Love Has No Alibi

by Octavus Roy Cohen

  People were pouring into the corridor when I got there. Waiters from the kitchen; men and women from the rest rooms. We all moved toward the same place.

  The first person I saw was Dana. She was standing motionless, her eyes wide with terror.

  Agnes Sheridan was on the floor.

  She was wearing a white sweater under her tweed costume. But the sweater wasn’t all white. There was a reddish-brown spot under the left breast. One leg was bent under her. The left arm was stretched out, the fingers curled.

  I didn’t have to look twice to know that she was dead.

  There was a lot of talking and pushing. Somebody said, “Call the police” and somebody else said, “Get a doctor!”

  I heard a voice at my elbow. It was Candy Livingston’s voice. It said, “Oh my God! . . .”

  My eyes went to the end of the corridor. The door of Ricardo’s dressing room was closed. Dana’s door was slightly ajar. And while I was watching it, it opened.

  Ricardo came out. Not out of his own dressing room. He came out of Dana’s room.

  He stared at the crowd. He moved swiftly and joined the people who hovered over Agnes Sheridan’s body.

  Ricardo’s eyes met mine. I saw something there. Something I didn’t like. I got a sickish feeling in the pit of my stomach. I thought, “Ricardo shot Agnes. But he didn’t mean to. The person he intended to kill was Dana.”

  CHAPTER XX

  THE CORRIDOR back of the Club Caliente had seen a lot of things in its day, but it was seeing something new now.

  Jamming into it were all sorts of people: waiters, bus boys, chorus girls, guests who were calm and guests who were hysterical. There was the odor of kitchen, the blending of assorted and expensive perfumes. And over everything that oppressive pall which is invariably associated with death.

  I edged over to Dana. I took her hand. It was icy. Apparently she hadn’t moved since Agnes Sheridan had been killed. Her body was like a statue: a cold, beautiful statue. I said softly, “Get a grip on yourself, sweetheart. The cops will be here in a minute and they’re going to ask you a lot of questions.”

  My timing was good. Two uniformed men barged in. One of them said, “Somebody must’ve phoned Homicide already. We’ll wait.”

  For the moment, until the arrival of the first detective, this man was in charge. He liked it. He stared sternly at the circle of pinched, strained faces and asked, “Anybody touched this body?”

  Heads were shaken, but nobody spoke.

  “Any idea who done the shooting?”

  Nobody had any idea who done it. I pressed my body against Dana’s. She was beginning to relax. Not much, but a little.

  There was another commotion. Two men in plain clothes came in. One of them was big and beefy and young. He had expressionless eyes—like agates. The other was stubby and broad and had the blackest hair I had ever seen. It was Detective Lieutenant Max Gold. He told the patrol-car boys that he’d take over. Then he looked down at what had been Agnes Sheridan and at the ring of faces which peered at him with that tense eagerness which indicated that they expected him to produce a rabbit.

  He told them who he was. He asked whether anyone could tell him what had happened, but nobody could—whereupon he looked a trifle uncertain. I fancied I would, too, even if I were Mister Scotland Yard. I wouldn’t know where to begin.

  Then Gold saw me. He said, “Always on the spot, ain’t you, Douglas?” For some reason it struck me as remarkable that he should remember my name.

  He shot a lot of verbal arrows into the air. The sum total of results was slightly less than nothing. It was apparent that nobody except Dana had been in the corridor when Agnes was shot. Dana was the only one except myself and Candy Livingston who recognized the dead girl. So we were elected. I took note of the fact that Ricardo hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t admitted that he knew Agnes Sheridan.

  Gold said, “Where’s a good place to talk?” He was looking at Dana when he said it.

  “My dressing room?” Dana’s rising inflection made it more of a question than a suggestion.

  Gold told the two patrolmen and the other detective to start taking down names and addresses. He announced that nobody was to leave the Caliente until he gave the word.

