“You're in the Eastern Star, aren't you?”
“Why, yes,” Mrs. Mercer said.
“Maybe you know my mother,” Mulheisen said. “Mrs. Cora Mulheisen, from St. Clair Flats.”
“Oh my, yes,” Mrs. Mercer said. “I've known Cora Mulheisen for years. And your father, as well. He was the Water Commissioner. He was in Scottish Rite.”
Mulheisen nodded enthusiastically.
“What lodge are you in, Sergeant?” asked Henry Mercer.
Mulheisen shook his head ruefully. “I'm afraid I don't belong to any lodge right now,” he said. “This business of mine gets kind of hectic, you see. Crazy hours and always on call. I used to play ball for Demolay when I was a kid.” He turned to Mrs. Mercer. “I'll bet you can't guess where Mother is this morning. Bird watching.”
Mrs. Mercer shook her head. “In this weather? Where does she get the energy? We all ought to be down in Florida. If it wasn't for my plants I think Henry and I would be down there all winter. But you can't get anybody who will take proper care of plants.”
“That's what I try to tell Mother,” Mulheisen said. “But she won't listen. I tell her that there are birds in Florida, too.” He looked up at the doctor. The doctor smiled and nodded, then quietly left the room.
“I guess you folks have had a terrible experience this morning,” Mulheisen said. “How well did you know Mrs. Clippert?”
“Oh we've known Jane since she was just a child,” Mrs. Mercer said. “Her father bought the house next door more than twenty-five years ago.”
“Her father was Axel Bodnar,” Mr. Mercer said, “of Bodnar Bathrooms, you know? Jane was his only child and her mother died just after Jane was born. We never knew her mother. And then when Jane married Arthur, Mr. Bodnar gave them the house.”
“So the Clipperts have been neighbors of yours for quite a while,” Mulheisen said. “Pretty good neighbors, I guess?”
“We don't see an awful lot of them,” Mrs. Mercer said. “I guess Mr. Clippert is a very busy man. They travel a lot. Jane used to come over and have a cup of tea, now and then.”
“How did the Clipperts get along with one another?”
“Why, I think they were happily married, if that's what you mean,” she said. “They have always been very pleasant when we've seen them. I'm sure they were very much in love.”
“I see,” Mulheisen said. “I'm just trying to get a picture of things in my mind. Now, you were in the greenhouse when the doorbell rang. What time was that?”
Mrs. Mercer straightened her glasses. “I'm not sure, but I suppose it was between eight-thirty and a quarter to nine.”
“And you were upstairs, Mr. Mercer?”
“That's right,” Mr. Mercer said. He looked kind of embarrassed.
“So you went to the door,” Mulheisen said to the woman, “and what happened?”
Mrs. Mercer looked down at her hands folded in her lap and was silent.
“You opened the door . . .” Mulheisen prompted.
Mrs. Mercer took a deep breath. “I opened the door . . .”
“And Mrs. Clippert was there,” Mulheisen said. “Did you see anyone else?”
“No. No, I was so shocked. I don't believe I would have noticed anything else. At first I didn't recognize her, you see. I mean, I didn't—I couldn't imagine what was happening. She had no clothes on, you see, and . . . there was a lot of blood.”
Mrs. Mercer looked down again. She was trembling. Mulheisen turned to her husband.
“Did you hear anything, sir? Did you hear the bell?”
“I was in the bathroom,” Mr. Mercer said. “I didn't hear the bell. But I did hear a scream. I thought perhaps Edna had fallen. I came downstairs as soon as I could.”
“When you were in the greenhouse, Mrs. Mercer, did you hear any sounds before the bell rang? Like gunshots?”
Mrs. Mercer shook her head.
Mulheisen nodded reassuringly. “I see. So Mrs. Clippert was at the door. Did she walk in by herself? Did you help her?”
“No, I didn't touch her. I was afraid. I backed away from the door, I believe, and she—she seemed to stagger. I could see she was hurt badly, and then I recognized that it was Jane.” Mrs. Mercer sobbed. She took off her glasses and patted her eyes with a handkerchief. After a moment she got control of herself and went on. “She took a couple of steps toward me and then she stopped and was swaying and then she spoke and then she just slumped and fell backwards and she hit the floor. Yes, she hit the floor very hard. And I screamed and then I guess I fainted.”
