The Screaming Mimi

by Fredric Brown

  The story said she was beautiful, but the story would have said that in any case, provided only that she was under forty and didn’t have buck teeth or crossed eyes.

  The story said that she was Dorothy Lee, 25, beautiful blonde private secretary of J. P. Andrews, sales manager of the Reiss Corporation at an address on Division Street that Sweeney recognized as being near Dearborn. Her home address, he noticed with surprise, was on East Erie Street, only a block from his own. Only a block from where he sat right now reading about it. Good Lord, he thought, why hadn’t Bline mentioned that? Of course – Bline thought he already knew it, since he was working on the case.

  And maybe that was another reason why Bline had suspected him.

  Before reading on, he pictured mentally a map of Chicago and mentally marked the scenes of the four forays of the Ripper. Three had been quite near, on the Near North Side. One, the attempt on Yolanda, five blocks away; another, the murder of the B-girl, in the mouth of the alley off Huron between State and Dearborn, had been about four blocks; Dorothy Lee’s murder, one block.

  True, the very first murder, that of Lola Brent, had been on the South Side, miles away, but it had probably started on the Near North Side – when the killer had trailed her home from the gift shop on Division Street, only a dozen blocks north. As he might possibly have trailed Dorothy Lee home from the Reiss Corporation on that same street.

  He fixed those imaginary x’s on the imaginary map in his mind and then went back to the newspaper.

  The body had been found a few minutes after five o’clock by Mrs. Rae Haley, divorcée, who lived in the apartment next to Miss Lee’s. Returning home after an afternoon at the movies, Mrs. Haley noticed what seemed to be a stream of blood – and which, it later turned out, really was blood – coming from under the doorway of Dorothy Lee’s apartment.

  Of course it might have been that Dorothy – with whom Mrs. Haley was acquainted – had dropped and broken a jar of tomato juice or a bottle of ketchup. Nevertheless, this was the third Ripper case, and Mrs. Haley, along with most of the rest of Chicago, was Ripper-conscious. She had not knocked on Dorothy’s door, perhaps to have it opened by someone she had no desire to meet. She had dashed into her own apartment and locked and chained the door; then she had phoned down to the janitor, telling him what she had seen.

  David Wheeler, the janitor, had put an old service revolver in his pocket and climbed from the basement to the third floor – which contained five small apartments, including those of Miss Lee and Mrs. Haley. With the gun ready in his hand, he had tried the doorbell first and then the door, which was locked. He then bent down to examine the little red rivulet and decided that it was quite probably blood; David Wheeler had once been a hospital orderly and knew what blood looked like.

  He had rung the bell of Mrs. Haley’s apartment and, when she opened it on the chain, told her that the police had better be sent for. Mrs. Haley had phoned them herself, being too frightened by that time to open her door wider than the length of the chain, even to admit Wheeler. Wheeler had stood guard in the hallway until the police arrived. They had broken down the door of the apartment and had found Dorothy Lee lying on the floor about three feet back from the locked door.

  They had found that the chain of the door had not been fastened and that the lock was a snap type which would have locked automatically after the killer when he had closed the door after him. There seemed little reason to doubt that he had left by the door. Both of the windows of Dorothy Lee’s apartment were open, but neither led to a fire escape and there was no way, short of dropping twenty feet to a concrete areaway, that he could have left by a window.

  The police believed, from the position of the body, that the killer had barely entered the apartment. Miss Lee still wore her hat (it had been a hot day and she had worn no coat) and had obviously just returned to her room. Police believed the killer had followed her home and had rung the doorbell almost as soon as Miss Lee had closed the door.

  When she had opened the door, he had stepped through and used his knife. Perhaps she had not had time to scream; if she had, no one had heard her. Police were still canvassing tenants of the building to see which, if any, had been in their apartments at the time.

  Having made the fatal cut, police reasoned, the Ripper had immediately backed out of the door, closing it and letting it lock after him. Aside from the body, there was no sign of his presence in the apartment, which was neat and in perfect order. Miss Lee’s purse was on a small table near the door; it contained about fourteen dollars in bills and change.

