Sinners and Shrouds

by Jonathan Latimer

  ‘Tell Canning,’ Clay said. ‘I’ve been suspended, pending a security check.’ He started to push open the door.

  ‘Mr Clay.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What is a cat house?’

  The men’s room was restful. Grey light, filtered through glazed windows, gave urinals and wash-basins a ghostly appearance as though they were illuminated by some inner radiance of their own. It made iridescent bubbles of glass soap containers, gleamed softly on chromium fixtures and blended with the battleship grey of the toilet doors. An exhaust fan drew off air with a low hum, hushed outside noises. Even the periodic rush of water from the urinal’s automatic turn-ons was pleasantly subdued, like the sound of small rapids in a trout stream.

  Clay took his time washing. He soaped face and hands, rinsed with hot water, then filled the bowl with cold water, using two paper towels to stop the overflow, and put his head in it. After a while he began to feel better. The drowsy, drugged sensation left his head, his eyes cleared and his skin tingled. It was a little like the feeling of novocaine wearing off after a trip to the dentist. He plunged his head into the basin a final time, was jerking more paper towels from the roller when someone came into the room. ‘Are you Mr Clay?’ the someone asked.

  The voice was so feminine that he glanced at the urinals to assure himself he was in the men’s room before turning. He found himself facing a pretty, pink and white man in a linen suit. The man was frowning, albino eyebrows pulled flat over garter-blue eyes, red lips pursed. He was about forty, but he looked like a well-preserved choir boy.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ he asked petulantly.

  ‘Yes, I’m Clay.’

  ‘I have been waiting.’ As Clay stared blankly, he went on acidly. ‘I am Horace Widdecomb, Mrs Palmer’s executive assistant.’

  ‘Oh, sure.’ Clay folded a towel, began to dry his face. ‘I was just coming.’

  ‘No need now.’ The fluty voice was caustic. ‘I have come to you.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘I am not entirely satisfied with your story.’

  Clay stopped rubbing his face, stared at the man over the towel. An arrogant white mouse, he thought, feeling the beginning of anger. Mrs Palmer’s white mouse. He checked the anger, asked, ‘Why not?’

  ‘You seem, for one thing, to have sources of information not available to the Globe.’

  ‘What information are you talking about?’

  ‘Well, the Dupont number.’ The garter-blue eyes were accusing. ‘You called it, didn’t you?’

  ‘After a fashion.’

  ‘And what did you learn?’

  ‘What’s this to you?’

  ‘Just answer my question, please.’

  Clay crumpled the towel, dropped it into the paper container. The petulance stamped on the girlish face with the pink skin, the retroussé nose and the red lips could only come from real authority. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I called, got some gent who wouldn’t do anything except take a message.’

  ‘And you don’t know whose number it is?’

  ‘No.’ He pulled his coat from the top of a toilet door, pushed an arm through a sleeve. ‘But I’ll find out.’

  ‘You will drop the inquiry.’

  ‘I will?’ He peered at the pretty face, suddenly reminded of a Dresden porcelain shepherd. The same fresh colours, the same fragility. ‘This your idea?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘It couldn’t be your number, could it?’

  ‘I shall not answer that.’

  ‘When people hit you,’ Clay asked, ‘does it take glue to put you together again?’

  Widdecomb considered this, frowning, then took a Boy Scout knife from his pocket, pulled open a blade and began to clean his nails. It was a big knife for cleaning nails, and the nails didn’t need cleaning. ‘What have you found out about Esther Baumholtz?’ he asked.

  ‘Where did you hear about Esther?’

  ‘I knew her quite well … a long time ago.’ He raised his left hand, examined the shell-pink nails. ‘Well?’

  ‘You knew Larry Trevor too, didn’t you?’

  The hand closed convulsively. The blue eyes fluttered. A tongue tip wet carmine lips. ‘Larry Trevor! I … I never heard of him.’

  ‘The hell you haven’t!’ Clay moved a step forward. ‘I happen to know you were in Fort Worth when he was operating.’

