“Who?” Mary asked.
“This isn’t the best place to talk,” I said.
Bubbling with nervous energy Whitey shifted his weight from foot to foot. “I gotta get going. You watch yourself Mister Locke.”
I nodded and he took off down the street.
“Maybe I should talk to the D.A. and arrange for you to turn yourself in,” Mary said.
I pulled my hat over my eyes, took her arm, and started walking up Forty-second toward Broadway. “I’m not doing anything until I find out what the hell’s going on. Besides, the coppers get riled when someone kills one of their own. They get their hands on me, they’ll kill me. Maybe you should go home and wait until you hear from me.”
“You’re not going anywhere without me. We’re going to beat this thing—together.”
Despite my fears I felt a pleasant warmth wash over me. There was nothing I wanted more than to spend time with Mary, but at what cost. I didn’t want her hurt if the coppers caught up with me.
I was on the verge of forbidding her from coming with me, when it hit me that both the elevator man and the doorman must have recognized me when we were leaving Mary’s apartment. They weren’t angry, they were frightened and I was willing to bet they’d called the police. A shiver ran through me when I thought about what might happen if Boyle was waiting for her to return. If I didn’t tell her where I was going she couldn’t tell him, but he might not believe her.
“I guess we should stick together for the time being. There’s always a chance the police might be waiting for you if you go home.”
“So where are we going?” she asked.
“The Coaster Club.”
“It’s a long way,” Mary said. “Let’s catch a cab.”
“We can’t risk the cabbie recognizing me,” I said. “If my picture’s in the Post, it’s in every rag in town.”
Mary pulled up short. “Won’t the club be the first place the police look for you? Boyle knows you’re friends with Ed Granger.”
I tugged her hand and urged her onward. “They’ll look for me there, but I doubt they’ll hang around at this time of day. The club doesn’t open until five and even Ed doesn’t get there before three. I’ve got a key to the back door. We’ll be careful.”
I spoke with more confidence than I felt. The way things were going, it was possible Boyle would have the Coaster Club surrounded by the time we got there. Still, it seemed the most logical place to go. I could count on Ed to help me and to look after Mary if the coppers nabbed me.
We didn’t see our first copper until we turned onto Broadway. He was standing in the doorway of a small bakery having a heated conversation with the shop keeper. Mary let out a little squeal.
“Easy.” I gripped her arm and guided her through the lunch-time crowd over to the window of a dress shop. I put my lips close to her ear and whispered, “Take a deep breath and pretend you’re looking at the clothes.”
“He was staring at us.”
I risked a quick glance toward the bakery. “No, he’s looking at a group of kids down the street. They probably stole something and the copper’s taking the complaint.”
“Well we can’t walk by him. What if he recognizes you?”
I looked over my shoulder in the direction we’d come from. “It’ll look more suspicious if we walk back down the street and cross at the light. Get a grip on yourself and nod when we walk past him.”
I pulled my hat further down over my eyes and drew Mary away from the window. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked after we passed the bakery.
“My hands were shaking so badly he must have thought I had the palsy.”
“Well, he’s not chasing after us so I guess you did all right.”
We continued walking, letting ourselves flow with the noon-time crowds. I avoided eye contact with anyone who looked our way. By the time we reached the club, Mary seemed to have calmed down.
“How are you holding up?” I asked.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
We’d skirted the front of the building and stood in the alley, hidden behind a stack of wood pallets. I watched the narrow lane and listened for a sign someone might be lying in wait. After ten minutes of silence I said, “You wait here. I’m going to go and unlock the door.”
Mary held me back. “No, I’ll go. The police won’t be looking for me.”
“What will you say if someone stops you?”
Mary took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “I’ll just say I’m looking for Mr. Granger. He asked me to meet him here to talk about a job.”
It made sense. If anyone saw her, they’d want to know what she was doing there. If anyone besides a copper showed up and bothered her, I’d be there to help. I handed her my key.
“All right. The door is at the end of the building. You’ll have to jiggle the knob to get the key to work.”
Despite her bravado, I thought I saw fear in her eyes.
“I’ll be watching,” I said. “If you have any trouble, holler. Once you open the door, I’ll join you.”
Mary kissed me and edged around the pallets. While she made her way to the door, my eyes darted back and forth looking for any sign that someone was watching.
When she reached the door she stopped and fiddled with the key, and then disappeared from view. When she was inside, I made one last scan of the surrounding area. Taking a deep breath I stepped out from behind the pallets and ran down the alley.
As soon as I entered the building Mary threw her arms around me. I used my foot to close the door, gently removed her arms from around my neck, and switched on the light.
“Let’s see if there’s anything around here to eat. I’m starved.” I wanted to read the article, but now that we were safely off the street I couldn’t think of anything but the rumbling in my stomach. It had been twenty hours since either of us had eaten and I suspected Mary was as hungry as I was.
I led her to the kitchen where I found half a ham and a slice of apple pie in the refrigerator. I dug up a loaf of bread, cut several thick slices of ham from the bone, and made us each a sandwich.
