FPA chewed his cigar and said, “The afternoon editions will say that Father John O’Hara arrived in town last Saturday, and was staying at the rectory of St. Agatha’s Church on East Forty-third Street. No motive for the knifing, but the police believe it was probably a random attack.”
Aleck slammed his coffee cup down with such force that it shattered. He pointed an index finger at FPA, the cup’s looped handle still dangling on it, and with all his chins in perfect alignment, his lips set in a straight line, his hazel eyes flashing through the thick lenses, and all color drained from his face, he said, “Random, my pretty little ass!”
“Why, your ass isn’t pretty at all,” said Mr. Benchley. “Come to think of it, it’s not so little, either.”
“Course it’s not!” stormed Aleck, “That’s my point!”
“Whatever are you trying to say, Aleck?” I said, flashing Mr. Benchley a withering glare. I answered my own question with another. “Do you believe that the priest was marked for murder?”
“Why would anyone want to kill the poor old fellow?” asked Marc Connolly.
Aleck turned his head toward Marc, an owl appraising his dinner mouse. The playwright ran a hand over the few blond hairs remaining on his head in a gesture of nervous habit from years gone by. For all of Marc Connolly’s accomplishments over the past couple of years, he still found Aleck’s glare daunting.
“You are missing the point, you imbecilic knucklehead!” said Aleck slowly and calmly, and I thought that had he only chosen words with the letter r to be rolled, his insult might have proved more powerful, more worthy of him. He was certainly off his mark today.
“The murderer was not out to kill the priest!” he said.
“But, you said just now that it was as random as your pretty little ass,” said Mr. Benchley, refusing to play into Aleck’s game of bullying the college graduates. “We agreed, did we not, that your ass is not little and presumably not pretty? Although I can’t attest to its aesthetics myself, as I have never had the life-altering experience of viewing that humongous phenomenon, we shall assume it is appalling; pompous, perhaps—no!—for sure, pompous. This leads me to say, I believe what you meant by your self-denigrating exclamation was that the murder was not random, and that the priest was the killer’s mark. So, please, Mr. Woollcott, make yourself clear as to the meaning!”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Bob, shut up!” hissed Aleck. “He was after me!” Then, in a hushed tone, as the attention of a few luncheon stragglers had been directed at our table, he hissed, “The murderer was after me!”
I was alarmed that the idea had been torturing my friend all this time and no one had come to even think of the possibility that Aleck might have been the intended victim. Of course he was out-of-sorts; he was scared to death!
Mr. Benchley’s concern was evident by the very fact that he would not permit Aleck to wallow in paralyzing fear, if Aleck might wallow more productively in active anger. “Now, why would anyone go out of his way to kill you, Aleck? Makes no sense at all.”
“Why, lots of people want to kill me.”
“You say that with a certain amount of macabre pride, like it’s some sort of badge of honor, old boy,” said Sherry, with a chuckle. He rose from his seat to tower over the table. “Got to get back to work: deadline,” he said, throwing two dollar bills on the table. Bunny Wilson settled his bill and tip with a dollar and fifty cents tossed onto the cloth and bid us adieu.
“See you later at Neysa’s place,” said Sherry. “And don’t worry about yourself, Aleck. It’d be Dottie the killer is after.”
“What do you mean?” asked Aleck, brightening a bit.
“Well, she’s the only one who can identify him. She saw his face clearly. You only caught a glimpse of his back as he escaped through the crowd.”
Marc turned to Robert Sherwood: “You’re right, Sherry, the killer may have had designs on killing Aleck, but now that he’s killed a priest, he’d want to get rid of Dottie, and then get out of town.”
“It is I who should be afraid. He was lurking around last night,” I said, and a shiver ran through me. “I saw him.”
“It’d be bad for him if he were caught,” said FPA. “He killed a man of God, of all people!”
“Wait a minute! Is killing a priest worse than killing me?” howled Aleck, eyebrows raised to his hairline.
