Murder in Greenwich Village

by Liz Freeland

  “Why, you’re loaded with talent,” Otto exclaimed.

  Smelling soup burning, I hopped up. “Her singing’s better than her cooking.”

  Otto had her sing a verse; then he joined in on the second. From the worshipful look in his eyes, I guessed my old Altoona beau had found a new muse.

  CHAPTER 6

  Van Hooten and McChesney was located in an unremarkable brick house on East Thirty-eighth Street, sandwiched between a brownstone on one side and a six-story apartment tower on the corner. A hundred years earlier, our building had probably been a very comfortable home for a well-to-do family. Since then, it had been converted into our inadequate offices, with the upper floor serving as a warehouse for long-forgotten titles. Mr. McChesney didn’t believe in throwing anything away.

  The first thing I would have thrown away was Guy Van Hooten, who, as the scion of one half of the firm, had claimed the largest ground-floor office upon his father’s death. It was both the nicest room in the building and, since it was Guy’s office, the loneliest. Sometimes we wouldn’t see Guy for weeks at a stretch, and when he did deign to show up, it was impossible to say what he did. Right now he was on one of his greatest streaks of work-shirking yet, and my coworkers on the second floor had bets placed on how long it would last. Already Guy was the Ty Cobb of absenteeism.

  Ogden McChesney could be found more frequently at the office, although he was only marginally more productive than Guy. Yet I had a real fondness for my aunt’s old friend. Aunt Irene had confided to me that Mr. McChesney had proposed to her twice over the years. Mr. McChesney had also published her first book, before she’d moved on to greener pastures. To be honest, few pastures in the world of New York publishing weren’t greener than Van Hooten and McChesney. These days Mr. McChesney did little in the business that bore his name, but he did pore over the financial accounts every day, which probably accounted for the bulk of his ulcer complaints.

  The coworker I spent the most time with was Jackson Beasley, a Southern gentleman and old college acquaintance of Guy’s who’d been brought in to serve as editor not long before I arrived. He and I shared the space that used to be the house’s parlor. Yellow-and-white-striped wallpaper browning along the vertical seams appeared original to the house. A hideous heavy fixture like a wooden wagon wheel studded with large bulbs hung low from the center of the ceiling, and at least one bulb always seemed to be burnt out at any given moment. Against the wall opposite the foyer stood three high bookcases. Tucked in wherever convenient—and occasionally inconvenient—were five-drawer file cabinets and a small table and chair, where our office boy, Oliver, was stationed when he wasn’t running errands.

  My desk was wedged into the corner near the entrance hall’s archway. It was a tall rolltop model in dark-stained walnut, with a handy pullout shelf for writing notes. Stacked at the back of the desktop was a matching shelf unit that reached halfway to the ceiling. I loved my desk, with its seemingly endless cubbies and little drawers. I had a place for everything. Unfortunately, one thing I didn’t have was privacy, since mere feet away stood Jackson’s desk, identical to mine.

  He was less enamored than I of his desk and this office arrangement. At the time he’d been hired, the building had no more private offices, so he had been squeezed into this large room with the secretary. Jackson, though relieved to have a job, had never recovered from the slight. He’d attended Harvard at the same time as Guy and had probably distinguished himself academically in a way Guy never had. Yet Guy, while giving Jackson a much-needed position, had insulted him by shoehorning him in with the secretary and the office boy while his own spacious office remained empty ninety percent of the time.

  My day began at nine, but I always arrived early to make some tea or coffee and to freshen up after the morning’s commute. Since I was both an early bird and Irene Livingston Green’s niece, Mr. McChesney had given me a key to the building. These early mornings provided blessed solitude. Although the flat Callie and I shared was a step up from life with Aunt Sonja and Uncle Dolph, where I’d lived in a houseful of family and usually a boarder or two, I still craved privacy. In New York, it was easy to feel surrounded all the time, just another ant on a teeming hill. Time alone was a luxury I didn’t take for granted.

