Death Wears a White Gardenia

by Zelda Popkin

  Had they been able to see and hear what went on during those ten minutes on the other side of the closed door, they would undoubtedly have been infinitely more mystified.

  Chris Whittaker, the long nosed, skinny head detective of the store, was sitting behind his desk, and he jumped up surprised when the young woman brought the old woman and the policeman in.

  "Who've you got there, Mary?"

  Mary Carner smiled. "Don't you recognize Lizzie without her gardenias?"

  "So 'tis. So 'tis. Our little flower girl." Whittaker jerked his eyebrows, as if he were very much astonished. Then an idea struck him, so forcibly that his features were contorted with the impact. "Did she—does she—can she?" he asked almost breathlessly—"Oh, hello, Inspector. Mary Carner just brought this woman in—I was just asking—"

  "She did," said Mary. "She can. She does. She sold two white gardenias at six o'clock last night to two gentlemen who came out of the store together. She doesn't know their names, but she says she might recognize them if she sees them."

  "Then right here she sits," said Chris, "while we go through with these interviews."

  "Please sir—please," the woman broke in nervously. "Will it be long? I've got a family. I've got a husband home. My daughter's home, too. She's helpless, sir, a cripple. They both can't have their supper 'till get there. I can't stay here—unless the officer—" she looked anxiously up at Reilly—"unless the officer makes me."

  The door banged.

  "Good evening, Mr. Blankfort," Inspector Heinsheimer said.

  "What's this? What's this woman doing here?" Blankfort demanded.

  The old woman looked at him uneasily. She moved nearer to the policeman, touched his sleeve.

  "This is the old flower woman from the corner," Whittaker began. "Miss Carner thought she—"

  "And I thought I had told this officer many times that I wanted that woman kept away from our block. If I've spoken to him once, I've spoken to him a dozen times about it. I've had complaints from customers. Pursell's reported it to the Precinct Captain. I've taken the matter up with the Fifth Avenue Association. We can't have these peddlers cluttering up the front of our store. Business establishments are entitled to some consideration..."

  The old woman grew momentarily more and more agitated. She licked her dry, bluish lips. Her thin hand trembled on the policeman's coat sleeve. Reilly's round face was red with embarrassment.

  "I want this stopped." Blankfort had begun to shout. "Now. Definitely. Permanently. I want this woman to get out of here now and never to show herself in this neighborhood again. Officer, I'll hold you responsible if she—"

  "But, Mr. Blankfort," Mary interposed, "I brought this woman in—"

  "Miss Carner," he said coldly, "are you working for me or I for you? Which one of us gives the orders around here?"

  Mary's tired face flushed. "I hate him," she thought. "He's a louse."

  Reilly took the woman's arm, led her to the door and opened it. "Please, officer," the woman whispered, "I didn't do anything. Please, Officer, don't arrest me."

  "Go along, mother," he said gently. "You work the other side of the street for a day or two. I'll keep an eye out for you."

  "Thank you, Officer. God bless you." She lifted his hand suddenly to her lips and kissed it. The watching crowd giggled. Officer Reilly blushed like a school girl.

  "Now, now, mother. None o' that."

  "God bless you for your kind heart."

  He made a way for her, with embarrassed gallantry, through the crowd. The cleaning women and the window trimmers, watching them curiously, saw her pull his head down to hers, place her lips close to his ear. "Migawd" someone said aloud, "she's kissing him now on the face." But Officer Reilly straightened up, and he looked no longer embarrassed, but very stern and grim.

  And then suddenly the door of the detective's room was flung open and someone called out, "Harry Del Monte."

  A tall, slender young man, whose hair was blond and curly and rolled close to his head like a woolen wig, whose coat fitted just the least bit too well above the hips, disengaged himself from the little knot of men, and smiling self-consciously, stepped inside the door. The cleaning women craned their necks to see the room within.

  The investigators gathered in Chris Whittaker's private office had decided to begin their roll call of the men and women who had been known to be present in the Blankfort store, immediately before and during the time estimated to be the hour of Andrew McAndrew's death, with the examination of Harry Del Monte, the chief display manager.

