Murder, She Uncovered

by Peg Cochran

  Charlotte yanked her right boot off and it landed on the floor with a thud.

  “I remember when I caught Carl Kroger with lipstick on his collar. It was a dreadfully tacky color, too—more purple than red. Shows what kind of gal she must have been. Anyway, Carl and I had been seeing each other for a couple of months on the sly when he cheated on me. It took me all of a week to get over him.” She sighed. “But we do get over it, don’t we?”

  “Yes. Yes, we do,” Elizabeth said, raising her chin.

  “Mother would be frightfully upset if she knew, but a girl has to have her fun. Know what I mean? Soon enough we’ll be tied down with babies and apron strings.” She shuddered. “I got over Carl as soon as I met Leo. He’s a swell fellow. I think he’s as handsome as Cary Grant. Quite amusing, too. Mother would definitely not approve.” She rolled her eyes and giggled. “I told Mother I had a date with Billy—which I did. We went to the Thatchers’ Sunday bridge party. No sooner had he dropped me off home than I stepped out with Leo.” She giggled again. “He took me to this marvelous club downtown—plenty of cheap booze and that sort of jazz that makes you feel as if all your nerves are electrified. We talked for positively hours.”

  Elizabeth wondered how Kaminsky was managing alone downstairs with Mrs. Brown and made a move toward the stairs.

  But Charlotte seemed oblivious.

  “I had to bribe Louise—she’s our parlor maid—to leave the door unlatched for me that night.” She giggled again. “I got in terribly late, I’m afraid. The weather was absolutely foul, and we had the devil of a time finding a taxi.”

  Charlotte gave a sly smile. “But I wasn’t the only one sneaking in late.” She lowered her voice and leaned toward Elizabeth. “You’ll never guess who came in right behind me. I don’t know which of us was more surprised.”

  Elizabeth figured she might as well play along. “Who was it?”

  “Mrs. Brown! Can you imagine? She claims she visits her sister in Queens on her day off, but I know for a fact the trains don’t run that late.” Charlotte made a tsking sound with her tongue. “I think Mrs. Brown has got herself a beau.”

  “Mrs. Brown?” Elizabeth asked incredulously.

  Charlotte nodded. “She was all in a state, too—her face red, her hair disheveled and nearly soaked to the core. I would imagine she’d had a terribly difficult time securing a taxi.”

  Elizabeth thought about what Charlotte had said as she headed down the stairs to join Kaminsky. Maybe she and Marino could simply have fun together—without thinking about the future. What harm would there be in that?

  She hoped Charlotte was right and that Mrs. Brown had a beau. If Killian was indicted for murder, Mrs. Brown was going to need someone to lean on.

  * * *

  —

  Elizabeth was surprised to see that Kaminsky’s chair was empty when she arrived at the newsroom the next morning. He’d obviously already arrived—a paper bag with a large grease stain on the front and his lunch inside was next to his typewriter.

  Elizabeth hung up her hat and coat and was about to sit down when the door to the newsroom banged open and Kaminsky stomped in. The expression on his normally lugubrious face was even more gloomy than usual.

  He collapsed in his chair and put his face in his hands. Suddenly he kicked the metal wastebasket under his desk.

  Elizabeth hesitated, then got up and walked over to him.

  “Is something wrong?” she said.

  Kaminsky grunted. “The boss didn’t like the piece on that Brown woman and her son. Said he wants more drama. Something with feeling.” Kaminsky sneered. “If that’s what he’s after why didn’t he send Draper? That’s a woman’s story. One of those tearjerkers you dames like so much.”

  Kaminsky picked up a pencil and began tapping it on his desk. “I think the boss is trying to trip me up. It’s no secret he thinks I’m too long in the tooth for this job. He’s looking for an excuse to can me.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” Kaminsky scrubbed his face with his hand.

  Elizabeth was thinking. “I have an idea,” she said finally.

  “Yeah? Let’s hear it. I’m all ears.”

  “Why don’t I go talk to Mrs. Brown. Maybe it will be easier for her to talk to a woman.”

