The Clairvoyant Countess

by Dorothy Gilman

  “You’re sure they came from the car?”

  “Bloody sure. I keep my place free of litter and I’d picked the drive clean at 9 A.M. Things flew out, I could see it. A pity the girl didn’t too; the car caught fire inside of a few seconds.”

  Pruden found the shoe still at the morgue. “We gave the passport to the old man—her grandfather, he said he was—and turned over the remains to the Jacobs Funeral Home. There didn’t seem much point in giving the old man the shoe, he was in bad enough shape as it was.”

  It was a size-six shoe: Pruden wrote this down.

  The police report was straightforward enough: the accident had yielded the charred body of a young female. The car license was H10567, a red Datsun registered in the name of Jan Heyer, 206 Boulevard, Apartment 3. Passport and left shoe found near car. Charred framework of two suitcases inside car; a sifting of ashes yielded one gold ring and the remains of a gold watch, both identified by grandfather as belonging to owner of car. Next of kin: Mr. and Mrs. Fritz Heyer, 37 Eighth Street. End of case.

  There was only one more thing he could do, and after thinking about an approach to this, he telephoned the girl’s grandfather. He was sorry to trouble them, he said, but a shoe had turned up at the scene of the accident and he wondered if Mr. Heyer could tell him Jan Heyer’s shoe size. The old man accepted the question without curiosity. Pruden heard him call to his wife and then he came back to the telephone and said in a depressed voice, “Size seven and a half.”

  Pruden had expected him to say size six. It was the only piece of evidence that hadn’t been checked out and he had been sorely tempted to overlook it but he was too good a policeman. This discrepancy jarred him. He said, “You’re positive of this?”

  “Oh yes. My wife, she has all Jan’s sizes written down on a piece of paper.”

  It was a very small discrepancy, thought Pruden since everything else belonged to the girl, the car, the passport, the ring, the watch, but he realized that it had startled him. He wondered if this was because it proved to him how impervious he was to Madame Karitska’s wild suggestion the girl might be alive. He thought in dismay, “I’ve been humoring Madame Karitska,” and he wondered if she knew this.

  “Yes, of course,” she told him when they faced each other across a table at the Green Door Restaurant that evening. “But this is very natural under the circumstances, is it not so? I am very glad that something has made a small dent in your complacency.”

  “It doesn’t change anything,” he reminded her quickly. “The shoe could have been tossed from a passing car only moments before Jan Heyer drove out of the underpass, or a friend might have left a pair of shoes in the car.”

  “Yes,” said Madame Karitska, regarding him with such amusement that he hastily asked her what she had learned today.

  “Not much,” she said. “This—how do you call it, leg work?—is very tiring. You gave me the names of twenty-one young women reported missing since Tuesday. I can tell you that Consuelo Sanchez returned home this morning, and that Nina Abbott’s parents heard from her in today’s mail that she has eloped and is in California.” She brought the list from her purse and placed it on the table. “I have visited fifteen from the list, with four more to go. In five cases I knew at once they were wrong—they did not know how to drive, or were too old or too young—and at ten places I did readings.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing yet,” she told him with spirit. “I shall visit the remaining four addresses after dinner.”

  Surprised, he said, “What about clients this evening?”

  “I canceled them, this is the more important.”

  “Why?” he asked, staring at her curiously. “Ego? Vanity? To prove you’re right?”

  She gave him a steady, thoughtful glance. “It has not occurred to you, Lieutenant, that if Jan Heyer was not killed on Tuesday then wherever she is she could be in some danger?”

  “No,” he said calmly, “because it hasn’t occurred to me yet that she wasn’t killed.”

  “Then you have kinder dreams than I,” she said shortly, and put down her coffee cup. “This has been delightful but I must go.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he said. “You shouldn’t be walking all over the city alone at night.”

  Their third call brought them to a fourth-floor walk-up on Fourth Street where the city had lately enjoyed an invasion of young people looking for low rents. The card on the door of the apartment read “Grahn and Shilhaus.” A heavily made-up girl with bright red hair answered their knock.

  “Is this where Carol Grahn lives?” asked Madame Karitska.

