Killing Town Page 4

  “Dr. Helton,” Belden said. “What can you tell us?”

  Helton frowned at me. “Who’s this?”

  “Our suspect,” the chief said.

  At least he hadn’t said “killer.”

  The M.E. said, “Hold out your hands, son.”

  I said, “Why?”

  “Just do it,” Belden said.

  “Do you have lawyers in this town?” I asked. “Because I’m thinking I could use one. Like to advise me to tell you two to shove it.”

  Belden gave me a look that said the small amount of goodwill he’d displayed was about to vanish. “Your hands, Hammer.”

  I showed the little doc my hands. He just looked, didn’t touch.

  “About right,” he said.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “Large and powerful enough,” the M.E. said, “to have strangled that young woman.”

  “I didn’t strangle anybody!”

  The M.E. shrugged. “That’s between you and your God. And the courts.”

  Belden asked, “But can you confirm she was raped?”

  The pudgy little M.E. shrugged one shoulder. “The police report includes ripped garments, her panties being torn off her and tossed aside. There was semen in her vagina. Definitely sexual intercourse took place shortly before her death. In the circumstances, there’s little likelihood it was consensual.”

  I said to Belden, “Did you two rehearse this before or after your dress rehearsal with that little waitress?”

  Belden gave me a cold look. “Maybe you’d like me to turn Sykes loose on you again? Really have him take off the gloves.”

  “He likes working with his gloves on,” I reminded him.

  Belden said to the M.E., “Give us a look at her.”

  The M.E. followed the gray little man to a nearby tray and let his associate do the flipping back of the sheet.

  She was naked and, even in death, beautiful, in the way a cold marble statue can be beautiful. The bruising on her throat where strong hands had gripped stood out like dark filthy streaks on the alabaster skin. When a mortician got through with her, everybody would say it looked like she was only sleeping. Right now she was just tragedy on a morgue tray.

  I must have been staring, because Belden said, “Admiring your handiwork, Hammer? Or are you gonna claim you never saw her before.”

  “Never talked to her in my life,” I said.

  Which was true.

  But I had seen her. I wasn’t about to tell Belden, but I’d seen her all right.

  In the window of a sleeper car.

  CHAPTER THREE

  They called it a coroner’s jury.

  Tight faces and horrified expressions. An energetic little District Attorney determined to see immediate justice done. Cops with their knowing eyes at the doors and windows. That same hardcase stenog still chewing gum, and reporters anxious to get it all down on paper. An audience with glittering, sadistic eyes watching the rape-killer.

  On the table in front of me was a newspaper, the Killington Morning Herald, with all the facts, if you could call them that. Mostly it was an account of the vicious fight I had put up and the heroism of the police. It ended on a sad note. Captain Henry “Henny” Sykes, winner of so many police department commendations, was hospitalized after a cowardly attack by the suspect. Critical condition, it said. Maybe my kick in the balls meant fatherhood for Henny would in future be a moot point. Maybe his voice would change back again and he could stop shaving too.

  The picture of me was a good likeness, anyway. It had been taken at my arrest, before Sykes and company turned my face into a puffy balloon. Right now the swelling had gone down, but the various bruises and scrapes made me look like I hadn’t washed in a while. The cheap suit they’d provided for this court appearance reeked of mothballs.

  A gavel rapped and the coroner called the assembly to order. When things quieted down, he looked at me, frowned and asked, “Are you sure you do not want to be represented by an attorney?”

  “I don’t know any kangaroos,” I said.

  Somebody in the audience caught on and snickered. The coroner gaveled the chamber to order and gave me a frown like the one my old man would give me before the razor strop came out.

  Hell, why bore you with the details.