  Kaminsky’s face started to brighten. “You think you can write the piece?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No, but I’ll take notes. And you can write it up when I get back. I’ll help you.”

  “You’d really do that for me?”

  “Of course. You gave me a chance and now it’s my turn to repay the favor.”

  “Thanks, Biz. You’re really swell, you know that? For a dame.”

  * * *

  —

  Elizabeth paused with her hand poised to push the bell on the front door of the Posts’ townhouse. She’d never interviewed someone before, but she’d heard Kaminsky do it often enough and occasionally even chimed in with questions of her own. Surely she would be able to manage this just fine.

  Still, her hand trembled a bit as she pushed the doorbell. She heard it ringing inside the house, then footsteps, then the door was flung open not by the parlor maid but by Charlotte Post.

  “Oh, hello,” Charlotte said. She was wearing a white smock that had dabs of various colored paint on it and was holding a thin sable brush in her paint-smeared hand. She looked down at herself. “Don’t mind me. I’ve been working on a landscape, and I’m determined to finish it by Thanksgiving.”

  “How interesting. We both create pictures—but in different ways.”

  “My landscape is quite placid,” Charlotte said dryly. “No raging storms or churning seas. Your pictures, however…”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Yes. There’s nothing particularly placid about them. Although when I was studying with photographer Beatrice Harper—she was my college roommate’s aunt—I took plenty of placid shots of scenery.”

  “I remember that picture of yours that was on the front page of the Daily Trumpet and caused such a stir. What was that girl’s name?”

  “Gloria DeWitt.” It was a photograph Elizabeth would just as soon have forgotten.

  “That’s right. I wonder whatever happened to her?”

  “The last I heard is that some distant relative swept in and whisked her out of the city and took her to their place in the country.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve come to see me, or have you?” Charlotte said.

  “I wanted to see Mrs. Brown if that’s possible.”

  “I suspect you know the way by now,” Charlotte said, motioning in the direction of the stairs to the basement. “I’d best get back to my canvas before that last layer of paint dries.”

  Elizabeth headed down to the kitchen where she found Mrs. Brown at the counter kneading dough. She was handling the dough vigorously—slamming it down on the counter, picking it up and then slamming it down again.

  Elizabeth saw Mrs. Brown had been crying when she turned around.

  “What do you want?” Mrs. Brown said.

  Elizabeth was prepared. She’d thought about how she would broach the topic while she was on the subway.

  “I know you’re upset about your son,” she said in a soothing voice. “But I wonder if Killian has an alibi. He might not have thought to give it to the police.”

  Mrs. Brown picked up her dough, threw it down on the counter again and jammed the heels of her hands into it. Elizabeth could hear it crackle as she stretched it out. Mrs. Brown shook her head.

  “I did ask Killian where he was that Sunday. He liked to wander around the city by himself when I went to my sister’s. When he was younger he would come with me. Alma—that’s my sister—always had a cake fresh from the oven and he liked that. Her Guinness cake was his favorite.”

  Mrs. Brow
n patted the dough into a rough circle, opened a cupboard and took out a ceramic bowl. She greased the bowl and placed the dough inside, turning it over, and leaving an oily sheen on it.

  “Killian is a good boy—he always tries to stay out of the way of the Posts. He knows what would happen to us if we had to leave.” She waved a hand around the kitchen. “He stays here with me most of the time. Of course, there isn’t much for an active young man to do. He keeps busy reading. He’s a smart boy—I’ve seen him with his nose buried in books by Joyce. I never could make heads or tails of them myself.”

  “Does he have his own room?”

  Mrs. Brown draped a towel over the top of the bowl in which she’d placed the rising dough. “He has a room off of mine up on the top floor, but it’s no bigger than a monk’s cell—a single bed barely fits and there isn’t room for anything like a dresser.”

  “You haven’t had it easy,” Elizabeth said.

  Mrs. Brown shrugged. “Many have had it much worse. You’ve seen the bread lines and the crowds at the soup kitchens. We’ve had a roof over our heads and warm food in our bellies.”

