Catch a Falling Knife

by Alan Cook

  “So you didn’t know that she was a dancer at Club Cavalier.”

  “A what?”

  I tried to frame the words for maximum effect. “Elise danced topless at Club Cavalier several nights a week.”

  This time he got the message. His eyes opened very wide behind his glasses. He looked from one of us to the other. He finally sputtered, “That can’t be…I don’t…you’re making this up.”

  Now I wished we had a copy of the newspaper with us. We did have one in the car, but I didn’t want to lose Ted’s attention. I said, “I understand that you sometimes patrolled with Mr. Hoffman, taking license plate numbers of patrons at the places like Club Cavalier and putting them on the Internet.”

  He neither confirmed nor denied it.

  “When you were doing that, did you ever read the publicity information in front of Club Cavalier? One of the dancers was known as the Shooting Star.”

  Ted reacted. Or rather, he exploded. “The Shooting Star was Elise? My God, it couldn’t be. But if it was…oh my God.” He continued to look distraught.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Mark said to Ted.

  Mark led Ted to the chair with the footstool and he plunked down in it, automatically. Mark and I both sat down, also. We knew a Pandora’s box had been opened, but we didn’t know what was inside.

  Ted looked as if he had gone into a trance so I said, “Ted, tell us what you know about the Shooting Star.”

  He collected himself and said, “That night…the night that Elise was killed, I went on patrol with Mr. Hoffman. When we got to Club Cavalier we recorded the license numbers, as usual, and then he said that in order for me to understand the reason for doing this I should see what went on inside. I was shocked; that didn’t sound like Mr. Hoffman. But he kept insisting. He said that after I saw how the men behaved it would make me more determined that ever to wipe out places like this. The devil’s playground, he called them.”

  “Had you ever been inside a strip club before?” Mark asked.

  “Of course not.” Ted looked indignant. “And I didn’t want to go then. Finally, I agreed to go in for a few minutes to get him off my back. Mr. Hoffman paid and we sat in the back. He bought us beers. I didn’t know he drank beer. We watched a couple of girls dance. They were disgusting, but the men watching them were even more disgusting. They yelled and whistled and put money on the stage.

  “I wanted to leave, but Mr. Hoffman said we would see just one more girl. And then the Shooting Star came on the stage. She was different than the others and she looked familiar, in a way…. If anything, she made the men wilder than before.”

  “What time was that?” I asked.

  “It must have been about ten.”

  “Had you ever seen Elise without her clothes on?”

  “Never.”

  “Do you know whether she had a tattoo?”

  “If she did, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with her.”

  “Let him tell the rest of the story,” Mark admonished me. “What happened after the Shooting Star danced?”

  “Mr. Hoffman turned to me and said, ‘Do you know who she is?’ I told him I didn’t know. He said we had to get out of there. He immediately drove me home and said he had to go somewhere. He appeared to be in a big hurry.”

  “And you didn’t talk to him again until he called you at 1 a.m.,” I said.

  Ted shook his head. “Do you think that Mr. Hoffman…?”

  “Killed Elise?” Mark finished. “It’s certainly something we’re going to look into.”

  “Did you tell this story to the police?” I asked Ted.

  “I told them about going on patrol with Mr. Hoffman, but not about going into Club Cavalier. I couldn’t bring myself to do that.”

  “Are you prepared to tell them the whole truth now?” The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

  Ted nodded.

  “I think we’d better get out of here,” I said to Mark.

  He stood up and said, “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 26

  “Where do you think Eric Hoffman went this morning?” Mark asked me after we had gotten into the car.

  That was a key question. Should we go directly to the police or should we try to find Eric? I said, “If he’s skipped town the sooner the police are on it the better. But I’m wondering if that’s what he did. The way June talked he was more irate than scared. I have a hunch he may have gone to see Donna.”

  “Because she blabbed about Elise being the Shooting Star?”

  “Yes, because it undermines his piety. He is no longer holier than we are.”

