Prisoner's Base

"Hagh and his lawyer, Irby. Also Andy Fomos. They left a little after midnight. Sometime during the evening one of them took the keys to Sarah Jaffee's apartment out of her bag. She didn't miss them until she got home, and she phoned me, and I'm here now in her apartment. Whoever took her keys came and got in and waited for her, and at two minutes to two he conked her and strangled her, and she's dead. She's here on the floor. I'm telling it like this because it's now just two-thirty-six, and thirty-eight minutes isn't much time for getting out of this building and getting somewhere, and if you get a move on-"

"Is this straight, Goodwin?"

"Yes."

"You're in the Jaffee apartment now?"

"Yes."

"By God, you stay there!"

"Drop that phone and get your hands up!"

It was a little confusing, with two city employees giving me commands at once, one on the phone and one in person but behind my back. Purley Stebbins had hung up, so that was all right. I turned, lifting my hands plenty high enough to show that they were empty, because there is no telling how a random flatfoot will act just after discovery of a corpse. He may have delusions of grandeur.

Evidently he was alone. He advanced, with his gun poked out, and it was no wonder if his hand was not perfectly steady, for it was a ticklish situation for a solitary cop, knowing as he did that I was armed. Probably he also knew of Sarah Jaffee's connection with Softdown and Priscilla Eads, since it had been in the papers, and if so why shouldn't I be the strangler the whole force was looking for and therefore good for a promotion and a barrel of glory, dead or alive?

"Look," I said, "I've just been talking to Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Manhattan-"

"Save it." He was dead serious. "Turn around, go to the wall, slow, put your palms up high against the wall, and keep 'em there."

I did as I was told. It was a routine arrangement for a solo frisk, and when I was in position I expected to feel the muzzle in my back and his hand going through me, but no. Instead, I heard him dialing the phone, and in a moment his voice. "This is Casey, gimme the lieutenant… Lieutenant Gluck? Casey again. I came on up to the Jaffee apartment alone without waiting. I walked right in on him cold, and he's here, and I've got him covered… No, I know that, but I've got him and I'll keep him until they come…"

That was the kind of specimen, flushed by the hackie, who had me with my palms pressed against the wall.

Chapter 14