Meet Me at the Morgue

by Ross Macdonald

  The maid appeared in the doorway. “You want me, Mr. Richards?”

  “Ask Mrs. Richards to come out here—to join me in the library.”

  I said when the maid had gone: “Is Mrs. Richards in good health? No heart condition or anything like that?”

  “Mabel’s as strong as a horse.” He looked at me inquiringly.

  “These pictures I have are pictures of a dead man.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Not only that. He’s pretty badly smashed. I thought you should be warned.”

  “Mabel can take it.”

  “Take what, Jason?”

  A woman had quietly entered the room behind us. She was slender and tall in a black evening-sheath. Her graying brunette head was small and handsome, set off by fine tanned shoulders.

  “What can I take? What are you letting me in for now?” She was smiling.

  “The officer here—Mr. Cross?—has some pictures of a dead body.”

  “What on earth for, Mr. Cross?”

  “I think it’s the man who burglarized your house.”

  “He didn’t exactly burglarize—”

  “No,” Richards said. “You invited him over and practically handed him the stuff on a silver platter. If it wasn’t for the insurance, I’d be out fourteen hundred and twenty dollars. No.” The adding machine in his head clicked, almost audibly. “Twelve twenty, after they recovered the wristwatch for me.”

  His wife laid a hand on his arm and regarded him with calm tolerance: “But you did have insurance, so you’re not out a penny. I admit I was taken in, though.”

  “How did it happen, Mrs. Richards?”

  “Oh, quite naturally. This very pleasant-voiced young man called me up one morning early in February.”

  “It was January,” her husband said. “January the twelfth.”

  “January, then. He said he was a photographer with some home magazine, and he’d heard about our house, how beautifully done it was, and would I mind if he came and took some pictures. I said certainly not. I’m a notorious sucker, and oh so very house-proud.”

  “Naturally,” her husband said. “You’ve got a fine big house, why shouldn’t you be proud of it? It cost into six figures.…”

  “Be quiet, Jason. He turned up later in the morning with his equipment. I showed him over the house, and he took his pictures, or pretended to. It never occurred to me to be suspicious, and I admit I was pretty careless leaving him alone in some of the rooms. Well, to make a long story short, he picked up everything loose and thanked me and bowed himself out. I even gave him a bottle of beer to drink.”

  “Ale,” her husband said. “Bass Ale, imported from the old country.”

  “At fabulous cost,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t mind Jason, Mr. Cross. He’s not really avaricious. He just expresses his feelings in money terms. How much am I worth, Jason?”

  “To me, you mean?”

  “To you.”

  “One million dollars.”

  “Piker,” she said, and pinched his cheek. “Does anybody bid a million one?”

  He flushed. “Don’t say that. It isn’t ladylike.”

  “I’m not a lady.” She turned to me, her smile fading. “I’m ready to see your pictures, Mr. Cross.”

  I showed them to her, looking from them to her face. She had become very grave.

  “Poor man. What happened to him?”

  “He was run over. Do you recognize him?”

  “I think it’s the chap, all right. I couldn’t swear to it.”

  “You’re reasonably sure?”

  “I think so. When was he killed?”

  “Last February.”

  She handed the pictures back and looked up at her husband. “You see. I told you the man in Pacific Palisades wasn’t the one. He is older and darker and heavier, an entirely different type.”

  “I’d still like to talk to him,” I said. “Where is his shop, exactly?”

  “I don’t recall the address. Let me see if I can describe it to you. You know the stoplight where Sunset Boulevard runs into the coast highway? It’s half a mile or so north of there, one of those slummy little buildings crowded between the highway and the beach.”

  “On the left-hand side as you go north?”

  “Yes. I don’t think you can miss it. It’s the only photography studio anywhere along there, and there’s some kind of a sign, and photographs in the window. Old dirty photographs, colored by hand.” She shrugged her bare shoulders as if to shake off an atmosphere. “It was one of the most depressing places I’ve ever been in.”

  “Why?”

  “It was so obviously a failure—everything was in a mess. The man didn’t even know his business.”

  “Mabel can’t stand failure,” Richards said. “It reminds her of her early life. My wife had a very rough time as a young girl, before I discovered her.”

  “Before I discovered you, Jason.”

  “Your husband told me you talked to the man.”

  “I did. The insurance investigator suggested I go in and pose as a customer, in order to have a good look at him, and hear his voice. I made a few inquiries about sizes and prices. He couldn’t even answer them without asking the girl.”

  “What girl?”

  “He had a little blonde assisting him, probably his wife. Heaven knows he couldn’t be making enough in that shop to pay her a salary. The girl was rather nice, at least my vanity thought so. You see, she recognized me. Apparently she’d been catching some of my old pictures on television—”

  “Don’t mention that awful word!” her husband cried.

  “Sorry. She asked me for my autograph, can you imagine? Nobody’s asked for my autograph for ages.”

  “Can you describe her?”

  “She was a rather pretty little thing, with a turned-in page-boy bob. I noticed her eyes. She had lovely dark blue eyes, but the general effect was spoiled by her paint job. She wore too much of everything—too much lipstick and powder, even eye-shadow. Now that I think about it, I’m certain she was his wife. I remember she called him Art.” Art Lemp and Molly Fawn. The inside of my mouth went dry. “And the man, Mrs. Richards? What did he look like?”

