The five day nightmare, p.7
The Five-Day Nightmare, page 7
“Poor, poor cat,” I said to her intense blue eyes, “didn’t I put down enough food this morning to see you through? Or are you just lonesome?”
She didn’t answer and I didn’t want to get into the lonesome angle, so I went out into the kitchen to feed her. I started to reach for a can of cat food and then remembered I’d seen an unopened half pint of rich coffee cream in the refrigerator; I’d never use that all up myself before it soured, so I gave her about half of it in her dish. Cheetah won’t drink anything as plebeian as ordinary milk but rich cream really sends her.
She lapped it hungrily but daintily and almost finished it. Then, without even looking at me, let alone thanking me, she went to the cat door in the kitchen door and let herself out into the darkness leaving me alone.
I started pacing the floor, wishing now that I hadn’t eaten out; at least getting myself something to eat would give me something to do for a while. I considered building myself a drink but put the temptation behind me. I’d gone that route last night and I’d needed it then, but from now on no more solitary drinking. And none quite as social as when I’d let Joe load me.
I told myself that I didn’t really want a drink anyway, that I was in a lot better shape than I’d been last night, at any rate. I’d got started, despite its being a Saturday. And I was twenty-four hours closer now to having Ellen back. Four days now instead of five.
Not that the days would be bad, after tomorrow; Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I’d be so damned busy I wouldn’t have time to think. The nights would be the worst, the long nights. Like tonight; it was only ten o’clock and I didn’t feel as though I’d be either tired or sleepy for hours yet. My sleep on the plane had been a good idea then; now I wished that I hadn’t taken it.
The telephone rang and I picked it up and said hello.
“Lloyd? This is Randy. Called you a time or two before but you were out. Uh—you got a party line?”
“No, private.”
“Good. So’s mine. So we can talk freely—unless someone else is with you at your end?”
“No,” I said. “I’m alone.”
“Good. Wait, I don’t mean it’s good you’re alone. In fact, that’s what I called up about, to offer you company and conversation for a while. I’ve been through just what you’re going through right now, so I know how you feel. Or were you thinking of turning in soon?”
It sounded like a good idea. “Lord, no,” I said. “I took a plane ride this afternoon and slept a few hours. Tell you about it later if you’re coming over. But I was just wondering when, if ever, I’d get to sleep tonight. Last night I drank myself to sleep—but that’s nothing to do twice in a row.”
“Right you are. I’ll run over a while then. It’s not much after ten and I never turn in before midnight anyway. Listen, I’ve got your address from the phone book, but save me looking at a map. Where’s Birnam Street?”
I gave him directions, the best route from his place.
“About twenty minutes,” he said. “Oh—you’re not on the wagon completely, are you? Should I bring something along? We can have a drink or two to lubricate conversation without tying one on.”
“Good idea,” I said, “but don’t bring anything if you like gin, got plenty of that. And some vermouth to match if you like Martinis. Had half a fifth of whiskey but I killed most of that last night.”
“Martinis sound fine. See you in twenty minutes.”
I put down the phone and wondered what to do for twenty minutes. Then I remembered that the evening paper would be outside somewhere. Probably in the flower bed that ran along the front of the house; that’s where it usually landed when the boy threw it from his bicycle. I turned on the front outside light and went out and found it there, brought it in and left the outside light on so Early could spot the house easily.
I checked the local story headlines carefully, in case there was by any chance anything new on either of the first two kidnapings. There wasn’t, nor was there any crime story at all that seemed to have even a possible connection. A headline on narcotics caught my eye until I read enough of the story to learn that it concerned two teen-agers picked up for smoking marijuana, charged with possession and use. Marijuana and morphine are pretty far apart, and anyway kidnaping isn’t a teen-age crime, particularly the professional, systematic type of kidnaping I was up against. As far as tonight’s paper was concerned kidnaping was forgotten. Not even an editorial. I remembered now that there had been several editorials after the Sears woman had been found dead, charging the police with carelessness in letting it leak out that they had been notified of the kidnaping. The editor pointed out that Sears had taken every possible precaution when he’d gone to the police, directly to the chief, with his story, so the leak that had caused the kidnaper to murder his victim instead of even trying to collect the ransom must have come from the police department somehow.
