by J. J. Murphy
“Mrs. Parker,” Church said, “let me ask you again: where is Mr. Parker?”
“I left him at the corner store,” she said. “I exchanged him for a can of beans and a box of oyster crackers.”
“Mrs. Parker—”
Benchley spoke softly. “Mr. Parker went off to the war soon after they were married. He had a tough time of it. He was an ambulance driver and was trapped for three harrowing days when the ambulance fell into a mortar crater. There he was, buried alive with several dead and dying men, never to know if he’d be rescued. Finally, he was, but he was not the same man. Shortly after that, he crawled into a morphine bottle and never really emerged, even after he returned home.”
Church looked at her. “Is all that correct?”
She was furious at Benchley. How dared he tell the truth? It made her feel naked and vulnerable. Of her many sore spots, it was nearly the sorest.
But ... she told herself to get over it. Church would have pestered her anyway until she had to tell the story herself, and she didn’t want to do that. Better that Benchley tell it, if it must come out.
“So you are Mrs. Parker in name only?” Church said.
“And what a nice, clean name it is,” she said. “It was the best thing that Edwin Parker ever gave me.”
She noticed that Church still had his list of suspects in his hand.
“And what association did you have with Mr. Mayflower?”
“That old game?” she said. “Can’t we play a round of something else? Russian roulette, maybe.”
Church stared at her, waiting.
“Fine,” she said. “I once removed a thorn from his paw. He was so grateful, he chose not to maul me to death.”
Church frowned. “Is that some kind of metaphor?”
“No. Do you want to know the boring, old truth? I didn’t know Mayflower at all. I mean, I knew him by sight and I knew how callous and unfair his drama reviews could be. But I never met him personally. Is that really what you want to hear?”
Church exhaled in another rare moment of candor. “This does not seem to be getting us anywhere,” he muttered, looking down at his list. “Still, the last few names here are the most promising. The next one is Franklin Pierce Adams.”
She said, “If you’re working alphabetically, his last name is not Pierce Adams, just Adams. Pierce is his middle name—”
The car jolted to a halt.
O’Rannigan, who had slammed on the brake, howled, “You should scratch him from that list, Captain. Mr. Adams is the most respected newspaperman in the country. He couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the murder of that old twinkle toes.”
“Yes, you read his column every morning, Detective. You used to read his column in the Stars and Stripes in the war,” Church said, turning to face Dorothy and Benchley. “What I want to know is, what was his relationship to Mayflower?”
“Didn’t you read the articles in the Knickerbocker News?” she said. “Adams said Mayflower owed him fifty dollars from some old poker game. That’s as much as he told us, and I believe him.”
“Because, like Woollcott said of himself, Adams also would rather mete out his justice in print than in person?” Church said.
“No, if Adams stabbed Mayflower in the heart with a fountain pen, he’d happily tell you about it. He’d sit you down and gleefully relate every detail. Adams is tight with a buck, but he’ll spend countless hours telling you about himself.”
“Why, you little—” O’Rannigan glared at her. “Mr. Adams said your poetry was just the cat’s pajamas and then you turn around and say—”
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I love old Frank Adams dearly. He raised me from a couplet. I’ve cried on his shoulder so many times that he puts on a raincoat when he sees me coming. But did he kill Mayflower? Not a chance.”
Church reluctantly returned to his list. “Harold Ross.”
Dorothy and Benchley laughed explosively.
Church spoke wearily, “What is so amusing about Harold Ross?”
“Ross?” she chortled. “Ross might accidentally bump someone out a window as he bends over to tie his shoe. But murder? Not in a million years.”
“Ross won’t shut up about this absurd idea he has for a new magazine for New Yorkers,” Benchley snickered. “Perhaps he could exasperate a man to take his own life. But not murder.”
“Please stick to the facts,” Church said. “How did Ross know Mayflower?”
“Oh, please. An African pygmy knows more about Broadway than Ross does,” she said. “Ross thinks Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is something you buy in Gimbels’ toy department. He wouldn’t know a Broadway darling like Mayflower from a ... Well, from an African pygmy.”
