Edward D. Hoch
Captain   Leopold   and   the
Ghost-Killer
"It started as a simple case"a murder with five credible wit-
nesses, all making positive identification of the killer. It turned
into an impossible caseone of the toughest cases Captain
Leopold ever tackled.. .And we should warn you: keep your
mind sharp and your wits alertor you too may believe in
ghosts!...
Detective: CAPTAIN LEOPOLD

It  started  as  a  simple  case,  without  a  hint  of  ghosts  or
Impossibilities-Lieutenant Fletcher's case, really, with Cap-
tain Leopold along only because he'd been working late that night
and Grant Tower was on his way home. The time was 9:25 and
downtown was deserted except for the usual street people. Some of
them were standing around outside the 20-story buildingwhich
qualified as a Tower in Leopold's citywhen their car pulled up,
and for a wild moment Leopold feared the one closest to him
might ask for his autograph.
The trouble was on the 15th floor and a uniformed cop was
waiting when they came off the elevator. "Cleaning woman here
in the building, Captain. Martha Aspeth. Her husband shot her."
Fletcher was already bending over the body of a middle-aged
woman, sprawled in the doorway of an insurance office. There was
blood beneath and around her, soiling the freshly polished floor.
"Any witnesses?" Leopold asked.
"Five women who work with her," the officer said. "They all
saw it happen. I've got an APB out on the husband."
More technicians were arriving, to photograph the scene and
dust for prints. Fletcher straightened up from the body and said,
"At least three wounds, Captain. Maybe four."
Leopold nodded. "Let's talk to some of these women."
A stout white-haired  woman with  rolled  stockings  and  a
dumpy-looking print dress stepped forward. "I was right next to
her! I saw the whole thing!"
Two white-coated morgue attendants had arrived .with a
stretcher,  but  they  stood  aside  while  the  medical  examiner
checked the body. "I was on my way home," the M.E. told
Leopold. "Doc Hayes takes over at nine. Hell of a thing, grabbing
a man on his way home. Going to take that telephone out of my
car."
"I was on my way home, too," Leopold said. "Cheer up." Then
.he led the woman to a sofa in the open office. "What's your
name?"
"Hilda Youst. Martha and I started together over at the bank
building. She was like a sister to me."
"What about her husband?"
"They didn't live together. He wanted younger ones. Can you
imagine that? Martha was only forty-two and he wanted younger
ones!"
"Had they quarreled before?"
"All the time!"
"Up here?"
"Sure! He came up regularly, usually on paydays. Wanted
money for drink and women."
"Was tonight a payday?"
"No."
"Exactly what happened?"
"It was"she glanced at the wall clock"about twenty-five
minutes ago, just after nine o'clock. He got off the elevator and
asked one of the girls where Martha was. She was in here with
me and she heard his voice. She said, 'God, not him again,' and
she went to the door to see what he wanted. He just pulled out his
gun and started shooting."
"He didn't say anything First?"
"I think he called her a filthy name."
"How many shots did you hear?"
"Four, I think."
"Then what happened?"
"He ran out the fire door and down the stairs. I phoned the
police. The other girls were in terrible shape. They never saw
anything like this before."
"Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"See anything like this before?"
"No, of course not! But I'm older. I been around more."
"Would you recognize the killer if you saw him again?"
"Kurt Aspeth? Of course I'd recognize him!"
Leopold found Lieutenant Fletcher talking to the other four
witnesses. Three of them were Puerto Rican girls, barely out of
their teens. One was close to hysteria, her body shaking with
sobs.  Leopold noticed that the photographer and the medical
examiner had finished their jobs. The body was covered now and
the white-coated men were lifting it onto their stretcher.
"They all tell the same story, Captain," Fletcher reported. "He
got off the elevator, asked Miss Sanchez here where Martha As-
peth was, then pulled out the gun and fired the moment he saw
her."
"It seems clear enough," Leopold decided. "I guess we can leave
the details to the rest of the men. We'll want statements from all
five witnesses, of course, and from relatives. Find out where Kurt
Aspeth lives and put someone on the address, in case he goes back
there."
