“Polly, if you would, please telephone Mr. Decker at his office and ask him to come right home because Mr. Truett is here to see him. Be sure to speak with him directly. Then tell Mr. Truett I am occupied and ask him to wait. Then you may send him up in, oh, say, fifteen minutes.”
Polly frowned a little at such a complicated request, but she said, “Yes, ma’am,” and hurried off to do her bidding.
Elizabeth looked at the card again. It simply gave Mr. Truett’s name and an address that looked like it might be one of those bachelor apartments in the apartment hotels that were springing up all over the city. She used the time she spent waiting to jot down a list of questions she wanted to ask Mr. Truett, although she wasn’t at all sure they were the questions that Sarah or Frank Malloy would have asked him. She’d helped them on cases before, but mostly by collecting gossip from society matrons like herself. Truett certainly wasn’t a society matron, and she didn’t think he’d be very interested in gossiping, at least about himself.
This detecting business was much more complicated than she’d realized.
After what seemed like an hour, the maid tapped on the door and announced Mr. Truett. He came in looking uncertain. He was a youngish man, probably in his early thirties, a bit stout but pleasant-looking, or at least he would have been if he hadn’t been wearing an unfortunate plaid jacket and matching pants and had his hair pomaded to within an inch of its life. If he’d been an actor, he would have played the ne’er-do-well friend of the hero.
“Mr. Truett,” she said as graciously as she would have greeted the son of her dearest friend. “How kind of you to come. Polly, bring us some tea, please.”
“Oh no—” he tried, but Elizabeth ignored him and waved Polly out.
“Please sit down. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“That’s all right.” He sat, as ordered, on the sofa, but he perched on the edge, prepared to make a hasty exit if necessary.
She sat down beside him, as if they were old friends, which seemed to disconcert him even more. “You’re a friend of Mr. Pollock’s, I understand.”
“Uh, yes, I am,” he said, apparently surprised that she knew this.
She instantly changed her expression to the somber one she used when comforting the bereaved at funerals. “I’m so sorry. Have you heard what happened to poor Mr. Pollock?”
“I, uh, yes. I mean . . . Do you mean that he’s dead?”
“Yes, of course. I didn’t know if you knew.”
“I . . . the servants told me when I . . . That is, I went to meet with Pollock this morning. We’re business associates, you see, and they, well, they told me he’s dead.”
“It hasn’t been in the newspapers, so I wasn’t sure if you’d heard. What a terrible thing, and how sad for you to find out from servants.”
“Yes, a . . . a very terrible thing,” he said, although he didn’t look as if he really thought so.
Elizabeth smiled gently, pretending she believed he really mourned the death of his associate. This seemed to confuse him even more. “Is something wrong, Mr. Truett? I mean something besides your friend’s death?”
“Yes, I mean, no, but . . . Well, I’m a little confused. I told Pollock’s servants I needed to get some papers from his office. About our business dealings, you understand. But they told me they had instructions not to let anyone inside, and they sent me here.”
“Oh yes. We told them to send any visitors to us, you see.”
“But . . . I don’t mean to be rude, Mrs. Decker, but what is your relationship with Pollock?”
“Relationship? Why, none at all. I’ve never even met Mr. Pollock.”
He looked so bewildered, Elizabeth almost felt sorry for him. As she had planned, however, a tap at the door announced the arrival of the tea tray she had ordered, which put a temporary stop to their conversation while Polly brought in the tray and Elizabeth served him.
When Truett had a cup of tea that he probably didn’t want and a slice of cake he probably did, he said, “If you never met Pollock, why are you . . . ? I mean, why am I here?”
“I don’t know why you’re here, Mr. Truett. Perhaps if you tell me, I can help you.”
He was still gaping at her in confusion when the door opened and Felix stepped in. Elizabeth gave him a welcoming smile, even though his expression was thunderous. “Felix, dear, this is Mr. Truett. He’s a business associate of Randolph Pollock.”
Truett jumped to his feet and shook hands with Felix, who cast her a look that told her he would deal with her later, before greeting Truett with appropriate courtesy.
Elizabeth poured a cup of tea for Felix without asking and handed it to him when he’d sat down in the chair opposite the sofa. “Mr. Truett went to see Mr. Pollock this morning. The servants broke the news to him about Mr. Pollock’s demise and sent him here.”
“I see,” Felix said. “And you had no idea Pollock was dead?”
“Of course not,” Truett said. “I went to see him this morning as usual. We’re business associates, you see.”
“So my wife just said. I assume you are involved in the Panamanian Railroad scheme.”
Truett’s eyes widened in surprise, but he said, “Yes. Yes, I am. It’s a wonderful investment opportunity for a few discerning individuals.”
“I’m sure,” Felix said dismissively. “And when was the last time you saw Mr. Pollock?”
He had apparently pegged Felix as a potential investor and needed a moment to catch up. “The last time? Well, uh, last week. Thursday, I believe.”
