Sinners and Shrouds

by Jonathan Latimer

  ‘I don’t know,’ Clay said.

  ‘We got Bundy and we’re ready to go.’

  ‘I’ll call you,’ Clay said and hung up. Talbot was writing something on a yellow pad. ‘I know I committed a faux pas in Mr Standish’s office.’ Alma Plummer said. ‘And I wanted to ask you——’

  Talbot spoke into the telephone. ‘Tall … lean, hungry face … hooked nose … sandy eyebrows and hair? That’s Clay all right.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Clay said.

  ‘This may not seem important to you——’ Alma Plummer began.

  ‘Full name’s Sam Clay,’ Talbot said into the telephone. ‘Worked here for years.’

  Clay felt as though someone had kicked him in the stomach. He wanted to hide somewhere, but he couldn’t move. He felt his knees tremble.

  ‘Want us to hold him?’ Talbot said into the telephone, then stared accusingly at Clay. ‘What in hell did you do last night?’

  ‘The elevator boy,’ Clay croaked. ‘How’d he know my name?’

  ‘Elevator boy! Don’t kid me!’ Talbot grinned crookedly at Alma Plummer. ‘A dame, wanting to know if the Clay she laid last night really works here.’

  ‘My goodness!’ Alma Plummer said.

  ‘A dame?’ Clay said, bewildered.

  ‘You’re safe,’ Talbot said. ‘She hung up.’ He flicked a key on the control box. ‘Roddy,’ he said into the telephone. ‘What gives?’

  Alma Plummer stared at Clay, round-eyed, then hurried away. Clay sank into Eddie Wynkoop’s chair next to the slot. He took a cigarette from Talbot’s pack, dropped it on the floor, picked it up and put it back in the pack.

  ‘Did she give her name?’ he finally managed to ask.

  ‘She was stewed,’ Talbot said. ‘No, not you, Roddy.’

  Canning came up behind Talbot, looked over his shoulder at the yellow pad. ‘Anything yet?’

  ‘Police still working the boy over,’ Talbot said.

  Canning turned to Clay. ‘Sam, you’re to go over to the apartment.’

  ‘Apartment? What for?’

  ‘Snoop around. Cops don’t always get everything. Colour, too, if we decide to play it that way.’ He examined the city room, a general getting ready to deploy his troops. ‘And report to me first, no matter what you dig up. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Clay said.

  Talbot, still holding the telephone, gave his seat to Canning. ‘Assignment sheet,’ Canning said.

  As Talbot was finding the sheet, Clay rose from his chair, steadying himself on the desk. He thought irrelevantly, one more near miss and I’m dead anyway!

  ‘Roddy’s still at the apartment,’ Talbot said. He fingered a switch on the telephone control box. ‘For you, Sam.’

  Clay picked up Eddie Wynkoop’s phone. ‘Clay?’ a harsh voice asked.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Pay no attention to that squarehead,’ the voice said. ‘You will report to me first.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ Clay asked again.

  ‘Almonds,’ the voice said.

  The light on the control box went out. ‘Get going!’ Canning said.

  Chapter 5

  A HEARSE and two black police cars squatted in front of the apartment house, blocking the no-parking zone. In a rectangle of shade under a tattered canopy lettered ‘Fifty-five East Delaware’ stood a uniformed policeman. On either side of the canopy, in shirt sleeves and cotton dresses, were the strange, faceless people who mysteriously appear at accidents, weddings and funerals in a big city. The Observers, someone had called them. People from another world. There were about thirty of them, standing shoulder to shoulder, silent, motionless, watchful.

  Sam Clay, making his way between hearse and police car from his double-parked taxi, had an impulse to become an Observer, too. He wished he was faceless and bodyless, so he could go through the motions of covering the story unnoticed. Especially by the elevator operator. For the tenth time he wondered what he had told the police.

  In a lobby, leaning one elbow on the reception desk, was another officer. He was talking to a thin girl with black hair. ‘… chicken pizza and green noodles,’ he was saying. Clay displayed his press card, keeping his head turned away from both of them. ‘Seven,’ the officer said and added, ‘… ya make ’em with spinach.’

  The bronze elevator indicator pointed to 9, but Clay found he was unable to press the call button. He knew with utter certainty the operator would recognize him the minute the door opened. As he struggled inwardly, debating what to do, metal clanked around the corner to his left. A voice said, ‘Easy, George,’ and another voice said, ‘Hold them doors.’ Clay moved to the corner, almost collided with a stocky man carrying the front end of a chromium ambulance bed. ‘Gangway,’ the man said.

