Write Murder Down

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  “She expected to finish the manuscript when, Mr. Morton?”

  “She’d brought it up with her. Lived down in Alabama somewhere. Had been revising it up here—for several weeks, I gathered. Thought she could turn it in by Monday; sign the contract when she brought the rest of the book.”

  “Have you any idea where the complete manuscript is, Mr. Morton?”

  “In her room at the hotel, I suppose. She was staying at the Algonquin. Sort of—oh, a sanctuary, you’d almost call it—for a lot of writing kids. Like Sardi’s is for the theater people, if you know what I mean.”

  Nathan Shapiro didn’t. He nodded his head anyway. He said, “Did she say anything to you about Gay Street, Mr. Morton?”

  Morton repeated “Gay Street?” and shook his head.

  “She had an apartment there,” Shapiro said. “She used the name Jones. That’s where she died. In the Gay Street apartment. She apparently had been working there. But there wasn’t any manuscript there. Nor any sign of the typewriter she’d been using.”

  Phillips Morton said he didn’t get it.

  “Neither do we, so far,” Shapiro said.

  “Sometimes,” Morton said, “writers do rent places to work in. Away from where they’re living. Offices, in a way. So they won’t get interrupted. You say she called herself Jones?”

  “A. Jones. No first name. Unlisted telephone.”

  “That’s it,” Morton said. “She was—oh, sort of hiding out so she could get the work done.”

  “Probably. What happens now? About the book she was just finishing? About the contract she was going to sign?”

  “I’m damned if I know,” Morton said. “When you find the manuscript, what’ll be done with it?”

  “Property clerk to start with,” Shapiro said. “Then to her estate. I don’t suppose she said anything about that? Or about a will she might have made?”

  “Hell,” Morton said, “she was about thirty, Lieutenant. People don’t make wills when they’re about thirty.”

  “The contract? What about it?”

  “It’s not signed. So it’s waste paper.”

  “Her previous contract? The one you say she was gypped on?”

  “Two-book option,” Morton said. “It ran out with her last one. With the big-hit one—Snake Country.”

  “And you had only this oral agreement appointing you as her agent for—what was the name of the book?”

  “‘Lonely Waters,’ she called it. Not the hottest title in the world, to my way of thinking. Materson probably would have talked her into changing it. Water under the bridge now, I guess. Oh, about our agreement. It’s water under the bridge too. So, I’m left with ten per cent of nothing.”

  “Ten per cent?”

  “The agent’s fee. You don’t know much about this business, do you, Lieutenant?”

  Shapiro had been thinking the same thing. Life had been simpler years ago when he was a patrolman on a Brooklyn beat. He said he didn’t know much about the business of writing and publishing books.

  “All right,” Morton said, and he was patient. “If she’d lived to sign this contract, they’d have sent me the advance of ten thousand. Made out to Phillips Morton, Incorporated, as agent. I’d have banked the money and sent her a check for nine thousand. Same with the royalties when they started coming in. Ten per cent cut down the line. For knowing markets, knowing about contracts. Doing the paper work. Seeing your people don’t get gypped, the way Karn—”

  He stopped speaking abruptly. He said, “I shouldn’t say that. That would be slander, wouldn’t it? Highly respectable company, Oscar Karn, Incorporated. Let’s just say they drive a shrewd bargain, huh? Not that they’re in the business of fleecing the innocent. Huh?”

  “Oscar Karn, Incorporated?”

  “Published her first three books. Let’s just say I’ve got her—I had got her—a better contract from Materson and Brothers. And old Oscar’ll be—would have been—fit to be tied. They used to bring out a lot of hits. Haven’t had one for the last—oh, three years. Last they had was Miss Lacey’s, as a matter of fact Been counting on her new one to—well, get them going again. All right, that’s just gossip. So’s the report the Jefferson Press is going to take Karn over. They’ll call it a merger. Sure. But it’s a takeover.”

  “You’ve lost me,” Shapiro said. “As you’ve gathered, Mr. Morton, I’m easy to lose in things like this.”