  The girl looked with interest at Pruden and with undisguised indifference at Madame Karitska. “Look, she’s not here and I don’t know where she is. I’m not going to ask you in, I go to work in two hours—I’m a nightclub dancer—and I got to save my energy.”

  “Then we’ll talk in the hall,” said Madame Karitska. “Is Miss Grahn a dancer too?”

  “No, she floats.” At the look on Madame Karitska’s face the girl explained tiredly, “Floats around. Works when she needs the bread. You know, typist, stock clerk.” She added quickly. “But she’s trying to break into acting. Very artistic, you know? Look, who are you anyway?”

  Pruden brought out his wallet and showed her his ID card. “She’s been missing since Tuesday?”

  “Actually since Sunday,” the girl said with a shrug. “We room together—strictly a financial arrangement, you understand, you can’t call us friends. Never knew her before, and we never butted into each other’s affairs but we had this agreement. I mean, we found out fast that we’re both nervous as hell about the city, especially at night, you know? So we made this pact that we’d sort of keep tabs on each other. If one of us didn’t turn up for twenty-four hours we’d report it.” She sighed. “I waited even longer, you know? Two nights. I kept thinking she’d show up but she didn’t. I don’t know, maybe she forgot our agreement but we had it and at least I kept my part of the deal.”

  Pruden said, “You think she’d forget something as important as that?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, she certainly hasn’t been the same since she met Tommy; she forgets everything.”

  “Tommy,” said Madame Karitska, suddenly alert.

  “Yeah. A real clown. I don’t think he’s worth the time of day but she thought he was great. Me, I think he was on drugs. A crazy, hipped-up kind of guy.”

  Madame Karitska said hopefully, “Do you know his last name, or where we could find him?”

  The girl looked tired. “Don’t know a thing about him, really I don’t. No, wait a minute, I think he’s the guy she met at the settlement house.”

  “It was Pruden who said sharply, “What settlement house?”

  “Harlow. Two blocks from here. You know. Carol practically lived there.”

  “Would you,” said Madame Karitska in a practical voice, “have a photograph of Carol in the apartment, or one of Tommy?”

  The girl sighed. “Hell, I guess you’d better come in, it’s drafty enough in this hall.”

  The apartment looked as if nobody had touched anything since the movers walked out. The girl rummaged in a bureau drawer, contributing further to the disorder, and drew out a piece of cardboard. “Here’s her graduation picture, 1972, from Oak Falls, Nebraska. The one she had of Tommy, I’ve seen it, she must be carrying with her.”

  Madame Karitska took the picture and studied it: a girl with long dark hair, high cheekbones, laughing eyes; a young face, immature, not beautiful but eager for life. Perhaps too eager for life, thought Madame Karitska, and thanked her. “May we borrow this?”

  “Be my guest.”

  As they descended the narrow stairs Madame Karitska said quietly, “Jan Heyer worked at the settlement house two days a week.”

  “I know,” Pruden said grimly. “That’s where we’re heading next.”

  The Harlow Settlement House was a square, decaying brick building adjoining the old Harlow Hospital. As m
oney had begun to flow out of Third Street in the fifties, an exodus that soon turned into a rout, the hospital and the settlement house had been left stranded, rather like middle-aged widows suddenly confronted with a vast number of children to raise and only wit and imagination to bridge the gap. Both institutions had survived, and had even acquired a kind of brash youthfulness. Life raced through their walls now like blood through an artery, pulsating, sometimes anemic, frequently needing transfusions but always managing to narrowly surmount disaster.

  It was eight o’clock when they entered the building. Pruden headed first for the director’s office to explain their presence to Miss Brylawski.

  “Oh, it’s a terrible loss,” said Miss Brylawski with feeling. “Terrible. You can’t replace people like Jan Heyer. The kids loved her, she talked their language. She was a darling.”

  “How about this girl?” asked Pruden, handing her Carol’s photograph. “Her name is Carol Grahn and she spends time here. Would you know if her path ever crossed Miss Heyer’s?”

  “I wouldn’t have the foggiest, you’ll want to see Harry Jones on that,” said Miss Brylawski. “You’ll find him downstairs in the lion’s den. Me, I sit up here doing paperwork and supplying the glue that holds the place together.”

