The Long Skeleton

by Frances

  It was six when they checked in—the reservation ready, a cat (providing compensation was guaranteed for clawed fabrics or other nuisances) acceptable. It was a little after seven when they went out to dinner, bathed and fortified by martinis, those also spacious, brought to the room.

  It was a quarter of eleven when they returned, having dined pleasantly, although not in the paneled restaurant of the Breckenridge—“It makes me feel like the last century,” Pam explained and added, after a moment’s thought, and to clarify, “any last century.” They had seen the latter two-thirds of a movie, those being, Pam feels, the two-thirds most worth seeing, since during them, if ever, things happen.

  Lights burned softly in the living room when they went into it and, when called, Martini came out from under a sofa, stretched and commented briefly, but with profanity—with profanity of a certain kind. “Oh dear!” Pam North said, “we couldn’t have!” and turned back to look toward the bathroom. “Damn!” Pam said, and walked to the bathroom and opened the closed door. “Yah!” Martini said, with bitterness, and went into the bathroom, her rear end wagging indignation. The sound of a cat scratching torn newspaper emerged from the bathroom; the sound was violent, being occasioned by a cat whose patience had been tried almost—the Norths hoped not quite—to the breaking point.

  “Which of us?” Pam said, and Jerry shook his head, and thought neither, which was momentarily mysterious. He had—he was very sure he had—checked on the bathroom door as they went out, made sure it was open for Martini’s needs.

  “Of course,” Pam said, “she could have closed it herself, I suppose, although it’s hard to see why, and if she did, she’d be inside. Unless—” She did not finish, but walked quickly toward the bedroom. “That’s it,” she said, speaking into the bedroom from the doorway. “The maid to turn down the—” And she stopped there—stopped so suddenly, so much as if her breath had been cut off, that Jerry, reaching for the door of the hall closet, whirled, still holding his topcoat.

  Pam did not call out, and did not scream. But her slim right hand clung to the doorframe as if, without support, she would have fallen. Jerry was behind her, his topcoat dropped to the floor and forgotten there, and held her shoulders and looked over her head into the bedroom—looked at what she saw, at what had caught the breath from her.

  A woman Jerry had never seen before lay on the bed most distant from the door. She was dressed in a gray suit, the jacket neatly buttoned. She lay on her back, her head on one of the pillows of the turned-down bed. She might have lain down to rest and fallen gently asleep, and Jerry, looking into the softly lighted room, almost spoke the word which would—which surely would—awaken her. But he knew before he spoke that she would not hear the word. Her eyes were open, so she did not sleep; she lay, now looked at more carefully, with a curious stiffness. And the clearly modeled face had a peculiar blueness of the skin.

  Seeing so much, Jerry did not need to go farther into the room, but he went into the room, and stood looking down at the dead woman. He touched her face gently, and found it without warmth, as he had known he would, and rigid under his fingers. He looked away from her, and toward Pam—her hand still clenching the doorframe; the knuckles white with the intensity of the pressure. He did not need to say anything. He walked to her and said, meaninglessly, “All right, Pam,” although things were certainly not all right. She looked up at him, and her expression was a question.

  “I don’t know,” Jerry said. “It looks—it looks as though she had just lain down and died. Some time ago, I think. Rigor’s—” He did not finish. “I never saw her before,” he said. “I—”

  But Pam said, “Wait,” and went into the bedroom and stood for a moment looking down at the woman who lay so peacefully dead. She faced Jerry again, and now, slowly, with a kind of carefulness, she nodded her head.

  “On television,” Pam said, and spoke as slowly, as carefully, as she had moved her head. “She interviewed people. This afternoon—” She shook her head, then. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I watched while—” She paused again, and Jerry waited.

  “I can’t think of her name,” Pam said. “It’s—wait a minute. Towne. Something—Amanda Towne, that’s it. Amanda Towne.”

  She walked back to Jerry, then, and they went into the living room, Jerry’s arm about her shoulders. “I’m all right,” Pam said, and clearly was not, and sat a moment on a sofa. “I’m all right,” she said again, after a few moments, and Jerry, watching her, saw a deep breath lift in her chest and said, “Sure you are,” which by then was true.

