Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 4, September 1971

The Parkside Avenue home of Mrs. Monohan was dark and quiet on this night of March 9, 1953. Mrs. Monohan was alone in the house. She felt secure. There was a high stone wall around the back yard. Floodlights illuminated both the front and back yards. There was a double bolt and chain on the front door. All the windows were fixed firmly with special locking devices. Her daughter, Iris, divorced from Los Angeles and Las Vegas gambling kingpin Tudor Scherer, fearing for her mother’s safety because the elderly woman lived alone, had seen to it that every device for her safety was provided.

The only thing she had omitted was a caution that her mother never admit a stranger into the house on any pretext. Mrs. Monohan, a kindly person, brought on her violent death because of her faith in human nature.

The facts of the murder, as testified to by several principals and near-principals in the crime, were that on the night of March 9, 1953, a brunette young woman rang the bell of Mrs. Monohan’s home. Mrs. Monohan was reading a mystery story — “The Purple Pony Murder” — and when the bell range she rose from her chair and hobbled to the front door and cautiously opened the peephole, turned on the front porch light and peered through.

“Yes, what is it?” she asked of the young woman at the door.

“My car is broken down in the middle of the intersection and I am unable to get it started. I was wondering if you would be kind enough to let me use your telephone to call a garage?” There was distress in the young woman’s voice.

“All right, dear,” Mrs. Monohan answered, eager to help a young woman in trouble. She unbolted the door.

As the door swung open the young woman and several men overwhelmed her. The young woman smashed the heavy butt of a pistol against the frail woman’s head. It was a vicious blow and Mrs. Monohan reeled backward and let out a high moan.

“My God!” she moaned. “My God! Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me!”

Several more blows rained on her head and she slumped to the floor unconscious. The young woman found a pillow case and drew it over the fallen victim’s head. One of the men pulled the woman’s hands behind her back and tied them together. It was a useless and senseless gesture because Mrs. Monohan was unconscious and would have remained so for hours.

They weren’t satisfied, however. Another of the men drew a garrotlike noose around her neck and shoved her with his foot. The gang then began a systemtic search of the house, their search centered on a floor safe they believed was somewhere in the home. They found none.

The men and lone woman swore in frustration, made another frantic search of the premises and then left. Why the murder?

Tudor Scherer had lived in Mrs. Monohan’s home when he was married to Iris.

Later, when Iris divorced him, he continued to visit Mrs. Monohan frequently. On these occasions he was seen carrying a small black bag into the Parkside house. It was assumed that the bag contained huge amounts of cash from Scherer’s Las Vegas gambling casinos.

The house was cased by several small-time hoods, none of whom had enough intelligence to come in out of the rain. Among these were Solly Davis, a former Mickey Cohen mobster; Baxter Shorter; Indian George, and William Upshaw. Baxter Shorter contacted Jack Santo and told him of what he had seen.

“You know Scherer, Jack. The guy is loaded. He skims a lot of dough off the top from his gambling joint in Vegas and it’s my guess that the dough is in that house, in a safe. There’s one old lady living there now — Scherer’s mother-in-law. It should be a pushover. All you need to do is get a box-man to crack the safe.”

“How sure are you that Scherer is carrying money into the house in that bag? It could be a few changes of underwear and socks.”

“No, no. He stays in the house about an hour and comes out.”

“With the bag?”

“Yeah, with the bag. And it is empty. I could tell from the way he was holding it.”

“Okay. I’ll look into it. Have you told anyone else about this? Anyone else know about it?”

“Not that I know of. I haven’t talked to anyone else about it. If anyone else has cased the play I haven’t heard of it.”

Shorter lied. He had mentioned it to Indian George and George talked to Solly Davis and William Upshaw about it. That tied all four together as conspirators if not principals in the crime.

Lieutenant Robert Coveney, a smart, tough, honest and vigilant cop, in charge of the investigation of the murder, combed the underworld for some word or clue that would lead him to the killers. He determined to put the human wolf pack who had committed the murder into the gas chamber. He had viewed the chilling sight of the dead woman, the blood-smeared face beaten almost beyond recognition and the memory of it burned his insides.