Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 11

by Majic Man (v5. 0)

  “The only thing open and shut about this case is that fucking window. You’ve got a floor nurse, a corpsman and a doctor simultaneously out of action, either away from their posts or sleeping like a baby. Maybe that was arranged so somebody could drop by Forrestal’s room after visiting hours, and find him alone, unprotected. How do you know somebody—either a hospital employee, or somebody from the outside, hospitals have notoriously poor security, even military ones—how do you know somebody didn’t accost Forrestal, either catching him in the pantry or dragging him over there, strangling him with the cord of his robe, tossing him out of the window, then taking the elevator, just a few steps down the hall, to freedom?”

  Baughman exhaled some smoke. “All right, Nate. Let’s play it your way. Are you saying that one of those young men—Prise, Harrison, or Dr. Deen—is a part-time hired assassin? Whichever one it is, he’s an excellent actor, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Come on, Baughman, this is a naval hospital, a military installation, professional killers for Uncle Sam are treated here every day. Anyway, I didn’t say it was one of those three … I admit, none of them seem likely….”

  “Neither is your scenario.” He drew in some smoke, let it stream out, saying, “I do not see how a killer could have sneaked in, skulked around, strangled Forrestal, tossed him from the window and slipped out unseen. The quarters on this cramped floor are just too damn close. That nurse or corpsman could show back up, anytime. And the doctor’s sleeping in a room literally next door to this pantry.”

  I held up both hands, palms out. “All I’m saying is, don’t be too hasty, writing this off as a suicide. This begs for a full and thorough investigation. Why don’t I see any Bethesda police detectives here? Or state police, or even sheriff’s boys?”

  Baughman shrugged. “This hospital is a U.S. naval reservation. There will be no local police investigation. And our investigation is almost to a close.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Then you’re not going to like what I have to say at the inquest. For one thing, the man I spoke to in this very room was about the least likely candidate for suicide that I can think of, based upon the conversation we had.”

  Shaking his head, Baughman said, “There’ll be no inquest, Nate. Coroner Brochart has ruled this a suicide.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “Legal enough.”

  “You from Chicago originally, Hughie? By the way, why am I here, if I’m not a suspect? You haven’t asked me a thing about Forrestal’s behavior, his demeanor, today.”

  He gestured casually, cigarette in hand. “Two reasons, really. I did want your insights, where the crime scene was concerned …”

  “Which you’ve ignored.”

  “… and I wanted to ask you about the book of poetry.”

  “What?” I sat forward; this interested me. “You mean the book of poetry I gave Forrestal, this afternoon?”

  “Yes. He was apparently quite touched by the gift, and mentioned to young Prise that his friend Nate Heller had given it to him.”

  “Why is that significant? Is that the book he was copying from?”

  Baughman nodded, put out his Camel in an ashtray, and said, “Come with me.”

  Room 1618 was empty now, the agents in the hall, no more interrogations being conducted, unless you counted the occasional questions Baughman was asking me.

  The writing desk next to the nightstand, the bed next to it rumpled from Forrestal’s last night of on-and-off-again sleep, had on it the red-leather gold-trimmed Anthology of World Poetry. Two sheets of cheap paper and a fountain pen were next to the book, and written on the foolscap in Forrestal’s rather cramped hand were the words of a poem he’d copied.

  “What poem is this?” I asked.

  “It’s marked with a red-ribbon bookmark,” Baughman said, picking up the volume, opening it, holding it in one hand like a hymnal he was about to sing out of. “Sophocles. Called ‘The Chorus from Ajax.’”

  “I’m more a limerick man, myself. What sort of poem is this?”

  Baughman offered a brief half-smile. “Kipling’s about as poetic as I get. Fortunately, one of my agents, who has more refined literary tastes than the two of us, was familiar with it. He says it’s a ‘brooding’ poem, in which the warrior Ajax contemplates suicide.”

  “Really.”

  He nodded. “All about how desirable death is, how inviting the grave.”

  I read Forrestal’s copied version: “‘Better to die and sleep…. Worn by the waste of time—Comfortless, nameless, hopeless grave’… Well, it’s not Johnny Mercer.”