  “Only,” Pam said, in much her normal voice, “it’s such a dreadful thing. She looks so—so alive. And this afternoon she—”

  “All right,” Jerry said, and moved toward the telephone.

  “Such a—such an awful color,” Pam said. “Her face so—”

  “Yes,” Jerry said. “A very peculiar color. We’ll have—” He took the telephone from its cradle, and it was silent at his ear. Pointlessly, he moved it a little from his ear and shook it, and then, as if in answer, a clear voice spoke in his ear—spoke with careful sweetness, the utmost of attention.

  “Your order, please?” the girl somewhere said.

  Jerry North hesitated, momentarily. Absurdly, he was tempted to say, in a tone to match her tone, “Would you mind sending up for a body?” He said, “Will you call the police, please?” and waited.

  “Thank you,” the girl said, in precisely the same politely attentive voice. “I’ll—what? What did you say?”

  The mind works slowly; momentum briefly guards the mind from the unexpected, the unbelievable.

  “The police,” Jerry said, and was patient. “I’m afraid there is—” It was somehow difficult to put it bluntly. It was a thing to be broken gently. “I’m afraid there’s been an—an accident,” he said, which he did not suppose to be true, or to be especially gentle. “That is, a woman seems to have—died. In our room. The room is—” For a moment he could not remember. He read the typed notation in the base of the telephone. “Seven-eighteen,” he said. “My wife—”

  “Dead?” the switchboard girl said. The veneer had cracked off her voice. “You say somebody’s dead?”

  Jerry did. He said it again.

  “Oh-my-God!” the girl said, as one word. “Who?”

  It was to the point, of course; unexpectedly to the point.

  “My wife,” Jerry said, “thinks it may be a Miss Towne. She does something on—”

  “Towne!” the girl said. “Oh-my-God-not-Miss Towne!”

  “I’m afraid—” Jerry said.

  “But,” the girl said, “she lives here. Here in the hotel. I don’t—”

  “No,” Jerry said, “I don’t either. But you’d better call the police.”

  II

  The police came. A hotel detective came first, and a Mr. Mimms, who was an assistant manager, and dressed for it, and who mopped his forehead with a monogramed handkerchief—and agreed, horror in his voice, that the dead woman was indeed Amanda Towne, and asked, several times, “How did she get here?” which nobody could answer, and, also several times, “Terrible. Simply terrible,” with which nobody was inclined to disagree. But the police came; uniformed men first, and then men not in uniform; photographers came, and fingerprint men. Amanda Towne, who had faced many cameras, with an expression for each of them, had no expression whatever now for these cameras which peered down at her, and functioned in the hardest, the least sympathetic, of light. An assistant medical examiner came and, when the pictures had been taken, examined the body briefly and looked at the precinct lieutenant and shrugged.

  “Well?” the precinct man said. “So what, doctor?”

  “Dead several hours,” the doctor said. “Four. Five maybe.”

  “Of what?”

  The assistant medical examiner shrugged again, with greater emphasis. He spread his hands as he shrugged.

  “Well,” he said. “She wasn’t shot. Wasn’t stabbed. Wasn’t hit over the h
ead. Wasn’t strangled.”

  “Thanks,” the precinct lieutenant said. “Ate something that disagreed with her?”

  “Possibly,” the assistant medical examiner said. “Or had a thrombosis. Or took poison. Or—damned near anything. We’ll find out.”

  “Guess,” the precinct lieutenant said. “We won’t hold it against you, doctor.”

  The doctor looked again, looked carefully, at the bluishly livid face; at the lips which had smiled so few hours before. He bent very close to the dead, stiffening face. He looked up.

  “All right,” he said, “an autopsy will tell. Nothing else. It’s one of the most difficult things to spot, but—” He paused. The precinct lieutenant was patient, rather elaborately patient. “Asphyxia,” the doctor said. “At a guess—just at a guess. I’d say she could have been smothered. With something that didn’t bruise.” He looked at the bed. “Like a pillow,” he said.

