The Gorgeous Murderer Page 9

A detective entered with a large manila envelope. “Photos and photostats of everything,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Burr. “Put it on my desk.”

  The detective complied and departed.

  “You know what’s bothering me, don’t you?” said John Rogers.

  “You bet I know,” said Burr. “The same damn thing that’s bothering me. This thing is wide open. Not closed by a long shot. Mr. Blinney got one—but there’s another ugly son running around somewhere: the guy who was going to use the second plane ticket we found at Grant’s.”

  He sat down near the teletype machine, lit a cigarette, smoked thoughtfully. “It’s going to go one of two ways. We’re either looking for somebody who got those payroll sheets out of Mr. Blinney’s home—or it’s someone at the bank.”

  “Someone at the bank?” said Rogers.

  “Remember that Mr. Blinney isn’t certain that he took those sheets home. If he didn’t, then maybe someone in the bank copped them and turned them over to this Bill Grant. Then that’s Mr. Accomplice, and we’re looking for him.”

  “Don’t forget about that three o’clock flight time,” said Rogers.

  “Oh, I’m not forgetting. We’re going to have to do a complete check of that bank for anybody who would be free by two o’clock today. And also, Mr. Blinney—and I’m sorry if it will inconvenience you—we’re going to have to do a complete check on your household; all your friends; all your wife’s friends; servants; anybody who could have laid their hands on those payroll sheets, if you brought them home. I thought, for a change, I had an easy one. But this damned case is still wide open in my book. Understand?”

  There was silence. Burr smoked. The teletype clacked. Burr’s gaze drifted toward it. Burr stopped smoking. The clacking continued. He read:

  HOMICIDE. MT. VERNON. SILVER CREST MOTEL. VICTIM FEMALE. DISCOVERED BY CLEANING WOMAN. VICTIM FEMALE FOUND IN ROOM RENTED TO MR. AND MRS. BILL GRANT. VICTIM TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED FROM EFFECTS AS ONE EVANGELINE ASHLEY. CHECK OF LICENSE PLATES OF MOTOR VEHICLE DRIVEN BY VICTIM FEMALE REVEALS OWNERSHIP BY ONE OSCAR BLINNEY. FOLLOW-UP REVEALS OSCAR BLINNEY, PRESENT RESIDENCE MT. VERNON, MARRIED AN EVANGELINE ASHLEY LAST MARCH IN MIAMI BEACH. CONTACT OSCAR BLINNEY EMPLOYED IN FIRST NATIONAL MERCANTILE BANK IN NEW YORK CITY.

  The machine stopped. The silence swelled. Detective-lieutenant Leonard Burr, sighed, rose, squeezed out his cigarette.

  “Mr. Blinney,” he said.

  “Yes?” said Blinney.

  “We have a report,” said the lieutenant, touching a finger to the teletype. “Just came in. Nothing definite.”

  “Report?” said Blinney.

  “Nothing definite, Mr. Blinney.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s been an accident.”

  “Accident?” said Blinney. “Worse, possibly.”

  “What?” stammered Blinney.

  “Report on a homicide.”

  “Homicide?” said Blinney. “What has that to do with me?”

  “Tentative,” said Burr.

  “Tentative. I don’t understand, sir.”

  “Tentative identification of victim. Evangeline Ashley.”

  “Oh no…”

  “Tentative is no sure-pop, Mr. Blinney. You never can tell.”

  “What?… Please… What happened…?”

  “Silver Crest Motel up near Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon police request we contact Oscar Blinney at the First National Mercantile. The woman, it seems, was found in a room rented to a Mr. and Mrs. Bill Grant.”

  Suddenly the lieutenant moved. He went quickly to the wallet of Bill Grant, extracted a color photo, and brought it to Oscar Blinney. “Do you know this woman?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Oscar Blinney and for the second time that day he fainted.

  “The poor goof,” said Detective-lieutenant Leonard Burr, bending to the stricken Blinney. “He’s sure having a rough afternoon, isn’t he?”

  XIV

  THE SAME GROUP sped north, siren open, on the West Side Highway: Burr, Rogers, Blinney, the two detectives, and the uniformed policeman. The policeman drove. Beside him sat one of the detectives, the manila envelope in his lap. Beside the detective sat Burr, plucking upon his lower lip.

