“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. When you first got here I figured you were the same guy that called me. But you haven’t got the same kind of voice.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ogden.”
“If you think I’m going to stand still for this, you’re crazy.”
“Stand still for what?”
“For a dirty shakedown. Your buddy called me up and said some jailbait kid was going to charge me with statutory rape, but that he was a lawyer and all it took was a couple of hundred bucks and he could get it fixed for me. He said he knew the right people and that... Hell! Don’t make out you aren’t in on it, copper. I know how you crooked cops work with these shysters. You figure that badge’ll throw a scare into me and I’ll come up with the dough just that much faster. All right, go ahead. Haul me in and see if you can make it stick.”
I didn’t say anything.
“The only thing that surprises me is that the girl turns out to be Doris,” Ogden went on. “I never figured her for a deal like this.”
“Slow up a bit, Ogden.”
“So where was your buddy? He was so damned anxious to talk it over with me. What happened to him? I went there, and stayed there. I must have waited almost half an hour.”
“Where?”
“You know where. In front of that house at Four-nineteen West Sixty-first.”
I felt my jaw slacken. The street number he’d just given me was the address of the house where Doris Linder had been murdered. And not only that. Ogden had said he’d left for there about nine-thirty, which would have put him there around ten. And he’d waited almost half an hour after he got there, which meant he’d not only been in the right place but that he’d also been there at exactly the right time.
I must have stared at him for fully half a minute without saying anything at all. Ogden’s story had stopped me cold. There had to be an angle, of course. Nobody as intelligent as Ogden would make such an admission without a damn good reason behind it. But what could it be? The only thing I could think of offhand was that Ogden had been seen there, knew it, and had worked up his fantastic story of a shakedown to explain his presence there... But I discarded that possibility almost as soon as it occurred to me. For Ogden to tell such a story, and then top it by admitting that he had a solid motive for the murder — because Doris Linder had been a party to the shakedown — would be doing everything but pulling the switch in that little room up at Sing Sing.
“Let’s go, Ogden,” I said.
“You’re taking me in?”
“Yes.”
He surprised me. He went along with no protest at all.
Walt Logan was waiting for me in the squad room. I took Ogden back to one of the interrogation rooms, locked him inside, and went back to talk to Walt. I briefed him on my movements since I’d seen him last and asked him what he’d found out at the party where he’d gone to check on Mr. and Mrs. Boardman, the couple in whose living room Doris Linder had been killed.
“Neither of them left the party, Steve,” he said. “They were with two other couples the entire time they were there. They and these other people were playing cards, and neither Boardman nor his wife even left the table for more than a couple minutes at a time.”
“Uh huh. Well, I think our boy Ogden is going to do wonders for us on this case, Walt. The sooner we start working on that story of his the better.”
“There’s one thing, though,” Walt said. “Boardman got a phone call while he was at the party. The guy who was throwing the party took it. Somebody wanted to know if Willie Boardman and his wife were there, and when the host said yes and that he’d call him, this other guy hung up. The host said he figured it must be one of Boardman’s real close friends, because nobody else ever calls him Willie. Seems he can’t stand the name, and he won’t let anybody but a few old cronies of his call him by it. Anyhow, the host assumed that whoever had called must have wanted to be sure Boardman and his wife were there before he came over. He started to tell Boardman about it, and then he got busy with something else and forgot it.” He paused. “Hey! What’s wrong? You look like I’d just called you a dirty name.”
“Did you check the bars and the drug stores in the neighborhood,” I asked.
“Sure. Nobody saw anything. A guy made a couple of phone calls from the booth in the candy store across the street, but that’s all. There was nothing suspicious about him. The guy that runs the place said he’d never seen him before, and that the only reason he noticed him particularly was that he came in two different times.”
“Does he think he could identify him?”
“Sure.”
“Walt,” I said, “we’ve got work ahead of us tonight.”
“That’s what we get paid for, isn’t it? Putting guys in the tank?”
“Not always,” I said. “Sometimes we can keep them out.”
“That’s a nice switch. Where do we start?”
“With Mr. William Boardman.”
We did start with Mr. Boardman, and we worked hard and steadily throughout the remainder of the night. And it paid off. At eight-forty the next morning we were sitting in a department car parked outside Charles Steward’s house on Seventy-fourth Street.
When Steward came out Walt touched the horn ring and I beckoned him over to the car. I got out, held the rear door open for him, and followed him inside.
“You boys are still on the job, I see,” Steward said pleasantly. “I assume this means you’ve reconsidered my offer to help Doris. I spoke to my wife on the phone, just before I left the house. She’s quite concerned about her. She made me promise that—”
“You received a call, too, didn’t you, Mr. Steward?” I asked. “About an hour ago?”
His smile faded. “Why, yes. Yes, I did. Very strange, too.”
“Was it?”
He frowned at me. “I don’t follow you at all. Was it you that called me?”
“No. As a matter of fact, Mr. Steward, you received two calls.”
“Yes, I did. Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”
“Not at all. Both calls were from people you called last night. We had them call you to see if they could identify your voice. They could, and did. You have a very distinctive voice, Mr. Steward. Both of these people are absolutely certain you’re the one who called them.”
He stared at me speechlessly, his lips moving, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t summon the words.
“In a few minutes we’re going to take you over to a candy store,” I said. “The one you went to make your calls last night.”
He suddenly found his voice. “Are you crazy? Why, I never—”
“Oh, but you did, Mr. Steward. You made two calls, both from that candy store. The proprietor remembers you and he’ll be able to swear you were there.”
Walt Logan had turned around in the front seat and was watching Steward carefully. “You called the Billings’ residence, because you wanted to make certain Mr. and Mrs. Boardman were there,” he said. “You knew they had gone to the Billings’ party, but you had to be sure they hadn’t left for a few minutes to check on the children. You didn’t want to get there while they were there, and you didn’t want them to walk in on you. Your other call was to Leslie Ogden with a cock-and-bull story about a shakedown. You wanted to set him up, Steward. You knew you’d have to scare him bad enough to make him take off from work and make the trip uptown, and you figured the shakedown story would do the trick. What you hoped for, naturally, was that somebody would see him at the place you said you’d meet him. But even if they didn’t, you’d still leave him with no alibi.”
“What are you trying to do to me?” Steward asked incredulously. “My God, I... What are you trying to do?”