“I keep thinking more and more that the girl doesn’t live there,” Wilks said as he sat in Fellows’s office looking over the completely fruitless results of five men’s work. “We’ve hit every office and every shop in that town. Where else would she work? About all that’s left are the doctors and dentists, but somehow I don’t picture her as a nurse or receptionist.”
“But if you’re going to send a trunk, Sid, you’re going to send it from the nearest station, aren’t you?”
“Unless there’s some reason we don’t know about why she can’t.”
“Name one.”
Wilks was stymied. He said, “All right. She lives there. Why don’t we turn her up?”
“We aren’t asking the right people.”
“Name some right people we haven’t been asking.”
Fellows smiled. He thought for a moment and suddenly snapped his fingers. “I really am stupid.”
“What?”
“Dentists. You just mentioned dentists. There’s a possible clue right there.” He looked at his watch and picked up the phone.
“If you’re going to try to identify her through her teeth, Fred, you’re forgetting she doesn’t have any head.”
“But she’d go to a dentist, wouldn’t she?” Fellows started dialing. “That’s one place a person would almost certainly go where she’d be known.” He said into the phone, “Chief Ramsey, please. Fellows calling.” To Wilks be added, “It’s not quite five yet. We might catch a dentist or two before they go home. Hello? Ramsey? Say, what’s the name of your dentist?” He grinned at the response and said, “I want to know the dentists in Townsend. How many are there? … Well, give me the name and phone number of yours, will you?”
He wrote the data on a loose paper amid the thickly messed desk in front of him. “Norman Sinclair,” he told Wilks, and dialed the number. He caught Dr. Sinclair about to leave the office and told him the nature of his business. He wanted the names and phone numbers of every other dentist in town and the names and addresses of every woman patient under forty with the initials J.S.
The doctor was reluctant both to part with such information and to go through the files to hunt for it. “How can I be sure you’re who you say you are? This is confidential information.”
“You call me back when you’ve got it and reverse charges. Tell the operator you want Stockford Police Headquarters, Doctor. Is that satisfactory?”
“I suppose so.”
“Doctor, this is important. This is a murder case and the information may break it for us. We need your help.”
The doctor felt impressed, important, and more willing. He agreed to help and even volunteered to notify the other two dentists in town himself since they had offices in the same building. He said they’d call back with the complete list as soon as they had it ready.
It took them half an hour to assemble the information and Fellows spent it going through his own reports, listing the names of all the J.S.’s in Townsend who had been cleared. When the call came in, Fellows pulled over a fresh sheet of paper.
“We count eight such people between us,” Dr. Sinclair said. “Do you want just their names and addresses?”
“That and any pertinent information you may have such as if they’re married, have children, and the like.”
“As follows, then. Mrs. Josephine Stevens, two children—”
“She’s not the one. This woman never had a child.”
“Judy Sorenson. Eighteen, 113 Edgehill Road.”
Fellows didn’t bother with that name. “All right, next.”
“Joan Simpson, 535 Market Street. That’s all I know about her. She’s not my patient.”
“You said Joan?”
“That’s right. Jane Smathers, 169 Eastwood Street. Nothing more on her. Joan Steckle, 74 Williams Street. Mrs. Jessica Smith, 88 Eastwood Street, Mrs. Jennifer Sand—no. She’s got children. So has this one.” He paused. “I guess that’s the list.”
“Do you have phone numbers for these people?”
“Yes, you want that?”
Fellows did, and Sinclair read them off. Fellows, thanked him and hung up. “Joan Simpson, Jane Smathers, Joan Steckle, and Jessica Smith,” he said, and Wilks sat down with him to check off names and addresses against the list of cleared names. A Joan Simpson was found, but her address was different from the one Sinclair had given. “Keep her,” Fellows said. “There may be two Joan Simpsons in town.” They kept Jane Smathers too, but the other two names belonged to women on the other list who were known to be very much alive.
“Joan and Jane,” said Fellows. “Two J.S.’s all our other research failed to turn up.” He turned to the phone again. “Let’s try Joan first.”
The call was answered by a girl’s voice, and the chief said, “May I speak to Joan Simpson please?”
There was a moment’s silence and then the girl said, “Joan doesn’t five here any more.”
“When did she leave?”
“She moved out the end of January. Who is this?”
Fellows introduced himself. He said, “May I have your name?”
“Ruth Cary.”
“Could you tell me why she left and where she went?”
“She got married. I don’t know where they’re living. I haven’t heard yet.”
Fellows said, “This is very important. Will you arrange to be home at eight o’clock this evening? I want to talk to you.”
When he hung up, his eyes glowed with a steely light. “Sid,” he said, “the ceiling’s getting ready to fall in.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Tuesday, 8:00-9:00 P.M.
The Market Street address was a brick apartment house three stories high, two wings enclosing a small court. At a few minutes after eight that night, Wilks and Fellows crossed the court along a cement walk that branched to the different entries and entered the main lobby straight ahead. There, the chief set down the suitcases he carried and ran his finger down the list of names and said, “Ruth Cary, 6E.” They went out again to entry six and climbed to the top story to ring the bell.
Ruth Cary was a pretty redhead in her middle twenties with a pert manner and an interesting way of tilting her head. She looked at the two men and
