by Rhys Bowen
I stood there clutching the windowsill, fighting the nausea, and then I remembered Paddy. I ran over to him and tried to rouse him. As I attempted to lift him, his head lolled back, and I saw the ugly red stain on his chest. But he was still warm. There was still hope. I looked around for something to stop the bleeding, found a towel and clamped it over the wound. As I did so he opened his eyes. He looked around in a bewildered way, then focused on me.
“It's all right, Paddy,” I managed to say, although it hurt to speak. “You're going to be all right. I'll go for help.”
He clutched at my arm, his bony fingers digging into my flesh. “Too … big… for… me.” The whisper was so faint I could hardly hear the words.
“Who did this, Paddy? Who did it to you?” I asked.
“Didn't think he …” he muttered, then the tension left his face and I could tell that he had slipped away.
Eight
I stayed with him until a constable arrived. I had dispatched a ragamuffin playing in the alley below to find a policeman and stood, supporting Paddy, not wanting to let go of him. My own hurts were forgotten as rage and impotence surged through me. If I had come earlier, I might have been able to save him. I might, at least, have done something—scared off the intruder, raised an alarm. Instead all I had done was to let him die in my arms. I hadn't been with Paddy long enough to form a strong bond, but I had truly liked him. Maybe I recognized myself in him—loner, outspoken, not afraid of much. I suspected that he liked me too, in his own gruff way. If he had lived, we might have become good friends, partners, maybe.
I looked up at the clatter of feet on the outside steps. A young constable poked his head in through the door, took one look at Paddy and me and crossed himself. “Saints preserve us,” he muttered. “Should I get a doctor?”
“Too late for that,” I said.
“What happened?”
I put my hand up to my face and felt the stickiness. “It was an intruder. He hit me,” I said, “but I'm all right.”
“Then stay where you are. I'll go for help.”
He ran down the steps again. The ragamuffin stood gaping at the door. I could hear the murmur of a crowd gathering down below. It wasn't long before I heard a voice bark, “All right then, move on. No loitering. Go on, back to your homes,” and heavy steps came up the stairway. A young man came into the room. He was fair-haired with light eyes and eyebrows and a sort of pale pastiness that I had never seen at home in Ireland, where most of us had healthy red cheeks and a sprinkling of freckles. He was dressed formally in a dark suit that made him look even more washed-out. He glanced swiftly around the room with a look of distaste, then his gaze focused on me.
“Sergeant Wolski,” he said in a clipped voice. “What have we got here?”
A New York policeman who wasn't Irish. That was unusual to start with. I looked down at the dead man in my arms. “He's dead. The murderer got away through the back window.”
“Paddy Riley, right?” The young man strolled around the room.
“That's right. Shouldn't you be sending men out to find the murderer?”
“You're a neighbor, presumably.” Those pale blue eyes eyed me coldly. “Name?”
“Molly Murphy. I am Mr. Riley's business associate.” Even in the midst of my shock and grief I savored my choice of the word—much better than assistant.
“Paddy never worked with anyone.”
“Well, he does now. Did now.” I had already taken a dislike to the aloof and rather arrogant young man. “He was training me in the business, if you must know.” A slight exaggeration, but warranted.
A disbelieving smile crossed his face. “Paddy must have been getting soft in his old age.”
“Look, why are we talking when there is a murderer on the loose?” I snapped. “You might still have a chance at finding him if you act quickly.”
“I'm the law around here,” he said. “You shut up until you're asked a question.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that Captain Sullivan would have something to say if he talked to me like that. Then I realized I couldn't call on Daniel as my protector any longer.
“Are you always this rude?” I asked.
“Only to people who don't know when to keep quiet,” he said. “I could take you down to police headquarters for questioning if you don't watch your manners.”
Again it was so tempting. I let myself relish in the fantasy of this young upstart dragging me into police headquarters only to meet Daniel, but again my pride won out.
Sergeant Wolski pushed me aside, examined Paddy briefly, then turned to the constable who was waiting in the doorway. “Stabbed. Neat little blade—stiletto, by the look of it. He's probably taken it with him, but search around the place for it anyway. And the area outside. He may have tossed it through the window, or dropped it when he ran.” He pushed open the door to the back room. That was in equal chaos, with the filing cabinet lying on its side, still locked.
“Could have been a robbery attempt,” Wolski said. “Although I can't think that anyone believed Paddy had anything worth stealing.”
He went over to the filing cabinet and motioned for the constable to help him right it. “What's in here?” he asked me.
“His case notes, I think. That was private. He didn't want me touching it.”
“Any idea where die key is?”
“None at all.”
He came back to me. “So how is it that you've escaped with only a scratch or two and yet a wily old guy like Paddy gets killed?”
I could tell what he was thinking—that somehow I was in cahoots with the murderer.
“The answer to that is simple,” I said. “I arrived here to find Paddy slumped over the table and the place looking like this. I heard a noise in the back room and went to investigate—”
“With Paddy lying dead? That was either brave or stupid.”
