Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2003

Then I’d stood in the doorway of the new building and looked out across a couple of parking lots toward Northwest Stadium where, in another life, twenty-odd years before, I’d played a lot of high school football. The sky was iron gray, and flecks of snow drifted here and there. After a few minutes the image of Judy Pilske lying in her own blood cut across my view, and I’d sat down on a bench and brooded over the problem till Jim Sammons called me into his cubicle at five to four.

“Judy Pilske,” he said.

“Right.”

“Someone entered her room this afternoon about two thirty, then backed off when he saw the guard.”

“Male?”

“Correct.”

“And?”

“Our man was on the far side of the room. By the time he got around the bed and out into the hallway, the man had disappeared.” Sammons looked tired. He was about twenty-six, with a Scandinavian handsomeness — close-cut blond hair, pale blue eyes, a loose athletic build.

“How’s Judy doing?” I asked. “Or do you know?”

“She’ll probably make it,” he replied, looking down at his hands on the desk. “The concussion’s the difficult thing, the doctor says. She must have pitched forward against the wall at a bad angle. I let the guard off and sat there awhile so he could get his lunch. It made me feel like going hunting, though, watching her hooked up to all those tubes and monitors. It’s funny. I used to know Judy back in high school a little. Haven’t seen her since, but I guess that connection made it come home to me.”

I’d been wrong: Sammons wasn’t tired, he was angry.

“We’ll get him,” I said.

He took a deep breath, then responded, “Good. What do you know that I don’t?”

I told him about the missing pistol and the shoplifting epidemic, the connection Ginny had spotted between the car theft and the hit-and-run.

“Right,” he said. “I’ve got those files here. The hit-and-run victim was a fifty-seven-year-old widow named Florence Siwinski. She was a temporary employee of The Wedge store in the mall, and she was struck as she was walking to her car in the parking lot at around nine fifteen that night. The only witness was a hundred yards away and had no idea what kind of vehicle was involved. We have not traced the vehicle. No one has come forth with either a confession or a lead. Mrs. Siwinski died unexpectedly three days later without regaining full consciousness, but her condition had been improving. That was Sunday. An autopsy was requested, and we got the report yesterday. Mrs. Siwinski died of suffocation. Somebody smothered her in the hospital.”

I didn’t say anything. Sammons waited a couple of seconds, then went on. “As for the stolen vehicle, it is, or was, the property of a David Harnisch of River Forest, who discovered it missing at around eleven that same night when he came out of the Speedway Cinema after seeing a movie. I handled this one myself. The man was hysterical. He’s still hysterical — he calls here every day. His car was a brand-new Mercedes 450 sedan with a built-in alarm system. It was stolen by pros, and my feeling is that it will never be found. It could be the vehicle that ran down Florence Siwinski, but I doubt it.”

“You mean, I take it, that whoever ran her down wanted her dead.”

“That’s what I mean. It’s not my case, but I talked to Lieutenant Weber about it this afternoon. No one officially visited her room on Sunday according to the hospital people, and her son, who would otherwise be the obvious suspect, has an unshakable alibi — he works as a vendor at Soldier Field when the Bears play, and Sunday was their last home game. Also, he’s the one who demanded the autopsy.”

“It all fits, anyway,” I said. “This Mrs. Siwinski was a Christmas Temp at one of the stores that’s being hit hard by the shoplifters. She must have suspected something or else spotted someone and got spotted herself before she could report it. Or something like that.”

“What I don’t like,” said Sammons, “is the parallel with what’s happened to Judy Pilske. I wish we could put a second man over there.”

“What about her family?”

“It’s a thought. I saw her parents as I was leaving today. Nice people. Worried to death, of course. I don’t think they have much money.” He looked down at some notations before saying, “Oh. I think I’d better tell you that tomorrow we’ll be over at Speedway to look into your shoplifting ring. What you’re saying about how it ties into the hit-and-run and the attacks on Judy — I don’t think you can claim it’s a private security problem any more.”

I felt a twinge of unlikely sympathy for Frank Malin as Sammons made this remark. “Well,” I said, “in that case, I guess I’d better wrap it up tonight, if I want to keep consulting for Speedway Mall.”

“It’s that way, is it?” He suddenly looked hesitant.

“Speedway Management is the toughest client I’ve got,” I said. “But seriously, I’ll have it worked out by... oh, I’d say ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Keep guarding Judy.”

“What—?”