“Not if you keep it noiseless. Continue.”
Curtis shifted the wad to the side of his mouth. “Hal Harris moves in an entirely different social circle than Townsend did. He’s the country club type. Young, dynamic. Hell, he’s only twenty-nine, but he has an extremely lucrative business. He has a gorgeous wife, no kids. His only connection with Townsend is that he happens to be his insurance agent.”
“What about any others? Lew Hall, the bookstore girl?”
Lissner stirred uneasily. “Nothing there, Ray. Janice Carter is just a college student who works part time at the bookstore. No romantic involvement with Townsend. She’s got a steady boyfriend. Townsend bought his gas regularly at a station downtown. Probably had never been to Lew’s before, but he could have driven past it many times because it’s near Dr Wagner’s office.”
“It would be great to find a motive,” Curtis added. “A motive would lead to a suspect. Now we don’t have either.”
“So where does that leave us?” Lissner answered his own question: “With an unsolvable murder. Cripes, let’s face it, this one’s impossible. No one could’ve killed Townsend from either inside or outside the booth.”
Curtis was quick to agree. “Right. And even though Townsend had a motive for suicide, he couldn’t have stabbed himself in the back. Not even a well-trained contortionist could have done that. And even if he could have, he would have left prints on the ice pick handle. And there were no prints.”
All three sat silent, thinking. After a few moments, Stone said, “Look, either it’s murder or suicide. There’s no way we can call it an accident. Now, Townsend did have a compelling motive for suicide. He had a brain tumor and could have been suffering unbearable pain. But why would he want his suicide to look like murder?”
Curtis’s eyes widened with sudden understanding. “The insurance! His wife couldn’t collect if he took his own life.”
“Right. But why such a bizarre death?” Stone wanted to know. “He could have ‘accidentally’ stepped in front of a vehicle moving at high speed or driven his car into a telephone pole, and there would have been no question of suicide or murder.”
Lissner was right on it. “Townsend was a really nice, thoughtful guy. He never wanted to do anything to hurt anyone. He probably felt a car accident might involve others or that he might be horribly injured but not killed. I think he figured if he set up an impossible murder, no one could be charged with the crime, and his family would be certain to collect his insurance. He’d taken one of those pain-killing pills and put curare on the ice pick to make death quick and certain.”
Curtis put a damper on this theory. “Yeah, but how?”
Stone didn’t answer the question. “That’s what I want you two to think about. Go on home, get a good night’s rest, and we’ll talk it over in the morning.”
After Curtis and Lissner had left, Stone sat meditating. He let his mind replay the conversation with Sergeant Kendrick and suddenly it was clear to him why Kendrick’s logical explanation was not so logical. Stone decided it would be very wise to visit the scene of the crime once more.
Lew waved to him as he pulled into the station. It was nine p.m. – about the same time that Richard Townsend had died on the previous night.
“Hi, sergeant! What can I do for you?”
Stone nodded a greeting. “Mind keeping an eye on me the way you did on Townsend?” He walked over to the booth, stepped inside, closed the door, and performed a brief experiment. Then he went back to the pumps.
“Well, Mr Hall?”
Lew pushed back his cap and scratched his forehead. “Looked like you were reenacting the crime. You went through all the same motions the dead guy did, ’cept you didn’t fall down dead. How come?”
“It helps me immensely in solving crimes if I don’t fall down dead,” Stone retorted with a suggestion of a smile. “Now pretend I’m the telephone repairman. Tell me if what I do is about what you saw last night.”
Stone drove over to the booth. He got out of his car, entered the booth, closed the door, took the receiver off the hook, put it back, bent down, straightened up, then stepped outside to the back of the booth. He knelt for a moment, then moved slowly over to the air and water service island, returned to the booth, and drove his car to the island, where he checked the tires. He walked back to where Lew was standing.
“Pretty good show, sergeant,” Lew laughed. “Like I said this morning, I didn’t see him all the time, but I’d say he did pretty much what you just went through.”
“Thanks for your help, Mr Hall.” Stone extended his hand and got a firm return shake from the station operator.
“Don’t mention it. Think it’ll help you find the killer?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Stone flung over his shoulder and he got into his car and drove off.
Harvey Curtis was already in the squad room when Stone arrived at eight the following morning. Lissner came swinging in moments later with that mile-wide grin across his face.
“Looks as if you have something to tell us,” Stone said.
“Would you believe I’ve solved this one? I knew my TV watching would pay off.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Curtis said.
“You know how we were talking about Townsend being the only one with a motive but we couldn’t figure out how he could have got that ice pick in his back? Well, I can tell you, thanks to a movie I saw last night. It’s called Rage in Heaven. Stars Ingrid Bergman and Robert Montgomery. Both dead now, but they live on in the movies. Maybe you saw it?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Stone replied. “Well, get on with your story.”
“The picture’s about this nutty millionaire who kills himself so it looks like murder, so the guy he thinks is his wife’s lover will get executed. The guy wedges a knife in the door jamb, then walks backwards into it. He falls on the floor and it looks like somebody has stabbed him in the back. That’s how Townsend did it. He wipes the handle of the ice pick clean, and holding it by the tip, puts it into the return coin slot, which held it at the right height and angle to penetrate his heart. Then all he had to do was to be sure someone was around to witness his murder and fall backward onto the blade. Sort of hara-kiri in reverse.”
Curtis slapped his thigh. “Hot damn, Fred, that’s it! Suicide made to look like murder. That’s the only solution. Well, Ray, it looks like we can toss this one in the closed file.”
“I don’t think so,” Stone said. “Townsend didn’t kill himself; he was murdered. A very clever murder, which was supposed to be termed suicide. Just as you two did.”
“Come again,” Lissner blurted.
“I don’t get it,” Curtis admitted.
Stone sighed. The two detectives were good investigative officers, but without much imagination. “The murder of Townsend was well planned and executed. Incidentally, Fred, I thought of the ice-pick-in-the-coin-slot ploy yesterday and nearly came to the same conclusion you did. I let you go through the suicide theory to see if you would agree it was the only solution, and you did. That’s the conclusion the killer wanted. He knew we’d sooner or later figure out how Townsend could have put the ice pick into his own back. Once we thought of that, we’d call it suicide and close the case. I’ll admit I was almost ready to do it. But a few things didn’t fit.”
“Such as?” queried Lissner.
“First, the telephone booth was supposedly out of order and had been fixed just before Townsend used it. Logically the repairman’s fingerprints should have been all over the phone, yet only Townsend’s were found. That told me that the repairman must have wiped the phone clean. No legitimate repairman would have done that. He might have cleaned the phone, but his prints should have been on it. Also a genuine company employee would have replaced the burnt-out light bulb and swept out the booth before putting it back into service. This one didn’t. That tells me he was a phony.”