Time Off for Murder

by Zelda Popkin

  On Mary Carner's sofa, her hair combed, her makeup repaired, Sophie said: "I don't know why I come with you. I'd ought to known better than to go with strangers. But you're like her. Like Miss Knight. Say, you got a nice place here. Do you work? Or are you rich?"

  "I'm out of a job right now. I used to work at Blankfort's department store. Quit my job Saturday."

  "What's the matter? Boss get fresh?"

  "In a way." Mary laughed. "No, I wanted to take it easy for a while. Do some things I 'specially wanted to do…. Have a cigarette?"

  Sophie grabbed the cigarette. She inhaled deeply and gratefully. "I ain't had one since I quit my job. I guess you think it's funny to see me smoke. My pa'd lick the pants off of me if he saw it."

  "Your parents living?"

  The girl nodded. "Both of them…. Out in Pennsylvania. It's a dump. Nothin' but the breaker and the culm pile and the shacks and the church. That's where I was raised." The girl was talking easily now. "My pa and ma, they had a dozen kids. My ma was havin' a new one every year…. It was all right as long as the mines was workin' steady, but when depression come, things was awful tough. We was living off relief when I see an ad in the paper a lady's lookin' for a girl for general housework in New York. I writ to the lady, and she come driving out for me with a big car and a man she says is her brother. And she promises me forty dollars a month and says she's glad to get a nice, healthy Polish girl. And my pa and ma was glad I'm getting such a swell job. She brings me to New York. Up to a big house. And all I see is lots of other girls. I can't tell you the terrible things they done to me in that place."

  Mary said quietly: "Don't try. It's best forgotten."

  "No," Sophie said positively. "It's better girls should know. Miss Knight says it's better girls should know the kind of things goes on in the world, then they could take care of themselves…."

  It was ironic - this echo of the long stilled voice of Phyllis Knight.

  "When I holler, they laugh at me," the girl went on. "The other girls tell me: 'Don't be a damn fool. This is easy dough. You're in luck. You're working for Rockey. For the big shot.' One man, he comes in and he hits me. And he says: 'Now don't you try no funny stuff.' Another man, he comes and he laughs at me. And I hear them laughing and talking about me and I think what can I do? I am so ashamed. I feel terrible. Then comes one night, they take me in an automobile, some place in a big car and the car is stopped for the red light and I see I got a chance. And I open the door and I beat it. I have no money. I have no place to go. I sleep in the Park…. I sleep in the subway. I sleep in the hallways."

  Mary said: "Why didn't you go to the police?"

  The girl looked frightened. "The police," she repeated. "How I go to the police? I am a poor Polack. They don't believe me. They would think I done something wrong. Put me in jail. And I am so hungry and so ashamed. I am afraid to talk to people. And one day I meet a girl in the Park. She is minding a baby. She is a Polish girl, too, and she tells me where there is an office to get a job for housework. And so I go to work and I am so glad I have a job and I wash the clothes and I wash the floor and I cook and I bake and I mind the kids and the lady is very satisfied. I do not know I have a baby in me - I do not know from such things. Only one night I get a terrible pain. It begins to tear me in half. I think I am dying."

  Mary put an arm around the girl's shoulder. "Don't tell me about that, Sophie. It's all over. You've got to forget it. You had told Miss Knight all about it, hadn't you? She was trying to find the people who brought you here, wasn't she?"

  Sophie mopped her eyes. "I think so," she said. "That's why I come to her office. That's why I tell her to go to the movie and see the man what laugh at me."

  There it was. The so-important fact. The fact that Mary Corner would have searched and pumped and dug for. The first step Phyllis had taken when she left her office on her last recorded evening. The expedition to the movies that had ended in a furnace. It had dropped so casually from Sophie's lips that it might almost have been passed by.

  "It was you who told Phyllis Knight to go to the movies?" Mary's eyes were bright with excitement.