  The pint-size D.A. got up, smoothed his perfect, perfectly expensive dark suit, and went through the routine point by point. He painted a picture of me as a bum who hopped off a freight in the railroad yards, committed the most heinous crime there was, and who was about to do the same to another woman in a barroom when he was picked up. He went through all the motions, all the words plain and fancy, and by the time he got finished telling about the two cops in the bar and Henny Sykes at the hash house, he didn’t need to bring on any witnesses at all.

  But as a formality, he trotted out the alky runt and had him wave a shaking finger in my direction and tell all the gruesome details over again: girl dragged in the bushes, pants around the ankles, the sordid works.

  When he finished questioning the so-called witness, the coroner turned to me where I sat at a table with a cop cuffed to my wrist, and asked patronizingly, “Would you like to cross-examine the witness?”

  I shook my head. “No thanks.”

  For that I got another frown. The D.A. wound things up with some blow-ups of the dead girl at the crime scene, which he passed around to the jury and got a few of them sick to their stomachs. The dead babe didn’t look a bit pretty with her eyes bugging out like that, but the flashes of nudity provided a tawdry bit of relief for the creeps in the crowd.

  When he finished, the jury marched out, marched back in, and said there was sufficient evidence to hold me over for the grand jury.

  I’d have said the same, if I hadn’t been on the wrong end of it.

  * * *

  At ten minutes past two, they trooped me into the District Attorney’s courthouse office, a big, high-ceilinged affair with a conference table at one end and the kind of furniture the taxpayers had no idea they could afford.

  At the other end of the office, in front of a mahogany desk the size of the ice floe that took the Titanic down, Chief Belden was waiting, wearing his latest rumpled bed of a suit and a put-upon expression. With all that mottled flesh on that thick-lipped, pouchy-eyed puss, he looked like a guy trying to figure out what disease he was dying of.

  Belden waved to a chair he had ready and pulled one up himself. To the D.A., he said, “You shoulda come down to my office. I have more to do than drive this guy all over town, you know.”

  The D.A. got behind his desk, the size of it making him look even smaller than he was. His hair had that black patent leather George Raft look, and his chin was sharp enough to stick his memos on. He sat, then shoved a fancy wooden box of cigars across his desk.

  “Have one, Herman, and relax, why don’t you?”

  Belden shifted in his chair and reached for a corona. They didn’t offer me one, for some reason, or my cop escort, either.

  “Now, Mr. Hammer,” the D.A. said, leaning back in his chair, “I suppose you know the seriousness of the charge against you?”

  “He knows, all right,” Belden muttered through his cigar smoke. “He knows too damn much if you ask me.”

  The D.A.’s response to the chief was clipped: “I’m not asking you.”

  Belden shrugged.

  “So what if I know?” I said. “What about it?”

  “You heard the verdict of the coroner’s jury.”

  “Yeah, they got me so worried I’m ready to confess and cop a manslaughter plea. Right after I bust out crying.”

  Belden said, “See?”

  The D.A. simpered, hating to let himself smile. “You seem familiar with court practice and procedure, Mr. Hammer.”

  That answered one question: they hadn’t traced me back to Manhattan and my private investigator’s license. Somehow I didn’t think they were trying very hard.

  “I got a C-plus in Civics,” I said.

&
nbsp; The little D.A. smiled in a way that suggested he was tasting it. “Then you should realize just how hopeless your case is.”

  “Don’t embarrass yourself,” I said.

  His eyes and nostrils flared. “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t seem like a complete jerk,” I said. “You really want to see your little witness on the stand? You really want to see what a good lawyer will do to him? That guy never saw me haul that dame into the bushes any more than he laid eyes on you doing it. I’m going to relish the nice stink that’ll rise over the way the cops in this town treat a citizen. I can’t wait to see what the New York City papers do to your hides when this thing comes to court.”

  “What you’ll see, Hammer,” he told me, unimpressed, “is how much sympathy a sexual psychopath gets.” There was ice in his voice. “I’m giving you a chance to confess this thing and make it easier on yourself, but if you don’t want to cooperate… then that’s your affair. You can yell police brutality all you want, but I don’t think it will make much difference to a jury. Rape murderers aren’t generally treated with kid gloves.”

