The Lady in the Morgue

by Jonathan Latimer

  Crane said, “Now look here. You probably won’t believe it, but I didn’t take the body from the morgue. But there’s a chance that I may find it. If I do, and it’s your wife, I’ll make some sort of a deal with you.” He was speaking quickly, earnestly. “I have another client who thinks the girl might have been his sister. If it’s her we haven’t got any deal at all. But the fact is that I haven’t got the body.”

  Paletta’s face turned dark and ugly, his voice rumbled like stones in a barrel. “Listen, buddy, you got the body, or you wouldn’t be tryin’ t’ make a deal.” He clenched his right fist. “You either …”

  Someone knocked on the door. “What the hell!” exclaimed Williams. He walked over to the door and opened it. O’Malley kept his eyes on Paletta. A small, pale, black-haired man with gold-rimmed spectacles entered the room. It was Assistant State’s Attorney Samuel Burman. One of the men from the homicide squad was with him. Burman’s eyes widened when he noticed Paletta.

  “Hello, Mike,” he said; “what are you doing here?”

  “Hello, Mister Burman.” Paletta’s face was friendly, respectful. “Jus’ havin’ a little talk with my ol’ fren, Mister Crane.” He turned to Crane. “I go now. Tomorrow ma’be we make a deal.” He paused at the door. “Good-by, Mister Burman.”

  When the door closed Burman demanded suspiciously, “What was Mike Paletta doing here?” His eyes were curiously examining Williams and O’Malley. He had on a white double-breasted linen suit.

  Crane reached over to the table by the head of the davenport and took up his glass. He drank with evident relish. “Mike and I are planning to enter vaudeville, only we need a stooge,” he said finally. “How would you like the job?”

  “Look here, Crane,” said Burman. He put plenty of fury in his voice. “I’ve stood about enough from you. I could have had you arrested, but I’ve been leaning over backwards in your case. I’ve said again and again, give him a chance. But if you keep up this wise-guy stuff I’ll have you tossed in the can so quick your head’ll swim.”

  “Sure, you’ve given me a chance,” said Crane. “A chance to hang myself.”

  The homicide man’s black coat and trousers were untidy, wrinkled. He moved forward a step, said, “Just say the word, Mister Burman, and I’ll put …”

  Williams interrupted him. “I’d keep out of this, if I were you, flat-foot,” he said. There was something incomparably sinister in the way he was twisting his black mustache.

  “Oh, a couple of big city torpedoes,” said the homicide man, mockingly. He didn’t move forward any further, though.

  “Now, what do you want?” Crane asked Burman.

  “I want to know why you took that girl’s body and what you did with it?”

  “I didn’t take her body.”

  “I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.”

  “I’m getting tired of having to say that.”

  There was a small diamond ring on the third finger of Burman’s left hand. It glinted when he waved his arm. “I told you I was leaning over backwards in your case, Crane. That’s why I’m giving you a chance to tell me your story before I get out a warrant.”

  Crane interrupted a drink, spoke with the glass held to his lips. “Get out a warrant? You haven’t any evidence for a warrant.”

  “Oh, haven’t I?” Burman straightened his necktie, brushed imaginary dust from the sleeves of his white linen suit. “Did you know the police found your fingerprints downstairs in the morgue?”

  “Why shouldn’t they? I told you I was down looking at the girl’s body.”

  “Yeah, but they found these prints on the door leading from the corpse reception room to the driveway—right on the knob of the door.”

  Through the windows the soft, warm wind made a noise like a sleeping person sighing. Ice, melting in the silver container, slipped down a few inches with a tinkling sound.

  Crane said, “Well, if you’ve got the goods on me, why don’t you get out a warrant?”

  “I thought maybe you’d like to tell us who hired you.” Burman’s brown eyes glinted. “We know there’s somebody behind you, somebody big.”

  Crane sat up straight on the davenport, his glass resting on his knee. “You mean you want me to turn state’s evidence?”

