The Memory of Eva Ryker Read Free Page B

but condemned the fact that Hall panicked and left his car.
    â€œHe showed no inclination of reporting the murder to Headquarters. Hall just wandered the streets until another patrol car found him. I believe Hall acted in a shameful manner and will testify to that effect at the inquiry of his performance, which convenes Monday.”
    Davis added that Hall is to be suspended from all HPD duties pending the inquiry’s findings.
    Questioned at HPD Headquarters immediately following Commissioner Davis’ announcement, Hall ignored the pleas of his legal counselor, Alex Nichols, to refuse comment.
    â€œI’ll be there to answer all questions the Board of Inquiry may put to me,” the young patrolman stated. “I have nothing to hide. There’s nothing I can hide. But, whatever the verdict, I intend to resign from the Force after the inquest.”
    The patrolman’s father, Jerome Hall, a Honolulu importer, refused to speak with reporters, as did Hall’s wife, Louise.
    HPD investigators are still searching for witnesses and leads concerning the brutal November 30 murder of Martha Klein. Wanted for questioning is Catherine Maurois, a maid at the Moana Hotel who left on sick call the night of the slaying.
    She was reported missing the following day by Claudine Maurois, her daughter.
    According to Commissioner Davis, Mrs. Maurois is 49, a brunette, five foot five, and weighs approximately 155 pounds.
    â€œWe’ve filed no charges against Mrs. Maurois. We’re interested only in questioning her. We welcome any information concerning her whereabouts.”
    Police investigators still offer few theories concerning Martha Klein’s assailant.
    â€œWe do know some facts,” Coroner Krumins explained. “Martha Klein was shot in the back with a small .25-caliber handgun. We found the slug during the autopsy. No one reported any shots, so it’s likely that the gun had a silencer.”
    Krumins seemed less eager to speculate upon the grisly dismemberment and disembowlment of the body. “If it wasn’t a psychopathic act, I don’t know what is,” he snapped. “Patrolman Hall could offer very little useful information, but when the lab technicians arrived, they found limbs and major internal organs scattered over the room. The remains were wrapped in a rubber sheet, then stuffed in a dress carrier. Even the head had been defaced beyond recognition. The only way we could positively identify Martha Klein was by her fingerprints, which matched those on her passport and other belongings.”
    Krumins stated that a man is a probable suspect, since such an act required great strength.
    â€œHowever, hysteria can produce incredible physical energy,” he said. “Even in a woman. We cannot overlook all possibilities.”

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    January 8, 1962
    Reprinted from the dust jacket of The Death Watch Beetle , courtesy of Random House. Copyright 1961.
    Norman Hall was a twenty-year-old patrolman in the Honolulu Police Department when he witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Four years later, as a sergeant in Patton’s Third Army, he saw action from Bastogne to Berlin.
    Remaining in Europe after the war, he became a stringer for Reuters and then UPI. His personal experiences in both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters of World War II provided the background for his first three novels. The First Sunday in December , dealing with Pearl Harbor and its aftermath, Through the Shadow of Death , an examination of GI’s in the Third Army, and From the Ashes , with its background of postwar Germany, have sold more than 5,500,000 copies.
    Hall’s successes continued in the 1950s. The Web He Wove , concerned with a Supreme Court judge caught in a McCarthyite smear campaign, won the National Book Award and topped the bestseller list for seven months.
    With the collaboration of his wife, Janice Steiner, Hall has written several popular nonfiction works, notably Opening in