Sinners and Shrouds

by Jonathan Latimer

  ‘Don’t see him.’

  ‘Damn it!’ Storm said. ‘Look around!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well?’

  Jordan’s eyes rested briefly on Clay. ‘It might be him.’ The eyes went away. ‘An’ then it mightn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell me you’d know him?’

  ‘No, sir. Just said I might.’

  ‘But the man, when you wouldn’t let him into the club, said he was a reporter, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Said he was a reporter.’

  ‘Well, this man’s a reporter!’

  ‘Now, now,’ cautioned I. P. Geisel. ‘I must object.’ He turned to Jordan, his face sympathetic. ‘I imagine you’d like to tell this in your own way.’

  Jordan, shifting inside the perpendicular clothes, seemed poised for flight. ‘Ain’t much to tell.’

  ‘Let us decide that, Mr Jordan.’

  ‘Well, the gentleman come with a lady. Mrs Bruce, I think her name. He was shoutin’, “Brandy, brandy everywhere and not a drop to buy,” and I asked him to please be more quiet or I couldn’t let him in and he said he was a reporter and didn’t have to be quiet.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘He went in.’

  Sergeant Storm said, ‘And bought the brandy!’

  ‘A moment, please,’ I. P. Geisel stared reflectively at the coloured man. ‘You saw him buy the brandy?’

  ‘No, sir. But he come out carrying a bottle, and the lady sort of carrying him.’

  Clay felt Mrs Palmer’s eyes on his face. Storm said, ‘He bought the bottle from a bartender named Jacques.’

  ‘And where is this Jacques?’ I. P. Geisel inquired.

  ‘Out on a goddam picnic!’

  ‘Careful, Sergeant!’ Standish warned.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Mrs Palmer. She examined Clay with amused eyes. ‘Are you in the habit of having ladies carry you around?’

  ‘Just big ladies,’ Clay said.

  ‘Jokes!’ said Sergeant Storm. ‘Now we got jokes.’

  I. P. Geisel frowned at him. ‘One witness on a bus. Another on a picnic. A third unable to make a positive identification. I only wish we were in court.’

  ‘And I wish we was down to headquarters!’

  ‘With a rubber hose!’ I. P. Geisel snorted. ‘No, Sergeant, not yet.’

  Storm regarded him truculently. ‘I ain’t through yet, either.’

  ‘I trust not.’

  Jordan’s voice broke in diffidently. ‘You folks needin’ me any more?’

  ‘You can’t say this is the man?’ Storm asked.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Get out!’

  Suit, shoes and man disappeared. Storm crossed to Diffendorf. ‘Mind if I borrow the hat a minute, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Go right ahead.’

  Two fingers holding the crown, Storm carried the hat to Clay. ‘How about trying this for size?’

  ‘Just a moment.’ I. P. Geisel held up a cautioning hand. ‘What is the purpose of this?’

  Diffendorf said, ‘The hat was left in the dead girl’s apartment.’

  ‘By the killer!’ Storm smiled grimly at Clay. ‘By our jokester.’

  ‘Is it your hat, Sam?’ I. P. Geisel asked.

  ‘I’ve got one like it.’

  Storm chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Used to have, you mean.’

  The lawyer regarded Clay dubiously. ‘I don’t believe you can be required to put it on.’

  ‘Hat or handcuffs,’ Storm declared.

  Clay took the hat. He couldn’t see it made much difference. It was jail either way. Conscious of everyone’s eyes on him, he raised it, put it on his head, discovered to his amazement that it settled down over his ears, over the bridge of his nose like a burlesque comic’s hat. It was at least two sizes too large.

  ‘Christalmity Jesus!’ said Sergeant Storm.

  Clay removed the hat. Together, he and Storm turned to Diffendorf. The lieutenant’s face was blandly interested. ‘Too big, eh?’

  ‘You had it,’ Storm said. ‘Couldn’t be you …?’

  ‘Why, Sergeant!’ Diffendorf’s voice was injured. ‘You know the penalty for tampering with police evidence.’

  Storm’s normally ruddy face grew pale. ‘Well, if this ain’t a dilly! Maybe I don’t live right.’ He took two deep breaths, his hands clenching and unclenching. ‘But I still got the big ace!’

  ‘Good,’ Diffendorf said composedly. ‘I was beginning to be afraid you’d made a mistake.’

  ‘Marshak!’ Storm pivoted, faced the young detective at the door. ‘Bring in the dame.’