  “It won’t hurt to check to see if he meant Donna any harm.”

  “If he did, it could be too late.”

  With that impetus, Mark gunned the engine of his stick-shift Corolla and we made it to Donna’s apartment in record time. Her car was parked in front of the building. Mark had trouble finding a place for his car and finally had to park around the corner. This never happens in the movies when the hero is racing to save the victim, but in a movie I guess he would have had no qualms about double-parking.

  We walked briskly back to the apartment and rang the bell. No answer. Mark and I looked at each other. I had my cell phone in my purse. Was it time to call 911? He tried the door; it wasn’t locked.

  He opened the door and we went inside. Silence reigned. Nothing looked out of place in the main room. Everything was deceptively normal. The beanbag chair slouched, invitingly. The CD player showed a light; it had been playing.

  “Donna,” I called. “It’s Professor Morgan.”

  No answer. I had a mental picture of Donna lying on her bed, engulfed in blood, a replay of Elise. Gingerly, we made our way toward the bedroom. I poked my head around the corner, dreading what I would see. And then I saw her, on her bed, with her back to me.

  “Donna,” I said.

  Donna didn’t move. Mark followed me into the bedroom and also called her name. No reaction. I went over to her and touched her shoulder. She flinched and I jumped back, startled, my heartbeat accelerating. Dead bodies aren’t supposed to move.

  Slowly, Donna rolled over and looked at us. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been sleeping.”

  She sat up on her bed. She wore a white bra and white panties. She brushed back her hair from her face and rubbed her eyes. They looked red. Except for her eyes, she looked the most attractive that I’d ever seen her. Then she became aware of her state of undress. Mark did too, and apologized.

  “That’s all right,” Donna said as he turned to leave the room, but he went out anyway. I picked up a T-shirt and a pair of shorts that were lying on the floor and handed them to her. I wasn’t going to abet her in her seduction of Mark. She pulled them on and Mark returned.

  “Has Mr. Hoffman been here?” I asked.

  “How did you know that?” she asked.

  “Just a guess. He left his house this morning, very angry. We thought that he might have been mad because you identified Elise as the Shooting Star.”

  “I need a drink of water,” Donna said. She led the way out of the bedroom to the main room and then into the kitchen. She asked, “Would you two like something?”

  Mark chose a coke; I took a glass of water. We reassembled in the main room where I carefully avoided the beanbag chair.

  After a few sips, Donna said, haltingly, “You guessed correctly. Mr. Hoffman was here. Actually, I think he came this morning when I was in class, but I didn’t get back here until after lunch. Anyway, he returned after I got home. You are also correct about the reason. He was mad because I had to admit that Elise was the Shooting Star.”

  “So he was the one who convinced you to impersonate the Shooting Star,” Mark said.

  “Oh, no. That was my idea. He didn’t know that Elise was the Shooting Star until I told him. But then he went along with me pretending I was. He said that Elise had suffered enough, having been murdered, and he didn’t want her reputation tarnished. That’s what he said, but
I know what the real reason was. He didn’t want his reputation tarnished.”

  “When did you tell him Elise was the Shooting Star?” I asked. Did Donna really not know that Eric had known before the murder?

  “A few days after she was killed. I figured he ought to know the truth about her, his precious baby that he had put on a pedestal.”

  “How did he react?”

  “He was…upset, I guess. I don’t really remember. But that’s when he told me he wanted me to keep impersonating the Shooting Star.”

  “Did Mr. Hoffman hurt you?” I asked.

  “Hurt me?”

  “Today.”

  “No…he didn’t hurt me. He made me cry, but he didn’t hurt me.”

  “When did he leave?” Mark asked.

  Donna looked at her watch. “About an hour ago. I was so upset that I collapsed on the bed. I must have fallen asleep. When you first called I was disoriented and thought I was having a dream.”

  “Do you know where he went?” I asked.

  “No. Home, I guess.”

