“We can’t take it in—I think,” said Mr Tyler. “And maybe that’s just as well—for the nonce.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if embarrassed.
“I’ll be off,” Jack said. “Unless there’s something I can do.” He waited, ready. “How long’re you here for?”
“We’ll be leaving tomorrow evening. Around eight or so. Isn’t that right, Bill?”
Her husband nodded. “That’s it.”
Jack knew that that would be after the funeral service that Natalia had mentioned, and after the burial. “You know where to reach us, I think,” Jack said, and Mrs Tyler nodded. “We’re there. Just call us, if—” If what? Jack was backing away.
A few seconds later, he was trotting southward on Sixth Avenue, wincing, eyes shut, then open to see where he was going. Had he done the right thing, skipping out so soon? But why should they want him hanging around? Of what use was it to tell them that everyone had adored their daughter? Didn’t they know that?
“Hey, y’son of a fuck! Watcha—wassha—”
Jack stared for an instant at a horrid figure whose shoulder he had just bumped, a man—or could it be a woman?—in a filthy raincoat, hair like ancient seaweed partly obscuring the grimy face. “‘Scuse. Sorry,” Jack muttered through set teeth, as further curses came through the seaweed.
He was at Thirty-fourth Street when he finally approached a taxi that someone was just getting out of. “Grove Street, please.”
Natalia had prepared a cold supper. Jack told her about his brief visit to the Hotel Mansfield. Talking was next to impossible, because Amelia was at the table.
“They weren’t quite what I’d expected.”
“I told you.” Natalia glanced at him with a quick amusement, knowing he’d been bowled over by the resemblance of Mrs Tyler to Elsie.
And Mr William Tyler looked as if he hadn’t had much to do with the creation of Elsie, Jack would have said, if he could.
Before midnight, Natalia had gone out and come back with a Times in which his cartoon of Fran Dillon was on the second page, a one-column-wide reproduction. He was given credit underneath, to his dismay, because the credit suggested that he might be well-acquainted with the subject, maybe even a friend, though the drawing was so cruel, a friend might not have made it. Frances Dillon, aged twenty-six, light brown hair, five feet four, about 140 pounds, was sought for information she might give in regard to Elsie Tyler, a fashion model, slain on Greene Street at 4 p.m. on such and such a date. The short text said that police were questioning people in the neighborhood where the “daylight attack” had occurred in the doorway of the young model’s apartment house. Natalia had told Jack that the police were questioning the owners and habitues of bars and restaurants and discos in that area of SoHo.
Marion telephoned a few minutes later, and Jack heard Natalia saying, “Oh, that’s all right,” presumably about the late hour. When the conversation was over, Natalia told Jack that Marion had just got home, and wanted them to know where she was. Marion did not want to meet Elsie’s parents, unless they especially wanted to see her.
“I told her they hadn’t said anything in that direction,” Natalia said, “and to get some sleep and think about it tomorrow.—She sounded whipped. I know she doesn’t want to go to that service tomorrow. She’s not going.”
“Are you?” They could talk now, because Amelia was tucked away, asleep.
“Yes,” Natalia said.
Jack sensed a mixture of reasons: Natalia had adored Elsie, and was strong enough to face the service, and to join Elsie’s parents in a town that was not their own was the courteous thing to do.
“Want to come?”
“No. But if you’re going, I’ll go.”
They went at a quarter to 3 the next afternoon to a small church of vaguely Protestant character in the West 20s. Jack was amazed at the number of girls among the assembled, many of whom had donned skirts which he felt sure they were not used to wearing. Natalia could hardly keep from smiling once or twice. Natalia knew a few of them, and nodded a greeting. Marion was not present: Jack looked. The photographer Berkman was here, Jack saw, talking to Elsie’s parents, and two other men and a woman, perhaps photographers too, waited their turn. Natalia pointed out a woman to Jack, and whispered that she was Elsie’s agent. The service was brief and serious. “…not yet in her prime…” Elsie would have preferred a rock tune, Jack thought, if there had to be a “gathering” such as this in her honor. Isabel Katz had come, though Natalia said she had not mentioned the service to her; and Bob Campbell, whom Jack spotted after the service was over. The coffin—Jack assumed there was one—was somewhere else, or at least not visible at the altar where the man in a dark suit had spoken.
