by Parnell Hall
“I’m late.”
Maxwell Baxter turned and walked back into the living room. Sheila followed behind. He sat down on the couch, arranged himself comfortably, and assumed what Sheila well knew was his lecturing pose.
“You know,” he said, “a girl your age needs something more than just acting. Do you know how many unemployed actresses there are in New York City?”
Sheila sat on the couch next to him and smiled, playfully.
“Uncle Max,” she said. “That’s your five-hundred-dollar lecture. I only want a hundred.”
4.
SHEILA SNORTED THE STUFF UP her nose. She straightened up and sniffed twice.
Michael Croft leaned back in his desk chair and watched her. Croft, thirty-five, lean, tanned, neatly dressed in a stylish tailored suit, was an advertising executive and junior partner in the firm of Hoffman, Whittiker, and Croft, but fancied himself a Hollywood agent. For him the coke was just part of the image.
Croft cocked his head at Sheila. “Well?”
Sheila took her finger and wiped the residue of the line she had snorted from the top of his desk. She stuck her finger in her mouth, licked it off.
She smiled. “Pure milk sugar. It’d be great in coffee.”
“I didn’t cut it at all.”
“This could be competition for NutraSweet.”
“Come on. Before I ground this up it was solid rocks.”
“Yeah. Sure. And you got it from a little old lady who only snorted it on Sundays.”
Croft laughed. “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Are you saying this is the worst coke you ever had?”
“That would be flattering it.”
“I see. How much do you want?”
“A gram.”
Sheila emerged from the office building on Madison Avenue and hailed a cab.
It was one-thirty by the time the taxi dropped her off in front of her building, and Sheila would have been hungry had it not been for the line she’d snorted in Croft’s office. As she went up the front steps, she realized it was just beginning to wear off, and she was in a hurry to get upstairs and snort another one. So she was halfway up the stairs before she remembered.
The mail. The thought filled her with a sudden dread. She hadn’t picked up the mail. What if there was another letter? A more specific letter. A letter that told her what this was all about. Sheila wanted to know, and yet she dreaded to know. Not with Johnny gone. Please. Just keep this on hold till he gets back.
Sheila went back down the stairs and looked in the mailbox. Shit! There was a letter in it. She dug her keys out of her purse and unlocked the box.
It was a bill. Sheila had never been so happy to hear from Con Ed.
Sheila stuck the letter in her purse, locked the mailbox, and went back up the stairs.
She unlocked the door to her apartment, walked in, and stopped suddenly.
The body of a man was lying sprawled on the floor. He was lying on his stomach, with his head twisted to one side, so that Sheila could see his face. He was a thin, gaunt man, somewhere in his fifties. Sheila didn’t recognize him—she had never seen him before.
But she did recognize the large carving knife which should have resided in the rack on the wall in her kitchen alcove, but which now resided in the unknown gentleman’s back.
5.
SHE DIDNT SCREAM. SHEILA COULD count that to her credit And, considering her state of mind, that was quite an accomplishment.
If she had screamed, she realized, she would have been fucked. That snoopy Mrs. Rosenthal from next door surely would have heard—she heard every time Johnny slept over, so how could she miss a scream? And that would have been that. The fat would have been in the fire. Mrs. Rosenthal would have knocked on her door, and she would have had to call the police.
Sheila knew she had to call the police, but not yet. Not now. Not until she got a grip on things.
Who was this guy? She had just received a blackmail letter, so presumably he was the blackmailer. Which would make her the number-one suspect. But what the hell was he doing here?
The question had no answer. No one writes you a blackmail note, comes to your apartment, and sticks a knife in his own back. It just didn’t make any sense. The way Sheila saw it, the only way it made sense was if the guy came there to blackmail her, and she killed him. And, she realized, if that was the only thing that made sense to her, it was sure as hell gonna be the only thing that made sense to the cops.
But she had to call them. What the hell else could she do? The guy was in her apartment. Dead. That made him kind of hard to ignore. Unless she ditched the body, which she realized was beyond her—she had to call the cops.
She took a deep breath, got control of herself All right, what did she have to do first?
She went in the kitchen alcove and checked the knife rack on the wall. Sure enough, the slot for the large carving knife was empty. He’d been killed with her knife.
Sheila had a sudden mad impulse to pull the knife out of the man’s back, wash it, and put it back in the rack. She quickly stifled it. That would be suicide. She was in enough trouble already. If she got caught trying to cover up, she’d be screwed.
She went back into the main room and looked down at the man. Christ, she must know him from somewhere. But she didn’t. He was a total stranger. A dead total stranger, murdered in her apartment. Great.
She pulled herself together again. Okay, the cops are coming. They’ll search the place. More trouble.
Sheila ran back to the kitchen alcove and got a paper shopping bag from the ones she had wedged in beside the refrigerator to save to use for garbage.
