10-Story Detective July, 1947 by unknow

Author:unknow
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: 10-Story Detective
Published: 1947-07-09T05:00:00+00:00

You Can’t Kill Me Twice

Davisson Lough

Johnny Kedry’s sanity took a knockout wallop from the news of his wife’s killing. Yet though his senses were still wavering, a hint of her killer brought Kedry to a Police Positive recovery.

DR. RALPH BURTON walked with Johnny Kedry down the hospital steps and around to the parking lot. He held Kedry’s arm, spoke in soft tones. “Forget revenge, Mr. Kedry,” he cautioned. “You’re unfit for any emotional ordeal. It will be at least a year before you should engage in exciting work. Your chief understands your condition. I’ve advised him to transfer you from the homicide squad.”

Silent, Kedry listened. He hadn’t told Dr. Burton about it, but mostly he was concerned with a strange sensation that only half his brain was recording the incidents of this afternoon. The other half, a part far back that seemed a black pocket, was permitting him to experience, over and over, the horrifying events of a day three months gone.

A day when a morbid crowd and wailing police sirens had supplied background and sound effects for the tragedy that had killed the gladness of his life and filled his soul with the withering, noxious fury of despair.

The black pocket had opened in his brain then, when he’d fought his way through that stunned mob of thrill-seekers and found at its center, huddled on the blood-spattered brick of City Zoo Avenue, the bullet-blighted body of Lannie, his young wife.

A moment before the paralyzing impact of the tragedy had blanked his mind, he’d seen those things which he must always see, all his life long two purple-lipped holes in a white throat, a trickle of bright blood zigzagging across a blanched cheek, small soft hands cushioned on a bodice of snow-white taffeta, and two exquisitely white gardenias forlornly trailing from pale, delicate fingers.

That duo of dew-fed flowers had seemed to grow and change into double discs, circular ripsaws, as he stared at it, to leap up and whirl into his flesh, slashing a burning gash across his heart. Two tiny buds, a sparse bouquet of fragrant beauty to symbolize the purity and gentleness of the tender life that a murderer’s slugs had sapped from the lovely hands that had chosen them from the treasures of the florist. Two white gardenias, when there should have been three, that tradition had prompted her to buy because it was his birthday.

He recalled strong hands reaching for him. In that last rational moment he’d heard Inspector Blake Marrison say, “For gosh sake, Johnny, don’t let it get you!” Then the black pocket had appeared, widened and swallowed his soul.

Days and days, half dream, half sleep, and the black pocket had grown smaller and smaller. Light, white and sparkling, had crept in at its edges. Slowly, painfully, he’d crawled back from the poison pitch of stark madness.

Now he was discharged from the hospital and was going home to his baby girl, little Lannie. He was to drive his own car, alone. He was cured. Dr. Burton had said so.

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