  Baughman smiled gently at me, but his eyes were hard and serious. “That’s what had me wondering, Nate. What possesses a ‘limerick man’ to pick up a book of poetry as a gift? Did Forrestal ask you to buy that particular book for him?”

  Forrestal hadn’t, but somebody had.

  I looked further down the sheet of foolscap: No quiet murmur like the tremulous wail/Of the lone bird, the querulous night, and there it stopped.

  “Is this the whole poem?” I asked.

  “No. Forrestal stopped midway—actually, in mid-word.”

  “No he didn’t. It’s right here: ‘night.’”

  Baughman shook his head, no. “That’s the first half of ‘nightingale.’”

  I frowned. “Forrestal stopped in the middle of the word ‘nightingale,’ got up, went across the hall and killed himself?”

  Nightingale … nightingale … why was that ringing a bell?

  “Apparently,” Baughman said. He hefted the red-and-gold volume. “So why this book, Nate? Was this Forrestal’s idea or not?”

  “No,” I said. “I, uh … just knew he had high-class tastes, that’s all. The thicker the book, the bigger the words, the more he liked it…. You figure this was his suicide note.”

  “That’s our opinion. And you heard Dr. Bernstein second it.”

  I shrugged. “I sure wish I had more information for you, Hughie.”

  He touched my sleeve, tentatively. “Listen, Nate—I would appreciate it … and I’m sure the President would appreciate it if … when you’re interviewed by the press—as I’m sure you will be, having been the last outside visitor to see Mr. Forrestal—that you keep these, uh, contrary thoughts about his suicide to yourself.”

  “Now who’s covering their ass.”

  Baughman had a penetrating gaze and it was cutting right through me, at the moment. “Will you be discreet, Nate? The President appreciates your role in alerting us to Mr. Forrestal’s mental condition.”

  “Fat lot of good it did any of us.”

  “Well, just the same, Mr. Truman asked me—tonight—to personally convey to you those thanks.”

  “Yeah.” I put on my hat, snugged it into place. “Well, tell him ‘you’re welcome,’ but I’m starting to wonder if I should’ve voted for Dewey.”

  Exiting the elevator into the lobby, I was experiencing a sick exhilaration. I knew something that Baughman didn’t: I knew that Dr. Bernstein had recommended that fatal book of poetry. And I even thought I knew why … pieces falling into place in my mind like a puzzle assembling itself.

  My brain was racing, and my body compensated by slowing down. In fact, I was walking in such a daze that I almost didn’t recognize her, up ahead of me in the lobby, chatting with several other pretty nurses as she exited into the parking lot.

  None as pretty, though, as Nurse Maria Selff—herself.

  20

  Out in front of the hospital, the quartet of nurses, one of them my Maria, had—before going their separate ways to their separate cars—paused on the sidewalk, at the edge of the parking lot, for an end-of-shift gabfest, exchanging girlish laughter and, no doubt, gossip. Maria was right in there with them, her lovely Dorothy Lamour-like features animated, her gestures too, a giddy Maria I didn’t really know.

  But then I didn’t really know her, did I?

  The lustrous black hair was again tucked up under an overseas cap, only now her petite, curvy frame
had been poured into a white naval uniform, in exchange for the khaki Air Force number. And as she laughed and talked, she was lighting up a cigarette—a very self-assured young woman, the frightened waif of Cloudcroft nowhere to be seen.

  The pretty nurses were standing over to the right as I exited the hospital, my fedora snugged down, head lowered as well, and I cut sharply left, walking across the driveway toward the parking lot, away from the well-lighted entrance, into the shadows, skirting pools of lamppost light. There was no way I could be certain, but I felt fairly confident she hadn’t spotted me.

  My plan, initially, was to get to my car while keeping an eye on her—right now she was still gaily chatting—and watch her walk to her vehicle and then tail her. But to avoid bumping into her, I’d entered the parking lot on the opposite side from where I’d parked; and in making my way across the dimly lighted lot, not terribly far from my own car, I noticed a sleek powder-blue coupe, a Studebaker …

  … with New Mexico plates.

