Women Crime Writers

by Sarah Weinman

“Helen.”

  “Yes?”

  “Mind if I say something personal?”

  “You usually do, whether I mind or not.”

  “You need some new clothes.”

  “Do I?” she said indifferently. “I never pay much attention to what I wear.”

  “It’s time you started.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you and I will be going places together. All kinds of places.”

  She smiled slightly, like a mother at the exaggerated plans of a small boy.

  They took the elevator downstairs and walked through the lobby together. Mr. Horner, the desk clerk, and June Sullivan, the emaciated blonde at the switchboard, watched them with undisguised curiosity and exchanged small ugly smiles as they paused at the swinging door that led to the street.

  “My car’s a couple of blocks away. Sure you don’t want me to drive you over to your mother’s?”

  “It isn’t necessary.”

  “I’ll come there later to see you, if you like.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t be a very cheerful household. Perhaps you’d better not.”

  “Shall I call you a cab?”

  “The doorman will.”

  “All right. Good-bye, then.”

  “Good-bye.”

  Outside, on the busy street, Evelyn Merrick was waiting for her.

  Chapter 11

  THE WIND had blown the storm out to sea and the streets, which had been fairly quiet half an hour before, now came alive, as if the end of the rain was an all-clear signal for activities to resume immediately and simultaneously. People marched briskly up and down the sidewalks like ants patroling after a storm, but on the road traffic came almost to a standstill. Cars moved slowly, if at all, defeated by their own numbers.

  It took Blackshear ten minutes to get his car out of the parking lot and another thirty to reach the long narrow stucco building on Vine Street which served as Terola’s studio.

  For the second time Blackshear read the black stenciling on the frosted-glass window, but now the words had more sinister implications:

  PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKSHOP

  JACK TEROLA, PROPRIETOR

  PIN-UP MODELS • LIFE GROUPS FOR AMATEURS

  AND PROFESSIONALS • RENTAL STUDIOS FOR ART GROUPS

  Come in Any Time

  The office was exactly as it had been the previous afternoon except that someone had recently used the old brick fireplace. The remains of a fire were still smoking, and whatever had been burned had generated enough heat to make the room uncomfortably hot.

  The heat drew out other odors, the smell of boiled-over coffee and of a sharp, musky perfume. The coffee smell came from Terola’s alcove, concealed from view by a pair of dirty flowered-chintz curtains. The odor of perfume came from the girl seated behind, and almost hidden by, the old-fashioned rolltop desk. She was leaning back in the swivel chair at an awkward angle, and her eyes were closed. She appeared to be asleep.

  Blackshear recognized her as Nola Rath, the young girl who’d been posing for one of Terola’s magazine layouts the preceding day. At that time her long black hair had been wet and she’d worn no make-up. Now her hair was compressed into a roll on top of her head and she had on a layer of cosmetics so thick it was like a mask. She looked years older.

  He approached the desk, diffident and a little embarrassed, feeling that he was intruding on her privacy by watching her in her sleep.

  “Miss Rath?”

  Slowly, as if the movement hurt her, she opened her eyes. There was no recognition in them, of Blackshear, or of anything else. She seemed dazed.

  “I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

  “I wasn’t—asleep.” Her voice matched her eyes; it was flat and dull and expressionless. She held her hand to her throat as if the act of speaking, like the act of moving her eyelids, was painful to her.

  “Are you feeling all right, Miss Rath?”

  “All right.”

  “Let me get you a glass of water.”

  “No. No water.” She shifted her weight and the chair creaked under it. “You better get out of here.”

  “I just came.”

  “That don’t matter, you better go.”

  “I’d like to see Mr. Terola, if I may. Is he in?”

  “He’s not seeing anybody.”

  “If he’s too busy right now, I’ll come back later.”

  “He’s not busy.”

  “Well, is he ill or something?”

  “He’s not ill. He’s something. He’s very something.” She began to move her head back and forth. “I been sitting here. I don’t know what to do. I been sitting. I ought to get out of here. I can’t move.”

