The Black Door Read Online Free PDF Page A

Roberta Grinnels there are in a city the size of San Francisco. I’ll bet, at the most, there aren’t more than two. And, therefore, there’s a fifty-fifty chance she’s the Roberta Grinnel. Also, Micheletti said ‘girl,’ not ‘woman.’ That shortens the odds.”
    “Why don’t you just give your brain a rest? In a few minutes, we’ll know.”
    “You clairvoyants are all the same—intellectual conservationists.”
    I braked for an amber light, pointedly not replying. Campion had never ragged me about ESP. I wanted to keep it that way.
    But he was already changing the subject.
    “The other significant thing about Bransten College,” he was saying, “is that, in addition to its reputation for Marxism, it also enjoys a considerable reputation as a hotbed of free love.”
    “Oh?” I accelerated away from the traffic light. Only a few blocks remained. “Free love?” I was beginning to wonder whether we’d be the first newsmen at the scene, and whether Micheletti had called the radio stations.
    “Right, free love. We demonstrate this point to the newspaper reading public by pointing out that, at Bransten, the students can come and go as they like. No hours. No housemothers. Nothing.”
    “That doesn’t seem to go with a strict academic program. I’d think that—” Ahead was the Grant Avenue intersection. Union Street had been cordoned off, and a uniformed officer was waving us aside. I slowed the car, flipping down the visor, with its Press Car sign. The officer motioned me to a convenient fire hydrant. As we got out, I was conscious of the scene’s heightened tempo. There was more of everything—more policemen, more detectives, more cars and more lab men. This was no ordinary crime.
    As we walked slowly toward it all, a gray Volkswagen was passing through the police barricades and pulling in beside the ambulance. It was Detective Captain Gunther Larsen’s car. Silently I pointed to the long, lanky Larsen, extricating himself from the small car.
    Campion nodded. “Just come from home. It is a big one.”
    We watched as Larsen conferred with a broad, beefy homicide detective named Carruthers. Then the two men turned and walked toward the center of activity, a solid old building squatting unpretentiously in the middle of the block. Built originally as a four-flat structure, the building probably now housed six or eight smaller apartments, remodeled piecemeal over the years. Trailing Larsen at a discreet distance, we saw him gradually collect a small retinue of detectives as he walked. Pausing now in front of the building, Larsen was listening attentively to Carruthers, who was pointing down a serviceway running alongside the building. Following his gesture, I saw Lieutenant Ramsey, one of my tormentors, standing midway down the narrow service walkway. Another detective stood with him. They were staring at a doorway, painted black and decorated with an ornate brass knob and knocker.
    It was probably, I realized, the door of the murdered man’s apartment. The couple could have parked on the street close by, entered the apartment through the black door, and then been murdered sometime in the night. I glanced at Jim Campion, who was also staring down the passageway. Then, almost in unison, we sighed. The grisly, predictable ritual of crime reporting was about to begin—the long, dreary waiting for the first meager details, the pandering to the police for additional information, and then the hours at the typewriter writing a story that would probably be outdated before the presses stopped rolling.
    As we watched, Ramsey turned toward the street and, seeing Larsen, raised his hand in a half salute. Immediately Ramsey and his assistant walked toward the other detectives. The assembled detectives stood in a ragged huddle around Larsen. I counted heads: seven in all.
    Ramsey, as the ranking officer first on the scene, was doing most of the talking, making his explanations to his superior. Ramsey pointed up the