City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton (novels to read .txt) 📗

Everyone willingly gave his name. Everyone wanted to help. Only two on my list had records, one for burglary and another for bootlegging. But the burglar angle interested me. Although this individual committed his crime twenty years ago and had an alibi for the nights of both murders, what about someone else? What if burglary was the gateway impulse that led to murder?

Then we faced the killer choosing University Park as his target. What was this geography to him? Maybe he lived there, or once did. I started compiling burglary reports in the neighborhood. The few arrests led to individuals who were still in prison. One incident stuck out: Back in November, a woman claimed that someone had been in her house while she slept. Nothing was taken but items were rearranged, and an unlocked window was left open, all of which she noticed in the morning. The officer who took the report at the time noted skeptically, “Hysterical female, no evidence of forced entry.” The house was two blocks from Edna Sawyer’s.

I started wandering University Park at the hours when the girls would have been coming or going to school. I added interviews and names from postmen and dairymen, delivery drivers, plumbers, city garbagemen, Western Union messenger boys, and Central Arizona Light and Power crews.

Finally, I noticed that both crimes happened on nights with new moons. Maybe it mattered, maybe not, but Captain McGrath agreed we should go full-out on the next one, March 11th.

But the University Park Strangler had other plans.

Twenty

“I had never heard those details about the early murders in University Park,” Victoria said. “So, you thought I bossed you around, huh?”

“In the nicest possible way.”

We were lying in my bed, our legs entwined, listening to jazz on the radio. The room was dark.

“You can’t kick yourself for losing the diary and love notes,” she said. “You were thinking of me. That’s sweet.”

“Sweet won’t catch this killer,” I said. “What kills me…”

“Pun intended?”

“What slays me? Anyway, what frustrates me is that Carrie specifically mentioned Navarre in her diary. There’s a good chance the love letters were from him. But a second man is involved, too. Big Cat. She was afraid of him, and he probably wrote her the threatening letter. But I can’t go to McGrath now because I don’t know enough.”

“I know,” she said. “But there’s also a good chance the love letters weren’t from Frenchy.”

I raised an eyebrow. She slipped out of bed and walked to the window. The ambient light gave her body an enchanting glow.

“Is our friend in the Chevy out there?”

“No,” she said, slipping back in bed.

He hadn’t returned since I nearly caught him outside Victoria’s house.

She said, “I took the note we received in Prescott, which matched the love letters, and went to headquarters while the detective pool was empty. I pulled one of the case files Frenchy worked on. The writing doesn’t match.”

“Damn.”

“Another man is involved,” she said. “Carrie got around. She was living a double life. And she was making a hell of a lot more money than I did when I was her age. Maybe more than now.”

* * *

The next morning, I was still itching to get off first base. Evidence was gone. I felt no nearer to closing the case than a month ago. My other private eye business was dead. It was time to start eliminating suspects. I started at the beginning with Tom Albert, Carrie’s former boyfriend.

I caught him coming out of classes, flashed my badge, and walked him toward my car.

He protested. “What’s this about? I’ve got practice in half an hour.”

When we reached the Ford, I braced him against the fender and put his arms behind him. Then I slapped on the cuffs tight.

He let out a yelp. “You can’t do that! I’m a student.”

“Shut up.” I shoved him into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

Overlooking the shady campus to the north was Tempe Butte. Whitewashed rocks formed the letter T for the Tempe State Teachers College. Until 1925, it had been an N for the Normal School. Maybe soon they’d get around to an A for the latest name change.

I drove in that direction up Mill Avenue, then pulled off a little south of the flour mill and railroad spur. Tom was so nervous that even my setting the brake made him jump. That was what I was after. His apprehension grew when I shed my suit coat, revealing my shoulder holster.

“Let’s go.” I dragged him out and stood him up, then led him by the cuffs from behind toward the bare rocky prominence. His complaints were drowned out by the mill sounds until we were a hundred yards away and climbing.

“What do you want, Pops?”

I said nothing, pushing him on and up.

We reached a primitive trail that led to the top of the butte. My hope was that no students were up here smoking and drinking, requiring an explanation that I didn’t want to give. A lie that could come back and bite me. So far, we were alone.

“Carrie,” I said. “I want to know everything.”

He briefly turned his head toward me and stumbled. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

His voice was choking back panic. “I don’t understand, Pops.” I repeated my demand and told him if he called me “Pops” one more time, I was going to kick him to death.

That got his attention. “We dated for a few months, okay?” he said. “I met her when she modeled in art class. We went out, became steadies, then she broke up with me. That’s all, I swear.”

“Why did she break up with you?”

“I dunno. Who knows why girls do anything?”

“Did it have anything to do with you selling cocaine?”

“What? No! That was all a mistake.”

I shoved him hard. “You’re no student, Tom. You’re a criminal. Where did you get the cocaine, and who did you sell it to?”

He struggled to keep his footing.

“Chinatown,” he said. “I bought it there and sold it to a few students. I