by Earl Emerson
“Mary? This is Thomas Black.”
“I had an inkling it was you. I don’t know why, I just did.”
“Yeah, the morning is rife with hunches. I think we should talk some more, Mary.”
“Yes.” Her voice was drifting off. “Perhaps we should.” She sounded preoccupied. “I have much to reveal and I guess…I guess it’s about time I opened this particular can of worms. I’ve held suspicions for years. It’s about time somebody else heard them.”
“Suspicions bout what, Mary?”
“I’ll tell you in person. I don’t like speaking about these matters on the phone.”
“What matters?”
“When you get here, I’ll spill the whole can.”
“I’ll be up in a couple of hours.”
“Come after lunch. That would be better. I have a rather unpleasant errand to run this morning.”
“After lunch, then.”
In the Seattle Public Library, I spent an hour and a half thumbing through phone books and looking up pest companies and citizens named Romano. One pocket sagging with quarters from a bank down the block, I started making telephone calls, explaining to the bewildered Romanos who answered that I was an attorney looking for a specific Romano in the pest control business. My story was that some eccentric old widow had kicked the bucket and willed Romano her jewels out of gratitude for what he had done to her termites. It only took twenty minutes of pushing buttons and telling lies to reach a dead end. Four numbers had not answered.
The Tacoma listings for Romano were short and sweet. Same results, with two numbers unaccounted for. Then I phoned all the pest companies in Seattle and Tacoma asking for Romano. “Romano who?” they wanted to know.
Next, I might try Federal Way, Burien, Bellevue, Mercer Island, Puyallup. If I wanted to, I could force-feed another hundred quarters into the black box. Perhaps Romano was the guy’s first name, instead of his last. That would be a doozy. I’d never find the bow.
Despite what she said, I had the feeling my face was the last one in the world Mary Dawn wanted in front of her that Morning. But she had something vital to tell me and the butterflies in my stomach galloped in anticipation. This case was about to break wide open. Secrets were going to spill like blood in a slaughterhouse.
Bellingham was farther away than a schoolboy’s Christmas on that long gray ribbon of damp interstate. It was twelve forty-five when I finally got there.
I parked in the lot beside Mary Crowell’s condominium and thumbed her buzzer. Nobody answered. I guessed she was still off, running her unpleasant errand. If she was, she hadn’t taken her car. Her road-gray Buick was parked in the same stall it had occupied on Sunday.
A whistling florist bustled downstairs and opened the main doors from inside. Feigning an attempt to find my keys, I scampered in as he went out. On the third floor, I thumbed Mary’s doorbell. Her front door was slightly ajar and I could hear the chimes inside playing a snatch of something classical. Tchaikovsky. Nobody else was in the hallway. I was discreet. I rang twice before I shoved the door open with my foot. I was like that. It was part of being a private eye.
“Mary?”
Her apartment was as unsullied and pristine as the first time I’d been there, except now there were empty glasses scattered throughout the rooms, and two bottles of sherry, one in the kitchen and another snuggled beside her favorite wooden rocker. She had been tippling. A game show from the television set bludgeoned me. I switched off the sound and blessed the room with peace.
A half gallon of butter brickle ice cream sat melting on the dinette, a warm pool of goop swimming across the table top. Two small, unused bowls sat in the creamy puddle. She had told me herself butter brickle was exclusively for Melissa.
I found the old woman’s body under the table, daubs of ice cream splotching her printed dress. It looked as if she’d been sitting in a chair at the table spooning out a snack when the blow felled her.
It hadn’t even made much of a mess. Not really. Someone had merely grabbed an economy-size ketchup bottle out of the refrigerator and brained Mary Dawn Crowell. Brained her good. Most of the left side of her skull was caved in. I didn’t want to check her carotid artery, but I did anyway. No pulse. She was dead as a doornail. And as warm as the cat. ?
Chapter Eleven
I STOOD UP AND PEERED AROUND, FEELING A LITTLE WOBBLY, but not because of the corpse. I had handled plenty of corpses. I was worried about the implications for my case. I had genuinely been looking forward to this discussion with Mary. She had wanted to bend my ear and we both had realized it was going to be important.
After stashing the sodden butter brickle container in the freezer, I scouted around the condo.
In the living room beside the visitor’s chair, I located the papers, a sheaf of poems stapled together, all authored by Burton Nadisky. The first poem was a completed version of the ode to Melissa he had been hacking away at Sunday morning. It was still beautiful. It still made me wish I could write like that. Even if it was a murder clue.
Had he mailed the packet? I didn’t see any discarded envelopes kicking about. The condo was not equipped with a fireplace. Inspecting the wastebaskets and the kitchen trash, I found nothing. No, somebody had handcarried the poems to Mary.
If it had been Burton, he had been there sometime between nine, when I had dropped him off at the county courthouse, and twelve forty-five, when I arrived. It was a two-hour drive, so even if he had a car and had dashed out of the courthouse immediately, he wouldn’t have arrived until eleven or so. I must have just missed him. I suppose he could have hitchhiked up last night or yesterday afternoon, but that wasn’t likely. Perhaps he was the visitor she had been expecting that day. The unpleasant errand?