  There was a commotion outside and then Marshak returned, escorting a theatrical-looking woman in a silky mink coat. Brown hair, in an out-of-date long bob, hung over her shoulders; lipstick, looking as though it had been applied in the dark, made a vermilion slash of her mouth, and her eyes were glassy behind heavy mascara. She had on grey slacks under the mink coat. Clay recognized her instantly from the wedding photograph. Mrs Bruce. Mrs Clay!

  Storm moved protectively to her side. ‘This is the lady who went to the Little Club last night,’ he announced. ‘Who was recognized by the doorman. Who was there when the brandy was bought. Who went with the defendant to the Minuet.’ He paused dramatically. ‘And who was ditched at the Minuet—for Mary Trevor!’

  ‘Ditched, hell!’ said Mrs Bruce in a sleepy voice. ‘Raffled him off to the highest bidder.’

  Storm smiled indulgently. ‘This is Mrs Patricia Bruce.’

  ‘Lovely people,’ Mrs Bruce mumbled. ‘Hallo.’ Her blurred eyes wandered from face to face, finally settled on Mrs Palmer. ‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘Sophie Gimbel in person.’ She smiled vaguely.

  ‘Mrs Bruce,’ said Sergeant Storm quickly. ‘I now ask you to do what you came here for. Identify the man you were with last night.’

  Mrs Bruce nodded agreeably. ‘Put the finger on him.’ She was still examining Mrs Palmer.

  ‘Do you recognize him?’

  Turning slowly, Mrs Bruce asked, ‘Which one?’

  Storm, thumb and forefinger making a revolver of his hand, pointed at Clay. ‘Him!’

  Mrs Bruce took her time. She bent forward, finally got her eyes focused on Clay’s face. She studied him intently, then in a bored voice said, ‘Never saw the bastard before in my life.’

  Chapter 16

  PEERING near-sightedly through dank hair hanging over his eyes, a wax-paper-wrapped sandwich and a dented cardboard container balanced in one huge paw, Lothar, the Globe’s senior copy boy, wandered around the city room like a bewildered sheepdog. He kicked over a wastebasket, ran head on into a cement pillar, toppled two chairs. Finally, just before bringing the entire building down in ruins over his head, he discovered Clay at his desk.

  ‘You was sittin’ with Mr Talbot,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘I’m still the same hungry refugee, though,’ Clay assured him.

  Lothar dubiously put sandwich and container on the desk, said in his precise English, ‘You hadn’ auto of moved.’

  Clay unwrapped the sandwich. ‘Pork!’

  ‘Din’ you say pork?’

  ‘I said roast beef. And a chocolate malt.’

  ‘Din’ you say root beer?’

  ‘If I said root beer, it would be coffee. If I said coffee …’ Clay sighed. ‘Lothar, that’s my autobiography. Beer and skittles for some people. Pork and root beer for me.’

  ‘You din’ say nothin’ about skittles,’ said Lothar, ‘or I would of brung ’em!’ He went away, vindicated.

  The pork sandwich, heavily spiked with mustard, wasn’t too bad. Clay ate it slowly. It was the first food he’d had, as far as he knew, since dinner with Andy Talbot at the 69 Club. That was almost twenty-four hours away. A full day. An extremely full day, he corrected himself. And not exactly, as the English were supposed to say, all beer and skittles. Particularly the last ten hours. Particularly the last thirty minutes. He started to review the scene in Standish’s office and, recalling Stor
m being led away, Dick Tracy in a state of advanced schizophrenia, was forced to grin. Maybe a skittle there, at that. But he’d be damned if he’d go through it again. And if Storm ever caught up with him now!

  He hurriedly put the idea out of his mind, went back to the scene. A good part of it was completely inexplicable. The doorman, undoubtedly, had really failed to recognize him. Probably because the entrance to the Little Club was dimly lit. But what about Mrs Bruce? No explanation. What about the hat? No explanation. Absolutely no way of accounting for either, short of divine intervention.

  Two miracles and a bushel of blind luck. Luck with the fingerprints, the doorman, the elevator boy and Jacques, the picnic-happy barman who’d sold the brandy bottle. And earlier, luck with the bracelet and the blood-stained scissors. Luck with Gwen and the hat-check girl. Ten straight passes at craps. Zero five times running at roulette. Seven races in a row at Washington Park. Once-in-a-blue-moon luck. It was too bad he couldn’t quit while he was ahead because it wouldn’t last much longer, might even have run out somewhere in the city at this very moment. One word to a policeman, one fact seen in a different light, one new witness, one piece of new evidence, and the whole house of cards——

  ‘Like smoke she’d gone; like a spectral sight that fades to mist on a summer’s night …’ whispered a hoarse voice.

