by George Baxt
THE
DOROTHY PARKER
MURDER CASE
GEORGE
BAXT
INTERNATIONAL POLYGONICS, LTD.
NEW YORK CITY
For the Brickels—Gail, Steve, Elise, and Matthew
THE DOROTHY PARKER MURDER CASE
Copyright© 1984 by George Baxt.
Originally published by St. Martin’s Press. Reprinted with permission.
Cover: copyright© 1986 by International Polygonics, Ltd.
Library of Congress Card Catalog No. 86-80384 ISBN 0-930330-36-6
Printed and manufactured in the United States of America by Guinn Printing.
First IPL printing April 1986.
10 98765432
The following information appeared in the original hardcover edition:
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Baxt, George
The Dorothy Parker murder case.
1. Parker, Dorothy, 1893 - 1967, in fiction, etc. I. Title PS3552.A8478D6 1984 813'.54 84-13271 ISBN 0-312-21791-9
After slitting her wrists, Dorothy Parker sat in the bathroom patiently waiting to be rescued. Her delicate hands were submerged in the washbasin, which was filled almost to the brim with warm water. Her previous attempts at slitting her wrists had been messy and painful, and a kindly nurse at St. Luke’s had suggested the submersion in warm water for future reference. She recognised suicide in Mrs. Parker as a chronic condition. The nurse had confided to a trainee impressed by Mrs. Parker’s growing celebrity, “They’re all alike, these halfway suicides. Just looking for sympathy. A kind word. Or just blackmailing the poor son of a bitch what threw them over. The idea is to fill the bastard with guilt once he gets wind of the news she tried to pass over with a straightedge razor. This one didn’t really cut deep enough. It’s all superficial. If she’d really meant to go, she’d have jumped off the roof.”
“I’m afraid of heights,” said Mrs. Parker to the nurse, who blushed. She’d thought the patient was unconscious.
“There there, my dear,” said the nurse, swiftly recovering from her embarrassment. “Mr. Woollcott’s in the waiting room.”
“Waiting for what?”
“Waiting to take you home.”
That scene had played two years ago, and here she was again, taking centre stage in the revival. Waiting to be rescued by Alexander Woollcott, who should have called for her fifteen minutes ago to take her to lunch at the Algonquin. She stared at her watch, which was propped up on the basin against the wall, under the mirror in which Mrs. Parker had just turned away from her reflection abashedly. Alec was late, and the water in the basin was turning an alarming colour, fiery, topaz red. I’m losing a lot of blood, thought Mrs. Parker, albeit not yet alarmed. This could be fatal. Mrs. Parker sighed. The blood of a poet. Dead before her time. Such a small body of work to show for her thirty- odd years on earth. She thought of Enough Rope, her first collection of poetry soon to be issued by Boni and Liveright, and of the Pulitzer Prize she’d be awarded posthumously. She thought of Harold Ross, editor and publisher of The New Yorker magazine, and her column of book reviews now two days overdue. The hell with Ross and the hell with book reviews and the hell with all creative writing. I need to be in love.
Feeling about to nod off, she roused herself. She stifled a yawn. She looked at the watch. Woollcott was now twenty minutes late. The porcine oaf. If she’d try being honest with herself, she’d admit to not really liking the critic. Androgynous people repelled her, and Alec in her eyes was repulsive. As a critic, she found his preferences deplorable and his prejudices despicable. As to his writing in general, she often wished the alphabet hadn’t been invented. As to trading smart talk with him, she frequently accused him of shooting from the quip. But then there was his avuncular side. Her face softened at the thought of it. He could be kind and thoughtful. He could be warm and merry. He could be, but not often. Like now. I’m dying, you son of a bitch, where are you? She stifled another yawn, shook her head to keep herself awake, and thought about changing the water in the basin.
Her head rolled back. She stared at the ceiling. There she saw the face of her most recent lover, Richman Seward Collins. Oh, go away, Richman, go away. You’re out of my life, stay out of my life. Just wait until you’ve heard I tried to commit suicide. You egotistical mutt. You’ll be crowing all over Europe that you drove me to it.
