Meet Me at the Morgue

by Ross Macdonald

  “Do that.”

  He started out, but I detained him. “Johnson left the fifty thousand at the station newsstand?”

  “Of course. I was with him. That is, I stayed in my car.”

  “How did he happen to have so much money on hand?”

  “Abe keeps a large savings account. He still likes to take an occasional flyer in real estate. Now I really must run.”

  He waved his hand and trotted out, the pads on his shoulders flopping like clumsy wings. I went through the butler’s pantry, which was stocked as a bar, into the dining-room. The white refectory table was set for breakfast. Ham and eggs and toast lay cold and untouched on the plates. It was as if the three breakfasters had been annihilated by a natural cataclysm as they sat down to eat.

  Through the French windows that opened on the patio, a changing green light was thrown by the pool. I heard a murmur of voices and followed it outside. Ann and Mrs. Johnson were sitting in the green shade of an umbrella table at the end of the pool, conversing quietly over coffee cups.

  Ann looked up and saw that I was alone. Her face showed mingled relief and disappointment. But it was Helen Johnson who said, in some surprise: “Is Larry gone?”

  “He mentioned a luncheon engagement.”

  She frowned into her cup. “I do wish he’d stayed.” She added with an almost embarrassing candor: “One needs a man around at a time like this. Abel’s pretty much of a broken reed. Not that I blame him. It’s not his fault, dear man.” She remembered her manners suddenly. “Sit down, Mr. Cross. Let me pour you some coffee.”

  “Thank you.” I sat between them on a fishnet chair. “Is your husband all right?”

  “I think so. I persuaded him to take a sedative and get some rest. Mrs. Miner is making up his bed. If he survived the first awful shock of that ransom letter—he’ll survive anything. Still, I hate to be left alone with him.”

  “Won’t Mrs. Miner be within reach?”

  “Oh, yes. She’s a good soul. Unfortunately, Amy Miner depresses me. She’s what my husband calls a bleeding heart, I’m afraid. I’m talking like one myself.” She drew a hand slowly across her eyes. “I’m talking much too much. It’s the reaction. I oughtn’t to have stayed alone here this morning. We thought there might be a phone call from them, you see. I waited for one, and the waiting just about drove me crazy. The morning lasted for years. I could actually feel my hair turning gray. It hasn’t, though, has it?” She ran white fingers through her hair. “Somebody shut me up, please.”

  Ann said impulsively: “I’ll stay with you if you like.”

  “I would like, very much.” Helen Johnson reached for her hand across the table. “It’s sweet of you to offer. You’re sure I’m not interfering with your plans?”

  Ann looked at me with a Mona Lisa smile. “Howie, you don’t mind if I stay with Helen?”

  It seemed to me that dealing with women was like playing blindfold chess against unidentified opponents. Ann had never hinted that she was in love with Larry Seifel, or even that she knew him. I had had a vain suspicion now and then that she was secretly rather fond of me. Now a shadowy triangle was taking shape between her and Seifel and Helen Johnson. I didn’t like it, but I said:

  “Why should I? I have things to do. I won’t be needing you. You’re more use here.”

  “What things, Mr. Cross?” Helen Johnson’s tone was sharp. Under other circumstances I would have resented it.

  “For one thing, I’m going into Fred Miner’s background. How long have you known him, Mrs. Johnson?”

  “Quite a long time, since 1945. He was in the Navy Hospital in San Diego. I was in charge of the orthopedic wards.”

  “Before your marriage?”

  “Naturally. I was a lieutenant in the nursing corps.”

  “Fred was a friend of yours, then, as well as an employee.”

  “I gave him his job, if that’s what you mean. Abel isn’t allowed to drive, and I dislike driving. Fred needed light work: he’s on partial disability. He was pleasant to have around. I suppose I was mainly responsible for keeping him on after that dreadful affair in February. I thought he should be given another chance.”

  “Why?”

  She glanced at me sharply. “Didn’t you?”

  “I did. But I’m interested in your reason.”