  She sensed my excitement, and answered with great care: “The best word I can find for him is amorphous. He had one of these loose, rubbery mouths—how can I describe it? The sort of mouth that can turn into anything. I pay attention to mouths, they’re so important in expressing character—”

  “Age?”

  “It’s hard to tell. About fifty-five or sixty.”

  “Did he have a bald head?”

  “No. I do recall wondering if he was wearing a hairpiece. His hair was too sleek and neat, you know? It didn’t go with the rest of him.”

  I moved towards the hall. “Thank you very much, both of you. You’ve been extremely helpful.”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  Richards followed me to the front door. “What is this all about, Cross? Is he a receiver of stolen goods?”

  “The story’s a little too long to tell you now. I’m pressed for time.”

  “Whatever you say.” He stepped out onto the porch and filled his lungs with air. “Wonderful night, great view. I like to have the university down there. That cultural atmosphere, it makes me feel good. I’m a bear for culture.”

  “Physical culture,” his wife said from the doorway. “Good night, Mr. Cross. Good luck.”

  CHAPTER 17: I made a left turn on to Sunset and joined the westward flight of automobiles. I passed a few cars, came up behind a fast Cadillac and let it pace me on the unbanked curves. The depression that had blanketed me all day, ever since I learned the boy was stolen, was lifting at the corners. The boy was as lost as ever, but at least I was doing something about it, moving in a long, descending curve towards the heart of the evil.

  A straight length of road coincided with a gap in the eastbound traffic. I passed the Cadillac, and held the accelerated speed. Approaching headlights rushed up
out of the night like terrible eyes and passed with a grunt and a sigh. I slid down the final slope to the coast highway and turned right when the light changed.

  Tall eroded cutbanks rose on the inland side. I drove slowly in the left-hand lane, watching the other side. A miscellaneous line of buildings, multicolored and many-shaped, clung to the rim of the road above the beach. Most of them were beach houses on twelve- or fifteen-foot lots, or one-story rental apartments. There were a few shops selling redwood souvenirs, genuine oil-paintings, handwoven textiles, ceramics: Bohemia on its last legs, driven back to the ultimate seacoast. The heavy gray ocean yawned below.

  I saw what I was looking for, a storefront wearing a “Photographer” sign, and slowed to a crawl. A truck horn blasted the rear of my car. I made a hasty left-turn signal and skidded through a break in the southbound traffic. There was no place to park except the shoulder of the highway, close up against the narrow display window.

  The window and the shop behind it were dark. In the light from passing cars, I could see the sample pictures through the smeared plate-glass. They were signed, in a large and flowing hand: “Kerry.” The names, the lives, the deaths were drawing together towards an intersection.

  At the rear of the shop, which wasn’t ten feet deep, a hollow rectangle of light outlined a door. I knocked on the glass front-door. The hollow rectangle filled with sudden light. A young woman entered it, pausing with one hand on the knob. She called across the width of the shop, in a voice that sounded tinny through the glass:

  “Art? Is that you, Art?”

  I shouted back: “I have a message from him.”

  She stepped forward through the doorway, her giant shadow plunging ahead of her, her tiny heel-taps following. Her face came close up to the glass, a white blur with black holes for eyes and a black mouth, framed in an aureole of lighted yellow hair. I was aware of the skull behind the flesh.

  The black mouth trembled: “If he wants to come back, tell him it’s no use.”

  “I came to tell you that.”

  “I wouldn’t touch Art Lemp with a ten-foot pole, not after what he did.” She caught her breath: “You came to tell me what?”

  “Let me in, Molly. We have things to talk about.”

  “I don’t know you. Who are you, anyway?”

  “I saw Art today. He wasn’t feeling so well.”

  “I couldn’t care less.” She was repeating what Bourke had said about her. “If you’re a friend of Art’s you can go away. And tell him I said so.”

  “I can’t. He isn’t hearing so well.”

  “Buy him a hearing-aid. Good night. Go away.” But her face was pressed against the glass, which flattened and widened her nose. She said in a smaller, frightened voice: “What do you want?”

  “Information.”

  “Go and ask Art, why don’t you? He always claims he knows it all, he’s got the inside dope on everything, and everybody. Ask him.”

  “He isn’t talking.”

  The dark eyes widened like expanding doubts. “Did they pick him up?” Her mouth was on the glass. When she drew back a little, it left a mouth-shaped lipstick mark.

  “This could go on all night, Molly. Let me in and I’ll tell you what you want to know. After you tell me.”

  “How do I know Art isn’t with you?”

  “Come out and look.”

  “Oh, no. You’re not going to lure me out of here. Who are you? Are you a cop?”

  I settled for that. “A kind of one. I’m a probation officer.”

  “I’m not on probation. I never been convicted of any crime.”

  But she unlocked the door and opened it a crack, reluctantly. I planted a foot in the opening.

  “I’m as clean as a whistle,” she said.

  “When did you last see Art?”