  In the rear Blinney sat between John Rogers and the other detective. Assistant District Attorney John Rogers, Phi Beta Kappa, young, intelligent, ambitious, Harvard-trained, talked with Oscar Blinney, quietly, patiently, incisively, compassionately. He learned that Oscar Blinney had been married in Miami in March. He learned that Oscar Blinney’s wife had spent most of the month of June on vacation in Havana.

  “We have proximity, two ways,” said John Rogers. “Evangeline Ashley may have become acquainted with Bill Grant in Miami prior to her marriage to you, or in Havana after her marriage to you. Did she ever mention the name to you?”

  “No,” said Blinney.

  “Neither Grant nor Granville?”

  “No,” said Blinney.

  “Did you ever talk with your wife about business affairs?”

  “Of course,” said Blinney.

  “Did she ever see those payroll sheets of yours, the ones that you brought home from time to time?”

  “Yes, I’m quite certain that she did. Is it considered improper for a man to take his wife into confidence, to show her—”

  “No, no. Please don’t misunderstand, Mr. Blinney. I’m not criticizing. Not at all. This is part of my job, as it is part of Lieutenant Burr’s job—acquiring facts and piecing them together, trying to make a whole of the parts. No criticism involved, Mr. Blinney. Quite the contrary.”

  Detective-lieutenant Leonard Burr wielded his compassion in his own manner. “Quiet in back, for Chrissake,” he said. “I’m trying to think up front.”

  At the Silver Crest Motel, the experienced lieutenant and the bright assistant district attorney, assisted by the Mount Vernon police, quickly patched the parts into the whole. Blinney identified the dead woman as his wife. Her throat had been expertly severed by a switch-knife with a six-inch blade, found beside her body. Its blade was bloody but its hilt had been wiped clean of prints.

  The room had been rented to Mr. Bill Grant who had signed in for Mr. and Mrs. Bill Grant. The manager identified Bill Grant from a photo taken from the manila envelope. Residents of the Silver Crest Motel, especially the ladies, described Mr. Grant as quiet, unassuming, and so very handsome with that cute little beard and all; his wife had an important job in New York City—interior decorator, he had said—and she came up often in the afternoons, and sometimes she stayed over, and sometimes she stayed over in the city. Sometimes they both got a little drunk in the Silver Crest Tavern, but never offensive, always gay and charming.

  This morning she had arrived at about nine o’clock in that little blue sedan. She had carried a suitcase. She had gone directly to her husband’s room. He had come out at about ten o’clock, also carrying a suitcase. He had asked at the office if he could use a typewriter. (Photostat of the bomb-threat note disclosed at once, by expert comparison, that it had been typed upon the office typewriter of Silver Crest Motel.) He had then called for a taxi and had been driven to the station.

  At three o’clock the chambermaid had knocked upon the door. There had been no answer. She had tried the knob, found the door unlocked, entered, and screamed. Mrs. Grant was on the floor, red with blood. Police, checking the suitcase, discovered that it was heavily packed, as though for a long trip.

  In her handbag they found a passport in the name of Evangeline Ashley, renewed and in perfect order. In her handbag they also found a cancelled bank book on the Mount Vernon Savings Bank. She had withdrawn, that morning, $8070. Inquiry at the bank had elicited the fact that it had been paid out in eighty one-hundred-dollar bills and seven ten-dollar bills. Seven ten-dollar bills—aside from two single dollars and small change—had been found in her handbag. There was no other money amongst her effects.

  “That punk didn’t miss a trick,” said Lieutenant Burr.
“She must have divided the money, keeping the hundred-dollar bills in the envelope furnished by the bank, and putting the tens, separately, into her purse. The punk grabbed the bank envelope, which we found in his suitcase downtown.”

  “In a way, a break for Mr. Blinney,” said John Rogers. “That eight thousand, in view of all of the circumstances, found in the very envelope of the Mount Vernon Savings Bank, earmarks it as hers. Mr. Blinney won’t have any trouble in claiming it as part of the estate.”

  “We are in agreement, Mr. District Attorney,” said Lieutenant Burr, raising a glass. “To your very good health.”

  “Drink hearty,” said John Rogers, drinking heartily.

  They were seated in a booth, alone, in the Silver Crest Tavern. They were imbibing refreshment of Scotch and soda. They were awaiting the return of Oscar Blinney who was assisting the Mount Vernon police in disposing of the details of a homicide in their district and who were, in turn, assisting Oscar Blinney in the arrangements for the disposal of the victim of such homicide.