I stacked the sandwiches on plates, handed one to Mary and walked out through the kitchen, past the bar and over to a table. I set my plate down along with the paper and ran over to the bar.
“Can I get you a Coca-Cola?” I asked. “Or milk?”
“I think I need a beer,” she said.
While I picked up a glass and held it under the spigot, Mary opened the paper. I grabbed another glass, filled it, and took a deep swig before carrying both glasses over to the table.
When I pulled my chair out and sat, Mary lifted the paper and shook it in front of my face. “This is nothing but bullshit.”
“Give me the details.”
Mary slammed the paper down on the table. “It says Detective Michael Boyle, and his partner Frank Belcher, were working on a tip last night. Boyle says they confronted you and you pulled a gun and shot Belcher. He can’t get away with this. You were with me the entire night. This is insane.”
I reached for my sandwich. “I told you Boyle had it in for me.”
“How can you sit there and eat? You’re being framed.”
“I’ve been framed all along.” I took a bite and held my hand out for the paper. “Let me read the article, and then we can decide what to do about it.”
Laying the paper in front of me, I ate while I read. When I looked up Mary had finished her own sandwich. I grabbed my glass, leaned back in the chair, and drained the beer in three gulps.
“I’ll go see Jeff Henning,” Mary said “We’ll tell him you were with me last night.”
“Why should the D.A. believe you instead of Boyle?”
“We have a little history.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by a little history?”
“Jeff is the guy I told you about. The one I was engaged to.”
“This doesn’t ease my worries,” I said. “He’s not going
to want to help your new lover.”
Mary opened her purse and took out her cigarettes and lighter. She pushed them across the table and I took two out, lit them and handed one to her. She took a big drag and blew the smoke toward the ceiling.
“Jeff’s a square shooter. He knows I wouldn’t lie to him.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“I trust him,” she said. “Besides, we’ve got the Boston detective who will swear the man Ila Quinn saw at your sister’s door wasn’t you.”
I headed to the bar, got an ashtray, and carried it back to our table. My cigarette tasted like shit and I stubbed it out and rested my head in my hands. “I don’t know what to do. Every time I think I’ve dug myself out of this mess, something happens. Ila swears I wasn’t the man she saw at Helen’s door, and she’s killed. Then, I gather all the facts about these other women and I seem to have Belcher on my side, and he’s killed. None of it makes sense.”
“I agree,” Mary said. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless Boyle killed Helen.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t fit. All the facts point to Hank Greeley. He knew all the women. We know he had a relationship with Helen and the first woman, Anna Ingerson. There’s no way it can be coincidence. Besides, Boyle interviewed Ila Quinn. If he was the man she saw, she would have recognized him. He would have killed her before I could talk to her. It’s got to be Greeley.”
Mary’s eyes widened. “There is another possibility we haven’t thought of.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve heard Boyle was crooked,” she said.
“Ed told me his father had Boyle on the pad. You think someone’s paying him to frame me?”
“It would explain a lot.”
I thought about it for a minute and shook my head. “I can believe Boyle might frame me, but I find it hard to believe he’d cover for someone killing his partner.”
Mary pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “Unless Greeley’s holding something over Boyle’s head,” she said.
“Blackmail? How are we going to prove it?”
“We aren’t,” she said. “Let me go to Jeff. He can start an investigation. He can do things you can’t at this point.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You’ve got to trust me on this.”
I looked up and took her hand. “I trust you. It’s the D.A. I have no confidence in.”
“You can’t do this yourself, Jim. It’s not only Boyle now. Every copper in the city is going to be looking for you. We need help.”
She was right and I knew it. Still, I wasn’t convinced Mary’s ex-fiancé was the answer to my problems. Despite the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, I gave in.
“I’ll let you talk to Henning, but I want you to go and see my boss, Otis Gerhardt, first. I gave him some of the information I collected. He can have Betty pull the other clippings I looked at from the morgue. If the evidence I gathered on Greeley doesn’t convince your friend I didn’t kill Helen, he’ll never believe I’m innocent of Belcher’s death.”
“Will Otis help?” Mary asked.
“He’s going to blow his wig when he realizes I was keeping information from him. I can only hope scooping the Times with the story of my innocence will light a fire under him.”
“There’s one other thing, Jim.”
“What?”
“Jeff’s going to insist you give yourself up. He’ll never consider any kind of a deal if you’re unwilling to do so.”
Blood rushed to my head and my hands went clammy. All the resolve I’d built over the last few days frittered away and I ached for a drink. “I don’t know if I can,” I said. “For Christ’s sake. You said it yourself— all the coppers in New York are out to get me.”
“You’ve got to have faith in me, if you want me to have faith in you. We need to depend on each other.”
Her logic was flawless, but I still wavered. When her eyes began to water I looked away. Something told me if I didn’t commit, I’d lose her.
“All right,” I said.
