Slow Burn

by Terrence McCauley

  Prohibition

  Slow Burn

  Sympathy For The Devil

  All available from Polis Books

  NEW YORK CITY

  4:00 AM – Late August, 1932

  WEST END BLUES

  I HATED it when they were that young.

  The girl was too young to be that dead, but she was dead all the same. On a hot, humid August night on the floor of a fleabag hotel on Twenty-Eighth Street and Ninth Avenue called The Chauncey Arms. Room 909.

  The girl was naked. Legs together. Arms at her sides. Throat cut. Blood had pooled on the floor around her head in a neat circle, like some kind of goddamned halo. Her dead eyes were half-closed, staring out at nothing. The cracked plaster ceiling was the last thing the poor kid had seen before she bled out.

  She looked about twenty or so, but all the war paint she was wearing made it tough to be sure. Besides, figuring those kinds of details was the coroner’s job, not mine. Chief Carmichael’s office had been clear about what my new duties were when they’d stuck me here.

  Work the graveyard shift. Tag ‘em and bag ‘em. Start the file. Let the daytime boys worry about solving murders. They said: You’re not on special detail anymore. You’re lucky you’re still a cop at all.

  They said: Now you’re a glorified note-taker with a badge, courtesy of Chief Andrew Carmichael and Roosevelt’s new Good Government crusade against cops they deemed crooked.

  Those rotten, phony bastards called me crooked, even though they’d taken just as much as Archie Doyle’s payouts as I had. The chief wanted to fire me, but he couldn’t because I knew too much. If he’d even tried, I’d…

  No. I stopped before I started having the same old argument I always had. All the old resentments stirred within in me again and all that would get me was nowhere. Fast. Instead, I thumbed away the sweat that formed between my hat and my brow and took another look at the poor dead girl on the floor. Suddenly my own troubles didn’t matter so much.

  At least I was alive.

  That girl had been alive not too long ago, too, with a life of her own and troubles of her own. Troubles that had brought her to The Chauncey Arms. Troubles that had gotten her killed. I found myself wondering what her troubles had been. I heard myself vowing to find out who had killed her and why. Maybe it was because her dark hair and fair skin reminded me of my ex-wife, Theresa.

  Legally, we were still married, but I’d stopped thinking of her as my wife long ago.

  When Doyle and his boys left New York, the graft he paid me went along with it. My connections at Tammany Hall forgot all about me and started taking orders from men named Lucania and Lansky. I was forced to live on my salary as a detective, so when the money ran out, so did Theresa. I’d known the kind of woman she was when I’d married her, so I wasn’t surprised when she left. But she’d taken the girls with her and that’s the part that stung the most.

  The sight of this dead girl reminded me that it didn’t matter when I got home, because no one would be waiting for me when I got there. Just an empty apartment. It’s funny how you look at things different when the frills were gone. Now that I’d lost damned near everything, I remembered why I’d become a cop in the first place. Not because of Doyle’s graft or even Tammany Hall but because, once upon a time, I’d actually wanted to help people. People like this poor girl lying dead in a fleabag hotel on the wrong side of town.

  Maybe I wasn’t in Chief Carmichael’s inner circle anymore, but I still had a cop’s instinct. And that instinct told me this girl did not belong in a place like this. Not alive, and certainly not dead. Something about the whole setup just didn’t feel right.

  I got angry when Frank English started making with the crime scene pictures. The poor bastard was doing his job, just like me, but the stark light of the flash always made a death scene colder. And standing over a corpse made the badge feel a bit heavier in my pocket. It felt heavy enough already.

  I realized I’d been too busy getting a handle on the crime scene to question the only witness I had: the night manager of the hotel. But with English taking his pictures, now was as good a time as any.

  The air in the hallway was somehow thicker and even more humid than in Room 909. A few weak yellow bulbs gave off just enough light to show the rat turds that lined the hallway. Lucky me. I always worked the swankiest places.

