Murder Applied For. Lloyd Biggle, jr.
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was better that way. He stepped through the doorway, and a man he’d never seen before rose to greet him.
“Mr. Webber?”
Webber nodded.
“I’m Jim Huss. City Engineer.” They touched hands perfunctorily. “Wonder if I can have a few words with you.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Mahoney had vanished silently, a very neat trick for one with her bulk. Webber saw no point in obliging the man to walk upstairs, so he waved him back to the chair he had been occupying, and seated himself on the sofa.
“I heard about—Frank Milford,” Huss said. “I was shocked. For several reasons.”
Webber nodded. Huss paused and looked away, seeming to find something fascinating about Mrs. Mahoney’s battered piano. His appearance was colorless, if not nondescript. His trousers were not baggy, but neither were they sharply pressed. His stooped shoulders and rimless bifocals suggested that he spent his days peering at blueprints. He was slender, but with an incongruous hint of a paunch. Webber noted the streaks of grey in his hair, and guessed his age as fifty-five.
And he was plainly uncertain of himself, if not embarrassed. His voice was soft, his words halting. “Shocked,” he said again.
Webber’s curiosity was almost overbalanced by the tasks ahead of him. He waited silently, his mind on funeral arrangements, and notifying relatives, and searching Frank’s papers for a will and insurance policies. It would complicate matters if Frank had a safe deposit box, but Webber couldn’t recall him ever mentioning one.
Huss turned back to Webber and looked away again. He said, almost apologetically, “You see, Frank Milford was working for me.”
“Really? What sort of work?”
“An investigation.”
“Strange he never mentioned it,” Webber said.
“I asked him not to mention it to anyone. It was strictly confidential.”
“I see.”
“Now I’m wondering—well, it seemed pretty certain, from what the police said, that he was run down deliberately. I’m wondering if it could have had anything to do with—well—”
“Your investigation?”
Huss nodded.
“Since I don’t know anything about your investigation, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’d suggest that you bring the matter to the attention of the police. Immediately.”
“I was also wondering if he’d left any notes, or records, of what he was working on.”
“I’ll have to go through his papers,” Webber said. “I can look. But wait—I’d have to have some idea of what to look for.”
“Yes.” Huss was studying the piano again. “I don’t suppose it would be possible for me to—well, look—”
“I don’t suppose so,” Webber said firmly. “I’m not familiar with the legal complications, but eventually there’ll be an executor, either court-appointed or named in a will, and if you think anything among Frank’s personal effects might be your property, you apply to him for it.”
“But you said you had to go through his papers.”
“Only to see if he left a will, and to see if there are any relatives who should be notified. That sort of thing.”
“I see.”
“So I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“Can I rely on your discretion?”
“Within reason,” Webber said. “If I were to turn up anything relating to Frank’s death, I’d have to turn it over to the police.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean that kind of discretion. It’s just that there’s been too much loose talk already. There have been some nasty rumors about fraud in city construction contracts. I asked Frank Milford to investigate them—the rumors, not the fraud. We’ve investigated the possibility of fraud ourselves two years ago—investigated thoroughly. Mayor Kambas even hired a team of outside engineers to conduct an independent investigation. There’s no basis for the rumors, but they persist. Obviously they’re politically motivated. If we could find out where they’re coming from, we could put a stop to them.”
“When you hired Frank, did you tell him that the job might be dangerous?”
Huss shook his head. “It never occurred to me. But as soon as I heard he’d been killed—deliberately—why then I thought if he’d turned up information exposing certain people—”
“You may be right,” Webber said slowly. “A car followed Frank all afternoon, waiting for an opportunity.” And by coincidence, the opportunity occurred when he stopped to telephone Hendricks. An ironic break for the murderers of Betty Parnet, whose murder might have gone undetected if Frank Milford had died sooner—or later.
“I’ll be on the lookout,” Webber said. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“Thank you.”
Webber showed Huss to the door, thanked Mrs. Mahoney again and wearily climbed the stairs to the apartment he had shared with Frank Milford. The telephone was ringing when he opened the door. It was Bob Hendricks.
“None of them recognized her,” he said. “The doctors can say positively that the girl they examined wasn’t Betty Parnet, because they have their examination records. The real Betty Parnet has no operation scars. The girl they examined had an appendectomy. The real Betty Parnet is almost an inch taller. There are a couple more details like that. There’ll be the signature on the application to check, too. But there isn’t any doubt that someone has a shrewd scheme worked out. A girl who looks a little like our Betty, but not enough so that any of the three has the slightest doubt about it, applied for a whopping amount of insurance under the name of Betty Parnet, and got herself examined by two different doctors under the name of Betty Parnet. Frank Milford—what’s that again?”
“Know a man named Jim Huss?”
“City engineer. Sure.”
“He’s tossed a monkey wrench into your case,” Webber said, and told him about the conversation with Huss.
“I’ve heard the rumors,” Hendricks said, “or heard of them. How long has Frank been working on this special assignment?”
“I didn’t think to ask Huss.”
“If you turn up anything in his papers, I want to know about it. Until then, I’ll be satisfied with the way I have this one blocked out. Frank saw the Parnet accident, tried to tell me something about it, and got killed. Anything else?”
“No. I’ve a few other things—”
“You aren’t the only one who has reports to write,” Hendricks said and hung up.
Webber went to Frank Milford’s desk and punched the switch on the fluorescent desk lamp. He seated himself, and as the light came on he leaned forward to admire the rich, polished surface of a pipe that occupied a central place of honor among the dozen or so pipes that crowded the pipe rack. Poised on the edge of the bowl was a small angel, its thumb firmly in place against its nose in the time-honored gesture of disdain. It was Frank Milford’s favorite pipe, polished frequently with loving care and never smoked. It never had been smoked.
“Your halo looks rusty,” Webber said with a grin.
He remembered a heated argument with Milford over whether the little figure was really an angel with something impish in its disposition, or a devil masquerading as an angel. Webber had voted for the devil; Milford held out for the impish disposition.
“It’s perfectly obvious,” he had said. “It’s saying, ‘I’m in heaven, and to hell with you.’”
Now