Mickey Spillane - I, The Jury

How do you like that? He thought I’d find a way to get in. I put the note back with an addition at the bottom. “Thanks, chum,” I wrote, “I won’t.” I scrawled my name underneath it.

It was easy to see that the police had been over everything in the place. They had gone at it neatly, but completely. Everything was replaced much the same as it had been. There were just a few things not quite in order that made it possible to tell that it had been searched.

I started in the living room. After I pushed the chairs to the middle of the floor and examined them, I went around the edges of the carpet. Nothing there but a little dirt. I found three cents under the cushions of the couch, but that was all. The insides of the radio hadn’t been touched for months, as evidenced by the dust that had settled there. What books were around had nothing in them, no envelopes, no bookmarks or paper of any sort. If they had, the police got them.

When I finished, I replaced everything and tried the bathroom but, except for the usual array of bottles and shaving things in the cabinet, it was empty.

The bedroom was next. I lifted the mattress and felt along the seams for any possible opening or place where it may have been stitched up. I could have cursed my luck. I stood in the middle of the floor stroking my chin, thinking back. Jack had kept a diary, but he kept it on his dresser. It wasn’t there now. The police again. I even tried the window shades, thinking that a paper might have been rolled up in one of them.

What got me was that I knew Jack had kept a little pad of notes and addresses ever since he was on the force. If I could find that, it might contain something useful. I tried the dresser. I took every shirt, sock and set of underwear out of the drawers and went through them, but I might as well not have taken the time. Nothing.

As I emptied the bottom drawer a tie caught and slipped over the back. I pulled the drawer all the way out and picked up the tie from the plywood bottom. I also picked up something else. I picked up Jack’s little book.

I didn’t want to go through it right then. It was nearly ten o’clock and there was a chance that either the police might walk in on me or the little guy get suspicious enough of my being away so long he’d call a copper. As quickly as I could, I put the stuff back in the drawers and replaced them in the dresser. The book I stuck in my hip pocket.

The little guy was waiting for me in his own bathroom. I squeezed out Jack’s window and made a pretense of looking for rope marks along the upper sill. His eyes followed me carefully. “Find anything, officer?” he asked me.

“Afraid not. No marks around here at all. I checked the other windows and they haven’t even been opened.” I tried to look up to the roof, but I couldn’t get back far enough until I stepped across to his side, then I wormed my way into the bathroom and poked my head out and craned my head to make it look like I was really trying.

“Well, I guess that’s all. Might as well go out through your door as climb back inside there, okay?”

“Certainly, officer, right this way.” He steered me to the front room like a seeing-eye dog and opened up for me. “Any time we can be of service, officer,” he called to me as I left, “let us know. Glad to help.”

I drove back to the office in short order and walked into the reception room, pulling the book from my pocket. Velda stopped typing. “Mike.”

I turned around. I knew what was coming.

“What is it, honey?”

“Please don’t fool with me like that.”

I gave her a big grin. “I wasn’t fooling,” I said. “If you were on your toes I’d be an engaged man right now. Come on inside a minute.” She trailed in after me and sat down. I swung my feet up on the battered desk and riffled through the book. Velda was interested.

“What is it?” she asked curiously, leaning over to get a better look.

“A notebook of Jack’s. I swiped it from his room before the police could get it.”

“Anything in it?”

“Maybe. I haven’t looked yet.” Starting at the front was a list of names, all crossed out. Each page was dated, the earliest starting three years ago. Occasionally there were references to departmental cases with possible suspects and the action to take. These, too, were crossed out as having been completed.

About the middle of the book notes began to appear that apparently were still active or pending, for no black X’s marked them. I jotted these down on a list and Velda checked them against news clippings in my files. When she finished she laid down my notes with the word “solved” after each. Evidently the cases had been cleared up while Jack was still in the army.

I wasn’t getting much at all from this. Jack had inserted a single page with one word across it. “WHOOPIE!” It was dated the day of his discharge. The next page had a recipe for veal paprika, and at the bottom was a notation to put more salt in than the recipe called for.

There were two more pages of figures, an itemized account of what he had spent for clothes balanced against what he had in a bank account somewhere. Then came a brief remark: “Eileen Vickers. Family still in Poughkeepsie.”

She must have been a girl from home. Jack was born in Poughkeepsie and lived there until he went to college. The next few pages had some instructions from the insurance company. Then Eileen Vickers’ name cropped up again. This time it read: “Saw E. V. again. Call family.” The date was exactly two weeks before Jack had been killed.

She turned up again five pages further on. In heavy pencil Jack had: “R. H. Vickers, c/o Halper. Pough. 221. Call after 6.” Then below it: “E. V. al. Mary Wright. No address. Get it later.”

I tried to puzzle out what it meant. To me it looked like Jack had met a girl from home and had talked to her. She had told him that her family was still in Poughkeepsie. Evidently he tried to call them and found that they were staying with Halper, and in order to get them, called at supper time. Then the next part. E. V., Eileen Vickers, all right, but she was traveling under an alias of Mary Wright and gave no address.

I thumbed through the pages quickly, and there she was again. “E. V. Call family. Bad shape. Trace and raid 36904 the 29th.” And today was the 29th. There was one page left. It was an afterthought, a memo to himself: “Ask C. M. what she can do” . . .

C. M., Charlotte Manning. He had reference to what Charlotte told me about. He wanted her to stop back during the week, but never got the chance to see her.

I reached for the phone and dialed operator. When she cut in I asked for the Poughkeepsie number. There were some clicks as the connection was completed, then a timid voice answered.

“Hello,” I said. “Is this Mr. Vickers?”

“No,” the voice replied, “this is Mr. Halper. Mr. Vickers is still at work. Can you leave a message?”

“Well, I wanted to find out if he had a daughter in the city. Do you know . . .”

The voice interrupted me. “I’m sorry, but it would be better if you didn’t mention that to Mr. Vickers. Who is calling, please?”

“This is Michael Hammer, investigator. I’m working with the police on a murder and I’m trying to run down what might be a lead. Now, can you tell me what the story is here?”

Halper hesitated a moment, then said, “Very well. Mr. Vickers hasn’t seen his daughter since she went to college. She became enmeshed in a sinful life with a young man. Mr. Vickers is a very stern gentleman, and as far as he is concerned, she might as well be dead. He’ll have nothing to do with her.”

“I see, thank you.” I hung up and turned to Velda. She was staring at the number I had jotted down. 36904.