Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

The shirttail. There hadn’t been a struggle, yet Spellman’s shirttail was all the way out and his hat missing. It was as if he had not yet finished dressing. And the body on the sidewalk, decked out in what looked like tennis whites—

My God, Becker thought.

Without even looking at Timmons, Becker reached out and snatched the phone from his hand. “Chief?” he said.

“What the hell’s going on up there?” Chief Wellborn demanded. He was outside; Becker could hear traffic noises in the background. “I got a dead body on the sidewalk, and the guard here says there’s another one up—”

“Let me speak to him,” Becker snapped.

The chief, who was not accustomed to being interrupted, said, “Now, just a minute, sergeant—”

“The security guard,” Becker shouted, his face red. “Put him on!”

After a short pause the guard’s voice came on the line.

“Mr. Hendrix, this is Tom Becker. I want you to look at the dead man’s face.”

“Look at his... I can’t. His arm’s in the way—”

“Then move his arm! Look at his face, and tell me if you recognize him.”

A long silence passed.

“Hendrix?”

Still no reply. But Becker could hear him breathing into the phone.

“Mr. Hendrix?”

“I see him,” the guard answered, in a strange voice. “I see his face now...”

“It’s one of the two cops, isn’t it,” Becker said.

He heard the guard swallow. “Yessir, it is. It’s the other one, the one who didn’t talk to you on the phone. Spellman.” Hendrix paused, then murmured, “Why’s he in his underwear? There’s a pile of clothes lying way over there, bundled up and tied with a pants leg...”

“Mr. Hendrix, listen to me a minute.” Becker’s eyes were shut again as he spoke. “The man I told you was coming down in the elevator. Did you see him get off?”

The guard hesitated. “I didn’t see him, no, but I’m sure he’s down by now. By the way, I got a maintenance guy working on cutting off the a/c, and there’s a bunch of cops on the way up to you right now.”

“The bomb squad?”

“No, just cops. From all over.”

“Great,” Becker mumbled. “Put the chief back on.”

When the phone had been handed over, Becker said, “Chief, we’ve got some trouble here. The body in front of you is a cop from an East Side station. The bomber shot him and his partner, too, and got away. We need to get the explosives team up here on the double, and we need to put out a call to all units, with the following description...”

He spoke a moment more, listened, nodded, and signed off. Then he turned to Ed Timmons, who looked a bit like a business student who had just wandered by mistake into a class on quantum physics.

“He changed clothes,” Becker explained. “After they surprised him, he put Spellman’s uniform on and threw him out the window.”

Timmons swallowed. “So... he shot both of them?”

“Looks that way.” Becker’s eyes roamed the room again, clicking off each item even as he spoke. “I imagine he shot Rice first, then swapped clothes with Spellman before shooting him. That’s why there was no blood on the uniform.”

“But we heard the shots. They were close together—”

Becker pointed to the two bullet holes in the wall. “Those were the shots we heard. I figure he used a silencer to kill the partners, then used Spellman’s gun to put two rounds into that baseboard later, just so we would hear them, to back up his story. Then he used the floor lamp to smash the window and threw Spellman’s body out.”

Timmons still looked lost. “To back up his story? Why’d he need a story? How did he know about you and me at all?”

“I imagine he got that out of Spellman, during the change of clothes. There’d have been plenty of time.”

Timmons thought that over, then said, “Okay. Okay, if that’s what happened... then there’s still plenty of time for us, too, right? We have till morning to find it. That’s what you said.”

“I know what I said.”

“Then why do you look so worried?” Timmons’ face had gone very stiff “If that’s true, why do you keep wanting the bomb squad to hurry up and get here?”

Becker turned to look at him. “Because there’s a chance I’m wrong.”

“What do you mean, wrong?”

“The lights,” Becker said. “That’s been bothering me from the start. Why would he announce himself that way, turning on all the lights? Why not just use a flashlight? Was he arrogant? Was he careless?”

“Maybe he’s just stupid.”

“No. I don’t think so. Arrogant, maybe. Insane, probably. But careless, or stupid? No.”

“Then what’s the answer?” Timmons asked. “Why the lights?”

“What do you think?”

Timmons pondered that. He seemed to be having trouble getting his breath. “To get us here in a hurry?”

“That’s what I’m thinking now.”

“But... why?”

Becker just shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I think it means we better find that thing, just as quick as we can.”

As he spoke, the air conditioning sputtered and bumped one final time and then clicked off. “At last,” Becker said.

Timmons had already begun looking through the fitter on the floor and in the shelves, and Becker was crossing the room to join him when another thought struck him.

The briefcase.