“Is that a warning?”
“No, but let’s face it. Some police officers in this town still have it in for Murray and the Express because of the police scandal.”
“Hell, that was nearly fifteen years ago.”
“So what? You know as well as I do there are still some hardheads in your department who hate Murray for rocking the boat. Sure, some crooked cops went to prison, and all the honest policemen applauded the Express for putting them there. But apparently some of the crooks had a lot of friends. Even now, Murray gets traffic tickets for going two miles over the speed limit on an expressway or double-parking in front of where he lives for ten seconds. Understandably, he’s now suspicious of all policemen.” Deuce turned to me. “Pete, do whatever Dan says, but if any old-timers at the Bureau get tough, don’t let ’em push you around. That goes for assistant district attorneys, too. The current D.A. hates us because we’re telling the voters what a big crook he is.” Deuce walked out.
I said, “Lieutenant, I’ll help all I can. But first, the woman didn’t tell me anything about herself this morning except her name. Who was she? And what do you think she had in that envelope?”
“She clerked in a card shop. And so far we haven’t the faintest notion what she wanted to sell the Express.”
“A clerk?”
“Yes, but never mind that. Let’s hear exactly what happened between you and Irene Brown. Then you can go downtown and put it in a statement, just for the record.”
* * * *
It was nearly midnight when a cab dropped me off in front of the Express. I rode an elevator to the fourth floor and threaded my way through the city room, where about twenty people were at work. Rewritemen drummed their typewriters and copyreaders sat silent and thoughtful, composing headlines and trimming stories. The desk was now manned by Foley, the night city editor, a short, slight man who looked up and said, “Hi, Pete. The cops treat you okay?”
“They were reasonable.” I pulled up a chair. “After I told my story ten times, they asked me to go over it the eleventh time and sign a statement. But I guess that’s routine.”
“Uh-huh. Deuce tell you what Murray wants?”
“An account of my talk with Irene Brown.”
“Right. And immediately, as a sidebar to the main yam about the murder. Don’t worry, you’ll be paid. You’ve been on overtime from the minute I got you at the Press Club until you finish here.”
Foley made the point because the Express was a Guild paper. If you put in extra hours, you were supposed to get paid for it.
“Just one thing. When I was in Irene’s apartment with Deuce, the police thought it was murder but weren’t absolutely sure.”
“Well, they’re sure now. The coroner’s pathologist announced he’s positive Irene Brown died of manual strangulation before the gas was turned on. Here.” Foley handed me a spike holding carbons of everything written about the case by the Express so far. “You’d better study this and bring yourself up to date.”
I carried the spike to my desk, pulled off my coat and began reading. The janitor who found the body had turned the gas off, opened a few windows and then hurried to a neighboring apartment, where he called the police. The pathologist estimated Irene had died between 6 and 6:45 p.m. So far the last person known to have seen her alive had been the neighbor who’d observed her in the hall at about six. Unfortunately, occupants of the adjoining first-floor apartments had been out. The killer hadn’t been seen entering or leaving, although a man who lived above Irene said he thought he heard “funny noises, like a shout and someone falling,” while watching a 6:15 newscast.
The police didn’t know much yet about Irene’s personal life. She’d lived in the apartment just two years, and told neighbors and the real estate agent she was from Chicago. She kept to herself, and her flashy way of dress led some people to suspect her morals. Outside of the fact she drank a lot, though, nobody knew anything damaging about her. She often hung out nights in a neighborhood tavern called The Rooster, but nobody ever saw a man go in or out of her apartment. Habitués of The Rooster said she rebuffed any man who tried to pick her up or make advances. After a few such incidents, she became accepted as a regular, whiling away the evening hours with the tavern’s other regulars.
Days, Irene clerked in a small card and gift shop owned by an elderly widow, a Mrs. Carmody. She got the job by answering a newspaper ad. She’d also told Mrs. Carmody she was from Chicago, but never discussed her life there. Irene’s garish taste in clothes gave Mrs. Carmody reservations at first, but Irene proved a very satisfactory clerk. Customers liked her, and Irene never drank during working hours. That side of Irene’s life proved a surprise to Mrs. Carmody, who, impressed by Irene’s diligence and honesty, continually referred to her as a “good woman.” She also noted that Irene liked children. Once she bought an expensive baseball glove for a little boy she said she met in Riverfront Park.
“This week,” Mrs. Carmody said, “Irene seemed worried about something, but wouldn’t talk about it. I remember the envelope, though. She had it when she got here this morning and carried it away tonight”
All in all, a puzzling, fragmentary history of Irene Brown had emerged to this point, one that began abruptly two years ago, when Irene moved into the building on Grace Street. But the police would probably learn more tomorrow, when their sources were up and about and after Irene’s picture appeared in newspapers and on television.
No photographs had been found in Irene’s apartment but Mrs. Carmody supplied the press with prints of one taken in her shop by a community newspaper. A proof was on the spike. In it, Irene’s wide mouth curved in a Madonna-like smile, her eyes seemed veiled and wise, and her hair was heaped on her head bouffant-style. The art department had retouched her features, dabbing out the circles under her eyes and the fat under her chin. The picture that would appear in the paper was of a woman not beautiful, in the classic sense, but strikingly attractive.
