Meet Me at the Morgue

by Ross Macdonald

  “According to Molly Fawn,” I said, “Snow spoke of a woman who had betrayed him to the police in 1946. Could you be that woman?”

  “I don’t see how. How would he know of my part in it?”

  “Miner might have told him, or Seifel.”

  “Why should they?”

  “I don’t know. I do know this: After Lemp was hired by your husband to … observe your movements—”

  “To spy on me,” she emended.

  “Lemp went back to Los Angeles and told Kerry Snow that he had located the woman.”

  “The woman who had him arrested?”

  “Yes. That seems to be what brought Snow here to Pacific Point: the hope of finding the woman and getting back at her in some way.”

  “And you think I’m that woman?”

  “I don’t think anything.”

  “Then why have you been asking me these questions?”

  “I was hoping to learn something useful.”

  “About me?”

  “About the case in general. After all, you are connected with it. You did have a hand in Kerry Snow’s arrest. Your chauffeur murdered Snow.”

  “It’s murder now, is it?”

  “Apparently. And your son was kidnapped by Snow’s crony.”

  “Anything else?” she cried, a little wildly.

  “Yes, there is one other thing. According to Molly Fawn, the woman Snow was looking for had red hair.”

  She lay back in her chair like a fighter after a hard round, and spoke with her face averted:

  “You disappoint me, Mr. Cross. I gave you credit for some intelligence. If you can’t see that I’m an innocent woman, you are a stupid man.”

  “You’re not the red-headed woman in the case, then?”

  “I have red hair, I can’t deny that. Everything else I deny.”

  “All right.”

  “It’s not all right. I’ve tried to be decent all my life. I think I deserve to be trusted. When I learned yesterday that Abel didn’t trust me, he lost his meaning for me. I no longer cared for him. I feel no sorrow for him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I suppose I’m oversuspicious. It’s an occupational disease in law-enforcement work.”

  “I’m sorry, too.” She would not look at me.

  The boy called from the doorway: “Mummy! Is the argument over? I’m ready to come out now.”

  “Come on then,” she said brightly. “Mr. Cross is just about to leave.”

  CHAPTER 25: I drove home to my walkup apartment. Emptying the pockets of my trousers, I found that I had kept the keys to the desert house and the keys to the Lincoln. Oddly enough, I liked the idea of having them. I went to bed.

  When I woke up there was still light in the window, a sunset light burning like a grate fire behind the Venetian blind. I had been dreaming. I couldn’t remember the dream distinctly, but it had left a pattern in my consciousness. An insistent bell had been ringing at the end of a corridor. The corridor was both spatial and temporal. Along its echoing span, a man was running with a boy in his arms. I was the running man, and the boy in my arms was Jamie.

  My thoughts were instantaneous, as immediate as sensations. The bell rang again. I reached for the telephone that had awakened me:

  “This is Cross.”

  “Forest. We’ve traced Arthur Lemp back from San Francisco. Miss Devon thought you’d be interested.”

  “I’m interested.”

  “You sound sleepy.”

  “I just woke up. But I can listen.”

  “The name he started out with was George Lempke. His father was a German immigrant, an ironworker in Pittsburgh. The son won a college scholarship and worked his way through law school. He was commissioned a second looie in the first war. After the war he practiced in Chicago, and did fairly well for a short while. Then he was caught suborning a witness to perjure himself in a murder trial. He served two years in Joliet, and of course the state association disbarred him. After that he was committed to a mental hospital—”

  “A disbarred lawyer?” I said. “Committed to a mental hospital?”

  “That’s what I said. He must have sprung himself out of it in pretty good time. He showed up in San Francisco in 1922, using the name of Arthur Lemp.”

  I lost track of what Forest was saying. The dream came flooding back into my mind. The running man was Lemp as well as myself, and the boy in his arms with the man’s face was Seifel.

  “Have you tracked down any of his relatives?”

  “Not yet. His parents are dead. He had a wife at one time, but she didn’t stay with him long.”

  I see.

  “Did the D.A. get in touch with you, by the way?”

  “What about?”

  “He’s convening the Grand Jury tomorrow morning. I lit a small fire under him. You’re slated to be the first witness.”

  “All right. Thanks. Good-bye.”

  I showered and dressed. My hands were overeager. I never did get the collar of my shirt buttoned.

  That, and the fact that I hadn’t shaved, were the first things Mrs. Seifel noticed. She came to the door of her suburban ranch-house, faultlessly groomed in a dark silk frock pinched very thin at the waist. Her black eyes examined me thoroughly, and showed no warmth:

  “I know you, don’t I?”

  “We met yesterday. I’m Howard Cross, County Probation Officer.”

  “I am Florabelle Seifel. If you’re looking for Lawrence, he’s not here. I don’t know whether to expect him for dinner or not, thanks to you.”

  “Thanks to me?”

  “Thanks to your secretary, I should say. It’s very apropos that you should come here this evening. I’ve been wishing to speak to you. This nonsense between my son and your secretary has gone far enough.”

  “Miss Devon is my assistant, and it’s not exactly nonsense. But that’s beside the point.”

