She hadn’t bothered to dress. She was still barefoot and in the robe. She must have slept nude, for she didn’t seem to have anything on under it.
Seating herself in a chair across from me, she carelessly crossed her legs, allowing the robe to slip open enough to expose both knees and a section of white thigh. I don’t think it was deliberate. I think she just didn’t care.
“How old are you, Nancy?” I inquired.
“Twenty-three.”
“You live here alone?”
She merely nodded.
“It’s a nice apartment. What do you do for a living?”
“I inherit money,” she said. “Relatives keep dying and leaving it to me. Is this a police interrogation, or are you just curious?”
“Just curious,” I said. “Though I am here on police business.”
A wary expression appeared on her face. “I was given to understand the police were going to forget the early part of last evening.”
“We are,” I assured her. “Except for one phase of investigation.”
“You mean Isobel’s death?”
I shook my head. “That’s the business of the Homicide Division. I’m in Vice, Gambling and Narcotics. We don’t plan to bring any vice or possession charges against any of you people, but we are interested in the source of Isobel’s marijuana. Do you have any idea where she got it?”
Her expression didn’t change, but I got the impression the question made her wary again. “Her pusher?”
“Uh-huh.”
“No,” she said. “Isobel never confided his name to me.”
She knew, I thought, but wasn’t going to tell. Maybe she wanted to preserve the source for her own use. I didn’t press her. Much as I would have liked to know, I was using the source gimmick primarily as an excuse to visit the murder witnesses, and I didn’t want her to freeze up. Eventually we turn up all pushers if they stay in business long enough. If we didn’t get to this one through this group, we’d finally nail him through some other contact. But if I pressed too hard and she decided not to talk to me at all, I wouldn’t get anything out of her about the murder.
I asked, “Were you very deeply in Isobel’s confidence?”
“We were pretty good friends. I was one of the first girls ever to be invited to her parties, and they’ve been going on about a year. We had a lot of girl talk. But we never happened to discuss where she bought her sticks.”
“When you saw Sharon pick up that letter opener,” I said. “I know it was pretty dark, but could you see her expression in the moonlight?”
“Sure. Our eyes were adjusted to the dark by then, and moonlight was pouring in the side window. She was goofed to the eyebrows. I was a little goofed myself, so if I noticed it on her, she must have been really high.”
“Did she look angry, or determined, or anything like that?”
She shook her head. “Just goofed.”
“Dou you think Sharon really killed Isobel?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I thought you weren’t investigating the murder.”
“I’m not. I’m just making conversation.”
She smiled slightly, as though she had caught me in something I wasn’t supposed to do, but she didn’t mind. “Last night you seemed to think she was innocent. You’re going to bat for her, aren’t you?”
“Just making conversation,” I said noncommittally. “What’s your opinion?”
Nancy shrugged. “I don’t know. A jealous woman is capable of anything, I guess.”
“How about a jealous man?”
“You mean Joe Grace? Or Greco, as they call him when they put his picture in the paper? I don’t know him well enough to judge.”
“He wasn’t a regular member of your group, huh? He said last night was his first party. Hadn’t you ever met him before?”
“Oh, sure. He belongs to the country club. But until recently he was never one of our group. He’s been giving Isobel a play for some time. She had been working up to include him in one of the parties, but it takes a while with somebody new. You have to sort of sound out how they feel about things. You know how it goes. Sharon must have sounded you out the same way, not knowing you were a cop.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I know how it goes.”
“I suppose you had to lay her a few times before you got invited,” she said casually. “Don’t you feel like a rat?”
I must have turned a little red, because she laughed. “No hard feelings, Sergeant. I had my eye on you early, but you disappeared in the dark. I was going to try Joe Grace as second choice, just because he was new, but I couldn’t find him either. So I had to settle for Eric Franklin.”
I gave her a sour smile. “You kind of enjoy flaunting your promiscuity, don’t you Nancy?”
“Wouldn’t it be a little ridiculous to pretend virtue?” she asked dryly. “You got the complete picture last night. You know I’m a bored whore, just like the rest of the women there. There isn’t a one of us who isn’t open to indecent suggestion any time of the day or night.”
She leaned toward an end table for a package of cigarettes, managing to make her robe open enough for one small, pink-tipped breast to peek out. She popped a cigarette in her mouth, drew a lighter from her robe pocket and lit the cigarette before casually drawing the robe closed again.
I said, “Unfortunately drinking isn’t the only thing policemen aren’t allowed to do on duty. Let’s get the conversation back on a higher plane.”
The girl gave me a wicked grin. “Don’t let your ego pop your vest buttons, Sergeant. I just wanted you to make a pass so I could tell you to go to hell.”
“Sorry I spoiled your fun,” I said. “Did Isobel tell you much about her relations with Greco?”
“We call him Grace, Sergeant. She had been to his apartment a few times, if that’s what you mean by relations. As far as Isobel was concerned, it was just another affair. I wouldn’t know how he felt about her. If you’re looking for a motive, Howie Farrell had a better one than Joe Grace.”