Even in the darkness inside the car, Church’s frown was obvious. “Next, Robert Sherwood.”
O’Rannigan grunted. “The guy on stilts. He and Mayflower had a beef.”
Church perked up. “Is that so?”
Benchley spoke first. “Mr. Sherwood is a gentleman in the true sense of the word—a gentle man. If he had an argument with Mayflower, he’d settle it honorably. Pistols at dawn perhaps.”
“Is that how he settles arguments?” Church said.
“Of course not,” Dorothy said. “Mr. Benchley was obviously embellishing to make a point. The only killing Mr. Sherwood ever possibly did was in the war, as I’m sure you’d understand. And even at that, I’m sure he did so reluctantly.”
Church’s voice was low. “You understand what it is to kill a man? Even in war, even on the most gruesome battlefield, killing another man brings at the very least a small sense of elation, that you are glad to be the one who remains alive.”
“I’m quite sure that Mr. Sherwood took no such joy,” she said.
“You are quite sure, are you?”
“Quite.”
O’Rannigan, his eyes on the road, called over his shoulder. “Battersby said Sherwood threatened him.”
“What?” Dorothy and Benchley both said.
“On the steps of the station. I had just let you yahoos go. Then Battersby comes in two minutes later sweating like a whore in church, and he says he had a run-in with you and you.” With a twist of his head, he indicated Benchley and Dorothy. “And that skyscraper Sherwood, too. Battersby says Sherwood turned blue and violent just because Battersby was telling it like it is in the Knickerbocker.”
“Telling it like it is?” she said.
“Now, that’s embellishing,” Benchley said. “Embullishing, even.”
“It is worth noting,” Church said. “But return to how Robert Sherwood knew Leland Mayflower.”
“Not personally,” she said. “Mr. Sherwood’s first play premiered last year. Mayflower’s review slaughtered it. That’s as close as they ever got.”
Church turned to O’Rannigan. “I want to question this Sherwood. Tomorrow.”
O’Rannigan checked his watch. “You mean later today?”
“All right, then. Today.” Church consulted his list again. “Lastly, Alexander Woollcott.”
Dorothy groaned. She was exhausted trying—apparently in vain—to vindicate all her friends.
“He did it,” she said. “Woollcott did it. Now can we stop?”
“I do not appreciate your sarcasm. Besides professional rivalry, what other association did Alexander Woollcott have with Leland Mayflower?”
Benchley was equally exhausted. He tried not to let it show. “Now, stop me if you’ve heard this one before. But Woollcott freely admits that he would only murder Mayflower in print, not in person.”
“Precisely,” Church said. “Sanderson was the one who murdered Mayflower in person. The real murderer—the one who hired Sanderson—is someone too timid to do the deed in person.”
“There are many unflattering adjectives that describe Woollcott,” Dorothy said. “But timid is not one of them.”
Benchley spoke. “I believe you said one needs three things to perpetrate a crime: motive, means and opportunity. Th
at leaves out method. Even if Woollcott had a motive, he certainly would not have chosen actual murder as his method. What’s that Chinese form of execution? Death by a thousand cuts? Woollcott would employ—and occasionally does—death by a thousand cutting remarks.”
“Return to motive, then,” Church said.
“What motive?” she said.
“Money.”
“Ha, Woollcott has it pouring in.”
“Perhaps Mayflower had more,” Church said. “He stole a lucrative endorsement contract from Woollcott. For Saber fountain pens, the very pen stuck into Mayflower’s body.”
“Hogwash,” she said. “Woollcott shills for Chevrolet and for Chesterfield cigarettes, and he doesn’t drive a Chevrolet and he doesn’t smoke Chesterfields. He probably considered fountain pens beneath him, and the company went to Mayflower as second-best.”
O’Rannigan jerked his head around. “Nope, we talked to the Saber people. Mayflower pulled a fast one on Woollcott. They told us so themselves. He hung Woollcott out to dry.”