  “It’s very much to the point. You’re a public official, and you have some responsibility. It seems to me that your employees should be indoctrinated with some sense of class distinction. I’m not without power in this community, and when I see my son inveigled into a relationship with a social inferior—”

  “I didn’t come to discuss that with you.”

  “What then did you come to discuss with me?” She tilted her sleek black head and looked at me with hostility.

  Her eyes were hard and black, impervious. It had probably been years since they had seen anything in the outside world that they hadn’t wished to see. Her self-assurance was almost paranoiac.

  “Your husband, Mrs. Seifel. Mrs. Lempke.”

  The change in her face was sudden and terrible. The mouth opened, ringed with white teeth, in a silent snarl of pain. The eyes narrowed to glimmering slits. The flesh crumpled. She said in an old hoarse voice:

  “Go away. You’ve only come here to torment me.”

  “Not at all. I want the truth. I’ll keep it to myself if I can.”

  “I’ll kill myself. I can’t bear the shame.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I’ve made a good life for Lawrence and myself. I refuse to see it end, and go on living.”

  “It’s good for you, perhaps.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing.”

  She was leaning in the opening, holding herself upright with one hand on the doorknob. The last of the sunset shone on her face like light from a distant fire.

  “I suppose you intend to come in,” she said.

  “It might be more comfortable for both of us.”

  “Come in then.”

  The house had an artificial beauty, like its owner. She led me into a glass-sided sitting-room that overlooked a flower garden, almost colorless in the dying light. The white carpet looked as if it had never been violated by a human foot. A Matisse odalisque reclined in an ivory frame above a white chaise longue. The pose that Mrs. Seifel assumed in the chaise was an imitation, conscious or unconscious, of the odali
sque’s. It added a final touch of unreality.

  “Sit down, Mr. Cross,” she said wearily. “I understood you to say a moment ago that you intend to keep this matter quiet.”

  “I will if I can.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If you or your son are involved in these crimes in any way, obviously the facts have to be brought out.”

  “Involved in crimes? The very idea is ridiculous, outrageous.” She scratched with carmine nails at her throat, the weak spot in her illusion.

  “The facts are outrageous,” I said.

  “Are they not? The most outrageous of all is the fact that you can’t get away from the past. It’s built into one’s life. You can’t wall it off or deny it or evade it or undo it. It’s inescapably and inevitably there, like a deformed child in a secret room of one’s house. How I’ve paid for my foolishness.”

  “Foolishness?”

  “In marrying George Lempke, against my parents’ wishes. I was just twenty, and a very spoiled young girl. I met him at a sorority ball in Champaign. He was handsome and charming—my story is quite banal, isn’t it?—and a returned war hero. Any young officer was a war hero in those days, if he had actually crossed the Atlantic Ocean. I fell in love, and married him. A few months after my child was born he was arrested and sent to jail. My father arranged a divorce, and I thought I was rid of George, free to raise my child in peace. But when he was released he found us again. He came to the apartment in my absence and stole Larry from me. They were missing for four days, living in a wretched hotel on the south side. Those were the most dreadful days of my life. My father hired the Pinkerton organization, and finally they caught him. Larry was safe.”

  “What happened to your husband—your ex-husband?”

  “We had him put away. In order to avoid publicity—my father was a leading figure on La Salle Street in those days—father had him committed to a state hospital. Unfortunately they let him go within a year.”

  “Was he insane?”

  “How could there be any question about it? Of course he was insane, criminally insane. A man who would kidnap his own three-year-old son, such a man—” Her voice broke off in a harsh discord. Her hand went to her throat again, kneading the loose flesh between the red-tipped fingers.

  “Maybe he simply wanted his son to be with him.”

  “If he had wanted that, he could and should have led an upright life in the first place. He was unfaithful to me before Larry was born. George Lempke was never anything but an evil man.”

  “I suppose you know what he did yesterday.”

  “I know. I realized when Larry described the man he had seen in the mortuary. George came to me back in November, you see. Somehow he’d discovered that we were living here and sought us out. I suppose he thought that he could get some money out of me. I told him flatly that if he ever approached me or my son again, I’d have him jailed.”

  “Does Larry know that?”

  “Certainly not. We never discuss his father. I explained the situation to Larry when he was a boy. Neither of us has ever mentioned it since.”

  “And he doesn’t know that the man is his father?”

  “Not from me. Can I depend on you not to tell him?”

  “It might be good for him to know.”

  “Good? How could it benefit anyone to rake up those dreadful things?”

  “It’s on his mind,” I said. “He told me about his father yesterday, as much as you’d let him know. I think he may have recognized the dead man, more or less unconsciously.”

  “Impossible. He was only three when he last saw his father.”

  “Childhood memories often go back as far as the second year.”

  “Not Larry’s. He has very little recollection of his childhood.” She pulled herself upright and leaned towards me tensely. “Mr. Cross, if you have any mercy for a woman who has suffered miserably, you will not tell my son the truth.”

  “If he asks me for it, I’ll tell him.”