  Mr. Del Monte, when he entered, found Chris Whittaker behind his desk, grim, saturnine, Mary Carner beside him, looking tired and tense. Inspector Heinsheimer was flanked by a stenographer from headquarters and a member of the District Attorney's staff, the venerable Judge Hodges having sent word that he was worn out by the labors of the day and would remain at home. But it was John Blankfort who dominated the scene. The president of the store looked definitely more haggard and worn than he had eight hours earlier when the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of his store was at its dawn. His face was drawn, but his mouth and chin bore a look of determination, a resolute air of—this-has-to-be-gotten-over-with-and-it-might-as-well-be-done-at-once.

  He had seated himself in front of his chief detective's desk and, turning his back on the only woman in the room, had taken from Whittaker the list of employees to be questioned—thirty-six persons, excluding himself, Whittaker, Pursell, and the dead McAndrew—and had announced his intention to conduct the investigation himself.

  "You fellows have been running around in circles all day," he declared. "You've created plenty of commotion without getting very far. Now we'll get somewhere. If anything's to be found out in this store it will be found out here and now, and no more time wasted."

  Harry Del Monte gave his name, his age, his address, his occupation as display manager, and the investigation got down to business. Eleven men had worked with Mr. Del Monte the night before the anniversary and the murder. They included Castrovinnci, the display manager's assistant, eight window trimmers and two carpenters. They had begun their work on the Forty-seventh Street side. Why? No special reason. They had just planned it that way. Del Monte had taken the front windows, Castrovinnci the rear, and they worked their way around until they met in the center of the Forty-seventh Street side. They started working about half past five. He thought possibly Castrovinnci had begun a little later. The back windows held the furniture displays, and his assistant had had to lose a little time in getting the heavy display merchandise down. By eight-thirty they were finished on that side. Yes, he was sure of that. They had worked fast. They had made models beforehand, he added with some pride, of every window. That was his system. Everything completely worked out in the model. Those large folding screens he was using (had they noticed them?) expedited matters, eliminated much tacking and draping of fabrics, and were very artistic. They hadn't gone out for supper. None of the display staff had. One of the porters brought in sandwiches and coffee. Between nine and eleven, he was over in the windows on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-sixth Street. No, he had not seen Mr. McAndrew all evening (that was too bad about McAndrew, wasn't it?). Had he seen anyone at the front door of the store at about ten o'clock last night? Well, after all, how could he have? The shades were down. No. no trouble at all. He was sorry he could tell them nothing. He doubted Mr. Castrovinnci could be more helpful. But one never knew.

  Mr. Castrovinnci, a small, nervous young Italian, followed him. Mr. Castrovinnci was assistant display manager, nothing more. He had remained in the store last night to decorate windows, and earthquake, cyclone, holocaust or murder would not have taken his attention from windows. At five-thirty he had started on Sixth Avenue window number 4, overstuffed living room furniture; at six-fifteen on window 5, house furnishings, a really artistic display of pots and kettles and garbage cans in a new color scheme of peach and old blue; by eight he had worked his way around to silk underwear and negl
igees, window 11, Forty-seventh Street side, and was ready to move over to the opposite side of the store. Mr. Castrovinnci was painstaking and anxious to please. He told the assembled gentlemen and the solitary lady (keeping his eyes fixed a trifle anxiously on Mr. Blankfort as he spoke) exactly where he had been and what he had done, omitting no detail, between the hours of half past five and eleven, when he had left the store with Del Monte, walked with him to the subway station, had taken a West Side local and gone home to bed. He had not seen Mr. McAndrew; as a matter of fact, he doubted he would have known Mr. McAndrew if that gentleman had passed by. He had only been with Jeremiah Blankfort's three months, he added, and was not yet familiar with the store's personnel. About nine o'clock Mr. Carlough, of the interior decorating department, had stopped by to see how they were coming along, and a little later he had seen O'Connor, the merchandise manager, and about ten, Mr. Pursell. No one else all evening, except the porters, the carpenter and the four window trimmers assigned to him, and of course his chief.

  Mr. Castrovinnci's detailed recital took a full half hour.