  ‘Well … perhaps …’

  ‘Perhaps, nothing!’ Clay took another step. ‘Dupont number! Baumholtz! You’ve got some dangerous ideas rattling around in that tiny skull of yours!’

  ‘Please. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Sure! Pure coincidence!’ Clay found he was shouting. ‘You come in here, put a cute little pinkie on the two most important points in the case, warn me to lay off, go into epilepsy when I mention Larry Trevor, but you don’t know what I’m talking about!’ He felt a vein twitch in his neck. ‘Where were you around four-thirty this morning?’

  ‘I was in … in Washington.’

  ‘Can you prove it?’

  ‘I … I’ll talk to you later.’

  ‘You’ll talk now!’ Clay reached out a hand for the frail neck, then drew it back abruptly. The knife, held expertly for an underhand thrust, was aimed directly at his belly. Widdecomb’s face, lips drawn from clenched teeth, was deadly.

  ‘Try something,’ he snarled. ‘Just try something!’

  Muscles frozen, Clay eyed the knife. The blade was at least three inches long.

  Widdecomb began to back towards the door. ‘I used to gut pigs.’ The voice was fluty again. ‘It’s fun. Warm blood.’ The knife closed with a snap. ‘Lots of warm blood.’ He went out.

  Clay discovered he was holding his breath. He exhaled, drew in air and discovered he was sweating. The little bastard, he thought. He really would have struck me. He waited a moment, then stepped cautiously into the corridor. It was empty. Relieved, he walked slowly back to the city room.

  Canning caught him at the desk. ‘Couple of things——’ he began briskly, and then broke off to stare at Clay’s face. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘My own,’ Clay said.

  ‘You ain’t the only one. Place’ll be lousy with ghosts, including mine and Edwin’s, if we don’t wrap this thing up quick. What’s from Laura Peterkins?’

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘You went out to see her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Clay tried desperately to think of a convincing lie. ‘She didn’t have much.’

  ‘She must have had something.’

  ‘She thinks … the man on the phone … the one she talked to before the girl was found …?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘She thinks … it was Standish.’

  ‘Standish! Well, for God’s sake!’ Canning’s face lit up. ‘Wait till I tell him!’ He grinned at Clay. ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Why’d she want you?’

  ‘Because she thought you and some of the others, the Fort Worth crowd … would cover for him.’

  ‘Little does she know!’ The smile faded from Canning’s face, left it sombre. ‘Nobody here’s covering for anybody. It’s dog eat …’

  Andy Talbot, from across the desk, called, ‘Roddy wants to talk to you, Harry.’

  Without turning, Canning said, ‘I’ll call him back.’ His pale eyes remained on Clay’s face. ‘… dog,’ he concluded, and added: ‘Somebody’s been checking up on where I was last night.’

  ‘Police.’

  ‘Besides the police. On me and on Standish. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?’

  ‘Me? Why would I?’

  ‘I took a call for you. From an Amos Bundy. Looked him up in the phone book. Private investigator.’

  ‘He’s a friend of mine.’

  ‘Yeah?’ It would take an ice pick to dent the frozen blue eyes. ‘Well, if I find you’ve been investigating me, you’re going to need a friend.’

 
; ‘Harry, I wouldn’t …’

  Talbot called. ‘Sam. On three.’

  ‘I’ll take it at my desk.’ Turning quickly from Canning, he started across the room. Talbot shouted after him: ‘Alice been trying to get you, too.’ Clay made a pushing motion with his hand, picked up his phone. ‘Call on three,’ he said when the Globe operator answered. There was a click and a hoarse voice demanded:

  ‘Know a good lawyer?’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Nichols.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the sneezer.’

  ‘In jail? What for?’

  Nichols’ voice was apologetic. ‘I didn’t do quite as good as you, Sam.’

  ‘What are you talking about? What are you in for?’

  ‘Rape,’ Nichols said. ‘And attempted murder.’

  Chapter 17

  ON the wooden bench beside Sam Clay were a wino, a whore, an old lady with a shawl over her head and a cockroach. The wino was asleep, sour breath bubbling at three-second intervals in his throat. The whore was crying into a mascara-stained handkerchief. The old lady was talking to herself in Italian. The cockroach, wedged in a crack, was trying to get free.