Come to think of it now, that angle—how the kidnaper could have known that Sears had gone to the police—was something I’d wanted to ask Joe about. Certainly Sears had been cautious enough the night of the kidnaping. But had he been careless later? Or had the news really, as the editorial had implied, trickled down through the police department and outside it? There’d certainly been nothing in the newspapers; the writer of the editorial had been most emphatic in pointing that out.
I heard a car stop in front and had the door open by the time Early got out of the car and started up the walk.
“Should have had a pitcher of drinks ready,” I said as he came in. “But I’d forgotten tonight’s paper and had to look it over. Nothing in it.”
He grinned a little. “A plane crash in Florida with forty-two killed, one new African revolution, atomic war with Russia one step closer, two new satellites put in orbit— Yeah, I know what you mean by nothing in the paper. There were a few days when I didn’t find any news in the paper either. I see where your kitchen is; sit down and relax and let me mix the Martinis. I’m an expert.”
I said, “Everybody who makes them at all thinks he’s an expert. Come on, let’s do it together.”
It turned out we both liked five-to-one, so there wasn’t anything to argue about. Except for the minor difference that I measured mine and he thought it should be played by ear and claimed that nothing measured could be a work of art nor could it have a soul. We harmonized again, though, in agreeing that a true Martinian never desecrated his drink with olive, onion, lemon peel, or any other extraneous object. I poured the dividend, enough for another drink apiece, off the ice and put it in the refrigerator to stay cold. Cheetah must have heard the refrigerator door that time for she came in the cat door and Early jumped several inches as it flapped shut, then laughed at himself when Cheetah miaouwed.
We took our drinks into the living room and made ourselves comfortable.
He led off. “I can tell you something now I couldn’t last night. If you need it, if it might make the difference, I can lend you three thousand, in cash, by Monday evening. Besides co-signing a note, if you want me to do that too.
“When I was raising thirty-five grand myself there was one asset I couldn’t touch, a life insurance policy; I’d made Helen the irrevocable beneficiary, which meant I couldn’t even borrow against it without her signature. Still can’t for that matter, but we talked it over today and she’s willing—glad—to sign. The loan value’s just a few bucks over three thousand as of this date. And until you’re on your feet again—I know you’ll be going in hock in all directions the way I did—all you have to do is keep up the interest payments, around a hundred and fifty a year. The loan won’t come through that quick, of course, but I talked to my insurance man—don’t worry; I didn’t give anything away—and he’ll advance me the money out of his own account until the loan does come through. All I’ll have to do is pick up his check Monday and turn it into cash for you.”
“Thanks, Randy, but—thanks, but I think I can make it without that. Depends on whether I can swing a refinancing deal on this house—and, as you’d be doing with your insurance agent—get the money in advance of unwinding the red tape. I can make it, without too much sweat, if that goes through and for the amount I’m counting on. I’ll know, maybe by tomorrow night, for sure by Monday.”
“Fine,” he said. “If a wheel comes off, or if you get less than you’re counting on, let me know Monday evening and I’ll have the cash for you Tuesday evening, still in plenty of time. Keep it in mind. About this house—none of my business what equity you’ve got in it, but did you pay about twenty-five thousand for it when you bought it?”
I nodded. “On the head. You’re a good appraiser.”
“Hell, I’m no appraiser at all, and I just got a glimpse of the outside and I’ve seen only two rooms inside, don’t even know how many you have. But it fits a hunch I’ve got, if it did cost just about that. It makes the hunch into a probability instead of a wild guess.”
“What’s the hunch?”
