Sinners and Shrouds

by Jonathan Latimer

  She twitched the hand holding the wrapper. ‘Want to see?’

  A picture of the dead girl’s torn body came into his mind. ‘No.’ He was croaking again. ‘No!’

  ‘It’s quite nice,’ she said.

  He slid the belt through the last trouser loop, wrenched it tight around his waist. ‘Go away.’

  ‘I’ll make you some breakfast.’

  Before he finished dressing, he could smell the coffee percolating in the kitchen. He put on a linen coat, dropped bracelet, matches and hat-check in a pocket and went into the living-room. As he was turning off the record changer, Gwen called to him from the kitchen.

  ‘Where did the blood come from, Sam?’

  ‘Blood?’

  ‘On the dish towel.’ She appeared in the doorway, held out a crumpled towel. ‘Look.’

  He examined the towel. It was still damp and the bottom portion was stained with what was certainly blood. There were several heavy smears of dark maroon and a large area slightly lighter in colour.

  ‘You must have done it last night,’ Gwen said. ‘The first time you came in.’

  ‘The first time?’

  She nodded ‘About five o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘I came in at five o’clock?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You shouldn’t drink so much.’

  He followed her back into the kitchen.

  ‘How d’you know I came in?’

  ‘How could I help it?’ She found coffee cups, switched off the gas under the percolator. ‘You made enough noise, breathing like a porpoise and trying about ten keys before you could open your door.’

  ‘I haven’t got ten keys.’

  ‘Well, it sounded like it.’ She filled the cups. ‘And you fell over something in the living-room.’ She put the cups on saucers and started out of the kitchen. ‘There’s toast in the oven.’

  He got the toast and followed her into the living-room. ‘How long did I stay?’

  ‘About five minutes.’ She handed him a cup, accepted a piece of toast. ‘You ran some water in the kitchen and then you got a book from your bookcase.’

  ‘I did what?’

  She blushed. ‘I’m sorry, Sam. I shouldn’t have, but I was afraid you were sick.’

  ‘Shouldn’t have what?’

  ‘I slipped over from my balcony and watched you for a minute, just to make sure you were all right.’ She gave him her little-girl look. ‘Now I suppose you’re going to beat me.’

  He eyed her, feeling strange again. It was like hearing about someone else, a brother or someone, who’d got himself into bad trouble.

  ‘Was I alone?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so.’ She dipped a corner of the toast in the coffee, popped it in her mouth. ‘I couldn’t see very well. You didn’t turn on any lights.’ She laughed. ‘You certainly looked funny though, with that cloak wrapped around you.’

  He shook his head. Cloak. Book. Bloody towel. It was beyond him. He wondered why, if he’d reached his apartment safely at five o’clock, he hadn’t stayed there. Probably because the girl was waiting for him, either in a taxi or at her place. He shuddered and drank some of his coffee. It was bitter. The telephone began to ring.

  ‘That’s your office,’ Gwen said.

  ‘Let it ring.’

  She studied his face, her brown eyes soft. ‘You’re in trouble, aren’t you?’

  ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘I can tell.’ She crossed to him, put a hand on his cheek. Her skin was cool. ‘Is it Alice?’

  ‘Why Alice?’

  ‘Wasn’t she supposed to get the divorce yesterday?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘You’re still carrying a torch, aren’t you?’

  ‘God, no!’ He raised his voice to drown out the telephone. ‘That’s why I went out last night, to celebrate.’

  She regarded him dubiously. ‘Then what is it?’

  He felt an artery throbbing over one temple. He wanted to think, but instead his head was a confusion of telephone bells and questions. He stood up.

  ‘When I need a confessor,’ he said angrily, ‘I’ll call on Bishop Sheen!’

  ‘I bet it’s another girl.’ Her eyes were sympathetic. ‘Is it, Sam?’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ he said. ‘Stop prodding me!’ He released his cup, let it fall on the cotton-twist rug and went to the front door. He glared at her surprised face, then slammed the door and went down the stairs, still hearing the phone ring.

