Richard Deming
The Killer from Buffalo
I
Tony Ransome examined what the caboose wheels had left of the large young body on the embalming table without any expression at all on his face, but deep within him was a churning bitterness.
“Sam Stone all right,” he said in a colorless voice. Then, as though conscious something aside from dazed apathy was expected of him, he added with forced briskness, “Funny, the way it missed his head completely.”
“We figure he fell square across one track with his head clear of the rails,” Chief Ward Murphy said. “The wheels caught him at belt level.”
Tony lifted achromatic eyes to the face of the fat chief. “Then how you account for his arms? A guy falling would push his arms in front of him; not hold them flat to his sides.”
“We figure he fell clear from the top of the car,” the police chief said. “Probably he rolled before the wheels hit him.”
Ransome’s lips tightened. “Or maybe he was dead before he fell.”
Abruptly he turned and stalked toward the exit from the funeral parlor’s basement, a thin, wiry little man in his early thirties who moved with a belligerent strut, as though daring anyone to block his one-hundred forty pounds. Outside he waited for the slower moving fat man to catch up.
“How could he be dead before he fell?” Chief Murphy asked querulously. “He just had an unlucky accident. Three witnesses saw him hold up the restaurant, clean out the cash drawer and shoot Larson, the proprietor. Then he hopped a freight to get out of town. There can’t be any mistake about him being the robber, because we found the money and the murder gun on his body.”
“Why’d he wait five hours to hop a freight?”
The chief shook his head resignedly. “What’s eating you, Ransome? So the guy was a respected citizen in Buffalo, but down here turns out to be a killer. That any skin off your nose? You act like the guy was your brother.”
You fat slob! Tony thought. But what he said was milder than his thoughts. “My chief in Buffalo told me to stick around long as I thought necessary. Mind?”
“Don’t trust small-town police work, huh?” Murphy asked resentfully. “You think maybe because our five cops ain’t split up into fancy-named teams like ‘vice squad’ and ‘homicide department,’ we never catch the right guy, is that it?”
The little man’s patient expression hid growing irritation. “I don’t think anything. Got any objection to my sticking around?”
“Can’t very well run you out of town. But just remember Buffalo detective sergeants got no jurisdiction in Missouri. What’s the name of that fancy department you work for up there?”
“Homicide and arson.”
“Yeah. Imagine that! A whole department to chase murderers and firebugs.”
“Possibly we have more murders and fires than St. Michael,” Tony said shortly. “Do I get police backing if I poke around?”
“What’s there to poke for?”
“Kind of like to know why a straight character like Sam suddenly went nuts. Occur to you maybe this was a frame?”
The fat man said, “Who’d bother to frame a hobo?”
“Somebody mad at the guy he was supposed to have killed. Who held a grudge against Jonathan Larson?”
The chief opened his mouth, closed it again and let the fat around his eyes squeeze them half shut. “That kind of question could get you in trouble if you asked it too public. There ain’t no doubt about Stone being the killer, and very little doubt about robbery being the sole motive. But in a town this size gossip builds mountains out of mole hills. You ask that question to a few people and it plants suspicion. They kick it around without a shade of evidence to go on, and first thing you know everybody’s asking, ‘Think so-and-so hired Jonathan killed, and the robbery was just a cover-up motive?’ Couldn’t really blame so-and-so for getting mad, could you?”
Tony stared at the fat man in amazement. Was this a warning, or an oblique suggestion as to how to start things moving? The former implied the chief’s complicity in some sort of underworld arrangement, and the latter that he was as suspicious as Tony, but for some reason fearful of continuing the investigation himself.
Either interpretation required Tony to adjust his opinion of the man’s intelligence, but before he could decide which way to take the chief’s remarkable statement, a tall man in a light gabardine suit stopped and said, “Good afternoon, Chief.”
The man was meagerly built, with a thin, alert face and a jutting jawline. His complexion was a smooth tan, but his iron-gray hair indicated he was past fifty.
Chief Murphy said, “Afternoon, your Honor. Meet Sergeant Ransome of the Buffalo police.” To Tony he said, “His Honor, Mayor Ainslie. Aside from being mayor, Mr. Ainslie also owns the Bijou, only legitimate theater in the county.”
As they shook hands, the mayor’s alert eyes examined Tony attentively. “Long way from home, aren’t you, Sergeant?”
“About nine-hundred miles.”
“The sergeant isn’t satisfied with our solution of the Larson case,” the chief said. “Wants to stay around and ask questions.”
The mayor shot a quick glance at the fat man. “Does our force require outside help?”
Chief Murphy shrugged. “I’ve closed the case as solved, and got no intention of reopening it. Don’t see how I can prevent Ransome from asking questions though, long as he behaves himself.”
Tony sensed a baffling undercurrent in this exchange without being able to analyze it. Was the chief subtly telling the mayor to mind his own business, or carefully explaining his position so that he could not be held responsible for whatever Tony dug up? The double-meaning innuendoes began to irritate the little man.
“What questions you intend to ask?” the mayor said to him.
“Things like who had enough grudge against Jonathan Larson to hire him killed?”
An opaque film seemed to settle over Mayor Ainslie’s eyes. “I was under the impression the killing was the bandit’s own idea.”
Tony shrugged. “Maybe it was. But from the way Chief Murphy describes the robbery, the bandit could have gotten away without hurting anyone, but deliberately went to the unnecessary trouble of killing Larson. Sounds to me as though his purpose was murder as much as robbery.”
“I see,” the mayor said thoughtfully. After a short pause he added in a deliberate tone, “You’ll probably discover he was trying to have me impeached. But being mayor of St. Michael is an hour-a-day job with five-hundred dollars a year salary, in case you wonder if desire to hang on to the job is sufficient motive to hire a man killed. You may unearth some other people with better motives, but I wouldn’t advise stirring up gossip unless you first uncover evidence that the killer actually was a hired assassin.”
Another warning? As he walked back to the hotel Tony wondered if anyone in St. Michael spoke straight out what he meant, or if he could expect to encounter from everyone the same double-talk which suggested menace and friendly advice at the same time. In the hotel bar he brooded over a Bourbon and soda while contemplating what little evidence he had.
Information of Sam’s death had come to the Buffalo police in the form of a telegram from Chief Murphy reporting the death of a bandit named Sam Stone, whose papers showed he was a resident of Buffalo, and asking if he were wanted for anything there.
Since “Sam Stone” was a pseudonym under which the dead man had both written and traveled, and while he was hardly a nationally famous writer, he was well known and well thought of in Buffalo, the Buffalo police were amazed to discover he was a bandit. Tony was not amazed; he simply did not believe it. And since he had a personal interest in the matter, he immediately obtained leave of absence and hopped a plane for St. Michael. On arrival he learned Sam was accused of robbery and murder, and with Sam’s death the police had marked the case closed.