  This morning, however, my mind wasn’t in a relaxing mood. It flitted through all the drama of the past days, a disturbing magic lantern show constantly whirring inside my head. Ethel’s horrible murder, Otto’s being hauled away, Callie’s tense, worried face, Madame Serena. A baby crying . . . where is its mother?

  Why, with so much happening, did that horrid woman have to stir me up this way? I got out the broom and dustpan and attacked the floors with a fury. Fortune-tellers were frauds, of course. Clever frauds who picked up on subtle clues in a person’s appearance and spun vague prophecies and predictions, trying to pass them off as meaningful. The baby crying was just in my mind, planted there by a charlatan who told lies for money.

  Somewhere inside my satchel there was a torn sheet of paper with an address scrawled across it in blurred ink. The same address was written indelibly in my memory: 7 East Eightieth Street. Going there would seem wrong, I felt, but not going there tested my willpower. I’d come close. One recent Sunday afternoon in Central Park, standing at the southern edge of the museum, I’d looked longingly down Eightieth Street. I was knowledgeable enough about New York to know what I’d find there—a fashionable house on a street where even tidy shrubberies were safely encased behind wrought iron. Eightieth Street was far from the hoi polloi, a place where its inhabitants, even the children, never emerged from their doors until scrubbed, garbed, and coiffed to perfection, and uniformed nannies pushed baby carriages as elegantly designed and fitted out as the real carriages their families owned, or had until it had been traded for a shiny long automobile and chauffeur.

  When the doorbell sounded, I jumped as if I’d been caught somewhere I shouldn’t have been. I expected it was just a deliveryman, or possibly a boy from the Western Union office. Guy Van Hooten’s cohort sent telegrams in the thoughtless way my girlfriends and I used to pass notes in school. But when I swung the door open, Ford Fitzsimmons stood before me, his face sprouting out of the enormous bouquet he was holding.

  “Too early to call?” he asked.

  “Oh . . . I . . .” I hardly knew what to say. “What are you—?” Were those flowers for me?

  His smile dissolved into a mask of concern. “Are you all right, Louise? Your eyes are red.”

  “I’m fine,” I piped up. “I’ve been sweeping, and all the dust simply . . . or I might have a touch of hay fever.” Dust, hay fever . . . did it matter? I doubted Ford Fitzsimmons had come here to discuss my health and happiness. Why was he here? “Come in.”

  Once I’d closed the door behind us, it struck me more forcefully that his visit was odd . . . and early. None of my other colleagues had yet arrived. Alarm stabbed at me, but I shook it off. This was work, others would be coming soon . . . and I was curious about those flowers.

  He circled the room where my desk was, recoiling a bit from the hovering light fixture, and took in the top-heavy desks and shabby walls. “Not what I imagined.” His gaze rested on two framed Hogarth prints, speckled with age, and then a 1913 complimentary calendar we’d received from Gotham Printers featuring a picture of a slim-waisted damsel at a printing press and the slogan “Just my type!” in enthusiastic script.

  “May I offer you some coffee?” It was my habitual offering to visitors to the office. “I usually arrive early and prepare some.”

  “I knew you’d be the first to arrive,” he said. “Even on a Saturday. That’s why I waited.”

  Waited? “You were watching the office?”

  He nodded.

  And yet I was here for a full ten minutes before he’d knocked.

  My face must have been an open book, because he hurried to explain. “Once I saw you, I ran down to the florist and got you these.” He presented the flowers to me, and I savore
d the riot of fragrance they lent the musty room—rose, lilac, and carnation. No one had given me flowers since . . . well, probably since Otto brought me some on some years-ago birthday.

  “Thank you, Mr. Fitzsimmons.”

  “Ford.”

  “Ford.” I inhaled again. A person could get drunk on that smell. “They’re beautiful. Now that you’ve glimpsed our drab desk cave, you can see how a little nature is appreciated here.”

  He frowned at the room like a prospective buyer. “It could stand some new wallpaper.”

  He was clutching something else, I noticed. A bulging manila envelope. “Is that for us?”

  He looked down in faint surprise at the envelope, as though he’d forgotten it. I doubted he had. “My second book.” He held it out to me.

  I had to put my flowers down on the desk so I could take it from him.