  I had the feeling Donna wasn’t telling us everything, but I might have that feeling because of her propensity to change stories. There was nothing to be gained by talking to her further. I think she was relieved to see us go, but then I would have been too, in her shoes.

  ***

  “I hope you’ve come to confess, because that’s the only reason I want to talk to you two.”

  With that opening salvo, Detective Johnson led us to a bleak conference room, with a table and several chairs. After we were seated he opened his spiral notebook and said, “Okay, I’m ready to take down your confession.”

  “We have new evidence,” I said. I figured I had to act as Mark’s defense attorney, in Burt’s absence. That meant defending him from Detective Johnson’s verbal blows.

  After the detective asked us what we had, in a voice that showed his skepticism, I said, “We talked to Ted Ulrich, Elise’s boyfriend.”

  “I told you to stay away from him. Now he’s going to come running to me, complaining that you’re harassing him again.” His eye twitched. Then he relaxed a little and a smile played on his lips. He said, “You know, that guy’s a wuss. I don’t think he had the balls to kill the girl.”

  “We don’t think so, either. But he did tell us something I don’t think he told you. On the night that Elise was killed, he was out on patrol, as they call it, with Eric Hoffman.”

  “He told me that.”

  “But did he tell you that he and Eric went into Club Cavalier?” I paused to let that sink in.

  Detective Johnson didn’t give us the satisfaction of showing his surprise, if any. He said, “I’m listening.”

  “They drank beer and saw several dancers, including the Shooting Star.”

  Now Johnson’s expression changed from skeptical to surprise to calculating. “So you’re telling me that the boyfriend saw his girlfriend stripping and the dad saw his daughter stripping.”

  “Not only that,” Mark said, unable to keep silent, “but Ted claimed that he didn’t recognize her because he had never seen her naked before. In fact, if you can believe it, he didn’t know Elise was the Shooting Star until we told him today.”

  “And Hoffman?”

  “According to what Ted told us about his reaction, he must have recognized her. But he didn’t let on to Ted.” Mark told how Eric had immediately taken Ted home and then left in a hurry.

  “And where do you suppose he went?”

  “To Elise’s apartment, where else? He probably got there the same time she did.”

  “And in his rage and humiliation he stabbed her.”

  “That’s certainly a possibility.”

  “Since Elise probably wouldn’t lock her own father out, how did the window get broken?”

  I said the obvious. “He might have broken it to make it look like a robbery.”

  “And then left before Donna got there.”

  Mark and I looked at each other. I said, “Yes. I don’t know of any reason why she would cover for him. In fact, it could have been dangerous for her if she had arrived while he was still there. We talked to Donna today after we talked to Ted, by the way. Eric came to see her this morning after he read in the paper that she had admitted that Elise was the Shooting Star.”

  “You’ve been flitting all over the place, haven’t you?” Detective Johnson said. “So what did Eric Hoffman want with Donna?”

  “To chew her out for revealing the identity of the Shooting Star,” Mark said. “According to Donna, he really lambasted her.”

  “Because it makes him a suspect.”

  “Although, if we can believe what Donna told us, she still doesn’t know he knew before the killing…”

  “And thus, she doesn’t know he had a motive.”

  “Second reason he’s mad at Donna is because this revelation subjects him to public humiliation,” I said, using Johnson’s own word. “His daughter is revealed as a stripper, which goes against everything he stands for. Donna can appreciate that. She said so. In her mind, that’s reason enough for him to be mad at her, even if he didn’t kill Elise.”

  “So he’s the killer but she hasn’t been covering for him because she doesn’t know it,” Detective Johnson said. “Poor guy. He’s the salt of the earth, but his kid lets him down.” His voice registered equal parts skepticism and sarcasm. “Assuming everything you’ve told me is true, what about the knife? How did it get into Mark’s car?”