  “Oscar Karn, Incorporated, is in trouble,” Morton said. “Jefferson Press, which isn’t—almost as well fixed as Materson, actually—is buying it out, according to what’s going around in the trade. If old Oscar’d got ‘Lonely Waters’ it would have been, could be, the shot in the arm he needed. At the least, it would have upped Jefferson’s price one hell of a lot. Clear enough?”

  “Quite clear. And as things stand now, the Karn company has no claim on Miss Lacey’s new book. Assuming the manuscript turns up?”

  “I told you that. Their option ran out with Snake Country. It’ll be a whole new deal. With me dealt out, probably. Unless—well, unless her estate decides to go along with the Materson contract. As it will if it’s in its right mind. Only, where is its mind?”

  “She didn’t tell you anything about her family? If she had a family?”

  “Why should she? Wait a minute—just wait a minute.”

  Shapiro waited.

  “When the snake-country novel turned out to be the hit it was,” Morton said, “there was quite a bit written about Jo-An Lacey. Karn’s publicity department got busy, of course. There was a long interview with her—sort of a profile, actually—in the Times. I read it. Skimmed it, anyway. Never expected to get her in my stable.” He paused. He shook his head. He said, “God damn it to hell!” He said, “Seems to me there was something in it about her having a brother. Wait a minute.”

  Shapiro waited. “It’s beginning to come back a little,” Morton said. He was speaking slowly now. “Old family estate somewhere outside Mobile, Alabama. Wait a minute. Not an estate. A ‘plantation.’ The Lacey Plantation. That was it. Been in the Lacey family since God knows when. Cotton?”

  He seemed to expect an answer. Shapiro said he didn’t know.

  “Anyway, she lived there with her brother, and the implication in this Times piece was that they were strapped until she started writing. Last of the Laceys, that sort of thing. Can’t remember the brother’s name.”

  He paused again and shook his head.

  “Beauregard?” Tony Cook suggested.

  Morton did not rise to it. He merely said it didn’t sound quite right.

  “Aristocrats of the Old South,” Morton said. “That sort of thing. Big rambling house. Probably used to be called the Lacey Mansion or something. Can’t think why—wait a minute. In this interview they asked her what she planned to do now, with a lot of money coming in. And she said she’d go on living at home, of course, and use some of the money to fix the place up. And, yes, she’d go on writing. About the places and the people she knew about. Snake Country was Southern as all hell. I don’t mean molasses. It was a damn good book. But Southern as all hell.”

  “This new book of hers is too?”

  “From what I read of it, yes. You get a good thing going, you keep it going. Also, what else would she know to write about? Immured way down there in—well, in snake country, I suppose. Not that I know anything about southern Alabama.”

  “If her new manuscript doesn’t turn up at the hotel,” Shapiro said, “have you any idea where it might be, Mr. Morton?”

  Morton said he didn’t.

  “She wouldn’t have sent it in to this Oscar Karn company?”

  “No reason she should have I can think of. Unless she sent it in before she saw me, and she didn’t say anything about that. Only that she’d turn the whole manuscript over to me as soon as she’d finished with it. Why would she send it to Karn? Karn had no claim on it.”

  “She might have thought he had,” Shapiro said. “It would be bulky, this manuscript?”
/>
  “Four or five hundred pages, she thought,” Morton said. “Twice that with carbon. Three times that if she made two carbons. Yes, I’d call it bulky, Lieutenant.”

  In his mind, Nathan Shapiro went over the room Jo-An Lacey had had at the Algonquin. He hadn’t really searched it; that was being done now, or would soon be being done. But four hundred pages of typescript—perhaps eight hundred or even twelve hundred—would make quite a bundle. Too big to fit into any of the drawers of the low chest, as he remembered it.

  “Oscar Karn, Incorporated,” he said. “Have you any idea offhand where their offices are, Mr. Morton?”

  “Sure. I’ve sent enough manuscripts to them. Two floors up. Here in this building.”

  “Can you tell me anything more about Mr. Shepley, Mr. Morton?”