“Just a moment, Mrs. Mercer,” Mulheisen said. “You say she spoke? What did she say?”
“I hardly know,” Mrs. Mercer said. “I'm not sure. She didn't speak very clearly.”
“What do you think she said?” Mulheisen asked. His tone was a bit less solicitous now, more demanding.
“I'm not sure. She said—well, it was two things, actually. The first thing was ‘not drunk,’ I think.”
“Not drunk?” Mulheisen said.
“Yes. And then she said something that sounded like ‘black blood,’ or it could have been ‘black love.’ I'm pretty sure about the ‘black’ part, but not the other word.”
Buchanan will flip, Mulheisen thought. If there is a racial angle to this he'll be expecting a riot.
“Let's go on to some other things,” Mulheisen said. “What kind of person was Jane Clippert? What kind of life did she lead?”
“Janey was a wonderful girl,” Mr. Mercer put in. His wife nodded in agreement. “She was a beautiful girl and became a fine woman. Her father tried to spoil her, but she couldn't be spoiled. He sent her to schools in Europe. She used to send us postcards from Switzerland.”
“Mr. Bodnar thought the world of her,” Mrs. Mercer said. “She was smart as a whip and sweet, very well-behaved. She wasn't wild at all, like some of these young people you see on television.”
“Did they have any children?” Mulheisen asked.
“No, they didn't,” Mrs. Mercer said. “I don't know why. I never asked.”
Mulheisen hadn't noticed any pictures of children around. He suspected that the Mercers hadn't had any children either. Perhaps they had idealized Jane as a child that they hadn't had. He wondered if they really knew much about her. Well, there would be other sources.
“I suppose the Clipperts were very wealthy,” Mulheisen said. “Did Jane inherit a lot of money from her father?”
“Now that's a funny thing,” Mr. Mercer said. “I was surprised that Arthur didn't go into Bodnar's company, since Axel didn't have any sons. The natural thing would have been for Arthur to take over when the old man retired. But I guess Arthur wanted to go his own way. The company is still going strong, of course, but I don't believe that the Clipperts had any financial interest in it.”
“Well, Jane must have inherited something,” Mulheisen said.
“Yes, and you know what old Axel did? He left her a trust fund so that she got a certain amount each year and then when she turned thirty she would get all of it.”
“That seems odd,” Mulheisen said. “Thirty is kind of an advanced age for that sort of thing, especially if your only child is happily married to a respectable young lawyer. Do you suppose that Bodnar didn't trust Clippert?”
“I don't know about that,” Mr. Mercer said. “I think it was just one of Axel's peculiarities.”
“So she inherited when she turned thirty,” Mulheisen said. “How old was Jane?”
“I'm not sure,” Mrs. Mercer said, “but I think this next April she would be just thirty. April seventeenth.”
Mulheisen was thoughtful. “So, if she wasn't old enough to inherit before she dies, who gets the money?”
“I'm sure I don't know,” Mr. Mercer said. “Perhaps a lawyer could tell you.”
Five
When Mulheisen came downstairs the body was gone. So were Buchanan and Johnson. Mulheisen went over to the Clippert house. He avoided the reporters by cutting across the lawn. His feet sank i
nto the snow and he got snow in his shoes.
The Clippert place was crawling with lab men. They had a lot to work with. The walls had bloody handprints on them. A photographer was taking a picture of a crumpled peignoir that lay on the living-room floor. But it was much, much worse upstairs. It looked like a slaughterhouse. In the bedroom there was even blood on the ceiling.
Inspector Laddy McClain was in there. He was a giant man, standing six-six. He waved Mulheisen into the room. “What a mess, eh, Mul?” he said.
Mulheisen looked around, amazed. “She walked out of here?” he said. “It looks like the Manson family had a party.”
“There's a whole pile of stuff, TV's and paintings, piled by the kitchen door,” McClain said.