  Clay halted, staring at the sheet-draped mound on the litter. It did not resemble anything human; in the dim light, swaying gently with the motion of the men, fastened in place by two canvas bands, without form or shape, it looked gelatinous, like a jello mould made for a banquet. He watched the men cross the lobby, then noticed a gnomelike face peering out of the service elevator. ‘I knew her,’ said the face. ‘I had an eye on her.’

  It was the hunchback who had been sorting trash on the fourth floor landing. Clay recoiled, then remembered the man hadn’t seen him. He moved to the elevator. ‘How about running me up to seven?’

  The man was barely five feet tall. His fingers were thin, gnarled. ‘Police?’ he asked.

  ‘Reporter.’

  ‘Get in.’

  The doors groaned as they slid together, and there was a sound of chain striking metal as the elevator inched upwards. The hunchback’s eyes, bright and furtive, flicked across Clay’s face.

  ‘Harlot,’ he said. ‘Woman of sin.’

  The elevator creaked, then picked up speed with a series of shuddering jerks. A door marked 2 went by. The man’s voice had a hollow sound, as though it was coming through a pipe.

  ‘He grew weary of her wantonness,’ he said. ‘He sent His Angel for her.’

  Metal ground against metal as the elevator forced its way past an obstruction, swayed past 3. The man hacked, spat phlegm on the floor.

  ‘Jezebel,’ he said.

  The numbers slid by. Clay’s mouth tasted of cotton. The corpse and the hunchback’s croaking had unsettled his stomach. He felt relief when 7 appeared and the elevator stopped.

  ‘I had an eye on her,’ the man said. ‘I was watchin’ her.’ His face was ecstatic. ‘And I seen him. The Angel of the Lord!’

  The door opened and Clay stepped into the hall, said ‘Globe’ to the policeman in front of 703 and went into the apartment. A grey-haired man in a Palm Beach suit was seated on the black satin divan cleaning the bowl of a briar pipe with a penknife. There were shreds of caked tobacco on his pants. He glanced at Clay.

  ‘Ain’t you kinda late for the party?’ he asked.

  Clay stared at him unhappily. He had covered other homicides handled by Lieutenant Diffendorf and he knew he was one of the best men in the Bureau, an honest, intelligent officer whose refusal to play politics had kept him from being Chief of Detectives.

  ‘Where’s Roddy?’ he asked.

  ‘Back bedroom. Body’s gone, though.’

  ‘I saw it.’

  Diffendorf knocked his pipe against an ash-tray. ‘Ought to be a law against homicides on Sunday.’ He sniffed at the bowl. ‘Especially ones that don’t make sense.’

  He cocked an eye at Clay, but Clay didn’t say anything.

  The lieutenant’s voice became faintly outraged. ‘Guy comes up with girl God knows what time. Or meets her. Anyhow, they drink brandy in the bedroom. Very gay, up to about five o’clock, when he suddenly decides to cut her up. Which seems to meet with her approval, because she don’t resist. Then the guy, doubtless wore out by his exertions, goes to bed and pounds his ear until a little after eight.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Clay asked.

  ‘He answers the phone, even makes a joke. “
It’s your dime,” he says. “Speak up.”’ The lieutenant eyed Clay. ‘We got that right from your own paper.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Lady called us. Laura Peterkins, by name.’

  ‘Society editor,’ Clay said. ‘Did she … recognize the voice?’

  ‘“Muffled,” she said. “Thick, like a drunk.” Big help.’ Diffendorf began to whittle at the pipe again. ‘The guy showers and shaves and gets dressed, pockets the murder weapon and a ten-thousand-dollar bracelet, but leaves a clip worth about five, clubs the maid with the brandy bottle and waltzes out in the Sunday sunshine …’

  He broke off, stared at Clay. ‘You listening?’

  Clay wasn’t. His eyes were fixed on an object half hidden behind Diffendorf on an end table. His hat! He had difficulty resisting an urge to pick it up. The lieutenant turned to see what he was looking at, lifted the hat between thumb and forefinger. ‘How come?’ he asked.

  Clay managed to reply, ‘How come what?’

  ‘The interest. You recognize it?’

  ‘Looks like one of mine.’

