Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

“Because I know who killed Larry,” he said, suddenly beginning to sweat. “But he made a mistake. When he—”

“Just a minute,” I said. “When who made a mistake?”

“Roy Cogan,” he said. “When he finds out he killed the wrong man—”

“What do you mean, wrong man?”

“I’m the one he meant to kill. Only he got it all wrong. When he finds out, he’ll kill me.”

“You mean Cogan shot Yeager, thinking it was you?”

“No. What I mean is, Cogan thought Yeager was the one that’d been messing around with his wife. But it wasn’t Yeager. It was me. Larry never even knew Cogan’s wife.”

“One moment, Mr. Grimes,” I said, noting that Stan was hanging up his phone. “Stan, this is Mr. Obie Grimes, Mr. Grimes, this is my partner, Detective Rayder.”

The, two men nodded to each other, and I said, “I wanted you to hear Mr. Grimes’ story, Stan. He thinks he knows who killed Larry Yeager.”

“I don’t just think it,” Grimes said in his whining voice. “I damn well know it.”

“Suppose you tell us about it,” I said.

“It’s just like I already told you,” he said. “Roy Cogan thought Larry was fooling around with Vernice — with Mrs. Cogan. But Larry’d never even laid eyes on her.”

“Then why did Cogan think that?” I asked.

“Because we’d been using Larry’s apartment. Vernice and me. I couldn’t take her to my place, on account of my landlady, and Vernice was afraid somebody’d see her if we went to a hotel.”

“You take Mrs. Cogan there pretty often?”

“Yes, quite a bit. I’d call Larry to see if he was going to be out. If he was, he’d leave the door on the latch. Vernice didn’t want to risk being seen on the street with anybody, so I’d meet her over there. But somebody must have seen her go in there. Somebody that knew her husband. Because the first thing Cogan did when he got out of jail was—”

“Hold it,” Stan said. “What was he in for?”

Grimes shuddered. “Manslaughter,” he said. “He beat a man to death with his fists. He was in Dannemora, but I didn’t know that, of course. Vernice told me he was down in South America, working for some oil company. The first I knew he wasn’t was when he busted in on me over at Larry’s apartment.”

“Tell us about it,” Stan said.

“Well, when Roy came back from Dannemora, and Vernice wasn’t home, he went straight over to Larry’s. Vernice said later she hadn’t expected him home for another six weeks. Anyhow, Cogan knew all about her going over there all the time, and that’s why he didn’t let her know exactly when he was getting out. He wanted to catch her by surprise.

“And he almost did catch her, too. I was already there at Larry’s, and Vernice was on her way over. In fact, she got there not more than five minutes after he left.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I was sitting there waiting for Vernice, when all at once the door flies open and there stands Roy Cogan. I don’t know who he is then, of course; all I know is he’s the meanest looking one man I ever saw in my life, and one of the biggest. And besides that he’s got a gun in his hand.

“The first thing he says is, ‘You son of a bitch!’ and then he comes tearing over to me and grabs me by the shirt front and yanks me up out of the chair and says, ‘Damn you, Yeager, I’m going to blow your damn head off. Where’s Vernice?’ I was so scared I couldn’t even talk. I kept trying to tell him I wasn’t Larry, but I just couldn’t get the words out.

“And all the time I was trying to say something, he kept pushing that gun harder and harder into my belly and yelling for me to tell him where Vernice was. And then he yanks my arm up behind me and walks me all through the apartment in front of him, looking for Vernice.” He shook his head. “You talk about scared? Boy, I was so scared I—”

“We’ll concede, the point,” I said. “You were scared. Go oh, Mr. Grimes.”

“Well, so when he couldn’t find Vernice, he grabbed me by the shirt front again, and stuck the gun in my belly again, and stuck his face right up against mine and said if I didn’t, tell him where she was in five seconds, I was one dead son of a bitch.” He paused. “That’s when I got my voice back. I told him I was only using the apartment a couple of days while Larry was out of town. I said if he’d look at the stuff in my billfold, my driver’s license and all, he’d see I wasn’t Larry Yeager, I was Obie Grimes!” The man hesitated, embarrassed.

“And did he do that?” Stan asked.

“Yes, he did. I didn’t think he would, but he did. And then he shoved me halfway across the room and said he ought to have known Vernice wouldn’t fool around with anybody as ugly as me anyhow.”

“What’d Cogan do then, Mr. Grimes?” Stan asked.

“Well, mostly he just stood there and cussed about Vernice two-timing him while he was in Dannemora and all. And about how he was going to kill Yeager. Then all of a sudden he whirled around and tore out of the apartment, like he’d just thought of somewhere he had to be in a hell of a hurry.”

“And you say Mrs. Cogan arrived, shortly after that?” said.

“Not more than five minutes after.”