“Certainly,” said Mr. Benchley. “You are a critic. Everyone knows that the world would be a better place with fewer critics. Pawn of the Devil you are, Aleck, you know that: one of the evil, little, mean men spreading venom.”
“Hey!” I objected.
“All right, evil, little, mean women, too. Is that better?”
“That’s better,” I said. “But remember you are a member of the club, as well,” I said to Life magazine’s theatre critic.
“Yes, but I never say anything really mean in my reviews.”
“He botched it up, the killer that is. Is that what you’re suggesting?” FPA asked Marc.
“I’m saying, not suggesting,” said Marc, putting on his coat and hat. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Mother awaits.” And the journalist-turned-Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright who still lived with his mother left the dining room.
“I’m off, too. Vanity Fair and the entire Condé Nast empire await my final approval,” said Sherry with pompous deliberation.
“Shit.” I said.
Sherry laughed and pecked my cheek, “You, Mrs. Parker, be very careful.”
“I’ll put Woodrow Wilson on red alert.”
I threw off the glib retort, but in my stomach my lunch was being tossed about like clothes in an automatic washing machine. And then I felt my guts squeezing through the wringer.
As I was at my place of residence, I didn’t have to go out onto the streets and expose myself to a madman who wanted to do me in. I could just take the elevator up to my room and hide under the bedcovers. I could have meals sent up from room service, have the bellboy walk Woodrow Wilson as needed, continue to have guests up for drinks at dusk, and get a lot of writing done, too, while I waited it out until the man was caught.
That seemed a good idea for a minute, until I realized that it was only a temporary measure against the inevitable. I had plays to review, publishers’ offices to visit, and several important engagements over the next few days. No money equals no hotel room sanctuary.
“Well,” I said, turning toward the others with a smile plastered on my face, “I can’t lock myself away in my rooms and wait like a sitting duck for the killer to climb in through my window and murder me. I’m going to have to find him myself and bring him to justice.”
“Very big of you, Mrs. Parker,” said Mr. Benchley, “for such a tiny woman.”
“I don’t see an alternative plan, do you?” I replied, all the while hoping he had one, the cool bravado in my voice cracking like thin ice.
“We. We will find him and bring him to justice, my dear.”
“What do you mean, we?” said Aleck, alarm quivering his voice.
“All of us, Alexander! Frank, here, can keep his eyes open and his ears tuned to police reports about the murder case. And he can check through his sources into the background of Father John to see if he was up to anything that might have made someone want to kill him.”
“And what do you expect me to do?”
“You will go about your business as usual.”
“But, what if it is me he was after?” asked Aleck.
“I’ll bet my life he wasn’t after you.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Bob.”
“If you’re so worried, why don’t you just stay close to Mrs. Parker and me? She’ll protect you.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I said.
“Yes, we established that,” said Mr. Benchley. “Let’s go.”
“Where’re we going?” asked Aleck.
“A house of prayer.”
My partner in crime-solving, Mr. Benchley
Lincoln's father
, Washington Douglas, before “the accident”
Chapter Four
Against the flow of Aleck’s complaints about exposing himself as target for the killer, Mr. Benchley, Woodrow Wilson, and I walked the two avenues over to St. Agatha’s Church on 43rd Street without incident.
We entered the lovely gothic church tucked into the north side of the street, and once in through the doors, marveled at the beautiful stained-glass windows that threw beams of sunlight in colored hues across the pews and altars.
The central aisle was being mopped by an elderly woman, who directed us to the rectory, a limestone building connected to the church, but accessed by the public from the street. There we would find Father Michael Murphy, she said.
The bell was answered by another elderly woman, and after identifying ourselves and requesting to speak with the rector we were ushered into a marble-floored hall, where we took seats on an intricately carved red-velvet Belter sofa from the previous century. A grand, flying staircase curved to our left, and a pair of tall doors loomed to our right. An ornate demi-lune console table graced the wall, on which stood an arrangement of chrysanthemums and above which hung a portrait of the Pope staring down benignly at us.