“Oh?”
“Howie hasn’t a dime, you know. I guess he owes money to everybody in the group, but he was the farthest into Isobel. Recently she told me she had advanced him close to two thousand dollars at fifty or a hundred at a time. It was all unsecured, of course. Just friendly loans. So unless his conscience bothers him, he doesn’t have to pay back the estate. His signature isn’t on anything.”
That was interesting. I doubted that Farrell had a conscience. I asked, “Was Isobel pressing him?”
“Everybody is always pressing him. He pays back a smidgen now and then if you press hard enough. He was into me two hundred once, but I’ve whittled it down to fifty by nailing him when I knew insurance checks were due. Isobel had cut him off and had gotten him to agree to a fifty-dollar-a-month payback. Howie wasn’t very happy about it.”
“Does he owe Sharon money?” I inquired.
“Of course. Only she’s soft in the head. She wouldn’t ask him to pay her back. She’s nuts about him.”
I said slowly, “Then if Sharon happened to go to the gas chamber, he’d be off the hook even more.”
Nancy looked surprised. “That’s right, isn’t it? I never thought of that. You think he’s enough of a rat to have planned it that way?”
“I don’t know him that well,” I told her. “You seem to, if you’ve loaned him money. What do you think?”
“Oh, he’s a rat all right,” the girl said. “But my opinion doesn’t mean much. I think all men are rats.”
CHAPTER XVII
The girl didn’t seem to have anything else to offer. I left a few minutes later. The next nearest address was that of Ross Whittier’s office, which was in the First National Bank Building. He hadn’t come to work that day, however. His secretary informed me that he had planned to fly to New York that morning, but had cancelled his flight reservation and had phoned in that he was ill.
I recalled his informing Isobel that he meant to leave town the next day. It seemed
more likely that he had cancelled his reservation because Lieutenant Wynn had instructed all witnesses to stay in town than because of actual illness. I imagined the shock of his ex-wife’s death was keeping him home. I would try him at his home address later, I decided.
The only other two downtown addresses on my list were the business offices of George Apple and Eric Franklin. I hit them next.
George Apple had an insurance and real estate agency in the Tribune Building, Eric Franklin ran a wholesale distributing business on West Pearl. I found both men in, but I didn’t get a thing from either of them. In the light of day they weren’t nearly as uninhibited in their conversation as Nancy Ford had been. Both seemed embarrassed to see me, and both cut the interview as short as possible. Neither would admit having any idea where Isobel had obtained her marijuana cigarettes, and neither wanted to discuss the previous night even in general terms.
When I checked their names off the list, I checked their wives’ names off, too. From their testimony the previous night I knew neither woman had seen anything bearing on the murder, so it would have been a waste of time to visit them.
I decided to hit Howard Farrell next. But as it was noon by then, I stopped for some lunch first and didn’t get to him until one P.M.
Farrell lived in a west end apartment only a couple of miles from the country club. Though a respectable enough neighborhood, the area was beginning to run down in a genteel sort of way. Howard Avenue, where he lived, was lined with huge old homes which once had been occupied by the very wealthy, but most of which had now been sold by their original owners. Some had been converted into private clubs, a few had been taken over by professional groups and converted into medical clinics, social agency headquarters or into other discreetly respectable purposes. The balance had been cut up into small apartments.
Farrell had a basement apartment in what had once been a millionaire’s mansion. The building was flanked by an American Legion post on one side and a medical clinic on the other. You got to his apartment by walking down a flight of concrete steps at the side of the house.
Farrel answered the door in slacks and a sweat shirt. He invited me in rather reluctantly, explaining as he led me into his front room that he was just getting ready to leave for the country club tennis courts.
“I won’t keep you long,” I told him.
The apartment was well-furnished, but the furniture was old and on the verge of becoming shabby. Through open doors I could see a kitchen and a bedroom off the front room. There didn’t seem to be any other rooms.
Farrell offered me a seat and rather stiffly inquired if I wanted a drink.
“No, thanks,” I said to both offers, preferring to stand. “I don’t suppose you’ve been down to the jail to see Sharon.”
He frowned at me. “I don’t see why I should. I have nothing to say to her.”
“You really think she killed Isobel?”
His frown deepened. “Last night I understood you had nothing to do with the murder investigation, Rudd.”
“I haven’t,” I admitted. “I’m working on the narcotics end of the case.”
Farrell’s eyebrows went up. “I thought you people were going to forget that angle.”
“We’re not bringing charges against any of you party guests,” I explained. “But we’re interested in Isobel’s source of marijuana. You seemed to be on rather intimate terms with her. Happen to know who her supplier was?”
He gave his head a definite shake. “I never bought any of the stuff myself. The only time I ever touched it in my life was at Isobel’s parties. Sorry.”
I said casually, “Now that Isobel’s dead, you won’t have to pay her back, will you?”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
“You were into her nearly two thousand dollars, I understand. And into Sharon, too. It will be convenient if Sharon goes to the gas chamber, won’t it? With one stroke you will have canceled two large debts.”