  “Why, I—” She stammered and paused. “I believe in tolerance, I suppose. I’ve had bad breaks in my own life, and people have been tolerant with me. I try to pass it on.”

  “You’re a generous woman.”

  “No, I don’t claim that. I do believe that people are entitled to at least one big mistake. Fred’s been a decent sort as long as I’ve known him. He drank too much one night and ran over a man—even if he knew he’d hit him, it’s understandable why he ran away. He’d had bad experiences in the war. Maybe he panicked. It could happen to anybody.”

  “You’re still his advocate, then?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. At the moment I’m quite confused. In a thing like this, it’s hard to keep hold of reality. When I let myself go I’m suspicious of everyone.”

  The conversation was obviously becoming a strain on her. Ann shook her head and frowned slightly.

  I finished my black coffee and stood up. “Is it all right with you if I make a few inquiries in town? We should see whether the money’s been picked up; there may have been a witness. I think you can trust my discretion.”

  “Do as you think best, Mr. Cross.” Her gaze was dark and deep, lit by shifting green lights. “I have to trust someone, don’t I?”

  Going back along the curved side of the pool, I kept away from the water’s edge. I had a strange fear of falling in, though I had never been afraid of water.

  CHAPTER 6: There was a witness, but he was blind. A small gray sign on the newsstand counter said: BLIND OPERATOR. The man behind the counter wore frosted glasses and spoke in the slow, clear accents of the sightless:

  “What can I do for you, sir?”

  I had just stepped into the shop, and hadn’t spoken. “How did you know I was a man?” I knew by experience that sightless people seldom resented a direct reference to their loss.

  He smiled. “Your footsteps, naturally. I’m sensitive to sound. You’re a fairly big man, I’d guess. About six feet?”

  “You hit it on the nose.”

  “I usually do. I’m five foot nine myself, you’re about three inches taller. It’s not too hard to estimate the level of the mouth. Now your weight. About one sixty-five?”

  “One eighty,” I said, “unfortunately.”

  “You’re light on your feet for one eighty. Just a second, now. I’ll guess your age.”

  “Aren’t you getting into the psychic department?”

  “No, sir. Voices change with the years, just like faces do. I’d say you’re thirty-five, give or take a couple.”

  “Close enough. I’m thirty-seven.”

  “I’m practically never more than two years out. Bet a quarter you can’t guess my age, though.”

  “Taken.” I looked at the unlined brow, the carefully brushed black hair, the serene smiling mouth. “About thirty?”

  “Forty-one!” he announced with gusto. “I lead a quiet life.” He pushed a jar with a slotted lid across the counter. It was half full of quarters. “Drop your two bits in here. It goes to the Braille fund.” He nodded briskly when he heard the fall of the coin. “Now what can I do for you?”

  “Someone left a suitcase outside here this morning. Behind your newspaper rack.”

  He thought for a moment. “About eleven o’clock?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So that’s what it was. I thought I saw a suitcase.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “That’s just a manner of speaking,” he explained. “I see with my ears and touch and sense of smell. You’ve just been out in the country, haven’t you? I can smell country on you.”

  “Right again.” I was beginning to hope that the kidnappers had outwi
tted themselves in choosing this blind man’s store for their money-drop. He made a point of noticing everything. “About the suitcase, it was left there shortly before eleven.”

  “Did you leave it?”

  “A friend of mine did.”

  “He shouldn’t have left it out there. I’d have kept it behind the counter for him. Was it stolen?”

  “I wouldn’t say it was stolen. It’s simply gone. I think it was gone a few minutes after eleven.”

  He raised his sightless forehead. “Your friend doesn’t think I took it?”

  “Certainly not. I’m trying to trace the suitcase. I thought perhaps you could help me.”

  “You’re a policeman?”

  “I’m County Probation Officer. Howard Cross.”

  “Joe Trentino.” He held out his hand. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Cross, heard your talk on the radio last winter. The one on juvenile delinquency. Now let me think.”

  His hand, when I had shaken it, returned to the jar of coins and twirled it on the glass counter-top as he concentrated:

  “The ten fifty-five was in. It was standing there when I heard that suitcase plop down on the platform. It wasn’t a big one, was it? Then somebody walked away. Your friend a heavy, older man? I couldn’t see him too well, there was too much interference from the train.”