I stared at the picture and then got to work on my story. The details of my talk with Irene were already blurred in my mind and somehow the story wouldn’t jell. I couldn’t hit the mystery angle hard. That had been covered thoroughly in the main yam, which stressed the fact that hours after I’d talked to Irene she’d been found murdered and the envelope had disappeared. About all I could do was try to reconstruct the conversation verbatim.
Finally I carried a three-page story to Foley’s desk. The night city editor didn’t even glance at it.
“Aren’t you going to read it?”
“Maybe.” Foley was very casual. “But first, take it to Murray Hale. He wants to see it.”
“Hale’s here?”
“Yeah. He came in about ten and said he’d stick around until you finished. He’s in his office, waiting.”
* * * *
My footsteps echoed down a deserted corridor in the executive wing. Ahead, the door to Murray Hale’s office was closed but the light was on.
I knocked.
“Come in.”
The managing editor sat at a wide desk loaded with documents. A long cigar smoldered in an ashtray. Hale was a large man of about forty, with broad shoulders, a thick chest, and a middle just starting to go fat. He had a square face, a straight nose, and a big jaw, and wore his prematurely silver hair cropped close. Behind him photographs lined the wall: Hale, the soldier, with the Fort Leonard Wood pistol team or at the front in Korea, and of course Hale, the editor, posing with Presidents, other dignitaries, and movie stars.
Unblinking, Hale’s eyes bored into me. “You’ve got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lemme see. And sit down.”
Inscrutable, Pale began to read. That was his way. He didn’t waste time with formalities. As a managing editor, the chilly mantle of authority he’d drawn about himself made him unpopular with his staff, but he was respected. No doubt he’d have become mana
ging editor even if he hadn’t married the boss’s daughter, a short, dumpy woman who floated through the city room now and then, wrapped in furs. His wife was the only child of Hank Dunaway, publisher of the Express for forty years and also a large stockholder in a family financial empire that included four other newspapers, a string of radio and television stations and thousands of acres of Canadian timberland.
Dunaway had died a few years ago. Hale’s mother-in-law, Ethyl Dunaway, was now nominally the publisher, but it was no secret that she’d stepped into the background and voted her stock as Murray recommended. Murray made all the key management decisions now. He’d become the next publisher, and if he could run the Express to the satisfaction of the various Dunaway aunts, uncles and cousins holding stock in the financial empire, he’d probably wind up running the empire.
Hale read my story a second time and then shoved it aside.
“That’s all that happened between you and this Brown woman?”
“As best I recall.”
“There’s nothing else? You didn’t leave anything out?”
“No.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“That’s old enough. You served a hitch in the Army, didn’t you? And while you’re new to our staff, you’re not exactly new to the newspaper business. Two years covering police and general assignment for papers in smaller cities. And you also had a high recommendation from your journalism school, the same one that gave us Totten and other good men, which is why we favor their graduates. Tell me. Out of all the papers in the United States, why did you apply for a job on the Express?”
It was an odd and ominous question. I said, “I’ve always wanted to land with a big-city daily, particularly this one. I grew up in a small town only eighty miles from here.”
“I see.” Hale reached for his cigar. Slowly, he puffed. “Ames, it’s my thought you’ve had enough experience not to make the mistake you made this morning. Hell, man, that woman came here with a story. My name’s under the Squawk Box, so she asked for me; when you went to see her, you were my proxy. But instead of doing your damnedest to learn what her story was about, you kissed her off by telling her newspapers don’t buy stories from outsiders. You even suggested she peddle her story to a magazine, they’d pay more. I can’t allow this account of your interview to appear in print—it’s hardly likely to encourage more people to bring us their troubles. You have any explanation for what you did?”
“No, sir.”
“I suppose you’ve figured it out for yourself—that if you’d made more of an effort this morning Irene Brown might be alive right now.”
I didn’t answer.
Hale shook his head. “I’m sorry, boy. Totten disagrees with me about this, but I’m overruling him. I don’t want people in my shop who make the kind of mistake you made. You’re fired, effective immediately.” He paused. “Well, you have anything to say?”
There was a lot I wanted to say, but Hale’s tone and attitude made it obvious his decision was irrevocable.
I guess there’s not much point in my saying anything.”
“There isn’t. I’m glad you’re smart enough to realize it.” Hale put his cigar down. “Since you’ve been with us less than six months, we can fire you without cause. However, I don’t want to hurt your career. For the record, you can write a formal resignation. If prospective employers inquire, that’s what we’ll tell ’em—that you resigned. But make no mistake about it, you’re being canned. You’re entitled to two weeks’ notice, but I don’t want to see you around any more. Come back to the Express tomorrow, clean your desk and make your farewells. Then stop at the personnel office. They’ll give you a separation check—three weeks’ pay plus overtime for tonight. After that, I don’t want to see you in the Express again. Beginning at 6 p.m. tomorrow, you’ll be barred from the building. Now good night.”
Slowly I rose. Almost mechanically I reached for the story, intending to carry it back to the city room.