It took barely a minute for the housekeeper to appear through the walnut pocket doors and bid us enter into the rector’s office, a spacious room carpeted with intricate Persian designs under a massive desk, chairs, sofas, and gleaming mahogany tables. With the walnut wainscoting and the bookcases that held hundreds of leather-bound editions, the papered walls bearing the portraits of past churchmen of note, dozens of framed landscape paintings of the Hudson River School, and the moss-colored, bullion-fringed damask drapery hanging heavily like drooping eyelids against the sunlight, it was like stepping into a salon from one of Edith Wharton’s Gilded Age novels.
Father Michael Murphy walked around his desk to greet us and, as we introduced ourselves, shook our hands with the enthusiasm of reunion with long-lost friends. The round little man of fifty years, his protruding belly evidence that the priest enjoyed the privileges of his surroundings, who had never missed a hearty meal, or denied himself the pleasure of tobacco (as the heavenly smoke that rose from his pipe attested), knew who we were by reputation as writers. There was a knowing twinkle in his eye, and I wondered if he knew all about our disreputable escapades as well.
“Come and sit by the fire,” he urged us, guiding us toward a grouping of chairs facing the fireplace. “And if Mrs. Daniels would be so kind as to bring a tray with tea?” He raised an eyebrow above his half-lenses, and with a wicked little tilted grin and giggle, added, with the thick brogue of his Northern Ireland, “or would the gentlemen prefer something ‘medicinal’?”
“This lady takes her medicine, too, without too much fuss,” I said, slipping onto the settee next to Mr. Benchley.
Aleck took the big wingchair opposite Father Michael’s, stretched out his legs, and beamed as he accepted the tumbler of Irish whiskey from Mrs. Daniels. The grave expression he’d been wearing dissolved as he savored the fine liquor. With Father Michael’s potbelly protruding in the chair opposite, the two were a mirror-image of each other, in form, if not in costume.
Father Michael smiled at each of us in turn, waiting patiently for one of us to speak. Finally, Woodrow broke the ice, walking from my side at the sofa to lean his head on the priest’s knee, waiting to be petted with appreciation. Father Michael complied and asked the Boston terrier’s name.
“Ahh. A fine name you’ve given him. A fine name. I had many pups when I was a boy in Ireland. Herders. They were working dogs—couldn’t herd sheep without them, of course.”
“Woodrow Wilson is a working dog, too, of sorts,” I said, trying to play up my canine’s dilettante credentials. “One can’t easily catch a taxi in Manhattan without him.”
Father Michael smiled and nodded as if I made perfect sense—or perhaps he was weighing my degree of sanity. How was he to know that what I spoke was the truth, that with the help of Mr. Benchley and FPA a couple of years ago I had trained Woodrow, after several sessions, to zigzag between and around the feet of the unfortunate competitor, nipping at the cuffs of each alternate trouser leg on the command, “Woodrow! Hail a cab!” Put into practical use on any New York City street at rush-hour, Woodrow would cause enough diversion with his figure-eights to momentarily distract the mark from securing entry into the taxi. Before the gentleman figured out the dodge, we’d be pulling away from the curb. So he was a working dog; he worked for me, herding away the city’s big men who would otherwise trample over little Dorothy Parker for a cab in the rain.
“Father Murphy,” began Mr. Benchley, “we are here not just to enjoy your very fine libations, but to inquire about Father O’Hara.”
A solemn look settled over his ruddy complexion, draining his high color. Shaking his head he said, “It is a sad time. He had only arrived a few days ago. I had not seen him since we graduated from seminary college back in ought-two. Of course, we kept in touch through letters . . . .”
He came out of reflection, his eyebrows rising as he studied us over his spectacles. “You wish to write about him for your publications, is that why you’ve come? Well, there is little I can tell you that I haven’t already told the police, or that hasn’t been in all the papers this morning. And I know that Mr. Woollcott was with him when he died. Did you know John very well, Sir?”
“Oh, no,” said Aleck, “we’d never met. You see, I was in the crowd when he was—killed. I was standing closest to him and he fell into my arms before he died.”
