Talmage Powell
Murder Gets Easier

The morning was clear and warm with the first whisperings of spring echoing northward. The lettering on the windows still looked nice: JOSEPH THOMAS, New and Used Books, Magazines, Collector’s Items. He still loved the pleasant mustiness, the warm gloom of the store with its hundreds of used books and magazines that crowded the shelves. He was young and in good health. But a lump of midwinter lay inside Joey Thomas.

To begin with, he’d about decided that as a business man he was too small a flicker even to term a flash in the pan. His ravening creditors had promised to claw him to pieces and peddle the parts to medical schools.

Then there was his girl, Cora. She had, he thought, a one track mind. She’d fallen right in with his plans, when he’d come out of the army those months ago, to establish his used-book business, live off of it, and make a writer of himself. He’d done one book — Corpse In The House by Joseph J. Thomas — a psychological thriller about a man who murdered his wife and walled her in a tiny alcove upstairs, using quicklime generously, only to believe that he began hearing scratchings on the floor of the alcove. Three scratches, a pause, three scratches, a pause... Like bony fingers trailing across the protagonist’s ceiling, reminding him that he had killed his wife on the third day of the third month of the year.

The royalties off of Corpse In The House had been eaten by the store; the second book hadn’t found a publisher anywhere; and Joey knew he’d never finish the third before bankruptcy and he became bosom friends.

He was ready to chuck the deal, get a job, marry Cora. That’s all he wanted out of life, really, to marry Cora. But he wasn’t having any of this business of two starving as cheaply as one. And she grimly insisted that he stick to his guns. Thus they had reached an impasse. He wouldn’t marry her until he could support her, and she wouldn’t allow him to chuck the dreams overboard.

But at the moment, Joey’s mind was dragged from those worries. Besides himself, there were three people in the store. Leroy Dorrell was thin, tall, well-tailored to have no visible means of support. A ring on his right hand glittered like genuine diamond; his eyes, pale green, glittered too. A star-shaped scar marred the dark tan on one of Mr. Leroy Dorrell’s cheeks.

Beside Dorrell, faintly plump, a silver fox about her shoulders. Marge Krayer stood, her blood red lips curled at wizened old man Arnheit. Marge Krayer had platinum hair that made Joey wish he’d gone in the peroxide business. He knew Dorrell and Marge Krayer only casually, seeing them now and then in Tony’s bar down the block, where Joey occasionally took a short beer.

Joey turned his back on the pair, trying to shush Mr. Arnheit, who was telling the world loudly, “Dorrell, you’re an illiterate punk!”

Mr. Arnheit roomed in the old brownstone down the block. He was wiry, tough, an inveterate talker, a browser in book stores. One of Joey’s steadiest customers, except that Mr. Arnheit never bought anything.

A few moments ago, Leroy Dorrell and Marge Krayer had strolled in the store. Just looking they’d said. Dorrell had picked up a copy of Poe’s collected works — price twenty cents — from the cluttered table near the front of the store, read a few lines of The Raven aloud and promptly laughed with thin sarcasm. Mr. Arnheit, who’d been sitting in the back of the store, had risen to the attack.

“Poe, you young punk, worked with the fine exactitude of an architect,” Mr. Arnheit now shouted, disregarding Joey’s shushing entirely.

Marge Krayer fingered her platinum hair and told Dorrell, “Why don’t you kick the old fool’s teeth in, darling?”

Mr. Arnheit, who read racing forms as well as Poe, who had no visible means of support himself, saw red. “You think I’m afraid to stand up to you? If more people...”

“Listen,” Joey said, “this is a place of business!” Then he hoard the clamping footsteps upstairs and groaned again. Ralph Ballinger’s sleep had been disturbed. Ballinger was a big, strapping man with flaming hair, deep red freckles so thick on his face he seemed constantly on the verge of apoplexy. He occupied the flat over the store; once before when a gang of noisy kids had been in quest of tattered comic magazines, Ralph Ballinger had let Joey know in no uncertain terms that he worked nights and would countenance no undue noise downstairs. Gossip had it that Ballinger worked very hard indeed, at sucker poker, blackjack, and trained dice. Now Mr. Ballinger ignored the front stairs that led down from his flat to the street Joey heard him pounding down the narrow back stairs.

Leroy Dorrell was moving forward, urged by Marge Krayer, and Arnheit was telling Leroy to stand back, when Ballinger’s steps reached the bottom of the narrow back stairs, came across Joey’s store-room. Ballinger appearing in the doorway that opened to the storage room in back of the store. Ballinger’s red hair was tousled. He wore a faded robe, below which showed pajama legs and house shoes. His foghorn voice joined in the fray. “What the hell is all the shouting about, Thomas? I thought I told you...”