"I'll take care of it, Captain," Fletcher assured him. "You go on
home now."
Leopold grinned. "I keep forgetting it's your case. See you in the
morning."
The morning was in May, with golden sunshine and a spring
warmth that robbed him of energy. Leopold simply sat in his
office,  wondering as he  gazed out the window  if this  bout of
spring fever was a sign of increasing age or merely a return to
youth. He was still thinking about it when Fletcher came in a few
minutes after nine.
"You know that killing last night, Captain?" Fletcher asked,
settling into his favorite chair. "I've got some good news and some
bad news."
Leopold grunted. "What's the good news?"
"We found Kurt Aspeth. His car hit a bridge abutment on the
Expressway, about a mile from the Grant Tower building. He was
killed instantly."
"What's the bad news?"
"The accident happened at 8:27a good half hour or more be-
fore Kurt Aspeth is supposed to have killed his wife. . ."
The city morgue was located across the street from police head-
quarters, in a faded brick building soon to be demolished for
urban renewal. Doc Hayes was still there, on duty from the night
before, following some rotating schedule which had always baffled
Leopold. He'd known Doc for some years, through numerous
homicides on which Hayes had functioned as acting medical
examiner. He was a grim, efficient little man somewhere past 40,
who sometimes looked as if he'd be more at home teaching at a
medical college.
"What is it?" Hayes asked when he saw Leopold and Fletcher
coming in. "That Aspeth thing?"
"Right. We're trying to establish a time sequence. The police
officer's report lists the time of the accident as 8:27. We're won-
dering if that could be a mistake."
Doc Hayes shook his head. "That's the time, all right. He was
killed instantly, so the officer didn't bother with an ambulance.
As I understand it, a doctor pronounced him dead and they called
for the morgue wagon. His body was already here when I came to
work at nine." He consulted the book in front of him. "Checked in
at exactly nine. Made the notation myself. Damn busy night
Aspeth and a hit-and-run and then Aspeth's wife. Damn busy."
"There's no possibility of error?"
"Error? The man is certainly dead, if that's what you mean."
"But what about the time? Could it have been an hour later?"
Doc Hayes snorted. "Daylight-saving time started three weeks
ago. Our clocks are all correct. Besides, the officer's records
couldn't be wrong, too."
"All right," Leopold said, moving to another possibility. "Are
you sure it's really Kurt Aspeth?"
"I'm not sure," Hayes said. "I never met the man. But he was
driving Kurt Aspeth's car, carrying Kurt Aspeth's driver's license,
and Kurt Aspeth's brother identified the body early this morn-
ing."
"Brother?"
Doc Hayes nodded. "Felix Aspeth."
Leopold had a wild thought.
"Twin brother?"
"Hardly. Felix is ten years older."
"Still, they might resemble each other. What's his address?"
Hayes looked it up in his records and gave it to him. "Now, get
outa here, will you? I have to take my car into the garage and
then get home for some sleep. This is supposed to be my day offi"
"Thanks, Doc." Outside, Leopold said to Fletcher, "I'm going to
check on this brother. You get Hilda Youst and the rest of the
cleaning crew down here to identify the body before it's moved."
"You think they will?"
"Who knows? Maybe the brother is pulling some sort of trick."
Felix Aspeth's address was an apartment building in a rundown
section of the city. The neighborhood was racially mixed, sprawl-
ing through six blocks of what had once been a downtown college
campus. The college, sensing change, had moved to the suburbs,
from the city streets. The old buildings had become apartment
houses.
Felix Aspeth answered the door with a suddenness that startled
Leopold, as if he'd been waiting on the other side. "What is it?"
"Captain Leopold of the Violent Crimes Squad. It's about your
brother."
Felix Aspeth grunted and motioned him inside. He was a tall
man with stringy black hair and a black mustache flecked with
gray. There was something a little seedy about him that matched
the sparsely furnished apartment in which he lived. "I'm making
funeral arrangements now," he said. "I can only spare a few min-
utes."
Leopold sat down gingerly on a straight-backed chair. "You
know, of course, that your brother's estranged wife was shot to
death last night, at just about the time of the fatal accident."