  "Two down and thirty-four to go, complained Inspector Heinsheimer. "At this rate we'll be here till tomorrow noon. We got to move faster than this. All we want to know is where every guy that was in this store was between half past nine and eleven o'clock. And if he saw McAndrew, or heard any sound. We don't give a hoot if the garbage cans were yellow and purple or pink and green.... Let's cut the schmoos."

  Thereafter, the examination of Mr. Del Monte's window trimmers moved faster. The gentlemen located themselves on the floor plan of store, described their movements. One Rinaldo Gaines had crossed the main floor on a personal errand at about ten o'clock. He had heard an elevator descending in the back of the store. He had not seen its passengers. Gone about his business, and seen nothing, heard nothing more.

  The two carpenters, flustered and a trifle frightened in the presence of the law and the management, stuttered under questioning, but yielded nothing save that the display department had very evidently been preoccupied with its own business all evening.

  It was a quarter of seven when they got around to Daly of the advertising department. Mr. Daly eliminated himself and his two assistants quickly enough. They had been out of the store by half past eight—he and Middleton and Rubenstein, who had remained with him to make the last of the changes and corrections in the proofs of the morning paper ads. He had phoned the Times and the American before he left to make some final changes and they all three went out together to dinner. They did not come back. Carlough, head of the interior decorating department, had gone out for dinner, come back at eight, looked around at the windows, gone home about a quarter past nine. He had merely offered his cooperation to Mr. Del Monte and Mr. Castrovinnci, but apparently they had had no need for it. O'Connor, the merchandise manager, and his assistant had gone home at a quarter past nine. They were a little anxious in offering their corroboration of that fact.

  "And we know," Inspector Heinsheimer said wearily, "that McAndrew was alive and at the telephone at half past nine. The window trimmers minded their business, the advertising men and the merchandise men went home early." He bent over and picked up the list on Whittaker's desk. "That leaves us the cleaning women and the watchman and the porters and you" (his gesture took in Whittaker, Pursell, and Blankfort), "and McAndrew."

  "You do not mean," Blankfort snapped, "that Mr. Pursell and myself are to be included in this questioning?"

  Heinsheimer shrugged his shoulders. "You two have eyes and ears like everybody else."

  "Well," said Pursell, "it's after seven now. Then I suggest you make this snappier. I know Mr. Blankfort has had a tiring day and he's anxious to get home."

  "Don't worry about me, Pursell. I'll stick it out. Mrs. Blankfort isn't expecting me for dinner. This circus will be over soon."

  Pursell glanced at him anxiously. "All right. Better get the cleaning women in next. They have work to do, and most of them have children to get home to."

  The charwomen tried everybody's patience. One after the other, shy, frightened, or aggressively talkative, they stammered, giggled, jabbered, gave their names, addresses, told with much circumlocution where they had swept, polished, scrubbed in the big store on the night Andrew McAndrew was murdered. Blankfort had begun the questioning but had been forced to give it up after the second witness. Inspector Heinsheimer tried it next, and got so overheated by his efforts to make them understand simple question, to avoid long and irrelevant answers, that he had to remove his heavy coat and tie, and to throw up his hands in despair. "I can't talk to these women!" he shouted. "They're idiots, every one of them." Chris Whittaker, whose long experience with shop lifters of every nationality had given him a working vocabulary in several languages, finally took up the long and exhausting examination and brought it around to Katie Kovacs.

  Katie was the last one. Magruder, the night watchman, and the porters alone remained outside of that noisy herd which had gathered at five o'clock, when Mrs. Kovacs, rotund, apple-cheeked, stepped into the little smoke-filled room. The examination had dragged the minutes around to eight o'clock. Katie brought an air into the little room that was as fresh and reviving as if someone had opened a window. Katie smiled brightly, placatingly, at Mr. Blankfort, stared with friendly curiosity at the perspiring police official, nodded amiably to Mary Carner.

