by Lionel White
“Under no conditions, none whatsoever, are you to go outside. Anyone comes to the door, answer. But let no one in and don’t go out. And don’t let the kid out. I’ll be back later.”
Marian Tomlinson knew what she could expect if she were to disobey those instructions. Gerald was not a gentle man and he was a man who tolerated no disobedience.
But curiosity finally grew too much for her and so, warning the child to be quiet and not answer the door if anyone should ring, she finally put on her heavy coat and tied a shawl over her head; then thrust her feet into over-shoes and opened the front door. She made no attempt to penetrate the crowd being pushed back by the police, which surrounded the house down the street. She asked no questions, but then she didn’t really have to. A dozen excited conversations going on around her quickly informed her of what was happening.
A strange, almost relieved smile seemed to twist the comers of her hard, bitter mouth when she learned that it was the body of a young girl which had been found.
Quickly she turned away and once more entered her own house. When the I child, Patsy, asked her what was happening, she merely smiled thinly and half
shook her head.
“Nothing—nothing important,” she said. “Just some kid down the street got hurt. It’s nothing—you go on an’ play.”
“What should I play with?”
“I don’t care what you play with. Only stay out a the bedroom and the bathroom and play in your own room. Now go on, get. Go in an’ play.”
A few minutes later, making herself a cup of tea in the kitchen, she muttered under her breath.
"Gerald wouldn’t like all those cops around, that’s for sure,” she said.
The Swansons, who had thrown the party the night before, like Marian Tomlinson, stayed only long enough to get the bare outlines of the tragedy and then returned to their half-eaten breakfast.
“A terrible thing,” Grace Swanson said, spreading marmalade carefully on a toasted English muffin.
Tom Swanson didn’t bother to look up from his eggs and Canadian bacon.
"God damn it all,” he said, “a thing like this can stink up a decent neighborhood. You’d think...” the words died in a mumble as his new set of six-hun-dred-dollar false teeth closed over a mouthful of food.
Chapter Seven
It was fortunate for Howard McNally that Lieutenant Giddeon believed the first and most important stage in the investigation of the Julio murder—once he had assigned a certain number of technical assistants to routine work at the spot where the body was found—would be a visit to the Nielsens. As a result, Sergeant Finnerty was delegated to stop by the McNallys’, theoretically the last known persons to see the dead girl alive. Finnerty was a good cop, but in this type of work, he was a little over his depth; until a week before the tragic death of the Julio girl, he had specialized on larceny and burglary cases.
Finnerty had observed both of the McNallys on the Kitteridge lawn, but had paid them little heed. By the time he got around to paying them a visit, they had already returned home and McNally had had a chance to shave and shower and drink several cups of black coffee. Myrtle McNally, realizing the police would soon be around, substituted a double Bromo Seltzer for the coffee, but was presentable in fresh make-up and a newly pressed house dress. She had a raging headache, but it was almost of secondary consideration to the extreme emotional fatigue she was suffering when Finnerty arrived.
Finnerty established his identity and authority by exposing his gold badge and was at once invited into the living room. He sat, a little uncomfortably, in a low butterfly chair and the two McNallys were several feet across the room, side by side on the imitation leather couch. Finnerty sensed at once that Mrs. McNally was boss in the family and he addressed most of his questions to her. One look at the pudgy figure of Howard had failed to impress the detective and he felt a vague sort of sorrow for Myrtle McNally, fine figure of a woman that she was, being yoked in wedlock to so insignificant a man.
It was Finnerty’s mild enchantment with Myrtle which probably, more than anything else, blunted the sharpness of his mentality as he talked to the two of them. In no time at all he learned the Julio girl had arrived at their home in the early hours of the previous evening and that the McNallys had left shortly afterward to attend the party across the street at the Swansons.
Finnerty questioned them carefully as to whether the girl had been expecting anyone to drop in on her and received a negative reply.
“Perhaps your youngster might know if she had a visitor,” Finnerty said.
Myrtle forced a smile.
“The youngster is six months old,” she said.
Finnerty nodded sagely.
“Would it be that one of your friends, perhaps, may have dropped by?”
Both the McNallys spoke up to deny any such possibility.
“Well, these baby sitters,” Finnerty said, “you know how they are. Sometimes a boy friend you know...” He rubbed a lean, bony finger down the side of his long nose. “Don’t suppose you noticed if there were any dirty dishes or empty soda bottles or anything when you returned?”
Myrtle shook her head.
“And what time did you return?”
McNally opened his mouth to speak, but Myrtle quickly cut in.
“We came back, oh, let’s see.” She frowned for a moment, concentrating and out of the comer of her eye saw that Howard was again about to say something.
“After midnight,” she said quickly. “Maybe around two o'clock or maybe even a little later."
“And the girl seemed all right then—nothing unusual or anything?”
“The girl was fine. Everything was quiet and we paid her and she left to go home.”
“How much does she get an hour?” Finnerty asked.
Without hesitancy, Myrtle replied.
“A dollar and a quarter—an outrageous price. But around here, it s almost impossible to get anyone on a Saturday night. These kids—they all seem to want nothing but to go out with their boy friends and...”
