“You look as if you just swallowed a crate of canaries,” Lunt said. “You know that Sutton dame well?”
“As well as I know the others.”
“What happened? You make a date with her?’
“You want a box seat if I did?”
Lunt growled his answer to the corpse. He kneeled again, studying it and shaking his head at it. This could be a major stink in his career in Homicide. I began to feel sorry for him. He was on a real spot, challenged by a duet of crimes that would stagger any police department on earth. You can’t play clever and cozy on murder in a public place. Any number of idiots might stroll the aisles of department stores. Who can guess the spark that sets off murder in a lunatic mind? The biggest cut of the citizen’s tax buck in New York State goes for the nut houses, the booby hatches where the helpless and hopeless mental patients linger and rot. But on the outside, in the streets and alleys, who could tally the hosts of potential killers who wandered without supervision?
“It looks more and more like something from the outside,” Lunt said wearily. “And you know what that means, Conacher.”
“Time,” I said. “If the killer came from the streets, you’ll need time and patience.”
“And luck. You remember the Castrillo case?” Lunt tossed the sheet back over the dead man and sat on a crate and rubbed his worried hands through his hair. “The kid who popped off pedestrians with a rifle? We turned the city upside down looking for that nut. But we didn’t find him until he was pulled in on a simple burglary rap. Then he confessed his murders.”
“This one may take less time, Lunt.”
“Meaning what?” he asked hopefully.
“Maybe one of the staff was lying to us.”
“One? Which one?”
“I haven’t figured it yet.”
“You lie like hell, Conacher,” Lunt pleaded. “Why not level with me?”
“I will when I’m sure I have something. I’m stabbing, that’s all. But after you’ve gotten to know the staff in his dump, you begin to get crazy ideas.”
“Meaning what?”
“Just this. Maybe I can let you know who this stiff is.”
“Let’s have it, Conacher,” Lunt said sharply. “What do you know?”
“Right now? Nothing.”
“You have a few ideas. I can see it by the soupy look in your eyes.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”
“Why play it so cute?”
“I’ll tell you again,” I said patiently. “I’m in this store for a big reason, remember? It’s bigger than two dead fat men, Lunt. It’s something that’s had my gut bouncing so that I can’t sleep nights. I’m going to find the bastard who pushed Chuck Rosen to his death.”
Lunt eyed me curiously. “Don’t get your bowels in an uproar, Conacher. You think these murders tie in with Chuck’s?”
“It could be.”
“Then why not tell me who this fat boy is? I can help you.”
“I’ll tell you when I’m sure myself,” I said.
CHAPTER 15
I went up the escalator on the north side of the store. The Advertising Department lay behind a broad wall of glass brick. A decorative blonde sat at a decorative desk in the decorative anteroom. She gave me a worried smile and informed me that the entire staff was up in the penthouse to attend a special conference with Mr. Kutner. I went through the main entrance to the big room that housed the staff, an area cut up into modern corners and niches to suit the needs of the perpetually busy office.
Greg Wilkinson’s place invited me first. His private cubicle reflected good taste and a bachelor’s love of quiet and dignified decor. The walls were done in simple pine, paneled the horizontal way to give the room a feeling of size. His desk was semi-circular and as neat as my Aunt Jenny’s living room. I skimmed through the orderly debris on the desk top. Then through each drawer, examining briefly each oddment of paperwork in my search for information about the dead Santa Claus. I muttered a few obscenities at the bushel of nothing I found.
I went out into the main office, standing flatfooted in the center of the group of desks. All of them were covered with the usual litter creative people love to have around them. The silence was strange. In this section, over the past few weeks, a broth of intrigue had been stewed. Here the staff moved through the daily work ritual, close enough to sniff at each other, close enough to hate each other. At these desks the whisperings began, the sly thrusts and counterthrusts, the gossip and rumor, the plot and counterplot.
I began with Helen Sutton’s spot, an isolated section near the windows, behind a few large and pretty screens. She had the usual big drawing board and tabouret, a small chest loaded with odds and ends of supplies: paint tubes and pencils, colored inks and pastels. Another squat piece of furniture held long sheets of paper and pads. She had no desk. She had no papers worthy of attention. But on her drawing board was a rough sketch for an ad concerning January Specials. She was scheming a full-page layout involving sheets and pillow cases. She had only begun to scheme. A variety of inane doodles rimmed the big layout, tiny caricatures of the ad staff again. Around and about these heads, written in a spidery hand, straight out of her subconscious, was a strange and irritating doodle: Chester, Chester, Chester, over and over again in an assortment of lettering styles.
I drifted next to Lila Martin’s desk. Here again, her temperament came through. She had geared her desk top to impress her associates with her businesslike efficiency. Neatness was the rule. A small pile of papers was stacked in one corner. Four pencils were lined like soldiers on the green parade ground of her blotter. Her drawers, too, showed the same signs of orderly preciseness. She had labored long and hard to convince her colleagues of her abilities. A small file of copy lay in the upper drawer. Her diary showed appointments for every available minute of her time. I wondered where she kept the diary of her night-time energies. The bottom sections of her desk revealed neatly packed odds and ends: cosmetics and gloves, tissues and toiletries.
