A Streak of Light

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  It was almost two thirty when Tony Cook climbed the stairs to the squad room of Homicide, Manhattan South. Lieutenant Shapiro was in the captain’s office. Tony went into Shapiro’s office and waited. He waited half an hour before Nathan Shapiro came in. Shapiro’s long face was mournful. Of course, it almost always was. It cheered, just perceptibly, when he was onto something. It was clear that now he wasn’t; clear even before he shook his head. He sat down at his desk, which had papers on it.

  What Tony had to tell him didn’t cheer him greatly. Tony hadn’t supposed it would. It was interesting that Faith Claye and Brian Mead had had rooms on the same floor at the Algonquin, and that Mead had, unasked, disclaimed anything but the most casual friendship with his dinner and theater companion of the night before. Did Tony think—?

  Tony had only a shrug to answer that. Mmm. Might be worth looking into further, of course. And that, in New York, Mrs. Claye had tried to get in touch with her husband. Yes, possibly to be sure he was tucked away safely for the night. Just as possibly to tell him she was in town and to arrange for them to meet after the theater.

  As for Shapiro himself—he gestured toward the papers on the desk in front of him.

  Roger Claye had been a male Caucasian, five feet ten inches tall; weighing about a hundred and sixty pounds. He had been somewhere in his fifties, and well nourished. He had had no major physical ailments. He had a slug from a .25 revolver in his brain. Death had been almost instantaneous. He had eaten about six hours before he died. He had had two or three drinks before dinner; probably no alcohol after it.

  The precinct boys had been busy, as behooved them. So had the lab boys.

  Claye had not, apparently, been working at his typewriter when he was shot. There had been no paper in his typewriter and no discarded sheets in his wastebasket. If he had been looking something up in the newspaper morgue, he had not made notes on his memo pad. It was on the desk in front of him, with a pencil beside it. Nothing had been written on the top sheet; there were no indentations on it to suggest that the top sheet had, in fact, been a second sheet, with the actual top sheet torn away.

  There were fingerprints on the desk top and on the drawer pulls. All but two or three were Claye’s own. On the chair which faced the desk—the visitor’s chair—there were further prints of Claye’s and a few smudges which were not going to do anybody any good.

  The slug extracted from his brain was distorted from its contact with his skull. It might provide comparison identification when they found something to compare it with. The identification would be susceptible to challenge by a defense attorney if they managed to come up with a defendant.

  Shapiro’s tone did not suggest much optimism about that.

  The precinct detectives had come up with odds and ends of information.

  Leroy Sampson, managing editor of the Sentinel, was a native of Alabama and a graduate of Tuscaloosa. He had got his B.A. there, had played first base on the baseball team and had had a tryout with minor-league professionals. Either he had changed his mind about a career as a professional athlete or it had been changed for him after the tryout. He had had his first newspaper job on a paper in Montgomery. He had later worked on a paper in Athens, Georgia. He had then worked, for upwards of three years, on an Atlanta paper. He had been in New York for a little more than fifteen years. He had been an assistant city editor on the morning Sentinel and, after it was sold, on the evening edition. He had been city editor of the Sentinel, after it became only an afternoon newspaper, for about a year and had then been promoted to managing editor.

  He had never, it appeared, been too well liked by staff members of the paper. He was, evidently, a martinet. One reporter, who didn’t want to be quoted by name, had referred to Sampson as a “goddamn top sergeant.”

  Sampson was married and had an apartment on Park Avenue.

  Jason Wainwright, editor, was a childless widower. He lived at the Fifth Avenue Hotel at Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street. He was in his late seventies and the Sentinel’s oldest living employee, having been on it, in increasingly important capacities, when it had been owned by Lester Mason and had been in its palmiest days. Wainwright was not listed in Who’s Who in America. He was a member of The Players and, according to the clubhouse manager, lunched there regularly on Saturdays.

  Russel Perryman was prominently in Who’s Who. Born in Boston, September 30, 1909; son of James and Mary Cabot Perryman; educated at Kent and Harvard; inherited a small chain of grocery stores and expanded it into the Perry Stores.