  ‘You better hope it ain’t.’ The lieutenant put the hat back on the table. ‘Because so far it’s about all we got.’

  ‘How do you know it’s his?’ Clay asked weakly.

  ‘Maid. Says it wasn’t here yesterday.’ Diffendorf’s clear blue eyes rested on Clay’s face. ‘Want to claim it?’

  ‘God, no!’

  ‘Okay.’ Diffendorf yawned. ‘And now, since you know everything I do, why don’t you go away?’

  Clay turned and started down the hall. He knew the lieutenant was joking, but he also knew it would take only a few more jokes like that to arouse his suspicion, which would be fatal. How could he have forgotten the hat? And what else had he forgotten?

  He went into the bedroom, found Roddy and the Tribune’s Kitty Kelly watching a bulky detective examine the dressing-room. From the doorway, except for a pile of used flash bulbs in a corner and some cigarette stubs on the carpet, the bedroom seemed unchanged, but Clay felt no particular emotion of any sort.

  Roddy came over to him, spoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Too bad you missed her. A real dish.’

  The detective heard him. ‘If you happen to like raw hamburger,’ he said. He straightened up from a drawer, a brassière dangling from one hand, and stared at Clay. There were sweat stains under the armpits of his seersucker coat.

  Roddy introduced him as Sergeant Storm. The sergeant did not seem pleased to meet Clay. ‘You the guy who stole the X-ray plates in the Zimmerman case?’ he asked.

  ‘Now, Sarge,’ Roddy said.

  ‘Well, tell him to keep his hands in his pockets this time,’ Storm said, bending back over the drawer. ‘Both hands.’

  Roddy shrugged. He was a mousy little man who in twenty years of covering the Detective Bureau had learned to like cops. He had even married a policewoman. ‘Want the dope?’ he asked Clay, extracting a pencil-scrawled envelope from his hip pocket.

  Clay borrowed a pencil and another envelope and wrote down: ‘Mary Trevor, 24, 55 E. Delaware, fashion reporter, time of death undetermined, don’t know if raped yet, body to County for posting, bracelet, murder weapon missing, maid, Clarissa Simpson, 22, 3812 S. State, surprised killer, KO’d with brandy bottle, still hysterical, Trevor dame no apparent relatives in Chi, came from Fort Worth year ago, police there checking, dragnet out here, pick up all registered sex offenders, check back on dame’s last movements, question apartment people, taxi drivers, night spots, all available men assigned says Acting Chief Summerfield, promises quick arrest.’

  Clay glanced over what he had written, asked dubiously, ‘All available men?’

  ‘Couple of dozen assigned,’ Roddy said. ‘Most of ’em been here and gone.’

  ‘Probably back to bed,’ said Kitty Kelly. She was a tiny, intense woman with too-big eyes who specialized in stories about the perils encountered by young women taking jobs as B-girls, dance-hall hostesses, dental assistants and gun molls in the big city.

  ‘What about the elevator boy?’ Clay asked.

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Roddy turned the envelope upside down, squinted at some chicken marks near the top. ‘Clarence Gilmore, 19, 738 West Ashford.’

  ‘Soprano,’ Kitty Kelly said.

  ‘Soprano?’

  ‘Claims he’s a singer,’ Kitty Kelly said darkly. ‘If he is. he sings soprano.’

  ‘A jerk!’ Sergeant Storm said from the dressing-room.

  Roddy looked at the envelope again. ‘Took a man down just before the maid rang the bell.’

  ‘Brown hair, tall, wearing either a brown or a grey suit,’ Sergeant Storm growled. ‘Fit half the men in the city.’

  ‘Said he’d recognize him, though,’ Roddy said.

  ‘He wouldn’t recognize his own ass,’ Sergeant Storm said, coming out of the dressing-room. He scowled at Clay, then went out the hallway door. Roddy put his envelope away. ‘That’s the works,’ he said. ‘So far, at least.’

  ‘The maid?’ Clay asked.

  ‘Diffendorf’s got a man questioning her.’

  ‘She knows something,’ Kitty Kelly said.

  ‘Everybody knows something,’ Roddy said.

  He went out the door and Clay stared after him, mentally sorting out what he had learned. There didn’t seem to be many leads. The hat, which he doubted could be traced back to him; the elevator boy, as long as they didn’t meet, and even Laura Peterkins didn’t seem particularly dangerous. Not, at least, until he was a suspect, God forbid! As for the maid, he decided, he’d better keep out of her way.