I was plucking at them delicately when I heard the sound of another desk drawer opening. Beyond the partition on my right.
It was a gentle noise, but in the silence it froze me at an odd angle, almost bent double over the bottom drawer in Lila’s desk, I stooped even lower and crept around the partition. The next compartment belonged to Chester Carpenter. Leaning over Chester’s papers, her shapely behind close enough for me to touch, was Helen Sutton.
I touched.
She jumped as though snake-bitten.
“Looking for something?” I asked.
“Steve! You startled me.”
“You’re supposed to be up with Kutner, at a meeting.”
“I just came down,” she said, “to get Chester some papers he needed.”
“What kind of papers?”
“Copy, Steve. We’re discussing the January White Sales up there.”
“You’re telling me a big, nasty fib, Helen.”
“Why should I lie?” Her face colored, fighting to justify her girlish purpose. But she wasn’t the type to promote a lie. Her eyes gave her away. She couldn’t fill them with anything resembling innocence. She groped for a few stray sheets of paper on Chester’s desk top. She tried to sound casual. “I’ll take these right up now, Steve.”
“You were stooping to search his bottom drawer,” I said. “What were you looking for?”
“The papers, of course.”
“Stoop again, baby.”
“But I’ve found the papers,” she complained.
“Stoop again.”
I had her wrist and forced her body to assume the correct pose over the bottom drawer. I opened the drawer and looked inside. When I slipped a handkerchief over the automatic and brought it out, her body went tight under my fingers.
“Chester’s gun?” I asked. The thing was made to
order for the recent butcherings. The nose of the gun smelled strangely active. “And fired recently.”
“He didn’t fire it,” she wailed, all upset now and ready to break down. “You must believe me, Steve. Chester collects guns. You’ll find another one in that drawer, an old Luger. It’s a hobby of his. He has dozens of them at home.”
“A great hobby. How come these two are in the store?”
“He bought them last week. He was going to take them home.”
“Maybe he waited too long,” I said. She stared at the automatic, hypnotized by it. She was shaking with fright now. “Maybe he kept this little one here in the store so that he could knock off Greg Wilkinson.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It’ll make sense to Lunt.”
“How can it?” she begged. “Chester was with me all morning. He didn’t leave my side during the time Greg was shot. Or the other man.”
“You could be fixing him with an alibi, baby.”
“But I’m telling you the truth,” she said. “You must believe me, Steve. If you report this to the police, Chester’s career will be ruined. Give him a chance first, will you? He’ll be able to explain his movements every minute of the day.” She was knocking herself out for Chester. She gave me every facet of her emotional drive, from tears to torment. She held my hand and would not let me go. “Chester wouldn’t kill anybody. He couldn’t. You must give him a chance to clear himself.”
“I don’t play games with the police, Helen. I don’t run Homicide all by my lonesome.”
“But you don’t think Chester is a murderer, do you?”
“I wouldn’t make book on it.”
“Then, please, please, give him a chance.”
I weighed her request on the zany scales of my intellect. She was being sincere with me. She was giving me the full strength of her femininity, the terrific emotional drive that comes through, to any susceptible male, as honest and true. I fumbled for a brush-off. I groped for a few kind words to tell her that what she wanted was impossible. Private investigators can’t afford to withhold evidence from the city dicks. A deal like this could cost me my license. A deal like this could cancel me out on my search for Chuck’s killer. So I opened my mouth to refuse her.
And at that moment, two things happened.
The first was her line of dialogue, desperate and loaded with meaning.
“Maybe I can return the favor,” she whispered. “Maybe I can help you identify the man in the storeroom.”
Before I could answer her, the second thing happened. Beyond the edge of the partition, through the door to Greg Wilkinson’s office, I saw Vivian Debevoise. She was leaning over her dead boss’s desk, fumbling frantically for something on the slick surface. She turned to face me, and smiled. She started my way. In a matter of seconds, she would be a member of our group. I stuffed the automatic away in my pocket. I closed the bottom drawer of Chester’s desk.
“I’ll see you tonight,” I said. “Don’t leave your flat.”
“You want me alone?” she asked. “Or do you want to see Chester, too?”
“Alone, baby. Just the two of us.”
“How can I thank you?”
“Forget it. Here comes trouble.”
“Hello, Vivian,” she smiled. “The conference over upstairs?”
“We missed you,” Vivian said slyly. “Thought you were headed for the little girl’s room?” She handed Helen a few sheets of layout paper. “You forgot your January White Sales.”
“You were sweet to bring them down to me.”
Vivian turned abruptly away from us, still smiling like a cat. She went back toward Greg Wilkinson’s room, thought better of entering it, veered to the left and disappeared behind the partition that screened her desk from the advertising arena.
“Charming gal,” I said.
“Sometimes she frightens me,” Helen said with a shiver.