  “Tell me what’s happened.”

  She didn’t answer but her eyes shifted toward the alcove. Blackshear crossed the room, drew back the curtains of the alcove and stepped inside.

  Terola was lying on his back on the day bed with a pair of barber’s shears stuck in the base of his throat. A soiled sheet and a blood-spattered pink blanket covered the lower half of his body; the upper half was clothed in an undershirt. On a table near the foot of the day bed the hot plate was still turned on and the coffee pot had boiled dry. It looked as though Terola had got up, turned on the coffee, and then gone back to bed for a few more minutes. During those few minutes he’d had a visitor.

  Whoever the visitor was, Terola had not been alarmed. There were, except for the blood, no signs of violence in the room, no evidence of a struggle. Terola’s hair was not even mussed; the same thin parallel strands of gray crossed the top of his pate like railroad ties. Either Terola had known the visitor well and been taken completely by surprise, or else he’d been killed in his sleep.

  The thrust of the scissors had been deep and vicious and accurate. It was a woman’s weapon, a scissors, but the hand that used it had a man’s strength.

  In life Terola had been unprepossessing enough, in death he was monstrous. The eyes bulged like balls of glass, the fleshy mouth hung slack, the tongue, grayish pink and thick, lolled against the tobacco-stained teeth. Blackshear thought of Douglas and his youth and good looks, and he wondered what dark paths had led him to Terola.

  Without touching anything, he returned to the girl in the office.

  “Have you called the police?”

  She blinked. “Police? No.”

  “Did you kill Terola?”

  “No. For God’s sake, no! He was my friend, he gave me a job when I was down and out, he treated me good, never slapped me around like some.”

  “You found him the way he is now?”

  “Yes, when I came to work.”

  “When was that?”

  “Fifteen, twenty minutes ago, I guess. Be here at noon, he said, only I always come a little early so’s I can get ready.”

  “Was the door locked when you arrived?”

  “No. Jack doesn’t—didn’t keep it locked unless he’s—unless he was out.”

  “Did Terola always sleep at the office?”

  “No. He and his mother and his brother have a little ranch out in the valley where they raise avocados, only Jack wasn’t stuck on the place, or the company either, I guess, so he often just stayed here in town.” She pressed a handkerchief to her eyes. “Oh God, I can’t believe he’s dead. He was going to do big things for me, he said. He said I had a great future, all I needed was some publicity. He promised he’d get me all the publicity I wanted.”

  Blackshear was firm. “Well, he kept his promise.”

  “Kept it? No, he didn’t. What do you mean?”

  “You’ll get all the publicity you want, Miss Rath. Maybe more.”

  Her reaction was not what he expected. “My God, that’s right. Say, there’ll be newspaper photographers and everything. The works. How do I look?”

  “Great.”

  “Gee, maybe I could even write an article for the Sunday papers about what a stinker Jack was, except to me. How’s that for an angle? Here is this bum Terola, who everybody hate
s his guts, only he puts himself out to be kind to a down-and-out orphan girl. How does that sound?”

  “Are you an orphan, Miss Rath?”

  “I could be,” she said with a cold little smile. “Depending on the stakes, I could be anything.”

  “Including a liar.”

  “Oh, that. Sure.”

  “You didn’t phone the police, did you?”

  She shrugged. “No. I will, though. As soon as you get out.”

  “Why should I get out?”

  “Because you’ll wreck everything for me. My future depends on this. It’s gotta be done right, see?”

  “I don’t see.”

  “Well, put it this way. Suppose I didn’t have so many clothes on, and suppose I run screaming into the street that I found a murdered man—get the picture?”

  “Vividly.”

  “Then you see how you’d gum things up by being here.” She stood up and leaned across the desk toward him. “I didn’t kill Jack and I won’t touch anything, I promise. Go away, will you, mister? I need a chance. A real chance.”

  “And you think this is a real chance for you?”