"Yes."
"Witnesses say Kurt was the one who shot her."
"I have no doubt of it. He was always a bit crazy on the subject
of Martha. He was crazy to have married her anyway."
"I understand he was your younger brother?"
Felix Aspeth nodded. "Ten years younger. He was just thirty-
one. They got married about ten years ago, when he was just out
of the army. He picked her up in a bar one night. I told him that
wasn't the sort of girl you married, but he wouldn't listen."
"How long had they been separated?"
"The whole ten years, off and on. One of them would walk out
and then after a while they'd get back together again. There were
no children, and he was never much of a worker. Martha was on
welfare for a year before she got that job cleaning up at Grant
Tower."
"You said he was thirty-one. She seemed older than that."
"She was. Over forty, I'd say. That's one of the reasons I was
against the marriage in the first place. But you just couldn't talk
to Kurt."
"There seems to be a time discrepancy of about an hour in our
records. Though Kurt was positively identified as the murderer by
five witnesses who knew him, the records of the accident bureau
show the smashup occurred about thirty minutes earlier."
"I see," Felix Aspeth said.
"You see? Well, I don't." Leopold was growing irritated with the
man. "Suppose you explain to me how that could be possible."
"Kurt couldn't leave this earth without settling the score with
Martha. Call it love or hate or whatever you will, he had to take
her with him. Martha was murdered by my brother's ghost."
When Leopold returned to headquarters he found Fletcher in
his office with policewoman Connie Trent. "You look tired, Cap-
tain," Connie said. "Want some coffee?"
"I  could use  something.  How  about  it,  Fletcher?  Did  those
women view the body?"
"It was quite a struggle, Captain. A couple of them just didn't
want to look at him. But they all made positive identification. His
face wasn't damaged in the accident, and they say there's no
doubt about it. That's Kurt Aspeth, all rightthe same man who
killed Martha Aspeth last night."
Connie returned with coffee. "Fletcher said you had a hunch it
was Aspeth's brother. Did you see him?"
"I saw him," Leopold said sadly. "He thinks his brother's spirit
killed Martha, after the accident."
"Spirit? You mean, a ghost?" Fletcher snorted. "I don't buy that,
Captain. Ghosts don't run down stairs."
"And they don't fire pistols, either," Leopold agreed. "Whoever
shot her, it wasn't Kurt Aspeth's ghost."
"How about the. brother? Do they look alike?"
Leopold thought about that. "Not really, though Felix without
the mustache might pass for an older version of Kurt. It's hard to
say, never having seen Kurt alive. They look like brothers, I
guess. No more than that."
"But in the excitement of the shooting, couldn't the witnesses
have been mistaken?" Connie asked.
"Five of them? Not likely. Especially the older one, Hilda
Youst. Nothing would shake her."
"Then the thing is impossible," Fletcher said.
"It happened," Leopold reminded him. "Which officer was first
on the accident scene?"
Fletcher consulted his file. "Pete Franklin, a motorcycle cop.
Good man."
Leopold glanced at his watch. It was just after three o'clock.
"Connie, hop down to the police garage and see if you can catch
Franklin. He must be on the four-to-midnight shift, and he should
be coming in soon. Find out everything he knows about the acci-
dent."
"I'll even ask him if he saw any ectoplasm leave the body and
head downtown," she said.
Officer Pete Franklin was tall and handsome, and Connie Trent
did not in the least mind interviewing him. She found him in the
garage adjusting his leather puttees and awaiting the arrival of
the duty sergeant with the orders of the day. When she'd intro-
duced herself, Franklin said, "I've seen you around headquarters.
The prettiest policewoman in the department."
She ignored the compliment. "Captain Leopold's a swell man to
work for. He took me on last year after I blew my cover on the
Narcotics Squad."
Pete Franklin nodded. "I see Lieutenant Fletcher occasionally."
"Do you like riding a motorcycle?"
"It's great in the summer. Come winter I'm back in a patrol
car."
"Captain Leopold was wondering about that fatal accident last
nightKurt Aspeth, the man who hit the bridge abutment?"
