At the end of an hour Jordan was only half finished but he had, for the first time, a physical picture of the murder scene in his mind. And he began to understand a little of Ben Eglin’s rage.
Crider called it Store No. 1 because he started there. It fronted on School. Alongside it ran Romar Terrace, which was an alley dignified by a name. The store had two rooms. The front was typical — cigars, cigarettes, candy and gum racks, magazine racks, three pinball machines, a claw machine, shaving gear, paper back novels. The other room was directly behind. Shelves for storage. A desk in a corner that Crider sometimes used. A long table. And five telephones. A side door opened from this back room onto the alley. You stepped directly out to the narrow sidewalk. There, in the gutter opposite the door, Bob Garfield’s body lay. And there, on the sidewalk an inch beyond the sill, the one drop of Garfield’s blood was found.
Garfield lay on his back, stretched at length. His cap was a foot from his head. His service revolver was holstered and unfired. Blood stained his blouse around the single chest wound. But there was no blood beneath him. No blood around him. No blood anywhere except that single drop. Garfield had not died there at all.
There was no blood in the store, anywhere — floors, walls, furniture or stock — according to the pathologist. Jordan could see in the reports the mounting fury of Eglin as he sent his men back to search again and again. No blood — and without it no proof, beyond that single drop, that Garfield had been killed in the store and his body carried out to the alley.
Jordan turned to the question and answer statements. Crider first. They had found him in bed at two that morning. His statement was taken at three. He was cool and seemingly frank. No, he owned no gun. Yes, he was there that night. He made it a habit to drop around to his stores just before closing time. Bart Berkey was just shutting up shop when Crider reached Store No. 1. Crider checked the cash register. They turned off the lights and said good night at the door. That was all. A quiet night. He didn’t see Bob Garfield. Or anyone else.
Those five telephones were his bookie business — he wouldn’t try to kid Inspector Eglin. His clerks took horse bets at every store except No. 1. They passed them along by phone to the back room of Store No. 1. James Lombard took them there. No, Lombard was not there that night. He left at seven.
Pay ice to Bob Garfield? Inspector Eglin should know better than that. The clerks were paid to take their chances. Sometimes they got knocked over by the department. Look at the arrest records; they prove it. The business wasn’t worth protection money. Garfield was clean, and a friend. Was Garfield interested in Elsa Berkey? Maybe. Who wouldn’t be? She was a good-looking red-head. Me? No, thanks — a smart man never fools around with his own women employees.
That was the meat of Crider’s first statement. Underneath it was another, and another. And yet another. Eglin wouldn’t give up. But Crider’s fourth story didn’t vary from his first.
Next, Elsa Berkey. She was more terse than Crider. She volunteered nothing. She answered carefully. Started working for Crider two years ago. Before that a singer in a night club. That throaty voice should do all right with a blues song. Six months ago she got Bart a job with Crider. She opened Store No. 1 in the morning, Bart closed it at night.
She knew Bob Garfield. She had gone out with him. How many times? Three, perhaps four. They were just friends. Did he mention the telephones in the back room? No. Positive, Miss Berkey? Of course. No, there was nothing between her and Crider. There never had been. He was her employer.
Come now, Miss Berkey. The facts are against you. You admit you got Bart his job. Bart isn't what you’d call good material for a cigar-store clerk. Crider would never have hired him if there hadn’t been something in it for Crider.
There was a bargain, but not that kind. A pretty girl helped business in a store where the customers were men. She knew hundreds of them by their first names. They bought there because of her. Bart had a good mind. But he was — well, he lived in a shell. She knew she had to make him break out of it. She had to make him meet people, deal with people. She asked Crider to put him to work. Crider refused. She quit. She thought that would make Crider give Bart a job. It did. Bart got the job on the condition that she come back.
Jordan stopped reading. She used her sex, all right, to get Bart a job. But it was the way she said, not the way Eglin said. It was just like last night, he thought, when she used her sex on me in an attempt to protect Bart. Everything she does is for Bart.
Then he knew what had happened to him. He had started believing her. Why? Maybe it was the cool, honest way she used her sex, without pretense or hypocrisy. He went back to the file, reading rapidly. There wasn’t much more. She was in bed when Bart came home that night. She heard him but she did not look at the clock.
Bart Berkey’s fear came through the very first words of his first statement. The stenographer taking it down had asked him to speak louder. Eglin had been reassuring. Eglin told him he had nothing to fear.
Bart was telling Crider’s story — the exact same story. Eglin had turned harsh. A fourth statement had been taken that night. A fifth at nine the next morning. Eglin was pitiless. A sixth and last had been taken yesterday. The time was just one hour before the old relief, Dennehy, had walked out into the intersection at Berkeley and Trimount and told Jordan he was wanted at the station.
As Jordan dug into this last statement the cold words took on tension and the scene came alive. He could see Eglin leaning forward, pinning the frightened Bart to the chair with those eyes.
Q: Your sister’s no good, Berkey. She messes up men. You going to let her go on getting you in trouble all your life?
A: You’ve got no right to say that.
Q: No right. Then let’s say she’s not. Let’s say she is a good girl but she was just having a little fun. But it got a man killed. Do you go to church, Bart?
A: Sometimes.
Q: Do you think a man has a right to lie about murder even to protect his own sister?
A: It wasn’t... She didn’t, Mr. Eglin. Oh, why don’t you leave me alone!
Q: I’ll leave you alone when I get the truth. Let’s start all over. You were there. Bob Garfield was there—
A: No.
Q: Bob Garfield was there. And your sister was there. Garfield and your sister were in that back room together. Crider came in and caught ’em in a clinch and shot Garfield.
A: Elsa wasn’t there!
Q: But Garfield was there, wasn’t he?
A: I didn’t say that!
Q: All right, Bart. Let’s leave your sister out of it. Let’s forget your sister. Let’s say she wasn’t there. That takes away your only excuse for not telling the truth.
A: I don’t know what you mean.
Q: I mean I’m giving you one last chance to tell the truth. I’m putting it up to you in a way that you don’t have a reason in the world for not coming clean. And if you don’t I’m going to send you to the penitentiary as an accessory when I do get the facts, so help me! Now then. You were there. Garfield was there. A woman was there—
A: No!
Q: A woman was there. You don’t have to give her a name, Bart. Elsa was home in bed, remember. A woman was there. Let’s say for now she was a woman you never saw before and couldn’t recognize in court—
A: No! I can’t! I can’t!
Q: The truth, Bart. Quickly now, the truth. A woman was there—
A: I can’t! You don’t know what it would mean. Elsa! I want my sister!
Jordan closed the file. A cold lump seemed to be revolving slowly in his stomach. A woman had been there.