Felix nodded, as if this were important information, which it was if he was telling the truth. “So exactly what can we do for you today, Mr. Truett?”
“Oh, well, as I said, Pollock and I are . . . were business associates. On the Panamanian Railroad project, as you say, Mr. Decker. Pollock’s death complicates our dealings, of course, but I’m perfectly able to take over management of the project. I just need to collect the documents from Pollock’s office.”
Elizabeth noted that Truett was becoming ever so slightly agitated. She almost felt sorry for him again.
“Documents?” Felix said, although Elizabeth was sure he understood, as did she, that Truett wasn’t at all interested in mere documents. He most certainly knew about the thousands of dollars Pollock had stored in his safe.
“Yes. Contracts and the official, uh, deeds, and what have you, authorizing the building of the railroad. And the agreements with the investors, of course.”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Mr. Truett,” Felix said.
Truett grew a little more agitated. “Bad news?”
“Yes, you see, someone broke into Pollock’s house the night before last.”
“Broke in?” Truett echoed in alarm.
“Yes, and made rather a mess of Pollock’s office.”
“What do you mean, a mess?”
“The contents of his desk had been emptied onto the floor and the furniture had been sliced open and the stuffing scattered around. We can’t know what, if anything, is missing, of course, but we found the safe empty as well.”
How clever of Felix not to claim the safe had been robbed, she thought. He was such a stickler for telling the truth.
“The safe was empty?” he asked weakly.
“Yes, and I’m afraid I didn’t find the documents you are describing among the papers that had been left behind either. I’m sure it can all be replaced, but I know such things take time, especially when you’re dealing with a foreign country.”
Truett seemed not to have heard him. “But who could have broken into the house? Who even knew?”
“Who knew Pollock was dead, you mean? We’ve been wondering that ourselves,” Felix said.
“The person who killed him knew, of course,” Elizabeth offered.
“But the servants told m
e she’s in jail,” Truett said.
“Mrs. Pollock, you mean?” Elizabeth said in surprise. “That’s a terrible mistake. She didn’t kill him.”
“But I thought . . .” Truett apparently decided not to tell them what he thought.
“So how may we help you, Mr. Truett?” Felix asked after an awkward silence.
“I . . . I don’t think . . . But tell me, why are you involved in all this? Mrs. Decker said she didn’t know Pollock, but surely you must have, Mr. Decker.”
“No, I never met the man.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“We are friends of Mrs. Pollock’s family,” Elizabeth said, proud that she could be as careful with the truth as Felix.
Truett blinked several times as he took in this information, but he couldn’t seem to summon a reply.
“If you think of anything we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to contact us,” Felix said.
Poor Truett looked almost ill. He stared at Felix for a long moment and then turned to Elizabeth, but he didn’t have anything to say to her either.
“And we will certainly contact you if we learn anything about your documents,” she said. “Is this the address where we can find you?” She pulled his calling card from her pocket and held it up.
“Yes,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.
“I know this has been a shock to you,” Felix said. “Losing a friend is always difficult, especially under such unpleasant circumstances. Let me show you out.”
Truett was too stunned to thank his hostess, but he allowed Felix to escort him from the room. Elizabeth poured herself another cup of tea while she waited for her husband to return. When he did, he carefully shut the door behind him, but before he could speak she said, “He showed up here unannounced, and I was afraid if I sent him away, we’d never see him again.”
This took a bit of the wind out of his sails, but he was still upset. “You could have waited until I got here to see him. For God’s sake, Elizabeth, the man could be a murderer.”
“After what he said, I don’t think so, but even if he is, I can’t think why he’d want to kill me, especially in my own home, which is full of servants who saw him come in. At any rate, I kept him waiting for fifteen minutes so we were only alone a very short time when you arrived. You made very good time, by the way.”
“I ran practically the entire way.” He did not sound happy about it either, but his admission made Elizabeth smile.
“Rushing to my rescue. Felix, I’m touched.”
He sighed and sank down into his chair. “I forbid you to frighten me like that again.”
“I will do my best to obey you, but we must expect other visitors like this. Those men who gave Pollock money will hear about his death, and they’ll eventually come here. What shall I do when they arrive, lock them in the cellar until you get home?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not being ridiculous. I need to know.”
He sighed again. “Perhaps I will have to stay home until this is settled.”
* * *
Broghan took Gino to a bar a couple blocks away. It wasn’t open this early in the morning, of course, but the proprietor let them in at Broghan’s knock. He didn’t look happy to see them, but he wasn’t going to offend the cop to whom he probably paid protection money. He gave them each a beer before going back to sweeping the floor.
They settled at a table in the corner.
“So how did you come to find the body?” Gino asked, not having to feign his interest.
“One of them colored maids come running out of the house, screaming her head off. I was just around the corner, so naturally, I went to see what was happening.”
“Did she have blood on her?”
Broghan frowned at the question. “Why would she?”
“You didn’t see any then?”
“I didn’t look.” Gino’s questions annoyed him. “I followed her back to the house and went inside. That’s when I saw the two of them.”