She couldn’t answer. This took her by surprise. But before she could summon some halfhearted response, the car came to an abrupt stop. She looked out into the darkness to see the black shadow of the immense, imposing brick structure of Bellevue Hospital.
“We’re here,” O’Rannigan said. “City morgue.”
Chapter 22
The light was so bright that it hurt Dorothy’s eyes.
She paused in the doorway.
They had descended a short flight of stone stairs and were about to enter the hospital’s basement through a pair of heavy wooden double doors.
Detective O’Rannigan held the door. “What, are you scared now? Go ahead.”
She stepped past him through the door and entered the hallway. The walls were covered in brilliant white tiles. The flagstone floor was sprinkled with sawdust, which stuck to her wet shoes like glue.
The bright light was bothersome, but the smell was sickening: the damp, permeating stink of a butcher’s shop, with the added odors of formaldehyde, bleach and urine. She was glad to have Benchley beside her. When she looked up at him, he gave her a reassuring wink.
Behind them, Captain Church’s peg leg thumped on the flagstones, causing a dull echo in the chilly hallway.
“This way,” he said, pointing toward an archway that opened to a large chamber.
Brass pendant lamps with green glass shades hung from the low ceiling, casting pools of light on the marble slab tables spaced throughout the wide room. Silent, immobile bodies, covered in gray sheets, lay on most of the slabs. At the far end of the room, a bearded man leaned over one of the tables. He had his arms elbows deep inside the abdomen of a naked male corpse.
“Dr. Norris?” Church said.
The large, bearded man straightened up, looked at them a moment, grabbed a nearby towel and wiped his hands clean of blood. He approached them slowly. His shirtsleeves were rolled up above his elbows, he had a briar pipe in his mouth and he wore a bloodied canvas apron. He chucked the towel into a bin, set his fists on his hips and scrutinized each of them with his deep-set gray eyes.
“Well?”
“Some visitors to see the remains of Knut Sanderson,” Church said. “Mrs. Parker, Mr. Benchley, this is Dr. Charles Norris, chief medical examiner.”
The doctor’s voice was gruff, businesslike. “Welcome.” He extended his hand, still slightly bloodstained.
Dorothy looked at his hand. “It won’t kill you to wash before you take a lady’s hand.”
He looked at her sternly, though she detected a twinkle of amusement. “It won’t kill you to shake it.”
She shook it.
Church stepped forward. He didn’t seem to like this banter. “Mrs. Parker and Mr. Benchley are here to settle their minds about the suicide death of Knut Sanderson.”
“I see. You want to be absolutely certain he’s dead?” Dr. Norris said. “I’m sure you’re not the only ones. Over here.”
He walked them to one of the marble slab tables, on which lay a long body draped in gray. He pulled back the sheet. Dorothy and the others moved forward.
It was the Sandman, all right. He didn’t look the same as the last time she’d seen him. The man’s dark eyes were closed and his skin was an odd cherry pink color. But there was no mistaking the hard, menacing face and the scar that bisected his mouth.
“He’s dead,” Dr. Norris said, his pipe jutting up from his mouth.
“Dead?” Benchley said. “He’s in the pink.”
Dr. Norris grunted. “Carbon monoxide poisoning. Even if we didn’t know that his apartment was full of gas, the pink skin coloration would be a dead giveaway. Feel better now?”
Both Dorothy and Benchley nodded.
“Only one problem,” Dr. Norris said. “He wasn’t a suicide.”
O’Rannigan nearly jumped. “I knew it!”
Church cleared his throat, ignoring the detective. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
Dr. Norris grabbed the body with two hands. “Help me turn him over,” he said to Church.
They rolled the body facedown.
“Look here,” Dr. Norris said. “Can you see the lividity, that slightly purplish color along his back? That indicates where the blood and bodily fluids settled. That means he died lying on his back and then continued to lie there a good long time.”
“But he was found with his head in his oven,” Church said. “His apartment was full of gas.”