  When she pitched her cigarette, shooting sparks into the night, and got into the car, her keys out and ready to insert in the ignition, I sat up in the backseat and said, “We have to quit meeting like this.”

  Her eyes were enormous in the rearview mirror and the red-rouged mouth opened wide, possibly to emit a scream, and I slipped my left hand around from behind her and clamped down over those wonderful lips.

  “No scream,” I whispered into her right ear; she was still using Evening in Paris perfume, I noted. “You’re not a helpless woman, Maria, it wouldn’t become you … besides, do you really want to attract attention? You might not like what I have to say to the authorities. Or Drew Pearson.”

  She was breathing hard, but her eyes had gone back to their normal condition—merely huge, a new coldness in their long-lashed, deep blue loveliness—and I removed my hand.

  “You going to behave?” I asked her.

  We were looking at each other in the rearview mirror.

  “Are you?” she gasped, her breath still coming hard. Her lipstick was smeared, the lovely mouth a gaudy wound.

  I wiped the red off my palm onto the back of her car seat. “Give me the keys.”

  She handed them back to me—a Studebaker key-chain with a number of keys on it.

  “Slide over,” I ordered.

  Maria scooched over onto the rider’s side, looking guardedly back at me, not in the mirror this time, as I said, “I’m gonna get out and come around and get behind the wheel. No funny business or it’s gonna be at least loud and maybe messy.”

  That was when I showed her the nine-millimeter in my fist. Her eyes got wide again, momentarily, and she nodded.

  Soon I was behind the wheel, slipping the nine-millimeter back into its shoulder holster.

  “Normally I don’t carry this unless a job requires it,” I said pleasantly, patting the snugged-away automatic, “but ever since I got grabbed at Roswell, I been skittish.”

  The smeared mouth worked up a tiny sneer. “Have you now?”

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Maria. Is that still your name? Or are you somebody else, at Bethesda? I noticed your branch of the service has changed.”

  “It’s Maria,” she said, and ever so subtly, she shifted gears into vulnerability, putting some quaver into that mellifluous alto. “Nathan, why are you treating me like this? I told you I was being transferred. I haven’t contacted you because I didn’t know if it was safe.”

  “You figure it’s safe, now?”

  “Maybe not. They could be watching this very moment.” Her brow furrowed; eyelashes fluttered. In the near-dark of the car, her creamy complexion had a ghostlike radiance, recalling the Lodge, and Rebecca—fond memories of phony passion.

  She was saying, “I … I thought it was unusual when they stationed me here, and strange, too, how they had the paperwork all ready to go, to transfer me from the Air Force to the Navy—”

  “It’s not that I don’t admire how fast you are on your feet, or anyway on your cute fanny; but we’ve moved past the stage where I’m a fucking idiot you can manipulate like a dog chasing a flashlight.”

  She thought about that, drew in some air and, as she let it back out, her carriage changed again, the defenseless girl replaced by the self-confident woman.

  Her voice seemed a little lower, less musical, as she asked, “What stage are you at now?”

  “Not quite sure. Homicidal maniac, maybe. Pleasure of finally figuring out what the hell’s been going on, though, is helping keep my anger in check. Which is good, ’cause I do some of my best work, in a cold rage.”

  “If you’re trying to frighten me,” she said, a little quaver in the voice, possibly not faked, “it’s working.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t really trying, but that’s probably a prudent response. Probably wise to keep in mind the fucking Marines kicked me out for mental instability.”

  Trembling just a little, she reached tentatively toward her purse, on the seat between us. “You mind if I have a cigarette?”

  I put my hand on her purse, and looked toward the hospital; nobody else seemed to be coming out. “Is this the end of shift? Is this parking lot gonna be flooded with people?”

  “No. My friends and I were scheduled for extra hours. What about that cigarette?”

  “I’ll get it for you.” I opened the purse—no guns or knives or anything, just lipstick and compact and Kleenex and so on; plus a half pack of Chesterfields. Found a book of matches in there, too, and lifted the Chesties to my lips, plucked one out for myself and handed them to her. Lighted her up, then me, off the same match.