“Bless you both,” said Bob, pressing Natalia’s, then Jack’s hand in both his, and then he was gone.
When Jack was sure he was out of anyone’s hearing, he asked Natalia, “Is there a burial—after this?”
Natalia nodded. “We don’t have to go to that. But come on—let’s speak to her parents again.”
34
ON Thursday morning, Ralph Linderman saw the cartoon in the Times of Frances Dillon who was being sought for information in regard to the murder of Elsie, and his first reaction had been surprise that the newspaper would print such a drawing, which looked like a child’s effort, and then when he read that it had been drawn by John Sutherland, Ralph felt a slow wrath rising within him. A clever little trick of Sutherland’s to throw the police off his trail! What a convincing story Sutherland must have told the police about this Dillon woman—friend of Elsie’s?—to inspire the police to start a search for her! Did she even exist?
Or could it be a double hoax, the police pretending to be believing Sutherland’s story about Dillon, while they kept an eye on Sutherland? Had the police bugged the Sutherlands’ apartment? Ralph hoped so. The conversation between Sutherland and his wife Natalia (her name was mentioned in the Times, and the Sutherlands were called friends of Elsie Tyler) would indeed be interesting, Ralph thought. Natalia Sutherland was bound to know the truth, and must be enduring agony now, knowing probably also that her husband had had an adulterous relationship with Elsie Tyler, and that he had fallen to such depths of evil as to kill the innocent girl rather than—Ralph suspected—let Elsie reveal that relationship to the Sutherlands’ circle or perhaps to Sutherland’s business associates. Or maybe Elsie had wanted to end their affair, and Sutherland hadn’t been able to face that, and so had killed Elsie. No matter the details, Sutherland was a liar.
The fact that the police had seemed to clear Sutherland of guilt by saying that he was home when the girl called Marion telephoned him about Elsie, Ralph dismissed, because something was wrong there. Someone was off by ten minutes in the time. Or, for some reason, the girl Marion was covering up for Sutherland.
Sutherland could indeed have been having an affair with both of them. Ralph would never forget that early Sunday morning when he’d seen Elsie and Marion with Sutherland on Grove Street, walking away from the Sutherland house.
Marion Gill seemed not to be suspected at all, and yet she might have done it! Ralph had thought of this before, but now the idea had a new force. Sutherland could have been home for that telephone call. He and Marion might have a passionate attachment to each other, might have planned the murder. Did Natalia know about Marion too? Would Elsie have told Natalia about Marion?
Ralph, on the street with God at 11 in the morning, tried to compose himself, recalled that he wanted to buy a few things. He didn’t want to go to Rossi’s this morning, and because he had God now, he couldn’t go into the Gristede supermarket on Bleecker. He went into a place on Seventh Avenue, and bought what he needed, including a thick steak, feeling still deep in thought, buried. He was not thinking about finding a new job as yet, or even about claiming unemployment benefits after the Hot Arch Arcade firing. It was only right and proper that a few days should pass while he thought of Elsie, days like a period of mourning, disturbed though
they were. He had hardly slept last night, though he had anticipated being able to sleep at “normal” hours, when the damned Italians in his house were, it was to be hoped, more quiet. His sleeplessness was also a form of mourning, he felt, and to be expected.
On the warm afternoons and evenings, Ralph often lay in pajamas on his bed with books from the public library, and on the hour, he listened to the news on his night-table radio. There had been nothing about the Elsie Tyler tragedy for a couple of days, until one evening on the 7 o’clock news the announcer said that the police were still searching for Frances Dillon, twenty-six, one of a circle of friends of the young model, who the police hoped could provide information in regard to the killer.
Ralph got to his feet at this statement, and for a few seconds was oblivious of the babies’ yelling beyond his closed door and on the floor below. If they found Dillon, was she going to be charged? Framed?