  “You’ve done a wonderful job of taking care of your son.”

  Mrs. Brown smiled for the first time and touched the gold locket that hung from a chain around her neck. She took it off, opened it and held it out toward Elizabeth. “This locket was my mother’s. It’s all I have left of her.”

  Elizabeth took the necklace in her hand.

  Mrs. Brown pointed at it. “That’s Killian. He was a beautiful baby. Everyone said so.”

  Elizabeth admired the tiny photograph that had been trimmed to fit inside the locket.

  “This must all be so traumatic for you,” Elizabeth said, handing the necklace back to Mrs. Brown. “It’s obvious you love your son.”

  Mrs. Brown swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “It’s so wrong. My Killian wouldn’t hurt a fly. He had nothing to do with Noeleen. People are afraid of my boy because he’s different, but that doesn’t mean he’s dangerous. The police have to find out who really killed Noeleen and leave my son alone.”

  She slumped into one of the kitchen chairs. “If only I hadn’t gone to see Alma that weekend….”

  “When did you get back from visiting your sister that Sunday?” Elizabeth said.

  Mrs. Brown turned to look at Elizabeth. “I never get back very late. Alma trained as a nurse, you see. It wasn’t easy, but she was always a determined girl. She works the first shift at Jamaica Hospital in the pediatric ward so she has to get up early. I’m always back here by six o’clock—in time to fix the Posts a light dinner of a salad or sandwiches seeing as how they have their main Sunday meal at noon. Always assuming they aren’t going out, of course.”

  “So on that Sunday you were home by six o’clock.”

  Mrs. Brown nodded, her mouth tightening into a thin line as if trying to keep any other words from bursting out.

  Mrs. Brown was lying, Elizabeth thought. Or Charlotte Post was lying. But what reason would Charlotte have to lie? Then again, what reason did Mrs. Brown have to lie?

  Elizabeth rubbed her forehead. “And Killian wasn’t here?”

  “No. I assumed he was out exploring like he always does.”

  “The weather was frightful that Sunday. I remember it rained cats and dogs all day. I wonder why he went out in it.”

  “I suppose he was bored. Besides, the weather doesn’t bother him.”

  The door to the outside opened just then and a shaft of sunlight momentarily illuminated the gloom of the kitchen. Killian slunk in silently and shut the door behind him.

  Mrs. Brown’s hands flew to her face and she uttered an exclamation that was halfway between pain and joy.

  “The police have let you go!”

  Killian nodded. He took an apple from a bowl on the table and retreated to his chair in the corner where he pulled out a pocketknife and began methodically removing strip after strip of peel as if he was flaying a slaughtered animal.

  “Why did they let you go?” Mrs. Brown said, hovering around Killian as if she wanted to touch him but didn’t quite dare.

  “I didn’t do it,” Killian said simply, his voice flat and emotionless.

  He leaned over the apple in his hand.

  “Of course you didn’t,” Mrs. Brown said. “I told them that myself.”

  Elizabeth watched Killian. His manner was different, that was to be sure. His appearance, too—his pale almost translucent skin with the tracery of blue veins visible at his temples, his coal black hair and eyes as clear and blue as water. And she could see how he might put people off. But she didn’t sense anything vicious about him—even now, with the knife in his hand. His face was placid—expressionless.

  Elizabeth tried to picture him killing Noeleen—taking the train out to Long Island, walking to the Posts’ summer home in the pouring rain, tracking the girl down and stabbing her. She couldn’t see it.

  And what about Father McGrath? If his death was indeed murder and not suicide, what motive would Killian have had for killing him, too? He didn’t go to church regularly like Noeleen had. It was unlikely he had confided in Father McGrath.

  But Mrs. Brown did go to church regularly. And she spoke to Father McGrath quite frequently. Something began to jell in Elizabeth’s mind. It made her feel fidgety and agitated, but she tried to maintain an aura of calm as she thought things through.

  Marino suspected that Father McGrath had been rendered unconscious by something—ether perhaps—before the killer had arranged his body to look like a suicide.