“I am mistaken, then. But the newspapers gave the impression that you had been accompanying Father John at the time.”
I looked over at Aleck and read his thoughts. If the papers promoted the idea that Aleck was not just a disinterested bystander witnessing the incident, that he had been on friendly terms with the priest, then the murderer probably thought so, too. In short, Father John O’Hara could have told Aleck the name of his assassin before he kicked the bucket. It suddenly did not seem so outrageous for Aleck to believe he might be the killer’s next victim.
I’m certain that Mr. Benchley understood the gravity of the situation, but from his expression, he would not let Aleck see his concern, nor would he burden Father Michael with our dreaded conclusions about Aleck’s safety. Mr. Benchley didn’t deny or confirm our interests in writing about the dead priest; he simply pursued a line of questioning that any journalist might employ for a story.
“Why did Father John come to New York?” he asked.
“He called me the night before his arrival asking if he could stay with me. He very much wanted to see me. He’d been able to take some time off and wanted to visit before the Christmas season. He said that he hadn’t gone anywhere since he’d been assigned the church in Tennessee eight years ago. I was surprised, actually, that after so many years . . . ”
“I thought he came to the city from Detroit?”
“Well, he said he’d been to Michigan to visit with his godson, Timothy Morgan, in Grosse Pointe, before coming here. He said he’d never seen a Broadway show, you know.”
“How long was he planning to stay?”
“He didn’t say. But he did speak as though he’d planned to return to Tennessee after the weekend, as there is much to do at Christmastime.”
“Would you know if he had other friends in New York, other people he may have met with?”
“I wouldn’t know, because he mentioned no one. I saw so little of John. He was out the door early in the morning, and would return late at night, except on Wednesday night when he did not return. The last time anyone here saw Father John was on Tuesday morning, as I told the police.”
“Did he tell anyone where he was going?”
“No, and that didn’t concern me at first, until my housekeeper noticed that his bed hadn’t been slept in Tuesday night.”
“Weren’t you worried that something might have befallen him when you’d no word from him after two day
s?”
“Why, yes, of course I was worried, and was about to telephone the authorities, but he’d sent a wire Wednesday afternoon stating he’d had pressing business but hoped to be here in time for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“And he didn’t mention what that pressing business was all about or where he was staying, if he was still in the city? Do you still have the telegram?”
“I do,” he said, getting up and walking over to his desk where he retrieved the yellowish rectangle from its Western Union envelope. He unfolded the paper and handed it to Mr. Benchley. I leaned in to read:
EXCUSE ABSENCE STOP UNEXPECTED BUSINESS STOP HOME FOR THURSDAY DINNER STOP JOHNNY.
Mr. Benchley handed the telegram to Aleck, who, after a cursory glance, gave it back to him.
“Father Murphy,” began Mr. Benchley, “may I keep this for a few days?”
A questioning look flashed over the priest’s face, and was gone. “Yes, you may have it, if you want.”
And before the priest could question why he wanted the wire, Mr. Benchley launched into his next question: “Was there anything unusual about Father O’Hara’s behavior?”
“Odd that you should ask such a thing,” said the priest, his demeanor suddenly guarded, eyes to the floor, brows knitting furiously. He resumed his seat by the fire, Woodrow Wilson jumping up on his lap. “Father John O’Hara was a fine man, and I’m certain—”
“Oh, we don’t doubt he was,” I said. “We just want to know of his whereabouts over the past few days. Perhaps he was doing good works, aiding a mission in the Bowery . . . ?”
If Father John had been killed because of a crime he’d witnessed or a secret he’d chanced upon while sightseeing, or if he had been kidnapped or abused in some way, and if he’d already shared that secret with his old friend, Father Michael’s life could be in danger, too, should the murderer deduce as much. It would be premature, if not downright cruel, to alarm the priest with our suspicions that Father John was not the victim of a random attack by a madman, but the quarry of an assassin.
[Dorothy Parker 02] - Chasing the Devil Page 6
