“Not yet. Where’d you disappear to yesterday?”
“I looked over the house and had one of the photographers out. I got enough for a big spread.” He grinned. “You miss me?”
“Yeah. I thought you’d come up with a big new theory.”
“Give me time.” He observed Unger reading from a sheaf of papers, making notations. “What’s he doing?”
“That’s a list of all owners of tan Fords, the kind Campbell drives. He’s noting the ones who live anywhere around this area.” Hilders got out his notebook. “You going to check them all?”
“We’re after a guy who drives a tan Ford. What do you think?”
“And I can print it?”
“We’re taking the wraps off that angle. You can print it.”
Ed Lewis called in at two o’clock. “Richard Lester has a tan Ford, all right, and he used to work for the Gary Hardware Company, Chief, but he doesn’t fit the description. He’s got sandy hair.”
Fellows said slowly, “How old is he?”
“Thirty-eight, and he’s about the right build and height, but he’s got reddish brown hair.”
“Does he look anything like the picture?”
“Look, Chief. I’m telling you. He’s not the right guy.”
“Does he look like the picture, Ed? I’m asking you.”
“Well, some people might see some kind of a resemblance. Personally, I don’t.”
“What have the Stamford police got on him?”
“They questioned him. He’s married, four children, works in the shirt factory here. No dents in his fenders.”
“What was he doing nights last month?”
“Staying home.”
“Who says so?”
“He does.”
“And you’re going to take his word for it?”
“Chief, this guy—”
“Has sandy hair. Ed, anybody who can change his name can change the color of his hair. This is the closest thing to a clue we’ve had yet and I want it checked out. I want proof he’s not the right man and if you can’t get it, I want him brought in for questioning. Try to get a photograph of him or something we can show Watly or the kid.”
As the afternoon passed, Fellows grew restless. Wilks called in twice more reporting no luck and two more phone calls came in about men who resembled the picture in the paper, but none came from anyone who knew of a trunk being sent from Townsend. The picture had now brought in a total of five calls, but not one of the names mentioned could be found on the list of tan Ford owners. Despite this, Fellows had two men busy following up the leads, going out to question the men and make inquiries of their neighbors.
Late in the afternoon, Town Prosecutor Leonard Merrill dropped in from his office upstairs. He listened to Fellows’s report of no success with ill-concealed annoyance. He said, “It looks bad for the town, Fellows, when a man can commit murder and get away with it.”
“Who said he’s going to get away with it?”
“That’s what he’s doing, isn’t it?”
“So far, Len. Only so far.”
“You haven’t learned a damned thing since the inquest, have you?”
“We’ve found out a few people it couldn’t be. I don’t suppose you’d call that learning anything.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
Fellows sighed. He said, “Wheels are grinding. I guess that’s about all I can say.”
“The wheels aren’t making any noise. People in this town are thinking you’re sitting on your hands.”
“You been out taking a poll or something?”
“This isn’t something to joke about.”
“I’m not joking. I’m just reminded of this guy who had a BB gun he liked to play with. So one day he fired a shot into the ceiling and the whole ceiling fell in on him. At the hospital, one of the doctors asked him why he did it and he said he didn’t think the ceiling would fall in, he’d been shooting BBs into it for three years and it never happened before.”
Merrill said, “What are you telling me a thing like that for?”
“I’m just saying, you don’t want to be like that guy with the BB gun, Len. Sure, the wheels grinding don’t make much noise and you wouldn’t hardly know anything was happening. But you just wait and one of these days the ceiling’s going to fall down and it’s going to land right on our boy.”
“It’d better be one of these days soon,” Merrill said irritably, and went out.
Shortly after Merrill had gone, Ed Lewis returned looking gloomier than the town prosecutor. “I’ve got the proof,” he told Fellows.
“On that guy Richard Lester?”
“That’s right. Richard Lester, who works in the shirt factory. In the first place, he’s been putting in overtime for the past couple of months. This, I found out at the factory itself. He doesn’t get through until six o’clock.”
“Meaning,” asked Fellows, “that he couldn’t have been at the murder house at five-thirty.”
“That’s about it. And I talked to his neighbors. They back up the story he’s home nearly every night. In fact, on three evenings, he was with one of them. You want the dates?”
Fellows sighed. “I guess you can skip the dates.”
“And the weekend that Campbell was supposed to be in New York, this guy was home. He and his wife went to a movie with a neighbor couple. That’s Saturday before last. You want more?”
“You can keep the rest. He’s alibied.”
“I told you that earlier.”
Fellows said, “Now there’s no point in both of us losing our tempers. You can’t afford it with me and I can’t afford it for myself. It’s one more lead down the drain, that’s all. Go home, Ed. Take your shoes off and have a beer.”
Lewis managed a dry smile. “All right, Chief. Those’re the best orders I’ve heard since the body was found.”
Fellows took himself in hand after the plainclothesman left and pored over the reports, arguing that patience was the quality that would eventually break the case. A certain percentage of leads in all cases were false and it was to be expected. He’d had enough experience to know that fact, but the disgruntling thing about this particular affair was that all the false leads seemed to be coming at the beginning. He was
