Part 1 (1/2)
Kill the Clown.
A Sh.e.l.l Scott Mystery.
Richard S. Prather.
For three lovely ladies:.
BILLIE.
NICKIE.
PAT.
”Salud y amor y pesetas”
. . . and many birdies.
One.
She was the only client who ever hired Sheldon Scott, Investigations - that's me - before a word was spoken. She didn't know it, but I had taken her case, no matter what it was, before she opened her mouth - and it was my mouth that opened first, anyway.
She came into my suddenly drab office like a Spring breeze visiting Winter, and closed the frosted gla.s.s door gently behind her. Then she walked up to my mahogany desk and I got a really good look at her.
And it was really good.
She had red hair like combed fire, lips that looked soft as whispers, and a figure that made other women seem two-dimensional.
She was a tall girl. I'm just a shade under six-two, and when I stood up behind my desk those lips were only about five inches below mine, which was five inches too far. But her blue eyes somehow seemed wrong in her oval face - a little too cold and brittle, and out of place, like ice in a just-right martini.
Maybe that should have warned me. It didn't.
”You must be Mr. Scott. I hope you're free to help me. I do need help.”
The voice wrapped me in a coc.o.o.n of warm words. It was like perfume made audible. It was a velvety, vibrant voice filled with promises I wanted to help her keep. My stand-up hair is white, yes; but not from old age.
”I'm Sh.e.l.l Scott. And I'm free. I just decided.”
I grinned at her as I walked around the desk and moved the deep leather chair closer to it, then went back to my swivel chair as she sat down. But she wasn't in a smiling mood.
”I'm Doris Miller,” she said.
I was glad to know her name, but it didn't ring any bells.
”Ross Miller is my brother. You probably recall his name - he's in San Quentin now.”
That got a tinkle. This was the early afternoon of Sat.u.r.day, October 28; nearly a year ago, here in Los Angeles, one K. C. ”Casey” Flagg had been murdered. He'd been a partner in the law firm of Tomkins, Borch, and Flagg, and he'd had, I understood, rather a wide acquaintance among numerous city officials and local VIP's. Flagg was shot to death early one evening in his penthouse suite in the Whitestone. The police arrived soon after, in response to a phone call - apparently from somebody who'd heard the shot but didn't want to give his name - and found a young lawyer, recently employed in Flagg's office, standing over the body. The suspect had, only two days before, been in a violent quarrel with the victim and had been fired as a consequence. It seemed an open and shut case of premeditated murder. And unless my memory failed me, the convicted murderer's name was Ross Miller.
I said, ”Was your brother involved in the investigation into Casey Flagg's mur - death?”
She nodded. ”They said Ross killed him, and I know all the evidence made it look bad - but he didn't do it. Mr. Flagg didn't want to hire Ross in the first place, he wanted another man, but his partners chose Ross. Ross thought Flagg was dishonest, practically a crook of some kind, and he said so to his face. That's what they had the big argument about. Some other people heard them, and they just used that quarrel to help convict him. But he didn't kill that man!”
She had half risen from the leather chair. She sat back in it and went on slowly, ”Ross was convicted entirely on circ.u.mstantial evidence, and the most damaging testimony against him was given by that elevator operator, Weiss. Do you remember, Mr. Scott?”
”Uh-huh.” Chester Weiss was a middle-aged man who'd been an important prosecution witness at the trial. He operated the elevator in the Whitestone. His testimony had been that Ross Miller was the only man who had gone up to the penthouse suite that night, at least within an hour or more of the time when Flagg had been killed. Which pretty well stuck Miller with the job.
The lovely went on, ”Mr. Weiss came to see me yesterday. He said he'd been forced to lie at the trial, and that my brother was probably innocent. Mr. Weiss wanted to tell me the truth, get the weight off his conscience, he said, but he wouldn't agree to go with me to tell the police his story. He was awfully afraid of going to jail.”
”Confessed perjurers usually do go to jail.”
She nodded, light glinting on the red hair. ”He did promise, though, that he would come back early this morning and give me the whole story in writing, signed by him.”
”And he didn't come back,” I said.
”That's right.”
”You haven't heard from him at all since yesterday?”
”No. I called his hotel - he's still in the Whitestone - but he wasn't there. And I can't wait long. I've got to at least get his statement today if I can.”
I squinted at her. ”I can understand why you're anxious, Miss . . . it is Miss?”
She nodded abstractedly.
”But why wouldn't tomorrow do as well?” I was curious to know why she seemed in such a rush. She told me.
”Today's Sat.u.r.day,” she said. ”On Wednesday Ross goes into the gas chamber.”
”Oh. I see.”
Wednesday. Four days from now. Less than that, actually. For many years California executions were on Fridays, but for more than a year now the courts had scheduled executions for Wednesdays at ten a.m. Which left little time.
I said, ”Weiss admitted perjuring himself, huh?”
”Yes. He said he either had to lie or be killed.”
”Who was threatening him? Did he say?”
”Quinn. Frank Quinn.”
Involuntarily, I groaned. Frank Quinn was a slug-like, pasty-faced, flabby-bodied hoodlum grown big and powerful in the rackets. Oddly enough, four or five years ago hardly anyone had heard of the b.u.m; he'd come out of nowhere, a n.o.body, and he quickly became a hoodlum Somebody in the City of the Angels. I'd b.u.mped into Quinn on several occasions, and he was the only human being who'd ever made me wish I was a Martian. Or else he was the only Martian who'd ever made me glad I was a human.
Doris Miller looked inquiringly at me. ”Do you know the man? His name was mentioned at the trial.”