“I was insulted,” Dorrell explained, eyeing Ballinger’s hulk.

“I didn’t insult anybody,” wiry Mr. Arnheit howled, “I just spoke the truth! Edgar Allan Poe...”

Ballinger advanced in the store. His eyes were red-rimmed, his freckles pale. He appeared, conceded Joey, to need sleep badly. “If I don’t get some shut-eye,” Ballinger said, “I’m going to take this place apart with my bare hands.”

The Joseph J. Thomas book business at least deserved to die in peace, Joey decided. He walked behind the counter, picked up the phone. “Nobody’s taking anything apart,” he said. “I’m going to call a riot squad if this place isn’t cleared in exactly twenty-five seconds.”

They tossed a last upheaval of choice language at each other; Ralph Ballinger glared with his red-rimmed eyes. Then Dorrell swooshed out with Marge Krayer on his arm, Ballinger clomped back upstairs to his bed, and Mr. Arnheit slammed the door and turned down the sidewalk.

Joey sighed and began straightening magazines. It was fifteen minutes later when he noticed the new copy of Eman’s Political Economy on the showcase near the front of the store. Joey frowned. He knew the contents of the store like the palm of his hand. He didn’t recall purchasing Mr. Eman’s tome. Someone must have laid it on the counter, forgotten it. But it hadn’t been there when he’d opened up this morning. Joey would have noticed it dusting.

He riffled through the book, a habit of his the whole neighborhood knew. He’d found pressed flowers, four leaf clovers, a prized cake recipe once in a travelogue he’d bought from Mrs. McDougle, who’d thanked him profusely when he’d returned it. Now his hand jerked to a stop, riffled back. There between pages fifty seven and fifty eight it was.

A nice, crinkly thousand dollar bill...

Joey’s hands trembled. A thousand bucks could mean a lot to him. Then he jammed the bill in his wallet, muttered to himself, went out, and locked the door behind him.

In the next half hour Joey endured Ralph Ballinger’s blasphemy, a discourse on economic politics from Mr. Arnheit, and cold, abrupt answers from Leroy Dorrell and Marge Krayer, whom he found in Tony’s bar.

None of them had left the book in his store. He’d mentioned only the title to them of course. If those four had known what the book contained, Joey knew he’d have likely been accused of stealing three other copies.

Yet they’d been the only people in the store that morning — unless someone had come in and out while he’d been in back, early, in the stock-room. On the sidewalk before Tony’s bar, be reached a decision. He’d take the bill to the bank, deposit it in his account. If no one called in thirty days, he could legally figure finders keepers. He turned and headed for the bank — and from there it was only a short trip to police headquarters.

They were very nice at headquarters. About six cops grouped around him in the small room. One of them offered a cigarette. Joey needed it.

The big, bald cop with the sagging face and frigid blue eves introduced himself as Harry Crenshaw. He was saying, “So you took the bill to the bank. The teller knew you weren’t in the habit of depositing thousand dollar bills. He asks you to wait a moment, checks the bill.”

Joey felt needles of sweat on his forehead. “I thought the bill was counterfeit when the teller and bank guard closed in on me. I tried to explain, but they had the beat cop on hand too. Then presto, here I am.”

They didn’t smile. Crenshaw said, “The bill was worse than counterfeit. You recall the armored truck robbery several months ago where the crooks used home-made tear gas guns to knock out the guards?”

“I read about it,” Joey admitted.

“A half million was taken,” Harry Crenshaw said. “This grand note you tried to deposit, Thomas, was part of the loot.”

Joey’s voice was like dry sticks breaking. “I’ve told you the truth! I found that bill in a copy of Eman’s Political Economy!”

Crenshaw smiled at last. “We haven’t doubted your word for a moment, Mr. Thomas. You may go now.”

“Go?” Joey said blankly, rising hesitantly.

“Certainly, and won’t you have another cigarette?” Crenshaw said.

In a daze, Joey left headquarters. But the daze had worn off by the time he reached the store. He was in a jam, he knew, a real jam. They’d let him go because they were positive he’d lead them, sooner or later, to the rest of the loot. If he didn’t, they’d figure he was protecting his cronies in the robbery. Patience gone, they’d run him in.

No one had seen him find that bill. He had nothing to back his crazy story. They’d play a cautious game, keep him shadowed. It would end when they’d wound a twenty year sentence around his neck...

Joey braked his ramshackle coupe before the snug brick house with the small lawn where Cora Lail lived, keeping house for her father and two brothers until she had a home of her own.