  “It’s got to be. I’ll never get another. Now will you go? Will you please go, mister?”

  “After you call the police.”

  She picked up the phone and dialed. While she waited for an answer, she began unbuttoning her dress.

  Blackshear went out to his car. He would have liked to stay behind the wheel for a few minutes to witness Nola Rath’s performance, but he had a more important matter to attend to. Sometime, during the morning Verna Clarvoe had set out to see Terola. Had she, in spite of her story to the contrary, seen him, talked to him? Or had she despaired of words as a weapon and used a scissors instead? Perhaps other people had motives for killing Terola, but Verna’s was fundamental, for in her, love and hate had merged and exploded like two critical masses of uranium. In the explosion, Douglas had died. Perhaps Terola was the second victim of the chain reaction.

  Chapter 12

  A RED-EYED maid answered the door.

  Blackshear said, “May I see Mrs. Clarvoe, please?”

  “She’s not seeing anybody. There’s been an accident.”

  “Yes, I know. I have something urgent to tell Mrs. Clarvoe.”

  “What’s more urgent than being allowed to be alone with your grief, I’d like to know?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mabel.”

  “Mabel, I want you to tell Mrs. Clarvoe that Paul Blackshear is here on important business.”

  “All right, but I warn you, she’s been carrying on something awful. When the hearse came to take him away, she screamed, such screaming I never did hear in all my born days. I thought she’d bust a blood vessel. She called someone on the telephone and kept shouting things about a girl named Evelyn. It was fierce.”

  “Didn’t the doctor give her a sedative?”

  “Some pills he gave her. Pills. Pills is a pretty poor substitute for a son.” She opened the door wider and Blackshear stepped into the hall. “I’ll go up and tell her. I don’t guarantee she’ll come down, though. What can you expect, at a time like this?”

  “Has Miss Clarvoe arrived yet?”

  “Miss Clarvoe?”

  “Douglas’ sister.”

  “I didn’t even know he had a sister. Fancy that, no one mentioning a sister.”

  “She should be arriving any minute now,” Blackshear said. “By the way, when she comes, you needn’t let on that she isn’t mentioned around here.”

  “As if I’d do a thing like that. Will she be staying, I mean, sleeping and eating and so forth?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, it’s a queer household, make no mistake about that.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You can wait in the drawing room, if you like.”

  “I prefer the den.”

  “I’ll show you . . .”

  “I know the way, thanks.”

  The den smelled of last night’s fire, and the morning rain. Someone had started to clean the room and been interrupted; a vacuum cleaner was propped against the davenport, and a dust cloth and a pile of unwashed ashtrays were sitting on the piano bench. The glass door that led out to the flagstone patio had been slid back and the November wind rustled across the floor and spiraled among the ashes in the fireplace.

  Verna Clarvoe came in, her step slow and unsteady as if she was wading upstream in water too deep, against a current too strong. Her eyes were swollen almost shut, and there were scratches around her mouth as if she’d clawed herself in a fury of grief.

  She spoke first. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Everyone says they’re sorry and it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter whether they’re sorry or not.” She slumped into a chair. “Don’t look at me. My eyes, they always get like this when I cry. I’ve forgotten where I put my drops. It’s so cold in here, so cold.”

  Blackshear got up and closed the door. “I talked to Helen. She offered to come home.”

  “Offered?”

  “Yes, offered.” It was true enough. He hadn’t suggested it. “She should have been here half an hour ago.”

  “She may have changed her mind.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why didn’t she come with you?”

  “I had some business to attend to first. It concerns you, Mrs. Clarvoe. If you’re feeling well enough, I think I’d better tell you about it now.”

  “I feel all right.”

  “Terola is dead.”

  “Good.”

  “Did you hear what I said, Mrs. Clarvoe?”

  “You said Terola is dead. I’m glad. Very glad. Why should you be surprised that I’m glad? I hope he suffered, I hope he suffered agonies.”

  “He didn’t. It happened pretty quickly.”