  “Punk or no punk,” said John Rogers. “The man had well-nigh worked out a perfect crime.”

  “Perfect crime.” Burr shook his head. “There’s always some goof-ball like this Blinney to ruffle it up.”

  “But you were worried back there for a while, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. The thing had some wide open edges.”

  “All closed now, wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant?”

  “You know it. Else we wouldn’t be sitting here, relaxing.” Burr sipped, put down his glass, half closed his eyes. “Perfect crime. I’ll admit the punk really figured out a good one. Started natural, but then it developed some real crazy wrinkles. Started natural—a chronic goniff, a charm-boy, catches up with a chick who’s a cheater. Started in the usual way.”

  “And in the middle, a rather naive chap—Oscar Blinney.”

  “You’re a lawyer, you call him naive. I’m a cop, I call him a goof, a goof-ball, a rube, a yoke. Oh! a nice sweet fella, I sure have nothing against him, you know? Okay. The charm-boy makes the cheater and he finds out the husband is a great big honorable shnook who brings back homework for study and, man, the guy really handles big stuff. The wife turns over a couple of those payroll sheets and the idea for the big heist is born. Of course, she’s supposed to be cut on the take.”

  “But he’s going to cut her out because he’s working on a perfect crime. Perfect crime—there cannot be an accomplice.”

  “Good enough. So today’s the day. Bill Grant knocks her off, and there’s no longer an accomplice. He’s not worried. If things work out—and I admit he planned an ingenious little masterpiece—there’s no longer a Bill Grant. We could comb the country—no Bill Grant. Instead there’s a William Granville, two inches shorter, smooth-shaven and bespectacled, living in London with a quarter of a million bucks working for him. If he’d have pulled it off, I think he’d have gotten away with it. But he didn’t pull it off, did he?”

  “Thanks to your goof-ball—Mr. Blinney.”

  “That’s just the point. There’s always some stupid stumble-bum who does the unexpected; a clown who bumbles into being a hero.”

  “Do you think it’s ever happened, Lieutenant?”

  “What?”

  “The perfect crime?”

  “I wouldn’t know, because if it was a perfect crime—who would know? There have been unsolved crimes, of course, but, actually for a perfect crime, you just wouldn’t know a crime was committed, would you?”

  “True,” said John Rogers. “Fascinating concept, though.”

  “Yeah, but so’s Oscar Blinney a fascinating concept. Here’s a clown who turns out to be a brave hero; actually a stupid goof-ball who might have killed himself, wrecked a bank, and killed maybe a hundred people with him. Turns out the guy was carrying a box of cigars instead of a box of explosives—but our bumbling hero couldn’t have known that, could he? Perfect crime? I nominate Oscar Blinney.”

  “Yeah, there’s the one.” Rogers laughed.

  “A perfect candidate.” And Detective-lieutenant Leonard Burr, seized with his joke and relaxed with Scotch, laughed until the tears streamed. “And why not?” he managed between spasms. “After all, who would think that kind of idiot could have the brains, the nerve, the skill, the flair, the audacity? Would you?”

  “I certainly would,” said John Rogers, and now he had made his joke, and he giggled, and then broke into guffaws caught in the contagion of laughter.

  “Why, a chump like that would be out in front, right from the start.” And Lieutenant Burr doubled over, stabbing knuckles at his tears. “Oh, man, it’s a beautiful thought. Who could figure a boob like that could have it in him?”

  “I could,” said John Rogers, paroxysms pealing.

  And they laughed and laughed. They laughed at Oscar Blinney. And Lieutenant Burr called for the check, and paid, and they laughed and laughed, hugely enjoying their joke. “All right, please, enough,” said Lieutenant Burr. “Let’s get out of here.”

  ON THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF December, at the Grand Ballroom of the Commodore Hotel, to lengthy congratulatory speeches and enthusiastic applause, Oscar Blinney received the Heroism Award of the First National Mercantile Bank in the amount of $21,000. On the twenty-fourth day of December, Robert Allan McKnish, Credit Manager of the First National Mercantile Bank, tendered his resignation effective January the second.

  On the third day of January, by unanimous vote of the Board of Directors, Oscar Blinney was appointed Credit Manager of the First National Mercantile Bank at a starting salary of $200 per week.

  On the seventh day of January, Oscar Blinney married Adrienne Moore.

  They lived happily ever after.

  Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, May 1961