“How can you fall in love so often?”
Sara Murphy’s face replaced that of the recent lover. It was Sara as she remembered her that warm afternoon just a few months ago, seated across from her on the outdoor terrace of a cafe in Cap d’Antibes. She was Sara and her husband Gerald’s houseguest while still deeply involved with Richman Collins. “Well, Dottie, I’m waiting. How can you fall in love so often?”
“I have no taste.” Mrs. Parker sipped her aperitif while waiting for Sara to remonstrate. Sara didn’t. Mrs. Parker tried to mask her annoyance as she settled back in the cane chair with her arms folded. “Actually, Richman’s swell. There’s plenty of gals who think he’s the cat’s pyjamas.”
“Oh, he’s quite attractive,” said Sara agreeably. “But you just don’t get along with each other. You’re temperamentally unsuited. Those arguments!”
“Have we been terribly noisy?” She looked like a naughty child, and Sara resisted the urge to reach across the table and embrace her friend.
“Romance is never very easy for you, is it, Dottie?”
“Is it for anyone, after the initial rash of passion fades away?”
“Gerald and I still love each other deeply.”
“Yes, I know. How do you put up with it?” The Murphys also had three children and were terribly rich. But so was Richman. “I wonder if his name is eponymous.”
“Whose name?” asked Sara, somewhat perplexed by the non sequitur.
“Richman’s. Rich man, get it?”
“Got it. Now take it back.”
“He’s so terribly rich. All those tobacco shops his family owns.” She folded her hands in her lap. “He gives me money. He’s paid all my debts. Does that make me a whore?”
“No, that just makes you kept.”
“From what?”
“From writing.”
“I don’t like writing.”
“What else are you equipped for?”
“I’ve often thought of going into police work,” Mrs. Parker said. Sara shifted in her chair. “Well, why not?”
“If you go into police work, you ought to start by investigating why you fall in love with so many rotters. Take your husband . .
“You take him, I can’t stand him. I haven’t seen him in six years.”
“He’s an alcoholic. Didn’t you know he was an alcoholic when you married him?”
“There wasn’t time. He went from the altar to the army. He came home a morphine addict. Poor Ed.”
“Why don’t you divorce him?”
“Oh, I’ll get around to it one of these years.”
“What about Charley MacArthur?”
“What about him?” Mrs. Parker looked uncomfortable.
“He drove you to attempt suicide.”
Mrs. Parker was staring at the sailboats on the Mediterranean. “Charley was something special.”
“Another drunkard.”
“All newspapermen are drunkards. There isn’t one of the Algonquin Bunch who ever draws a sober breath except for about thirty minutes after they arise in the morning.”
“George S. Kaufman doesn’t drink.”
“We’ll get him yet.”
“And then there was Rin
g Lardner.”
Mrs. Parker suddenly bristled with indignation. “Who told you about Ring and me?”
“You did. All that winter.”
Mrs. Parker fussed with the hem of her dress. “My life is an open book. But it’s not a best-seller. Let’s order another drink.”
The bathroom was stifling. Mrs. Parker thought, Who but a damned fool like me would attempt suicide on one of the hottest days in August? Her brow was damp, and her eyes were moist as she thought of MacArthur and Lardner and her unrequited love for Bob Benchley. She thought of Edwin Parker and faced the truth that she had never been in love with him, that she married him because she was tired of being Miss Rothschild. She wanted to be Mrs. Anybody and prove to her despised stepmother that she was perfectly capable of attracting and winning a man of her own. Some prize. Sleep began to overtake her again. She lowered her head and dozed.
It was the previous Friday at the Algonquin. Some of the regulars were with Mrs. Parker at the Round Table in the Rose Room. Franklin P. Adams, looking like a moustached gopher, entered the room commenting, “There must be life on Mars. There’s certainly none here.” As he sat, he acknowledged Mrs. Parker. “When did you get back from Europe?”
“Last night.”