  Some more people joined the crowd in the corridor. There was a medical examiner, a photographer, a fingerprint man, and a fellow who started taking measurements. Their scrutiny of Agnes’s body was startlingly impersonal. They herded the guests and waiters and bus boys and chorus girls back into the club. Ricardo went with them. So did Candy Livingston.

  Gold said, “Let’s go, Miss Warren.”

  I asked, “May I come along?”

  “Why not?” There was a suggestion of amusement in his eyes. “For a nice solid citizen, Douglas, you sure get around.”

  We went into Dana’s dressing room and closed the door. The first thing Gold spied was Agnes’s skates. He asked about them, and Dana told him about the skating party we had planned. Gold said, “So that’s why she was dressed like that, huh?”

  Dana sat stiffly on the little chair in front of her make-up table. I perched gingerly on the edge of a ridiculous white satin easy chair. Gold stood in the corner where he could watch us and look around the dressing room at the same time.

  I looked around, too. I was remembering that Ricardo had come out of this room a few seconds after Agnes had been killed. The fact that he had come here, instead of going to his own dressing room, might mean anything or nothing.

  Gold was friendly, but not too much so. I asked whether we might have a drink all ’round, and he shook his head. I figured he was interested in our emotions, and didn’t want to induce any artificial relaxation.

  Dana started to shiver. She had on practically nothing from the midriff up, so I took her coat off its hanger and draped it around her shoulders. She thanked me, and patted my hand.

  Gold started questioning her. He wasn’t acting tough. He was just an efficient man doing an efficient job.

  “You say you and Miss Sheridan started for this dressing room right after you finished your act, Miss Warren. She had left her skates here. You stepped into the corridor together. What happened?”

  Dana said, “We started toward my room. We got about halfway down the corridor when I heard the gun go off.”

  “How did you know it was a gun?”

  “I didn’t. I just heard a noise.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “No.”

  “You got any idea which way the bullet came from?”

  “No.”

  He shrugged. “We can find that out easy enough. The point is that since you and her was walking in this direction, you must have been facing this way. Right?”

  Dana nodded.

  “When you started out,” Gold continued, “was Miss Sheridan acting unusual? Like she was afraid of something?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “What was she talking about?”

  “My gown.” Dana touched the gleaming satin of her skirt. “She was saying how much she liked it.”

  Max looked her over. “It’s swell,” he said. “I can’t hardly blame her. So there come a noise, which you didn’t know was a shot. What happened then, Miss Warren?”

  “Agnes stopped talking. I had walked ahead about two steps. I turned and looked at her.”

  “You still didn’t see nobody?”

  “Not then. Later, the corridor got crowded.”

  “Did Miss Sheridan make any exclamation?”

  “No. She just stood there and then she commenced to sag. All of a sudden she pitched forward, and after she fell she rolled over on her back. The blood was beginning to show . . .”

  Dana stopped. She wasn’t too far from a crack-up. Gold said, “Take it easy. No sense punishing yourself.”

  Dana thanked him with a nod. “I’m all right, lieutenant.”

  “Sure, I know. But it’s tough being in on something like this.” He asked some more questions: How long had
Dana and Agnes known each other; where and how had they met; what did Dana know about Agnes’s private life. He didn’t seem enthusiastic. He said, “I always draw blanks.”

  I leaned forward. “Look, may I ask Miss Warren a couple of questions? You can stop her from answering any of them if you wish. After I’m through, I’ll explain what I’m driving at.”

  He gave that a going over. “I don’t see no harm in it.”

  I made my voice as gentle as possible. “Think carefully, Dana. Up to the moment you heard the shot, how close had you and Agnes been to each other?”

  She looked at me in surprise. “Close? Why, as close as people would naturally walk, I suppose.”

  “That means very close? Almost shoulder to shoulder?”

  “I guess so. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “But if you hadn’t been normally close, you’d be likely to remember that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Y-y-yes, I suppose to. I noticed as soon as she dropped behind me. But that wasn’t until after I heard the shot.”

  “About the shot: You didn’t see any flash?”

  “No, I told the lieutenant . . .”

  “Be patient Did the shot seem to come from real close or from a distance? By a distance, I mean maybe twenty feet.”