  “Now we’re beginning to understand each other.” Burman was rubbing his hands together in a washing motion. “You see? I’ve been leaning over backwards in your case, like I told you. I spoke to the state’s attorney and he …”

  “I’m sleepy,” Crane broke in, speaking to the others. “I’m sleepy, so I’m going to get rid of this guy.” Burman had paused in the middle of his sentence, his mouth an O of surprise. Crane continued, “A police sergeant named O’Connor went around to look at the back of the morgue with me after the body was taken. He and I both handled the door. I’ll bet your big friend here knows O’Connor?” The homicide man said in a hostile tone, “Supposin’ I do?” Crane said to Burman, “You just trot around and see O’Connor, and that’ll clear up all your nasty suspicions.”

  After a period of silence Burman came to a decision. “All right, Crane,” he said. “You don’t deserve it, but I’ll give you a break. I’ll go around and see O’Connor.” He opened his double-breasted coat and pulled out a white gold chain with a Phi Beta Kappa key on the end of it. He swung the key in a circle. “Now, in return, don’t you think you ought to tell us who the girl was?’

  “I don’t know who she was.”

  “But you must have some idea.” The key hung straight down on the chain now. “You’re representing someone, aren’t you? These men are also detectives?”

  O’Malley said, “Naw, we ain’t dicks. We’re members of the Purple mob, outa Detroit.” Williams said, “I’m the mascot. I only killed nine guys yet.” Crane said, “I told you I wouldn’t tell you the name of my firm’s client, if I knew.”

  “All right. All right.” The blood drained out of Burman’s pointed face, leaving it eggshell yellow. “Remember how smart you sonabitches were when you’re all back of the bars.” He put the gold key back in his white vest pocket, buttoned his coat, looked at the homicide man, said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  With undisguised amusement the three watched him follow the homicide man to the door. Williams got up, put his glass on the table and crossed the room so as to be able to close the door in case they didn’t. Halfway into the hall Burman paused.

  “Listen, Crane, I’ll give you one more chance,” he said. “I’ll give you until tomorrow night to tell me your story.” He thrust his pointed face back into the room. “You see? I am leaning over backwards.”

  Williams said, “Well, be careful somebody don’t give you a shove.” He closed the door gently in Burman’s face.

  Chapter Seven

  PERSPIRATION, DRIPPING from an arm thrown over his eyes, tickled his neck, finally wakened him. Hot sunlight was beating down on his face, on the uncovered top of his body. He opened his eyes and was slightly alarmed, as he always was when he woke in a room strange to him. It seemed to be a nice room, however, and he admired the racing prints on the walls; bright-colored rectangles of spindle-legged horses carrying jockeys over water jumps and along turquoise patches of sward. He looked at his wrist watch. It was a few minutes of nine o’clock. He remembered he was in the Hotel Sherman, in Chicago and he sat up, knocking one of the pillows on the floor. He had only a slight hangover.

  He went into the other bedroom to wake up O’Malley and Williams, but they had already gone. He took a long shower, ending it with the cold fully on, and then he got dressed, putting on an unbleached, natural-tan linen suit. He drank some water, and soon he began to feel quite gay and somewhat hungry. He ordered half a grapefruit, soft-boiled eggs, toast and coffee sent up to the room, and while he was waiting he took out the classified telephone directory and called up the larger photographic studios. At the sixth place he located a picture of Verona Vincent and arranged to have a print sent over to him by Western Union mes
senger.

  Breakfast and Doc Williams and O’Malley all arrived at the same time. Williams and O’Malley appeared unpleasantly cheerful, and Crane regarded them suspiciously.

  “You guys haven’t been drinking this early in the day?” he wanted to know.

  They assured him positively, on their honors, that they had not. Did he think they were the sort of characters who would dream of drinking anything before lunch? Did he think that? They both were deeply hurt.

  “All right, you mugs,” said Crane disgustedly; “I don’t mind your drinking so much as your breaking faith with me.” He attacked the grapefruit. “I have been entrusted with the difficult and dangerous (yes, I may fairly say dangerous) task of solving this terrible mystery. Up with the birds in my devotion to duty, I have already located the portrait of the fair Verona Vincent as the first step in a busy day.” He brandished his spoon at them. “And what do I find as I sit down to this frugal repast? What do I find? I find my trusted allies already in the embraces of John Barleycorn.” He looked at them cunningly, still pointing the spoon, “I suppose one of you even now has some of this deadly, habit-forming drug concealed about his person.”