  “No! You’ll drive him into insanity if you do, into suicide. He’s a sensitive boy. All his life I’ve had to look after him and protect him.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  “He’s not exactly a boy, Mrs. Seifel. He’s a man. If he isn’t a man now, he never will be.”

  “He never will be,” she said.

  “Not if you have your way.”

  “How dare you speak to me like that?”

  “It isn’t kind, I know. But kindness is out of place in some situations. It’s possible to kill a man with kindness.”

  She rose, a dark, slim figure against the window. “I’m at your mercy, of course. I made one serious error thirty-five years ago, and I’ve been at the world’s mercy ever since. I promise you, however, if you do anything to harm my son—I have powerful connections in this county.”

  “This is where I came in.” I got up and moved to the door. “Where is Larry now?”

  “I have no idea. Your little blonde person came here about an hour ago—”

  “Miss Devon?”

  “Is that her name? She literally forced her way into my house. They drove away together in her car.”

  I found them, still together, at the mortuary. Larry Seifel was standing over the table where the dead man lay. Ann was at his side, her arm around his waist. When they turned to look at me, I saw that both their faces were marked with drying tears. Seifel looked thinner and older.

  Ann detached herself from him and crossed the room to me. “You know who he is, Howie?”

  “Yes. Does Larry?”

  “I told him, just now. I was talking to Mr. Forest this afternoon, and some of the things in Lemp’s record—well, they fitted in with other things that Larry had told me about his father.”

  “How did Larry take it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m waiting. But I think he already knew. He simply couldn’t admit it to himself.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “Nothing now. Please, Howie.”

  She looked up anxiously into my face. Apparently there was nothing there to worry her. She went back to Larry Seifel. He was gazing down into the dead face, trying to descry the lineaments of the past.

  CHAPTER 26: My testimony to the Grand Jury took up most of the morning. I expressed my doubts about Fred Miner’s guilt, but I didn’t say anything about a red-headed woman. She was hearsay evidence, anyway. Molly Fawn was scheduled to testify in the afternoon, and it could wait till then.

  From the tenor of the District Attorney’s questioning, and the comments of individual jurors, I judged that Miner’s guilt was taken for granted. The fact that he had died violently in an attempt to escape seemed to the jury to be proof of his complicity. Because he had been on probation under my supervision, they considered me a prejudiced witness. I was accustomed to that.

  When I came out of the jury room, Sam Dressen was waiting for me. His nose was red and his eyes were moist with excitement. Behind him, on a bench against the wall, Amy Miner was sitting with a matron.

  The door closed with a shushing sound. Sam grasped my arm:

  “Howie, she’s run out on us.”

  I thought for a bad moment that he meant Helen. “Who’s run out?”

  “Molly Fawn. I left her here with Mrs. Johannes, about an hour ago.” He cocked an accusatory thumb at the matron. “The D.A. thought he might have time to put her on this morning after Mrs. Miner. I went downstairs to the office for a while, and when I came up she was gone.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” the matron grumbled. “My orders were for Amy here. They didn’t say anything to me about anybody else. The girl asked permission to go down the hall and wash her hands. I told her to go ahead.”

  “What did you think she was doing?” Sam said. “Taking a bubble bath?”

  “It ain’t my responsibility. You didn’t say anything to me that she was going to try and run away.”

  “I’m no prophet.” He turned to me an
xiously. “She was as nice as pie out at our place all day yesterday. How could I tell she was going to make a break for it?”

  “Take it easy. We’ll get her back. If there’s any blame passed out, I’ll take it. I guess I should have had her held in jail.”

  “Sure.” Amy Miner spoke up bitterly. “Why don’t you put the whole population in jail? That’ll solve all your problems for you.”

  I looked into her face. Though it still showed grief and strain, she was calmer than she had been Saturday night. Her graying hair had been brushed, and there was a touch of lipstick on her mouth. I recognized for the first time that she had probably been an attractive girl.

  “How are you doing, Mrs. Miner?”

  “As good as can be expected, after a weekend in your dirty jail.”

  “It isn’t dirty,” the matron asserted.

  “Okay, so it isn’t dirty. I loved it. It was swell. Everything’s been swell.” She raised her heavy brown eyes to my face. “You saw Fred before he died?”

  “I saw him.”

  “Did he mention me?”

  He hadn’t, but I decided to tell the lie. She had been stripped of everything else.

  “He sent his love to you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “He sent his love to me?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Why did he do it? I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I. I’m sorry.”

  She said in a low voice: “Everybody’s got plenty to be sorry about.”

  “When are they letting you out of here?”

  “Today.” But the prospect of freedom didn’t seem to cheer her. “The District Attorney promised to let me go after I say my piece to the Grand Jury.”

  “What are you going to do then?”

  “I don’t know. Bury Fred. Mrs. Johnson said I can live on in the gatehouse as long as I want. But I’m not staying in this burg, not after all that’s happened.”

  The bailiff opened the door of the jury room and spoke to the matron: “They’re ready for Mrs. Miner now.”

  Sam pulled at my elbow. “We better get moving, eh?”

  “Right.” We started down the hall towards the sheriff’s wing. “How was Molly dressed when she took off?”