  There were two pillows on the wide bed, on one of which Amanda Towne’s head rested. They moved the body, then, and both pillows were spotless white, one indented where the head had been. The precinct lieutenant tilted the lamp between the beds, and turned the pillows over. On the underside of the pillow Amanda Towne’s head had rested on there was, faint but clear enough, a smear of red.

  “Lipstick,” the precinct lieutenant said, as if that were obvious, as if that were already proved. But nobody argued with him.

  The Norths had sat side by side on a sofa in the living room, and a uniformed man had stood in the hallway leading to the door of the suite and looked at them. His expression was dispassionate, not really inimical. Detectives passing in and out—there is much going in and out at such times, all of it ordered, not all of it self-explanatory—looked at the Norths in passing, with judgment reserved, and curiosity only professional. Looked at detachedly, Jerry North thought, we’re in something of a spot, with a good deal to explain and no explanations handy. But of course—As soon as Bill gets here, Pam thought, more immediately to the point. If it is murder, of course. She considered that. As I suppose it will be, because it always seems to be and—

  It was, they both thought, about time for Bill—for Captain William Weigand, Homicide, Manhattan West, who would know (whatever it looked like) that this was only one more of those things which happened to the Norths, lightning rods for homicide—to show up, to take over. They would sit then no more in Coventry, judgment would no longer be so obviously reserved.

  The uniformed man near the door heard something and turned to open the door. Three men came through it, and Sergeant Stein was the first. “Here they are now,” Pam said, softly, not without relief. Another man came through the door. He was not anybody the Norths knew. A third man came—a large man, red of face, a man choleric with authority.

  Jerry North could feel his eyes widening, looked at Pam, who looked quickly at him, and saw her eyes wide too. Then they both looked at Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley, Commanding Detectives, Borough of Manhattan.

  And Inspector O’Malley looked at them—looked with rising color. Across the room, Inspector Artemus O’Malley bristled at Pam and Jerry North.

  It seemed, for a moment, as if Inspector O’Malley might explode. It was unfortunate that, just then, the cat Martini chose to come out from under the sofa, to see what there was for a cat to see.

  O’Malley made a great sound—a sound without words, which was rather like a roar. Martini crouched and hissed, turned, and was a café-au-lait streak to the safety of cave the sofa made. She growled a penetrating Siamese growl.

  O’Malley steadied himself, but his color did not lessen. It was clear he sought control.

  “My God!” O’Malley said, and his voice filled the room, made the big room shrink, made it shudder. “You two!” He paused to gain control. “And a cat!” Inspector O’Malley said. But now he screamed. And from beneath the sofa, Martini, who had had enough of all of it, screamed back.

  “She hates to be yelled at,” Pam North said, without emphasis, by way of explanation. “All loud noises.”

  O’Malley swelled further, which could hardly, Pam thought, be good for him.

  “Who’s a loud noise?” Inspector O’Malley shouted, and advanced a step, and Jerry North found himself rising carefully from the sofa. The suite had, until then, been filled with little noises—the sounds of people moving, of men talking quietly. Now, momentarily, there was no sound in the two rooms; it was as if Deputy Chief Inspector O’Malley’s roaring voice had blown all lesser sounds away. Everything listened.

  “It’s only,” Pam said, “that cats have very sensitive ears. Because they spread out so, inspector.” She looked up at him. “Like funnels,” she said. “On pivots, of course.”

  Inspector O’Malley drew in a massive breath. He exhaled it, seemingly molecule by molecule. His lips parted and were rejoined. And he turned, abruptly, on Detective Sergeant Stein, on the other detective who had entered with him.

  “Well,” O’Malley said, “waiting for a streetcar?”

  And he turned away and led, massively, toward the bedroom. The nameless detective followed at his heels. Stein, for an instant, hesitated. There was half a smile on his dark, sensitive face. His eyebrows went up slightly. “On another case,” he said. “Out of town.” And then, quickly, he went after Inspector O’Malley who, all too evidently, had taken matters into his own hard hands.