  Neither her wrist watch nor an opal ring had been taken from the body.

  She had left work at two forty-five, complaining of a toothache; the office manager had suggested that she visit a dentist and take the rest of the afternoon off. Her movements from that time on, until her death, had not yet been traced but police were canvassing dentists on the Near North Side and in the Loop to ascertain which one she had seen and when.

  The coroner’s physician who had examined the body found evidence that she had really visited a dentist; there was a temporary packing in a tooth that appeared to be abscessed.

  If the temporary packing hadn’t stopped her toothache, the Ripper had. According to the physician who had examined the body at five-thirty, she had at that time been dead between one and two hours – between half-past three and half-past four. She had, then, probably been dead at least a half hour when Mrs. Haley, at five o’clock, had seen the blood which led to the discovery of the crime.

  The story ended with statements by the Chief of Police and by Captain Bline, in charge of the special detail attempting to find the Ripper.

  Sweeney took up the next paper and looked for further details.

  The dentist had been found, a Dr. Krimmer, who had his office on Dearborn Street, a little over three blocks south of Division Street. Recognizing her picture in the Blade, he had come forward before the police canvass reached him.

  Dorothy Lee had come to him at about three o’clock, suffering from a toothache. She had no appointment and was a new patient, but because she was obviously in distress, he had taken her out of turn, as soon as he finished work on the patient then in his chair. That would have been, he estimated, about ten minutes after three.

  She had been in his chair only ten or fifteen minutes; he had been able to give her only a temporary treatment to relieve the pain. He had suggested an appointment for further work the next morning. She had asked if he could take her in the afternoon instead, explaining that she worked Saturday morning but was off in the afternoon and, with an afternoon appointment, she would not have to lose more time from work.

  He had given her an appointment at four o’clock, his first free time after noon, but told her that if the tooth became seriously painful earlier in the day she should come to him then and he would manage to take her out of turn to relieve the pain.

  He had no record of the exact time she had left his office, but he thought it would hardly have been earlier than twenty minutes after three nor later than half-past.

  Sweeney thought that through and saw that it did not change the situation concerning the time of the crime. She could have reached home as early as three-thirty if she had taken a taxi. Sweeney looked at his mental map again and estimated distances. If she had walked over to State from Dearborn and taken a State Street car south to Erie, then walked from State and Erie, she would have reached home about a quarter of four. Had she walked all the way – a total distance of about a dozen blocks – she would have reached home by four o’clock or a few minutes sooner. Assuming, of course, that she had not stopped over anywhere en route.

  He skimmed through the few succeeding issues of the paper and found no new developments of importance.

  He went back to the first one and studied the picture of Dorothy Lee again. It looked vaguely familiar – which wasn’t strange if she lived only a block away. Damn it, he’d probably passed her on the street half a dozen times. He looked at the pict
ure again and wished that he had known her.

  Of course, if he had known her, he’d have found her just another uninteresting stenographer, stupid, vain and self-centered, who preferred Berlin to Bach and Romantic Confessions to Aldous Huxley. But now violent death had transfigured her and those things didn’t seem to matter.

  Maybe, really, they didn’t matter.

  He jerked his mind back from the edge of maudlinness to the problem at hand.

  The Ripper.

  Bline had been right, then, about Doc Greene’s alibi; it wasn’t perfect, but it was good. If his alibi covered him – with the word of attorneys and a judge – until ten minutes after four, miles away, he could have taxied to the Near North Side in time to pick up the trail of Dorothy Lee if, and only if, she had stopped over somewhere between the dentist’s office and her home. But it didn’t seem likely. To rush from court–

  Damn Greene, he thought. If only he could positively eliminate Greene, maybe he could get some constructive thoughts in other directions.

  He got up and began to pace back and forth, trying to think.

  He glanced at his watch and saw that it wasn’t yet quite midnight and the evening was a pup.