He stared at his telephone with an impulse to call up Sutherland and tell him what he thought, that he had seen the Dillon cartoon, and was on to Sutherland’s trick. Yes, and that he was going to speak to the police again. Good idea, that last one, the police.
Ralph looked up the number of the precinct station on Hudson and 10th Streets.
The station answered, but Ralph was asked to wait a moment. He waited so long, that he put the telephone down finally. He got dressed. Warm as it was, he put on a tie and a summer jacket for this call on the police.
Ralph entered the station and spoke to a young officer at the desk. “My name is Ralph Linderman. I have some information in regard to Elsie Tyler—her slaying.”
“Elsie—” The officer was not the one who had been at the desk on Ralph’s first visit.
“The murder on Greene Street a week ago.”
“Oh, that one. You can give your information here, sir.” He reached for a ballpoint pen. “Your name again?”
Ralph gave it, plus his address. “I was here once before,” Ralph said, with growing impatience, because this young man seemed even unacquainted with the case, or Ralph had that feeling. “The killer you are looking for is not the Dillon woman, it’s John Sutherland who lives on Grove Street.”
The young officer looked at Ralph more alertly, and rubbed his chin. “This case you’re talking about—”
“The twenty-one-year-old girl! May I please speak with a detective or the—whoever’s on this case?”
“Can you wait here a moment?” The officer disappeared into a nearby office whose door was open.
Ralph remained standing, watched by a cop guard who leaned against a wall behind Ralph. The young man was gone nearly four minutes, and reappeared standing sideways in the doorway, still talking to someone out of sight. He returned and said:
“Yes. Your information, sir?”
“The killer is John Sutherland who lives on Grove Street. I know some facts. I’d be glad to give them to the homicide squad or whoever’s working on this. The reason I’m here is that this is the closest precinct station to my house.”
“Yes, sir. But I just checked. Homicide knows Sutherland. They have some suspects now and they—”
“Sutherland is the man you want!”
The young cop took a breath. “This case is very active, sir—What do you know about Sutherland?”
“I know that he’s guilty. He was having an affair with the girl who was killed! Do the police know that?—I’d like to speak with someone who’s working on the case and is familiar with—with the details up to now. May I talk to the man in the office there?” Ralph made a nervous move toward the open door.
“Oh, no, sir, you’re not to go in there.”
“And why not?” Ralph walked on.
The guard moved, the young cop moved.
Ralph was suddenly taken by the arms, and he relaxed with feigned tolerance.
“Never fear, I’m not violent,” Ralph said, shaking his arms free. “I’m here—I am here to say that Sutherland is the killer and you’re wasting your time looking for anyone else—like this woman the police found today, Dillon—F-frances!”
The two cops stared. One nodded, and said, “Right, sir,” as if placating someone who was out of his head.
An officer appeared in the doorway of the nearby office. “What’s going on, Charley?”
“He’s still talking about Sutherland.”
“Ask him what he’s got definite,” said the cop in the doorway.
“I know,” Ralph said, addressing this man. “He’s a good runner, did you know that? Jogger. He could’ve run between Grove and Greene in ten minutes! He had a relationship with that girl! With both of them, the one called Marion too! If you’d—”
“We have to have facts,” the doorway cop interrupted tolerantly. “If you have facts—Were you a witness to this murder?”
“No, sir, I was home. On Bleecker Street.”
“Well—” The officer shrugged.
Ralph began again. Suddenly all four of them were talking at once, and Ralph was being urged out, especially by the guard.
“But I know!” Ralph kept saying.
“Sutherland’s not going to get away…married man with a fixed address!…Ha-ha!…Take it easy!…Tomorrow’s another day…G’night, sir.”
Ralph was suddenly alone on the sidewalk. Their voices echoed in his ears, though he felt surrounded by silence, as if he’d gone deaf. He started walking uptown, then turned around and headed east at the next corner. Sutherland and his fixed address! Yes, sure. But Sutherland was wriggling out day by day, with his clever little schemes and stories to protect himself, and of course the more he stayed home with his wife, the better he looked, the more innocent.