"I know. The car was a mess. I was only a few blocks away
when I heard the crash."
"You were first on the scene?"
"The first officer. The only one, really. Some motorists stopped,
and a doctor. He was dead, so I called for the morgue wagon on
my radio."
"What do you think caused the crash?"
"Somebody told me today he'd killed his wife. I suppose he
smashed the car deliberately. A lot of one-car accidents are really
suicides."
"There were no bad road conditions?"
"No, except that it was dark, and that section of the Express-
way isn't too well lighted."
"What time was it?"
"Around 8:30. That's in my report."
"You know Aspeth's wife wasn't shot till after nine?"
He frowned and scratched his head. "I heard there was some
confusion about the times. It doesn't make sense. The witnesses
must have been wrong."
The duty sergeant had arrived and Connie could see her time
was running out. "One more thing. Which way was the car going
on the Expresswaytoward downtown or away from it?"
"Away from it. The guy'd just shot his wife, hadn't he? I figure
he was trying to escape and just decided, the hell with it, and
smashed up the car."
"Maybe," Connie conceded. "If we can just account for that time
difference we'll be all set."
"I gotta go now," he said. He started to turn away, then had
another thought. "How about dinner some night? I'm off tomor-
row."
She was about to decline automatically, then said instead,
"Sure, I'm free tomorrow night."
"Give me your address and I'll pick you up at seven."
Hilda Youst opened the door and stared at Leopold without rec-
ognition. "What do you want?" she asked.
"We met last night at Grant Tower, Mrs. Youst. I'm investigat-
ing the killing of Martha Aspeth."
'"Oh, yesCaptain Leopold. I remember you now. Come in."
Like Felix Aspeth's, her apartment was in a poorer section of
the city. But there the resemblance ceased. Where his had been
sparsely furnished, hers was jammed with trinkets and trophies.
One small corner table was covered with religious statues of all
sizes and shapes, while a table in the opposite corner held a single
large trophy with a golden figure on the top representing a
woman in a long gown. She saw Leopold looking at it and ex-
plained, "I won a weight-watching contest two years ago. I lost
the most weight of any member in the whole state."
"That's fine," Leopold said.
"I got a crown and a dozen roses. Then I came home and put the
weight all back on."
"That's life, I guess. I wanted to ask you more about last night,"
"What about last night?" She didn't ask him to sit down, so he
stood.
"You see, all five of you positively identified Kurt Aspeth as the
murderer of his wife. And you identified the body at the morgue
as being his."
"That's right."
"But he died around 8:30, and you didn't report the shooting till
about 9:05."
"That's when it happened," she insisted.
Leopold sighed. "The thing's an impossibility, Mrs. Youst. Two
things seem certainAspeth was dead at 8:30, and Aspeth shot
his wife a half hour later. One element must be wrong. The kill-
ing must have taken place a full hour earlier than you said. Why
did you wait an hour before summoning the police, Mrs. Youst?"
"But I didn't!"
He couldn't doubt her words. The idea of five cleaning women
dancing around the body in some obscene rite for an hour before
calling the police was just too preposterous. And yet, if he ac-
cepted her story, he was left with no one but Aspeth's ghost as the
murderer.
"Maybe the shock was so great you lost all sense of time. An
hour might have gone by without your realizing it."
"Impossible! For one thing, we have our schedule. I never reach
the fifteenth floor till nine o'clock. That's where I was, so it had to
be after nine."
"All right," he said. There was no attacking her logic. But as he
started to leave, a new thought struck him. "If you just reached
the fifteenth floor at nine, how was it that the floor was already
freshly polished?"
She sighed, as if at his stupidity. "I said I got there at nine. The
girls who do the floors work about twenty minutes ahead of me."
He left her standing in the doorway and went home to meditate
on the ghost of Kurt Aspeth.
In the morning Fletcher had more bad news. "We checked out
the fingerprints, Captain. The dead man really is Kurt Aspeth.
He's got a minor record for drunkenness and assault."
"Is the body still at the morgue?"