  “It’s called Sun of the East,” he said. “There’s a letter addressed to Mr. Van Hooten included. I stayed up half the night composing it, like a schoolboy sweating over a love letter.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that he’d stayed up half the night for nothing. The chance of Guy’s actually reading that letter was only slightly greater than that of Henry James and Edith Wharton popping in for lunch.

  “I haven’t been to sleep yet,” he confessed. “Too keyed up.”

  “Then I’m not sure whether to bring you coffee or, like a stern mother, order you to go home and go to bed.”

  “I’ll take the coffee. Somehow I can’t imagine you as a mother.” I must have wobbled a little, because he hastened to add, “At least, not a stern one.”

  I left to work my magic in the cupboard that passed as a kitchen. When I returned with a tray bearing two cups, Ford was leaning back in my chair, his legs propped on the tall metal wastebasket, his eyes closed.

  “Mr. Fitzsimmons?” No response. “Ford?”

  Abracadabra. He sat up, smiling. “That’s better. Oh—piping hot.” He took a cup and sipped. “Perfect.”

  I stole Jackson’s chair and rolled it over. “You didn’t have to bring your book in person, you know. The flowers were unnecessary, too. I would have made sure Mr. Van Hooten saw your work even without a bribe.” He would see it, eventually, but whether he would read it was another question. I would read it, but Ford already knew how little my opinion counted. “There was no reason to butter me up.”

  “Is that what I’m doing?” He put down his cup. “I guess it is. But not entirely for the reasons you suspect. I’m not all work and ambition, you know. Sometimes I have an urge to bring flowers to a beautiful girl.”

  I flushed, which was probably his intention, but I couldn’t help feeling he’d just overplayed his hand. Beautiful was a word men reserved for girls like Callie. And though Ford was handsome—few women wouldn’t be flattered by his attention—there was something about the role of gentleman caller that didn’t quite suit him. His manner was a little too labored and, like the muscled physique beneath his best suit, seemed to be hiding something rougher.

  “We’re both relative newcomers to this fair city,” he said. “I thought you might feel as lonely as I do sometimes.”

  Maybe I was being too suspicious. Men never did seem to have unselfish motives in my experience. The best man I knew was Otto—and now even he had turned fickle. Not that I wanted Otto’s undying devotion. I’d had it and dismissed it. But he’d been a constant in my young life. Discovering that even he was changeable caused a pang.

  Ford rolled closer to me. “What’s the matter, Louise? You’ve had a sad look in your eyes ever since I got here.”

  “We’ve had a terrible time since I saw you at my aunt’s,” I confessed.

  His eyes filled with concern. “What’s happened?”

  “My roommate’s cousin was murdered in our apartment. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. It’s been on the front pages of all the papers.”

  He drew back, shocked. “You mean that girl I saw at the party? Carrie?”

  “Callie. Yes, it was her cousin.”

  His face paled. “That murder in our neighborhood? That was your apartment?” At my nod, he said, “I read about it, but I never dreamed . . .” He shuddered; then he took my hand and pressed it. “Why did you let me rattle on about my book all this time? You should have said something. How awful for you . . . and Callie.”

  “Yes.” I looked into his eyes, two perfect pools of blue. Clear blue. He said just the right things, with just the right tremor of emotion. Why, then, did I doubt his sincerity? My gaze skittered to the envelope with the manuscript in it—an envelope like the one Wally had seen on the night of the murder, carried by the mystery man on the stairs.

  “What do the police say?” he asked. “Have they caught the murderer yet? I read about a suspect being apprehended.”

  “That was the wrong man. The police seem to realize that, even if the papers already have convicted him.”

  “Oh dear.” He drew his brows together, all concern for my well-being and safety.

  I didn’t believe him. He’d known my address the night of the murder, and it had been printed in the paper the next morning. He lived nearby, might even have been one of the curious neighbors who’d gathered outside our building. I’d called them buzzards and ghouls, but it was human nature to be curious about death, especially murder. It would be especially understandable if you had an acquaintance living in the murder house . . . except if you were trying not to draw attention to yourself because you knew you’d been seen the night of the murder.