Farrell said indignantly, “Are you implying that I killed Isobel and framed Sharon?”
“The thought occurred to me,” I confessed. “Until I got here just now, it seemed unlikely you could be that conscienceless. But my opinion is beginning to change.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, look at it from an outsider’s point of view. Last night your current mistress was murdered. Today your former mistress is in the clink charged with murder. But are you grieving? Are you even mildly upset? You’re going off to the country club to play tennis.”
He turned a light shade of red. “In the first place, neither one was my mistress, as you put it. The word mistress implies a single lover, and they both had dozens. In the second place, what do you expect me to do? Sit in this cellar and wring my hands?”
“You might at least wear a black sweat shirt and slacks on the tennis court. You don’t have much feeling, do you?”
The man studied me with a sour expression on his face for some time before saying, “I don’t trunk I like you, Rudd. How about getting the hell out of here?”
“You’ll probably like me even less before I’m through with you,” I informed him. “You may hate my guts if I tag you with this kill.”
He emitted a short, disdainful laugh. “You’d have to frame me to do that.”
“Like you framed Sharon? She remembered a little more this morning than she did last night.”
I may have imagined it, but his expression seemed to become wary. “Like what?”
It seemed like a good place to throw a small bluff just to see how he would react. I said, “She remembered the pitchdark hall suddenly becoming light for a moment. It’s a little vague to her, because she was in a dream state, but she recalls the light coming from the far end. It must have come from a door opening and closing again. The room you were in was the only one with a light on. Why did you step out into the hall?”
Farrel stared at me for several seconds. Finally he said, “She must have reached the top of the stairs just as I entered the room. I switched on the light before closing the door. She saw me going in, not coming out.”
It was interesting that he didn’t deny having opened the door. His explanation of the light momentarily shining into the hall was even more interesting. The only light in the room when Carl and I found him there had been the bed lamp. He would have had to cross clear to the bed to turn it on. It seemed unlikely that he would have left the door open to switch on the lamp, then have returned to close it. It would have been more natural for him to close the door behind him as he entered the room.
I threw a little larger bluff. “Someone came from that direction immediately after the light flashed on and off again and took the letter opener from Sharon’s hand.”
“Well, it wasn’t me,” he said with ungrammatical loudness. “I never stepped out of that room until you and that other cop came in. I don’t have to put up with this inquisition, Rudd. You’re not even supposed to be investigating the murder. You must be doing this on your own because you’ve got a crush on that redheaded little tramp.”
I took a step toward him with a smile on my face. He must not have liked the way I smiled, because he backed away.
“You try any violence and I’ll have you in court,” he warned. “You’re not dealing with some two-bit punk you can slap around with a rubber hose.”
“I wouldn’t waste the wear and tear on a hose,” I growled. “The day I met you, Sharon’s father told me it was you who introduced her to Isobel’s social clique.”
“So?”
“Was she a tramp before you took her to the first party?”
He put a sneer on his face. “We spent most of the night here in this apartment the first time I ever took her out. What do you think?”
He had a fine philosophy. Any woman who crawled in bed with him was a tramp. He couldn’t see any difference between seducing a woman and introducing her into a group where she was expected to let any man seduce her.
I gave him
up. If I had stayed in the same room with him another thirty seconds, I was going to lay a fist alongside his jaw just for the satisfaction of feeling the crunch. And, as he said, he wasn’t the sort of two-bit punk a cop could slap around without suffering repercussions. He probably had enough connections to get me suspended from the force.
Without saying goodby, I turned, jerked open the door and walked out of the place.
I had cooled down by the time I reached Ross Whittier’s address. He lived at the Courtland Arms on Courtland Boulevard. The Courtland is an apartment hotel across from Courtland Park, and is probably the most expensive place in town to live. The apartments are all furnished with top quality modern furniture and the smallest one available is six rooms. I’ve heard that the rents start at three hundred a month.
The little investment counsellor had an eight-room apartment on the second floor. He came to the door wearing a lounging robe over slacks and a sport shirt. I had assumed that pleading illness was just an excuse to his office staff because he didn’t feel mentally up to going to his office that day, but he really looked sick. His face was so drawn, he looked as though he were recovering from a two-week binge.
He didn’t exhibit any more enthusiasm at seeing me than anyone else had that day, but he invited me in politely enough.
His front room must have been eighteen by twenty-four feet. It was full of angular modernistic chairs, glass cocktail tables and bright throw rugs. There was a bar made entirely of glass in one corner and tropical fish were swimming around in water inside the bar.
When I gingerly took a bakelite and chrome chair with a triangular seat and only three legs, he asked, “Like a drink, Sergeant?”
I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’m on duty.”
He seated himself on something made of four tubular metal rhomboids which looked as though they had been welded together by a novice at chair construction. He said. “I thought Lieutenant Wynn was handling the murder investigation.”
Vice Cop Page 11