"The brother claimed it. There's a funeral service this morn-
ing."
Leopold stared out thfe window, wondering what had happened
to the bright May sunshine of the previous day. It was a good day
for a funeral, but not much else. "We've hit a blank wall so far,
Fletcher. Let's see what happened around 9:27 that night, at the
time the accident should have occurred. Communications keeps a
tape on incoming accident and trouble calls. Get it over here and
let's play it. There has to be something we're missing, and I want
to find it before the press gets onto this story."
But the tape that Fletcher produced an hour later seemed
merely a jumble of radio calls and phone conversations. It took
them some time to sort out the accidents from the crime reports,
and this was what they heard, in part:
".. .8:05truck-bicycle collision at Maple and York. Car 124
responding. . .8:27car accident near the Wilson Avenue exit on the
Expressway. Cycle 404 radioed in from scene. . "
'That must be Pete Franklin," Fletcher said.
"Let's hear what happened later."
'".  .  .8:54two-car  collision  at  West  and  Saratoga.   Injuries.   Car
212 responding with ambulance. . .9:02Cycle 404 investigating
possible hit-and-run fatality on Small Street.. .9:06Police? A
woman's been shot! She's been murdered! I'm on the 15th floor of
Grant Tower! Come quick!. . ."
"That was Hilda Youst," Leopold said.
Fletcher nodded. "The patrolman got there first and verified it
was a murder. That's when I was called along with the medical
examiner, the technicians, and the morgue wagon."
"Let's see what else there is."
But there was no other accident recorded until '". . .9.-59-two-car
collision on Park Place. Car 23 responded. Drivers will see own
doctors.. "
"Nothing around the right time," Leopold grumbled. "What was
that hit-and-run?"
"The boys are working on it. Terrible thinga high school girl
on her way home from the store, cutting across a narrow alley
behind some apartment houses. Nobody even saw it happen. Some
damn fool swung out of the parking area too fast, I suppose."
Leopold puzzled over the tape, rewinding it to play it again. Fi-
nally he gave it up. It was nearly time to start believing in
ghosts...
Connie Trent was ready when Officer Pete Franklin rang her
bell at seven. He looked different out of uniformless handsome,
somehowand she felt a bit cheated.
"All set?" he asked. "Where do you want to eat?"
"Your choice." She knew his salary as a motorcycle cop would
exclude the sort of places she really liked.
"I know a great place down on the Sound, if you like fish."
"Love it! Let's go."
Over an expensive dinner of lobster and white wine she began
to change her opinion of Pete Franklin. His easy-going manner
with women was something of an act, and he used money to com-
pensate for some lack he felt in himself. "That cost you a lot," she
said as they left.
"I'm celebrating. I may be coming into some money soon. Be-
sides, it's a long time since I've been out with a girl as pretty as
you."
As he pulled out of the parking lot, Connie asked, "Where to?"
"It's a great night for a drive. Look, the moon's even come out
from behind the clouds. Let's ride around a bit, then go back to
my place and listen to records. How's that grab you?"
"Fine." She was already plotting excuses for an early escape,
but it was only nine o'clock, just barely dark, and she could
hardly ask to be taken home that early.
His apartment was on the north side of the city and they
reached it a half hour later. He drove around back and pulled into
an assigned space in the parking area. "This place must cost you
something," she commented.
"It's not cheap."
He helped her out of the car and they headed across the dark
asphalt toward the lighted rear entrance. Connie saw the figure
in the shadows first and she tugged at Franklin's sleeve. "Pete,
someone's there!"
"Who is it?" Franklin called out.
The answer was a blinding blast from a shotgun that toppled
Pete Franklin backward like a giant fist. Connie felt the edge of
the shot pattern rip into her left arm and side even as she tried to
pull her own gun free from her purse. Then she went down too,
seeing nothing, hearing only the running footsteps that gradually
faded into silence.
Lieutenant Fletcher had phoned Leopold at home as soon as the
word reached headquarters. They caught up with Connie Trent in
the emergency room at General Hospital, where a doctor was
bandaging her wounds with professional ease.