“And dare one ask what has become of Mr. Collins?”
“Look behind me. I’ve thrown him over.”
“All that wealth.” He stared at Robert Benchley, who sat next to Mrs. Parker. Benchley shrugged. George S. Kaufman, who was studying the menu, asked Mrs. Parker what she was thinking of eating.
“My young.”
“Is it just the four of us for lunch?” asked F.P.A. as he signalled a waiter for a drink.
“If we’re lucky,” said Kaufman. Then he saw Alexander Woollcott arriving. “We’re not lucky.”
Woollcott espied Mrs. Parker and stopped in his tracks. “My God!” he exclaimed in a voice loud enough to arouse the attention of the entire room. “It’s the orphan of the storm! My dear, my dear, welcome home.” Mrs. Parker sat stiffly as he reached her and kissed her cheek. “Where’s the boyfriend?”
“He is now consigned to a position in my history.” Mrs. Parker gently raised her teacup and sipped her gin. F.P.A.’s drink arrived, and he raised his teacup in salute to Mrs. Parker. Woollcott lowered his ample body onto a chair next to Mrs. Parker. He patted her hand gently.
“I’m glad you’re back. If you’re free, you can accompany me tonight to one of the summer concerts at Aeolian Hall.”
“Is Toscanini conducting?” she asked softly.
“I wouldn’t baton it,” replied Woollcott swiftly.
Mrs. Parker groaned. She heard Woollcott shouting her name. The front door was opening, and there stood the building janitor, shoved to one side by Woollcott as he came hurrying into her small studio. “Dottie! Dottie! Where the hell are you?”
“The phone’s off the hook,” offered the janitor as he sniffed the stale air in the room. Woollcott found Mrs. Parker.
“Oh, Christ, not again!” He grabbed hand towels and ministered swiftly to Mrs. Parker, attending to her wounded wrists with the alacrity he had displayed as a hospital attendant during the late Great War.
“I knew you’d rescue me,” said Mrs. Parker in a pathetic voice that reminded Woollcott of Maude Adams’s impassioned plea to her audience at Peter Pan to believe in fairies.
“Of course you did,” snapped Woollcott. “You remembered we had a date for lunch.” The bathroom was a mess, and the janitor stood in the doorway clucking his tongue. From the unattended condition of the studio and the mess in the bathroom, he had come to the decision Mrs. Parker was as big a slob as his wife. Woollcott turned to the man and peremptorily ordered him out of the apartment. “Thank you for the use of your passkey. As you can see, Mrs. Parker has cut herself while giving herself a manicure.” The janitor shook his head back and forth while clucking his way out. Woollcott regarded Mrs. Parker sternly as he bandaged a wrist with a roll of gauze he found in the medicine chest. “Why don’t you get zippers for your wrists?”
“Don’t be cruel.” Her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear her. “I really meant it this time. I really want to die.”
Woollcott’s owlish face reshaped itself into a look of compassion. “No man is worth this. Besides, you haven’t given yourself enough time to get over Collins.” With the left hand bandaged, Woollcott now concentrated his attention on the right wrist. “This is really nasty.”
“So was our last fight in Paris. I got so mad, I threw the wristwatch he gave me out the window and do you know what the son of a bitch does? He goes running out into the street to reclaim it. Can you imagine? He leaves me standing in the middle of the room without so much as an apology or a by your leave to go running after some expensive fucking wristwatch. He could buy dozens of the goddamn things and never notice the dent in his bankroll!”
“I suppose it is cruel to find yourself taking a back seat to a piece of jewellery, but then, we all have different priorities. I suppose I should get you to a doctor, but there’s no time.”
“What’s the rush? I certainly don’t have an appetite.” He helped her out of the bathroom. In the studio, Woollcott looked around with an undisguised expression of distaste. “How can you live in all this filth and disorder? When was the last time you had this room cleaned?”