  It was clear enough—it was much too clear—what Stein had been talking about. He had been talking about Captain William Weigand, on another case and out of town on it. With Mullins, evidently, which didn’t help at all.

  “Even the inspector,” Pam said, her voice low, “can’t think we—I mean, merely because she came in here to—to die. Or—they must think to get killed. Because—”

  She stopped. Jerry was moving his head slowly from side to side.

  “Why not?” Jerry said.

  Pam blinked her eyes quickly.

  “Because—” she said, and then stopped. Jerry waited. After a time, a little heavily, he said, “Precisely.” The uniformed man had moved out of the hall and closer to them. He listened.

  “It’s chilly in here, isn’t it?” Pam North said. Jerry took her nearest hand. And they waited. Sounds came from the bedroom, with O’Malley’s rumbling voice as an obbligato. After a time, men began to come from the bedroom—the photographers came, the medical examiner came, some of the precinct men came. But nobody said anything to Pam and Jerry North, although all looked at them. After what seemed a very long time, two men came in with a rolled stretcher and, after a short time, went out with it, no longer rolled, no longer empty. And then, finally, O’Malley came out, with Stein and the other homicide man following him. O’Malley stopped in front of the Norths.

  He was no longer especially choleric; his gray eyes, however, did nothing to raise the temperature.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s have your story.” He pulled a straight-backed chair forward and sat in it—a massive man, filled with massive disbelief. “Take it down, Williams,” he said, without looking at Williams, and the man who had come in with the inspector and Stein found chair and table, and stenographer’s notebook.

  “Well,” Pam said, “it’s only that Mr. Prentori was coming to paint and paint makes Jerry sick and everything tastes of it. So we—”

  “All right, Pam,” Jerry said, quickly, because it appeared to him that O’Malley had begun to swell.

  “But,” Pam said, “Bill likes to have everything because who knows what may turn out to be—you’re hurting my hand, Jerry.”

  “Sorry,” Jerry said, and lessened his grip. “Listen, Inspector O’Malley—we came here to spend a couple of nights because our apartment’s being painted. We checked in and—”

  “One thing at a time,” O’Malley said. “You looked in the bedroom? I suppose you say she wasn’t there?”

  “Nobody was there,” Jerry said.

  “The boy turned on all the lights,” Pam said. “We couldn’t have missed�
��”

  “All right,” O’Malley said. “All right. You knew her, though. Told the people downstairs it was Miss Towne. You want to say you didn’t know her?”

  “On TV was all,” Pam said. “Actually, I don’t think I ever saw her until this afternoon. I couldn’t start anything because Mr. Prentori was coming so soon and so I just—it was about the Grandmother of the Year. You can ask anybody.”

  “The Grandmother—” O’Malley began and caught himself, with obvious effort. “You,” he said, and pointed at Jerry North, “suppose you just tell what you say happened. You checked in—”

  “Changed,” Jerry said. “I’d just come from the office.”

  “Yeah,” O’Malley said. “You publish books.” He said it darkly; obscurely, it became an accusation. “So then what?”

  They had gone out. Jerry thought a little after seven. They had had dinner.

  “Here?”

  It had not been there. It had been—

  “Left your key at the desk, I suppose,” O’Malley said, in the tone of one who supposes nothing of the kind.

  “No,” Jerry said. “Who does?”

  “Don’t waste so damn much time,” O’Malley said. “I’m not Weigand. Just tell me what happened. What you say happened. You went out and had dinner. Where?”

  “Well,” Pam said, “we started for the Algonquin, of course. But we saw this movie—I mean I remembered about the movie—anyway—we decided to have a quick dinner, because at the Algonquin it always takes us a long time, what with one thing and another and it’s such a pleasant place to talk, you know and—you’re hurting my hand again, Jerry.”

  It was, Jerry thought, better her hand than her neck which, from O’Malley’s expression, seemed to be in some peril. But, again, he relaxed pressure.

  “The Brass Rail,” he said. “We both had roast beef and—”

  “For God’s sake,” O’Malley said. “What’s roast beef got to do with it? Just don’t clutter it up so damn much.”