  From all the years I’d spent in Vice, I knew that night managers of dives like this were usually a special breed of skel. The night manager of The Chauncey Arms was no exception. He was the small, swarthy type, with sweat-stained clothes and yellowed, pockmarked skin. Perched all by himself on the stairs, he looked out at me from beneath heavy-lidded eyes. A crooked, hand-rolled cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth.

  He took a deep drag on his cigarette as I walked over to him, letting a long plume of smoke escape from his nose. I was just one more pain in the ass he’d have to deal with on a hot August night.

  The feeling was mutual.

  “I’m Detective Charlie Doherty,” I told him as I pulled out my notebook and started with the basics. “Name?”

  “Miller.” He slapped at a fly that had buzzed past his eyes, but missed. “Augie Miller.” I wrote it down. “See anyone around here today who might’ve done this, Mr. Miller? Anyone suspicious?”

  “You kiddin’ me? Take a look around, mister. Most of the people who come in and out of this dump look like they just got outta prison. Hell, I’d bet most of ‘em have.”

  He had a point. Just about the only thing the Chauncey Arms had going for it was its location. Twenty eighth Street and Ninth Avenue was just far enough off the beaten path to draw a middle-class clientele looking to do low-class things: hookers and their johns; junkies getting their fix; married guys and their boyfriends; drunks and their bottles. You get the idea.

  “Who’s the room registered to?”

  “I figured you boys’d be askin’ that.” Miller fished out a soggy scrap of paper from his shirt pocket and held it out to me. “I wrote it down for you. You can check the book personally if you don’t believe me.” He squeezed out something closer to a wince than a smile. “I’m here to help, mister. I kinda like cops.”

  “Yeah, I can tell.” I took the damp paper from him with two fingers and read the name for myself. Miller’s chicken scrawl was tough to read in the dim light of the hall, but I made out the name: Silas Van Dorn. Fancy name for a dump like The Chauncey Arms. Familiar, too. So familiar that I couldn’t quite place it, but I knew I’d heard it somewhere recently. I wrote Van Dorn’s name in my notebook. “I was expecting something more original, like John Smith.”

  “Got plenty of John Smiths in the register, too,” Miller said. “But I’ll bet most of ’em cleared outta here when they heard someone went and got themselves killed. The ones sober enough to get dressed, anyway.”

  I’d seen some of patrons scurrying off into the night when my partner and I had pulled up about twenty minutes before. Men pulling up their pants, tucking in shirttails. Women fixing their skirts as they ran down the street. Every last one of them in a big hurry to run back to their lives as respectable people. Putting as much distance between them and The Chauncey Arms as possible.

  “My partner, Detective Loomis, and a couple of uniforms are already knocking on doors, canvassing the place for witnesses.” I knew they wouldn’t turn up much, but it still had to be done. “You got a pass key they could use in case they need to get into one of the rooms?”

  Miller shrugged. “Sure, but anyone still here is probably too drunk or too high to have heard much. But I’ll be glad to lend you my master key to let you in wherever you want to go. Like I said, I’m here to help. Could be helpful in a lot of ways.”

  “No kidding?” I saw no harm in playing along. “Li
ke how?”

  Miller looked up and down the hall first before beckoning me closer. “Got me a couple of ideas on who killed that Lindbergh kid over in Jersey, see? You hear lots of things workin’ in a place like this, and I’ve heard some choice stuff that’ll curl your hair for you. I’d be willing to share what I know. For a piece of the reward money, of course.”

  Just what I needed. Another crackpot. “Of course, but unfortunately, that’s not my case. How about telling me about the guy who rented Room 909, instead? This Silas Van Dorn. What’d he look like?” With his dreams of the Lindbergh reward fading,

  Miller went back to deadpanning it. “Beats me. Register said he rented the room yesterday mornin’ after my shift ended.”

  “What hours do you work?”

