The D.A. Breaks an Egg

“Now,” he said, “you can see tire treads on all four wheels. That automobile must have made a pretty sharp turn.”

“Well,” Larkin admitted dubiously, “it does show a little something, but not enough to make any identification of tires.”

“We’ll send our technician down here to make casts of those tracks,” Brandon said.

“You won’t get a thing,” Larkin warned. “Those distinctive marks aren’t deep enough.”

“Well, we can try anyway,” Brandon said.

They slowly walked back to the body, searching for prints in the grass, finding nothing.

Standing once more above the body, looking down at the features that were visible, Brandon said, “She was a mighty good-looking young girl, Doug.”

Selby nodded.

The face was that of a young woman, not over twenty-three or twenty-four. She was copper-haired, light-complexioned, trim-figured.

Selby said, “One peculiar thing, Rex.”

“What’s that?” the sheriff asked.

“We don’t see any sign of a purse,” Selby pointed out. “Of course she may be lying on it. We can’t tell for certain until we move the body, but it doesn’t look as though there’s any purse here.”

“Say, by George, that’s right,” Otto Larkin said. “Say, by George, that is right. It was a purse snatcher who did this!”

They were silent for a few seconds.

“Say,” Otto Larkin announced suddenly, “we’ve got the whole thing now. This girl was walking along here in the park. This bunch of hoodlums came along in the car... No, now wait a minute, it probably was a one-man job. He pulled the car in alongside of her, and tried to get her to go for a ride. She wouldn’t do it, but all the time this fellow was sizing her up, and he finally decided he’d snatch the purse. He jumped out and she started to run. She ran across the lawn, and he chased after her, and ordered her to stop. She probably screamed and he stabbed her through the back. Then he grabbed her purse, ran back to the car, and beat it.”

“Of course,” Brandon pointed out, “a good blow on the back of the head would have accomplished his purpose, and then he wouldn’t have faced the gas chamber in case he was arrested.”

“Some of these fellows nowadays,” Otto Larkin announced, “just don’t give a hoot. They’re crazy, absolutely nuts. Things didn’t use to be that way.”

“I know,” the sheriff admitted. “Now that we have these new highways, what with all the overcrowding in the city, we’re picking up a percentage of the city population.”

Larkin said, “If you ask me, he... a couple of cars coming.”

They walked over as Bassett stopped the cars at the barrier. One contained Harry Perkins, the coroner, the other Sylvia Martin, the trim, energetic reporter for The Clarion.

Sylvia gave the officials a friendly smile, then followed the coroner over to the body.

Perkins, a long, lanky individual, eyed the body. “Darned if it ain’t a shame. A good-looking girl like that. Anybody have any idea who she was?”

Larkin said, very importantly, “We didn’t want to move her to see if there was a purse underneath the body, but that’s going to be the significant thing. If the purse is there, we’ll probably find out who she is, and if it isn’t there, the mere fact that it ain’t is a significant clue, a mighty significant clue.”

The coroner bent by the body, felt for a pulse, said, “She’s dead, all right.” He gently inserted his hand under the body, said, “There’s no purse here, gentlemen.”

Brandon said, “I want her left here long enough for us to get some photographs and then I want to get a cast of some tire marks over here. I’m going to call my office and get my technician down here.”

Selby gently turned back the coat worn by the dead girl. “Here’s a label,” he said. “The Style Shop — Windrift, Montana.”

“Nothing to indicate who she is, no initials,” Larkin said, his voice showing disappointment. “I was hoping... I mean I wondered if she wasn’t some local girl... good family and all that. She’s wearing nice clothes.”

Sylvia Martin slipped her gloved hand in under Selby’s arm, drew him gently off to one side.

“What are they waiting for?”

“A photographer from the sheriff’s office.”

Sylvia said, “Gosh, Doug, I’ve got a deadline to meet in just about half an hour.”

Selby said, “There’s a chance — perhaps one out of fifty that she’s a transient who is registered at the hotel and...”

“Oh Doug! Couldn’t we...?”

“It’s just a chance, Sylvia, a long shot.”

“Well, why not, Doug? If she’s a transient, she’s a well-dressed transient who’d be traveling first class, and the Madison Hotel is the place she’d probably be staying.

“Oh, Doug, let’s.”

Selby thought for a moment, then sauntered over to Brandon. “I suppose you want to stay here until your photographer arrives, Rex.”

“I think I’d better, Doug.”

Selby lowered his voice so that there would be no chance of Larkin overhearing him. “Sylvia and I are going to drive up to the hotel and see if a woman of this description from Windrift, Montana, is registered there.”