Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 41, No. 4, October 1977

An unmarked car pulled up against the curb, and a short broad man got out. Lieutenant Will Macauley walked briskly towards the knot of people in front of the stone pillars that marked the entrance to the park.

He saw several uniformed officers from the black-and-whites, some white-coated ambulance personnel and the inevitable crew of curious onlookers. Macauley wondered where they all came from, especially at midnight on one of the coldest nights of the year.

Macauley was not in a good mood. He had just settled down in his comfortable chair to watch Raoul Walsh’s High Sierra on TV when the call came in. After he hung up, he had disgustedly put his shoes back on, dug his overcoat out of the closet and ventured out into the frigid air. He was in no mood for delays or foolishness.

Detective Ed Carlisle spotted Macauley coming down the street and hurred to meet him, carrying his open notebook. “Evening, Lieutenant,” he said. “Cold night to be out on something like this.”

“What do we have?”

Carlisle consulted the notebook, even though he could have recited the facts from memory. “White female, apparently strangled and/or beaten to death. Driver’s license gives her name as Elizabeth Jean Murray, age eighteen. Address out on Calmont. M.E. says she hasn’t been dead long. No sign of sexual assault.”

Macauley grunted, digesting the information. He said slowly, “I seem to have heard some of this before somewhere.”

Carlisle flipped the notebook shut. “Yes, sir, this is the fourth one. I ran it through already. Three weeks ago, then two weeks before that, then three weeks before that. All young girls, eighteen to twenty, all beaten to death here in the park. None of them were raped, and their money and valuables were intact. It looks like we’ve got a real dingaling on our hands.”

Macauley thrust his hands deeper into the pockets of his overcoat. His breath made a cloud in front of his face when he spoke. “Who handled the other cases?”

“Gilmore was in charge of the other three. He’s in the hospital with double pneumonia right now.”

“Good night for it. Where is she?”

“Right where we found her.”

“Let’s take a look.”

The two men moved into the park, the taller, younger Carlisle leading the way. They walked down a cobblestone path, between starkly bare trees, until Carlisle left the cobblestones about a hundred yards into the park. Macauley followed him up the slight slope of a rolling hill. He could see flashbulbs popping on the other side of the rise as the police photographers went about their business.

The girl lay in a crumpled heap just on the other side of the hill. A portable floodlight lit the scene. Macauley stood and let his eyes move slowly, taking in the entire scene.

The girl’s skirt was hiked up over her thin legs and her coat was disheveled. Macauley could tell that she had put up a struggle. Her once-pretty face was battered and bruises were beginning to show on her neck.

Long, light blond hair was fanned out around her head. White teeth shone in the glare of the floodlight, because her lips were drawn back in a grimace that distorted her whole face.

In a hard voice, Macauley said to Carlisle, “Okay, finish up here. Who found her?”

“A drunk, looking for some place to sleep.” Carlisle tapped his notebook. “I’ve got his statement for what it’s worth. You want to talk to him?”

“No. I’m going home.”

For a moment, Carlisle forgot himself and said, “Going home?”

“She’ll still be dead in the morning.”

Macauley turned to walk away, then looked back over his shoulder and said in a voice that betrayed his weariness, “For God’s sake, put a blanket over her.”

It was still cold and overcast the next morning when Macauley entered the ugly grey building that had become his second home over the years. He went upstairs into the long, low-ceilinged room filled with desks and the clatter of typewriters. None of the men at the desks looked up from their hunt-and-pecking as Macauley crossed the room to his little cubbyhole of an office.

Carlisle was waiting in the office, sitting on a hard chair with three thick manila folders and one thin one in his lap. He put them on the desk as Macauley hung up his overcoat.

“I’ve got all the information for you, Lieutenant.”

Macauley sat down behind the desk without replying and opened the thin top folder. He scanned the flimsy sheets inside, then methodically read through the other three folders. Carlisle fidgeted while Macauley read.

When Macauley closed the last folder, Carlisle asked, “Any patterns there, Lieutenant?”

Macauley considered, then said, “All four girls were between eighteen and twenty, all were single, and they were all killed in the park. Two of them lived out in the suburbs with their parents, the other two lived by themselves in apartments here in the city.

“In fact, the first one, Jennifer Warren, lived in the building right across the street from the park. None of them had a police record. They were just pretty young girls who were killed in the park.”