Murder Unrenovated

by P. M. Carlson

  “He’s got no room to complain. He gives copies of those keys to every cheap plumber and electrician and meter reader in the state.”

  “Yes, I pointed that out to him. And we’ve got no control over the previous tenants either. He refused to change the lock after they moved out, remember?”

  “Yeah. You reminded him of that too?”

  “Of course. He claimed he was waiting for Mrs. Northrup to leave too, but she doesn’t have keys to the main floors anyway. Arthur quieted down eventually. But he doesn’t seem to have any idea who the dead man is, so he’s looking for someone to blame.”

  “No one has any idea. Not even the old lady.”

  “The old lady saw the body?”

  “She came up to look, decided she didn’t know him.”

  “Do you think she was telling the truth?”

  “Oh, Joyce, I have no idea. I thought so. Maybe the shock sobered her up, I don’t know. I couldn’t think very coherently at the time. Still can’t.”

  Joyce looked him over, poked feebly at the sagging curl on her forehead, and said, “You’re right. Why don’t you go on home early, Len? You’re not going to sell anything until you sleep off that glazed look.”

  “It’s early. And Lieutenant Brugioni said he’d be over later today.”

  “Not all that early. I’ll cope with the police. Run along, now. Go home and have a stiff drink. You won’t do us any good in that condition.”

  Early as he was, he found that Nancy was home even earlier. She had changed into jeans and a crinkly gauze shirt, and was calmly slicing vegetables at the counter. She did not look pregnant at all. He had thought he’d have a few minutes alone with a beer to collect himself, and her presence rattled him. When she looked up, she frowned at him in worry.

  “Len, are you okay?”

  “Oh, God, Nance!” He hugged her fiercely, kissed her hair and ears and eyebrows. She clung to him too. In a moment he sensed that she was sobbing. He said, “Oh, God, I don’t want you to be upset!”

  “You’re upset too.” She gave his chin a tearful kiss.

  “Yes, but I saw the body. You didn’t.”

  She became very still in his arms. “What body?”

  He suddenly remembered that she didn’t know. He said, “In the Lund place. There was a corpse.”

  “Len, you’re kidding!”

  “I’m not kidding. God, Nance, I can’t think straight today. I don’t want to upset you.”

  “Then tell me what the hell you’re talking about! What corpse in the Lund place?” She swiped at her eyes with her gauzy sleeve, pulled away from him, picked up the knife again.

  He said, “I need a drink. You want one too?”

  “Yes. No. No, I’ll skip it.”

  “Okay.” He got a beer, swallowed some, and pulled his thoughts together. “A couple called about the Lund place, and Joyce asked me to take them over this afternoon. And after we’d seen the lower floors we went up to the top floor. And Maggie, that was the woman’s name, she found it. Him. He was lying on an old mattress that the last tenants had left up there. He’d been strangled.”

  “God, Len!” The knife had stopped slicing again. “Who was it?”

  “No one seems to know.” He drank some more beer, then focused on the little pale face regarding him so anxiously. “Nance, you’re back early too. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” She turned back to her carrots. “I just thought—”

  He waited, but she was concentrating on the pile of orange disks and didn’t continue. A vision of the hideous dead face floated into his consciousness again, and he gulped some more beer to try to banish it.

  Nancy said, “It was awful, wasn’t it?”

  “His face. I mean, he’d been strangled, so it was—Nance, I don’t want to upset you too!”

  “But it is upsetting. Shocking.”

  “Yeah. Disturbing.”

  “Perturbing.”

  “Perplexing,” Len continued automatically, then slammed the beer can down on the counter. “Nance, God, how can we play games? The man is dead!”

  She reached over with a carrot-scented hand to rub him consolingly on the back. After a moment she said, “The game wasn’t really about him. It was about John Leonard Trager, who is very upset.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, Joyce sent me home early. Probably afraid I’d get hysterical in front of her clients.”