Or maybe somebody else had brought the poems. But for what purpose? To implicate Burton in a killing? If that were the case, someone had come here with the explicit intention of murdering Mary Dawn Crowell and pinning it on Burton. Who? And why?
And the butter brickle
Mary had told me it was Melissa’s favorite flavor and that she had purchased it especially for her niece. Would Mary have been apt to have squandered this on just any visitor? I checked the freezer. There were two other quart containers of ice cream. Two different flavors. Supposing Melissa had been there?
But why would anyone bludgeon poor Mary Dawn Crowell? What could she ever do to harm anyone? It would be interesting to see what the Bellingham cops dredged up.
The plainclothes detective in charge was a black man named Herman Percy. He was dapper and slight and he dressed as if he thought he was a ladies’ man. He wore a tiny sliver of a mustache like something left over from dinner. His gold bracelet and matching gold tie on an off-white shirt must have cost most of a two-week check. Everything was prim and tidy except his loafers, which were badly scuffed around the toes.
Four uniformed police had beat Percy through the front door, arriving in staggered sequence. They filled him in on what I had said and on what they had seen, which wasn’t any different than what Percy now saw. Nothing had been altered. I did notice some new footprints dappling the shiny linoleum kitchen floor. Cop prints.
Percy sauntered over to the window where I was watching a small crowd outside milling around the police cruisers amidst a light rain. “You find the body? You her son, or what?”
I didn’t answer the detective, I was so startled at what I saw below in the parking lot. Holder was speaking with one or two elderly onlookers. Where the hell had Holder come from? And how long had he been in Bellingham? Long enough for some ice cream to melt?
“Guess I should repeat myself,” said Herman Percy, displaying a burnished badge in a leather case. “You the one found the body?”
“Excuse me,” I replied, turning from the window and wondering how many times he had tried to flag my attention. “There’s a man down in the parking lot who might be connected to this.”
“There’s a man right here who might be connected to this,” Percy said.
“There’s another one in the lot. And he might get away. I won’t.”
Percy shot me an exasperated look. I said, “Yeah, I’m the one who found the body. The only thing I did in here was toss the ice cream back into the freezer. I’m a private investigator from Seattle. I came here to talk to this woman about some family matters. The man down in the parking lot is mixed up in some of those matters.”
“What family matters?”
“He’s going to get away.”
Herman Percy stared at me.
“He’s got a history of violence. Sunday morning he slapped the hell out of this lady’s nephew.”
“Okay,” conceded Percy, sliding toward the window. “Which man?”
I pointed Holder out to him and waited for a reaction. After all, here I was a white, accusing a black to another black. Percy’s only reaction was to instruct two of the uniformed officers to run downstairs and take a statement from Holder. Perhaps it was my imagination, but he seemed more officious when he turned back to me.
“Okay,” said the police detective, flopping out a small spiral-binder note pad. “Let’s have it.”
I dished out all the information he wanted. The other cops in the room strutted about, taking it all in, sneaking wary looks at me, pacing back and forth as if they actually had duties to attend to in the room. They were gawkers the same way the crowd of senior citizens outside were gawkers. There was nothing for any of them to do except stand by and rubberneck, and now twelve or fifteen of them were doing just that.
I kept answering Percy’s questions until he asked what my case was about, why I had come. “Can’t tell you,” I said.
“Why not?”
“You know I can’t.”
“Come on, Black. You been watching too many Rockford reruns. This is real life and I got a murder here. Cough it up.”
“I wish I could.”
“You’ll wish even harder after a couple of days in the slammer “
“Huh uh,” I said, not sure who I was protecting or why. Something in the back of my mind told me to get my hands on Melissa Nadisky before I spilled my guts to the cops.
“Did you kill the old girl?” Herman Percy asked.
He was on a fishing expedition and I told him so. Undaunted, he continued, “Sure. You came here to put some sort of squeeze on the old dame. Information or money? I don’t know what you wanted. She wouldn’t satisfy you, so you got a little rough on her. Then a little too rough. You knew people had seen you entering the premises so you pretended you found her this way. She’s still warm. You know that? I’m willing to gamble she was alive two hours ago.”
So am I. But that doesn’t mean I killed her.”
“I’m going to look into your record very thoroughly.”
I tried not to sound nervous. The last thing I needed was two or three days in the jug while they decided they had the wrong number. And I wasn’t sure about Percy yet. He might just be slow enough to believe what he was saying.
“Nice theory,” I said. “But nobody saw me come in
here. I could have flown the coop easy enough instead of calling you, and nobody would be the wiser. You’ll be better off talking to Holder.” I gestured toward the window. Together we glanced outside and watched two uniformed officers interrogating the tall black man.
“He doesn’t look like he just bashed in some dame’s head,” said Herman Percy.
“Neither do I,” I said.
Percy gave me an odd look. He cocked his thumb at the window. “Why is he here?”
I shrugged. “Must have followed me up from Seattle.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Ask him.”
“Let’s not get cute.”
“You want some help? Those poems in the living room. I don’t think they were here Sunday when I visited. They belong to a man named Burton Nadisky. It’s a baffling case and Im not sure I understand half of it yet, myself. When I find out anything pertinent to your investigation, I’ll let you know.”
