Curtis’s eyes widened with sudden understanding. “The insurance! His wife couldn’t collect if he took his own life.”
“Right. But why such a bizarre death?” Stone wanted to know. “He could have ‘accidentally’ stepped in front of a vehicle moving at high speed or driven his car into a telephone pole, and there would have been no question of suicide or murder.”
Lissner was right on it. “Townsend was a really nice, thoughtful guy. He never wanted to do anything to hurt anyone. He probably felt a car accident might involve others or that he might be horribly injured but not killed. I think he figured if he set up an impossible murder, no one could be charged with the crime, and his family would be certain to collect his insurance. He’d taken one of those pain-killing pills and put curare on the ice pick to make death quick and certain.”
Curtis put a damper on this theory. “Yeah, but how?”
Stone didn’t answer the question. “That’s what I want you two to think about. Go on home, get a good night’s rest, and we’ll talk it over in the morning.”
After Curtis and Lissner had left, Stone sat meditating. He let his mind replay the conversation with Sergeant Kendrick and suddenly it was clear to him why Kendrick’s logical explanation was not so logical. Stone decided it would be very wise to visit the scene of the crime once more.
Lew waved to him as he pulled into the station. It was nine p.m. – about the same time that Richard Townsend had died on the previous night.
“Hi, sergeant! What can I do for you?”
Stone nodded a greeting. “Mind keeping an eye on me the way you did on Townsend?” He walked over to the booth, stepped inside, closed the door, and performed a brief experiment. Then he went back to the pumps.
“Well, Mr Hall?”
Lew pushed back his cap and scratched his forehead. “Looked like you were reenacting the crime. You went through all the same motions the dead guy did, ’cept you didn’t fall down dead. How come?”
“It helps me immensely in solving crimes if I don’t fall down dead,” Stone retorted with a suggestion of a smile. “Now pretend I’m the telephone repairman. Tell me if what I do is about what you saw last night.”
Stone drove over to the booth. He got out of his car, entered the booth, closed the door, took the receiver off the hook, put it back, bent down, straightened up, then stepped outside to the back of the booth. He knelt for a moment, then moved slowly over to the air and water service island, returned to the booth, and drove his car to the island, where he checked the tires. He walked back to where Lew was standing.
“Pretty good show, sergeant,” Lew laughed. “Like I said this morning, I didn’t see him all the time, but I’d say he did pretty much what you just went through.”
“Thanks for your help, Mr Hall.” Stone extended his hand and got a firm return shake from the station operator.
“Don’t mention it. Think it’ll help you find the killer?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Stone flung over his shoulder and he got into his car and drove off.
Harvey Curtis was already in the squad room when Stone arrived at eight the following morning. Lissner came swinging in moments later with that mile-wide grin across his face.
“Looks as if you have something to tell us,” Stone said.
“Would you believe I’ve solved this one? I knew my TV watching would pay off.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Curtis said.
“You know how we were talking about Townsend being the only one with a motive but we couldn’t figure out how he could have got that ice pick in his back? Well, I can tell you, thanks to a movie I saw last night. It’s called
“Can’t say that I have,” Stone replied. “Well, get on with your story.”
“The picture’s about this nutty millionaire who kills himself so it looks like murder, so the guy he thinks is his wife’s lover will get executed. The guy wedges a knife in the door jamb, then walks backwards into it. He falls on the floor and it looks like somebody has stabbed him in the back. That’s how Townsend did it. He wipes the handle of the ice pick clean, and holding it by the tip, puts it into the return coin slot, which held it at the right height and angle to penetrate his heart. Then all he had to do was to be sure someone was around to witness his murder and fall backward onto the blade. Sort of
Curtis slapped his thigh. “Hot damn, Fred, that’s it! Suicide made to look like murder. That’s the only solution. Well, Ray, it looks like we can toss this one in the closed file.”
“I don’t think so,” Stone said. “Townsend didn’t kill himself; he was murdered. A very clever murder, which was supposed to be termed suicide. Just as you two did.”
“Come again,” Lissner blurted.
“I don’t get it,” Curtis admitted.
Stone sighed. The two detectives were good investigative officers, but without much imagination. “The murder of Townsend was well planned and executed. Incidentally, Fred, I thought of the ice-pick-in-the-coin-slot ploy yesterday and nearly came to the same conclusion you did. I let you go through the suicide theory to see if you would agree it was the only solution, and you did. That’s the conclusion the killer wanted. He knew we’d sooner or later figure out how Townsend could have put the ice pick into his own back. Once we thought of that, we’d call it suicide and close the case. I’ll admit I was almost ready to do it. But a few things didn’t fit.”
“Such as?” queried Lissner.
“First, the telephone booth was supposedly out of order and had been fixed just before Townsend used it. Logically the repairman’s fingerprints should have been all over the phone, yet only Townsend’s were found. That told me that the repairman must have wiped the phone clean. No legitimate repairman would have done that. He might have cleaned the phone, but his prints should have been on it. Also a genuine company employee would have replaced the burnt-out light bulb and swept out the booth before putting it back into service. This one didn’t. That tells me he was a phony.”
“But,” Lissner interrupted, “the phone company told us he was a fake attempting to rifle the coin box. We know that.”
“We know nothing of the kind,” Stone said gently. “Sure, he could have been one of the gang. Stranger coincidences have happened. But a couple of things told me he wasn’t. If he had been attempting to break into the coin box, he wouldn’t have taken down the out-of-order sign before successfully looting it and putting everything back in order. If he hadn’t opened the box in a few minutes, he would have run. He certainly wouldn’t have waited around for a second chance.”
Both Curtis and Lissner were more than a little dubious. Lissner had come up with a perfectly good explanation of Townsend’s death, and they were reluctant to abandon it. However, they could see some logic to Stone’s reasoning. “What else?” Lissner asked.
“That piece of electrical tape found in the booth. We assumed that the phone company’s serviceman left it there. But remember the phone company hadn’t sent out anyone to fix the phone, so that little piece of tape set me thinking. It convinced me that the fake repairman murdered Townsend and then drove off in the stolen truck while Lew and the other witnesses were discovering the body.”
The two detectives looked at each other and shook their heads. Curtis spoke for both of them. “I can see how Townsend could have killed himself, Ray, but what you say is impossible. The booth was completely closed. How could anyone get the ice pick into the booth without breaking the glass?”
“Very simply,” Stone explained. “He put it into the booth before Townsend entered.”
Curtis seemed puzzled. “Okay, say the ice pick was in the booth when Townsend entered. Why didn’t he see it? How’d the fake repairman get it into his back when he was at least thirty feet away?”
Stone hesitated. In his mind he had already worked out the solution to how the crime was committed and he was positive he was correct. “The ice pick wasn’t in the coin return slot. The killer used compressed air to project the ice pick into Townsend.”
“Compressed air?” The puzzled look remained on Curtis’s face.
“You know that Lew’s station has water and air hoses situated at a distance from the gas pumps, so drivers using those facilities don’t hold up the gas lines. It’s the only place in town with a setup like that. That’s why the murder occurred there. That’s why Townsend was lured to that telephone booth. It had been converted into a death chamber. The mechanics of the thing are simple. Dr Wagner’s mentioning South American Indians hunting with the