She ran back, detoured around the body on the floor and went to her night table beside the couch. She took the mirror and the straw and put them in the paper bag. Then she went to her bureau, jerked open the drawer, and began fumbling through it She pulled out a small plastic grinder, a gram scale, some gram bottles, some straws, and other assorted drug paraphernalia, and put them in the bag. She pulled the clothes out of the drawer and threw them on the floor, just to make sure she hadn’t overlooked anything. When she’d made sure she’d emptied the drawer of anything incriminating, she crammed the clothes back in and closed the drawer.
Okay. Was that everything? Yes. Shit! No. The gram in her purse. She grabbed the purse, fumbled in it, pulled out the small envelope with the small plastic bag.
She started to throw it in the paper bag, but stopped. Damn.
She couldn’t throw it away. It wasn’t fair. She’d gone through too much to get it. Sucking up to Uncle Max. And she’d need it to get through this crisis, what with Johnny being gone, and all.
But she couldn’t. She didn’t dare leave it in the apartment, and she didn’t dare carry it on her. Not the way things stood. Because, much as she hated to admit it, she realized, there was a damn good chance she was going to be arrested.
Sheila had a moment of near hysteria. She was trapped. Everything was coming down on her.
Then she had a flash of inspiration. She ran to her desk, jerked open the drawer, and pulled out an envelope. She took a pen and addressed the envelope to herself. She put the gram of coke inside, sealed the envelope, found a stamp and put it on.
Sheila grabbed up the envelope and the bag. She grabbed her purse and went out the door, locking it behind her.
Her mind was racing as she hurried down the street: “I called from the corner because I didn’t want to use the phone in the apartment. I knew you weren’t supposed to touch anything, and—”
She reached the corner. There was a phone booth, a mail box and a garbage can.
Sheila dropped the letter in the mail box. She was about to throw the paper bag in the garbage, when she realized she was going to tell the cops where she called from. Suppose they searched the garbage?
She realized she was being paranoid, but she also realized she had good reason to be paranoid.
Sheila hurried up the blo
ck to the next corner. There was a trash can there. She dropped the paper bag in it.
She hurried back to the corner on her street.
She picked up the phone. It worked. She dropped in a quarter and dialed.
6.
LIEUTENANT FARRON PULLED HIS CAR to a stop behind the other police cars double-parked in front of the apartment. He got out, slammed the door and checked the address, since everyone else seemed to be already inside.
Farron was in a foul mood, and had been ever since he got the call. He hoped the information was wrong, that somehow, someway, someone had gotten it wrong. Though in his heart of hearts he knew that wasn’t true. Sheila Benton. That was the name. That was the girl. That was Maxwell Baxter’s niece.
As Farron walked up to the building he noticed that one of the police cars parked on the block was, indeed, occupied. Through the rear window, the backs of two heads could be seen. One wore the cap of a uniform cop. The other had blond hair.
Farron angled his body to avert his face from the car as he went into the building.
Flashbulbs were going off as he entered the apartment. Farron stood back, to let the detective finish photographing the body. He snapped off a few more shots and stood up.
“Okay, doc, he’s all yours,” he said.
The medical examiner, who’d been standing with the other cops, moved in and bent over the body.
Sergeant Stams spotted Farron, and moved over to him.
“Okay, what have we got here?” Farron asked.
“A dead man.”
“I can see that. Who is he?”
“Can’t tell. He had no identification on him.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing in his pockets except this.”
Stams held up a key. Farron started to take it, then stopped.
“Oh, you can take it,” Stams told him. “There’s no prints on it.”
Farron took it and looked it over. It appeared to be a simple door key, and fairly new.
“Okay,” he said. “Trace the key and find out who he is.”
“I traced the key,” Stams said, somewhat smugly.
Farron stared at him. “How the hell did you do that?”
Stams pointed to the front door to the apartment “It fits that door there.”
Farron whistled. “What does the girl say?”
“Says she’s never seen him before. According to her, she just came home and found him lying there.”
“That’s helpful.”
“Isn’t it.”
Farron frowned, rubbed his forehead. “Tell me ...”
“Yes?”
“Is she ... I mean, it’s her, isn’t it?”
“Her?”
“Sheila Benton.”
“Oh, yeah. It’s her.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
The medical examiner stood up.
“What have you got, Doc?” Farron asked.
“Offhand, I’d say he was killed within the last two hours. I can pin it down better when I get him to the morgue.”
“Pin it down, Doc. It’s gonna be important.”
Stams looked at Farron. “Your three bodyguards didn’t do too well, did they?”
Farron sighed. “What a mess. Wrap things up here, will you?”
“Where you going?”
“I’m going to take the girl downtown, hunt up the D.A. and see if I can get us out of the shithouse.”
7.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY HARRY DIRKSON, LIKE many elected officials, had two faces, the genial, harmonious one he showed his constituents, and the other one. Dirkson’s other one was something else. Police officers walked softly around him, and for good reason. This plump, bespectacled, balding man was a tiger when aroused. His sarcasm could put Lieutenant Farron to shame, and Farron was no slouch in that department himself. But under Dirkson’s gaze, the usually unflappable Farron actually found himself beginning to squirm.
“Now,” Dirkson said, ominously. “Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Yesterday the girl came to you with a blackmail note. You sent her away. You made no investigation whatsoever. And today she winds up with a corpse in her living room.”