  “What more? He’s a good guy. He sells enough to live on and it’s pretty good stuff. He used to sell quite a few short stories to the slicks, when they were buying fiction. Damn good, some of them were. Been doing articles last few years. What they want, what of them are left. And aren’t all staff-written. A hell of a good guy, old Shep is. And—all right, not much more than getting by. Being a good guy doesn’t help a free lance these days. Oh, yes, he’s got a red beard. On him it looks good.”

  Morton passed a hand absently over his own clean-shaven face. He took the opportunity to look at the watch on his wrist. He said, his voice again abrupt, “Bracken will be under the table if I don’t get there pretty soon.”

  “Go along, Mr. Morton,” Shapiro said. “We’ll be back if there’s anything else we think you can help us with.”

  5

  They walked down the corridor toward the banks of elevators. Both Shapiro and Tony Cook were taller than Phillips Morton, but he walked faster. He bustled ahead of them. He had already pressed a down button when they caught up with him. A car stopped for him and he bounced into it. The door of the car started to close but he put a hand on it, pressing against the pneumatic edging.

  “Let it go, Mr. Morton,” Shapiro said. “Before your friend is under the table.”

  Morton let the door close. Cook looked at Shapiro and raised his eyebrows.

  “Suppose,” Shapiro said, “you see what you can dig up about this Miss Lacey. And find out what they’re doing downtown. And what they’ve found at the hotel, aside from the fingerprints which will tell us that Miss Jones was Miss Lacey. And, I suppose, see what the Mobile police can tell you. O.K.?”

  Tony said, “Sir,” in a tone which required a salute to go with it. They both laughed a little at that. Tony said, “And you, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m a little curious about this Mr. Karn,” Shapiro said. “The man who writes such bad contracts. And is, if Morton knows what he’s talking about, about to be gobbled up.”

  “I don’t see—” Tony said, and let it hang while he pressed a down button.

  “Neither do I,” Nathan Shapiro said, and pressed an up button. “I’m way out of my depth on the whole thing.” He sighed. He shook a discouraged head.

  Tony Cook didn’t believe a word of it. He had heard it too often. A down car stopped and he got into it. Shapiro had to wait a while for an up car.

  The twelfth-floor directory listed offices 1210-1218 for “Oscar Karn, Inc., Publishers.” Room 1210 had the firm’s name on it and the word “Entrance.” The room was long and wide enough for a line of leather-covered sofas along one wall. The sofas were dented; it was evident that many people had sat on them. Two of the leather seats had splits in them.

  At the far end of the room a middle-aged woman with gray hair was sitting behind a desk marked “Information.” She had a telephone propped between shoulder and left ear and was talking into it. She said, “I’m sure you will hear any day now, Mr. Ferguson,” and put the telephone back in its stand and said, “Can I help you?” to Nathan Shapiro. Shapiro said he’d like to see Mr. Karn and that no, he didn’t have an appointment and told the gray-haired woman who she should say was calling. She said, “Lieutenant Shapiro?” He said, “A police lieutenant,” and was told to wait a minute.

  She lifted the telephone from its stand and pressed one of several buttons in its base. She waited a few seconds. She said, “There’s a police lieutenant wants to see Mr. Karn, Maggie.” She listened. She said, “No, he doesn’t say what it’s about. Hold on.” She looked at Shapiro, who said, “About Miss Lacey. Miss Jo-An Lacey.” She repeated the information to Maggie. Then she said, “Oh. I’ll tell him,” and put the telephone back. “I’m sorry,” she said, “Mr. Karn seems to have gone for the weekend. His secretary says Monday perhaps?”

  “I’d like to see him today,” Shapiro said. “Would his secretary know where I might be able to find him?”

  “Well, he has a place up in the country. He goes there most weekends in the summer.”

  “Where in the country?”

  “Oh, I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. Mr. Karn doesn’t like to be disturbed on his weekends.”

  “Neither do I,” Shapiro said. “Where, miss?”

  She had pale blue eyes, which protruded a little. She looked up at Shapiro and her eyes seemed to protrude farther.

  “It’s police business,” Shapiro said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to tell me.”

  “It’s against the—”

  “I know,” Shapiro said. “Against the rules. So is withholding information from the police. Where?”