  They looked at him solemnly, protesting their innocence. O’Malley, in all fairness, said, yes, he did think he had a small potion somewhere about him. There was no telling when a man would be overcome with faintness; it was foolish to take a chance. Give him a moment, and he’d try to remember where he carried it. Oh yes, here it was in his hip pocket. He pulled out a half-pint bottle of Seagram’s V.O. Rye. You see? He’d hardly remembered he’d had it.

  Crane took the bottle from him. “Very interesting,” he said. He lifted it to his lips.

  After a time O’Malley said, “Hey! you bastard, leave some for me.” He rescued the bottle and with the aid of Williams emptied it.

  While Crane finished his eggs, which had been boiled too long, and drank his coffee, they discussed the case. Doc Williams observed, “It looks to me as though you better work fast. Either the police or one of Paletta’s mob is goin’ to catch up with you damn soon.”

  Crane spread a thin layer of orange marmalade on the last piece of toast. “Listen. Beside Frankie French our friend Paletta is one of the rosy-faced boys.” He broke off a piece of the toast. “I feel like screaming for help every time I think of Mister French.”

  O’Malley asked, “What are you going to do about him?”

  Crane shrugged his shoulders. “Wait and see what he does, I guess.” He tossed his napkin on the table. “Anyway, I’ve got something for you and Doc to do while Courtland and I show his sister’s and Verona’s pictures to the people at the Princess.” He grinned at them. “It ought to keep you busy, too. I want you to find me an undertaker.”

  Williams asked, “Just any undertaker?”

  “Well, he may be an undertaker’s assistant.” Crane went over to a wall mirror and admired his copper-colored Charvet tie. “Anyway, he works in an undertaking establishment. He has red hair, and he’s left-handed.”

  His face suddenly sober, Williams said, “The guy who bumped off the morgue keeper, eh?”

  “Not exactly. I think the companion of this fellow did the murder. Our undertaker just held Mr.… what was his name? … Augie’s wrists while the companion socked him with a pistol.”

  O’Malley’s big tanned face was puzzled. “I see how you figure the guy is red-headed, because Augie had some red hair between his fingers, but how do you get the other stuff?” There was a glint of gray in O’Malley’s hair, a trace of white around his temples!

  “I’m just using my imagination a little,” Crane said, turning away from the mirror. “I’m not even sure I’m right. But this is about all we have to go on. Augie must have been attacked by at least two men—one man couldn’t have killed him, removed the girl, put him in the box, and made his escape in such a short time.” He sat down on the arm of the bigger of the two overstuffed chairs. “Also, he probably wasn’t killed by the man who was holding onto his wrists. This fellow couldn’t have held onto Augie’s wrists, as shown by the marks, and at the same time held a pistol. Now, we also can be pretty sure Augie struggled with this fellow, got his left hand free and pulled out some of his hair.”

  Crane paused, his lower lip caught between his teeth, his fingers drumming on the chair.

  “The funny thing about this is that Augie should have got his left hand free, because Augie was right-handed. Ordinarily, when a right-handed man grabs your wrists, and you’re right-handed, too, it is your right arm that you free. That’s because he’s holding your right arm, your strongest arm, with his left hand. His strongest hand, conversely, is holding your weakest arm.

  “But Augie got his left arm free. That makes it look like the assailant in this case was holding Augie’s right arm with his strongest hand, that the assailant was left-handed.”

  Blond pillars of sunlight on the green carpet, below the two east windows, were becoming squat. No wind stirred the curtains; no cloud rode the sky. It was going to be hot again.

  Crane continued: “Now, what sort of a man would you get to help you rob a morgue? You’d get somebody who knew his way around a morgue, wouldn’t you? Well, that would be either somebody who worked in the morgue or an undertaker. And it would be too dangerous to try to bribe somebody in the morgue.”

  Doc Williams objected, “But how do you know the red-headed guy is the undertaker? Why couldn’t it have been the man who slugged Augie on the dome?”

  “If you grant that an undertaker or his assistant was hired to help take the body,” Crane said, “it makes him an unlikely murderer. He was hired to help remove the body, that’s all. He wouldn’t coldbloodedly kill someone. He wouldn’t even have a pistol. He would grab somebody’s wrists if they attacked him, but that’s as far as he would go.” He slid off the chair’s arm, sauntered over to one of the east windows. “The violence all belongs to the companion, who was desperate enough in the first place to want to steal the body.”