“No doubt the gas killed him, but I bet he was lying asleep in bed at the time. Someone came along later and stuffed the body in the oven to make it look like a suicide.”
They rolled the body so that it faced them again.
“That confirms our suspicions,” Church said. “But it brings us no closer to the real killer.”
Dr. Norris said, “You mean that the person who hired Sanderson to kill Mayflower is also the person who then killed Sanderson?”
“In all likelihood,” Church said. “But we shall stick to the facts for now. And the facts show us that we have two murdered bodies in our possession, but no murderer.”
Shortly after this, they said good-bye to Dr. Norris. As he shook Dorothy’s hand, he smiled warmly. “Very pleased to meet you.”
“Likewise,” she said.
His smile widened; his hand lingered in hers. “Hope to see you again soon.”
She smiled sweetly in return. “Over my dead body.”
They got back in the car and drove in silence to the police station. On the pavement in front of the station, Church and O’Rannigan—each in his own way—left them with stern warnings to immediately report any information or any sign of William Dachshund.
Without another word, the policemen turned and entered the building, leaving Dorothy and Benchley at four o’clock in the morning with no means to get home. They stood there a moment, very tired and unsure what to do next.
Benchley finally spoke. “So our peg-legged police captain seems quite baffled.”
“Oh, yes.” She couldn’t resist. “Now he’s really stumped.”
They stood a moment longer.
“Do you think Tony Soma’s is still open?” Benchley said. “I could use a drink after seeing all those dead bodies.”
“Sure,” she said. “What’s another stiff one?”
Chapter 23
But the speakeasy was closed. They banged on the door repeatedly, but no one answered.
“The smart thing to do would be to call it a night,” Dorothy said.
“Well, then?” Benchley said.
“Then, let’s get a cup of coffee.”
They walked up the empty street, hurrying quietly past the dark alley entrance where they had last met the Sandman. They turned the corner to the bright lights of Sixth Avenue. They walked a few blocks farther until they found a place that was open—an all-night greasy spoon.
The bell on the door tinkled as they entered. The small place was empty. Along one wall were a few narrow booth
s. Along the other wall was a long mirror, fronted by a linoleum counter and a few stools. No one stood behind the counter.
They sat down in the last booth in the rear. A fat cook in a stained white T-shirt came out of a doorway at the back.
“What’ll it be?” he said.
“Coffee?” Benchley asked cautiously.
“Coffee,” the cook said. “Anything else?”
“What do you suggest?” Benchley said politely.
“Special of the day is liver and onions.”
“Just the coffee, I think,” Benchley said. Dorothy nodded in agreement.
“Suit yourself.” The cook turned to a battered metal urn behind the counter and filled two mugs. He came over and plunked the cups on their table.
“Lemme know if you need something else.” Then he disappeared through the doorway to the back.
She glanced down into her mug. The coffee looked watery and smelled burned. She pushed it aside.
“I confess I’m as stumped as Captain Church,” she said. “First of all, why would anyone really want to murder silly old Leland Mayflower? Second, if someone did want to kill him, why use a hired gunman? Third, why kill him in broad daylight in a well-known public place—and with a fountain pen, of all things? Lastly, why then kill the man who killed Mayflower?”
“The last one is obvious,” Benchley said. He took a sip of the coffee, winced, then put the cup down with finality. “Whoever killed the Sandman wanted to make sure the Sandman stayed quiet. As a hired gun, the Sandman could very likely be paid or otherwise convinced to talk. But dead men tell no tales.”
“And madmen smell toenails. But do you believe what Church said—”
The bell tinkled softly as the door opened. A man in a long trench coat and a wide-brimmed hat entered and sat down on a stool at the counter. The man didn’t even glance at them.
She continued, speaking in a whisper. “Do you believe what Church said about Woollcott? That Mayflower went behind his back to land that Saber pen contract?”
“I doubt it. But then again, Woollcott might indeed be tight-lipped about Mayflower making such a coup de grâce under his upturned nose. It would bother Woollcott to no end, and he’d know we’d rib him for it.”