  “Let’s roll the windows down,” I said, waving out the match, sucking smoke into my lungs, “so we don’t suffocate. Enjoy some of this nice cool night air … but let’s keep our voices down, shall we? Keep it cozy, and private.”

  “I thought you didn’t smoke,” she said, rolling down her window.

  “I don’t, usually.” I blew a perfect smoke ring, then put another one inside it. “Only time and place I ever smoked was in the service, on the Island … you know—Guadalcanal. Now when I crave a smoke it’s … at odd times. Those rare occasions when civilian life mirrors battle conditions.”

  “Now you are trying to scare me,” she said, but sounding not at all scared. “Trying a little too hard, maybe.” And she blew smoke out her nostrils, cutely contemptuous, the world’s prettiest dragon—or Dragon Lady.

  “I mean, you’re familiar with that kind of neurotic behavior, right, baby? You know what a Section Eight is, you’re acquainted with battle neuroses. I figure you’re probably working as a psychiatric nurse, here at Bethesda … though I bet you stayed away from the sixteenth floor today, knowing I’d be there.”

  She scowled at me; even her scowls were appealing. “Why the hell should I know that?”

  “Actually, I’m surprised you worked at all today. Of course, that’s probably why you took the night shift, knowing I’d be around to see Forrestal, this afternoon.”

  “I worked night shift this week,” she said tightly, plucking some tobacco off her pink tongue, “because that’s how I was assigned. From what I hear, James Forrestal committed suicide. What do you know that I don’t know?”

  I blew another smoke ring. “Not much of anything, I’m sure … including that he was murdered.”

  The smeary mouth made a disgusted half-smirk. “Don’t be more stupid than you already are. That man was a suicidal case and he stepped out a window; happens every day.” She took off her overseas cap and began unpinning her hair.

  “Make yourself at home.”

  She arched an eyebrow at me. “You don’t mind if I get comfortable, do you?”

  “Strip, for all I care.”

  Shaking her head, the lush blackness of her hair tumbling to her shoulders, she said cattily, “You’ve lost that privilege.”

  “Tell me, Maria—were you really married? Was there a ‘Steve’?”

  Smoothing her pageboy with a palm, she grunt
ed a small laugh. “Why, you think I planned ahead and put a trunk of old clothes in my bedroom, just your size, so you could make your getaway?”

  “Maybe. It’s no less tortuous than some of the other bullshit you people pulled on me.”

  Folding her arms and resting them on the considerable shelf of her bosom, she gazed out at the parking lot, the shadows and pools of light separating us from the well-illuminated entrance.

  “There was a Steve,” she said, then glanced at me with half-hooded eyes. “And you don’t look a goddamn thing like him.”

  “But he was my size.”

  “I can think of one place he was bigger.”

  Now I grunted a laugh. “He really die at Dresden?”

  Shook her head. “Pearl Harbor. He went down on the Arizona.”

  “Well, jeez—why’d you change that story? That’s a good one.”

  She still wasn’t looking at me, staring out the windshield instead. “It was felt I needed to be more … freshly widowed.”

  “To sucker me, you mean? I think you went to too much trouble, baby. With your looks, I’d’ve believed just about anything you told me … hell! I did.”

  “You are a little gullible, at that.”

  Smiling, shaking my head, I said, “This afternoon, Forrestal told me about his Achilles’ heel, which was his pride, I guess…. Me, I’m a dick with an Achilles’ heel, all right, or is that a heel with an Achilles’ dick?”

  That actually made her smile. She said, “Is it all right if I freshen my lipstick?”

  “Why, you want to take another stab at me?”

  She looked at me with both eyebrows arched, this time, and gestured to the clown-smear of her mouth. “Do you mind?”

  I fished the tube of lipstick out. “This doesn’t shoot poison gas or anything, does it, Mata Hari?”

  Maria smirked, snatched the lipstick from my hand, turned the mirror to where she could see herself. “Ugh,” she said, looking at herself. “Give me a Kleenex, would you?”

  I gave her one and she cleaned off her mouth and reapplied glistening bright red lipstick on the full, sensuous lips. Satisfied, she put the mirror back in place, folded her arms across her bosom again and looked at me like a bored genie.