Farron sighed. “That’s right.”
“She asked for help. You didn’t give it. Result—a corpse.”
“Sounds like hell when you put it that way, doesn’t it?”
“Well, how do you want me to put it? It’s as if the girl, having failed to interest you in her blackmail letter, decides to see if she can attract your attention with a corpse.”
“Come off it, Harry,” Farron said somewhat irritably, in spite of himself. “You’re not arguing in front of a jury.”
“No, but I will be, won’t I?” Dirkson shot back. “How’s it gonna sound then? You tell me. How’s it gonna sound?”
Farron shrugged and shook his head. “It’s gonna sound like hell.”
“It’s gonna sound like shit,” Dirkson corrected. He took a deep breath, blew it out again, and shook his head. He collected himself, and went on in a quiet tone of voice that somehow managed to seem more intense than if he’d shouted. “I don’t know if that means anything to you, Lieutenant. You are a hired official. If you go on the witness stand and make an ass out of yourself, people may laugh at you, but you’ll still have your job. I’m an elected official. I’m responsible to the people. I’ve gotten a million fucking morons out there watching me who have the power to kick me out of office if they don’t like what they see.”
Farron nodded. All this was true, and more direct than he would have expected Dirkson to put it. It was no secret that Dirkson had political aspirations, though no one was sure just how high those aspirations were. But Dirkson had made a point of seeing that the district attorney’s office piled up an impressive percentage of convictions, particularly in cases he handled personally. And if there was anything in the world he didn’t want, it was to be made to look foolish.
“I know how you feel,” Farron said.
Dirkson raised his eyebrows. “Do you, Lieutenant? All right, then, let me ask you one thing. If you had followed this up yesterday, do you think the murder might have been prevented?”
Farron shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“There you are.”
Farron reached into his briefcase, pulled out a thick manila file, and threw it on Dirkson’s desk.
Dirkson eyed it suspiciously. “What’s that?”
“Glad you asked. That’s our file for the last thirty days. Blackmail letters, threats of bodily harm, crank phone calls. I don’t run ’em all down. If I had a hundred more men I would. I don’t, so I don’t.”
Dirkson shook his head, condescendingly. “Lieutenant. It’s not a question of what’s fair.” He pointed to the file. “These letters are trash. You could take ’em out and burn ’em. I wouldn’t say a word.” He picked up the blackmail letter. “This letter is important. And you should have done something about it.”
Farron sighed. “In hindsight, even I know that.”
Dirkson frowned. “I’m not talking hindsight. You knew who the girl was, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You knew she was Maxwell Baxter’s niece?”
“Everyone’s related to someone.”
“Everyone is not related to Maxwell Baxter.”
“I know.”
Dirkson sighed and settled back in his chair. “Well,” he said. “There’s nothing to be gained by going into all that now.”
Farron’s smile was somewhat strained. What the hell did Dirkson think they’d been doing?
“No, sir.”
Dirkson pressed the intercom. “Send her in.”
An officer ushered Sheila into the office. A stenographer entered with them and began setting up a small table.
Dirkson immediately reverted to his constituent face. “Sit down, Miss Benton,” he said, smiling graciously, as if it were a social occasion. “Now, I just need to ask you a few questions.”
&nbs
p; Sheila smiled back, but her attention was diverted by the stenographer, who had opened his notebook.
Dirkson, noticing this, said, “Just routine. In a murder case we never trust to memory. We take down the statements of all the witnesses.”
Sheila fidgeted, nervously. “I really don’t know what I’m a witness to.”
Dirkson smiled, reassuringly. He picked up the letter. “Well, let’s start at the beginning. Yesterday, you received this letter.”
“Yes. Also a phone call with exactly the same message.”
“Did you recognize the voice?”
“No. I’d never heard it before. It was a man’s voice, but that’s all I could tell.”
“Could it have been the voice of the dead man?”
“It’s possible. I have no way of knowing.”
“You never saw him before?”
“No. I came back to my apartment, and there he was.”
“Where had you been?”
“What?”
“Before you discovered the body. Where had you been? What had you been doing?”
Sheila’s eyes flicked for just a second. “Window-shopping.”
Dirkson noticed. A veteran interrogator, he knew he’d hit something. He didn’t know what, but something about her answer had made her uneasy. It could have been a lie, an evasion, or simply an incomplete answer, but it was something.
“Window-shopping?” he said. “Where?”
Sheila smiled at him. “In windows.”
Dirkson smiled too, but it was a forced smile, and in that moment he felt more sympathetic toward Lieutenant Farron. Jesus. Another of these nitwits who are so young and cute and pretty that they think that’s all they ever have to be.
“What windows?” he asked.
“On Fifth Avenue.”
“What stores?”
“I can’t recall offhand. Stores in the fifties.”
“How long were you window-shopping?”
“I’ve no idea. I’m very poor about time.”
Dirkson would have been willing to bet she considered it an adorable habit, too. “More than an hour?”
“It’s possible.”
“Why were you window-shopping? Were you looking for anything in particular?”