“In the parlor?”
“Yeah, in the parlor. She was sitting on the floor and had his head in her lap, of all things. That awful, bloody thing, and she was all red with it.”
“And he was dead?”
“As dead could be. His eyes was open, like he was surprised or something. Never saw anything like it.”
“What was she doing?”
“Her?” He wrinkled his forehead with the effort of remembering. “Just sitting there. Singing or something.”
“Singing?”
“Yeah. It was the damnedest thing. She didn’t even look up when I come in, just kept singing to him.”
“She was probably in shock.”
“I guess she was. Isn’t every day a woman smashes her husband’s head in.”
“What made you think she did it?”
“Who else was there? The servants said nobody else was in the house, and the two of them was fighting. They was always fighting, from what they said. I guess she just finally had enough.”
“And it was the back of his head that was bashed in?”
“Yeah, she come up behind him with the . . . frog, did you say it was?”
“That’s what one maid said. The other said a lizard with a lady’s face.”
Broghan shrugged. “I didn’t look at it real close. It was green. Some kind of stone and just the right thing for smashing a head, if you ask me.”
“What did she say happened? The wife, I mean.”
“She never said nothing at all. I told you she was singing, and when I talked to her, she just ignored me, like I wasn’t even there.”
“She must’ve said something.”
“Not a word. Not a peep. Not even when the detectives got there and started shouting at her. When they took Pollock away, she started crying, but she still wouldn’t talk.”
“So they took her to the Tombs,” Gino said.
“Yeah, because she must’ve done it,” Broghan said. “Who else could it have been?”
7
“Thank you so much, Mr. Nicholson,” Mrs. O’Neill said after the hearing, when she and Una were safely ensconced in his office and his clerk had brought in an extra chair for Maeve. Maeve had decided she needed to hear what Nicholson had planned. “That was so kind of you to get my Una out of the jail.”
“Just doing my job, Mrs. O’Neill,” he assured her. “And you’re the one to be thanked since you paid the bail.”
“What happens now?” Una asked. She’d fixed herself up real nice for the bond hearing. Her hair curled prettily around her lovely face, and she’d managed to get all the wrinkles out of her dress. It fit her well, too, showing off her shape. No wonder the man who owned the cigar store had picked her out of all the girls at the factory. No wonder Randolph Pollock had married her. And no wonder the judge had melted like butter on a hot stove when Nicholson claimed she was no threat to anyone.
“In a few minutes, you can go home, but I wanted to speak with you about the case. After today, the newspapers will have discovered you. Up until now, the police assumed you’d confess and there would be no trial, but now, it’s clear there will be.”
“But I didn’t kill my husband,” Una said. “Why do I have to go to trial?”
“Because the police think you did, and the district attorney thinks he has the evidence to prove it. The trial will be of great public interest because people are always interested when a woman kills her husband.”
“But I didn’t kill him,” she repeated. Maeve would’ve been angry by this point, but Una just pouted prettily.
“Of course you didn’t,” Nicholson said. “Tell me, Mrs. Pollock, do you have a lover?”
“A lover? What are you talking about? I’m a married woman.”
“Lots of married women have lovers, and if you do, t
he reporters will find him, so it’s better if you tell me about him now.”
“The reporters?” Mrs. O’Neill said. “You mean newspaper reporters?”
“Yes, they’ll be investigating you, Mrs. Pollock, because the reporters are much better at investigating than the police are. They have more manpower, for one reason, and more money to spend, for another. Hearst at the Journal will probably put the whole Wrecking Crew on this.”
“What’s a wrecking crew?” Una asked in alarm.
“That’s what they call the group of reporters they send out to cover a big story. It’s dozens of reporters and sketch artists and photographers. They’ll talk to everyone you ever knew and uncover every secret you ever had.”
“I have no secrets and I have no lovers,” Una said. “I’m a respectable married woman who has been falsely accused of murder.”
“It would help,” Maeve said, surprising everyone because they had obviously forgotten she was even in the room, “if you could tell us who did kill your husband.”
For a moment, annoyance flickered across Una’s lovely face, but only for a moment. She turned back to her attorney. “I’m sorry, Mr. Nicholson, but I still can’t remember anything about it. I remember getting up that morning and having breakfast, but then I don’t remember anything else until I was at the jail.” She slipped a handkerchief from her sleeve with practiced ease and dabbed at her eyes. “I still can’t believe dear Randolph is gone.”
“The servants said you were arguing,” he said, unmoved. He’d seen gallons of tears shed in this office.
“But we never argued, so that can’t be true. Perhaps he was arguing with someone else, the person who killed . . .” Her voice broke, and she pressed the handkerchief to her lips as she fought back more tears.
“Maybe you can tell me if he had any enemies, Mrs. Pollock. Anyone who’d want to harm him.”
“Heavens, no. Everyone liked Randolph. He was such a pleasant man. We often entertained his business clients, and they always enjoyed his company.”
Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue Page 11