  Tony said “Wow!” when he read that, with Nathan Shapiro regarding him sadly across the desk. “Damn near as big as the A and P, isn’t it?”

  Shapiro nodded his head.

  Perryman had married Ruth Foxwood in 1934. Ruth was deceased, no date of her decease given in the biography. A son, David, had been born in 1949. When, Tony thought, his father was forty. Russel and Ruth Perryman had taken their time about it.

  Perryman had described himself as “merchant and publisher.” He was a member of the Harvard Club and of the Union League Club. “Home” was an address on Sutton Place, New York City.

  “One of those big town houses,” Shapiro said, and added, “His son doesn’t live there. Has an apartment down in your part of town. Grove Street.”

  Tony Cook’s part of town is Greenwich Village. He recently moved from West Twelfth Street to Gay Street, the apartment a floor above Rachel Farmer’s having become vacant. Gay Street is not noticeably more convenient to squad headquarters in the East Twenties than Twelfth Street was, but to Tony it is a good deal more convenient.

  Tony said he knew where Grove Street was.

  “Young Perryman works on his father’s newspaper,” Shapiro said. “On the city staff, whatever that is.” His tone indicated that he mentioned an insoluble mystery.

  “The room we were in first this morning,” Tony said. “The city room. City staff works there. Handles the local news. Writes it. Copyreads it and writes headlines on it. And sends it along to the composing room.” He thought of adding, “As you know perfectly well, Nate,” and decided not to.

  Nathan Shapiro said he saw, but spoke as if he didn’t.

  He’s been talking to the captain, Tony thought. Saying “Ouch!” Saying, “Not another one, Bill? Not over my head again!” And meaning it. Anyway, thinking he means it.

  “Works the eight-to-four shift,” Shapiro said. “The Sentinel has five editions a day. Used to be six, the precinct boys say. The Home Edition, the Night Edition—which comes out on the street a little before two—and the Complete Final, with Wall Street Closings. And then two more Complete Finals, the last containing Complete Sports. There used to be four complete finals, they say. They dropped the last one a couple of years ago.”

  “Probably because they play big-league games mostly at night, now,” Tony said.

  “Could be,” Shapiro said. “And one of the other reporters told a precinct man that David Perryman is known as ‘the office pink.’”

  Tony said, “Huh?”

  “I don’t know,” Shapiro said. “Possibly caught voting Democratic once. From what I gather, ‘pink’ would cover a good many shades of color on the Sentinel.”

  “Anything lighter than coal black,” Tony said. “If Claye’s columns were characteristic, and I guess they were.”

  “Probably,” Shapiro said. “It’s supported Reagan for years, according to Bill Weigand. Thinks Ford too liberal. Bill says Dorian reads it sometimes. To keep from getting low blood pressure, was the way he put it.”

  “She sounds like Rachel,” Tony said.

  “Possibly a little,” Nathan agreed. “Except Mrs. Weigand has green eyes. Speaking of black. And going back to Sampson for a moment. Until three-four years ago, no black person—I mean Negro—ever was a ‘Mr.’ or a ‘Mrs.’ on the Sentinel. Just—oh, ‘Jones’ for the man. ‘The Jones woman’ for the female. By order of Leroy Sampson, managing editor.”

  Tony said, “Mmm,” and added, “Well, he
’s from Alabama, after all.”

  Shapiro agreed that was that. “And this isn’t getting us much of anywhere, is it? Some Communist killed Claye, the way Mr. Perryman seems to think? Or maybe Mrs. Claye’s boyfriend, if any? And how much weight can Perryman throw around with the commissioner?”

  “Not too much, probably,” Tony said. “Wrong party. Still-”

  “Yes,” Shapiro said. “And we’re supposed to come up with some left-wing terrorist, member of what they call a revolutionary army.”

  “Make everybody happy,” Tony said.

  Shapiro shook his head. “Not us,” he said. “What we want is a killer. Somebody who sat across a desk from Claye and shot him with a twenty-five revolver. Let’s think about the physical layout for a while, Tony.”