  Through a paint-peeled door marked CAPTAIN seeped conversation. Clay couldn’t hear what was being said, but at times he was able to identify voices of I. P. Geisel and Tom Nichols. They seemed to be arguing. Occasionally thunder, deep pitched and prolonged, drowned out the voices altogether. The thunder seemed to fill the whole sky.

  A bell shrilled across the room and everything on the bench was momentarily suspended. A bald policeman upended one of the three telephones on the counter in front of him, let the receiver drop into his hand. ‘Chicago Avenue police. Sergeant Grimsey …’ He listened a moment, then glanced at Clay. ‘For you.’

  It was Andy Talbot. ‘How long are you going to be?’ he asked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Mrs Palmer wants you.’

  ‘Stall her,’ Clay said. ‘Tell her I’m eating.’

  ‘I did that. Fifteen minutes ago.’

  ‘Tell her I eat in Milwaukee.’

  Talbot said, ‘Brother!’ and hung up.

  Clay sat on the bench again. The old lady spoke to him in Italian. He shook his head. She said something else, to herself this time. The cockroach backed out of the crack, backed across the bench and fell six hundred feet to the floor. A policeman brought in a grey-haired man in a blue suit, stood him in front of the desk. ‘What now?’ Sergeant Grimsey asked.

  ‘Indecent exposure.’

  ‘My zipper was stuck,’ said the man indignantly. ‘Still is.’

  It was. The whore put a card on Clay’s lap. It read:

  WANT A

  ???

  ELOISE SU 9-3207

  The cockroach limped to a tin spittoon, took refuge under it. Wild horses raced across the sky. The wino stirred uneasily, rested a hand on Clay’s shoulder. Clay pushed it away. The door marked CAPTAIN opened and I. P. Geisel beckoned.

  The office smelled of disinfectant. A photograph of the survivors of the Haymarket riot, moustached policemen carrying long billies, hung on the wall over a roll-top desk. Against another wall leaned a dusty glass-front bookcase, and on this, on an ebony block, was a baseball autographed by Hack Wilson. A torn green shade cloaked the open window.

  ‘Where’s Tom?’ Clay asked.

  ‘Back in his cell.’

  ‘You couldn’t spring him?’

  ‘Not yet.’ The lawyer frowned. ‘Are you sure this is connected with the murder?’

  ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘He seemed reluctant to tell me anything. He kept saying you were to read his statement.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I think I finally persuaded Captain Grady …’

  Walking solidly on Adler-lift heels, Captain Grady came through an inner door, sat at his desk. He was an asthmatic man with a heavy paunch and an ash-coloured skin. Horn-rimmed glasses, a monogrammed violet shirt and a maroon necktie with a gold horseshoe stickpin made him look more like a bookie than a policeman. He slapped the desk blotter with a sheaf of typewritten pages, declaring at the same time: ‘These sex crimes have gotta stop!’

  ‘I agree,’ said I. P. Geisel. ‘But if a man is innocent——’

  ‘Innocent!’ The captain’s breath wheezed in his chest. ‘If ever a fiend was caught red-handed!’ He peered through the horn-rimmed glasses at Clay. ‘Blood up to his elbows. And the poor girl unconscious, naked, bleeding in a dozen places, clutched in his arms!’

  ‘My God!’ Clay exclaimed.

  Captain Grady nodded. ‘She’s now in hospital, hovering between life and death.’

  ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘No mistake. No mistake at all.’

  I. P. Geisel said, ‘The courts will decide.’

  ‘If I had my way I’d take him out now, shoot him like a dog.’

  ‘Now, Captain …’

  ‘I’m a family man. I have daughters. Eight. And when I think it might, but for His Grace, be one of them, I … I …’

  ‘I concur,’ said I. P. Geisel. ‘But we must not let natural indignation lead us into intemperate action. Action we might regret.’

  ‘Shoot him like a dog!’

  ‘A very human reaction. But you, Captain, are first of all a police officer. Sworn to uphold the law.’

