Murder, She Uncovered

by Peg Cochran

  “I think you’re being awfully harsh. She seemed perfectly sincere to me. The woman was terribly distressed.”

  “I’m not arguing that she was distressed. It seems odd that Noeleen wouldn’t confide in someone. And Mrs. Brown seemed like the perfect confidant. She obviously cared for Noeleen. Certainly more than Mrs. Post did.”

  “But why would Mrs. Brown lie about whether or not she knew Noeleen was pregnant? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Kaminsky shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know why. I just know that people do lie. More than you’d ever believe.”

  Elizabeth took a gulp of her Old Fashioned. “Did you see that young man sitting in the corner of the kitchen when we were talking to Mrs. Brown?”

  Kaminsky jerked as if he’d touched a live wire. “What young man?”

  “Sitting in the shadows. He was wearing dark colors and had his back to us. I imagine that’s why we didn’t notice him.”

  “How strange that he didn’t introduce himself.”

  “He seemed…quite odd, frankly. His expression was…” Elizabeth rubbed her face as if wiping away any hint of emotion. “I suspect there’s something wrong with him, but I have no idea what.”

  “Mentally, you mean?”

  Elizabeth hesitated. “Maybe. Or emotionally.”

  “Does he work for the Posts?”

  “I don’t know. I was too startled to ask.”

  * * *

  —

  Elizabeth was exhausted by the time Kaminsky dropped her off in front of her apartment building. He pulled up to the curb where the doorman was waiting and gave a long whistle.

  “This sure is some fancy place. Quite a change from my cold-water walk-up.”

  Elizabeth was embarrassed. She didn’t share the sense of entitlement that so many of her friends had about their circumstances. She knew she was simply lucky to have been born into a family with means and that it was thanks to no accomplishment of hers.

  She said good night to Kaminsky, smiled at the doorman as he held the door open for her and made her way to the elevator.

  “I suppose I’ve missed dinner,” she said as Jones took her hat and coat and put them in the closet.

  “Mrs. Murphy is keeping a plate warm for you in the kitchen.”

  “There you are, darling,” Elizabeth’s mother Helen said as she poked her head into the foyer. “I’ve been waiting simply ages for you. Your friend Marjorie Hicks called to remind you about the fitting for your bridesmaid’s dress.” Helen clicked her tongue. “You didn’t tell me she’d asked you to be in her wedding party.” She sniffed. “I didn’t even know she was engaged. Who is the young man?”

  “Bertie Alsop, of course. Everyone knew they would tie the knot eventually. I think their families arranged the match when Marjorie and Bertie were still in diapers.”

  “Don’t be cynical, darling. It’s not becoming a young lady.”

  Elizabeth tried to control her impatience. She was longing for something to eat and then bed at last. It had been a very long day already.

  “Well, I think it’s wonderful that she’s including you in her wedding. Her family is very well-connected, you know.”

  “And very wealthy,” Elizabeth said. She thought of Marjorie’s braying voice and shuddered.

  “You don’t seem very excited about it,” Helen said.

  Elizabeth couldn’t help it. She groaned. “Excited? It’s going to mean hours of dress fittings, engagement parties, boring luncheons and showers. I simply don’t have time for all that. I can’t imagine why she’s asked me, She lived down the hall from me at Wellesley but we were never particularly close.”

  Helen leveled a stern gaze at Elizabeth. “You can’t let that job of yours interfere with your social life. All the girls your age are either already married or engaged. If you wait too long all the appropriate young men will be taken.”

  Sal Marino flashed across Elizabeth’s mind, but she chased the thought away.

  Helen dabbed at her nose with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “I notice Phillips Sloan still hasn’t asked you to marry him,” she said referring to a young man who had been somewhat lackadaisically courting Elizabeth. “But I’m quite sure that with a bit of encouragement on your part—”

  “I’m not marrying Phillips Sloan,” Elizabeth said tartly. “He’s nothing but a—”

  “Hey, sis.” Elizabeth’s brother’s voice interrupted her.