She answered Joey’s knock, a small, lively faced girl with brown eyes and silky auburn hair that glinted in the sunshine.

“Joey! This is nice!” She took his hand, drew him inside. Joey looked at her a moment; then the memory of Crenshaw’s sardonically smiling face jerked him back from the clouds.

“Are you going to be very busy today, hon?”

“Not terribly...” She was looking at him closely. “What is it, Joey?”

“Nothing... That is, I wondered if you’d watch the store for me awhile this afternoon, when you’re all through here. I can leave the key at the bake shop across the street.”

“Of course, Joey, but...”

“I just want to check the sale of a book,” he said. “Eman’s Political Economy. The book was left in the store. The only four people who could have left it deny doing so. You see, I... Well, it’s important that I find out, if I can, the store that made the sale, to whom they sold the book.”

“But, Joey, I... if something’s wrong, you should tell me. It would be almost impossible to find the purchaser of a book. It’ll take you hours to check every new and used book store in town.”

“I know...” His lips felt dry. “But it’s the only angle I can think of. Whoever left that book wouldn’t admit...”

She caught his arm. “Joey, you...”

“I’ll tell you later, hon,” he broke in. If he got a lead on that book, he was thinking, no need to worry her needlessly. He was sorry he’d let anything show on his face. He forced a smile. “It’s nothing, really. I just didn’t want to leave the store closed all day. We might sell a few used magazines.”

He pecked her forehead with his lips. “And don’t let your imagination run away with you! I’ll see you later.” He left the house quickly, got in his car. Watching the rear view mirror, he saw the black, inconspicuous sedan pull away from the curb two blocks behind him. Crenshaw. Until he’d cracked this thing, Joey knew he wouldn’t be clear of the police. A drop of sweat crept under his collar.

It was twilight, stores closing, sidewalks swarming with people hurrying home, when he finished his task. He was limp with fatigue, from searching records, more or less opened to him since he was a fellow book dealer, and from questioning salespeople in the book stores. He had also chased down a few hopeless leads, one sale of Eman’s economic work to a college professor, another to an eccentric millionaire. He’d presented himself as a buyer of exclusive Americana well enough to wriggle in both men’s libraries long enough to ascertain that their copies of Political Economy were still in their shelves.

All the while he knew that Crenshaw was back there somewhere in the traffic, in the crowds. He never caught sight of the bald, homely faced detective, and that made it worse. Like playing tag with a ghost. Joey looked hollow-eyed when he ran his car in the mouth of the alley a couple of doors up from the store.

He entered his book store, said, “Hi, hon.” No one answered. He waited a moment in the renter of the gloomy store, thinking that Cora was in back. He called her name again. The thick silence swallowed the words.

He started toward the back of the store. At the rear counter he drew up, sharply. A stack of magazines had been knocked to the floor behind the counter, trampled, twisted, their pages torn. The counter sat at a faintly crooked angle, as if a struggling body had slammed against it.

Joey felt his heart hammering. A gleam caught his eye. He bent over the mussed magazines, picked up a brooch with the monogram: C. L. Cora’s brooch. Bent, twisted, a hit of the cloth from her dress still caught in the pin.

Joey breathed deep and hard, but it didn’t steady him. Flesh knotted coldly along his spine as he called her name again, headed for the store-room in back.

The store-room was dark, silent. He fumbled, found the hanging overhead light. He clicked the switch. A wan, yellow glow spilled over empty cartons, stacks of magazines and books unfit for sale, waiting for the junk man. Then Joey saw the woman lying in the far corner. Not Cora, a blond woman. Marge Krayer. But she wasn’t plump looking any longer. She was limp, and bloody, and dead.

Joey had seen death before, but not in this setting. He closed his eyes, shuddered, and involuntarily backed away. His jaw muscles worked, and he opened his eyes again, looking at the bloody knife beside Marge Krayer. He knew what had happened. Marge had entered through the alley door. Someone had been close behind her, murdered her. Cora, in front, had heard the commotion. The killer had struck her, dragged her away to assure her silence.

Joey wondered if Ralph Ballinger upstairs had heard anything. But Ballinger always left his flat at five — Joey could set his watch by it — to go downtown for supper and a few drinks before his nightly poker. Or Arnheit, perhaps. He stayed around the store a lot. If he had been around and seen or heard anything, Cora might be safe in the hands of the police by now. But Joey had a hunch he’d insulted Arnheit, along with Marge Krayer, Dorrell, and Ballinger, this morning. And if the old man had seen and reported anything, the police would be here now.