Mrs. Meeker's Money by Doris Miles Disney

Author:Doris Miles Disney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

THEY made an early start the next morning. At nine-thirty they were in New York and left Madden’s car in a parking lot within walking distance of Johnston’s West Fifty-second Street address.

As Madden had feared, this turned out to be another dead end, the office of the Acme Mailing Service, located in a small brick building so old that it must soon become a victim of the city’s ever-changing face.

It was a busy office. What information it could supply on Johnston came from its records. He had been a client since January 22, 1959, paying one month in advance on that date and arranging to have his mail held until called for. Thereafter he had made bimonthly payments in advance by money order. No one remembered anything about him. He phoned every two weeks or so to ask if he had mail and, if he had, sent a messenger to collect it. There was discussion as to what messenger service he had used; no one had paid much attention. He had no mail waiting to be collected at the present time.

City and telephone directories were available in the office. In no borough of the city was there a listing, alphabetical or classified, for Henry Johnston, insurance investigator.

Madden talked with the manager, explaining that Johnston was wanted for questioning in a fraud and murder case. Although he felt very sure that the mailing service would never hear from Johnston again, he suggested ways of trapping him if he should phone to inquire about mail.

From the mailing service office Madden and Tad went to the nearest branch office of the Motor Vehicle Department. There they learned that no Henry Johnston who might be their man had a New York driver’s license or a car registered in his name.

They had spent a barren morning. After lunch they went back to Dunston.

The coroner’s findings on Mrs. Meeker’s death—suffocation brought about by the deliberate act of some person or persons unknown—returned the case to the first page of the newspapers the next morning.

Madden sent Tad to Hartford but had other cases that demanded his attention that day. He spent a large part of the morning with a psychiatrist and an assistant United States district attorney, conferring on a man about to go to trial on twelve counts of mailing obscene photographs. He had a record of four previous convictions on the same charge.

Most of the postal inspector’s afternoon was given to the postponed chore of obtaining statements from three local victims of a nationwide work-at-home scheme based on the purchase of overpriced knitting machines.

He returned to his office just ahead of Tad, who came in and reported that his inquiries at Hartford banks had been as negative as those he had made in Dunston.

He had, however, without much trouble located the large printing company Johnston had gone to for his stationery. He had placed an order for one hundred letterheads with envelopes to match on May 12, 1959, and called for it on May 20, 1959.

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