Louise bolstered pillows and tidied blankets, murmuring words of encouragement all the while. Masako’s situation was bound to turn out well—Louise’s housemate had a professor at Brooklyn Law who might jump at the case. And didn’t Professor Oakley have influential friends on his side? And the force of moral authority? No sense taking a pessimist’s view.
The sick man twisted his face. “You’re just trotting out some of your applied psychology. Keep the old man’s spirits up so he won’t die on you.”
“Can you blame me?” Another nervous smile.
Oakley’s quivering hands sought hers. He squeezed with more strength than she could have predicted. “Only one thing could raise my spirits this morning. A good lawyer for Masako—cost be damned. Who is this Brooklyn Law fellow? One of those rabble-rousers?”
“His name is Abe Pritzker.”
“Humph.” He cocked his head. “Pritzker? Wasn’t he involved in that Boss Hague case in Jersey City? He won on First Amendment grounds?”
Louise shrugged. “Could be. Alicia calls him a champion of the people.”
“A Bolshie, you mean.”
“I mean a rebel who isn’t afraid to challenge powerful institutions.” Louise thought of the newspaper buried in the garbage. Surely Abe Pritzker would be more courageous than the lawyers who’d already turned down the case.
“I never thought I’d hear myself saying something like this.” Her patient’s eyes burned above his grey beard like black coals in a fiery grate. “But maybe that’s just exactly what we need—a good, old-fashioned, left-leaning rabble-rouser. They took that Hague case all the way to the Supreme Court.”
He nodded decisively. “Hire him then, if you believe he’s the right man. I’m depending on you, Louise. Trusting your good sense. Stick with that lawyer, find out what’s happened to Masako and bring me word that she hasn’t been harmed.”
She nodded slowly. The professor called me Louise, she thought, fully aware that she was moving farther and farther from her role as private-duty nurse.
***
“Abe Pritzker agreed? Oh, thank god.” Louise’s knees suddenly felt weak and she sank down on the telephone bench in the hall. She couldn’t wait to get back to the professor with the news, but questions came first. “When can I meet him?”
Alicia’s excited voice came over the wire. “Be at his office at four p.m. He’s already working on permission to visit Mrs. Oakley—”
“Today?” Louise could hear her voice rise an octave.
“He’s going to try. Before that, he wants you to sit down with Professor Oakley and make notes about Mrs. Oakley’s arrest. What the agents said and did. What questions they asked. What items they took. Is Oakley well enough for that?”
“He’ll do what he must.” Louise twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “But exactly what should we try to remember?”
“Every little thing. Pritzker will have to dig for the elements of the case. In Enemy Alien hearings, the Feds aren’t obliged to reveal either the accusations or the evidence. Backtracking over their movements Sunday night may the only way to figure out why they targeted Mrs. Oakley.”
“I’ll get right to work,” Louise responded, ransacking the bench’s one drawer for a notepad and pencil. “And Alicia, I really don’t know how to thank you.”
“I didn’t have to do much. Honest Abe was just waiting for a case like this.” The law student’s nasal laugh filled Louise’s ear. “Another crack at the Supreme Court, maybe? Wait until you’ve met Abe Pritzker, Louise. You may want to strangle me for ever mentioning his name.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“Ya want coffee, McKenna?” Captain Joseph Dwyer had his finger on a buzzer that would alert Bernice, his secretary, to gear the percolator up for a second round.
McKenna shifted his weight in the wooden chair. He wanted this meeting to be as brief as possible. The upshot was a foregone conclusion and he had a case to work. “No, thanks, Cap.”
“It’s not squad-room swill. Bernice has a dab hand. She might even be able to rustle up a Danish or two.” Dwyer leaned forward, hands folded over the unmarred blotter centered on the desk. A leather cup of pencils sharpened to lethal points sat at his right hand; on his left, a hefty marble P.B.A. paperweight held down an official-looking document.