  “You forget something.”

  “Do I?”

  “You’ve had these papers you got in your pocket splash all kinds of lies around about me. You’ve set me up as a monster who would have made Hitler sick to his stomach. So how do you turn around and give me some lesser charge, and get away with it with the public?”

  He shifted in his chair a little. “That’s our worry.”

  “Shit.”

  “Watch your mouth, Hammer,” Belden said. He drew in on his corona and made a face into the smoke as he looked at the D.A. “When’s the trial coming up?”

  The slick little prosecutor flipped a hand. “As soon as it can be arranged.”

  Belden gave me a sideways nod. “He’s right about the papers.”

  “Exactly. That’s why this case has been pushed ahead.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Quick justice.”

  The D.A. bobbed his head slowly. “But fair. You’ll be extended every chance.”

  “Thanks. But don’t think for a second you’re going to get away with assigning me some local shyster.”

  He flipped the other hand. “We of course would provide someone, and some of the top attorneys in the area do pro bono work. But if you want representation from out of town, we’ll help you arrange that. Assuming you can afford the… the freight, shall we say?”

  “You’re too good to me. For a frame, this stinks. It’s not even a good fit.”

  Belden’s cigar came away from his mouth slowly. “Man, I told you to watch your mouth.” A tic pulled his lips apart momentarily. “Anybody who says I’m out to frame a guy is asking for it. Say that stuff in a court, you better be able to prove it. Say it to my face and take your goddamn chances, boy.”

  I grinned at him. “Want me to say it again?”

  The tic was more noticeable this time. “Yeah. Say it.” He rested the cigar on a tray on the desk. He formed ham-size fists just waiting to club me.

  I said it.

  For a minute I thought I’d had it. His shoulder came back ready to bring the sledge around. The D.A. cleared his throat and Belden glanced his way. Winced. Sighed.

  Then he relaxed. Gave me a sick smile. “Okay, Hammer, it’s your show. Tell me about it. Chapter and verse. I’m all ears.”

  I eased my legs out. “I’ve been doing that. Nobody seems interested. If you’re on the level, Chief, what will it take? How about getting me a polygraph? You have heard of lie detectors?”

  The D.A. frowned. “That isn’t admissible as evidence.”

  Belden, though, was interested. Maybe he wasn’t in on the frame after all; maybe it had just been delivered to him with a big red bow.

  He said, “You pass it, and it’ll influence police action just the same. You asking for that, Hammer?”

  “I am. And what have you got to lose, trying it out on me?”

  Killers don’t ask for lie detector tests and guys trying to lay a frame don’t agree to it. But these two did. They sure did, nodding at each other and me immediately. The D.A. looked almost pleased about it. Could he be clean in this, too?

  Belden said to the D.A., “Want me to call for the gimmick?”

  “The Providence police will cooperate,” the prosecutor said. “They’ll send their own operator too.” I got another nice smile from the D.A. “An unbiased operator will certainly forestall a lot of nonsense in the press. And if he passes…” He turned back to Belden and rocked in his swivel chair. “How long will it take?”

  The chief, wreathed in cigar smoke, shrugged. “A week maybe.”

  “Fine. Perhaps by that time the defendant here will take the opportunity to consider his options.”

  “Why not?” I said.

  They looked at me without any expression at all.

  “And when I beat this rap,” I said, “maybe I’ll stick around and see what the hell it was all about in the first place. And meet a few guys away from the station who like to use wet gloves when they work a guy over. It ought to be fun.”

  Belden’s upper lip curled back over his teeth. “Fun is right, mister. But if you don’t beat the rap, you suppose you’ll die laughing?”

  * * *

  It didn’t take a week.