  Ether wasn’t that easy to come by—one could hardly walk into the neighborhood pharmacy and buy some. But it was readily available in hospitals where it was used as an anesthetic for minor operations. Mrs. Brown’s sister Alma was a nurse. What if Mrs. Brown had persuaded Alma to steal a canister of the gas? And Mrs. Brown had used it to murder Father McGrath?

  But why Father McGrath? Elizabeth didn’t have an immediate answer for that. Nor could she imagine any reason why Mrs. Brown would want to kill Noeleen.

  But it all added up. Mrs. Brown was home late that Sunday night and then lied about it. Why lie if she had nothing to hide? Instead of visiting her sister, had she taken the train out to Long Island to confront Noeleen over some disagreement the two of them might have had?

  All the pieces were there, Elizabeth sensed. She just wasn’t sure what order to put them in. She’d lay it all out in front of Marino and let him be the one to put the puzzle together.

  Suddenly she felt a great sense of urgency, although she couldn’t say why. The oppressive gloom of the kitchen, Killian’s preternatural stillness in the corner, Mrs. Brown’s agitation—it all combined to make her feel as if she couldn’t breathe—as if all the air had been sucked out of the room by a giant vacuum.

  She pushed her chair back abruptly, causing it to scrape across the floor and nearly topple over behind her. Mrs. Brown glanced at her sharply.

  “I have to go. I have an…an appointment.” She made a show of looking at her watch.

  She gathered up her hat and gloves and without even saying goodbye, bolted up the stairs to the main floor and the townhouse foyer.

  She let herself out and paused for a moment on the sidewalk to catch her breath. Her thoughts continued to churn as she marched down the street on the lookout for a pay phone.

  She thought she heard footsteps in back of her at one point and spun around, but didn’t see anyone other than an old woman pushing a cart full of groceries and a young couple, their arms around each other.

  There was a pay phone on the corner of Lexington Avenue. Elizabeth pulled open the door and quickly closed it in back of her. She paused for a moment with her hand on the telephone receiver.

  What was she going to tell Marino? That she had a hunch Mrs. Brown had been the
one to kill Noeleen and also Father McGrath? Would he believe her?

  Elizabeth continued to hesitate. Why had Mrs. Brown killed Father McGrath? Had she possibly confessed the murder to him? Maybe he hadn’t been wrestling with his calling after all as Father Thomas had thought. Perhaps he’d been wrestling with something far more complex—how far did the sanctity of the confessional extend when a parishioner had confessed to killing someone?

  Elizabeth was positive she was on the right track. She’d lay it all out for Marino and let him decide what to do. And she’d make sure that she and Kaminsky were the first to be in on the story.

  Elizabeth was about to dial the operator when the door to the phone booth was yanked open. She spun around prepared to give someone a piece of her mind, but she stopped with her mouth open and the receiver clenched in her hand.

  Mrs. Brown stood in the doorway, a kitchen knife partially hidden in the folds of her apron.

  Elizabeth was too startled to scream. It felt as if all the air had been forcibly removed from her lungs—as if someone had punched her hard in the chest.

  Finally she was able to take a shuddering breath in.

  “What are you doing?” Elizabeth said.

  “I can’t have you going to the police. If they take me away, who will take care of my boy? He’ll be put in one of those institutions where they lock up people like him.”

  Elizabeth hoped if she stalled long enough someone would come along and she could cry out for help.

  “Why did you kill Noeleen?” she said.

  A strange look came over Mrs. Brown’s face.

  “I didn’t want to. I liked the girl. She was a good girl. But I was afraid that baby would turn out like my Killian. I had to stop it. I couldn’t bear it. The child would suffer.”

  “Why do you think the baby would have been like Killian?”

  “Why?” Mrs. Brown leaned closer to Elizabeth. Elizabeth smelled the coffee on her breath. “It would have been his child, wouldn’t it? These things get passed along from generation to generation. I’m sure you’ve seen it. There’d have been no guarantee that the child would be spared.”