“Burglary?” Mulheisen said.
“Could be,” McClain said.
“Any witnesses?” Mulheisen asked. “What about that security patrol?”
“No witnesses, so far. The security patrol passed by here about eight-fifteen. They didn't see anything unusual. I put some of your precinct boys out on the street, door-to-door, talking to neighbors.”
“Funny time for a house job,” Mulheisen said.
McClain rocked on his heels, hands in pockets. “They must have had the place pretty well cased,” he said. “Except, how come they didn't know that somebody was home?”
“You think that maybe they weren't expecting her to be here?”
McClain shrugged. “Hard to say.”
“Maybe they wanted her to be here,” Mulheisen said. “There are some bad men in this neighborhood. She must have been a pretty sexy-looking broad.”
“Then how come they left the loot?”
“Maybe it got rougher than they had planned, so they panicked and ran.”
McClain shook his head. “I don't know,” he said. “But just look at all the blood, will you. Mul, I want you to work on this.”
“Buchanan won't like it.”
“Screw Buchanan. I'll take care of him. Anyway, that's not quite what I had in mind. Officially, and in fact, Homicide will handle the case. I'll be handling it personally. I'll handle the press and the prosecutor's office. What I want is two lines of investigation. The routine, standard approach plus your private investigation. This is going to be a hot case.”
“Fine,” Mulheisen said. “Where's Clippert, by the way?”
“His office says he flew to New York this morning. United confirms that he was on their eight-fifty flight.”
“That lets him off the hook, then,” Mulheisen said. He fished a Dunhill Corona out of his jacket pocket. He clipped the end off with a little device and lit the cigar. McClain looked at him reproachfully. Mulheisen got out another one and handed it to him.
“I'll get Clippert back here right away,” McClain said.
Mulheisen told him about the inheritance problem.
“Interesting,” McClain said. “Brings up the notion of a contract killing, eh?’
“If Clippert inherits,” Mulheisen said.
“Well, it's too early to think about. Thanks for the cigar, Mul. I'll go see the press boys now and then head back downtown. We should start getting the preliminary stuff this afternoon. Give me a call.”
Mulheisen looked into the bathroom. Three lab technicians were bailing bloody water out of the tub. They carefully poured the water through paper filters into labeled jars. A young man with heavy dark-rimmed glasses looked up and pushed the glasses back up on his nose with one finger. “Hi, Mul,” he said.
“How's it going, Frank?”
“Too damn much evidence, Mul. Enough to keep us busy for weeks. And then what'll it amount to?” He gestured at the number of labeled jars, at a cardboard box that was full of small plastic bags that were also labeled and apparently held evidence. “Probably a lot of useless information. But we'll analyze it all. It looks like a hell of a lot of blood in this tub.”
“So she must have been attacked in the tub, Frank.”
“I'd say so,” Frank said. “And from the amount of dirt we've already filtered she would either have had to be the filthiest woman on record, or else someone was in there with her.”
Mulheisen considered that one. He thought of Mrs. Mercer's recollection of Jane Clippert's last words. “Black blood,” or “black love.” Could Mrs. Clippert have been in the tub with someone at eight in the morning, with a lover, perhaps? A black lover? Why not? It was no stranger an idea than that she had been killed.
“I think she probably got out of the tub,” Frank said, “and went into the bedroom. Somebody shot at her at least four times in there. The bullets are in the bed and the wall. If he had a six-shooter, the other two should be in the body.”
“It could have happened in reverse order, couldn't it?” Mulheisen said. “Say they messed her up in there, then ran a bath and threw her in, maybe tried to drown her. They tried everything else.”
“I doubt it,” Frank said. “For one thing, there's fancy bath crystals and oils in the water, as if someone prepared the bath carefully.”
“Here's something, Frank,” one of the other technicians said. He held out a filter on which there was sand and dirt and a piece of wood or plastic about the size of a silver dollar. Frank picked the piece up with a pair of tweezers and held it up for Mulheisen to see.
“Know what that is, Mul?”
“That? That is . . . ah . . . well, let's see. What do you think, Frank?”
