The identification of Werner’s fingerprints occasioned no unusual interest. There was no reason why Werner should not have been in the house. In fact, it was appropriate that he should have been. Not only had he told his school of planning a vacation, but his wife had indicated that she expected to be away. What more likely than that he had gone to her apartment to pick her up in his car as they started their vacation?
By this line of reasoning, suspicion led naturally to the owner of the third set of fingerprints. Who was he and what had he been doing in the apartment? Prints had been found on an ash tray, on a chair arm, on a tumbler out of which he apparently sipped beer, the doors leading to the bathroom, the bedroom and the kitchen, in addition to the prints on the entrance door. He had gotten around, but there was an even more significant showing of his fingerprints.
They were on the broken handle of the claw hammer with which the victim had been beaten.
Couldn’t it mean that an intruder had entered the Werner home, strangled and bludgeoned Benny Werner and been interrupted at this grisly task by the arrival of Werner?
Couldn’t it have meant that the thug and Werner had struggled for the hammer — hence the discovery of fingerprints of both on the broken handle — broken the weapon in their struggle and resorted to some other tactics, such as a gun drawn by the intruder to intimidate and even kidnap Werner? Not only was it possible, it was highly probable. It would have been difficult for the intruder to beat Werner into unconsciousness, or even kill him, and then drag his body from the house, dump it into a car and escape without attracting some notice.
On the other hand, two men walking out of an apartment, even though they walked close together, would not be too noticeable. The bandit might very easily have forced Werner into his car, ordered him to drive and made his escape, leaving the murdered Benny Werner lying in her life blood.
What motive could the thug have had for kidnapping Werner? He’d already committed one murder; certainly he could not suffer more, if caught, for the commission of a second.
But what reason could he possibly have for kidnapping Werner, who had no money? Could they have wanted his car, and his ability to drive it? Could it have been that the killer did not drive and that, in this emergency, he saw a chance to make a well covered get-away by forcing Werner to drive him beyond the city, possibly northward toward San Francisco and Oakland, where he could dispose of Ted at his leisure?
Certainly this sounded the most logical of all the possibilities, but what of the note left on the door? Did the bandit write it before arriving... there was no typewriter in the apartment... and if so, how did he know Lee and Lorna? Or had Benny had Werner write it on his typewriter. Bring it to the apartment, tack it to the door and leave it before he entered the house? If this were so, there was every reason why it should have been left, as it was, by the bandit. It would provide an extra time killer for him, giving him further opportunity to put distance between himself and the scene of his heinous deed.
But how about the telegram from Los Angeles? That had been sent by someone who knew the Werners. And it had been sent by the killer to further obfuscate the Werner friends and keep them away from the charnel house as long as possible. It indicated, unquestionably, that the slayer had picked the Los Angeles area for a hideaway instead of the San Francisco Bay district. Furthermore, it also showed that the slayer, if he had sent it and had been the one who left the strange fingerprints, had known a very great deal about the Werners, consequently must have been a reasonably close friend.
Detective Sergeant L.M. Morris of the Fresno police and Assistant District Attorney Richard Shepard now took over the case. One of their first moves was to forward the unidentified fingerprints to the FBI in Washington.
Before nightfall of the following day, Shepard and Morris had their identification of the mysterious fingerprints. They corresponded to those of a sailor named Roland Berger stationed at the Port of Los Angeles in Wilmington. Immediately Shepard asked for a check on Berger, and received the information that he was on his ship. He had, however, the report said, spent the preceding week-end visiting relatives in Fresno.
Shepard and Morris started at once for Los Angeles. Before leaving, they asked Western Union to hold the copy of the Wooton telegram — already requested by the girls, but not yet received — in the southern city. They could check it there against a specimen of the writing of both Benny and Ted Werner taken from the dead girl.
Arriving in Los Angeles, the two went first to the Western Union office from which the telegram had been dispatched. The manager nervously handed it to them. It had been written on a sheet of plain, white paper... and with a typewriter.
“Keep it,” Morris advised as Shepard disappointedly moved to throw it away. “Maybe we can check it against a typewriter somewhere.”
They went to Berger’s ship. His commanding officer summoned the sailor. He came into the presence of Shepard and Morris, almost eagerly, it seemed. He was a pleasant faced, blond youth, somewhere in his early twenties, but his young face was drawn and lined and there was a certain shocked terror in his blue eyes. Introduced to his visitors, he spoke before either could fire any questions.
“What happened to her?” he said. “What happened to my aunt?”
“Your aunt?” It would have been impossible to determine whether Shepard or Morris spoke first, so spontaneous was their reaction. Finally Shepard said, incredulously, “What do you mean, your aunt?”
“My Aunt Hazel... Mrs. Werner,” the youth said. “The papers say she’s dead.”
“She’s your aunt?” Shepard repeated dazedly.
“She’s my aunt... yes, she was my aunt,” Berger said, doggedly, “and I want to know who killed her.”
“Seaman Berger visited with his aunt last week-end,” the commanding officer said. “He came to me as soon as he read of her death in the papers and told me the story.”
Shepard and Morris obviously were stunned. They looked at each other, then at Berger. Finally Morris withdrew the broken hammer from a package he had carried to the interview.
“Did you ever see this before?” he demanded. Berger studied the bloody fragments, then nodded slowly.
“She had a hammer like that in her apartment,” he said. “I used it just before I came away to fix some shelves.”
He stopped and looked anxiously at his commanding officer for reassurance.
Morris said, quickly: “Go on. You haven’t told us the whole story about this hammer.”
Berger stood silent for a long time. There was terror in his eyes, a terror heightened to near panic by his indecision. His commanding officer said:
“I’d advise you to tell everything you know, Berger,” he said. “I have every confidence in your innocence, and I’m sure these men want only the truth, that they don’t want to persecute anybody.”
Berger gulped. Then he turned to Shepard and Morris. “I spent the week-end with my aunt... that is, Mrs. Werner,” he began. “I stayed with Ted, her husband, over Saturday night and we went back to her apartment on Sunday. They got into a quarrel and once I took the hammer from Ted and hid it, or thought I did. The quarrel passed once, but they started fighting again later.
“I went out for a while and when I came back, Ted was threatening her and had hit her once or twice when she refused to allow him to move back into the apartment.
“It got so bad that my entire week-end was being loused up, so I decided to pull out for good. I went back to Ted’s place, got my luggage and came back here. As soon as the papers reached camp telling about my aunt’s body being found, I came to my commanding officer to ask for another leave to go to Fresno... that was only a couple of hours ago.”