  "Sure, I tell her. I see the man in the movies. I want she see his face."

  "What movie?"

  "Any movies." Sophie seemed surprised. "Any movies where is showing pictures of Rockey Nardello in the court."

  "To see Rockey?"

  Sophie shook her head vehemently. "No. Not Rockey. The other one."

  "What other one? What's his name?"

  "That's what I do not know. I only know he is in that house the lady take me to. He is the one laugh at me. I see his face every place I go. I close my eyes. I see his face. I walk in street, all the time I think he is every man I see. Even today, I think I see him." She was shivering violently now. "I do not care so much over them that hurt me. Only the one that laugh at me in my trouble. He is the worst one."

  "Sophie." Mary held the girl's hand, spoke to her seriously. "You've got to stop being so frightened. You're going to be perfectly safe. I'm going to take care of you. Just as Miss Knight did. And you're going to help me. I want to find out who killed Phyllis. I want to see that person punished. You do, too, don't you?"

  "Me? What can I do? I don't know nothing." The girl rose from the sofa, her hysteria mounting. "I didn't do nothing to her. I didn't hurt her. You don't think I had something to do with it?"

  "I don't think anything of the sort. Sit down. Please don't be excited. Listen to me, Sophie: To find out how Phyllis Knight came to die, we must find out what she knew and where she went. We must trace back all the steps that led to her death. She went to the movies first. That's where we must start, too. You understand?"

  The girl nodded. "I want to help you," she said.

  "Good! Now, this is what you do. Go inside. Into my bedroom. Lie down and rest a while…. Quiet yourself." She led the girl toward the bedroom.

  When the door was tightly shut behind Sophie, Mary called Inspector Heinsheimer.

  The Inspector's answering voice was sour. "Ran out on me, did you? Reese didn't come in neither. Says he has a cold. Fine reliable pair, you two. He stays home and you don't even telephone. You gone back to the ribbon counter?"

  The avalanche of sarcasm was so unexpected that Mary caught her breath. "I meant to phone earlier," she protested, "but I just got back from the funeral."

  "You just got back, eh? Must of been camping out with the corpse. Your pal Rorke's had time to get in to see me. And Van Arsdale. But you're still mourning."

  It was on the tip of her tongue to retort: "I'm not working for you, Inspector. You can't talk to me that way." But she held her temper in check, and instead, told him about Flo Gordon who smoked cigars and added: "It's most important to locate her. She may have been the fourth person at that table. And in any case, I'm sure she knows a good deal."

  "You are, are you? And since you know so much, maybe you got a few bright ideas on where we're going to find her. By now she's changed her name and her address. And where we gonna start looking? And if my ears weren't lying to me, wasn't it you, yourself, and nobody else pointing it out to me Saturday night that Flo was in jail last November?"

  "But still that doesn't change the fact," she began.

  He didn't let her finish. "Sure, it was you. And that same time you were telling us Peterson was the one we had to find. Sending us to Sweden. Nobody else would do. Only Nils Peterson. I know and you know Mitch MacKinoy killed Phyllis Knight. And you think and I think and Reese thinks Gene Vigo knows what for. But no, we got to find Peterson. Why? Because the eyeglasses of the man were found in the house he used to own. And who else's things would you expect to find, if not the things of the guy that owned the place? And then all of a sudden, you change your mind and it's the Gordon woman you got to have."

  "Inspector, I don't understand you. Flo Gordon's cigar smoking is the most important clue we've turned up yet. There was lipstick on one of those butts. She was at that table. I'm sure of it."

&nbs
p; "So you say. Carner, I used to think you were a smart woman. But I'm changing my mind. I'm beginning to think you're just a nuisance. Can't keep your mind on anything. Can't concentrate. Hopping around like a flea. Sure you don't want us to look for Judge Crater and Charlie Ross, too? Might as well, while we're rounding up half the United States for you. 'S far as I'm concerned Mitch MacKinoy killed Phyllis Knight because she spotted his tie-up with the Nardello outfit. I got a man and a motive. And a piece of lead that clinches it. I'm working on Vigo. And if you think it's easy getting a criminal lawyer to answer questions you got another think coming. It's wearing me down. And if you amachoors used your heads more and your feet less, you'd get some place."