  While Crane stared across town at the bulky Palmer House they thought it over. At last Williams said, “I guess the Wonder Boy is right again.” He twisted his black pointed mustache, smiled at Crane’s back. “When do we start?”

  “Now.” Crane moved away from the window. “I suggest you try to get hold of a salesman of undertaking supplies or somebody who makes the rounds of all the undertakers. Maybe he’ll remember a customer with red hair. I’ll wait here for Courtland.”

  As he went out the door behind O’Malley Doc Williams paused and asked, “Ain’t you scared Frankie French’ll pay you a call while we’re gone?”

  Crane said, “I’m going to barricade the door.”

  He was just finishing a report to Colonel Black when the Western Union boy arrived with Verona Vincent’s picture. Crane gave him a dollar. It was a large picture, and he had trouble tearing off the stout brown paper. When he finally got the picture out he whistled, then swore.

  The picture was a side view of a woman, and, as far as Crane could see, she had nothing on except a white muff which she was holding in front of her slightly below her hips. She had a very nice figure, tall and slender, with a lovely line from hip to shoulder and small, firm breasts. Her face was toward the camera. She was a blonde, and her features were good. She looked more like the girl in the morgue than did Courtland’s sister, but Crane didn’t feel at all certain that she was the girl in the morgue. The faces were about the same shape, but this girl was smiling, and there was none of that tragic look about her eyes. Crane looked at her breasts and tried to remember what the breasts of the girl in the morgue had looked like, but he couldn’t.

  He had the picture down on the floor and was looking at it from above when Courtland arrived, carrying a package under his arm. Crane tossed the picture to Courtland, who stared at it admiringly, then asked, “Who is she?”

  “She doesn’t look like your sister, does she?” Crane countered.

  Courtland shook his head. “Not very much.” His face
looked tired, and, although small wrinkles around his eyes and mouth made him appear older than he had yesterday, he still was boyish. “She’s just about the same build as Kit, but the expression on her face is different. Her eyes, too, aren’t as large. She’s a honey, though. Who is she?”

  Crane told him. He told him about the visit they had had with Mike Paletta and also about his experience with Frankie French in the morgue washroom. He concluded, “It seems they both feel sure the body was that of Verona Vincent and that I got it.” He didn’t mention the search for the red-haired undertaker, however.

  Courtland was impressed. “Gosh!” he exclaimed. “A stolen body, rival claimants, an underworld angle, threats … what next?” He handed the package he had been carrying to Crane. It was also wrapped in brown paper, and it had fifty-six cents’ worth of stamps on it. “This is Kit’s portrait. She’s wearing more clothes than the cabaret girl, but maybe you can recognize her.” He sat down by the writing desk and picked up the telephone. “Do you mind if I order a drink?”

  Crane was trying to untie the string on the package with his teeth. “Not at all,” he said. “I might even be induced to have a whiskey and soda myself.”

  The portrait of Miss Kathryn Courtland was a disappointment, too. She was thinner than she was in the passport photograph, but her cheeks were plumper than those of the girl in the morgue. The portrait was of her head and neck alone, and her face was turned in half profile to the camera. Her forehead, nose, mouth and chin were all good, almost patrician, but they lacked the severity of the really patrician face.

  Crane said, “Her eyebrows are heavier than the girl in the morgue.”

  “Kit started plucking them about a year after that portrait was taken,” Courtland said.

  Crane took the portrait and that of Verona Vincent over to the south windows of the room and held them to the light. Courtland sat quietly at the writing desk while he looked first at one, then at the other. The two women didn’t look anything alike, yet their features were very similar. Those of Verona Vincent were perhaps a shade less marked; her nose was slightly smaller, her chin less determined, her mouth sulkier, but there was little choice between them. The difference lay in the expression. Courtland’s sister was serious, thoughtful; there was a feeling of sensitiveness about the face as a whole. The face of Verona Vincent expressed a far more lively temperament; it was naturally gay, but the eyes and the mouth hinted at a furious temper. Her face had a vitality lacked by the other girl. Crane felt that Verona Vincent would be fun to take on a party. He wondered if five years had changed her very much.