“I didn't know he was dead, did I? I thought he was sleeping. It never occurred to me that…” I let the sentence trail off. “As I opened the door to the back room I surprised the intruder. He leaped up and swung a fist at me. I was knocked to the ground with considerable force. He jumped over me and got away through that window.”
“So did you get a good look at him? Anyone you've seen before?”
I shook my head. “I hardly had a chance to look at him before I was knocked over backward. I saw his back as he was running away—a slim young man, dressed in black. Dark hair, I think, and maybe a black cap on his head. Very agile, the way he moved.” I shrugged. “That's all I can tell you.”
“Send word to HQ with that description,” Sergeant Wolski called to the constable. “Tell them I'll need backup and the morgue wagon. And tell them to hurry up. He won't last long in this heat.”
“The young lady is hurt,” the constable said, eyeing the sergeant with obvious dislike. “Shouldn't she be attended to? I could have her taken home.”
“When I've finished questioning her,” Wolski said. “I'm still not satisfied about what she was doing here.” He pulled out a notebook. “I'll need your full name and an address.”
“As to that, I live with the O'Hallarans.” For the first time I was allowed to score a point. “You know Sergeant O'Hallaran? Captain Sullivan persuaded them to let me have their attic.” I couldn't resist that one. It obviously registered with Wolski too.
“So you say you were working for Paddy?”
“I just started recently.” I wasn't going to say how recently.
“Do you know what cases he was working on? Any ideas on who might have wanted to shut him up?”
“I'm afraid Mr. Riley didn't share his most sensitive cases with me. I know he was handling a couple of divorces, but that's all I can tell you.”
“I can't say I'm surprised,” Wolski said. He paced around the room, kicking idly at the papers on the floor. “He was asking for it, wasn't he?”
“What are you saying?”
Wolski grinned. He had an unpleasant, supercilious grin that m
ade me want to slap his face. “What can you expect when he tried to play on both sides of the fence?”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning he'd work for both sides, the police and the gangs—whoever would pay him. That's what I call living dangerously. Someone was bound to get him in the end.” He turned to me. “You're lucky he didn't take you into his confidence or you wouldn't have lasted long yourself. All right. You can go home now. Have that cut lip taken care of.”
“So what will happen now?” I asked.
“We'll look for the man you described. We'll ask our informants with the gangs, but I'm not hopeful anyone will squeal.”
“And what about me? I'm still employed here, as far as I'm concerned. There are loose ends in his business I should tidy up if I can. When can I get back in here to clean up?”
He shrugged. “As soon as we've had the police photographer take pictures and we've removed the body.”
“What about all these papers?’ I blurted out, then wished I hadn't. “Shouldn't someone go through diem? It's fairly obvious that the intruder was searching for something and didn't find it, or he'd not have been lingering in the back room after he killed Paddy.”
For the first time Wolski looked at me as if I was a human being and not a creature of a lower order. He nodded. “I'll have a man go through everything. But it's probably not worth the effort. You said yourself he was involved with several cases. We have no way of knowing what particular piece of information might be important enough to somebody that they had to kill for it. I'm still going on the assumption that it was a hired killer. Whoever killed him knew what he was doing—thin blade, through the heart. That's assassin's work.” He kicked up another flurry of papers. “It'll turn out to be one of the gangs—you'll see. They think that Paddy passed on information to the police and this is how they repay that kind of thing. Too bad.”
“Yes,” I said, looking down at Paddy's body. “Too bad.” It was fast becoming obvious that this supercilious sergeant wasn't going to put himself out to find Paddy's killer.
“And you'll be looking for fingerprints, no doubt?” I couldn't resist adding.
The icy stare returned. “Are you trying to teach me my job?”
I returned to my humble female mode. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply—”
“Not much point really,” he said. “If the man knew what he was doing, he'd be careful not to leave any prints.”
I tried to recall whether the hand that swung at me had been wearing gloves, but it had all happened too quickly. However, I wasn't going to give up too lightly on this. “But he could have left a print on the window ledge on his way out.”
“You're persistent, aren't you. I suggest you take yourself off home and leave the detective work to trained professionals.”
He wasn't asking for my prints, which I would have done, if I'd been in charge of the case. I looked around the room. “I'll be happy to help you go through the papers myself,” I said. “Maybe something might strike me.”
“We'll call you if we need you. And you'll be notified when we're through with our investigation so that you can come and clean up the place.”
So I was to be confined to the role of charwoman. “If I'm to get back in to clean up the place, I'll need a key.”
“Where are the keys kept, do you know?”
“In one of his pockets, I think. I could take it and have a copy made, so that you keep the original, in case you need to get back in.”
“I'll have one of my men do it. His pocket, you say?” Paddy's jacket was hanging on the hook on the wall, along with his brown derby. Wolski went over to it and fished through the pockets. Then I remembered Paddy producing money from his vest pocket. It was just possible that… Cautiously I slipped my fingers into the vest pocket. Luckily it was on the side away from his wound. I felt several coins and then my fingers closed around something sharp and metal.
