Fellows said, “I guess he had. What about the car? Remember that?”
The boy fished in his jacket pocket for a cigarette to augment his sense of importance. “You can bet I do,” he said. “When it comes to cars, that’s something I know real well. This one was a 1957 Ford two-door sedan.” He lighted the cigarette with a Zippo, snapped it shut, and closed his eyes. “Blue plates,” he added, remembering. “Connecticut all right. Tan car, and dented left rear fender.” He looked again at Fellows. “How’s that?”
“That’s good, Andy. That’s very good. You’d know this guy if you saw him again?”
“Yeah. I’d know him. And I’d know his car. You bring him around and I’ll identify him for you.”
“We’ll bring him around, son. You’ll get your chance.”
CHAPTER X
Friday, 6:10-7:00 P.M.
Plainclothesman Ed Lewis was waiting in the main room of headquarters, talking to Wilks and Sergeant Gorman, when Fellows and Harris got back. The chief pulled off his cap and unzipped his jacket and said, “Jesus, Ed, I thought you died or something.”
‘Tve been collecting information, Chief.”
“You ought to have the encyclopedia by now. Gorman,” Fellows told the sergeant, “get out and get some coffee, will you? I’m hungry and cold.”
“You want a sandwich to go with it?”
Wilks said, “Just get him coffee. He’s on a diet.”
“Coffee and cigarettes,” Fellows said. “It’s great for the weight.” Gorman went out, and Fellows stripped off his jacket and sat down. “How is it, Ed? Good?”
“I think it is.” Lewis took out a notebook and flipped the pages. “First I went to the railroad station. They remembered the trunk and the girl. You know that town five miles south of Ashmun?”
“Townsend?”
“Yeah. Well, that’s where the trunk was shipped from. It was checked through on the girl’s ticket and came in on February second. That’s Monday. It was delivered to the house that afternoon. I hunted up the guy who made the delivery and that took a little time. He remembered it, but he didn’t have much to tell. He took it to the girl’s house and put it in the cellar for her, right where we found it.”
“He tell you what the girl was like?”
“Yep. About five-six and a half, a hundred and thirty pounds or so. He couldn’t guess her weight too well, just said she was built right for her height, not fat, not thin. The description fit the body, or what we know of the body. She had dark hair, looked about thirty, like MacFarlane says she was, rather pretty, but kind of hard. Not tough looking, but like a girl who knew her way around.”
“Like it wasn’t the first time she’d been with a man?” suggested the chief.
“Like it wasn’t even the second.”
“What else?”
“Well, as I say, the trunk arrived on the second, but the girl, she arrived on Sunday the first. I talked to the cab drivers. A driver named Dan Pettigrew remembered taking her out to the house that day. He wasn’t sure of the day until he checked his records, but that’s when it was, and he remembers the whole thing. She came in on the twelve-thirty train, which made a stop at Townsend at twelve-fifteen. Pettigrew remembers her because she was the only person who got off and she had two suitcases which she took with her across the street to the Bar-Ritz lunch counter, where she had a sandwich. She was wearing, he said, a fur coat and a tailored suit which was dark blue or black.”
Fellows said, “Which we found in her trunk, right, Sid?”
“There was a fur and a dark suit.”
Lewis nodded. “I checked the lunch counter and they don’t remember her, but that doesn’t mean anything. She came out again with the suitcases and took Pettigrew’s cab. He drove her out and talked to her some. She was polite, but she didn’t talk more than she had to. She admitted she was new in town and she and her husband were going to live at the place for three months while he was assigned to this territory. He tried to pump her—”
“Three months?” Fellows interrupted.
“That’s what she told him.”
“But the house was only rented for one month.” Fellows rubbed his chin. “I guess this man Campbell was snowing that girl right down the line.”
“Sounds like it, Chief,” Lewis answered. “For one thing, she told the cab driver he was in the hardware business, representing this territory. That’s what he told the real estate guy.”
“Hardware,” Fellows mused. “That occupation keeps coming up.”
“I think that’s where we’re going to find our man, Chief. He’s going to be in hardware someplace.”
“I wonder if he owns a hardware store,” Fellows said thoughtfully.
“Cutler’s?” put in Wilks.
The chief smiled. “You can check it out, Sid. Go on, Ed.”
“That’s all Pettigrew got out of her, Chief. Hardware and three months. He took her bags to the front door for her and she paid him off and let herself in and that was that.”
“She had a key, then?”
“Yeah. Campbell must’ve given it to her.”
“I don’t get it,” Fellows grumbled. “If he’s in contact with the girl right along, why does he rent a house for her? What’s wrong with the place she’s already living at?”
“She’s got a family or something,” Wilks suggested.
“So what’s a family? They go to bed, don’t they? Besides, how’s she going to explain going off like that to a family? He sets her up in a house, not to live with her, but to visit her evenings, which he could do wherever she already was living. There’s only one reason I can see for that. He must have planned to kill her all along. She probably told him she was pregnant and he wanted to get rid of her.”
Lewis said, “I thought MacFarlane said she wasn’t pregnant.” Fellows shrugged. “That doesn’t stop her from telling him she is, does it?”
“No.
