The James Michael Ullman Crime Novel

by James Michael Ullman

  “Who are some of the other people who saw her on those occasions?”

  “I won’t say.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re sweating enough as it is—I couldn’t sic a reporter on them. They were mostly businessmen, politicians or investors in Nalon’s deals. Some are still involved with him, some dropped him long ago, but they’re all afraid they’ll be dragged into the investigation. A few called me the morning after the murder and said, ‘Gene, from the picture in the paper that woman strangled on Grace Street looks a lot like one of Gabe’s old girls, the Irene who was hanging around when we put together the such-and-such deal. What’ll we do?’ And I said, ‘Do like me, do nothing. If it is that Irene, the police will learn about Nalon soon enough. If they come to see you, give honest answers, but don’t go to the police yourself. If you do, Nalon will think you’re trying to hurt him. If he thinks that, he’ll try to hurt you.’”

  “That’s why you didn’t go to the police?”

  “Yes. There’s nothing I can contribute that the police probably don’t know already, and I don’t want Nalon hounding me. He can be malicious, and Irene’s murder may cost him millions of dollars.”

  “In what way?”

  “That’s no secret either to informed businessmen. He’s been putting together another deal trying to line up investors for a giant store-and-office plaza, but it hasn’t been going well. Prospective tenants aren’t signing up fast enough, and investors have become leery of Nalon. Too many people have been burnt doing business with him. As a result he’s already committed huge sums of his own money to the project, hoping to attract more financial backing later. But now the publicity about the murder and the girls in Apartment 201 will scare new investors away and might cause some old ones to change their minds. Ordinarily, people with big money to invest don’t want their names associated with suspects in front-page homicide cases.”

  “How well did you know Irene?”

  “No better than I’ve told you. The years she lived at Skyline Towers, she was just part of the scenery. I was never alone with her. Other people were always present and she’d only say a few words, never anything about herself. The only time…”

  Zender hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t mention it. But the only time I saw her alone was about four years ago, long after Nalon had dumped both of us.”

  “She was living on Alexander Boulevard then.”

  “That’s right. I went to inspect some properties in the neighborhood. Afterward I stopped in a little park for a drink of water. Irene was there, on a bench, reading a magazine. Those times I’d seen her with Nalon, I always tried to be polite and respectful. Some other men treated her like dirt, but after all she was a human being—I think she appreciated my kindness. Anyhow when she saw me in the park she looked up with a big smile and said, ‘Hello, Mr. Zender. What are you doing here?’ I said, ‘I’m in business for myself now, I left Gabe and confidentially I’m glad of it.’ She said, ‘Good for you. I always thought you were too nice a man to be mixed up with him.”

  Reminiscently, Zender smiled. “We talked a while. Nothing important—there wasn’t much to say. She told me she had a boyfriend in the liquor business and she hoped they’d be married soon. As I was leaving she asked, ‘This mortgage business of yours. Do you ever have dealings with real estate agents in the suburbs?’ I said, ‘On occasion, yes.’ She said, ‘Well, if you’re ever out in Hilldale, I have a very old and dear friend who just opened an agency there. They specialize in homes.’ I had to tell her I never deal in homes, but I always remembered that. It struck me as odd, a woman like an Irene having a friend with a real estate agency in a suburb.”

  * * * *

  It struck me as odd too. When I left Zender’s office, I stopped in a drugstore and phoned the Hilldale Chamber of Commerce.

  “Sorry to bother you, but maybe you can help me.

  I want to buy a home in Hilldale. A friend of mine recommended a real estate agency there, but I lost the name and my friends on vacation. I remember he said the agency opened about four years ago and specializes in homes.”

  A girl said: “Let’s see. Olcutt and Stevens opened about then, but they’re heavy in commercial and industrial. Probably your friend meant the Reinholt agency. It’s a small outfit—homes is all they do.”

  * * * *

  Hilldale, fed by a rail commuter line, was an old, well-established community, its population core in the upper-middle income bracket. I found the Reinholt agency in a small building on the outskirts of town.

  Only one car, an old but well-polished black Cadillac, was in the parking area. I pulled up beside it, got out, and looked it over. Then I walked to the building. Through the slats of the Venetian blinds in the plate-glass window I saw a woman seated at a desk, head down. She was a brunette. As I stepped inside, she looked up.

  “Hello, there. Something I can do for you?”

  I came closer. She was tall, with a long, thin face. I pegged her age at forty, but despite the severe cut of her expensive gray suit her trim figure was still attractive. Her eyes were dark and when her lips parted in a cordial smile, they bared perfect teeth. A varnished wood sign on her desk read: Joanna Reinholt.

  “You run this agency?”

  “It’s all mine.”

  “And that’s your car out front?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I’ll be darned.” I pulled up a chair and took the plunge. “Then you’re the Mystery Woman, aren’t you? The one everyone’s been looking for in connection with the Irene Bowser murder. The dear old friend who’s been visiting her off-and-on for years.” Joanna Reinholt wasn’t smiling any more.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who are you anyhow?”