  “Well, you should be disturbed! Perturbed. Whatever. Why don’t you have another beer, and tell me about it?”

  “Because I don’t want you worrying about it too. Not now!”

  She said defiantly, “And why not now?”

  “Yeah. I know. You’re right.” He’d have to watch it. Nance’s ethereal appearance was misleading. She would never allow herself to suffer from any condition that implied weakness or dependence. She guarded her freedom ferociously, determined to live life on her own terms. It was silly to suggest that anything, even pregnancy, would change that. Sometimes she even seemed to see her fondness for Len as a dangerous weakness, and even after three years of living together she insisted that they had no claims on each other. Hell, she could make any claims she wanted on him. But the one time he had mentioned marriage, long ago, she had disappeared for two weeks. He’d had to break the rules and hunt her down at the studio, interrupt her painting, and promise that there would never be any strings attached, before she would even admit that she’d missed him too. So now he said, “Let me do something useful too while I tell you.”

  “You can start the chicken. And tell me about his face. That bothered you.”

  He described the details to her. The shock of Maggie’s announcement, the shock of what was in that little room: the bloating, the darkness of the puffed skin below the bright blond hair, the protruding tongue. His own nausea, he could confess that to her too. Every now and then he glanced at her warily. She was responding to his words almost viscerally, her vivid artist’s imagination rebuilding the ghastly scene in her own mind. When he’d finished she embraced him, burrowing her face into his chest, and said, “Poor Len.”

  “Thanks for letting me talk. Maybe it’ll help me get it under control.”

  “I hope so. God, Len!”

  “Can I get you a beer or something?”

  “Oh, dinner’s almost ready now. I want you to tell me the rest, too. What the police said, and so forth.”

  She was right. It helped put it into perspective, put it into the context of a puzzle, of police work, of a system prepared to deal with violence. The image of the man still brought his mind to a shuddering halt whenever he thought of it, but he began to hope that someday, eventually, that would fade a little too.

  After dinner she put away the leftovers while he scoured the pots. She said, “Len?”

  “Yeah?”

  “About me being pregnant.”

  He scrubbed at a frying pan. “Yeah?”

  “Well, what do you think?”

  Careful now. Len said, “I don’t know what I think. Except I think you’re the important one.”

  “Mm.”

  “And whatever you decide will be okay with me. You know that.”

  “But what would be best?”

  He looked at her helplessly. “I can’t tell you that, Nance.” She seemed dissatisfied, and he added apologetically, “It’s been a hell of a day.”

  She studied him a moment, then nodded, resigned. “A rotten day. A lousy day.”

  “A wretched day.”

  “A nefarious day.”

  He dried his hands and gently backed her against the refrigerator door so that he could look into her pained and loving eyes as he said solemnly, “A foul and scurrilous and most detestable day.”

  They both laughed. She linked her hands behind his neck and said, “Let’s give up on it. Tomorrow will be better.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Brugioni said, “Mr. Trager, we’ve learned the identity of the murdered man.”

  “You have?”

  The d
etective’s dark face was smiling, crafty. “It turns out that he was a child. Your child. Do you know who would want to kill your child?”

  “Len? Len, are you all right?” Nancy’s soft hand was on his shoulder. He flinched away from her, rolled over, threw his forearm across his eyes to shut out the light. She sat up next to him and asked, “Bad dream?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t sleep that well either.”

  The reality of the nightmare slipped away from him slowly, thick and sluggish as candle wax. He moved his forearm a little and squinted at her, and for a moment hated her. No, not her. Her power. How could he have put his future in the hands of this unpredictable other person? He was trapped. A decision of enormous importance to him, and he was not allowed any say in it. No strings, she had said. But this was a hell of a string. A rope. A goddamn chain.

  He swung grumpily out of bed and beat her to the bathroom. Shaving, a bit of sanity returned. She too was facing questions of time and money and emotion, of guilt, of potential, of relief. And she would suffer physically too, whichever way she decided. Her body, her career, her life.