“That the kidnaper figures how much money a man can raise by how much his house cost him. Regardless of what equity he has in the house. It’s as good a rule of thumb as any, I guess. I paid thirty-four thousand five hundred—thirty-five as near as matters for mine. I’m not talking about the house you saw last night—guess I told you that’s rented. I mean the house I had to sell. It didn’t hurt me to sell it, incidentally; it was too damn big a house for just the two of us. I bought it when Helen was expecting a child, and we expected to have more children. But she not only lost the child, but was told she couldn’t ever have one because—hell, you’re not interested in that.
“And Sears’ house cost him twenty-six thousand—with the nearest even figure being the twenty-five the kidnaper asked him for. That Sears and I should respectively have been nicked for approximately what we paid for our houses could have been a coincidence. But with you joining the parade—well, I’d say it’s probable now, not just possible, that that’s the bit of information he uses to set his prices. Something easy enough to look up, too, for anyone who knows how and where real estate transactions are recorded.”
I thought it over. Cheetah had joined us in the living room and she jumped up on the sofa beside Early and let him stroke her. “You’re a member of the family,” I said. “She doesn’t let many people do that to her. Not even me very often. But I think you’ve got something on that rule of thumb business for ransom payments. At least for people in middle-or upper-middle-income brackets. People who live in twenty to fifty thousand dollar homes, say. A man who owns a five-thousand-dollar house might not be able to raise five hundred bucks even under forced draft, unless he had more than a down payment or so in the house. And it wouldn’t work for the other end of the spectrum either—a man who could raise half a million or more wouldn’t have that much invested in the house he lived in. But for people like us—yes, could be.”
“Income would be a better basis,” Early said, “but unless you have access to income tax returns—and damn few people do—that’s harder to learn or even guess than how much a man paid for his home. Especially for somebody who’s self-employed, as you are. Or Sears. But anyone can take a look at a man’s home and at least make a flying guess what it cost. Or find out fairly close by pricing a house or two for sale that look to be in about the same category.
“Well, hell,” he said, “you’ve probably been wanting to ask questions and I’ve been doing all the talking without giving you a chance. Shoot.”
I remembered what I’d been wondering about earlier. “How do you figure—or how do the police figure—the kidnaper learned that Sears had gone to the police about his wife?”
“Well—there are several possibilities. How much do you know or remember about the case? Last night I told you quite a bit about the Early case, but we didn’t go into the Sears one much.”
“I saw my partner Joe today. I told him the truth about things— almost had to, in his case. But he’s the only one who knows, outside of you and me and the kidnaper, and I know damn well Joe won’t spread it. Ellen’s his cousin, incidentally.”
He shook his head. “You’re forgetting one other person who knows your wife was kidnaped, though. My wife. But don’t worry about her—she’s been there herself. Thumbscrews wouldn’t get it out of her. But I thought we were leading into how much you know or remember about the Sears deal. What’s your seeing or telling Joe Sitwell got to do with that?”
“I was getting there, roundabout.” I told him about Willie Tregoff being a friend of Joe’s and having talked to him about both cases while he was working on them, to explain how, while Joe and I had had time together, he’d been able to brief me fairly well on the Sears case.
“Tell me how much he told you,” Early suggested, “and maybe I’ll be able to add a little, or a lot. Believe me, I studied that case thoroughly, after I had my wife back. I’ve talked it over with several cops, Willie Tregoff included, and two F.B.I. men. And I think they’ve all leveled with me. In fact, I know several things I promised not to pass on, that they don’t want the kidnaper even to guess that they know. But I think that you’d be an exception to that promise, since you’re in the same boat I was in.”
“Okay,” I said, and told him everything Joe had told me that afternoon.
He thought a minute. “Well—”
“Hold the well,” I said. “I’ll refill our glasses.”
When we had drinks again, he said, “Well, Willie pretty near leveled with Sitwell, but not quite. There’s one point they’re really keeping under cover, and probably Tregoff had orders not to mention it to anyone, even his closest friend—or to his wife if he’s got one.”
“He hasn’t,” I said. “What’s the secret?”