“Nah.” McKenna recognized the document and the handwritten answers to its printed questions—his retirement application. It didn’t worry him. The folded New York Times beside it—now that was making him sweat under his collar. Frowning, he ran a finger between damp flesh and stiff cotton. Gayle had never strangled him like this. Now that he was doing for himself, he’d have to tell the Chink at the laundry to go lighter on the starch.
Dwyer regarded him with narrowed blue eyes. The homicide chief, who’d been a skinny runt a year behind McKenna at the police academy, had matured into a broad-shouldered, silver-haired officer with a chiseled profile. Jawline sagged a bit, though, McKenna couldn’t help but notice.
His hand unconsciously went to his own jaw, then, quickly, back to his right knee. The sound of typing clattered through the frosted-glass door panel. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Sure thing.” Dwyer slid the retirement application from under the green-swirled marble and waved it like a pennant. “In other circumstances, I’d pass this on to the pension board with my blessing.” He positioned the document at arm’s length and read, “Michael Francis McKenna—joined the force in ’21, appointed detective four years out of the academy, lieutenant since ’37. Two commendations for meritorious conduct.” Dwyer raised his gaze and his eyebrows. “One of ’em got you that lead in your hip…”
McKenna shrugged. “Doesn’t slow me down much.”
Dwyer eased back in his leather chair. “You’ve put in your time, Mike. Served with dedication. Earned your pension twice over, but—”
McKenna threw up a hand, palm out. “I got it. Lousy timing all around. The force will lose a shitload of recruits to the Army, and the rumor mill has it the mayor won’t be requesting exemptions for any cops who’re called up.”
“Well.” Dwyer arranged his features carefully. “That’s bound to happen, even though Fiorello hasn’t…Well…But, no—right now the department can’t afford to lose any of its old hands.”
“So, just give me that back, will ya?” McKenna leaned across the desk, plucked the paper from Dwyer’s hand and, with one swift tear, destroyed his hard-won retirement.
The fishing shack on Shinnecock—gone. Hours reliving old times with Gayle, on those rare occasions when she managed to recognize him, gone. Gone, all gone. Only wartime duty remained, and who knew how long that might last? Six months? Ten years? The rest of his life?
Truth to tell, he’d been holding his breath the last few weeks. What if he caught another bullet just before he left the force? Who’d take care of Gayle then? Who’d go up to Harrison twice a week to wheel her around that pricey rest home’s garden paths, trying to spark a few memories from her addled brain?
Memories of their first kiss at the Democratic Club dance.
Memories of the apartment on Vestry Street. Their twenty-odd years together.
Memories of him.
McKenna stood, breathing slowly and deeply. “That it, Cap?”
“One more thing.” Dwyer’s fingers curled around the folded Times.
McKenna sank back down. When was he going to learn to keep his trap shut? He’d read the paper on his way over to headquarters and wanted to kick himself. Behind that cute figure and those dark curls, Miss Cabby Ward was the same as all the crime-beat reporters he’d ever tangled with. To them, facts were just something to whip up into a scandal that would sell papers.
“What got into you, anyhow?” Dwyer unfolded the paper with a snap. “Blabbing to a reporter like that? Now that the Shelton case is in the
public eye, you can bet the yellow press will jump in with both feet. Bernice has fielded over fifty calls this morning. Joe Schmoo wants to see this Jap dame charged, and the DA wants to know why you’re letting grass grow under your feet.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—he’d been afraid of this. “Good police work takes time, Cap. You know that. And I’m not convinced—”
Dwyer made a chopping motion with the side of his hand. “What’ve ya got, so far?”
“Not a lot. No surprises in the autopsy—Shelton was hit with a heavy, blunt object. Crushed his skull and the brain tissue underneath. Blood stains on the floor and packing boxes show only his blood type—AB, one of the rare ones. And fingerprints are a wash—too many people have passed through that gallery to yield anything useful.”
“Any candidates for the heavy, blunt object?”
McKenna shook his head. “We had a hammer—Doc says it doesn’t match the wound. Odds are the killer took the weapon with him and gave it the toss. The boys are still looking.”
“Him? This Masako Fumi’s no him.” Dwyer flicked the newspaper photo with his fingers, the one from the gallery brochure. “Gotta say, she sounds like one dangerous dame—Lucrezia Borgia and Mata Hari rolled into one. Jap version, that is.”
