Free Exploit of Death - Dell Shannon by Dell Shannon Page B

detectives, ma'am. This is Mrs.
Sadler, she found the body."
    "That's right," she said. "It's just
awful, the poor soul lying there dead, it's terrible the things
happen nowadays, all these criminals running around. Mrs. Coffey was
such a nice woman, she wouldn't have hurt a fly. To think of a thing
like that happening to her—"
    The faded sign over the front door said VERNNS
VARIETY.
    "Mrs. Verna Coffey?" asked Palliser. She
nodded. "Just tell us what happened, Mrs. Sadler."
    "We1l, I'd run out of green thread. I'm making a
dress for myself for my daughter's wedding next week, and I just
stepped over here to get some thread. Mrs. Coffey's store is real
handy for lots of little things. I just live up the block on
Twenty-fourth, it's only a step, and she's always open by eight. The
door was open and I went in, but she wasn't there and I waited a few
minutes but I didn't hear her in the back. She lives in the back of
the store, has a little apartment there, you see. And I called her
name and then I went back and just looked in the door and—Oh!"
She put her hands to her mouth. "Oh, just terrible! The poor
soul, her head all bloody and the place in a mess, I could see she
was dead and I called the police on the phone there—"
    So they'd have to get her prints for comparison with
any others the lab might pick up. But the honest citizens didn't know
much about scientific investigation.
    There were a few curious bystanders out now, from the
shoe-repair shop, the drugstore. Palliser and Higgins went into the
little store, dim without lights on, past double counters stocked
with the cheap cosmetics, shoelaces, sewing materials, plastic
dishes, all the odds and ends of variety goods, to the door at the
rear. It led into a small living room, crowded with old
furniture—couch, two upholstered chairs, end tables, a T.V. on a
metal stand. One of the tables had been knocked over, the drawer from
the other one dumped on the floor, three pictures pulled off the wall
and thrown facedown. The body was sprawled between the T.V. and the
couch, the body of a fat black woman. There was a faded pink nylon
housecoat rucked up around her legs. Under it she'd been wearing a
pink nylon nightgown. There was dried blood on one temple and the
white of the skull showed where one blow had landed on vulnerable
thin bone. On the floor beside her was an ordinary hammer with black
tape on the handle. On the other side of the body, in front of a side
window, a big potted plant on a metal stand had been knocked over and
spilled wet earth and leaves over the thin carpet.
    "No sign of a break-in in front," said
Palliser.
    "No. She was undressed for bed, she could've
done that early in the evening, but it was after she'd closed the
store," said Higgins. "Somebody knocked at the
door—somebody she knew?"
    They looked through the rest of the small shabby
apartment. There was a tiny bedroom with a single bed neatly turned
down for the night but showing no signs of having been occupied. The
bedroom had been ransacked too. There was a tiny kitchen with a clean
sink and counter tops. There was a back door giving on an alley that
ran behind this block of shops, and that door was locked and bolted.
    "Somebody she knew," said Palliser. "Which
could be anybody around here. But she probably wouldn't have opened
the door to a stranger. Living alone, she'd keep the doors locked
after dark." The dumped drawers, the pictures pulled off the
wall, were the earmarks of the pro burglar.
    They went back out to the street and Palliser used
the radio in the squad to call the lab. Higgins asked Mrs. Sadler,
    "Do you know anything about Mrs. Coffey's
family?"
    "Well, I know she had a married daughter in
Pasadena. She had another daughter who died. Her husband, I guess he
died quite awhile back."
    There had been an address book beside the phone. They
would find out.
    "Do you know if she kept much money here'?"
    "I don't know at all. I don't suppose she got an
awful lot from the