  Maybe he could eliminate Greene, tonight. Maybe – better, if possible – he could implicate him, tonight.

  A spot of burglary, suitably chaperoned, might accomplish either.

  He grabbed for his suit coat and Panama.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  He locked the door on Mimi, leaving her alone and screaming in the dark. He stopped at the phone in the hallway and dialed the number of an inexpensive hotel on downtown Clark Street. He gave a room number; it was rung, and an annoyed voice answered.

  Sweeney said, “Ehlers? This is Sweeney.”

  “The hell, Bill; I was just going to turn in. Tired. But since when you call me Ehlers instead of Jay?”

  “Since last night.”

  “Huh?”

  Sweeney said, very distinctly, “Since yesterday evening when you entered my room without a warrant.”

  “Huh? Listen, Sweeney, it was orders. And what was Bline’s idea in telling you it was me?”

  “Bline didn’t tell me. And it wasn’t orders.” Ehlers said, “Oh – hell. All right, what you want me to do, get down on my knees and say I’m sorry?”

  “No,” Sweeney said. “Something harder than that – and more practical. Keep your clothes on till I get there. In about ten minutes; I’ll take a cab.”

  He put the receiver back on the hook. Fifteen minutes later he knocked on the door of Jay Ehlers’ room.

  Ehlers opened it and said, “Come in, Sweeney.” He looked faintly embarrassed and faintly belligerent. His coat and tie were off, but he hadn’t undressed any farther than that.

  Sweeney sat down on the bed, lighted a cigarette, and looked at Ehlers.

  He said, “So you thought I might be the Ripper.”

  “That wasn’t my idea, Sweeney. It was the captain’s.”

  “Sure, and it was all right for him. Bline didn’t know me; he hadn’t been a friend of mine for ten years or more. And he sent you and your pal around to bring me in – and any cutlery you found around. I wasn’t home and it was your bright idea to show how smart you are with locks and burgle my room. You didn’t follow orders; you exceeded them. And how many drinks have we had together in ten or twelve years, how many games of cards, how much money have we borrowed from one another? And how about the time – Hell, I won’t remind you of that.”

  Ehlers’ face was reddening. He said, “I remember the time you saved my job; you don’t have to remind me. All right, so I should have thought twice. But is this leading to something or did you just come up here to get a bawling-out off your chest?”

  “It’s leading to something. I’m going to give you a chance to wash it out. I’m going to let you open a door for me, a door to a man’s office.”

  “You crazy, Sweeney? Whose?”

  “Doc Greene’s.”

  “Can’t do it, Sweeney. You’re crazy.”

  “Were you crazy when you opened the door of my place? You did that on your own hook, without a warrant and without orders.”

  “That’s different, Sweeney. At least I had orders to exceed. I was told to get your razor and any knives you had, for the lab. What are you looking for in Greene’s office?”

  “The same thing. Only I won’t bother them unless they’re bloodstained, and if we get anything on him you can have the credit.”

  “You don’t think Greene really is the Ripper, do you?”

  “I hope to find out, one way or the other.”

  “What if we get caught?”

  “Then we get caught. We try to talk our way out of it.”

  Ehlers stared at Sweeney and then shook his head. He said, “I can’t, Sweeney. I’d lose my job no matter how much talking we did. And I got a chance to put in for lieutenant within a few months.”

  “To put in for it, but not to make it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sweeney said, “It means we’re not friends any more, Ehlers. It means you start off on the Blade’s s.o.b. list, and go on from there. It means I’m going to spread the good word about you to every reporter I know. It means you wouldn’t get your name in ink if you stopped a bank robbery single-handed, but we’ll drown you in ink if you spit on the sidewalk. It means this is your chance to make up for the dirty trick you pulled on me and if you don’t take it, by God, I’ll pull every string I can get hold of – in the department itself as well as in print – to break you.”

  “Yeah? Goddam it, you can’t–”

  “I can try. I start off tomorrow morning by bringing suit against the police department for entering my room without a warrant, through a locked door, and for petty larceny.”