McKenna rubbed his chin. He saw where the captain was headed and didn’t much care for it. He just wasn’t convinced that the Jap artist had clonked Shelton. The careful arrangement of the corpse under Fumi’s painting meant something. Sure. But he’d never seen a Japanese woman big and strong enough to bust a guy’s skull, then heft his dead weight fifteen to twenty yards. Fumi was in this somehow. But not as the killer, he’d bet his bottom dollar.
“So, what’s Fumi have to say for herself?” Dwyer’s face was set in an expression that meant no good.
McKenna leaned forward, resting hands on knees. “Nothin’. The Feds won’t let me at her, and her husband is stonewalling. Oakley swears his wife wasn’t upset about Shelton closing her show and that she never left their apartment on Friday evening.”
“You know the ropes. Lean on him a little.”
“No dice, Cap. Oakley’s got pneumonia, and his doctor’s giving me a red light.”
“And the FBI won’t let you talk to Fumi?”
McKenna was glad he hadn’t accepted a Danish. His breakfast cornflakes suddenly felt like iron filings grinding around in his stomach. “Jurisdiction.” He almost spat the word. “The Feds aren’t playing give and take with their charges out on Ellis Island. I took the ferry over and was denied entry at the gate. The brass at Foley Square aren’t about to cooperate.”
Dwyer selected a pencil from the leather cup and grinned. His hand hovered over a notepad. “Name of the agent in charge?”
“Bagwell. He’s not returning calls.”
“He will.” The pencil scratched. Dwyer tore off the top page of the notepad and crossed to the frosted-glass door. A short conversation with Bernice ensued. Once he’d returned, Dwyer stood over McKenna and announced, “Give it twenty minutes and try again. I think you’ll find Agent Bagwell more cooperative.”
Not for the first time, McKenna was reminded that the homicide chief was a personal friend of Commissioner Valentine. On the wall over Dwyer’s desk, there was a photo of the two together, shaking hands at some podium. There were other photos, too, nicely framed in gilt-trimmed black. McKenna’s gaze landed on an eight-by-ten of Dwyer and party at a plush night club, the Stork maybe, or El Morocco. That little squirt next to him was the mayor—Fiorello, the Little Flower. While McKenna had worked his way through the ranks the old-fashioned way, clever Joe Dwyer had been playing the game: trading favors with powerful protectors and getting his name in Walter Winchell’s column.
That’s why Dwyer could run interference with the FBI and McKenna would retire—if he lived ’til the end of this goddamned war—at the rank of lieutenant. But there was no time for grousing, the captain was ushering him out of his office and into the secretary’s.
The motherly Bernice looked on, beaming, while Dwyer pumped his hand. “Glad you decided to stay on, McKenna. I know I can count on you to get enough dirt on that slant-eye Fumi for the DA to run with.”
“No guarantee it was her.” McKenna cleared his throat.
“Look, Lieutenant” —Dwyer blinked and jutted his chin— “you got a case with an obvious suspect whose countrymen just catapulted us into war. Thanks to your running your mouth to some damned reporter, the whole city’s watching. Grab a police launch, lights and sirens, the whole shootin’ match, take a coupla uniforms and get back out to Ellis.”
Boy, that little Jap makes one convenient suspect, McKenna thought, as he nodded noncommittally. He had a different take. His agenda was headed by finding the dame who’d hired Hermann Rupp to picket the Fumi show. And he still had to corner Nigel Fairchild for a chat. If the girlfriend who’d tossed the wine at Fumi’s painting turned out to be Rupp’s blonde, so much the better. By then, Brenner would have finished going through Shelton’s papers, and some of the other boys would’ve checked on Lawrence Smoot and Desmond Cox’s stories.
Little by little the case would come together. Cases almost always did, given enough patience. But how far would Dwyer’s patience stretch?
***
McKenna managed to get out of the chief’s office without making any promises. He took the elevator up to Homicide only to be greeted with a stack of messages from the squad secretary.