Finnerty interrupted quickly. “Well,” he said, and there was the note of pride in his voice at his own astuteness, “in that case we can determine exactly when the girl left. You say she came just before eight and you know how much you paid, so if it was a dollar and a quarter an hour, then...”
He looked brightly at Myrtle McNally, probably expecting to see some appreciation of his acute reasoning reflected on her face. What he saw was a sudden half-frightened, half-bewildered look. Unfortunately, Finnerty at the time was so busy doing mental problems involving multiplying one and one quarter by various digits, that he failed to interpret the significance of her expression.
“I didn't have change,” Howard interrupted. “She was coming back today and we were going to straighten it out.”
Finnerty looked over at him, disappointment heavy on his face. Myrtle eyed her husband at the same time with an expression almost approaching admiration.
“You didn’t drive the girl home?” Finnerty asked, now turning his attention to Howard.
“Well you see, I was a little under the weather—tight you know,” Howard said. “Quite a party across the street!” He laughed a little hollowly.
“Then she...”
Myrtle cut in quickly.
“I offered to take her home,” she said. “But she lives only a few minutes away and she told us she was perfectly willing to go home by herself. After all, Louisa’s abig girl...” Myrtle’s voice, which had contained a defensive inflection as she had started to speak, seemed to fade into nothingness at the mention of the dead girl’s name.
Finnerty went on to ask a number of routine questions—how often the girl had sat for them, how well they knew her, did they know of any boy friends and so forth. He obtained no information of value. They had never used the girl before the fatal night and Myrtle explained they’d gotten her name from another girl they had once employed. Finnerty was on the verge of asking more questions about the party acro
ss the street. He knew that it might be important to know who had been there and what time each person had left, but he hesitated a moment and then decided to pass it up. He knew Giddeon would have that angle checked and right now Mrs. McNally was asking him if he wouldn’t like a cup of coffee.
"Come on into the kitchen,’’she was saying, “andl’llpour. It’s all made and hot.”
As Finnerty was hesitating, Howard spoke up.
"Go right ahead,” he said. “I'll just skip it myself; want to look in on the baby for a moment.”
Finnerty decided to have the coffee and to all intents and purposes that terminated his interview with the McNallys. He was still wondering what a fine figure of a woman like Myrtle McNally could see in that sad excuse for a husband as he followed her well-curved figure down the hallway to the kitchen.
Lieutenant Giddeon wasted little time at the Kitteridges’. A word or so with Mrs. Kitteridge assured him that she was beyond guile and he quickly assigned a man to take down her statement. He learned of Mr. Kitteridges whereabouts and dispatched a car to pick him up. There were a few other routine matters he handled and then he left. He was anxious to talk with the Neilsens.
Allie, her eyes red and swollen, answered the doorbell’s first ring. Young Billy stood directly behind his mother and peered around her at the visitor with wide-eyed curiosity.
“Mrs. Neilsen?”
Allie nodded.
“I’d like to see your husband.”
“My daddy’s gone to the police station,” Billy said, proudly.
Allie turned and said, “Hush.”
“Mr. Neilsen’s not here just now,” she said, looking back at Giddeon.
The lieutenant concealed his quick surprise.
“Well, may I come in a moment? You see, I’m an officer”—he showed her his shield—’’and I’d like to ask you a question or two.”
Allie nodded wordlessly and stepped to one side. Giddeon walked past her and into the neat living room. He waited until Allie came in and sat down and then he too found a seat, leaning forward and with his soft felt hat in his hands.
“Billy,” Allie said, “you go into your room and play.”
Billy started to protest, but then, detecting a note of unexpected sternness in his mother’s voice, he turned and silently left the room.
“Just where is your husband, Mrs. Neilsen?”
Allie looked over at him and she found it hard to keep her chin from quivering. She wanted to cry.
“As Billy said,” shestarted at last, “hewent...”
Giddeon interrupted her.
“I know,” he said. “He went to the police station. As a matter of fact, he came to see me. But that was some time ago. He left my office more than an hour ago and told me he was coming directly home. Do you know why he came to see me?”
Allie nodded.
“It was about the murder.”
“About what murder, Mrs. Neilsen?”
Allie stared at him for a moment and in spite of herself she blushed.
"Not that poor girl down the street;” she said. “No, it wasn’t about that. Len didn’tknow anything about that. Itwas...”
“Your husband told me that you knew all about the thing he had to tell me about,” Giddeon interrupted. “He said that he told you about it last night, or rather early this morning. Now Mrs. Neilsen, I want you to tell me exactly what your husband did tell you.”
“But if he has told you already...”
“I still want you to tell me in your own words. ”
Allie hesitated a moment, and then she started talking in a low, almost motionless voice. Even as she spoke the words she realized how insane they must sound; how silly and ridiculous the whole story was. Only it hadn’t sounded at all silly, or ridiculous, when Len had told it to her in the early hours of the morning. But of course that was before this other thing—this terrible thing which had happened almost next door to their very house.
