After copying down the name and address, I sealed the wallet and other items in an evidence envelope, recorded what the contents were, initialed the envelope and had Art Ward initial it too.
By then, Ken Brady had thoroughly covered the area inside the rope with his metal detector. He turned up two bottle caps, a corroded penny and a metal hairpin.
I told the two lab men they could leave, told Patrolman Mike Hurley to radio for the morgue to come after the body, and took off myself.
Number 3512 Russell Boulevard was a neat, one-story brick bungalow. An attractive brunette of about thirty-five answered the door. She wore red lounging pajamas that showed off an exceptionally shapely figure.
Taking off my hat, I said, “Mrs. Schroeder?”
“Yes,” she said.
I showed her my badge. “Sergeant Harris of the police, ma’am. Is Walter Schroeder your husband?”
“Yes,” she said, frowning. “He doesn’t live here, though.”
I raised my eyebrows. “This is the address on his driver’s license.”
“He just hasn’t gotten around to changing it. We’ve only been separated two weeks. His correct address is 4366 Maryland. That’s an apartment house.”
Taking out my notebook, I jotted down the address, then asked, “When did you last see your husband, Mrs. Schroeder?”
“Two weeks ago. Well, actually fifteen days. Since the day I had the locks changed and locked him out. I had a phone conversation with him yesterday, however. What is this all about, Sergeant?”
Long ago I learned there is no way to break the news of death gently. I said, “A man we believe to be your husband was found dead in Forest Park this morning. I’m afraid you’re going to have to come down to the morgue to identify the body.”
She paled slightly. “Walter’s dead? How?”
“He appears to have been shot. We won’t know for sure until after the postmortem. The wounds could have been made by some round-bladed instrument such as a screwdriver.”
“Wounds, you say? There were more than one?”
“Yes, ma’am. Several.”
She looked distressed. After a moment she said, “You want me to go down to the morgue with you now?”
“Yes, if you will, please.”
Stepping aside, she said, “Come in, Sergeant. You’ll have to wait while I change.”
I stepped into a tastefully-furnished living room. Mrs. Schroeder disappeared into a central hallway. I was looking around to select a seat when a man appeared from the hallway. He was a tall, powerfully-built man in his late thirties with a ruggedly handsome face but rather sullen eyes. The short-sleeved sport shirt he was wearing disclosed thick arms covered with curly black hair. Like many men with an exceptional amount of body hair, he was becoming bald on top. He was carrying a coffee mug.
“Janet says somebody killed Walter,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
He took a sip of his coffee.
“I’m Sergeant Sod Harris,” I offered.
He nodded. “How are you, Sergeant?”
“May I ask your name?”
“Sure. Sam Clayton.”
I gave him the same sort of nod he had given me. “How are you, Mr. Clayton? How well did you know Mr. Schroeder?”
His lips curled sardonically. “Well enough not to be grief-stricken.”
“Oh? Just what was your relationship with him, then?” I asked.
“Distant, Sergeant. As distant as I could keep it.”
“Let me put it another way. Were you business competitors? Or perhaps rivals for Mrs. Schroeder?”
He frowned at me. “That’s a pretty personal question, Buster.”
I smiled from the teeth out. “I often ask personal questions during homicide investigations, Buster. You want to get up an answer before I lose my patience and drag you downtown?”
He looked startled. After a moment he said warily, “You’re a bit touchy, aren’t you, Sergeant?”
“This business makes you that way. Particularly when some joker twenty years younger than you calls you Buster.”
He gave me a somewhat sheepish smile. “Okay, scratch the Buster. My relationship with Walt Schroeder was that he kept stealing things from me. First he stole my invention, then my job, then a year and a half of my life by having me thrown in prison. Finally, while I was safely out of the way, he stole my wife.”
“Let’s take things one at a time,” I suggested. “What invention did he steal?”
“My cutting torch. I used to work in the research department of the Schroeder-Moore Electronics Company. I’m an electrical engineer. I also had a home lab where I tinkered at night. My contract read that anything I developed on company time belonged to Schroeder-Moore. It said nothing about after-hours’ work on my own time. I invented a new type of cutting torch that could slice through steel in half the time the conventional type took. It was conceived entirely in my own lab, without so much as thirty seconds of company time being devoted to it. But Walt took me to court. I couldn’t afford the high-priced kind of legal talent he hired, so I lost. Then he added insult to injury by naming it the Clayton Cutting Torch. It’s one of Schroeder-Moore’s best sellers.”
“I can understand how that might leave you feeling a bit unkindly,” I conceded. “But I assume from the company name that Schroeder had a partner. What was Moore doing while Schroeder was suing you?”
Sam Clayton made a dismissing gesture. “Jake Moore had no say in company policy. He handled the manufacturing end, while Walt took care of all business matters. Actually, suit was brought in the name of the company, but all Jake knew about it was what Walt told him. Although he owns half interest, Jake is really just a sort of exalted plant manager.”
“I see. You mentioned Schroeder also stole your job.”
“Sure. After he won his case, he fired me.”
I frowned. “You also mentioned he had you thrown in prison.”
His face assumed a momentary expression of satisfaction. “I beat the hell out of him.” Then the satisfied expression faded. “They hooked me for assault with intent to kill. I had no intention of killing him, but it seems if you beat a man bad enough, they assume you meant to kill him. And I beat him pretty bad. I drew two years and served eighteen months. While I was away he moved in on Janet.” Janet appeared from the central hallway, now wearing a formfitting summer dress of mini-length with vertical pink-and-white stripes that reminded me of peppermint candy. She had lovely legs, I noted.
Apparently she had heard at least some of the foregoing conversation, because she said, “Walt was a very persuasive man, Sergeant. He actually convinced me that Sam had been trying to cheat him.” She gave her former husband a reproachful look. “Of course, if Sam hadn’t always been so secretive about his work, I would have known the truth. But he never let me in on what he was doing down in the basement.”
“How did you eventually learn the truth?” I asked.
“I gradually came to realize that Walt lied and cheated about everything,” she said in a rueful voice. “I didn’t learn the truth so much as I just finally realized it. Our marriage was breaking up even before Sam got out of prison, but that brought it to a head. The day Sam showed up here, I took one look at him, fell into his arms and began crying. When I had dried my tears, I phoned a locksmith to come change the locks.”
Sam Clayton grinned reminiscently. “Walt was kind of flabbergasted when he got home that evening. He didn’t put up much of an argument about moving out, though. Maybe because I was here to back up Janet’s ultimatum.”