  “Not for a couple of weeks. We had a big blow-up a couple of weeks ago. I made him get out.”

  “Is he your husband?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. We were … business partners. I took him into the business when Kerry ran out on me. Not any more, though, I can promise you that. Not since Art laid his filthy paws on me. I’m glad he’s sick.”

  She shivered suddenly and violently. “That’s a cold wind. I hate the cold sea-wind. If you want to talk, come in. I’m not doing nothing. I haven’t done a thing all winter. I haven’t had anybody to talk to since Kerry went away.”

  The chill racked her again. All she had on was a light sleeveless dress.

  “Wait a minute, Molly.” I fetched my briefcase from the car.

  “What have you got in there?”

  “I’ll show you, inside.”

  She opened the door and locked it carefully behind me. The back room was a fair-sized studio with two large windows and a door at the rear. Beyond the closed curtains I could hear the wind and the sea gasping and thumping like weary visitors. On one side of the room the tools of the photographer’s trade, tripods and light-stands, were stacked in a shadowy jumble against the wall.

  The light came from the other side of the studio, where Molly apparently lived. The floor lamp was draped with stockings and underwear. The open davenport bed was violently rumpled, as if its occupant had been wrestling nightmares. There was a gas burner in one corner beside a deep, stained sink lined with coffee grounds. Trampled newspapers littered the floor. The life these things represented had been coming to pieces.

  Yet Molly herself was clean and well-groomed. Her pull-taffy hair was lacquer-smooth, her dress freshly laundered. She had lovely white arms.

  She covered them with a brown cloth coat and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling the coat tight around her. “I hate the sound of that damned sea. Why I ever came out here in the first place …” Her voice drifted lower: “Back where I came from, the nights were warm in summer. It was really nice there, except when there was a storm.”

  “Where do you come from, Molly?”

  The sadness in her eyes changed to sullenness. “None of your damned business. I’m twenty-one. I never did nothing illegal. You can’t touch me.”

  “I’m interested in your friends. Kerry Snow, Art Lemp, Fred Miner.”

  “Fred who?”

  “Fred Miner.” I described him.

  “I don’t know the Miner character. The other two, yes. What have they been up to?”

  “It’s funny you should ask that, Molly.”

  “Why? You’re a cop, aren’t you? You didn’t come around for the pleasure of my conversation.” She swallowed, and slanted a blue glance up at me. “Have you seen Kerry?” Her voice was soft and shy.

  “Not lately. When did he leave you?”

  “I don’t know, it must of been about three months ago. We were only in this place a month. It didn’t surprise me. I knew he’d be going after her sooner or later, he was always talking about her that last month.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Never mind.”

  “When did you last see him, Molly?”

  “I told you, about three months ago. It was February, early February. I know it was before Valentine’s Day, because I kept thinking maybe he’d send me one. He didn’t.” Her glance came up to my face again like a dark blue light. “Are you his parole officer, by any chance?”

  “He doesn’t need a parole officer. Kerry is dead.”

  Her teeth clenched. She spoke between them, gutturally. “You’re a liar. Kerry couldn’t be dead. He’s too young to die.”

  “He died violently, before Valentine’s Day.”

  “Murdered, you mean?”

  “I’m trying to find that out.”

  “Why come to me?”

  “Because you knew him.”

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe he’s dead. You’re lying to me, trying to break me down.”

  I showed her Sam Dressen’s photographs. Her listless hands turned them over and let them slide to the floor. Twisting her body sideways, she lay down with her legs dragging over the edge of the couch. Her rigid
jaws relaxed and her mouth opened wide. Her eyes were wide. She pressed her face into the rumpled sheet and screamed hoarsely for a long time. Then she pulled the coat over her head.

  I replaced the pictures in the briefcase. My hands jerked out of control and tore the last one half across.

  Molly was very quiet under the coat. Her legs were drawn up to her breast and her head was pressed to her knees. She looked as if she had never been born, or wished she hadn’t.

  I touched her shoulder, which moved irregularly with her breathing. “Molly.”

  “Go away. Leave me alone.” Her voice was childishly thin, and muffled by the cloth.

  “Were you fond of Kerry?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he was murdered.”

  She flung the coat to one side and raised herself on her arms. Except for the smudged lipstick around her mouth, her face seemed almost serene. There were no tears on it. She rose on her knees. “Who killed him?”

  “Nothing’s been proved. He was run down by a car. We couldn’t even identify him, until tonight.”

  “Art Lemp,” she said. “He came back with Kerry’s Chrysler—”

  “Back from where?”

  “Wherever it was they went. Kerry didn’t tell me. He went off with Art that day and I haven’t seen him since.” She paused, her gaze turned backward and inward. “I heard them talking about it the night before. Art said he knew where the woman was. He promised to take Kerry to her.”

  “The same woman you mentioned before?”

  “Yeah, the one that sent him up. She fingered him for the feds, got him six years in Portsmouth. Kerry was looking for her ever since he got out.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last summer. I met him last summer.”

  “What was the woman’s name?”

  “I don’t know. All I know about her is what he told me: that she fingered him and he was going to get back at her.”

  “Where does she live?”