He had been in his pantry when Sutter called down for a bottle from the top of the stairs, and Mark Ames was alone in the living room still waiting to see his brother when he asked Alfred to also bring him a bottle of bourbon.
He was just emerging from the pantry with the silver tray containing two bottles and four glasses, two of them containing ice cubes, when the front door was flung open and Ralph Larson ran inside brandishing a revolver. He had brushed Mark Ames aside, and Alfred got in front of him as he made for the stairs. He had knocked Alfred and the tray down and run up the stairs, and Alfred followed as fast as he could, but too late to prevent him from entering the study and slamming the door in Alfred’s face. Shayne had arrived at that moment, and the rest of it was known to them.
Sergeant Griggs thanked him when he finished his concise recital, and asked him to send Ralph Larson in.
Patrolman Powers escorted the young reporter to the door. Ralph Larson stalked in defiantly and glared at Griggs. “Why can’t we get this over with?” he demanded witheringly. “I told you I killed him. Isn’t that enough?”
“You haven’t told me anything yet,” Sergeant Griggs pointed out coldly. “State your name and occupation for the record.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I’m Ralph Larson. I work on the News with Tim Rourke. I shot and killed Wesley Ames upstairs in his study half an hour ago. Is that what you want?”
“There’s the question of motive and premeditation,” Griggs told him, still coldly. “I understand that you threatened to kill him last night.”
“What does that mailer now? I was having some drinks with Tim and I shot my mouth off. I’m sure Tim has told you all about it with embellishments.” His mouth twisted and he shot a baleful glance across the room at the other reporter. “What the hell does my motive have to do with it? Do we have to drag my wife’s name through the mud? I killed him because he was a louse and didn’t deserve to live. Isn’t that enough?”
“Where did you get the murder gun?”
“It’s mine. I’ve got a permit for it.”
“And you came here tonight and burst into the house with a loaded gun, and you planned to kill him?” Griggs said inexorably. “It wasn’t a crime of impulse… a spur-of-the-moment thing. You’ve been planning it all day. Is that what we’re to understand?”
“I don’t give a damn what you understand. I’ve told you…”
“Don’t be a complete goddamned idiot, Ralph,” Rourke swore at him. “It wasn’t quite as coldblooded as that. Something triggered you off. Was it something Dorothy said?”
“Dorothy? No. It was that bastard Ames. Sitting there in his chair and laughing in my face when I told him to stay away from Dorothy. I told him I’d kill him and he kept on laughing. So I got my gun and did it, goddamnit.”
“Wait a minute.” Griggs looked puzzled. “When did he laugh at you?”
“This evening. Sitting there at his desk wearing that silly red vest with a row of silver buttons down the front. He didn’t even stop opening his mail long enough to listen to me. Sitting there slitting open the envelopes meticulously as though I was dirt under his damned feet. If I’d had a gun then I would have shot him.”
“This evening? You mean you were here earlier and threatened him and then went home to get your gun and came back to kill him?”
“Of course. When do you think I’m talking about? Didn’t they tell you I was here earlier? I had an appointment with him, and I didn’t bring a gun with me, damn it, so you can’t prove I was planning it all day. I was determined to have it out with him, and all I asked him was to promise to leave Dorothy alone in the future. That’s when he laughed at me and I decided to kill him.”
Sergeant Griggs said, “I think we’d better go back and sort of start over, Mr. Larson. Now then: You had an appointment with Wesley Ames this evening? What time, and what was it about?”
“I was supposed to be here at seven-fifteen to discuss an assignment for tonight. I work… have been working… for him on the side. Checking out stories from him about celebrities and getting facts for him to use in his column. I left the office a little early, a few minutes before seven, and drove out here. Vic Conroy came to the front door as usual when I drove up, saw who it was and waved me around to the side of the house where an outside staircase leads up to Ames’ study. I rang the bell at the top and he came to the door and looked through the glass, and unbolted it to let me in. He always keeps that door bolted,” Ralph went on. He seemed eager to talk now, to make them understand exactly what had happened. “I know that, and that’s the reason I didn’t go around that way later when I came back. I knew he wouldn’t let me in after I’d threatened to kill him, so I came in the front way instead.
“Anyhow, it was about seven-fifteen and he was in his study alone opening his mail and reading it… or at least glancing at each letter as he took it out of the envelope. I had it all planned… what I was going to say… and I started right in as soon as he sat back down at his desk. I told him I knew he was seeing Dorothy at night when he sent me out on assignments, and I asked him… man-to-man… to leave her alone. I reminded him that she was young and impressionable, and that he had lots of other women to play around with, and told him he was wrecking our marriage.
“And he sat there in his chair slitting open his goddamned letters and he laughed at me. He said if Dorothy wanted to pass it around he didn’t see why he shouldn’t get in line for it.
“I would have killed him then and there if I’d had a gun. I told him so. And he laughed in my face. So I went back out and down to my car and drove straight home and got my gun and came back. I hardly remember driving either way or anything.” Ralph Larson looked distraught and rubbed a hand vaguely across his forehead.
“Dorothy was there,” he said in a perplexed voice. “I remember she tried to stop me from getting my gun. She tried to tell me that Wesley Ames meant nothing to her and that I had no reason to be jealous of him. But I was halfway out of my mind, I guess. It’s all sort of blank until I was here suddenly and running up the stairs and that Puerto Rican tried to stop me. Even then I might not have done it. I don’t know,” Larson said in a troubled voice. “If he’d just begged me not to. If he’d just paid attention to me and promised, even then, that he wouldn’t see Dorothy again. But he was so goddamned superior. He just sat there leaning back in his chair looking at me and not saying a word even when I waved the gun in his face. So I shot him. What else could you do with a man like that? He slid sideways half out of his chair when the bullet hit him, and he still didn’t say anything. So, now then!” Ralph Larson lifted his head defiantly and glared at Griggs. “Does that spell everything out for you? I wish I’d had the guts to use another bullet on myself, but I didn’t.” He dropped his face into his hands suddenly and began weeping.
Sergeant Griggs stood up, looking tired and not particularly happy. He shrugged as Rourke went across the room to stand beside Ralph’s chair and put his hand on his shoulder, and walked out of the room and Shayne followed him.
He hesitated outside the door and told the detective, “I guess that ties it up in a neat bundle. You think Tim will be willing to go out with us and break it to Larson’s wife? She must be in a hell of a shape, not knowing what’s happened to her husband.”
Shayne said, “I’ll drive Tim to the Larson apartment. It’s on Northeast Sixty-First. Are you coming too?”
“Hell, I may as well get her statement for the record, and close it out,” Griggs said. “You and Tim go ahead if you like. Get the hysterics over with before I get there.”
8
As Michael Shayne drove out of the floodlighted area down to the open gate, Timothy Rourke settled back on the seat beside him and sighed feelingly. “Poor punk,” he muttered. “What’ll become of him, Mike?”
“Ralph Larson? Chances are good he’ll burn. You’ve got premeditation. Actually a killing in cold blood. It’s Murder One right on the nose.”