  “Pete Ames. A reporter for Metropolis magazine.”

  “I never heard of this Mystery Woman. You’d better leave, before I call the police. I think you’re deranged.”

  “Look, all I want is information—anything you can tell me about Irene. I’m writing an article on her. Your identity will be protected.”

  “I told you…”

  “You fit the Mystery Woman’s description. A tall brunette, about forty, well-groomed, attractive, driving an expensive black car.”

  “Twenty thousand women in this city would answer that description.”

  “True. But they didn’t all open real estate agencies in Hilldale four years ago. Irene told someone an old and dear friend did that, which is what brought me here. To find Irene’s old and dear friend.”

  Joanna reached for a cigarette. As she lit it, her hands trembled.

  “Who’d she tell?”

  “A man named Zender.”

  “I remember that.” Nervously, she tapped her cigarette in an ashtray. “She mentioned it later. I made her promise never to tell anyone about me again. Anyone who knew Irene when Nalon kept her would wonder about her friendship with a businesswoman in a suburb.”

  “You’re right. But Zender didn’t know your name.”

  “He knew enough to help you find me. And what he told you, he’ll tell other reporters. And the police.” She took a big drag on the cigarette. Her voice broke a little as she added, “You know what this’ll do to me, don’t you? Getting involved in Irene’s murder? A woman in real estate has to be very careful about her reputation.”

  “I don’t imagine it’ll do your business much good.”

  “It’ll ruin it. Everything I’ve worked for will go down the drain, all because of a few lousy headlines…” She closed her eyes.

  I said, “Maybe I can fix it so Zender will forget you.”

  Her eyes opened again. They were very alert. “You mean that?”

  “I think it can be arranged.”

  She studied me. “All right, I’ll make a proposition. I have no choice—I
’ve got to trust you. You fix it so Zender won’t tell anyone else about me, and promise to keep my identity a secret Do that and I’ll give you an exclusive story. The whole bit, every sordid detail, no holds barred.”

  “You know who killed her?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest notion who killed her, or why. In case you think I did it, I was driving the Hilldale police chief around that night—he’s looking for a new home. But you said you were writing a story about Irene. Okay, I’ll tell you about her. And Gabe Nalon. And a lot of other things that’ll make juicy reading.”

  I reached for the phone, looked up Zender’s number in my notebook, and dialed.

  “Mr. Zender? This is Pete Ames. I’m calling from Hilldale. Tell me, have you mentioned that incident in the park to any other reporters since I’ve seen you? Or to the police?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t, and when I explain I think you’ll understand. I found Irene’s old friend. He used to work in the Alexander Boulevard branch of another real estate firm and he’d see Irene in the park on his lunch hour. It was all very casual, just polite conversation, but when I walked in just now and said I was a reporter, he nearly died. He said he’d be ruined out here if his name was even remotely connected with Irene’s murder. I told him I’d ask if you could see your way clear to forget the incident completely.

  “Of course. Tell your friend he has nothing to worry about from me.”

  “Thanks.” I hung up. “There’s my part of the bargain.”

  Joanna Reinholt stubbed out her cigarette. She rose, walked to the window and pulled the blind. On her way back she peeled off her jacket, disclosing a white blouse taut over firm, sharp-pointed breasts. She tossed her coat to a desk, put her hands on her hips and faced me, the look in her eyes bitter and tired and wise.

  “How down and dirty,” she drawled, “do you want me to get?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This article of yours. If it’s pornography you want, I’m your girl. I know all of Nalon’s peculiarities, and he has plenty.”

  “I don’t want the details of anyone’s sex life, not unless they have something to do with Irene’s murder. And before we go any further, let’s get this understood. I’m not interested in hearing anything embarrassing about you, either.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll hear it anyhow. The truth is, Irene and I were call girls together. In fact you might say I launched her career…”

  BOOK THREE: THE WILD ONE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Farrar was not impressed. He put the rough draft of my story aside and chewed on his pipe. We were in his office, and his ordinarily bright eyes seemed curiously veiled.

  “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “I thought it was quite a bit.”

  “Oh, it is. It sizzles. You haven’t told me much about Irene on Grace Street or Alexander Boulevard that I didn’t learn from the newspapers, but you’re a real expert on her life with Nalon, aren’t you? Irene sitting in on business conferences, bored to tears. Irene and Nalon flying to Florida in the winter and Canada in the summer, living it up with a small but select group of investors, something Nalon’s closest subordinates didn’t even know. Where’d you get this stuff?”

  I frowned. It was two weeks since I’d found Joanna Reinholt. No other decent leads had turned up and I’d interviewed Joanna a number of times. Then Farrar ordered me to produce at least a rough draft of my story pronto.

  I thought I knew why. Nalon refused to take a lie test but his alibi seemed to hold up. That stalled the probe into Irene’s murder. With no more new developments, the story went off the front pages and then out of the papers altogether. Helping kill it were influential citizens who applied pressure by phoning newspaper publishers and/or advertising managers.

