It was not a matter he could discuss with his wife.
On top of those harassments of more-or-less long-standing, this morning now, there was this murder dumped in his lap. It was the first murder that had ever occurred in Sunray Beach, and it was a real nasty kind of thing.
That nice Ellie Blake. Strangled in her own bed in the middle of the night, and not one single clue to the perpetrator of the foul deed that you could lay your hands on. It had to be some stranger, of course. Some hitchhiker or bum passing through town. It couldn’t be a local resident. Why, Ollie reckoned Ellie Blake was just about the most-respected and best-liked woman in town. And old Marv!
Everybody liked Marvin Blake. He didn’t have an enemy in the world. Look at the way he ran his garage and automobile agency. Always gave a man a fair deal for his money, and leaned over backward to give a little bit more on a trade-in than the book allowed. Good, upright, church-going people, with money in the bank and a decent mortgage on a nice house that was getting paid off regular every year.
And that cute little girl of theirs. Apple of her daddy’s eye, Sissy was. Bright as they come, and pretty as a picture. And Ellie had been noted as a mighty fine mother, too. Keeping up with the latest stuff on child psychology, but with a goodly leavening of old-fashioned motherly love to keep things in balance and make Sissy into a normal, happy child.
Thinking about Sissy and that terrible scene in the upstairs bedroom of the Blake house early that morning, Chief Jenson sighed deeply and looked at his watch. Almost ten o’clock.
Most days he carefully waited until ten o’clock for his first nip of ulcer remedy, but this day was different. He shifted his solid bulk in the swivel chair behind his desk and leaned forward with a slight grunt to open the bottom right-hand drawer. He withdrew a flat, unmarked quart bottle that was a little more than half-full of shine, and worried the cork out with his teeth. Tomorrow morning was one of Jed’s three-a-week delivery days. He put the bottle to his mouth and swallowed two long, smooth gulps just as a brisk knock sounded on the door of his office.
He lowered the bottle deliberately and replaced the cork, deposited it carefully in the drawer and pushed the door shut with his foot. He wiped his mouth unhurriedly with the back of his hand, and only then did he lean forward to touch a button on the underside of his desk which electrically unlocked the outer door.
This gadget was practically the only bit of modern equipment belonging to the Sunray Beach police department and was one of Chief Jenson’s most prized possessions. He had seen it advertized at $9.98 in a mail order catalog ten years ago and had promptly ordered it and had it installed on his door to prevent anyone from walking in unannounced while the chief might be taking a nip of his ulcer remedy.
It was an ingenious device which caused the door to latch automatically each time it was closed, and to stay locked until Ollie pressed the button beneath his desk which activated the lock. Prior to its installation, the chief had had the choice of either leaving his door unlocked and risking the unannounced entrance of any one of the friendly citizens of Sunray at an embarrassing moment, or keeping the door locked at all times and being forced to get up from his desk and waddle around to unlatch it each time he had a visitor. Now, he could take his time about pressing the button, secure in the knowledge that no one could enter, yet be ready to greet them comfortably in his chair behind the desk, giving the impression that the door must have stuck, somehow, and that Ollie had no idea how it happened to come unstuck when it did.
All three members of his Force knew about the automatic locking device, of course, and waited patiently after knocking until they heard the click of the release catch. Other visitors were wont to twist and rattle the knob, and sometimes shout loudly to attract the chief’s attention, and thus he was able to foretell rather accurately whether one of his own men or some outsider would come through the door after he unlocked it.
This morning it was Ralph Harris who pushed the door open and stepped inside. He was nominally on night duty (from 12 to 8) but with the Blake murder and all, Chief Jenson had issued orders that morning requiring the entire Force to remain on duty throughout the day. Harris had been assigned to remain at Headquarters to answer telephone calls and coordinate the search for the murderer; young Leroy Smith, technological expert, was currently on duty at the Blake house with his fingerprint kit and special vacuum cleaner gathering clues and collecting evidence; and Randy Perkins, grizzled veteran of the Force, was out driving Sunray’s only Police Cruiser up and down the highways and byways surrounding the town looking for some unknown transient who would be unable to provide an alibi for the preceding night and could be pulled in and charged with the crime.
