“Try not to think about it, Miss Kline,” Shapiro said and thought that not even he had ever said such meaningless words.
She merely looked at him. Looked at him, he thought, as he deserved to be looked at.
“I’m sorry,” Nathan Shapiro said. “You knew it was Mr. Bradley?”
She nodded her head, the movement stiff. Her hands trembled on the surface of her desk and he thought she was about to lift them to cover her staring eyes. She did not.
“Yes,” she said. “I knew it was Frank. Don’t ask me how I knew. Right away, I knew it was Frank. And I knew he was dead. I knew of course he was dead. I—”
Suddenly, she lifted her hands up, but it was not to cover her eyes—not to shut the now ugly world out from in front of them. Her hands went up to cover her mouth, both of them pressing hard against it. Then she was up from behind her desk and running out of the little office. She did not close the door behind her. They could hear the click of her heels as she ran down the corridor.
“A bad thing to see,” Nathan Shapiro said. “Even when you see it from a distance, as she did.”
“Yes,” Tony Cook said. “And not something you get used to, is it? Really get used to. I had a bad one this morning. Just before lunchtime. I didn’t want much lunch. And God knows we see enough of them. Cut-up people, smashed-up people. And for a kid like her.”
“Yes, Tony. And I made her remember what she saw. Not an easy trade, ours, Tony. And Bradley was more to her than a boss, pretty obviously, wouldn’t you say? I wonder if the precinct boys have got in touch with this wife of his—this widow of his.”
Tony Cook could only shrug his shoulders.
“Yes,” Nate Shapiro said. “Something we’ll have to find out. Quite a few things we’ll have to find out, aren’t there? Bradley didn’t have to come through here to get into his office. Door directly to the corridor. Have to find out if it was kept locked, of course. Or whether anybody could just walk in. We’ll ask Miss Kline about that when she gets back.”
“If,” Tony said. “Could be—”
He stopped, because they could both hear again the click of heels on the corridor tile. But it was not Amelia Kline who came into the small office.
She did not really come into the office. She stopped in the doorway and looked at them, hostility in cold gray eyes. She was, at a guess, in her middle thirties, at least ten years older than Amelia Kline. Her brown hair was cut short; she wore a black dress, with white at the collar and cuffs; she made it look like a uniform. She said, “What have you two been doing to that poor child?” There was hostility in her voice as in her eyes. There was also accusation.
“We’re police officers,” said Nathan Shapiro. He gave their names. “We’re trying to find out what happened here this afternoon. To do that, we have to ask questions. Miss—?”
“You made her sick. Terribly sick.”
“What she saw made her sick,” Shapiro said. “Remembering it made her sick. She looked down from the window. What she saw wasn’t pleasant. The sort of thing that does make people sick, Miss—?”
“All right, Perkins. Sue Perkins. Couldn’t you two men see how upset she was? I made her go home. Promise to get a taxi and go home. Not stay here and let the two of you hammer at her. It is bad enough for her without that. She was—very fond of Frank Bradley. And she’s really a child. Couldn’t you two see that?”
“She’s very young,” Shapiro said. “Vulnerable. Yes. And in love with Bradley, wasn’t she?”
“I don’t know. How would I know? Oh, perhaps. What has that to do with anything? With his falling out of a window?”
“I don’t know,” Shapiro said. “Nothing, probably. You’re Mr. Akins’s secretary, Miss Perkins?”
“Mrs. Perkins, actually. Not that that matters either. You made her go back over things, I suppose. Remember it all over again. And made the poor child sick. At her stomach, if you want to know. Terribly. I happened to be in the washroom when she ran in. Her face—her face was dreadful. Then she was sick.”
“Yes. And we’re sorry. We’re both sorry. And probably you were right in urging her to go home. Where does she live, by the way?”
“Over in the Murray Hill area. East Thirties. You going to follow her over there and—ask her a lot more questions? Hammer away at her again?”
“Not unless we have to, Mrs. Perkins. Perhaps, now that you’re here, you can help us out on a few points.”
“I don’t know what they’d be. He and Mr. Akins went out to lunch. Probably had several drinks. Mr. Bradley was—well, a little drunk, probably. Just—staggered out of that damn window he always kept open.”
“That may have been the way it happened, of course. Did Mr. Bradley often have too many drinks at lunch, Mrs. Perkins? Noticeably, I mean?”
“They all drink their lunches, Lieutenant. It’s the kind of people they are. And clients, especially the ones from out of town, expect to be given long, sort of lavish lunches. Sometimes Mr. Akins doesn’t get back from lunch until after four.”
“I see,” Nathan Shapiro said, and sounded to himself like a stuck phonograph record. “But today, I understood from Mr. Akins, he and Mr. Bradley weren’t taking a client to lunch. Just the two of them, I thought. To a restaurant called the Ad Lib. And they got back before three. Did you see Mr. Bradley after they got back from lunch, Mrs. Perkins?”
“No. Why should I?”
“You did see Mr. Akins, I suppose. He was—well, all right?”
“Of course he was.”
“Quite his usual self?”
“Why, yes. Of course he was.”
“Not upset? Anything like that?”
She didn’t know what he was getting at. Mr. Akins had been just as he always was. “He was dictating some letters when the poor child began pounding on the door. We’d just started.”
“Miss Kline, you mean? She pounded on the door?”
“After she’d—seen Mr. Bradley. To tell Mr. Akins what had happened.”
“And you and Mr. Akins went into the other office? And—saw what Miss Kline had seen?”
“He did, I guess. I—well, I had too much sense, Lieutenant.”
