Herrick felt an unpleasant taste in his mouth. “I can’t promise you anything. It depends on whether you’re innocent and how completely honest you are with me.”
“I’ve nothing to hide from the police,” the man insisted. “But if my wife should find out — well, the scandal—” He shook himself and went on, “Vivian hasn’t let me see her for three weeks. I went almost crazy. She is — she was a very lovely girl. Last night I phoned her.”
“At what time?”
“Around nine. A little after.”
“As late as nine-thirty?”
“It may have been. I told Vivian that if she didn’t at least come out and talk to me for a few minutes, I’d barge into her house. She gave in grudgingly and I picked her up in my car on the corner of Oak Lane and Lanning Place. We drove and parked and drove some more while I kept arguing with her.”
“How long?”
“What? Oh, hours.”
“In the cold?”
“I’ve a heater in my car,” Shanken replied. “Vivian said that people were talking about us and that we mustn’t see each other again. I couldn’t give her up. She was in my blood. I argued and argued. I—” He broke off and hunched his shoulders. “It was no use, so after a while I drove her home.”
“What time was that?”
“I don’t know. Around midnight.”
“Can you fix the time closer than that?”
Shanken was thoughtful, and then shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I was very upset. I didn’t bother to look at the time. I’m sure it was at least twelve. Maybe a few minutes later.”
Herrick was ready to spring a trap. He asked with apparent indifference, “What happened when you walked to the back door of the house with her?”
“I—” Shanken took a deep breath, “I didn’t get out of the car with her. By that time we were both pretty sore at each other. When I pulled up in front of Vivian’s house, she got out of the car and slammed the door. I drove home.”
“Just like that?” Herrick said grimly.
“I tell you I did. I wouldn’t hurt a hair of her head.”
“You said you were sore at her.”
“But not enough to kill her. Why would I want to kill her? That would be crazy.”
“Crazy,” the Chief muttered. “By the way, did you wear rubbers or galoshes last night?”
“I never wear galoshes. They look frightful. Rubbers sometimes, but—” He frowned up at Herrick. “I don’t understand the question.”
“All the same, I want an answer. What did you wear on your feet last night?”
“Just my shoes. The garage is under my house. I didn’t have to walk in the street.”
At any rate, that was Shanken’s story and he stuck to it. Herrick debated with himself whether to take him to Headquarters for further questioning, and decided not to. He hadn’t enough on the man to hold him and would only succeed in putting him on his guard. In a place the size of Marvin Center, where Shanken was a businessman of considerable importance, it was necessary for the police to feel their way carefully.
As the day wore on, the responsibility of the case piled on Herrick’s shoulders. He knew that the whole town — indeed, the whole county — was watching him. This was the first big test in his nine years as Chief of Police.
In the late afternoon Arthur Simms, the District Attorney, and Dr. Everett J. Ames, County Coroner, came to his office for a conference.
Dr. Ames had his preliminary report. He agreed that Vivian Lahey had probably died between midnight and 1 A.M., but he could not give a definite statement until he had completed the post-mortem, which would be some time the following day. He had no doubt, however, that the blow with the milk bottle had killed her almost instantly.
“Sergeant Sperling went over the broken pieces of the bottle for fingerprints,” Herrick reported. “He found about what we expected — the prints of Mr. and Mrs. Engleberry and one of the milkman, Will Hitch. On a night as cold as last night, practically everybody wore gloves.”
“How about the New York City end?” District Attorney Simms inquired. “Miss Lahey worked there and most of the people she knew, it seems, live there.”
Herrick nodded. “I spoke to the New York Homicide Bureau on the phone. They promised full cooperation. All the men she’s known in New York are being investigated.” He sighed. “But I hardly expect anything to come of that. I am convinced that the murderer did not come all this way to murder her. The crime shows all the marks of having been impulsive, unpremeditated.”
“And Shanken admitted he had been out with Miss Lahey last night,” Simms rubbed his lean jaw. “He’s our man.”
For brief moments they sat about the desk in silence. Then Herrick said glumly, “You’re the District Attorney. Can you prove Shanken guilty in court? Have you even enough to indict?”
“Well, no,” Simms admitted. “Not yet, at any rate.”
Shortly after the District Attorney and the Coroner departed, Sergeant Sperling entered the office with a cardboard box under his arm. Within the box, the white plaster cast of the footprint was carefully protected by excelsior.
“The casts are finished,” Sperling announced. “I made three. I’m sending Mike Rossi to New York with one. Now what shoes do we look at?”
Herrick had not mentioned the cast to the District Attorney. He was afraid it wouldn’t be taken seriously; he wasn’t sure himself whether or not to take it seriously. But Sperling believed in what he was doing, and there was nothing to be lost by following through.
“Try Shanken first,” the Chief told him.
It was almost time to knock off for supper when a dumpy little man walked into Police Headquarters and introduced himself to Herrick as Dwight Braun, the radio agent.
“Say, what’s the idea of sending the cops after me?” he demanded. “I’m minding my own business when a couple of detectives barge in on me and ask all kinds of questions about Vivian Lahey’s murder. That was the first I heard of it. They acted as if I’d killed her.”
Herrick grunted with satisfaction. The New York police were wasting no time.
“Did you kill her?” he asked softly.
“Don’t be a sap!” Braun spread his plump body on a chair and set fire to a cigarette. “The minute those cops left, I drove out here to let you know what happened last night.” And he told substantially the same story as the Engleberrys.
“Did you drive out to Marvin Center in your car last night?” Herrick wanted to know.
“Sure. The train connections out of this place are terrible, especially at night.”
“Let me get this straight,” Herrick said. “Miss Lahey was in New York more than she was here. Yet you took this trip late at night, when you could as easily have seen her in the city?”
“Who says so? The point is, Vivian decided to get another agent after all I’d done for her, and then she wouldn’t even discuss it with me. Maybe she wasn’t a top-notch singer and maybe she would never have been, but the ten percent commission I made on her was worth spending an evening on.”
“And after having come all this distance you left without seeing her.”
“I was sore, I’d phoned Vivian beforehand and she’d said she’d be home, and then she left before I arrived and hadn’t returned by eleven. She wasn’t enough of a big-shot for me to take that from her.”
Herrick toyed with his pencil. “Did you wear rubber shoes last night?”
“Huh? What for? The sidewalks were clean. At least in New York they were.”
The Chief went out and returned with the third plaster cast of the footprint. While Braun watched in bewilderment and flung questions at Herrick, the latter got down on his knees and carefully placed the agent’s shoe in the cast. Braun’s foot was almost womanish in its smallness; there was a good inch to spare at the toes. The Chief didn’t have to compare the heel markings to know that Braun’s foot had never made that print.