  “Outside Mount Kisco,” she said. “Anybody can tell you where the Karn place is, I guess. Anybody around there. Only he’ll probably be playing golf.”

  Shapiro sighed. He said, “Thank you, Miss—” and looked at the plaque on her desk. He said, “O’Ryan.”

  “Mrs. O’Ryan,” the gray-haired woman said. “My husband was Terence O’Ryan. The writer.”

  Shapiro said, “Oh,” and tried to make the sound one of enlightenment, as if he had heard of a writer named Terence O’Ryan. He said, “Thank you,” again and, “Mrs. O’Ryan,” and went out of the office. While the elevator dropped him, with uncomfortable precipitation, to the ground level, Shapiro hoped that Tony Cook hadn’t taken the car. It’s like me to have forgotten to tell him not to, Shapiro thought, and went across Fifth Avenue with the lights.

  Tony Cook hadn’t taken the car. I should have known he wouldn’t, Shapiro thought, and unlocked the car and got into it. He drove to the corner and down Fifth a block and, slowly, through Forty-third Street toward the West Side Highway.

  Tony Cook knew a man who worked in the morgue of the New York Times. It is helpful for a policeman to know people in a good many places. The envelope marked “Lacey, Jo-An” was not especially thick. The interview-profile Morton had spoken of had appeared on the second page of The New York Times Book Review and had jumped to Page 51.

  Jo-An Lacey, whose recent novel, “Snake Country,” has been on the best seller list for fourteen weeks, is a member of a family distinguished in the history of Alabama and of the South. A great-grandfather, General John Henry Lacey, was a distinguished cavalry officer during what Miss Lacey prefers to call “the war between the States.” Her grandfather, John Willing-ham Lacey, was twice governor of Alabama in the late nineteenth century. The Lacey Mansion, in which Jo-An Lacey still lives, has been occupied by members of her family since the middle eighteenth century.

  “And it’s falling down on our heads,” Miss Lacey says. “Now my book seems to be a success, I’m trying to prop it up again. That is, my brother and I are.”

  Her brother is John Henry Lacey III. He operates a real estate business from one of the many outbuildings on the Lacey plantation.

  Miss Lacey is a slight, attractive woman, who looks younger than the thirty years she admits to. Her brown hair drifts down to her shoulders. Her speech is the speech of the deep South. There is constant animation and a kind of expectancy in her face as she talks of her work. “I just write about people I grew up among,” she says. “The white people and the nigras. I suppose I shouldn’t call them that nowadays.
They want to be called ‘blacks’ now. But when I was little, we called them ‘darkies’ and I don’t think they minded. They should have minded more, I think now. That is one of the things I’ve tried to make clear—make come alive—in ‘Snake Country.’ I’m not sure how well I’ve done it; how well I’ve got the feel of it.”

  Listening to Jo-An Lacey as she questions “how well she has done it,” one is left feeling that there is no false modesty in her mind—that the praise of the critics and the wide—

  The carry-over was clipped to the first sheet of newsprint. Tony read on in it.

  “—and mounting public response to a novel which—”

  Tony read further on. There was a good deal of it. There were other clippings in the envelope. Miss Jo-An Lacey had appeared on the “Today” show. She had been the guest of honor at a cocktail party given at the Hotel Pierre by P.E.N.; Leonard Lyons had attended a cocktail party given for her by her publishers, Oscar Karn, Inc. (he had been encountered by many celebrities at the party).

  And it was, from the date on the paper, all a little more than three years ago. And it was thirty-six hours, give or take a few, since the animation and expectancy had bled out of Jo-An’s face in a bathtub in a bare apartment in Gay Street.

  Tony went down to Twenty-third Street by subway and walked along to Homicide South. He hoped Nate would remember that the police car was parked in Forty-fourth.

  There were reports in the In basket on his desk. One was an addendum to the pathologist’s report from the Bellevue morgue. Jo-An Lacey had become a number for the records. The barbiturate found in her body was Nembutal. She had not been a virgin. She had not had intercourse within forty-eight hours of her death. She had never borne a child. No organic impairment had been discovered. The amount of Nembutal taken would not, probably, have been in itself sufficient to have caused death.