  But, dammit, his too! It was only a difference of degree.

  He wondered who the dead man really was.

  At the office, Joyce was already at work. She came in early a couple of times a week to catch up on the mail. She looked him over critically when he arrived and said, “You’re better. Guess you had that drink last night.”

  “Yeah, I’m coping. What’s up today?”

  “Some people for you to call. The top two may be ready to list their buildings. Then we have the ad copy to call in. And this last fellow, Wilson, is never at home or at work either when Cronin calls. I’d like you to see if he’s there when Trager calls.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  “Six weeks behind in the rent. You may mention legal steps, but with the usual great reluctance.”

  “Okay.”

  “And are you up to being a hero?”

  “A hero?”

  “The press started calling yesterday. I put them off, but you’ll have to talk to them.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “So be prepared. Why don’t you take a minute right now, and write out a statement of what you’ll say. I’ll look it over. We want to look like a dynamic business, in control, even in this sad situation. Okay? And stress that the owner was having work done on the building. Lots of people in and out.”

  “Right.” Dynamic and in control. What a laugh, with the sterling representative of Joyce Banks Realty puking at his first glimpse of the corpse. Being rescued by the client. Still, he didn’t think Nick would tattle on him, so he might as well try to do what Joyce wanted. The newspapers would make up their own version of the truth anyway. He wrote a brief, almost upbeat summary of the story, and Joyce skimmed it on her way out to a meeting on Wall Street.

  “Fine. Remember, if they ask about details, don’t give any more than this. Especially don’t give out the clients’ names or Arthur’s name. They’ll probably find Arthur anyway, but we shouldn’t be the ones to point him out.”

  “What about Mrs. Northrup?”

  “Leave her out of it. They’ll track her down anyway, of course, and she’ll bad-mouth everyone, including us, but let’s not push them into her arms.”

  The door opened and a teenager with a crutch angled his way through it. He was handsome, dark-haired, with an ingratiating grin. “Hi, everyone!” he sang out, then hobbled to Renata to murmur, “Sis, can you loan me a hundred?”

  “Are you kidding?” said Renata cheerfully, not looking up from her typewriter.

  “Come on. It’s important. I’ll get it back to you soon.”

  “Tony, you owe me two hundred and twenty already.” Renata, with a furtive, embarrassed glance at Joyce, lowered her voice. “Also, I’m not carrying that much. Now, get out of here!”

  “Don’t cop out, Sis! Once I can function I’ll get the money quick.”

  “Yeah.” Renata glared at him. “Very quick. Meanwhile, get out of here! I’ve got work to do even if you haven’t.”

  “Hey, Sis, don’t get uptight! I wouldn’t hassle you, but something heavy came up. It’s—well, it’s not frivolous, I swear.”

  Renata stood up. Len could sense the terror bubbling under her cool surface. “Don’t lay that on me! Look, Tony, I’ll catch you tonight. But no more visits here. Ever! Now split!”

  Tony shrugged, beamed a bright smile at the others in the office, and limped out. Renata said, “Sorry, folks,” and returned to her typewriter, jaw clenched.

  Joyce rested a manicured hand on her shoulder. “It’s tough when your brothers or sisters are in trouble,” she murmured.

  “Yeah. And if you can’t help. God, I’m sorry. I love that kid, but he can’t seem to get it together!” said Renata in a tight little voice.

  Joyce nodded, gave her shoulder a final pat, and swept out to her meeting.

  Two reporters phoned. Len read them his statement, answered all their questions with paraphrases from it, and felt a moment of satisfaction when they gave up.

  There was no report of the Garfield Place murder in the Times. Apollo 16, back from the moon, had splashed down. Two factions of antiwar Columbia students were taking over buildings from each other. North Vietnam was battering Quang Tri, and Nixon was pulling out American troops. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were fighting deportation. In the real-estate news, an unknown woman had apparently been collecting fees from prospective low-income tenants and guaranteeing them apartments in a new complex that were not hers to guarantee. Thirty-three cheated families had taken over the Model Cities office. The woman had melted away. “How to make a killing in real estate, low-income style,” said Len to Joyce as she returned from her meeting.