  “Seven in the evening to seven in the morning, Register says he checked in yesterday morning some time nine and paid through midnight. The daytime clerk ain’t much for details, so I don’t know exactly when. Looks like he paid cash money, too. I was too busy at the desk to check on the room ‘til ‘bout an hour ago. But when I came up to check it, that’s when I found… well, you know what I found. This Van Dorn fella coulda walked past me a dozen times, but I wouldn’t know who he was.” I saw an idea dawn on Augie Miller. “Say, you boys are gonna clean up that room when you’re done, aren’t ya? I mean, you ain’t gonna up and leave all that mess behind. Someone’s gonna hafta clean it, and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be me.”

  I found Miller’s compassion overwhelming. I waved over one of the uniforms posted in the hall and said, “Take Mr. Miller here down to the front desk. Help him find the name Silas Van Dorn in the register, then get in touch with the day manager. Ask him what this Van Dorn guy looked like. I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”

  Miller loped down the stairs as the policeman followed close behind him. Augie Miller: Citizen of the Year. That was the first time I’d ever laid eyes on Augie Miller, and that’s what bothered me. Back when I’d worked Vice, I knew everyone who worked every dive, speakeasy, flop house, whorehouse and gambling den in the city. I would’ve known Augie — and he would’ve been more helpful than this. I felt those old resentments rising again, but cut them off even quicker this time. What was done was done, and there was no going back. Besides, I had a job to do: I had a file to build for the daytime shift. Might as well get started building it.

  FAT MAN BLUES

  WHILE I waited for the coroner to show up, I wandered back into Room 909 and watched Frank English take pictures of the scene from different angles. Although I’d seen plenty of action on the Vice squad, I hadn’t worked many homicides. English had worked dozens of homicide scenes like this, so I decided to pick his brain a little. I lit a cigarette and struck up a conversation.

  “Crying shame, isn’t it? Girl that young. Dying like that in a place like this.”

  English kept taking pictures. “Not the first stiff I’ve had this week. Probably won’t be the last, either. It’s the weather. The hotter it gets, the more people end up getting themselves killed.” Then English lowered his camera and looked down at the dead girl with his own eyes. Like he was seeing her — really seeing her — for the very first time. “Gotta admit she’s the prettiest stiff I’ve had in a while. Wonder what she was doing here.”

  I’d been wondering the same thing. “She sure doesn’t look like a pro, does she?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Frank went back to working his camera. “You’re the detective, not me.”

  Served me right for trying to strike up a conversation with a lousy shutterbug. With still no sign of the coroner, I killed some time by trying to pull the crime scene together in my mind. I wasn’t much of a homicide detective, but it beat the hell out of standing around sweating and smoking cigarettes while I waited for the meat wagon to show. Augie Miller’s shift had ended at seven o’clock the previous morning. The killer had paid for the room in cash from ten in the morning until midnight. Miller came back to work at seven that night, but hadn’t gotten around to checking the room until about three in the morning. That meant the girl had probably been dead at least three, maybe four hours if not more.

  That meant the killer already had one hell of a head start on me before I’d even gotten the call.

  I decided to start taking notes on the condition of the room. Calling Room 909 a room was being generous. It was more like a cell. It was small, with barely enough space for the bed and bureau. I noticed the sheets had been stripped from the bed, revealing a thin mattress with old, brown stains.

  None of them looked fresh, which told me the girl probably hadn’t been killed on the bed. Blood would’ve seeped into the mattress.

  I made note of it.

  Question #1: Why strip the sheets?

  The wallpaper was peeling and faded, but there were no signs of blood anywhere on the walls. Even if someone had tried to wipe it away, blood usually left traces behind. And if they scrubbed too hard, the ancient wallpaper would’ve come off the walls. I made note of that as well. I noticed the smell of the room next. The air reeked of stale sex and cheap cigarettes. And something else. Something sweeter. Different. Something that I knew didn’t belong in a dive like this, but couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t pot or hash. I knew those smells well. This was a harsher smell. Sharper. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. I thought of asking English what he thought it could be, but thought better of it. I wrote it down and decided to come back to it later instead.