  "O.K., Inspector," Mary said quietly. She hung up.

  For an instant, she stared, chagrined, at the telephone. Then she lifted it from its cradle again, and dialed Terry Cayle's number.

  Chapter XIII

  At Tuesday's dawn, a clam-digger found the body of a henna haired woman on the beach at Far Rockaway, at the high water line of Monday night's flood tide.

  By the time Inspector Heinsheimer got down to Headquarters, the clamdigger's discovery was a typed departmental memo on his desk. It told him that one Flo Gordon (identification by fingerprints attached) had been washed ashore, in water soaked mink, with a fracture at the base of her skull, steak and mushrooms in her stomach, chloral hydrate and alcohol in her brain, sand in her lungs, and a higher salt content in one heart chamber than the other.

  The report lay beside the stack of morning mail. On the top of the mail heap was a post-card.

  The Inspector gave the card a passing glance. On it, in penciled block letters was the ironic advice: "You don't have to look any further for the murderer of the girl. MacKinoy killed her." It was signed "One Who Knows."

  "You're telling me," the Inspector said. "T'hell with it." He repented, picked it up, studied it, growled: "If Gene Vigo's kibitzing!" And put it in his pocket.

  Then he took up the Gordon report. He read it slowly. For three full minutes, he was so choked with chagrin that he could do no more than sputter. After that he called Miss Carner.

  "You're too damn smart. I don't know how you do these things. We found Flo Gordon."

  "Where?"

  "On the beach at Far Rockaway."

  "Flo Gordon on the beach?"

  "Dead. Wrapped up in mink and cold as a fish. Somebody took her out to dinner, fed her steak and a couple of high-balls, gave her a Mickey Finn, hit her on the head and tossed her in the water."

  Miss Carner received the news with thirty seconds of silence. Then, after the Inspector had yelled: "Hello. Are you on the wire?" she said: "Well, Flo can't talk any more. Couldn't have been Nardello this time, could it?"

  "That's the idea."

  "Nor MacKinoy?"

  "Nope. But Vigo."

  "What about Vigo? Thought you were keeping an eye on him."

  "Sure we are. Sure. If he slipped out to conk Gordon last night he's better'n Houdini…. And don't you rub it in. I got enough kibitzers. One Who Knows is telling me he's positive MacKinoy's the murderer."

  "Why shouldn't I rub it in? If you hadn't given me the high and mighty yesterday, you might've been talking to Flo today instead of viewing the remains. Somebody else knew where to find Flo Gordon even if the department didn't."

  "Listen, I feel bad enough…."

  "I hope you're going to feel worse…."

  "Don't be like that, Carner. I'm surprised at you being so petty. Hop into your clothes and get down here."

  "No, thanks, I'm not coming down."

  "You're not working on the case?"

  "Oh yes. I'm working, but not with the police. I'm going to find out who killed Phyllis Knight and who killed Flo Gordon, too. But I'm not coming down-town till it's time to get out the twisters."

  "Don't be a dope. This is no business for a girl to go playing around with. It ain't safe and you know it. You come down here and we'll talk it all over and I'll listen to everything you got to say. Good gawsh, I don't know why I humble myself to you like this."

  "Sorry, haven't time."

  "What're you so busy with?" He tried hard but failed to keep the curiosity out of his voice.

  "You'd like to know, wouldn't you? All right. Answer my questions and I'll answer yours. Have you found Struthers yet?"

  "Nope. We're putting him on the teletype."

  "Heard from Sweden?"