  She glanced at the article. “She’s got a lot to learn,” she informed Len as she took her coat to the closet in her own office. “United is juggling low-income-area mortgages to skim off federal money. Why fleece the poor of a few dollars when you can fleece the feds of thousands?”

  “Speaking of mortgages, how was your meeting?”

  “I skewered them!” gloated Joyce. “This is one area they’ll never redline again! You should have seen that bank president’s face!” One of the secrets of Joyce’s success was her inclination to treat business conferences as Olympic contests.

  The phone rang. Renata scooped it up. “Joyce Banks Realty... Len, it’s for you.”

  “Len Trager,” he said into the receiver.

  “Len, it’s Maggie Ryan. We want to make an offer on the Garfield Place building.”

  “You what?”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Well, there’s—no, I guess there’s no problem.”

  “The police should be finished by the time we actually buy the place.”

  “Yes, of course. Um, you do realize that Mrs. Northrup will want to stay on in her apartment?”

  “Oh, yes, she made that clear. It’s not a problem. I like smart scrappy women.”

  Those were not the adjectives Len would have chosen to describe Mrs. Northrup, but he had long since learned to accept a client’s word that a problem was not a problem. He said, “Well, that’s great. Do you want to come by here to fill in the blanks, or shall I bring it to you?”

  “I’ll come by in a few minutes, on my lunch hour again, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure. Will your husband be here too?”

  “He has an audition uptown. But if you and I work out the details, we can show it to our lawyer today and return it signed. How late are you open tonight?”

  “Someone should be here till five.”

  “We’ll get it back by then or first thing tomorrow. See you soon!”

  Len hung up. Hot dog! But he was stunned. A murder, added to Mrs. Northrup’s filth and intractable malevolence, hadn’t sent this couple elsewhere like all the others. Why not? Maybe they thought they could get it cheap. Certainly Lund was upset enough to be more reasonab
le than he’d been before. But there was still a long way to go. The offer, whatever it was, had to be acceptable to Lund, and a mortgage for an unemployed actor had to be found. Still, achieving even this first step was exciting. Len pulled out a purchase-offer blank and the information sheets on Lund’s building, and began to fill in the legal description.

  Maybe he’d make a little money this year after all.

  Maybe, if Nancy decided to have the baby, he could add enough to his savings to buy a building too. Why should Fred’s doctors be the only ones to make money? He was halfway to a down payment already. If he sold a few thousand dollars’ worth more than last year, he could save nearly all the new money. He and Nancy could keep a roomy apartment for themselves, rent out the rest of the space to support the building, hire a top-notch sitter. A nanny.

  Of course, if he didn’t swing it, if they had to stay where they were, life would be a mess. A baby tucked into the corner of their bedroom. Soon a kid, needing clothes, doctors, a place for friends to visit, basketballs, ice skates. Schools. He always told clients the public school near their apartment was above average, but was that good enough? And there would be no nanny. A cheap sitter, maybe a recent immigrant with poor English. Would Nancy quit her job? She shouldn’t, not now, not when her career was really beginning to move. It would be more reasonable for him to quit; he could pick up more easily later. But that was unthinkable too: with both of them working, they could pay for the two-room apartment, good food, necessary clothes, a little savings.

  But he didn’t want his kid to grow up on the streets of New York. A latchkey child.

  Goddamn. It wasn’t fair. Not to him, not to her, not to the kid. They just couldn’t manage it now.

  What would she decide?

  “What are you mooning about, on company time?” teased Joyce. She had come out to fetch a cup of coffee from Renata’s pot.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Len looked down at his half-finished form. “It’s amazing. That couple yesterday, at Lund’s? They want to make an offer.”