“Wise of you, of course. Nasty thing to see. You say Mr. Akins was just as he usually was when they came back from lunch. You think Mr. Bradley wasn’t? That perhaps he’d had a little too much to drink? But you say you didn’t see him after they came back.”
“All right. I was just guessing, I suppose. Trying to guess at what probably happened. Think of an explanation of such an awful thing.”
“Yes. Quite a natural thing to do, Mrs. Perkins. Tell me about Mr. Bradley, will you?”
“What about him?”
“Oh, anything. What he looked like. What kind of man he was. Anything you think of which might help us.”
“Well, he wasn’t a big man. Rather good-looking, I guess you’d say. Wore sport jackets, most of the time. Sport shirts too, sometimes. Even here in the office. Seemed, oh, friendly enough, I suppose you’d say. I didn’t see much of him, actually. And I’m not the one to ask about him. If you go snooping around, as apparently you’re going to, you’ll find out why, I guess. People talk, you know.”
“All right. If we’re going to find out anyway. Is there some special reason you’re not the right person to ask about Mr. Bradley?”
She hesitated.
“Why don’t you go over and sit at the desk, Mrs. Perkins? No point in standing up. We may have one or two more things to ask you about. What will these people have to talk about if we go on snooping around? As I’m afraid we’ll be doing.”
“All right. Mr. Bradley had my husband fired, if you want to know. And it wasn’t fair. Leon’s just as good as any of them. And he’d been here for years.”
“Here at the agency?”
“Of course. He was a copywriter here, and everybody thought he was a good one. A very good one. Everybody except Mr. Bradley. As soon as he came here, he started finding fault with everything Leon
did.”
“And had Mr. Perkins discharged,” Shapiro said. “This was some time ago, Mrs. Perkins? And is your husband unemployed now?”
“Of course not. But he’s working for about half what he’s worth. And so I have to keep on working. But I didn’t push him out of the window. And Leon didn’t. If that’s what you’re getting at.”
Nathan Shapiro said he wasn’t getting at anything. He said he didn’t know that anybody had pushed Frank Bradley out the window Bradley had insisted on having installed because he thought air conditioning was bad for his sinuses.
“You say Mr. Bradley wasn’t a big man, Mrs. Perkins. Was he a very small man? Is that what you meant?”
The autopsy report would answer that, of course. But you pick up what you can as you go along, subject to further verification.
“No, not all that small. About as tall as most men, I guess. Only he was very thin. Slight, I suppose you’d call it. And in the winter he’d sometimes stay away from the office for two or three days at a time. Because of this sinus trouble, I guess.”
“And he’d call in and say he was taking the day off? Or have somebody else call in for him? His wife, perhaps? Call Miss Kline, I suppose?”
“I don’t know,” Sue Perkins said. “I guess so.”
She guessed at a good many things, Nathan thought.
“I don’t know about his wife,” she said. “Apparently she stays out somewhere on Long Island most of the time. They have a house out there. At least, that’s what he told Amelia. They’ve got a big apartment up in the East Fifties somewhere, Amelia told me once. A perfectly beautiful apartment, she says. But not air conditioned.”
“Possibly the reason Mrs. Bradley stays out on Long Island,” Shapiro said. “Miss Kline described Mr. Bradley’s apartment to you, I take it. As if she’d been there, Mrs. Perkins?”
“Can’t you leave that poor child alone, Lieutenant?” The shrillness, the animosity had come back into her voice.
“We can’t leave anybody alone,” Shapiro told her. “Not yet, anyway. Do you know a Mr. Langhorn, Mrs. Perkins?”
“Of him. Some writer or other. Trying to make a nuisance of himself, Mr. Akins told me once. And if he ever tried to see Mr. Akins, Mr. Akins was to be out of town.”
“Did he ever? Try to see Mr. Akins?”
Not that she remembered.
“Do you suppose Mr. Langhorn’s address is around here somewhere? And his first name?”
It might, she thought, be in Amelia Kline’s files. All right, she’d have a look. She also had a rather pointed look at the watch on her wrist.
She got up from the desk and went to a small file index. She flicked through it.
Langhorn’s first name was Timothy. His address was on Morton Street.
She did not go back to the chair behind the desk. She stood and looked at Lieutenant Nathan Shapiro. “Do you want me anymore?” she said. “To sign a statement, or something? Because it’s way after five, and the office closes at five.”
“No,” Shapiro said. “And we won’t need a statement. Not now, anyway. Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Perkins.”
She made a “Hup!” which was a little like a snort, and went out of the office. They could hear her resolute heel clicks as she took the few steps to her own office. They heard the closing of her office door. There was resolution in the closing of the door. It almost amounted to a bang.
“She doesn’t like us much, does she?” Tony Cook said.
Shapiro said that a lot of people didn’t like policemen much and that probably everybody who worked at the agency had gone home.
“But we don’t,” Tony said.
Nathan Shapiro said he guessed they didn’t.
Buy Or Was He Pushed? Now!
About the Author
Richard Lockridge (1898–1982) was one of the most popular names in mystery fiction from the 1940s through the ’70s. He is best known for the prolific detective series he wrote with his wife, Frances, including the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, Nathan Shapiro Mysteries, and Captain Heimrich Mysteries. Upon Frances’s death in 1963, Richard continued writing, delivering new and much darker Nathan Shapiro and Captain Heimrich books. His works have been adapted for Broadway, film, television, and radio.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1972 by Richard Lockridge
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5074-6
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THE NATHAN SHAPIRO MYSTERIES
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