God knows, she’d been affected enough when Len had told her the story about the dead man; it had seemed terribly frightening and tragic. But somehow or other this other thing, this actually seeing for herself the dead body of a ruthlessly and brutally murdered young girl—seemed to make Len’s tale fade into insignificance. It made it appear too utterly absurd to have ever happened at all.
As Allie talked she cursed herself for ever having convinced Len that he should go to the police in the first place. She began to wonder if perhaps he hadn’t dreamed up the entire thing; that it was all a part of some mental fantasy brought on as a result of his unaccustomed drinking. She was mouthing the words, repeating what Len had told her, almost automatically. And as she talked she was thinking more and more of Len. She finished speaking in a rush.
“And I don’t understand it—I don’t understand it at all,” she ended. Suddenly, quite beyond her control, the tears welled up in her eyes and then she was crying openly.
Lieutenant Giddeon felt very sorry for her. But he was smart enough to just sit there and say nothing. After a few minutes, Allie looked up at him and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, faltered, “I’m sorry, really. It’s just that...”
“I understand, Mrs. Neilsen.”
"And I don’t know where Len is. I can’t understand it; I thought he’d be home now for sure. I just can’t seem to understand anything. I...”
“You haven’t any idea where he might have stopped off?”
Allie shook her head.
“Well, I wouldn’t worry,” Giddeon said, “he'll be along soon, I should imagine. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you go and sort of dry those tears now
and maybe freshen up. I’ll want to ask a few more questions. Just routine things. While you’re doing it, I’d like to use your phone if you don’t mind.”
Allie stood up and looked at him gratefully for a moment.
“The telephone’s in the hallway there,” she said. “I’ll just look in on Billy and I’ll be back in a few moments.”
She left the room and Giddeon watched her go with a curious expression on his face. He felt sorry for her; he believed that she had been telling him the truth. He believed that Len Neilsen had told her exactly the story she had repeated to him and which he himself had heard from the man’s own lips less than a couple of hours back. But he didn’t necessarily believe that the story itself was the truth.
Waiting until he heard the door of the bedroom close, he stood up and walked over to the telephone which sat on a small table in the hallway just off the living room. He dialed headquarters and spoke for several moments in a low, barely audible voice.
“And get it on the teletype at once,” he ended. “I want him picked up and picked up quick. He can’t be too far away.”
He was back in the living room, again sitting in the chair and with his hat in his hands, when Allie Neilsen returned.
“Mrs. Neilsen, ” Lieutenant Giddeon said, “I wonder if I might ask a slight favor of you?”
Allie looked at him with faint surprise.
“Why certainly.”
“I have a splitting headache and it’s been a rough morning. You couldn’t let me have a small drink of whiskey, perhaps?”
Allie started to speak and then blushed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “really sorry. I could give you a glass of sherry. You see neither Len nor I drink much and we don't bother to keep...”
“The sherry will be fine,” Giddeon said.
While Allie was getting the wine, Giddeon looked around the room. He’d been right about Neilsen, he reflected. The man wasn’t a drinker and he’d probably been telling the truth when he’d said his overindulging of the previous night was highly unusual. It didn't really prove anything, of course, but at least he’d been telling the truth.
The detective shook his head. He was doing what he had so often done in the past, making the same old mistake. He was forming opinions about people based on his personal liking or disliking of them. Mrs. Neilsen seemed to be a fine young
woman and completely honest and aboveboard. Her husband had also seemed a likable enough chap. They weren’t at all the sort of...
His eyes took on a colder expression. The hell, he thought, with whether they were likable or not. It was entirely beside the point. Hell s bells, hadn t
Lipski, the arsonist, been likable? Didn’t Watson, the notorious procurer, have I one of the most charming personalities he’d ever encountered? And even
Blackmere, the rapist...
But the hell with that. Giddeon was a detective and he was investigating a murder. It didn’t matter about the personal characteristics or qualities of the people involved. He was out to find the truth and to trace down a killer.
At this point, Lieutenant Giddeon was no longer considering the possibility that he might be investigating two murders. There was only one crime in his mind—the brutal slaying of a fifteen-year-old child whose body was even now being removed to the police morgue where an autopsy would be performed.
The Nassau County Police Department is probably as efficient an organization as most similar groups in the country. Certainly, when it is considered that the department works in close cooperation with the New York City Police, the State Police and local town and village officers within the county, it can be said to lack nothing in either physical and technical equipment, or in manpower. The intelligence quota of that manpower is probably even a bit above the average of the country in general.
However, in the case of Len Neilsen, something somewhere must have fouled up.
Len Neilsen was in no sense a crook and he had none of the cunning or knowledge of a criminal who was on the lam. As a matter of fact, Len didn’t even realize, on that particular Saturday, that he was on the lam. Or at least, on the lam in the minds of the thousand or so police officers who were frantically searching for him. If he had been, it is highly doubtful that even with his total lack of criminal experience, he would be sitting drinking beer in a public tavern on what was probably one of the most traveled roads in the county and a tavern not more than a mile and a half away from the very police headquarters from which orders had been dispatched for his immediate arrest.