  “You’re a wonder, Joe.”

  “Quiet,” he said. “I’m listening. I had a couple of customers from the train, they wanted Racing Forms. They didn’t stop at the newspaper rack. I guess they already got their papers before they left L.A. Hold it a minute, I had another customer, right after the train pulled out. He brought in a paper from the rack, a News. Now which one was it?”

  He tapped his forehead lightly with blunt fingertips. I watched him with a sense of strangeness growing on me. His awareness of the life around him seemed almost supernatural.

  His tongue clicked. “It was one of the bellhops from down the street, they come in here all the time. I can tell them by the way they walk, the way they handle a coin. He flipped his dime on the counter. Now which one was it? I know it was one of the boys from Pacific Inn.”

  Water started from the pores of his face. It was an arduous job, reconstructing reality from blowing wisps of sound.

  “By golly!” he said. “He was carrying the suitcase. He picked it up before he came in. I heard it bump on the doorframe. I think it was Sandy, the one they call Sandy. He usually passes the time of day, but he didn’t say a word to me. I wondered why he didn’t speak. Was he stealing it?”

  “No, probably he was just doing his job. Somebody sent him for it. I can’t tell you any more about it right now, Joe.” I caught myself up short. I had almost said: you’ll read it in the papers. “Thanks for your trouble.”

  “No trouble at all,” he said, with the water running down his face. “Drop in any time, Mr. Cross.”

  The Pacific Inn was a low, rambling building with sweeping tropical eaves and a deep veranda screened with split bamboo. Diagonally across from the railway station and in full sight of the newsstand, its various wings and bungalows occupied half a city block. As buildings went in Southern California, the Inn was an antique. Oldtimers at the courthouse remembered when it had been an international watering-resort, crowded in season with dubious European aristocrats and genuine movie stars. That was before the great earthquake of the twenties cracked its plaster, before the economic earthquake a few years later cut off its clientele.

  Since then the prosperous center of town had shifted uphill, away from the harbor and the railroad tracks. The Inn hung on, sinking gradually from second-rate to disreputable. It became the scene of weekend parties from Long Beach and Los Angeles, haunt of race-track touts, brief resting-place for touring stock-companies and itinerant salesmen. My work had taken me to it more than once.

  Its atmosphere of depression surrounded me as I climbed the steps. A couple of old men, permanent residents of the bungalows, were propped on cane chairs against the wall like living souvenirs of the past. Their tortoise gaze followed me across the veranda. The lobby inside was dark-beamed and dusty. It hadn’t changed in ten years. From one wall a grizzly’s head snarled through the murk at an elk’s head on the opposite wall. There were no humans.

  I rang the handbell at the abandoned desk. From the dark bowels of the building, a little man in a faded blue uniform came trotting. His tight round stomach poked out gnomishly under the tunic.

  “Desk-clerk’s gone to lunch. You want a room?” Under the pillbox hat, the hair was sparse and faded brown, the color of drought-killed grass.

  “Your name Sandy?”

  “That’s what they call me.”

  He looked me over, trying to place me, and I returned the look. I guessed that he was a jockey grown too heavy to ride. He had the bantam cockiness, the knowing eyes, the sharp, strained youthfulness that had never dared to let itself mature. Money would talk to him. Probably nothing else would.

  “What’s your business, mister? You got to talk to the manager if you’re selling. He’s not here.”

  “I’m looking for a friend of mine. He carries a small black suitcase.”

  Boredom glazed his eyes. “Lots of people carry small black suitcases. The woods is full of them.”

  “This particular one was left at the station newsstand this morning. You picked it up about eleven o’clock.”

  “I picked it up? Not me.” Leaning on the desk, he crossed his stubby legs and looked up at the ceiling.

  “Joe Trentino recognized you.”

  “He’s seeing better lately? Nuts.”

  I didn’t have money to use on him. Fear would have to do. “Listen to me, Sandy. That suitcase was hot. The longer you won’t talk, the deeper you’re in.”