  ‘The wages of sin,’ Kitty Kelly said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This golden cage,’ Kitty Kelly said. ‘You don’t think she paid for it herself, do you?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought.’

  ‘How much do you suppose she made on the Globe?’

  ‘Hundred a week, maybe.’

  ‘Well …?’

  It was an idea. Somebody must have been keeping her. A hundred a week would barely pay for maid and rent, he thought, with little extra for clothes, jewellery and mink coats. Unless she was an oil heiress, and in that case she wouldn’t be working on the Globe. At least he wouldn’t, if he were an oil heiress.

  ‘… the manager,’ Kitty Kelly said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, find the manager. He’ll know who paid the rent.’

  ‘Good idea. Where is he?’

  ‘Think I’d be here if I knew?’ She slipped between the beds, picked up the phone and began to dial. At the same time she said, ‘What’s the matter with you today, Sam?’

  ‘Dumb,’ he said. ‘Just dumb.’

  He got out the envelope he had borrowed and wrote: ‘Apt. Mgr.—rent? What abt checking account? Where bot coat? Where bot jewellery? Who paid maid?’

  Kitty Kelly spoke softly into the telephone. ‘Pat? Kitty. Body’s gone now. County morgue. And I’m about cleaned up.… Sure, I’ll hang on.’

  Clay started towards the dressing-table, remembering the gold-beaded evening purse there, but near the dressing-table entrance his foot struck something that gurgled as it toppled. He bent over and righted the brandy bottle, which had been standing just where he had left it.

  ‘Naughty, naughty!’ Kitty Kelly said from the bed. ‘Mustn’t touch!’

  He went on to the table, reached for the purse.

  ‘First National,’ Kitty Kelly said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her bank,’ Kitty Kelly said.

  Clay glanced at her over his shoulder. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Purse.’

  ‘What about the mink coat?’

  ‘Marshall Field.’

  ‘Clothes?’

  ‘Marshall Field.’

  ‘And the clip?’

  ‘I’m not psychic’

  ‘The hell you’re not!’

  He went through the dressing-room into the bathroom. The towel he had used was still crumpled on the floor and water was dripping
in the shower. He stood looking at himself in the mirror. He seemed pale but composed, as the saying went. He wished his brain was clearer though; there were probably a dozen things he ought to be looking into. He felt like a cub reporter on his first case. Or maybe a murderer, after his first murder. His mouth felt dry and he drank some water out of the glass in which he had put the Alka-Seltzer tablets. Then he went back to the bedroom. Kitty Kelly had gone. He sat on the bed he had slept in and dialled the Globe’s number on the telephone. Andy Talbot switched him to rewrite, to Delos Parkinson.

  ‘How much do you want?’ Clay asked.

  ‘Everything fit for me to hear,’ Parkinson said primly.

  He seemed to know most of the essential facts, but Clay gave them to him again, anyway: described the apartment and ended up with Kitty Kelly’s idea about the manager.

  ‘Name’s Hill,’ Parkinson said. ‘Playing golf. Brinks out looking for him now.’

  ‘Who found that out?’ Clay asked.

  ‘Damned if I know. Hold on. Desk wants you.’

  Andy Talbot came back on the phone. ‘What a madhouse!’ he said. ‘People running like crazy!’

  ‘Who found out about the apartment manager?’ Clay asked.

  ‘Canning. Knows him, I guess. Why?’

  ‘Just wondered.’

  ‘Action, my boy, not wondering, is the watchword!’ Talbot said. ‘Grill elevator boy. Grill maid. Grill doorman, mailman, milkman, ashman, beggarman, thief!’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And in your spare time, you better answer a few calls.’

  ‘What calls?’

  ‘Same drunk woman. No name. Will call back.’ Talbot rustled some papers, paused while he found the one he was looking for. ‘Your wife, Alice. Call at once. Tom Nichols. Ditto. Girl named Gwen. Ditto. What you got, boy, a harem? Drunk woman again. Same routine. Camille Nichols. Please call. Could this be Tom’s wife? And does Tom know?’ He paused, took a deep breath. ‘One more. Man. Sinister voice, sending shivers up and down spine. Mr Almond. Says you know where to reach him.’

  Clay shook his head, trying to absorb this flood of information. ‘That all?’

  ‘All! You keep on and we’ll need a special switch board!’