What talent, success, and gutless superiors do to a good cop …
She tried again.
“Inspector, look—someone set this up.”
He leaned back in his chair until it squeaked, strong fingers running through salt-and-pepper curls.
“Someone not your client?”
“She’s not stupid enough to call me, call you, and leave the evidence in her desk—such as it is. Did Alexander die from the cyanide or the blow?”
“We’ll know after the autopsy, and I’ve put a rush on it.”
“Who found the vial? And where exactly was it?”
The burly cop looked at her steadily. “I’m supposed to ask the questions, Miss Corbie. You know the drill.”
She bent forward suddenly, uneven leg of the wooden chair striking the floor with a thump.
“Make it a whole lot easier if you just gave me the goddamn story so I can help you figure out who murdered Niles Alexander and who framed my client.”
“Why do you think your client was framed?”
Miranda waved her cigarette over his desk. “You’ve seen the letters. You think I’d violate my client’s confidentiality and risk more evidence against her if I weren’t sure?”
Fisher raised his eyebrows. “What I’m sure of is that you’re worried about your client’s future as a free woman. Her boss was murdered, she was at the crime scene, poison was found in the drink on his shirt, the same poison found in a small, corked test tube at the very back of her desktop drawer this morning. By none other than Inspector Gonzales, whose reputation—as I believe you know—is unimpeachable.”
One Mississippi, Two Mississippi …
Fisher didn’t usually get under her skin. Gonzales, on the other hand …
Tall, tight arm muscles wrapped around her, crushing her close, smell of leather and lime and those goddamn French cigarettes, body aching for abandonment, losing herself, all she was, all she would be, seeking pleasure, enough to forget the pain, die a little, the little death …
Miranda leaned over Fisher’s desk, stabbing her Chesterfield in the cracked glass ashtray.
Click.
11:32.
She threw the inspector a small smile. Started again.
“Thanks for the information on the cyanide. How I see it is we’ve got five possibilities. A—the attempts on Louise, her frame-up, and Niles Alexander’s murder were engineered by the same person, with the presumed motive the complete annihilation of Alexander Publishing. In this case, everyone connected with the publisher is still in danger, including my client.”
Fisher rocked his chair back and forth. “All the more reason to keep her in custody.”
Miranda glared up at him, while counting off points on her fingers. “B—the two cases are separate. Someone wants to off Louise, someone else wanted to kill Alexander and did and framed Louise for the crime. Louise is still a target.”
“And still safer in lockup.”
“C—someone who may or may not know about the attempts on Louise’s life decided to frame her for the murder, and that someone may or may not have anything to do with either the murder or the threats to Louise.”
Fisher frowned. “Too melodramatic and too goddamn improbable. He’d have to know about the cyanide in the gin. Been reading too many Niles Alexander mysteries, Miranda, or you just stalling for time?”
She calmly unrolled a Pep-O-Mint Lifesaver, offering the roll to the inspector, who waved it away.
“Until you get the autopsy results back, we have no idea whether the cyanide was lethal or pure window dressing—his shirt could have been doused after he was dead. And as for melodrama, what I’ve learned about the publishing business makes a Cagney picture look like an old ladies’ tea party.”
Fisher shook his head and opened the top drawer of his desk, lighting an Old Gold. He looked up at her shrewdly.
“Your whole track record reads like something cooked up in Hollywood. Fascists bent on blowing up Treasure Island, Berkeley professors running with Nazis, a dead publisher and a missing book on Alcatraz … don’t you ever take on cases of lost poodles or philandering husbands?”
She cracked the Lifesaver between her teeth.
“You ever miss a desk job, Inspector, or rounding up girls on the corner of Hyde and Leavenworth?”
He grinned, eyes finally warm. “I always said you were a pip. OK, Miranda—any more theories?”
“Plenty. D—the person who framed Louise is the same person who’s been threatening her but did not necessarily kill Alexander, though he or she knew about the murder.”
