Write Murder Down

by RICHARD LOCKRIDGE

  “My firm has always represented the Laceys, Mr. Cook. When they needed representation.”

  “Did you draw up a will for Miss Lacey, sir?”

  “Mr. Cook, I am now at my club. Having dinner with friends. Business matters are transacted at my office. It is unlikely that I will care to discuss the affairs of my clients. If you like, you can telephone me at my office on Monday. Good—”

  “Wait just a moment, Mr. Sturdevant. You can tell me one thing. Did Miss Lacey leave a will?”

  “The records, sir. The records are at my office. I do not bring them with me when I visit my club. In any event, it would be a matter for my associates. Good—”

  “The matter is rather urgent, Mr. Sturdevant. I don’t expect you to have the details of the will at—at your fingertips. But surely you know whether a will was drawn up for her by your office.”

  “The relationship between lawyer and client is privileged, Mr. Cook. In Alabama, at any rate.”

  The man was ancient, Tony thought—ancient and stately. You have to take them as they come.

  “Everywhere, far’s I know,” Tony said. “It’s a very simple question, Mr. Sturdevant. I can’t see that any breach of confidence is involved. Did Miss Lacey make a will, to your knowledge?”

  There was a longish pause.

  “I have no knowledge that she did,” Sturdevant said in his high, old voice. “Of course, one of my associates may have taken care of the legal formalities.”

  “If one had, you would have been informed, sir?”

  “I presume so.”

  “And were not, I gather. Which would mean she died intestate. Leaving considerable property.”

  “I have no knowledge of her financial situation, Mr. Cook. I assume that she may have profited considerably from this—this rather unpleasant book of hers. But I have no personal knowledge.”

  “If she died—was killed, we think—without leaving a will, her next of kin would inherit?”

  “Yes.”

  “That being?”

  “Really, Cook. I suggest you call my office on—”

  “On Monday,” Cook said: “I’m afraid it’s a little more pressing than that. Her brother?”

  “She had a brother,” Sturdevant admitted. The admission seemed somewhat to pain him. “Mr. John Henry Lacey the Third. His grandfather was for some years governor of our state, Mr. Cook.”

  “Her brother would be next of kin?”

  “I cannot say that of my own knowledge. Call my office Monday and—”

  “But he might be, Mr. Sturdevant?”

  “Certainly. Now, if you will excuse me, sir? The gentlemen with whom I am dining are my guests.”

  “Of course, Mr. Sturdevant,” Tony said. “Thanks for giving me so much of your time.”

  And so little else, Tony thought as he hung up. Lawyers are cagy birds. The old guy might, conceivably, come up with a will. Meanwhile—

  A uniformed patrolman came into the squad room. He looked around it and came to Tony’s desk.

  “Man downstairs wants to see whoever’s in charge of the Lacey case,” he said. “That be you, Cook?”

  “The lieutenant,” Cook said. “But—yeah, I’m working with him. Give you a name, this man?”

  “Lacey,” the patrolman said. “John Henry Lacey Third. Something like that.”

  “Send him up,” Cook said and then, “No. Give me five minutes or so, huh?”

  The patrolman said, “Sure.” Tony dialed a Brooklyn telephone number.

  8

  The man who came to the doorway of the squad room and stood in it and looked around the room—looked at desks and men at some of them pounding typewriters—was pretty much as Shepley had said he was. He was tall and spare; he had thinning blond hair and rather sparse chin whiskers. He was wearing a seersucker suit. Tony stood up at his desk and beckoned, and the tall man came to the desk. He held out his hand and Tony took it.

  “I am John Henry Lacey,” the man said. “You’re in charge of this awful thing about Sis?”

  “Not in charge,” Tony said. “Helping out. Lieutenant Shapiro’s in charge.”

  Lacey repeated, “Shapiro?” as if he didn’t much like the sound of it. “I asked to see whoever is in charge. Somebody told me you think my sister was murdered.”

  “The lieutenant’s on his way over,” Tony said. “Yes, we’re afraid Miss Lacey was murdered. We don’t know by whom, Mr. Lacey. We’d appreciate—”

  “She shouldn’t have come up here,” Lacey said. “She didn’t belong here. It’s no place for a Southern lady to come to.”