“What makes you think you’ll be finding anything out at all? I could hold you as a material witness. Or as a suspect.”
I took out a pad and a pen and scribbled a name and a number. “Captain Henderson. Seattle Police Department,” I said. “He’ll vouch for me. I think.”
“Don’t you know?” Percy went across the room, picked up Mary’s phone and dialed Henderson. When he made contact, he spoke so low I couldn’t catch any of it. . He looked at me differently after he hung up.
“Black, Im giving you the benefit of the doubt,” he said, snatching up Burton’s sheaf of poems gingerly so as not to smudge any of the prints. “You think this guy was here today?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“What’s he look like?”
I gave a detailed description of Burton Nadisky, feeling vaguely guilty as I did it. Percy wrote it all down in his notebook. At least I was keeping the possibility that Melissa had been here a secret Sure, I could keep some things to myself. I wasn’t blabbing everything.
“He’s probably hitchhiking,” I added.
Percy ambled across the room and spoke to a sergeant. Then he stooped down and meticulously examined Mary Crowell’s body. It wasn’t until the police photographer came in and began snapping photos that he moved away, sorting through the notes by her phone, opening drawers and poking through anything else he saw. I could have saved him the trouble of checking the notes by the phone. There was nothing except a number for the television repairman.
Downstairs, the two uniformed officers who had been grilling Holder finally let him go, after inspecting his I.D. and writing some numbers onto their note pads. Holder strolled away at a leisurely pace, stopping once to turn back and eye the two cops. I couldn’t believe they had released him.
After Percy had hunkered on Mary’s wooden rocker for ten minutes scrawling notes, he stood up, stretched, cracked his knuckles ritualistically and strode over to me.
“You acquainted with this gal’s relatives, you might do us a favor and stick around. Maybe make a few phone calls, have somebody come up and make the funeral arrangements. The manager’s out and none of the neighbors here want to have anything to do with a murder. You know how that goes.” Captain Henderson had told him I had been a cop, bragged me up good. I could feel it. We were brothers now.
“Sure,” I said. “I’d kind of like to see how the relatives react.”
Percy looked at me as if I were a ghoul.
“For the case,” I added hastily, but I didn’t dislodge the morbid impression I’d given him. “One last thing, Percy.”
“Yeah?” He regarded me without compassion. I had some sick instincts and he was going to keep his eye on me.
“I was going to meet Mary today. She had something she wanted to tell me. She never said what it was. But she did mention that she had an unpleasant errand to run first.”
Percy scratched his mustache with a long polished fingernail. “What sort of unpleasant errand?”
“I have no idea what it was. You might check to see if her car’s been driven today.”
“I’ve already thought of that, thank you. You can use this phone. We’ll have the body downtown. Just get somebody up here to make a positive 1.D. and arrange the services.”
“Sure.”
The people at Taltro wouldn’t put me through to Angus Crowell. “His sister was murdered this morning,” I said, nonchalantly. “Does that make a difference.”
“Oh, my God,” gasped a startled secretary. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have bestowed that sort of news through a third party, but Crowell did not have my total sympathy.
Her official mien punctured, the secretary said, “Mr. Crowell has been out of the office all morning. I don’t know when to expect him back.”
From the long distance operator, I obtained Crowell’s home phone number, surprised that it was listed. A maid answered. I asked for either the lady or the gent of the house.
“Who may I say
is calling?” the maid asked, with a strong Mexican accent.
“A representative of Mr. Crowell’s sister in Bellingham.”
It was a while before Muriel Crowell came on the line. She was businesslike and taciturn. “Who is this?”
“The name is Thomas Black, Mrs. Crowell. You met me last night under rather unfortunate circumstances. It’s about your sister-in-law in Bellingham, Mrs. Crowell. Mary Dawn is dead.”
The line was silent for ten counts. “I’m afraid I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. I found the body. If you want to confirm this, phone the Bellingham police and ask for Detective Herman Percy. He’s in charge of the investigation.”
“What do you mean, you found her? What investigation?”
“Your sister-in-law was slugged in the head with a bottle.”
“You mean Mary really is dead?” Her voice rose in pitch, the truth slamming home at last.
“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
“How did it happen?”
“I wish we knew. Somebody apparently bashed her on the side of the head with a bottle of ketchup.”
“Ketchup?” Her voice was strained, disbelieving.
“It’s too awful for me to have made up, Mrs. Crowell. I was wondering when you or your husband might be able to come up here and make…a positive identification. And some funeral arrangements. I’m assuming you are her next of kin. She never married, did she?”
“No, she never married.”
“When can you get up here?”
The line was silent for almost thirty seconds.
“Mrs. Crowell? Are you all right?”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve!”
“Mrs. Crowell?”
“First you poke your nose into our personal family affairs and now you expect me to come up and identify that woman? I simply am not going to do it. She was a spiteful woman. Mentally unbalanced. She was under the care of a psychiatrist. Some of the lies she spread…No, Mr. Black. You arrange a burial yourself.” The line went dead.
“Mrs. Crowell?”