  Precinct detectives had come through with a memo on the physical layout of the Sentinel Building. The building was six stories. Space was rented on the ground floor to a pharmacy, which was as much snack bar as drugstore. “Seems most of the Sentinel people take their coffee break there after the first edition goes to press.” The pharmacy had entrances both from the street and from the lobby. So did a liquor store next to it. The Sentinel’s business office occupied about half the ground floor.

  There were two elevators, both push-button-operated. “Had operators until about five years ago. Had a starter nine to five.”

  At either end of the lobby there was a staircase. “Everybody working on the second floor is supposed to walk up.”

  “Save wear and tear on the elevators?” Tony suggested.

  Shapiro smiled faintly and said, “Possibly.”

  The second-floor workers who were supposed to plod upstairs were members of the editorial staff—city-room reporters and copyreaders, and editorial writers under Jason Wainwright. Simms and three other men were under Wainwright. The three other editorial writers had offices on the Broadway side of the building. Their offices were like the one Claye had been killed in. All the offices on that side of the second floor had been empty when Claye was shot. The city room had been deserted until the lobster trick came on.

  The composing room occupied the other part of the second floor, across the main corridor where the elevators were. And also the stairway to be walked up. Shapiro put a just discernible question mark after “composing room.”

  “Where they set type,” Tony told him. “Put the paper together, physically. Ready for the presses, which would be in the basement. Where we heard them start rolling.”

  Shapiro said, “I see, Tony,” in a not-happy voice. He added, “I suppose they walk up, too? The people who set type?”

  “Composing room people,” Tony said. “I suppose they must.”

  The sports and financial departments were on the third floor. Those who worked there were permitted to use the elevators, although the sportswriters and editors were encouraged to walk up. The photographers were also quartered on the third floor, in the rear. There may have been sportswriters and an assistant editor on that floor as late as midnight, handling copy on night ball games. Precinct was working on that.

  The advertising department occupied the fourth floor. The advertising manager, whose name was Burton Evans, had a corner office and his assistant a smaller one, adjacent. Half a dozen advertising salesmen had desks. Evans, queried by precinct detectives, was sure nobody in his department had been in the office the previous night. “Why should anybody be? We’re nine to five.”

  The fifth floor was occupied by the Consolidated Features Service, the syndicate which distributed, among other features, the Roger Claye columns. It was only partially owned by the Sentinel and distributed other columns, ranging from those advising troubled readers on matrimonial and related subjects to book reviews. It also, during the season, sent out a weekly theater roundup written by the Sentinel’s drama critic. It syndicated a movie-review column by its own movie reviewer, one Elinor Gibson.

  “Rachel knows her, I think. Wades around in artistic values, Rachel says. Very long and pretty confusing pieces, Rachel says.”

  Shapiro said, “Mmm.” He is not greatly interested in the art of the cinema, although he and Rose sometimes go to movies.

  Shapiro looked at his watch, which showed him three thirty-five. And nothing done. Time frittered away.

  The sixth—and top—floor of the Sentinel Building was the realm of Russel Perryman, owner and publisher. He was not in his office when precinct detectives went to see him. His secretary was at her desk. Mr. Perryman had gone uptown to the Perry Stores Building, as he did most mornings. He would be back after lunch. Probably, although with this tragic thing he might, of course, alter his routine.

  If they wanted to talk to Mr. Johnson, it probably could be arranged. Mr. Johnson? “He’s head of our legal department. Perhaps he can help you.”

  The two precinct detectives rather doubted it.

  “Or perhaps Mr. Dickson? I’m sure Mr. Perryman will want to cooperate any way he can.”

  “Mr. Dickson?”

  “A vice-president of Perry Stores. He has an office down here. So he and Mr. Perryman can consult when they need to.”

  The detectives had decided they wouldn’t need to bother Mr. Dickson, an executive of a grocery chain seeming at some remove from a newspaper columnist.

  “And that’s the setup,” Shapiro said. “For what good it does us. Anybody could have walked into the building and gone up a flight of stairs and shot Claye in his office, with damn little risk of being seen.”

  “Anybody,” Tony said, “who knew he was going to be in his office.”

  “Or followed him to his office from wherever he’d been. And we don’t know where that was, do we? Not at the Eleventh Street house, apparently, if his wife is right. Not in the suite at the Plaza, again on her say-so. And, of course, if a Plaza desk clerk told her the truth.”