Officer Harris closed the door behind him and reported, “There’s a newspaper reporter from Miami wants to see you, Chief. Name of Rourke. From the Miami News. I told him I’d see.”
“Miami News?” said Chief Ollie Jenson with a frown. “You know we don’t want no publicity, Ralph. Daytona and Jacksonville papers both telephoned up and I told ’em we had no comment.” He paused, blinking his eyelids fretfully and glancing over at an open copy of yesterday’s Miami News which lay on the desk. “Rourke, you say? Would that be Timothy Rourke?” He put his finger on a front-page by-lined story. “Big-shot city reporter, huh? This here’s an interview he had with the mayor of Miami.”
“I guess his name’s Timothy Rourke. You want to talk to him?”
Chief Jenson sighed unhappily. “Send him in. I guess there ain’t nothing new we got on the Blake case, is there?”
“Nothing I heard.” Harris backed out of the door and it clicked shut behind him. Ollie waited with his finger touching the release button, and pressed it when footsteps came down the hall and stopped outside. The knob turned and Timothy Rourke walked in briskly.
The chief pushed back his swivel chair and half stood, leaning forward with his left hand on the desk and his right extended toward his visitor. “Glad to meetcha, Mister Rourke. The Miami News is right on the job, huh?”
“I happened to be passing through and heard about your murder,” Rourke told him honestly, sniffing with pleasure as he shook the chief’s hand and caught the faint but unmistakable odor of sour-mash on his breath. He pulled a chair closer to the desk and relaxed in it, crossing one bony leg over the other. “What are the actual facts?”
“There just ain’t much to go on, Mr. Rourke. I got the call a little after six this morning. Minerva Wilsson phoned me. That’s Harry Wilsson’s wife. They’re the Blakes’ closest friends in town. The little girl had phoned Minerva… that’s Sissy, you know… soon’s she woke up and stuck her head into her mamma’s bedroom and seen her lying there in bed like that. She knew the Wilsson’s phone number and it was natural she’d call Minerva. She went right over and took one look and called me.
“Strangled to death in her bed, she was. Ellie. Mrs. Blake. Cold and already getting pretty stiff. Doc Higgens made a guess it happened around midnight. And that, by God and by Henry, is just about all, Mr. Rourke. Some damn hobo is my guess. Burglar, maybe. Doors were all locked, but there’s a front window in the living room unlatched and up an inch or two. Gravel path underneath it that won’t take tracks.”
“Any sign of a struggle in the bedroom?”
“Not so’s you’d notice. She was undressed and the bedcovers thrown back. Not even a nightgown, but… it was a warm night. Her clothes was kinda tossed on the floor by the bed.”
“Had she been sexually attacked?”
Chief Jenson blinked at him. “Raped, you mean?”
Rourke shrugged. “Maybe molested is a better word?”
“I don’t know how you’d go about telling… a married woman and all.” Ollie paused awkwardly. “No blood or like that.”
“There are medical tests,” Rourke told him. “An examination for seminal fluid in the vaginal passage.”
“Well, yeh, sure,” Ollie agreed uncomfortably. “Doc Higgens is making the autopsy. He’ll find out for sure I reckon. If it was that, you can bet that’s why she was murdered. Man couldn’t do nothing like that to Ellie with out he strangled her first, I’ll give you that. Mighty fine woman.”
“Anything missing from the house? Any signs of burglary?”
“That’s hard to say. Maybe Marvin can help us there when he gets back from Miami this afternoon. Going to be an almighty shock to him, I can tell you.” Jenson shook his head dolefully. “Plumb crazy about Ellie, he was. And her about him, too. Not a nicer couple in this whole town than Marvin and Ellie Blake.”
“What are you doing about finding the murderer?”
“Everything I know to do, I can tell you that. There’s word out that anybody seen a suspicious stranger hanging around yesterday is to report on it. I got the State Police alerted to watch out for hitch-hikers. My best man’s over to the house now, fingerprinting and working one of those special vacuum cleaners for any clues he can find. I got another man covering all the roads in and out of Sunray.