  Startled, Clay spun around, saw Saul Blair grinning at him. The plump man had a paper cup in his hand. ‘That damn ballad!’ he said. ‘Can’t get it out of my head.’ He thrust the cup at Clay.

  Shakily, his heart still pounding, Clay held the cup to his lips, emptied it. Whisky, faintly diluted with water, seared his throat, set his teeth on edge. He drank some of the root beer.

  ‘Can’t take it, eh?’ Saul asked.

  ‘Which? Bourbon, or what’s been happening?’

  ‘I did hear you had a little ruckus with the rangers.’

  ‘Miss Bentley, I bet.’

  Saul nodded. ‘From whom all gossip flows.’ His brown eyes were friendly. ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘I don’t think—wait a minute, maybe there is. Off the record, that is.’

  ‘You call it, son.’

  ‘I’ve got a tip, more than a tip, that some of the Trevor girl’s jewellery was originally owned by old man Palmer. About thirty thousand dollars worth.’

  Saul whistled.

  ‘Yes. And what I’d like to know is how she got hold of it.’

  ‘When’d Simon buy the stuff?’

  ‘August ’36.’

  ‘Esther Baumholtz.’

  ‘How Esther?’

  ‘Simon had a crush on her for years. Wanted to marry her, but she had too much sense. Maverick, Simon was. Uncurried critter full of burrs and ticks. But open-handed in an ornery way. Be like him to give her expensive jewellery. Something a poor music teacher couldn’t wear.’

  ‘And she left it to the girl?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Why not was right. It made sense. The report from Fort Worth had said the girl changed her name, began to spend money only after Esther Baumholtz died. It was certainly logical to believe she had inherited jewellery and money. Both could be handed on secretly without being made part of the estate. Only the income-tax people, Clay reflected, would be interested.

  Saul was frowning. ‘Thing surprises me is Esther would accept jewellery.’ He took a tentative sip of Clay’s root beer.

  ‘How’d she get along with Mary?’

  ‘Fine, far as I know.’

  From the city desk came shouts. Canning, echoed by Andy Talbot, was summoning reporters. In different parts of the room, like jack in a boxes, Lamson, Brinks, Peters, Feldman, and half a dozen others sprang from chairs, trotted forward.

  Saul drank the rest of the root beer, muttered, ‘The third that day was the Ardmore bank …’

  ‘I wish you’d stop that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Gives me the creeps.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Saul, I’ve got a spooky feeling the murders have something to do with Larry Trevor.’

  Saul’s eyes, over the dark liver pouches, grew sharp. ‘Murders?’

  ‘I meant murder.’

  ‘Oh.’ The eyes were inquisitive, not wholly convinced. ‘Far as I know Larry’s still in the Oklahoma pen. He got a hundred and fifty years.’

  ‘What if the girl was his daughter?’

  A curious change came over Saul’s face. Behind jowls and fat the bone structure took shape, the out-thrust jaw thinning cheeks and mouth. He no longer looked soft. He looked capable and dangerous.

  ‘If I were you,’ he said, ‘I’d forget that idea.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You might regret it.’

  ‘Are you threatening me, Saul?’

  ‘I’m giving you some advice.’

  ‘It sure sounds like it!’ Clay stared at him belligerently. ‘You know something, don’t you?’

  ‘I know one thing——’ Saul broke off as Peters brushed by them, jerked his seersucker coat off the back of a chair. ‘Cops just made a pinch!’ he announced, struggling with the coat. ‘Apartment janitor! Searched his broom closet and what d’you think they found?’

  They eyed him blankly.

  ‘Fifty-seven pairs of silk panties!’ Still trying to work the coat up over his shoulders, he hurried away.

  Clay turned back to Saul. ‘What’s the one thing?’

  ‘I won’t have Esther Baumholtz’s name dragged in the mud!’

  ‘For Pete’s sake! I’m not trying to drag her name in the mud! I’m trying to find out who killed Mary Trevor!’

  ‘For what? A pat on the back and a two-hundred buck bonus!’ Saul’s voice was contemptuous. ‘A woman’s good name for thirty pieces of silver.’

  Clay said, ‘How in hell can you make me out a Judas when …’ A hint of pain in the steady brown eyes brought him up short. ‘You liked her, didn’t you, Saul?’

  Folds of flesh dropping back into the familiar creases made the round face melancholy. ‘Simon and me.’ All the fire was gone. ‘Wouldn’t have either of us.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why should you be sorry?’

