Shoot to kill by Miller Wade

Author:Miller, Wade [Miller, Wade]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Harper
Published: 1951-12-22T09:38:51+00:00

CHAPTER 16

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 5:00 A.M.

Austin Clapp had his feet up on the desk, his eyes nearly closed, his ear cocked to the drone of the radio. He grunted irritably at Thursday’s entrance. Thursday scraped up a chair, sat down and, uninvited, read the autopsy report on Joyce Shafto. The chair felt good after walking twenty blocks crosstown from the House of Buena to police headquarters. The autopsy form might as well have stayed blank; the tamales in the dead woman’s stomach didn’t help specify time of death because no one knew when she’d eaten them.

Between routine disturbances and check-in calls, the radio voice made frequent impersonal mentions of XP-1. That would be top code for Bliss Weaver—Escaped Prisoner One.

Clapp opened his eyes. “We’ve pulled back all men on leave, canceled all time off till we get him. Roadblocks on the highways, depot inspections, and the immigration boys are watching the border. Kind of ridiculous, actually—us slaving to stop Weaver from leaving town when we’d just as soon he was somewhere else.”

“Usual phony leads?”

“Not yet, not until the morning papers. Then we’ll have him spotted everywhere from here to Yuma. Course, in the meantime, Dow and his riders of the purple sage are making up for it.”

“I wondered about that.”

“Yeah, they’re in our hair already. Big call to arms, all the society vigilantes are saddled and bridled and armed to the teeth. They’ve been poking into every canyon and under every tumbleweed in town.” Clapp laughed viciously. “One of them fell off his horse and broke his arm. Too bad it wasn’t Dow.”

“Give him time.”

“We’re not giving him much. First complaint we get—discharged gun, trespassing, anything—we clamp down on Dow’s bunch as a public menace. That’s orders from up top.”

A knock on the door, and a uniformed cop came in with a stack of newspapers, sunrise editions. He left them on the desk and went away again, yawning. Clapp made no move to touch them so Thursday picked up the top one, the Sentinel. SECOND MURDER SPURS HUNT FOR MAD STRANGLER…Thursday winced. He said, “Where’s Merle?”

“Catching some shuteye down in the matron’s office. Which suits me fine.” Clapp grimaced. “We’ve got a stake-out on her apartment and a tap on her phone, in case Weaver tries to reach her. So long as Osborn hangs around here we don’t have to assign a man to her. A man I couldn’t spare anyway.” He gazed curiously across the desk. “What smells so bad?”

“Read this.” Frowning, Thursday pushed the front page toward Clapp, his finger impaling the two-column boldface box under the headlines. The message was simple and dramatically terse: in the interest of public safety, the Sentinel would pay one thousand dollars reward for any information leading to the capture—dead or alive—of Bliss Weaver.

Clapp read it without interest. “So what?”

“Ask Merle ‘so what.’ The Sentinel’s never had that kind of money. Who put it up? And why—why this constant picking on Weaver? Every time I turn around—”

“You’ve got a bad conscience. The Sentinel’s got a heartful of civic interest.

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