"She's all right," he told them. "I removed eleven shotgun pel-
lets, but none of them were deep."
Connie was trying to sit up. "Fletcher! Captain! What about
Pete Franklin? They won't tell me a thing around here!"
"Pete caught the full blast in his chest," Leopold said quietly.
"They couldn't save him."
"Oh, God..."
"Did you see who did it?"
"Nothing but someone standing in the shadows, waiting for
him. I tried to use my gun"
"Don't blame yourself, Connie."
She lay back and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she
opened them. "He told me he might come into some money."
"What else did he say?"
"Nothing. But I think it was tied into the Aspeth killing."
Leopold frowned. "Why do you say that?"
"He said something odd when I talked to him yesterday. That's
why I went out with him tonightto find out more about it."
"What did he say that was odd?"
"That it was dark at the time Kurt Aspeth smashed up his car.
But it doesn't get dark these nights till a little before nine. At
8:27, when the accident was supposed to have happened, there'd
still be daylight."
"Thanks, Connie," Leopold said. "I think you've solved the case
for us."
"But not soon enough to save Pete Franklin's life."
When they left the hospital, Leopold and Fletcher drove over to
Small Street, a narrow alley that ran behind some old apartment
buildings near the Expressway.
"A hell of a place to end your life," Fletcher said.
"Any place is," Leopold said. "What was her name?"
"Rose Sullivan. She was only seventeen."
"Pete Franklin again?"
"Yeah," Fletcher said. "We should have caught that on the tape.
Cycle 404 responded to both accidents, even before a call came
in."
"We had no reason to catch it. When he radioed in that he was
investigating a 'car accident near the Wilson Avenue exit on the
Expressway,' it naturally sounded as if the accident was on the
Expressway. Actually it was here on Small Street, a half block
from the Wilson Avenue exit. He must have been coming off the
exit ramp on his cycle when he saw it happen. And see that fence
down the end of the alley? I'll bet that overlooks the Expressway.
He was still here on Small Street when Aspeth cracked up nearly
an hour later on the Expressway."
"What do we do now, Captain?"
Leopold shrugged. "I guess we go back to the morgue."
Doc Hayes was on duty again, because it was after nine. He let
them in himself and led the way to his office in the rear. "Quiet
night," he said, "except for poor Pete Franklin, of course."
"What time did they bring him in?"
"Around ten. I was late getting here myself. Had a .flat tire."
"Damn lot of car trouble lately, Doc. You were taking it into
the garage yesterday, weren't you?"
"Yeah. These things happen."
"Doc..."
"What is it?"
"Killing the girl was only manslaughter at worst. With Pete
Franklin it's first-degree murder."
There was a sudden flash of wildness in Hayes's eyes and he
started to move, but Fletcher was on him, handcuffing his wrists.
Connie Trent was released from the hospital the following
morning and was in Leopold's office an hour later. "What's all
this about arresting Doc Hayes? I can't believe it!"
"He killed two people, Connie," Leopold said.
"He shot Pete? And Martha Aspeth?"
"Pete, yesbut not Mrs. Aspeth. She was killed by her hus-
band, just as the witnesses said. We spent our time investigating
that case when we should have been investigating the hit-and-run
killing of a high school girl named Rose Sullivan. You see, the
answer to the problem of Aspeth's ghost was a very simple one
the times of the two accidents were switched."
"But how was that possible? And why?"
"Doc Hayes made a full statement last night, after his arrest.
You see, he goes on duty at the morgue at nine o'clock each night.
He'd been visiting the apartment of a lady friend earlier in the
evening and was pulling into Small Street in a hurry to get
downtown when his car hit and killed the Sullivan girl. On that
back street, at dusk, no one saw the accident. But Pete Franklin,
cruising the area on his motorcycle, came along just after."
"What time was this?"
"Probably very close to 8:27, the time that was later ascribed to
Aspeth's fatal accident. Franklin's first reaction was to radio in a
report that he was investigating an accident. Once that report
was on the record, as of 8:27, Doc Hayes's troubles began. He
knew Pete, of course, and maybe he even knew that Pete wasn't
above taking a little graft to keep up a nice apartment. Doc was
in big trouble at this point. He'd killed a girl with his car, and if
he admitted it he'd also have to explain what he was doing there.
