“Clyde Burchard?” the chief asked.
“That’s right.” The man did somewhat resemble the drawing Shirley Whitlock had made. He was somewhere in his thirties, an inch or two under six feet, but of a slender build that made him look taller.
“We’re police officers,” Fellows told him, pulling his badge from his pocket. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Burchard’s scowl remained, but he seemed a little less perplexed. “About what?”
“We’d rather ask them in your apartment if you don’t mind.”
Burchard apparently did mind, but there was little he could do about it. He turned and led the five men up the stairs and down a hall to an open door near the rear. The apartment consisted of a small living room with a smaller bedroom and bath. The living room was furnished in the kind of furniture landlords leave in what they call “furnished” rooms. There was a three quarter bed which served as a couch, a large cabinet radio of ancient vintage, two battered easy chairs, a bookcase against one wall, and a table with a hotplate and coffeepot on it in a comer by one of the two windows. There were curtains on the windows, but they were as drab as the wallpaper, a print of faded figures. Shades were at half mast, and the windows looked into the shaded windows of the next house, fifteen feet away.
Burchard, with his shirt open and slippers on his feet, closed the door behind them and tucked his hands inside his belt at the rear. “Well, what is it?”
Fellows and the captain sat down on the comfortable Hollywood bed, Wilks and the other detective took a look into the rest of the rooms. Harris stood with his back against the door. “We don’t like having to disturb you like this,” Fellows said, “but we have our job to do.”
“All right,” Burchard said a little testily. “You’re disturbing me. What’s the job?”
Fellows put his cap on the couch beside him and scratched his head. “You read anything about that body that was found in Stockford last Thursday?”
Burchard’s eyes flickered a little. He said, “No.”
“Highland Road was the address. It was a woman. She was in the cellar in a trunk. You know the place?”
“No. Certainly not What’s this got to do with me?”
“We don’t know yet, Mr. Burchard. That’s why we wanted to ask you some questions. You own that tan Ford in back?”
“Yes, that’s my car. What about it?”
“The fellow who lived in that house had a car like it.”
“What?” Burchard exhaled and a good deal of the strength went out of his legs. He sat down in one of the chairs.
“You happen to have rented that house by any chance?”
“No,” he breathed. “And anybody who says I did is a liar.” Wilks reappeared in the bedroom doorway. He said, “C’mere a minute, Fred.”
Fellows and Captain McGarrity both got up and followed him into the bedroom. Burchard swallowed, but didn’t try to leave his chair. There was only room for a bed, a bureau, and a night table in the room’s cramped confines, and Paulus had to leave to let the chief in. Fellows stepped past, looked around, and arched his brows. There were a dozen or more pictures of girls in the room, varying in size from snapshots to eight by ten studio portraits and no two were of the same person.
Fellows nodded with thoughtful interest, then he moved closer and made a careful examination of all the brunettes, of which there were eight. McGarrity said, “You think one of them might be the girl?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised, Captain,” Fellows murmured. “This fellow gets around. I wouldn’t be surprised at all.” He pursed his lips, studying first one, then another. “Too young, that one. Also that one. This one isn’t bosomy enough. This one, possibly. Maybe this—” He fell silent going over the rest. In the other room Burchard could be heard saying to Paulus, “What is it? What are they doing?” He was alarmed and he couldn’t keep the fact out of his voice. The chair creaked, and Paulus said abruptly, “You just stay where you are, Burchard. They don’t want to be disturbed.”
“But they’ve got no right—”
Fellows selected three of the pictures and sorted through them one after the other. “You take a girl’s head off,” he muttered, “and there isn’t much you can tell about her.” He went back to the living room again, taking the three questionable photographs with him, and sat on the couch. McGarrity joined him, looking grim. Wilks and Paulus stood by the bedroom door.
The photographs were in plain sight, and Burchard kept eyeing them. Fellows said, “Now, Mr. Burchard. What was it you said about that house?”
Burchard wet his lips. “I said I don’t know anything about it.”
“Are you married, Mr. Burchard?”
There was a little shriek in his voice as he gestured. “Do I look married?”
“That’s not an answer, Mr. Burchard.”
“No, I’m not married!”
“That’s quite a harem in your bedroom.”
“All right, I go out with girls. Is that a crime?”
“Not when Congress last reconvened, Mr. Burchard. You like girls quite a lot, don’t you?”
“I’m not a homo, if that’s what you mean.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Yes, I like girls. What’s that supposed to prove?”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Eighteen months.”
“And what’s your occupation, Mr. Burchard?”
“I sell vacuum cleaners.”
Fellows had had a faint hope he might mention hardware. This answer was even better. It was ten times better. It went a long way to explain that strange event of Mr. Campbell bringing home a vacuum cleaner when the house already had one. He looked at Wilks, and the sergeant’s answering look caused perspiration to break out on Burchard’s face. He said a little desperately, “Is that supposed to be against the law too?”
Fellows turned to him. “I think, Mr. Burchard, you’d better recognize you’re in something of a jam, here. The house where we found the dead girl was rented by a man called