  She concentrated. Then she shook her head. “I don’t know, Kirk. When I heard the noise, it seemed to come from everywhere at once. As though there were a dozen echoes.”

  “Did you notice that your dressing room door was slightly open?”

  “No.”

  I spread my hands in a helpless gesture. I said, “If you want me to explain, lieutenant . . .”

  He said, “In a minute. Meanwhile, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions, Douglas.” His manner was calculating. “In the crowd back yonder, didn’t I see Candy Livingston?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She was there.”

  “You know her?”

  “Yes.”

  “How well?”

  Dana and I glanced at each other. I said carefully, “That’s an odd question, lieutenant.”

  “Not so odd. As a matter of fact, I’ll lay a few cards on the table. It wasn’t too long ago that a babe was knocked off in your apartment. I told you then, and I repeat, I wasn’t sold on the idea you done it, but I thought you knew more than you were telling. I still think so. Anyway, we sort of kept check on you. One of the things we know is that you and Candy Livingston have been friendly.”

  I said, “I’m friendly with a lot of people.”

  “Candy ain’t a lot of people. She’s somebody extra special. Where she happens to be, things usually happen. Do you know where Livingston was when Miss Sheridan was killed?”

  “No. Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, just before Ricardo & Dana left the floor, Miss Livingston went into the powder room.”

  “Did you see her go in?”

  “No. She went into the corridor, and I presumed . . .”

  “Yeh. But you ain’t positive. The important point is that she went into the corridor while Ricardo & Dana was still dancing.” He looked down at the toes of his highly polished shoes. “Did Candy know about this here skating party?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you maybe see her come out of the ladies’ room?”

  “No. I just saw her in the crowd after it happened.”

  “Mmmmm!” Gold’s smile was rather bleak. “Wasn’t Candy Livingston kinda cut in the head about you? Wasn’t she making a play?”

  I hesitated. The question was embarrassing, but there was something more important than embarrassment to cope with now.

  I said, “She seemed to like me.”

  “How much?”

  I said, “You’re shoving me, lieutenant. I can’t give you an honest answer because I’m not sure. I always thought that I interested her because I was something different. I was the nice solid young man with some sort of a professional future, and she had just had a rather unpleasant experience . . . that kidnaping business.”

  Gold made a sound popularly associated with the Bronx. “That story she tells about being kidnaped—it stinks.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  MAX GOLD’S remark brought me up short. I said, “You mean Candy wasn’t kidnaped?”

  “I mean we don’t think so. She goes away without leaving word, which ain’t unusual. She makes all the ransom arrangements over the telephone. The day after the money is paid—a half million smackers—she comes back, bright and chipper. She tells a story that’s as full of holes as Swiss cheese. What she describes is an abduction that turns into kidnaping. She says she was treated wonderful. She describes a guy to us that could be anybody you pass on the street. She gives us a name that means even less than that. The only way she slips is that she mentions New Jersey. That makes it interstate and brings in the F.B.I, boys.

  “They question her, too. She hands them the same double-talk. When they try to pin her down, she clams up. She makes it clear that she doesn’t want this guy found and prosecuted. So even if he was found, she’d be a hostile witness. No indictment we could bring could be made to stick. So the case is shoved into a file to be pulled out when, as, and if needed. She makes us play it her way, but we don’t have to believe her. It’s a helluva life, bein’ a cop.”

  I made some inane remark which didn’t mean anything. Then Gold asked abruptly, “You ever get a hunch on who put that hundred thousand in your account?”

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe it was Candy Livingston,” he suggested. “That’d be just so much bird gravel to her.”

  I said, “I didn’t know her then.”

  “So what?” So maybe she knew you. Maybe you looked like somebody she’d like to give a hundred thousand dollars to.”

  “That’s silly, lieutenant.”

  “Okay,” he said placidly. “I just happened to be thinking that the dates were all bunched up along there. Also that when a dame like Livingston makes a play for a guy, he usually has more than you’ve got.”