Ralph felt angry and nervous, and walking briskly relieved none of the feeling. He was suddenly at Sheridan Square. Then he did something he had not done in many years, entered a bar-restaurant with a green awning, a familiar fixture of his neighborhood, with the idea of buying a drink. He ordered a whisky, and was asked what kind he wanted. Of the many names the barman recited, Ralph chose White Horse. He felt torn up inside, miserable. He had tried, and failed. A drink was said to be a sedative. The cold ice in it tasted good. He was still thirsty, and ordered a glass of water and also a beer. Discreetly, not looking at anyone, Ralph undid his tie, rolled it up and stuck it into his jacket pocket, and removed his jacket also, which was dampish from sweat. The place was air-conditioned, pleasant. Ralph drank his beer slowly, happy to see darkness coming outside. The bar-restaurant was busy, all the people strangers to him. Had Elsie and Natalia ever come here together? Ralph began to feel better, cooler. He ordered a second White Horse, and paid with a ten-dollar bill, and left a dollar tip.
But he sat on, not having finished his second scotch, adding water to it from the glass. Sutherland breezing through! Sure. Perhaps threatening his wife, forcing her to silence with a blow even, perhaps even at this moment in the Grove Street apartment. Maybe the police had called up the Sutherland house a few minutes ago to make sure Sutherland was still there? Sutherland would be more uneasy after that, and his wife Natalia would be more hopeful that the net was tightening on her husband. Hardly a year ago, Ralph would have believed Sutherland incapable of such behavior. But so would he have thought it impossible, bizarre, that Elsie’s life would be crushed out like this, so suddenly and brutally. To think that Sutherland had proven more vicious than any one of Elsie’s hoodlum friends!
Ralph finished his drink, and went to the men’s room. Then he walked home, hung his jacket, and put God on the leash. High time for God, he realized.
After walking God back home, Ralph pushed his wallet into a trousers pocket, and went out again. He could not bear his four walls now, he had to get out and move. He walked to Washington Square, and strolled around it slowly, thinking to derive some mental balance and tranquillity from the fact that this was a square, a civilized little park, or had been a couple of decades past, even in his lifetime. A tall male prostitute in blue jeans, thin as a wand, eyed Ralph briefly, and drif
ted on.
“Evening, miss!” said Ralph in a burst of peevishness, and he too kept on walking.
A broken whisky bottle lay where the sidewalk met a low metal fence. That whisky bottle might be somebody’s weapon tonight. Who could face that? What man would stand up against that brandished by a thug determined to take his wallet?
Call Sutherland up and go to see him tonight, Ralph thought suddenly, confront him and his wife in their own house with the truth. Wouldn’t Mrs Sutherland welcome that? On the other hand, Ralph was sure that Sutherland would refuse to let him come up, and would say—as he’d said at the very first, Ralph recalled, when he’d brought Sutherland’s wallet to him—“I’ll meet you down on the sidewalk.” More likely, Sutherland wouldn’t meet him anywhere.
Ring their bell and barge in, Ralph decided. Take a chance on being able to do that.
Ralph directed his steps westward toward Sixth Avenue, walking steadily, and collecting his thoughts. He would remind Sutherland, in the presence of Natalia, of the Sunday morning when he had seen Elsie and her friend Marion in Sutherland’s company at 6 in the morning. He would present the Sutherlands with a lot of truths, and demand to know other truths from Sutherland himself.
Feeling more and more sure of himself, Ralph was a bit jolted to see Sutherland walking toward him on Grove Street. Ralph had just turned the corner from Bedford, having taken a longer route than necessary.
“Mr Sutherland,” said Ralph.
“Ye-es.—Hello.” Sutherland’s silent steps slowed. He was carrying a white plastic sack.
“I’d like to say a few things to you. And to your wife. May I come up to your apartment for a couple of minutes? I’d like your wife to hear what I have to say.”
Sutherland took another slow step toward Ralph in what Ralph felt was a hostile or at least unfriendly manner. Sutherland had been near his own doorstep when Ralph had seen him, and now they were drifting toward Bedford, Ralph along with Sutherland.
Found in the Street Page 29