The curly-haired cop exhaled smoke through his nose, forehead wrinkled. “You’re starting to lose me. Too Mary Noble, Backstage Wife.”
Miranda looked up, eyebrows raised, and Fisher stammered, turning red: “My wife listens.”
Her lips twitched. “All right. Here’s the most far-fetched, melodramatic scenario of all. E—Louise Crowley—the secretary from Olympia, Washington—is a criminal genius who masterminded her own attempted murders, wrote her own letters—which mention drinking poison, by the way—and killed her own boss, by both drugging him with cyanide and crushing his skull with a heavy marble desk set, then forgot to remove the vial of cyanide from her desk while she was alone for ten or more minutes with the victim, waiting for the bulls to ride in and cuff her.”
They stared at each other over the pocked wooden surface of the desk, another click of the minute hand amid the sobs from the vice desk and the loud boasts of the drunks being ushered down the hall.
Fisher finally smiled again, his lips growing into a grin that erased the age in his eyes.
“I’ve still gotta hold her.”
“Until Meyer gets his habeas.”
He jammed a finger on top the letters. “I gotta test these.”
“I’m counting on it. You’ll probably find they were written on a machine in the office—maybe even Louise’s.”
His eyebrows reached his hairline. “Holy—I don’t get it, Miranda.”
Miranda placed her hands on the worn, wooden desk, fingers apart, and pushed herself up. She gazed down at Fisher, eyes somber.
“Louise is being set up. I think she’s the killer’s Judas goat, leading us down blind alleys until we’re too fucking dizzy to see. I think you’ll find those letters were typed on a machine she had access to.”
The cop pinched his nose. “So what is it you want from me?”
“Information. I want to know the time of death when you get it and what you find in the carpet—any blood, any splatters. I want to know if the ME thinks Alexander was struck while sitting. We both noticed the track marks in the carpet, and we need to find out if the body was struck elsewhere and dragged to the desk—which, incidentally, would not be something my client could do. I want to know about the cyanide as soon as you hear from the lab. And I want to interview Smith as soon as you locate him.”
Fisher shook his head. “Jesus, is that all? Berrigan told us Smith’s in Monterey, on his way back up here now.”
“Good. And if Meyer doesn’t get his habeas—”
“You’re doubting your mouthpiece?”
“No, I’m doubting the goddamn judge. If he doesn’t—”
The inspector grinned, stabbing the Old Gold in the ashtray. “What else do you want, Miranda? Key to the city?”
She bent over the desk, hands pressed flat on the wood, eyes locked onto his.
“I want twenty-four hours to find you Louise Crowley’s alibi.”
* * *
Louise sat slumped in an interview room, removed from the tank where they’d thrown her with a battered brunette picked up for moral turpitude and a cynical bottle blonde trying to work the opposite corner on Larkin.
Funny how Sally Stanford and her girls—or even Dianne’s, for that matter—never saw the inside of the Hall of fucking Justice.
Fucking justice … part of their goddamn job.
Miranda nodded at the uniform, his face red from too many
visits to the Last Chance Saloon, blue eyes small but not mean. He nodded back, and she slipped inside.
Convincing Fisher she needed a few minutes with her client to procure said alibi required some dance moves worthy of Ginger Rogers, pretending Louise would cough up what she hadn’t for the coppers, the oh, so trusting client who’d tell her everything, enough but not too much, not enough to be held as an accessory or for aiding and abetting.
Couldn’t let him know that Louise was holding out and lying to her.
Maybe lying to herself.
Miranda sat down and crossed her legs, pretending that the dingy gray walls and scratched table and hard, uncomfortable chairs were the lobby of the St. Francis. She lit a stick and tossed the rest of her pack of Chesterfields on the table, cellophane making a skidding sound.
Louise sat frozen, arms wrapped around her stomach. Eyes on the floor, wide and unseeing.
Cheeks wet from recent tears.
Miranda cleared her throat. Louise didn’t jump.
She was getting nowhere, and the twenty-four hours were ticking.