“I think I've—” I began when Wolski exclaimed, “Ah, here we are. This must be it,” and held up a large door key. I looked down at the object in my hand. A much smaller key, shiny, new. My fingers closed around it again. The key to the file cabinet. The intruder had tipped it on its side, maybe in a frustrated attempt to get it open. No doubt the police would find a way to open it, if they were interested. If they weren't, then I'd take a look for myself.
Nine
More policemen had arrived by the time Sergeant Wolski let me go. One of them was setting up a tripod and a flash holder to take pictures of the scene with an old-fashioned hooded camera.
“Poor old Paddy,” I heard one of them mutter. “Who'd a thunk it. He was the type who knew how to take care of himself.”
Watching them made me remember Paddy's camera. He would surely have taken it to capture evidence that night at Delmonico's. Might it contain a vital clue? I thought of looking around for it quietly, without mentioning it to the police, then my better side won out.
“Paddy had a camera,” I told Wolski. “A little box Brownie. It might be important.”
Wolski's eyes registered instant interest. “A camera, you say? Any idea where?”
I shook my head. “Who can say in all this mess?”
He gave a little nod. “Thank you. We'll bear that in mind. Good day to you, Miss Murphy. Constable, show Miss Murphy out.”
I made my way down the steps carefully, as the nausea and dizziness had returned. My jaw was starting to throb alarmingly. If this was what a private investigator could expect, I wasn't sure that I wanted the job after all. Of course, I didn't have the job anymore. I was unemployed yet again. Back to square one.
I didn't want to go home to face yelling youngsters and the nosy Nuala. In truth, I didn't feel up to walking home yet. I turned south out of the mews and went to sit in the shade of a big elm tree in Washington Square. A fountain was playing in the center of the square and an evening breeze blew cooling spray in my direction. Children were playing hopscotch and kick the can. An Italian ice cream vendor pushed his barrow, ringing a small bell as he went. Students were sitting on benches, engaged in earnest discussion. Life was going on exactly as it had before Paddy died. Nobody paid any attention to me or my swollen lip. I took out a hankie, went over to dip it in the fountain and cleaned away the blood, then held it against my face until the coolness of the water reduced the angry throbbing.
What should I do now? Go home and find myself a steady, sensible job where my employer was not likely to be murdered? That was obviously the rational answer. Enough of dabbling in a world about which I knew nothing. I knew I should leave Paddy's death well alone, but I had the feeling that the obnoxious Sergeant Wolski wasn't going to put himself out to find Paddy's killer. Why couldn't Daniel have been summoned instead? Maybe I could tell him and—I broke off this thought. I was not going to tell Daniel Sullivan. I would just have to find Paddy's killer myself. I paused at the enormity of this idea. How could I possibly find a murderer? I had none of Paddy's skills, no idea where to start. But I had let my mouth run away with me enough times, claiming that I wanted to be an investigator. Well, now was the moment to put my money where my mouth was, as I'd heard the gamblers on the transatlantic liner say. Besides, Paddy's murderer had hit me. I had a personal score to settle. Tomorrow I would come back to Paddy's office and go through his file cabinet. Somewhere among those cases was a piece of information worth killing for.
I looked up as a group of people passed me and I heard a languid, aristocratic English voice saying, “Now do be good chaps and leave me alone. Even I don't know what the new play is about yet. I'll probably have the main points done by the time it opens in the fall. If not, the actors will all just have to ad-lib. Now, do run along and leave us in peace.”
My eyes were riveted on to the speaker, who was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. I suppose it's strange to be describing a man as beautiful, but this one was. He was like a figure from an old painting or statue—tall, elegant, dark curly hair worn longer than fashionable, dark eyes, a long
straight nose and a strong angular chin. Perfection, in fact. I just couldn't stop looking at him. As the reporters who had been following him finally left, he said something to one of his companions and they broke into laughter. His face was even more delightful when he was smiling. Now if ever I met a man like that, I could be persuaded to give up any notion about having a career and be content to serve him breakfast in bed every day for the rest of my life.
With a smile at my own foolishness I got up and made my way home.
I managed to creep past Mrs. O'Hallaran successfully, but I wasn't so lucky upstairs. Nuala was sitting in my room with the two little ones.
“Saint Michael and all angels, what happened to your face?” she demanded as she caught sight of me.
“Molly, your mouth is all funny,” Shameyboy added, staring at me in wonder. Bridie came over to me. “Does it hurt a lot? Did you cry?”
“It's all right. It feels much better already.”
“So your fancy man finally beat you up, did he?” Nuala was smirking. “I knew it would happen in the end. Always does.”
“For your information, I have no fancy man. And I don't believe I invited you into my room either.”
“Just keeping an eye on the children while you were out and about, up to God knows what.” That unpleasant smirk again. “And it's no good denying it. I have it from Mrs. O'Hallaran that there's a certain police captain who comes visiting. And someone has to be paying the rent, seeing as how you have no honest job.”
“Well, for once Mrs. O'Hallaran doesn't have her facts straight,” I said.‘The police captain was a friend, nothing more, and we've parted company. And as to an honest job—I'll have you know I'm a private investigator. I got this fat lip trying to apprehend a murderer.”
“Go on, pull the other one, it's got bells on,” she said, chuckling.