  “James! What are you doing home?”

  Elizabeth looked at her brother in alarm. There were dark circles under his eyes that suggested he hadn’t slept for days and there was a weary set to his shoulders that wasn’t normal for him.

  “Are you ill?”

  “No.” James rubbed his forehead. “I don’t suppose you’ve eaten?”

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  “Mrs. Murphy is keeping something warm for you,” Helen said.

  “Let’s talk in the kitchen then,” James said with a glance at his mother.

  Helen pulled her cardigan around her more closely and raised her chin. “I’m going to catch the end of The Pepsodent Show on the radio.” And she turned on her heel and walked toward the living room.

  Mrs. Murphy was drying the last pot when they pushed open the swinging baize door to the kitchen. She looked over her shoulder, her face red and flushed from the heat of the room.

  “You’ll be wanting your dinner then. Let me finish this last pot and I’ll get it for you.”

  “I can get it myself. Thank you, Mrs. Murphy. Is it in the oven?”

  “Yes. It’s keeping nice and warm. I knew you’d be hungry when you got home,” she said with an air of triumph.

  Elizabeth grabbed two potholders from a hook on the wall and opened the oven. She stepped back briefly as the heat blasted her face and blew the tendrils of hair around her forehead.

  Mrs. Murphy had already laid a place for her at the table, and she carefully put her steaming dish of chicken fricassee with boiled rice and buttered beets down on the place mat. Elizabeth stared morosely at the beets—she’d always thought they tasted like dirt, but her mother insisted they were a source of protein and had Mrs. Murphy make them at least once a week. Food had been scarce during the Great Depression—even those with plenty of money often found certain items hard to come by—and people had been forced to become creative to get the nutrients they needed.

  James had disappeared briefly and had come back with a tumbler full of what looked like whiskey. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows when she saw it, but James pretended not to notice. He held the glass to his lips and took a large mouthful. It set him coughing and he wiped the tears that sprang to his eyes with his shirtsleeve.

  “Something’s wrong,” Elizabeth said as she unfolded her napkin and laid it across her lap.

  James grunted and pulled out the chair opposite his sister. He slumped in his seat cradling his glass in his hands. Elizabeth noticed his chest rise up and down as he sighed loudly.

  “Do you remember Theo?”

  Elizabeth looked up from cutting her chicken. “Of course. He’s been your roommate at Yale for the last two years. I talked to him at Dickie Palmer’s party just this summer.”

  “Theo’s dead,” James said bluntly, hanging his head over his glass.

  “What?” Elizabeth was so startled she dropped her fork and it clanged loudly against her plate. “How? It can’t be.”

  She remembered a young man with a thatch of dark hair that wanted to hang over his forehead no matter how much Brylcreem he used. A young man who loved to dance and was prone to practical jokes.

  “It’s true,” James said morosely. His hand jerked and some of his drink spilled onto the table. “It’s all because of that bloody storm.”

  “The hurricane?”

  “Yes.” James nodded and took another
gulp of his drink. “And it wasn’t just Theo. Whit and Bobbie are gone, too.”

  Elizabeth gasped. So many young men whose lives had barely begun. How could it be?

  “But how? What were they doing on Long Island? Weren’t they meant to be in class up at Yale?”

  James was staring at a spot on the kitchen table, his eyes seeing something that wasn’t there.

  “I was meant to go with them, but I had statistics with Professor Roloff. He’s a real taskmaster so I didn’t dare cut class.” He wiped a hand over his face again. “Now I’m grateful.” He looked at Elizabeth. “Is that too terrible of me?”

  Elizabeth had only taken a few bites of her dinner, but she found she was no longer hungry. The thought that she might have lost her brother made her feel ill. She reached out and put her hand over James’s.

  “Not at all. I’d say it’s perfectly natural.” She stroked James’s hand.