  He crossed the courtyard, dotted with people having breakfast, and turned up Michigan Avenue towards the old water tower. After a time he felt better. The street was peaceful, with only light traffic. Shadows made cool pockets on the sidewalk; cool air came in a steady stream from the lake. He gradually slowed his pace until he was sauntering, like the other Sunday pedestrians. He shouldn’t have lost control of himself, he knew, but he had to think. He had to decide what to do, and he had to decide in a hurry.

  There seemed to be only three choices. He could run away, join the Foreign Legion or something, and spend the rest of his life a fugitive. Or he could give himself up and hope that, instead of the electric chair, he’d get off with a life sentence. Or, finally, he could go about his business as if nothing had happened and gamble on the police not picking up his trail. Only he knew, if he did this, he would ultimately crack. His explosion with Gwen had shown him that.

  Three choices, and he didn’t like any of them.

  He saw a faded red neon sign reading TAPROOM down a side street and swung towards it off the avenue. At the door he nearly collided with a rotund man leading a white English bulldog on a chain. ‘Parm us,’ said the man, going by. Either he or the bulldog smelled of beer. So did the chill, dim interior of the bar. Clay slid on to a leather stool and when the bartender moved his way, said, ‘Ale.’ He saw the bar was empty except for a woman reading a book at the opposite end. She was drinking coffee.

  The bartender brought the ale, poured it into a tilted glass. He was a squat Irishman with a turned-up nose. ‘You catch the flash on WGN?’ he asked.

  ‘Flash about what?’

  ‘Some rich babe getting herself knocked off round the corner on Delaware Place.’ The bartender shoved glass and bottle in front of Clay. He licked his lips. ‘Raped and knocked off. Right in her own apartment.’

  Some of the ale spilled from the glass when Clay picked it up, but the bartender didn’t seem to notice. ‘They found her stark,’ he went on. ‘Nude, that is. With her belly slashed to ribbons.’

  ‘Some rye,’ Clay mumbled.

  ‘Sure.’ Still leaning against the bar, the bartender reached down, produced a bottle of Mount Vernon and a shot glass. ‘Cops got a dragnet out for the guy done it,’ he said, filling the shot glass. ‘Claim he’s still in the neighbourhood.’

  Clay took the jigger, drained it, then drank some ale, choking slightly. The bartender eyed him. ‘Bad night?’

  ‘Terrible.’

  The bartender regarded him thoughtfully. His face seemed to be getting larger and larger, like a big head close-up on a television screen. ‘I guess some people get a bang out of it,’ he said finally.

  ‘Out of what?’

  ‘Sex fiendin’,’ the bartender said.

  He flicked the bar with his napkin, removed shot glass and bottle and moved away. Clay felt a strange inclination to giggle. He supposed it was hysteria, but he couldn’t help it. He remembered an insurance questionnaire he’d filled out and he wondered what would have happened if under Occupation, instead of Newspaperman, he’d put down Sex Fiend. And, naturally, under Hobbies, he’d have written Murder.

  He poured more ale into his glass and drank, letting the cold, bitter liquid run slowly down his throat. The humour, he realized, was a variety of graveyard whistling. He was scared, as scared as hell, and he didn’t know what to do. Brother, what a mess! he thought.

  The bartender turned. ‘You say somethin’?’
/>   Clay saw the woman looking at him over her book. ‘How much?’ he asked.

  ‘Buck even.’

  Clay put a dollar on the bar and went to the telephone booth back of the woman. He put a dime in the slot and dialled Tom Nichols’ number. Presently Tom said, ‘Hallo.’

  ‘This is Sam,’ Clay said.

  ‘Hallo, Sam.’

  ‘Tom, you’re a lawyer …’

  ‘There are some who’ll deny it.’

  ‘Look,’ Clay said. ‘Do lawyers have to tell the police what their clients tell them?’

  ‘What have you been doing, boy?’

  ‘I asked you a question.’

  ‘A lawyer is a legal priest.’

  ‘I’m coming over.’