  “How?”

  “Someone stabbed him with a scissors.”

  “Someone murdered him?”

  “Yes.”

  She sat, quiet, composed, smiling. “Ah, that’s even better, isn’t it?”

  “Mrs. Clarvoe . . .”

  “He must have been scared before he died, he must have been terrified. You said he didn’t suffer. He must have. Being scared is suffering. A scissors. I wish I’d seen it happen. I wish I’d been there.”

  “And I wish,” Blackshear said, “that you could prove you weren’t.”

  “What a silly remark.”

  “Perhaps, but it had to be made.”

  “I told you on the phone, I started out to see Terola but I changed my mind and came back.”

  “How far did you get? As far as the studio?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you didn’t go in.”

  “No. The place looked so squalid. I lost my nerve.”

  “Did you get as far as the door?”

  “No. I never left the car. There’s a yellow curb in front of the place, I just stopped there for a while.”

  “For how long?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “I was there, people must have seen me.”

  “What kind of car do you drive?”

  “A black Buick sedan, last year’s. There are hundreds like it, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “It is.”

  “Well, I didn’t race up in a flame-red Ferrari. There’s no reason why anyone should have paid any particular attention to me.”

  “Let’s hope no one did.”

  “What if they did?”

  “If they did,” Blackshear said patiently, “you’ll probably be questioned by the police. You had a pretty good reason for hating Terola.”

  “If I killed everyone I hated, people would be dying like flies all over town.”

  “I don’t believe that, Mrs. Clarvoe.”

  “Oh, stop. Stop that boy-psychiatrist approach. You don’t know me. You don’t understand. I’m filled with hatred. How can I help it? I’ve been cheated, duped, tri
cked—what do you expect? Everyone’s let me down, everyone. Harrison, Douglas, they’re out of this mess of a life. I’m the one that’s left, always the one that’s left.”

  From the driveway came the squeal of a car’s moist brakes. They both heard it simultaneously, Verna with dread, Blackshear with relief. He hadn’t admitted even to himself that he’d been worried about Helen’s delayed arrival.

  “That must be Helen now,” Verna said. “I don’t know what I’ll say to her, how I’ll act. We’ve been apart for so long, we’re strangers.”

  “Then act like strangers—they’re usually polite to each other, at least.”

  Blackshear went to the glass door and looked out across the patio toward the driveway. A woman was paying off the cab driver, a plump gray-haired woman in a black-and-white suit. When the cab backed out toward the street, she stood for a moment staring at the house as if she wasn’t sure it was the right one. She saw Blackshear and appeared to recognize him. Instead of going to the front door she started across the patio toward the den with quick, aggressive strides.

  Sensing trouble, Blackshear went out to meet her, closing the glass door behind him.

  “Hello, Mrs. Merrick.”

  Her face was stiff and hostile. “Is she in there?”

  “Yes.”

  She tried to brush past him but he reached out and clasped her arm and held it.

  “Wait a minute, Mrs. Merrick.”

  “The sooner this is done, the better. Let go of my arm.”

  “I will, after you tell me what you have in mind.”

  “You mean, am I going to strangle the little bitch? No. Much as I’d like to.”

  He released her arm but she didn’t move away from him. “Much as I’d like to,” she repeated. “The things she said about Evelyn—incredible, terrible things. I can’t, I won’t, let her get away with it. No mother would.”

  “When did she make these remarks?”

  “Less than an hour ago. She called me at the office—at the office, mind you; God knows who heard her, she was shouting so loud. She made the most terrible accusations against Evelyn. I can’t even repeat them, they were so vile. She kept shouting something about giving Evelyn a dose of her own medicine. I don’t know what she meant. Evelyn’s always been so nice to her. Then she said that Evelyn was a murderer, that she murdered Douglas. I hung up, but she called back right away. I had to take the call, there were other people around. When she finally finished, I asked the boss for the rest of the morning off and here I am. I’ve got to get to the bottom of this.”