  “The last time I visited Eric Hoffman, Mark drove me there. Mark didn’t stay while I talked to Eric, but I beeped him when I was ready to leave and he returned. Eric walked out with me and got a good look at Mark’s car, although they didn’t talk to each other. Since he was in the habit of taking down license plate numbers, he probably wrote Mark’s down. He knew my address at Silver Acres and he knew Mark was staying with me. When he went out on night patrol, he could have driven to Silver Acres and found Mark’s car.”

  “Figuring that since Mark was a suspect, anyway, this might seal his fate and get Eric off the hook.”

  A reply to this remark didn’t seem necessary, so Mark and I kept silent.

  Detective Johnson wrote some notes and carefully studied them for a time, without looking up. Then he met our eyes and said, “If you’re expecting a thank you, forget it. I would have found this stuff out, sooner or later. Now I’ll follow up. I want you two to keep out of it.”

  Chapter 27

  I still didn’t have at least one piece to the puzzle. How had Elise gotten home from Club Cavalier? Detective Johnson didn’t seem to know, or if he did he didn’t tell Mark and me. It’s possible that Eric Hoffman had returned to Club Cavalier after he had taken Ted home, but by then Elise would have been gone.

  She might have left even faster if she had seen her father and her boyfriend in the audience, but there was no way of knowing whether she had. From what I remembered of the lighting in the Club, it probably would have been difficult for her to recognize anybody sitting in the back, especially with the spotlights shining in her eyes.

  In any case, according to Lefty she had left immediately after her show. So who had given her a ride? That person could possibly be a material witness. Or even the murderer.

  In addition, where had Elise smoked marijuana? There hadn’t been a trace of any drug in her apartment, according to the police report. I was not naïve enough to believe that nothing like that ever happened in the dressing room at Club Cavalier, but she didn’t stick around long enough to do it there. The obvious conclusion was that she smoked on the ride home. So she must have been with somebody she knew quite well.

  What about her old boyfriend from last year, the one Donna said she had slept with? I didn’t know his name and Detective Johnson had never mentioned him. Maybe it was time we started looking for him. But I wanted to do something else first and Detective Johnson could have no objection.

  On Wednesday morning I went to pool aerobics with Tess. Then she went off
on some errand. By the time I returned to my apartment, Mark had left for a daytime shift as bartender at the restaurant in Durham. I took my car and drove to Bethany. I knew how to get to Club Cavalier by now, without referring to a map or having somebody give me directions. Once there, I parked beside the Club and studied the street map I had brought with me, using a magnifying glass I carry to help me read small print.

  I had to go only a few blocks. I memorized the turns and was proud of the fact that several minutes later I pulled up in front of the house of Frank Scott, June Hoffman’s friend and surrogate father. I had asked June for his address. His house must have been elegant 80 years ago, but now it needed a paint job and some repairs, as did most of the neighboring homes.

  I went up several creaky wooden front steps, carefully, holding the handrail. I noted that a wheelchair ramp had been built beside the steps as an alternate path. I rang the doorbell and heard a chime of the first four notes that I associate with Big Ben, in London.

  After a wait a male voice asked, “Who is it?”

  “I’m a friend of June Hoffman,” I called in my most innocuous voice.

  The door opened. I was surprised when I didn’t see anybody on my level. I looked down and saw a man of my vintage, sitting in a wheelchair, still holding the door handle. What hair he had was white and his glasses had thick lenses. He had some ugly black spots on his face that looked like the melanomas I had had removed from mine.

  “Mr. Scott?” I said. “I’m Lillian Morgan.”

  “It isn’t often I get a visitor from my generation,” he said in a husky voice. “Come on in. In fact, it isn’t often I get a visitor from any generation, anymore.”

  He swung the door farther open and moved his wheelchair to give me room to enter. I had a speech prepared, but he told me to follow him. He propelled his wheelchair through a wide doorway into a large room. It had a genuine hardwood floor, but not much furniture, and most of that was along one wall. He gestured to a sofa, underneath four windows.

  I sat down and he said, “Do you drink tea, Mrs….? I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Lillian,” I said. “Sure.” When in Rome….