He started looking through his pockets for a cigarette and he was still grinning. “Let me just ask a few questions. I’m too much a copper to find out anything any other way. How long have you known this guy Olsen?”
“I thought you wanted to know about last night,” I said.
“This is background stuff. When did you meet him?”
“A couple of years ago. He used to drop in when I had the book out North.”
“Was he a good friend of yours?”
“Just so-so. Pretty good, I guess.”
“How long have you known his wife?”
“About as long,” I said. “She used to put down a bet herself, every now and then.”
“You mean they used to come into your place together?”
“No, I met her after he went overseas.”
He sipped at his drink and nodded. “Then you met her after he went in the army?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
He said, “I’m not splitting hairs, I hope, but let’s run over this again. You met him first. Then he went overseas, and you met her. Is that right?”
I nodded.
“Well, we’ve got that straightened out.” He smiled. “It doesn’t mean anything but I like to get all the background I can. You’ve seen her all the time he’s been gone?”
“Not all the time,” I said. “Maybe five or six times. We had a drink, things like that. I took her swimming once or twice I guess.”
“She’s an attractive woman, isn’t she? I don’t want to annoy you, but you were just friends, weren’t you? No funny business on the side?”
“What a hell of a question,” I said. I tried to sound half mad and half amused, but it was hard because I was winding up tight inside and I was afraid of this guy Harrigan.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Forget it. You saw him when he came home, didn’t you?”
“I met him at the station and drove him out to where she lives. I didn’t see him again until last night.”
That was a slip, but it was all right. I’d actually forgotten about that afternoon he’d come up to see me. So when I said, “No, wait a minute. I saw him one other time,” it sounded on the level. “He came up here one afternoon,” I went on. “He was worried about his wife. He was afraid she’d been playing around while he was gone and he wanted to find out if I knew anything about it.”
“You mean he suspected you?”
“Hell no. You cops think everybody in the world is crooked, don’t you?”
He smiled. “Let’s don’t get started on what heels coppers are. I could talk about that all night. How long was he back before he came to see you?”
“Just a couple of days. He was pretty worried by that time. Some guy had been calling his wife. He’d gotten two or three of the calls, but the guy hung up when Frank got on the line. On top of that his wife wasn’t acting too friendly.”
“Okay,” Harrigan said. “So much for that. Then Sunday night you went out there with the idea of driving them both down to the station. How was he acting about her not going?”
“They seemed kind of mad. I guess they’d been battling about it.”
“What kind of a story did she give him?”
“She just said she had some work that had to be done.”
“Then you and Frank left for the station. Let’s have the rest of it.”
“Okay,” I said. I was jumpy and nervous and I was trying to think of how my story was going to sound. “We started downtown,” I said. “I made a crack about it was too bad Alice had to work that night with this guy Lesser. That was the first he’d heard about that. He made me turn around and drive him back.”
Harrigan sat up a little in his chair and he didn’t look sleepy any more.
“Hold on,” he said. “I thought she told him about that.”
“She told him she had to do the work Monday morning.”
“Well, how did you know she was seeing Lesser Sunday night?”
“I met Lesser Friday afternoon at a bar. He mentioned he was seeing her Sunday night. That’s how I come to know about it.”
“Friday afternoon, eh?”
“That’s right?”
“Did you think it was funny he’d tell you about it?”
“I didn’t think one way or the other about it. I already knew she was supposed to go to Wisconsin Sunday night. I figured he was mixed up.”
He was frowning. “You didn’t tell him she was supposed to go Wisconsin?”
“It wasn’t any of my business,” I said.
“All right,” he said. “Now what happened when you drove him back?”
“We parked out in front until Lesser showed. Then he asked me to drive him somewhere he could get a drink. At the tavern he called her up and she told him she was alone. That tore things. He went back to the apartment and caught them together.”
“And where did you go?” he asked.
“I got in my car and came back here.”
“Good enough,” he said. “Now let’s make out a timetable. You left for the train at eight. You drove halfway downtown turned around and came back. You waited for Lesser, then you went to this bar and he made a phone call. What time did you get out of the bar?”
“About eight-twenty.”
“You worked pretty fast to do all that in twenty minutes,” he said. He looked at his glass and then grinned suddenly. “Got another drink left?”
“That’s the first smart question you’ve asked,” I said.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said, when I handed him the fresh drink. “Maybe I’m playing a cock-eyed angle. You see I don’t think this guy is guilty, Johnny.”
I was taking a drink when he said that and my hand started shaking. Some of the liquor went down my shirt front. I put the drink down and took out my breast handkerchief.
“Shame to waste it,” he said. He watched while I mopped at my shirt. Then he said: “Here’s what I mean. There weren’t any prints on the gun. That’s funny. When a guy commits an unpremeditated murder he’s generally too mad or scared to think about wiping off fingerprints. Second, when a husband shoots some guy who has been playing around with his wife he doesn’t run away. He’s generally the guy who calls the cops and he says, ‘I just shot a guy and he deserved it.’ That’s the way he feels. He’s not ashamed or afraid as a rule. He’s proud of what he’s done. But this guy Olsen insists he didn’t do it in spite of a hell of a good circumstantial case against him. That doesn’t sound right to me.”
He shook his glass for a while and watched the ice bounce around and there was a moody frown on his face.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. “I just don’t feel right about it. Take the way the drawers in the bedroom were messed around for instance. Who did that? Not Olsen. He lives there. He knows where things are. But supposing some stranger went in there looking for something. He might have to go through the drawers and closet to find it.”
“What would a stranger be looking for?” I said.
“Possibly the gun,” Harrigan said. “And here’s one more angle. The woman who lives below the Olsen apartment says someone rang her bell about eight-thirty. She rang the buzzer and went to the door but there wasn’t anyone there. At the time she thought it was some kids playing a prank.”
“It could have been,” I said.
“Sure it could,” he said. “But I don’t think so. It all ties into a theory I’m playing around with. Supposing, Johnny, this thing was a frame. Supposing someone wanted to get rid of Lesser. And they set things up so that Frank Olsen would catch him in a compromising position and shoot his brains out. Then the deal backfires. Olsen doesn’t shoot Lesser. He just bats him one and slaps his wife a couple of times and walks out. Now if this guy was watching from outside the building he’d know something had gone wrong. So he rings the bell of the first apartment and gets inside that way. Upstairs in her apartment he sees what’s happened. Now he might figure out right then that he could shoot Lesser and Olsen would get blamed. So, first of all, he needs a gun. He tears into the bedroom, rips open the drawers until he finds Olsen’s gun. Then he shoots Lesser and goes out the back of the building. No one sees him, so Olsen gets blamed.”