“They’re not really working the narcotics racket side of the street. Oh, they keep in touch with the narcotics boys on the off chance, but they don’t figure that either a pusher or an addict is involved. Unless maybe it’s an addict who’s a doctor—quite a few doctors do become addicts, you know. They have such easy access to drugs like morphine that it’s an occupational hazard with them. But anyway they think it’s someone with a little more than a layman’s medical knowledge.”
“You mean the way the shots were given, the exactness of the amounts—?”
“No, no. Oh, that too, but any layman, addict or not, could learn proper dosages for morphine by a bit of study in a book on materia medica.
“No, here’s what they’re keeping secret: Morphine sulfate was the principal drug used, but not the only one. They found traces of two others, scopolamine and sodium amytal. Drugs a layman would have heard about but would never think of using or know how to use if he did think of it. But if you want to make a person unconscious for a reasonable period of time, and safely, a shot of, say, a quarter grain of morphine sulfate mixed with about a hundred and fiftieth of a grain of scopolamine is better than straight morphine. And for keeping your victim out cold for an extended period—three or five days—you’re better off—or your victim is—if, instead of using those shots every four or six hours, you reinforce those shots once in a while, or even alternate, with sodium amytal.”
“But hell,” I said, “wouldn’t the kidnaper, if he knew that much, know that all three drugs would have shown up in an autopsy?”
“Not necessarily, even if he was a doctor. The doing of autopsies, and just what they show and don’t show, is pretty much of a specialized branch of medicine. Besides, an ordinary average coroner doing a routine autopsy would probably have settled for the morphine and let it go at that. But the F.B.I. had a Dr. Boettinger flown here from San Francisco to do the autopsy; he’s the top man in the country in that field. And when he came up with scopolamine and sodium amytal traces besides the morphine, they decided to keep the whole thing under cover including who did the job. According to the newspaper reports, and as far as anyone except a few on the inside knows, the regular coroner, Dr. Stofft, did the autopsy. And he’s just a general practitioner and morphine is probably all he would have come up with.
“It makes sense that that’s all he’d have found because the cause of death was plain morphine. He used it straight—and plentifully—to administer the lethal shot. The scopolamine and the amytal barely showed, as traces. Especially the scop—he may have used scop with the morphine only in the first shot he gave each of the women.”
“Why in the first shot if not in the others?”
“Well, we know his modus operandi with my wife, and it seems reasonable to assume he used the same one with Mrs. Sears and with your wife. Knocked her unconscious with a blackjack. And probably, although this isn’t positive, he gave her a first shot inside the house before he took her out the door to his car. I say that isn’t certain, but it damn near is. He couldn’t know just how long she’d be unconscious from the blow with the blackjack and he wouldn’t take the chance of her coming to, and starting to scream for help, while he was taking her wherever he took her. Even if he used a closed panel truck, he wouldn’t chance that. With me so far?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Then look at his next problem. Getting her to the car—or truck or whatever transport he used. All three houses, yours, Sears’ and the one I lived in at the time, have driveways along the side leading to garages in back, and the houses have side doors as well as front and back ones. We know, in my wife’s case, that he used that side door, so it’s probable that he used the same m. o. in the other two cases. So he’s got an unconscious woman and the problem of getting her to his car. If he’d driven the car back into the driveway near the side door, it wouldn’t be far to carry her, but there’d be a chance of someone walking by and glancing back or someone happening to look out a window of the house next door, and seeing him. So he wouldn’t carry her in his arms, unconscious, if he didn’t have to. And he didn’t have to.
“He could have waited a minute or a few minutes until she showed signs of starting to regain consciousness and then given her a shot of morphine sulfate mixed with scopolamine. It would start working as the effects of the blackjack blow wore off, and for a while, for a few minutes before she went under the drugs completely, she’d be in a semiconscious, almost somnambulistic state. He could help her to her feet, take her by an arm and simply walk her to the car and put her in it. She’d be sleep-walking, not knowing what was going on, but she’d look okay to anyone who happened to see her from a distance.