Mary shoved the table out of the way, plopped down on my lap, and threw her arms around my neck. She kissed me, hard, and I could taste her salty tears. When we came up for a breath she laid her head on my shoulder. “This will all work out, Jim. I know it will.”
She had more faith in the system than I did, but I’d already agreed to trust her. I put my hands on her cheeks and drew her lips to mine for one more kiss.
As our lips met someone across the room cleared their throat and a voice called out, “Well isn’t this sweet as hell?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mary jumped from my lap and I focused my attention on the figure lost in the shadows. My initial flush of terror turned to relief when I recognized her. “Hello Alice,” I said.
“Who’s your friend, Jim?” She asked.
“This is Mary,” I said. “Mary, this is Alice. Ed’s letting her stay in one of the rooms upstairs. She’s an up-and-coming singer here at the club.”
“Jim’s exaggerating,” Alice said. “Mister Granger has been kind enough to agree to let me fill in for a couple of nights when Eva, the regular singer is on break.”
Alice drifted into the light and made her way over to our table. Her maize colored polo shirt tugged at her breasts, and her white tennis shorts showed off her legs. She was carrying something in her right hand and when she stopped across from Mary I noticed it was the tie I’d left in her room the other morning. Mary was staring at it too. I felt the tension building in the air, like an electric aura.
“What have you got there?” Mary asked.
Alice’s face turned red as she twisted the tie in her hands. “I heard your voice down here, Jim. I thought you were talking to Mr. Granger. I—I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
Before I could respond, she turned and ran across the dance floor where the shadows swallowed her.
“Is there something going on here I should know about?” Mary’s voice sounded hard and distant. “You didn’t say anything about being involved with someone else.”
“I’m not.”
“That looked like a tie she had in her hands,” Mary said.
“It did.”
“Was it yours?”
I nodded and avoided her eyes.
“Care to tell me what she’s doing with it?”
“It’s complicated.”
Mary slammed her open palm onto the table and the clap echoed throughout the empty club. It sounded almost like a baseball bat connecting with a home run pitch and I wondered if the game was over for me.
“Your whole life is complicated right now, Jim, or haven’t you figured that out. Did you spend the night with her?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“When?”
“Last Wednesday.”
She turned her eyes toward the ceiling and I knew she was counting back the days in her mind. When she figured it out she frowned. “Is she the reason you were late for our lunch date?”
“I was only ten minutes late.”
Mary reached out and slapped my face. “Only ten minutes. You were in bed with another woman.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. I could explain I was drunk that night, but I’d told her at lunch I quit drinking. I could also point out that at the time she told me she was engaged, but I suspected she wouldn’t want to hear that either. In the end, I decided on the truth.
“I was drunk. Ed asked her to look after me. I slept in her bed, she slept on the sofa.”
“Do you think I was born on another planet? Even if I do believe you, you still lied to me. You told me you quit drinking the night Helen died.”
There was doubt in her voice. About me, I thought. I couldn’t blame her. As I told her about reading Helen’s case file, about looking at the pictures, about the hurt, I wondered if she’d ever trust me again.
“You shouldn’t have lied to me,” she said.
&nbs
p; “I haven’t touched the hard stuff since that night. I swear. Today was the first day I even had a beer since we met for lunch.”
“I want to believe everything you’ve told me over the last few days, Jim. But I don’t know when you’re telling me the truth or when you’re lying to me anymore.”
She picked up her purse and I slid my chair away from the table.
“You can stay right where you are,” she said. “Don’t say anything and don’t follow me. I’m going to go see Jeffrey. I’ll do everything I can to clear this up. Don’t worry; we’ll talk about this again.”
She turned away and I tried to ignore the hollow feeling expanding in the pit of my stomach. As I watched her walk across the room, I was afraid I’d lost her again.
I wanted a drink almost as much as I wanted Mary to come running back to the table. The pull of the bottles drew my eyes away from Mary’s retreating figure. I stood and took three steps toward the bar, and then spun around and returned to the table. I had to keep reminding myself a drink wouldn’t bring Mary back.
I was down to the end of my second Lucky when I felt a presence behind me.
“Sorry,” Alice set my folded tie on the table and backed away. “I didn’t know she was down here.”
I used my foot to push the chair next to me away from the table. “Have a seat.”
Alice sat down and pointed at my cigarettes. “You mind?”
Picking up the pack, I shook out a cigarette. When she took it I lit it for her. We sat without talking for several minutes and I wondered what was on her mind. She blew a chain of smoke rings toward the ceiling, a trick I had never perfected.
After several minutes of silence she set her cigarette in the ashtray and met my gaze.
“She’s wrong, you know,” she said.
“I told her nothing happened between us.”
“That’s not what I mean. She’s wrong about going to the police. If there’s one thing I’ve learned since coming to the big city, it’s that you can’t trust the coppers.”
“How much did you hear?”
“I heard you tell her you were going to turn yourself in. I read about the dead copper in the paper.”
The Storm Killer Page 15