  “All evening at the Sentinel office waiting for a murderer to show up?”

  “Or working on his column,” Shapiro said. “Only there doesn’t seem to be any column, does there? Unless whoever killed him took it along. Which, far’s we know, might have been the whole idea. To see that that particular column wasn’t printed.”

  “Why, Nate?”

  Nathan Shapiro hadn’t the faintest idea. He spoke as one who feels he never will have.

  “The thing is,” he said, “we’re just groping around in the dark. We know where he was born and that he married twice and wrote a syndicated column which raised Dorian Weigand’s blood pressure. And your Rachel’s blood pressure.”

  “And that he’s dead and was a member of the John Birch Society.”

  “But nothing about him, Tony. A name and a few scattered facts. Not who he was. Named and fingerprinted, and we can get his Social Security number and find out how much he made a year. All what he was. Not who he was. Did he wake up bright-eyed in the morning? Did he like a hearty breakfast? Did he like night spots, or did he go to bed early? All the little things which make somebody a person, instead of a name. Because it was a person who got killed, wasn’t it?”

  “It could have been an institution, Nate. That got killed, I mean. Could be a column got killed. The man—well, the man almost incidentally.”

  Shapiro said, “Mmm.” He added, “I suppose so. More or less what Perryman thinks, isn’t it? But I don’t know, Tony. All pretty pat, somehow. However—”

  He looked at his watch. It was almost four o’clock. He and Tony Cook were working the eight-to-four shift. Theoretically, as always.

  “Maybe we can get a little more out of Mrs. Claye,” Shapiro said. “Find out, maybe, what made him tick. Maybe she’ll be at the Plaza.”

  He got an outside line and dialed the Plaza Hotel. He got the desk.

  Yes, Mrs. Claye had picked up the key to the Clayes’ leased suite. But she had left word—very firm word—that she did not want to be disturbed.

  “This is a police call,” Shapiro said. “I’m a police lieutenant. So please put me through to her.” He listened a moment. “Y
es,” he said. “I realize that the Clayes are rather special guests, and that her father was for years and that you don’t want to do anything that would disturb her at a time like this. Suppose you ring the suite and ask her if I can see her for a few minutes? Shapiro. Lieutenant Nathan Shapiro. One of the officers who talked to her earlier today.”

  The clerk said, well, he guessed he could do that.

  Shapiro waited. He waited what seemed like a long time. Finally—

  “Mrs. Claye’s suite doesn’t answer, sir. Probably she has gone out.”

  Or, of course, wasn’t answering her phone. No, they needn’t bother to page Mrs. Claye. He would try again later, or perhaps in the morning.

  “This guy Simms?” Tony said. “The associate editor down at the Sentinel? The one who was writing the editorial about Claye?”

  Shapiro hadn’t got the idea that Simms knew Claye very well. Still, he might be a place to grope.

  “I’ll stop by and see him,” Shapiro said. “More or less on my way home. We’ll pick it up again in the morning. Meet you—let’s say at the Sentinel Building. Nose around a little there. Maybe have a little talk with Mr. Perryman himself, if he’s not too occupied with groceries.”

  Tony Cook said, “O.K.,” and stood up. He had turned toward the door of Shapiro’s small office when Shapiro spoke again.

  “This Grove Street,” Shapiro said. “Not too far from where you live now, is it?”

  “Only a few blocks,” Cook said. “Young Perryman?”

  “If he happens to be home,” Shapiro said. “Supposed to be off work at four. Ought to be getting home about now.”

  “Find out how pink he is?”

  “We could stand to know,” Shapiro said. “His father and Mrs. Claye’s father were business associates. And it could be Bradford got his son-in-law the job on the paper, couldn’t it? And David Perryman is—well, part of the family. Whatever he can tell us, Tony. About anything, I guess.”

  Tony said “O.K.” again, and this time walked out of Shapiro’s office. The four-to-midnight shift was occupying desks in the squad room. Detective (1st gr.) Cunningham was on a telephone, listening to the shift’s first squeal.