“But,” Lissner interrupted, “the phone company told us he was a fake attempting to rifle the coin box. We know that.”
“We know nothing of the kind,” Stone said gently. “Sure, he could have been one of the gang. Stranger coincidences have happened. But a couple of things told me he wasn’t. If he had been attempting to break into the coin box, he wouldn’t have taken down the out-of-order sign before successfully looting it and putting everything back in order. If he hadn’t opened the box in a few minutes, he would have run. He certainly wouldn’t have waited around for a second chance.”
Both Curtis and Lissner were more than a little dubious. Lissner had come up with a perfectly good explanation of Townsend’s death, and they were reluctant to abandon it. However, they could see some logic to Stone’s reasoning. “What else?” Lissner asked.
“That piece of electrical tape found in the booth. We assumed that the phone company’s serviceman left it there. But remember the phone company hadn’t sent out anyone to fix the phone, so that little piece of tape set me thinking. It convinced me that the fake repairman murdered Townsend and then drove off in the stolen truck while Lew and the other witnesses were discovering the body.”
The two detectives looked at each other and shook their heads. Curtis spoke for both of them. “I can see how Townsend could have killed himself, Ray, but what you say is impossible. The booth was completely closed. How could anyone get the ice pick into the booth without breaking the glass?”
“Very simply,” Stone explained. “He put it into the booth before Townsend entered.”
Curtis seemed puzzled. “Okay, say the ice pick was in the booth when Townsend entered. Why didn’t he see it? How’d the fake repairman get it into his back when he was at least thirty feet away?”
Stone hesitated. In his mind he had already worked out the solution to how the crime was committed and he was positive he was correct. “The ice pick wasn’t in the coin return slot. The killer used compressed air to project the ice pick into Townsend.”
“Compressed air?” The puzzled look remained on Curtis’s face.
“You know that Lew’s station has water and air hoses situated at a distance from the gas pumps, so drivers using those facilities don’t hold up the gas lines. It’s the only place in town with a setup like that. That’s why the murder occurred there. That’s why Townsend was lured to that telephone booth. It had been converted into a death chamber. The mechanics of the thing are simple. Dr Wagner’s mentioning South American Indians hunting with the poison started me thinking. The hunters use poison darts and blowguns. The killer used the ice pick as his dart and had his own version of a blowgun.”
“Sounds complicated to me,” Lissner remarked.
“Not really. This is the way I think it happened. The murderer, posing as a telephone repairman, arrives in the stolen truck ostensibly to fix the phone. Earlier he had put an out-of-order sign on the booth to keep it free for his use. He then attaches his blowgun – a light-weight cylinder of some kind, probably cardboard or plastic, and about five inches long – to the underside of the telephone book shelf with some electrical tape, so that it hangs just slightly below the shelf and points to a predetermined spot which he is sure will coincide with the victim’s heart. The shelf is just slightly lower than the shoulder blade of a man of Townsend’s height. The killer inserts the ice pick into the tube, which is just a fraction wider than the diameter of the handle. Hanging phone books effectively conceal the device from anyone entering or standing in the booth.”
Stone paused to see if Curtis or Lissner wanted to make a comment. Neither did.
“Attached to the closed end of the cylinder is a length of transparent flexible tubing – probably plastic – which the killer runs through the rear ventilation opening at the bottom of the booth. He uses a couple of short pieces of electrical tape to hold the thin hose against the framework, where it is virtually invisible. Then he goes over to the air and water island, connects his tubing to an air hose, and pretends to be checking his tires. A few seconds later Townsend enters the death chamber. The killer uses the free compressed air supplied by Lew to blow his ‘dart’ into Townsend’s back. He gives a hard tug on the tubing; the cylinder comes loose from the shelf and drops to the floor. The killer pulls it and the tubing over to his truck and drives off just as Lew and the other witnesses are rushing to the booth. Unfortunately for the murderer, one small piece of his tape remains in the booth. Any questions?”
Lissner was dubious and blunt. “Well, it’s a helluva lot more complicated than my suicide theory, but I’ll have to admit, it does account for all those bothersome little details.”
Curtis went further. “Okay, suppose we agree that the phony repairman is the killer. How do we find out who he is? He wasn’t recognized and left no fingerprints.”
The reaction of the two officers to his splendid deductions was not as enthusiastic as Stone would have liked. To give them time to appreciate his mental efforts, he got up and walked to the window. The view wasn’t good – the police parking lot with a couple of billboards thrown in for good measure. He turned to face his subordinates.
“I know,” he teased. “Don’t you?”
Both shook their heads.
“I take it we agree that Townsend was murdered. Okay, then we have to accept as fact that the murder was conceived to lead the police to label it suicide, just as you did, Fred. The murderer has to be someone who knew Townsend might have a reason to kill himself and make it appear to be murder.”
Jumping to conclusions was one of Curtis’s weaknesses. “Dr Wagner! He was the only one who knew Townsend had a tumor. And he had possession of the poison. He could easily have faked that robbery. He could get his hands on the insurance money by marrying the widow.”
“Wagner knew Townsend was going to die,” Stone said, “but I don’t believe he knew about the insurance, since he was aware Townsend was not insurable. And even if he did know about it, he had no motive to kill Townsend, since the man was going to die in a few months. Now, we know that Townsend didn’t tell his family about his illness, and Wagner says he told no one. I believe him. But Townsend himself may have told another person, and I’m certain he did.”
Curtis and Lissner sat there with open mouths.
“Fred, get a warrant and search for rubber or plastic tubing, red paint, and electrical tape. Also check the area where the telephone truck was abandoned. The blowgun device may have been discarded near there. I’d sure like to get a look at that thing. Harve, you bring in the suspect for questioning.”
“Who?” both detectives asked.
“Hall Harris.”
By five in the afternoon proof that Stone’s deductions were amazingly accurate started coming in. A search of Harris’s garage yielded some plastic tubing, a can of paint that matched that on the ice pick handle, and a roll of tape like the piece found in the booth. Detective Lissner even managed to come up with the death device Harris had put together. It was found by neighborhood youngsters in a trash dumpster a few blocks from where the phone truck had been abandoned. Lissner had enlisted the kids in the search and it had paid off for both the detective and the children. It had cost him twenty dollars in rewards, but it was well worth the money, for Harris’s fingerprints were all over the gimmick. The device looked almost exactly as Stone had envisioned it – a five-inch piece of PVC sprinkler pipe on one end of a forty foot length of quarter-inch plastic tubing and a connecting tire valve on the other. The files at Harris’s office contained a copy of the medical report supposedly signed by Dr Wagner. It was an obvious forgery.