Then I said, “A story hidden here somewhere, Sergeant?”
He shook his head, tapped his glass once on the bar to indicate luck and sipped at his beer. “No story, Sam.”
“Not even off the record?”
“Just a pipe dream I had, Sam. You couldn’t print it without risking a libel suit.”
“Then I won’t print it. But I got curiosity. Whose case was this Garcia’s? On Homicide, I mean.”
“Corporal Brady,” Nels said. “He wasn’t there because the thing was so routine, all they needed was the beat cop’s testimony. Probably I ought to have my head examined for wasting my time on a case I wasn’t even assigned to.”
When he lapsed into silence I asked, “What’s the story?”
He drank half his beer before he answered. Then he said, “I was just interested because this guy Hummel killed a guy once before.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Almost the same circumstances too,” the sergeant said. “A mugger down along Commercial Alley. Only that time the guy’s larynx wasn’t crushed. Hummel just choked him to death.”
“Judas Priest!” I said. “Was there an inquest?”
Nels nodded. “Routine. Happened about twelve years ago. There’s no doubt it was on the up and up. The mugger had a record as long as your arm and it was pretty well established Hummel never saw the guy before he was suddenly waylaid by him. Apparently the mugger had been loitering in a doorway for some time waiting for a likely victim to pass, for they turned up a witness placing him there a full hour before he tangled with Hummel. Picking Hummel was pure accident, and the mugger was just unlucky to jump a guy who looked soft, but turned out to have the strength of a gorilla.” The sergeant paused, then added reflectively, “There wasn’t any of this flashing a roll in dives then.” His tone as he made the last statement struck me as odd.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
But the sergeant ignored my question. “Hummel didn’t carry a gun then either. Matter of fact, it was as a result of the incident that he applied for a permit. He didn’t have trouble getting one because he’s an antique and rare coin buyer and carries large amounts of cash.”
“You’ve been doing some detailed checking on the man.” I remarked.
“Yeah. But it doesn’t add up.”
I eyed him narrowly for a moment, then signaled the bartender for two more beers. I said, “Now give me the pipe dream.”
“Pipe dream?” he asked.
“You mentioned your interest in the case was a kind of pipe dream. You think there’s some connection between the two cases?”
Nels took a sip of his fresh beer and shook his head. “I’m sure there isn’t. Not between the two muggers anyway. Maybe a kind of psychological connection.”
“What docs that mean?”
“Well,” the sergeant said slowly, “I figure the case twelve years ago was just what it seemed to be. A guy unexpectedly jumped Hummel, and Hummel killed him defending himself. So was the case today, I guess. With a slight difference. Maybe this time Hummel killed deliberately when he was jumped.”
“You mean he deliberately lured Garcia into attacking him?”
“Think back over the testimony,” Nels said. “Remember how surprised the great lawyer looked when the witness said Hummel had followed Joe in?”
“There was even something about Garcia remarking he had run into Hummel in another tavern. But why? What would be Hummel’s motive?”
Nels was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “I checked back over unsolved homicides for the past twelve years, and seven of them were guys with records as muggers. They were found dead in alleys, some strangled, some broken necks.”
“My God!” I said.
“That makes nine he could have killed.”
For a moment I couldn’t speak. “But why, for God’s sake?”
Without inflection Nels said, “Twelve years ago I imagine Robert Hummel was just a normal guy. Or at least I imagine any abnormal urges he had were merely latent. Then he killed in self-defense. My pipe dream is that maybe he discovered he enjoyed it. You’ve heard of psychopathic killers.”
“But... but...” I stuttered.
“But what? A guy flashes a roll in dives. There any law to stop him? A mugger tails him for an easy roll. The guy kills the mugger, and if nobody sees it, he just walks away. If he gets caught in the act, he merely tells the truth and the law gives him a pat on the back for defending himself against attack by a criminal. It’s a psychopath’s dream. He’s figured a way to kill legally.”
“But...” I whispered. “But... he couldn’t possibly again...”
“The law says you can use whatever force is necessary to resist attack on your person or property. If you use more than necessary, theoretically you’re guilty of manslaughter. In the case of a farmer shooting a kid stealing watermelons, we can prove unnecessary force, but how do you prove it in a case like today’s? And even if we established beyond reasonable doubt that Hummel deliberately enticed a robbery attempt... which we couldn’t do without a confession, no matter what we suspect... he still has a legal right to defend himself.”
“You mean you intend to do nothing about a homicidal maniac?”
“Sure,” Nels said calmly. “Next time we’ll put a white light in his face and hammer questions at him until Marcus Prout walks in with a writ of habeas corpus. But unless we get a confession that he used more force than necessary to protect himself, he’s safe even if he kills a man every week.”
He laughed without any humor whatever, “Beyond picking him up and questioning him every time he kills, there isn’t one damned thing in the world we can do to stop him.”
Strangers in the House
Originally published in Detective Tales, June 1953.
Chapter One
Harry Nolan slipped his key into the Yale lock, looked surprised when it failed to turn, and raised his eyes to the brass numerals over the door. The numerals were one, three and four, just as they had been when he left for work that morning.
Withdrawing the key, he examined it puzzledly, then tried to fit it into the lock upside down. It refused to enter.
Once more he tried it the right way, but when he had no more success than before, withdrew it and dropped it back in his pocket.
The lock must be broken, he thought, trying to decide what to do about it. He left the shop at four-thirty, while Helen, his wife, worked until five, so it was unlikely she was already home, but he rang the bell on the off-chance she had left work early.
To his surprise, the door was opened by a slim, red-haired woman he had never before seen.
An unprejudiced male would have considered the redhead beautiful, or at the very least pretty. But Harry was in the habit of unconsciously appraising every woman he met by the standard of Helen’s fresh sparkle. It took more than surface beauty to match that sparkle; you had to be clean and fresh inside, in love, and sure you were loved in turn. By beauty contest standards the redhead would have surpassed Helen, but all Harry saw was her brittle hardness.
When she looked at him inquiringly, Harry said, with mild bewilderment, “For some reason my key won’t fit. Is Helen home?”
The woman looked puzzled.
“I’m Harry Nolan,” he explained. “Helen’s husband.”
“Helen?” the woman said. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. There’s no Helen Nolan here.”
A man outside Harry’s range of vision called, “Who is it, honey?”
The redhead called back, “Some man looking for his wife, Kurt. Do we know a Helen Nolan?”