  I started taking notes on the corpse. She’d been left on the floor just outside the bathroom. Naked. Legs straight and together. Arms at her sides. Palms down, flat on the floor. I was no homicide cop, but I’d seen my share of dead bodies. I knew that no one ever died that neat. Especially when your throat was cut. That meant the killer had positioned her that way on purpose.

  Question #2: Why?

  The body itself was the best clue I had, so I took a closer look at it. The girl wasn’t fat, but she had meat on her bones. I wouldn’t move her until the coroner showed up, but I could see her skin was milk white and clear. No visible scars, bruises or needle marks on her arms or anywhere else. Chances were she wasn’t a junkie. Her nails were manicured and looked like they had a coat or two of clear polish. Her hair was black and cut short into an expensive bob. I knew it was expensive because my wife got hers cut the same way. At least she did when I’d had plenty of money. From the way the girl was laying, I could tell black was her natural hair color.

  I also noticed her ears had been pierced, which meant earrings. I looked for them on the dresser, but came up empty. I took note of that, too. I could see she was too healthy to be a regular working girl. And if she’d been a high-class call girl, she would’ve been a blond. Most men liked blondes, thanks to Jean Harlow.

  So the question I’d asked Frank English stuck with me: What was a girl like her doing in a hellhole like this? Sometimes the most basic questions are the most important.

  I figured her clothes could tell me something more about her. Labels, laundry markings. Something.

  I looked around the room without crossing the invisible line into Frank’s shot, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Not on the bed, not on the floor. No purse, either. I swallowed my pride and tried talking to Frank again. “Any sign of her things? Clothes? Purse?”

  “Not unless they’re in the bureau,” Frank moved to the other side of the room. “No sign of much, to tell you the truth. For a dump like this, the room is immaculate. Cleanest goddamned crime scene I ever saw.”

  I froze. That was it. That sweet, harsh smell I’d caught earlier. Soap. Cheap and watered down, but soap just the same.

  Question #3: Why would a dump like this smell like soap? I took a closer look around the room. Not one speck of dust anywhere. The floor around the body had been given a good scrubbing. The bureau shined and looked like it had been wiped clean of prints. But maybe she’d put her things inside. “You get enough shots of the bureau yet?”

  Frank sighed heavil
y as he took another picture. “It’s all yours.”

  Careful not to smudge any fingerprints, I used my pencil to pull open and close the drawers. Every one of them empty, just as I’d expected. I dropped to the floor and shined my flashlight under the bed. Nothing. Not even dust. I got up and checked the window. It faced Twenty- Eighth Street and had a good view of the chop suey joint across the way. No fire escape, either, but the window was painted shut anyway. I didn’t run my finger along the sill or the window frame. I didn’t have to. No dust there, either. Damned strange.

  I was busy writing all of it in my notebook when I heard grunting and heavy footsteps on the creaking floorboards out in the hall. I knew I’d just caught a break because Ed Hancock, the city’s deputy chief medical examiner, had arrived. Hancock’s large, round belly preceded him into the room like a butler announcing his arrival. The handle of his ancient black medical bag looked small in his stubby fingers. Suspenders strained to keep his pants up over his considerable girth. The stub of a dead cigar was tucked in the corner of his mouth. Tufts of whitish hair poked out from beneath an old gray hat plopped back high on his head. His gray tie had been pulled low on his neck, and he’d sweated through his white shirt hours ago.

  True, it was a humid August night, but that didn’t mean much. I’d seen Hancock sweat that much in a blizzard. Hancock might not have been a fashion plate, but he was the best crime scene man in the coroner’s office. Most people in city government got caught up in the politics of their job, even if politics didn’t have much to do with their position. But just about the only thing in this world that Ed Hancock cared about was working crime scenes. Chief Medical Examiners came and went in this city, but Ed Hancock remained. He had that worn look of a man who’d seen just about every instance of human depravity in the book and just kept plodding through it. “Evening, Charlie,” Hancock muttered as he paddled past me into the room, straight for the girl’s body.