I guess he saw his marriage and his career both threatened in
that moment, and he made a fatal mistake. He offered Pete
Franklin money to let him go."
"And Franklin took the money."
Leopold nodded. "It was dark by this time, and the street is lit-
tle more than an alley anyway. No one came along. Doc Hayes
drove away and Franklin must have spent the next several min-
utes tidying up the scenepicking up bits of chrome or headlight
glass that might have served as clues. Then he was ready to call
headquarters on the radio and report a hit-and-run, which he fi-
nally did at 9:02. The only trouble was, there was still his 8:27
report on the record. He'd called in an accident, nothing more,
identifying it simply as being by the Expresswaywhich Small
Street is. The detectives who came to examine the scene didn't
know about the earlier call, or about the missing thirty-five min-
utes, but it was still on the record. That was when fate brought
Kurt Aspeth onto the scene."
"He'd already killed his wife and was escaping on the Express-
way. And he probably did hit that abutment deliberately."
"Could be," Leopold said. "Small Street dead-ends at the Ex-
pressway. Franklin could have seenor at least heardthe crash
from where he was. He got there on his motorcycle almost at
once, saw that Aspeth was dead, and called for the morgue wagon.
Only this accident he didn't report. This accident became the 8:27
accident he'd already radioed in to headquarters."
"But. . ." Connie still wasn't convinced. "What about the detec-
tives investigating the hit-and-run? They must have heard As-
peth's crash, too. What about the other motorists who stopped?
What about the morgue records?"
"The detectives already had their hands full. The motorists
would never see the time on Franklin's report. The morgue rec-
ords were easily changed by Doc Hayes. It was a one-car acci-
dent, remember, so there wasn't likely to be any court case where
witnesses would be testifying. Franklin saw a lucky chance to
switch the order of the two accidents and thereby explain his earli-
er radio report. Fortunately for him, he hadn't mentioned Small
Street in the earlier report, only the Expressway. And luckily no
other patrol car happened along while he was at Aspeth's wreck.
Luck was all on his side till he asked Hayes for more money."
"But how did you know all this?" Connie wondered. "How did
you know enough to arrest Doc Hayes in the first place?"
"When you repeated Franklin's remark about it being dark at
the time Aspeth smashed up, we knew he hadn't died in the 8:27
accident. That had to be something else Cycle 404 investigated.
But Franklin had only two accidents in the crucial period
Aspeth and the hit-and-run on Small Street. If it wasn't Aspeth at
8:27, it had to be the hit-and-run. Fletcher and I went over to
Small Street last night and saw how close it was to the Wilson
Avenue exit. So Franklin lied about the hit-and-run. Why? Only
one answer went with his expectation of moneyhe was
blackmailing the driver."
"All right but why Doc?"
"Three things pointed to him. First, he lied when he said As-
peth's body came into the morgue before nine. Second, he told us
he had to take his car into the garage, implying some necessary
repair work. And third) at the time of the hit-and-run he would
have been in his car, driving to the morgue. Circumstantial, sure,
but it was circumstantial too when he said he had a flat tire that
made him late for work while Franklin was being killed."
"You took a gamble accusing him on that evidence."
"I take gambles every day in this job, Connie. Just the way
Pete Franklin did. After he thought of switching the accident
times he had to phone Doc at the morgue and tell him to switch
his records, too. The records were the important thing. The mor-
gue drivers would never be asked, any more than those passing
motorists. The time of Kurt Aspeth's death would be an unimpor-
tant fact buried forever in police files. It would have happened
that way too, except for one crazy thingKurt Aspeth had just
come from murdering his wife. When that fact became known,
Franklin asked Doc for more money to keep quiet. And Doc got
out a shotgun to pay him off."
"It kept building up, didn't it?" Connie said. "From an auto ac-
cident to bribery to murder. But at least it wasn't Aspeth's ghost
on the prowl. I was almost beginning to believe that."
"So was I," Leopold said.