  Harry Jones proved easy to find: he was huge and black and he looked as if he could supply considerable glue to hold things together too. His glance assessed both Madame Karitska and Pruden before he said amiably, “Sure, I know Carol. Used to hang around with Tommy Brudenhall.”

  “Ah,” said Madame Karitska triumphantly.

  “Used to?” repeated Pruden.

  “Haven’t seen Carol since Tommy split. He worked here—janitor work. We gave him a room in the basement. Sunday he just left.”

  “What’s his background?” asked Pruden, and meeting that level stare again he sighed and brought out his wallet. “Police,” he explained.

  “I see.” The eyes didn’t waver. “Miss Brylawski clear this?”

  “We stopped there first. She knows me.”

  “Okay, then. Tommy had a police record, he’d been in prison. We try to give a break to kids like that.”

  “Do you know whether Carol was ever a patient of Jan Heyer’s?” asked Madame Karitska.

  His eyes flickered. “That girl’s death cost me something, man. One hell of a sweet kid, Jan. Just out of school, you know? Really with it.”

  Madame Karitska tactfully asked her question again.

  “Patient? I wouldn’t know, but Chick or Deirdre would. They saw Jan regularly, and the kids with regular appointments always seemed to know who else went. Like a club.” He pointed to a door down the corridor. “You go in there—that’s my office—and I’ll send along anybody I can find. We’re having basketball play-offs, there should be someone.”

  Actually Harry found several young people who had been patients of Miss Heyer when she visited the settlement house. Chick’s appointments were on Wednesday, and he said he’d never seen Carol Grahn leaving the office or waiting to go in. Miranda knew Carol but had no idea whether she had ever had therapy with Jan Heyer. Then Deirdre bounced into the office, eager, joyous, and winsome. Deirdre was sixteen, with a fine-boned black face and a smile as brilliant as a sunrise. Yes, Carol had visited Miss Heyer twice as a patient, she reported, because Carol had told her so. Carol had hated the psychologist after seeing her, because Miss Heyer had suggested that she come in regularly for help, and Carol hadn’t liked that at all. It was, Deirdre announced with authority, a typical love-hate relationship because although Carol hated the psychologist she imitated her too. Like the wig, for instance.

  “Wig?” said Madame Karitska quickly.

  “It was about a week ago,” explained Deirdre. “I had a Saturday-morning appointment with Miss Heyer, nine o’clock, and the door to her office was open so I walked in and Miss Heyer was standing with her back to me looking out the window. On Saturdays, you see, she often came in wearing blue jeans—it was on weekdays she always wore suits and stuff—so I really thought it was Miss Heyer. Then she turned around and it was Carol, wearing a blond wig. She looked so much like Miss Heyer I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

  “Wig,” repeated Pruden, and for the first time felt that kindling of excitement that came to him when a piece of unexpected information gave a new dimension to a case. “Go on.”

  “Carol laughed and said she was playing a joke on Miss Heyer. She pulled off the wig and put it in a little box and told me not to tell or I’d spoil things. Then she went out.”

  “What did you think of Carol?” asked Madame Karitska softly.

  Deirdre considered this a moment before saying earnestly, “Nice, but really heavy dependency needs. We played ping-pong a lot but if any man came along she’d switch right away and put on a big act. Very juvenile,” Deirdre explained scornfully. “You’d never guess she was twenty, she was more like sixteen or seventeen inside, and Tommy wasn’t good enough for her at all, but she wanted somebody and it didn’t matter much who.”

  “Thanks, Deirdre,” Pruden said. “Thanks very much.” When she had gone he looked at Madame Karitska and nodded. “I think I’ve got enough to order an exhumation now. I think it’s time we find out once and for all who’s buried in Jan Heyer’s grave.”

  In the morning the Saturday edition of the Trafton Times carried the photographs of Jan Heyer and Carol Grahn with the caption: HAS ANYONE SEEN THESE WOMEN SINCE TUESDAY? As usual the newspaper had no sooner reached the stands than the telephone calls began, all of them needing to be sifted, tirelessly examined for the single piece of information that might yield a clue or a motive to this possible confusion of identities, and then at eleven o’clock Detective-Sergeant Michelangelo walked into Pruden’s office and handed him a motive on a silver platter.