Frank smiled and pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Sergeant, in my professional opinion this here is a piece broken off a pistol grip.” He dropped the fragment into a plastic bag and sealed it. The bag was labeled and initialed. “Know the make of the gun, Mul?”
Mulheisen looked at him sourly. “No,” he said.
“It isn't an automatic,” Frank said. “There's no empty cartridges lying around. Of course, they could have picked up their empties, but it doesn't look like they were that careful. And then this shape isn't rectangular enough for an automatic grip. No, I'd say it was a revolver, probably an H & R .32, say. Looks like the kind of material they use for grips, something they call cycolac.”
“I'm impressed,” Mulheisen said. “How about latents?”
A Tennessee drawl that belonged to a long, raw face said, “Feller was wearing gloves. Got blood smudges all over, whole handprints, but no fingerprints.”
Mulheisen went back into the bedroom. He began to look through the desk drawers. There were several pictures of the murdered woman, a couple of them in which she wore a bikini. One of the technicians glanced over his shoulder at the pictures. “Wow,” he said.
“Yeah,” Mulheisen said.
There were a few letters, presumably from friends. Most of them seemed to be from people in distant cities like San Francisco, New York or London. One, however, was from a woman in Grosse Pointe. Why, Mulheisen wondered, would someone in a Detroit suburb write a letter to someone in Detroit?
It was a social note, on engraved stationery, dated December 10—last week.
Dear Jane,
I haven't been able to get you on the phone, dear, but I thought you would like to know that Lou will be home next week, the 16th.
Why don't you call? Perhaps you could have lunch.
Affectionately,
Margaret
The engraved address said “Mrs. Margaret Drake Spencer, Lakeside Drive, Grosse Pointe.”
There was an address book on the desk. Mulheisen flipped it open to the “S” section. The address and telephone number of Lou Spencer was written in a woman's handwriting.
Who was Lou Spencer? he wondered. An old friend? Or an old lover? Today was the seventeenth.
“What time is it?” he asked a lab man.
“Going on eleven,” the man said.
Mulheisen thought it was unlikely that he would learn anything from the Spencers. But it was early and he had to start somewhere. He had to start learning about a beautiful heiress, said to be carefree and gay, a perfect daughter and wife, who now lay und
er a bright overhead light in the Wayne County Morgue while men she had never known peeled back her skin and probed her body with delicate instruments.
Six
Lou Spencer was not what Mulheisen had expected. She was not beautiful, but her figure compared favorably with Jane Clippert's. She was twenty-nine years old, five-five, and had a way of smiling that made her seem to squint.
The Spencer place was pretty impressive, as well. About two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Colonial splendor that looked out on Lake St. Clair across a lawn that was larger than the combined flight decks of several U.S.S. Forrestals. A very pretty black maid put Mulheisen in a long and elegant room to wait for the Spencers. There were tall windows with pale draperies. The fireplace was tall and ornate and there was a very clean fire of logs on the grate.
Lou Spencer was a voluble and cooperative informant. She seemed genuinely shocked by the death of her friend, but it was not possible for her to keep her normal good spirits from surfacing. “Most of the time I just can't believe it,” she said, “and then I convince myself and I'm outraged.”
“When was the last time you saw Jane Clippert?” Mulheisen asked.
“I talked to her just yesterday, when I got in,” she said. “But the last time I saw her was in September, in New York. We went to school together—Country Day, then later in Switzerland. She went on to Vassar and I went to Berkeley. Since then I've lived a rather different life than hers, but we always kept in touch and saw one another when we were in town together.”
“Lou and Jane were always the dearest of friends,” said Margaret Spencer, Lou's mother. Mrs. Spencer sat in a chair by the window. “But they were quite different personalities. Jane is—was—not so serious as Lou.”
“What my mother means, Sergeant,” the girl said with a smile, “is that I spend far too much time doing things like sociological research, instead of marrying and settling down. I suppose this isn't helping you much.”
“Oh, I don't know,” Mulheisen said. “I'd just like to get some kind of picture of Mrs. Clippert. I need to know how this thing could have happened to her.”
The Diehard Page 3