  She gave her name, the number of the East Fifth Steet tenement in which she lived. She told them, without delay, that she had cleaned in the Blankfort building for three years. She knew most of the men by sight—the big men, Mr. Blankfort, Mr. Pursell, Mr. McAndrew, Mr. O'Connor, Mr. Daly. She always cleaned the eighth floor. That was how she knew them. Yes. She had cleaned the eighth floor last night. That's why she had been in the store so late last night. She didn't get home 'til almost eleven. And her husband was awful worried. Always, she was home before nine.

  As Katie spoke, softly, calmly, an air of tension grew in the little room. Chris Whittaker leaned across his desk toward her; the Inspector and Mary Carner sat up, eager, taut. John Blankfort's crisp voice broke in upon the flow of her narrative.

  "Why were you so late? You are always finished before nine o'clock on the eighth floor."

  " 'Scuse me. All the men working in their offices. I cannot come in and say, please go out, Katie wants to clean."

  "Who was working?" Inspector Heinsheimer interrupted.

  "Mr. Daly and two men they working. They go home after eight o'clock. I clean room. Mr. O'Connor, he working, he go out of room after half past eight. I clean. Only Mr. McAndrew in his room, and some men, maybe six, eight in Mr. Blankfort's room."

  Inspector Heinsheimer turned quickly toward Blankfort.

  "That's all right. There was a special meeting of directors. They went out about quarter past nine."

  "Why weren't they asked to come here?"

  "Because it was none of their business or of yours, Inspector. The affairs of Jeremiah Blankfort and Company I think I have told you before, Inspector, are not part of this examination. I can furnish you with the names of these gentlemen, but I should prefer that they are not drawn into this in any way."

  "Was a Mr. Chase of the Empire City Bank among them?" Mary Carner asked.

  The back of Mr. Blankfort's head jerked sharply. "No," he barked. He turned fiercely to Katie Kovacs. "Get on with your story. These gentlemen were in my room for a meeting. That's my business. Tell us what you did, Mrs. Kovacs."

  "Oh yes. Oh yes, please. I see Mr. McAndrew is in his room. By his desk. He is always nice to me. I come in. I say, 'Please, Mr. McAndrew, it is so late. I like if I can clean your office now.' He say, 'Sure, Katie.' He get up and go in next room, in small room. I clean out basket. I use vacuum cleaner. I dust desk. I clean his office. It take me only ten fifteen minute. It is small office. I say, 'I am finish now, Mr. McAndrew. You can come in.' He come in. And sit down by his desk some more. I see men coming out from Mr. Blankfort's office. I wait till all men go on elevator. Then I
go in. Nobody there. But is much papers. Much smoke. Much cigars. I have much work to do."

  "What time were you finished?" Pursell asked.

  "I have no clock. Maybe ten o'clock."

  "And then what did you do?" Blankfort persisted.

  "I go over and I ring bell for elevator."

  "What elevator?" the Inspector demanded.

  "Same elevator like always. Big elevator. Back, on 46th Street side. I wait for porter. Mike, he bring elevator up. He take my bag papers. He take brooms and vacuum cleaner on. He say, 'Katie, you late. Other womans go home long time. You last one in store. Ain't you 'fraid?'"

  "I say, 'No. What for I be 'fraid? Nobody bother me in empty store.' He say, 'Ain't you 'fraid go down locker room in cellar alone? I go with you.' I say, 'No, I ain't 'fraid. You go mind your own business. I more 'fraid for fellers don't mind own business.' He take me down basement for get my hat and coat and change my dress. He say, 'Sure you don't want me stay?' I say, 'Get hell out of here.' I smack his face." She looked apologetically toward her employer. But he was leaning toward her now, absorbed apparently, as indeed were all the others, in her narrative. "'Scuse me, please, I say bad words. I don't like feller him get fresh. Light is in locker room. I change dress. Then I go to stairs. I no ring for Mike. I no like him." She paused. "I go up steps. Top steps loud talk. I hear man hollering like mad. Bad word. No, I cannot tell word. Terrible bad word. One, two, three, word. Then I don't hear no more. I say it is none my business. I go out through door. I am in store now. I open front door. I go home."

  She paused, smiling still but breathless. Like wolves, the occupants of the room pounced on her, hurling questions.