Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

When Robert Hummel was erect, you were less conscious of his unusually broad shoulders and the muscle underlying his fat than you were when he was seated. He looked like a well fed businessman who had reached the age when he ought to start watching his blood pressure. He also looked like the last person in the world you would expect to resist a professional mugger so successfully and so violently.

As the man passed from the courtroom, Nels continued to watch his back through the open door until he reached the stairs at the end of the hall and started down. Then the sergeant gave his head a slight shake and moved toward the stairs himself.

Falling in beside him, I said, “Buy you a drink, Sergeant?”

His dull eyes flicked at me. “One beer maybe. I got to get back to Homicide.”

The nearest tavern to the Coroner’s Court Building was a half block west. I waited until we were standing at the bar with a pair of draft beers in front of us before I asked any questions.

Then I said, “A story hidden here somewhere, Sergeant?”

He shook his head, tapped his glass once on the bar to indicate luck and sipped at his beer. “No story, Sam.”

“Not even off the record?”

“Just a pipe dream I had, Sam. You couldn’t print it without risking a libel suit.”

“Then I won’t print it. But I got curiosity. Whose case was this Garcia’s? On Homicide, I mean.”

“Corporal Brady,” Nels said. “He wasn’t there because the thing was so routine, all they needed was the beat cop’s testimony. Probably I ought to have my head examined for wasting my time on a case I wasn’t even assigned to.”

When he lapsed into silence I asked, “What’s the story?”

He drank half his beer before he answered. Then he said, “I was just interested because this guy Hummel killed a guy once before.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Almost the same circumstances too,” the sergeant said. “A mugger down along Commercial Alley. Only that time the guy’s larynx wasn’t crushed. Hummel just choked him to death.”

“Judus Priest!” I said. “Was there an inquest?”

Nels nodded. “Routine. Happened about twelve years ago. There’s no doubt it was on the up and up. The mugger had a record as long as your arm and it was pretty well established Hummel never saw the guy before he was suddenly waylaid by him. Apparently the mugger had been loitering in a doorway for some time waiting for a likely victim to pass, for they turned up a witness placing him there a full hour before he tangled with Hummel. Picking Hummel was pure accident, and the mugger was just unlucky to jump a guy who looked soft, but turned out to have the strength of a gorilla.” The sergeant paused, then added reflectively. “There wasn’t any of this flashing a roll in dives then.”

His tone as he made the last statement struck me as odd. “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

But the sergeant ignored my question. “Hummel didn’t carry a gun then either. Matter of fact, it was a result of the incident that he applied for a permit. He didn’t have trouble getting one, because he’s an antique and rare coin buyer and carries large amounts of cash.”

“You’ve been doing some detailed checking on the man,” I remarked.

“Yeah. But it doesn’t add up.”

I eyed him narrowly for a moment, then signaled the bartender for two more beers. I said, “Now give me the pipe dream.”

“Pipe dream?” he asked.

“You mentioned your interest in the case was a kind of pipe dream. You think there’s some connection between the two cases?”

Nels took a sip of his fresh beer and shook his head. “I’m sure there isn’t. Not between the two muggers anyway. Maybe a kind of psychological connection.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well,” the sergeant said slowly, “I figure the case twelve years ago was just what it seemed to be. A guy unexpectedly jumped Hummel, and Hummel killed him defending himself. So was the case today, I guess. With a slight difference. Maybe this time Hummel killed deliberately when he was jumped.”

“You mean he deliberately lured Garcia into attacking him?”

“Think back over the testimony,” Nels said. “Remember how surprised the great lawyer looked when the witness said Hummel had followed Joe in?”

“There was even something about Garcia remarking he had run into Hummel in another tavern. But why? What would be Hummel’s motive?”

Nels was silent for a moment. Finally he said, “I checked back over unsolved homicides for the past twelve years, and seven of them were guys with records as muggers. They were found dead in alleys, some strangled, some broken necks.”

“My God!” I said.

“That makes nine he could have killed.”

For a moment I couldn’t speak. “But why, for God’s sake?”

Without inflection Nels said, “Twelve years ago I imagine Robert Hummel was just a normal guy. Or at least I imagine any abnormal urges he had were merely latent. Then he killed in self-defense. My pipe dream is that maybe he discovered he enjoyed it. You’ve heard of psychopathic killers.”

“But... but...” I stuttered.