Dick Tracy by Max Allan Collins

Pat and Officer Moriarty saw,” Tracy said, “you’ll find it parked behind that wall of crates. I already checked it—no plates, no registration. You can be sure it’s hot.”
    “Who all was in here?” Brandon demanded. “Besides these phony cops you drilled? What happened here?”
    “There’s a recently-in-use cement truck parked up top of that platform over there,” Tracy said, pointing. Brandon and Catchem took that in, but obviously didn’t grasp the significance.
    Tracy walked and gestured toward the mops in buckets of water, off around the corner of the stacked crates. “We’ll have the lab check that dirty water—but from the smell and texture of it, I’d say the remains of Lips Manlis were recently encased in quick-drying cement.”
    Now Catchem, Patton and Brandon got it, and exchanged nods and knowing looks.
    “Lips always did want to be a pillar of the community,” Catchem said. “So the Crouch boys were cleaning up, while somebody else dumped Lips in the drink?”
    “Most likely,” Tracy said. “Plenty of access to the dock from this warehouse. Neither Pat nor Moriarty would have seen that.” Tracy shook his head. “It’s too bad those phony cops all went down.”
    Catchem snorted. “Why?”
    “Because,” Tracy said, quietly arch, “corpses don’t respond all that well to interrogation. And because I want the one who hired them—the one who ordered the rub-out.”
    “You don’t know for sure Manlis is dead,” Brandon pointed out.
    “Then,” Tracy said, “we better find Lips Manlis, fast.”
    “We’ll put an A.P.B. out on him,” Patton said.
    “Write that A.P.B. on a slip of paper,” Catchem said wryly, “tie it to a rock and throw it in the river, why don’t ya, and let Lips know we’re lookin’ for him.”
    “But who was responsible?” Brandon asked, frustration tingeing his voice. “It could be any one of the major gang figures.” Brandon counted them off on his fingers. “Pruneface, Johnny Ramm, Mocca, Spaldoni, even Texie Garcia . . . with this gang war brewing . . .”
    “I know who was responsible,” Tracy said.
    Brandon looked at his ace detective with a wide-eyed, frozen expression.
    “Well, c’mon, Tracy—spill!” Catchem said.
    Tracy curled his finger at Catchem, Patton, and Brandon, and they followed as Tracy walked a few paces and knelt. He pointed to the walnut shells. “See those?”
    “So somebody was eating walnuts,” Catchem said, unimpressed. “So what?”
    “So crushing walnuts and wolfing them down,” Tracy said, “is one of Big Boy Caprice’s least offensive, but most distinctive, habits.”
    “That’s right,” Patton said, nodding eagerly. “I hear some doctor told ’im it was good for his liver.”
    “So would be givin’ up booze,” Catchem said.
    “Walnuts,” Brandon muttered, and sighed and, shaking his head, went off to meet the morgue boys who had arrived for the stiffs.
    Tracy, still kneeling, said to Catchem and Patton, “Get an evidence envelope and tweezers and pick up those walnut shells carefully. We’re going to see if we can’t find the fingerprints of a certain Al ‘Big Boy’ Caprice.”
    Catchem shrugged. “Getting prints off a surface like that is probably a long shot.”
    Tracy smiled faintly. “Sam, you look like a man who’s bet on his share of long shots.”
    “Sure,” Catchem said, “but ask me if any of ’em ever come in.”
    “I’ll take care of it, Dick,” Patton said. “What’s another evidence envelope after all those slugs back at the warehouse?”
    Patton went off after the envelope, and Tracy stood, reached into his pocket, and withdrew the blue sapphire earring. He dangled it before Catchem’s bemused face like bait.
    “Is this expensive, you think?” Tracy asked him.
    “On our pay, it is,” Catchem said, eyes narrowing in on the jewel. “I don’t figure you could spring for a pair of those for Tess. On the other hand, for people with good jobs, like your average