Doris stared at him over the tops of her glasses, crimsoned lips in a disapproving curve. “The one on top is a reporter. From the Times, she claims. She’s called three times.”
Without giving it a glance, McKenna crumpled the message into a ball and banked it off the rim of the trash basket. It was the first thing he’d done that day that actually felt good.
“So what should I tell her when she calls again, Lute?”
He smiled grimly. “You tell Miss Ward I’m not taking calls.”
The rest of the memos held no surprises. Three young detectives announced they were joining up, the newly-minted air raid warden ordered all lights out in unused offices, and the assistant chief had called a meeting to discuss a wartime shift roster. McKenna shoved the folded memos into a pocket, wondering how much actual police work could be accomplished in the midst of frantic war mobilization. He was no stonewalling isolationist, but, by god, he’d have been a lot happier if Roosevelt had been allowed to keep us out of the war.
These kids lining up at the recruiting center had no idea what hell they were in for. He did. He’d been in the last one.
“Lute?”
Doris was looking at him with raised eyebrows. There was no time for dwelling in the past. McKenna took a deep breath, tapped a finger on the secretary’s desk. “Call down for a driver, would ya, hon. I gotta get moving.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Won’t take my calls?” Cabby wanted to throw the heavy telephone receiver through the nearest window, but the cord was too short, and Halper would probably dock her pay.
Clutching the phone so hard her knuckles ached, she made her voice as sweet as Louise’s. “Then could I leave a message for Lieutenant McKenna?
“No? No calls or messages?” Cabby banged down the receiver. Fuming over a desk crowded with a typewriter and half-empty cups of coffee, she muttered, “Just who does this washed up flatfoot think he is—standing in the way of the public’s right to know?”
And smack dab in the way of a second Cabby Ward triumph.
Her story had run that morning, center column of city news. Above the fold. Halper had actually come over to her desk and said, “Good job, Ward,” in front of all the guys. Her article must have also caught the publisher’s attention; as she’d crossed the lobby early that morning, Sulzberger had given her a nod. Arthur Sulzberger lifting his hat to Cabby Ward! Nothing had ever felt so exhilar
ating, not even that wild night in Joey Gaetano’s Buick coupe. Until the last minute, that is, when he got religion, and pulled back—
Damn that McKenna! She’d assured Halper she had the detective eating out of her hand, and now he wouldn’t even talk to her. She needed more dope to keep the story rolling.
Cabby grabbed her sweater from the back of her chair, jerking it so hard a button went flying. In five minutes, she was in the elevator. Another five and she was on the platform waiting for the IRT that would take her down to Worth Street and the medical examiner’s office. She had a contact there—Ralphie Stolfo, a skinny clerk with a toothbrush moustache. She’d let him take her out for spaghetti a couple of times. Good ol’ Ralphie would come through with some dope on the autopsy. Enough to squeeze out a second story, she hoped.
But when Cabby pushed through the door announcing NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner, her heart dropped to her stomach. A middle-aged woman with a square, no-nonsense face sat unsmiling behind Ralphie’s desk, watching Cabby cross the empty waiting area. The collar on her navy blue suit jacket was buttoned so tight it was a wonder she could breathe.
“Good morning,” Cabby announced with more confidence than she felt. “I’m here to see Ralphie.”
“Mr. Stolfo joined up,” the woman replied in nasal tones.
Cabby folded her arms tightly, surprised at her sudden rush of emotion. Skinny Ralphie who was afraid to steal a kiss? Ralphie in the Army? Then she had another think. Of course, you didn’t have to be Superman to tote a rifle. Lots of Ralphies—guys from the block, guys she went to grammar school with—would be going. If not now, soon.
“May I help you?” The receptionist glanced sideways, toward the blank sheets of paper and carbon waiting in her Remington Standard.
“Uh…I need some information on the Shelton case.”
“Case number? Date and borough of death?”
Case number? Shit! “Arthur Shelton, the West Fifty-seventh Street art gallery murder. Maybe you read my article in this morning’s Times.” Cabby couldn’t resist a proud smile.
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