  It took two days for the lie-test expert to arrive, and by that time I had been crucified but good in the local papers. The out-of-town editions of the New York sheets didn’t even bother to carry the story, but I was quite a sensation here in the old home town. Garden clubs rose in demanding more police protection for young females, political associations promised to see fast action, and the columnists were sounding off about how I’d cooked my own goose, demanding a lie detector test. I was buried before they even killed me.

  The double guard around my cell block was relieved for supper and, five minutes later, Belden came around to gather me for the test. He had a pair of uniformed cops along, swinging billies.

  “Be nice, Hammer,” he advised, giving me a lot more teeth than that phony a smile required.

  I didn’t have to be told. Making a break for it was out of the question. Behind me those billy boys were waiting. Anxiously waiting. The lad who swung one widest was the fat boy from the bar, his other arm in a cast. Maybe I should offer to sign it for him.

  They had the machine set up in Belden’s office. The operator was a middle-aged guy with steel-gray hair and steel-rimmed glasses, who didn’t bother to look up when I came in. Why bother? He’d already seen it all.

  He dropped a dead cigarette to the floor while I sat down in that same comfortable chair as before, then adjusted the arm band and the sweat pads and fiddled around until he was sure everything was set. He nodded once to Belden.

  One of the cops walked to the door, opened it and called out, “All set, sir.”

  He held the door open and the D.A. came in with the wolf pack at his heels. All of them: promising young assistants, butt-kissing lower echelon with their steno pads, two boys who looked at each other with pursed-kiss lips over their briefcases, and the hardcase female who was still working her gum. I wondered if it was the same damn piece.

  The other four were reporters. Two had cameras and copped a couple of quickies of me propped in the chair tied down to the machine. Jackson of the Herald asked, “How does the gizmo work, Doc?”

  A fresh cigarette in the operator’s mouth hardly moved as he said, “The name is Lewis Hanson, young man. I am not a doctor.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Hanson. Care to make a statement? This is the first time one of these gadgets has been used here.”

  I grinned at him. “Go on, explain.”

  “Briefly, it’s quite simple,” he told the reporter. “It takes more effort to lie than to tell the truth. When a greater effort is made, the body speeds up. Slight as the effort is, the machine can detect it. There’s a difference in pulse rate, amount of perspiration, and so on.”

  “Just like that,” Jackson said, his smi
le mildly skeptical. “Foolproof.”

  Hanson shot him a disgusted look. “Far from it. For that reason many states will not accept results as evidence.” His head came around slowly and he stared at me. “Extreme nervousness, for example, can influence results.”

  I grinned again. “Nuts. I’m feeling great.”

  The reporter took that down too.

  Hell, what did I have to worry about?

  It took ten minutes for everybody to get set. They parked in chairs behind me and shuffled their feet on the floor, dancing in place. The room got smoky so Belden opened the window. That made it worse. The stink from the fish factory crawled in on the night air until I told him to shut the damned thing and be satisfied with the smoke. The window slid back in place.

  Then they got on with the show. The script was a sheaf of papers in Hanson’s hand.

  “Your name?”

  “Mike Hammer.”

  “Age?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “Occupation?”

  “Self-employed.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Various jobs.”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Engaged?”

  “No.”

  “Do women interest you?”

  “Naturally.”

  Somebody snickered and a muted voice said to shut up. The questions rolled on and came back again. Repeats. Double checks. What year was I born. When was I last in bed with a woman. This. That. And the next thing.

  Next page of the script.

  Had I ever killed anybody? And when he said that, everybody leaned forward. I said dozens and meant it and told them I had the medals to prove it.

  Hanson nodded solemnly. “Mr. Hammer,” he said, “now I am going to ask you a series of yes-or-no questions. Please restrict these answers to yes or no. Do not explicate.”

  “All right.”

  He gave me the date in question, then asked, “Did you arrive in Killington on that evening?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you arrive at approximately ten-forty-five p.m.?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you travel by train?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have a ticket on that train?”