edna Hardesty, the disdainful, chinless brunette who had eavesdropped on Stan's and my talk with both Dr. and Mrs. Campbell in the doctor's inner office.

The phone out in the squad commander's office had started to ring a moment or so before I hung up, and Stan walked out to answer it.

I took the receipted bill from the Joyner Translation Bureau from my pocket and looked it over again, wondering whether it was important enough to have someone from the Joyner outfit open the office and give us a look at the printed matter Nadine Ellison had paid to have translated. It was now a few minutes past eleven; by the time we got hold of someone and had him locate the office copy of the translation, we would have killed at least another hour or two.

I was still mulling it over when Stan came from Barney Fells' office.

“That was Gus Heinz, at Headquarters,” he said. “He tried to get you on your phone, but it was tied up.” He grinned at me happily. “Our boy's got a mad on, Pete.”

“Which boy is that?”

“Burt Ellison.”

“Burt, eh? St. Louis come up with some more dope on him?”

“No,” he said. “Ellison called Headquarters to raise hell about the cops letting somebody else beat him to his wife.”

“You mean Nadine's husband is here in New York?”

“He sure as hell is, Pete. He didn't stay on the wire long enough for Headquarters to trace the call, but he was on there long enough to give them a piece of his mind.” He shook his head. “Boy, that guy must be a real wack. He said all he'd lived for was to kill Nadine with his bare hands, and now that somebody had cheated him out of it, he was going to find out who it was and kill him.”

“Crazy isn't a strong enough word,” I said. “When St. Louis said that Nadine's having that Mongolian baby drove Ellison out of his mind, they weren't fooling.”

“St. Louis was on the ball when they figured he'd hit for New York, too.”

“What's Headquarters doing about it, Stan?”

“What can they do? Just get out a supplementary alarm on the pickup for him — and hope for the best.”

“If we only had a picture of the guy,” I said. “That description we've got is next to worthless.”

“It'll help, once we get him, though. If we come up with a suspect with a scar on his wrist and a tattoo on his shoulder, we'll have it made.”

“Sure,” I said. “Once we come up with such a guy.”

“We will,” he said. “We've got to.”

“It occur to you that he might be trying to throw us off?”

“Sure it did,” he said. “I keep the old pineal body oiled up all the time, Pete. He could have killed her himself, and then made that call in the hopes of having us chase our tails from here on in.”

“You pretty hot on him, as the killer?”

“Not just pretty hot, Pete. Damned hot.”

There was a commotion in the hall outside, and a moment later two detectives dragged in a small, emaciated-looking man who flailed about wildly, both eyes tightly shut, his mouth working horribly and silently.

“Tried to push his wife out the window,” one of the detectives said as he and his partner pulled the struggling man toward the door that led out to the interrogation room. “When we got there, she was hanging on the ledge with her fingertips and old lover-boy here was trying to mash her fingers off with a book end.”

The detectives and their prisoner disappeared through the door and I sat wondering what Nadine and Burt Ellison's life had been like before the fateful night their car had stalled on that lonely road out in Missouri. The chances were I would never know.

My eyes fell on the momentarily forgotten bill from the Joyner Translation Bureau, and I picked it up and handed it to Stan.

“You feel like a little change of pace?” I said.

“I feel more like a four-pound steak. Why?”

“No reason you can't have both,” I said. “The steak first, of course.”

“You want me to check out this bill?”

“It's all we've got to chew on, right at the moment”

“Except a steak.”

“I'm going to try to knock off a little of the paper work,” I said. “If you asked me real nice, Stan, I just might let you stay and help me.”

He got to his feet so suddenly he overturned his chair. “Not that, by God,” he said, grinning. “Consider this bill checked out, Pete. I'm already halfway there.”

“Call in if you come up with anything.”

“I'll do even more than that,” he said as he went through the door. “I'll bring you back a new typewriter ribbon.”

I took Nadine Ellison's folder from the file cabinet, rolled a fresh report form into my Underwood, and got down to work.

When the phone rang, twenty minutes later, I had finished two reports and was starting on a third.

It was Sid Kaplan, one of the detectives on permanent duty at Communications.

“Got a little something for you, Pete,” he said. “Whether it's crank, or spite, or the McCoy, I wouldn't know.”

“What is it, Sid?”

“A telegram,” he said. “You got a pencil handy?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Well, it's addressed to Detective Selby, Police Department, New York City,” he said. “Guess the sender didn't know how else to reach you.”

“Who's it from?”

“It's unsigned,” he said. “Anyhow, it reads, 'Murderer Nadine Ellison is Albert Miller. Stop. Eight Fifteen West Seventy-fourth. Stop. Evidence bottom desk drawer his apartment. Stop.'”

“Is that all of it, Sid?” I said.

“That's the works.”

“Anybody checking with Western Union for a line on the sender?”

“We've tried that already. It's no go, Pete. The wire was phoned in from a public pay phone. The sender paid for it just as he would a toll call.”

“The operator notice anything distinctive about his voice?”

“Nothing that'd set it apart from any other. She says he sounded a little hoarse, and that she had to keep asking him to talk louder.”