  He hung up the receiver, took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped his face. He noticed the woman was still looking at him. He felt sweat running down his back, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Chapter 3

  HE was thumbing the button under the card marked THOMAS HOOD NICHOLS a second time when Camille Nichols opened the door. She was a tall, dark girl with bangs and ink-black eyes, and she had a Master’s Degree in Education from Columbia. She was wearing crimson lounging-pyjamas.

  ‘Greetings,’ she said. ‘How’s the new-born bachelor?’

  He went past her into the Early American living-room. ‘All right, I guess.’

  ‘You don’t sound it.’ She came into the living-room, examined his face. ‘You don’t look it, either.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Tom says you’re in trouble.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Still Alice?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’ She curled up in a wing chair by the brick fireplace. ‘I’m tired of that stinker,’ she said. ‘You may quote me if you wish.’

  Tom Nichols came in with a bowl of potato chips and three glasses of beer. ‘Hi,’ he said.

  He was a huge man, thick through chest and shoulders, and the kinky mat of black hair on his head made him look taller than his six feet three. He was wearing bedroom slippers and blue jeans. He gave Clay one of the glasses, handed another to Camille.

  ‘Well, son,’ he said, ‘what’s the difficulty?’

  ‘It’s kind of a long story.’

  A maple chair creaked under the big man’s weight. ‘We got nothing to do until Monday.’

  Clay glanced at Camille. ‘It’s also unpleasant.’

  Nichols’ teeth gleamed over his beer glass. ‘I can tie her up in a closet if you want.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Clay said gloomily. ‘I don’t suppose it makes much difference.’

  ‘I’d pry it out of him later, anyway,’ Camille declared.

  ‘Is it a babe?’ Nichols asked.

  ‘Was,’ Clay said. ‘I’m supposed to have murdered and raped her.’

  There was a long silence. Clay drank his beer, morbidly pleased with the sensation he had caused. Finally Nichols spoke. ‘You sure you got the order right, Sam?’

  ‘Does it make any difference?’

  ‘It would to me.’

  Camille asked brightly. ‘Anyone we know?’ Clay shook his head. ‘Well, was it fun?’

  ‘Look. I’m not kidding.’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘What’d you drink last night?’ Nichols asked. ‘Liquid marijuana?’

  ‘I was sober enough when I found her body.’

  Nichols and his wife exchanged glances. ‘Where was this?’ Camille asked.

  ‘Apartment on Delaware Place.’

  Camille exhaled softly, glanced again at her husband. ‘That’s the one the janitor was talking about.’ Her eyes were wide. ‘Except he said it was a sex fiend.’

  ‘That’s me,’ Clay said. He took the diamond-and-sapphire bracelet from his pocket, cradled it in his hand. ‘Sex fiend, murderer … and thief.’

  He sent the bracelet in a glittering arc towards Nichols, who caught it deftly. He examined it, then tossed it to Camille.

  ‘Paste?’

  Camille draped the bracelet over her wrist. ‘About ten thousand dollars worth!’

  Nichols lurched to his feet, poured beer from Camille’s untouched glass into his own. ‘I’ll be damned!’

  Camille asked, ‘Who was the girl?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Clay said.

  ‘You mean you raped her without an introduction?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if I raped her.’

  Nichols sank heavily into the maple chair. ‘Maybe you better tell us what you do know.’

  ‘Maybe I had,’ Clay agreed.

  He told them everything he could remember. The story seemed almost funny, and somehow he began to feel better. It was probably, he decided, the result of getting it off his chest.

  ‘You don’t remember going up to the dame’s joint?’ Nichols asked when he had finished.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even meeting her?’

  Clay shook his head. Nichols went out into the kitchen and returned with two bottles of beer. He filled Clay’s glass first, and then his. The cold beer put sweat on the outside of the glasses.

  ‘What do you think?’ Clay asked.

  ‘I think you got a problem,’ Nichols said.

  ‘I’d better give myself up.’

  ‘Don’t be hasty.’ The big man found a cigarette in a copper box, lit it with a kitchen match. ‘Let’s do a little analysing first.’

  Camille eyed her husband. ‘What would happen if he did give himself up?’

  ‘Insanity plea, maybe.’

  ‘But he didn’t do it!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Clay said.