  Tony managed to believe his ears. It was a little difficult. This was only partly because of the depth of Lacey’s Southern accent.

  “It’s a shocking thing to have happened,” Tony said. “We’re all sympathetic, Mr. Lacey. Realize the shock it is to you.”

  “Very well,” Lacey said. “What are you going to do about it? You’re one of the detectives, I guess.”

  “Yes,” Tony said. “Anthony Cook. The lieutenant suggested we use his office until he gets here. What we’re going to do about it, Mr. Lacey, is find out who killed your sister.”

  He went toward the corridor which leads to Nathan Shapiro’s small office. Lacey hesitated for a moment. Then he followed Tony Cook. Tony sat at Nathan Shapiro’s desk and gestured toward a chair opposite it and Lacey sat down on the chair. The light from the room’s single, small, and not very clean window was on his face.

  “As I understand it,” Tony said, “you got into town—this afternoon, was it?”

  “This afternoon. Yes.”

  “And went to your sister’s apartment. Have any trouble finding Gay Street, Mr. Lacey? It’s a little out of the way.”

  “The taxi driver found it. Probably drove me all over town to run up the fare, but he found it. Run-down little place. All crowded together like.”

  “The city’s crowded together,” Cook said. “You rang your sister’s doorbell and didn’t get an answer and then telephoned a man named Shepley. That’s right?”

  “My sister’d written me about meeting this Shepley,” Lacey said. “Seemed to be seeing quite a bit of him. I thought he might know where she’d got to.”

  “Did she expect you, Mr. Lacey? Know you were coming?”

  “Wrote her I was. Didn’t say exactly when because I had a deal on. Didn’t know when I’d get away. I’m in real estate back home.”

  “Any special reason for coming up to see her? I mean, had she asked you to or anything like that?”

  “Damn it all, man, she was my sister. Worried me to have her way up here by herself, with no man to take care of her.”

  “You thought she needed taking care of?”

  “Seems like she did, don’t it? Seems like I should have come along sooner, don’t it? No place for a lady to be by herself. Probably was one of these long-haired bastards, wasn’t it? Get them down home some, telling us how to run our business. About nigras, specially. Outside agitators. That’s what they are.”

  “Did something she wrote you make you worried about her? Make you think she needed help?”

  “Not out and out. I just got to thinking, and it seemed to me she was upset about something. Only she didn’t write me that. Talked to her on the phone. So I figured I’d better come up.”

  Tony said he saw. He said, “She’d been in New York before, Mr. Lacey. Nothing happened to her. Were you worried about her when she was up here before?”

  “When she was up here before, she was staying at a hotel. And Mr. Karn was showing her the town, I guess. Some hotel with sort of an Indian name.”

  “The Algonquin?”

  “Sounds like it. But this time she had this little apartment. In Green-witch Village, she said it was. I just didn’t like the sound of it. I’d heard about this Green-witch Village place. Communists all over the place, from what I’d heard. Anarchists, maybe. Not the kind of place a Southern lady ought to be living in.”

  “That was all? She didn�
�t say anything that made you think she was afraid? Of something specific? Or someone specific? Or that she was depressed about something?”

  “Can’t say she did, mister. Just got worried about her. She’s my sister. Only kinfolk she had.”

  “There aren’t any other Laceys?”

  “Nope. Just Sis and me. Used to be a lot of us around, but not any more.”

  “Are you married, Mr. Lacey?”

  “No. Just never got around to it. What makes you ask a thing like that? Thought you were trying to catch whoever it was killed Sis.”

  Just wondering about the continuation of the Laceys, Tony thought, but did not say. Lacey, at a guess, was in his late forties. Fifteen years or so older than his sister had been. If he was going to do anything about the continuation of the Laceys it was time to get around to it.

  “Habit we have in an investigation like this,” Tony said. “Try to find out all we can about everybody concerned. Where are you staying, Mr. Lacey?”

  “Expected to stay with Sis, of course. Natural thing to do, being she’s my sister. But then I got this letter from Mr. Karn. Said since I was coming up he’d got me a room at some hotel or other. Don’t know why, seeing Sis had this apartment.”