  ‘If I told you it meant more to me than thirty pieces of silver, would you help?’

  ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘Even if I kept Esther out of it?’

  Canning was yelling at the desk again, at Andy Talbot this time. ‘Get Roddy! Thompson! Get every knuckle-head we got on beat!’ He pounded the desk, made telephones, spindle-pierced papers dance. ‘I’m going to fire ’em all!’ He kicked his chair out of the way, lurched off towards Standish’s office.

  Saul said, ‘If you’re right about Trevor, you couldn’t keep her out of it.’

  ‘She knew him?’

  Saul shook his head.

  ‘Did you?’

  Saul shook his head again.

  ‘But you know something about him. About them. Or you wouldn’t be worried.’

  ‘I’ve done enough already, opening my big mouth in the drugstore.’ Saul touched his arm lightly, regretfully. ‘No more conversation.’

  ‘Then I’m cooked.’

  Saul started to turn away, hesitated. ‘Might talk to Elmo Peterkins.’

  ‘Laura’s husband? Why?’

  ‘Larry Trevor and the Hooded Nun,’ Saul said. ‘He wrote it.’

  Clay stared after his retreating back. So now we get a new piece for the jigsaw, he thought. Peterkins. Ballad writer and grower of tulips. And recent widower. And maybe a brand-new suspect. He looked at his watch. Almost seven-thirty. By now the body must have been discovered, which meant no talking to Peterkins. Which meant they’d be coming for him. Hurriedly he dialled Bundy’s number.

  ‘Not in,’ said Miss Dewhurst cheerfully. ‘But he’ll meet you here in twenty minutes.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. And in the meantime, give him a message.’

  ‘Yes?’

  He lowered his voice. ‘There’s been another death.’ />
  ‘He knows.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘I said he knows. Twenty minutes. Q.’ She rang off.

  Dazedly, Clay put the telephone back in place. He tried to think how Bundy could possibly know about Laura, but he couldn’t even make a guess. Too many things had happened too fast. His mind was exhausted. His nerves were shot. He was numb, dead, buried. He wished, momentarily, he’d done the murders. Then all he’d have to do was give himself up. Maybe he would anyway. As far as he …

  A hand shaking his shoulder woke him. He sat up, rubbing his face where it had rested on his typewriter. The hand belonged to Lothar. ‘Wancha upstairs,’ he said. ‘Mrs Palmer.’

  ‘Okay, Lothar.’ He looked at his watch. He had been asleep less than three minutes. ‘Any messages for the lady?’ He got to his feet. His face still hurt.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Lothar. ‘Tell her give me raise.’ Laughter shook his thick body, bent him double. ‘Big raise.’

  Passing Andy Talbot at the city desk, Clay mumbled, ‘What gives with Canning?’

  ‘Brother!’ Talbot flipped a switch on the call box, spoke into one of two phones lying on the desk in front of him. ‘Still there?’ An outraged voice began, ‘Where the sweet J.…’ and Talbot snapped the switch closed, glanced at Clay. ‘The Little Club bartender, Jacques something …?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Trib’s got him. Exclusive!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Kitty Kelly. Found the crazy Frenchman on the roof of his apartment building. Caviar, champagne, three babes. Always picnics there Sundays!’

  For some reason the news didn’t affect Clay at all. Possibly because he was still half asleep, or more likely because he’d reached the saturation point. He grimaced vaguely at Andy and went out through the door into the corridor. One thing less to worry about, he was thinking fuzzily, when Alma Plummer, her cheeks flushed a cherry red, intercepted him at the door to the men’s room.

  ‘I was just going to look for you!’ she exclaimed breathlessly. ‘I tried to call.’

  ‘I’ve been sort of busy.’

  ‘Oh, I know!’ Her moist eyes were admiring. ‘With everybody reporting to you, it must be awful.’ Her mouth drooped at the corners. ‘And I failed!’

  For a second Clay had a wild impression she was talking about what they were talking about last. Getting laid. But the idea vanished when she added, ‘Clarissa Simpson. Her maid. I was sure she would tell another woman things she wouldn’t tell the police. And I went to her home at 3812 S. State Street and nobody, but nobody would say where she was until a little girl playing jacks on the sidewalk, her sister, I guess, told me she worked nights in a cat house on the fourth floor at 421 West Thirty Street and I went there and the most unpleasant fat coloured woman said the most awful things to me and slammed the door in my face and then a horrible man came out, reeking of alcohol, and stared and stared …’ Her eyes grew wide with the memory. ‘I’ll write it all down for you.’