  "Not from Sweden. We got a record from the Swedish-American line. Nils Peterson sailed on the Norseholm on October twenty-first. He had a passport three years old. Naturalized citizen, emigrated from Sweden in nineteen eleven. We're looking up birthplace and so forth. That'll give us the leads we need to locate him over in the old country. How's that? Pretty good, eh?"

  "What about Vigo? Did you check his Saturday afternoon alibi?"

  "He had lunch with Marjorie, all right." The Inspector's voice was weary.

  "Did Rorke or Van Arsdale tell you anything you didn't know before?"

  "Nope. But it takes time. All of it takes time. Questions and answers and so forth. And now the Gordon dame on top of it…. What've you got to tell me?"

  "Not much. Only that I'm going to the movies this morning."

  "What?" The Inspector's bellow of surprise leaped out of the receiver. "You're going to the movies?"

  "Exactly."

  "What's it all about? Say, do you know you're saying the very same thing to me that the Knight girl said before she went out and got killed?"

  Mary said calmly: "I know I am. I'm following her trail. I'm going to try to see what she saw - do what she did - all except getting shot."

  "Will you take Reese with you?"

  "How is he?"

  "Hasn't been in yet this morning. When he comes in, I'll tell him to hop right up to your place and go with you."

  "I'm leaving here before ten o'clock. He'll have to move fast." A pause. "Any leads at all on the Gordon killing?"

  "Give us time. Say, take care of yourself, will you? Watch your step. We've got all the homicides we can handle this week."

  From the kitchen, Sophie Duda called: "You ready for your breakfast now?"

  Sophie, fresh and pleasant in a borrowed print house dress of Mary's, stood over the range, whipping scrambled eggs to a creamy consistency. The table in the dinette had been attractively set for one.

  "I want to do something for you," Sophie greeted Miss Carner. "You're so good to me. I say to myself what can I do for this lady? I make her a nice breakfast. You like eggs scrambled?"

  "Indeed I do. You've only set one place."

  Sophie blushed. "For you."

  "Won't do. You're my guest. Set another place for yourself. That coffee smells delicious. I'll be with you in a moment."

  She went back to her bedroom, sat down on the edge of her bed and commenced to pull on her stockings.

  There is something about the act of donning hosiery that is conducive to analytical contemplation. As Miss Carner dressed, her brain quickened and her hands slowed up. She thought: "Flo Gordon is dead. Dead men tell no tales. Nor dead women. Nils Peterson's missing. Maybe he's dead too. Dead men tell no tales. But they do. MacKinoy's dead. He can't talk but he told us a great many things. Flo Gordon has been murdered. That tells a tale, too. It tells us that Flo Gordon saw something, knew something. She was too important to leave alive. It tells us the murderer of Phyllis Knight is scared…. Who could have known that Flo Gordon's presence in that basement was suspected? Someone who was there himself. Someone who was in touch with her all the time. Knew where to find her. Someone connected with the Nardello rackets. Was it Vigo? Was he the small, thin man who cleaned out the Seventy-first Street apartment? Marjorie or no Marjorie. Alibi or no alibi. He had that alibi too pat anyway. Who tipped him off that Flo was suspected? It was no more than a hint, no more than a suspicion - so slight Inspector Heinsheimer didn't even want to bother with it. Laverne Sullivan's casual mention at the funeral that Flo Gordon had smoked c
igars. To whom did I mention it? Over the phone to the Inspector? Sophie might have overheard it. But Sophie hasn't left this apartment. Or did she, during the night, while I was asleep? Or is someone tapping my wire? Oh, that's too fantastic. Nardello's given orders. The Inspector went to Sing Sing. He talked to Rockey. He let him know that he was interested in MacKinoy and Flo Gordon. Rockey got word out, through Vigo. Not impossible. Did I mention it to Saxon Rorke? I told him a lot of things. No, I didn't mention Flo Gordon to him."

  "Miss Carner, breakfast getting cold."

  "Coming."

  "I hope everything is how you like it."

  Mary unfolded her napkin. "It looks fine."