5 Detective Novels Magazine Cover — page 55: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

DOOM FOR THE GROOM these files. But where to begin? It might take precious hours. He rubbed his chin nervously. Then stepped to the files and started jerking open drawers. If he had looked out of the window of the office, he would have seen a beau- tiful sunset which hung over the city like a brilliant canopy of red and gold and blue. But he wasn’t. Cigarette dangling from his lips, he was staring down at a card on a table and fastening the collar of his shirt. Sam Pitman. Elite Hotel. Subconsciously he tock the cigarette from his lips, dropped it to the floor and mashed it beneath his foot, twisting at it violently. EVERAL hours later Rick sat across from the desk of Chief of Detectives McKinney. McKinney was a youthful fifty-five, had a build like a football player, short-cropped red hair and a face like a benevolent bulldog. Now he sat scowling at some penciled memos which he shifted from one big hand to the other. Finally he said, without looking up, “Rick, I’m disappointed in you. You know the seriousness of withholding information.” Rick swallowed. The small, dark room was stuffy with cigar smoke and it was a labor to breathe. “Yes, sir,” he said drily. “Calling homicide was about all the oor tn you gave Lieutenant Hogan. Right ?”, “Yes, sir.’ “You ie that I could suspend you from the department ? ies The muscles in Rick’s jaws were flex- ing and unflexing. “Yes, sir.’ McKinney tossed the memos aside and picked up a cigar butt. He took a cou- ple of sputtering drags on it, screwed up his face in disgust, and hurled the butt into a wastepaper basket. Rick shifted uneasily in his chair. Why didn’t pene hurry Up and get it over with? “Rick, I’m going to run back over this deal very carefully,” McKinney said seriously. “I want you to listen to it, put yourself in my shoes, and decide what you’d do with a guy like yourself 55 if you were me. And remember, I’ve got to save my own face and to hell with anybody else. “You find Sam Pitman murdered in his room. You call homicide. When Hogan gets there, you tell him you were checking a lead on the Eagle robberies and that’s how you happened to find Pitman. Hogan establishes how Pitman dies. He was first hit on the head with a metal pitcher and then a knife was driven into his throat, severing the jugular vein. He’d been dead for about an hour. “Hogan gets hold of the guy who runs the joint. Between swallows from a bot- tle of beer the guy tells him that the knife was Pitman’s. He also told him that about an hour ago a good looking brunette in a blue suit went up to his room, but that he didn’t see her come back down. Then Hogan emptied Pit- man’s pockets and found a name and address. It was a woman’s name, Kay Ryan. At this point you tell Hogan that you'll check this lead, and he tells you to lay off, that homicide’s not in your department. “Hogan checks the address, with you tagging along, and finds that the woman is not there. But from another tenant, who saw her leave the building, he learns that she worked at the Eagle Distributing Company and gets a de- scription of her. The description matched the one he got from the hotel clerk. Then Hogan gets on the phone and calls Scott Remley, the manager of Eagle. He asks if a girl named Kay Ryan works for him. “After listening for a moment, Hogan blew his lid. Red-faced, he hauled you down here and turned you over to me for action. He expects action. Now I ask you, after what you did to poor Hogan, what do you think I should do to you?” Rick’s mouth was dry. He patted his pocket for a cigarette, but there were none. He’d smoked them. Wetting his lips he said, “I told you the whole story when I first came in, chief. I was string- ing along with Hogan until I could find out something. I was sick. I love Kay.” “You didn’t answer my question.” Rick shrugged. McKinney rose to his feet and glared eldOO im (CO) mM