  “It’s a strange thing . . .” I began carefully.

  “Beyond strange,” he broke in. “Terrifying.”

  “Yes, but what seemed particularly odd was that our landlady’s son, who lives on the first floor, saw a man the night of the murder. The man was light-haired, of medium height, and clean-shaven.”

  “Like the man they arrested.”

  “He was just a friend of mine,” I said. “The man Wally saw on the stairs was carrying an envelope under his arm—like that one.” I nodded at Ford’s novel.

  He followed my gaze, then paled. “Louise, you don’t think . . .” His hand fell away from mine. “Good God.”

  “I’m only curious because I gave you my address the night before last, when you were at my aunt’s. And you left early.”

  I hadn’t meant to sound accusing, but that’s how he took it. He drew back, offended. “I went to a tavern,” he said, emphasizing each word. When I said nothing, he blew out a shaky breath. “Well. This is quite a day. Not even nine in the morning yet and already I’ve been accused of murder. And by the girl I—” His voice broke off, and he snatched his hat off the top of my typewriter.

  I stood when he did. “I’m not accusing you, I’m just . . .” I didn’t know how to finish, and bitter laughter met my fumbled words.

  “Oh no, you’re not accusing,” he said. “You’re just asking if I was the suspicious character seen the night your housemate was brutally murdered.”

  “The man might have seen something,” I said. “He wasn’t necessarily the killer.”

  “It makes no difference. I was not the man. Do you understand? It wasn’t me.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t convinced, but I wasn’t going to call him a liar. In fact, I suddenly realized the difficulty of my position. I was either foolishly accusing and alienating a man who’d been nothing but friendly, almost affectionate, toward me, or I was even more foolishly accusing a man who might be a murderer when I was shut in an empty office with him. Alone.

  His eyes widened. “Stop looking at me like that!”

  “I’m sorry.” I must have been sizing him up as a murderer.

  “For God’s sake, do you really think I could be such a monster?”

  Did I? I looked into those eyes again, and my doubts tumbled and looped and then faded. I remembered Ethel on that bed, that hideous tableau of violence. The man before me couldn’t have done that. “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

 
He shook his head. “Damn. This visit hasn’t gone at all according to plan. I’d hoped . . .”

  He turned toward the door, but I stopped him with a hand on the arm of his jacket. “Hoped what?”

  “To discover that your feelings were running in the same direction as my own. That our minds were on the same track.”

  And there it was. He cared about me, but my suspicions had probably snuffed that out. Yet I wondered if I would have found a pretext for being wary of him, or any man. Maybe I was hopelessly damaged when it came to trusting the opposite sex.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “This past day has been . . . well, I can’t put it into words. Callie and I found Ethel that night, Ford. Every minute since then has seemed like a waking nightmare. If I’ve offended you with my questions, please understand where my morbid paranoia is springing from. Our conversation at the party seems a lifetime ago now, yet I remember going home that evening thinking it was one of the nicest things that’s happened to me since coming to New York.”

  A little of his tension seeped away. “I was beginning to think I’d dreamed our connection that night—or that I’d simply drunk too much.”

  “You had drunk too much.”

  He smiled. “I need the love of a good woman to reform me. Like in one of your aunt’s books.”

  “I didn’t know you’d read any of them.”

  A hint of red stained his cheeks. “I might have gone to the library yesterday and checked one out. Violet in the Shade. I wanted to read it so I could have something to mention when I wrote your aunt a note of apology for my boorish behavior at her get-together. What do you think she’d make of that?”

  “She’d call it handsome of you,” I said. “So would I.”

  He stepped closer. “Louise, I—”

  The front door swung open. The moment Jackson Beasley appeared in the foyer, he had a perfect view of Ford and me standing together beneath the pendulous light fixture. We sprang apart like guilty lovers in a melodrama.

  Jackson, who was carrying a handled case and a newspaper, recovered from surprise faster than I managed to. He rushed forward. “Louise—I never expected you to come in this morning,” he said in as rapid-fire a manner as the remnants of his Alabama drawl would allow. “Are you sure you should be here?”