“Look, Louise. I understand you’re in shock and scared, and you can’t talk to me or Meyer right now, but we are here to help. We’re both working for you.”
No response. Miranda tapped some ash on the floor, tried again.
“I’ve got twenty-four hours to find you an alibi. Meyer is trying to get you out on a habeas. They’re holding you but haven’t charged you yet … though I expect them to. They’d be fools not to.”
The clock on the wall—a little fresher than the one above Fisher’s desk—struck the minute, an audible click.
Goddamn it, 12:03.
Her limited supply of patience was running out.
Miranda blew a stream of smoke toward her left and leaned close to Louise, dipping below the sight line of the guard at the door window, voice lowered to a rasp.
“Look. I know about your boyfriend. I know he’s got something to do with Alcatraz and maybe something to do with Smith’s missing book. At least, I figure you’re afraid he’s got something to do with it, maybe that and the murder both, between the office key you can’t find and the way you’ve been acting about it. Hell, maybe you were gonna steal the book for him. I don’t give a good goddamn if he’s Clark fucking Gable in the sack, Louise, or if you think he’s the answer to your small-town prayers, even if he pops you in the jaw and knocks you silly. I think you’re a fool if you put up with it, but that’s not why you hired me.”
The blonde slowly, minutely, began to uncurl her arms, her neck bending upward like a slow-motion swan, turning, turning, toward Miranda, eyes blue and enormous and swimming in tears, surprise and shock and self-hatred etched on her face like acid.
Miranda took a breath and continued, words relentless.
“You hired me to save your life, and whether it’s from some nuthouse schemer or jealous wife or Alexander’s killer, I plan to do that. Even, Louise, if I’ve got to save you from yourself.”
The secretary was looking at her now, waving back and forth, small movements in the chair, blurry and out of focus. She looked young and lost, unmoored from reason, untethered from the world she understood.
Miranda crushed the stick out in a black knot already burned into the table.
“Don’t protect him. Maybe he’s not guilty of anything but being a first-class sonofabitch, maybe not. But if you don’t talk to me, the cops will get you to talk to them, and then you’ll be held as an accessory, if he did kill Alexander, and maybe on an obstruction of justice charge if he didn’t. The point is this: I’ve got twenty-four hours to fix it so they can’t keep you in a cell. You’ve got twenty-four hours to wipe your face and dry your eyes and tell me the goddamn truth.”
The blonde kept rocking, eyes looking through her.
Miranda sighed and stood upright, straightening her back.
“All right, Louise. I’ve said my piece. The rest is up to you. Get word to Meyer when you’re able to talk to me. And since I’m looking for your alibi, can you at least muster up a name? One goddamn name?”
The disheveled blonde opened her mouth with an effort, eyes still unglazed, fighting a battle against the panic and fear, the catatonic urge to wrap herself in a ball and start her life over.
Miranda stepped closer, her eyes on the cop at the door and when the bull might break in. She made her voice softer.
“A name, Louise?”
The air came out harsh through compressed lips.
“George.” Louise exhaled, and the words came easier the second time. “George Blankenship.”
The blonde stared at the wall, fingers clenching and unclenching, breathing in and out, in and out.
Miranda patted her on the shoulder and walked to the door, catching the guard’s eye. She nodded.
Twenty-four hours and ticking.
Twelve
Miranda crossed Market in a hurry, hand holding down her beret. Hoped like hell the flower sellers would still be there.
Chinese woman selling orchids, Portuguese selling roses, hunched Japanese man selling more roses and miniature trees, Italian lady hawking corsages … there.
Packing up for a midday break, almost out of flowers, little man in the stained brown fedora.
She hurried toward him, pushing her way past the Monadnock crowd. “Vorrei comprare qualche fiore, prego. Carnations.”
Took him a few seconds to straighten up and turn toward her, bushy eyebrows raised in surprise.
“You speak Italian, signorina?”
“Poco, signore. Che bella lingua and che bella e simpatica gente!”