  Ehlers tried to laugh. “You couldn’t make it stick.”

  “Of course I couldn’t. But don’t you think the commissioners would start their own little investigation to see what it was really all about? They’d jump on Bline and Bline would tell them the truth. And they’d back you to save the department from paying damages, and let you lie out of it, and no, I couldn’t prove my point and collect. But you’d sure rate highly with the commissioners after that. Lieutenancy hell; you’ll be back in harness, pounding pavement so far out there wouldn’t be any pavement.”

  “You wouldn’t do that, Sweeney.”

  Sweeney said, “I thought you wouldn’t burgle my room, and I was wrong. You think I wouldn’t do that, and you’re wrong.”

  “Where is Greene’s office?” Ehlers was perspiring slightly; it may have been the heat.

  “Goodman Block, not far from here. A few blocks, in fact. And I know the building and there won’t be any trouble or any danger. I won’t take over fifteen minutes inside.” He saw he’d won his point, and grinned, He said, “And I’ll buy you a drink first. Dutch courage, if you’re more afraid of Greene than you were of me.”

  “That was different, Sweeney.”

  “Sure it was different; I was a friend of yours. Greene isn’t. Come on.”

  They caught a cab on Clark Street after Ehlers had turned down the Dutch courage in favor of a drink afterwards, and that was okay by Sweeney. They took the taxi only to within half a block.

  The Goodman Block was an old ten-story office building, tenanted mostly by not-too-prosperous lawyers, agents, brokers and (Sweeney happened to know) headquarters of several bookies and at least one small numbers ring.

  Sweeney had figured it would be the type of building that would be open twenty-four hours a day for those of its tenants who wanted to burn midnight oil, and saw that he was right. He and Ehlers walked past on the opposite side of the street and saw that lights still burned in several of the offices.

  And, through the entrance, they could see that an elevator man was on duty, reading a newspaper while he sat on a chair beside the open elevator door.

  They kept on walking and Ehlers asked, “Going to take a chance on having
him take us up? We can give him a song-and-dance, but even so, he’ll remember us.” They crossed over. Sweeney said, “We’ll try not to use him. We’ll wait – a little while, anyway – outside the entrance and out of his sight; we’ll be able to hear the bell ring and the elevator start if he gets a call from upstairs, and we can get through the lobby without his seeing us.” Ehlers nodded agreement, and they waited quietly outside until, luckily only ten minutes later, they heard the buzzer of the elevator and the clang of its door closing.

  Sweeney picked Greene’s room number 411, off the building directory as they went through the outer hall; they were on the stairway between the second and third floors when the elevator passed on its way down from whatever upper floor it had serviced.

  They tiptoed quietly the rest of the way to the fourth floor and found 411. Fortunately no other office on that floor seemed to be occupied; Ehlers did not have to use particular caution in applying his picklocks. He got the door open in seven minutes.

  Inside, they turned on the lights and closed the door.

  It was a little cubbyhole of an office. One desk, one cabinet, one file, one table, three chairs.

  Sweeney shoved his hat back on his head as he looked around. He said, “This won’t take long, Jay. Sit down and relax; you’ve done your share, unless I run across a locked drawer; there isn’t any lock on that file.” The bottom drawer of the three-drawer file contained a pair of overshoes, a half-full bottle of whiskey and two dusty glasses. The middle drawer was empty.

  The top drawer contained correspondence – all incoming correspondence; apparently Greene didn’t make carbons of his own letters. It disgusted Sweeney to find that the correspondence was filed only in approximately chronological order; that there was no separate section or folder for Yolanda; he’d hoped for some clue to what he thought was Doc’s rather unusual way of handling her. But he didn’t want to spend too much time on the file and glanced only at sample letters pulled out at random and put back when he’d looked at them. All he learned was that Greene really did business as a booking agent and did have other clients and get bookings for them. Not, as far as he could tell, on any big-time circuits or top clubs.