Great Modern Police Stories (1986) by Bill Pronzini; Martin H Greenberg

Author:Bill Pronzini; Martin H Greenberg [Greenberg, Bill Pronzini; Martin H]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I trust that by the time you receive this you will have found the body of Wheeler.

Are you perhaps thinking that I detest the human race so much that I kill indiscriminately?

You are only half-right.

I do not kill indiscriminately.

I wondered about the swift mail service until I studied the envelope again. The letter was postmarked at eight the previous evening, six hours before Wheeler had been killed.

I sent the letter on to the lab and it was returned to me just before Harrison came into my office.

Harrison read it and shook his head. “He’s crazy.”

“We all are,” I said, “only at different times.”

“And confident. I mean, mailing the letter six hours before he kills the man. Any fingerprints?”

“None at all. Not even Millie’s.”

Harrison opened his notebook. “About William A. Wheeler: He played the clarinet, gave class lessons under the city’s musical development program and took private pupils on the side. One of the rooms of his apartment is soundproofed.”

“What about friends, acquaintances and so forth?”

“The normal number. We’re checking them out. Wheeler had two brothers, one’s a dentist and the other operates a drugstore. Wheeler spent two years in the army during the Korean War with various post and regimental bands, including overseas.”

“I suppose he was a member of the American Legion?”

“No. Veterans of Foreign Wars. But that’s still a service organization. He was a swimmer in high school. Got some trophies.”

I worried my pipe. “What the devil connects Wilson, Clinton and Wheeler? Do we have anything that goes across the board? No matter how trivial?”

Harrison ticked off a series. “They were all men, they lived alone in apartments, they were single or divorced, they were all former servicemen and members of a veterans’ organization, they were killed in the early hours of the morning, they all had brown hair and they all could swim. I checked up on that last thing after I saw Wheeler’s trophies.”

I closed my eyes. “You forgot that all of them inhaled and exhaled from time to time, and they were notorious for having their features fixed at the front of their heads.”

Harrison was mildly reproving. “You told me you wanted anything connecting them, no matter how small it was.”

I conceded. “Did Wheeler carry insurance?”

“Ten thousand, G.I. insurance; one thousand allocated for burial expenses, and nine thousand to his mother. She’s widowed, on social security, and lives in an apartment over her son Albert’s drugstore. You don’t suppose she killed him for the policy?”

“Of course not.”

Harrison was faintly dubious. “How can you be so positive about that? I know it’s unnatural, but mothers do sometimes murder their children.”

“But not after they’ve grown up.”

He rubbed his jaw. “You know, I never realized that before. Makes you stop and think,” and he stopped and thought a while.

The next morning Sue Adams greeted me as I came to work. “This time the letter’s addressed directly to you instead of the commissioner. I opened it along with your other mail. It’s on your desk now.”

In my office I examined the envelope for a moment.

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