Murray Hale said, “Keep your hands off that. It belongs to the Express.”
CHAPTER THREE
Behind the bar, colored lights winked. Four pressmen played the pinball machine, and in the booth next to ours some sports writers argued politics. This was Eddie’s, a hangout for the city’s newspaper workers. I’d gone straight there from the Express.
“In my opinion,” Kells said, “it wasn’t justified. Murray shouldn’t have done that. If I was you, I’d take it up with the Guild—that’s what the bastards are for.”
The main decor feature in Eddie’s was a wall of caricatures of local newspaper personalities. At that moment I was gazing at the scowling likeness of my good friend Murray Hale. I turned back to Kells and said, “No thanks. I won’t work where I’m not wanted.”
Beside me, a copyreader on his midnight lunch hour chewed the last of a ham sandwich. “What’ll you do now, Pete?”
“I haven’t had much time to think about it.” Slowly, I twirled my glass. “But I’m in no hurry to leave town. I think I’ll stick around.”
“You’re sore about Murray firing you?”
“Not because he did it. He had every right. What bugged me was the way he did it.”
The copyreader, an old-timer, shoved his plate back and drawled, “This is a rough business. It’s not for guys with thin skins”
“You think I’m too hard on Hale?”
“No, I’d be just as sore as you, and for the same reason. But what have you got in mind? To solve the murder on your own, like on the late-late show?”
“Not that exactly…”
“Well, face up to it. Maybe Hale let you resign, but everyone in town will know the real story. It’s not likely any other newsroom here will hire you.” He looked down. “This is a tight town anyhow. The Journals waiting list is a mile long. The rumor is the Beacon will fold any day now, putting another bunch on the street. And the television stations want their kind of experience.” He dropped a dollar on the table and got up. “But whatever you decide, good luck.” The copyreader ambled off.
Kells had changed to slacks and a bright sports shirt. His face was florid. He threw me a guarded look and said, “Kid, now that were alone, I’m sorry. If I hadn’t made you write that memo, Murray might never have learned she came to the paper.”
“He’d have learned. If nothing else, I’d have told him.”
“Just the same, I talk too much sometimes. What did you mean a minute ago, when you said you figured on sticking around?”
“Just that.” I sipped a little beer. “I can think of three good reasons. First, all my life I’ve wanted to work for a newspaper here, and I don’t like being run out by Murray Hale or anyone else. Second, the story of Irene Brown’s murder began with me in the Express reception room. I never wanted to be a crime reporter, but I’d hate like hell to let this story drop.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“And then there’s the third reason, something Hale said. Namely, that if I’d done more to keep Irene from walking out, maybe she wouldn’t have been murdered. All my life, I’ll wonder about that. Just for myself, I’d like to learn as much about her as I can—about her and what was in that envelope.”
“Naturally.” Kells stubbed one cigarette out and lit another. “It’s shaping up as a real big yam, too. The dame comes to the Express with a story. A few hours later she’s murdered, and the story disappears. But like I told you, anything’s possible. So it’s also possible the envelope and whatever was in it had nothing to do with the murder, and you’re kicking yourself in the rear end for no good reason. You know Vance Hargrove?”
“The Journals chief crime man? I saw him earlier tonight in the crowd outside Irene’s apartment”
“Well, he left here a few minutes ago, just before you walked in. He told me he’s playing a different angle in his story.”
“What angle is that?”
“There’ve been a lot of break-ins in that neighbor-hood, especially since the warm weather. Psychopathic stuff, maybe sex-crazy teen-agers who hang out in Riverfront Park. One kid got caught in the act last week. He was a lingerie fancier—a woman came home from work and found him going through her dresser. He cut her up and ran, but she set up a holler and the cops caught him on the street. They went to his place and found ninety-seven pairs of panties and fifty-five brassieres in his closet.”
“You re trying to tell me Irene was murdered by a casual prowler?”
“That’s what a couple detectives theorized to Vance. According to the detectives, Irene Brown was scared of strangers. A neighbor told ’em she’d panic if she was alone in a room with a strange man. They think she came home, found someone in her place and started to holler, and then the prowler lost his head. He killed her, after which he looked in the envelope and saw something he could use, for blackmail maybe. And on his way out he set up the fake suicide deal. It’s the sort of thing a stupid teen-ager might pull, someone who didn’t know how easy the cops can determine the cause of death.”
“Hargrove,” I said, “is playing up that angle because Irene brought the envelope to the Express, not to the Journal. The theory’s possible, but it stretches coincidence pretty far. Sid, who does the Journals hiring? And the Beacons? And the hiring for the television stations?”
“I’ll write ’em out for you.” Kells hauled a piece of copy paper from his pocket and began jotting down names, titles, and even telephone numbers. His memory was near-photographic. If he saw your picture in the paper once, he never forgot you. “I’ll give you the guys who hire at the community newspapers too.”
“What about the crime magazines? Maybe I could sell them an article on the case.”
“They have regional correspondents, this territory is sewed up. But I’ll give you the names, in case they need a legman. And the name of a free-lance in the suburbs who does a lot of work for the slicks.”
The James Michael Ullman Crime Novel Page 23