  “It’s a small apartment,” Tony said. “She couldn’t have put you up there. Anyway, it’s sealed now, until we’re finished with it. What hotel, Mr. Lacey?”

  “Got it here somewhere,” Lacey said, and felt in a pocket of the seersucker jacket. Then he felt in the other pocket and took a slip of paper out of it.

  “The Algonquin, it says,” Lacey said, “same place Sis stayed last time she was up here in New York. Know where that might be, mister?”

  “Yes,” Tony said. “Uptown a ways. Very good old hotel. Famous, actually. Have you checked in there yet?”

  “No. Went to see this man Shepley. Man with a lot of beard. Couldn’t tell me anything. So I found a place and had something to eat. Can’t eat on trains. Didn’t have any grits this place I went to. Funny place, not having any grits.”

  “You’d probably have to go up to Harlem to find grits,” Tony said.

  “Nigras up there, from what I heard. Don’t eat with nigras. Where’s this lieutenant of yours? Shapiro? That’s what you said?”

  “Nathan Shapiro.”

  “Sounds sort of like a Jew to me.”

  “He is, Mr. Lacey. And a damn fine person. And a damn good policeman.”

  “If you say so,” Lacey said, with no conviction in his voice. “Point is, where is he? We sit here chewing the fat and not getting anywhere I can see. Not finding out who killed—”

  Nathan Shapiro came into his small office. Tony got up from the chair behind the desk and Shapiro sat down on it.

  “Mr. Lacey, Lieutenant,” Tony said. “Got worried about his sister and came up to—er—take care of her. Mr. Karn’s got him a room at the Algonquin, he tells me.”

  Nathan Shapiro nodded his head. He looked, gloomily, at John Henry Lacey III. He said, “A very sad ending to your trip, Mr. Lacey.”

  Lacey said it sure was. Tony Cook sat down on the third chair in the little office.

  “You say Mr. Karn got you a room?” Shapiro said. “When was that? The Mr. Karn is Oscar Karn, I suppose? Your late sister’s publisher.”

  “That’s the man. Oscar Karn, Incorporated. Oscar Karn, President. What it said on the letter. Got the letter last Tuesday.”

  “That would be the twentieth,” Shapiro said. “And the letter said?”

  “Said Sis had told him I might be coming up. And that he’d taken the liberty—that’s the way he put it—of engaging me a room at this Algonquin place. Only he said Sis was staying there. But she wasn’t. She was in this apartment down in something called Gay Street.”

  “She had an apartment in Gay Street,” Shapiro said. “She also had a room at the Algonquin. In Gay Street, she called herself Jones. She didn’t write you that?”

  “Not that. Later—she called me on the phone. Wait a minute. She did say something about she’d rented the apartment from somebody called Jones. Said it would say ‘Jones’ on the doorbell. Called it a sub something.”

  “Sublet, probably,” Shapiro said. “She seems to have been using the apartment as a place to work in. On the manuscript of her new book. You knew she was working on a new novel, Mr. Lacey?”

  “Always was. Typewriter going all the time, pretty near. Didn’t take the time, mostly, to get us anything to eat. Have to go down the road a piece to get a halfway decent meal, part of the time. Always at that typewriter of hers.”

  “She made money at it,” Shapiro said. “You’re in the real estate business, I understand. Profitable business?”

  “I don’t see what that’s got to do with you, Shapiro.”

  “Probably nothing,” Shapiro said. “Let’s just say I’m curious. Have to be in my business, you know. Profitable, this real estate operation?”

  “I make out. A little slow right now, maybe. But I make out.”

  “Fine,” Shapiro said. “When your sister came up here, Mr. Lacey. Happen to know what she brought with her? I mean, her typewriter? Things like that? A rather bulky package of manuscript?”

  “I guess so. I didn’t much notice.”

  “You drove her to the airport? When she left to come up here, I mean. Helped her with her luggage?”

  “Not the airport. The railroad station. Yeah, I drove her into town. Helped with her things. Yeah, I remember now. She had this typewriter with her. And a couple of suitcases. Pretty heavy, one of them was. I don’t remember any bundle.”