  “Who you kidding?” But his gaze came down from the ceiling, met mine, and sank below it. “You a cop?”

  “Close enough. That suitcase contained evidence of a felony. Right now you’re an accomplice after the fact.”

  I watched fear grow in him like a sudden chill pinching his mouth and nostrils. “I handle a lot of suitcases. How do I know what’s in them? You can’t pin nothing on me.” His mouth stayed open, showing broken teeth.

  “You’re either an accomplice or a witness.”

  “You can’t bum-rap me,” his fear chattered.

  “Nobody’s trying to, Sandy. I don’t want your blood. I want your information. Is my friend staying here?”

  “No,” he said. “No, sir. You mean that one that sent me for the black suitcase?”

  “That’s the one. Did he pay you to keep quiet about it?”

  “No, sir. He overtipped me, that’s all. I figured there was something out of line. I don’t mean illegal, nothing like a felony. It’s just most of the customers nowadays you got to use a chisel to peel a nickel off their palms. He slipped me two bucks for walking across the street.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “I thought he was going to register when he came in, that he was just off the train. No luggage, though. He told me he left his suitcase at the station, told me where it was.” He held out his hands, palms upward. “What should I do, tell him I was too ritzy to tote a bag? Could I know it was hot?”

  “He also told you not to speak to Joe at the newsstand. Didn’t he?”

  Sandy looked everywhere but at me. The dismal surroundings seemed to sadden him. “I don’t remember. If he did, I must have figured it was a gag of some kind. What did Joe say?”

  “Just what he heard. You do the same. Except that you have eyes.”

  “You want a description?”

  “As full a one as you can give me.”

  “Is this going into court? I wouldn’t make a good witness in court. I’m nervous.”

  “Quit stalling, boy. You’re one step away from being booked yourself. He paid you more than two dollars, and you knew very well it wasn’t legit.”

  “Honest to God, cross my heart.” His finger crossed and recrossed his faded blue bre
ast. “Two bucks was all it was. Would I risk a felony rap for a lousy two bucks? Do I look gone in the upper story?”

  “I won’t answer that one, Sandy. You are if you won’t talk.”

  “I’ll talk, don’t worry. But you can’t make me say I knew. I didn’t. I still don’t. What was it, stolen goods? Marijuana?”

  “You’re wasting time. Let’s have a complete description.”

  He took a deep breath. It wheezed in his throat and swelled his chest out like a pouter pigeon’s. “Okay, I said I’d co-operate, that’s my policy. Let’s see, he was about your size, maybe a little shorter. Definitely fatter. A pretty ugly puss, if you ask me, I should of known he was a hustler. Whisky eyes—you know what I mean?—a sort of pinky blue color. Bad complexion, kind of pockmarked around the nose. He was pretty well dressed, though, a sharp dresser. Brown slacks and light tan jacket, yellow sport shirt. I like good clothes myself. I notice clothes. He had these two-tone shoes, brown and doeskin or whatever they call it. Real sharp.”

  “A young man?”

  “Naw, I wouldn’t call him young. Middle-aged is more like it, maybe in his fifties. One thing I noticed about him. He had a hat on—brown snap-brim—but under it I think he was wearing a toupee. You know how they look at the back, sort of funny around the edges, like they didn’t belong to the neck?”

  “You have eyes all right. What color?”

  “Brown, sort of a dark reddish brown.”

  “Over-all impression?”

  “I tabbed him strictly from hunger, but putting on a front. You follow me? We see a lot of them: actors and pitchmen out of a job, ex-bookies peddling tips from the horse’s brother—that sort of stuff, with barely one nickel to rub against another, but keeping the old front up. When he slipped me folding money, you could have knocked me over with a bulldozer.”

  “Did he pay you before or after?”

  “One buck when he sent me, the other when I came back. He was waiting on the veranda when I came back. What was in that suitcase? It didn’t feel heavy to me.”

  “I’ll tell you when I find out. Where did he go with it?”

  “He marched off down the street. I thought he was going to register—”