  James pulled his hand away and twisted in his seat. “Theo met this girl during the summer. You know the Thurstons have a place out in Westhampton. The girl—her name is…was…Ruby Wheeler—worked at the movie theater there. She told Theo she was having a party and that there would be plenty to drink and also some girls who…” James’s face flushed.

  “Well, the girls obviously weren’t from our set. Theo said they were older and more…experienced.” James’s flush deepened. “I mean, they were the sort of girls you have a good time with but you don’t take out on a date to the ‘21’ Club or El Morocco.”

  “I thought Theo was dating Cornelia Morton’s younger sister.”

  “He was. He was going to ask her to marry him next year. This Ruby was never meant to be anything serious. A summer fling—that’s all. Cornelia was away all summer on a grand tour of Europe, and I guess Theo was bored.”

  “The Thurstons’ house was out on Dune Road, wasn’t it?”

  James nodded glumly. “Yes. Theo, Whit and Bobbie got there around midmorning. Ruby had to work the matinee at the theater, so they planned to spend the afternoon on the beach.” James put his hand over his face. “They say the entire theater was swept two miles out to sea in the storm. Everyone was lost.”

  “That’s terrible.” Elizabeth pushed her plate away. She’d totally lost her appetite now. “I was out in Westhampton today. The devastation is heartbreaking. I heard the homes on Dune Road—”

  “They’re all gone. All of them. And I should have been with them.”

  James pushed back his chair. It caught on one of the tiles and rocked precariously.

  Elizabeth tried to stop him as he dashed from the room, but he batted her hand away. Minutes later she heard the front door slam.

  Chapter 5

  Elizabeth stood in front of the mirror and carefully adjusted the new hat Irene had made for her. But it didn’t give her the pleasure she’d anticipated. Despite her fatigue, she’d been unable to sleep the previous night until she’d finally heard James come home and tiptoe down the hall to his room. A glance at her bedside clock told her it was after two o’clock in the morning.

  The despair of knowing that Theo, Whit and Bobbie were all lost kept her tossing and turning. They haunted her dreams—visions of their bodies floating lifeless in the water mingling with scenes of the makeshift morgue at the Westhampton Country Club.

  She hadn’t known any of the boys all that well, but she did remember their spirit and their broad smiles. Whit had had a gap between his two front teeth that lent him a boyish charm and Bobbie had a twinkle in his eye that always made everything seem like fun. The fact that they were gone was breaking her heart.

  Jones looked at her a bit strangely as she prepared to leave and Elizabeth realized she’d dressed, without being conscious of it, all in dark colors—a black pleated skirt, a black cashmere sweater with a white peter pan collar and black low-heeled pumps.

  The day was bracing, with a nip in the air, and Elizabeth felt her spirits rise slightly as she walked out the door and headed to the subway. The sky was blue and cloudless and it was hard to believe that a few short days ago the weather had turned so deadly that seven hundred people had lost their lives.

  Kaminsky was already slouched at his desk slurping coffee and chewing on a buttered roll when Elizabeth arrived at the office.

  “Rough night?” he said when she walked in.

  Elizabeth felt tears pressing against her eyelids. “Yes.” She covered her mouth and yawned.

  “What you need is some excitement. I thought we would go and interview some of the people who knew Noeleen Donovan, starting with the residents of the boardinghouse where she used to live.”

  Elizabeth stopped with her hand on her hat. “Let’s go then.”

  * * *

  —

  The train ride up to the Bronx where Noeleen had lived was long, and more than once Elizabeth found her eyes drifting closed. Kaminsky sat next to her, his long legs outstretched in the nearly empty car. He’d taken a well-thumbed book from his pocket and begun to read. The cover was so worn Elizabeth couldn’t make out the title or the author.

  She was dozing when the subway jerked to a stop and Kaminsky poked her.

  “This is where we switch.”

  Elizabeth jumped to her feet and followed Kaminsky out of the car and to the White Plains Road line, which would take them to Westchester Avenue in the Bronx.

  The street where Noeleen had lived was bustling with activity. The bells of the Catholic church nearby were ringing and the adjacent schoolyard was filled with children in gray blazers and skirts or pants, vying for a turn on the swing set or playing catch, their joyous shouts filling the air.