  “Probably in the heavy suitcase,” Shapiro said. “Do you happen to know whether your sister had made her will, Mr. Lacey?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Shouldn’t think so. She was just a kid, really. Kids don’t make wills. Never made one myself, matter of fact. And Sis was a lot younger than I am.”

  Shapiro said he saw. He said, “I suppose you and your sister had—have—a good many relations down in your part of the country?”

  “Kinfolk,” Lacey said. “No. Funny thing, because down our way folks usually have kin all over. Oh, I suppose a few cousins and the like. We didn’t keep in touch much. Until the last few years we weren’t up to entertaining much.”

  “Until your sister started to make money with her books,” Shapiro said. “Any idea how much money, Mr. Lacey?”

  “Don’t rightly see what you’re getting at, Shapiro,” Lacey said. “I didn’t do her bookkeeping. She had her own bank account, just like I had mine. This got something to do with who killed her? If somebody did kill her, that is.”

  “Somebody killed her,” Shapiro said. “There’s a term lawyers use, Mr. Lacey. Cui bono. Means ‘for whose benefit.’ Who stands to gain? If she left no will, you’d inherit, obviously, being her only near kin. If she did leave a will, would you be her heir then too?”

  “Be up to her, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes. Your sister wasn’t married, I suppose?”

  “No. And she wouldn’t sneak off and get married without telling me, if that’s what you’re getting at.” He paused for a second. He said, “Shapiro,” with something like a snarl in his voice.

  Shapiro seemed not to notice the snarl. But then Lacey stood up and Shapiro stood up with him.

  “I don’t have to sit here and answer damn-fool questions,” Lacey said.

  “No,” Shapiro told him. “I’d supposed you’d want to help. But no. You’ll probably want to check in at your hotel. I’ll have a car run you up, if you like.”

  “I’ll get there by myself,” Lacey said. “Call up and get a taxi or something.”

  “You’ll probably be able to pick a cab up on the street,” Shapiro told him. “Free cabs have a light on on their roofs. Or, Tony, you might see Mr. Lacey gets out all right? Gets a cab to take him to the Algonquin? Easy to get lost in a strange city.”

  Tony said, “Sure, Lieutenant.”

  He led the way through the squad room and down th
e stairs. Lacey had left his suitcase at the precinct desk. Tony had no trouble in flagging down a cab. When the cab, with its driver instructed as to destination, pulled away from the curb, a black Plymouth with a man in a sports jacket at the wheel pulled away after it. Tony went back upstairs.

  “On his way,” Tony said. “With company to see he doesn’t get lost.”

  Nathan Shapiro nodded his head. He said it was interesting that Oscar Karn had engaged a room for John Henry Lacey.

  “The Third,” Tony Cook said.

  “The Third,” Shapiro repeated. “There are a good many things interesting about Mr. Karn.” He told Tony some of the things that, in Mount Kisco or near it, had interested him about Oscar Karn.

  “He thinks he has the rights to this new book of hers?” Tony said. “And that the manuscript’s been mailed to his office?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Could be there was fine print in the old contract,” Tony said. “Could be the girl didn’t read the fine print and—”

  He stopped because Nathan was sadly moving his head from side to side.

  “You’re getting forgetful,” Shapiro said. “This man Morton—the man who thought he was going to be her agent—had a look at her old contract. Got her a new one with another publisher. I don’t think he’d have forgotten to read fine print, Tony. Unless, say, Karn has some sort of agreement, with her signature on it, making him her—I don’t know what it would be.” He sighed his frustration. “I’m the wrong man for this sort of thing. Bill ought to have realized that.”

  “Come off it,” Tony said, speaking not as a detective to a lieutenant but as friend to friend. “Literary executor, maybe. Heard somebody at a party downtown talking about that sort of thing once.”

  “Could be,” Shapiro said. “You go to very many parties with writers at them?”

  “Some,” Tony said. “Rachel knows a lot of people like that. Writers. Painters. People who write music. Sometimes I tag along with her.”

  Shapiro said, “Mmmm.”

  “I talked to a man in Mobile,” Tony said. “A man named Sturdevant. The Laceys’ lawyer. He admitted that much. Cagy old guy. But if she made a will he doesn’t know about it. Says he doesn’t, anyway.”