  He said, “I don’t know if you remember me, Lieutenant, I worked out of the Dell precinct and I recently handled all your inquiries about John Tortorelli?”

  “Of course,” said Pruden, shaking his hand. “What can I do for you, Sergeant?”

  Michelangelo began talking, and before he had even finished his story Pruden interrupted him to call Madame Karitska, ordered a patrol car sent for her, and asked the Chief and Swope to come to his office. They were waiting for him when Michelangelo left, and Pruden, ushering the three into his office, understood that his moment of truth had arrived. Swope had met Madame Karitska at the hospital, had in fact held several conversations with her on the subject of psychic phenomena, but the Chief knew nothing about her. The Chief was also a man who demanded proofs of every fact presented to him and barely tolerated intuition; the introduction of a psychic into the case could prove stormy.

  He said bluntly, “Madame Karitska is a clairvoyant who’s helped me on a number of cases. I called her in because she was the first—in fact the only—person to believe that Jan Heyer may still be alive.”

  The Chief blinked. He gave Madame Karitska a startled glance but made no comment, only saying impatiently, “We won’t know until after the exhumation whether Miss Heyer’s alive. I take it you’ve discovered something new since last night?”

  “A motive,” said Pruden, holding up a photograph. “A reason why Carol Grahn could have masqueraded as Jan Heyer. Sergeant Michelangelo brought this to my office a few minutes ago. You know we’ve had a communication lag because of the teletype strike, but this is a blown-up photo of the young woman who robbed the Trafton National Bank on Tuesday morning. At 9 A.M.,” he emphasized, and placed the photograph on the desk in front of them.

  Madame Karitska examined it first before handing it to the Chief. “A surprisingly clear photograph,” she said.

  Pruden nodded. “Obviously an amateur or she would have known where the bank’s surveillance camera was concealed.”

  The Chief said, “It looks a hell of a lot like the Grahn girl. Damn it, it is the Grahn girl.”

  “I think so too,” said Pruden. “What’s more, Tommy Brudenhall’s police record came in after I talked
to you last night. He was convicted of armed robbery of a bank. If you put the two facts together—”

  Swope whistled. “It makes a picture, Lieutenant.”

  “Okay, how do you figure it?” the Chief demanded.

  Pruden said quietly, “I’ve begun to think Madame Karitska’s right, and that Carol Grahn was driving the Heyer car when it crashed on Tuesday. Everyone at the settlement house knew about Miss Heyer’s upcoming trip abroad. It was her first, and she was excited. Maybe Carol commented to Tommy that some people had all the luck, and it gave Tommy the idea, or perhaps they’d been planning a bank job to get their hands on some money and here was the perfect getaway scheme: Carol, with the same height and build as Jan Heyer, same shape of face, same high cheekbones. The difference in hair could be easily solved by a blond wig and she’d look enough like Jan Heyer to get through passport controls. They’d split the money before she left—they netted sixty thousand dollars in the robbery—and Tommy would join her in another country later.

  “Jan Heyer’s plane was due to leave at 12:30 P.M.,” he continued. “I think they planned the robbery for 9 A.M., with Tommy outside in a car, and I’d guess that by then they’d already hijacked Jan Heyer’s car and luggage, and probably Jan Heyer as well. After the bank holdup Carol changed into Miss Heyer’s clothes and set out for the airport in her car, with her luggage, passport, wallet, and other identification.”

  “And was killed,” concluded Swope.

  They were silent and then the Chief said, “In that case where is Jan Heyer?”

  Pruden said grimly, “My guess is that she was stashed away somewhere on Monday night by Tommy and Carol, and now only Tommy Brudenhall knows where she is, and if he buys newspapers he may be in California by this time.”

  “Good Lord,” said the Chief. “And no way to find her?”

  “I think,” Madame Karitska said calmly, “that I may be of some help to you here.”

  Until now the Chief had successfully avoided acknowledging her presence; grudgingly he turned to look at her, saying coldly, “Oh?”