“All this seems to amuse you, Benny,” I said.
“Perhaps it seems to — but have you thought about what this will do to my wife and girls? Here they come back to me, after all these years, and the first thing that happens is that detectives start questioning them about me... And about a murder, at that. It’s going to queer things good for me, don’t you think?” He was still smiling — and for the first time since he’d started talking, I realized he wasn’t just trying to be a wise guy. If his story was true — and I had a strong feeling it was — little Benny Thomas was giving us all a lesson in how to roll with the punches.
“We’ll have to check, Benny,” I said.
“I know.”
I glanced at Walt. “How about it, Walt? You want to take a run up to Eightieth Street?”
Walt got to his feet. “What’s that address again, Benny?”
“Eight-seventy-three. Apartment 4-B.”
Walt left to check out Benny’s alibi, and I told the two patrolmen they could go back to their posts. Benny moved over to sit by the window, gazing down at the traffic in the street below. It was hard not to think about Benny and his family, and how it is that innocent people are often hurt in the course of investigations such as this one.
A messenger from the lab returned the snap-up knife to me at half-past seven, and at seven-forty Headquarters called to say they had the Kansas City police department on the wire.
I talked to a Sergeant Dabney. He told me they had located the dead girl’s brother, and that the brother was taking the next plane to New York. The brother had said he knew of only one person named Carl, and that this man had crashed a party given for Barbara Lawson while she had been home on her visit several months before. He had never seen the man before, did not know his last name, or anything else about him. He had, however, given the Kansas City police the names of other men and women who had been at the party, and the police were now checking the list in the hope of finding someone who did know Carl’s last name and where to find him. Sergeant Dabney asked if I wanted the man held, pending further instructions from us, and I said that I did. He then asked if I wanted the Kansas City to conduct a preliminary interrogation. I told him no, that if Carl was apprehended I’d arrange for a telephone interrogation. I thanked him for Kansas City’s cooperation, and hung up.
If the Kansas City police picked Carl up, and if my telephone interrogation indicated he was our boy, I would, of course, arrange to go to Kansas City. I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but it would be the only thing I could do — unless we came up with enough new information to justify an outright accusation of murder and the steps required to bring him to New York. We were a long way from that point now, and not getting any closer.
Walt Logan returned at eight-twenty. “Come on, Benny,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.”
Benny Thomas laughed softly. “No, thank you. I’ll take a cab.”
“All clear, Walt?” I asked.
“All the way. And listen, Benny — I put it to your family the best way I could. It didn’t upset them at all, Benny. They said they’d known there would be times like this. They said they knew your record would bring the police around, if you were ever even near trouble, because of your rap-sheet. But they’re for you, Benny. A hundred per cent.”
“Thank you,” Benny said. He nodded a good-by to both of us and walked quickly from the squad room.
“There goes our hottest suspect,” Walt said. “And I don’t mind telling you I’m just as glad. He’s got a damned nice family.”
“You check with the cab driver?”
“Sure. I guess Benny must have wanted to laugh at us a little, just to get even. He didn’t say so, but the cab driver’s a retired cop. He’s the same one that put the arm on Benny a couple of times, years ago. Seems like he and Benny got to be friends, after Benny got out the last time and the cop retired and started driving a cab. Anyhow, he drove Benny home all right. He even went up and joined the party. He stayed there until a little after four o’clock, so that means he was with Benny from a quarter of ten till—”
“Wait a minute!” I said.
It had hit me. It should have hit me before, of course. It should have hit me the instant Benny Thomas said it the first time.
I ran to the window and leaned out. Benny Thomas was just stepping out onto the sidewalk.
“Hold it, Benny!” I called. “I’ll be right down.”
He looked up at me, frowning a little for the first time since he’d been brought in. “All right,” he said.
I grabbed up the knife and started for the door. “Come with me, Walt. I want to ask Benny a couple of questions.”
We went down the steps to the street two at a time.
“What’s up?” Benny asked. He had his smile back now.
I handed him the knife. “Take a look at this, Benny. You ever see it before?”
He studied it carefully. “No... No, I can’t say I have.” He returned the knife to me and I dropped it into my pocket.
“All right,” I said. “Now about that switchboard, Benny. You were the only operator, I understand. You worked a double shift, from eight in the morning until midnight. Right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Did the owners ever have an operator on duty between midnight and eight in the morning?”
“No. The board has always been cut out of the lines at midnight.”
“That’s what I thought. And when you cut the board out of the lines, the private phones in the apartment house begin to operate just like private phones anywhere else?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I just want to get the picture clear in my mind. I was pretty sure it was one of the boards you can cut out, but I wanted to check.”
“That particular kind of switchboard was something of an experiment, I think. I understand the telephone company never installed very many of them. But they’re very good for a house where most of the tenants are away all day. When the board’s cut into the lines, it provides people with an answering and message service, you know. There wasn’t much point in providing that kind of service after midnight, though.”
“Do all the phones in the building work that way, Benny?”
“Oh, no. I’d say about a fourth of the tenants have just the regular house phone — the one that goes with every apartment. Those work through the switchboard too, of course, but when the board is cut out at midnight, those phones go dead.”
“Did the owners send anyone out to take over that board, after you walked off it last night?”
“No, they didn’t. I went past there just a while ago, to pick up my pay, and they read me off about it. They were furious. They said they didn’t know anything about it until today. You’d think I’d stolen the board, the way they carried on.”
“What kind of phone does Gus Brokaw have in his apartment?”
“A house phone.”
“And if the switchboard wasn’t in operation, Brokaw’s phone wouldn’t be of any use to him, would it?”
“No, I’m afraid it wouldn’t.”
“That just about takes care of it. Well, thanks for the information, Benny. We’ll see if we can help you land another job.”
“I’d appreciate it. A word from the police would go a long way.”
Walt and I said good night to him, and then Walt turned to me and said, “Give.”
“Gus Brokaw seems to have got his story twisted a bit.”
“How so?”
“He told me he called a woman on his phone at exactly eleven o’clock. But Brokaw has a house phone, and Benny Thomas cut off the switchboard and walked out on his job at a quarter of ten. Brokaw’s phone would have gone dead. He couldn’t have called that woman from his apartment. Not if he called after a quarter of ten.”