There was no time for further talk here. Already the rest of the group were returning from the pow-wow with Kutner. I heard the officious rasp of Larry Pettigrew’s voice, outside in the hall. Chester Carpenter stood near the door, running through a last-minute piece of office chatter with Lila Martin and a few lads from the Art Department. Chester seemed wrapped up in business. He seemed far too serious at this moment to be working off the hangover of nerves a murder might inspire in him.
I backed away from Helen Sutton and went down by way of the north escalator.
CHAPTER 16
I followed Lila Martin out of the store.
The sidewalk seethed with the usual variety of pedestrians, on the way home a little early to avoid the big subway crush. I stood across the street, watching Lila slide through the crowd, on her way to a taxi up at the corner stand. She was easy to follow. She had on a fur cape, a mink deal that gave her a regal air. She wore a tricky little bonnet with a stiff gray feather perched on it. The feather made her easy to tail. The feather ducked into a cab. The feather stood up straight against the back window.
My cabby had no trouble staying behind the feather. The feather led us across town, through the slow crawling traffic around the big stores, then uptown by way of Park Avenue, then to the right and into the fancy-rent district called Sutton Place.
The feather got out at a fancy front, an elegant modern façade of the avant-garde school of architecture. It was a polished stone building with a big picture window on the second floor. It sported a yellow door with four small glass bricks set in a neat design, above eye level. I studied it as the feather entered it. From where I stood, across the street, the big initials—G W—stood out in copper, glistening faintly under the aura of a street lamp.
Greg Wilkinson’s house!
I tried the knob and found it willing. The door slid open noiselessly, opening into a small foyer that was a closet of dead air and silence. Another door led into, a lush vestibule, the main lobby of the apartment. The vestibule was designed for a bachelor, a severe yet pleasant scheme of soft colors and softer rugs. The decorator had played on Wilkinson’s yen for sophistication, combining manliness with seduction, so that any visiting wren would find this first step into his bedroom inviting and in good taste.
I walked on my toes, on a thick rug that killed all sound. Where the hell did she go? On the right, a finely wrought balustrade led upstairs. Down here, through the door on the left, would be the servant’s quarters, the kitchen and the exit to the yard. The main house lay up these steps. She must have gone up fast because I could hear nothing now but the sound of my own breathing.
Until the silence was fractured by another noise.
It was a weak and throttled gasp, a coughing, as if from a long distance, sibilant and painful. I started up the steps at a gallop. The landing above was a square hallway, from which three doors opened into various rooms. Through one of them under the weak glow of the street lamp outside, I could make out clearly the contours of living room furniture. But the noise came from the last door on the landing—the one on the far right.
And the noise came from Lila Martin.
On the floor, and unconscious!
The hat with the perky feather lay a few feet from her. She had been hit hard and clawed diligently. The mink wrap was a background for her figure, her waist ripped and slashed away from her body as though some madman had worked to get at her full-blown breasts. She wore no brassiere, and in the weak light I could see the tentative scratches of her assailant, high on her chest, but not deep enough to draw blood. It had all happened only a short while ago. A minute? Five minutes ago? I had watched her from across the street for only a brief spell, allowing her the chance to accomplish her mission before following her here. But I had waited too long.
Somebody else reached her first.
Somebody had waited for her.
I ran into the john adjoining the bedroom. I brought out a tumbler of water and sp
rayed her face with it. She groaned weakly and squirmed in terror. She reached out to continue her fight with the man who leveled her.
“Who hit you?” I asked. “Relax, Lila. This is Steve.”
“Oh, God,” she wailed and fell against me, overcome by a mixture of relief and unfeigned terror. “The louse. The stinking, crawling louse.”
“Who?”
Her eyes did not open. I caught the flutter of her lids as she made an effort to revive herself. Her face was drawn and waxed-looking. She worked her mouth for words, wetting her lips once or twice. She frowned and clung to me.
“Who hit you?” I asked again.
“I don’t know, Steve.”
“You didn’t see him?”
“He didn’t give me a chance to see him,” she said. “He came at me from behind. He must have been hiding in here.”
“You’re sure it was a he?”
“What do you think?” She adjusted her blouse. Only one of the buttons remained, too low, and much too loose to confine her brazen breasts. “No woman on earth would claw this way. Besides, I could smell his breath.”
“What about his breath?”
“It smelled too much of tobacco for a woman.”
“What kind of tobacco? Cigars?”
“I didn’t have time to analyze the stench,” Lila said. Now she was on her feet and fussing with her hair in the mirror. She perched the feathered hat on her head. She adjusted the mink wrap. She was almost back to normal again, complete with the cigarette holder and the airy poise. “Is it so important to know the brand of weed the idiot smoked?”
“We can skip it,” I said, following her to the small night table at the right side of the tremendous bed. She seemed to know her way around inside the cupboard door. She came up with a bottle and two glasses. She poured and eased her lithe body to the edge of the bed. She was as composed as a hostess in her own living room. I didn’t want her that way. Her composure irritated me. The bitch had walked into a strange bedroom at a strange time on a strange mission. I had her caught and cornered. But she was doing her best to make me feel silly about following her here. I let her finish her drink. Then I took her glass and said, “The party’s over now, Lila. Now we talk. What did you come up here for?”
Kiss and Kill Page 11