His weathered face broke into a wreathe of smiles, thin body energetic, flying everywhere over his half-packed stall to find a carnation for la carina signorina.
“Madò! Lei parla italiano molto bene, signorina. Ma inglese è mia lingua ora, perché sono un americano. Va bene? Cerchiamo di parlare in inglese.”
She smiled as he handed her a white carnation on a long stem. “Certo. We will speak in English. This is a beautiful carnation—it smells heavenly! Have you any pink, by chance?”
“I have only these, signorina. How many you like?”
“I’ll take whatever you have left.” She continued, voice easy: “My name is Miranda Corbie. I work in the Monadnock here. A friend of mine recommended you, signore—a young blond lady. She buys pink carnations from you nearly every day.”
He paused from wrapping up the flowers and put a hand over his heart. “Signorina Crowley? Una principessa! Every day I see her, sometimes so early when I set up my stall, and every night she comes by, always with a smile even when she does not have time for my flowers. Ah, signorina Corbie—tell your friend I thank her. Tell her, prego, as I tell you now, you must always make time for flowers.”
He bowed, handing her the wrapped bundle of carnations. Miranda palmed him two dollar bills. He glanced down, eyes big, shaking his head gravely.
“Is too much, Miss Corbie. Too much.”
“No, signore. You and your flowers brighten Market Street here and make San Francisco more beautiful. It is not too much. What is your name, by the way?”
The Italian looked hesitantly at the money in his hands. “I will owe you carnations, signorina Corbie. My name is Francesco Amore.”
“You owe me nothing, signor Amore. But tell me—have you seen Miss Crowley today?”
He nodded quickly. “Sì, Miss Corbie. She came this morning early—I set up not too long before. She did not smile like always, no hello for Francesco. Sta bene, la bionda principessa?”
“I hope so, Francesco. What time did you see her this morning?”
“Che ora era? Forse—forse sei e mezza. Six-thirty.”
He searched her face, the lines in his own deepening.
“If she need me, Miss Corbie, eccomi qua. I think you worry about your friend. I worry, too.”
Miranda patted him on the shoulder, breathing in the gentle aroma of the carnations.
“You’ve been a great
help already, Francesco. Grazie mille. I’ll be seeing you.”
* * *
She fought her way into the Monadnock, bundle of carnations held close.
Francesco backed up Louise’s story, and that would make it harder for Fisher to charge her—but the Italian was far from a complete alibi. And the bulls, always looking for an easy answer, even if they had to make up the question, would suggest Louise was in the office earlier, doubled back home or some other place to lie low, then walked into the office like a little blond lamb, ready to stage her discovery.
And Louise, according to Francesco, “wasn’t herself,” a suspicious change in demeanor on the morning someone killed her boss …
Gladys squealed when she saw Miranda, running out from behind the counter to wrap her in a hug.
“Oh, sugar, I’m so glad to see you! All this excitement in our own little Monadnock. I had a feeling you were probably up to your neck in it, that poor Mr. Alexander and all.”
Miranda handed her the flowers. “Here, Gladdy. I’ll just forget to water the damn things.”
The blonde blinked large blue eyes, surprised. “You sure? They’re awfully nice, and you could probably use a little, I don’t know, my mamma used to call it ‘sweetness’—you know, things that just brighten up the home, like flowers and pictures and all. Mmm, these smell good, too!”
“No, I’m sure. Take them and enjoy them. You got any cigs for me?”
The blonde walked back around the counter and carefully set the carnations underneath the ledge. “Well, thank you, Miri. And yes, I’ve got two packs of Chesterfields—just got in a whole new crate.”
“I’ll take those and four rolls of Lifesavers—Pep-O-Mint and Butter Rum.”
Gladys was ringing up the order when she suddenly looked up at Miranda with an exultant smile and the triumphal gleam of anticipated good news.
“I forgot to tell you—that nice Inspector Gonzales of yours—I hope those carnations weren’t from him, Miri, because if they were you really should keep them—anyway, he was here earlier and he asked me to give you this note.”
City of Sharks Page 11