  ‘Well, I do!’ Camille crossed the room, perched on the arm of his chair, put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I know my Sam.’

  Nichols nodded slowly. ‘Okay. Let’s proceed on that assumption.’ He put a potato chip in his mouth. ‘Which means someone else killed her and framed Sam for the job.’

  ‘That’s better!’ Camille said.

  ‘You got any enemies, Sam?’ Nichols asked.

  ‘Alice!’ Camille exclaimed.

  ‘Alice?’

  ‘Of course! She was always crazy jealous of Sam. I bet she followed him up to the apartment and killed the girl.’

  ‘And raped her?’ Nichols asked dubiously.

  Clay got to his feet. ‘To hell with this!’ His knees felt unsteady. ‘The closest cell for me.’

  ‘No,’ Nichols said. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

  He explained at some length. Nothing good could come of giving up now. Not even a gold star for Sam on his police department card. If it became necessary to make an insanity plea, the time he gave up, or was caught, wouldn’t make any difference, because who could say what an insane man would do? As for a not guilty plea, he declared, that depended entirely upon somebody else being pegged for the job. Nobody would believe Sam’s innocence until that was done. Especially when he wasn’t sure of it himself.

  ‘So then what?’ Clay demanded.

  ‘Try to put things together. There must be something you can remember.’

  ‘Damn little.’

  ‘You remember having stingers with me at the Drake?’

  Clay said he did.

  ‘Well, there’s a start.’ Nichols found a pencil and a pad of paper in a drawer of the maple desk. ‘Write everything down, chronologically if you can, with the approximate time. Also the stuff you found in your pockets. Might give us some leads.’

  Clay took the pad to the desk. ‘I don’t see what good this’ll do,’ he protested.

  ‘Hell fire, man! You’re a reporter. You ought to know how people find out things. Witnesses. Testimony. Times. How else are we going to piece together the evening?’

  ‘Even if we do,’ said Clay morbidly, ‘I still wind up with a corpse in the next bed.’

  ‘Maybe there was somebody up there with you. Maybe she had a fight with somebody earlier. Maybe somebody was after her.’

&nb
sp; ‘Okay,’ Clay said. ‘I’ll see what I can pull out.’

  By the time Camille had returned from the kitchen with a plate of sandwiches, he’d written down everything he could recall. It wasn’t much, just one page, and it looked like something an opium smoker had dictated after the third pellet. Still, he’d done his best. His head ached from trying to remember. He went over the list a final time. It read:

  7.00

  Left office.

  7.15

  Drake bar. Met Tom. Divorce granted, 4 stingers.

  7.50

  Tom left. One more stinger.

  8.05

  69 Club. Dinner with Andy Talbot. Red wine, brandy. Cashed $100 cheque.

  9.30

  Andy left. Pass at hat-check girl. No soap. Out into night.

  (Note: Things begin to blur here.)

  9.45

  Clark Street. Couple of strip joints. Liquor terrible. Girls, too.

  10.30 (?)

  Walton Place. (Taxi?) High-class trap behind iron fence. Very swanky. Brandy and champagne at bar. Faint recollection of talking to woman. (Could this be girl?) Nice feeling about woman.

  11.00 (?)

  Another place close by. Row with doorman getting in. No drunks. Showed press card. Newspapermen never drunk. No memory of interior, but think here bought bottle of brandy. Woman along, but don’t remember what she looked like. Warm friends by now, though. Think left together.

  ???

  Rest of memories completely disjointed.

  A. Roller coaster.

  B. Violin joint. Think made pass here at red-headed girl.

  5.00

  Home for 5 minutes. Why?

  5.10

  Must have gone to girl’s apartment.

  8.15

  Woke up. Girl dead.

  ADDITIONAL CLUES

  1. Green hat-check 67.

  2. Match pack from Riverview Park. Roller coaster!!

  3. Match pack advertising rectal ointment. Believe has no bearing.

  4. Bloody dish towel.

  5. Bracelet!

  6. Gwen.

  Note: Remember now Gwen said took book from case. Why? What book? Modern Surgery?

  He pushed the pad away and stood up. ‘This is crazy!’