Real Murders

"Julia Wallace is there, lying in front of the gas fire, with a raincoat under her. The raincoat, partially burned, is not hers. She's been beaten to death, with extreme brutality, u

"Julia certainly hadn't been having an affair, and had never personally offended anyone that the police could discover.

"And that's the Wallace case."

Arthur sat lost in thought, his blue eyes fixed intently on some internal point.

"Wobbly, either way," he said finally.

"Right," I agreed. "There's no real case against Wallace, except that he was her husband, the only person who seemed to know her well enough to kill her. Everything he said could've been true ... in which case, he was tried for killing the one person in the world he loved, while all the time the real killer went free."

"So Wallace was arrested?"

"And convicted. But after he spent some time in prison, he was released by a unique ruling in British law. I think a higher court simply ruled that there hadn't been enough evidence for a jury to convict Wallace, no matter what the jury said. But prison and the whole experience had broken Wallace, and he died two or three years later, still saying he was i

"I'd have gone for Wallace, too, on the basis of that evidence," Arthur said unhesitatingly. "The probability is with Wallace, as you said, because it's usually the husband who wants his wife out of the way... yet since there's no clear-cut evidence either way, I'm almost surprised the state chose to prosecute."

"Probably," I said without thinking, "the police were under a lot of pressure to make an arrest."

Arthur looked so tired and gloomy that I tried to change the subject. "Wh/d you join Real Murders?" I asked. "Isn't that a little strange for a policeman?" "Not this policeman," he said a little sharply. I shrank in my chair.

"Listen, Roe, I wanted to go to law school, but there wasn't enough money." Arthur's family was pretty humble, I recalled. I thought I'd gone to high school with one of his sisters. Arthur must be three or four years older than I. "I made it through two years of college before I realized I couldn't make it financially, because I just couldn't work and carry a full course load. School bored me then, too. So I decided to go into law from another angle. Policemen aren't all alike, you know."

I could tell he'd given this lecture before.

"Some cops are right out of Joseph Wambaugh's books, because he was a cop and he writes pretty good books. Loud, drinkers, macho, mostly uneducated, sometimes brutal. There are a few nuts, like there are in any line of work, and there are a few Birchers. There aren't many Liberals with a capital ‘L', and not too many college graduates. But within those rough lines, we've got all kinds of people. Some of my friends—some cops—watch every cop show on television they can catch, so they'll know how to act. Some of them— not many—read Dostoevsky." He smiled, and it looked almost strange on him. "I just like to study old crimes, figure out how the police thought on the case, pick apart their procedure—ever read about the June A

"Right. You know the police persuaded every adult male in Blackburn to have his fingerprints taken?" Arthur's face practically shone with enthusiasm. "That's how they caught Peter Griffiths. By comparing thousands of fingerprints with the ones Griffiths left on the scene." He was lost in admiration for a moment. "That's why I joined Real Murders," he said. "But what could a woman like Mamie Wright get out of studying the Wallace case?"

"Oh, a chaperoned husband!" I said with a grin, and then felt a sharp pang of dismay as Arthur re-opened his little notebook. Almost gently, Arthur said, "Now, this murder is real. It's a new murder."

"I know," I said, and I saw Mamie again.

"Did they quarrel much, Gerald and Mamie?"

"Never, that I saw or heard," I said firmly and truthfully. I'd always believed Wallace was i

"Do you think her suspicions were correct?"

"It never occurred to me they could be. Gerald is just so stuffy and... Arthur? Could Gerald have done this?" I didn't mean emotionally, I meant practically, and Arthur realized it.

"Do you know why Gerald says he was late to the meeting, why Mamie came on her own instead of riding with him? He got a call from a man he didn't know, asking Gerald to talk with him about some insurance for his daughter." I know my mouth was hanging open. I slowly shut it, but feared I looked no more intelligent.

"Someone's really slapping us in the face, Arthur," I said slowly. "Maybe especially challenging you. Mamie wasn't even killed because she was Mamie." That was especially horrible. "It was just because she was an insurance salesman's wife."

"But you'd figured it out last night. You know that." "But what if there are more? What if he copies the June A

"Don't go imagining nightmares," Arthur said briskly. He was so matter of fact I knew he'd already thought of the possibility himself. "Now, I've got to write down everything you did yesterday, starting from when you left work." If he meant to jolt me out of the horrors, he succeeded. Even if only on paper, I was someone who had to account for her movements; not exactly a suspect, but a possibility. Then too, my arrival time at the meeting would help pinpoint the time of death. Though I'd gone over this all the night before, once more I carefully related my trivial doings.

"Do you have a good account of the Wallace killing I could borrow?" he asked, rising from the couch reluctantly. He looked even more worn, as if relaxing for a while hadn't helped, just made him feel his exhaustion. "And I need a list of club members, too."

"I can help you with the Wallace killing," I said. "But you'll have to get the list from Jane Engle. She's the club secretary." I had the book on hand I'd used to prepare my lecture. I checked to make sure my name was written inside, told Arthur I'd have him arrested if he didn't return it, and walked with him to the front door.

To my surprise, he put his hands on my shoulders and gripped them with no mean pressure.

"Don't look so dismal," he said. The wide blue eyes caught mine. I felt a jolt tingle up my spine. "You caught something last night most people wouldn't have. You were tough and smart and quick-thinking." He caught a loose strand of my hair and rolled it between his fingers. "I'll talk to you soon," he said. "Maybe tomorrow."

As it turned out, we spoke somewhat sooner than that.