“I think it was New Year’s Day.” She lowered herself into an easy chair and stared at her bandaged wrists. “Alec, will you be a dear and look in the top drawer of my dressing table? You’ll find some lovely velvet bracelets I had designed especially for these occasions.” Woollcott lumbered across the room, found the bracelets, and then watched as she camouflaged the bandages. “There!” she cried, displaying her handiwork with pride. “Don’t they look lovely?” Woollcott looked at his wristwatch and then sat across from Mrs. Parker.
“Kaufman’s in trouble.” He watched as she applied a kitchen match to the cigarette in her mouth.
“Bea found out about a new sweetheart?” She well knew Beatrice Kaufman couldn’t care less about her husband’s affairs. Their marriage had ceased to be a sexual one by mutual consent, and now all their energies were concentrated on the welfare of their recently adopted daughter, Anne. Kaufman maintained a small apartment of his own in a building on West Seventy-second Street as the setting for his frequent assignations, mostly with prostitutes.
“Something’s happened that Beatrice must never find out about.” The gravity of his voice captured Mrs. Parker’s complete attention. She was even kind enough to exhale smoke away from his face.
“There’s a dead woman in Kaufman’s pied-â-terre.”
Mrs. Parker’s mouth was open with shock. “You’re not telling me he’s murdered her.”
“He found the body shortly before noon. She was supposed to have been out of there by then.”
“If there’s a beginning to this story, I wish you’d start there.” She stubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray and then leaned forward with her hands clasped between her well shaped legs.
“Last night, George loaned the apartment to Ilona Mercury.”
Mrs. Parker screwed up her face. The name rang no bell.
“Ilona Mercury is that exotic beauty Flo Ziegfeld imported from Hungary for last year’s production of the Follies."
“Oh, yes. That one. Her face was plastered all over the newspapers.”
“So was her body.”
“Has George been to bed with her?”
“Not last night.”
“Doesn’t she have an apartment of her own?”
“She lives in a hotel in the West Thirties.”
“Then why did she have to borrow George’s place?”
“There are several gentlemen who have keys to her hotel apartment.”
“I see. She was afraid the traffic would get too heavy.”
“One of the gentlemen is a celebrated gangster with a lethal right fist.”
“I see. So this time Ilona had someone special on
the string and needed someplace neutral for the big moment. And good old George came through with his private sex salon. And now Ilona is dead and George is the most likely suspect.”
“Who’s supposed to be telling this story?”
“Where’s George now?”
“With the body, waiting for us to join him.”
Mrs. Parker had left the chair and was staring out an opened window. “Does George know the name of last night’s big moment?”
“He swears he doesn’t. He’s always been very fond of Ilona, so he just gave her a set of keys to the place and she promised to be out before noon today.”
“Well, she’s certainly out. Do you believe Kaufman’s story?”
“Why would he lie?”
“To protect himself.”
“Are you insinuating Kaufman’s killed her and is lying to us? I thought you liked George!”
“I adore George. I can’t understand why I’ve never had an affair with him.” She was now sitting at her dressing table fixing her hair. Her look of concentration made Woollcott think of himself as a child trying to sew an eye back into his wounded teddy bear.
“Dottie, I wish you’d hurry. It can’t be pleasant for George sitting there with a corpse.”
“Especially in this weather. I hope he’s had the sense to open the windows.”
Five minutes later they were in a Checker taxicab slowly snaking their way from Dorothy’s building on West Fifty-seventh Street. “Do you know if any of the other boys at the Algonquin have received a share of Miss Mercury’s favours?”
Woollcott sank deep into thought. “Marc Connelly? Bobby Sherwood?”
“Not Bobby. He’s very faithful to that dreary wife of his.”
Mrs. Parker recited the roll call. F.P.A.? Donald Ogden Stewart? Harold Ross? Benchley? Harpo Marx? Heywood Broun? Woollcott’s face lit up. “Possibly Broun.” Mrs. Parker momentarily had a vision of the ursine Broun wrestling in bed with the Hungarian beauty and then dismissed the scene from her mind as highly unlikely.
“She sounds like a perfect diversion for Charley MacArthur,” he said.
“He’s out of town.”
