The Dark Side Of Justice

Chapter 3-2

Abbott"s body was in the bathroom, and specifically, in the bathtub. He had a massive bruise just behind his right eye, but no other mark, and no blood, to indicate foul play. He was sitting half submerged in a tub of water, and as I walked into the bathroom to get a first look, I noticed the bar of soap was almost completely melted as it sat on the dead man"s stomach.

Clothes were strung out across the sink basin and toilet. In the man"s trousers we found his wallet. It had about forty dollars in bills in it and had not been touched. Neither had the pocket change in a right front pocket. Our first look at the apartment indicated to us no one murdered Abbott with the intent of robbing him. It seemed rather plain to us that someone entered the apartment with the intent on murdering Abbott and only on murdering Abbott. Whomever that someone was, they used a key to get into the apartment. There were no jimmy marks on any of the windows or the front door. Someone who was familiar with Abbott, and had a key to his apartment, entered and killed him outright.

“Roommates?” I asked the apartment building"s landlord. It was his discovery of the body, and a rapid telephone call to the police, which had us here.

“None to my knowledge. Seems to me he was a loner, detective. He didn"t have too many people come over to visit him, and come to think of it, he didn"t leave his apartment very much. I never had any trouble from him.”

The building"s manager was a small man dressed in blue trousers, a T-shirt, and a pair of rubber bathing thongs. He had no hair, except for the thick white mustache underneath a wide, bulbous nose, as two narrow little dots for eyes stared up at me from behind a thick pair of glasses. In his left ear was a hearing aid and he had the aroma of a man who smoked a pipe several times a day. I could smell the sweet, almost sickly, odor of pipe tobacco coming off him and I noticed the small little round burn holes in his T-shirt. Pipe smokers tend to try and burn themselves often when packing their pipe bowls.

“How about girlfriends? Any women come to see him?”

“Yes … hmmm … he did seem to like women, come to think of it. I remember at least two women who seemed to come over here on a regular basis.”

“Oh?” I muttered, lifting an eyebrow in surprise and glancing at Frank.

“Is this one of them?” Frank asked, pulling a 5 x 7 black and white morgue shot of Rebecca Pickford out from an inside coat pocket and handing it to the little man.

“No … I don"t remember her. Say, you know, she looks as if she"s sick.”

“Yeah,” nodded Frank, not able to resist the urge, and grinning like a smiling devil as he answered. “She"s past the point of being sick. Let"s just say she won "t be needing medical insurance anymore.”

The little man blinked a couple of times behind his thick, heavy looking glasses, then turned visibly pale before turning his eyes in my direction.

“She was found dead night before last. We had some indication that Abbott might have been her killer.”

“Oh.”

“When did you last see him alive?”

“This morning. Around seven, I guess. I took the trash out and I saw him come running up the street like someone was chasing him. He ran past me like he didn"t see me.”

“Was anyone chasing him?” Frank asked, replacing the photo back into his inside coat pocket and looking at the little man with interest.

“I didn’t see anyone. But I didn"t have my glasses on, either.”

“How about the rest of the day?” I asked, frowning. “See any strangers come in? Hear any unusual noises?”

“I couldn"t say. I go to work at 8:30 a.m. down at the bakery. I work only a few hours in the morning to help out on the bills. I didn"t hear or see anything after I got home at around noon time.”

“Who lives on either side of Abbott?” Frank asked, pulling out a spiral notebook and a pen to take notes.

“In 13B is a retired librarian. She"s limited to a wheelchair, so she doesn"t go out much. Hard of hearing, too. Worse than I am. In 15B is a young couple who work crazy shifts. Sometimes the man is working days. Sometimes at night. I really don"t know what he does, but they pay their bills and don"t give me any trouble. The wife is a nurse, that I do know. She works crazy hours too.”

“Were they in their apartments this morning?”

“Mrs. Hatch, that"s the librarian, would have been home. The Roberts, I dunno. Maybe.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said, handing him a card and smiling, “We might want to talk to you again. And if you think of anything, you can get us at that number on the card.”

He nodded, took the card, and disappeared behind his apartment door. We trudged back up the flight of stairs to Abbott"s apartment and began systematically searching the place, while the lab boys dusted and took rolls of photos. The only thing of interest we found was in one lower drawer of a bedroom dresser. In it we found a woman"s see-through nightgown, a couple pairs of see-through women"s underwear, and a pull away bra. Holding the rather ample bra up with a pencil, Frank looked at me and grinned wickedly, then whistled softly in admiration.

“I have a whole new opinion about our friend, Abbott. His choice of women was, shall we say, catholic in tastes.”

“Whatever it was,” I went on, coming closer to the uplifted bra and looking at it, still frowning. “This doesn’t belong to Pickford. She didn"t have enough to fill one cup, much less both.”

“Yeah, that makes it interesting,” nodded Frank, frowning and looking at the bra in front of him. “Wow, whoever this is, I want to meet her.”

“You probably will,” I nodded, rubbing my aching eyes with a hand, and trying not to yawn. “Why don"t you go talk to the librarian and hear what she has to say, and I"ll go see if the married couple are home.”

“Right.” Frank nodded, dropping the bra back into the drawer and closing it before disappearing out of the bedroom.

I started to follow him out, but the assistant coroner, a young kid by the name of Joe Weiser, came in chewing a big wad of bubble gum and looking over his notes scribbled on a green secretary"s spiral note pad.

“Turn, I"d say the guy"s been dead for no more than two hours. Someone with a lot of muscle popped him in the side of the head with something blunt. Took just one blow to do it. Crushed in his temple like it was tissue paper.”

“Blunt.” I repeated, thinking it over. “Heavy and blunt. Think a woman could have killed him?”

Joe stopped chewing his gum for a moment, looked at me for a few seconds thoughtfully, then glanced at his notes before shrugging and quickly blowing a bubble with his gum and popping it.

“Maybe. But she"d have to be built like an sss. And be damned strong. The guy in there is not a big guy. I"d say maybe one fifty, one sixty at most. I wouldn"t classify him as being macho. He wasn’t an athlete. His muscles haven"t had a good workout in years. Yes, maybe a woman could have written his ticket for him.”

I nodded and said thanks. Joe grinned, saluted me with the eraser of a pencil and left the bedroom. I wanted to look at the body again, check out the dead man"s clothes, but my eyelids were getting to feel like lead weights, and I still had to interview the young married couple.

I got lucky. They left a small note on their front door saying they were on vacation. They left last week and were not due back until the end of the month.

Lucky for me, maybe stupid for them. Why leave a note on your front door advertising to everyone you were not at home? It seemed like an invitation to find your apartment stripped down to the bare walls when you came home. God, I wanted to sleep for the next ten hours. But there were too many dead bodies and not enough cops around to soothe the hurt and stop the mayhem.