  ‘I still say …’

  ‘Impartially,’ I. P. Geisel went on smoothly. ‘Fairly. With due regard for a citizen’s rights.’

  ‘Citizen!’ Captain Grady wheezed. ‘Him a citizen?’

  The lawyer’s long face became melancholy. He shook his head sadly. ‘I—we are disappointed, Captain.’

  ‘Disappointed?’

  ‘The Globe has had its eye on you. A family man. A just man. A man it would like to see heading a certain department.’

  ‘Well now,’ said Captain Grady.

  ‘And it would appreciate your allowing its lawyer and one of its reporters to examine Nichols’ statement.’

  ‘Irregular,’ said Captain Grady.

  ‘In the interest of justice.’

  Captain Grady sighed. ‘The old malarkey. Kiss today; hot-foot tomorrow.’ He got up wearily. ‘You’d think I’d learn.’ He glanced at the typewritten pages. ‘In the interest of justice, I’ll be back in ten minutes.’ He went out the inner door.

  The statement, faded elite type on transparent flimsies, was obviously the police stenographer’s first draft. It had no heading, gave no indication as to who was present when it was taken. Clay and I. P. Geisel read it together, bending over the desk. It began:

  Q. Give your full name and occupation.

  A. I already did.

  Q. This is for the record.

  A. Thomas Hood Nichols, lawyer. Age 35.

  Q. You admit you attacked this girl, this Cleo Hughes?

  A. I don’t admit anything.

  Q. You said you would make a statement.

  A. I will. I am.

  Q. Well, did you or did you not attack this girl?

  A. She attacked me.

  Q. Answer the question.

  A. I didn’t attack anybody.

  Q. Come now, Nichols.

  A. I thought you were going to let me tell this in my own way.

  Q. You’ll tell it like we want it strike that out go ahead Nichols.

  A. Where do you want me to start?

  Q. You start it.

  A. I was born in Kentucky of poor mountain folk

  Q. Not on the face Sorgoant.

  A. Okay, okay. I’ll talk. Just keep that baboon away from me.

  Q. Well?

  A. It started at the Love Nest after my wife left after we picked up Cleo.

  Q. You mean after you picked her up.

  A. We. My wife helped me.

  Q. Your wife helps you with these things?

  A. She does them herself sometimes.

  Q. You dropped your glasses, Captain.

  A. Helps me
question people.

  Q. Your story is that you were questioning this Cleo?

  A. For a client.

  Q. Who?

  A. The name is Nameless. Nameless Nameless.

  Q. Are you drunk?

  A. Of course I’m drunk.

  Q. Strike that from the record.

  A. You can’t strike that from the record. I’m a lawyer and you can’t strike that from the record.

  Q. Let it stand then.

  A. You’re goddam right, let it stand. Where was I?

  Q. In the Love Nest.

  A. Passion fruit. Wow.

  Q. What?

  A. The poison I had to drink to get her friendly. Wow. Gallons. Loosened her up finally and she agreed to help me find Mrs. B who she was supposed to meet and we started off after Mrs. B in a taxi. And let me tell you don’t ever get in a taxi with Cleo.

  Q. Who is Mrs. B?

  A. Her name is Nameless.

  Q. Your client?

  A. No. He’s another Nameless. Suppose I call him Mr. C. That’ll help. Mr. C was why I played patty-cake with Cleo to get her to take me to Mrs. B to get her to tell me what she knew about Mr. C and a certain Miss T. Get it?

  Q. Captain, I suggest we beat the be Jesus out of.

  Q. Let him tell it in his own way.

  A. We never did find Mrs. B. We searched for her in joints where women wore men’s clothes and joints where men wore women’s clothes. We searched for her in taxis and on foot, through strange apartments and hotel lobbies—and somewhere I learned I didn’t need to find Mrs. B at all.

  Q. Why not?

  A. On account Cleo knew everything Mrs. B knew on account she was the redhead Mr. C remembered and on account she was with Mrs. B and Mr. C most of the night. Are you listening, Mr. C?