  The brick walk-ups and apartment buildings were modest but well kept with trees shading the sidewalks out front. Women sat on the stoops, holding their faces to the still-warm September sun, housework momentarily forgotten.

  “I think this is it,” Kaminsky said, stopping in front of a red-brick building with lace curtains in the window.

  They walked up the steps and before Kaminsky was able to ring the bell, the door opened and a young man in a cheap pinstripe suit stepped out. He looked startled to see Elizabeth and Kaminsky on the other side of the door.

  “Mr. Kaminsky,” he exclaimed.

  “Hey, Tommy. I didn’t know you lived here.” Kaminsky leaned against the stair rail.

  “Yeah.” Tommy’s eyes darted to Elizabeth. “I thought it was time to move out of my folks’ apartment. Living there kind of put a damper on things, know what I mean?” He winked at Kaminsky. “My mother was convinced I was going to the devil when I brought home a pint of Old Forester on a Friday night. I had to remind her that Prohibition is long over.” He shook his head. “She ran to her room crying anyway.”

  A flush rose up his neck to his face.

  “I’m so sorry, miss. I hope I didn’t offend you.”

  “Tommy, this is Biz Adams, the Daily Trumpet’s newest photographer. Biz, this is Tommy Schmidt, one of our advertising salesmen.”

  Tommy belatedly whipped off his hat and gave Biz a half bow.

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Do you have a couple of minutes?” Kaminsky said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  Tommy glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry. I’d better shake a leg or I’ll be late.” He grinned at Elizabeth.

  “I’ll catch up with you later.” Kaminsky jerked his head toward the door. “Is the landlady in?”

  Tommy glanced over his shoulder. “Mrs. Lis? Sure.”

  “We’ll go on in then,” Kaminsky said. He’d grabbed the door before it could close all the way.

  Tommy saluted and trotted down the steps, quickly disappearing down the street.

  Elizabeth and Kaminsky stepped into the foyer where the tile floor was covered by a worn but clean rug. A dining room was on the left—the plain wood table long
enough to sit a dozen people. The room was empty but the smell of food lingered in the air.

  The parlor was on the right, outfitted with an old-fashioned settee and two armchairs covered in dark brown horsehair. A small electric fire sat on the grate in the fireplace and a nondescript painting of a landscape hung over it.

  “Hello?” Kaminsky called out as they moved farther down the hall toward a door at the end.

  The door opened and a woman came out. She was tall with a large frame and blunt features that gave her a mannish appearance. She had an apron tied over a faded and shapeless housedress and her gray hair was pinned up helter-skelter with strands protruding here and there and a piece coming down on the side. She tucked it behind her ear as she walked toward them.

  “Mrs. Lis?” Kaminsky said.

  “Yes. I am Mrs. Lis. Can I help you? I’m afraid there are no vacancies at the moment.”

  She had a deep voice that Elizabeth found very pleasant.

  Kaminsky pulled his press card from his pocket.

  “We’re from the Daily Trumpet and we hoped we might speak to you for a few minutes.”

  “This will be about Noeleen Donovan, won’t it?” Mrs. Lis gestured toward the parlor. “We might as well sit down.”

  Elizabeth and Kaminsky followed Mrs. Lis into the parlor and took a seat. Mrs. Lis, Elizabeth noted, merely perched on the edge of the settee cushion as if she was prepared to jump up and flee at any moment.

  “I take it you run this boardinghouse?” Kaminsky said, pulling his notebook and pencil from his pocket.

  Mrs. Lis raised her chin. “It’s a respectable place. I won’t rent to anyone without a reference.”

  Kaminsky held his hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m sure it is. You certainly keep it clean.”

  Mrs. Lis smiled broadly and the effect was so astonishing that Elizabeth almost gasped.

  “I do my best,” she said modestly, bobbing her head. She reached up, removed a hairpin and secured an errant strand of hair.