  I said, “Aren’t we getting pretty far away from what just happened out yonder?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  Dana said, “You don’t think Candy . . . ?”

  “Ma’am, I don’t think nothing. Candy was here tonight. If she had any reason, she could have done the shooting; just like, if she had of had a reason, she could of slipped Douglas that hundred thousand.” He put up his hand. “Don’t say it, Miss Warren. I’m six jumps ahead of you. Candy didn’t have no reason. Okay. But who did? I’m just tossing her around in my peanut brain until something better comes along.”

  I said quietly, “Maybe I can give you something better.”

  “Yeah . . . ?” His voice didn’t change, and his eyes were still calm and friendly. But I knew he was listening hard.

  I didn’t look at Dana. I wanted her to hear what I had to say, and knew it would be tough. But I had to say it anyway.

  I said, “I may as well start off by reminding you that I’m in love with Miss Warren, and want to marry her. Therefore you can discount what I’m going to say as coming from a prejudiced witness. What I’m driving at is that I think the time has come to quit holding out on you, which I only did because I couldn’t find anything solid on which to base my suspicions.”

  “Holding out ain’t so good,” commented Max.

  I started to tell him about Ricardo. As soon as I mentioned the name, Dana drew in her breath sharply and said, “Kirk! Don’t! ” and I said, “I’ve got to, honey. You’ll see why.”

  I told Max Gold everything I knew about Ricardo. I told him about falling in love with Dana and the way Ricardo had reacted. I told him about the missing luck piece and how it had turned up in my apartment. I gave him the battered coin. I told him that, to my knowledge, Ricardo had never been in my apartment. I told him about our fight at the rehearsal hall. I told him that only recently Dana had notified Ricardo that she was quitting the act, regardless.
The one opinion I expressed was that nothing could hit Ricardo much harder than that, because his profession—and the position he held in it—probably meant more to him than anything else in the world, and that Dana would be almost impossible to replace.

  Gold let me finish. He gave it plenty of time to sink in. He said, “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “Because . . .” I hesitated, and he encouraged me with, “Keep going, Douglas.”

  “All right,” I said. “Here’s the last touch. When Ricardo & Dana left the floor tonight, Miss Warren stopped at our table. Ricardo went into the corridor. His dressing room is right across the hall from this one. When I heard the shot, I ran into the corridor. I saw that door open and Ricardo came out.”

  “Out of Miss Warren’s dressing room?”

  “Yes. Out of this room we’re in now.”

  “Did he have a gun?”

  “I didn’t see any.”

  “Did he know Miss Sheridan?”

  “Casually.”

  “Why would he shoot her?”

  “I don’t think he would. Except by accident.”

  Gold ground the fire from the end of his cigarette. He nodded thoughtfully. “That adds up better than some of the ideas I’ve had, Douglas. You figure Ricardo was sore about a lot of things, but mostly because he was going to lose an ace dance partner. He was waiting in her dressing room. He saw her coming with somebody else and took a shot at her. Only he ain’t so expert, so he blasts Agnes Sheridan instead of his wife. Is that what you think?”

  Dana was trying to say something. She was trembling again. I said, “I don’t think anything, lieutenant.”

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “Because,” I said carefully, “I believe that whoever did the killing was shooting at Dana—not at Miss Sheridan, And I’m afraid—for her.”

  Dana stood up. “I can’t think it was Ricardo. He’s tough, but I don’t believe . . . Does it strike you as reasonable, lieutenant?”

  Gold said, “Yes. And No. There’s enough motive, but the way it was done—there’s lots of flaws in it. Even if he wanted to kill you, it doesn’t seem hardly probable he’d have gone through with it when he saw you wasn’t alone. Of course, there’s still another angle. An amateur gets himself nerved up to do something. He knows he’ll never get that hopped up again. So he lets fly anyway.” Gold walked to the door and called somebody. There was a brief, whispered conference, then he came back to us. “They’ll case Ricardo’s room. I’ll give him a going over later.” He turned his attention to me. “Ricardo was making a play for Candy Livingston, wasn’t he?”