  Typically, the influential citizen would say, “Listen, for Christ’s sake, lay off Nalon, will you? Confidentially, I saw Irene once, when Nalon had me up at his place. I’d hate to get involved myself, and since Gabe has an alibi, why don’t you take your hooks out of the poor bastard? Everyone knows about his juvenile sex life—he’s just caught up in circumstances, and unless he had something to do with the murder, you’ve got no excuse for bothering him any more. Or would you rather I place my advertising elsewhere?”

  The message got through, even to Murray Hale and the Express. No doubt similar calls were being made to Farrar and Metropolis, and Farrar decided he wanted a good look at whatever he’d bought.

  “As I told you,” I said, “I got most of it from a source I can’t identify. You must have made a deal or two like that yourself.”

  “I did, but I always confided in my editor. Pete, I’m thinking of the story. You make a lot of wild allegations but you don’t quote authority. I have to assess the source before I go into print with anything of this nature. You haven’t named names, but anyone familiar with the leading citizens of this city could identify some of the characters…”

  “Its only a rough draft. I’ll tone down the final version.”

  “I hope so. But even with iron-clad authority I’m not sure I’d print this. I’m not in the business of ruining reputations.”

  “That was the assignment, remember? Life with Irene. When we made our agreement, neither of us knew what life with Irene would be. Now were learning. It wasn’t what either of us expected, but that’s not my fault.”

  “You miss the point. I think in getting this story you showed remarkable enterprise…”

  “Thanks.”

  “Skip the sarcasm. The point is you haven’t fulfilled your assignment. Stash agrees with me—it’s not just a personal prejudice. You haven’t told us who and what Irene was. You’ve been so overwhelmed by these lurid details about Nalon that you’ve lost sight of the main objective.”

  I thought that over. Farrar just could have been right. “Okay, maybe I did go overboard on Nalon. My thinking was—that period of Irene’s life seemed most likely to incubate a motive for her murder.”

  “I told you, don’t try to play detective. And there are some other things I’d like to bring up. First, you make these vague statements about Irene’s life as a call girl before she met Nalon. You kiss that off with a few paragraphs but hell, man, according to the police Nalon met Irene at a business convention and never knew what she was before she moved to Skyline Towers. Apparently you know more about Irene’s life before she met Nalon than the police do. Let’s hear more of that aspect of her life, and anything else about her early history, and lets drop the emphasis on Nalon.”

  “You want him out of the story?”

  “No, I want him in perspective.”

  “Okay. But as for her history—it’s all in what you read, unless the cops know more than they’re telling. According to my source Irene’s parents died when she was barely an infant. She grew up with an uncle and aunt. The uncle and aunt ran a lodge of some sort in Missouri, in what town I don’t know.”

  “What about the trip you took? You submitted a voucher for forty bucks—mileage and meals for a day out-of-town—and not a word on the voucher about where you went, or why. And not a word in your story showing you learned anything from an out-of-town source.”

  “I’m sorry. If you don’t want to pay, I’ll stand the expense. All I can tell you now is it was a legitimate trip.”

  “You’re asking me to buy quite a pig in a poke, aren’t you? But that’s not what disturbs me. “What I don’t like is the implication you don’t trust me. Your attitude is hostile. All I want to do is help you write a better story. What’s bothering you? Why won’t you give me even a portion of your confidence?”

  I settled back. Now we were getting down to business. “Since you asked, a couple things are bothering me. The main one is—who am I really working for?”

  Farrar blinked. “So that’s it”

  “Yes. I don’t have to tell you
I’ve latched onto something hot. I’m uncovering a lot of dirty linen and I want to know who’s paying the freight. Since I’m on salary, my story belongs to Metropolis, not to me. And even Stash doesn’t know who owns this book.”

  “The publisher is Felix Kress, of the. Kress Brick Company.”

  “Uh-huh. So the masthead says. But I phoned Kress yesterday. I said I was a reader, and I thought the Metropolis article on the civic opera had been grossly unfair. He assured me the article had been thoroughly researched. That’s remarkable because Metropolis never ran an article on the opera. Apparently Kress never reads Metropolis, which considering he’s the publisher is hard to believe…”

  Sam smiled faintly. “Well, he is the publisher of record. I’ll admit he doesn’t take as active an interest as some other investors do. I can’t say more than that. You’ll have to take me at my word when I say I have complete editorial control of Metropolis. My judgment prevails—I wouldn’t edit this or any book if that weren’t the case. Frankly, I’ve had pressure from a number of sources, including Gabe Nalon, to take you off this story, but I’ve resisted. I still think you can do a good job with it. So if you like who I am and what I stand for, you can go on working for me. And if you don’t like me, you’ll have to quit”

  “That’s throwing it right back, isn’t it? Man to man.”

  “It is. What else bothers you?”

  I paused. “I don’t know quite how to say it. But you warned me, the first time we talked, that if I uncovered a suspect I shouldn’t do anything impetuous, I should check with you first. And your insistence just now that I go back further into Irene’s life—Sam, I get the feeling you re expecting I’ll come across someone. And maybe you’re a little disappointed I haven’t found this person yet.”